Copy'n'Paste because I don't care to type again.
A suitable quote at last from Fundies Say The Darndest Things. It starts over at 123 Christian Forums with caseypane1980 lying (or parroting a lie) in the form of the poor oppressed Christian student turning the tables on the mean smartarse professor who is really not so smart after all. I do grow so weary of these tales in which the religious try to bring down the worth of 'worldly knowledge'. But by the end of the story it turns into worshipful Argument From Authority 'and that student turned out to be Einstein and he was The Smartest Man Evar so you can't argue with him' [paraphrased].
The first response in the original thread tears it up and so the argument goes until we reach this gem:
"And how the earth rotates[1] around the sun in a perfect circle and not egg like[2] [sic]. You will never find this anywhere else in the galaxy. A divine hand created life. And thats [sic] enough for me for proof of God."
caseypayne1980, 123 Christian Forums [Comments (25)] [2006-Dec-17]
Well.
1: The Earth does not rotate around the Sun at all, it revolves. There is a difference. When an object rotates it is spinning about an axis. When it revolves it is in motion about some central point, orbiting. You may think, dear reader (though I hesitate to put words into your mouth), that I am being unnecessarily pedantic over the meaning of words but of course I disagree. If we do not use words with some degree of precision and instead substitute whatever seems suitably similar then how will we each know what the other is meaning? (Oh noes! The breakdown of society!) So if I am also making such an error I expect I will be called on it, and hopefully accept the correction with some grace. Revolve can serve as a synonym for rotate but that particular meaning is still an incorrect one.
2: This is precisely wrong. Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle, it is an ellipse, and by way of example it could indeed be described as egg-like. It is not even the most circular orbit in the Solar System - Venus and Neptune both have less elliptical orbits than Earth does. The claim about never finding an orbit so circular elsewhere in the galaxy. A quick look through the Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia shows OGLE-TR-56 b, OGLE-TR-113 b, OGLE-TR-132 b, HD 86081 b, HD 63454 b, HD 149026 b, HD 83443 b, OGLE-TR-10 b, HD 188753A b, HD 330075 b, HD 2638 b, OGLE-TR-111 b, HD 149143 b, 51 Peg b, HD 109749 b, Gl 581 b, HD 160691 d, HD 4308 b, HD 190360 c, HD 195019 b, HD 192263 b, PSR 1257+12 b [Formed in the aftermath of a supernova for crying out loud!], HD 11964 b, HD 59686 b, 47 Uma c all have orbits more circular than Earth does (and no, the table does not assign '0' to the unknown values, it marks them with a '-'). That's 25 planets, rather more than the total known in the solar system, and we have only discovered a tiny, tiny fraction of all the planets there are.
The Earth's orbit takes it, in fact, from as near Sol as 147,098,074km to as far away as 152,097,701km. That is a difference of 4,999,627km so if anyone claims, as caseypane1980 did:
"I didn't proof read [sic] my statement. What I ment [sic] to say if [sic] the earth moved 1 mile away or toward the sun. Not that the sun is a mile away. Sorry for the wrongful use of words. If earth moved lets [sic] say 100 miles from the sun or 85 miles from the sun. Life wouldn't be able to live."
We can clearly see it to be utter rubbish and disregard accordingly.
And the eccentricity of Earth's orbit is not even constant! While it may not vary so much as that of Mars, interactions with the other planets in the solar system cause it to change quite a bit over long periods (tens and hundreds of thousands of years). Right now the eccentricity is middling as far as Earth goes. It can and does get quite a bit more circular from time to time.
[spam]If anyone wants the annotated version, well, you will just have to track down my LiveJournal account.[/spam]
