Subject: Re: sun
Date: 24 Aug 1999 23:44:39 GMT
From: Chris Ho-Stuart <>
Organization: Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Newsgroups: aus.religion,aus.religion.christian,nz.soc.religion
In aus.religion.christian Allistar Melville < 
> wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 09:51:14 -0700, "beyond.help"
> <  > wrote:
> > And are you going to pretend that science has a problem with this?
>
> Are you going to answer the question? Do you actually believe this is
> the way it happened?
>
> I have never heard this "theory" before, but I would say that science
> does have a problem with it, mainly because there is simply no
> evidence that this was the case.

Of course you are right that science has a problem with this. There is
actually very good evidence that the capture hypothesis is impossible.

All the planets move in the same direction around the Sun, in
roughly circular orbits, in the same plane, and at quite regular
spacings. Capture of planets by a star is incredibly unlikely since
any planet attracted from a long way off would be in a hyperbolic
orbit. It would need to have some kind of collision or interaction
with a third body during the fly past to kill off most of the kinetic
energy before it can be captured. And even if this occurred somehow,
you would not get the regularities described. Those regularies are a
conclusive disproof of the capture hypothesis.

In our solar system, Pluto is the only odd one out; but it is
sufficiently close to the plane, and to a circular orbit that it is
far more likely it has been knocked of course by a close encounter
with some other body; perhaps some extra-solar body in a hyperbolic
fly past, but that is speculation.

It is about time to quote St Augustine, with some advice that applies
to other believers as much as to Christians:

If they [the infidel] find a Christian mistaken in a field
which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his
foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe
those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead,
the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they
think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they
themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Cheers -- Chris Ho-Stuart