Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Snow Rollers – Human or Natural?

David L. Hagen
May 20, 2009
Intelligent Design, Science
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There is a fascinating post about Snow Rollers:
Roll ‘em Roll ‘em Roll ‘em…keep that snow a rollin!
at WattsUpWithThat.com
See: Snow Rollers

Are there ways to distinguish between a “SnowMan” and a “Snow Roller”?

Comments
William, Are the hay bales in your part of the country only 18 inches to 2 feet tall? In Missouri, where I live, they are considerably taller.Dave Wisker
May 28, 2009
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William:
Looks like hay bails made by a round hay baler plastered with snow after a snow storm.
So much for "no false positives".R0b
May 28, 2009
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Looks like hay bails made by a round hay baler plastered with snow after a snow storm. If you have doubts, simply walk up to one of them, and start brushing away the snow. Sorry to spoil, but anybody in my part of my country would be able to figure this out.William Wallace
May 28, 2009
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Well Gimli said that Dwarf women are sometimes mistaken for Dwarf men. Tolkein observed:
It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. RK, 360 (App A)
Could the Snow Men and Snow Women be distinguished by the difference between a corncob pipe vs a bonnet?DLH
May 21, 2009
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I'm impressed by your analysis, DLH, but the real question is, what is the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman?Bilboe
May 21, 2009
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In summary, with "Snow Rollers" there are natural causes have been identified that can quantitatively describe their origins. On the other hand, there are descriptions of "Snow men" that have unusual features that are not explainable by any known natural cause. e.g., Three stacked rolled snow balls, "eyes of stones", "nose of fruit" etc. Rather snow men have a distinct combination of features not explicible by any natural cause. These can be generally attributed to intelligent causes even without having seen them being constructed.DLH
May 21, 2009
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@fmarotta: And with eyes of stones and a nose of fruit it is downright impossible.critiacrof
May 21, 2009
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A snowman typically requires integration of two or more (typically three) snowballs. One can imagine a snowball being formed from non-designed processes; it is more difficult to imagine a full-blown snowman occurring without design.fmarotta
May 21, 2009
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These rollers are not organized or complex structures and there is no direct function of these structures. These are simple ordered structures that can be easily described by their shape (cylindrical shape) and two numbers(diameter and width). A simple algorithm to create such a thing(get an object with mass m and dimensions xyz and let it roll with velocity v on a snowy hill with angle a) is already found in the situation of a rolling stone on a snowy hill and completely determined by chance, time and law. Therefor there is no design. However for the purpose of removing snow(or just for fun) an agent could be responsible for setting the whole thing in motion. So no design but maybe an agent. A snowman clearly shows the pattern of design. It is an complex and improbable organization that clearly represents something and therefor design can be inferred.critiacrof
May 21, 2009
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That just screams design to me.djmullen
May 20, 2009
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