Talk:Earth/Archive 8

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Contents

Please Help Me Edit this Page

I have new content but I am not able to add it to this page as I am a new member. Will you please add it for me? Here it is... The word Earth comes to the English language from the Norse goddess known as Hertha or Nerthus. Roman consul and historian, Tacitus, wrote an account in the year 98, of a north German deity variously named Ertha, Hertha, Nerthus, or Mother Earth. The name also appears in the Viking sagas, written down about a thousand years after Tacitus (about the year 1190). The German name Bertha may owe its origin to this goddess of myth and fertility. Historically, we named planets after Roman or Greek gods. But the Earth is the only planet named from Norse mythology, Hertha, the goddess who ruled the very stuff the planet is made of. Hertha also was goddess of the home, and the legend goes that as smoke rose up from the fireplace it was said to be her spirit, thus the word hearth. In old Teutonic languages, the word hearth means "the ground beneath your feet." Hearth shares a common root in Old English with the word heart.

Eric Kasum Scubeesnax (talk) 15:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC) PS - This is much more accurate than the current info. I also to not yet know how to quote references, but just do a search on google.com for "hertha" "Norse" "Saga" or "Tacitus" "Hertha"

Eric, the etymology of the word "Earth" in the Earth#Etymology section is sourced. It looks similar to your material, but it is not the same. You will need solid, scholarly references for your input. Otherwise it will not meet the necessary requirements. Random web links drawn from google will not necessarily serve. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

THE VERY WORD ERTHA comes from Lithuanian language and means the soil ('dirva'=a soil, 'arta'=to plough, and 'plugas'=a plough comes from 'plaukt'=to swim) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.173.120 (talk) 02:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you prove that with a reference?—RJH (talk) 15:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Serious Problem?

The Earth rotates 366.26 times but this equals 365.26 days? Can anyone explain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.153.189 (talk • contribs) 6 December 2007 15:56

  • Confused? I was: follow the link at the end of the sentence for the explanation. --Old Moonraker (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • This is the result of the observers (us) compensating for the position of the Sun each day, relative to the background stars, as the Earth moves along its orbital path. (The sidereal day; the time needed to turn until it faces toward the same set of stars, is actually 23h, 56m, 4s in length, rather than 24 hours. The difference, 3m, 56s, is ~1/366th of a day.) At the end of a year these little compensations add up to 360°, or the equivalent of a day's rotation.—RJH (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • To rephrase what RJHall has said, the "366.26" is how many times the Earth rotates with respect to the Stars, but since we move around the sun one time in that year, we only experience 365.26 sunrises or days. To understand that "Subtract one" idea, imagine an observer standing on the moon looking at the earth. They would never see the earth rise or set as the moon revolved around it. They would experience zero "Days", if counting a Day as an Earth rise and set. Yet to achieve this feat the Moon needs to rotate exactly once with each trip around the earth. 70.110.9.199 (talk) 06:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Water Vapor is listed as trace that varies with climate. As per this [1] article it ought to be 1% that varies with climate, as water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.246.225.205 (talk • contribs)
    • Fixed.—RJH (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Indef semi protection

This article has been indef semi-protected per my request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. It has previously been protected (non-indef) many times before. If anyone feels that the article needs to be unprotected in the future please feel free to post on this talk page or over at RfPP. My rational for this protect was/will always be heavy IP vandalism, as this article is very high profile. Hope this gives everyone who watches this article a break. Cheers —Cronholm144 18:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I have unprotected the page, while retaining move protection. Superm401 - Talk 18:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, it's time to re-activate my indefinite revert practice.—RJH (talk) 20:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Once again the vandalism is back to pre-protection levels, so I'm re-re-re-requesting semi-protection.—RJH (talk) 22:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Second Moon

The page states there is only one Moon, the Moon, for Earth. However, there is the second moon Curithne TTRP (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Moon section specifically mentions Cruithne and another as co-orbital satellites: "Earth has at least two co-orbital satellites, the asteroids 3753 Cruithne and 2002 AA29." (with reference: Whitehouse, David. "Earth's little brother found", BBC News, October 21, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-03-31. ) Nihiltres{t.l} 19:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Holiday

I went went round the Earth recently. It's a nice place for a holiday but I wouldn't want to live there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyTheCat (talk • contribs) 14:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how exactly Wikipedia of all places has an article on earth without once mentioning the phrase "Mostly Harmless"! --Xshare (talk) 07:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
If you look further in the archives and history you'll find "Mostly Harmless" is an old tired joke which is not relevant to the topic at hand. For that matter, you probably have better use of your time than to look in same archives and history. There's probably something notable near you waiting to be documented. -- SEWilco (talk) 16:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, yes, it is an old and tired joke. It is probably the best-known old, tired joke about the planet and would take up about two lines of your precious, precious space. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.151.229.94 (talk) 03:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Life

"Home to millions of species including humans, Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist."

Surely it's merely the only place in the universe where humans know life exists? Or am I just being silly and pedantic? Martin (talk) 03:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree... it sounds rather weird to say "the only place in the universe where life is known to exist".Saimdusan 07:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saimdusan (talk • contribs)

That sentence has been discussed and re-worked several times. The current form is something of an imperfect consensus. I (and others) think the point is important enough to be worth mentioning in the lead, even though it is a bit pedantic.—RJH (talk) 17:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree... I also don't understand why it is so hard to... understand... what the sentence is saying. Only place in the universe where life is KNOWN to exist. I put the emphasis on the KNOWN for effect. Of course you could say "well, the aliens KNOW they exist, therefore humans are the ones who don't know therefore the sentence is wrong" which would be a bit on the stupid side. This is an english encyclopedia about the knowledge of HUMANS on earth. If you want to get into the topic of what aliens know about themselves it's probably time to start your own wiki. In summary you ARE being silly and pedantic. It's like the schrodengers (I know I spelt it wrong, meh) cat. We say it exists AND doesn't exist because WE don't know... But surely the cat knows? But of course the point is moot - the cat is just a cat, and if we don't know then it doesn't count so much. Which I always thought was stupid but there you have it. --Healyhatman (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Well bacterial life has likely been carried outside the Earth's atmosphere to Mars and elsewhere,[2][3][4] so it is not literally true. Hence the ongoing debate, and why I had favored using "originated" rather than "exist".—RJH (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Same units for both Sidereal rotation period values?

I find that the expression of the Sidereal rotation period values is a bit confusing because they are quite different values, with roughly 1 second offset between them. Since the units are also different, the reader may wrongly assume they're numerically equivalent despite the the footnote link for the second one. I can't tell which one is more realiable but it would be more clear if both values were expressed in the same units.

Peace for everyone on Earth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.147.38.227 (talk) 16:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

opinionated?

in this article it states that earth was formed 4.54 billion years ago and it states it as scientific fact but this has not been proved i think it should be changed to say that it is an oppinion and then should state the other oppinions about the forming of the earth like creationism and evolution and so on it shouldn't be a whole thing of creationism vs. evolution because that would belong in a seperate article it just shouldn't pass the big bang theory off as reasoned fact Charlieh7337 (talk) 06:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

This has been brought up many times before, if you're interested check the talk archives. The information in the article isn't merely one person's opinion... it's accepted scientific consensus. There are other articles about non-scientific (and fringe scientific) theories on the origins of the Earth. --Patteroast (talk) 07:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
"Scientific evidence indicates" is not stating that it is "scientific fact". In fact, it can never be anything but an approximate estimate—but a pretty good one at ±1% error. As has been discussed (and trolled) here on multiple occasions before, this is a scientific article on the Earth, so presenting the scientific data on the age is appropriate. Young Earth creationism, for example, presents an alternate perspective from one of the world's many religions. The "Cultural viewpoint" section has a link to creation myth for other alternatives. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 17:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Ha! I came here and I was worried when I saw all the changes that there wouldn't be some nutjob (sorry) banging on about Young Earth Creationisms "theories" and how this page is an evil atheist conspiracy to lie to the children. Okay the comment isn't that bad above but still here goes... This is an encyclopedia. As in knowledge and whatnot. SCIENTIFIC knowledge, which is the kind that can be tested, verified, falsified and whatnot, is the kind we should be dealing with. You say that creationism should get its day in the page - you're wrong. Creationism has its own section dealing with what they "think" happened. If you wanted to apply Christian dogmatic and religious views on the formation of the earth to this page you would have an instant horde of thousands upon thousands of religions clamouring for their beliefs to be added as well. The point is none of it matters - they have their own section where they have their myths detailed, it doesn't need to appear on the main page of our planet.

Also, you say "should state the other opinions about the forming of the earth like creationism and evolution". I'm not sure if you know what evolution is, maybe you should hit up the evolution page? Evolution is NOT (repeat NOT) a theory concerning the formation of the Earth. It's the theory of the origin of species and as such is independant of the planet or other environment on which it is applied. So putting the "evolution" point of view of the creation of the earth on this page is useless because evolution doesn't HAVE a point of view on the topic, save that 6000 years is nowhere near enough time for the species to have evolved to their current states.--Healyhatman (talk) 02:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with the previous comment, that SCIENTIFIC knowledge is that which can be "tested, verified, falsified and whatnot". Unfortunately, the theory that the Earth came into being some billions of years ago can NOT be "tested, verified" with any real accuracy, while they can be "falsified and whatnot". The "Scientific Consensus" mentioned earlier in this article in no way constitutes acceptable experimental proof that the Earth is billions of years old. As one Creationist put it, the phrase "billions of years ago" means essentially the same as "once upon a time...". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.250.9.133 (talk) 03:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

"This article is about..." proposal

I'd like to propose changing the wording of the "This article is about..." lead sentence to the following:

This article is about the scientific understanding of the Earth as a planet. For the Earth's geography, see World. For other uses, see Earth (disambiguation).

This would have the benefit of making the purpose of the article clearer, so that it will not be confused with a particular cultural or religious bias (as seems to happen here). Does this make sense?—RJH (talk) 17:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Not a good idea. This weaseling out is unnecessary. If we go this way it would apply to many other articles as well. It should be self evident that an article is based on verifiable evidence, unless otherwise specified. −Woodstone (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
While I am a student of science and appreciate that viewpoint, this article should only focus on the scientific understanding of Earth as a planet to the extent that it allows scientific insight about the earth where it is appropriate - a scientific viewpoint that excludes or minimizes cultural or geographical details would be an incomplete article to the extent that Earth is not merely a mostly harmless hunk of rock. Nihiltres{t.l} 07:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Geography forms part of the Social Sciences, so that is covered. Certainly cultural studies are an important part of Anthropology. So I'm not seeing anything in the current article that would need exclusion.—RJH (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
My point is rather that having the article [[Earth]] have a particular scientific focus doesn't quite seem NPOV. The article is most definitely about the planet, but Earth is a special case as a planet. This should be a general article about Earth, and although I respect that it's difficult to protect against "mostly harmless" pranks and Young Earth creationist POV-pushers without specially highlighting the scientific basis for most of the information in the article, I sincerely think that we should not change that initial sentence. That's it. :) Nihiltres{t.l} 21:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Well... so the viewpoint here has been that presenting scientific information on the Earth is neutral. But apparently saying that the article is science-based is not neutral. LOL. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirect?

The following addition has been inserted at the top:

"土" redirects here. For the classic element, see Earth (classical element).

I'm not sure this is really necessary. Earth (classical element) is already linked from Earth (disambiguation), so that part is redundant. Should the Han character "土" simply be redirected to Earth (classical element)?—RJH (talk) 17:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I have removed it, because it is redundant and does not link back to the 土 article. Anyway, since this is an English encyclopedia, the article 土 should be deleted. −Woodstone (talk) 17:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Scientific evidence

"Scientific evidence suggests that the earth is around 4.54billion years old" What evidence? It would be nice to have this in the article. Thanks George bennett —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.205.60.208 (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It's in the four references cited. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 20:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Link suggestion

A while ago I wrote a 3D Earth program to show the day and night view of the Earth with animated latest 24 hours global cloud. It shows mountain shadows and 3D clouds to provide a better 3D effect. The day/night shading shows three different shadings, daylight, twilight and night so you can see clearly which part of the Earth is currently at sunset, sunrise etc... Different satellite views of the Earth are used for each month. The date/time can be changed to see the view of the Earth at different times. The country under the cursor is highlighted to show associated states and islands. Sunrise/sunset and first/last light times (and magnetic variation) are calculated for the cursor position. I'm currently adding location based timezone information so you can see local time at any place under your cursor.

I think this program shows a very nice view of the Earth, as it would be seen from outer space, while providing useful interactive features.

The program if free to use. It is written in Java (1.5+) so it can run on most platforms but it does require a 3D graphics card. It runs as an unsigned applet in a web page (even on iGoogle) as well as a desktop application.

You are free to link to it. I don't think it is appropriate to add the link myself, someone else should evaluate and decide whether the link should be added.

[5]

Regards, Sapphireman (talk) 02:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

How common are the names Terra and Gaia in English?

As far as I'm aware, Gaia has only become a synonym for Earth since Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis became popular in 1979, and that only really applies to the planet Earth in a very specific context. "Terra" is the name of the Earth in Latin, and obviously use of Latin in scientific writing post-dates the realization that Earth is a planet, but I've never heard it in common use outside certain science fiction contexts. Using "Terra" in English might be a bit misleading because "Terra" is the name of Earth in several Romance languages. Serendipodous 16:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Serendipodous. If this is in reference to the sentence in the lead, I might suggest the following: It is also referred to as the Earth, Planet Earth, and "the World", and in some contexts, Gaia and Terra[5]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geologyguy (talk • contribs) 16:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what I meant; I should have been more specific. Serendipodous 19:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. The suggested rewrite by Geologyguy makes sense.—RJH (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I suppose I can call that a consensus. Serendipodous 19:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Well somebody can always squawk if they consider it a problem and we can go from there. =) —RJH (talk) 18:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Picture

While the sphere is beautiful no matter how you view it, does anyone prefer Image:Earth Eastern Hemisphere.jpg to the one we have now? It's centered on India, and it seems to more richly emphasize the blue. Our current (Image:The Earth seen from Apollo 17.jpg) seems to emphasize the white. I genuinely prefer the former. Marskell (talk) 20:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree. I prefer Image:Earth Eastern Hemisphere.jpg. 198.62.10.11 (talk) 08:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes that's a nice image. It's a coin toss really; both are excellent images. The Apollo 17 image has a certain historical interest. But I suppose this is somewhat redundant with the image in the "Cultural viewpoint" section. So sure, I'll support the change.—RJH (talk) 20:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Ellliptical Orbit

Sun is on one of the focus of Earth's elliptical orbit. Is this mentioned in the article (i cannot find it, though I saw that Earth is at a barycenter of Moon's orbit)198.62.10.11 (talk) 08:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It's mentioned on the elliptic orbit page. I'm not sure it's necessary to state this on every page about an orbiting body.—RJH (talk) 20:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Article says, "Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 150 million kilometers (93.2 million miles) every 365.2564 mean solar..." What is the minimum and maximum distance and what is the effect of this change in distance on the weather. I think adding this information will be useful. Ahirwav (talk) 05:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
The min/max distances are mentioned in the infobox as perihelion and aphelion. For the effect on wheather see some mention in season. −Woodstone (talk) 14:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks!Ahirwav (talk) 05:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Life enabling ozone?

Article says, "...as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, blocks harmful radiation, permitting life on land." What is the proof that ozone is necessary for life or life cannot sustain in presence of "harmful" radiation. Why wouldn't Life have sustained and evolved even in the absense of ozone or even oxygen. This statement should be removed or proper reference should be attributed. 198.62.10.11 (talk) 12:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it should say "...life, as we understand it, on land"? But I think the point is important, so I added a reference.—RJH (talk) 20:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

spam link?

I think the next link is spam:

    • Yes I think that could be considered spam, although I've seen more egregious offenders. ;-) Perhaps the NASA Visible Earth site would be more acceptible as a gallery-style link? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

what are the names given to the bumps and hollows of the earths surface—Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.31.60.119 (talk • contribs)

Do you mean topology? Or perhaps geomorphology?—RJH (talk) 22:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

/ˈɜrθ/ and not /əːθ/ or /ɚːθ/? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.121.120.67 (talk) 23:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I just looked it up on dictionary.com, and they list "urth" as the spelled pronunciation (which seems to correspond to /ɚːθ/ and is how I pronounce it), but when you click to the IPA pronunciation, it lists /ɜrθ/. That's weird. 24.196.153.222 (talk) 09:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
From what I've seen, the pronunciation entries on wikipedia, such as the one in the lead paragraph of this article, seem to flop around quite a bit and the symbolism employed is very unhelpful (at least to me). These pronunciation entries should be required to have both a reference for their source and a link to an explanatory page for the symbolism. (Most of them do include the latter.) The entry should still be subject to the same rigorous requirements as the remainder of this FA article.—RJH (talk) 16:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

See for example dictionary.com. you may have to click the small "IPA" button to see it. −Woodstone (talk) 20:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The pseudo-IPA used in the first entry on dictionary.com (presumably Dictionary.com Unabridged (v1.1), a dictionary that numbers itself in versions and not editions?) seems to be ambiguous or has a pre-Unicode concession for browsers that don't display "ɚ". If you look up "earth" on dictionary.com, the first entry in IPA shows /ɜrθ/. If you look up "err" on the same, it shows /ɜr, ɛr/. "Earn" and "urn" are both /ɜrn/. It's fairly easy to deduce that Dictionary.com Unabridged (v1.1) uses "/ɜr/" for what should really be /ɚː/. I think it's also reasonable to deduce that the source for saying earth is pronounced /ˈɜrθ/ must be a direct copy-and-paste from dictionary.com.--67.121.120.67 (talk) 00:33, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, many of those pronunciation symbols are unreadable on my computer: I see them only as small rectangles. Hence it doesn't seem very helpful if I'm looking for the correct way to pronounce the word.—RJH (talk) 18:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I added IPA templates to the symbols above. That makes them readable in most cases. The edit using "th" at the end (separate t + h) is definitely not IPA, so should not be used with this template. As you can see from another user, "dictionary.com" has the same transcription as WP. I think it's not useful to enter a reference for every tiny detail in an article and will remove the call for one. −Woodstone (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. Yes I agree that "it's not useful to enter a reference for every tiny detail in an article". But I do not agree that the pronunciation doesn't need a reference. I see them flop around too much to put much reliance on faith that the editors got it right or that they didn't corrupt it. The notation of pronunciation doesn't belong in the category of "common sense knowledge" for 99% of the population.—RJH (talk) 19:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

For that reason a small group of editors with experience in IPA has setup the page help:pronunciation. As is clearly stated there it is on purpose a rather broad phonemic transcription ignoring minor differences between the various English dialects. It is based on the most common ways used in practice. The page Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) referenced from WP:MOS states as guideline to use that transcription. It is a way to obtain reasonable consistency in the use of IPA for English in WP. Especially it uses /r/ after a vowel, even though in US it rhotacizes the vowel, and UK only lenghtens it. If you insist on a reference, you can use dictionary.com. Said help page is especially for English. There is the page help:IPA for international use. −Woodstone (talk) 19:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Then it could suffice if that help:pronunciation page included the set of standard references that are used to derive the punctuation presented in WP (and if that help page is linked from the templates). That should satisfy both our interests.—RJH (talk) 19:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
The help file is already linked from template:IPAEng and template:pronEng (the latter was in the article lead). There is currently no reference in the help file. As a start the dictionary.com can be used, which is very close to the one used in WP. −Woodstone (talk) 20:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes I saw that.—RJH (talk) 20:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Satellites

Someone just deleted Blindlynx's addition of the information that Earth has about 3000 useful artificial satellites orbiting it, and about 6000 pieces of space junk. I agree that the infobox was not the appropriate place for the fact, but I think it belongs somewhere in the article. I also think that somewhere in the article (perhaps under Earth#Surface, Earth#Modern perspective, or Earth#Exploration and mapping), the point should be made that satellites provide lots of information about conditions on the planet's surface, its gravitational field, etc. Rracecarr (talk) 01:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The end of the "Moon" section seems like it would be a good place for that type of information. The numbers need an update though: in 2008 there were over 12,000 monitored objects in orbit.[6] I agree about your second point as well.—RJH (talk) 20:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Plate Tectonics

The section on tectonic plates states that the aesthenosphere is the inner mantle and the lithosphere is the outermost mantle. Surely there should be some modifier explaining that both asthenosphere and lithosphere are characteristic of the upper mantle. The lower mantle is completely different. As a side note, semi-fluid or plastic seems more appropriate for describing the texture of the asthenosphere than viscous liquid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.82.75.37 (talk) 05:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggested corrections. They have been applied to the article.—RJH (talk) 20:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Earthrise Picture

Hi, I would like to suggest replacing the B&W picture (option 1) with a coloured one (option 2. Also, the angle from where the picture was taken is wrong, if you check the original photo from NASA, you will notice that the spaceship was moving towards the left side of the Moon.

Original photo:
http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2001-000009.jpg

Therefore, I propose to vote for one of the pictures bellow:

Can anyone explain why Earth looks so small from Moon? Even smaller than Moon from Earth. Is it a fake or deliberately done to confuse people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.173.120 (talk) 02:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Current photo:

The first photograph ever taken of an "Earthrise," on Apollo 8.
The first photograph ever taken of an "Earthrise," on Apollo 8.
Option 1

Proposed photo:

Image:Earthrise Original.jpg
The first photograph ever taken of an "Earthrise," on Apollo 8.
Option 2 * Support - --Mhsb (talk) 04:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


Cheers, --Mhsb (talk) 02:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

  • The two images don't match, so that would make the caption false.—RJH (talk) 23:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • If the first photo was taken with black and white film, that is the first photo. The first photo taken with color film is apparently not the first photo. I think the first view of Earth from that perspective is more historically significant than what kind of film was used to capture it. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Alternatively, the caption could be modified slightly so that it is correct. The first "Earthrise" ever to be photographed, on Apollo 8.—RJH (talk) 21:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I wonder if "Earth rise" is an appropriate term for the Earth becoming visible from behind the Moon seen from an orbiting satellite. You realise of course that for an observer standing on the Moon, there would never be an Earth rise. So I find these descriptions misleading. −Woodstone (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Needs a citation

The following entry lacks a citation:

Because the deuterium/protium ratio of water in Outer Asteroid Belt asteroids compares favorably with oceanic water, it is thought much of the extraterestrial water on earth comes from them and not comets whose ratio does not correspond as well.

It was inserted in the lead, but belongs in the body.—RJH (talk) 23:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Only planet with known life

This phrase is highly subjective and should be removed.DvH. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.88.14.230 (talk) 03:51, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

A statement of this type needs to be included as this is a vital distinguishing characteristic of the planet.—RJH (talk) 22:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This should be changed, now. The planet is the only known planet with life known to /humans/. If there is life on another planet somewhere, they would certainly know it. I would change it but for some reason it's locked. 71.105.113.251 (talk) 06:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death already. You can not scientifically demonstrate that life exists elsewhere. Therefore, to modify the phrase in such a manner would be inserting an unproven conjecture; that life does exist elsewhere that can observe itself. Hence I think it's quite satisfactory as it stands.—RJH (talk) 15:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Nevertheless it is a silly statement. It sounds like there is some positive knowledge. If people insist on keeping this in, it would be better formulated as: "It is not known if there are any other planets that harbour life". −Woodstone (talk) 18:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
There are other possible locations where life may exist, so your statement wouldn't be complete.—RJH (talk) 18:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow your objection. The statement is about planets and life on them, not about life and the place where it is. You can object the same way against the current wording. −Woodstone (talk) 19:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
The current statement is about life everywhere the universe. Your statement, while technically true, is less inclusive. Life may form under other conditions, potentially including comets and the interior of dwarf planets. But if we have to spell out all of these conditions, including the fact that other hypothetical aliens may exist and know more than we, it will take a full paragraph or more. I think the current statement, while somewhat trivial, is also succinct and covers an important aspect of the planet Earth.—RJH (talk) 22:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
You still miss my point. The current formulation suggests positive knowledge, whereas in reality there is no knowledge. It would be better to state nothing at all or after the statemnet that there is life on Earth, to add that "... it is not known if there is life in other place than Earth". −Woodstone (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Your proposed statement, ...it is not known if there is life in other place than Earth could be critized because if there is intelligent life elsewhere, than it is known.
As SEWilco said, we write what humans know. It's understood that known in Wikipedia means known by humans. The sentence does not suggest anything else, and needs no revision. Saros136 (talk) 05:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
It has been discussed in several places that we write what humans know, we don't write for unknown non-terrestrial life forms. They are welcome to do their own editing. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

(Left adjusting) Perhaps I am missing your point. Here is the current wording and your proposed statement, slightly re-written for flow:

  • Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist.
  • It is not known if there is life in places other than Earth.

They seem to be logically identical, assuming that by "other places" you mean the "universe".—RJH (talk) 14:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

If you write it is home to "humans", which is a neutral standpoint and is how I agree the article should be written then I believe you need to specify that "humans" are the ones that are not aware of life as we know it anywhere else. You speak of aliens knowing of life elsewhere and knowing of themselves, but what about animals on our planet? Are they to be expected to edit the article? The wording in that sentence assumes we are the only species capable of that type of knowledge and that is not neutral, whether or not I agree with that standpoint. Adding in "to whom" is an easy way to restore neutrality. On the other hand if the articles on wikipedia are to be written from the human point of view then please change "humans" to "us". Nicht Nein! (talk) 14:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry but I am not even slightly persuaded by your "arguments". Kindly point out a non-human animal who has read and understood this article.—RJH (talk)
There are biases I'm worried about and biases I'm not worried about. We all know that this is an encyclopedia written and read by humans on Earth. I think that wasting space and our readers' time in the intro of the Earth article (or even on the talk page) to account for this particular bias doesn't help anything. Ashill (talk) 15:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, so you are pushing your point of view, which is also a conflict of interest. Two words that amount to less then six letters are not wasting anyones space or taking up much time at all, not having them brings that sentence out of neutrality. You have made it clear you want done what "you think" and have backed that up with some empty reasons. Wasting time? To read "to whom"? Wasting space? The six letters or seven "spaces" of "to whom", nine spaces to bring it into the sentence? I believe that is ridiculous. Anybody who reads this section of the talk page is interested. Articles are meant to be neutral that is why you write humans instead of us. The sentence in question needs to be changed, I proposed and edited in the best way to restore neutrality with out restructuring the sentence. Nicht Nein! (talk) 20:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Teegeeack

  • William Ortiz (talk · contribs) wants to add the name "Teegeeack" to the list of alternative names for Earth on the front paragraph. He says "some religions" use it, which is a bit sneaky considering the only belief system that calls it Teegeeack is, well, Scientology - which some would contest is a religion at all. When Ckatz removed it, he switched it back calling the edit "vandalism". I think that's uncalled for. I reverted it back and created this in hopes of getting a discussion going. JuJube (talk) 10:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
    • The edit is just forcing religious bias POV on Wikipedia then with bias against certain religons. There are also offshoots of Scientology, such as Avatar, as well. William Ortiz (talk) 10:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't agree with this naming convention. If someone were to name Earth by every single existing variation, including different religions, languages, cultures, the whole article would be about the different names for Earth.

--Mhsb (talk) 10:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I've now put in references to it. [7] It may seem that's too many references but people need that many references to make a dent in biases (e.g. biases against certain religions) people have on wikipedia. If you disagree with naming, then you should find as many referneces to Gaia and Terra as I put in for Teegeeack. William Ortiz (talk) 10:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that's just ridiculous. Listing every single page that mentions "Teegeeack" does not constitute references. JuJube (talk) 11:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, see WP:UNDUE. --NeilN talk ♦ contribs 12:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this isn't the page for an extensive listing of all possible names for the Earth. But wouldn't the same argument apply to the name "Gaia"? It is based on a relatively obscure philosophy, and I'm not sure the concept of the Earth as a "living planet" is widely accepted in scientific circles.—RJH (talk) 14:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I concur, so I'm deleting Gaia. (In fact, the relevant article, Gaia (mythology), doesn't even claim that Gaia is an English word for Earth.) If someone has a good, cited reason to keep Gaia, I wouldn't object. Ashill (talk) 00:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Terra does mean Earth, according to Wiktionary, so I'll leave it, but I'm removing the wikilink because Terra is a disambiguation page and I see no article about the use of the word Terra in this context. Ashill (talk) 00:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Ice Ages.

It says in the last sentence of the intro to this article that Ice ages are caused by Earth's cosmic movements. I had heard that Ice Ages were caused by the changing chemical make-up of the atmosphere. Maybe it's both. Either way, it should mention this, shouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.192.191 (talk) 03:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, ice ages are believed to be caused by several factors (listed here: Ice_age#Causes_of_ice_ages). But the current sentence shouldn't even be in the lead as it is not covered in more detail within the article body. (The lead should be a summary of the body.) I think it should be changed to just mention that there have been ice ages that covered parts of the planet, without delving into the root causes. The Ice age article covers it in the necessary detail.—RJH (talk) 15:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Moving here for archival:

Long term periodic changes in the Earth's orbit, caused by the gravitational influence of other planets, are believed to have given rise to the ice ages that have intermittently covered significant portions of Earth's surface in glacial sheets.

—RJH (talk) 15:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the article

I really question myself if it's really necessary to make significant changes to the article. The Earth article is already a featured article, do we need to make significant changes to it? --Mhsb (talk) 23:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that further development should probably occur on the various "main article" sub-pages. The culture section could probably be expanded as a separate page.—RJH (talk) 17:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

co-orbitals are satellites?

The article says, correctly, that we have just one satellite, but then says that we have co-orbital satellites. Confusing. Saros136 (talk) 06:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the text should say "one stable satellite"?—RJH (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can remember, co-orbital satellites of Earth aren't true satellites of Earth but rather satellites of the Sun - they just happen to roughly approximate the Earth's orbit around the Sun for a while. PhySusie (talk) 15:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

This page is too large to be dial-up friendly

My browser loaded nearly 300 kilobytes of data (without images) for this page – an annoyance when using a dial-up connection.

Lots of interesting stuff, but the scope of the page seems excessive – more like a book than an article.

I suggest breaking it into multiple pages. I was looking for a quick reference for the size and weight of the earth. A 300 kb download wasn't a quick reference. I don't know why the history page says that the page size is less than 100 kb.

The page size seems excessive for a worldwide audience – everyone doesn't have a broadband connection. -Ac44ck (talk) 06:04, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I copied it into Word, and found it's about 6,900 words (not counting references, tables, or captions), not too long for such a rich subject. The subject already is broken down, to a great degree. Each section leads to a speparate article, and many of the links go to articles just on the Earth subjects. Saros136 (talk) 11:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
And it didn't make the top 1,000 longest pages list, even though is is meatier than most of those by far. Saros136 (talk) 11:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I saved the page to disk: 279 kilobytes.
How popular are the pages in the top 1,000 longest pages? It seems like a waste of Wikipedia's bandwidth to serve up 300 kb of data (plus pictures) when someone is looking for an answer that needs only 50 kb of data – and to repeat that excess countless times per month.
Agreed, it is a rich subject. And popular for many different reasons – but not popular for _all_ those reasons at the same time. Someone who is looking for the mass of the earth probably isn't caring (at the moment) about all the speculation (and it _is_ speculation) about how and when the earth formed or what might happen to it in the future (which no one now living will see). Who lives here, what the weather is like, ad nauseam, are all interesting topics – when I am looking for them.
An article with 126 references is screaming, "excessive scope."
Having this article on a watch list has to be an exercise in frustration. If my main area of interest is the "Cultural viewpoint" section, all the controversy in the "Future" section is going to be noise as far as I am concerned.
That separate articles exist on these topics elsewhere is all the more reason to make this page a launching point rather than an all-inclusive tome. Why duplicate the effort to maintain detailed discussions in separate articles? -Ac44ck (talk) 18:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I concur that the article is written in a fairly terse summary style; I don't really see what could be trimmed without weakening the article substantially. This is a scientific encyclopedia article about the Earth, not a quick reference for the Earth's statistics. If you want quick reference for the mass of the Earth, I would suggest Googling "Earth mass"! ASHill (talk) 20:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I submit that this opinion is influenced by the type of connection used to access the page. I suppose that broadband connections are the norm at UW–Madison. I note that this user has made five edits to this article in as many days. I suspect that the level of participation would be lower if each edit involved multiple downloads of a 270+ kb file via a dial-up connection.
Weakened for what purpose? The focus of this article seems pretty scattered to me. I submit that the associated, single-topic articles are weakened by this article's attempts to be all things to all people.
Disambiguation pages exist for good reason. This is an encyclopedia, but it is not a book. Having huge articles in a book can be useful in that it prevents a need to grab another volume from a shelf. Wikipedia has hyperlinks – clicking a link may be much more convenient than scrolling around in a huge page.
There is a point of diminishing returns in trying to cover a subject in one Wikipedia article. I submit that the existence of 126 footnotes in this article demonstrates that it is well past the point of diminishing returns.
Knowledgeable editors are likely to focus on one article to the exclusion of others. Contributions made on topics here probably aren't repeated where they are of specific interest in a more focused article. The overall quality of Wikipedia is diminished by the duplication and diffusion of effort that is represented by the level of detail in this article's wide range of topics.
I'll just have to be more careful in the future before clicking on a Wikepedia link that turns up in a search. If Google says that it is big as this article, some other destination will probably be my first choice. Driving users away with massive amounts of text unrelated to a search doesn't seem like good marketing to me. -Ac44ck (talk) 03:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
In answer to your question about the popularity of the 1,000 longest articles... #311 on the list is the sixth most visited page and second most visited article on Wikipedia right now.[8] --Bobblehead (rants) 04:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I wasn't aware that this existed. -Ac44ck (talk) 23:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it is a problem that the same content is duplicated on umpteen articles. (I was driven to edit this page because the same particular fact about the Earth was recently added to numerous articles in a way that isn't fully consistent with the body of work out there, so I was correcting it all over the place—a good example of the problem you're talking about.)
However, I'm not sure the solution to that problem is to break this page into subpages. In fact, being realistic, I suspect that exactly the opposite approach would be most effective at minimizing duplication of effort: if we merge all the subpages into this article, there will be only one article to edit and it will be easier to edit duplication away. (I'm not advocating that policy, though!)
I submit that if a Google search for "Earth mass" leads you to this page, Google isn't leading you well, and I don't think that's Wikipedia's fault. However, at least for me, a Google search for Earth mass says, in a giant, bold-faced font at the top of the search results page: "1 earth mass = 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms." What more do you want?
I do have a fast internet connection, but I'll defer to SqueakBox on that point.
Anyway, I see no evidence of a consensus to shorten this page. ASHill (talk) 04:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Most of the size comes from the images. Right now this page is written summary style; it's a huge topic and a lot of the material has already been trimmed down to the bare minimum. So no I don't agree that the page should be cut down even further. Possibly wikipedia should have an image-free option for dial-up.—RJH (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The copy of the page that I saved to disk did not include any images: 279 kilobytes in one file using Opera 8.54 with images and CSS turned off. Downloading a haystack via a dial-up connection to find a needle is annoying. - Ac44ck (talk) 19:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
With all due respect, then don't go to a haystack when you want the needle. If you put mass of earth or radius of earth into Google you would have gotten that information much faster than looking at a general purpose encyclopedia article on the Earth. It should be obvious that an encyclopedia article will cover a lot more ground than just the physical characteristics. Your complaint is that this article is not a "quick reference" for the physical characteristics. My question is why were you ever expecting it to be? Perhaps it should be pared down, but it is never going to efficient at the task your were performing. Dragons flight (talk) 20:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Point taken. That said, this article is the second of 12,000,000 hits in the suggested Google search: mass of earth – making it a likely destination even when searching for that specific information. It also gives the page size as 276k. Had I noticed the page size (instead of going for the familiar by clicking a Wikipedia link) in whatever search I did at the time, I probably would have gone elsewhere. – Ac44ck (talk) 21:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
As someone with a third world 64kb connection at home I would say we should not be reducing article sizes because some people have a slow connection. The problem, as always in these cases, is the images not the text. It took about a minute to load for me, which is fine, and we have sections for easy editing, if there is an issue it is with people's slow connections and really that problem is disappearing and in the meantime of you only have dial-up expect all kinds of problems. I strongly oppose splitting the article into multiple aub-articles, this is simply nott he way we want to be going as an encyclopedia esp when a few years down the line dial-up won't exist and in the meantime if you can only pay for dial-up expect a lousy internet service and don't bl;ame wikipedia. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The bandwidth usage of this page seems to be in the tens of gigabytes per month, which is the same order of magnitude as other pages of similar popularity.

The page rank for February was 156 in the list here: [9]. I made a table including the five pages above and below this article in that list. The page size data is from late March, so the tablulated values probably differ somewhat from the actual bandwidth numbers for each page. The local rank in this table was determined by sorting the bandwidth values.

Bandwidth consumption per page Most viewed articles in February
Month Page rank re: views Page views Size per Google, kb Bandwidth for month, kb Local rank re: bandwidth Article
151 343986 123 42310278 6 Super Bowl
152 342694 123 42151362 7 Anime
153 342455 105 35957775 8 Politics
154 341489 89 30392521 10 Tom Petty
155 340785 325 110755125 1 Peyton Manning
156 340029 276 93848004 3 Earth ***
157 338267 295 99788765 2 Vietnam War
158 337890 90 30410100 9 Family Guy
159 335570 80 26845600 11 Michelle Obama
160 335314 220 73769080 4 American Idol
161 333924 137 45747588 5 List of House episodes

The highest value for bandwidth is only about four times the lowest bandwidth value in this table. Not what I wanted to find as a dial-up user. Peace. -Ac44ck (talk) 18:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest taking the discussion of dial-up issues to the Village Pump, as your problem seems more general. Perhaps a partial solution can be provided by using image-free pages and HTTP compression.—RJH (talk) 19:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Done. It is here. _Ac44ck (talk) 23:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Earth

Hello i have recently proposed the Wikiproject Earth. This Wikiproject`s scope includes this article. This wikiproject will overview the continents, oceans, atsmophere and global warming Please Voice your opinion by clicking anywhere on this comment except for my name. --IwilledituTalk :)Contributions —Preceding comment was added at 15:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Mostle harmless

Ne1 think of adding mostly harmless to the article? As a joke ^-^ 13:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)13:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)~~

Please do not vandalize articles on Wikipedia. Further vandalization will result in a block from an administrator. Prowikipedians (talk) 13:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the following message box would be appropriate for the top of this talk page?—RJH (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

"Humorous" references to the Douglas Adams novel Mostly Harmless are inappropriate content for this article.
Might be worth it... seems every time the last person suggesting it gets archived away, someone else pops up with it. :P Looking at Archive 1, people were suggesting it five years ago. --Patteroast (talk) 15:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, nobody objected so I'll try posting it in the header. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Apollo

I removed this addition from the article because (1) it is unsourced; (2) this is a summary-style article about the Earth, not the Moon; (3) the information is too tactical in nature and could be summarized in a single sentence; (4) the Earth article is already quite large, so the content needs to be kept tight. Sorry.

As of 2008, only 12 human beings have walked on the Moon; between 1969 and 1972, during the Apollo program. Another 12 have visited the Moon inasmuch as they have entered lunar orbit. These 24 people are the only humans to have left the Earth's orbit; and thus the only to have ventured into deep space. The first humans to leave Earth orbit and enter deep space were Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, as NASA astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission. The first human to walk on the Moon was NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong, on July 20, 1969, as commander of Apollo 11; he along with crew member Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to land on the lunar surface. The last human to walk on the Moon (as of 2008) was Eugene Cernan, also a NASA astronaut, as commander of the last human lunar mission to date: Apollo 17.

Do others feel that this should have been included? The "Human geography" section already mentions that 12 people have walked on the Moon.—RJH (talk) 17:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it should not be included here (sourced or not). It strays too far from the topic. ASHill (talk) 03:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I do feel something about visits to the Moon should be included. Since the section on the moon is fairly short, then it should only be a sentence or two summarizing the visits to the moon. I believe it leaves the article incomplete if we're going to have a section about the Moon and not even one word about us visiting / landing on it. Cody-7 (talk) 19:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

See the last paragraph of the "Human geography" section.—RJH (talk) 15:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hollow Earth

Please add SEE ALSO link to Hollow earth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.239.219.220 (talk) 23:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a scientific article; only scientifically credible concepts are relevant. ASHill (talk) 18:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I will not revert again today

About.com link removed

How is adding a link to a site that explains that alternate views exist "acting disruptively" and "adding fringe beliefs to an article". And how is creating a thread expressing my views on this article "abuse of the talk page" to such an extent that even the thread is censored (and my bet is that this one will be also). It has become apparent that many of you aren't content with an article which reveals that there are alternative beliefs regarding earth's age and origin. You want an article that describes only won belief to the point that even mentioning in an entirely neutral way that other beliefs exist is censored from the article. Many, many people, and many in the scientific community hold these alternative views. They can't be described as "fringe beliefs" by anyone speaking of them in a neutral tone. They deserve a mention in some form or another but even so much as one external link isn't allowed apparently.--Urban Rose 23:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Per the banner on the article:
  • This article focuses on scientific information about the Earth. For religious beliefs about the Earth, see Creation myth.
See, they are mentioned right there at the top. Doc Tropics 23:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There is also the "Religious beliefs" section. I've expanded that section a little. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Extremely well done Tim! Your expansion covers the topic succinctly and in a thoroughly neutral manner. Any mention beyond what you've made would probably be undue. The banner I added almost seems redundant now. Doc Tropics 04:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
That section is sufficient.--Urban Rose 12:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Excellent, I thought about adding the Pope's statement Truth Cannot Contradict Truth as a reference, but that's probably focusing a bit too much on one particular religion's opinion. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

From User:Kww's talk page

From the limited reading I've done (much of which has been young-earth creationist publishings) I have been at the conclusion that there are many holes in the big bang theory and old earth theory and that the belief in that the universe was created as is and the belief that it is only several thousand years old are equally valid theories. If I have been wrong and science has recently (or not so recently) proven otherwise, I apologize. And I also recognize that it is Wikipedia's duty to report strictly what has been accepted by the scientific community, not what many people simply choose to believe in spite of the facts. I personally do believe in the big bang theory and in evolution, and am not sure right now whether I believe in a creator or not, but I previously considered based on my limited knowledge young-earth creationism to be an equally valid scientific theory. So in conclusion, I've learned something new and won't continue to try to insert people's personal beliefs into a factual article. I think that the article's header, which now contains a link to creation myths is fine and makes it known sufficiently that there are other beliefs about the earth's age and origin without getting in the way of fact.--Urban Rose 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

World/Human geography

The header states that "For the Earth's geography, see World." However, the article includes a section called "Human geography" that includes a main article link to Human geography. To me it seems somewhat redundant to include the first message, as the two are interrelated. Should these be consolidated by instead adding World as a main article link under "Human geography" and removing the sentence from the lead?—RJH (talk) 17:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Earth is the only place where Humans know that life exists.

Humans do not know of life to exist on any other planet but Earth. The quote Earth is the only place where life is known to exist is not scientifically proven. How can you prove that extraterrestials do not know of some planet except for Earth in which life exists. Thus Humans only know life to exist on Earth, but other life in the Universe may no know life to exist elsewhere. Saying that life is only known to exist on Earth is faulty and erroneous because it is inductive reasoning. We cannot assume something without scientifically proving that there is no other planet that life is known to exist. Saying this automatically assumes that aliens do not exist and that has not yet been proven.Maldek (talk) 02:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You know, in the past, I've opposed changing the wording of that sentence largely because the alternative wordings were awkward and read poorly, combined with the fact that I don't feel that the 'to humans' disambiguation is at all necessary given that this is an encyclopedia written by and for humans. However, as a matter of good writing, I actually prefer the new proposed wording ("Earth is the only place in the universe where humans have found life.") to ("Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist"). For one thing, the new wording eliminates the passive voice, one of my pet peeves. ASHill (talk | contribs) 03:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the reasoning of Maldek (if my correction above reflects the intended meaning). Unfortunately someone reverted already. I will revert again to include the new wording. −Woodstone (talk) 07:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

From the earlier discussion here, about including human knowledge in the phrasing, there was a narrow preponderance for rejection:

After this new discussion the balance is tipped:

So I will consolidate this in the article. −Woodstone (talk) 13:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is not a vote, and I did not change my mind on the merits of the point about pro-human bias—if you read my comment above, my point was only about improving the writing. There's also no rush to implement any change anyway; let's give it some time and actually achieve a clear consensus before implementing this really, really minor change. See my pending comment. ASHill (talk | contribs) 13:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What humans know is the underlying assumption of every statement in every article in the wiki. Do we really need to state this? Takarada (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's also relevant that this practice, of assuming that human knowledge is the subject, is near universal outside Wikipedia. Saros136 (talk) 18:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wording

I propose rewording the first two sentences of the second paragraph of the lead to say

I think this wording reads better than the current version

  • Home to millions of species, including humans, Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist. Scientific evidence indicates that the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within a billion years.

This should stay here for a bit before being implemented because of the edits advocating a concern for bias against extra terrestrials (or whatever). ASHill (talk | contribs) 13:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I continue to be amazed by the amount of rehashing these two statements have undergone since this article turned FA. It is out of all proportion to their net worth. Personally I'm fine with the way it is now, but your wording would serve just as well. The second sentence (about scientific evidence for the age) was a consensus statement to placate the creationist diehards, so I think we need a strong agrement to have it changed. Otherwise it is just going to be rehashed again and again.—RJH (talk) 15:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I carefully kept the word 'science' up front in some form to make it clear that this is a scientific article with no place for creationism (or unfounded conjecture about extraterrestrials, for that matter). I don't feel strongly either, and I too tire of this discussion; my naive hope is partly that this is un-awkward wording which will end the discussion once and for all. ASHill (talk | contribs) 15:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The only oddity I see in the alternate wording is that it implies that Scientists discovered life on Earth. But otherwise it's fine.—RJH (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It leaves open the possibility that non-scientists have found life elsewhere. kwami (talk) 20:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
That's always a remote possibility, but such unconfirmed results would be out of scope for this article.—RJH (talk) 21:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of taking this whole discussion way too seriously, a) even if non-scientists have found life elsewhere, the statement would remain true, and b) I did mean 'scientist' in the broad sense of anyone who engages in scientific inquiry (i.e. not just people who do it for a living, but not any religious or other non-scientific discovery of life). However, if the phrase needs that much explanation, my intent in writing it failed. ASHill (talk | contribs) 21:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Why are we trying to fix something that isn't broken? It seems that most of the editors find the original wording fine - I don't see any need to re-write it again (and again and again).PhySusie (talk) 21:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Probably because it keeps coming up for discussion. Unfortunately it'll likely continue to arise because of the vested interests of certain groups (Creationists, UFOlogists, &c).—RJH (talk) 15:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
For the record, I am neither a creationist nor an UFOlogist, but on scientific grounds I do consider it very likely that there is life outside Earth. Therefore I like to avoid any suggestion that there are indications that there is no other life than on Earth. The only thing we can state with confidence is humans have never observed life outside Earth. If there is life elsewhere, it may well have observed itself. −Woodstone (talk) 20:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
The record notes your philosophical position and your repetition of your arguments. Personally I remain satisfied that the current statement (or that suggested by ASHill) is sufficient, and I also believe that you will not be dissuaded from your position. We agree to disagree.
That being said, if we absolutely have to get pedantic on this topic by including various provisos on whether space aliens exist, can we agree just to insert a note rather than embedding them into the text?—RJH (talk) 22:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
To apply this logic to other articles we would need to change:

Carbohydrates fill numerous roles in living things, such as the storage and transport of energy (starch, glycogen) and structural components (cellulose in plants, chitin in animals).

Into this:

Scientists have observed that carbohydrates fill numerous roles in living things, such as the storage and transport of energy (starch, glycogen) and structural components (cellulose in plants, chitin in animals).

This is an unnecessary change that tries to solve a problem that does not exist. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
That's a false dichotomy because I'm proposing replacing "life is known to exist" with "scientists have observed life" (i.e. switching from passive to active voice), not adding a purely superfluous "scientists have observed", but I take your point. If it weren't that this sentence has been the subject of endless philosophical debates, this is a minor writing change that I would make without discussion (with a 'minor edit' flag!) and probably without many editors noticing. Alas, that's not the case. ASHill (talk | contribs) 23:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Earth is the only place in the universe where Humans have found life

I don't understand why saying "Earth is the only place in the universe where Humans have found life" is such a big deal. It doesn't take up much space and it is more accurate. You say wikipedia is meant for humans only. That's not a good answer because where does it say that. All it says is Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. So is it then, because the person writing the article is a human so it is assumed that that it is from a human?

"Earth is the only known place where life exists" (Written by a human, therefore from a human perspective. Since humans do have proof of life elsewhere)

"Los Angeles is the only known place where life exists" (Written by an anonymous person who does not know of any life existing outside of Los Angeles. In theory this is okay to say to because it is assumed that when we say "Known" it means known by that person?

-What is consensus? Please explain this to me. What are the rules for edting? Why is it called Vandalsim for putting correct information? How do we know what is assumed? If I write something and say Los Angeles is the only known place where life exists is that okay, since it must be assumed that we are talking about me, since I edited it? How do we know? I am so confused as to these rules. How many people must agree with your revision for you to be able to edit? What are the rules? Are there any, or is it just that people will block you if they don't agree with you? If people don't agree with you and you are right is it fair to be blocked? Thank You.Maldek (talk) 02:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that maybe non-humans are reading or editing Wikipedia? Or that other people might believe that? Saros136 (talk) 06:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
My point is, that everyone here is sure that all those who write and read Wikipedia are humans. Editors are trying to present what people have discovered or know, not what aliens have. We use a human language because we intend to communicate with other people, not anyone else. The information is put on the Internet, which is located on the Earth. It's certain that no others are involved. And it seems safe to count on people to take known to mean known by humans because that usage is so universal. Saros136 (talk) 08:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that in a general article on earthly matters the fact of human observers can be left implicit. But this statement is about those hypothetical other observers, which makes the distinction relevant. −Woodstone (talk) 12:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
When a prior consensus has been reached on a topic after much debate, there is often resistance to having that consensus unilaterally overridden. In fact the change may be perceived by some as vandalism. For such cases, it is usually just better to peacefully resolve the dispute on the talk page.—RJH (talk) 16:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed note

As another proposal to help resolve the dispute, I suggest attaching a note such as the following to the statement that, "Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist":

<ref>This statement is based upon current scientific evidence available to humans. It has been conjectured that extraterrestrial life may exist, in which case the word "known" here would only apply to the scientific community on Earth.</ref>

The purpose of this is to avoid modifying the sentence to a pedantic form, while still satisfying the same goals that are driving the debate. Of course there is probably a better way to word it, but I just want to see if the community is open to this approach.—RJH (talk) 16:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You could modify it to add "Of course, constructive and verifiable contributions from other intelligent species are welcome, but if your changes do not show a neutral point of view towards Earth and its inhabitants, this could lead to your planet being blocked from editing." Tim Vickers (talk) 17:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hold on, hold on, might want to run that by the Foundation first. Remember how much of an uproar it created when someone inadvertently blocked a neighbourhood, let alone a planet... --Ckatzchatspy 20:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Other intelligent species? Are you implying that scientists have found an intelligent species? I'm not sure this discussion displays any evidence of that. But seriously folks, RJH's suggestion is fine with me, particularly if it will end this once and for all. I would say nix 'current'. ASHill (talk | contribs) 20:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you implying that only scientists could label life intelligent? I think the note is a nice way to resolve an issue I thought was already resolved, being on the side of "known to humans" it seemed like "we write for humans and other species are free to make their own edits" was gospel. Still, that note is biased towards the "current" scientific community and rejects the possibility that known species on earth are some how knowledgeable of life on other planets or that any number of unknown species still to be discovered might have some knowledge. --< Nicht Nein! (talk) 01:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, after reading this message by "Nicht Nein!" I can only conclude that a note will just escalate the "debate" to new levels of the pedantic. But I did enjoy some of the humorous responses above.—RJH (talk) 14:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me to be somewhat pedantic - if and when the public discovers alien life, sapient or not, I am sure Wikipedia will be updated within minutes.  :). Otherwise, it's quite safe to make the assumption that "is known" refers only to humans. Saying that we need to be explicit about such a triviality seems to me somewhat like saying "In the barrel of monkeys, the monkeys are made out of plastic. They're not real monkeys." Nihiltres{t.l} 01:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's much more pedantic, to have a footnote explaining this. Saros136 (talk) 07:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Formation of Earth

Gweneral perception about formation of earth is that primarily it was a hot planet with no life forms and everything gradually started to happen in a phased manner. However if we see that this didnt happen in case of other planets. More then often scientists try to compare the features of earth with our other neigbhouring planets. However if we see there is a very formidable difference in case of our earth and other planets. If we observe the atmosphere of other planets most of them have a very violent form of atmospheric activity. Also apart from this they dont resemble much geological activities. The nature of storms on planets like jupiter shows how furious the weather conditions can be. In comparison to them our most fierce twisters seem to be like a babies breath. When earth was formed the conditions over here were also same. But how come the nature of our earth changed from such a furious form to a calm one? The answer lies in the form of abundant water present on the earth surface. This water was inintially responsible for changing our earths atmosphere as well as it also preserved the geological activity of our planet. The presence of constant water first of all helped in the cooling down of the earths tempearture as well as removal of excess particulate material and depositing the necessary minerals back into the surface. also constant discharge of electricity helped in the formation of various gases beneficial for the survival of life on earth. as regards the geological activity if we see the constant pressure of water on the surface of earth prevented it from gradual cooling of the crust at a fast pace. This water again helped in the formation of various life forms on land and in water both. the abundance of water also points in the direction that it was not by mistake that life appeared on earth and nowhwere else in our solar system.Asim786mrt (talk) 12:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The arrival of ice comets undoubtedly had some impact on cooling the surface. But the comets also delivered kinetic energy to the Earth by their impact, and it is also not clear that it played a greater role than simple radiation of heat into space. Do you have a reference that says otherwise? Yes, water also played a role in the appearance of life on the Earth. However, we can not rule out that possibility that life exists elsewhere in the Solar System (such as on Europa), and it may take a form that we have not yet discovered. So your last statement would be based on disproveable conjecture.—RJH (talk) 17:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
We already have articles about the formation of Earth and they do mention that water was present early in the process. That's not surprising based on the amount of water in meteorites. For that matter, water was recently created in a simulated deep space environment so the universal distribution of hydrogen and oxygen implies some percentage of water as well; I don't know if that is in any articles nor if it should be. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)