Lunacy re:lunar origins.

How the Moon Formed: 5 Wild Lunar Theories
By Mike Wall

Capture

Some researchers suggest that the moon may have originally formed elsewhere — perhaps even around another planet, such as Venus — before being grabbed by Earth's gravitational pull. Other worlds have gained moons in this manner. For example, Phobos and Deimos, the two tiny satellites of Mars, are thought to be captured asteroids. 

The capture idea isn't really an origin theory, of course; it just concerns how the moon came to orbit Earth. And it has some major problems, the most serious of which is the geochemical similarity of the Earth and moon. The two bodies have nearly identical oxygen isotope ratios, suggesting that they formed from the same pool of raw material.

Fission

Another idea — apparently thought up by Charles Darwin's son George in the 19th century — posits that the material that formed the moon was ejected into space by a molten, fast-spinning Earth in the very early days of the solar system. 

Most scientists discount the fission hypothesis, saying that Earth could not have been spinning fast enough to expel a huge blob of rock. But one 2010 study suggested that a natural nuclear explosion, set up by the superconcentration of radioactive elements, may have provided the kick to dislodge a moon-size piece of the early Earth into orbit. 

Co-formation

It's also possible that the moon formed alongside Earth 4.5 billion years ago, coalescing from gas and dust in the same part of our solar system's protoplanetary disk. 

While this hypothesis can account for the isotopic similarities between the Earth and moon, it falls short in other ways. It cannot explain the high angular momentum of the Earth-moon system, for example, or why the moon has such a small iron core compared to that of our planet. 

Colliding planetesimals

Some scientists have suggested that the moon condensed from the debris produced when planetesimals — the building blocks that grew into Earth, Mars and other full-fledged planets — slammed into each other shortly after the solar system formed. 

Little evidence supports this theory, which also cannot explain the geochemical similarities between the Earth and its natural satellite. 

Giant impact

The leading theory of the moon's formation posits that it coalesced from material blasted into space when a planet-size body slammed into the newly formed Earth about 4.4 billion years ago.

One variant of this idea holds that the impactor, dubbed "Theia," was about the size of Mars. Another version, introduced in 2012, suggests that both the impactor and the target — the proto-Earth — were about 50 percent as massive as Earth is today.

While the giant-impact hypothesis continues to be tweaked and refined, it does the best job of explaining the moon's composition and orbit, most scientists say. For example, the theory predicts a small iron core for the moon, since it would have formed primarily from the mantles of the impactor and early Earth (both of which lacked iron, which had already been concentrated deep in the core).

The danger of scientism to pure science.

What Would Really Be “Catastrophic” for Science?
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

Wailing about the threat to science from “deniers” and “anti-science” skeptics is an inescapable feature of public discussions at the moment. Recently, Discovery Institute’s Wesley J. Smith, Jay Richards, Stephen C. Meyer were at the  Heritage Foundation  to discuss actual threats to science. They nailed a couple of those that deserve a lot more attention than they receive.

It’s a new podcast episode of ID the Future.  Listen to it here, or download it here.

First, insofar as the general public perceives, rightly, that viewpoints on science are subject to distorting social, political, and financial pressures, that really is “catastrophic” (Jay Richards’s word). Why would anyone trust the institutions of science, knowing that researchers are not free to follow the truth wherever it leads? Certainly, in the context of the evolution debate, pressures to conform are intense, as we know.

Second, the Discovery team was joined by Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute who also made a great point. Lewis highlights the problem of science’s dependence on government funding. In the conversation, there’s an interesting clash of opinions between Lewis and Wesley Smith on whether science realistically could be detached from the government. I think Wesely is right that it could not — not entirely.

Be that as it may, Lewis cites a telling passage from President Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell Address. Beside the prophetic warning about the power of the “military-industrial complex,” Eisenhower was concerned about what you might call the scientific-governmental complex.

Of scientific research, he worried, “A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.”

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

That prospect, science as the fief of a privileged caste seeking to direct the lives and values of others, pursuing a less-than-transparent ideological agenda, would also call the integrity of the scientific enterprise into question. That too, in Jay’s expression, would be catastrophic.

Yet more iconoclasm.