August 2005 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

RE: [Utah-astronomy] science and religion
by Michael Carnes 04 Aug '05

04 Aug '05

>Evolutionary thought is suffused in general withan unwholesome glow. And there it is in a nutshell. The creationists (the term 'intelligent design' is a phrase the creationists use because they think it's more politically palatable) just can't stomach the idea. It's 'unwholesome'. C'mon Don. >"What good," Stephen Jay Gould asked dramatically, >"is 5 percent of an eye?" He termed this >question "excellent." It IS an excellent question and is easily answered (as Gould himself did many times over). Imagine you're a worm on the floor of a shallow Cambrian sea. Your 5% of an eye might just detect the shadow of a hungry ammonite passing overhead. You burrow and your blind neighbor gets eaten. You just conferred an evolutionary advantage on your offspring. The creationists just LOVE this "the eye is too complicated" load of rubbish. They continue to claim there's great scientific controversy, when we're really just focusing on small details. And they flat out lie, too. >I repeat censorship of responsible ideas that oppose the current dogma >of the day is attacked just as rigorously as it was in the days of >Galileo. Nobody's censoring anything, although the religious right sure is trying. As soon as the creationists come up with some testable theses, then put them forward and see if they pass muster. You'll always find a crank scientist or two who'll claim an idea is being censored, but after 150 years, Darwin's original idea has been fleshed out into a wonderful, sustaining structure. The realm of faith and philosophy and that of science are different and complementary. Pseudo-science is what's unwholesome.

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] science vs. religion
by Michael Carnes 04 Aug '05

04 Aug '05

> Statistically it is incredibly unlikely; Don, the statistics are overwhelmingly in favor of evolution. It's everywhere you look. An intelligent designer would have done a better job of it.

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As long as we're wading into the fever swamp...
by James Cobb 03 Aug '05

03 Aug '05

As long as we're wading into the fever swamp, I found something of interest bearing on the grounds upon which this discussion tends to dwell. The remarks below are taken from http://nationalreview.com/comment/ klinghoffer200508030811.asp > One prominent evolutionary psychologist, Harvard’s Steven Pinker, > has written frankly about rivalry in academia, and the use of > cutting rhetoric in the defense of established ideas: “Their > champions are not always averse to helping the ideas along with > tactics of verbal dominance, among them intimidation (‘Clearly…’), > threat (‘It would be unscientific to…’), authority (‘As Popper > showed…’), insult (‘This work lacks the necessary rigor for…’), and > belittling (‘Few people today seriously believe that…’).” > > I bring this up because Intelligent Design aggressively challenges > the status of many professionals currently laboring in secular > academia. And because one of the hallmarks of the defense of > Darwinism is precisely the kind of rhetorical displays of > intimidation, threat, authority, and insult that Pinker describes. > > For instance in a section on the website of the American > Association for the Advancement of Science, entitled “Q&A on > Evolution and Intelligent Design,” you will find numerous > statements as if lifted almost verbatim from Pinker’s examples — > ridiculing ID as “non-scientific,” an idea whose “advocates have > yet to contribute in a scientifically rigorous manner,” who “may > use the language of science, but [who] do not use its methodology.” It will be interesting to watch the discussion here and see whether it exhibits the hallmarks of the defense of Darwinism noted by Pinker and Klinghoffer. Jim

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2005 Perseid Shower
by Canopus56 03 Aug '05

03 Aug '05

See the International Meteor Organization calendar for details. http://www.imo.net/calendar/cal05.html#perseids http://www.imo.net/calendar/per.gif (Position of Perseid radiant for Jul 15 to Aug 25) and - NASA Headlines. The 2005 Perseid Meteor Shower (7/22/2005) http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22jul_perseids2005.htm http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/perseids2005/skymap_north.gif and - Kronk's Meteor Shower Page - http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/perseids.html Jeremie Vaubaillon forecasts likely ZHR for many meteor showers. Here is his June 15 forecast for the 2005 Perseids - http://www.imcce.fr/page.php?nav=en/ephemerides/phenomenes/meteor/PER/2005P… "The expected ZHR is not expected to be higher than the annual activity (recorded by IMO), i.e. ZHR=100 /hr. From the above figure, the maximum is expected to occur on the 12/08/2005 at 3:54 UT (Solar longitude=139.478Â°)." In Utah, 8/12/2005 at 3:54 UTC corresponds to Thursday, 8/11/2005 at 9:54pm. On 8/11/2005, sunset is at 8:32pm, astronomical twilight is at 10:17pm, and moon set of the eight day old Moon is at 11:28pm. The IMO predicts a different time for the peak - 18:30 UTC on 8/12/2005, or around noon MDT on Friday, 8/12/2005. See discussion at the IMO calendar regarding uncertainty in the Perseid peak time. At sunset on Thursday, 8/11, Perseus is just below the horizon. Altitudes for eta Per to the nearest degree, which is a few degrees southwest of the radiant, on 8/11-8/12 are given in the following table, as well an adjusted expected meteor hourly rate. The ZHR is adjusted because the shower's radiant is off-zenith: MDT UTC Alt Adjusted ZHR 10pm 8/11 4am 8/12 14Â° 24 11pm 8/11 5am 8/12 19Â° 33 Midn 8/12 6am 8/12 26Â° 44 1am 8/12 7am 8/12 33Â° 54 2am 8/12 8am 8/12 41Â° 66 3am 8/12 9am 8/12 58Â° 85 (See the Appendix to this post for the computation converting ZHR to an meteor hourly rate where the radiant is off-zenith.) This estimated rate is not adjusted for the unknown decline of the shower in the hours after the peak at 8/12/2005 3:54 UT. My usual way of enjoying the Persieds is to sit either facing north towards the radiant or with my back to the radiant facing south. When facing south in previous years, many fainter widely dispersed meteors were seen on a broad arc. The arc traces a cone back to the radiant. I have prepared two alt-az charts, one north facing and one south facing. I use these to pass the time by roughly plotting meteors seen. These charts are for 1am MDT 8/12 (7:00 UT 8/12). http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/finder/PerseusChart2005081… http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/finder/PerseusChart2005081… (Right-click on the chart, save it to your desktop and then print to a full landscape page.) Enjoy - Canopus56(Kurt) ========================= Appendix - Conversion of ZHR to hourly rate off-zenith The zenith hourly rate is the rate observed when the shower is at local observer's zenith. The International Meteor Organization gives the following information regarding when the meteor shower's radiant is not on the observer's local zenith: "Table 1 gives the number of meteors an observer might expect to see at different radiant elevations if the ZHR amounted to the impressive value of 100. Now you can imagine what you will see with a radiant elevation of 10Â° if the ZHR is not as impressive as 100. Therefore, when planning your watch you should take care that the radiant will have a reasonable elevation for the whole watch. For several reasons the lower limit is about 20Â°. Table 1: Numbers of meteors visible per hour for a ZHR=100 shower and different radiant elevations h (limiting magnitude of 6.5m) h in Â° | 90 | 70 | 50 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 n | 100 | 94 | 77 | 64 | 50 | 34 | 17 " Source: IMO. http://www.imo.net/visual/major01.html IMO Table 1 appears to follow a simple sin function - alpha = altitude of the radiant above the local horizon at a local time * pi() / 180 hr_alpha = zhr * sin(alpha) where hr_alpha is the predicated hourly rate at the selected altitude of the radiant above the local observer's horizon. ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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Fwd: Star Party for Fathers and Sons
by Richard Tenney 03 Aug '05

03 Aug '05

Anyone in North SLC or Ogden that could take this one? Morgan/Porterville is a bit far for me! Please respond to Mr. Russell directly, but CC me so I know this has been addressed. Thanks, Rich --- Bill Russell <bruss(a)wfol.net> wrote: > From: "Bill Russell" <bruss(a)wfol.net> > To: <retenney(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: Star Party for Fathers and Sons > Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 16:13:20 -0600 > > Hi Rich, > I came across your website and was hoping you could > help me. > > I'm in charge of a father and son activity scheduled > for the evening of August 26th involving > approximately 400 men and boys (it's an > over-nighter). The outing is located approximately > 5 miles from Morgan, Utah near Porterville. We > would like to provide the boys with an opportunity > to learn more about the stars and astronomy. Are > you aware of someone or an organization that I could > contact that would be willing to provide a > presentation or demonstrate some large telescopes? > Any information you could provide would be helpful. > Thank you and please let me know at your earliest > convenience. > Regards, > Bill > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Shuttle tile gap filler repair - the movie
by Canopus56 03 Aug '05

03 Aug '05

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/highlights/index.html http://wm.nasa-global.speedera.net/wm.nasa-global/RTF/gapfillerremover.wmv This triggered an install of Windows Media Player 10 on my system. - Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] science vs. religion
by Michael Carnes 03 Aug '05

03 Aug '05

You're right on target, Kim. From what I know, the 14th century wasn't all that great, and I'm not eager to return to it.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] science vs. religion
by Olhomorto＠aol.com 03 Aug '05

03 Aug '05

I believe I agree with you, Kim. I'm remembering when I was in the 8th grade here in Salt Lake, and the science teacher announced that during the next weeks we would be learning about the theory of evolution. A couple of my class mates were excused from the class during that period because their parents didn't want them exposed. I remember the confusion in my mind because they belonged to the same church I did, and I didn't understand the conflict. I also remember the contrast between the days when my teachers in elementary school stood beside us and taught us to say opening and closing prayers in the class-room, and the atmosphere in the classrooms after such prayers were ultimately deemed inappropriate. Again, I felt confused about the similarity between public school and my childhood church meetings. In the end I think I turned out fairly OK as a result of, or maybe in spite of my experiences wioth public and church education. Of course, others may disagree about how I "turned out." Mike Bailey

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planets - or not
by Kim Hyatt 02 Aug '05

02 Aug '05

I asked this group some time ago if anyone knew of a consensus definition for "planet" and one of you responded with what I believe was the IAU's working definition for a range of objects. Forgive me, but I don't now remember who that person was. As I recall, the definition went something like this: If an object is massive enough to be spherical and is in orbit about a star, it's a planet. If an object is massive enough to sustain the fusion of hydrogen to helium, it's a star, and so forth. Does anyone recall and can cite the source for these definitions? I've always thought that the simplest definition is the best, and I liked this definition for planets. Therefore, both Pluto and "Xena" are planets, as may also be the larger Kuiper Belt objects. All the rest of the arguing by the "professionals" about what constitutes a planet seems somewhat petty and fruitless. After all, we still have to fix those damn tiles... Kim

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Article from Globe
by Michael Carnes 02 Aug '05

02 Aug '05

Interesting article in the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/ 2005/08/02/nasas_failure_of_vision/

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