From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Worlds in confusion Ia.
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:07:10 GMT

~s Worlds in Collision/collusion/confusion

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Permission is given for this article to be copied and printed for
non-profit use showing arguments concerning Velikovsky.  Permission
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........................................................................
          jwm@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu  - or - meritt%aplvm.BITNET
........................................................................

	Since my expertise is not in history, I shall mainly address those
points made which have physical, astronomical, chemical, or general
scientific basis and are addressed in "Worlds in Collision" or in
Velikovsky's work which addresses his central thesis in that work.
An occasional item (primarily involving mythology) will be included
because I have been involved in the Latin mythology.  (I lived in
Italy and have been involved in various Latin clubs over the years.)
Additionally, I am only going to be covering Immanuel Velikovsky's
work itself - not what someone said he said.

					James W. Meritt
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In <Worlds in Collision> Immanuel Velikovsky said:

}[moon count in the solar system]
}[page 5]

No particular suprise that he missed the count.  We find more quite often.
Not something to hold against him, but it does give a readily verifiable
example that what he thinks that is demonstrated not to be correct.
I find the defense of "he didn't know that in the 1950's to be odd,
considering that most of this book is supposidely conclusions of the same
type that wasn't known in the 1950's, either, but suppose to be
gospel by his followers...

Personally, I find it unlikely that using incorrect data (as clearly
demonstrated) for incorrect reasoning (as displayed below, and coupled
with his ZERO training in physics, astronomy, biology,...) will arrive
at correct conclusions.

}" it is assumed that mercury permanently shows the same face to the sun"
} [page 5]

It doesn't  The days are weird, though, because the period of its day is
longer than the period of its year. (88 earth-day "year", 59 "earth-day" long
days.  Venus has a period of rotation of 243.09 earth-days, and a year
of 224.70 earth days.  Oh yes, this rotation is retrograde.  Guess it
(it doesn't happen to be the only retrograde "planet", either.  There is
also Tritan (retrograde revolution).  Neptune is almost 90 degrees tilted)
didn't sync with earth like Velikovsky thinks mars did - in spite of a
lot (according to Velikovsky) more opportunity.  It does have a tidal
lock with earth so that, in its present orbit, every time it is at close
approach with earth the same side is facing us.  This tidal lock would
take a LONG time in its present position.  If it had passed nearer earth
it would have acquired a radically different rotational momentum and would
not, after only a few thousand years, been able to do this.

As an aside, IF venus were have somehow matched rotation with earth
during a close pass, it would have been with the relative motion
of the planets AT THE TIME - which it clearly does not have now.  Hence,
this "tidal lock" is proof that this close-approach lock did NOT happen.

} [birth of comets by being expelled from the sun - not his idea]
} [page 14]

Velikovsky is against this idea because "birth of a comet in this manner has
never been observed" (page 14), but that doesn't seem to bother him that
a comet has not been observed being expelled from a gas giant, either.
While Velikovsky doesn't mind using "myths" in support of his wild ideas,
other people must meet more stringent criteria.  

Interestingly enough, the S2 molecule has been identified as existing
in comets.  This is interesting because it is not stable.  If you
warm it, the moleculs ceases to exist as S2.  Therefore, however comets are 
made, it cannot involve a lot of heat.  Either from being ejected from the
sun, a gas giant, or anything else. Some take partial comfort that
volcanoes don't have to be molten silicate - as Io showed.  But
this is STILL too hot for S2.  Not to mention that the core of
Jupiter is itself too hot (and the core is the only place you will
find other than light gases), and this mythical ejection process,
unless it is 100% effecient production of kinetic energy, would
be too hot.  Even the frictional heating of going out of the atmosphere
of a gas giant (think of it as reentry in reverse) would be too high.
Thus, comets CANNOT currently be ejected.

BTW:
While looking through the journal Icarus, volume 86 Number 1, July
1990, I found the following article entitled "The Origin of
Short-Period Comets" by Mark Bailey and Chris Stagg. The first
paragraph reads as follows:

        It has recently been shown (Stagg and Bailey 1989 Monthy
        Notices of Royal Astronomical Society 241, p507) that the
        observed number of short-peroid is consistent with a
        spherically symmetrical Oort  cloud source, provided that it
        contains a moderately centrally condensed inner core
        parameterized by an "inner edge" corresponding to orbits
        with a minimum semimajor axis a_0 \approx 4000 AU and an
        energy spectrum power law-index \gamma \geq -1. Although a
        core of this general type is predicted on the basis of the
        planetesimal theory of cometary origin (e.g., Opik, 1973,
        Shoemaker and wolfe 1984, Fernandez 1985a, Duncan et. al.
        1987), evolutionary arguments based on the disruption of the
        Oort cloud (e.g., Bailey 1986) show that the inner core
        probably has to be at least this centrally condensed (see
        Bailey 1989 for an introductory review). The combination of
        these independent constraints provides a stringent test of
        the planetesimal theory of cometary formation.

(thanks to Greg Hennessy)

} "the presence of iron in the shell or the migration of heavy metals from the
}core to the shell has not been sufficiently explained.  For these metals to
}have left the core, they must have been ejected by explosions, and in order
}to spread throughout the crust, the explosions must have been followed 
}immediately by cooling."

Why must ALL the iron have EVER been in the core?  In all the planetary
formation models I have read it started evenly distributed and migrated
to the core due to the density difference while the planet was molten.
Obviously not a 100% efficient method of separation.  Especially since
the metals are so common - witness the primary constituents of meteorites,
for instance.  And one of the methods of concentrating what will become
ores is biological.  Bacteria, for instance, concentrate different elements.
The massive banded iron formations around the world, for another example,
were formed when the oxygen-releasing stromatolite-building microorganisms
released oxygen into the oceans.  The oceans had iron dissolved in it. 
The iron oxide precipitated out.  Slow and easy.  No explosion.
Heck, even meteoric bombardment leaves concentrations of iron on the
surface (theorized origins of lunar mascons, for instance).

} "... the presence of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere is unexplained."
} [page 16]

Perhaps the concept of "photosynthesis" (can you say 'plants'?) was foreign
to him.  Most other people have no problem explaining it at all.  In fact,
the time when this "pollution" occurred has been dated and is the first
really big extinction as the non-oxygen bacteria got wiped out by the
waste product of the plants.  We are looking at around 1.4 to 1.5
billion years ago.

} "The deep strate of igneous rock contain no signs of fossil life."
} [page 17]

igneous: formed by solidification of molten magma. Webster's dictionary.
Don't you think that being in molten rock would probably do in any fossil,
not to mention that very few life forms live in lava?  I find it interesting
here that the apologist decide that what he meant is not what he said.

} [mountains formed by pushing from below.  He has no idea why]
} [page 18 - 19]

Collision of continental plates.  Simple, really.  A friend at one of
the laboratories made a program that models this process [using the
supercontinent cycle explained in scientific american] to produce very
realistic planetary "maps". And this plate relative movement has been
directly measured in a number of places: europe wrt north america, and
the plate junctions in california are CLOSELY monitored.  For an even
more interesting view, check the midatlantic ridge - the activity there
(which is the "gap" from which they spread) is quite fascinating.  The
magnetic reversals (which have occurred) show up as "stripes" on each
side of this band, demonstrating not only the spreading but the timing
and the magnetic fields at the times.  (none recently.  Sorry, Velikovsky)
This is an example of one of his wild ideas having a straightforward
explanation.

} "That a comet may strike our planet is not very probable, but the idea
} is not absurd."
} [page 40]

It would have been nice if he were to work out the math.  Fortunately, it
has been worked out elsewhere to come to about thirty thousand to one for a
millennium.  Velikovsky [page 388] has 5-6 near collisions between Venus,
Mars, and Earth in a "brief" period.  If these events were independent, 
that is about a trillion quadrillion to one.  As a lower limit.
S. F. Kogan's letter in Sept., 1980 Physics Today or article in KRONOS VI;3.  
Using Sagan;s statistical approach and V's actual scenario (e.g., no grazing 
encounter).  Korgan shows that the chance for a collision is 1 in 12 per 
1000 years, not 1 in 30,000 per 1000 years that Sagan derived.
Another interesting feature is that while there is a BIG object
wandering around (venus/comet and sometimes mars) and a lot of tiny
objects (meteorites that hit people) there does not seem to be a whole
lot in between.  Where are the craters from asteroid/lunar size masses?
Grieve lists nine impact craters comparable to the arizona crater or
larger that have formed on land within the last 2.5 million years.
Where are all these hits that Velikovsky thinks are here?!?!?
And what was the moon doing during all of this?!?!?  Why is it still
here?!?!?

} [descriptions of comets and meteorites]
} [page 40-41]

He seems to be very confused and uses the terms as the mood hits.  A comet
is mostly a snowball (we've sent probes).  A meteor is a rock (either
iron-nickel or stoney) We have chunks.  You can turn a comet into a
bunch of meteorites (we believe we have seen this occurring) by evaporating
away all the ice and leaving the pebbles.  There have been meteor showers
when the earth passed through  the "tail" of extinct comets. The
meteorites which make it to the ground, however, do not seem to be
associated with comets. The observed air drag on the shower meteors indicates
low-density material ( < 1 g/cm^3 ) compared to meteorites (typically 3 (stony)
to 7 (Ni-Fe) g/cm^3).  The low density of the shower meteoroids suggests 
fluffy aggregations of cometary dust & debris.

} [discussion on changing earth's angular momentum via a close encounter
} with a comet, problems heating the planet when it does ("since the world
}survived, there must have been a mechanism...", and some alteration of
}the direction of the rotational axis due to a strong magnetic field]
} [page 43 -44]

If it were fast, there have been plenty of delicate structures which would
have been destroyed (in Luray Caverns, for instance).  If it were slow, the 
temperature would have gone up an average 100 degrees K, and 240 degrees
K at lower latitudes.  I think that would have been noticed.  "Fast"  and
"slow" seem almost as vague as "venus is hot", except that there are
measurables associated.  But, just for estimating the problem, this
entire encounter could only have lasted hours because there could not
have been a low-velocity encounter between planetary-sized masses - they
would not have been able to separate afterwards!  So the entire kinetic
energy of the earth HAD to be converted to heat in hours.  Which should
have heated the planet (not the water - that is merely a convenient measure).
No accounts that I have seen of the ground heating up even more than
the boiling water.  And if you wish to believe all the water was heated
as it must have if this theory is correct, why are there fish?  They
ALL would have been killed.  And plants do not survive real well
when their roots are cooked, nor the seeds baked (after being shaken
to the ground by the quakes.  Oops, no quakes!) 

Interestingly enough, since Velikovsky claims that indians "hid out"
in these caves, that would prove that whatever they were hiding
from was NOT a large-scale momentum alteration - they didn't cook.

Of this "strong magnetic field" there is no trace.  I propose that 
the search for any mechanism will fail, because the reason for it to exist is 
nonexistant.

BTW:  How did earth get started back up?  Velikovsky didn't seem to
notice this little problem in his discussions on how it stopped...

From a Velikovsite:
He doesn't say that the whole earth stopped rotating.  On page 44 he
suggests that as one possibility to consider.  He talks about the problems
that would ensue IF the world stopped rotating.  On pages 44 and 385 he
suggests a tilting of the earth's axis as a way to produce the visual effect
of a retrogressing or arrested sun without stopping the rotation of the
earth about it's axis.
..........
The problem here is that it introduces a tumbling.  Nothing to stop
that is mentioned, either.  We are not now rotating around more than
one axis...

Other interesting item:  The acoustic propagation time within the earth (the 
time it takes the earth AS A WHOLE to respond) is 85 minutes.  No way a
stop-start is going to take place in the Gideon account without ripping
the planet apart with the dissimilar motions.

Oh yes - the magnetic field around the earth has been dipolar for the past
1 million years, with the axis within 3 degrees possibly inclined to the
earth's rotational axis by 3 degrees.  Obviously, another pole was NOT
nearby (i.e. a major magnet i.e. a highly-magnetized planet/comet).

} "The tails of comets are composed mainly of carbon and hydrogen gases.
} Lacking oxygen, they do not burn in flight, but the inflammable gases,
} passing through an atmosphere containing oxygen, will be set on fire"
} [page 53]

Not to mention that they lack the density.  You are talking about a VERY
thin gas. It is also tough to make a carbon gas...

BTW:  The volatiles in the tails of comets appear to be mostly water.
Water burns rather poorly...

} "binding all the oxygen available at the moment"
} [page 53]

And would kill off all life IF that were to occur.  We breath oxygen.  Yet,
Velikovsky seems to think that there were human witnesses to this in both
hemispheres.  Wonder what the observers breathed?

to counter the Velikovsite dream of:
   "...if the fire in the air is extinguished before new supplies of
   oxygen arrive from other regions."
Consider how well a gas could be aimed at a specific local, such that
it would not cover the entire planet.  From the distance we are talking
about (trans-lunar) you can't even focus a beam of light that well, let
alone a gas that would be diffusing as it traveled.

BTW:  water does a rather poor job at binding oxygen...

} "All the countries whose traditions of fire-rain I have cited actually
} have deposits of oil"
} [pages 55-56]

Since even Velikovsky notices that it is a common geological feature in the
area, why must any other contortion be required?  That is a perfectly
straightforward terrestrial explanation - that there is oil in the
ground of these regions.

} [people's time estimation accuracy bad] - [page 59]
} [people's clocks accuracy excellent] - [page 323]

See anything odd here?

} [ plagues kill "chosen", not "first borne"]
} [page 63]

OK.  So the Old Testiment is wrong...  If it doesn't agree with Velikovsky,
just make it up as he goes.  For those who think that this Russian
psychiatrist showed some phenomenal linguistic insight in his "explanation"
instead of making it up as he goes, don't you think that this would have
come out/been confirmed in some of the many, many translations made of the
OT?  There have been many linguistic and religious scholars who have
spent their lives on the work in question, and they don't seem to agree
with Velikovsky's spur of the moment rationalization. As Ted Holden
points out:
                                 . . .I KNOW that nobody who claims any
expertise in Hebrew or biblical studies would ever claim that numerous
wholesale mistakes in translation were made by the committee of scholars
who created the King James Bible.

Which demonstrates the likelihood of this "error" creeping in (a funny
item - Ted is a Velikovsite himself.).

} [tides from Venus close approach at least miles high]
} [pages 70 and 71]

Since the tidal height is proportional to the mass of the tide producing
body and inversely proportional to the cube of the distance, the entire
planet would have been caught up in the tide.  Seems that Egypt, for instance,
didn't notice as the tremendous wave went over on the eighth or fifteenth
century BC.  Or Aztec, or Chinese,...  Not a global "flood" but a global
"wash" that should have wiped it smooth quite a few times.  Obviously, 
it didn't.

} "... head of the comet.  This head only shortly before had passed close
} to the sun and was in a state of candescence."
} [page 77]

Since there is no temperature prediction given, it is hard to see how a
prediction could have been matched.  "candescence" and "incandescent state"
don't really cut it...  Makes one wonder why the manna wasn't baked...
Perhaps the 6000 degrees K that the photosphere is?  Guess the wanderers
got baked bread.  And the oil burned, the flies were killed,......

Do Velikovsites know that the sungrazing comet of 1882 developed bright iron
lines in the spectroscope because it came so close to the sun that the
heat could vaporize refractory metals?  The temperature of that one went
up to 3,000 degrees F.

}[changing funny shapes in the sky - comet tail]
}[pages 77, 264, 306, 310]

Apparently Velikovsky was never illuminated by the work of Rorschach, which
show that the same nondescript shape can be "seen" as many things by different
people.  There is absolutely nothing which requires that the same object
change shape, or that it even BE the same object. That is a very
strange thing for a psychiatrist to be unaware of...

One other thing I find interesting is that both writing about the same
thing AND writing about different things are BOTH evidence to Velikovsky.

} "a tremendous spark flew between the earth and the globe of the comet"
} [page 77]

First, how is such an electrical potential suppose to be formed between the
two objects?

Second, if there were, would not the tail have the same charge as the comet,
in fact it would be carrying the charge away as the potential would be
concentrated on the protrusions and then the particles electrostatically
repelled.  IF the earth were immersed in the charged particles AND it had
a radically different potential, the particles would be attracted to the 
earth and the two objects would rapidely reach an equipotential state.
The earth had been in the tail a LONG time.

Finally, objects from earth have travelled to comets.  No large electrical
potential is observed.  In fact, probes have gone to Venus and not found
any such indication. Heck again, EARTH has been inside of other comet
tails and no such thing occurred.

} " A phenomenon that has not been observed in modern times is an electrical
} discharge between a planet and a comet and also between the head of a comet
} and its trailing part"
} [page 78]

Interesting, in that earlier he uses this reason to discard someone's 
theory, but not to discard his own.  As he said - "not been observed in
modern times".  Why set standards for others he himself does not match?

Again, even those these approaches HAVE been seen, his "hypothesized event"
did not occur.  In fact, earth as passed near to/within Halley's comets
tail.  No electrical discharge.  No manna, flies,..... either.

And again, the tail should have the same electrical potential as the head,
since it came from there.  You need a potential difference to have a
discharge.  Doesn't Velikovsky understand this simple fact?

I can think of a good reason it has not been observed:  it doesn't 
happen.  There have been opportunities...

} "The head of the comet did not crash into the earth, but exchanged
} major electrical discharges with it"
} [page 85]

Sort of like Halley's did in 1910? I've already gone into why this is absurd.

} [The collapsed sky]
} [page 89]

Nothing here to show any reason why these various stories referred to the
same time.  I think Velikovsky uses "ancient" to mean "when I want it to".

} [volcanism and lava flows in Greek, Mexican and Biblican traditions]
} [page 91]

Nothing here to show that the quoted events are even approximately comparable
times, so no common exogenesis event should be implied.  The only place
in which these events are simultaneous is within Velikovsky's mind.  NO
separate support.  You do not assume a time, then use your assumption to
support your assumption.

}"the celestial body.... sent close, made contact...,retreated, and 
} approached again...  about two months"
} [page 94]

I cannot come up with any pair of orbits in which two solar orbitting
objects come together in two months.  Even Galileo which is carefully
aimed, left earth in October 1989 and will not be back until December
1990 after passing (gasp!) venus.  And then it'll be back two years later.
And then on its way to (gasp! again) Jupiter.

Kepler's rules of orbital mechanics just don't let you do this.  As
an obvious problem, it would take the planet going in the circle a year
to do the circle.  That's too long.  Now, lets put an ellipse intersecting
the circle at four points.  Look at the different paths taken.  Now,
picture the circular planet and the object in the ellipse being at the
SAME four points at the same time (i.e. transit the same angular
distance across paths with varying distances under different gravitational
accelerations).  No way.

Something else neat - here we have close encounter after close encounter
after close......  Suddenly a circular orbit pops out, without ever
coming close again.  As Ric Werme wrote:
The problem is that in a two body system, an orbit is invariant.  That is,
its period is constant, its eccentricity is constant, its foci are
constant, its path is constant.  Should something perturb the orbit, once
the perturbing force is removed, the perturbed body will be in a new orbit
and it will return to the spot where the perturbing force ended.
So, as you should see, if something perturbs the orbit, the two objects
should meet again - be it venus, mars, or earth.  They are not.

} [all volcanoes active, all continents quake]
} [pages 96 and 97]

Volcanic flows can be easily dated.  It is trivial to show that not all
volcanoes were active between 1500 and 600 BC. Not to mention the rest
of the devastation he alludes to.

} [a "pure" note making recognizable voices]
} [page 97 - 100]

Get real.  People who played musical instruments would mistake a single
pitch ("same pitch throughout the world" - page 99) for voices?  That
said different, clearly (and loudly) recognizable complicated speaches?

} [thunderbolt reverses the poles of a magnet]
} [page 114]

Huh?  That's news to me.  I know you can heat one past its curie point and
demagnetize it, but reverse it?

} [geomagnetic reversals are caused by comet near-approaches]
} [page 114-115]

The reversals are recorded in the ocean bed.  As the ocean floor spreads
from the mid-atlantic ridge, the magnetism is recorded into the solidifying
lava.  Thus, a continuous record of the earth's magnetic field is readily
available for the life of the atlantic ocean.  You see a reversal about
every million years, though not in the last few thousand.  He hinted that
lava could be used to verify his theory, but missed where.  Unfortunately
for him, it disproves it.

} "We can at least maintain that the earth did not remain on the same orbit."
} [page 116]

I reckon he has no idea on the dimensions of the ecosphere around sol or he
would be MUCH more careful.  For instance, to maintain a temperature
consistent with habitability, the low equatorial illumination should be
between 0.65 and 1.35 times that of earth.

Of course, since he has flies evolving on jupiter and then surviving after 
being incandescent, his concept of "same orbit"  must be MUCH broader than 
mere liquid water! ("same" being "enough like the present one to allow it
to be livable".)

} [changes in the times and the seasons]
} [pages 120 - 125]

Cute, but coral beds faithfully record such events, as do tree rings.
We have records going WAY before a couple of millenium ago, and no
such changes are evident.  (that is from now back to a few thousand
years ago, recording everything in between)

} "When the air is overcharged with vapor, dew, rain, hail, or snow falls.
} Most probably the atmosphere discharged its compounds, presumably of
} carbon and hydrogen, the same way.
} [page 134]

It will have to be REAL cold before it rains hydrogen!

} "Has any testimony been preserved that during the many years of gloom
} carbohydrates precipitated?"
} [page 134]

Wait one.  Back around page 55 this stuff was hydrocarbons.  Am I to
take it that Velikovsky cannot tell the difference between gasoline and
sugar?  

These must be the same "intelligent molecules" he discusses later
in reference to the problems associated with detecting hydrocarbons
in the atmosphere of venus.  Somehow, the hydrocarbons hit the
ground but the carbohydrates hit the people.  Neat trick!

} "... quantity which fell every day would have sufficed to nourish the
} people for two thousand years."
} [page 138]

Hmmmmm. With hundreds of thousands of Israelites (according to  exodus) at 
1/3 a kilogram a day falling (timed!) from the air for forty years we get 
enough to cover the entire surface of the earth to about an inch.  
Noplace else noticed?
Now, since all of it could not have hit the earth (timed and aimed release?)
we would get the release about 10000000000000000000000000000 grams in the
inner solar system, somewhat more massive than all of Venus.  And that is just
the manna - not to mention the ice and rock that we KNOW is in a comet or the
rock and CO2 we KNOW is on venus.  There is also the minor problem that visits 
to comets and venus have not found any manna...  In fact, the recent visit by
Kohoutek shows it contains large quantities of simple nitriles- bad
things like hydrogen cyanide and methyl cyanide.  Not good components for
manna, but fine for gas chambers...  And that the manna was baked after being
heated to "candescent" temperatures, ejected from venus at over 6.4 miles
per second, then surviving reentry.  And this cooked manna still tasting like 
"wafers made from honey" and so sensitive that sunlight evaporates it.  Right.

For a nearby check, results from the Lunar Receiving Laboratory:

"A survey of organic constituents by a pyrolysis-flame ionization
detector method and by means of a very sensitive mass spectrometer,
provided an estimate of the indigenous organic content of the lunar
samples.  The values published give the organic content as under 10 parts
per million.... No evidence of biological matter"
Does not look like evidence of either megatons of manna, nor of vermin,
descending from interplanetary space through the earth-moon system.

} "The Greeks as well as the Carians and other peoples on the shore of the
} Agean Sea told of a time when the sun was driven off its course and 
} disappeared for an entire day, and the earth was burned and drowned."
} [page 143]

I just finished reading the book "End of Atlantis".  It was written by an
archeologist.  He compiled a lot of evidence, added some interpretation, and
concluded that around 1470 BC, an island in the southern Mediteranean, near
Crete, erupted.

It was about 4 miles across.  All that is left is some tiny islands around
the 'rim'.  He compared it to a volcano in the south Pacific that erupted
around 1890 or so.  If he is right, than the entirity of the Mediteranean
would have been hit by tidal waves.  Also, the sun would have 'disappeared'
for several days, followed by several days of heavy rain.

Thanks to Ron Wigmore

} [first sighting of venus from earth]
} [page 158]

"This is not widely agreed with. Venus was known as the morning and evening 
star certainly by 1900BC, and clearly discussed in connection with the rising 
and setting sun at 3000BC.
According to sixteenth century BC records (-1580 to -1560) the observed motion
of venus was almost identical with todays orbit.  Cuneiform writings of
the Babylonian astronomers were quite clear.  There were even pre-
babylonian indications from Sumerian and Mesopotamian writings.  I guess
"ancient" writings are only used if they support Velikovsky.

For instance:
The sumerian version of "Inanna's descent to the neither world" that is
in copies made in the second millennium BC has "I am Inanna of the place
where the sun rises." (i.e. the morning star).  One that refers to King
Iddindagan of Isin (ca. -1909 to -1889) identified her as both the
evening star and the morning star, which is an orbit INSIDE of earths.
The lowest known written documents on earth are excavated from
Uruk (Mesopotamia).  The tablets at level III (next to lowest) refer
to Inanna associating her with the star of both the rising and setting
sun.  This is around 3000 BC.
During the reign of Ammizxaduga, king of Babylon (between -1701 and
-1581) there were a series of observations of venus appearing and
disappearing with the rising and setting of the sun (it is either the
morning star or the evening star, but both never appear at the same
time.  They apparently recognized this fact.)  The text covered 21
consecutive years.  It included periods of inferior and superior conjunction.
From this data, we can determine that the orbital data from this period
is compatible with modern orbital elements within the limits of
Babylonian observational accuracy.
The Venus Table in the Dresden Codex comes from twelfth-century AD
Yucatan.  They not only observed the orbit, but had its period
and a close approximation to the complete cycle.  There were five
iterations of ephemeris data, bringing the orbit of venus as indicated
to within two hours of the place/time modern orbital calculations would
have it.

And as for "unknown"
The Greeks called the evening star Hesperos.
The Greeks called the morning star Phosphorus.
the Romans called the evening star Vesper ("evening" in Latin) 
The Romans called the morning star Lucifer ("light-bearer")


}"I assume also that in the third millenium only four planets could have
} been seen, and that in astronomical charts of this early period the 
} Planet Venus cannot be found."
} [page 160-161]

He assumes wrong.  When the facts do not support him (see above), he
substitutes his assumptions.

} "One of the Planets Is a Comet"
} [page 161]

We know what a comet is.  Probes have gone to one.  They are basically
big dirty snowballs.  We know what Venus is.  Probes have gone to it.
It is a BIG nasty ball of rock.  A comet is ice cold.  Venus is
molten-lead hot. They are very, very different. A few neat things have
been found- like Halley's comet (the 15 km comet itself, not the
corona and tail) is BLACK.  Blacker than any black paint you can buy.
And small.  And peanut shaped.  And hot crust (100 degrees celsius from
the soviet on-site probe) with a cold interior (an aircraft monitored
jets out of it during the recent passage, find that they are ejected from a 
32 degree source).

} [long discussion of comet tail of venus]
} [page 163-167]

Even if everything else was right, there is no way this stuff is going to
get up to escape velocity for a planetary size body.  And the material
HAS to get off-planet to form a tail.  It is easy on comets because the
head is very small with a trivial escape velocity.  Simple warming will
accelerate the stuff to escape the head.  Even heated to a dull red glow,
Venus's atmosphere is tightly held.  Not to mention the tiny detail that
the atmosphere of Jupiter is mostly hydrogen and helium, the tail of
a comet is mostly water, and the atmosphere of venus is mostly carbon dioxide.
Yet Velikovsky thinks these are ALL the same gases (jupiter -> comet ->
venus)

}...page-long varying description of the appearance of venus...
} [page 164]

He quotes Kugler to prove that Venus had a beard (a cometary
tail). But he cuts off the quotation, so the reader won't notice that
"Venus has an axe" means "Venus is in the constellation `axe'" and
"Venus has a beard" means "Venus is the constellation `beard' (namely
the Pleiades)", just some Babylonian manner of speech.
On the same page V. says that Venus must have been a comet because it is
so bright, quotes Kugler, but omits Kugler's comment that Venus even
nowadays can sometimes be seen in daytime.
        
} [Pallas Athene]
} [chapter page 168-172]

Athena is not the goddess associated with Venus.  The guy is now
making up his own mythology.

}Athena's counterpart in the Assyro-Babylonian patheon is Astarte...
}pictured with horns..."
} [pages 169 - 170]

Athena and Ishtar are both pictured with horns. Hence equal.
But V. doesn't tell his readers that *all* Babylonian gods are pictured
with horns.

} "birth of Athena (planet Venus)"
} [page 173

Gummed up mythology again...

} [rain of cosmic flies, ants, and other critters]
} [page 183-187]

Really odd.  This species, which is adapted to breath a nitrogen-oxygen
mixture as an adult evolved in an environment that had neither oxygen
nor liquid water? And would not it be the case that after reentry any
insect would greatly resemble an ash?  And I find it unsubstantiated
that, on earth, flies are separated biologically from every other insect.
They seem to match proteins, DNA, general physical structure,...

} "The ability of many small insects... and to live in an atmosphere
} devoid of oxygen..."
} [page 187]

Not that I know of.  Not to mention the minor detail that a metabolism
which obviously runs in an oxydizing atmosphere just would not make it
in a neutral (like Venus and Mars) or reducing (like Jupiter) atmosphere.

}Pliny says that Isis is the planet Venus
} [page 195]

Plinius (who lived 2000 years after the high point of Egyptian
civilization) is quoted for Isis=Venus. However, in the pictures that V.
quotes can be seen that Venus is associated with quite another god, namely
Osiris; the same source (Plutarchus) that identifies Isis with Athena,
says that Isis is associated with the star Sirius.

} "Venus moves Irregularly"
} [page 199-202]

Not for the last few thousand years it hasn't.  Say, at least four
thousand.  See above.

}The Vulgate translation.... The (Greek) translation...
} [page 202]

Velikovsky usually quotes `correct' but in a strange way. He quotes
the Bible (Job), by using the Vulgata-translation and the Septuagint-
translation both for the same passage, and ignores the Hebrew original.

} "Gaseous masses reaching the atmosphere could asphyxiate all breath in
} certain areas"
} [page 234]

Interesting.  A density WAY above current comets (Halleys, for instance,
is known as a dirty one.  One probe even flew through a jet.  A cup  of
tail has something like one chance in 25,000 of containing one dust
particle) somehow aims at parts of the earth.

I wonder if Velikovsky realizes that during the 1910 pass of Halley's comet
a lot of people stayed indoors because they were afraid of the "lethal gas"
in the cometary tail.  Guess what?  Nobody was killed.

} "I could not find the publication"
} [page 237]

We have here a common usage of defense between most Velikovsites and 
Velikovsky.

} [Rotation of the earth stops and starts]
} [pages 236 and 385]

I am aware of tidal locks "freezing" the rotation of one body relative to
another, but not one body locking the revolution of a second body onto
yet a third, nor of any way to restart the spin to the same value it had
before.  Please see above for the shock and thermal considerations.

}The Babylonian name of the planet Mars is Nergal...Nergal, the perfect
}Warrior
} [page 241-242]

Nergal would be the god of war (he isn't, he is the god of pestilence).
Why? because he is called "perfect warrior". V. doesn't tell his readers
that all Babylonian gods are called like that.

} "The planet Mars was feared for its violence"
} [page 242]

The GOD Mars was feared for his violence - remember, the God of War?
Mars was associated because it appeared (blood) red.  Still does.
In fact, from the surface the sky appears pink.

} "the unpredictable planet" - page 242
} "retrograde motion of the planet" - page 243

That is why they were called "planets".  They wandered.  
The word "planet" is from the greek "wanderer", "to wander", or "to
rush around".  Look it up.

This is a simple result of the orbits instead of the (relatively) fixed stars.
It is how we find asteroids and planets NOW.  You take two pictures and look 
for relative movement between blinks.

} "Mars did not arouse any fears in the hearts of the ancient astrologers"
} [page 244]

I thought he just got through (page 242+) telling us how much it was
feared?  Odd...

} "A conflict between Venus and Mars, if it occurred, might well have
} been a spectacle observable from the earth"
} [page 245]

Even IF such were to occur (at the orbit of mars), I would be slow to
call it a "spectacle".  You really have to look at the right place to
FIND mars.  Two tiny dots would hardly constitute a "spectacle".

} [names of Gods and planets identical, Athena ejected from Jove]
} [page 247]

First, the planets were named after the gods.
Second, Aphrodite is the greek equivalent to Venus, not Athena.

} "Aphrodite, the Goddess of the Moon"
} [page 247]

Huh?  Aphrodite is the goddes associated with Venus.  Selene is the goddess
associated with the moon (hence "selenology - a branch of astronomy that
deals with the moon.).

}"But what might it mean, that the planet Mars destroys cities, or that
} the planet mars is ascending the sky in a darkened cloud, or that it
} engages Athena (the planet Venus) in battle?"
[ page 251]

How about "The God of War chieftain of valor, was inspiring the warriors"?
And again, Athena is NOT associated with Venus, except, of course, to
Velikovsky.

} "Lucian is unaware that Athena is the Goddess of the planet Venus"
} [page 251]

So is everyone else, since she isn't.  Aphrodite is.

} "The Greeks chose Athena, the Goddess of the Plane Venus, as their
} protector, but the people of Troy looked to Ares-mars as their 
} protector"
} [page 253]

The Greeks did not associate Athena with the planet Venus.
Troy had a very warlike history.  They chose the God of War.

}In an old textbook on Hindu astronomy, the Surya-Siddhanta
} [page 256]

He doesn't say that they date from about 400 AD.

}"Mars... was instrumental in bring Venus from an elliptical orbit
} to a nearly circular orbit."
} [page 259]

First, Venus has not been in a very elliptical orbit for at least four
thousand years (see above).  Second, this circular orbit would not be
inside of the orbit of earth if it were done so.  You don't circularize an
orbit someplace else.

}"the swordlike appearance of the atmosphere of Mars, elongated on its
} approach to earth.."
} [page 262]

First, people can't see a thin atmosphere.  Maybe the clouds or suspended
dust?  Second, to make the clouds "swordlike", the tidal stress would do
in the solid part of the planet.  But there it sits.

} [mars changing shape to look like animals equated to "Egyptians worship
} animals"]
} [page 264]

The close approach was suppose to significantly distort the spherical shape
of a planetary body without destroying it?  Perhaps a review of the tidal
destruction of bodies would have been a nice thing for him to know.  Does
the name "Roche" ring a bell?

} "The Babylonians called the year of the close opposition of mars
}"the year of the fire god""
} [page 267]

And the Chinese have "the year of the rat" and "the year of the snake".
I am more inclined to believe the reverse - given that Velikovsky decided on mars
to have an close approach, he looked up a place/time/name that would fit.

}"But if for some reason the charge of the ionsphere, the electrified layer
} of the upper atmosphere, should be sufficiently increased, a discharge
}between the upper atmosphere and the ground, and a thunderbolt would
} crash from a cloudless sky."
} [page 268]

If, for some reason, the ionization level of the ionsphere were to be
increased it would become a better conductor.  Period.  The rest is
absurd. Does Velikovsky know what "ionized" means?

}The Greek term for the collision of planets is syndos, which, in the
}words of a modern interpreter, requires a meeting in space and also
a collision of planets.
} [page 271-272]

Velikovsky doesn't inderstand `conjunction' of planets. He thinks it means
collision. 

}"These ever recurrent earthshocks in a country as rich in oil as
}Mesopotamia also caused eruptions of earth deposits: ":The earth threw
}oil and asphalt," observed the official astrologers, as the effect of
}an earthquake.
} [page 275]

Earlier this stuff was suppose to be oil descending from the comet.
His story changes to match what he wants it to say.  Not to worry -
he has it swapping back and forth and coexisting (though not delivered
at the same time/place together) all thorough his works.

}"Mountain building is a process the causes of which have not been
} established; the migration of continents is but a hypothesis."
[page 277]

The mountain ranges are quite well constructed at the points of collision
between continental plates.  That and volcanic building work quite well,
are very predictable, and easily modeled.  See above.

}" Pull, torsion, and displacement were responsible for mountain building,
} too." [thinks mars & venus pulled mountains up}
} [pages 277-278]

First, that model does nothing to explain the distribution of the
mountain ranges along the lines where the continental plates collide.

Second, to have enough tidal pull to distort the rigid components of the
surface permanently by miles (i.e. so far that will not even settle
after miles of displacement) you would first strip the hydrosphere and
atmosphere off the planet.

Third:  You cannot focus gravity from a planet onto a small point at a
distance.  The entire earth would become oblate, and but not just select
points.  In fact, this effect is observed on a number of moons, as they
have become tidally deformed while they were plastic.

Finally, we have a fairly simple, straightforeward, and displayable
explanation. That isn't it.

} "They rushed in front of and around mars (it's satellites); in the
} disturbance that took place, they probably snatched some of mars's
}atmosphere, dispersed as it was, and appeared with gleaming manes"
} [page 280]

Come on.  The escape velocity for these moons is around 20 mph and they
are amongst the DARKEST objects in the solar system. Direct observation
of them from satellites around mars shown no atmosphere at all. 
These little moons would have been flung away if there were such a near
encounter.  That they are there at all is proof that no such event has
happened in their lifetimes.

} [independent books of Joel and Vedas]
} [pages 281 and 288]

If the books are independent, how can Mars and Marut be cogitates?

} [meteorites noisy reentry]
} [page 283]

Nonsense.  They are generally observed to be silent.  I've seen quite a
few, but haven't heard any.  There is an electronic crackle often associated
with their ionized contrail...  Of course, if you managed to get wacked by
one....

} [Isiah predict time of return of mars]
} [page 307]

Very good.  Isiah could solve the full three-body problem with electric
and magnetic forces added.  Wish he had included the formulation in the
Old Testament...

} [a lot of talk on summer solstice and shadows]
} [page 315]

Good point.  And gives one cause to wonder why the sites at Stonhenge and
the Pyramids align with the sun on exactly where the sun would have been
using only slow, predictable, and current progression and absolutely
NOTHING about V's sillyness is evident.  And so he left it out.

} either these tablets do not originate from Babylon or this city
} actually was situated far to the north
} [page 315, and footnote 16 same page]

Velikovsky never tells the reader that Kugler cleared up the
problem there (the incorrect length of day in ancient Babylonia) in a later
publication.


}"A gnomon...shows midday to within half a second.
} [page 315, footnote 15]

Now the shadow that determines the time has a width of 250 times half a second.
Or does V. mean that the sundial is very accurately pointed south? But
that does not imply that it shows the time correctly.
Also sundials can't be used to determine the length of the day, because
they don't work at night . . .


--
James W. Meritt:  m23364@mwunix.mitre.org - or - jmeritt@mitre.org
The opinions above are mine.  If anyone else wants to share them, fine.
They may say so if they wish. The facts "belong" to noone and simply are.