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Author Topic:   Evolution on Trial by Bill Whitehouse
cavediver
Member (Idle past 3673 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 25 of 42 (351863)
09-24-2006 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Moe
09-24-2006 5:23 PM


Hi Moe, welcome to EvC
I'm an ex-astrophysicist/cosmologist, so I leave evolution arguments to everyone else here at EvC. But I did glance through the book and noticed one rather alarming point.
quote:
"Was the Yucatan crater the result of a statistical anomaly?" asked the defense lawyer. "In other words, can we assume that between, say, 3.8 billion years ago and 65 million years ago, there were probably few, if any, large-sized meteoric impacts on Earth?"
"Such an assumption would be a reasonable one," the professor said.
  —Sweet Mysteries of Life - Part One
I was very surprised by this... reading on I discovered why such a bizarre notion is claimed:
quote:
"The Chicxlub[sic], Yucatan crater, by way of comparison, is calculated to have been created by an object some 300 kilometers in diameter. Thus, it is intermediate in size between meteorites capable of evaporating the ocean and meteorites able to boil away the 200 meter photic zone near the ocean's surface.
oh my, I am really really glad Chicxulub was not 300km across!!! Ouch! I can't remember the correct rough size myself as old age (well into my 30's!) is affecting my memory, but a quick sneak to Wiki reveals:
quote:
Chicxulub Crater (IPA: /t‘ik‘u'lub/) is an ancient impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula, with its center located approximately underneath the town of Chicxulub, Yucatán, Mexico. Investigations suggest that this impact structure is dated from the late Cretaceous Period, about 65 million years ago. The meteorite's estimated size was about 10 km (6 mi) in diameter, releasing an estimated 5.01023 joules of energy, approximately 100,000 gigatons of TNT[1], on impact.
So I'm afraid I have to conclude that there are some serious scientific errors in this text.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Moe, posted 09-24-2006 5:23 PM Moe has not replied

  
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