[net.origins] "Scientific Creationism" ala Morris

dew@ihlts.UUCP (dewysama) (04/10/84)

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I just acquired a copy of the Henry Morris text titled
"Scientific Creationism"  (Public School Edition).
The book is an incredible melange of assertions, mostly
in areas where I personally have limited knowledge.
I would be interested in some intelligent comments on
whether these assertions have any validity. For starters:

1. Earth/Moon (p31) --
     "Finally, the moon landings have permitted
      man actually to study the composition and
      structure of some of the materials from at
      least one extra-terrestrial body. Enough has
      been found now to permit the firm conclusion
      that the earth and its moon are of vastly different
      structure and therefore could not have the same
      celestial evolutionary ancestor.'"
   He then goes on to extrapolate this "different structure,
   therefore different origin" position to the other planets
   of the solar system.

2. Angular Momentum (p31) -- 
     "Even before [the above] discovery, of course, a considerable 
      number of serious fallacies in all such evolutionary
      explanations of the origin of the solar system had been
      pointed out by various writers.  These difficulties included:
      1. The concentration of 98% of the angular momentum of the
         solar system in the planets when 99.8% of the mass of
         the solar system is concentrated in the sun.
    ...
      4. The fact that one-third of the planetary satellites have
         retrograde orbits with respect to the rotational direction
         of their respective planets.

      These and other phenomena had proved incapable of reasonable
      explanation in terms of any of the evolutionary theories.  As
      a result, many astronomers have been frank enough to admit that
      none of them is satisfactory. The new information about the
      moon structure, however, must be the final blow."

I hadn't realized that science was in such bad shape!  Any comments?
-- 
                      Don Wilson...ihnp4!ihlts!dew

                 At&T-Bell Labs IH 5B-411 (312) 979-4105

flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) (04/10/84)

---

	Don Wilson asked for comments on some statements in a book
called "Scientific Creationism," by a Mr. Henry Morris:

|--------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1. Earth/Moon (p31) -- "Finally, the moon landings have permitted man
| actually to study the composition and structure of some of the
| materials from at least one extra-terrestrial body. Enough has been
| found now to permit the firm conclusion that the earth and its moon are
| of vastly different structure and therefore could not have the same
| celestial evolutionary ancestor.'" He then goes on to extrapolate this
| "different structure, therefore different origin" position to the other
| planets of the solar system.
|--------------------------------------------------------------------

	This is untrue, and says a lot more about Morris's definition
of "vastly different" than it does about the solar system.  The
Earth and Moon are actually very similar in structure and composition,
and we now understand reasonably well the way both bodies originally
formed in the primordial solar system.  The major differences are in
the abundances of certain rare elements, which require a model in which
the Moon formed separately from the Earth, but close enough to it in
the solar nebula for the major elements to be similar.  All the rocks
and minerals found on the Moon are of types also found on the Earth.
There is no mystery here.

|--------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2. Angular Momentum (p31) -- "Even before [the above] discovery, of
| course, a considerable number of serious fallacies in all such
| evolutionary explanations of the origin of the solar system had been
| pointed out by various writers.  These difficulties included:  1. The
| concentration of 98% of the angular momentum of the solar system in the
| planets when 99.8% of the mass of the solar system is concentrated in
| the sun.  ...  4. The fact that one-third of the planetary satellites
| have retrograde orbits with respect to the rotational direction of
| their respective planets.
| 	These and other phenomena had proved incapable of reasonable
| explanation in terms of any of the evolutionary theories.  As a result,
| many astronomers have been frank enough to admit that none of them is
| satisfactory. The new information about the moon structure, however,
| must be the final blow."
|--------------------------------------------------------------------

	Again, these are non-problems.  When planetary bodies coagulate
from a rotating nebula of dust and gas, you *expect* the angular
momentum to be carried in the planets, not in the central body.  I
can't imagine what authors Morris is citing here - probably rather dim
ones of a century or so ago.  How about a list of the "many
astronomers" who "admit" that they can't account for these facts, with
references?

|--------------------------------------------------------------------
| I hadn't realized that science was in such bad shape!
|--------------------------------------------------------------------

	It's not.