Politics and Religion
I was wrong all along. You found a Nasa link from a loony website (Godlike Productions), and therefore your nuttery has been proven true!
Or maybe not. I would note that this link was a research paper done all the way back in 1984. Is this more reliable than today, because, as you put it, Nasa is now corrupted by corporate interests who are involved in a cover up to hide the fact that we're all going to die due to a rogue star called Nemesis? Or does it have something to do with the shifting of the galactic plane which will bring in comets from out outer solar system, causing them to crash into earth?
Well, not exactly. The Shiva hypothesis is interesting, but it's wrong. Here's why:
In 1984 the concept of mass extinction events was a new idea. The five major extinction events were first discovered just two years prior in a paper published by Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup. Rampino and Stothers attempted to explain PAST extinction events with the shiva hypothesis.
The problem is that since then, 16 other extinction events have been discovered in the fossil record, and there's no apparent pattern to any of them. The more likely cause of these mass extinctions is overpopulation, leading to a short term shock when resources become depleted.
Yes, you're right, I don't have any faith in the bible being true. I don't have any faith at all. I have logic and reason. But I do find Leviticus 20:27 a bit amusing.
:::snicker:::
I don't have any faith in Darwin. I have evidence that Darwin was right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1m4mATYoig
By the way, I do think that the earth could be experiencing a new extinction event. You can't go from 1 billion people to 8 billion people in 100 years and expect nothing to happen when it comes to a species as destructive as us. We have cheated natural selection with an invention we call civilization, and eventually our resources will be depleted. My best guess is that this will happen in the next 40 years, or whenever we run out of fossil fuels.
I'm also quite sure that you're right that a earthquake will happen sometime around March 22nd. That's because there are 500,000 earthquakes every year. In other words, somewhere on the planet, there's an earthquake every day. However, only 100 are strong enough to cause serious damage. So if the USGS is right in their estimates, you have nearly a 1 in 3 chance of being right about this. Give or take 2 days, and your chances are almost certain that SOMEWHERE a major earthquake will happen. However, as I have patiently explained to you before, earthquakes have zip to do with planetary alignments.
Our magnetosphere isn't weak. Increased earthquake activity would demonstrate that our magnetisphere is stronger than it has been in the past. In reality, it's just as strong now as it was 10 years ago and will be 10 years from now.
We always have space debris hitting the earth. About 15,000 metric tons of meteors hit the earth every year. I would be more worried about Apophis. But we won't see it until April 13th, 2029.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaW4Ol3_M1o
And lastly, I agree. You really shouldn't reply to me. 
-- Modified on 3/19/2012 12:03:08 AM
...when pseudoscientists misinterpret science to prove their point, and then attack science (Darwin) at the same time? Does the Space Cadet have no shame? Is there anything more hypocritical than that?
If one googles the title of this paper from Rampino and Stothers, your first hit isn't from NASA, but from a loony conspiracy website called Godlike Productions that the Space Cadet has linked from many times before.
Some of the lunatic gems you get from this is ideas like "the sun is a comet" and "all matter is plasma", meaning that you and I are made of lava. Who does that remind you of?
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1801229/pg1
This isn't evidence of a NASA coverup, it's evidence of a scientific theory that was put out there, 2 years after mass extinctions were discovered, to try to explain why they happen. It has since been demonstrated that the theory is wrong.
While the Shiva Hypothesis is interesting, it's bad science. It takes one set of data (extinction events from the fossil record), and compares it to cosmological events to try to find a pattern. It assumes a cause and effect relationship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Hypothesis
By the way, if you google Shiva Hypothesis, one of the first hits you get is from that same website, Godlike Productions.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1104785/pg1
Any good theory to explain the cause of mass extinction events, would explain why each mass extinction event happened. Not the famous 5 mass extinctions, but the 16 other mass extinctions. The Shiva hypothesis fails to do so.
But this isn't the first time the Space Cadet has used science as evidence to try to prove her pseudoscience. Astronomer Percival Lowell began searching for planets beyond Neptune back in the 1900's, and gave such hypothetical planet the temporary name of "Planet X".
The Space Cadet has been so bold as to use this as evidence that a rogue planet is out to kill us, despite that Pluto wasn't discovered until 1930. It's quite offensive, given that Lowell's work contributed so much to Pluto's discovery, which sadly he didn't live long enough to see. Pluto was eventually named Pluto because the first two letters were Lowell's initials, and it's astronomical symbol is a monogram of Lowell's initials.
A fitting tribute to a man who contributed so much to astronomy. And a terrible insult to the man's legacy, when the Space Cadet uses his work to attempt to give credence to her nonsensical babble.