From: justinf@cco.caltech.edu (Justin Fang)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Velikovsky/Catastrophism Readings
Followup-To: talk.origins
Date: 9 Jan 1993 11:24:54 GMT
Organization: none whatsoever
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: macintosh19.cco.caltech.edu

Ah, Ted has a list for acquiring pseudoscientific Velikovskian propaganda.
Read it, and laugh at its stupidity, or cry at the lamentable state of
science education that allows people to think this.

In article <197@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) wrote:
[stuff deleted] 
>                      THE VELIKOVSKLAN
> 
>             A Journal of Myth, History and Science

I would replace science with fiction.
 [stuff deleted]

>       1. How far have the new catastrophists come toward
> resolving the thorny question as to  which catastrophic
> scenario, if any, is likely to prove itself.

None, of them, of course.
[stuff deleted] 

>       5. Michael E. Bailey, Victor Clube and William Napier, who
> have proposed an interesting  counter theory to that of
> Velikovsky and others, will have their theory examined in the
> light of  evidence from the Moon.  In a long paper, titled,
> "Moon in Upheaval," Charles Ginenthal shows  evidence from the
> molten lunar core to the mineralogically-stratified lunar soil,
> to the volcanic gases escaping the Moon, that THE COSMIC SERPENT
> hypothesis--that is, the  impact  hypothesi

This is something you don't see every day-- a catastrophist REJECTING a
hypothesis involving planetary collision.

> -- fails  on every
> level at which it is examined, and that Velikovsky's tidal
> distortion theory is the only one  that explains the evidence.

I think not. 
[stuff deleted]

>  Other critics of Velikovsky, in future issues, will 
> be examined.

And all found to be completely, totally, and unequivocally wrong, no doubt.
[stuff deleted]

>       9. Did you know that the stars in all spiral galaxies, at
> a certain radial distance from the  galactic center, do not obey
> Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion nor Newton's Laws of
> Gravity?

Wrong! They obey Newton's laws perfectly, they just act as if there was
extra "dark matter" universe exereting a gravitational pull. And Kepler's
third law isn't even a law, just an accurate approximation which works well
for planets, but not for galaxies.

> How have establishment astronomers, astrophysicists
> and physicists attempted to  resolve this  fundamental
> contradictory observation? 

No contradiction, as I said above.

>They have reinvented Aristotle's
> theory in a new form by invoking invisible "dark matter."

It's a perfectly reasonably hypothesis. Observation: the galaxy behaves as
if it had more mass than can be accounted for by adding up all the
"luminous" matter (stars, nebulae, etc.) Now, do you throw out physics, or
do you assume that the extra matter is there, and that we can't see it
because it gives off little or no  electromagnetic radiation (is "dark")? I
thought so.

[stuff deleted]

> Astronomers  now agree that we are on the verge of a great
> scientific revolution.

Maybe, but I doubt it has anything to do with catastrophism.

>  Perhaps this revolution will move 
> toward the concept of interplanetary catastrophism.  Thomas A.
> Mutch and his fellow scientists have  written, "It is
> interesting to note how fashions change.  Five hundred years
> ago, the cosmological  models that are now regarded with such
> disinterest would have been heresy.  How  might  our  prejudices
> change in the future?  Today we refuse to believe that
> catastrophic interplanetary collisions  have warped Earth's
> history.

Oh, yes, major collisions have considerably altered the histories of all
the planets. Unfortunately for Velikovsky et al, all of these collisions
occured during the formation of the solar system, over 4 billion years ago.

>  A hundred years hence, when the large impact scars on
> other planets  are familiar landscapes, will we feel the same?"

Almost all of those large impact scars are billions of years old.

> [T.A. Mutch, et al, THE GEOLOGY OF MARS  (Princeton, NJ, 1976),
> p. 931 (emphasis added)]
>       Science is moving in Velikovsky's direction,

Says who?

>  but, while
> doing so, rejects him at every turn.

With good reason.

>  Those of us following the
> evidence are not surprised as, one after another, the entrenched
> concepts of status quo science are cracking.

What concepts?

>   THE VELIKOVSKIAN
> hopes to be in the forefront by presenting  the evidence and the
> debate, letting the chips fall where they may. The reader is
> invited along on  what promises to be a fascinating journey.

Amusing if nothing else.
[stuff deleted.]

> For those with cheaper tastes who still would like to get a flavor of
> some of these developements, I recommend my own emotionally scarred
> postings on t.o.  More of which to come shortly.

Oh goody. After a long hard day of work, it's always fun to take out my
aggression by shooting down Ted's posts. :)

> Ted Holden
> HTE
Justin Fang (justinf@cco.caltech.edu)

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