Talk:Earth

POV

This article shows extreme bias in stating that life on earth "evolved" 4 billion years ago... After all, evolution is just a theory and this article completely avoids all other explanations of the origins of life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.134.99.203 (talk) 02:28, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Umm... http://www.notjustatheory.com/ 83.150.146.48 (talk) 09:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Please, the site you linked to shows even more bias than this article. It makes completly unsubstantiated claims out of the blue, then it cites such laughably questionably sources as the "American Heritage Dictionary" and "Decision of the Court Striking Down the Cobb County Evolution Disclaimer." Additionally it attempts to confuse the issue by contradicting itself repeatedly, for example, it includes "The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is our best explanation for the fact of evolution" when it clearly states later that "Evolution is not just a theory, it's triumphantly a theory!" This not only classifies evolution in two incompatible ways, as theory and fact, it also makes redundantly the obvious statement that, while correct, employs deceptive rhetoric in order to confuse readers into thinking that information can be "triumphantly a theory," a clear logical impossibility. They also forgo the inclusion of a superior character encoding such as UTF8 in favor iso-8859-1, an encoding renowned for its use in propaganda, which in itself is a testament to the pure functionality of the site's content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.134.99.203 (talk) 04:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This has already been discussed here. A scientific theory is not merely a guess. That would be a hypothesis, which evolution is not. --Evice (talk) 19:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

To the original poster - before you make comments such as this, I would recommend you do a great deal more research. This is a talk page and is thus not the place to carry out an evolution-creation debate, but I or others can provide you with some if you so desire. Until then, please make sure your comments and/or suggestions have a strong and verifiable foundation before requesting their influence on the article. RadicalTwo (talk) 23:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Definitely the first time I have heard a character set accused of propaganda and bias. Nice troll! JPotter (talk) 16:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, clearly only non-Unicode character sets can be trusted. Never mind the fact that the creator of this section ignored the fact that Wikipedia uses UTF-8, raising the question of his/her presence on this site. --Evice (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Earth was made 6,000 years ago. how can it been formed 4.54 billion years ago, that's ridiculous. The Bible is clear that Adam, the first man, lived only 6000 years ago. Adam was created on the sixth day of God's Creation Week, so according to the Bible the earth must be only 6000 years old too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.134.124.248 (talk) 21:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This article needs to be neutral about the origins of life. The fact is that we simply do not know. Were any of you there at the creation of the Earth (and Universe)? No. Therefore, we cannot know. But, there are only two options (except for the Universe has always existed) for the origin of life, which are: spontaneous Big-Bang, with life arriving by macroevolution OR a personal God created the Earth (as recorded in the Bible). I think you should either make this article neutral, such as "many scientists believe the Earth was created 4.54 billion years ago, but they are not quite sure." OR include a section discussing Big-band vs. God (but not in a debate way; just pure presentation). What do you think?

Absolutely not. I am not going to start a science-vs-bronze age book debate here, but I will say this: The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of an old planet on which evolution proceeded over millions or billions of years. Using false dichotomies and "science isn't sure so let's not trust it" arguments is not going to get you anywhere. -RadicalOne---Contact Me 03:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"We don't know"? There are lots of pieces of evidence pointing to Earth being a few billion years old. Not to mention the fact that people have existed for longer than merely 6,000 years. --Evice (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

My microwave oven works on the principles of a number of physics 'theories,' but no-one doubts its origins or that they will heat your soup. This debate would be better placed under the page Genesis. The literal bibical view is held by a minority of human beings. If you want proof that science is correct, just go into your kitchen, *bing* Kayakboy (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

At present, Earth provides the only example of an environment that has given rise to the evolution of life

shouldn't this be "only example currently known to man" as the current statement - taken literaly - would mean that no other planet harbours life in the entire universe. my proposition would be more accurate. user: XM8 Carbine (my log in memmery isn't working) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.169.136.236 (talk) 07:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but I have to disagree. The use of 'currently' would be redundant, and the use of 'example' here is clearly interpreted from the perspective of the intended audience. The key criteria is probably Wikipedia:Verifiability. Implicit in your statement is the idea that other, self-aware life forms exist. To me this is likely true, but currently unverifyable. I don't think a revision is necessary; nor is speculation about the existence of life elsewhere. When we find other examples, the article can be modified accordingly.—RJH (talk) 19:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we sould add a clear qualifier that puts both of these statments in to context i.e. that us and the Earth are the only examples we have of life and therefore the 'habitability' of any part of the universe is completely and arbitarily defined by the sample size of N=1. We could add such a clause as (as we currently know it, which is based on a sample size of N=1, is limited by our current observations and is therefore a completely arbitrary definition). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amore proprio (talk • contribs) 14:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but to me this is painfully invalid logic, and therefore it is your conclusion that appears arbitrary. I'll have to disagree. No offense intended.—RJH (talk) 19:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Round

I think this article should remain neutral about this dispute. Until someone can actually prove that the Earth is round, the article should only treat the round earth theory as theory, and not fact. Change it so that it states that the Earth is flat, and unbiased article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.232.69.135 (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

So, you are saying that you believe the world is flat? Uh, yeah. Whatever you say, buddy. Doomshifter (talk) 02:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It probably was a facetious posting. :-) —RJH (talk) 18:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

gt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.75.108.53 (talk) 00:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

gt? --Frank Fontaine (talk) 17:24, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

uh we have sattelite pix to SHOW its round. look at the moon. if keep sailing and walking in a straight line ull end up where you started. is this not proof?? *dream on*dance on* 20:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taylor Lane (talk • contribs)

Occam's razor applies here. If the Earth is not a simple and elegant spheroid resting in gravitational equilibrium, then the anonymous editor will need to justify the turtles all the way down with suitable citations. ;-) —RJH (talk) 22:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Meridians and parallells

At present, only the circumference of 1 paralell is mentioned; can a list be given for how large the other paralells are ? (eg the parallell on the at 70° N/S is much shorter than the 0° parallell)

In addition, the parallells arent really the east-west equivalents of the meridian's: the parallells run parallell to each other (no intersection), while the meridians run towards 1 central point (Northpole, Southpole) and intersect there. What exactly is the true equivalent of the meridians, and what are the equivalents of the paralells (thus lines running paralell from the north/southpole, and not towards it).

Also, shouldn't the ecliptic meridians and their equivalents be used on maps (I'm guessing the "top" of the earth isn't actually the north pole, but rather the area more left towards the 70° parallell is. See File:AxialTiltObliquity.png .

If the proposed parallells and their equivalents don't yet exist, they need to be drawn on a new image and shown in the earth article (and modifications need to be made at Circle of latitude and Meridians

KVDP (talk) 09:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

To a very good approximation, the length of any parallel is the cosine of the latitude times the length of the equator. −Woodstone (talk) 18:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The fate of the oceans

Currently the article includes the following statement:

Even if the Sun were eternal and stable ... 35% of the water in the oceans would descend to the mantle due to reduced steam venting from mid-ocean ridges.

This result is based upon the Bounama et al. (2001) paper, which uses a geophysical model that posits 27% of the current ocean mass will be subducted within the next billion years. In 2006, however, there was a news story:

Hunter, Simon (May 10, 2006). "Scientists Reveal Fate of Earth's Oceans". NASA/Earth Observatory. Retrieved 2009-11-12.

that states:

... up to 10% of the Earth's oceans have been absorbed deep into the Earth since its formation.

Those rates don't seem compatible. Is that because the continents are larger now and there is much higher rate of subduction? But even that wouldn't seem to account for the difference.—RJH (talk) 17:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Earth Images (Rosetta)

• http://www.wissenschaft-online.de/artikel/1014174

"image = " 82.109.84.114 (talk) 16

32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

What is your point?—RJH (talk) 17:16, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

"Earth" or "Terra"?

Given that all the other planets have Latin names, is then "Terra" not the correct name for this planet? And thus "Terran" as the posessive? RadicalOne (talk) 02:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Nope. In English, the name is Earth. If you read this very article, especially the Cultural viewpoint section, you can see some of the derivation of the name. The second line of the entire article essentially explains it, though - because we named it Earth. Terra is used for land masses (terra incongnita) and futuristic sci-fi scenarios. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 02:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

"In English, the name is Earth." Of course it is, but that was not my point. If the scientific name for other planets are Latin, is it not consistent for the Latin name of this planet to be the scientific one, with English being the "common" name? Or is it another term of "centric" origin - e.g. "The Sun", with humanity self-importantly naming their own planet/star/etc according to different conventions? RadicalOne (talk) 02:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

"Terra" is used for Earth in scientific journals? Really? --NeilN ^{talk ♦ contribs} 03:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I did not say it was - I doubt it is - but my point is that "Terra" is a more logical and consistent name than "Earth". RadicalOne (talk) 03:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well, sort of the latter, but it's not really an issue of scientific name or not. Unlike species, which have Latin (Linnean) names, the planets do not; Jupiter only has one name, Jupiter. Names for the Earth, Sun, and Moon are "centric," as you say, since they clearly dominated (in that order) the perceptions of ancient civilizations. Names like Terra, Luna, and Sol are really all just attempts to unify those names into a more "logical" system, or how a third-party might name them, hence the use in sci-fi. In the future, questions like this can be asked at the reference desk. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 03:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is responsible for naming all astronomical bodies in accordance with its naming conventions. Its official list of English planetary names is at Planet and Satellite Names and Discoverers. It has accepted the historical name "Earth" for this planet in English. A comprehensive list of planetary names in other languages is at Planetary Linguistics including transliterated names in languages that are not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin. — Joe Kress (talk) 04:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "terra" even belongs in the lead, given that the only note that links to it simply informs the reader that the IAU does not recognise the term as a name for the Earth. Serendi^podous 15:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the 'terra' preference probably comes from it's frequent use in science fiction writing. E.g. humans are referred to as "terrans" in many novels. However, as it is the latin for Earth, and used historically in phrases like terra firma and terra incognita, I don't think it is terribly outlandish to include it in the lead.—RJH (talk) 04:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, just what I was going to write when I saw that you had already written it. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 16:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Future of Earth

The section Future seems to me to violate Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. This might seem at odds with science which clearly can make prediction on the fate of the sun. However: I wish to interpret the policy so that, when modelling and guessing the future of Earth, it must be painstakingly clear that the section Future reflects one or more models. I dislike the simplistic model presented as being truth. Statements such as:

The Earth's increasing surface temperature will accelerate the inorganic CO₂ cycle, reducing its concentration to lethal levels for plants (10 ppm for C-4 photosynthesis) in 900 million years.

is far too precise. If I'm not wrong, there are various models of early Venus, one claiming that the oceans evaporated for runaway greenhouse effect very early, such as about 3000-3500 Ma ago, and another that claims that the increasing clouding allowed Venus to be oceanic up to about 800 Ma ago. Such variance in models for Venus should have its counterparts for the future of Earth. The number 900 Ma in future should probably be from 500 to 3000 Ma in future or some such, if similar models are applied to Earth as for Venus. Stating 900 million years would require lots of according to and references. I believe the section presents as facts very speculative modelling attempts very early in the science of planetary meteorology. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 18:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Another objection: the section uses many sources to produce one picture. I think the section actually borders to Undue synthesis and to Original research, while at least some of the sources implies that there are other beliefs on what event will occur at which time. I'll mark the section with some warning template. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 19:05, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Ward and Brownlee (2002) cover the topic in great detail at a scientific level, so I don't consider it WP:SYNTH at all. The section is fully cited, so adding a citation about "original research or unverified claims" seems inappropriate. As for the "900 million years" issue, that can be readily managed with an "about" or an "estimated". In sort, I disagree with your objections.—RJH (talk) 20:54, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Notification of an AfD

Just a quick note that I've submitted Volume of the Earth for deletion (see here), in case anyone was interested. Cheers, Ben (talk) 08:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion of Magnetosphere Data

This might be a suitable piece of information to include on all of the information bars for the planet series on Wikipedia, as it is a relatively common and useful piece of information. I am finding myself having to search on other sites to acquire this data, which is a rarity for Wikipedia. Take this into consideration and perhaps confer with some of the other talk pages on this subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.93.134.41 (talk) 02:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you believe that information is missing from the Earth's magnetic field article? If so, then you might mention it on that article's talk page. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 23:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

A suggestion for this talk page

Could we add a disclaimer at the top of this talk page (I suppose under the one related to Mostly Harmless) stating that the information on the Earth article is scientifically oriented, especially the age of 4.54 billion years? The complaints from young earth creationists are getting repetitive. --Evice (talk) 05:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well that has been debated before and we did try putting in a notice. But the consensus was then to remove it. Instead, such complaints are usually just directed to the prior discussions, or to the Age of the Earth article. Another approach would be to view all such postings as a "teachable moment" and don't sweat their non-scientific viewpoint. You could also write a carefully thought out opinion piece on the subject and post it. :-) —RJH (talk) 17:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of this page is to detail the technical undisputable scientific facts about the earth. The fact that it's round, goes around the sun, has a moon going around it, and has existed for over 4 billion years. None of it is theory. If creationists choose not to believe it that's up to them, but all the data in this article should be what science has proven and nothing more. If we start adding crackpot stories from books of fiction then where do we stop? I'm sure there are plenty of science fiction novels we could quote from as well as quoting from (fiction that is) the bible. It's a story book with some rules designed to try and bring order to a society that needed it at the time. Not that any of the followers of that book follow the rules in it anyway. How many people have been executed for having an affair recently? The bible states they should be. You'd think the creator of the planet would have known it was round also. Well, if the book had been written by God then he'd have mentioned it. But no, it was written by people. God didn't create man, it was the other way around. How brainwashed must people be these days to believe in that nonsense? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.155.246.115 (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

While I agree with most or all of that comment, I just want to point out that this is not the place to start a debate on the topic of religion or Christianity, which is what the post morphs into halfway through. Back on topic to the article and the notice, I think a notice would be a bad idea, as it hints too much at the popular "Teach the Controversy" so many scientists now hear. -RadicalOne---Contact Me 22:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

i have a ref for earth mean density

i can't put this in because i can't edit this page

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/KatherineMalfucci.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.182.192.11 (talk) 15:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I added your reference. You probably cannot edit this page because you are not logged in to an account. The Earth article was semi-protected by administrator User:Jmlk17 more than a year ago to prevent vandalism (because it's a high-profile article). If you want to edit it and other semi-protected pages, you can do so by creating an account and logging in. Nimur (talk) 16:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please note that the above references is unsuitable for the data point since it lacks the listed precision. (Which is why I removed it: sorry.) I think the data comes from Yoder (1995), but unfortunately that is currently inaccessible.—RJH (talk) 17:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Both Yoder (p.8) and Allen's Astrophysical Quantities (p.12) have 5.515 g/cm³. NASA has 5515 kg/m³. JPL has 5.5134 g/cm³, which probably includes the atmosphere because it was Earth's mass derived from satellites divided by the volume of a sphere having its mean radius. I haven't located the source of the figure now in the article, 5.5153 g/cm³. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The 5.515 value seems to be pretty widely published and probably has enough precision for wikipedia purposes, I think. The extra digit doesn't seem to add much value. :-) —RJH (talk) 16:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't sure where to post this

but, while there is a wiki article for underwater, there is no equivalent article for underground. I can't find an appropriate article to add to the disambig page. Is there one? Serendi^podous 00:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I think lithosphere, crust (geology), and mantle (geology) could all be linked in a sentence explaining that underground usually means below the surface of the Earth. I noticed that Earth's surface redirects to lithosphere at the moment. LonelyMarble (talk) 01:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Umm, am I missing something? Below the surface of the Earth is the very definition of underground, so that would just result in a link to the wiktionary. I think the Structure of the Earth article covers the above linked topics in some detail, and it is already linked in this article.—RJH (talk) 19:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Why no Fahrenheit?

It seems to me it would make sense to include the surface temperatures in the sidebar in Fahrenheit as well, regardless of their scientific acceptance, they are used by one of the largest countries on the planet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwarfyperson (talk • contribs) 17:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This is an encyclopedia, and those temperatures teach me nothing. I shouldn't have to learn another "language" just to get information from the world's single largest source of collaborative knowledge. 67.106.115.42 (talk) 18:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, every industrialised nation in the world uses metric/SI units. Even the single industrialised nation that does not generally use them do use them in scientific/medical/etc contexts. In my mind then there is hardly justification for including conversions to that unit in a scientific article. This is backed by Wikipedia:MOS#Units_of_measurement. Ben (talk) 21:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there a mouse-over tag we can use that will provide Fahrenheit in a pop-up? Otherwise I agree, plus it clutters up the text.—RJH (talk) 22:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The template could be modified to have a third set of fields for Fahrenheit. As has been said, due to the scientific context, it's otherwise reasonable to omit Fahrenheit, but since this is a Earthly weather temperature, I think a fair argument for an exception can be made. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to point out a slippery slope, but we need to be careful. Once extra conversions begin to be added in places throughout this article (particularly via a template that is used on many articles) they're likely to creep their way into other articles of a similar nature via that template (editors feel compelled to keep templates as populated as possible) and throughout the text, which in many instances will mean there is a potential for three units of measurement whenever a temperature is mentioned. Then it's likely the the case with respect to distance will appear .. Ben (talk) 01:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

And so on. I agree. Keep the temperatures in Centigrade; Farenheit, while acceptable for colloquial use, is not widely accepted in scientific material. I vote that adding them would cause more disruption (and potential for damage later on) than the benefits of appeasing a minority. -RadicalOne---Contact Me 02:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm American and I was taught that Celsius/Centigrade is usually used in scientific contexts. Considering the fact that this page has a lot of scientific information, we should use that. --Evice (talk) 03:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

"Earth" name

“ About 70% of the earth's surface is covered with water. Planet Earth should actually be called "Ocean" --Monty Halls ”

Perhaps this quote can be inserted, also I actually think that "Earth" is better changed to a number eg in the form 11,15,50 . The name could then also inmediatelly give the position of the planet in the univers using the Cartesian coordinate system; see Cartesian_coordinates. Include a section on alternative names in the article. KVDP (talk) 09:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose—I'm not sure that the first is sufficiently notable to be worth including; we had enough trouble with "Blue Planet", which seems like a trivial name that is rarely used. The second would fall under WP:OR. Sorry.—RJH (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)