From: justinf@cco.caltech.edu (Justin Fang)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Plato's STATESMAN/Age of Kronos
Date: 5 Jan 93 21:36:50 GMT
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: macintosh19.cco.caltech.edu

I was going to ignore Ted, really, I was... but this was just too much.

In article <191@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) wrote:
> As I've amply demonstrated in a number of t.o articles, neither the
> sauropods, nor the large flying creatures of the antediluvian age,
> either pterosaurs or teratorns, nor the largest carnosaurs could live in
> our world;  all positively required a heavily attenuated perceived
> gravity to exist.

"amply demonstrated"?! This is like Saddam Hussein claiming he won the Gulf
war.

>                   The laws of physics do not, to my knowledge, ever
> change. A reduced felt effect of gravity in antediluvian times could
> arise in only one way;  earth in orbit around something other than and
> smaller than our present sun, one pole of earth pointed forever straight
> at the smaller star(s) (the possibility of a small binary system), and
> creatures on earth experiencing the gravitational pull not only of
> earth, but of the other body as well.

The "reduced felt effect of gravity" you mention would be created by tidal
effects, and would thus be strongest at the poles, dwindling off at the
equator. Assuming for the moment that these tidal forces wouldn't tear
apart the Earth, this would mean that all the dinos would have to live at
or near either pole. (They could be somewhere in the middle, but then you'd
have to increase the tidal effect at the poles...and the Earth is already
just outside the Roche limit.) However, the pole pointing away would be in
continual darkness, meaning no plants, and no animals. Even with the
atmospheric circulation moderating temperature extremes, most of the
hemisphere pointing toward the Sun would be a broiling desert, far hotter
than anyplace on Earth now. I think even Ted will agree that most dinosaurs
are NOT adapted for deserts. (How many large animals live in deserts? Not
too many.)
  
> Two of the least large, least impressive, least assuming, inconspicuous,
> non-candidates for deity in the entire universe today are the
> far-off planets Jupiter and Saturn.  An overwhelming majority of people
> in the world couldn't even find them or point them out.

Really? They are two of the brightest objects in the night sky. Also, they
are two of the five "wandering stars" (visible planets.) Since every other
star the ancients could see was fixed, I think they'd put considerable
significance on them. (ie, Mercury, the swift messenger of the gods,
rushing around the sky, Saturn, the stately elder, proceeding slowly along
his way...)
 
> And yet, just 4000 years ago, these two planets were the two chieftain
> gods in every nation on earth, every religion on earth...  the two most
> feared entities in existence.  Given present realities, this not only
> makes no sense, it is impossible.

EVERY nation and religion? I don't think so.
 
> I have claimed that this planet once orbitted a small electromagnetic
> star, one pole forever pointed straight at that star, animals on the
> earth feeling gravitational pull not only of the earth, but of the star
> as well.

What do you mean by "electromagnetic star"? All stars emit electromagnetic
radiation. 
 
[some stuff deleted]

> According to standard theory, the familiar pattern of the seasons whould
> have been with us since long before man lived on this planet.
> 
> The notion of having to EXPLAIN the recent coming into existence of the
> ordinary cycle of the seasons is impossible given standard beliefs.

Why wouldn't the ancients try to explain the seasons? They tried to explain
everything else.
 
[Much Plato deleted, about which I will only say if you search through all
of Erath's mythology and choose the parts you want you can support almost
any thesis.]
 
>   The working hypothesis amongst many catastrophists is that the much
>   greater electro-magnetic nature of the world allowed telepathic
>   communications, not only amongst men but the higher animals as well, and
>   that the tale of the tower of Babel indicates the breakup of this older
>   system.  Thus Plato's statement above.  Thus also the seemingly strange
>   fact that pheonetic alphabets only arose within the last 4000 years or
>   so, particularly if you were to believe that man had been here and
>   speech-capable for millions of years.  In reality, a phoenetic alphabet
>   would not have occurred to anybody before the flood and the
>   tower-of-Babel event.]

"much greater electromagnetic nature of the world"? This is junk, and
sounds suspiciouly like changing the laws of physics, something I thought
Ted didn't believe in. The most likely means of telepathy would seem to be
organic radio transmitters/recievers in the brain. However, the amount of
power put out by the human brain is too small for any but the most feeble
radio signal. Furthermore, if by "electromagnetic star" he means a star
that puts out greater than usual amounts of electromagnetic radiation, that
this would tend to block out those feeble brain signals. 

Once again, Ted demonstrates near total ignorance of virtually all
sciences.

> Ted Holden
> HTE
Newsgroups: talk.origins