How do we know the stars are there? I mean we all probobly see sparkles in the sky but how do we actually know they are what they are? What if they are not what we think they are? What if all the information on google (whatever) about astronomy (so is everything) is FALSE? what if there is no astronomy and other sciences? what if the sky is a huge projector and we are in a kind of a movie? \n\nThey're discovering some ruins and fossils? what if they are not 'real' ruins and fossils. What if someone planted them there deliberatly for some "dumb" archeologist to find? I mean if someone searches he will find? What if shimapzees are US, but in a distant future, and evolution is just a giant circle and things do not get really evolved but just go in a circle like clock, from 1,2,3 and back to 1?
137531
Then we all look stupid for trusting scientists
153856
At the present time, we just don't know.  If you saw pictures of aliens, what you saw were fake.  Nobody on earth has yet to produce a verifiable image, photographic, electronic or hand-drawn, of a living creature that originated elsewhere in the universe than from our home planet.  Nobody.\n\nAlso, at the present time, we suspect that there is no other planet in any nearby solar system that's host to a sentient race of beings like us.  That does not mean that some form of what we call "life" is impossible, but just think: out of the billions of living critters that now inhabit, or did in the past, our home planet, only one of those life forms evolved to the point where it (us) can even begin to think about such questions.  That by itself will tell ya we're sorta unique! ;-)\n\nIt sure would be interesting, wouldn't it?  But imagine if you will what it might be like if those alien creatures we fantasize about were an advanced race of carnivores that look upon us as another breed of cattle, fit only for eating!  Yow!  Or, how about if they were friendly, warm and fuzzy folks who just love to make nice with us - but they carry an infectious disease that there's no cure for.  Oh boy.  Or maybe, like Darth Vader, they just consider us a nusiance worthy of one blast from a super-mega cannon that blows Earth into dust?  Whoa!  Hey dude: you SURE you wanna meet aliens?  \n\nAll this is just idle speculation.  The hard fact is, even if there were creatures just like us somewhere in the universe, we are not gonna know about it, because the distances between them and us are just too great to permit interstellar travel, the hazards of such a trip are insurmountable, and no means of communication can travel fast enough for us to hear from them and be able to answer back.  Kind of a bummer, isn't it?
532377
I have studied earth science. \nFirst of all, their scientific name is a (best estimate) i.e. in their opinion. so the wee table is just their own version of what refers to modern day equivalent in science. \nThe only evidence they use to suggest the bible is talking about a dinosaur (rather than elephant or hippo) is a tail like a Cedar.  this could apply to crocodile but they don't mention that - apart from to say "oh -BTW it can't be a croc eh?" without actually giving any decent reason as to why.\nI don't know why I can't read Job 41 18-21without realising it breathes fire.  Such obviousness escapes me.  As also does the beetle chat. err...because one thing (and I haven't bothered to look up if it can) breathes fire, another surely can? What - how does that work? Because a flea can jump 50 times it's own heigth, can I? Also, all earth scientist would love to have a fire breathing lizard, but no studies have proved it's existance.   \nThen later (I'm skimming this now, there's loads of made up stuff), they say "Nobody has ever proven that the Bible contains any inaccurately recorded information" - well I'd kind of like to see the other way round.  Proving a negative is, well, impossible.  If I said there is a planet made of jelly a milllion light years away, does that make me correct until proven wrong? \nthen they do that wonderful thing of "hmm yes we have evidence of dinosaurs being created one day before man etc etc...but in order to see it you have to read through pages and pages of more subjective chat", personally I gave up cos if they are that confident they would put there evidence right in their on their page, or at least give a description of how.  \nThis page is someone's belief and doen't make me think anything other than what I have studied through rational science.
576200
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE EARTH ISNT 6,000 YEARS OLD BECAUSE SCIENCE SAYS SO ?? AND WHERE DO THEY GET THEYRE INFO FROM LIKE THE CARBON DATING WHERE DO THEY GET THAT INFO FROM I MEAN DONT YOU NEED TO COMPARE SOMETHING WITH SOMETHING EVEN I CAN SAY OH YEA THIS ROCK IS 2 YEARS OLD OR 2 MILLION SCIENCE IS JUST THAT ITS SCIENCE I BELIEVE IN GOD MAYBE THIS WORLD IS 6,000 YEARS OLD MAYBE IT ISNT BUT DOES IT ACTUALLY MATTER ANYWAY?  SCIENCE PROVES THAT GOD EXISTS BUT DONT WANT TO ADMIT IT I WAS THINKING ONE DAY IF ALLLLLLLLLL THIS UNIVERSE STUFF JUST HAPPENED ----BAMMMMMMMM----  WHY DOES THE WEATHER BEHAVE THE WAY IT DOES OR THE SUNSETS OR RISES ????  IT ISNT BY ACCIDENT IT IS FROM INTELLIGENT DESIGN .   I DONT BELIEVE SCIENTIFIC DESIGN NOR DO I BELIEVE THE ICE AGE HAPPENED THERE WAS A FLOOD YOU KNOW & THAT REALLY MESSED THINGS UP .
347471
My gut agrees with you, but I wouldn't jump to any conclusions. A sobering (and excellent) read is Rare Earth by Ward and Brownlee. One is an astronomer, the other a geologist. They make a convincing case that sentient life elsewhere in the universe is probably quite rare. At a minimum, they make minced meat out of the Drake Equation. Still, with so many possibilities ...\n\nThe other thing to remember is that first and possibly second generation of post-Big Bang stars could never have supported planets with life of any kind. It took billions of years before stars produced sufficient quantities of heavy elements that are essential for life.\n\nand, all those stars and all those galaxies don't exist simultaneously. As we look farther out into space, we are more and more likely looking at objects that no longer exist.\n\nso, having said all that, we must consider this. a) sentient beings are probably quite rare - whether you accept Ward and Brownlee's extreme argument or not. b) that life could only have existed for, say, the last 8 or 9 billion years of the universe's existence. c) the distances to other stars in our galaxy are vast, but the distances *between* the galaxies are mind boggling vast (there's a reason that even in Star Trek, with it's fantasy warp drive, the story lines are all confined to our own galaxy).\n\nJust food for thought.
577758
No there are far older stars. \nThe sun wasn't born it condensed out of nebulous gas and dust.\nThe universe is so large it is possible to see back in time ( and space) to objects like quasars that have not existed for billions of years.\nGod doesn't exist hence never said anything
483646
I have read several books and internet documentation on this interesting subject. IT makes a good story, but it is just that, a story!! The critics of this report are quick to point out that the anthropologists who reported this information,  Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, stated that they recorded this knowledge of the Dogon people in the 1930s (which can not be verified) and published it AFTER they left the tribe in 1956 and even then it was not widely publicised until Robert Temple took up the subject in 1975.\n\nThe second star in the Sirius system was first hypothesized by the Euopean astronomer Bessel in 1844 and discovered (visually) in 1862 by Alvin Clark. An astronomer named Adams had pretty accurately predicted Sirius B's orbit around Sirius A and orbital period by 1915. There are also accounts of Sirius B being seen with the naked eye as back as far as 25 AD when it appeared red in contrast to the bright white Sirius A (due to redshift since it was in motion around Sirius A)!!\n\nSo why is it so fancy that the Dogons knew about it in the 1930s? The Dogons could have heard about the hypothesis from someone who knew of the hypothesis or the previous sighting (or could have sighted it themselves), become facinated with it, and worked it into their mythology during the years PRIOR to when it was then recorded by Dr. Giraule and Dr. Dieterlen.\n\nAnd the BIG kicker is that the Dogons now say that there are THREE, not two, stars in the Sirius system. Barring some incredible mystery, we should be able to detect a third star using modern technology but it is just NOT THERE. So, someone please tell teh Dogons, and anyone who listens to them about their mythology of Sirius B, that they are WRONG!!\n\nFinally, the main assumption of Robert Temple's book in 1975 about the Dogon people is thier ISOLATION. IN the 1930s, these people were fairly isolated by todays standards, but were far from in a complete VACUUM from the rest of the world. First of all, there are approximately 300,000 Dogon people. They are in Mali within about 6 hour walk of the Mopti airport and a half-days boat ride on the Niger river to the cities of Koulikoro (110,000 people), Ségou (100,000 people), Timbuktu (MAJOR Tourist site, population 32,000) and Gao (tourist site, population 38,000). That means that by comparison, the Dogons have a popluation about the size of Tampa, FL, Newark, NJ, or Buffalo, NY, while they are closely surrounded by two tourist sites and two cities about the size of Gainesville, FL, Hartford, CT, or Berkeley, CA. By reading Robert Temple's book and the resulting conspiracy theories, you get the idea that this tribe is 100 people out in the middle of nowhere, which just is not the case!! To assume that they never visited these popluation centers just down the river and couldn't have heard about the discovery of Sirius B is absolutely insane. Add the fact that they have always worshiped Sirius A in their rituals (for obvious reasons, it is the brightest star in the sky next to our sun!!), and you can bet that they were flying around town ASKING about the latest news on Sirius whenever they had the chance then incorporating the news into their mythology when it came along!!\n\nHardly isolated, but it makes for a good book!! Albeit a book written in 1975 about the archeologists' experiences in the 1930s-50s. Hardly first hand and very open to interpretation, wouldn't you say??\n\nThese people are NOT as isolated as some conspiracy theorists have made them out to be. Today, their economy runs mostly on, you guessed it, TOURISM!!
414182
Hmm, this one is interesting. I mean you could have left this one off with the science, but you added the philosophical point. But thats ok because it makes it so much more subjective. But, let's start with what science can prove, and move on from there. This should be interesting. Ok. Would the sun go supernova? No, because our nice little star is not massive enough, it needs A LOT more mass to go super nova. But what it will do is many years from now (hopefully) it will enter the Red Giant phase, where the Sun will expand outwards to about where Mars is. As it is doing that, yes it will burn concrete, it will flashboil the oceans, and turn our lush eden into a barren world shortly before being consumed by the sun. After that it will explode to create a planetary nebula and the suns inner core will remain and cool to a white dwarf. Now, the philosophical question. Mother nature would probably not step in because this is just another cycle, this happens to many other stars/ suns in our night sky. But, God probably would. In fact, he could come before our little star goes boom. Because remember that when he spoke to Noah, he said that he would destroy the world again, only with fire this time. So the sun destroying itself could have some part to play. But, he may not come till after it destroys itself. Now, that is if you believe the Bible. Im not sure what the Kuran or any other religious works have to say about their god or gods. Because remember, it took him from the big bang to about 35 A.D. to return, about 20 billion years. So, he may not come for another 20 billion years! Remember, his timescale is not like ours is. And thats the beauty of all this! He gave us a universe to explore, and a holy work commanding us to go forth unto the world and multiply! What better excuse to use for space exploration! I mean we have so much time that its almost insane. I feel that we have barely scratched the surface on our understanding of the universe, and that we should take steps to understand it.\n\n(Please note: Though I am a Christian, I respect other religions because last I looked, we lived in a country that allows freedom of religion, and actually, I would love to see some one from another religion answer this to see what they have to say about this)
636423
well let me tell you look up the shoemakers. they are a couple who are homebred amatures and sure they are a bit more into it then most but they have at least 3 comet names under their belt. they actually pulled a bunch of money together in their life and made thier own observatory (or bought a old used one) even though we have many satelites like hubble that patrol our skies but they only mechanically watch about 20% of total viewable sky surrounding earth. the shoemakers are still making discoveries and sightings and they get to put their name on whatever they spot as new not yet seen. this requires dedication and hard work not to mention a dedicated memorization of every fart of gas visible to the aided eye because they need to know that when they see that new bubble, fart, blinking light, or whatever that they have a potential lead to something new and not something that has been there billions of years!
153236
universe = infinite ... and if not infinite it's still pretty freakin big... how can we be so sure that somewhere out there there isn't a solar system similar to ours and a planet similar to ours?  A planet with gravity, oxygen and water just like ours?  A planet with life just like ours? …. Uh… oh… A planet with life more advanced than ours?  Or even less advanced than ours?  Was I supposed to give an answer?  Oops!
443918
Trust me they did, but let me give you some hoax's and then the explanation for them hey. I have picked 4 big ones that are fairly typical. Its a bit long, but please stick with me :)\n\n1) No stars in the photos:\n\nThe real reason is that when contrasted with the brightness of the astronauts and the lunar surface, the stars are just too dim to register on the photographic emulsion of the camera film. If the camera shutter were held open long enough for the stars to register, everything else would be over-exposed into a white featureless glare. \n\nYou cannot have both visible on the one photograph, so the camera was set for the correct exposure for Buzz Aldrin and the lunar surface, not the stars. When standing on the lunar surface the astronauts could not visually observe the stars in the dark sky, because of the surface glare, they could only see them when standing in shadow. By the same token, if we take a photograph outdoors at night from a brightly illuminated surface, our photograph also would not show any stars in the sky.\n\n2) The flags waving.\n\nThe flag is out and appears to be waving by an extendable rod running through the top of the flag, so that it can be viewed unfurled, and you can see the unnatural rigidity this gives to the top of the flag in the picture. The rod creates the effect of a breeze blowing the flag into that position. Without the supporting rod the flag would just hang limply down and would not reveal the stars and stripes. The rod is not extended the full width of the flag and it looks like a breeze is causing a ripple in the flag.\n\nIt has also been claimed that some video clips show the flag waving in the breeze when it was planted. Not so. The movement of the flag is only because when astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil.\n\n3) 'Wrong' shadows\n\nThe simple fact is that there is more than one light source. The light does not come directly from the Sun and illuminate only the one object in question, as a narrow beam spotlight would in a dark room. It shines on the entire daytime surface, just as it does here on Earth. Therefore it also illuminates the surface, the astronauts themselves, rocks, mountains, the Lander and all the other objects on the surface. \n\nThe reflections from these objects is why there is more than one light source, it is not because there was more than one spotlight used on a film set. It is also worth noting that on the lunar surface the reflected sunlight from the Earth is 68% brighter than that of the full Moon as seen from Earth. \n\nFor more on this question check out badastronomy.com/bad/tv/iangoddard/moon01\n\nAll the other fake photographs are explained just as easily with a little knowledge, and an understanding of how conditions on the Moon are very different to those here. With no atmosphere to scatter the light, things look a little odd on the Moon, we have a very black sky and a very bright surface. \n\nWe see strong shadows everywhere, and our sense of distance is also fooled because there is no atmosphere to produce the familiar atmospheric haze that creates a distance perspective on Earth. Furthermore, with the gravity being only a sixth of Earth's gravity, things move and behave differently as well. \n\nIt's hard to make straight comparisons, because we cannot, the Moon is just not like the Earth. We have to think differently when interpreting the images from the Moon, and that's what causes the problems, people are not allowing for those differences when looking at the lunar photographs. They are looking at them as if they were taken under normal Earth conditions, and concluding wrongly that there must be something wrong with the photographs.\n\n4) Why doesn't the Hubble Space Telescope provide proof hey\nThe equipment left over by the astronauts is just too small to be seen with the HST. Even the best image we have of the moon is taken of Copernicus crate
457247
Everything we know about, everything we can see, behaves as if 13.7 billion years ago it was a dense, hot plasma that has been expanding and cooling ever since.  That's the Big Bang theory, and there is a tremendous amount of overlapping, detailed evidence to show that it's correct.  The Big Bang theory being wrong is about as likely, and makes about as much sense, as the idea that a Sun-centered solar system is wrong.  Essentially all of modern astronomy depends on the Big Bang to make sense.  The main observations are:\n\n1) The redshift of more distant galaxies is larger than that of nearby galaxies.\n\n2) Quasars and radio sources are seen to evolve.  There were many quasars in the past, now there are almost none.\n\n3) The amounts of the light elements Deuterium and Hydrogen make sense in the context of neucleosynthesis in the Big Bang.\n\n4) The Cosmic Microwave Backround Radiation is as predicted by the Big Bang theory, both in magnitude and in the details of its anisotropy in amplitude and polarization.\n\n5) All stars and galaxies evolve as if that evolution were set into motion by the Big Bang.\n\n\nYour notion of mirages and crests makes no sense in the context of modern physics.  We do see some warpage of space, particularly gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies, but the Cosmic Microwave Background is most certainly only 400,000 lightyears from our event horizon.\n\nMany current versions of the Big Bang involve a Universe that exists eternally in both the past and future.  Our Big Bang was not necessarily the beginning of the Universe.
197943
We are one of many planets surrounding a star at the edge of a Galaxy which contains billions of other stars.  There are many other galaxies in the universe with about the same amount of stars and planets.  I think that we would be naive to think life does not exist anywhere else.  I don't know if we will ever be able to travel the distances required to find out.  Technology will have to develop a considerable amount for that.  But, considering what we have accomplished in the last 100 years, we may do it.  Maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours or your children's.
477121
Hi. You are pretty optimistic about the development of science without the wonder of the night sky. Assuming we were still a curious breed and tried to mimic birds then I would suspect the sight of the sun would start a new religion.
22241
Hot topic! Woo-eee. This is one of the creationist versus non-creationist hot potatoes!\n\nHere's why, some creationists say if the sun were shrinking steadily, then a  long time ago, it might have been so big and hot as to turn the surface of the Earth into a pit of fire. So nothing would be alive, say when the Earth was a billion years old.\n\nScientists who study the Sun believe that it is a huge ball of glowing gases and matter. Gravity wants to pull all the stuff together, to shrink it. Heat from nuclear and other reactions in the center of the sun wants to blast it all away, to make it grow.\n\nThe Sun seems to have reached a temporary balance point and so it is the size that it is right now.\n\nSome observations were thought to show that the Sun was shrinking during 6 years of monitoring.\n\nOther studies show that the Sun might sometimes expand and shrink at different times. Just like a candle flame will flare up and then settle down again.\n\nThere are no mainstream scientists claiming that the Sun has been STEADILY shrinking since the beginning. They are only investigating to see what might be happening.\n\nSome astronomy research about the possibility of the Sun shrinking has been used by some groups such as the Institute for Creation Research as evidence for a young Earth. The idea being that this research agrees with their way of reading Holy Scripture. Their view is that the Earth is not very old.\n\nOther writers point out that the astronomy research about the size of the sun is interesting and important work about small-scale, and SHORT-TERM changes in stellar structure. And it may or may not have anything to add to the creation debate.\n\nMost solar research and theory shows that stars are initially formed by coalescing matter -- they shrink. But only until a balance is reached. Then over long periods of time stars might oscillate in size as different types of chemical and nuclear reactions take place. Some stars become super-giants, others zoom outward and then crush inwards to tiny sizes. \n\nThese are just theories based on mathematical models and observations of different sized suns and novas. No one knows for sure in a secular sense.
80489
I totally know what you mean. I used to think about that all the time, but I would just exhaust myself. I think the only sure thing we know is that we know nothing. I am a bit of an agnostic, but certainly don't think that everything just happened by chance. Was there ever nothing? If so how did we ever get something? If scientist say there is an end to the universe, what is it like a wall? Plexi Glass that you just bounce of of? Or is it like Pacman where you just pop out on the other side? There is so much that is just unexplainable in t his world. I am just glad to be a part of it. I have pretty much given up on trying to figure it all out. While I am in no hurry to die, I am somewhat excited at the possibilty of everything being answered once I go. Good luck in your search for answers. We need the Teacher's Edition of the bible, one with all the answers in the margins( I wonder how much that would go for on eBay?)
48065
I think your mind is already made up. I would guess that you are not interested in hearing from all camps. But lets just look at some of the other scientific theories that have become the dominant accepted theories. Don't they all sound like bunk, especially if you put yourself in the position of someone who is hearing them for the first time?\n\n1. the earth goes around the sun\n2. The planets are bodies like earth\n3. the continents move and collide to make mountains\n4. the magnetic field of the earth flips\n5. heavy things and light things fall at the same rate\n6. there are simple algebraic rules that the orbits of the planets obey\n7. There is evidence for a big bang\n8. stars are not only receding from us on average, but this movement is accelerating\n9. magnetism and electricity are deeply related\n10. matter is made up of tiny pieces \n11. light has no weight but it produces pressure\n12. there are some species with 3 sexes or even 4 sexes\n13. gravity bends light\n14. if you go faster, time slows down and you get shorter, front to back\n15. a cat can be alive and dead at the same time\n16. the vacuum is full of stuff that disappears before you can see it\n17. teleportation has been demonstrated\n18. you can never locate an electron\n19. all creatures contain a list of instructions for how they function inside\n20. human instructions are quite similar to other animal's instructions and even share something in common with the instructions of some plants\n\n\nI could of course go on and on and make a list of thousands of these. They all sound like nonsense, and probably were very outrageous when they were first announced or proposed. Yet they are all accepted as true, or probably true. \n\nSo just based on your own naive intuition and or something someone else told you based on no facts at all, you are willing to believe something like evolution is impossible? Compared to what else is going on in the universe, evolution is NOTHING to get perturbed about. \n\nThe universe is strange.\n\nAs J. B. S. Haldane said, \n\nThe universe is not only stranger than you know, it is stranger than you CAN know.