Lonesome in Massachussets, pardon the intrusion.
In 1993, French mathematicians Jacques Laskar and Philippe Robutel showed that Earth's large moon has a stabilizing effect on our planet's climate. Without the moon, gravitational perturbations from other planets, notably nearby Venus and massive Jupiter, would greatly disturb Earth's axial tilt
Over a very long period of time, the tugs from other planets would have a very small effect.
IOW, I very much doubt this.
When figuring out how much effect bodies have on each other, distance is more significant than mass.
The Earth's Moon is responsible for about 2/3rds of the tides.
The other third is due to the Sun.
Venus is closer than the Sun, but has a very tiny effect by comparison, which goes to show just how massive the Sun is, because, as noted above, distance is more significant than mass.
This looks like twaddle and poppycock growing out of the foolish book
Rare Earth which makes the claim that conditions on Earth produced life, and that any kind of change would mean life wouldn't have arisen -- hence, it's not likely that there's any other life in the cosmos.
Ironically, YECs sometimes saddle on
Rare Earth -- which is strictly materialist-reductionist -- as proof of their beliefs. That's just dopey.
Jupiter exerts the third biggest force on Earth, preceded by the Sun and the Moon. And it is a very poor third. Jupiter’s gravitational force on the Earth is greater than that of all the other planets combined. Simple - use Newton’s Law of Gravitation, and use relative masses and distances in Astronomical Units to keep it simple, and you will get the same scale differences.
As for Mars losing its atmosphere, I believe it was more due to the core solidifying. Loss of the core’s liquid state resulted in the loss of its magnetic field, shielding it from the solar wind. The solar wind then ablated away the atmosphere, aided by Mar’s lower gravity.
The article offers arguments against the thesis that the moon is essential for complex life forms to evolve. The arguments are not completely dispositive for either view, imho. I'd say the evidence indicates that the moon certainly does stablizes axial tilt and therefore climate as well, and consequently greatly facilitates the appearance of complex life forms.
