From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Questions for Ted H.
Date: 22 Nov 92 03:03:40 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <By12rp.67@encore.com>, bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour) writes:

^Hi Ted,

^I see you are about to post your stuff... again. In preparation for that,
^can you give us some answers to these questions? Please?

^1) You seem to have a personaly vindetta against Carl Sagan. Why?
^   Your posts are almost hateful of the man. Why is that? Why do
^   you feel such a need to call his work cow-doo-doo? If he was
^   really as wrong as you claim, don't you think there are hundreds,
^   or maybe thousands, of grad students, eager to make a name for 
^   themselves, who would have published refutations of his work?

This is a very long story, heavily documented in Charles Ginenthal's
SAGAN AND VELIKOVSKY, and in one or two other places, and I probably owe
it to t.o to lay some of this stuff out on the net.  I've never gotten
up the energy for that as of yet.  Basically, Sagan's Super Greenhouse
theory is a last ditch effort by establishment astronomy to prevent
the acceptance of Velikovsky's version of the recent history of Venus
becoming the accepted version, but there is a lot more than that.  The 
1974 AAAS symposium on Velikovskian scenarios, orchestrated by Sagan
and others of his cronies, was run in a dishonest and disreputable manner,
Sagan's presentation of evidence was dishonest, disreputable, and disgraceful,
and further publications on the topic BY Sagan were entirely similar.
More on that later.


^2) You theories about Earth in close orbit to a star, thus producing the
^   reduced felt effect, have been shown many time to violate reality.

Please note the other article on this topic which I posted tonight.  Again,
it is standard theory (the assumption that felt gravity has always been
as it is now) which is clearly and easily shown to violate reality.  While
the Saturn Myth as a general outline for explaining this attenuated antique
gravity is not complete or totally satisfying, it is a step in the right
direction.  And it has the further benefit of explaining what we actuallky
see in antique data sources.  As Talbott notes, the Saturn Myth has its
origins, in this century at least, in a number of scholarly papers from 
around the turn of the century, which were concerned with what appeared
to be a continual source of confusion BETWEEN the sun and the planet
Saturn, in names, mythological identification etc., throughout antique
times, not only amongst the Greeks, but in near east and other places.
Jastrow's paper SUN AND SATURN is mentioned, along with a few others.



^   The earth would be ripped to bite-sized-planet-bits (tm) by tidal
^   effects. Yet you cling to the theory, even though you recently
^   admitted you have no idea how it would have worked. Why do you
^   feel your intuition is more applicable than the work of scientists
^   who *can* explain, in meticulous detail, and with experimentally
^   verifiable calculations, how the universe works?

We're not talking about my "intuition", but of the vast bulk of man's
early writings.  They all say these things were:  your "the earth
would be....." is flimsy as a counter to recorded fact.

Scientists are quite competant at describing things as they are NOW.
How things were 5000 years ago is out of most of their areas of expertise.
It is a known problem with many scientists that they do not easily
RECOGNIZE when they are outside the areas of their expertise.  For instance,
there was a fellow who was a/the pioneer of the transister, and went on to
become a famous non-politically-correct genetic theorist.

Were this fellow to wish to tell me something related to transisters, I'd
listen eagerly.  Some of his other areas of interest would probably draw
a reaction of (you reading this, Harter?), BULLSHIT.  Caramba.


^3) You rely heavily on your interpretations of ancient myths. If
^   we were in a different place in space, with a different sun, how
^   come all the ancient astronomical records show exactly the same
^   configuration of constellations?

They don't.  You've been misled.  


Some of the problem lies in dating various pieces of evidence (charts etc.).
Other problems lie in the systematic doctoring of antique data to FORCE it
to fit the doctrine/axiom of uniformity which has gone on for the last
couple of hundred years.  When I repost some of the Saturn
stuff shortly, pay special attention to the section on the Babylonian
Venus tablets, the same topic which leads me to question JWM's continued
use of the word "liar" in describing people other than himself.  Antique
data regarding planetary motions et

c
^4) Why do you hold Velokovsy (and co.) in such high regards?

Why not?  Everybody should have heroes.  Velikovsky is the center of the
greatest scientific controversy of our age, and it is a testimony to the
extent to which this theory was banned by our scientific establishment that 
most people have never heard of him.  Fewer still know much about his
works.  He took on the system alone for 25 years, and caught mostly just
grief for it, mostly from people such as Sagan who you'd have to describe as
idiots in contrast.  


^
^5) You claim that "Establishment Science" is a bunch of crap when
^   explaining origins issues. Why? By that I mean, why is their
^   ability attenuated on that specific issue? They can build spacecraft
^   that fly around the solar system with awesome precision. It would
^   seem to me that the same skills would give them the ability to
^   describe how the planets can, and cannot, move. What would be
^   the purpose for this great conspiracy you seem to see?

To prevent almost an entire generation of their leaders, Shapely, Geposchkin
et. al. as well as Sagan and his cohorts going into the history of science
books as prime examples of assholus Americanus.  At this point, it's kind
of like the last two or three years worth of efforts by Nixon, Westmoreland,
and that crew to come up with ways to justify Nam.  Saving face and all that.



^6) Why do you feel a need for this rather unusual model of Earth's
^   history you propose? The only real physical thing you base your
^   arguments on (that I've noticed anyway) is the weight of dinosaurs.
^   You then twist everything else around that perceived problem. No-one
^   else has a problem with the dinosaurs weight. 

Only the ones who've thought about it.  The ones who haven't, as you say,
don't.

^   Why can't you just
^   modify your thinking to allow that dinosaurs could have existed
^   in our concept of 1G?

Why not just shoot myself through the head.  Why be stupid and refuse to
deal with reality when God or something or other has taken the trouble
to make you bright enough TO deal with reality.  That's kind of like
abdicating responsibility.  That many of the posters to t.o have no
such responsibility is not my problem.

^7) How have your own views been modified over the last few years?
^   The point of science is to continually re-evaluate evidence and
^   modify theory to fit fact. How has your theory been modified to
^   fit facts presented here? Do you even acknowledge that any of
^   your critics have provided you with facts?

Very rarely, and not to an extent which would force any modification
of the majory theories which I have presented on t.o.
^
^8) When science contradicts your theory completly (as with the Roche
^   limit problem), and your best answer is "I have no idea", why
^   should anyone take you seriously?

Because when science and history appear to contradict, it's the scientist
and not the historian who you sent back to the drawing board.
^


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE