Expert: Tom Whiting - 12/19/2007

Question
QUESTION: I just started reading Carl Sagan's "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" and he writes that solar systems are created just in our Milky Way Galaxy at the rate of one per month. If you consider the observable universe, the rate is more like 100 per second. I've not been able to confirm this. True or false? Any good references you can point me to? I have an ever-increasingly irrational religious friend that I'd like to pose this question to if I have something to back me up. Thanks, Chuck

ANSWER: Hi Chuck,
Sorry but I've never read Sagan....while he was a great promoter of astronomy to the general population, I just didn't like his writings as they were too general...billions and billions of this and that, but how about the diameter of Jupiter, or the distance to Saturn?  I needed specifics as an astronomy instructor, and Sagan's works (textbooks) didn't supply that to me.  So I'm not surprised that those are his statements...the problem is the data and proof as there just isn't any, as yet.

But not to be discouraged, as there is enough data and proof
out there on other subjects to "counteract" any of your so-called irrational (actually it's just a case of "in denial")  religious friend.   (Although you may be facing a brick wall
irf the denial is set in granite, because he or she won't accept ANY science, as that is a product of  "the devil"...or that's their rationale).

I typically point out the Big Bang data...Ed Hubble discovered in the 1920's that all galaxies external to the Local
Group are receding, and receding proportionally.  Arno
Pensias and Robert Wilson discovered the Background
radiation, the remnant of the Big Bang in 1965, and received
the Nobel Prize for that....spacecraft COBE in the early
1990's confirmed it with its discovery of minor temperature
differences across the entire sky.

Various rock outcroppings on both the moon and Earth
date the formation of the Solar System (and Earth) to about
4.6 billion years ago and now all the geologists, astronomers,
stratigraphers, and fossil experts are in agreement as to the
age. ...and not 6000 years ago.  So one who disagrees has to
"take on" all realms of science, not just one, as was the case
about 100 years ago as there was disagreements among
the various branches of science back then.

Modern biology finds that our DNA matches up to the
Chimpanzee's and Bonobo's of over 99% ...tough to get around that one because DNA is something that they can
take into a court of law to even determine individual paternity
suit as to who the father is.  (And over 90% to the other
primates too)!  There are over 50 billion combinations to the
DNA molecule, so even a 20% match up is good enough
for biologists....let alone 99% which you can take to the
bank if you want.  
Plus your "fundamentalist" friend has been wrong
(or his Kind wrong -- 3 times before, very bad track record)...
Galileo and Copernicus were right in that the Earth moves,
is a planet, and is NOT in the center of the Universe.....as the
fundamentalists had us fooled for over 2000 years with their
mis-interpretations from 400 BC until 1600 AD.... Strike one.
Strike two...Bruno was burned at the stake for teaching that
the sun was a star, and all stars were suns....Can't be because
the sun was created on One Day and the Stars a different
Day!).........well, poor Bruno was correct, and the fundamentalists were Wrong...strike two.
And today it's obvious that we and the other primates are
all related due to DNA....strike three.
Oh, the so-called world wide flood, if so, Noah would have
had quite an aquarium on board the ark, as all salt water
animals would have also perished, with the dilution of the
ocean waters with that much fresh water added, not to mention the pH and temperature change.  (Ever try to maintain a salt water aquarium?  Salt water species of fish
and other animals are very very sensitive to change) and
a rapid 40 day world wide flood would have killed all ocean life....in addition to Kangeroo's, Panda's, etc stuff Noah would
not have even dreamed about... land creatures on the other side of the world. ....Strike 4!
Who did Cain marry? He kills Abel and takes a wife..where
did she come from?  And it can't be his sister because that
would have really screwed up humans with inbreeding
problems.  Your fundamentalist friend has to still accept
the fact that the Earth is in the center and immovable, after
all, Joshua at the battle of Gibeon, asks the Lord to make
the sun stand still, and not the Earth, therefore the earth
is not moving!!  (That argument was used against Galileo
at his inquision)!!  So your friend's past "track record" is
not too....pure and promising, is it?
{Not the Bible, his INTERPRETATION of it}!!!

The problem is....theology and philosophy should stick
to answering the "Who" and Why? questions...who put
us here, why are we here?  Etc.  Science does not answer
those questions.  We answer the How? and By what Process
questions.  The two should never stray into the other's
territory, otherwise fireworks begin.  Each should stay in
their own realm.  By what process...is a question for
science, and not theology....that's where they get into trouble in the first place.  Just like we in science get into big trouble
if we stray into the who and why answers...those are strictly
for theology.
Hope all this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA









---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Tom - You say "the problem is the data and proof as there just isn't any, as yet." By that do you mean the actual creation of solar systems, or the rate at which they are created? Thanks for your time. Chuck

Answer
Hi Chuck,
Actually, both.  I think we know of only two or three extra-Solar stars that have more than one planet (all by inference), perhaps a few more.  And I think we've found "Jupiter-sized" planets around some 100 stars so far, all relatively close to the parent star.
And almost all of those are hot, close in, "Jupiters" which
are far easier to detect by the indirect means that are being used...either change in recessional velocity of the primary star itself, or wobble,  or transits (passing in front of the parent star from our viewpoint) and the slight dimming of light from the parent star on a regular basis. We currently know of no terrestrial-sized planet around another star because we don't have the equipment as yet, to detect Earth-sized planets of other stars!

While this is a big step forward in our data collection, I'm sure our methods will improve over the next decade, but right now I'm not convinced this constitutes, as yet, enough "proof" that other solar systems even exist, or in what numbers. We just don't know as yet.

They may, then again, they may not...Sagan didn't know either!! He was just hypothesizing and extrapolating too  ....how could he know...the truth?  I believe he passed away just after the first planet of an extra-solar star was "discovered" around 51 Pegasi by astronomers
Mayor and Queloz on October 6, 1995, Sagan passed 2 months later on December 20, 1996, and one planet around one star does not contitute proof of huge numbers of solar systems.
So Sagan was just guessing and hypothesizing too.  You've got to keep facts, hypotheses, and fiction....separate; don't combine them, or worse, substitute one for the other.

That's where it stands right now, and don't forget, we don't even as yet have a picture or photograph of an extra-solar planet....they are all "discoveries"...by inference....of the actions of the parent star.  So, they probably do exist, but in what quantities....or how often, we still have no idea...but give us another 50 years or so, and then we'll probably have a better handle on this question.  I think in 2014 we launch into space a giant interferometer telescope which will be much better at detecting planets of other stars. So there are plans ahead...we just have to wait and hold suspended judgment, that's all.

We of course like to think they exist, they probably do
exist; you can theorize until you're blue in the face about total numbers of stars, probabilities of existence, dust clouds seen around young stars, etc etc....but all this doesn't make it so...it takes hard data, hard work,  and proof in science, not hopefulness and guesswork. That's
what separates us from your "friend's methods" of hopefulness and faith.  We in science require data and
proof before coming out definitively with a solid statement and proof.
Sorry, but that's the way science works, and that's where
it stands right now....so, stand by, and stay tuned.
Hope all this helps,
Clear skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA


FOLLOW UP:
Thanks for the nice comments.  Hey, use the stuff I gave
you in the first E-mail.  Your friend of course will counter
that they don't care about the past..that was 400 years ago,
about the stationary Earth and the sun is not a star.
But in effect, he's using the advancements of 400 years of  science to say, well, we now accept that the Earth is a planet moving around the sun, and not in the center... (after fighting that concept for over 2000 years) and the fact that the sun IS a star, and all stars are suns.  Yet, in the same breath, he'll turn around and bash current science for....other current findings.  So he's being a hypocrite, by saying, we don't care about the past.  Why?  Because they were wrong in the past!

Well, we DO care about the past....his kind kept science in
the dark for over 2000 years with their wrong literal interpretations of the Bible!  Fool me once, shame on you,
fool me twice and shame on me!
Notice also today he has to take on ALL sciences (If it was just one or two, maybe he'd have a point)...but they have to take on and bash ALL of them...physics, fossil experts, chemistry, stratigraphers, Historical geology, physical geology, astronomy, astrophysics, biology, and the list goes on and on.....etc. etc.  (He also neglects the point that God created science for us too)!  
They think all of science is just one big conspiracy to
deny God, but it isn't....science is simply after the absolute truth, no matter how the chips may fall....what could be a Higher  goal and objective??  So they have to bash ALL sciences; Why?  Because there is no outside data that substantiates  their own erroneous Biblical interpretation...so what else can they do?  Bash All science at any cost.  There is no other alternative for them, because there is no outside evidence that supports their own interpretaton.  (outside of the Bible, that is).  And technically, you can't use Biblical phrases as that's the very interpretation being brought into question). Oh, and they can't even say, Well,  God just did it that way....that's a non-sequitor...you can say that for anything, so it contitutes zero proof and data also.

MY daddy once told me that if I thought I was right, and
the entire rest of the world was wrong, I should maybe
examine my own stand on the question rather than bashing
everyone else....because odds are that I am the wrong one.

Besides,  God couldn't have spelled out the entire process of Big Bang and evolution of life in the first chapter of  Genesis anyway....Genesis would have been 11,000 pages long.  And,
could you read this?  "Well, we're going to start with a random quantum fluctation in the primordial Void to create a Big Bang and then form up in the primordial soup through ultraviolet radiation a set of  4 amino acids with the quarks,
and protons, electrons, and neutrons which eventually will
lead to a replicating strand of DNA which you can see with
that scanning electron microscope right over that next hill.....
etc. etc."  No one until the mid-twentieth century would have
understood any of  that. The Bible had to be written for all ages, so Keep It Simple....do this the First Day, do this the
Second Day, etc.    Then give man science, and a brain, and
let him figure out God's actual  process himself, rather than
writing it all out using 11,000 pages in first chapter of Genesis, which no one would have understood until the 20th century.   It was a brilliant move on His part-- keep it simple.
And that's why a strictly literal interpretation....just doesn't
work.  Never has (Galileo, Copernicus).... and never will.
Just my opinion.
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA