Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site imsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: catastrophic evolution - reply to Bill Jefferys Message-ID: <365@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 13:28:02 EDT Article-I.D.: imsvax.365 Posted: Tue Aug 6 13:28:02 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 9-Aug-85 02:22:30 EDT Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 283 I don't normally reply to responses to my own articles on the net; they are too many and varied and I don't have the time. In this case it seems necessary because someone who didn't know any better could get the impression that the article had been refuted point by point. Let's examine some of the highlights of Mr. Jefferys article. >These days, debates between Creationists and >Evolutionists are regularly won by evolutionists. Where? When? I mean in a reasonably well attended setting , not Rhetoric 101 at UT. Like I say, I haven't heard about it. My own training was in science (math) and not religion. I wouldn't feel good about publishing in a journal "refereed" by "scientists" in the case of the creation-evolution debate. I would prefer well attended debates with members of the press present as was the case in Roanoke. I know "scientists" a little bit too well. > The probability that any of Ron's arguments is >valid is precisely 0. In science, it is not the number >of arguments but their correctness that counts. This one speaks for itself. It obviously tells an impartial observer more about the author than about the subject matter. >Groups of humans with six fingers are known. The trait >breeds true. There is one such group in (I believe) >Appalachia. Like I said, these people are fortunate to be living in the 20'th century. Being burned at the stake was never much fun. But six-fingered humans seems to have been the wrong example to use. Mr. Jefferys seems to have missed the logical point because the example. Six and five-fingered humans could interbreed. A change from one species to another with no possability of interbreeding could only happen if more than one of the new species appeared at one time i.e. under catastrophic circumstances as I described. >Finally, mutation is probably a minor (though >important) mechanism in evolution. Duplication and >rearrangement of genetic material are thought to be >much more important, and they are experimentally well >documented. Duplication and rearrangement by who or what agency? Dr. Frankenstein? My understanding is that when this occurs naturally, the clinical term is "cancer". >It is well established that the first people in the >Western hemisphere were responsible for the extinction >of most of the large mammals in North and South >America. They had nothing but stone weapons, but their >methods were extremely effective. I love this one! The creatures Mr. Jefferys has in mind include several which I wouldn't want to face with anything less than a 50 caliber machine gun. My favorite ancient animal is the pteratorn, not really a mammal, but why be strict? Mr. Jefferys will sooner or later have to account for the pteratorn's extinction as well. The pteratorn was a 200 lb. golden eagle with a 30 foot wingspan. An eagle's ability to kill things is grossly out of proportion to its size. 20 Pound Berkut eagles on the USSR kill foxes and wolves by crushing their skulls in their 11 inch talons and deers by DRIVING THEIR TALONS IN AROUND THE DEER'S SPINE AND SNAPPING IT. In a way, it's a shame pteratorns are extinct. I really feel the guys at the UT astronomy department deserve a shot at trying to kill one with their spears. I am morally certain that the pteratorn would enjoy the meal as much as I would enjoy the (brief) spectacle. It wouldn't be quite fair to say that the guys from UT would fare as badly or worse than the Neanderthals of 10,000 years ago; the Neanderthals would know better than to try it. Since the only danger to the pteratorn would be indigestion, the SPCA would probably not object to the event being staged. >Really? And what mechanism do you propose to change >the force of gravity on the earth? I can forgive Mr. Jefferys for this one. This one involves a radical departure from present thinking. Immanuel Velikovsky was aware of this but refrained from including it in "Worlds in Collision, Vol I" specifically because it would seem too weird to most people. Every book on dinosaurs I have read mentions the problem of weight for these animals; most state that brontosaurs lived in water even though their bodies show no adaptation for an aquatic life, simply because rudimentary calculations showed that their legs would not support them on land. The problem for large birds is more appalling. I have actually seen books which state that pterosaurs and pteratorns climbed up mountains and then glided down again, a hell of a hard way to have to make a living. The authors were admitting that 200 lb birds can't fly in our world. The evidence from ancient life forms is that the force of gravity on earth changed somewhere along the line. I posted an article on this about a month ago and Mr. Jefferys apparently missed it. For his sake, I will repeat some of the arguments involved. The best recommendation I can make to someone who wants to understand this phenomenon is to read David Talbott's "The Saturn Myth", still available from Doubleday. The following brief description of the archaic world will sound strange; remember, there was a time when cars and trains seemed strange, and a time when forks seemed strange to the English nobility. ......................................................... Velikovsky's long promised "Worlds in Collision, Chapter II", dealing with the nature of the world prior to the flood, was essentially published in 1980 in the form of "The Saturn Myth" by David Talbott, available from DoubleDay. Articles on the same and similar topics appear regularly in the Kronos Journal, subscriptions ($15/year) from: Kronos P.O. Box 343 Wynnewood, PA 19096 The ancients believed that Jupiter and Saturn had been live stars within the memory of man. Greeks and Romans described the planetary systems of Jupiter and Saturn as the dual systems of dieties, Olympian gods under Zeus (Jupiter), and Titans under Kronos (Saturn). Egyptians described the same thing as a "double Ennead", the systems of Set and Horus. They believed there had been an ORBITING mantel of water, not clouds, high over the world; that one hadn't needed be but so much of a prophet to know it was going to fall some day. They described the sky as the primeval watery abyss. The first paragraph of Genesis refers to the sky as a firmamemt built to seperate the waters above from the waters below. The great hymns to Osiris in the Egyptian Book of the Dead refer to Osiris as having fashioned man and the primeval watery abyss of the sky. Nearly identical language concerning the sky can be found in Snorri Sturleson's Prose Edda, not because of any early contacts between Skandanavia and Egypt, but because these peoples obviously saw the same sky. These stories are fragments of racial memory, bits and pieces of a picture which can be put together with just a little bit of effort. Prior to the flood, we were a planet of Saturns. This sounds crazy at first, but the pictures inside the pyramids depict this repeatedly. The idea definitely didn't sound crazy to Akhnaten. The North pole faced Saturn directly, and we hung perilously close to the small star. The gravitational interaction between the star and planet was intense; particals and debris were trapped in between permanently and picked up the glow of the star, resembling a great mountain rising straight from the North Pole to the star, the myth of the god on the mountain, Zeus on Olympus, Jahveh on Zion etc. Creatures living in the gravitational tug of war which <------ existed then got big, 200 pound birds which couldn't fly today, Brontosaurs and Ultrasaurs which couldn't even walk today, even in water since their feet, having no adaptation for water, would sink hopelessly into the mud on river bottoms. You haven't heard of the ultrasaur, you say? The people at Penn State apparently have acquired him rather recently. He could swallow a brontosaur. The brontosaur's problem with weight would have seemed minor compared to his. Why couldn't a 200 lb. bird fly? When animals get bigger, their weight goes up in proportion to volumn, a cubed figure. Strength only goes up in proportion to cross sections of bones and muscles, a squared figure; that is why you never see 200 lb. gymnists even though you do see splendid athletes over 200 lbs, they simply don't have the power-to-weight ratio. Every other measure of the bodies efficiency goes up in proportion to other squared figures: your ability to breathe goes up in proportion to surface area of lungs, to cool yourself in portion to total body surface area, and, of course, surface area of wings is vital to birds. The largest birds which fly in OUR world hang in around 12 to 25 pounds and all have major difficulties with takeoffs and landings, the worst case being albatrosses which sailors call goonie-birds for that reason. The heiroglyphs for Ra, Atum, Osiris etc., names at various time periods for the elder god of Egypt, are basically just pictures of a star inside a ring, pictures of Saturn. Usually the ringed star sits on either a pyramid shaped mound or, as in the case of the loop at the top of the ankh symbol, atop the Egyptian symbol for a pillar or structural support. In E. A. Wallis Budge's The Book of the Dead (1895), Dover paperback version available cheaply, several different versions of these pictures can be seen. One symbol is nearly exactly what I have described, a dot inside a circle supported by three lightning forks in the form of a triangle which appears in any word meaning "to brighten" or "illuminate". The glyph for Ra takes the form of a humanized god sitting on his haunches and either a dot inside a circle or a hoop snake with a dot inside the coil. The word Khut (mound of glory) is a circle atop a mound. A five point star inside a circle appears on page 10, the word tuat. Often these pictures take the form of a star inside a half-circle or crescent, all atop a pyramid, indicating that Saturn's ring showed phases, since the crescent is variously to one or the other side, or above or below the star. The term "paut neteru" (substance of the gods) recurs in the book; it is pictured as a ring with one side widened, the other side narrowed to a point. The Moslem symbol of a star inside a crescent is basically this picture, not a picture of the sun inside a crescent moon (which no one has ever seen). Hesiod, in "Works and Days" and Ovid, in "The Metamorphoses" use identical language in describing a "Golden Age of Man" when Kronos (Saturn) was king of heaven (the sun). The ancient world was of one mind in believing that age to have been a far better one than theirs. However, that age came crashing down with a stellar blowout INSIDE our solar system followed, seven days later, by the Noachian deluge. Twice in Genesis in the story of Noah (Genesis 7-4 and 7-10) the seven days prior to the flood are mentioned. The only other reference to these days in the old testament occurs in Isiah 30:26 "Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of the seven days...". This was the basis for the seven day light festivals of the ancient world, Hannukah, the Roman Saturnalia etc. The solar system was a long time settling into its present state after the flood. Part of the story of these times is told in Velikovsky's major book, "Worlds in Collision" which is worth reading. Saturn was still visible for a long time afterwards and was worshipped as Osiris, god of the dead, by the Egyptians, the prototypical ressurection story. Lest anyone have any doubts that these Egyptians saw a different sky than ours, the following are direct quotes from the various hymns to Osiris in the Dover paperback version of Budge's "Egyptian Book of the Dead": page 250 "..thou risest, coming forth from the god Nu. Thou hast come with thy splendors and thou hast made heaven and earth bright with thy rays of PURE EMERALD LIGHT" page 251 "...thou dost arise in the horizen of heaven and shed upon the world beams of emerald light;..." page 254 "..Through thee the world waxeth green before the might of Neb-er tcher.... Thy body is of gold, thy head of azure, and emerald light encircleth thee.." The pictures of Osiris in human form on the pyramid walls were, of course, green.