Over the past three years of writing for DI, I have discussed evolution with many creationists who have posted comments at this site. These exchanges have been good for me. They have forced me to think harder about exactly what it is that I understand about evolution and what evidence supports my understanding. These exchanges have also helped me to understand the concerns and mental gymnastics of creationists.
I now find myself getting increasingly impatient with the creationists, however. It was initially interesting to banter with creationists because I enjoyed the challenge of trying to understand why they claimed the things they claimed. I’m now getting annoyed with these creationists arguments, and it mostly has to do with the refusal of creationists to acknowledge relevant scientific observations from the real world.
My frustration also stems from the anti-scientific mindset of creationists. As a group, creationists refuse to argue even-handedly. They become skeptical only when it suits their immediate needs—they don’t apply skepticism equally both to their own claims and to the claims of those with whom they disagree. As a group, they scurry to find disingenuous arguments to support points that they actually learned in churches, not in science books. Many of them are consciously dishonest, and when you call attention to their obvious untruths, they try to change the subject. There are exceptions to this rule. There are some creationists who aren’t consciously being dishonest, but those creationists tend to be so incredibly ignorant of the principles of the scientific theory of evolution that they lack the ability to meaningfully criticize evolution. Their arguments are aimed at things that no competent scientist has ever claimed. For numerous excellent examples of this problem, see these videos by AronRa here and here.
It is well-established that humans are susceptible to committing errors caused by the confirmation bias. We seek out evidence that supports our current beliefs. Scientists are imminently aware of this danger and they work hard to design experiments to counteract this bias. Creationists (who don’t even try to run experiments) excel at feeding their confirmation biases. They proudly exclude evidence that threatens their opinions. Creationists come to mind when I consider David Hume’s quote: “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” [A Treatise of Human Nature, (2nd Ed.), Book II, Part I, Section III (“Of the influencing motives of the will”) (1739)].
Creationists claim that the reason they don’t like the scientific theory of evolution is that the evidence presented by biologists is flimsy. I would admit that scientists can’t run scientific demonstrations of evolution as quickly or easily as we can run many physics or chemistry experiments. Many evolutionary biology experiments that could be run would take longer than the life span of those scientists who would run them (but see this long-term Russian experiment where foxes turned into doglike creatures over a 40-year period involving 35 generations). The inability to run quick experiments does not disprove evolution in the least. In a book he wrote when he was 97 years old, What Evolution Is (2001), renowned biologist Ernst Mayr admitted that evolution
is a historical process that cannot be proven by the same arguments and methods by which purely physical or functional phenomena can be documented. Evolution as a whole, and the explanation of particular evolutionary events, must be inferred from observations. Such inferences subsequently must be tested again and again against new observations, and the original inference is either falsified or considerably strengthened when confirmed by all of these tests. However, most inferences made by evolutionists have by now been tested successfully so often that they are accepted as certainties.
(Page 13). When reading Mayr, it occurred to me that many people have a bias against circumstantial evidence, and evolution is (for the most part) demonstrable based on circumstantial evidence. This bias against circumstantial evidence can also be seen in the legal field, where many jurors express concerns that circumstantial cases are per se deficient. Consider this example from Wikipedia, however:
If a witness testifies that the defendant was seen entering a house, then screaming was heard, then the defendant was seen leaving, carrying a bloody knife, that is circumstantial evidence; if a witness testifies that he/she actually saw the defendant stabbing the victim, that is direct evidence.
Ironically, many cases involving “direct” evidence (for instance, cases that depend heavily upon an eyewitness) can be flimsy (also consider that, in many cases, innocent people confess to crimes). As Mayr admitted, we can’t stand around and watch most organisms evolve, because our life spans are not long enough. This logistical issue does not prevent good science from being done, however. The bottom line is that A) evolution by natural selection is strongly proven by circumstantial evidence and B) there is nothing deficient about circumstantial evidence.
What are the overwhelming types of facts that support evolution by natural selection? I culled the following list of evidence from Chapter 2 of Mayr’s book, What Evolution Is. Each of the following facts is well-explained by evolution but not by creationism.
I. The Fossil Record. Mayr contended that the fossil record is
“the most convincing evidence for the occurrence of evolution.” He points out the ubiquitous discovery of “extinct organisms in older geological strata.” In short, “no modern mammal… should be found in strata that are 100 or 200 million years old and indeed not has ever been found.”
Combine those observations with this: “The fossils found in the most recent strata are often very similar to still living species or, in some cases, even indistinguishable. The older the strata are in which a fossil is found-that is the further back in time-the more different the fossil will be from living representatives. (Page 13). That there are gaps in the fossil record are understandable, given the “unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record.” Nonetheless, Mayr pointed out that there are some remarkably complete fossil transitions in existence. For instance consider the fossil record of whales (which originally lived on land) and horses.
II. Homology. Homology refers to the “structural, physiological, molecular and behavioral characteristics of organisms.” Even prior to Darwin, comparative anatomists realized that many features were variants of the same underlying structure (consider the wings of birds and the arms of mammals). Darwin pointed out that two species were homologous “if they were derived by evolution from an equivalent characteristic in the nearest common ancestor of the two species.” Mayr points out that “homology cannot be proven; it is always inferred.” On the other hand, it can be strongly inferred. Homology in a particular case can be demonstrated through numerous criteria, including a; “the position in relation to neighboring structures or organs, B) by connecting two dissimilar features by intermediate stages in ancestors; see) by similarity and ontogeny; and D) by intermediate fossils.
III. The branching structure of evolution and common descent. All organisms on earth appear to have common ancestors. Numerous studies using many kinds of evidence have now confirmed Darwin’s conjecture that
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
IV. Morphological similarity. This refers to the study of comparative anatomy, which provides strong evidence of common descent. Organisms tend to be more related to the extent that they are similar morphologically. “It is quite remarkable how successful comparative morphology can be in the reconstruction of missing steps in an evolutionary sequence.” Additional evidence is provided by phylogeny, a special branch of biology that deals with the pattern and history of the descent of organisms.
V. Embryology. Embryos of related animals are quite similar to each other. Human embryos, for instance, are not only similar to those of other mammals, but to embryos of reptiles, amphibians and fishes. Studying embryonic stages can show “how a common ancestral stage gradually diverged in different branches of the ancestral tree. This leads to a far better understanding of the evolutionary pathways.” Mayr points out a striking fact of ontogeny: “Why should the embryos of birds and mammals develop gill slits, like fish embryos? Gills slits are not a more general condition of the neck region of a terrestrial vertebrate.” (29) Mayr admits, however, that embryology has sometimes been taken too far as a proof of evolution “‘Ontogeny is a recapitulation of phylogeny,’ I would say went too far, because at no stage of its development does a mammalian embryo look like an adult fish.”
VI. Recapitulation. This refers to the “appearance and subsequent loss of structures in ontogeny, which in related taxa are retained in the adults. Meyer points out that Baleen whales still develop teeth at certain embryonic stages (though these are reabsorbed). He characterizes this phenomena as “striking.”
VII. Biogeography. Consider the geographic distribution of animals and plants on Earth. Consider the pockets of contiguous similarity. But why are the faunas of Europe and North America relatively similar, whereas those of Africa and South America are different? Rather than rack this up as the product of creation, Darwin concluded that “the present distribution of animals and plants is due to the history of their dispersal from their original points of origin.”
VIII. Vestigial structures. Many organisms have structures “that are not fully functional or not functional at all.” (30). These are the remnants of structures that were functional in ancestors, but no longer. On a related note, consider these incredible transitional fossils.
IX. Molecular Evidence. As a general rule, “The more closely related two organisms are, the more similar are their respective molecules.” Such molecules also serve as a clock, allowing us further insight into the location of branching points.
This above list is formidable. It demands a much better explanation than “God did it.” In fact, “God did it.” is not a scientific theory at all.
What is a “theory”? I referred to Wikipedia for some well-considered formulations. Consider this definition offered by the United States National Academy of Sciences: “In science, the word “theory” refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena. . . . Such fact-supported theories are not “guesses” but reliable accounts of the real world.”
Stephen Hawking used a similar approach to define “theory”:
“A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.”
Further, consider that the defining characteristic of a scientific theory is that it makes claims and predictions that are falsifiable or testable. To be falsifiable, a theory must first be understandable. In a famous comment on a paper someone showed him, Wolfgang Pauli captured the difference between scientific and unscientific thought by saying, “This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong.”
As used in science, a theory is not something you blurt out on a whim. It is an overarching formulation to unify an entire field of study, including the facts, the laws, the inferences and the testable hypotheses. Evolution unifies the entire field of biology. As Theodosius Dobzhansky once wrote, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” What does the “theory” of creationism offer to science? Nothing at all.
Instead of offering a real theory to engage with careful scientific observations, creationists excel at turning their skepticism up and down like cheap thermostats. Tellingly, when creationists consider chemistry, their skepticism-thermostats are set much like those of real scientists. When it comes to the theory of evolution, however, creationists crank up their skepticism to such a degree that they no longer know anything about anything. Back in their churches, however, they have no problem uncritically acknowledging the “fact” that Mary is a virgin or that the Earth is only 6,000 year old (to do the latter, they need to defy huge mounds of indisputable findings based on rigorously conducted radioactive dating). Being a creationist apparently gives one the license to believe anything at all based on no evidence and to deny anything at all despite the existence of massive amounts of corroborating evidence.
Instead of dealing with the evidence by acknowledging it and testing it, Creationists offer us the following litany of beliefs (which I am paraphrasing from Eugenie Scott’s excellent book, Evolution vs Creationism (2004)): What does creationism offer? There are two basic versions of creationism. First, consider the “biblical creation model,” which is based on the following three principles:
1. Creation was completed by supernatural process in six days.
2. Creation is in the bondage of decay because of sin and the curse.
3. Earth history is dominated by the great flood of Noah’s day.
The above items are so patently absurd that creationists don’t even try to force these teachings in public school science classes. They would be laughed out of town even by most conservatives. The simplistic and provable absurdity of these claims is the reason biblical creation was given a facelift by the Discovery Institute. With its new facade, biblical creation has been converted into “scientific creationism,” and it offers this spruced-up advice:
1. The physical universe of space, time, matter and energy was created by a transcendent personal Creator who has always existed.
2. Biological life did not develop by natural processes from inanimate systems, but was specially and supernaturally created by the Creator.
3 Each major kind of plant and animal was created, completely formed, from the beginning. These organisms do not evolve from another kind of organism.
4 The first human beings did not evolve from other types of animals, but were specially created in fully human form by the Creator. Humans differ from other animals in that they have souls that allow them to be conscious, use language and honor their Creator.
5 People are able to have relationships with the Creator by exploring His creation rationally and scientifically.
6. Although nature largely works within fixed natural laws and uniform process rates, there is always the possibility of miraculous intervention in these laws and processes by the Creator.
7. The universe and life have somehow been impaired in character since creation, resulting in imperfections such as disease, aging and extinctions.
8. Humans can have purpose and meaning in their lives only because a Creator allowed for this.
(Page 139-140)
There is no evidence for any of these “scientific creationism” points. Creationists fail explain any of the startling naturalistic phenomena described in the beginning of this post. These principles do not give any guidance for any research program. They don’t raise any questions that scientific experiments could possibly answer. They don’t allow scientists to generate any hypotheses that would invite scientific testing. They invite belief in subnatural beings and they encourage people to believe that natural laws can be turned off and on by a cartoonish Creator. They are the theological equivalent of saying “shit happens.” How could you possible run scientific tests on “shit happens?”
I took the time to write this post because I wanted to see for myself how the scientific study of evolution compared with creationism side-by-side. Now that I can better see how the scientific program compares to the creationist “program”, it is clearer than ever that only one of these programs, the scientific version, actually engages with the natural world, giving us opportunities to explore and understand that world. The other “program” is merely an emotional salve. It is a dead-end program because it offers no hypotheses to test. It is not a “theory” because it does not even attempt to incorporate any facts, laws, inferences and testable hypotheses. It is, at bottom, a way to prevent us from doing science. Writing off the phenomena of the world as “magic” is not science.
[Image by Erich Vieth, utilizing the “Darwin Fish” image, which has been released into the public domain]
Bravo. I would add to this that, in my opinion, evolution terrifies people because it not only suggests that humans are animals but that we can be replaced—that, as is the case with any organism, the potential for obsolescence is built in, and according to our myths this is impossible because we are the "crown of creation." I doubt most creationists consciously acknowledge this, but even the most facile grasp of evolution suggests it strongly and it is inescapable. These two factors feed into a profound denial of reality which I believe underlies the entire emotional substance of anti-evolutionism.
Mark: It is difficult to grasp how human animals could be the crown of creation (of the entire universe), given their propensity to fart, belch, eat too much, and speak with unmitigated confidence when they are wholly ignorant. Such flawed creatures we are! But the world view that we are perfect and beloved creations of a perfect Creator gives some people the confidence they seek to enable them to walk proud and feel that they are SOMEBODY. Yet another form of addiction, it seems to me, but maybe picking a persona is a necessary move for all of us, at least some of the time. Our personas keep us sane. There are alternative personas to the fundamentalist version, of course, and many of them leave room for deep contemplation and growth.
Another well written distillation of evolutionary science!! However, I'm beginning to have a problem with this and other articles of its kind. I'm not sure if it's your intention, but I don't know if a piece like this will ever turn a creationist into an "evolutionist", not matter how convincing your evidence.
With this post you attempt to take away the comfort of creationism, but you offer little in return other than cold, hard unfeeling science. You offer a universe that is merely a machine that operates without the love of a caring overseer. That's a hard sell to a drug addict who has hot rock bottom or a mother who has lost her son.
You're going to have to do better than this. You're going to have to address the NEED.
Mike: I agree with you that this post will not make any converts. I wrote this as an exercise to help me understand the lay of the land better. I see this site as a mosaic and not a place where we ever try to completely cover a topic in one post. I've written other posts where I do try to reach out, and to admit the limits of science and the need for humility. For example, see here. I've increasingly tried to reach out to many of those people who believe in God in an attempt to emphasize our commonalities rather than our differences (see here, and there's more in the pipeline).
It would be harsh to say that I've given up trying to discuss evolution with fundamentalists, but I'm often tempted. It's not that they are bad people–many of them are kind and generous people who inspire others with their actions. On the other hand, many of them seem to have locked out any possibility that evidence matters, whereas the evidence is the bottom line for me.
I'll try to leave open the crack in the door, but I'm less likely than ever to entertain the fundie concerns with evolutionary biology. The creationist program succeeds only in proving that which it assumes at the beginning. That's not a science program at all. As I backed up and looked at these two entire programs side-by-side (rather than focusing on Creationist's limited concerns with whether science is able to get it completely right), I was able to see more than ever why Creationism (in whatever form) doesn't belong in the classroom. To creationists who want to know my concerns with creationism, many of those concerns (but not all of them, by any means) can be found in this post.
With the above as prelude, I am also aware that die-hard fundamentalists do sometimes see the light (e.g., Michael Shermer and Bart Ehrman), and I will keep in mind that we don't want to needlessly scare away the people that we need most to engage.
Mike,
Seems to me that many people take a fall when they learn, to their dismay, that the things they thought they understood and believed in turned out to be bedtime stories or outright lies. Better to have the cold, uncaring universe explained to you as it is than to build up to such a crash.
But to answer your question, where does all that warmth and caring come from? From the same place it has always come from—us, each other. Whether it's couched in terms of what would your creator/mage want you to do or in terms of doing the right thing because it is the right thing, it always ends up as our responsibility to care for each other. Maybe we should stop pretending some extra-material source will provide what's missing for some people if they only pray hard enough and embrace the idea that we have to do that work, too.
As to the coldness of the picture painted, I find that puzzling. I no more attribute coldness to the universe at large than I expect warmth from my car or understanding from my house. I can still like them all and, if I wish, personify them for my convenience. But I never make the mistake of attributing consciousness to them.
Of course you know that I agree with you Mark. The warmth should come from each other. And yet there are so many people for whom that's not enough. Maybe they are alone and there are no "others".
I guess what I'm getting at is do we regulars here at DI have a bigger purpose for this blog or are we going to be content to continue to write articles like this for each other? If we believe that a more rational world, a world without religion, would be a better place than the world we have now, how useful are technical, scientific articles about evolution? Are we convincing ANYONE? Or are we just comforting ourselves and each other?
How do we take a powerful engine like DI and use it to reach out to the common person? Is that what DI is designed to do? What do we have to offer that will take the place of religion? What need does religion satisfy that can be satisified in another way? Is it even possible (or preferable) to replace religion with rationality?
These are the questions I am grappling with at the moment.
Mike,
Excellent question. For what it's worth, I'm, not personally aiming for a world without religion. I frankly think that's impossible. Religion, as far as I can see, is a wholly organic thing that emerges as if by some evolutionary process connected with psychology. And it has, in spite of our cataloguing of its ills, done much good. Reason is harder and requires an open environment in which to take root—there are many places that lack the latter and are bereft of the former. In such circumstances, religion is indispensible as a source of comfort and a brake against the worst characteristics of human nature.
What needs to be done is to deal with the misapplication of religious ideology. It is too often simply a framework for prejudice and ignorance. The repeated attempts by those writing here are necessary to assert that there is truth that negates dogmatism. The other part—the essence of your question—takes longer. But it can't even begin if we yield to the fearmongers and deniers.
Mark wrote: "…religion is indispensible as a source of comfort and a brake against the worst characteristics of human nature."
I don't think I've ever heard you talk like this Mark!! It's refreshing in a way and very well put. I think it's something that needs to be said here every once in a while.
Mark also wrote: "What needs to be done is to deal with the misapplication of religious ideology."
Very true! I think you nailed it right there! You crystallized something for me with that statement. Thanks.
I'd like to recommend a viewing of Jonathan Haidt's video here. http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/11/25/jonat…
He recommends that we step out of the moral matrix in order to deal with our differences. I'm continually trying.
Erich, get it all out!
Say whatever you feel is necessary!
Seek some closure though, because no matter the proofs, evidence or numbers of debunkings , there will nearly always be some to disagree. It may be because of their faith, or some other "reason."
I don't know but, you have many other gifts to share other than going off on those with whom you disagree, no matter how wrongheaded you may think they are. Gotta go, I have to go pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (not really!).
Tim: Sorry it makes you a bit uncomfortable to make sure that everyone has the facts correct.
In my opinion, if we can't agree on basic facts, it is almost impossible to have a meaningful conversation to get any sort of "closure."
For what it's worth Erich, I was not criticizing the post you wrote. It is excellent and is the kind of thing that needs to be constantly reinforced in the face of so much MIS-information. However, it triggered a series of thoughts that led to my comment which in truth was somewhat off topic.
I am a bit upset that since then you have felt the need to defend your post when it was never my intention to make it seem unnecessary.
Erich, there never be agreement among those which you rail against that what you call "facts" are just that.
In the face of such, I assert your efforts are better off directed elsewhere. I am not "uncomfortable with facts." I just think you're wrasslin' a pig, and all you're gonna do is get dirty, and the pig likes it!
Better to spend time watching your daughters while they are sleeping or some other beneficial activity. Be evolved!
Tim: I often agree with you, but I don't see this article as any sort of "wrasslin" article. It's filled with a list of the kinds of phenomena that are accounted for by the scientists but not by the Bible. Holding them up side by side in a short article mostly lets these facts speak for themselves. One way of looking at these facts is scientific, yet the other is not (by any credible definition of science). That comparison seems to me to be a good basis for continuing a conversation, especially in light of the Discovery Institute's claims that religion is a type of science.
In the face of such facts, the Creationists slip quietly away. Consider biogeography, for instance. Why is it that similar types of animals tend to be clumped together geographically (the general rule, anyway)? Natural selection offers an explanation that can be tested in the real world. Creationism offers no accounting and offers no way to test its overall "theory." This disparity is apparent throughout the side-by-side comparison, point after point.
I do think I know how to rant and how to spin facts, but really don't think I'm doing much of that in this article.
Here's a detailed description of the Russian experiment regarding the domestication of foxes conducted by Belyaevn.
Thanks for fixing that link, Erich. I had never seen or read anything about these foxes – what an intriguing thing! I wonder if we all should be looking for floppy ears and lots of white spots when picking our pets. . .
For those of you who have been raised as creationists who want to get an extremely clear basic scientific overview of evolution, consider this website sponsored by the University of California at Berkeley.
Dude check this out… this totally disproves creationism! shows the stages of human evolution.
http://Humanmechanics_evolution_neg6.on.nimp?//human.structure.com
LOL – the link you provided doesn't work. Could you check it out and write back with a working link? Thanks.
Ben,
I do not distrust the workings of any scientific method to the extent that it claims to deal with materialistic matters while at the same time trying to answer questions that have nothing to do with the nature of what a scientific investigation can actually claim and verify.
Erich himself states in the above article that very often what is revealed in many scientific studies is nothing more than confirmational bias.
I would add that science done in realtime studies, with predictive power is rarely questioned. What is very suspect to me is when science interpretation upon interpretation attempts to verify assumptions concerning matters outside of realtime studies that I find hard to accept as certainties of fact.
If I wanted to try and explain how the sun could have appeared to have stood still in the sky so that a day could have actually had a longer than expected duration during the day of Joshua, I could. But if one is not open to discussing such a matter it would be pointless to believe it could even happen.
The same is true for much of the geologic record. The picture of what one puts together varies greatly based upon whether one views the fossils as being formed over millenia or over a much shorter time frame.
Karl, the "If I wanted to try and explain…" is a cute cop-out. There is no way to explain it in terms of Newtonian or even Einsteinian mechanics. Is your source Velikovsky, the deluded hack? I don't say deluded because he unilaterally disagreed with all that is known of orbital mechanics, but because there is no evidence for any of the events or mechanisms that he proposed.
If you try to explain it in terms of "What if the laws of nature radically and rapidly changed?" then you are still violating the laws of nature. Changing the speed of light or the force of gravity would have devastating effects on our planet.
So, please, choose to desire to explain how the moon can physically stand still, as opposed to the obvious metaphorical meaning during that battle. Once again I tell you: If you are right, your Nobel prize is waiting.
I have Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision – wildly fun stuff.
Dan,
What we have left at Chicxulub is what remains of an impact crater with no one there close up to witness it because they would have been killed if they were within probably as many as five hundred if not even a thousand miles or more of ground zero.
My interest in all of this has been on describing that the momentum imparted to the crust by a large bolide at a large oblique angle would not have simply left the crust with a single uniform crater as if the impact was directed much more normal (i.e. at 90 degrees) into the crust.
What I'm trying to describe to you is how the sun and moon could have appeared to have stood still from the frame of reference of a person standing on a crustal region that was decelerating for several hours while the crust absorbed the momentum imparted to it by an oblique impact into the crust that was perhaps somewhere between 4 or 5 thousand miles away.
Joshua may have even seen something of the fireball itself such as a much brighter morning for several minutes with light intensity surging and then dropping. This would have been very unusual to his experience and he may have been having doubts about good old faithful sol going haywire that day as well. Thus the interest in asking that the sun not set so quickly that the days plans not get finished.
The blast and fracture zone would have absorbed most of the energy as it was no doubt a very inelastic collision. My interest is in the momentum more so than the energy.
It was the crust that had to absorb that momentum and that meant there was going to be a great deal of moving around of crustal materials, so much so that I believe the crust and mantle developed many horizontal dislocations over some very large distances.
Karl,
A bolide that size, as you describe, with sufficient mass and energy to literally slow or stop the crust from rotating with the rest of the planet, would likely have liquified a good portion of the globe and caused a lot more than just the appearance of an arrested arc of sun. No one would have survived it to write it down.
The other thing that is clear in all this is that you have almost no confidence in extrapolation. If someone couldn't have been there to "see" it, then to you it's all just guessing.
Of course, when it comes to the Bible, there's no way to know if the people writing this stuff down were the ones who "saw" any of it—they could have been the equivalent of modern-day novelists spinning yarns for the court. Imagine if Stephen King's work was the only thing to survive a thousand years from now and people took it all as historical documentation.
Of course, if they're Stephen King fans, that would be all right…
Any geologist or astronomer can explain and demonstrate why all craters are circular, regardless of impact angle. I've already explained why any push on the crust will have only local effects, whether you call it an impact, an impulse, a collision, or any other term for exchange of moment.
The large distance over which that particular impact created movement is the ~180 mile diameter of the crater.
A crustal plate is not a rigid solid, but a floating brittle mat. The only way to move a whole plate is for the sticky goo underneath to develop a current, as in the mid-Atlantic upwelling. A tiny bolide will not move a plate. Again, a cubic kilometer is tiny even compared to the millions of cubic kilometers mass of the little Caribbean plate south of us.
And the collision was not inelastic. It splashed and expended its energy creating a debris cloud many times the mass of the incoming impactor. Impulse is mass times velocity. Much velocity was exchanged for ejected mass.
You propose a cute idea, suitable for a cartoon. But it has no resemblance to how things actually work.
Yup, they all agree that this shouldn't have happened either.
http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Mars_Express/SEMDV9BO3DG…
The key to all of this is the obliqueness of the approaching trajectory, as well as when and where the matter contained in the bolide had its matter mostly converted into the kinetic energy of it constituent tiny particles.
When did the bulk of the vaporization occur, and how much momentum did the partciles still possess?
Mark,
The rest of the planet didn't stop only the crust was distored and rearranged as the stuff down under kept rotating. Eventually the stuff down under brought the rearranged crust back up to nearly it original speed.
Those "elongated craters" are not mysterious to astronomers or cosmologists. But so many examples hadn't been observed previous to the recent planetary scans. Read The Moon's Great Crater Chains for a simple explanation. Compare the pictures of those features on the moon to those on Mars. There is no mystery.
And as I said before, the angle of impact does not change the round shape of a crater. If you understood integral calculus, you'd see it as the obvious and necessary result of impact vector integration.
I hate to feed the troll, but I hate to let sleazy debate tactics stand even more. Karl-
the link you provided does not indicate what you think it does. When you say "they all agree this shouldn't have happened", that is not true, and as usual in your case, reflects a complete misunderstanding of the text of the article and the relevant science behind it. The scientists with the European Space Agency in your link propose a number of reasonable explanations for how such a crater could be formed, several that have nothing to do with an impact scenario. They are clear to label it as speculation, not settled science, and provide evidence to back up their speculative conjectures.
For you, it seems to be enough to say "God did it." Period. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but you can never stop science from seeking to understand the mechanism by which it occurred. Please explain the mechanism by which your non-corporeal deity interacts with a wholly natural world without leaving any telltale fingerprints of such interference?
Also please explain why although ancient literature is full of miraculous and wonderful events which defy logic and your much-vaunted first-hand empirical observation, such events no longer take place today, when we are much better equipped to measure and understand such events. Perhaps god is a troll also?
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i.imgur.com/LYJR9.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 360px;" src="http://i.imgur.com/LYJR9.jpg" alt="" border="0" />
Dan,
When will you ever stop to consider that even the "experts" have to scratch their heads when they discover their "invariant assumptions" have exceptions. I was taught and teach others that in science one needs to be wary of any specific analysis that uses the terms always and never.
Would you agree that this is a suspect use of language? What you propose could never be what it looks like because I was told it was impossible because it is always expected to happen in a different way.
This wired article says there is NOT consensus and offers the most likely explanation as the possibility that a very oblique impact could be responsible for the puzzling martian crater.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/oblong-…
The crater was likely oblong from a single impact and was filled in by tectonic activity and liquifaction of the material inside of the planet. Read the article and don't just assume you have a pat answer for something that doesn't fit your assumption.
Dan,
Impact vector integration assumes certain parameters concerning the nature of the materials and/or the field interactions involved.
The distribution of materials in the earth, the earth's density and even its elasticity are not uniform and therefore these partial differential equations would have to be included in a thorough mathematical model, especially for the impacts at small oblique angles, where the horizontal components of velocity and momentum are much larger than the vertical components of velocity and momentum.
Karl, consider the source. Wired, ESA, Discover magazine and such popular, simplified, accessible sites are your sources. These are well known for presenting "gee-whiz" near-science liberally sprinkled among the actual settled science.
My source is an actual astrophysicist using many examples and explaining how we know that these are relevant.
Crater chains are observed all over to create these oval features. Your Mars Mystery crater even clearly has the series of round edges at the leading side. The trailing side could well have been messed up by the spray of debris rising from the earlier arrivals. But that is my own interpretation, as someone raised by an astrophysicist and with degrees in science. Ask an actual astrophysicist to confirm or refute my well educated guess.
No one has ever seen an oval crater made by a single item impact. Every impact experiment on Earth and in space has produced circular craters. Most crater producing impacts come from a wide variety of angles. Few come straight in. How many oval craters can you find on the moon?
Granting you the case of the Tunguska air burst produced a cardioidal feature. But this was shown to be a hydrodynamic feature of the air column creating the impact site, not the bolide itself. This was most likely an oblique approach superheating the incoming object before it could reach the ground. The more shallow the incident angle, the more of the kinetic energy is dissipated in the air, resulting in less impact on the ground.
Experts scratch their heads all the time. But once they figure out that 2+4=6, they stop scratching their heads about it.