Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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i think they ought to know that the word is "improbable." nobody says "inprobable."

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Stu Pidasso does.....and they don't make fun of nobodys.

Stu

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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The disc of the moon exactly covers the disc of the sun when it prevents an earthbound observer from seeing any part of the surface of the sun, but does not prevent and earth bound observer from seeing features emanating from the surface of the sun(i.e. corona, prominences, etc).

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Your usage of the term "exactly" is very questionable.
The disc of the Moon does not exactly cover the disc of the Sun.
That's why we have annular eclipses, and that's why total eclipses can take up to 7 minutes. If they were exactly the same a total eclipse would last 0.0 seconds.
Also, the corona is so huge that the disc of the Moon could be much bigger and we would still be able to see it during an eclipse.

Finally, when you imply that all this is designed, wouldn't that mean there has to be a purpose for this. What benefit does having a solar eclipse every 100 years or so have for mankind? And if there is one, why not make it happen more often?

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

I seriously thought mankind was getting past those solar worship thingies ("zomg, it hangs in the sky - it must be a sign, and sometimes...it goes almost dark when it usually doesn't").

Reflecting on it I guess if we should worship anything at all, then the sun makes more sense than a designer. Its powerful, all life on this planet depends on it directly or indirectly, it continously transmits necessary energy to our planet...all in all it definitely seems to have a very distinct and measurable effect that beats any idea of a god-thing.

Solar worship ftw!

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

Ok, so here are my thoughts. They are mostly on terminology, but I think they are pertinent as you are saying that NASA's use of certain words are relevant.

First of all, their use of the word improbable. I would think that anything with a probability of >50% was improbable. It is improbable that I will call in sick tomorrow. It surprises me that the use of this word by NASA has any significance to you, or your arguement.

Stellar - well that's allready been covered a bit, but wouldn't any co-incedence lerating to the solar system be stellar?

And exact/exactly. Well as has been established, the relation of the moon to the sun, as seen from Earth, varies from smaller than the sun, to larger than the sun. In this regard, I see it as similar to the following co-incedence.

A man works at a circle plant. He makes circles all day, every day. He lives 3.4 miles from work. Shortly after leaving his house in the morning he notices that he is exactly 3.1415927 miles from work! (He's an inteligent guy) OMG, he works in a CIRCLE plant! CIRCLES! Every day he is exactly 3.1415927 miles from a CIRCLE plant! TWICE! After he finishes work that day he comes to my house for a beer, and tells me about his improbable co-incidence. I say, 'Whatever man, that's not impressive you live like 4 miles from the plant, beers in the fridge.' He is shocked by my underwhelment.

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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Your usage of the term "exactly" is very questionable.
The disc of the Moon does not exactly cover the disc of the Sun.
That's why we have annular eclipses, and that's why total eclipses can take up to 7 minutes. If they were exactly the same a total eclipse would last 0.0 seconds.
Also, the corona is so huge that the disc of the Moon could be much bigger and we would still be able to see it during an eclipse.

Finally, when you imply that all this is designed, wouldn't that mean there has to be a purpose for this. What benefit does having a solar eclipse every 100 years or so have for mankind? And if there is one, why not make it happen more often?

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You make some good points, FoldALot, but have you seen my banana? God is truly all around us.

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksuObVszb-Q

madnak are you trying to get ahead or trying to catch up?

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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No. Astronomical long shots are expected to come in. There are so many different measurements and observations we can make in the universe that it would be strange if some of them were not weird coincidences.

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I agree that the universe is so large and there is so much to observe and measure and that we should expect to see longshots come in. However in this case we have seen a parlay of longshots come in. First is the longshot of life originating on this planet. The second longshot is life on this planet developing intelligence. The third longshot is the improbable coincidence of the same relative sizes of the disc of the moon and the disc of the sun from the perspective of the intelligent life on this planet.

After enough longshots parlay, I don't think its unreasonable to start doubting its just the result of chance. Do you?

Stu

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The anthropic principle takes care of your first few long shots so we're still just left with what we've been talking about.

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

Stu,

I already believe in God, and this "impropable coincidence" isn't doing much for me. I don't understand why something like this would suggest creation, especially since it isn't "exact". Am I missing something here?

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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Stu,

I already believe in God, and this "impropable coincidence" isn't doing much for me. I don't understand why something like this would suggest creation, especially since it isn't "exact". Am I missing something here?

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God is kind of a sloppy David Blaine? But less smug and annoying?

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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It seems to me that when something looks to be a "fantastic" or "stellar" coincidence theres probably a correct explanation, not dependent on chance.

Stu

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“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” - Richard Feynman

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

the opposite is true imo.

if i were a creator and were to do this, i'd probably throw in some randomness just for fun and make the difference of the ratios (ratio of distances and ratio of sizes) normally distributed about 0 with a standard deviation of about 1%. i would use the box-muller transform to generate the random number, which i'm sure we can all agree is an excellent way to generate normal random numbers. the chances of the difference being that far off zero would then be about 99.9%. i think its safe to assume an all powerful creator would generate the difference the same way since the numbers i picked are pretty sweet.

and lets also say that ignoring this coincidence, the chances of there being a creator are about 50/50, since that seems to reflect the thoughts of the world population pretty accurately.

i'm not going to do the busywork, but it's pretty easy to show - given these mathematically sound assumptions - that creation is actually LESS likely due to the difference in these ratios. the ratio would be significantly closer to zero if creation were more likely.

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” - Richard Feynman

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Richard Feynman is an idiot if he believes that is some amazing coincidence. He would be an idiot of somewhat lesser magnitude if he saw a white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 357 and another white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 358 in the parking lot and insisted that had to be an amazing coincidence as well. A smart person would conclude that its more likely they are just fleet cars.

Stu

Re: A coincidence that bothers me
 

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“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” - Richard Feynman

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Richard Feynman is an idiot if he believes that is some amazing coincidence. He would be an idiot of somewhat lesser magnitude if he saw a white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 357 and another white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 358 in the parking lot and insisted that had to be an amazing coincidence as well. A smart person would conclude that its more likely they are just fleet cars.

Stu

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would he also be an idiot if he saw two cars that happen to be almost the same colour parked beside one another, and concluded that it's a coincidence that those two cars that happen to be almost the same colour ended up parked beside one another?

or should he conclude that the driver of one of the cars decided to mess around with everyone that observes the colours of cars in the parking lot by parking beside another car of nearly the same colour?