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5836 |
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Date: April 16, 2015 at 12:39:24
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: the book "Earth In Upheaval" in retrospect |
URL: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/velikovsky.htm |
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in re-reading Earth In Upheaval ... what i find fascinating is that no one ever seems to want to dispute the anomalous facts that are presented in the book
the text of the book relates the multiple discoveries of masses of tangled dissimilar bone fragments found intermixed in one place at various locations around the planet
instead ... the detractors of the book want to dispute the theories proposed by the author to account for the findings of these conglomerate melanges
does this mean that they too lack a theory to account for the (apparent) catastrophic origin of the tangled remains of bones from animals whose origins were far from where they were found?
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Responses:
[5837] [5842] [5838] [5839] [5844] [5845] [5846] [5850] [5847] [5848] [5849] [5852] [5840] [5843] [5841] |
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5837 |
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Date: April 17, 2015 at 10:51:47
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: the book "Earth In Upheaval" in retrospect |
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Hi HG,
> in re-reading Earth In Upheaval ... what i find fascinating is that no one ever seems to want to
> dispute the anomalous facts that are presented in the book
Actually pretty much everything Velikovsky ever wrote has been debunked.
> the text of the book relates the multiple discoveries of masses of tangled dissimilar bone
> fragments found intermixed in one place at various locations around the planet
Actually the information is all out there.
For example Velikovsky writes:
"The Caves of England -Page 15,
In 1823, William Buckland, professor of geology at the University of Oxford, Published his Reliquiae diluvianae (Relics of the flood), with the subtitle, Observations on the organic remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel, and other geological phenomena, attesting the action of an universal deluge.
Buckland was one of the great authorities on geology in the first half of the nineteenth century. In a cave in Kirkdale in Yorkshire, eighty feet above the valley, under a floor covering of stalagmites, he found teeth and bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, horses, deer, tigers (teeth of which were larger than those of the largest lion or Bengal tiger), bears, wolves, hyenas, foxes, hares, rabbits, as well as bones of ravens, pigeons, larks, snipe and ducks.
Many of the animals had died 'before the first set, or milk teeth, had been shed.'"
What Velikovsky doesn't tell the uninformed reader is that William Buckland won the Copley medal at Oxford for proving that Kirkdale Cave had been a prehistoric hyena den. William Buckland was actually Rev. William Buckland who was looking for evidence of Noah's flood. But he realized the evidence wasn't for a global catastrophe but that the cave had been the den of hyena who brought the animal parts into their den.
Velikovsky was very dishonest in taking Buckland's work, and more than 100 years after he published his paper in the Royal Society Velikovsky made false claims about Kirkdale Cave.
By the way, monkeys, hippos and rhinos were native to England in the past even as recently as 120,000 years ago during the previous interglacial period.
See: Monkeys, hippos and rhinos 'were native to Britain'
How about another example? Velikovsky wrote:
" Agate Spring Quarry - Page 67,
In Sioux county Nebraska, on the south side of the Niobrara River, in Agate Springs Quarry, is a fossil bearing deposit up to twenty inches thick. The state of the bones indicate a long and violent transportation before they reached their final resting place. '...the fossils are in such remarkable profusion, in places, as to form a veritable pavement of interlacing bones, very few of which are in their natural articulation with one another,' says R.S. Lull, director of the Peabody Museum at Yale, in his book on fossils.'
The animals found were mammals. The most numerous was the small twin horned rhinoceros (Diceratherium). There was another extinct animal (Moropus) with a head not unlike that of a horse but with heavy legs and claws like that of a carnivorous animal. And bones of a giant swine that stood six feet high (Dinohyus hollandi) were also unearthed.
The Carnegie Museum, which likewise excavated in Agate Spring Quarry, in a space of 1350 square feet found 164,000 bones or about 820 skeletons. A mammal skeleton averages 200 bones. This area represents only one-twentieth of the fossil bed in the quarry, suggesting to Lull that the entire area would yield about 16,400 skeletons of the twin-horned rhinoceros, 500 skeletons of the clawed horse, and 100 skeletons of the giant swine.
A few miles to the east, in another quarry were found skeletons of an animal which, because of its similarity to two extant species, is called a gazelle camel (Stenomylus). A herd of these animals was destroyed in a disaster. ~ the transportation was in a violent cataract of water, sand, and gravel, that left marks on the bones. Tens of thousands of animals were carried over an unknown distance, then smashed into a common grave.
The catastrophe was most likely ubiquitous, for these animals-the small twin-horned rhinoceros, clawed horse, giant swine, and gazelle camel-did not survive, but became extinct. ~ the very circumstances in which they are found bespeak a violent death at the hands of the elements, not slow extinction in a process of evolution."
So what do we know about Agate Spring Quarry in Nebraska? Well the Agate Fossil Beds are now a national monument. The fossils are dated to 20 million years ago during the Miocene and are long extinct animals, some ancestors of the modern hippo and horse.
Hmm... anyone surprised Velikovsky's so called evidence doesn't hold up? Of course not! LOL
> instead ... the detractors of the book want to dispute the theories proposed by the author to account
> for the findings of these conglomerate melanges
Well his theories were crap but there is a wealth of information on Velikovsky's supposed evidence and like Kirkland Cave the information is out there showing Velikovsky wasn't bashful about misrepresenting these things.
> does this mean that they too lack a theory to account for the (apparent) catastrophic origin of the
> tangled remains of bones from animals whose origins were far from where they were found?
It means Velikovsky played fast and loose with his so called "evidence". Much of his so called evidence was misrepresentations of what scientists had done long before him. It's easy to find (and I mean really easy) that the so called evidence in Earth in Upheaval doesn't support Velikovsky's wacky theories.
And Jerry Pournelle? I've always enjoyed his books and his debunking of Velikovsky. While Pournelle is a bit harsh on some of Sagan's criticisms he is much harsher on Velikovsky's foolishness.
Cheers
Jim
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Responses:
[5842] [5838] [5839] [5844] [5845] [5846] [5850] [5847] [5848] [5849] [5852] [5840] [5843] [5841] |
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5842 |
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Date: April 18, 2015 at 11:10:13
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: nice start ... there are hundreds of anomalous examples (NT) |
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Responses:
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5838 |
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Date: April 17, 2015 at 13:05:17
From: Skywise, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Horst is trolling.... |
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... and you took the bait.
Brian
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Responses:
[5839] [5844] [5845] [5846] [5850] [5847] [5848] [5849] [5852] [5840] [5843] [5841] |
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5839 |
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Date: April 17, 2015 at 13:24:48
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: True |
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Hi Brian,
> Horst is trolling.... and you took the bait.
True... but on the topic of Velikovsky his trolling is so easy the responses are simple. The way he points out an aspect of Velikovsky and claims no one disputes what Velikovsky said sometimes makes me question if he is truly a believer. Horst seems to read and follow a variety of topics so it would be unlikely he wouldn't know these aspects of Velikovsky have long been debunked.
Cheers
Jim
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Responses:
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5844 |
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Date: April 18, 2015 at 11:13:30
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: since you "took the bait" are you going to "debunk" every case? |
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are you going to provide and exhaustive study to demonstrate where he was wrong in every regard?
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Responses:
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5845 |
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Date: April 18, 2015 at 11:39:07
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: I'll let you do that, expand you mind, make an effort(NT) |
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Responses:
[5846] [5850] [5847] [5848] [5849] [5852] |
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5846 |
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Date: April 18, 2015 at 15:31:37
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: i thought so ... all bluff and bluster and very little substance (NT) |
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Responses:
[5850] [5847] [5848] [5849] [5852] |
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5850 |
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Date: April 19, 2015 at 16:25:28
From: Skywise, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: i thought so ... all bluff and bluster and very little substance... |
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David, as an adherent and proponent of Velikovsky's hypotheses, you are the one who
should be questioning those hypotheses the most in order to make sure that you are
not deluding yourself into believing something that may not be true!!
The first thing any good scientist does is question themselves; question their own
"beliefs"; question the foundations of their knowledge. They question their own
results. They look for faults in their own work. They try to tear down their own
theories because others surely will!!!
Hypotheses and theories do not succeed by the preponderance of supporting evidence.
They succeed by the dearth of contrary evidence. You can have ten thousand pieces
of supporting evidence, but it only takes one piece of contrary evidence and it all
falls down. (that's a simplified argument. the theory with with less contrary evidence
is held up as the more correct.)
When one's eyes are closed, or looking through narrow tubes it is easy to not see
where one is going and to take a wrong turn thus ending up in a blind alley with
nowhere to go but back the way you came.
So David, open your eyes and look where you are going. Question yourself. Question
Velikovsky. All we can do is warn you, and suggest that you open your eyes. But
it's ultimately up to you. Nothing Jim or I or anyone else says can change your
mind.
The only one forcing you to believe in anything is yourself.
The only one who can change your mind is you. And the only way to find out if what
you believe is true or not is to take off the blinders, to be honest with yourself,
and examine ALL of the evidence.
"Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool following him?"
Brian
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Responses:
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5847 |
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Date: April 18, 2015 at 21:17:21
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: We both know.... |
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Hi HG,
We both know how this would end. We could look at example after example from Earth in Upheaval and find these mysteries are actually from a previous interglacial such as the Kirkdale Cave hyena den or fossils from millions of years ago such as the Agate Fossil Beds. Many will be misrepresentations by V. We both know what is in that book won't actually support Velikovsky's cosmic catastrophe pinball theories.
Since Earth in Upheaval is all about supposed evidence of these cosmic catastrophes why not cut to the chase and look at the ice cores? Before the first ice core was taken the few Velikovsky believers left hoped ice cores would finally show evidence of his cosmic catastrophe. There have been ice cores taken all over planet Earth, from Greenland in the Arctic to multiple cores from Antarctica to the Andes in South America, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, Tibet, various locations in the Himalayas, Alaska and Russia. You know what none of the ice cores show? Any sign of Velikovsky's cosmic catastrophe. No sign of the floods or volcanoes all going off or dust that darkens the sky or any of the things described in Velikovsky's books.
The ice cores do show the sudden deep freeze of the Younger Dryas 12,800 years ago as well as the rapid global warming after the very cold 1,000 years. They show spikes in sulphates such as the massive Mt. Toba volcano eruption from 74,000 years ago. But no sign of any global catastrophe as claimed by Velikovsky. Nothing.
Cheers
Jim
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Responses:
[5848] [5849] [5852] |
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5848 |
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Date: April 19, 2015 at 05:06:37
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: case by case ... every reference in the book ... prove them wrong (NT) |
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Responses:
[5849] [5852] |
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5849 |
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Date: April 19, 2015 at 12:12:09
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: again.... we both know how that would end! |
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Hi HG,
> case by case ... every reference in the book ... prove them wrong
Again we both know how that would end. I'm certainly not going to do your homework when you will just cover your ears to anything you don't want to hear.
And how about those ice cores? What few intelligent, honest Velikovsky supports were left when the first ice core results were released realized all doubt had been removed that Velikovsky's cosmic catastrophe ever happened.
Since you weren't one of the intelligent, honest Velikovsky supports and are still in denial of the ice cores that show none of those things happened why on earth would anyone believe you would accept someone showing the silly things in Earth in Upheaval were wrong?
So David why don't you move out of the 1940's mentality, open up a Google window and do a little honest research? You know you won't find the results you want... but accept it and open your mind.
Cheers
Jim
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Responses:
[5852] |
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5852 |
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Date: April 20, 2015 at 18:43:06
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: yes ... better for you to puff yourself up and caterwaul (NT) |
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5840 |
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Date: April 17, 2015 at 14:19:37
From: Roger Hunter, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: True |
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The tipoff for me was the link; Jerry Pournelle is a science fiction author.
Roger
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Responses:
[5843] [5841] |
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5843 |
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Date: April 18, 2015 at 11:11:28
From: horst graben, [DNS_Address]
Subject: yes ... everyone knows scifi authors are looney bins (NT) |
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5841 |
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Date: April 17, 2015 at 14:54:12
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: True |
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Hi Roger,
> The tipoff for me was the link; Jerry Pournelle is a science fiction author.
Jerry Pournelle is an interesting guy. He grew up not far from where I did in Memphis, although he is close to my father's age. In fact my father is a big fan and follows his website. I've only read a few of his books, my favorite being Lucifer's Hammer.
I've read Pournelle's page on Velikovsky before. Pournelle is a critic of the way some in the scientific community including Carl Sagan treated Velikovsky. That doesn't mean he is a Velikovsky supporter, he isn't and makes clear Velikovsky was wrong. Horst's link was to Pournelle's page on Velikovsky which shows both these views.
Cheers
Jim
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