Methinks "atmosphere-strip theory" might better be called "hydrogen-strip theory", since Venus's atmosphere is a heck of a lot thicker than Earth's. I don't know how much hydrogen is bound up in the crust of Venus in various compounds, but I doubt that anyone else does either. There are other potential effects the Earth's Moon could have aside from the possible effects on the Earth's magnetic field. It could have helped to sweep up various light materials for the Earth during the early history of the Solar system. If Venus & the Earth are similarly sized & similarly located, and yet Venus has this incredibly thick atmosphere and the Earth doesn't, then I'm willing to listen to any theories in which the Moon helps to get rid of some of the Earth's primordial atmosphere -- e.g., carbon dioxide. So far, the hydrogen stripping theory kills off hydrogen on Venus, but how does the non-existence of that stripping on Earth kill off all the garbage in the Earth's early atmosphere? I know that some of the planet formation theories have the big planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, etc. -- "shepherding" some of the smaller planets into formation. I've seen some computer animations which show the inner planet eccentricities varying quite a bit during the last 4.5 billion years. Do any of the planet formation theories contemplate the Earth and Venus swapping orbits? Could there have been some sort of orbit-crossing event -- perhaps the one that created the Moon -- that could have dramatically shifted either the Earth's or Venus's orbital position? At 01:46 PM 4/5/2016, Warren D Smith wrote:
--Venus's hydrogen is gone. Hence no water, no ammonia, no chemistry involving H, no life.
Their ref 4 hopefully provided evidence. If so, then HB's disputation of atmosphere-strip theory, is busted by observational evidence.
--diddlysquat. Venus is extremely dry and has about 10^(-8) the absolute amount of H on Earth.