Was Earth a Migratory Planet?

astroengine writes "Why our planet isn't a "snowball Earth" — a dilemma called the 'faint young sun paradox' — has foxed solar and planetary scientists for decades. Since the Earth's formation, a planet covered in ice should have stifled any kind of greenhouse effect, preventing our atmosphere from warming up and maintaining water in a liquid state. Now, David Minton of Purdue University has come up with a novel solution that, by his own admission, straddles science fact and fiction. Perhaps Earth evolved closer to the Sun and through some gravitational effect, it was pushed to a higher orbit as the Sun grew hotter. But watch out, if this is true, planetary chaos awaits."

Comments

Re:Conclusions...

[Black Parrot]

These "inconvenient truths" prove that there is an intelligent designer of the universe.

Of course they do. But who is the intelligent designer? There are quite a few candidates so far. And there's also Me. I'll give you 73 virgins in paradise and point to point fiber. In return, you just have to donate a small portion of your savings to My Bank Account.

You have hit the nail on the head. Religion is a carrot & stick approach to behavior modification, with the clever twist that they want real behavior modification in the here-and-now so your imaginary soul will get the imaginary carrot instead of the imaginary stick in your imaginary afterlife.

And when we scoff, they offer up Pascal's wager, which is like a stock broker asking you to give real money for stock in an imaginary company - think how rich you'll be if it turns out that the company actually exists!

Or, since the emphasis is usually on the stick rather than the carrot, it's like a protection racket that asks you for real money to prevent some imaginary thugs from burning down your imaginary soul's imaginary restaurant in your imaginary afterlife.

Sweet scam. If my current gig doesn't work out, I'm going to start a religion.