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!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Friesen on several topics Message-ID: <452@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 3-Nov-85 11:18:29 EST Article-I.D.: imsvax.452 Posted: Sun Nov 3 11:18:29 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 08:24:00 EST Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 379 Framing replies to Friesen taxes even my own attention span (which goes considerably beyond three paragraphs). I am going to have to make this part one of two parts. I don't think anybody could deal with a 600 line article. >> I am certain that Velikovskian (catastrophic) evolution >> could explain the transmutation of species, ONCE YOU ALREADY HAVE >> COMPLICATED LIFE FORMS ON OUR PLANET TO BEGIN WITH. I am >> uncertain as to whether even catastrophic evolution could explain >> the rise of our present complicated life forms from single-celled >> animals. >> > Interesting, but what mechanism would produce speciation at >the rate required? None is known, and all but the most extreme >Punctuationalists believe that a speciation event *requires* at least >a few thousand years to occur. Velikovskian catastrophes might cause >mass extinctions, but are far (too) rapid to permit speciation by any >plausible mechanism. Read the section on catastrophic evolution in "Earth in Upheaval". It turns out, this is the ONLY plausible mechanism for speciation. >> And, from what little I have seen of the emerging >> science of creationism as evidenced by the articles of Kukuk and >> Brown on the net, I am convinced that it is a bad mistake on the >> part of scientists not to take them seriously. These guys are >> essentially correct in challenging the notion which modern >> science has of the age of the earth. > When they provide real evidence, properly reproducible by >other researchers, we will at least listen. Until then they are no >more scientists than Astrologers. Just don't make the mistake of ignoring these people until they AND Falwell AND Reagan AND Reagan's court get evolution thrown out of the schools altogether. You won't be the one laughing on THAT day. Scientists have never had to pay any price for ignoring Velikovsky; that won't be the case with Falwell, I'm afraid. >> >> The funny thing about the creation/evolution debate is that, >> on this one critical and all important point, it is the >> scientists who are dealing from a position of AXIOMATICS, and >> therefore dogma. > What axioms? The only axioms I am really aware of are the >axioms of the scientific method. If you eliminate those you no longer >have *science*, you have religion, or philosophy, or even >superstition. I am here using the term axiom to mean any unprovable proposition which serves as a necessary prop or foundation for a body of theories, as the article describes. >> >> The Ages of Rocks >> >> There is no reason to doubt the measurements of stellar >> distances which modern scientists work with. There is likewise, >> no reason to doubt that they are at least in the ballpark with >> their ages FOR THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, which are based on >> knowledge of stellar distances and properties of light. But the >> ages which traditional scientists give for our own solar system, >> for this planet, for the various geological epochs this planet >> has undergone, and, generally, for every kind of an ORIGENS >> related timeframe, are not based on any such solid ground. There >> are good reasons for doubting these schemes. >> > Why are astronomical measurements so much more reliable than >geological? Astronomical measurements are based largely upon >*extrapolation*, a nototiously unreliable method. They are also based >on a very strict form of Uniformitarianism. > Again, don't get me confused with the creationists. I have never claimed that such things as RATES of radioactive decay or properties of light vary over space and time. We can figure distances accurately, and from them, minimally the time which a star whose light we observe has been there. We obviously have no such basis for figuring a sound minimal age for our own solar system. >> Beginning around 1800 or so, Lamarck and Lyell and other >> scientists developed what came to be known as the doctrine of >> uniformity, upon which nearly all of our present natural sciences >> are based. This doctrine states that the conditions we observe >> in the present can be assumed to have prevailed in all past ages, >> that all changes which ever occurred in geological and biological >> forms occured in slow and minute, nearly inperceptable steps, the >> way they do now. This amounts to an axiom, or an article of >> faith; it is not something which anyone has ever proved, yet >> this basic assumption stands squarely at the bottom of virtually >> every scheme by which scientists try to estimate ancient time >> frames. > And also every scheme by which scientist try to estimate the >distances and ages of stars and galaxies! You have really mis-stated >the axiom. It is more correctly stated as: The *laws* and *processes* >in effect are the same everywhere and in every time throughout the >universe. Catastrophic event are allowed, *if* they are observable as >occuring today somewhere in the universe. This axiom is one of the >central axioms of the scientific method. Without it there would be no >way to study events remote in time and space, since there would be no >locally accessible method of verifying interpretations. If I cannot >assume that the laws of physics are the same in the vicinity of a >distant star I cannot rely on any comparison of observations of it >with observation of events in Earth laboratories. This invalidates >spectroscopy, orbital mass calculations, and much much more. Similar >considerations apply to the study of past events. Again, do not confuse a law of physics, such as the speed of light or of radioactive decay for some substance, with something like the earth's present rate of sedimentation or accumulation of cosmic dust. There is no rational reason to assume that the later have been stable indefinitely into the past, yet most scientists concerned with origins do exactly that. > >> Darwin based his theory of evolution on this concept, >> because the notion of CATASTROPHIC evolution, or macro-evolution, >> had not occured to him. He believed that huge time spans were >> needed for any reasonable theory of evolution, and that the >> standard creationist theories of HIS time didn't give him any >> more than the 6000 or 7000 years which Bishop Usher and like >> minded folk believed in. > Garbage! During the time Darwin was first learning about >biology Catastrophism was one of the seriously considered theories >about the history of the Earth. To say that he had not thought about >it would be a grave insult to Darwin's intelligence! By the time he >started serious work on his theory of evolution the catastrophic >theories had largely been rejected as being to unwieldy and contrived. >If he accepted the evidence available to him of the inadequacy of such >theories, that is merely the scientific method! Velikovsky's theory of evolution, first published in 1955, requires some knowledge of radioactivity. I say again, Darwin had not heard of it. >> In taking this route, these scientists adopted what amounted >> to an AXIOMATIC approach to an emperical science. When you date >> geological strata using the assumption that sedimentation always >> occurred at present rates, never mind how quickly a global >> disaster which involved large scale flooding could put down >> layers of sediment, > Noone has ever made this silly assumption to my knowledge. All >that is assumed is that sedimentation in the past has occured in >generally similar manners to the ways it occurs now. In fact the >nature of the sediment often contains clues as to rates of >sedimentation, so the stricter assumption is unnecessary and >unusable. Ever wonder why nearly all the cities of the ancient near and middle east are found underneath numerous layers of such "sediment", while cities like Paris and Rome, built after 700 BC and the stabilization of the solar system are not? Ever heard of a Paris 3G, or a Berlin 7F? >> >> The Big Lie >> >> 1. The big lie: Man has been on this planet for at least a >> million years, but only learned to read and write within the >> last few thousand years. >> >> The reality, as stated by an Egyptian priest, speaking to >> the Greek sage, Solon, in Plato's dialogue, "The Timaeus": >> >> "Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be >> provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized >> life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like >> a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of >> you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you >> have to begin all over again like chilodren, and know >> nothing of what happened in ancient times, either amongst us >> or amongst yourselves. > > THis sounds very like a description of events like our recent >Middle Ages, which did not in the least fool archaeologists into >thinking reading and writing were invented only a few hundred years >ago! Such events have indeed occured quite frequently, and could well >have been known to Egyptian scholars. Ancient Egypt had fallen to >barbarian invassions, as had Mykenean "Greece". The Cretan empire had >been destroyed by a volcanic explosion. The Chaldean, Babylonian, and >Assyrian civilizations in Mesopotamia had been destroyed. What reason >is there to believe that this is *not* what the priest was talking >about? The context of Plato's dialogue "Timaeus" forbids any such interpretation. Read it; it speaks of world-wide disasters caused by "a declination in the bodies which move around the earth". >> 2. The big lie: The ancients saw the world as a small flat >> place, and typically knew little of the world beyond their >> own back yards. > Well, that depends on where you are talking about, and in what >era of history! The ancient Greeks had figured out that the Earth was >a sphere, but they did not have general education, so only a few >scholars ever knew it! When the Greek civilization was absorbed the >knowledge was lost. certainly the average person did *percieve* the >world that way. In fact most people today *still* do! Only here, in a >country with widespread education, and in other similar countries, is >this viewpoint truly minor. >> >> 3. The big lie: Stories of global floods and disasters really >> amount to some imaginative primative hyping a story about a >> flood in his back yard, or the local river overflowing its >> banks, > This is not quite what is being claimed by archaeologist and >anthropologists. A better example might be Paul Bunyan, or Billy the >Kid as he is popularly believed to have been, or even Robin Hood. Such >stories *grow* with time. It is like the fish that got away! Bad analogy. The story of the flood is too grandiose a story to fit this model, especially since it occurs in all cultures, even though separated by oceans and vast distances. The flood story, if untrue, would amount to the biggest lie ever told, and the authors of the OT as well as the rabbis who preserved such histories were not in the habit of telling lies. Such a tale, if fictitious, would even violate the (very real) principle set forth by Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf that, whereas most people will lie occasionally in small matters, almost nobody tells really BIG or grandiose lies. >> Plato and Ovid were very definitely not talking about the >> woodshed burning down last Tuesday night. It is not Plato and >> Ovid, but rather the scientists and scholars who perpetuate this >> kind of notion who deserve to be treated like idiots. > If this is what scientist believed, thay *would* be idiots. >How about a *major*, large-scale draught that grew over the years to >be a global disaster.("You think that was someting - well let me tell >you what happened to ME during the gret draught"). Or maybe it was >some other disaster that got exaggerated in a similar manner. >Remember these authors were not talking from first-hand knoeledge, >they were not even basing thier writings on interviews with survivors, >they were relying wholely on hear-say evidence. The scientific method >hadn't been invented yet. Again I say, read the Phaeton legend in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is very obviously a tale of cosmic disaster, swift and sudden, and the story itself absolutely forbids such an interpretation (as draught). Your reply indicates that you haven't read the story. >In article <675@hou2g.UUCP> scott@hou2g.UUCP (Colonel'K) writes: >> >>Ted seems to be making the assumption that gliders >>cannot climb. I don't know a hell of a lot about >>(for instance) hang-gliding, but I'd say climbing is >>not only possible, it is common. If so, what's wrong >>with a "glider" going down wind to gain speed (and >>height?) AND THEN TURNING UPWIND? >> > To add some real evidence, I saw some vultures circling last >weekend. I watched them for a few minutes and they were flying in >*circles* without *ever* flapping their wings and without losing any >altitude. Now, whatever else is true they *must* have been going >upwind at least *part* of the time, tet they maintained altitude for a >full circle without needing to so much as flutter their wings. >Whatever the mechanism, it *works*, I saw it happen. I'm beginning to wonder what on earth it will take not to be mis- understood on this one. Geesh! Did you see any of the vultures take off from low ground without flapping their wings? According to Adrian Desmond (whom you and I both like to use as a source), the pterosaur HAD to; his legs weren't long enough and his wings were TOO LONG for the ordinary flapping kind of take-off, and he also lacked the musculature for that. What is the ONLY thing the wind could do for a grounded sail- plane on low ground? How about blowing it over backwards and BREAKING it? The only other possibility for this unfortunate creature, was to have lived in a world of lesser gravity, as I have described, in which he simply WAS strong enough to take off and get up into thermals beginning from low ground and, if necessary, get home against the wind. The take-off might have necessarily involved a leaping start to get room for wing-beats, kind of like (I hate to say it) Superman. This would make the requirement of lesser gravity even more necessary. The rest of what I said wasn't really applicable to anything in the realm of reality; only to things which go on in certain scientists' imaginations. I said that, IF THE PTEROSAUR HAD SOME MAGICAL WAY OF GETTING AIRBORN FROM LOW GROUND, assuming also that he was unlucky enough to live in our gravity, that by the time he got high enough to even think of gliding home against the wind, he'd be in China or some-place. He'd never find home again and his children would starve. The vulture's kids, like those of the pterosaurs, have to be fed EVERY day. That includes all kinds of weather, days when the wind is wrong, and days when there is NO wind or thermals. While the vulture obviously prefers to hitch rides in thermals (which is what you saw), he must nonetheless be powerful enough to keep his family fed on the bad days too. He must not be above the size threshold (which Desmond gives as about 50 lbs) beyond which the square- cube problem would minimally prevent him from flying UNDER POWER, and would probably prevent him from gliding (since a creature above that weight could not even maintain the wing attitudes necessary for flight). The quote from Desmond again, in case you missed it: "With each increase in size, and therefore also weight, a flying animal needs a concomitant increase in power (to beat the wings in a flapper and hold and maneuver them in a glider), but power is supplied by muscles which themselves add still more weight to the structure The larger a flier becomes, the disproportionately weightier it grows by the addition of its own power supply. There comes a point when the weight is just too great to permit the machine to remain airborne. Calculations bearing on size and power suggested that the maximum weight which a flying vertibrate can attain is about 50 lbs: Pteranodon and its slightly larger but lesser known Jordanian ally Titanopteryx were therefore thought to be the largest flying animals." The Texas pterosaur, of course, weighed 300 lbs. >In article <438@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: >> >> Immanuel Velikovsky invented the "punctuated equilibria" notion of >>evolution (he called it "catastrophic evolution") in 1950, and anyone >>interested in this should, by all means, have a copy of "Earth in Upheaval" >>on his shelf. > > How do you equate "catatrophic evolution" with "punctuated >equilibria"? The only similarity I see between them is that they both >postulate periods of rapid change alternating with relative stasis. >However, the nature and causes of the rapid change are totally >different in the two "theories". In P.E the change is driven by the >speciatian process itself, and is essentially unrelated to external >events, while Velikovsky's theory is based on periodic global >catastrphes driving the change, with little importance given to >speciation. Under P.E the periods of rapid change are *asynchronous* >between the various lineages, while under Velikovsky's "theory" the >periods of rapid change should be essentially simulataneous among all >life forms. > Besides which P.E is largely an extension of the ideas of >Ernst Mayr, who started writing in the *40's*, before Velikovsky. Like I say, I prefer Velikovsky's version of it since he provides a rational explanation for the whole thing. Consider your phrase: "is driven by the speciation process itself". Stripped down and rendered into plain English, this means "it just happened". I am reminded again of the Lampoon album in which Donald Segretti, asked by Ervin to state the source of a suitcase full of $100 bills he had been apprehended with, says "I found it". I mean, this is the kind of logic cops and judges get used to hearing from petty criminals, and it sounds sorry as hell coming from "scientists". >> Nonetheless, anyone who studies fossils, >>including Gould, has noticed the same basic truth which Velikovsky >>describes; that there simply ARE no intermediate forms, and that the >>changes in fossil records going from one geological epoch to another occur >>as if, at each such change, "a curtain had been drawn in a play and a >>complete new cast of characters presented when the curtain was raised again" >>(Velikovsky's words). >> > Wrong, this is *not* what Gould, or anyone else, says. There >are many intermediates, but there are often discontinuities in the >chain of intermediates. These discontinuities are *not* restricted to >the epoch boundries, they occur regularly throughout the fossil >record. New forms may appear at almost any point, and old forms my >disappear at almost any point. The epoch boundries are largely >*geological* and represent points of significant climatological or >geophysical change, which are quite naturally associated with an >increased turnover in living species. However these boundries are >*not* by any means sharp, they are usually rather gradual and >indistinct. Velikovsky quotes Darwin (from The Origin of Species) on this one. The quote (Darwin's) goes: "Scarcely any paleontological discovery is more striking than the fact that the forms of life change almost simultaneously throughout the world." >> In like manner, Clube and Napier of the British Royal Observatory, in >>their book "The Cosmic Serpent", report on the like obvious fact of global >>catastrophes (obvious to anyone who has read much in the way of ancient >>literature) which Velikovsky describes in "Worlds in Collision". > > When was this book published? What are thier backgrounds? The Cosmic Serpent, Faber and Faber, 1982, by V. Clube, and B. Napier, professional astronomers with the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.