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Re: Killer asteroids

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Greg Goss wrote:

> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> wrote:
>>J. Clarke wrote:
>>> […] nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz says...
>>>> The Starmaker wrote:
>>>> > Did you know that in the history of the earth, not one asteroid
>>>> > ever landed on earth?
>>>> That's right. There have been many.
>>> Note the tricky wording there.  "In the history", which if one is being
>>> pedantically technical, means "since the invention of writing".
>>Nonsense.
> 
> So you disagree with "JC" on what "prehistoric" means.

No.  "JC" did not define the term “prehistoric” in the first place.

> From here, JC seems to be supporting his argument better.

He is committing the fallacy of equivocation, and so are you:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation>

Because there is not one meaning, but several possible meanings, for the 
term “history (of sth./so.)”.  For example:

<https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/history>
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/history>
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/history#Noun>

In the natural sciences, such as astronomy, the term “the history of Earth” 
is to be understood as equivalent to “the past of Earth”: the set of 
events – whether recorded or not – whose spatial components specify a 
location on the planet of Terra or – I would go that far – on an object 
related to said planet (for example, I would consider an asteroid that 
potentially delivered life-enabling molecules to the planet a part of the 
latter’s history), and whose temporal components range from including the 
formation of Terra up to excluding the time of wording the statement in 
which the term is used.  The only matter that is in question then is when 
said planet can be considered to have been formed.

However, a semantic complication to assess the truth value of the OP’s 
statement is the use of the word “landed”, because that word is not usually 
used for an object such as an asteroid that actually *collides* with another 
object so that its relative motion is only stopped by an *impact*.  By 
contrast, “(to) land” is usually associated with a slow, manual approach, a 
comparably soft contact between the landing object and the one being landed 
on, and a slow deceleration of the former to come to a relative stop on the 
latter.  Compare “the airplane landed on the airport” with “the airplane 
crashed into the ground”; in order to say that a soft landing was attempted 
but that was impossible to do without damage, one has to use the word 
“crash-land”.  Insofar it is fair to say that, indeed, very likely no 
asteroid has ever *landed* on Earth – but probably for other reasons that 
the trolling OP may assume.

<https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/land>
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/land>
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/land#Verb>

-- 
PointedEars

Twitter: @PointedEars2
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-25 09:46 -0700
  Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-27 13:50 -0700
    Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-27 13:58 -0700
      Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-27 21:17 -0700
    Re: Killer asteroids Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2017-05-28 08:14 -0500
      Re: Killer asteroids "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2017-05-28 13:23 -0400
        Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-05-28 20:28 +0200
          Re: Killer asteroids Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2017-05-28 13:00 -0600
            Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-05-29 01:03 +0200
          Re: Killer asteroids Serg io <invalid@invalid.com> - 2017-05-28 16:17 -0500
            Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-05-29 01:12 +0200
        Re: Killer asteroids Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2017-05-29 07:23 -0500
      Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-28 11:15 -0700
        Re: Killer asteroids Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2017-05-29 07:38 -0500
      Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-29 10:54 -0700
        Re: Killer asteroids Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2017-05-29 18:14 -0500
          Re: Killer asteroids Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2017-05-29 19:25 -0600
            Re: Killer asteroids jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com - 2017-05-30 02:37 +0000
            Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-05-30 14:08 +0200
              Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-30 10:35 -0700
                Re: Killer asteroids 21blackswan@gmail.com - 2017-05-30 11:22 -0700
                Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-05-31 00:39 +0200
                Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-30 16:14 -0700
                Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-05-31 22:17 +0200
                Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-31 13:52 -0700
                Re: Killer asteroids Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2017-06-01 02:12 +0200
          Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-29 22:35 -0700
            Re: Killer asteroids Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2017-05-30 17:01 -0500
              Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-30 15:43 -0700
                Re: Killer asteroids The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2017-05-30 17:08 -0700
  Re: Killer asteroids tesla sTinker <truecatholicstaff@truecarpentry.org> - 2017-05-28 20:40 -0700
    Re: Killer asteroids Poutnik <poutnik4nntp@gmail.com> - 2017-05-29 06:59 +0200
      Re: Killer asteroids tesla sTinker <truecatholicstaff@truecarpentry.org> - 2017-05-29 21:29 -0700
        Re: Killer asteroids benj <benj@nobody.net> - 2017-05-30 17:01 -0400
      Re: Killer asteroids tesla sTinker <truecatholicstaff@truecarpentry.org> - 2017-05-29 21:52 -0700
  Re: Killer asteroids Arc Michael <abookoflife@yahoo.com> - 2017-05-30 20:17 -0700

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