CA114.1: Kelvin and Dawkins

[Robert Carnegie]

I'm reading _The God Delusion_ in bathroom breaks, and
Richard Dawkins accuses Lord Kelvin of misrepresenting
science in order to undermine evolution, basically.
From Google Books: "[he] tried to demonstrate that
evolution was ruled out for lack of time."

I haven't heard it put that way before about how he
addressed the age of the Sun, and, therefore, of
life on the Earth. It's sympathetically told that
Kelvin declared honestly that there was (then)
no known way for the Sun to produce energy for
millions of years. Then it was discovered that
energy can come out of atoms, which is how the Sun
produces heat, briefly. And yet there was fossil
evidence of the length of the Earth's prehistory.

So did Kelvin cheat in order to rebut evolution?

It appears that he didn't /like/ evolution.
"If evolution there has been" - see below.

"Google's cache of http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA114_1.html"
(currently down) says,

Lord Kelvin believed in evolution, but with intelligent guidance:

From the Earth stocked with such vegetation as it could
receive meteorically, to the Earth teeming with all the
endless variety of plants and animals which now inhabit it,
the step is prodigious; yet, according to the doctrine of
continuity, most ably laid before the Association by a
predecessor in this Chair (Mr. Grove), all creatures now
living on earth have proceeded by orderly evolution from
some such origin. Darwin concludes his great work on
`The Origin of Species' with the following words:-
"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank
clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds
singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting
about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth,
and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms,
so different from each other, and dependent on each other
in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws
acting around us." . . . . "There is grandeur in this
view of life with its several powers, having been
originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms
or one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on
according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple
a beginning endless forms, most beautiful and most
wonderful, have been and are being evolved."
With the feeling expressed in these two sentences
I most cordially sympathize. I have omitted two sentences
which come between them, describing briefly the hypothesis
of "the origin of species by natural selection," because
I have always felt that this hypothesis does not contain
the true theory of evolution, if evolution there has been,
in biology. Sir John Herschel, in expressing a favourable
judgment on the hypothesis of zoological evolution
(with, however, some reservation in respect to the origin
of man), objected to the doctrine of natural selection,
that it was too like the Laputan method of making books,
and that it did not sufficiently take into account
a continually guiding and controlling intelligence.
This seems to me a most valuable and instructive
criticism. I feel profoundly convinced that the
argument of design has been greatly too much lost
sight of in recent zoological speculations. Reaction
against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to
be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned
commentators on Paley's `Natural Theology,' has
I believe had a temporary effect in turning attention
from the solid and irrefragable argument so well put
forward in that excellent old book. But overpoweringly
strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie
all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether
metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them
for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible
force, showing to us through Nature the influence of
a free will, and teaching us that all living things
depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler.'
(Thomson 1871, ciii)

References:
Thomson, W. 1871. Address of Sir William Thomson, Knt.,
LL.D., F.R.S, President. Report of the Forty-First Meeting
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
lxxxiv-cv.

[Richard Norman]

My impression, which I haven't actually checked out, is that he also
calculated a young age of the earth by how long it would take for a
sphere to cool. He didn't know about heat production in the interior
of the earth by radioactive decay.

All the best science he knew indicated neither the sun nor the earth
could be old enough to support evolution. Those are pretty powerful
arguments against evolution.

[John S. Wilkins]

Actually, Buffon did that experiment in the 1700s. Thompson's
calculations were based on thermodynamics and better assumptions.
Rutherford recounts worrying about offending Thompson (then Kelvin) when
announcing radioactivity, but came up with the idea of using a
qualifying clause (something like "in the absence of any other process")
in Thompson's work as an indication that he had predicted it (which he
hadn't).
--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

[Friar Broccoli]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 18:27:12 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>I'm reading _The God Delusion_ in bathroom breaks, and
>Richard Dawkins accuses Lord Kelvin of misrepresenting
>science in order to undermine evolution, basically.
>From Google Books: "[he] tried to demonstrate that
>evolution was ruled out for lack of time."
>
>I haven't heard it put that way before about how he
>addressed the age of the Sun, and, therefore, of
>life on the Earth. It's sympathetically told that
>Kelvin declared honestly that there was (then)
>no known way for the Sun to produce energy for
>millions of years. Then it was discovered that
>energy can come out of atoms, which is how the Sun
>produces heat, briefly. And yet there was fossil
>evidence of the length of the Earth's prehistory.

.

>So did Kelvin cheat in order to rebut evolution?

This (from Dawkins) seems extremely unfair. There was huge disagreement
even among Darwin's closest supporters. For example according to Bowler

http://books.google.ca/books?id=e2b5B0po8fwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Huxley was a saltationist, Wallace thought people had arisen as a result
of divine intervention, and of course Spencer was a Lamarckian. Also,
again according to Bowler, NS was loosing out to Lamarckianism until
about 1920 after Mendel's ideas were rediscovered and their implications
worked out by Fisher.

--
Friar Broccoli (Robert Keith Elias), Quebec Canada
I consider ALL arguments in support of my views

[alias Ernest Major]

On 17/05/2013 03:43, Friar Broccoli wrote:
> On Thu, 16 May 2013 18:27:12 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>

>> >I'm reading_The God Delusion_ in bathroom breaks, and

>> >Richard Dawkins accuses Lord Kelvin of misrepresenting
>> >science in order to undermine evolution, basically.
>>From Google Books: "[he] tried to demonstrate that
>> >evolution was ruled out for lack of time."
>> >
>> >I haven't heard it put that way before about how he
>> >addressed the age of the Sun, and, therefore, of
>> >life on the Earth. It's sympathetically told that
>> >Kelvin declared honestly that there was (then)
>> >no known way for the Sun to produce energy for
>> >millions of years. Then it was discovered that
>> >energy can come out of atoms, which is how the Sun
>> >produces heat, briefly. And yet there was fossil
>> >evidence of the length of the Earth's prehistory.
> .
>
>> >So did Kelvin cheat in order to rebut evolution?
> This (from Dawkins) seems extremely unfair. There was huge disagreement
> even among Darwin's closest supporters. For example according to Bowler
>
> http://books.google.ca/books?id=e2b5B0po8fwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
>
> Huxley was a saltationist, Wallace thought people had arisen as a result
> of divine intervention, and of course Spencer was a Lamarckian. Also,
> again according to Bowler, NS was loosing out to Lamarckianism until
> about 1920 after Mendel's ideas were rediscovered and their implications
> worked out by Fisher.
>

The quoted sentence ("[he] tried to demonstrate that
>> >evolution was ruled out for lack of time.") is not an accusation of
misrepresenting science.

At the time estimates of the age of the earth from geology and from
physics were discordant. Kelvin would have had more confidence in the
rates of the processes used in the latter case than those used in the
former; his problem, in hindsight, is that he didn't know about a
relevant process.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Robert Carnegie]

I thought of another angle on this. What about the age of the Universe?
The "universe" known to Kelvin only consisted of this Galaxy, which is
about 100,000 light years across. So, stars on the far side are maybe
100,000 light years away. And there's a variety of ages, but they
look about as healthy on average as stars nearby do, I suppose.
Does that count as a clue that stars last a lot longer - mostly -
than hundreds of thousands of years? A clue that Kelvin should have
considered? And, if it isn't such a clue, why isn't it?

[Richard Norman]

A six thousand year old earth is not the only alternative. Hundreds
of thousands of years or even millions of years is still far too short
a time for evolution to work.

[Friar Broccoli]

I assumed Robert had other unquoted context.

>At the time estimates of the age of the earth from geology and from
>physics were discordant. Kelvin would have had more confidence in the
>rates of the processes used in the latter case than those used in the
>former; his problem, in hindsight, is that he didn't know about a
>relevant process.

--

[J. J. Lodder]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

> I thought of another angle on this. What about the age of the Universe?
> The "universe" known to Kelvin only consisted of this Galaxy, which is
> about 100,000 light years across.

Yes but Kelvin didn't know that.
Only a tiny fraction of the Galaxy is visible,
the rest was unknown.
Extra-Galactic objects were also unknown. (to be extra-Galactic)

> So, stars on the far side are maybe
> 100,000 light years away. And there's a variety of ages, but they
> look about as healthy on average as stars nearby do, I suppose.
> Does that count as a clue that stars last a lot longer - mostly -
> than hundreds of thousands of years? A clue that Kelvin should have
> considered? And, if it isn't such a clue, why isn't it?

Not applicable.
Any anyway, Kelvin's estimates ranged
from 20 milion to 100 million years,
Far too long for young earth creationism,
and far too short for geology and evolution,

Jan

[Walter Bushell]

In article <1l30ks4.7pbpbv1m2syquN%jo...@wilkins.id.au>,

This goes to show how top scientists using correct reasoning can go
wrong.

--
Gambling with Other People's Money is the meth of the fiscal industry.
me -- in the spirit of Karl and Groucho Marx

[Walter Bushell]

In article <43f84f71-9574-4a24...@googlegroups.com>,

Well we don't know the far away stars are still there either, at least
in Kelvin's time.

[jillery]

On Fri, 17 May 2013 10:27:17 +0100, alias Ernest Major
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.ukl> wrote:

Yeppers. Although this isn't the only time Lord Kelvin's misplaced
confidence caused him to suffer foot-in-mouth. He was also among
multiple scientists who believed that everything fundamental was
known, and future science was relegated to mere refinements and
details. He also once declared heavier-than-air flying machines were
impossible. I suppose he thought birds and bees mere illusion.

[eridanus]

El viernes, 17 de mayo de 2013 14:12:25 UTC+1, Walter Bushell escribi�:

This shows also the limited confidence we can have on logical reasoning.

Dear Lord Kelvin could not imagine either how asteroids had formed in more
or less globular form. Or by the way, the process of accumulating mass to
form the earth with a particular temperature. It is not enough to say, the earth has a molten interior, and had been getting colder in some million
years. Then, reading the short biography of Kelvin in the wiki, this man
had a problem of excessive ego and petulance.
Lord Kelvin had not any sense of modesty, and such a thing as to accept
some degree of ignorance was out of question for him.

Eridanus

[jillery]

Yeppers. More recently, evidence from radioactive decay suggested the
Earth to be over 4 billion years old, while evidence of redshifts from
receding galaxies suggested the Universe to be only a billion years
old. This put science in the uncomfortable position of declaring
Earth older than the Universe it occupied.

Of course, more recently, data of the Cosmic Microwave Background
suggests the Universe to be 13.72 billion years old. As Lawrence
Krauss is fond of pointing out, all 4 digits are accurate with high
confidence. Future history will decide if he follows Lord Kelvin's
footsteps.

[Paul J Gans]

This is an argument like that of moving continents. Lord
Kelvin assumed that the entire mass of the sun was make of
carbon and then assumed that the carbon was burning.

This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
Darwinian evolution.

The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better
method for producing a hot sun. It was only with the discovery
of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
we had an old sun.

So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. He did the best he could with
the information available to him.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[Paul J Gans]

s/are/were/g

[alias Ernest Major]

On 17/05/2013 17:02, jillery wrote:
> On Fri, 17 May 2013 04:39:32 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>> I thought of another angle on this. What about the age of the Universe?
>> The "universe" known to Kelvin only consisted of this Galaxy, which is
>> about 100,000 light years across. So, stars on the far side are maybe
>> 100,000 light years away. And there's a variety of ages, but they
>> look about as healthy on average as stars nearby do, I suppose.
>> Does that count as a clue that stars last a lot longer - mostly -
>> than hundreds of thousands of years? A clue that Kelvin should have
>> considered? And, if it isn't such a clue, why isn't it?
>
>
> Yeppers. More recently, evidence from radioactive decay suggested the
> Earth to be over 4 billion years old, while evidence of redshifts from
> receding galaxies suggested the Universe to be only a billion years
> old. This put science in the uncomfortable position of declaring
> Earth older than the Universe it occupied.

As I recall the problem was that the stars in the oldest globular
clusters were estimated to be about a billion years older than the age
of the universe as inferred from expansion rates, but both were about 3
times the age of the earth. In those days the uncertainties in both
numbers were measured in billions of years.

The problem was in measuring astronomical distance. Astronomical
distances come into both measures.

>
> Of course, more recently, data of the Cosmic Microwave Background
> suggests the Universe to be 13.72 billion years old. As Lawrence
> Krauss is fond of pointing out, all 4 digits are accurate with high
> confidence. Future history will decide if he follows Lord Kelvin's
> footsteps.
>

--
alias Ernest Major

[jillery]

ISTM the problem was that Lord Kelvin did not acknowledge the limits
of his knowledge.

>So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. He did the best he could with
>the information available to him.

If this were a singular event, perhaps so. But it happened often
enough that he has rightfully become an icon for a necessary
cautionary tale.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 17 May 2013 13:42:48 UTC+1, Friar Broccoli wrote:
> On Fri, 17 May 2013 10:27:17 +0100, alias Ernest Major
> <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.ukl> wrote:
> >The quoted sentence ("[he] tried to demonstrate that
> >evolution was ruled out for lack of time.") is not
�> >an accusation of misrepresenting science.
>
> I assumed Robert had other unquoted context.

Only that he was a "pillar of nineteenth century British
physics" and, like fewer and fewer scientists nowadays,
a "devout Christian". The business with evolution
seems to be offered by Professor Dawk�ins as an
expression of that, and, therefore, not a neutral and
fair contribution to scientific debate of the day.

<http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&redir_esc=y>
lets us peek at that, but not more than I've quoted.

[Paul J Gans]

Yes, but the caution is ingested with one's training. Since
one cannot predict what will be discovered in the future, there
is no way to allow for it.

So all the scientific literature is read with an assumed "as
far as we know today" attached to it.

It is like the speed of light as a universal speed limit.
It could turn out in 2113 that the speed of light is what
you get in first gear. In that case all sorts of suppositions
today, including panspermy, will need revision.

[eridanus]

El viernes, 17 de mayo de 2013 18:44:46 UTC+1, Paul J Gans escribi�:

See what you have said,"He did the best he could with the information
available to him". It means we can only reason on the base of what
other people is telling. This is a sort of negation about the
independence of our intelligence. It means we are reasoning over the
errors of our predecessors. And that is true in fact, but it is rather
a sad situation. In fact the errors of most people thinking, interfere
with our ability to create more successful models.
If Kelvin were much less petulant than he was... he would have said
something different about the sun. Something like, the only source of
heat for the sun that comes to my mind is coal, but then, the sun would
had not lasted that long, as some geologist are postulating for the age
of the earth. Then, if the theory of evolution is also correct, that
means the earth most be more than 500 millions old. Then, the sun must
be burning with other matter than coal. Which can be this matter we do
not not know. We are too far off from the sun to examine how it is
burning. But even if were were close enough to the sun we would not
live to tell anyone.

Then, the sin of Kelvin was a sin of petulance, and an absolute lack
of modesty. I believe modern scientists are a lot more modest than
Lord Kelvin. I had seen in some videos some scientist confessing "we
are not sure about that". Or some phrase like, "It looks that it is
like this." This is modesty.

Eridanus

[J. J. Lodder]

Rutherford wrote,
I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord
Kelvin in the audience and realized that I was in trouble at the last
part of my speech dealing with the age of the earth, where my views
conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I
came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye, and
cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said,
'Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the earth, provided no new source
was discovered. That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now
considering tonight, radium!' Behold! the old boy beamed upon me.

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

It's just been corrected to 13.8

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

Sure, merely infinitely many 'fundamental'constants to measure.

> He also once declared heavier-than-air flying machines were
> impossible. I suppose he thought birds and bees mere illusion.

Certainly not.
He just calculated that you would need a machine of a ton or so
to transport just a fly's weight.

So not in principle, just practically.
The practicalities improved somewhat,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

"Why aren't they here?"

Jan

[Richard Norman]

On Fri, 17 May 2013 11:06:05 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

I just saw in Wikipedia that the claim of Kelvin's that everything was
known, something I too always thought correct, is not verified. It is
quite likely he never said that. In fact in the same year he is
supposed to have made the remark (1900) he gave a talk on the two
really serious problems facing physics that could not be resolved: the
Michelson-Morley experiment and black body radiation. These, in fact,
were explained later only by special relativity and quantum mechanics.
So he could not have been so sanguine about "the end of physics."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin#Pronouncements_later_proven_to_be_false

[Richard Norman]

They never learned to double clutch and stripped the gears shifting.

[Paul J Gans]

They zipped by so fast that they missed us.

[Paul J Gans]

Boy, you *are* giving your age away...

[Richard Norman]

On Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:08 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

For far too many years I would stomp my left foot into the floor when
I slowed down in a car with that newfangled Hydra-Matic Drive.

[jillery]

I hope Krauss can take the news.

[jillery]

There was more than one age crisis. You refer to one from the 1990's.
The one I refer to is much earlier. The principle evidence for an
expanding universe was Hubble's measurements of receding galaxies.
From that, the age of the Universe was originally calculated to be
about 1.6 billion years old. In the 1950's Walter Baade's discovery
of two types of Cepheid variables convinced him to double the
estimated age to 3.6 billion years old. During this same time,
radiometric dating showed the Earth to be at least 4 billion years
old, from which comes the age crisis.

[jillery]

On Fri, 17 May 2013 19:58:28 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

There are different kinds of ignorance. Haldane said it better than
Rumsfeld: "The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but
queerer than we can suppose." What you describe in your last
paragraph falls into the category of things we know we don't know. WRT
the age of the Sun, Thompson's ignorance falls into the category of
the things we don't know we don't know, in this case that of nuclear
fusion. I agree with you, to hold someone accountable for that is the
hubris of hindsight.

But that is not the failing to which I hold Lord Kelvin to account,
but his own hubris of extrapolating certainty from his own imagination
and ignorance:

<http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_age_of_the_suns_heat.html>

Lord Kelvin asserted conclusions based on his wholly imaginary
"meteoric theory" for the Sun's current heat output. And from those
conclusions, he extrapolated beyond all reasonable limits the age of
the Sun and so the age of the Earth. To my knowledge, he never said
"if X is true, then Y is possible" but "assume X, because that is the
only possibility, therefore Y and therefore Z". That is an entirely
different kind of hubris, that of conflating assumptions with
evidence. So it's appropriate that you mention panspermy here, as it
is often argued with similar hubris.

[Mike Dworetsky]

I don't think this is correct. Kelvin was one of the two scientists who
first established that a slowly collapsing self-gravitating sphere of gas
(the other was Helmholtz) would release energy. This collapse would be
enough to power the Sun's radiation for about 30-50 million years. Do you
have a reference for the carbon burning claim?

>
> This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
> no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
> Darwinian evolution.
>
> The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better
> method for producing a hot sun. It was only with the discovery
> of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
> discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
> we had an old sun.
>
> So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. He did the best he could with
> the information available to him.

--

Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

[jillery]

On Fri, 17 May 2013 23:29:54 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

It turns out that I misread my cite. I had understood Kelvin's
meteoric theory to be that of gravitational collapse by a different
name. That is not the case. According to this:

<http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/134/lectures/ages-of-earth-sun.pdf>

The gravitational collapse model was previously proposed by Newton and
Helmholtz. Kelvin proposed his meteoric theory as an alternative
explanation, which he later retracted and accepted Helmholtz' model.

As an ironic sidebar, the article points out that in 1890, John Perry
pointed out that by making different assumptions of the physics of a
cooling Earth, Kelvin's calculations showed that the age of the Earth
could be as much as a billion years old. Lord Kelvin agreed in
principle, but pointed out that would make the Earth much older than
the Sun, and dismissed Perry's arguments for that reason.

[Paul J Gans]

You drove one of those too? I learned on a shift drive because
that was what we had. I had left foot problems too. Now I don't
know what to do with my left foot.

I know, I know. Some will say "insert it in mouth..."

[Paul J Gans]

Writing style was very different then. Authority figures
spoke with authority. They still mostly do.

[Paul J Gans]

It is an old and possibly inaccurate tale. But it is suggested
in the paper given at:

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_age_of_the_suns_heat.html

where he writes:

"That some form of the meteoric theory is certainly the true and
complete explanation of solar heat can scarcely be doubted, when
the following reasons are considered:

"(1.) No other natural explanation, except by chemical action,
can be conceived.

"(2.) The chemical theory is quite insufficient, because the most
energetic chemical action we know, taking place between substances
amounting to the whole sun's mass, would only generate about 3,000
years' heat.[9]

"(3.) There is no difficulty in accounting for 20,000,000 years'
heat by the meteoric theory."

Reference 9 is to: "Mechanical Energies of the Solar System. See
note p. 351.



These references suggest that the tale is old:

http://www.preservearticles.com/201012302079/what-powers-the-sun.html

http://www2.astro.psu.edu/users/cpalma/astro1h/class2.html

Googling for coal burning sun theory will give many more.

>> This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
>> no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
>> Darwinian evolution.
>>
>> The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better
>> method for producing a hot sun. It was only with the discovery
>> of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
>> discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
>> we had an old sun.
>>
>> So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. He did the best he could with
>> the information available to him.



--

--- Paul J. Gans

[jillery]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:47:56 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

Posters who speak of panspermy are not speaking from authority, nor
are they authority figures.

[Mike Dworetsky]

OK, but I was mainly claiming that he did not believe it was an explanation,
and that he spent some time showing that it was inadequate.

>
>
>>> This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
>>> no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
>>> Darwinian evolution.
>>>
>>> The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better
>>> method for producing a hot sun. It was only with the discovery
>>> of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
>>> discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
>>> we had an old sun.
>>>
>>> So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. He did the best he could with
>>> the information available to him.

--

[Paul J Gans]

I don't know what's with panspermy. Yes, I mentioned it
as a throw-away line that I thought some might find
amusing. My only point was that if one could go at
500 times the speed of light, many stars are right next
door.

[Paul J Gans]

Oh, I get that. I was parroting some "knowlege" that I
thought was common. I'd never checked it but it seems
as if someone mentioned it at some point but folks with
any technical sense mostly ignored it.

What I tried to show above is that it wasn't *me* who
thunk it up.

>>
>>
>>>> This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
>>>> no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
>>>> Darwinian evolution.
>>>>
>>>> The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better
>>>> method for producing a hot sun. It was only with the discovery
>>>> of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
>>>> discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
>>>> we had an old sun.
>>>>
>>>> So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. He did the best he could with
>>>> the information available to him.

>--
>Mike Dworetsky

>(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

[jillery]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 02:05:28 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

Of course, but then one trips over the Fermi Paradox. If ETs had
developed FTL for panspermy anytime from the billion years ago or
more, they would have had plenty of time to cover the entire galaxy,
and we should detect them. But we don't.

[Ron O]

On May 17, 12:44�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> >I'm reading _The God Delusion_ in bathroom breaks, and
> >Richard Dawkins accuses Lord Kelvin of misrepresenting
> >science in order to undermine evolution, basically.
> >From Google Books: "[he] tried to demonstrate that
> >evolution was ruled out for lack of time."
> >I haven't heard it put that way before about how he
> >addressed the age of the Sun, and, therefore, of

> >life on the Earth. �It's sympathetically told that

> >Kelvin declared honestly that there was (then)
> >no known way for the Sun to produce energy for

> >millions of years. �Then it was discovered that

> >energy can come out of atoms, which is how the Sun

> >produces heat, briefly. �And yet there was fossil

> >evidence of the length of the Earth's prehistory.
> >So did Kelvin cheat in order to rebut evolution?
> >It appears that he didn't /like/ evolution.
> >"If evolution there has been" - see below.

> >"Google's cache ofhttp://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA114_1.html"

> > � �Thomson, W. 1871. Address of Sir William Thomson, Knt.,

> >LL.D., F.R.S, President. Report of the Forty-First Meeting
> >of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
> >lxxxiv-cv.
>

> This is an argument like that of moving continents. �Lord

> Kelvin assumed that the entire mass of the sun was make of
> carbon and then assumed that the carbon was burning.
>
> This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
> no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
> Darwinian evolution.
>
> The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better

> method for producing a hot sun. �It was only with the discovery

> of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
> discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
> we had an old sun.
>

> So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. �He did the best he could with

> the information available to him.
>

> --
> � �--- Paul J. Gans

QUOTE:
In 1862 Kelvin estimated the age of the Earth to be 98 million years,
based on a model of the rate of cooling. This was a minimum acceptable
age consistent with geology. Later in 1897 he revised his estimate
downwards to 20-40 million years. This was too short for the
geologists to swallow. Estimates of the age of the Sun were also too
small to be consistent with geology.
END QUOTE:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geohist.html

QUOTE:
This age is attributed to Barnes (14). Barnes (14) summarizes and
supports the arguments developed first in 1862 by Sir William Thomson
(Lord Kelvin), who calculated that the Earth could be no less than 20
million and no more than 400 million years old (127). Kelvin�s
calculations were based on the presumption that the Earth was cooling
from an initial white-hot molten state, and his calculations
determined how long it would take for the observed geothermal gradient
to reach its present configuration. Kelvin also calculated that the
Sun is probably no more than 100 million years old and almost
certainly no more than 500 million years old (126). These upper limits
for the age of the Sun were based on his estimate of the available
supply of gravitational energy, which, he concluded, would not last
many millions of years longer. Nuclear reactions, which we now know
are responsible for the Sun�s fires, were unknown in Kelvin�s time.
The value of 24 million years, preferred by Barnes (14) and listed by
Morris and Parker (97) as the age of the Earth, is attributed by
Barnes to Kelvin but was, in fact, first published by King (73). Lord
Kelvin (82), however, agreed with King�s value and adopted it as a
likely upper limit for the age of the Earth.
END QUOTE:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/creationist_age_earth.html


Ron Okimoto

[Paul J Gans]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 19 May 2013 02:05:28 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
><gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:47:56 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
>>><gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>On Fri, 17 May 2013 19:58:28 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
>>>>><gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:

[giant snip]

That's another discussion entirely. I'm of the opinion that they
could have been by here any number of times but don't recognize
us as "life forms".

After all, we can't even define it, so how would we know about
non-mechanical but sentient seaweed? Or a life form that used
a totally different scheme than DNA for encoding its form
of life.

And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
noted.

[Robert Carnegie]

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8419174

says that "On the Mechanical Energies of the Solar System"
is Thomson's (Kelvin's) own. Presumably there he disposes
of combustion in the sun.

I suppose that the ancient Greeks thought of fire,
perhaps eternal fire, as the nature of the Sun's
light and heat - together with many contrary ideas,
as usual. One of your other links mentions the Sun
being found to be - at the surface - ma�inly hydrogen.
It then would be a question of known (or unknown)
chemical reactions of hydrogen. Otherwise, it makes
sense to consider coal - or rather coal and oxygen.
In a recent Q & A in TV show _The Sky at Night_,
a viewer wrote to ask why hydrogen gas giant planets
don't explode like a twentieth-century airship
when an asteroid strikes; obvious answer, no oxygen.

Lord Kelvin does seem to prefer his own science and
his religion to someone else's science and no
religion. I think it's unclear so far how much of
the difference is religion - which is Richard Dawkins'
accusation, and/or mine. But he seems to be exercising
undue influence, with an effect that favours religion
over the theory of evolution - and I said he disliked
evolution.

[jillery]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 18:27:20 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

It doesn't matter what ET thinks of us. It is enough that they are
material beings who leave behind evidence of their material existence,
and in this case, of FTL travel.

>After all, we can't even define it, so how would we know about
>non-mechanical but sentient seaweed? Or a life form that used
>a totally different scheme than DNA for encoding its form
>of life.
>
>And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
>know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
>life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
>noted.

Your premise to which I responded was of FTL travel. When you posit
the lack of FTL, you make moot your previous complaint. I'm not
interested in chasing goalposts.

[Paul J Gans]

And how would you know that they haven't done just that?

>>After all, we can't even define it, so how would we know about
>>non-mechanical but sentient seaweed? Or a life form that used
>>a totally different scheme than DNA for encoding its form
>>of life.
>>
>>And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
>>know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
>>life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
>>noted.


>Your premise to which I responded was of FTL travel. When you posit
>the lack of FTL, you make moot your previous complaint. I'm not
>interested in chasing goalposts.

I have no idea what you are driving at. My point was that
tomorrow's discoveries can make a lot of today's questions
vanish. So it is unfair to accuse Kelvin of not knowing
what we know today.

In fact I personally doubt that very many of Europe's scientists
in Kelvin's day were young earthers. They were just reporting
what the data show.

[jillery]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 00:31:47 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

We could observe anomalous tachyon trails from their matter-antimatter
exhaust.

>>>After all, we can't even define it, so how would we know about
>>>non-mechanical but sentient seaweed? Or a life form that used
>>>a totally different scheme than DNA for encoding its form
>>>of life.
>>>
>>>And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
>>>know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
>>>life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
>>>noted.
>
>
>>Your premise to which I responded was of FTL travel. When you posit
>>the lack of FTL, you make moot your previous complaint. I'm not
>>interested in chasing goalposts.
>
>I have no idea what you are driving at. My point was that
>tomorrow's discoveries can make a lot of today's questions
>vanish. So it is unfair to accuse Kelvin of not knowing
>what we know today.

And I agree that it's unfair, which is why I did not. You must be
confusing me with someone else, or this topic with another.

>In fact I personally doubt that very many of Europe's scientists
>in Kelvin's day were young earthers. They were just reporting
>what the data show.

Nor did the majority believe in transubstantiation, which is as
relevant.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <knb5i8$sui$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

And if technological civilization on Earth lasts a million years,
that's a drop in the bucket. Hey there could have been a civilization
right in our neighborhood narrowcasting at us like crazy just a couple
of centuries ago and we'd never know.

--
Gambling with Other People's Money is the meth of the fiscal industry.
me -- in the spirit of Karl and Groucho Marx

[Paul J Gans]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <knb5i8$sui$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>> And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
>> know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
>> life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
>> noted.

>And if technological civilization on Earth lasts a million years,
>that's a drop in the bucket. Hey there could have been a civilization
>right in our neighborhood narrowcasting at us like crazy just a couple
>of centuries ago and we'd never know.

Exactly.

[Kermit]

On 17 May, 16:37, Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:08 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> >Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>On Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:05 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
> >>Lodder) wrote:
>
> >>>Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>

> >>>> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> >On Fri, 17 May 2013 17:44:46 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
> >>>> ><gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>

> >>>> >>Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> >>>> >>>I'm reading _The God Delusion_ in bathroom breaks, and
> >>>> >>>Richard Dawkins accuses Lord Kelvin of misrepresenting
> >>>> >>>science in order to undermine evolution, basically.
> >>>> >>>From Google Books: "[he] tried to demonstrate that
> >>>> >>>evolution was ruled out for lack of time."
>
> >>>> >>>I haven't heard it put that way before about how he
> >>>> >>>addressed the age of the Sun, and, therefore, of
> >>>> >>>life on the Earth. �It's sympathetically told that
> >>>> >>>Kelvin declared honestly that there was (then)
> >>>> >>>no known way for the Sun to produce energy for
> >>>> >>>millions of years. �Then it was discovered that
> >>>> >>>energy can come out of atoms, which is how the Sun
> >>>> >>>produces heat, briefly. �And yet there was fossil
> >>>> >>>evidence of the length of the Earth's prehistory.
>
> >>>> >>>So did Kelvin cheat in order to rebut evolution?
>
> >>>> >>>It appears that he didn't /like/ evolution.
> >>>> >>>"If evolution there has been" - see below.
>

> >>>> >>>"Google's cache ofhttp://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA114_1.html"

Better than downshifting while passing a truck going uphill, only to
realize too late that you're driving an automatic clutch...

kermit

[jillery]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 15:40:59 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

<gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <knb5i8$sui$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>> And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
>>> know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
>>> life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
>>> noted.
>
>>And if technological civilization on Earth lasts a million years,
>>that's a drop in the bucket. Hey there could have been a civilization
>>right in our neighborhood narrowcasting at us like crazy just a couple
>>of centuries ago and we'd never know.
>
>Exactly.

Exactly what, exactly?

[J. J. Lodder]

That's what you stamp down the right foot for.

If you've got your feet crossed
you deserve to be naturally selected,

Jan

[Paul J Gans]

So. Exactly so.

[Richard Norman]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 23:06:37 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

<gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Mon, 20 May 2013 15:40:59 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
>><gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <knb5i8$sui$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>>>> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> And of course, there is the speed of light thing. As far as we
>>>>> know, space travel is very difficult and perhaps many forms of
>>>>> life just wouldn't bother with it, as Mitch has implicitly
>>>>> noted.
>>>
>>>>And if technological civilization on Earth lasts a million years,
>>>>that's a drop in the bucket. Hey there could have been a civilization
>>>>right in our neighborhood narrowcasting at us like crazy just a couple
>>>>of centuries ago and we'd never know.
>>>
>>>Exactly.
>
>
>>Exactly what, exactly?
>
>So. Exactly so.

I think you really "exactly, more or less."

[Paul J Gans]

You want a Heisenbergian "exactly", eh?

[Walter Bushell]

In article <3t2bp8hr9v9kvp04d...@4ax.com>,
Richard Norman <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote:

RE: Kelvin

> My impression, which I haven't actually checked out, is that he also
> calculated a young age of the earth by how long it would take for a
> sphere to cool. He didn't know about heat production in the interior
> of the earth by radioactive decay.
>
> All the best science he knew indicated neither the sun nor the earth
> could be old enough to support evolution. Those are pretty powerful
> arguments against evolution.

s/Those are/Those were/

[Richard Norman]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 21:40:44 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

>In article <3t2bp8hr9v9kvp04d...@4ax.com>,
> Richard Norman <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>RE: Kelvin
>
>> My impression, which I haven't actually checked out, is that he also
>> calculated a young age of the earth by how long it would take for a
>> sphere to cool. He didn't know about heat production in the interior
>> of the earth by radioactive decay.
>>
>> All the best science he knew indicated neither the sun nor the earth
>> could be old enough to support evolution. Those are pretty powerful
>> arguments against evolution.
>
>s/Those are/Those were/

I get so confused conjugating those irregular verbs.

[Kermit]

On 20 May, 13:27, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

> Kermit <freeh...@charter.net> wrote:
> > On 17 May, 16:37, Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:08 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
>
> > > <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> > > >Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > >>On Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:05 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
> > > >>Lodder) wrote:
>
> > > >>>Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > > >>>> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >>>> >On Fri, 17 May 2013 17:44:46 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
> > > >>>> ><gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > > >>>> >>Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> > > >>>> >>>I'm reading _The God Delusion_ in bathroom breaks, and
> > > >>>> >>>Richard Dawkins accuses Lord Kelvin of misrepresenting
> > > >>>> >>>science in order to undermine evolution, basically.
> > > >>>> >>>From Google Books: "[he] tried to demonstrate that
> > > >>>> >>>evolution was ruled out for lack of time."
>
> > > >>>> >>>I haven't heard it put that way before about how he
> > > >>>> >>>addressed the age of the Sun, and, therefore, of

> > > >>>> >>>life on the Earth. �ｿｽIt's sympathetically told that

> > > >>>> >>>Kelvin declared honestly that there was (then)
> > > >>>> >>>no known way for the Sun to produce energy for

> > > >>>> >>>millions of years. �ｿｽThen it was discovered that

> > > >>>> >>>energy can come out of atoms, which is how the Sun

> > > >>>> >>>produces heat, briefly. �ｿｽAnd yet there was fossil

> > > >>>> >>> �ｿｽ �ｿｽThomson, W. 1871. Address of Sir William Thomson, Knt.,

> > > >>>> >>>LL.D., F.R.S, President. Report of the Forty-First Meeting
> > > >>>> >>>of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
> > > >>>> >>>lxxxiv-cv.
>

> > > >>>> >>This is an argument like that of moving continents. �ｿｽLord

> > > >>>> >>Kelvin assumed that the entire mass of the sun was make of
> > > >>>> >>carbon and then assumed that the carbon was burning.
>
> > > >>>> >>This led him to the quite correct conclusion that there was
> > > >>>> >>no way for the sun to have the lifetime needed to conform to
> > > >>>> >>Darwinian evolution.
>
> > > >>>> >>The problem, as often happens, was that nobody knew a better

> > > >>>> >>method for producing a hot sun. �ｿｽIt was only with the discovery

> > > >>>> >>of radioactivity that a better method than coal burning was
> > > >>>> >>discovered, and not until nuclear fusion was elucidated that
> > > >>>> >>we had an old sun.
>
> > > >>>> >ISTM the problem was that Lord Kelvin did not acknowledge the limits
> > > >>>> >of his knowledge.
>

> > > >>>> >>So let poor Lord Kelvin rest. �ｿｽHe did the best he could with

> > > >>>> >>the information available to him.
>

> > > >>>> >If this were a singular event, perhaps so. �ｿｽBut it happened often

> > > >>>> >enough that he has rightfully become an icon for a necessary
> > > >>>> >cautionary tale.
>

> > > >>>> Yes, but the caution is ingested with one's training. �ｿｽSince

> > > >>>> one cannot predict what will be discovered in the future, there
> > > >>>> is no way to allow for it.
>
> > > >>>> So all the scientific literature is read with an assumed "as
> > > >>>> far as we know today" attached to it.
>
> > > >>>> It is like the speed of light as a universal speed limit.
> > > >>>> It could turn out in 2113 that the speed of light is what

> > > >>>> you get in first gear. �ｿｽIn that case all sorts of suppositions

> > > >>>> today, including panspermy, will need revision.
>
> > > >>>"Why aren't they here?"
>
> > > >>They never learned to double clutch and stripped the gears shifting.
>
> > > >Boy, you *are* giving your age away...
>
> > > For far too many years I would stomp my left foot into the floor when
> > > I slowed down in a car with that newfangled Hydra-Matic Drive.
>
> > Better than downshifting while passing a truck going uphill, only to
> > realize too late that you're driving an automatic clutch...
>
> That's what you stamp down the right foot for.
>
> If you've got your feet crossed
> you deserve to be naturally selected,

But the standard transmissions I trained on teaches the left foot to
step on the clutch, so when I "downshifted" to pass, I stepped hard on
the clutch (brake) and downshifted to low gear, which brought my car
to a screeching (near) halt in the fast lane going up hill. Luckily,
nobody was behind me. I pulled over to the shoulder nonchalantly and
pretended (to myself) that the truck driver would believe I was
having car trouble.

And of course the time, years later, when I put my car in the shop and
borrowed my wife's older car for a few days. When I started sliding in
the snow, I stomped on the brakes because I had spent months learning
how to use non-skid brakes, only these weren't. I slid sideways across
two lanes before I remembered I was in the old car. Again luckily,
there was nobody close enough to personally interact with my confused
autopilot modes.

>
> Jan
kermit

[Steven L.]

We haven't really looked hard enough yet.

One thing that would tell an ET civilization that Earth has a
technological species, are chemicals in our atmosphere that cannot be
easily explained by natural processes. Such as fluorocarbons.

Such artificial chemicals in the atmospheres of some exoplanets would
strongly indicate a technological species there. But we're not yet at
the point where we can analyze the trace elements in atmospheres of
exoplanets.




-- Steven L.



--
Steven L.