Hubble Finds a Galaxy 12.8 Billion Years Old

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has discovered the 12.8B year old galaxy now known as A1689-zD1. Using gravitational lensing of the massive Abell 1689 cluster of galaxies, they were able to find a surprisingly bright young galaxy from only 700 million years after the Big Bang, during the cosmic 'dark ages.' Researchers are itching to study the object with the upcoming Atacama Large Millimeter Array (to go online in 2012) and James Webb Space Telescope (to launch in 2013)."

Comments

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Chris Burke]

It's general paranoia based on an old pattern.

It's starts with curiosity: "How do they know how old it is?"
Which gets extended to skepticism: "How could they possibly be sure? Maybe their assumptions are wrong."
Which somehow becomes rejection: "Scientists don't really know anything, it's all just belief!"
Then the gigantic illogical leap: "Thus any alternative hypothesis I propose is equally viable."
And then the 'reveal' which is: "So I bet my spiritual guide book could serve as a physics textbook if you interpreted it literally!"

Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person and a closet creationist until you're several steps in. It kinda pisses me off, the way the Creationists have adopted the strategy of Intelligent Design and hiding their beliefs as though they're just genuine scientific skeptics with an open mind, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Though I agree with you, in this case I think this was legitimate curiosity, and the GP was just being paranoid. It won't take that long to tell if I'm wrong. :P

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Chris Burke]

I'm pleased to have a Basset Hound living in my home. Survival of the fittest did not make him. Humans did. Through the selection mechanism of Intelligent Design. Get the fuck over it. Have you ever seen a corn field? Is it shocking that the modern female is fucking sexy compared to the troglodytic premodern?

And do you believe that this same mechanism accounts for all genetic diversity? Because if you are only talking about selective breeding, then guess what? That's NOT capital-I-D Intelligent Design, you dumb fuck. That's "selective breeding", or in the case of attractive females "sexual selection", both about as mundane and mainstream of theories as evolution itself and not having special theory names.

What you're doing is like me going "Der, Evolution isn't necessarily about random changes altering populations through natural selection you moron! To me Evolution is about species wanting to change because they feel in their hearts that they can be better!" No, wrong, that's not what evolution is. And "Intelligent Design" is not the theory that some things on earth were designed by an (our) intelligence. It's a theory that is an alternate explanation for the diversity of all species. Though I give it more respect than it deserves by calling it a theory.

Look, it's like this: there is no God but there is Intelligent Design.

There is no Intelligent Design without God. Not because you have to believe in God to believe in ID, but because it naturally follows. The primary theorem of ID is that our intelligence is to complex to have arisen naturally, and must have been created by some other intelligence. Well where did that intelligence come from? The same ideas of ID suggest that it couldn't have arisen naturally, so there must be another designer... and so on. Now, if you're religious, that's easy, the original Intelligent Designer is a supernatural being with no beginning or end and thus no need for a creater.

If you're not religious and believe in Intelligent Design, then you're just a giant retard.


And furthermore, there is no difference between a normal reasonable person and a "closet creationist"

Of course there is. A reasonable person, including a reasonable Creationist, is up-front with their beliefs. Lying, duplicitous douchebags who inherently know that their position is not reasonable, but want to trick you into accepting it anyway, feign open-minded skepticism that suddenly turns into evangelism.


Anyway, in summary, you're a fucking idiot--I on the other hand, am quite a bit more gifted and talented than you--but hey bud, you can do better, and I'd like to help you.

Of course you are! Your mom was right, you're special!

Let me help you: there is, unequivocally, at least some flavor of intelligent design in our world.

And with no capital letters there, the answer is: duh! The computers we're using right now were "intelligently designed" by humans. That's not "Intelligent Design". You should at least know what something is before you defend it, jackass.

I fucking hate you.

Aw, but I love you! I think you're very stupid, but I still love you.

It'd be really, really hilarious to me if your whole retarded polemic was because I used the phrase "Intelligent Design" in obvious reference to the non-scientific alternate theory for speciation, while in your personal view there is something that could be called "intelligent design" but isn't what is commonly called -- by anyone -- ID.