Monday, February 26, 2007

Conservapedia: I Still Cant Tell!

I was drifting into the camp that Conservapedia was a parody site until I read this entry:

Some have criticized gravity, reminding us that it is only a theory, and that no scientist has ever seen a graviton or a space curve. Furthermore, experiments done by NASA prove that the Moon is receding (moving further away) from the Earth at a rate of 3.8cm per year, directly contradicting the theory that masses attract one another[1]. Indeed, astronomers can observe that all stars in the universe are moving away from one another. The considerable disagreement between scientists about the theory of gravity suggests that, like evolution, the theory will eventually be replaced with a model which acknowledges God as the source of all things, the Prime Mover, and the only real fundamental force in the universe.

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/ApolloLaser.html

The moon is, in fact, moving away from the earth, but it's entirely due to the redistribution of angular momentum in the earth-moon system due to tidal fricition. Quite provable from first principles.
This is a sad entry, it makes baby Newton cry.

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