New Earth vs Old Earth

[gallo]

Quote by: TehNinja Do you believe in a new earth or an old earth? I personally believe in a new earth.

Of course you do. At least you recognize that it is a matter of belief, i.e., not based on any empirical evidence. For my part, I recognize that the evidence indicates that the earth is very old, about 4.6 billion years old.

Quote by: TehNinja First, do we agree that the universe and our planet came into existance at the same time?

No. The evidence indicates that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. Check out the WMAP site from NASA

Quote by: TehNinja Alright, spiral galaxies, they have been observed with our advances in technology. They undergo huge forces (centrifugal) as they spin. This causes them to come apart after only a few rotations. Each rotation lasts a few thousand years. Why are there still thousands to millions of spiral galaxies if they spin themselves out after mere thousands of years? Is something making spiral galaxies?

Absolute balderdash. Evidence indicates that in the center of each galaxy is a black hole. The rotation is not the galaxy spinning apart, but matter spinning into the black hole. So your unsupported assertion that galaxies spin themselves out in a few thousand years is garbage. If that were true we would see galaxies in various stages of destruction with many obvious remnants observable. Any idea where those might be?

Quote by: TehNinja Second, moon temparature. The surrounding space around the moon is 3 degrees above absolute zero. Shouldn't the moon be frozen solid if it has been around for billions of years? Recent discoveries show that the moon is still hot inside and has occasional very short volcanic eruptions.

Can you document your assertion about volcanic eruptions on the moon? I doubt it. As has been pointed out to you already, any differences between the temperature of the moon comes from heating from the sun and tidal influences from the earth. As I understand it, the moon isn't all that hot below the surface.

Quote by: TehNinja Short period comets. The milky way has lots of "short period" comets. They have a life of about 2 to 10 thousand years. If our universe is billions of years old, shouldn't they all have died by now?

Actually, many short period comets have lives that are much longer than that. Haley's comet, for example, has a life expectancy of about 40,000 years. Moreover, the life of short period comets isn't meaningful to the age of the solar system if there is a source of new comets. Guess what. There is. Fredrick Leonard, in 1930, and Kenneth Edgeworth, in 1943, predicted the existence of a belt of comet like objects around the solar system beyond Neptune. In 1951, Edward Kuiper proposed that this belt is the source of the short term comets. But that was, of course, all hypothetical. Since then, with advances in telescopes, many of these trans-neptunian objects (TNO) have been imaged (Xena, for example, proposed as 10 planet recently). There is no doubt that the Kuiper belt exists, so short term comets are not a problem. Moreover, there is the Ort Cloud, once hypothetical too. However, at least one object in the Ort Cloud has been imaged and observations of other solar systems show similar structures to the Kuiper Belt and the Ort Cloud.

Quote by: TehNinja The shrinking sun, as you well know the sun is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium. It burns this fuel to produce radiation. If it burns fuel it loses mass, correct? It burns this at a rate of about 10 miles per year. Assuming that it maintained the same rate, billions of years ago it would have been twice the size of what it is now.

No it wouldn't. The other day I was at the beach in Galveston. I noticed the waves rolling all the way up to the sea wall. I went to eat lunch and several hours later, I returned to the beach. The waves were no longer reaching the sea wall but were ending about 50 yards down the beach. I quickly calculated that at the rate the sea was retreating. It had flooded my house about a week ago, and that about a month ago Dallas was a coastal city. Seems logical to me.

Some believe that periodic changes in the sun may be responsible for changes in the earth's climate. We know that it was generally warmer as well as colder in the past. Could it be that changes in the energy emitted by the sun could play a part in that?

We do know that huge masses of hydrogen will collapse because of the immense gravity. As it is drawn together it begins to heat up until the process of fusion begins. Turns out that as the hydrogen is compressed more and more, the energy produced by the fusion prevents the mass of hydrogen from compressing more, and, in fact, expands it a bit. As the mass expands, it cools because there is less fusion, so it again contracts and heats up again, until the energy pushes it out again. In other words, the sun goes through cyclic periods of expansion and contraction.

By the way, as the sun runs out of fuel for fusion, it will not contract, but expand into a red giant. If what you say were true, then the red giant phase wouldn't happen.The process is understood.

Quote by: TehNinja Coal, in recent discoveries, trees have been found embedded in coal. If coal takes millions of years to form, wouldn't the termites and various other creatures have eaten the trees out ?

Is this another version of the prostrate fossil ignorance?

Quote by: TehNinja The earth's magnetic field is known to 'decay' at a rate of 5% every hundred years. Working backwards, and assuming a maximum plausible initial strength, this puts an age limit on the earth's magnet at only a few thousand years.

Let me tell you a story. The other day I was down at the beach in Galveston... Heard that one? Anyway, it is well known (and documented) that the earth's magnetic field fluctuates - it reverses from time to time. Since the magnetic compounds in lava are oriented to the magnetic field as the lava cools, it is a simple matter to tell where the magnetic poles were when it cooled. Relative magnetic strength can also be determined. It appears that the earth is now approaching another reversal of the magnetic poles.

Quote by: TehNinja They said that the earth did not come into existance at the same time as the rest of the universe, thus, something had to come first. So, what did?

Sure. The universe. Then the galaxies and stars and planets. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old and our solar system (earth included) is about 4.6 billion years old.

Have you allowed yourself to be duped by any more of Mr. Hovind's oft refuted nonsense? I thought your number 1 rule was to learn what you were talking about before speaking? You seem to break it frequently. For example, what do most of your questions have to do with evolution? Do you know what evolution is? What does the sun have to do with it? What does the age of the earth have to do with it? What about your rule number 1?