by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy Richard Dawkins was recently issued a challenge --disprove creationism in one sentence. I can do that myself. Here it is: if we can see Andromeda --some 2.5 MILLION light years distant from earth --then creationism is false!
Andromeda can be seen even with the naked eye; in any case, it takes light from Andromeda some 2.5 MILLION light years to get here and be seen. That we can see these objects with or without telescopes utterly disproves creationism and a 'young Earth' or young universe.
I chose Andromeda because it is accessible, close enough to be seen with a good pair of binoculars, perhaps, even, with the naked eye. I saw Andromeda as a kid with a pair of hand-me-down 7x35 binoculars duct-tape to a shaky tripod. Deep space images from the Hubble are, of course, state of the art and much more dramatic. Galaxies some 17 BILLION light years distant prove that the Universe is considerably older than Sarah Palin's idiotic concept that homo sapien co-existed with dinosaurs a mere 6000 years ago.
Astronomy mag has an excellent article about how distances are determined. And the speed of light is a universal constant. [See: The Michelson-Morley Experiment. Michael Fowler, Univ. Va. Physics 9/15/08. ] These are not 'assumptions'. This is established, empirical science.
That issue is settled --the speed of light is not an assumption but a proven empirical fact! And so too are the distances to nebulae and galaxies much farther distant than Andromeda.
There are likely to be galaxies that formed slightly earlier, which so far we haven't been able to detect because they are so faint and distant.Below is the Hubble Deep Space photo. Every galaxy in the photo disproves Sarah Palin's 6000 year old universe.
However if we look back too far in time, there's simply no stars and galaxies to look at — after the Big Bang, it would have taken a few hundred million years for matter to clump together with sufficient density for stars and galaxies to form.
So if more powerful telescopes can't enable us to see any further into the universe why are we still building them?
Lomb says larger telescopes will be more sensitive and enable us to look into the past of the universe more clearly.
"There's still the great mysteries of what happened between 13.7 and 13 billion years ago," he says.--What is the most distant galaxy a telescope can detect?
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13 comments:
I find it quite interesting that these "creationists" or "young earth" proponents are frequently heavily invested in fossil fuels.
I think a refutation of at least one prominent creationist argument can be made from logic alone, without reference to evidence on either side.
Creationist: well, the universe exists. Something or someone had to have created it.
Logic: In that case something would have had to have created God.
Q.E. frickin' D.
Re: "Logic: In that case something would have had to have created God."
Indeed --the classic 'begging the question'. Some define the universe as 'God'. One term is as good as the other, I suppose. We can be sure that something exists (ref: all of Descartes); what we call it is simply a matter of personal preference.
The really frustrating thing about the religious is that they have no respect for logic. You can win an argument in a way that any five-year-old would recognize, but they still deny that any point has been made at all.
At that point it's best to just end the conversation. They've demonstrated that if you win any point they will change the rules. Or more accurately that the game was fixed at the outset but they couldn't be bothered to let you know that.
Thanks for providing a little info on the reference material. I am not a critic. Well not of the topic. Perhaps of your presentation. I wanted to read the details on how the measurements are made, etc. Now how can I "Check the University of VA site above.", there still is no link. And still no info on what article you are referring to RE Astronomy mag. I missed the link at the end of the blockquote, thanks for pointing it out. If you used color contrast or something for your links, they would be a lot easier to find. It is also a bit disingenuous to claim "everything I posted is easily verified experimentallly as described." Sure, I have access to large telescopes and the Hubble space telescope. No, we have to take the [properly documented] word of those who can do the measurements, hence the need for references.
There are no rational arguments for defining a concept that defies perceptual appreciation : nor any sense to a contest of whether same 'exists'. Are there more to sparring in an intellectual contest with an unarmed opponent ?
purple24 said...
I wanted to read the details on how the measurements are made, etc.
Please understand that the whole point of the article is brevity AND accessibility. Mine is a political blog --not Scientific American. The challenge issued Dawkins was, likewise, in that spirit.
But --if one is sincerely interested in this aspect, the basic measurement for measuring or determining stellar distances is parallax -- the apparent shift of nearby objects with respect to more distant objects.
Andromeda, for example, will appear to move relative to more distant stars as it is observed from different positions in the earth orbit.
GOOGLE: "Measuring the Distance to Nearby Galaxies". This gives you all the math you need to disprove a Palin.
[d (Mpc) = s (kpc) / a (mrad)]
Distances to the deep space objects on the very edge of the visible universe are determined variously but that is beyond the scope of a mere four or five paragraph article.
I suspect that the distance to Andromeda, however, could be measured by an amateur with a good scope.
Len, Thanks for a wonderful post. I like your one-sentence refutaion. But, as Dawkins said, they're not listening.
Relatively close astronomical distances are measured by triangulation, in a manner analogous to a surveyor. An object's position is observed at one time of the year, then again six months later. The diameter of the Earth's orbit serves as the baseline for the triangulation.
Further away, objects' distances from Earth are determined by how much red shift the light spectra coming from them undergo. This method follows the discovery by Edwin Hubble that the universe is expanding, and the further something is from us the faster it is moving away from us (causing the shift.) I suggest you google "Hubble constant" or "Hubble's Law" if you're really curious.
Mike sez...
But, as Dawkins said, they're not listening.
You're right! As the old song by Don McClean said:
"how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they're not
list'ning still
perhaps they never will. "
SadButTrue sez...
Further away, objects' distances from Earth are determined by how much red shift the light spectra coming from them undergo. This method follows the discovery by Edwin Hubble that the universe is expanding, and the further something is from us the faster it is moving away from us (causing the shift.)
Thanks, Sad! I had not wanted to get bogged down with all that but appreciate your precis! Certainly, the orbit of the earth provided all the parallax one needed until the universe 'expanded'.
I had hoped to hit the fundie crowd between the eyes with an irrefutable fact that even they might find 'accessible'.
Alas --the attention span of Americans in general will not tolerate an explanation exceeding TWITTER length.
Count on it --fundies will focus group test the idea that the speed of light is not constant and, in fact, varies SUCH THAT we are fooled into believing the universe much, much larger than it really is. Red shift is just another 'ruse' by which we are fooled! By Satan, presumably!
Occam rolls in his grave daily.
Well...if time varies by acceleration - such as in a Singularity but even within our gravity well...the speed of light can stay Constant - but in a dilated timeframe.
Quibbling by a non-mathematician, I admit.
opit said...
...if time varies by acceleration - such as in a Singularity but even within our gravity well.
Positing not only an acceleration of time but one SUCH THAT Dinosaurs walked with human beings may be Occam's worst nightmare.
No flies on you. That's a Razor-sharp observation. Not that I'm about to read the book of someone I can't stand to listen to.
Jack Chalker wrote series called "Well World" ; classic sci-fi which ended in just such a time dilation engineered by the computer which ran an artificial universe and deposited its heroine well into the timeline.
Not germane to the topic - unless we want to get into Simulachron 3 / The 13th Floor style computer sim 'worlds': rather a Second Life/WoW idea writ large. That would actually be something that's come up from people worth listening to. I think Dad2059 over at WordPress said that recently deceased Kurt Ninno was such about our world...though I haven't checked to see that's who he actually wrote about recently.
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