The only evidence being produced is that that supports the paradigm and the paradigm is among other things anti-Velikovskian. There are bits and pieces that come to light, but are not much use alone. You can find these on William Corliss website and a correlation would be valuable, but no one has done this yet. It would be very time consuming and I doubt that it would improve on the work already done by the man.
Damned / Rejected Science (Miscellaneous)
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almond13 said:
...all those people flogging anti-Velikosksy, pro-establishment popular science bestsellers you mean? Have you come across any?
For someone who claims to be preaching open-mindedness, you seem awfully attached to a single view. Promote the great man's work by all means, but suggesting that all science is fair game except him is a little perverse.
almond13 said:
But one could argue that Corliss is dealing with things that are the exceptions, rather than the rules (as it were). This doesn't really shake the foundations of science, AFAIK, but shows instead that there are possible anomalies out there. I'd say that such things are a whole lot different than claims which state that the Earth went through some sort of catastrophe, etc etc a la Velikovsky.
You seem not to understand what Corliss does and why.
He offers anomalies and a scale that gives an idea how much the anomaly would “shake the foundations” were it to be researched and found to be valid. In some cases the anomaly is well documented by science but ignored. He also includes some of the anomalies set out by the man himself and they are examined with equal status. This is the basis of real science and the only path to discovery. Anomalies are not exceptions, they exist in every branch or discipline of science with the most important residing at the very basis/heart of these disciplines. These are the ones that I use and cause so much anger with the likes of yourself and I tend to see this as denial.
My own, unequal and perhaps overstated contribution to the Velikovsky affair is caused by the huge opposition and is still lacking, it needs more emphasis and support and not less.
I'm well aware of Corliss' work - whether any of the anomalies would indeed shake science to it's core is another matter. There's a big 'If' involved there. And, for the record, such things don't inspire anger in me so your words there are misplaced.
As for the 'scepticsm blocks progress' argument, that one usually get's wheeled out when people can't handle others not sharing the same views that they have (it's been used to try and counter scepticsm in the various conspiracy threads, for example).
I don't think any arguments against your line of reasoning and beliefs are a case of denial - it simply seems that some people here aren't convinced by the alleged evidence for Velikovsky, etc. and their ideas.
As for the 'scepticsm blocks progress' argument, that one usually get's wheeled out when people can't handle others not sharing the same views that they have (it's been used to try and counter scepticsm in the various conspiracy threads, for example).
I don't think any arguments against your line of reasoning and beliefs are a case of denial - it simply seems that some people here aren't convinced by the alleged evidence for Velikovsky, etc. and their ideas.
almond13:
You suppose a catatrophe sudenly killing mammoths. Like a great flood. You say you don't like HANCOCK. But his theories (supported by more and more evidence) provide a possible answer. There were many glacial innundations when ice receded, often of a tremendous size. They are documented in North America (Columbia Basin, Colorado Basin, MIssissipi Basin), Hindus Valley and Siberia. There was discussion in Atlantis or flood related threads. Some of those finds were sometimes used by creationnists. But they are no proof of a global innundiation, on the contrary. Diluvial myths come from a number of localized land floods, and fast sea-level rises.
You suppose a catatrophe sudenly killing mammoths. Like a great flood. You say you don't like HANCOCK. But his theories (supported by more and more evidence) provide a possible answer. There were many glacial innundations when ice receded, often of a tremendous size. They are documented in North America (Columbia Basin, Colorado Basin, MIssissipi Basin), Hindus Valley and Siberia. There was discussion in Atlantis or flood related threads. Some of those finds were sometimes used by creationnists. But they are no proof of a global innundiation, on the contrary. Diluvial myths come from a number of localized land floods, and fast sea-level rises.
Corliss rates anomalies as 1-4 with 1 being of the type that would need major changes in scientific perception. Opening “The Moon and Planets” 1985, I find the first (1) rating to be about the perihelion of mercury and if it can be accounted for by GR. This has been played down in the intervening years, but at the time it was considered one of the elusive “proofs” of relativity. I would consider this to be paradigm shaking.
The next that comes to mind is one that I tried on a professional astronomer some time back and it seems that he had no idea that such observations existed. From Corliss again it concerns the hanging of stars at the limb of the moon at the moment of occultation. What I asked was, why is this not considered in the case of the positioning of stars at eclipses and the supposed bending of light due to solar gravity?
His answer was that the observations were old and probably in bad seeing conditions. I left it there not wanting to point out that in the case of the first “proof” of relativity, the seeing conditions were also very bad.
Scepticism is a purely negative approach to thinking and indeed to life in general. The reason that it's “wheeled out” is because this is true.
Scepticism is used to prevent innovation and independent thinking. The only thoughts allowed are those semi-safe laws that science is so fond of and is there a theory to support it? What we do must be supported by what is already done, there is nothing else.
The inference is that science will do the thinking for you and there's no need to trouble your head with anything else. Common sense has been relegated to the bin and replaced by grey thoughts of the accidental emergence of all the universe. Nature is reduced to a few laws that cram her into the most narrow confines, in fact we are told that nature doesn't exist in any spiritual sense at all. Any thoughts of spirituality are dismissed out of hand. This is in the face of the undeniable fact that a very large portion of the world population thinks it an important need and essential for healthy minds.
I've already mentioned the “sheep and goats” and my thoughts that the scepticism is powerful antidote. The sceptics are not even aware of the powerful influence that they wield. They are invoking negative spiritual energy of the kind that any wizard would be proud.
I look forward to your comments as a closet sceptic jerry-B.
eburacum
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Nevertherless, these observations have been repeated many times iN the perfect seeing conditions of space; relativity so far has passed all the tests.
Far from skepticism ruling the roost, a Nobel prize awaits the first person to find a concrete disproof of, or exception to general (or special) relativity; don't think they aren't trying. I have every confidence that one day someone will succeed.That is what Gravity probe B Is all about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Probe_B
You have me at a disadvantage with “HACOCK” as I've said, I don't read his stuff. IMHO he is an interloper in the field of catastrophism and has brought nothing new, or I'm sure I would have heard about it. Typical is your comment that he has gone over to the other side and it's not unexpected.
Not you, or all the science you can muster, can deny the mammoths and if it wasn't deluge then what was it that scattered them along the shores of the northern regions and as you have said around the globe? Are you suggesting a “local flood” in the Arctic Ocean? How do you explain “fast sea/ocean level rises”? The large scale melting of glacial ice in the north would not cause much fast ocean rise as most of the ice was on the oceans anyway.
There is much evidence of rising (and falling) sea levels around the world to quote Corliss again. This can be shown to be global and I'll do the research when I have the time.
I may be getting all this wrong, but it didn't work did it? Radiation problems buggering the 'puter, not to mention running out of gas?
The other thing that confuses me is what exactly is it measuring? What is frame dragging and how does this constitute a proof of GR?
Gravity waves have never been detected and so how can they be used if they don't exist?
Laithwaite investigated some properties of giro's that have never been disproven. How can you rely on something that is working in a way that you don't understand?
Why don't the computers work in space radiation after all the past experience.
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almond13 said:
It certainly seems to have done, though they did have problems.
almond13 said:
Read the FAQ -
http://einstein.stanford.edu/content/faqs/faqs.html
almond13 said:
Hmm - I'd suggest that a closet sceptic wouldn't have websites like my 'Fortean Timeline', would they?
Scepticsm has it's uses - it's just that it's misuse is not at all helpful. If we shouldn't accept science at face value, we should should also not simply just accept the alternatives either, surely? I think you need to discern the difference between outright negative scepticsm and the opinions of anyone who is yet to be convinced by your arguments. If you start pointing accusingly at people and branding them as horrid sceptics, it simply seems to be an effort in stifling any discourse, and is thus counterproductive to a forum such as this. I would hope that your ideas are strong enough to withstand critiques without recourse to the 'sceptic' word.
Also, if science is actually as bad as you seem to think, why bother at all with trying to get Velikovsky's ideas accepted by it?
I think that i can rest my case with this one as it seems to agree that GR was never proven. The next question posed is “Is it worth the candle” and the answer should be no for the simple reason that GR and SR have never produced any benefit to the people who pay for it and even less in terms of science. This and other white elephants (like hot fusion) should be abandoned on economic grounds alone. Had this or the latter been undertaken by a private company I can just about imagine the board meeting and the question from shareholders about funding something for fifty to seventy years without any sign of a return on investment? But, this is all about the fiction of “pure science and those elegant maths” that have the scientistic in raptures about jam tomorrow and the promise of elysian fields of plenty that have been on offer for the last 60 years to my certain knowledge. If you believe this BS you must be super gullible. The elysian fields are those enjoyed by the authors of the never-ending projects and the contractors that supply them.
Science jerry-B is what I've spent my life reading about and I can honestly state that the only useful thing that my years of education did for me was to teach me to read. If science wants to continue in it's present form and not make any changes, it will have to find some way to stop people reading. There are many like minded lately who think as I do and have become disillusioned by the tired old platitudes of the scientific community. It is my absorption of all written matter with low criticism and a high ability to sort wheat from chaff that has brought me to the position that I find myself today.
You are a sceptic and you don't even know it. Science has become synonymous with scepticism with the one feeding off the other.
scepticism
noun
the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=scepticism
This is the absolute reverse of the meaning of the word as given by “skeptics” (with a K) Science is to them, (and does nothing to dispel the notion), the ultimate knowledge and reinforces the notion when it rejects knowledge from other sources as being unscientific. Unscientific is nothing but something that is not accepted by science and has nothing to do with untruth.
The usual circular argument – science is a discipline that decides what is true and what is false – therefore anything that science says is false is untrue. However, the reasoning of both science and non science comes from the same human type brain and some human brains say that science is in error. Is it logical to say that science is always right?
I simply reject any suggestion of ultimate knowledge; anyone who does not is a sceptic.
In answer to your question of why I offer Velikovsky to science, I don't, it's an utter waste of time and effort. The notion that Forteana and anomalies will someday be sorted and all part of an enlightened science is illusionary.
eburacum
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Interesting point of view, and one that I share to a great degree. As 'science' explains one set of 'mysteries' another set will appear, at the edges of detection range or at the limits of resolution of our instruments; it is an infinite regression.
Fortean studies can remain secure in the knowledge that some things will always remain unknown. They are not always the same things, however.
And of course in some fields the evidence is mostly circumstantial; history for instance can never be an exact science.
almond13 said:
Then I must say that I too am not a sceptic, as I also deny the possibility of ultimate knowledge. And if I was a sceptic - or a skeptic - I doubt that I'd have my Timeline website or the various books on Forteana which crowd my bookcase
That said, I still don't understand why - if science itself is wrong-headed - you feel the need to use it in various forms in order to back up the claims of Velikovsky, etc..
almond13:
about general relativity and competing theories of gravity: I don't know if you intend to use those competing theories to validate velikovskian cosmology. It would be a dead end: all of them make the same predictions than general relativity, and contradict his vision of a marauding Venus.
The floods:
There was a description of post-glacial floods (sea and land) in the thread "Atlantis".
Just to say that your vision of a gradual ice cap melting is outdated. Another example of science evolving, former heresy becoming accepted.
I didn't mean that something scattered mammoths (or anything else) all around the world. There are proofs of a number of localized floods. Some regions have, others not. They were not simultaneous. There is no need of suggesting an Arctic Ocean flood (and how could it be?); if there is any evidence of mammoths carried away by an innundiation, it was a land innundation. Coming from the collapse of a huge glacial lake on Siberian mountains (like the Altai). Such an event was well documented in the Columbia River Valley (Northwestern USA).
You mentionned sea falling. The same mechanisms provide a good explanation: huge and sudden releases of cold melting waters in the oceans caused a global cooling, and a temporary reglaciation; then a fall in sea level. Well, few mention it: with global warming, we are in a great danger that it happens again. With glacial (but temporary) temperatures as a result, no-one would think of fighting the warming anymore; with more dramatic consequences. As bazizmaduno mentionned in "The CH4 Doc:..", it should be followed by isostatic earthquakes and increased volcanism. Another explanation of the succession of catastrophic events at the end of the Ice Age.
about general relativity and competing theories of gravity: I don't know if you intend to use those competing theories to validate velikovskian cosmology. It would be a dead end: all of them make the same predictions than general relativity, and contradict his vision of a marauding Venus.
The floods:
There was a description of post-glacial floods (sea and land) in the thread "Atlantis".
Just to say that your vision of a gradual ice cap melting is outdated. Another example of science evolving, former heresy becoming accepted.
I didn't mean that something scattered mammoths (or anything else) all around the world. There are proofs of a number of localized floods. Some regions have, others not. They were not simultaneous. There is no need of suggesting an Arctic Ocean flood (and how could it be?); if there is any evidence of mammoths carried away by an innundiation, it was a land innundation. Coming from the collapse of a huge glacial lake on Siberian mountains (like the Altai). Such an event was well documented in the Columbia River Valley (Northwestern USA).
You mentionned sea falling. The same mechanisms provide a good explanation: huge and sudden releases of cold melting waters in the oceans caused a global cooling, and a temporary reglaciation; then a fall in sea level. Well, few mention it: with global warming, we are in a great danger that it happens again. With glacial (but temporary) temperatures as a result, no-one would think of fighting the warming anymore; with more dramatic consequences. As bazizmaduno mentionned in "The CH4 Doc:..", it should be followed by isostatic earthquakes and increased volcanism. Another explanation of the succession of catastrophic events at the end of the Ice Age.
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almond13 said:
Isn;t an understanding of these effects rather important for GPS and satnav?
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~po ... 5/gps.html
Hi Jerry
How else would I do it?
You still don't get it, do you? There is nothing wrong with the dictionary definition of science. If you use this as a guide, then Velikovsky's science was perfectly valid. The fact that a group of people join forces and decide to declare it void is totally irrelevant. The fact that they have maintained a campaign for more than fifty years in order to damage a man's reputation is also irrelevant. What they have done, is to set up a kind of elitist club that says “we are right whatever the evidence”. Looking at evidence was never their strong point as a quick scan of history will show. Now, if you only read their history, you will find nothing about the dirty tricks department, the misquotes, the character assassination, the misrepresentation and so forth. All you will find is the crowing platitudes about how they have proved him wrong, when, in fact, they never have.
I've looked at your Fortean Timeline and I like it very much. You could possibly personalise it with some comments of your own for example: “1904 child touched ball lightning with foot, resulting in explosion which killed nearby cattle but left child unhurt”. I've read about other examples of humans being unscathed while animals are killed of wounded. To emphasise things like this would be valuable to other researchers.
I've already mentioned the need for a dated catalogue the instances of stranded beaches around the world.
When I ask myself why a sceptic would want to compile a list such as yours, I have to admit that I don't really know. It just shows that you are a more complex individual than I first thought. Maybe you're plotting the downfall of all Forteana and need to know your enemy?
I do find your psychology interesting as you strike me as an authoritarian type with low tolerance to the disorganised and little tolerance for alternative thought or unorthodox ideas or views.
almond13 said:
Lol - then you are barking up the wrong tree there, I'm afraid
If I had 'low tolerance' for alternative thought, etc I (a) wouldn't be on this forum, and (b) wouldn't have the aforementioned Timeline and books. And I'm not an authoritarian type, and I actually enjoy unorthodox ideas and thoughts (which is why I'm a big fan of Dada, for example).All of this seems to suggest that you judge those who raise problems with your ideas in a rather harsh light, possibly as you see it as some sort of persecution being levelled at you.
Either way, you would of course have to prove that science has actively spent the last 50 years trying to stab Velikovsky in the back - you seem to be suggesting that there's some sort of conspiracy, perhaps even also collusion on a wide scale between scientists to discredit Velikovsky.
Hi Analis
I often get accused of not answering posts and I was tempted to do so with yours; not because there's no answer, but because it would entail a weeks work to answer all the points.
I have no intention of including relativity in the thread of the Velikovsky's scenario. This was something included by someone else in the existing thread. I think the first sign of this was in the untrue accusation that I don't believe in gravity, or some such. I had a rude intro' to gravity when I fell from a ladder recently.
Having said that, i seem to recall that it was his little known work about just this subject that sparked the present debate. No one seemed to want to go there at that point which is understandable as i doubt they knew anything about it.
However, I will take up a few points – the ones that I know something about. As I said earlier, there is a cottage industry grown on the back of Velikovskyism that has dragged the world and his wife into the debunking argument. I don't spend all my time on this subject and I think it may have been several years since I read any of his books. That said, I do tend to make mental notes if I see any supporting evidence and sometimes even files.
“The floods: “
I note that you rarely give references.
Just to say that your vision of a gradual ice cap melting is outdated. Another example of science evolving, former heresy becoming accepted.
My catastrophism theory has no such thing and if I use it it's to illustrate a point. In my scenario, the ice is melted by a polar shift and a new pole is formed on land or sea previously unglaciated. The evidence seems to show that the most recent past poles were at Hudson Bay and near to Iceland. This would explain the non-glaciation of Siberia and the half glaciation of North America. The forestation of Northern Greenland is seems due to this cause though i have no dates at present. I am sure that this is not an accepted heresy. Unlike Hapgood, I do not envisage a slow polar movement or a slow melt.
I would like to emphasise, that, in terms of this theory there were no ”Ice Ages” and after the catastrophes that caused the pole shift the earth returned to it's normal temperature range – with the poles displaced and the ice moved to a different location. There never has been an ice age and if things continue as they have in the past there never will be one. There is no known mechanism that can tap the energy needed to increase glaciation to such an extent. It needs enormous amounts of energy.
“”There are proofs of a number of localized floods.””
Yes, there are and I quite agree. There's the Caspian for example. This has nothing to do with the mammoths that are in evidence all around the pole. I gave only one example of the impossibility of carcases being swept to the islands of the north (200 miles in that case) by river floods and local inundation theories. Some mammoths and other warm climate animals are found in the highest parts of these islands inside the Polar Circle. The old explorers highlighted the fact that it was not unusual to find carcases on high ground and this is one of the main reasons that they questioned the then predominant uniformitarian theory that was so dominant at their time. Standing looking at the evidence they could only wonder at the cause.
I often get accused of not answering posts and I was tempted to do so with yours; not because there's no answer, but because it would entail a weeks work to answer all the points.
I have no intention of including relativity in the thread of the Velikovsky's scenario. This was something included by someone else in the existing thread. I think the first sign of this was in the untrue accusation that I don't believe in gravity, or some such. I had a rude intro' to gravity when I fell from a ladder recently.
Having said that, i seem to recall that it was his little known work about just this subject that sparked the present debate. No one seemed to want to go there at that point which is understandable as i doubt they knew anything about it.
However, I will take up a few points – the ones that I know something about. As I said earlier, there is a cottage industry grown on the back of Velikovskyism that has dragged the world and his wife into the debunking argument. I don't spend all my time on this subject and I think it may have been several years since I read any of his books. That said, I do tend to make mental notes if I see any supporting evidence and sometimes even files.
“The floods: “
I note that you rarely give references.
Just to say that your vision of a gradual ice cap melting is outdated. Another example of science evolving, former heresy becoming accepted.
My catastrophism theory has no such thing and if I use it it's to illustrate a point. In my scenario, the ice is melted by a polar shift and a new pole is formed on land or sea previously unglaciated. The evidence seems to show that the most recent past poles were at Hudson Bay and near to Iceland. This would explain the non-glaciation of Siberia and the half glaciation of North America. The forestation of Northern Greenland is seems due to this cause though i have no dates at present. I am sure that this is not an accepted heresy. Unlike Hapgood, I do not envisage a slow polar movement or a slow melt.
I would like to emphasise, that, in terms of this theory there were no ”Ice Ages” and after the catastrophes that caused the pole shift the earth returned to it's normal temperature range – with the poles displaced and the ice moved to a different location. There never has been an ice age and if things continue as they have in the past there never will be one. There is no known mechanism that can tap the energy needed to increase glaciation to such an extent. It needs enormous amounts of energy.
“”There are proofs of a number of localized floods.””
Yes, there are and I quite agree. There's the Caspian for example. This has nothing to do with the mammoths that are in evidence all around the pole. I gave only one example of the impossibility of carcases being swept to the islands of the north (200 miles in that case) by river floods and local inundation theories. Some mammoths and other warm climate animals are found in the highest parts of these islands inside the Polar Circle. The old explorers highlighted the fact that it was not unusual to find carcases on high ground and this is one of the main reasons that they questioned the then predominant uniformitarian theory that was so dominant at their time. Standing looking at the evidence they could only wonder at the cause.
When NASA has a successful space mission it is heralded as a triumph of science. When it has a failure it is usually said to be an engineering failure. Science is prepared even to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in order to perpetuate the myth of scientific infallibility. The downplaying of the contribution of other disciplines is a common ploy in the scientific arsenal. Fort called the fact that people can't see it “hypnosis”.
The role of engineering is also downplayed in the case of the GPS. Originally the scientists said that it wouldn't work because of the role of relativity and the constantly changing time factor. When it did work it became nesessary to convolute the original claims with ones that say science was right after all. However, if you read the account of the guy who built it you will find a completely different story. Something unaccounted for is happening but it - aint got nothing to do with relativity. The claim that GPS is a living proof of relativity has gone the way of all previous so called proofs and has fallen from grace and reduced to the level of urban myth.
No one but the most deeply “hypnotised” would claim that GPS proves relativity.
In the 1990's, he (Van Flandern) worked as a special consultant to the Global Positioning System (GPS), a set of satellites whose atomic clocks allow ground observers to determine their position to within about a foot. Van Flandern reports that an intriguing controversy arose before GPS was even launched. Special relativity gave Einsteinians reason to doubt whether it would work at all. In fact, it works fine. (But more on that later.) http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/
I do happen to think that the values of scientism and negative scepticism are flawed, it does not follow logically that this is any sort of hash judgement which must be against an individual. I tend to feel though that logic is something sadly lacking in Dada. Logic is not an entity, it's a method of thinking and if it's used to kill millions of peole in order to make money, then it's certainly done it's job. This has nothing to do with whether it's evil to do such things, as it obviously is.
What I would suggest is that you abandon Dada and take up Nihilism as it seems more suited to your interests.
I can almost visualise this being one of your posts.
As for the:
”you seem to be suggesting that there's some sort of conspiracy, perhaps even also collusion on a wide scale between scientists to discredit Velikovsky.”
I'm doing nothing about this, all you need to do is type “Velikovsky” into Google and you will find 100,000 examples.
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..whereas if you type "bullshit" there are about 19,300,000. Scale is, I'm afraid, meaningless in such comparisons. And selective quotation from such results holds even less value in comparative argument.almond13 said:
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almond13 said:
Huh? My link showed fairly clearly that relativiistic effects have to be taken into account in GPS. I don;t see how anyone would claim that they would make GPS imopossible, just that they would have to be taken into account.
Are you saying relativistic adjustments are not used as claimed? (Is there a conspiracy somewhere?)
If such adjustments are needed - and the numbers do stack up exactly - wouldn't you count that as rather significant evicence?
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Here are more Google results:
Stranded Beaches - 140 hits
Raised Beaches - over 45,000 hits
Plenty of data there, but what's it supposed to prove?
That sea levels, like the stock market, can fall as well as rise? 8)
Almond's pick'n'mix approach to scientific data is pretty cavalier, rather like an evangelist who can take any situation and then find a Biblical quote to explain or denounce it.
Stranded Beaches - 140 hits
Raised Beaches - over 45,000 hits
Plenty of data there, but what's it supposed to prove?
That sea levels, like the stock market, can fall as well as rise? 8)
Almond's pick'n'mix approach to scientific data is pretty cavalier, rather like an evangelist who can take any situation and then find a Biblical quote to explain or denounce it.