I'm Being Sued?

Almost a month ago, I wrote about how I had been banned by a couple of Facebook users FaceBookers, The Question Evolution Project and True Dinos.  In the post I invited both of them to respond.  It took them three weeks, but Cowboy Bob Sorensen did on this blog,

and Aaron Tullock did on his True Dinos Facebook FB page.

I'm a physicist, not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure I didn't post anything illegally.  Both of the Facebook pages are public, as are their web pages.  I believe that the Fair Use Doctrine may apply.

As to the defamation charge, Aaron needs to know the difference between slander and libel.  Notwithstanding the vocabulary, I think libel is " to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others." [dictionary.law.com]  If Aaron can point out the untruth, I will gladly retract.

By the way, Cowboy Bob and Aaron, calling you out for your scientific nonsense is not ridiculing you for spreading your gospel.  I'm ridiculing you for believing in creationist gibberish.

Lastly, I will take this opportunity to once again invite them to address the issue that led them to ban me.

Both Cowboy Bob and Aaron are biblical literalists.  The bible literally says the Sun orbits the Earth.  [A historical point here.  Galileo was tried and convicted by the Catholic Church in 1633 for promoting the heliocentric model for which Pope John Paul II apologized in 1992.]  Do they adhere to the biblical view or is their bible wrong on this matter?  To make matters easy on them I will once again provide a link to true biblical literalists that know what the bible says on this. Galileo Was Wrong; The Church Was Right.

They are invited to comment here using whatever language they deem appropriate.  I ask that they do not do so anonymously.  They will not be banned.

I wonder if they will extend to me the same courtesy?

I've Been Banned

CREDIT: True Dinos

CREDIT: True Dinos

So much for having a conversation.  

I visited the FaceBook page, True Dinos, of a young Earth creationist (YEC) run a fellow named Aaron Tulllock.  You can no longer see my posts, because I've blocked by the administrator for "being a troll." 

What did I do?

I asked about the design of the vas deferens and the recurrent laryngeal nerve. [See Smack Down.] Here's what left of the comments about Intelligent Design.

CREDIT: True Dinos

Then there was my comments on this post. Since True Dinos is also a biblical literalist, I informed him that the bible literally claims that the Sun revolves around the Earth. When pressed by another YEC called The Question Evolution Project, I provided not only the biblical verses, but a link to other biblical literalists who truly believe in geocentrism. [Regular readers might know my earlier blog posts Your Elementary School Teachers Were Right and LA Times Does Story on Geocentrism.] He never responded; in fact, his comments on True Dinos have been wiped.

Since The Question Evolution Project was unwilling to confront his obvious hypocrisy on the bible being literally true, I visited The Question Evolution Project FaceBook page. Because I had the audacity to debate, he promptly blocked me . 

Oh, what am I to do now? 

If any of the administrators from those pages wish to comment on this blog, they are free to do so.  All I ask is that they not do so anonymously. They are free to use whatever language they see fit to use. They will not be banned.

A bit more about these two pages.

Aaron Tullock (True Dinos) claims to have sighted a living pterosaur in 1995 in Marion County, Texas. The fossil and geologic evidence shows quite dramatically that  these reptiles became extinct about 65.5 million years ago. An excellent resource for those interested in pterosaurs is Pterosaur.net.

The paleontologists there say

Unusual winged animals reported from around the world have been suggested by some cryptozoologists and creationists to be modern-day pterosaurs that survived the end-Cretaceous extinction event. From Africa, people have reported a semi-aquatic winged animal called the kongamato while on New Guinea and the surrounding islands sightings are claimed of a gigantic, bioluminescent, crested flying creature (the duah) and a smaller, long-tailed version, the ropen. Fossil evidence demonstrates overwhelmingly that pterosaurs did not survive beyond the end of the Cretaceous, and the sightings of pterosaur-like animals that have been reported appear to be a combination of hoaxes and misidentification of large birds and bats. So-called modern pterosaurs are generally ugly, dark, carnivorous, bat-winged horrors—they sound more like imaginary generic flying monsters than the pterosaurs we know from the fossil record.

Like these other foundational scientific theories, the theory of evolution is supported by so many observations and confirming experiments that scientists are confident that the basic components of the theory will not be overturned by new evidence.

Plus technically speaking, pterosaurs aren't dinosaurs, although they did coexist.

Now for The Question Evolution Project.  In their About section, they write "true science is not afraid to examine contrary evidence and allows alternative theories to the interpretation of the evidence." Agreed. Science does not make progress without questioning.  Consider the Copernican revolution or the quantum revolution. So why was I banned? I presented biblical evidence that didn't fit their preconceived notions about what the bible says. 

On the other hand, "the Admins have other things to do besides engage in lengthy debates." It's strange that for people that being interested in "scientific evidence and its interpretation" and "intellectual honesty and freedom," they refuse to discuss anything.  How does The Question Evolution Project feel about questions? They say "[the site] is for people who can think for themselves and dare to ask questions," but don't ask them if they're geocentrists, because that will get you banned.

One last item, The Question Evolution Project claims that evolution is not a fact."  What do scientists say about that?  

The National Academy of Sciences says 

Like these other foundational scientific theories, the theory of evolution is supported by so many observations and confirming experiments that scientists are confident that the basic components of the theory will not be overturned by new evidence.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science states

But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.

I imagine The Question Evolution Project will just say we're being bullies.

Gorgeous Shot of Today's Eclipse

This photo was taken by Sara Chuaycharoensuk, a student of mine, and it's my favorite of the ones I've seen today.  What you are seeing are images of the eclipse formed by pinhole cameras.  Where are the pinholes, you may be asking.  The spaces between the leaves of a nearby tree!

Awesome!  

Thank you Sara for the photo.

2012 - Is this the beginning of the end?

Did you feel anything last night?  Mars and the Earth were in opposition.  Opposition, that's astronomer talk for when a Solar System body appears on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun.  There is some thought that planetary alignments could cause earthquakes.

I'm just teasing.  That stuff about earthquakes being caused by astronomical events is hokum, woo, BS, not-even-bad-science.

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/O/Opposition

Mars is in opposition every 26 months.  Tomorrow night is Mars closest approach to the Earth for this orbit.  Look for it low in the eastern sky after sunset.  Then turn around and catch Venus and Jupiter in the western sky.  Put Gustav Holst on the CD player and crank it up!

The Old Testament Universe

Diagram from James L. Christian, Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering, 6th ed.,(Harcourt, 1994), p. 512.

I'll just link to the blog that originally posted this figure.  He discusses the relevant biblical passages.

LA Times Does Story on Geocentrism

On July 26, I wrote about the website Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right that is dedicated to showing that the Earth is the center of the universe.

This past Sunday, the Los Angeles Times did a story on the same subject. What's great is that the reporter got a quote from Ken Ham - who we know from Answers in Genesis, the creationist site.

Ham says,"There's a big difference between looking at the origin of the planets, the solar system and the universe and looking at presently how they move and how they are interrelated," Ham said. "The Bible is neither geocentric or heliocentric. It does not give any specific information about the structure of the solar system."

Yet Ham is certain that the Bible is a biology book. Interesting.

Your Elementary School Teachers Were Right. So were Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein.

We all learned that the that there are there are nine planets sometime in grade school. You may have used the mnemonic "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas." There are now only eight, because astronomers decided that Pluto along with Ceres, Iris, and perhaps about 50 others are dwarf planets. So maybe we should memorize "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nuts."

We also learned that these planets orbit the Sun. I bet none of us ever questioned how we know this. Why would we? It is established scientific fact, right?

So why would anyone think Galileo Was Wrong; The Church Was Right. This link is to a website that promotes Geocentrism, the idea that the Earth is not only the center of the solar system, but the center of the universe. I've been through this website looking for one thing - an explanation of orbits, because it's a straightforward calculation if you start with Newton's 2nd law and his law of universal gravitation. My students who have had PHY 211 can go back to Unit N of the text book and read chapters 12 and 13, and I can show anyone else who's interested how it works. [In the interest of scientific honesty, Mercury presents a small problem that took Einstein to solve.] So my challenge is that a geocentrist must be able to write a force law and derive a equation of motion for the planets that reproduce the orbits with the Earth as the force center.

Let's illustrate the problem:
Here's a Flash simulation of the heliocentric (Sun-centered) solar system. Only Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are shown. Press play and pay close attention to Mars. You see that Mars follows a nearly circular orbit as explained by Newton.

Now look at the Ptolemaic or geocentric (Earth-centered) solar system. Here Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are shown. Again press play and pay attention to Mars. Press the circle button and the animation will trace out the orbit.

See the problem? [Again in the interest of scientific honesty, many of these geocentrism web sites don't use a purely Ptolemaic system, they use the Tychonic model where the Earth is the center, the Sun and the Moon orbit the Earth and the rest orbit the Sun. But the orbit problem among others remains.]

So why would anyone believe in a theory put to rest 400 years ago? Galileo Was Wrong; The Church Was Right goes to great lengths to couch its arguments in criticizing Einstein's theory of relativity and other physics, but when you examine closely their argument comes down to…

Because the Bible says so.

Here are the verses (from NIV) commonly used by geocentrists:

Joshua 10:12-13
12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.

Ecclesiastes 1:5
5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

Psalm 96:10
10 Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.

Psalms 104:5
5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.

Isaiah 66:1
1 This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool…

1 Chronicles 16:30
30 Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.

Amos 8:9
9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Micah 3:6
6 Therefore night will come over you, without visions, and darkness, without divination. The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them.

Jeremiah 15:9
9 The mother of seven will grow faint and breathe her last. Her sun will set while it is still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. I will put the survivors to the sword before their enemies,” declares the LORD.

If you read this literally, then I guess it's clear that the Earth is stationary and the Sun moves.

Now for the irony. Answers in Genesis, a creationist site, finds geocentrism embarrassing. The site goes to great lengths to debunk geocentrism. But Ken Ham, the founder of Answers in Genesis, is the man who built the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. The museum has Adam and Eve and says T. Rex ate coconuts. He is also building Ark Encounter near Cincinnati, OH that will also feature dinosaurs.

What do you think is Ken Ham's reason for believing in creation?