Qs from public star parties

The last few evenings, like many of you, I've been doing some public star
parties in our area, spurred by public interest in Mars. 2 nights ago was
fun - about 100 kids from a local school were all at a parking lot & we had
a few scopes set up.

Last night was more challenging. I did a viewing session with about 30
people, most of who were in a local home-schooling co-op. Nice people, great
kids - but in our area, most home-schooled kids are home-schooled because
the parents have a religious agenda that sez the Earth is only a few
thousand years old. Apparently, this holds for the universe as well.

Of course, so many things in Astronomy are in conflict with this - but it
was interesting hearing the questions and the side discussions. I'm listing
some of them here, not to poke fun at these people - but hey, they're out
there, and you need to be ready for them:

"How do we know for sure that our galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in
diameter?"
"How do we know that Andromeda is 2 million light-years away?"
"I heard that Pluto is too small to be a planet"
"It takes just as much faith to believe in Science as it does to believe in
God"
"I heard we didn't really go to the Moon; we faked it"

I tried to answer the questions briefly - I wasn't there to challenge
anyone's worldview, just share a hobby I love.

My answers:

#s 1 and 2: Parallax only gets us out maybe a couple thousand lightyears.
Cephids and other standard candles do most of the rest.

#3: Since 'planet' is defined only by example, I think anyone who says this
is guilty of sloppy thinking: http://www.daveboll.com/planets/planet.html

#4: This wasn't asked directly to me, so I ignored it. But, if I were there
to challenge it, I would have said:
a) Science and God are not antithetical.
b) Science doesn't require "belief". Science only disproves, it doesn't
prove.
c) Science has a built-in error-correcting mechanism that religion lacks

#5: I gave a verbal pointer to www.badastronomy.com, and mentioned my top
two reasons we know we went.
1) We faked it... 6 times!?
2) In 1970, the (then) USSR did a sample return mission (Luna 16). The
rocks they brought back were unlike almost anything on Earth, and shared
some key similarities with the rocks that Apollo 11 brought back the
previous year. If there were any doubt that Apollo 11 was faked, the USSR
would have had a huge vested interest in announcing it to the world.

Beware of telescopes - they encourage thinking! 8)
-----------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/

"John Ladasky" wrote in message
om...
"Dave & Janelle" wrote in message
...


snip

Beware of telescopes - they encourage thinking! 8)

Shhh! John Ashcroft will have them outlawed! :^P


Good! That'd get me off my lazy ass and use mine more. Hell, I'd be
out every night until the Gest...er, Thought Polic...um...FBI came to take
me away.

Tom "Almost godwined my own post" McDonald
snip

"John Ladasky" wrote in message
om...
"Dave & Janelle" wrote in message
...


snip

Beware of telescopes - they encourage thinking! 8)

Shhh! John Ashcroft will have them outlawed! :^P


Good! That'd get me off my lazy ass and use mine more. Hell, I'd be
out every night until the Gest...er, Thought Polic...um...FBI came to take
me away.

Tom "Almost godwined my own post" McDonald
snip

"John Ladasky" wrote in message
om...

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...m.Stanford.EDU
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...m.Stanford.EDU
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...m.Stanford.EDU

Hi John

Thanks for the pointers - those are 3 interesting and well-written newsgroup
articles.

---------------------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/

"John Ladasky" wrote in message
om...

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...m.Stanford.EDU
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...m.Stanford.EDU
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...m.Stanford.EDU

Hi John

Thanks for the pointers - those are 3 interesting and well-written newsgroup
articles.

---------------------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/

"Dave & Janelle" wrote in message
...
The last few evenings, like many of you, I've been doing some public star
parties in our area, spurred by public interest in Mars. 2 nights ago was
fun - about 100 kids from a local school were all at a parking lot & we
had
a few scopes set up.

Last night was more challenging. I did a viewing session with about 30
people, most of who were in a local home-schooling co-op. Nice people,
great
kids - but in our area, most home-schooled kids are home-schooled because
the parents have a religious agenda that sez the Earth is only a few
thousand years old. Apparently, this holds for the universe as well.

Of course, so many things in Astronomy are in conflict with this - but it
was interesting hearing the questions and the side discussions. I'm
listing
some of them here, not to poke fun at these people - but hey, they're out
there, and you need to be ready for them:

"How do we know for sure that our galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in
diameter?"

Until recently, answers involving variable stars and spectroscopic parallax
(using standard luminosities for known spectral types) would have been all
you could give. But the recent observation of stellar motions at the centre
of the Galaxy, including the discovery of a star orbiting a giant black
hole, make direct use of radial velocity and astrometry to give directly
oserved distances, which incidentally are in total agreement with results
from cepheid variables, for example. If we have the distance to the centre
of the Galaxy correct, then our knowledge of the diameter of the Galaxy is
on a firm basis.

"How do we know that Andromeda is 2 million light-years away?"

The Cepheid variables (and other stars) appear to be exactly the same as
those in our own Galaxy. You know the rest. And a couple of years ago,
radio astronomers measured gas clouds orbiting a giant black hole in the
centre of a distant galaxy by both radial velocity and proper motion
techniques, and wer eable to derive a distance from these direct methods
which agreed completely with the cepheid variable method. So we know that
the method works, there is a huge amount of data that says it works, and
there is no evidence whatsoever that it is wrong.

"I heard that Pluto is too small to be a planet"

This is just a disagreement about classification; there is no disagreement
that Pluto is in a 248 year orbit, that it has a certain diameter, a large
moon for its size, is composed of a mixture of ices and rock, etc. When
Pluto was first discovered in 1930, it was reasonable to classify it as a
planet, and there is no real reason to change that classification now. But
it is generally agreed that it is also the largest member of a class of
outer solar system objects (Kuiper Belt Objects) so far discovered.

"It takes just as much faith to believe in Science as it does to believe
in
God"

If believing that you actually exist, and can interact with your environment
in a consistent way, and that you can believe your senses about everyday
events, involves faith, then this is true, but religion involves beliving in
things that cannot be observed, cannot be proven. You have had some other
good posts on this point.

"I heard we didn't really go to the Moon; we faked it"

Ask who told them this, and ask them to state the most convincing three
pieces of evidence that makes them believe it. Then proceed to demolish
them. There is an excellent compilation of "evidences" and demolitions on
the badastronomy web site.

The basic fact is, there would have had to have been a perfect and
leak-proof conspiracy involving tens of thousands of people to carry this
off. Yet the old saying has it, "Two can keep a secret--if one of them is
dead."


I tried to answer the questions briefly - I wasn't there to challenge
anyone's worldview, just share a hobby I love.

My answers:

#s 1 and 2: Parallax only gets us out maybe a couple thousand lightyears.
Cephids and other standard candles do most of the rest.

#3: Since 'planet' is defined only by example, I think anyone who says
this
is guilty of sloppy thinking: http://www.daveboll.com/planets/planet.html

#4: This wasn't asked directly to me, so I ignored it. But, if I were
there
to challenge it, I would have said:
a) Science and God are not antithetical.
b) Science doesn't require "belief". Science only disproves, it
doesn't
prove.

Science does much more than this! You are only mentioning the experimental
testing of theories. But the formulation of theories that can be tested is
the bedrock of science. Once a theory has been repeatedly tested, and
passed all the tests thrown at it, we give it our provisional assent. As
time passes, it becomes less and less likely that a serious challenge to a
successful theory will come along. Such challenges will involve adjustments
and deeper understandings rather than complete overthrow, with Newtonian
gravity and general relativity being an example.

c) Science has a built-in error-correcting mechanism that religion
lacks

True! No matter how many times you tell Kent Hovind and the other
creationists that their "science" is pure hogwash, and demonstrate their
errors, they go right on promoting them.


#5: I gave a verbal pointer to www.badastronomy.com, and mentioned my top
two reasons we know we went.
1) We faked it... 6 times!?
2) In 1970, the (then) USSR did a sample return mission (Luna 16). The
rocks they brought back were unlike almost anything on Earth, and shared
some key similarities with the rocks that Apollo 11 brought back the
previous year. If there were any doubt that Apollo 11 was faked, the USSR
would have had a huge vested interest in announcing it to the world.

Beware of telescopes - they encourage thinking! 8)
-----------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/





--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

"Dave & Janelle" wrote in message
...
The last few evenings, like many of you, I've been doing some public star
parties in our area, spurred by public interest in Mars. 2 nights ago was
fun - about 100 kids from a local school were all at a parking lot & we
had
a few scopes set up.

Last night was more challenging. I did a viewing session with about 30
people, most of who were in a local home-schooling co-op. Nice people,
great
kids - but in our area, most home-schooled kids are home-schooled because
the parents have a religious agenda that sez the Earth is only a few
thousand years old. Apparently, this holds for the universe as well.

Of course, so many things in Astronomy are in conflict with this - but it
was interesting hearing the questions and the side discussions. I'm
listing
some of them here, not to poke fun at these people - but hey, they're out
there, and you need to be ready for them:

"How do we know for sure that our galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in
diameter?"

Until recently, answers involving variable stars and spectroscopic parallax
(using standard luminosities for known spectral types) would have been all
you could give. But the recent observation of stellar motions at the centre
of the Galaxy, including the discovery of a star orbiting a giant black
hole, make direct use of radial velocity and astrometry to give directly
oserved distances, which incidentally are in total agreement with results
from cepheid variables, for example. If we have the distance to the centre
of the Galaxy correct, then our knowledge of the diameter of the Galaxy is
on a firm basis.

"How do we know that Andromeda is 2 million light-years away?"

The Cepheid variables (and other stars) appear to be exactly the same as
those in our own Galaxy. You know the rest. And a couple of years ago,
radio astronomers measured gas clouds orbiting a giant black hole in the
centre of a distant galaxy by both radial velocity and proper motion
techniques, and wer eable to derive a distance from these direct methods
which agreed completely with the cepheid variable method. So we know that
the method works, there is a huge amount of data that says it works, and
there is no evidence whatsoever that it is wrong.

"I heard that Pluto is too small to be a planet"

This is just a disagreement about classification; there is no disagreement
that Pluto is in a 248 year orbit, that it has a certain diameter, a large
moon for its size, is composed of a mixture of ices and rock, etc. When
Pluto was first discovered in 1930, it was reasonable to classify it as a
planet, and there is no real reason to change that classification now. But
it is generally agreed that it is also the largest member of a class of
outer solar system objects (Kuiper Belt Objects) so far discovered.

"It takes just as much faith to believe in Science as it does to believe
in
God"

If believing that you actually exist, and can interact with your environment
in a consistent way, and that you can believe your senses about everyday
events, involves faith, then this is true, but religion involves beliving in
things that cannot be observed, cannot be proven. You have had some other
good posts on this point.

"I heard we didn't really go to the Moon; we faked it"

Ask who told them this, and ask them to state the most convincing three
pieces of evidence that makes them believe it. Then proceed to demolish
them. There is an excellent compilation of "evidences" and demolitions on
the badastronomy web site.

The basic fact is, there would have had to have been a perfect and
leak-proof conspiracy involving tens of thousands of people to carry this
off. Yet the old saying has it, "Two can keep a secret--if one of them is
dead."


I tried to answer the questions briefly - I wasn't there to challenge
anyone's worldview, just share a hobby I love.

My answers:

#s 1 and 2: Parallax only gets us out maybe a couple thousand lightyears.
Cephids and other standard candles do most of the rest.

#3: Since 'planet' is defined only by example, I think anyone who says
this
is guilty of sloppy thinking: http://www.daveboll.com/planets/planet.html

#4: This wasn't asked directly to me, so I ignored it. But, if I were
there
to challenge it, I would have said:
a) Science and God are not antithetical.
b) Science doesn't require "belief". Science only disproves, it
doesn't
prove.

Science does much more than this! You are only mentioning the experimental
testing of theories. But the formulation of theories that can be tested is
the bedrock of science. Once a theory has been repeatedly tested, and
passed all the tests thrown at it, we give it our provisional assent. As
time passes, it becomes less and less likely that a serious challenge to a
successful theory will come along. Such challenges will involve adjustments
and deeper understandings rather than complete overthrow, with Newtonian
gravity and general relativity being an example.

c) Science has a built-in error-correcting mechanism that religion
lacks

True! No matter how many times you tell Kent Hovind and the other
creationists that their "science" is pure hogwash, and demonstrate their
errors, they go right on promoting them.


#5: I gave a verbal pointer to www.badastronomy.com, and mentioned my top
two reasons we know we went.
1) We faked it... 6 times!?
2) In 1970, the (then) USSR did a sample return mission (Luna 16). The
rocks they brought back were unlike almost anything on Earth, and shared
some key similarities with the rocks that Apollo 11 brought back the
previous year. If there were any doubt that Apollo 11 was faked, the USSR
would have had a huge vested interest in announcing it to the world.

Beware of telescopes - they encourage thinking! 8)
-----------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/





--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...

True! No matter how many times you tell Kent Hovind and the other
creationists that their "science" is pure hogwash, and demonstrate their
errors, they go right on promoting them.

I saw a Hovind video once... he knows just enough terminology that people
who don't know any science view him as a credible source.
-----------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...

True! No matter how many times you tell Kent Hovind and the other
creationists that their "science" is pure hogwash, and demonstrate their
errors, they go right on promoting them.

I saw a Hovind video once... he knows just enough terminology that people
who don't know any science view him as a credible source.
-----------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/

"Dave & Janelle" wrote in message
...

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...

True! No matter how many times you tell Kent Hovind and the other
creationists that their "science" is pure hogwash, and demonstrate their
errors, they go right on promoting them.

I saw a Hovind video once... he knows just enough terminology that people
who don't know any science view him as a credible source.
-----------------------
Dave Boll
http://www.daveboll.com/



You have my full sympathy!

See www.talkorigins.org for loads of good material for those moments when
confronted by creationist blather. Mainly a site about the mainstream
science of evolution, but some of the index items concern the "young Earth"
creationist material and Hovind in particular.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)