ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (10/13/85)
My apologies to anyone who has seen this article more than once. We've
been having major problems with usenet in the D.C. area. Since Sept. 15,
when the CVL computer at U. Md. was taken down with no warning to anyone
below it on usenet (which is most of the D.C. area), very little has
gotten through one way or the other. For awhile, it will be difficult to
tell what has gotten through and what hasn't.
The Rock of Ages
This article deals with the major point on which most
Velikovskian catastrophists like myself concur with creationists:
the question of "how old is the earth, it's life forms and so
forth". I have been accused of "helping" the creationists before
by other net.origins contributors. I am no creationist. The
creationists, like traditional scientists, are SURE of their
position. I regard the question of creation versus evolution as
one of life's unknowables. I am certain that traditional (slow
and imperceptible) evolution could account for the difference
between, say, a wolf and a collie, but for no changes larger than
that. I am certain that Velikovskian (catastrophic) evolution
could explain the transmutation of species, ONCE YOU ALREADY HAVE
COMPLICATED LIFE FORMS ON OUR PLANET TO BEGIN WITH. I am
uncertain as to whether even catastrophic evolution could explain
the rise of our present complicated life forms from single-celled
animals.
I myself believe in God, but am not a Christian, mainly
because I cannot buy the Christian notion of SIN and REDEMPTION
FROM SIN being the primary problems of our life here on earth. I
respect Christians, however, other than for flagrant clowns like
Falwell. And, from what little I have seen of the emerging
science of creationism as evidenced by the articles of Kukuk and
Brown on the net, I am convinced that it is a bad mistake on the
part of scientists not to take them seriously. These guys are
essentially correct in challenging the notion which modern
science has of the age of the earth.
The funny thing about the creation/evolution debate is that,
on this one critical and all important point, it is the
scientists who are dealing from a position of AXIOMATICS, and
therefore dogma. This is what makes me believe that, if things
continue the way they are going now, traditional scientists
sticking to their present beliefs, the creationists will
eventually win this struggle.
The Ages of Rocks
Anybody who has ever read or listened to modern scientists
discussing ANYTHING pertaining to origins must perforce have
gotten used to thinking BIG. Big expanses of time involved in
EVERYTHING, big expanses of space BETWEEN everything. And, in a
pernicious way, the parts of this whole scheme which are wholly
believable tend to reinforce the parts which aren't, so that most
people, scientists included, have just gotten used to the whole
thing and never question any of its parts.
There is no reason to doubt the measurements of stellar
distances which modern scientists work with. There is likewise,
no reason to doubt that they are at least in the ballpark with
their ages FOR THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, which are based on
knowledge of stellar distances and properties of light. But the
ages which traditional scientists give for our own solar system,
for this planet, for the various geological epochs this planet
has undergone, and, generally, for every kind of an ORIGENS
related timeframe, are not based on any such solid ground. There
are good reasons for doubting these schemes.
Beginning around 1800 or so, Lamarck and Lyell and other
scientists developed what came to be known as the doctrine of
uniformity, upon which nearly all of our present natural sciences
are based. This doctrine states that the conditions we observe
in the present can be assumed to have prevailed in all past ages,
that all changes which ever occurred in geological and biological
forms occured in slow and minute, nearly inperceptable steps, the
way they do now. This amounts to an axiom, or an article of
faith; it is not something which anyone has ever proved, yet
this basic assumption stands squarely at the bottom of virtually
every scheme by which scientists try to estimate ancient time
frames. Darwin based his theory of evolution on this concept,
because the notion of CATASTROPHIC evolution, or macro-evolution,
had not occured to him. He believed that huge time spans were
needed for any reasonable theory of evolution, and that the
standard creationist theories of HIS time didn't give him any
more than the 6000 or 7000 years which Bishop Usher and like
minded folk believed in.
In taking this route, these scientists adopted what amounted
to an AXIOMATIC approach to an emperical science. When you date
geological strata using the assumption that sedimentation always
occurred at present rates, never mind how quickly a global
disaster which involved large scale flooding could put down
layers of sediment, when you use radio-carbon dating and assume
that present ratios of radio to ordinary carbon have always held
good, when you use similar assumptions on every other scheme for
dating ancient time-frames, and when you finally begin to use
circular logic in which fossils are dated by strata and strata
are dated by fossils, then you run the risk that, if any of your
axioms are wrong, you may have just spent the last 180 years
building a house of cards. In real life, outside the ivory
tower, when you take a wrong turn at the crossroads, the distance
you have covered since the wrong turn is not called PROGRESS.
That distance is merely the measure of how far you have to go
BACK.
The scientists who developed the principal of uniformity,
aside from commiting themselves and future scientists to an
axiomatic approach to what should be emperical science, committed
themselves to defending in perpetuity a series of propositions
which, taken together, amount to a variation of the BIG LIE:
namely that our ancestors were all idiots. In ancient
literature, there are numerous stories which clearly describe
cosmic violence on a global scale, something which nobody could
take seriously while taking uniformitarianism seriously at the
same time.
The Big Lie
1. The big lie: Man has been on this planet for at least a
million years, but only learned to read and write within the
last few thousand years.
The reality, as stated by an Egyptian priest, speaking to
the Greek sage, Solon, in Plato's dialogue, "The Timaeus":
"Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be
provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized
life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like
a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of
you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you
have to begin all over again like chilodren, and know
nothing of what happened in ancient times, either amongst us
or amongst yourselves. As for those geneologies of yours
which you have just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no
better than the tales of children. In the first place, you
remember a single Deluge only, but there were many previous
ones;..."
2. The big lie: The ancients saw the world as a small flat
place, and typically knew little of the world beyond their
own back yards.
The reality, from Ovid's "Metamorphoses:
"When God, whichever God he was, created
The universe we know, he made of earth
A turning sphere so delicately poised
That water flowed in waves beneath the wind....
God made zones on earth, the fifth zone naked
With heat where none may live, at each extreme
A land of snow (the poles), and, at their side, two zones
Of temperate winds and sun and shifting cold."
3. The big lie: Stories of global floods and disasters really
amount to some imaginative primative hyping a story about a
flood in his back yard, or the local river overflowing its
banks, as in the words to "Zorba the Greek", thus: "I gotta
bigga creek, a shee'sa runnina thrua my backa yard, awhat'll
I do?..... You takea bigga spongea, an you putta da bigga
spongea inna da backa yard, an it'll
abZORBA DA CREEK."
The reality: Amos n Andy have been off the air for some
time now. Nobody could get away with portraying Blacks or
LIVING Italians and Greeks this way anymore, and I HATE to
see "scientists" get away with portraying Plato, Ovid,
Hesiod, Solon, Socrates, the authors of the Old Testament,
and, generally, every ancient author who ever wrote anything
about origins in this manner, because they are dead and
thus unable to defend themselves.
The Old Testament describes only one global catastrophe, the
flood of Noah's day, in any detail; it describes meteorite
storms and near misses by other celestial bodies in numerous
other places, mainly the books of Isaiah, and of Joshua,
although these descriptions are laconic. Ovid's
"Metamorphoses", however, provides lengthy descriptions of
the flood as well as another global disaster, the legend of
Phaeton, which goes on for several pages. This is the Greek
and Roman legend of the near destruction of the world by
fire, and Ovid specifically recites devastation wrought in
every corner of the Earth of which he had any possibility
of knowledge, other than China, Siberia, and the Americas.
In Plato's dialogue, "The Timaeus", The Egyptian priest from
the temple at Sais speaks these words to Solon concerning
the Phaeton legend:
"...There is a story which even you (Greeks) have preserved,
that once upon a time, Phaeton, the son of Helios, having
yoked the steeds of his father's chariot, because he was not
able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all
that was upon the earth and was himself destroyed by a
thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really
signifies a declination of the bodies (planets) moving in
the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of
things upon the earth, which recurs after long
intervals;...".
Plato and Ovid were very definitely not talking about the
woodshed burning down last Tuesday night. It is not Plato and
Ovid, but rather the scientists and scholars who perpetuate this
kind of notion who deserve to be treated like idiots. Generally,
I believe that the entire view of origins which science has
concocted over the last 180 years or so, deserves to be exposed
to the world as the hollow sham which it actually is.
Recent books on financial planning are telling people under
40 to plan their lives as is social security doesn't exist; that
by the time they get there, one way or another, it won't. My
advice to young scientists is similar:
"Plan your lives as if the constant prattle about millions
and billions of years which you hear in every conversation
regarding ORIGINS didn't exist. In twenty years, those
millions and billions of years will no longer exist."hes@ncsu.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (10/15/85)
A large portion of this article was concerned with the way in which scientists are trained to take many geological/physical/genetical theories on "faith". On the basis of observation, and personal experience, I very strongly disagree. While scientists are taught to question theories (and observations!), there is a limit as to how much most people want to doubt at any one instant. I find that disagreeing with the (near)constancy of radio- active decay, the conservation of mass, the constancy of the speed of light, and the second law of thermodynamics, a little more than I care to do before breakfast. --henry schaffer
matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (10/17/85)
I thought perhaps Ted Holden had been convinced of the possibility that he might not be correct, but alas, it was only a news feed breakdown. He has issued another posting full of clear untruths and opinions presented as fact. In article <430@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > The funny thing about the creation/evolution debate is that, > on this one critical and all important point, it is the > scientists who are dealing from a position of AXIOMATICS, and > therefore dogma. What do you consider to be an axiom of science? Some fields (such as quantum mechanics) are formulated in terms of axioms, but the theories based on those axioms are subject to testing. The theory and axioms are rejected if they are found to be incorrect. This is similar to mathematics, where the axioms serve to define the "game being played", but different in that any axioms whose consequences are contradicted by experiment are thrown out. > There is no reason to doubt the measurements of stellar > distances which modern scientists work with. There is likewise, > no reason to doubt that they are at least in the ballpark with > their ages FOR THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, which are based on > knowledge of stellar distances and properties of light. But the > ages which traditional scientists give for our own solar system, > for this planet, for the various geological epochs this planet > has undergone, and, generally, for every kind of an ORIGENS > related timeframe, are not based on any such solid ground. There > are good reasons for doubting these schemes. You should check into your facts, Ted. In the past the cosmologists have had much younger ages for the universe than the geologists had for the earth. The geologists have always turned out to be correct. Their ages were based on physical processes which were much better understood than the astronomical objects used to measure the universe. > Beginning around 1800 or so, Lamarck and Lyell and other > scientists developed what came to be known as the doctrine of > uniformity, upon which nearly all of our present natural sciences > are based. This doctrine states that the conditions we observe > in the present can be assumed to have prevailed in all past ages, > ... This amounts to an axiom, or an article of > faith; it is not something which anyone has ever proved, yet > this basic assumption stands squarely at the bottom of virtually > every scheme by which scientists try to estimate ancient time > frames. I cannot think of any science which even believes, let alone presupposes, that conditions far in the past were similar to those in the present. In fact, estimates of the age of the universe, which you admit to having "no reason to doubt" (above), are based on the big bang model which has mar- kedly different conditions at early times, and in which some very large changes occur very abruptly. If your whole world-picture is based on the assumption that scientists subscribe to this "doctrine of uniformity", then there is no point discussing your pet theories any further, as your assumption is wrong. I don't mean debatable, I mean just plain WRONG. One can earn a Ph.D. in physics without ever hearing of this doctrine, either by name or by description. > In ancient > literature, there are numerous stories which clearly describe > cosmic violence on a global scale, something which nobody could > take seriously while taking uniformitarianism seriously at the > same time. How many of these stories were written by eyewitnesses? How many were even supposed to have taken place during the writer's lifetime? We have many stories of global catastrophe in current literature. What makes the ancient stories more valid than the newer ones? > ... I HATE to > see "scientists" get away with portraying Plato, Ovid, > Hesiod, Solon, Socrates, the authors of the Old Testament, > and, generally, every ancient author who ever wrote anything > about origins in this manner, because they are dead and > thus unable to defend themselves. Do you mean to imply that we must take as truth anything written by any dead person, because they are unable to answer our refutation? If so, then may I suggest a way for you to make your arguments more convincing? _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt PS: it's, ORIGENS, inperceptable, emperical, principal, commiting, primative
gjphw@iham1.UUCP (wyant) (10/17/85)
A brief comment concerning T. Holden's treatment of Darwinism: > ....Darwin based his theory of evolution on this concept, > because the notion of CATASTROPHIC evolution, or macro-evolution, > had not occured to him. He believed that huge time spans were > needed for any reasonable theory of evolution, and that the > standard creationist theories of HIS time didn't give him any > more than the 6000 or 7000 years which Bishop Usher and like > minded folk believed in. According to S. Gould (of Punctuated Equilibria fame), Darwin was advised by T.H. Huxley not to make any mention about the time scales required to realize evolution. Both a gradual or uniformitarian course and a catastrophic or sudden moments of evolution were considered. Huxley felt that there wasn't sufficient evidence to decide which way evolution proceeded, and Darwin would be putting forth an unsupportable hypothesis by suggesting a time scale along with the driving mechanisms for evolution (natural selection, competition for food and reproduction). Darwin decided to publish by attaching gradualism and uniformity to evolution in part because such concepts (gradualism and uniformity) were firmly rooted in the culture and religion of the times. The theory of evolution using punctuated equilibria would seem to be an updated and modified rendition of one possible evolutionary course that Darwin considered but then rejected. Patrick Wyant AT&T Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL) *!ihwld!gjphw
pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (pam pincha) (10/17/85)
In article <2951@ncsu.UUCP> hes@ncsu.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) writes: >A large portion of this article was concerned with the way in which >scientists are trained to take many geological/physical/genetical >theories on "faith". On the basis of observation, and personal >experience, I very strongly disagree. >While scientists are taught to question theories (and observations!), >there is a limit as to how much most people want to doubt at any one >instant. I find that disagreeing with the (near)constancy of radio- >active decay, the conservation of mass, the constancy of the speed of >light, and the second law of thermodynamics, a little more than I care >to do before breakfast. >--henry schaffer AMEN!
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (10/21/85)
In article <430@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > > This article deals with the major point on which most > Velikovskian catastrophists like myself concur with creationists: > the question of "how old is the earth, it's life forms and so > forth". I have been accused of "helping" the creationists before > by other net.origins contributors. I am no creationist. The > creationists, like traditional scientists, are SURE of their > position. I regard the question of creation versus evolution as > one of life's unknowables. First error, no scientist worhty of the name is ever *sure* of anything, except perhaps the raw observations. Evolutionary theory is, however, the best available explanation of the observations. > I am certain that traditional (slow > and imperceptible) evolution could account for the difference > between, say, a wolf and a collie, but for no changes larger than > that. > For someone who claims that the answers are unknowable you are awfully certain of something that has no basis in observation. > I am certain that Velikovskian (catastrophic) evolution > could explain the transmutation of species, ONCE YOU ALREADY HAVE > COMPLICATED LIFE FORMS ON OUR PLANET TO BEGIN WITH. I am > uncertain as to whether even catastrophic evolution could explain > the rise of our present complicated life forms from single-celled > animals. > Interesting, but what mechanism would produce speciation at the rate required? None is known, and all but the most extreme Punctuationalists believe that a speciation event *requires* at least a few thousand years to occur. Velikovskian catastrophes might cause mass extinctions, but are far rapid to permit speciation by any plausible mechanism. > And, from what little I have seen of the emerging > science of creationism as evidenced by the articles of Kukuk and > Brown on the net, I am convinced that it is a bad mistake on the > part of scientists not to take them seriously. These guys are > essentially correct in challenging the notion which modern > science has of the age of the earth. When they provide real evidence, properly reproducible by other researchers, we will at least listen. Until then they are no more scientists than Astrologers. > > The funny thing about the creation/evolution debate is that, > on this one critical and all important point, it is the > scientists who are dealing from a position of AXIOMATICS, and > therefore dogma. What axioms? The only axioms I am really aware of are the axioms of the scientific method. If you eliminate those you no longer have *science*, you have religion, or philosophy, or even superstition. > > The Ages of Rocks > > There is no reason to doubt the measurements of stellar > distances which modern scientists work with. There is likewise, > no reason to doubt that they are at least in the ballpark with > their ages FOR THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, which are based on > knowledge of stellar distances and properties of light. But the > ages which traditional scientists give for our own solar system, > for this planet, for the various geological epochs this planet > has undergone, and, generally, for every kind of an ORIGENS > related timeframe, are not based on any such solid ground. There > are good reasons for doubting these schemes. > Why are astronomical measurements so much more reliable than geological? Astronomical measurements are based largely upon *extrapolation*, a nototiously unreliable method. They are also based on a very strict form of Uniformitarianism. > Beginning around 1800 or so, Lamarck and Lyell and other > scientists developed what came to be known as the doctrine of > uniformity, upon which nearly all of our present natural sciences > are based. This doctrine states that the conditions we observe > in the present can be assumed to have prevailed in all past ages, > that all changes which ever occurred in geological and biological > forms occured in slow and minute, nearly inperceptable steps, the > way they do now. This amounts to an axiom, or an article of > faith; it is not something which anyone has ever proved, yet > this basic assumption stands squarely at the bottom of virtually > every scheme by which scientists try to estimate ancient time > frames. And also every scheme by which scientist try to estimate the distances and ages of stars and galaxies! You have really mis-stated the axiom. It is more correctly stated as: The *laws* and *processes* in effect are the same everywhere and in every time throughout the universe. Catastrophic event are allowed, *if* they are observable as occuring today somewhere in the universe. This axiom is one of the central axioms of the scientific method. Without it there would be no way to study events remote in time and space, since there would be no locally accessible method of verifying interpretations. If I cannot assume that the laws of physics are the same in the vicinity of a distant star I cannot rely on any comparison of observations of it with observation of events in Earth laboratories. This invalidates spectroscopy, orbital mass calculations, and much much more. Similar considerations apply to the study of past events. > Darwin based his theory of evolution on this concept, > because the notion of CATASTROPHIC evolution, or macro-evolution, > had not occured to him. He believed that huge time spans were > needed for any reasonable theory of evolution, and that the > standard creationist theories of HIS time didn't give him any > more than the 6000 or 7000 years which Bishop Usher and like > minded folk believed in. > Garbage! During the time Darwin was first learning about biology Catastrophism was one of the seriously considered theories about the history of the Earth. To say that he had not thought about it would be a grave insult to Darwin's intelligence! By the time he started serious work on his theory of evolution the catastrophic theories had largely been rejected as being to unwieldy and contrived. If he accepted the evidence available to him of the inadequacy of such theories, that is merely the scientific method! > In taking this route, these scientists adopted what amounted > to an AXIOMATIC approach to an emperical science. When you date > geological strata using the assumption that sedimentation always > occurred at present rates, never mind how quickly a global > disaster which involved large scale flooding could put down > layers of sediment, Noone has ever made this silly assumption to my knowledge. All that is assumed is that sedimentation in the past has occured in generally similar manners to the ways it occurs now. In fact the nature of the sediment often contains clues as to rates of sedimentation, so the stricter assumption is unnecessary and unusable. > when you use radio-carbon dating and assume > that present ratios of radio to ordinary carbon have always held > good, when you use similar assumptions on every other scheme for > dating ancient time-frames, These assumptions were only accepted *provisionally*, and subject to later verification. In the case of radio-carbon dating recent research has provided independent estimates of past carbon ratios, allowing the dating method to be adjusted for actual ratios rather than simply assuming a constant ratio. (Look at the assumptions about red-shift which are so central to cosmological distance measurement - they are very similar to these assumptions) > In real life, outside the ivory > tower, when you take a wrong turn at the crossroads, the distance > you have covered since the wrong turn is not called PROGRESS. > That distance is merely the measure of how far you have to go > BACK. > Science doesn't work that way, since there are no roads except those we make ourselves. When scientist find out they are wrong the new data usually points to a better solution, thus avoiding the need to go *back*. We usually end up going *sideways* at the *worst*. > > The scientists who developed the principal of uniformity, > aside from commiting themselves and future scientists to an > axiomatic approach to what should be emperical science, Except that even empIrical reasoning requires axioms, there is no avoiding them! And the principle of uniformitarianism is necessary for reasoning about remote events on the basis of proximate data. > > The Big Lie > > 1. The big lie: Man has been on this planet for at least a > million years, but only learned to read and write within the > last few thousand years. > > The reality, as stated by an Egyptian priest, speaking to > the Greek sage, Solon, in Plato's dialogue, "The Timaeus": > > "Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be > provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized > life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like > a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of > you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you > have to begin all over again like chilodren, and know > nothing of what happened in ancient times, either amongst us > or amongst yourselves. THis sounds very like a description of events like our recent Middle Ages, which did not in the least fool archaeologists into thinking reading and writing were invented only a few hundred years ago! Such events have indeed occured quite frequently, and could well have been known to Egyptian scholars. Ancient Egypt had fallen to barbarian invassions, as had Mykenean "Greece". The Cretan empire had been destroyed by a volcanic explosion. The Chaldean, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations in Mesopotamia had been destroyed. What reason is there to believe that this is *not* what the priest was talking about? > > 2. The big lie: The ancients saw the world as a small flat > place, and typically knew little of the world beyond their > own back yards. > Well, that depends on where you are talking about, and in what era of history! The ancient Greeks had figured out that the Earth was a sphere, but they did not have general education, so only a few scholars ever knew it! When the Greek civilization was absorbed the knowledge was lost. certainly the average person did *percieve* the world that way. In fact most people today *still* do! Only here, in a country with widespread education, and in other similar countries, is this viewpoint truly minor. > > 3. The big lie: Stories of global floods and disasters really > amount to some imaginative primative hyping a story about a > flood in his back yard, or the local river overflowing its > banks, This is not quite what is being claimed by archaeologist and anthropologists. A better example might be Paul Bunyan, or Billy the Kid as he is popularly believed to have been, or even Robin Hood. Such stories *grow* with time. It is like the fish that got away! > > Plato and Ovid were very definitely not talking about the > woodshed burning down last Tuesday night. It is not Plato and > Ovid, but rather the scientists and scholars who perpetuate this > kind of notion who deserve to be treated like idiots. If this is what scientist believed, thay *would* be idiots. How about a *major*, large-scale draught that grew over the years to be a global disaster.("You think that was someting - well let me tell you what happened to ME during the gret draught"). Or maybe it was some other disaster that got exaggerated in a similar manner. Remember these authors were not talking from first-hand knoeledge, they were not even basing thier writings on interviews with survivors, they were relying wholely on hear-say evidence. The scientific method hadn't been invented yet. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil) (10/28/85)
[all persons stand back of white line.] Since Ted Holden makes so many relatively unrelated statements and claims in his articles, when it makes sense I'll try to reply to separate questions separately. Now begins part 1 in a new series! > 2. The big lie: The ancients saw the world as a small flat > place, and typically knew little of the world beyond their > own back yards. > > The reality, from Ovid's "Metamorphoses: > > "When God, whichever God he was, created > The universe we know, he made of earth > A turning sphere so delicately poised > That water flowed in waves beneath the wind.... > God made zones on earth, the fifth zone naked > With heat where none may live, at each extreme > A land of snow (the poles), and, at their side, two zones > Of temperate winds and sun and shifting cold." Ho, hum. This is a big lie only to persons as ignorant as Ted Holden. There is, of course, a childhood myth nowadays that people in the past thought that the world was flat and Columbus, the lone far thinker of his day, set out and proved them all wrong. In fact, all educated persons knew not only during the Renaissance but during ancient times that the Earth is spherical. Aristotle demonstrated the sphericity of the Earth quite convincingly with arguments as valid today as they were in 330 B.C. After mentioning some *logical* arguments for the Earth's sphericity (which have *not* held up), Aristotle writes: The evidence of the senses further corroborates this. How else would eclipses of the moon show segments shaped as we see them? As it is, the shapes which the moon itself each month shows are of every kind -- straight, gibbous, and concave -- but in eclipses the outline is always curved: and, since it is the interposition of the earth that makes the eclipse, the form of this line will be caused by the form of the earth's surface, which is therefore spherical. Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only that the earth is circular, but that it is a circle of no great size. For quite a small change of position to south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon. There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead, and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or southward. Indeed there are some stars seen in Egypt and in the neighborhood of Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions; and stars, which in the north are never beyond range of observation, in those regions rise and set. All of which goes to show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but also that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be so quickly apparent. Hence one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the view of those who conceive that there is continuity between the parts about the pillars of Hercules and the parts about India, and that in this way the ocean is one. [1] Thus was laid, almost two thousand years before, the philosophical basis for Columbus's voyage. In addition to discovering the Earth's sphericity, ancient Greek mathematicians measured the angles formed by stars at differing latitudes and calculated the size of the Earth, ending up with a value close what we know today. The only problem for Columbus was, the distances they calculated would have left him starving in mid Ocean, long before reaching the Indies. Columbus, though, had found another estimate for the size of the Earth, which placed the Indies somewhat closer to Europe, and he wanted to risk it. The Portuguese, when Columbus petitioned them to fund his expedition, quite properly looked askance at risking lives, ships, and treasure on an undertaking with such shaky underpinnings, and turned him down flat, so to speak. The Spaniards, perhaps less sea-wise, perhaps fired up from their victory that very year over the Moors, were less cautious. Who would have dreamed, or at least risked ships on, the proposition that there were entire unknown continents floating out there in the deep? So, what do the Portuguese get for making the logically correct decision? Schoolkids are taught to sneer at them! It wasn't just the ancients' thoughts that ranged widely, they also traveled bodily far and wide. The Greeks knew India and the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar). The Romans opened up the overland trade route to China. Before the Greeks, there's good reason to believe that the Phoenicians sailed to Britain and all the way around Africa. Educated people of the past knew all of this. Any educated person today who investigates the matter knows that they knew it. Now Ted Holden has stumbled across part of it (Ovid, for example) and runs around yelling about "big lies." Ridiculous! Ovid lived 300 years after Aristotle! The "big lie," I'd say, lies fallow in Ted's mouth. -- Reference [1] Aristotle, "On the Heavens," Book II, Chapter 14, *The Works of Aristotle*, Oxford University Press, pp. 297-298. -- Michael McNeil 3Com Corporation "All disclaimers including this one apply" (415) 960-9367 ..!ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe is listening to us -- and that every word we say echoes to the remotest star. Jean Giraudoux, *The Madwoman of Chaillot*
michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil) (10/29/85)
[posted -- no eating or drinking.] Part 2 in response to Ted Holden's recent outpouring: "The Big Lie." > 1. The big lie: Man has been on this planet for at least a > million years, but only learned to read and write within the > last few thousand years. > > The reality, as stated by an Egyptian priest, speaking to > the Greek sage, Solon, in Plato's dialogue, "The Timaeus": > > "Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be > provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized > life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like > a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of > you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you > have to begin all over again like chilodren, and know > nothing of what happened in ancient times, either amongst us > or amongst yourselves. As for those geneologies of yours > which you have just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no > better than the tales of children. In the first place, you > remember a single Deluge only, but there were many previous > ones;..." It is precisely because civilizations have fallen, and what has come down to us has been transformed by centuries of folk tale and myth, that science discounts it as history. Yes, the Greeks, among other ancient civilizations, *have* been literate more than once. That's precisely the problem. How do people who have been blasted back to illiteracy manage to remember their history perfectly, hum? Are you arguing, Ted, that the Egyptians alone managed to survive a world- wide flood (and all the other disasters, apparently) and keep their correct history? Were the Egyptians -- not the Israelites -- God's Chosen People to have pulled off such a trick? Or could it perhaps be that the flood didn't *quite* extend around the *entire* world? I quote further from Plato's "Timaeus," which Ted conveniently omits (also attributed by Plato to the Egyptian priest speaking to Solon): When ... the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient. So much for the world-wide flood, as well as the forty days and forty nights! But, despite direct contradiction by ancients whose words he claims to revere, Ted continues to maintain his same old swan song: > 3. The big lie: Stories of global floods and disasters really > amount to some imaginative primative hyping a story about a > flood in his back yard, or the local river overflowing its > banks, as in the words to "Zorba the Greek", thus: "I gotta > bigga creek, a shee'sa runnina thrua my backa yard, awhat'll > I do?..... You takea bigga spongea, an you putta da bigga > spongea inna da backa yard, an it'll > abZORBA DA CREEK." *Tee, hee*. How amusing, Ted. For comments, I simply refer to Plato. I quote from your earlier quotation, with the Egyptian priest speaking: ... like a pestilence ... [it] leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those geneologies of yours which you have just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. I'd say that Egyptian priest back in the sixth century B.C. is smarter than you are, Ted. You're pretty gullible to believe children's tales. > The Old Testament describes only one global catastrophe, the > flood of Noah's day, in any detail; it describes meteorite > storms and near misses by other celestial bodies in numerous > other places, mainly the books of Isaiah, and of Joshua, > although these descriptions are laconic. Ovid's > "Metamorphoses", however, provides lengthy descriptions of > the flood as well as another global disaster, the legend of > Phaeton, which goes on for several pages. This is the Greek > and Roman legend of the near destruction of the world by > fire, and Ovid specifically recites devastation wrought in > every corner of the Earth of which he had any possibility > of knowledge, other than China, Siberia, and the Americas. This says it all, if only Ted would listen to himself -- "other than China, Siberia, and the Americas," indeed! Romans and Greeks were highly traveled but, as Ted admits, had no knowledge of areas outside of Europe, northern Africa, and western and southern Asia. Therefore, they had no "possibility of knowledge" whether purported devastation was "wrought in every corner of the Earth." Naturally, the poems and stories of the Greeks took place in those areas they knew something about. But the people who were alive during the much earlier epoch when those stories supposedly took place were even more restricted in their movements. Remember Homer? His was an age when it was still a big deal to sail from Greece to Sicily! This was at least as true for the Hebrews of the Old Testament. During early times the Hebrews were nomadic herdsmen and women who had originated in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, and never wandered very far from that region. They weren't seafarers or caravan operators, they weren't really cosmopolitan at all. Foreigners were heathens who carried contaminating ideas. The Hebrews' concept of "foreign" was Phoenicia or Egypt. Legends and myths regarding supposed "world-wide" disasters can be trusted only as far as the limits to the travels of the people who invented them. Regarding Plato's "Timaeus," I might also mention that Solon's tale is written in the form of a dialogue between four persons -- none of whom was Plato -- with the actual tale being related to Socrates and others by historically a rather infamous person known as Critias. Critias states that he heard the story in Athens when he was some ten years of age from another man named Critias, who at the time was about ninety. How the elder Critias knew the story so well is unclear, since Solon lived some 200 years before either Critias, and apparently Plato was the first to write it down. The elder Critias mused, wrote Plato: Yes, ... if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. In other words, after an unknown amount of interpretation over many centuries in Egypt, the story arrived in Greece, spent some 200 years being told and retold in the streets of Athens, then was related by a very old man to a young boy, who many years later repeated it to a small group, one of whose pupils much later wrote it up. Sounds like just the sort of story on which Ted Holden would bet his life! Plato has the last word: Solon ... made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. -- Reference [1] Plato, "Timaeus," *The Dialogues of Plato*, translated by Benjamin Jowett, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., reprinted by arrangement with Oxford University Press, 1952, pp. 444-445. -- Michael McNeil 3Com Corporation "All disclaimers including this one apply" (415) 960-9367 ..!ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it? Whence was it born, whence came creation? The gods are later than this world's formation; Who then can know the origins of the world? None knows whence creation arose; And whether he has or has not made it; He who surveys it from the lofty skies, Only he knows -- or perhaps he knows not. *The Rig Veda*, X. 129