ThePhy criticized me for stating that based on the law of the conservation of angular momentum, Venus and Uranus “cannot be spinning backwards if they coalesced off a spinning cloud… They can’t be spinning backwards.”
I was wrong. That is, I was wrong to leave the rest of my argument unstated (an argument I make repeatedly), that retrograde rotation of Venus, et. al., undermines the condensing gas cloud hypothesis because the law of conservation of angular momentum yields the prediction that the Sun and planets would be spinning quite differently than they are, unless one makes unsubstantiated, extraordinary secondary and tertiary assumptions.
ThePhy could have put my brief Venus segment in context with the full argument I’ve repeatedly made over the years in Battle Royale VII against Zakath, in Does God Exist seminars, in my Age of the Earth Debate (which ThePhy attended in person) against a leading geophysicist, and on TV and radio, etc. ThePhy would have taken on a far greater challenge if he had criticized me for truncating my argument (since that could mislead people, especially someone who doesn’t know my whole argument), and then he could have gone on in an attempt to refute my full argument. But he didn’t. Perhaps he will make that attempt here.
Contrary to the expectations of a solar system which condensed from a spinning gas cloud, we have half a dozen moons, Venus, and Uranus spinning in the opposite direction of that supposed cloud, and our Sun is missing about 99%, or nearly all of the rotational energy it should possess (as compared to the planets, which contain mostly all of the system’s angular momentum).
Phy, in your thread on this, you quoted BobB in one of the last posts, saying:
Isaac Newton, who in brilliance conceived of universal gravity, rejected Descartes’ notion that the Sun and planets formed naturally from a condensing, swirling gas cloud. In a letter to a Mr. Bentley, along with several mathematical proofs, he wrote of this nebula hypothesis that:
Phy, in Seattle, you asked me, “but what was Newton unaware of that we’ve since discovered?” And I answered, “electromagnetism.” And you said, “right.” True, Newton did not know about electro-magnetism, and you hope that somewhere within this field you can find the brakes that stopped the Sun. So to defend the condensing nebula theory while conserving angular momentum, you need a braking mechanism to apply massive torque to stop the Sun from turning. This massive redistribution of spin must occur while leaving the inner and outer planets with their proportions of spin. And because the Sun is so far from the nearest stars and galaxies, these have a negligible gravitational and electro-magnetic effect on the Sun, and will provide no significant field for the Sun’s supposed brakes to grab a hold of. So this braking mechanism must function in virtually empty space otherwise dominated by the very sun which is to be slowed, in an electromagnetic field generated by the very same spinning Sun, and amidst its own system, which would be spinning per the mother nebula’s spin, within which this braking mechanism is now supposed to torque the Sun to a comparable stop.
Newton did not know about electromagnetism; nor did he know of the retrograde rotation of Venus, Uranus, and half a dozen moons; and neither did he know that the Sun has virtually none of the spin it should have if Descartes’ gas cloud hypothesis had been correct. If he had possessed this additional knowledge, he would have intensified his argument against a condensing nebula theory. So, in the intervening centuries since, the relevant stunning scientific discoveries have powerfully reinforced Isaac Newton’s theological, intuitive, scientific, and mathematical refutation of the natural formation of the solar system.
Now, moving on from the spinning naturalist’s problem with the sedentary Sun, the orbits of Venus and Uranus are highly consistent with the orbits of the other planets (in plane and circularity). ThePhy claims that subsequent to their formation, collisions reversed their rotations. At least Darwinists can fantasize over trillions of interacting organisms on a relatively tiny Earth. Contrariwise, the enormously larger solar system has a miniscule number of large bodies energetic enough to whack a planet backward. I’m making the same point that Bob B remembers Carl Sagan making in 1974 at a symposium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):
This “accepted” standard theory of our solar system formation is in such difficulty, that alternatives are being considered suggesting that the planets did not form as a result of that condensing nebula. Yet millions of public school students go through a dozen years of atheistic science curricula and learn of the condensing nebula without being given a clue of the overwhelming contrary evidence, of retrograde rotation of planets, moons, and the Sun that supposedly lost its spin. My brief Venus segment is a teeny attempt to correct this massive evolutionary bias that has led to hundreds of millions of misinformed secondary students worldwide, and millions more college students mislead by their atheistic science education to assume that the Sun, planets and moons all behave in ways predicted by the “accepted” nebula theory. Again, my program segment was an attempt, abbreviated as it was, to expose this colossal failure of the atheist camp to own up to some of their theory’s wild assumptions and MAJOR weaknesses.
(Of course, if we're going to allow baseless, wild secondary and tertiary assumptions to bring the nebula theory into compliance with the law of angular momentum, then we'd have to consider SETI implications. Perhaps an alien ship used a tractor beam to alter the spin of Venus, Uranus, some moons, and the Sun to their current state, with the ship absorbing the transferred angular momentum.)
Hey Phy, IMAGINE THIS: Imagine your reaction if the situation were reversed! If creationism were the model that predicted a Sun with 99% angular momentum, and planets with 1%, and then scientists measured the momentum, YOU WOULD BE TAKING A MAJOR FIT laughing to high heaven that the creationists reject plain science, because THE SUN IS NOT SPINNING AS THEY PREDICT, and THEY ARE IGNORING the MOST BASIC OF SCIENTIFIC LAWS and the MOST BROAD SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS.
But you atheists don’t get that laugh, do you? Yet when the most broad predictions of the “accepted” theory of natural formation of the solar system find themselves squarely opposed to what scientists actually observe and measure, even regarding this issue, atheists still accuse us of being uninformed and denying science.
Phy, here is what I counsel you to do. I’ll put it in the form of questions to you. You should readily and wholeheartedly admit each of the following are True:
BE-SolarSpin-Q1: True or False: The standard explanation for the natural formation of the solar system from a condensing nebula predicts that the Sun would have about 99% of the angular momentum, however, the reality is nearly the exact opposite of the prediction of the theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q2: True or False: The actual angular momentum of the solar system is apparently in extreme conflict with the prediction of the standard formation theory.
And since my radio show is designed in part to expose defects in our education system:
BE-SolarSpin-Q3: True or False: America’s atheistic science education leaves millions of students in ignorance of the fact that the actual angular momentum of the solar system is apparently in extreme conflict with the prediction of the standard formation theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q4: True or False: There is no call from TOL evolutionists, atheists, big bangers, nor from the secular scientific community generally, to correct this enormous failure of our education system, by openly teaching students that the actual angular momentum of the solar system is apparently in extreme conflict with the prediction of the standard formation theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q5: True or False: With all the advances of modern science, the factual observations made in the last centuries have added significant weight to Newton’s refutation of the standard formation theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q6: True or False: With all the advances since Newton, science offers no demonstrable force that could transfer the angular momentum of the Sun to the planets.
BE-SolarSpin-Q7: True or False: The retrograde rotations of Venus, Uranus, and six moons, and the Sun devoid of almost all of it’s expected angular momentum, taken together, are significant evidence against the standard condensing-nebula explanation of the formation of the solar system.
Phy, you could sooner put your shoulder to the Sun to stop it from turning, than to stop the heavens from declaring the glory of God! Thanks for welcoming us back from our family vacation.
-Bob Enyart
I was wrong. That is, I was wrong to leave the rest of my argument unstated (an argument I make repeatedly), that retrograde rotation of Venus, et. al., undermines the condensing gas cloud hypothesis because the law of conservation of angular momentum yields the prediction that the Sun and planets would be spinning quite differently than they are, unless one makes unsubstantiated, extraordinary secondary and tertiary assumptions.
ThePhy could have put my brief Venus segment in context with the full argument I’ve repeatedly made over the years in Battle Royale VII against Zakath, in Does God Exist seminars, in my Age of the Earth Debate (which ThePhy attended in person) against a leading geophysicist, and on TV and radio, etc. ThePhy would have taken on a far greater challenge if he had criticized me for truncating my argument (since that could mislead people, especially someone who doesn’t know my whole argument), and then he could have gone on in an attempt to refute my full argument. But he didn’t. Perhaps he will make that attempt here.
Contrary to the expectations of a solar system which condensed from a spinning gas cloud, we have half a dozen moons, Venus, and Uranus spinning in the opposite direction of that supposed cloud, and our Sun is missing about 99%, or nearly all of the rotational energy it should possess (as compared to the planets, which contain mostly all of the system’s angular momentum).
Phy, in your thread on this, you quoted BobB in one of the last posts, saying:
And you replied:bob b said:As any beginning astronomy text would explain, obviously angular momentum would cause any objects which were formed from within a rotating cloud to spin in the same direction of that cloud, as all in the Solar System do, with a handful of notable exceptions like Venus.
A little? How about the Sun losing 99% of it’s supposed initial rotational energy? A little? Wild assumptions are needed to dump the Sun’s angular momentum, or to transfer it to the planets. That’s not a little! That’s almost everything. One of the greatest and most broad observations of the solar system is the distribution of its angular momentum. And that distribution, including the retrograde rotations of Venus and Uranus, is virtually the opposite of the prediction from a condensing nebula.ThePhy said:Ah, but with the subsequent 5 billion years of interactions and collisions, don’t you think maybe the initial rotations might be a little changed by now?
Phy, I enjoyed our meeting on Pier 56 at Elliot’s Oyster House! Thanks for that, and for the interesting article you gave me on Stellar Rotation Rates published in the Astrophysics Journal, July 2006, which seems to indicate that scientists are abandoning the solar wind braking hypothesis, and now they’re really groping in the dark. Regarding our family vacation, as always, it had a science theme to it, and my time with you added a valuable dimension. We had a very civil yet robust discussion of our disagreements. People waiting to check out at the grocery store are more polite to one another than drivers in rush hour traffic, for there’s more personal contact in the check-out line; and on an Internet forum, there’s even less personal connection than between drivers in traffic. While posting on TOL, we can’t even see one another’s eyes! Thus, a robust attack of someone’s position easily degrades into caustic insult. Phy, I hope I can argue my position without unnecessary insult. Of course, at times the truth is insulting. So, I pray for restraint and balance.ThePhy said:During Bob Enyart’s recent visit to Seattle he alluded to the type of response he would offer to the OP of this thread. He promised to respond in this thread after he got back to Denver. Rather than address the limited comments he made on the subject when we talked in person, I am anxiously awaiting his more formal reply in this thread.
Isaac Newton, who in brilliance conceived of universal gravity, rejected Descartes’ notion that the Sun and planets formed naturally from a condensing, swirling gas cloud. In a letter to a Mr. Bentley, along with several mathematical proofs, he wrote of this nebula hypothesis that:
Newton also said that no natural cause could have organized the solar system, but rather:Isaac Newton said:"The Cartesian hypothesis [of a condensing nebula]… can have no place in my system and is plainly erroneous."
…this must have been the effect of counsel [intelligent design]. Nor is there any natural cause which could give the planets those just degrees of velocity, in proportion to their distance from the Sun and other central bodies, which were requisite to make them move in such concentric orbs about those bodies.
These excerpts, from Newton’s Four Letters to Richard Bentley, can be found in Milton K. Munitz (ed.), Theories of the Universe (1957), p. 212.I know of no reason [for the motion of the planets] but because the Author of the system thought it convenient.
Phy, in Seattle, you asked me, “but what was Newton unaware of that we’ve since discovered?” And I answered, “electromagnetism.” And you said, “right.” True, Newton did not know about electro-magnetism, and you hope that somewhere within this field you can find the brakes that stopped the Sun. So to defend the condensing nebula theory while conserving angular momentum, you need a braking mechanism to apply massive torque to stop the Sun from turning. This massive redistribution of spin must occur while leaving the inner and outer planets with their proportions of spin. And because the Sun is so far from the nearest stars and galaxies, these have a negligible gravitational and electro-magnetic effect on the Sun, and will provide no significant field for the Sun’s supposed brakes to grab a hold of. So this braking mechanism must function in virtually empty space otherwise dominated by the very sun which is to be slowed, in an electromagnetic field generated by the very same spinning Sun, and amidst its own system, which would be spinning per the mother nebula’s spin, within which this braking mechanism is now supposed to torque the Sun to a comparable stop.
Newton did not know about electromagnetism; nor did he know of the retrograde rotation of Venus, Uranus, and half a dozen moons; and neither did he know that the Sun has virtually none of the spin it should have if Descartes’ gas cloud hypothesis had been correct. If he had possessed this additional knowledge, he would have intensified his argument against a condensing nebula theory. So, in the intervening centuries since, the relevant stunning scientific discoveries have powerfully reinforced Isaac Newton’s theological, intuitive, scientific, and mathematical refutation of the natural formation of the solar system.
Now, moving on from the spinning naturalist’s problem with the sedentary Sun, the orbits of Venus and Uranus are highly consistent with the orbits of the other planets (in plane and circularity). ThePhy claims that subsequent to their formation, collisions reversed their rotations. At least Darwinists can fantasize over trillions of interacting organisms on a relatively tiny Earth. Contrariwise, the enormously larger solar system has a miniscule number of large bodies energetic enough to whack a planet backward. I’m making the same point that Bob B remembers Carl Sagan making in 1974 at a symposium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):
Phy, to continue your defense of the condensing nebula theory while conserving angular momentum, not only do you need a braking mechanism in empty space dominated by the very spinning Sun you hope to torque to a virtual stop, you also need multiple “just so” collisions within the vastness of the solar system, between a tiny number of bodies that have sufficient energy to do the job. And the aftermath of those collisions must leave the planets with nearly circular orbits (extremely low eccentricities, all except Mercury), including Venus and Uranus. And after the “just so” collisions that alter the prograde rotations of Venus and Uranus to retrograde, all the planets remain in essentially the same plane as the orbit of the Earth, including Venus and Uranus, while maintaining their low eccentricities. And of course “just so” not only means collisions, for the majority of random collisions, even with sufficient energy, would not reverse a planet’s rotation. And regardless of how unlikely all this is, this extremely improbable scenario cannot happen just once, but it must happen twice, to one-fourth (two of eight) of the planets. And also, four percent of the moons (6 of 162) must be hit “just so” to reverse their rotations from the initial spin of the supposed nebula. And the scientific community ignores the Sagan approach of attempting to quantify the probability of such “just so” collisions, even though the theory requires atheists to defend the relatively common phenomena of retrograde rotations.bob b said:Carl Sagan publicly mocked the idea that collisions and near collisions of large bodies in the Solar system could have occurred when he claimed that they were so improbable as to be absurd. He even presented his calculations which presumed to demonstrate this absurdity during one of his public lectures. Have people who currently worship Sagan forgotten this episode? I haven't.
This “accepted” standard theory of our solar system formation is in such difficulty, that alternatives are being considered suggesting that the planets did not form as a result of that condensing nebula. Yet millions of public school students go through a dozen years of atheistic science curricula and learn of the condensing nebula without being given a clue of the overwhelming contrary evidence, of retrograde rotation of planets, moons, and the Sun that supposedly lost its spin. My brief Venus segment is a teeny attempt to correct this massive evolutionary bias that has led to hundreds of millions of misinformed secondary students worldwide, and millions more college students mislead by their atheistic science education to assume that the Sun, planets and moons all behave in ways predicted by the “accepted” nebula theory. Again, my program segment was an attempt, abbreviated as it was, to expose this colossal failure of the atheist camp to own up to some of their theory’s wild assumptions and MAJOR weaknesses.
(Of course, if we're going to allow baseless, wild secondary and tertiary assumptions to bring the nebula theory into compliance with the law of angular momentum, then we'd have to consider SETI implications. Perhaps an alien ship used a tractor beam to alter the spin of Venus, Uranus, some moons, and the Sun to their current state, with the ship absorbing the transferred angular momentum.)
Hey Phy, IMAGINE THIS: Imagine your reaction if the situation were reversed! If creationism were the model that predicted a Sun with 99% angular momentum, and planets with 1%, and then scientists measured the momentum, YOU WOULD BE TAKING A MAJOR FIT laughing to high heaven that the creationists reject plain science, because THE SUN IS NOT SPINNING AS THEY PREDICT, and THEY ARE IGNORING the MOST BASIC OF SCIENTIFIC LAWS and the MOST BROAD SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS.
But you atheists don’t get that laugh, do you? Yet when the most broad predictions of the “accepted” theory of natural formation of the solar system find themselves squarely opposed to what scientists actually observe and measure, even regarding this issue, atheists still accuse us of being uninformed and denying science.
Phy, here is what I counsel you to do. I’ll put it in the form of questions to you. You should readily and wholeheartedly admit each of the following are True:
BE-SolarSpin-Q1: True or False: The standard explanation for the natural formation of the solar system from a condensing nebula predicts that the Sun would have about 99% of the angular momentum, however, the reality is nearly the exact opposite of the prediction of the theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q2: True or False: The actual angular momentum of the solar system is apparently in extreme conflict with the prediction of the standard formation theory.
And since my radio show is designed in part to expose defects in our education system:
BE-SolarSpin-Q3: True or False: America’s atheistic science education leaves millions of students in ignorance of the fact that the actual angular momentum of the solar system is apparently in extreme conflict with the prediction of the standard formation theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q4: True or False: There is no call from TOL evolutionists, atheists, big bangers, nor from the secular scientific community generally, to correct this enormous failure of our education system, by openly teaching students that the actual angular momentum of the solar system is apparently in extreme conflict with the prediction of the standard formation theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q5: True or False: With all the advances of modern science, the factual observations made in the last centuries have added significant weight to Newton’s refutation of the standard formation theory.
BE-SolarSpin-Q6: True or False: With all the advances since Newton, science offers no demonstrable force that could transfer the angular momentum of the Sun to the planets.
BE-SolarSpin-Q7: True or False: The retrograde rotations of Venus, Uranus, and six moons, and the Sun devoid of almost all of it’s expected angular momentum, taken together, are significant evidence against the standard condensing-nebula explanation of the formation of the solar system.
Phy, you could sooner put your shoulder to the Sun to stop it from turning, than to stop the heavens from declaring the glory of God! Thanks for welcoming us back from our family vacation.
-Bob Enyart
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