ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (09/07/85)
Pam Pincha quotes me as saying: >> Picture >> ancient man exterminating EVERY SINGLE ONE of the double-sized >> super-rhinos or megalotheriums on this planet with knives and >> spears. That is what Bill Jefferys, Stan Friesen et al would >> have us believe happened. Then says, and I quote: >AAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!:-) >I CARE TO DIFFER WITH THE BLANTENT MISDIRECTION OF THIS ARTICLE! > >In my reading of the articles listed (and the ones the I have posted) >NO WHERE was it stated that man killed off ALL the mega-fauna!!!!!!! >In fact I SPECIFICALLY STATED that was not the case!!! READ YOUR >ARTICLES CAREFULLY!!!! Now, the original quote from Jefferys, about a month and a half ago, was: >It is well established that the first people in the >Western hemisphere were responsible for the extinction >of most of the large mammals in North and South >America. They had nothing but stone weapons, but their >methods were extremely effective. If I exxagerated in quoting this one, it wasn't by much. Don't jump into an argument a month and a half late and assume you know what's going on, Pam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > >Point 2 - In regard to no fauna recorded being wiped out over an >entire continent until recently __WRONG!WRONG!WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! >This has happened quite frequently throughout geologic history. >The most distinctive of these are the INDEX FOSSILS geologist >use all the time to distinquish ceertian areas, and time periods. >These are very significant and usefull indicators. >So on this point you have been grossly mislead!! You talk about ME misquoting other people? I wrote: " Consider that no instance is known of an entire species being exterminated from a major continent in recorded history other than at the hand of man, and that only recently, within the last several hundred years. Ancient man had neither the capability nor the inclination for such feats. Most of the cases of species extermination which science books like to go over occured on islands." The three key words in the paragraph are the ones at the end of the second line "IN RECORDED HISTORY", by which I obviously meant the last several thousand years. I don't intentionally misquote other people and I don't like being accused of such, and I don't like people misquoting me or setting up straw men at my expense, Pam. You've managed all three in one article. Do you have anything planned for an encore? > >Point 3 - No ancient calendar having more than 360 days. Please! >Look up the Olmec calendar(which later became the Mayan calendar) >for accurate calendars. They not only had 365 days they had >compensations for all leap year contingencies.Their calendar >rivals ours (and is in some ways better)for accuracy! What are >you trying to prove with that statement? This one is actually very simple. Calendars designed after the last global catastrophy tend to be 365 days, those designed before it were 360. There was an intermediate period when most antique nations had a 360 day calendar with five non-days or festival days at the end of each year. > >Point 4 - In reguards to the texts used on dinosaur calculations >and such. These texts wouldn't have those type of calculations >anyway! They are VERY GENERAL overview texts that make no pretentions >of being in depth texts! I suggest you check on Romers texts and >the journals (Journal of Paleontology) for you mathematical cal- >culations. The books you mentioned are beginners texts and the calculations >are long involved and BORING. General beginnig text rarely mention >such. THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT DOES EXIST!!(Another good example of the >"magical thinking"that is rampant in some of the replies on this net. >Note:That was an editorial comment Mail all flames, don't clutter >the net with them,please. Thank-you) Go look again. Get serious: you write an entire article flaming me then want the return stroke MAILED? The Russians have a better conception of fairness than that! > >Point 5 - albatrosses stop flying at thirty pounds -- condors are bigger >and heavier and BETTER at flying! Regarding points 4 and 5, see my article on the net entitled "Powerlifting and the Ultrasaur".
carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (09/10/85)
Pam Pincha writes: > Point 3 - No ancient calendar having more than 360 days. Please! > Look up the Olmec calendar(which later became the Mayan calendar) > for accurate calendars. They not only had 365 days they had > compensations for all leap year contingencies. Their calendar > rivals ours (and is in some ways better) for accuracy! What are > you trying to prove with that statement? Ted Holden replies: > This one is actually very simple. Calendars designed after the last > global catastrophy tend to be 365 days, those designed before it were > 360. There was an intermediate period when most antique nations had > a 360 day calendar with five non-days or festival days at the end of > each year. Since the word "catastrophe" is central to your theory, Ted, you may as well learn to spell it. What is the evidence, Ted, for your assertions above about ancient calendars? Or is the burden of proof always on those who disagree with you? Here is a sample of the quality of Velikovsky's reasoning about ancient calendars. In *Worlds in Collision*, V. writes: The story of the Flood, as given in Genesis, reckons in months of thirty days; it says that 150 days passed between the 17th day of the 2nd month and the 17th day of the 7th month.... Hmmm, maybe Velikovsky is right! But wait a minute: there are also 150 days between February 17 and July 17 according to the modern 365-day calendar (except in leap years). So we can't conclude from this alone that the author of Genesis reckoned in 30-day months. In a footnote in *Worlds in Collision*, V. says: The other variant of the story of the Flood ... has the Deluge lasting 40 days instead of 150. V. gives no evidence that the 150-day story is more reliable than the 40-day story, or that either of them is a factual account. He uses whatever fits his own scheme and dismisses everything else. In a supplementary section to *Earth in Upheaval*, Velikovsky, discussing Greek history, explains why it is "actually very simple." He says that there were no Greek Dark Ages (between Mycenaean and Archaic Greece) because "a literate people cannot forfeit completely a well-developed literacy..." Silly historians, to have overlooked such an elementary point. Anyway, since I am studying ancient Greek history, I am looking forward to Ted's explanation of why I need to revise radically my ideas about this historical period. V.'s standard procedure in any field is to construct his theory and then to challenge anyone to disprove it, as if the burden of proof lay on those who disagree with him. This relieves him of the necessity of refuting the careful work of generations of scholars who have constructed a chronology for the ancient Middle East, or of showing in detail the inadequacy of conventional physics and astronomy. The historian Henry Bauer (in *Beyond Velikovsky*) summarizes the case for applying the term "crank" to Velikovsky: He does not accept the methodologies of the fields about which he writes; in at least some, he displays a considerable ignorance, of which he remains unaware. He does not accept the onus of proof, but makes his assertions and insists that they be accepted unless they can be proved wrong to his satisfaction. He is convinced that his work is of signal importance, with ramifications in all areas of thought, and in those areas he rejects accepted views and proclaims his own. He is a universal scholar, a polymath, surrounded by misguided specialists; he corrects them on technical details even in their own specialties. So very impoprtant is all this that any humor, any lighter touch, is quite out of place; after all, he walks in the company of Maxwell, Roentgen, Bruno, Einstein, and the rest. Even criticism of quite minor points in his scheme is unacceptable; his view must always prevail. He sees himself as calmly objective when in fact he indulges in polemic and counterpolemic, is quite subjective in his judgments, and from the beginning presents himself aggressively (as well as grandiloquently) as a heretic. He demands credence for work that he has not yet published. Opposition is a mark of conspiracy against him. Every discovery and every public controversy that bear at all on any of his views are seen only in that light: intellectual activity consists of a struggle between Velikovskian and anti-Velikovskian ideas, even when no one but himself has brought his name into the matter. The views of the conventional scholars are based on dogma, whereas he has deduced the truth empirically, *ab initio*, from facts and phenomena [or so he believes]. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (09/12/85)
In article <389@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: >>Point 3 - No ancient calendar having more than 360 days. Please! >>Look up the Olmec calendar(which later became the Mayan calendar) >>for accurate calendars. They not only had 365 days they had >>compensations for all leap year contingencies.Their calendar >>rivals ours (and is in some ways better)for accuracy! What are >>you trying to prove with that statement? > > This one is actually very simple. Calendars designed after the last >global catastrophy tend to be 365 days, those designed before it were >360. There was an intermediate period when most antique nations had a >360 day calendar with five non-days or festival days at the end of each >year. Did Velikovsky actually mention this "intermediate period"? Or did you invent it from something I said in a previous posting and are using it to justify Velikovsky? If so, you have misquoted it, taken it out of context, and forgotten to attribute it. Sounds like something Velikovsky would do. I said that many ancient calendars had 360 days plus 5 "specials". Nowhere did I give examples or comparative dates. Without those details you cannot establish that these cultures existed only AFTER cultures that REALLY had 360 days in their "physical year" (eg: Jan 1 was REALLY the day that followed Dec. 31st). Without establishing that, you cannot use the "special" day item to justify Velikovsky. Has it ever occured to you that these special days existed in the "physical years" of all ancient cultures and that Velikovsky neglected (by poor scholarship, or intent) to mention these "special" days? Or that in some of the cultures the "special" days were so obvious to the intended readers that they didn't need to mention them? Eg: nowadays, people say that a year has 365 days often without mentioning leap-years. Some future Velikovsky working with such information would then take that to mean that there weren't ANY leap-years in our times and thus the earth was orbitting the sun faster (or the earth was rotating slower). Goes to prove that you shouldn't believe EVERYTHING you read (especially after it's been translated umpteen-kazillion times by priests and other special-interest groups). OR, that the "special" days were so "holy" that they were forbidden to mention them? OR, by God's decree: months have 30 days years have 12 months anybody who says God makes arithmetic mistakes gets burned at the stake? If I'm wrong about you misquoting me and Velikovsky DID mention this "intermediate" phase I apologize. However, even if he did mention it there is no reason to assume that the "intermediate" phase was anything more than an "intermediate" phase between the time it was forbidden to mention these "special" days, and the time they were officially placed into calendars. Calendars are a human invention. There is no reason to assume that a calendar corresponds to a physical year. Ancient culture's priests were easily able to fudge these things ("last week didn't really happen. If you say it did, we'll cut your heart out") without running into a National Bureau of Standards. They WERE the National Bureau of Standards! New standards were heresy - lots of people were burned at the stake for proposing what we now know to be TRUE. Come on now. If we were to believe implicitly in what ancient cultures said, we'd have to assume that BEFORE Copernicus et. al. came along, that the universe was built out of crystal spheres, and that God reimplemented the universe AFTER Copernicus et. al. Sheesh! I notice that there was no response to my proof that Venus and/or any other planet could significantly reduce gravity on the earth. Care to comment? -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (09/16/85)
In article <180@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: > >In a supplementary section to *Earth in Upheaval*, Velikovsky, >discussing Greek history, explains why it is "actually very simple." >He says that there were no Greek Dark Ages (between Mycenaean and >Archaic Greece) because "a literate people cannot forfeit completely >a well-developed literacy..." Silly historians, to have overlooked >such an elementary point. Anyway, since I am studying ancient Greek >history, I am looking forward to Ted's explanation of why I need to >revise radically my ideas about this historical period. > Hmm, well V's concept here seems quite doubtfull to me too, since in fact our own society seems to be heading in exactly that direction! Of course the loss of literacy would destroy society as we know it, but that is what makes a Dark Ages. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa