You are obviously doing in the first paragraph what you are upset about in the second paragraph that I am accusing people of accepting Sagan’s horrible hatchet job as the truth. One of your allies posted a link which apparently detailed how your own guys admitted that Sagan did a hatchet job.
And if you want to talk about results, Sagan said that Venus was a cold planet. Frozen. Velikovsky said that it was hot. Very hot. When they found out the truth, indeed it was very hot. I’m sure people will answer this point with excuses, but it is true and mainstream science was wrong and Velikovsky’s prediction was right.
Also, Mainstream science held that uniformitarianism was the way of the universe and Velikovsky showed lots of evidence that there was catastrophism and that it was in recorded history. How could this non-astronomer know this? Read his book instead of Sagan’s critique, there was plenty of reason to think Venus was hot. Makes the astronomers look bad. Sorry but it’s true. Today astronomers admit, HAVE to admit, that catastrophism exists. Look at Jupiter. On the whole, the disagreement today is that mainstreamers feel that the solar system looked the same as it does today for eons before. Velikovsky has a different timeline. We will see if the mainstreamers have to push up their timescale.
You “believe” in Sagan. But you know nothing about this but yet have formed an opinion. With all due respect, I suggest you step back and let the physicist, the good Doc, Sam Stone, tracer and a few others battle this out with me. If I’m so confused, it should be pretty easy for pros like them to take care of me 1-2-3 without your help…no offense meant, but you’ve added no info to this thread.
You must feel threatened to use such language. Relax, there’s a physicist a Doc and a bunch of intelligent people on your side who are much more rational and much less emotional than you to help you out. I suggest you step aside and let the pros fight with me
You don’t have to, it’s just some advice to help you look a bit better. No offense meant by this.
You’re a funny guy. You make me laugh. Thanks for that.
Comets are small things? There are a lot of comets out there. Prove that they are all identical.
If you insist, OK, you can ATTACK a theory FIERCELY rather than objectively.
Your mom must be proud she raised such a scientific, kind, polite man.
You have made 3 statements. However, they didn’t really make much sense and you did not address the issue. In SCIENCE, if you do a study of 1 million humans, and each human ingested a sugar pill and grew a third ear, when you publish it, that is science. Even if you don’t understand the mechanism.
No, those are your words. I’m saying that he did a non-scientific job of it.
Your own people said his math was bad. Why don’t you attack Sagan now?
The fact is, Velikovsky made a fool of the astronomers and they are attacking him in an unfair way. Anyone who spoke FOR him got in trouble. Want some examples? James Putnam, his editor at MacMillan, got fired due to pressure by Shapley. Gordon Atwater, curator of the Haydn Planetarium in NYC, planned an exposition of his work. Never happened because he got canned. The excuse for Putnam? That he published V’s work. Putnam is an editor. He was given the assignment. It was claimed that V. did not get the OK from an astronomer to publish the work. Not true, he did. But the higher ups at MacMillan had a lot of pressure and someone had to take the fall. Putnam was the man. The whole sordid affair is available for public viewing and I have viewed the original docs myself. I’m not rejecting Sagan because I believe in Velikovsky. Sagan’s criticism was just not good science. I can respect someone who doesn’t agree with V. but not someone who uses red herrings and straw men like Sagan did, attack the red herrings and tell everyone that you destroyed his arguments. And he didn’t have the courage to apologize. This is documented stuff and you have a link to check it out.
Are you a sci-fi fan? Sagan has a lot of fans because he wrote science fiction novels. Too bad the average astronomer doesn’t get the credit for his long nights with fans like Sagan got for his sci fi and his tv series…
I’m not arguing semantics, I brought up some facts and evidence and I will bring up more.
Thank you. Coming from you and Cervantes I actually DO take it as a compliment.
Well, you and I differ there. A Von Daniken, a creationist, would not be difficult to argue with, at least not for me. There is substance with Velikovsky and that is why Gaposchkin did a hatchet job, followed by a hatchet job by Sagan. Shameful. If V was such a fringe scientist, why did 2 well respected “scientists” with HUGE names like Gaposchkin (well, she was huge in her day and did do some great work) and Sagan do such an AWFUL job in “exposing” him?
That is also why catastrophism is in today, and Jupiter’s radio noises ARE supportive of V’s theories and he did a nice job on pointing out some huge errors with the Egyptologists too, but that’s another discussion entirely.
Do even YOU know what you are talking about?
Ahh, we finally agree on something.
No offense but you wouldn’t be enough of a challenge for me to bother with. Again, no offense. But if you find creationists a challenge, there’s no point getting into a disagreement with me.
Granted. So does that mean we ignore eyewitness accounts? You make excuses, but he took the eyewitness accounts, deduced some things from it like catastrophism, venus being hot, radio noises from jupiter and boldly made predictions (also don’t forget the Van Allen Belt) and they came true. You can call it luck, and probably do, but at least that should humble you folks enough to be able to take another look at his work more seriously and do a serious evaluation of the eyewitness accounts.
One of the books he wrote is also Earth In Upheaval, most never read it. No eyewitness accounts there. Lots of geological evidence for catastrophism. Geologists believed in Uniformitarianism and had to be brought to the catastrophic world kicking and screaming, but they are here now and only disagree on how many years ago it happened and of course no credit is given to V.
AnotherHeretic, this is exactly the kind of thing Amedeus was talking about. You speak in terms like “One of your allies” … “your own guys” … and numerous earlier, similar examples. You seem to group every single person who is against Velikovsky, or who doesn’t think that mainstream scientists attack non-conformist scientists unfairly, into a single unified group. As though “we” are all one vast hive-mind conspiracy out to get you.
Each of “us” is as much different from the other, as you are different from Velikovsky.
Oh – and with regard to the ketoacidosis thing, Dr_Paprika in the Atkins Diet thread said that he believed ketosis and ketoacidosis are very similar. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I wrote both terms separated by a slash to cover all the possible bases I might have missed, not as an assertion about the specific physiological reaction brought upon by an Atkins-like diet. That part of the discussion really belongs in the Atkins Diet thread, though, not this one.
sturmhauke, You made a bad assumption. I’ve read plenty of definitions of the scientific method. I’ve read debates about the scientific method. I have 20 people posting against me. I don’t even have time to address their points in a basic way let alone follow the links and read them too. Scientific method is very interesting, but it’s made by humans and most definitely improvable upon. If there is intelligent alien life forms out there, and they’ve had science for a million years, perhaps they’ve found many ways to improve upon our idea of the scientific method. If you don’t think that’s a possibility then you are nothing but an arrogant human (from their point of view).
Try to observe a comet that passed by a few thousand years ago.
If your field of expertise is history and you’ve determined that the historical records show that there was a a tenth planet in our past (this is hypothetical so don’t start talking to me about Planet X), it is beyond your field of expertise to develop a hypothesis to explain the phenomena. Doing so will just damage your credibility. (btw, I am anticipating that this will bring up ten arguments against me but so be it).
Someone else here said that prediction is irrelevant in science. Well, one of your guys posted this link and boom, prediction is right there.
Mainstream scientists claim that the earth has maintained the same orbit, I don’t know, guessing now, somewhere around 100,000 to millions of years now. Just for kicks, design an experiment to prove where Earth’s orbit was a mere 50,000 years ago. Do you think it’s possible?
OK, so by this measure Velikovsky looks great. Scientists were bitching him about making predictions. Van Allen Belts, Venus is hot, Radio noises from Jupiter.
Mainstream science at the time was shocked at the Van Allen Belts, thought Venus was freezing and that Jupiter was inert. Who looks good and who looks bad?
The Van Allen Belt? Velikovsky predicted the existence of radiation belts surrounding the Earth before van Allen discovered them in 1958? He predicted the existence of 2 belts of high-energy charged particles trapped in the Earth’s magnetosphere, shaped like toroidal lobes, with the lower belt covering altitudes between 1000 and 6000 km and the upper belt covering altitudes between 15000 and 25000 km?
Or did he just say, “I think there’s some radiation up there somewhere”?
Thank you CalMeacham. I’m sure we will agree on little, :)however I was surprised at how few people came to my defense on the personal attacks (actually, did anyone?). I was expecting tracer who invited me here to ask his friends to tone it down. Therefore I do appreciate your request for decorum though I’m pretty sure it will fail…
Great!! As a non-physicist, I look forward to the challenge of discussing this topic with you. But before I do, I have a couple of questions for you if I can remember them…Dam, forgot the second one but the first is, I’ve heard of this Zero Point Gravity and I’m confused about it. (I posted a topic on this too). Is it really the same as Zero Point Energy? Is it Barry Setterfield who proposed it? I saw some stuff that looked like Creationism on his site and wondered if this could be the same guy as Zero Point Gravity??? Is there some agenda here? Naturally I’m only asking for your opinion. Also, how is this theory being viewed in your community? A) Not viewed at all. B) Ridiculed. C) Some acceptance, some resistance D) Other.
I already find that interesting. What made you read it several times?
Yeah, now that I think back to it, I remember some huge “stretches” there too.
When I get out of this fight I’ve allowed myself to be dragged into I’ll eventually check it out. Care to give a quick summary?
Naturally it is arrogant for an “amateur” to make bold pronouncements. The pronouncement itself does not have much value as it is only a reflection of a belief. However, although I would normally not do something so arrogant, I feel that there is more dogma in science than people realize and that sometimes it takes an outsider to see the forest for the trees.
People who were born and bred thinking the world is flat, even scientists, would have trouble changing their world view overnight. An outsider who has less invested in a particular worldview can sometimes make a discovery that an insider may not see.
So far you’ve shown no arrogance at all! Thank you for that. As opposed to some others who HAVE shown arrogance, it would have bothered me less from you as a physicist. Your humility and approach is a testament to your fine character…
Yes. I agree with that and that appalled me too when I read him. He often made BOLD assertions as fact, or “MUST BE” and it was plain old arrogance to do this and “not in the spirit of science” … it definitely cost him a lot in credibility.
I can see that in some cases…
Since it’s been over 10 years since I read him, I’d like to read him again before I agree with that characterization wholeheartedly, but at least for the sake of argument let’s stipulate this…
That has been alleged many times but isn’t true. He has consulted many experts. A lot of them feared their name being associated with him because his work was fire.
I’d have to look that up but that evidence would have showed up in Earth in Upheaval.
I wouldn’t agree with that.
About Venus and Jupiter I’d like to make a quick comment. I’ve mentioned that I didn’t think that he should have gone into explanations of which planet did what, or even assert that Venus was a comet. He should have let the evidence speak for itself rather than stretching and drawing conclusions. Having said that, there are 2 aspects of his work I find interesting particularly and they are very different.
1 is the evidence for catastrophic events in human times. He has provided lots of evidence even granted that you question if he did it scientifically or if it’s valid. Personally I find a lot of it persuasive, of course it is a debatable point. But if you sum up his case using the historical record, and add in Earth in Upheaval for the geological record, the basic tenet of his case is that the Solar System is more catastrophic of a place than it is this happy Sun with a smiley face on it. Lots of shit happens and a lot of it can be bad. In 1953 this was certainly heresy. Today it is largely accepted other than the part of it happening during human times. So from the 1950s to the year 2000, the central tenet has 50% borne out. You can argue whether he got there scientifically or not, but I submit that it is worth further study because his world view was closer to the truth than Shapley, Sagan Gaposhkin and basically almost all astronomers / Geologists etc in 1953.
Further, he asked some good questions. Today we are an “advanced” civilization. How come today the average bloke doesn’t know how to find Saturn yet the ancients talked about it as if it were huge in the night sky? It’s a tiny dot for God’s sake!! And the jolts of lightning from Jupiter? From his reading of ancient history, he felt that Venus, Jupiter and Saturn were not always as far from us as they are now. One reason for his Radio noises from Jupiter (to partially answer the Doc as well) was that Velikovsky thought Jupiter was a seething electromagnetic storm on the strength of eyewitness accounts on Earth. Regardless of his arrogance and how silly that idea sounds it does follow logically from his theory. Mainstream scientists thought Jupiter was inert…Radio noises DOES support his theory.
You can argue that he didn’t do a “scientific” job of getting there. But I don’t think you’re being fair if you say that it doesn’t support his view…
2 is his idea of the Electric Universe. How did he get there? Well part of it was from the Jolts from Jupiter as I stated. Part of it was wondering why all the planets lined up so evenly. He did read a lot on celestial mechanics, and he had unnamed backup from Astronomer Lloyd Motz to “check out” his view of Celesital Mechanics. (Not to say that Motz agreed with him, and I won’t go into further detail without docs in front of me to quote from, but he didn’t go it alone…) He did understand Laplacian Celestial Mechanics but felt that electromagnetism was missing from the picture and had an alternative reasoning for the “flat planetary alignment” than LaPlace’s explanation. He also researched Newton and his contemporaries, Kepler and his contemporaries, and as I’ve stated before, Kepler and Newton didn’t have the light bulb.
In the link to the archive, V did have discussions with Einstein about how electromagnetism can work in space. Radio noises from Jupiter also helped explain his electric universe.
Interestingly, today Birkeland currents are being proposed to explain electromagnetism in the universe. Plasma Physics…
As an aside, I just remember the second thing I wanted to run by you as a physicist. I have found the electric universe question vs or in conjunction with gravity very interesting…
It “makes sense” empirically that 2 objects cannot occupy the same space. A repulsive force also makes “sense”. When 2 objects collide, attempting to occupy the same space at the same time, they “push” each other away. Magnetism, or a “pull” just doesn’t “feel” logical
Do you know what I mean? Why would object A, far away from object B, cause it to come closer? An “attractive” force. Gravity too is an attractive force. Again, it just doesn’t seem logical.
I’ve thought a lot about it and came up with the idea that rather than an attractive force, perhaps there is actually something pushing all objects in all directions. Kind of like an all pervasive water pressure. How would an underwater fish ever even know that air existed or that the “weight” of the water around him (which the fish probably doesn’t even notice water much like we don’t notice air unless there is none ) is exerting a force on him? Maybe we live in such a universal aquarium? And gravity is actually working differently. Perhaps in fact 2 objects are “pushed” together by an outside pressure that is “blocked” by mass? So 2 masses would seem to “attract” each other when in fact they are being pushed together. I don’t know if I’ve explained this well?
I have asked a couple of scientists about this and actually found out that there is such a theory out there in some form…there’s even a website about it…
Anyways, coming back to Velikovsky, he seemed to feel that gravity and electromagnetism were related. And from my point of view of the “weirdness” of attractive forces, of which they exist in both, I have to wonder if he wasn’t right that Kepler and Newton would have incorporated electricty in their explanation for gravity…
You know, I agree with you. I wish the work was properly done. This is the basis of what I’m trying to say. I believe there is much value in his work. But it needs to be done point by point, without the BOLD ASSERTIONS as fact and without the arrogance but ALSO without the type of nasty ridicule and personal attacks found here in this very thread or witch hunting of Shapley or hatchetjobbing of Sagan and Gaposchkin.
But I suspect that you did find some value in the book otherwise why read it so often? Maybe not, I’m just asking…
I can understand and respect your view.
well…
Thanks for the info. Note that I already retracted my claim…
Overall, you made some great points and I admit it. Again, I’m not out to prove V. I’m out for the truth. When there’s a non-scientific analysis like Sagan’s done, I’ll say it loudly but when a guy comes in with a good critique, I’ll admit it…
Sounds great. Are you looking to do an honest view or another top 10 list which is only looking for where he was wrong, ignores the context and overall message of what he’s saying and is just a witch hunt? If you plan to do a balanced job, bravo, if you want a witch hunt, don’t bother. LOT’s of people have done that already.
BTW, what’s your take on Arp? I guess you’re an astronomer so you are the perfect person to ask…
Persian year used to be called 360 days. later 5 “gatha” days were added.
Old Babylonian year. 360 days.
Assyrian year, 360 days.
Hebrew calendar used to be 360 days.
Egyptian calendar was 360 days. 5 days were later added.
Ancient Romans, 360 days.
Mayan Year, 360 days.
Ancient China. 360 day year. When they added 5 1/4 days to their year they tried to add it to their geometry too.
So the conventional mainstream point of view is what, that all these cultures were mistaken in their calculations of the year? You don’t even leave room that the solar year perhaps possibly used to be different?
Thank you very much for the kind reply. It has been years since I read most of Velikovsky, although I have reread some portions recently. The reason for that is my own work on astronomical events and myth. I’ve been doing work on the myth of Phaethon, and I wanted to see Velikovski’s “take” on it. It may hearten you to know that a lot of other folks – a LOT of others, including Goethe – have argued that the myth refers to an ancient observation of a meteorite fall. I personally feel that it does not, but I certainly cannot prove this. More to the point, I don’t think the suggestion absurd.
I think that Velikovsky did have a valid point in considering electromagnetic forces in the solar system, but that his suggestion of electrostatic attraction between the planets is clearly incorrect. He suggested that the voltage differencxe between bodies would cause great discharges – lightning flashes – between them if they ever approached. He even taklks of such flashes during his supposed close approaches of Mars and Venus. But there have been no such discharges between planetary probes and any planet or moon they’ve been sent to. Velikovsky didn’t have that information, of course, but there were other reasons to think such a charge imbalance would not be present. I would think that any physicist he approached would have mentioned this.
No. It is huge. Step out your door just after sunset, the next clear day, and look at Jupiter and Saturn. Compared to any star that is visible, they are huge. (The same is true for Venus.)
As to the red herring about people in our society not being able to find Saturn, it has no basis. My children specifically asked what Saturn and Jupiter were when they recently became visible in the Western sky because they were unused to seeing objects that size that were not airplanes. Modern people do not know where the stars are for the simple reason that Thomas Edison and Nikolai Telsa have flooded our cities and farms with night-diminishing light and the TV has dragged all the potential night watchers indoors to watch Survivor II.
Mistaken? No. Faced with a problem of creating a calendar that was “workable” to their mathematics, they generally selected the easily manipulated 360 day period and “tacked on” the last five days.
As to your numbers, Persia borrowed from (and corrected) the Assyrian that was borrowed from the Babylonian. The Babylonian calendar was directly affected by the mathematics and numerology noted, above, and in the link to the 360 degree circle. I have never heard of a 360 day Hebrew calendar (which has always been lunar). The presence of the intercalary month indicates that the ancient Hebrews knew that their lunar year needed to be reconciled to a solar one, but we do not have clear information about how that originally occurred.
The Mayan year was 365 days (their Long Cycle calendar would utterly fail if it was based on 360 days). (They had a series of reckoning periods that used, 1, 20, 360, 7,200, and 144,000 days, but the 360 day tun was never used in the meaning of “year” any more than the 20 day unital “meant” either week or month.
The Roman calendar was never 360 days: It has had periods varying between 304 and 366 1/4 (with constant modifications), but never actually used 360.
The Egyptians also never had a 360 day year. Their original lunar calendar was reconciled to the position of the star Sirius (with its apparent 365 day cycle) and their first solar calendar had 365 days.
I am not familiar with the Chinese or Indian calendars, but based on the errors in the statements regarding the Hebrews, Romans, and Egyptians, I would like to see some evidence that the Indians and Chinese really had a 360 day year before I accept it.
Given that the Egyptians had a 365 day year contemporaneous with the Babylonian 360 day year, it needs extraordinary evidence that the length of the year changed, rather than extraordinary evidence as to why “so many” cultures had a 360 day year (when, in fact, they did not).
In my opinion mainstream science is like a gang. If you want to join, you get “jumped” and beat up as an initiation rite. But once you are in, you are in.
IMHO, Velikosky and Creation Science know they can never survive the beating, so they just pretend to the public that they are in the gang.
If Velikovsky wanted to be taken seriously, he should have found someone to put some small part of his theory on a mathematical footing and published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
Mostly because the wrong questions have been coming up.
The right questions would be along these lines:
Is there something of a non-scientific nature in Velikovsky’s work that might give someone reading him ideas for serious research in various fields?
Give me an example of a scientific theory postulated by Velikovsky that you feel has not been adiquately dealt with by the scientific community. Even AnotherHeretic admits he is flakey in spots. Well give a place where he is not flakey and lets look at it.
Is there currently a specialty in the sciences that looks at diverse scientific theories in different disciplines and tries to reconcile them? Combining Geology, Chemestry, Physics and Astronomy for example. Is that what you think Velikovsky was doing? Is there a need for such a role in science if one does not currently exist?
Also you can not debunk a person as I have often seen suggested in this thread. Nore can you debunk a body of work. You can only debunk a false claim. No matter the volumn of work it cannot be dismissed as a whole by rejecting it’s most outlandish items. An individual might deem the body of work no longer worth their while but no statement of fact can be made about the entire body from this evidence.
I think most posters are trying to say that given the exposure they have had to Velikovsky’s work they have decided that so much of it has been proven to be worthless that their time would not be well spent in trying to winnow out any theoretical grains of truth from the bushels of chaff. If the resident expert would care to divulge a specific theory as described in #2 above we can then take a look at whether the grains he has found are indeed grains or just small round chaff.
Except I’d modify it slightly: It’s not so much “you” that gets beat up as your hypotheses. If you want your hypothesis to join the gang, it gets jumped and beat up as an initiation rite. Hypotheses too fragile to survive the beating, of course, don’t make it. But once it’s in, it’s in.
First of all, for the third time yesterday I was responding to threads and it seems the straight dope closes at 4:30 am eastern, crashing a long reply I had written <sigh>. I hate when that happens, so I’ll make this brief…
Alright, I’ll have to give you references, which will take some time. But just to tackle the Mayas, you said they had a 365 day year. Although of the three people who had something of value to add to the discussion without namecalling, I did agree with a lot of their “beefs” with Velikovsky. I had those same beefs while reading the book, I didn’t change my mind based on critiques in the press, just so we’re clear…
I did still feel that Velikovsky had something to offer despite these problems I had with his work, but I pretty much dismissed the Venus aspect of it.
Upon visiting Mexico and every pyramid I could, I started to see Venus displayed in a way that made me think twice. I started to do more reading. One of the books was the Popul Vuh. There was most definitely a reference to a 360 days year in the Popul Vuh. You’ll find it towards the end. And you’ll note that the Mayan calendar has a named day for every solar and every lunar day of the year. This is true for 360 solar days. There are 5 unnamed solar days (of ill omen as I recall). I’ve seen this myself in Mexico. Are you ready to retract that one? (I have to ask because of the 20 + opponents I have here, 95% + of them aren’t very good at retractions )
As to the Hebrew calendar, it is lunar, you are right. V.'s evidence of the 360 day year was not as clear cut as some of the others, however, there are indications of a 360 day year in the past. Rather than go through V’s version, I know a VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE talmudic scholar who I am meeting today to go to the airport and will ask him about it and get back to you…
On the Egyptian, as I recall there is a similarity to the Mayan Calendar, 5 unnamed days 360 named days.
BTW, “Faced with a problem of creating a calendar that was “workable” to their mathematics, they generally selected the easily manipulated 360 day period and “tacked on” the last five days.” does not answer the fact that the popul vuh CLEARLY says 360 days. The Maya were pretty anal about their calendar. They were very exacting. Look at how their buildings were so well co-ordinated that at a very particular time, the sun creates a shadow in the pattern of a snake, or passes through the hole between 2 arches.
I’ll grant that your answer is POSSIBLE, but it seems very flimsy to me. They showed tremendous skill in building these buildings. I mean they were able to get such tremendous effects playing off the sun that MIScalculating the year, it would only make their mathemathics HARDER not easier. If I were you, I’d say a 5 day mistake is more plausible than a 5 day tacked on to make the math easier…math doesn’t get easier with WRONG calculations… Beyond building these buildings, how does 5 unnamed days make their math EASIER? Forget the circle, because I’m not talking about the circle, we’re talking the year. Make a name for every day and then have no name for 5 days and I seem to remember reading that just by accident the Egyptians also have 5 unnamed days…
OK, re: borrowing, let’s make your life easier, I’ll stipulate that we can combine babylonian, assyrian and Persian calendars as coming from the same source…
BTW, I just did a search on 360 day year and the first page gives some reference about a Hebrew 360 day year. Let’s NOT stipulate that the source is good, but it’s interesting reading as it quotes Newton:
"However, when we turn to the Scriptures we discover that the biblical-prophetic year consisted of 360 days. Abraham, the father of Israel, continued to use the 360-day year, which was known in his home in Ur of the Chaldees. The Genesis account of the flood in the days of Noah illustrated this 360-day year by recording the 150-day interval till the waters abated from the earth. The 150 days began on the seventeenth day of the second month, and ended on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Genesis 7:11,24 and 8:3-4). In Other words, the five months consisted of thirty days each; therefore, twelve months would equal 360 days (12 x 30 = 360 days).
Sir Isaac Newton stated, “All nations, before the just length of the solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon, and years by the return of winter and summer, spring and autumn; and in making calendars for their festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months to a years, taking the nearest round numbers, whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 degrees.” ( Anderson, Robert. The Coming Prince. London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1894. )
The truth about the biblical 360 day year as mentioned by Newton was quoted by Sir Robert Anderson in his book, The Coming Prince, page 68. This was not a new discovery by Sir Isaac Newton in the late 1600’s or even by Sir Robert Anderson in 1895. It was clearly discussed in detail by Christian, Julias Africanus in his Chronology in his explanation of the fulfillment of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, written about A.D. 240."
For the Roman calendar once being 360 days:
Plutarch. (A.D. 75) Lives, The Life of Numa. Translated by John Dryden. “During the reign of Romulus …they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days.”
Oh, let’s come back to the Egyptians. Samuel Goudsmit wrote a book called time, and did mention Sirius as well, but also on page 69 of his book “They also kept a separate year made up of 12 fixed 30-day months…Later, to make their lunar year jibe almost precisely with Sirius’ rising, they tacked five extra days onto the year”
Do you still stand by your original “explanation”? (I’m sure you do, but if so we can count how many cultures made the same “mistake” or how did you call it, rounding to make the math easier. What a coincidence!)
For the other posts, I’ll try to come back to it tonight ciao.
tracer: *I am not familiar with the Chinese or Indian calendars, but based on the errors in the statements regarding the Hebrews, Romans, and Egyptians, I would like to see some evidence that the Indians and Chinese really had a 360 day year before I accept it. *
You won’t find it, because it ain’t there. As I pointed out on the old “360 degrees in a circle” thread that JonF linked to, Velikovsky and his followers seem to have misunderstood the notion of the ancient 360-day “ideal year”. We see various references in a number of ancient cultures to a year of twelve months of thirty days each (probably originating in ancient Mesopotamia and spreading out from there in the ancient world). But whenever we see the 360-day year mentioned in the context of a practical calendar that maintains the connections between dates and seasons, we always see references to intercalary months too—the “leap months” that were inserted when necessary to keep the calendar and the seasons on track.
So the mere mention of a 360-day year does not imply that there was no practical need for intercalation, any more than our own frequent references to our having 365 days in a year imply that we don’t really have a leap day almost every four years. To imply what Velikovsky wanted to believe, we’d have to have an unambiguous statement, from ancient records testifying to a solid understanding of how to measure the length of the year, to the effect that “there are always 360 days between successive occurrences of a solstice (or an equinox), and no addition of extra days is ever necessary.”
Even if we did know of such a statement, I wouldn’t be inclined to consider it reliable disproof of all the well-supported modern astronomical theories that maintain that the earth’s revolution and rotation have not changed so significantly in historical time. But it would at least constitute some historical evidence in favor of an alternative theory, such as Velikovsky’s. As it happens, though, no such statement has been found in the historical sources that Velikovskians like to cite, and misinterpreting references to the 360-day intercalated year is not an adequate substitute for such a statement. (I gave lots of cites about this in my posts in the earlier thread, so I won’t repeat them here.)
ANOTHER well reasoned post. OK, for number 2, let’s start as I did with the 360 day vs 365 day year.
There are others too, but let’s not get over our heads with this group
What has bothered me a lot both here and in most places I’ve read about the controversy is that mainstream isn’t being fair, iow, admitting IT’S mistakes.
If I were to debunk an “idea” of Von Daniken’s, or showed where he may have not been honest, and I F***ed up, I would be SOOOO emabarassed, but I’d be honest about it, own up to it and say so. None of my opponents here ever owned up to the awful pseudoscientific “debunking” done of Velikovsky by Sagan and Gaposhckin. If you are trying to promote the TRUE nature of science, whose ultimate goal is or should be to seek the TRUTH, you have to be HONEST about the mistakes and go out of your way to admit when you make one, ESPECIALLY when debunking because that is where your credibility is needed the most. The way mainstream handles these things with a snobby attitude is why people don’t trust them. Take acupuncture. Anecdotally, people have been saying for years that it worked but mainstream science has said that it’s baloney. I don’t know exactly where it stands now, but in recent years I’ve heard that a lot of doctors say it does help, that apparently there is research done that proves that it helps even though the mechanism is not understood. Similar story for what’s the called again when they adjust your back…geez forgot the name. Anyways, some health insurance covers it sometimes so clearly some medical professionals believe it has some value.
As you can see, I go out of my way to admit when I think Velikovsky is wrong. You can think me confused, misguided, a fool, but not of being intellectually dishonest because I come clean with my mistakes. Someone here said that Straight Dope is about stamping out ignorance. To do so, and gain credibility among people who believe in Astrology, Graham Hancock, Daniken and there are a lot more of them watching this place than you might think…you need to be honest. If they see you won’t admit you’re wrong, then they can go about their beliefs comfortably without checking facts…
To gain credibility with me, my opponents would have to admit the wrongdoing of a Sagan without making any excuses for him just like I don’t make excuses for V.'s mistakes… If you can’t do that, why should I trust you when you come to me with calculations on Celestial Mechanics “disproving V” or some other specialty when I know that you didn’t have the guts to admit the obvious mistakes of a guy like Sagan.
It “ain’t” huh? Look at the post above yours for the correct answer.
That’s very patronizing, but that’s ok I’m used to it .
Misunderstood and disagreed are not the same.
I UNDERSTAND and DON’T AGREE with your explanation.
Good tactic. First deny the existence of the evidence then admit the evidence and spin away. This is fun.
Agreed, they don’t imply there was no need for intercalation. But the solar year is 365 1/4 days not 360. A solar year of 360 days implies a solar year of 360 days. You’re saying that the ancients around the globe did not understand the solar year? Say it!
You want everything on a silver plate don’t you And even then, what would you do…
Ah, so you’re covering your ass just in case ALL your proofs are provided by someone. Very clever. Mainstream science at work. Evidence doesn’t exist. Well, some evidence exists, but it doesn’t mean anything because they didn’t bother to say things in exactly the words I choose, and by the way, even if they do, it’s wrong anyways because the evidence doesn’t even weigh in, the astronomical evidence is well supported. So you won’t even HONESTLY LOOK at other evidence will you?
See, this IS a waste of time. You can have all the evidence you want and it won’t matter.
Alright, I’ll be fair to you even though you won’t be fair to me. Just what is the “well-supported” evidence for modern astronomical theories that maintain that the easrth’s revolution have not changed so significantly in historical time?
Ah, some decency finally. Although since you never expect your standards to be met, just like a Hot Venus, Radio noises from Jupiter were not expected to be met, you are FINALLY willing to say that it would at least constitue some historical evidence in favor of an alternative theory, such as Velikovsky’s. But if such evidence was found, then you would probably act in much the same way that Sagan did, and you STILL would not admit it.
I’m a human not a velikovskian . I would appreciate if you were polite enough not to use that term as Velikovsky was a human being not a race .
But if you insist on being rude, don’t worry, I can take it
To summarize, that is certainly a more plausible explanation than provided earlier. It is not the ONLY explanation but it is better and I expected someone to come up with a better one. Because if you folks admit that there was a 360 day year, a lot of scientific theories are in trouble.
I think the question deserves more study, but unlike you, I LIKE to look at anomalies rather than attempt to be satisfied in what is KNOWN. The OPPORTUNITY is in the anomalies my dear Watson .
I wish I had my books with me for some citations and to jog my memory, but there was s famous catalog of anomalous galaxies and the old time astronomers hated looking at it because, geez, I forgot their reasons, but basically they didn’t want to see these extraordinary examples. They wanted to view “mainstream” galaxies that conformed to what they knew. I wish I could cite the quote exactly. Anyways, it reminds me of you. Instead of being fascinated by the 360 day year and viewing it as an opportunity to study further, it scares you and you try to explain it away any way you can. I don’t CARE if it turns out to be false or not. I’m not TRYING to make the facts go either way. I’m just not satisfied by the mainstream explanation and don’t want to be enslaved by the blinders you put on yourself…
You have a solar year and a lunar year. The solar year was universally not related to the changing of seasons, and then within several hundred years, they ALL decided to change to a 365 day year, huh? 5 DAYS off from the seasons, huh? Not a small amount is it? I think you are stretching to make the facts fit your world view, I am not stretching because I am undecided. I find it odd that this 360 day years was picked so universally, I am unsatisfied by your explanation and I think an alternative explanation needs to be offered. You disagree. That doesn’t make you right. Neither side will prove anything to the other. At least I have the integrity to admit that there is some logic to your explanation, even if it’s a stretch. You won’t even grant the POSSIBILITY that there is an alternate explanation. Close minded. But that’s OK.
Relax, there’s a physicist a Doc and a bunch of intelligent people on your side who are much more rational and much less emotional than you to help you out. I suggest you step aside and let the pros fight with me 
.