Comments on: Save Astronomy!

By: Barton Paul Levenson

Barton Paul Levenson — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:29:54 +0000

Mike J writes:

[[Maybe a grant from the Discovery Institute, or the CSE ministry would be in order… you know.. to demonstrate a “good will” approach to the legacy sciences of 18th century— help these folks become “illuminated” to the new facts about creation, and the falsehoods that abound in so-called modern astronomy..

what falsehoods you say? well… lets start with parallax geometry, and how you can’t measure large distances using this method, nor can redshift from stars be used as a reliable means to measure distance, as it has been proved that light can be slowed down..

so the two means that astronomers use to measure space cannot be correct… thus everything that comes from these “inaccurate” measurements of space also becomes incorrect… imagine if everything is much closer, or much further away… that would change everything.]]

1. Ground-based trigonometric stellar parallaxes are good out to about 100 light-years, and parallaxes from the HIPPARCOS satellite extend that to about 1,000 light-years.

2. Redshift from stars isn’t used to measure stellar distances. If you’er talking about the cosmological red shift, that is too small to measure for interstellar differences. It only becomes noticeable at intergalactic distances.

By: Foggy

Foggy — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:28:12 +0000

The 2012 Olympics seem to be devouring funding for all other activities. At the time London won the bid to host the Olympics, we were told that they would cost GBP 2.5 billion. The latest estimate from the Government is GBP 9.25 billion. The missing GBP 6 billion (USD 12 billion) is being scraped together from all sorts of places. Science funding has been cut, but also funding for the Arts, and even sports funding - something that the Olympics was supposed to promote!

Still, we will have 14 days of terrific sport, won’t we. Isn’t that nice!

By: Paul Raven

Paul Raven — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:46:37 +0000

Mr Folcrom, if you would kindly furnish us with the aforementioned monkeys, we’ll get onto it right after New Years …

By: Folcrom

Folcrom — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:08:39 +0000

Has anyone had a close look at how Britain is being run.
It’s no wonder they can’t afford to fund science.
Trained monkeys could run the Brittish government better.

Folcrom.

By: CR

CR — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:34:56 +0000

The US Congress (which is currently enjoying a Democrat majority of members) has frequently gone against public opinion and ‘caved in’ to the GOP administration wishes in order to not be perceived as weak. Um… huh? Anyway, this latest war budget approval is just the latest (and sadly, probably not the last) sign of that. I’ve heard some Dem reps & senators on radio interviews (sorry I don’t have actual citations/links) say they also won’t consider impeachment (even just initiating investigations, whether or not the actual impeachment process goes any further) beacause they don’t want to be perceived as partisan. Wha…?

So, to echo Quiet_Desperation’s statement above… neither major party in America is worth much, and both go against the common good.

By: Frank Ch. Eigler

Frank Ch. Eigler — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:14:36 +0000

Why not combine two prevalent threads and plea “Save Bad Astronomy From Bush”?

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:58:42 +0000

I sure do hope something can be done to lessen, or eliminate, this cut.
Everyone needs to fight anti-science.

A rant: I saw on Yahoo that Congress approved $70 billion for activites in Iraq and Afganistan.
Now if there’s anything that needs a cutback, THERE it is. Just $10 billion from that would do far better being put forth toward NASA’s budget.