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From: michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: The Rock of Ages and the Ages of Rocks (Big Lie, Part 1)
Message-ID: <253@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 15:59:37 EST
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.253
Posted: Mon Oct 28 15:59:37 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 06:18:53 EST
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Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
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[all persons stand back of white line.]

Since Ted Holden makes so many relatively unrelated statements and
claims in his articles, when it makes sense I'll try to reply to
separate questions separately.  Now begins part 1 in a new series!  

>	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.
>
>	     The reality, from Ovid's "Metamorphoses:
>
>	     "When God, whichever God he was, created
>	     The universe we know, he made of earth
>	     A turning sphere so delicately poised
>	     That water flowed in waves beneath the wind....
>	     God made zones on earth, the fifth zone naked
>	     With heat where none may live, at each extreme
>	     A land of snow (the poles), and, at their side, two zones
>	     Of temperate winds and sun and shifting cold."

Ho, hum.  This is a big lie only to persons as ignorant as Ted Holden.  
There is, of course, a childhood myth nowadays that people in the past
thought that the world was flat and Columbus, the lone far thinker of
his day, set out and proved them all wrong.  In fact, all educated
persons knew not only during the Renaissance but during ancient times
that the Earth is spherical.  Aristotle demonstrated the sphericity
of the Earth quite convincingly with arguments as valid today as
they were in 330 B.C.  After mentioning some *logical* arguments for
the Earth's sphericity (which have *not* held up), Aristotle writes:  

	The evidence of the senses further corroborates this.  How
	else would eclipses of the moon show segments shaped as we
	see them?  As it is, the shapes which the moon itself each
	month shows are of every kind -- straight, gibbous, and
	concave -- but in eclipses the outline is always curved: 
	and, since it is the interposition of the earth that makes
	the eclipse, the form of this line will be caused by the
	form of the earth's surface, which is therefore spherical.  

	Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not
	only that the earth is circular, but that it is a circle
	of no great size.  For quite a small change of position to
	south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon.  
	There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead,
	and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or
	southward.  Indeed there are some stars seen in Egypt and
	in the neighborhood of Cyprus which are not seen in the
	northerly regions; and stars, which in the north are never
	beyond range of observation, in those regions rise and set.  

	All of which goes to show not only that the earth is
	circular in shape, but also that it is a sphere of no
	great size:  for otherwise the effect of so slight a
	change of place would not be so quickly apparent.  Hence
	one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the view
	of those who conceive that there is continuity between the
	parts about the pillars of Hercules and the parts about
	India, and that in this way the ocean is one.  [1]

Thus was laid, almost two thousand years before, the philosophical
basis for Columbus's voyage.  In addition to discovering the Earth's
sphericity, ancient Greek mathematicians measured the angles formed
by stars at differing latitudes and calculated the size of the Earth,
ending up with a value close what we know today.  The only problem
for Columbus was, the distances they calculated would have left him
starving in mid Ocean, long before reaching the Indies.  Columbus,
though, had found another estimate for the size of the Earth, which
placed the Indies somewhat closer to Europe, and he wanted to risk it.  

The Portuguese, when Columbus petitioned them to fund his expedition,
quite properly looked askance at risking lives, ships, and treasure
on an undertaking with such shaky underpinnings, and turned him down
flat, so to speak.  The Spaniards, perhaps less sea-wise, perhaps
fired up from their victory that very year over the Moors, were less
cautious.  Who would have dreamed, or at least risked ships on, the
proposition that there were entire unknown continents floating out
there in the deep?  So, what do the Portuguese get for making the
logically correct decision?  Schoolkids are taught to sneer at them!  

It wasn't just the ancients' thoughts that ranged widely, they also
traveled bodily far and wide.  The Greeks knew India and the Pillars
of Hercules (Gibraltar).  The Romans opened up the overland trade
route to China.  Before the Greeks, there's good reason to believe
that the Phoenicians sailed to Britain and all the way around Africa.  

Educated people of the past knew all of this.  Any educated person
today who investigates the matter knows that they knew it.  Now Ted
Holden has stumbled across part of it (Ovid, for example) and runs
around yelling about "big lies."  Ridiculous!  Ovid lived 300 years
after Aristotle!  The "big lie," I'd say, lies fallow in Ted's mouth.  

--

Reference

[1] Aristotle, "On the Heavens," Book II, Chapter 14, *The
Works of Aristotle*, Oxford University Press, pp. 297-298.  

-- 

Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation     "All disclaimers including this one apply"
(415) 960-9367
..!ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm

	I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe
	is listening to us -- and that every word we say echoes to
	the remotest star.  
		Jean Giraudoux, *The Madwoman of Chaillot*