I researched Jefferson's most recent claim, and came up with further definitive evidence of why this poster should not be taken seriously...

You know that whole "earth moving away from the sun" riff keeps going on about?
How Jefferson keeps pretending that it somehow refutes the scientific statements on the age of the earth?
But when asked to substantiate these claims, there's no response?

There's a reason why Jefferson doesn't want to elaborate...


There is an effect which is making us move very slowly away from the Sun. That is the tidal interaction between the Sun and the Earth. This slows down the rotation of the Sun, and pushes the Earth farther away from the Sun. You can read about tides, as they relate to the Earth-Moon system here. The principle for the Sun-Earth system should be the same. But how big of an effect is this? It turns out that the yearly increase in the distance between the Earth and the Sun from this effect is only about one micrometer (a millionth of a meter, or a ten thousandth of a centimeter). So this is a *very* tiny effect.

There is another effect which is also small, but somewhat bigger than the tidal effect. The Sun is powered by nuclear fusion, which means the Sun is continuously transforming a small part of its mass into energy. As the mass of the Sun goes down, our orbit gets proportionally bigger. However, over the entire main sequence lifetime of the Sun (about 10 billion years), the Sun will only lose about 0.1% of its mass, which means that the Earth should move out by just ~150,000 km (small compared to the total Earth-Sun distance of ~150,000,000 km). If we assume that the Sun's rate of nuclear fusion today is the same as the average rate over those 10 billion years (a bold assumption, but it should give us a rough idea of the answer), then we're moving away from the Sun at the rate of ~1.5 cm (less than an inch) a year. I probably don't even need to mention that this is so small that we don't have to worry about freezing.
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=317

Do I really need to explain how small that is compared to the relative distance to the sun?
If Jefferson wants to actually do the math for how far of a "movement" we are talking about over the scientifically determined age of the earth, compared to the distance from the sun to the earth and actually state it, then maybe Jefferson could actually argue with SOMETHING instead of just claiming importance...
But then again, this will be another issue which Jefferson will ignore, like how carbon dating would be changed by this phenomenon in the first date continues to be ignored by Jefferson.

Either Jefferson knew he was talking about a ridiculously unimportant effect, and was just trolling anyways...
... or he wasn't bright enough to figure out that his gripe was downright insignificant.

I would ask Jefferson whether he knew the above or not, but I see no point because it won't answer any simple question aimed at it...
Now the real question comes down to whether or not Jefferson has the common sense / common decency to realize/acknowledge how badly his ploy has been exposed...

That would be an intellectual honesty/integrity issue that, ironically, he keeps accusing others of not having...

I wonder what their religious affiliation is ...

Hi guys. Please check it out:

Thank you for learning more about the Earth Day Virtual March to Leave NO Species Behind.

An unprecedented and wide ranging legislative assault is underway that would harm America's endangered species; threaten our national parks, forests and wildlife refuges; and remove protections for our health and the environment we share.

These attacks are spearheaded by former House Majority Leader Tom Delay, his handpicked Chair of the powerful House Resources Committee, Richard Pombo, and influential Representatives and Senators.

Congressman Richard Pombo (R-California) in particular has received tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions and in return has: proposed selling 15 national parks; drilling for oil off the coasts of California, Florida and in Alaska's pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, proposed eliminating protection for children from potentially life-threatening pesticides, and railroaded legislation through the House of Representatives that would harm endangered species and the vital habitat they need to survive.

Top Five Reasons to March:
Richard Pombo is literally in the pocket of oil companies, developers and corporate special interests. Pombo wants to sell federal lands to greedy developers and mining companies; he wants to allow Big Oil to drill off the coasts of California and Florida, as well as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Tom Delay says “It’s all about precedent”) and has taken money from special interests like indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. For more detailed information go to www.pombointheirpocket.org.

America’s symbol the bald eagle, grizzly bears, gray wolves, manatees, sea otters, the California condor and many other animals will be pushed to extinction by Pombo’s legislation (H.R. 3824) that would gut the effective Endangered Species Act.
Pombo’s bill would:
replace the current mandatory critical habitat system with a system of discretionary recovery plans that fail to protect habitat;
require the federal government to use taxpayer dollars to pay developers for complying with the law, setting no limits on these payments.
exempt all pesticide decisions from ESA compliance, taking away the ability under the ESA to stop pesticide use even when necessary to prevent extinction;
allow agencies with little to no experience in wildlife issues to decide if projects will harm wildlife; For more detailed information go to www.saveesa.org.

Pombo is putting our children’s health at risk to benefit pesticide companies. Pombo is proposing to make it easier for large pesticide companies to put dangerous new products on the market, even if the government thinks those chemical products might harm children. Go to www.pombointheirpocket.org for more detailed information.

Pombo is proposing to gut the landmark National Environmental Policy Act. Often called the Magna Carta of environmental laws, the statute allows citizens to participate in a review of proposed actions to be sure they won’t harm the environment. Pombo wants to gut this cornerstone law to benefit his special interest friends. Go to www.defendersactionfund.org for detailed information.

Richard Pombo is not only an enemy of wildlife and the environment – he has also been named one of the “13 most corrupt members of Congress.” Enough said. Go to http://www.beyonddelay.org for more information.

http://earthday.care2.com/campaigns/edvm/#register

Peace. Ty

Otters!