 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsSpace ScienceAstronomyAmateur AstronomySpace FlightSpace StationShuttleSpace HistorySpace PolicySETI SpaceKB.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Space Forum / Astronomy / August 2008Sagan's True Legacy - Stamps of Approval
Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? Back in February, Cornell ran a story about proposed US postage stamps featuring Carl Sagan. Here it is again... > http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Feb08/sagan.stamps.aj.html > > Cornell Chronicle Online > > Feb. 12, 2008 > > Proposed Carl Sagan commemorative stamps unveiled at Ithaca > Sciencenter > By Anne Ju <amj8 at cornell.edu> > > A movement to immortalize famed Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan with a > U.S. postage stamp was launched Feb. 11 for local media at the Ithaca > Sciencenter. > > Patrick Fish, founder of the Utica-based grassroots Sagan Appreciation > Society, and Charles Trautmann, executive director of the Sciencenter, > unveiled four renderings by three artists or artist teams of proposed > Sagan memorial stamps that the society plans to submit to the U.S. > Postal Service for commissioning. > > [Carl Sagan stamp] > Sciencenter/Provided > Design by artists Lisa Hutter and Chris Fix at the Center for Inquiry > in > Amherst, N.Y. The image is based on a copyrighted photo by Michael > Okoniewski of Syracuse, N.Y. > > [Carl Sagan stamp] > Sciencenter/Provided > Artist Pat Linse of California submitted two versions of this design. > > "As Carl was America's science popularizer, it seems fitting that he > be > bestowed with a populist kind of honor," Fish said. "Carl wasn't just > an > astronomer, physicist and the world's pre-eminent science teacher. He > was arguably the first exobiologist, one of the fathers of > global-warming awareness, a peacemaker and a brilliant author who > could > make science sound like poetry." > > Trautmann read a statement by Sagan's widow, author Ann Druyan, at the > media launch. She described how Sagan had been an avid stamp collector > as a boy and how that interest was perhaps early evidence of his > "passion for the diversity of Earth's cultures." > > [Carl Sagan stamp] > Sciencenter/Provided > Design by artist Greg Mort, a native of Syracuse, N.Y. > > "So this particular tribute to Carl would have held special > significance > for him, as it does for me," Druyan said in the statement. > > The Sagan Appreciation Society initiated the process in 2007 when > artists Greg Mort, Pat Linse, Lisa Hutter and Chris Fix began creating > preliminary stamp designs. > > The process for getting a stamp approved by the U.S. government is an > arduous one, and there are no guarantees of success. Designs must be > submitted and approved by a 14-member Citizens' Stamp Advisory > Committee, which meets four times per year. If approved, it can take > years before the stamp is printed. > > The Sciencenter will host a gala event, Feb. 28, its 25th anniversary > celebration, during which the Sagan stamp designs will be unveiled > officially to the public. Meanwhile, people are encouraged to begin > petitioning the U.S. Postal Service for the stamp designation or to > sign > a petition through the Sagan Appreciation Society. > > For more information on the stamp selection criteria, visit > http://www.usps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm. > > ## > > Cornell Chronicle: > Anne Ju > (607) 255-9735 > email: amj8 at cornell.edu > Media Contact: > Press Relations Office > (607) 255-6074 > email: pressoffice at cornell.edu > Related Information: > Commemorative stamp guidelines > <http://www.usps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm> > > Sagan Appreciation Society <http://www.saganappreciationsociety.org/> Carl Sagan changed the face of astronomy radically. It will be interesting to see where his magnificent influence will lead! happy days and... starry starry nights!  SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net > Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? > [quoted text clipped - 98 lines] > happy days and... > starry starry nights! If they put Sagans' mug on a stamp, it should be right next to Immanuel Velikovsky's face. Those two should be portrayed cheek to cheek as a reminder that Sagan, like Torquemada before him, had another side - a not so noble one... Greysky >> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? >> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Greysky Please explain, Greysky. I have no clue what you're on about. happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net > >> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net They (aka DARPA Zionists/Nazis) simply do not like independent or much less deductive thoughts. ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth In article <94cd2800-e4b0-4d4e-a17b-931c62a02490@z6g2000pre.googlegroups.com>, > > >> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? > > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Please explain, Greysky. I have no clue what you're > > on about. > They (aka DARPA Zionists/Nazis) simply do not like independent or much > less deductive thoughts. Apparently you have never read or comprehended any of Carl Sagan's books. Why am I not surprised? (BTW, Sagan's criticisms of Velikovsky's hypotheses also apply to yours.) SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. Who's deductive thoughts, BradBoi? lmfjao! Sagan's, or yours? Saul Levy >They (aka DARPA Zionists/Nazis) simply do not like independent or much >less deductive thoughts. > > ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth >>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? >>> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > happy days and... > starry starry nights! Hi Paine, If you want depth, google the velikovsky affair. In short, Sagan hated velikovskies book Worlds in Collision, and resorted to every dirty underhanded way he could dredge up to slur velikovsky. He makes Art Deko look like a tooth fairy in comparison. Now, I have no problem with someone who may disagree with a theory, but Sagan felt that the only way to respond to Velikovsky was to totally destroy him personally, not just to argue the points of Velikovskies theory on its own merits. If he could have, Sagan would have lit Velikovsky up like a torch and gleefully roasted marshmallows over his burning body. Sagan acted much like a sadistic, power mad brute. It really doesn't matter to what heights Sagan reached after he torched V, this chapter in his life will always be a shameful one. Sagan lowered himself and there isn't any way to forget, or to salvage his tarnished rep because of it... Greysky > If you want depth, google the velikovsky affair. In short, Sagan hated > velikovskies book Worlds in Collision, Sagan and other scientists had serious doubts about Velikovsky's methods and hypotheses. It's been shown that Velikovsky's strange proposed orbital behavior of Venus would violate conservation of momentum. > and resorted to every dirty > underhanded way he could dredge up to slur velikovsky. Like what? > He makes Art Deko > look like a tooth fairy in comparison. Now, I have no problem with someone [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > there isn't any way to forget, or to salvage his tarnished rep because of > it... I think there's a bit of hyperbole in that description. Can you point to any scientific truth behind Velikovsky's proposal? SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. >>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? >>>> [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > shameful one. Sagan lowered himself and there isn't any way to forget, or > to salvage his tarnished rep because of it... Immanuel Velikovsky was a crank. More than that, he was what might be called a "supercrank" or even a "hypercrank". Nobody has done more damage to astronomy than this man... ". . . a stupendous panorama of terrestrial and human histories. . . ." New York Herald Tribune ". . . fascinating as a tale by Jules Verne, yet documented with a scholarship worthy of Darwin." Reader's Digest "If you want an intellectual jolt read WORLDS IN COLLISION by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky." Book of the Month Club News ". . . will have an explosive effect on the world of science." This Week "Startling, astounding, amazing and certainly revolutionary story of the universe." Dallas Times-Herald "It could be a book that will affect the thinking of the ages." Louisville Courier-Journal "A strange and wonderful book." Detroit News "Gigantic, sensational, staggering." Glasgow (Scotland) Daily Record "Nothing in recent years has so excited the public imagination." Pageant "His final conclusions are even world shaking." Newsweek These are all review highlights that refer to _Worlds In Collision_ by Velikovsky. College students, astronomy students, hell even a few astronomy PROFESSORS were magnetically attracted to Velikovsky's "work". Velikovsky was a major supercrank. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Sagan risked everything for the good cause of squelching pseudoscience and unveiling Truth. For this Sagan should be remembered fondly and greatly admired! happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net >>>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 91 lines] > happy days and... > starry starry nights! A mere shallow examination of those reviews might reveal Sagan may have been motivated by a bit of envy.... but then some of his literary works recieved pretty good reviews as well. I'm not saying Sagan should have been nice with his criticisms, but that is still no excuse to 'break the law'. It's the same kind of reasoning the Church used to torture heretics, but at least they were claiming it was for their own good... sagan can't say that. He wasn't trying to reclaim V, just destroy him by any means he could. You say desperate times call for desperate measures, Paine. But then we have to ask 'did sagan succeed'? I would say not very well. All he revealed in that episode was how much of a crank he was. But, not 'our' kind of crank, but a more dangerous sort. I think if he were still alive, he would be just as against many of the people on this newsgroup - we would be lit up right alongside V. Me for my quantum FTL radio, Bert for his asking many questions, Oh man, and what about 'flowing space' - yikes! And that's not even including "darla", or the 'andy-dromedians', or any of the other stuff that's made this newsgroup a fun place to hang out in over the years.. Yes, the net fires Sagan would be responsible for would light up the digital environment and would fill many a computer with a thick greasy smoke... when I think of sagan, I think of Uncle Al, Art Deko, Varney, and a host of other 'keepers of the flames', but with sharp fangs, and no hesitation to pick up the phone and try to get you fired or worse. Towards the end of his life when he became a science popularizer he did do some good. Heck, I liked "Cosmos", and some of his books are even on my shelf. But then again I also have 'worlds in collision' up there even though I don't believe a word in it. I do give V the credit for having the intelligence to put it together however. I would say that V didn't do any serious damage to the minds of the reading public - but can I blaim him if others dropped the intellectual / educational ball and V picked it up and ran with it? No. If Sagan came to this conclusion and decided to become a science popularizer in order to battle the mutant ideas put forth by V and others, then we all owe him [V] a debt of gratitude. See, this is why I love the internet. We can have differences of opinion, and still be polite about it. I think the world's big enough for anyone - as long as they keep the Nukes at home :-) Greysky > See, this is why I love the internet. We can have differences of opinion, > and still be polite about it. From the 'big picture' perspective, there emerges a much clearer picture from both sides. > >>>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? > [quoted text clipped - 137 lines] > > Greysky Liar, as in LLPOF. ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth >>>>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? >>>>>> [quoted text clipped - 126 lines] > > Greysky Well, at least we agree on *something*! <g> As for his tooth-and-nail in the "Velikovsky Affair", Sagan was pretty much just echoing the far worse criticisms hurled toward Velikovsky by Shapley. The V-Crank was good, though, he was very, very good. He thought of himself as some sort of hero to astronomy. He even likened himself to Bruno, who had been burned at the stake for his position against geocentrism! Here's the thing... the whole affair hurt both sides very much. It epitomizes just how far science will go to squelch new ideas in an era where capital punishment is no longer an option. And it gives the Jerk List you mentioned and others the personal justification they need to mistreat people all they want if they think the people are cranks. And they sometimes go too far, to be sure. But not in the case of Velikovsky. That hypercrank is THE prime example of someone who really needed to be spanked! And Sagan, Shapley et al. were pretty much able to save the day on that one. (Let's also be reminded of the Great Debate... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_debate Shapley was definitely on the WRONG side in that famous argument!) And yet, just as there are still geocentrists and flat-Earthers walking around, there are STILL enthusiastic V-skee followers to this very day! happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net > Here's the thing... the whole affair hurt both sides > very much. It epitomizes just how far science will [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > are STILL enthusiastic V-skee followers to this very > day! "Science will go [to any length] to squelch new ideas in an era where capital punishment is no longer an option"? What kind of nonsense is that? The fact that Velikovsky's ideas were publicly criticized after he published his book contradicts that statement. The fact that we have idiots like Brad Guth and others presenting all kinds of "new ideas" on these newsgroups, as well as the Dislobbery Institute freely peddling their intellectual garbage and hammering it into laws about public-school science education show that to be an utter lie. Or do you mean that when someone cones up with a "new idea" that doesn't match observations and has no theoretical basis whatsoever, scientists will voice their opinions? That's squelching? If you want squelching of scientific debate, look at the current White House. SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com Official naysayer of the DARPA kind, who knows only of what¹s accepted by the Old Testament of the Zionist/Nazi New World Order which refuses to accept or allow deductive reasoning. >>>>>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? >>>>>>> [quoted text clipped - 133 lines] > Sagan was pretty much just echoing the far worse > criticisms hurled toward Velikovsky by Shapley. Well, that's the thing, I guess. Sagan was on Harlow Shapley's side, and Horace Kallen was on Velikovsky's side. Those two definitly didn't care much for each other... I sometimes think that both Velikovsky and Sagan were both dupes used as hammers by Shaply and Kallen to beat each other up. > The V-Crank was good, though, he was very, very > good. He thought of himself as some sort of hero > to astronomy. He even likened himself to Bruno, > who had been burned at the stake for his position > against geocentrism! Well, if you can't be a legend in your own time, then at least be a legend in your own mind, eh? <G> > Here's the thing... the whole affair hurt both sides > very much. It epitomizes just how far science will [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > justification they need to mistreat people all they > want if they think the people are cranks. Too true. Physics, or science in general shouldn't be a blood sport. I also think if Acadamea had not reacted the way it did, Velikovsky would have faded away much quicker than he is... > And they sometimes go too far, to be sure. But not > in the case of Velikovsky. That hypercrank is THE > prime example of someone who really needed to be > spanked! E-gads, that is imagery I could do without - Velikovsky bent over, getting a spanking by an angry Sagan! You almost made me spill my Pepsi into my keyboard :-) Well, if both men are today in Hell for their respective sins while in life, I guess we now know what they are doing for all of eternity.... > And Sagan, Shapley et al. were pretty > much able to save the day on that one. (Let's also [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > are STILL enthusiastic V-skee followers to this very > day! Even Albert Einstein knew of velikovsky and read and reread his works, and seems to have kept a level head. For an interesting read, see: http://www.kronia.com/library/journals/ethics.txt I merely say that if a serious debate can't be civil, then it can't be intellectually effective, only emotional. It is this logic that was thrown away in the velikovsky affair, and that is why even today, V still gets emotions raised. If they (scientists in general) had remembered this while they demolished Velikovsky, then it [Worlds in Collision] would probably be ancient history today. So, I say yes by all means, raise objections to someones' work, but remain professional and logical. Sagan may have felt good doing an Uncle Al on Mr. V. but he did everyone a disservice in the long run...even himself. Greysky > . . . E-gads, that is imagery I could do without - Velikovsky bent over, > getting a spanking by an angry Sagan! You almost made me spill my Pepsi > into my keyboard :-) <g> "Almost" *does* sometimes count. happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net > >>>>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? > [quoted text clipped - 172 lines] > > P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net Greysky is just another hypocrite and liar, as in LLPOF and intellectually bipolar to suit. As long as the proverbial sh.t isn’t hitting your fan, all is well and good with the cosmos. Obviously you each think the past, present and future is just perfectly fine and dandy as is. You’re also saying that you wouldn’t have changed a damn thing even if you could. Of our governments and their faith-baste puppet-masters have been telling us what and how to interpret or otherwise think about most everything from the very get go, and your passive mindset thinks that’s the way it should be as long as “they keep the Nukes at home”. Sadly, there are far worse having taken place and new worse sorts of things taking place than nukes. Excluding evidence plus topic/author stalking and the orchestrated and/or systematic banishment of the best available truth(s) is apparently still the best failsafe way for Greysky and of most other snookered and dumbfounded souls to go. It seems most folks here in this Usenet/newsgroup land of mostly nayism as to anything that’s new and improved or merely revised are extremely bigoted (intellectually racist), having no honorable intentions of ever changing (at least not for the better), and it’s folks exactly like yourself making that possible by not holding those responsible for their actions or accounting for honest history as based upon the best available information and science. btw, being wrong isn't quite the same thing as being a certified born- again liar on behalf of sustaining the mainstream status quo. Mainstream science going out of its way in order to avoid, banish or terminate new and improved ideas is what's not only wrong, but it's also what gives their resident warlords and faith-based groups the sorts of expertise and talent they need in order to further dominate this planet. ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > Greysky is just another hypocrite and liar, as in LLPOF and > intellectually bipolar to suit. [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth That's a rather uncanny anticipation, Brad. I'm going along, reading your rant above, and thinking all the while, 'Man! how wrong can one person actually BE?' And then i get to your "btw" paragraph just above. I would have to agree with you on that, and yet, being wrong still doesn't make you right just because you're somehow opposed to others who are also wrong. You are still just as wrong as you would be otherwise. However, it is right for you to continue the good fight. You and others who read you might learn something along the way. happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net > > Greysky is just another hypocrite and liar, as in LLPOF and > > intellectually bipolar to suit. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > telling us what and how to interpret or otherwise think about most > > everything from the very get go, Actually, if you've paid any attention, there's been a great deal of disagreement between our government and the scientific community. One after another, a government agency releases some scientific proclamation, only to be rebutted by dozens of scientists (who then proceed to present real evidence contrary to the party line). Your notion of some government/scientific cabal, like most of your harebrained ideas, is lacking in minor details such as factual accuracy. > > and your passive mindset thinks > > that’s the way it should be as long as “they keep the Nukes at home”. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > available truth(s) is apparently still the best failsafe way for > > Greysky and of most other snookered and dumbfounded souls to go. The intended meaning of that ramble is not clear. > > It seems most folks here in this Usenet/newsgroup land of mostly > > nayism as to anything that’s new and improved or merely revised are The problem with that characterization is that what Brad has proposed is not "improved" except for shades of meaning of the word that tend toward "degraded". > > extremely bigoted (intellectually racist), having no honorable > > intentions of ever changing (at least not for the better), Brad, if you were presented evidence that required you to change your mind about a closely-held idea, wold you? I would ... and have done. > > and it’s > > folks exactly like yourself making that possible by not holding those > > responsible for their actions or accounting for honest history as > > based upon the best available information and science. Painius, you seem to be accused of something here. > > btw, being wrong isn't quite the same thing as being a certified born- > > again liar on behalf of sustaining the mainstream status quo. > > > > Mainstream science going out of its way in order to avoid, banish or > > terminate new and improved ideas The problem with that characterization is that what Brad has proposed is not "improved" except for shades of meaning of the word that tend toward "degraded". > > is what's not only wrong, but it's > > also what gives their resident warlords and faith-based groups the [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > However, it is right for you to continue the good fight. What is the "good fight"? Does it mean "subbornly pursuing dunderheaded notions despite tons of contrary evidence"? > You and others who read you might learn something > along the way. What do you hope that people will learn? SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. On Aug 16, 7:20 pm, Timberwoof <timberwoof.s...@inferNOnoSPAMsoft.com> wrote: > In article <hzJpk.4886$Mh5.2...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > notion of some government/scientific cabal, like most of your > harebrained ideas, is lacking in minor details such as factual accuracy. For the most part I'm talking about off-world matters, in which the faith-based government mindset is clearly opposed to anything that doesn't fully agree with and support their DARPA/NASA mindset. If I were on a government or civil service payroll (including most any other public funded group or agency), I too would be a very box kind of guy, going very much along with the mainstream flow, and willing to topic/author stalk and bash them pesky outsiders along with the best of you. > > > and your passive mindset thinks > > > that’s the way it should be as long as “theykeep the Nukes at home”. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > The intended meaning of that ramble is not clear. It means sticking within the mainstream box and going along with the mainstream flow is failsafe job and retirement security. > > > It seems most folks here in this Usenet/newsgroup land of mostly > > > nayism as to anything that’s new and improved or merely revised are [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Brad, if you were presented evidence that required you to change your > mind about a closely-held idea, wold you? I would ... and have done. Same goes with me, and I can prove it. Can you provide public funded science that's objective as to raw ice surviving or coexisting in space? (say at the Selene/moon L1 of 1e-21 bar and obviously at 1 AU) > > > and it’s > > > folks exactly like yourself making that possible by not holding those [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > not "improved" except for shades of meaning of the word that tend toward > "degraded". Offering a deductive interpretation of science and that of a much cheaper and cleaner form of our surviving is not of a "word that tend toward "degraded". Are you suggesting that truths should never be known, much less taken advantage of? > > > is what's not only wrong, but it's > > > also what gives their resident warlords and faith-based groups the [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > What do you hope that people will learn? Objective evidence that's peer replicated outside of your mainstream cabal is all that I've ever asked for. Too bad it's so often missing in action, like those 700 large boxes of our DARPA/NASA Apollo missions and their failure to provide one bit of tangible objective evidence that's worthy of being the truth. Even the Mars Phoenix mission is clearly need-to-know, without a raw speck of their mass spectrometer data being shared. The JAXA/Selene mission is clearly getting DARPA/NASA moderated and otherwise having been PhotoShop revised in order to exclude the truth(s) about our moon. Venus is technically survivable, and yet even you and most others refuse to allow applied technology or much less intelligent evolution to accommodate surviving on that toasty planet. Are you suggesting that ET robotics were capable of having created all that I have interpreted about Venus? Unlike yourself, I hope humanity that's running itself out of resources and time will eventually learn the truth(s) about history, about the most current of physics and science, and thereby benefit from a new and improved future, before it's too late. ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > > Greysky is just another hypocrite and liar, as in LLPOF and > > intellectually bipolar to suit. [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] > You and others who read you might learn something > along the way. Unlike most others that already know all there is to know, I have learned much in spite of their lethal intended flack and need-to-know policy. Obviously you also like to pick and choose whatever from a given reply, so as to pretend to miss the overall intent. I’ll revise my rant for the benefit of those perpetually stuck inside the mainstream box. > See, this is why I love the internet. We can have differences of opinion, > and still be polite about it. I think the world's big enough for anyone - as > long as they keep the Nukes at home :-) > > Greysky Unlike Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Walter Clarke and damn few others, Greysky is just another typically passive mainstream hypocrite and systematic liar, as in LLPOF and otherwise intellectually brown-nosed bipolar to suit. Would you have been polite to Hitler or those of his Zionist/ Nazi minions? (obviously you and others of your kind would have) The likes of Greysky and Mook simply fail to reply or acknowledge anything that rocks their mainstream boat, whereas long as the proverbial sh.t isn’t hitting their fan, all is well and good within their inert eye-candy cosmos. By subverting or revising the intent of the topic or that of a given reply is essentially the exact same damage-control tactic as per having been excluding evidence that could easily support the intended argument. Obviously Greysky and the likes of William Mook each think the past, present and future as mainstream recorded is just perfectly fine and dandy as is. Meaning there’s never a good enough reason to revise upon anything, and you are each also saying that you wouldn’t have changed a damn thing even if you could. Our governments and their faith-based puppeteers that you obviously approve of have been telling us exactly what and how to interpret or otherwise think about most everything from the very get go, and your passive mainstream flowing mindset thinks that’s the way it should always be as long as “they keep the Nukes at home”. Sadly, there are far worse having taken place and of new and improved worse sorts of things taking place than nukes. However, merely excluding evidence plus topic/author stalking and the orchestrated and/or systematic banishment of the best available truth(s) is apparently still the best failsafe way for Greysky and of most other snookered and dumbfounded souls to go. It seems most folks here in this Usenet/newsgroup land of mostly revision nayism as to anything that’s new and improved or merely uncovered by way of deductive reasoning are extremely bigoted (intellectually racist), having no honorable intentions of ever changing a damn thing (at least not for the better), and it’s folks exactly like yourself making that possible by not having been holding those responsible for their actions or accounting for honest history as based upon the best available information and science. Your kind of Usenet/newsgroup and internet is not capable of a worthy open-book test, because the books and most other bits of information have been intentionally skewed or rigged in order to benefit and/or sustain your mainstream status quo that you intend to perpetuate. Did you even get the drift of my “within their inert eye-candy cosmos”? Would you folks care to honestly argue/rant about our Selene/moon or Venus? (I could do a Sagan.02 version if you’d like) ~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth Sorry to drop in so late in the game here as this looks like a very interesting discussion of the confrontation between Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky. Jerry Pournelle provides some interesting ideas on the confrontation on his webpage: <http://pournelle.org/science/velikovsky.htm>. Additional comments are inserted below: > >>>>>> Sagan's true legacy -- i wonder what it will be? > [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > >>> always be a shameful one. Sagan lowered himself and there isn't any way > >>> to forget, or to salvage his tarnished rep because of it... But, Sagan did not always use valid scientific arguments against Velikovsky, as this excerpt from "Popularization of science" in Wikipedia's Carl Sagan entry shows: "Sagan caused mixed reactions among other professional scientists. On the one hand, there was general support for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience; most notably his debunking of the book Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky. However, for as popular as this debunking was with science writers and the public, many of its arguments were flawed, as astronomer Robert Jastrow and Sagan's student, astronomer David Morrison, have explained. [15][16] Concerning Sagan's great odds against a collision of 1 in 30,000 per 1000 years, using his statistical approach and Velikovsky's actual scenario, e.g., no grazing encounters, S. F. Kogan (Velikovsky's older daughter)[17] showed the odds would be drastically reduced to 1 in 12 per 1000 years.[18] Furthermore, Sagan's Appendix 3 on the cooling of Venus has nothing to do with cooling, but instead is a trivial identity that merely equates the heat radiated to Venus by the Sun in one hour at 6000K to the heat radiated from Venus in 3500 years at 79K.[19]" See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan> for references. > >> ImmanuelVelikovskywas a crank. More than that, > >> he was what might be called a "supercrank" or even > >> a "hypercrank". Nobody has done more damage to > >> astronomy than this man... I have a problem with this because the writings of Zecharia Sitchin starting with The 12th Planet in 1976 and continuing in a series of books titled The Earth Chronicles (see Sitchin's entry in Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin>), are every bit as popular as Velikovsky's were. If scientists and organized skepticism would have properly disposed of Velikovsky, one wonders if Sitchin could have become as successful as he has. > >> ". . . a stupendous panorama of terrestrial and > >> human histories. . . ." [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > >> unveiling Truth. For this Sagan should be remembered > >> fondly and greatly admired! BUT: Sagan did not always use sound physical arguments against Velikovsky and in this way Sagan was not a good role model for criticism against crank ideas. > > A mere shallow examination of those reviews might reveal Sagan may have > > been motivated by a bit of envy.... but then some of his literary works > > recieved pretty good reviews as well. I'm not saying Sagan should have > > been nice with his criticisms, but that is still no excuse to 'break the > > law'. It's the same kind of reasoning the Church used to torture heretics, As an example of Sagan's animus against Velikovsky, consider the fact that his draft analysis of Worlds in Colision presented in 1974 at the AAAS session contained several complimentary passages including the comment that if even twenty percent of Velikovsky's claims about the relevance of myth to actual events were correct there was something to be explained. In the final version published in 1977 in Scientists Confront Velikovsky, this passage was replaced by a statement that none of Velikovsky's claims about the worth of myth was valid and that there was nothing to be explained. Sagan also deleted his mention of the Bargmann and Motz letter in Science in 1962 about Velikovsky's correct predictions. My letter "A lesson from Velikovsky" in Summer 1986 Skeptical Inquirer deals with the importance of using valid arguments against fringe claims such as Velikovsky's: <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ vlesson.html>. > > but at least they were claiming it was for their own good... sagan can't > > say that. He wasn't trying to reclaim V, just destroy him by any means he [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > he would be just as against many of the people on this newsgroup - we > > would be lit up right alongside V. Me for my quantum FTL radio, Bert for Interestingly, in The Demon Haunted World, Sagan admitted several errors he had made on various subjects over the years, but he did not admit to any errors in his treatment of Worlds in Collision. When I wrote him a letter in late March 1996 asking about this he replied in early April that he was not aware of any errors in his treatment of Velikovsky. But he had been sent copies of Velikovsky and Establishment Science (1977) and Scientists Confront Scientists Who Confront Velikovsky (1978), published by Kronos Press, and surely he had been aware of Kogan's critical open letter to Sagan in the Sept. 1980 Physics Today that was rebutted by Sagan's student David Morrison in the April 1981 issue. > > his asking many questions, Oh man, and what about 'flowing space' - yikes! > > And that's not even including "darla", or the 'andy-dromedians', or any of [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > are STILL enthusiastic V-skee followers to this very > day! Most Velikovskians have transferred their enthusiasm to the "Saturn Myth"/polar configuration/"electric universe" ideas promoted by David Talbott, the entrepreneur behind the Pensee series "Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered" in the 1970s whose popularity led to the AAAS session in 1974 where Sagan and Velikovsky clashed. See Talbott's entry in Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Talbott>. The entries in Wikipedia for Immanuel Velikovsky and Worlds in Collision have gone thru extensive editing wars and are presently in a very responsible shape, having been purged of a vast quantity of pro-Velikovsky propaganda. > happy days and... > starry starry nights! [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > - Show quoted text - C. Leroy Ellenberger, St. Louis, MO "Worlds Still Colliding" for eSkeptic, 2001 <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html> > Sorry to drop in so late in the game here as this looks like a very > interesting discussion of the confrontation between Carl Sagan [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > "Worlds Still Colliding" for eSkeptic, 2001 > <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html> Thank you very much, CLE, for your informative comments! happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net > <c.le...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message... > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > P.P.S.: http://painellsworth.net Glad to know at least one reader appreciated my comments. Had I not been in a hurry, I'd also have mentioned a real shocker in the saga of Sagan & Velikovsky; namely, that when Carl met Annie at Nora's party in October 1974, she was an enthusiastic fan of Velikovsky, as Joel Achenbach relates in his Captured by Aliens: the search for life and truth in a very large universe (1999), an account of the search for extra- terrestrial intelligence in which Carl Sagan figures prominently: "Ann Druyan first met Sagan at a dinner party at Nora Ephron's apartment in New York City. Her interest in science came primarily from her interest in the philosophy of Karl Marx. Marx had written of history as following certain inexorable scientific principles, and had wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. Druyan herself had, at the time, rather vaporous standards of evidence for her many and sundry beliefs (as she later acknowledged). She believed, like many intellectuals, that Immanuel Velikovsky in the 1950s had correctly deduced the truth about the solar system, that it was so highly dynamic as to have been rearranged within human history, that Venus was a fragment of Jupiter and had buzzed by the Earth only a few thousand years ago, and so on" (pp. 95-6). Achenbach then relates that Sagan explained to her why Velikovsky was wrong. But, somehow, this anecdote is missing from Davidson's and Poundstone's biographies of Sagan. Poundstone does not even mention Velikovsky, while Davidson devotes several pages to Sagan's interest in Velikovsky. Looking back, it is a shame that Annie's gullibility and scientific naivety in 1974 was not known to all those in the late '70s and early '80s defended Velikovsky against Sagan's erroneous criticisms! C. Leroy Ellenberger "Top Ten Reasons Why Velikovsky is Wrong about Worlds in Collision" <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/vdtopten.html> Review of ABA: The Life of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky by R.V. Sharon from J. Sci. Explor. 1996; 10(4): <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cle/cle-jose.txt> In article <c7fb3723-1810-4b82-aa90-ef7dab7168e4@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, > > <c.le...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message... > > [quoted text clipped - 61 lines] > J. Sci. Explor. 1996; 10(4): > <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cle/cle-jose.txt> I'm still trying to figure out what major crimes Sagan committed against Velikovsky. I read Pournelle's criticism, but he was just picking at nits here and there; he didn't actually falsify any of Sagan's claims. Velikovsky's hypothesis is basically wrong and Sagan pointed that out. I don't understand the problem. SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. On Aug 24, 8:54 pm, Timberwoof <timberwoof.s...@inferNOnoSPAMsoft.com> wrote: > In article > <c7fb3723-1810-4b82-aa90-ef7dab716...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 77 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Basically, Sagan was more interested in making Velikovsky look like a fool than in providing sound physical arguments/reasons why Velikovsky was wrong about Worlds in Collision. I cited two good examples in my first post on this thread from Wikipedia: the bogus calculation of odds and the phoney "cooling" calculation for Venus: "Concerning Sagan's great odds against a collision of 1 in 30,000 per 1000 years, using his statistical approach and Velikovsky's actual scenario, e.g., no grazing encounters, S. F. Kogan (Velikovsky's older daughter)[17] showed the odds would be drastically reduced to 1 in 12 per 1000 years.[18] Furthermore, Sagan's Appendix 3 on the cooling of Venus has nothing to do with cooling, but instead is a trivial identity that merely equates the heat radiated to Venus by the Sun in one hour at 6000K to the heat radiated from Venus in 3500 years at 79K. [19]" 17. Ellenberger, Leroy (1999). Sagan and Velikovsky (letter submitted to Skeptical Inquirer). <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ velidelu.html#CS> 18. Kogan, S. F. (1980). Sagan versus Velikovsky (letter). Physics Today, Sept., pp. 97-98. 19. Talbott, George R. (1978). Kronos, 4 (2), 3-25; reported by C.L. Ellenberger (letter) in Physics Today, April 1981, p. 72, and (letter) in Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2000, pp. 67-68. <http:// findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_2_24/ai_60302620/pg_5> Additional points may be found in the URLs in the refs. cited above as well as in David Morrison's article "Velikovsky at Fifty" in Skeptic 2001; 9(1) which was reprinted in The Skeptic's Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Others may be read in Pensée IVR VII (1974) and Kronos 1977; III(2) which was reprinted as the book Velikovsky and Establishment Science. Charles Ginenthal's 1990/1995 book Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky is burdened with alot of erroneous criticism and does not add much new beyond what was published in Pensée and Kronos. A good example of Sagan blowing the opportunity to make a simple, cogent point against Velikovsky was his discussion of how close Venus approached Earth in which he never get around to the point, made to me by Tom Van Flandern in 1980 and independently published by Phil Plait in 2002 in his BAD Astronomy, that if Venus and Earth got close enough to swap atmospheres the Moon would have been lost; but it is still here in a nearly circular orbit attesting to its not having been disturbed recently. If the AAAS session was meant to do anything useful, it would have been to explain to the public who were interested in Velikovsky's ideas WHY he was wrong in a way the public would understand, NOT attempt to humiliate the man as Sagan endeavoured to do. It would have also presented valid physical arguments against Worlds in Collision, not the hodge-podge of rhetoric, strawmen, and nonsense marshalled by Sagan. In February 1974 I was fully prepared to accept the verdict at the AAAS if it had been rendered fairly and objectively. But this did not happen. However, by 1983 I had accumulated enough valid arguments against Worlds in Collision that I decided there was nothing in Worlds in Collision worth defending and I published the first installment of "Still Facing Many Problems" in Kronos 1984; X(1). I would also point out that it was not lost on the public that Velikovsky had accredited PhDed scientists such as Robert W. Bass, Earl R. Milton, and Irving Michelson (who was on the AAAS program in 1974) in his defense and critics such as Carl Sagan, J. Derral Mulholland, and David Morrison did not address the arguments made by others in Velikovsky's defense. The failure of Carl Sagan to deliver a valid, believable refutation of Velikovsky in 1974, which was published in 1977 in Scientists Confront Velikovsky, provided a rallying point for Velikovsky's supporters and enabled the perpetuation of Velikovsky's delusion far longer than it might otherwise would have been. C. Leroy Ellenberger, St. Louis, MO "An Antidote to Velikovskian Delusions", Skeptic 1995; 3(4) <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velidelu.html> In article <a824ebe6-7621-49cc-8f05-0fc068660dfd@x35g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > I'm still trying to figure out what major crimes Sagan committed > > against Velikovsky. I read Pournelle's criticism, but he was just [quoted text clipped - 74 lines] > perpetuation of Velikovsky's delusion far longer than it might > otherwise would have been. I read Sagan's arguments and I read some of Pournelle's "refutation" of them. I think Sagan did a good job of explaining the problems in Velikovsky's methods and conclusions. Perhaps Sagan made Velikovsky uncomfortable, but I don't think he was impolite about it, and I certainly don't buy into these notions about Sagan's motives. (Actually, Sagan did write in Broca's Brain about how the orbit of Venus could not become so closely circular in the V. time scale. And V. taking those legends as "accurate" which supported his hypothesis and ignoring those which didn't pretty much blows the whole idea out of the water at the start.) So. You take Sagan to be some monster because he criticized V. I don't. SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. On Aug 26, 1:01 am, Timberwoof <timberwoof.s...@inferNOnoSPAMsoft.com> wrote: > In article > <a824ebe6-7621-49cc-8f05-0fc068660...@x35g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 91 lines] > > So. You take Sagan to be some monster because he criticized V. I don't. I guess it does not matter to you that many of Sagan's arguments against Velikovsky were against strawmen and red herrings and in several cases just flat out WRONG, as with the so-called "cooling calculation" in Appendix 3. And in the first argument, he did not show that the sequence of orbits was impossible, only that it was very improbable--which is no disproof. David Morrison discusses several other instances where Sagan was wrong in his Skeptic 2001; 9(1) article "Velikovsky at Fifty". Somehow, it does not seem right to me for a seriously flawed "refutation" such as Sagan's to have garnered the acclaim and fame that it has. In the corrected version of his analysis in Broca's Brain, Sagan concluded that there is nothing valid in the myths Velikovsky cited, which thereby discounts all the sky-combat myths that have since been shown by British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier to have very likely been motivated by Earth's intermittent, energetic interaction with the Taurid-Encke Complex all through the Holocene, the past 10,000 years or so. Thus, Velikovsky, along with Whiston, Radlof, Bellamy, Hoerbiger and others, was on to something real; but Velikovsky's planetary model was just plain wrong. The most recent period when the Taurid-Encke Complex was active occurred in the 6th century A.D., as shown by Patrick McCafferty and Mike Baillie in their The Celtic Gods: Comets in Irish Mythology (2005)--n.b., King Arhtur was originally a comet! See Baillie's entry in Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mike_Baillie>. Also, my "Are Comets Evil?" <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ velidelu.html#ST>. C. Leroy Ellenberger, "Worlds Still Colliding", eSkeptic 2001 <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html> > I guess it does not matter to you that many of Sagan's arguments > against > Velikovsky were against strawmen and red herrings and in several cases > just > flat out WRONG, . . . So you're saying that Sagan went too far in his battle to shoot down pseudoscience and maintain the level of knowledge of physical reality in that day and time? Sorry, but "that dog don't hunt". Velikovsky was WRONG, period. End of story. Besides, Annie was no slouch. If Sagan had been such a bad guy, she wouldn't have been so attracted to him. And just because she happened to follow Velikovsky like so many other college parrots does not make her change-about due to Sagan's influence anything less than amazing! Or did Carl hold a gun to her head, too? Physical reality -- 1 Velikovsky ------- 0 What else could possibly matter more than this? happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com Of course Velikovsky was wrong about Venus and Mars buzzing Earth within the past 3500 years and all that, but Sagan's attempt to refute Velikovsky was flawed with patently erroneous arguments, whose falsity was either ignored or undetected by science writers and other scientists at the time (except for Terence Dickinson in Star & Sky and Robert Jastrow in New York Times). David Morrison later came to accept many, but not all, the flaws in Sagan's arguments, as he shows in Skeptic 2001; 9(1), "Velikovsky at 50", reprinted in The Skeptic's Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience (2002). But Sagan's "analysis" failed to persuade those fans of Velikovsky who were amenable to reason, as I tried to explain in my letter "A lesson from Velikovsky" in Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1986: <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/vlesson.html>. > <c.le...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message... > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > knowledge of physical reality in that day and time? > Sorry, but "that dog don't hunt". Sagan's entire "analysis" was written more in order to make fun of Velikovsky's ideas than to present a cogent, valid case against him. To an astronomer, one of the most telling points against Velikovsky is the plethora of circular, resonant orbits of satellites at Jupiter, Mars and Earth which would be impossible if Worlds in Collision had happened. And then there are the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt, the result of resonances that take a long time to develop, and the Trojan asteroids in the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. Yet, astronomer Sagan fails to make this elementary point in his "analysis". His first point about the probabilities is just a numbers game with parameters selected to give as unfavorable outcome as possible; yet when reasonable parameters are used in Sagan's own statistical model, as S.F. Kogan showed in Physics Today, Sept. 1980, in here open letter to Carl Sagan, the probabilities are increased drastically. In his convoluted discussion of how close Venus came to Earth, he fails to make the obvious point, obvious to an astronomer, that such a close encounter would have loosed the Moon, but the Moon is still here and in a very circular, resonant orbit . > Velikovsky was WRONG, period. End of story. Besides, Sorry, but the story does not end until a valid case has been made and Sagan did not do this. > Annie was no slouch. If Sagan had been such a bad guy, > she wouldn't have been so attracted to him. And just > because she happened to follow Velikovsky like so many And, according to Achenbach, she was also big on Erich von Daniken. > other college parrots does not make her change-about > due to Sagan's influence anything less than amazing! Or [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com C. Leroy Ellenberger <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Leroy_Ellenberger> In article <ffbeca2e-a6f1-44be-823f-8973424341df@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > Sagan's entire "analysis" was written more in order to > make fun of Velikovsky's ideas than to present a cogent, > valid case against him. Are you telling us we should discount Sagan's objections because of his *motivations*? That sounds like an ad-hominem argument to me. SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. > In article > <ffbeca2e-a6f1-44be-823f-8973424341df@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Are you telling us we should discount Sagan's objections because of his > *motivations*? That sounds like an ad-hominem argument to me. Are you telling me that you think it's OK for "them" to resort to any underhanded, scurrilous, and despicable actions in order discredit whomever they deem needs to be destroyed? Bah! If I used ad hominem arguments, filled with strawmen and emotionalism, those same 'respectable' scientists would say "see, this is proof that this person is a crackpot." Whether Sagan, or anyone else, there is no excuse to behave like a starchamber acolyte. Hence my comparison of sagan to torquemada. If you don't like that comparison, then just call sagan a science-nazi. Sagans' motivations are immaterial. It is how he, along with others, chose to act on his motivations which is the issue here. Any true son of the Elven race would be able to see that... Greysky On Aug 27, 11:44 pm, Timberwoof <timberwoof.s...@inferNOnoSPAMsoft.com> wrote: > In article > <ffbeca2e-a6f1-44be-823f-897342434...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Are you telling us we should discount Sagan's objections because of his > *motivations*? That sounds like an ad-hominem argument to me. My intended point, that I have not stated explicitly, is that every argument Sagan made, even when it was valid, was rebutted by Velikovsky and his defenders, starting with Pensée IVR VII in summer 1974 and continued with Kronos 1977; III(2), titled "Velikovsky and Establishement Science"; and no one ever replied to these rebuttals, as would be the case in any serious debate. The planned proceedings volume Scientists Confront Velikovsky originally was supposed to have rebuttals published, but this was eliminated when Sagan's finished paper came in two years late and 50% longer than the 1974 partial draft and the space and time for completing rebuttals could not be agreed upon, which is why Velikovsky withdrew his AAAS address from the proceedings (whereupon Irving Michelson did the same). The only acknowledgment of the criticisms made by Sagan was to correct spellings and biblical allusions for the version published in Broca's Brain; but all the scientific errors were retained. > -- > Timberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com>http://www.timberwoof.com > People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. C. Leroy Ellenberger <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Leroy_Ellenberger> Velikovsky's fans? BAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Reason doesn't intrude with them. It's exactly like a RELIGION. If you believe, nothing can make you stop. Saul Levy >Of course Velikovsky was wrong about Venus and Mars buzzing >Earth within the past 3500 years and all that, but Sagan's [quoted text clipped - 68 lines] >> >> What else could possibly matter more than this? >C. Leroy Ellenberger ><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Leroy_Ellenberger> > Of course Velikovsky was wrong about Venus and Mars buzzing > Earth within the past 3500 years and all that, but Sagan's [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > C. Leroy Ellenberger > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Leroy_Ellenberger> CLE, you have a passion for this that is obvious and, frankly, magnetic. In a.a some of us come up against this sort of thing all the time (the stubborn and often illogical reasoning of mainstream science), so it isn't as if we don't agree that "any means to an end" is inherently wrong. In the particular case of Velikovsky, however, even a maverick of science would, in this day and age, agree with Sagan and the result of the battle, if not with how the battle was waged. Carl Sagan did a lot of good, too, throughout his life. And this is what should be cherished and celebrated. So i do. happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com > <c.le...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message... > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > with Sagan and the result of the battle, if not with how > the battle was waged. Yes, I have a passion. The failure of Sagan and his AAAS cohorts to deliver a knock-out blow in 1974 in San Francisco and then to ignore their errors and decline to reply to the rebuttals from Velikovsky and his defenders (many of whom have doctorates in technical fields), has enabled the neo-Velikovskians, most prominently Dave Talbott and his associates at www.kronia.com and thunderbolts.info, to carry on the Velikovsky tradition to the detriment of those scientists such as Victor Clube and Bill Napier and Mike Baillie who have an insight into the real impetus behind the sky-combat myths created by our ancestors. As an example of Talbott's industry, consider the 10 min. video "Velikovsky: Hero or Villain": <http://video.aol.com/video-detail/velikovsky-hero-or-villain-plasma- cosmology-astronomy/1428040533> The video was produced by Dave Talbott's Thunderbolts.info outfit and features Velikovsky, Carl Sagan, Dave Talbott <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Talbott>, Wal Thornhill, Tony Peratt, and Harry Hess in a slick, dishonest, propagandistic presentation meant to show that electricity in space is more important than gravity. (For exmaple: If electricity is 39 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity it ought to rule the cosmos. Right? Why don't you stupid physicists and astronmers understand this? is the implicit message.) All the usual pro-Velikovsky points are trotted out: Venus is hot and therefore young, hydrocarbons in the atmosphere predicted (but video does not say they were not discovered), Jupiter's electromagnetism & thunderbolts, the orbits of Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter have changed recently, "collective amnesia" prevents mankind from remembering the cataclysms except in myth and metaphor, etc. One sequence compares Peratt's laboratory plama discharges to the "squatting stick man" petroglyphs found worldwide. Make of this what you will, but Talbott & Co. will not go away anytime soon and the many attempted refutations of their delusional fantasies do not seem to have had any significant effect on their activities. > Carl Sagan did a lot of good, too, throughout his life. > And this is what should be cherished and celebrated. > So i do. Yes, this is true. But he never recanted anything concerning his treatment of Velikovsky. My last letter to him in March 1996 asked him why he did not correct any of this errors about Worlds in Collision in his then-new book The Demon-Haunted World, as he had admitted errors in several other areas. His early April reply stated that he was not aware of any errors in his criticism of Velikovsky-- and this after he had been sent copies of the Kronos materials and the letters in Physics Today critical of his analysis of Worlds in Collision in Sept. 1980, April 1981 and June 1982. > happy days and... > starry starry nights! [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com C. Leroy Ellenberger "Worlds Still Colliding" <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html> > . . . His early > April reply stated that he was not aware of any errors > in his criticism of Velikovsky-- and this after he had been > sent copies of the Kronos materials and the letters > in Physics Today critical of his analysis of Worlds in > Collision in Sept. 1980, April 1981 and June 1982. Hmm... March of '96, just a few months before he died. Wasn't he fighting some disease tooth and nail? Could it have been that someone else was handling responses to his incoming mail? Under those circumstances, would you have given a damn, a hoot or a holler about some far and away astronomy debate from years past? happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com > <c.le...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message... > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > you have given a damn, a hoot or a holler about some > far and away astronomy debate from years past? Excuse me; but in spring 1996 Sagan was in remission and the reply he sent to me was signed by him, which is clear from the secretarial coding and comparison of the signatures with earlier ones he sent to me. He had to have been aware of the criticisms of his analysis of Worlds in Collision since 1974 when he received his issue of Pensée IVR VII and later in 1977 when he was sent a copy of Velikovsky and Establishment Science which was published simultaneously with Sceintists Confront Velikovsky. > happy days and... > starry starry nights! [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com Per Veritatem Vis, C. Leroy Ellenberger "A lesson from Velikovsky" <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/vlesson.html> >> Hmm... March of '96, just a few months before he died. >> Wasn't he fighting some disease tooth and nail? Could it [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Excuse me;... Of course! > ...but in spring 1996 Sagan was in remission and > the reply he sent to me was signed by him, which is clear from [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Science which was published simultaneously with Sceintists > Confront Velikovsky. Well, C. Leroy, he wasn't in remission for very long. He kicked in December and left everybody with but a corpse to kick about! Sad days when *this* is all some people have to keep them happy. Ever thought about perhaps moving on to bigger and better -- and living -- things, C. Leroy? Your neo-Vskees will incur little more than laughs and chukkles. Carl Sagan is past caring what they or anybody else thinks. Surely it's time to forgive his shortcomings and to celebrate his lasting, his immortal greatness? happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com Especially a debate about V. nonsense, Paine! lmao! V. is a waste of time, period. Saul Levy >> . . . His early >> April reply stated that he was not aware of any errors [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >you have given a damn, a hoot or a holler about some >far and away astronomy debate from years past? This newsgroup is FULL of WEIRD sh.t and WEIRD PEOPLE! They do go together! lmao! Best to IGNORE them all! Saul Levy >> <c.le...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message... >> [quoted text clipped - 80 lines] >in Physics Today critical of his analysis of Worlds in >Collision in Sept. 1980, April 1981 and June 1982. >C. Leroy Ellenberger >"Worlds Still Colliding" ><http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html> > This newsgroup is FULL of WEIRD sh.t and WEIRD PEOPLE! > > They do go together! lmao! Best to IGNORE them all! > > Saul Levy Well, you're here.... guess it's true. I'm on a MISSION FROM GOD, greybeard! lmao! What's your excuse? Saul Levy >> This newsgroup is FULL of WEIRD sh.t and WEIRD PEOPLE! >> [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >Well, you're here.... guess it's true. Cactus saul If you are here doing God work that does fit. Belief in God takes brain washing.and you have a very soggy brain Sad but true Bert What are you, Jeff? Another f.cking BradBoi? lmao! Saul Levy On 29 Aug 2008 18:32:55 GMT, Jeff?Relf <Jeff_Relf@Seattle.Invalid> wrote: BEERTbrain can't take a joke either! lmao! I'm a REAL ATHEIST and have NO BELIEF IN GOD! Are you reading these posts at all? Doesn't look like it! Saul Levy >Cactus saul If you are here doing God work that does fit. Belief in >God takes brain washing.and you have a very soggy brain Sad but true >Bert Cactus Saul I love jokes Love to laugh and make people laugh. humans are the only animal that can laugh Why are you my judge of laughter? There is so much sad created by humankind. We have Caylee killed by her own mother. We have men dying in Iraq because Bush is just a big fraud. We have FEMA that will not spend a dime to help the poor. We have the NASA with its lies and $25,000,000 toilets. Reality is like the Jews have to have to laugh(sense of humor) we Americans have to laugh at what the Mafia republicans have done. Here in Florida its Nazi Germany of 1936 Jews were laughing then. Sad they should have bought guns. I have a 357 magnum and will use it if Sheriff Bob Hansel ever has his storm trooping deputies try to get into my house. Thankful how clever our forefathers were. Honest citizens must fight back Bert Do you really understand women, Paine? lmao! You'd be the first male! lmao! Saul Levy >So you're saying that Sagan went too far in his battle >to shoot down pseudoscience and maintain the level of [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > >What else could possibly matter more than this? >> So you're saying that Sagan went too far in his battle >> to shoot down pseudoscience and maintain the level of [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > You'd be the first male! lmao! Heck no, Saul! I'm just going by what i've read. And Annie once wrote how one of the things that attracted her to Carl was the masterful way he could refute the Velikovskian AND Von Daniken views with grace and charm (and without giving the impression that he was just another "old fogey"). happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com Valid myths sounds too much like religion! I don't believe it. lmao! Sure, let's all blame a comet! BAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Except for Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter, I haven't seen an collisions lately. DEATH FROM ABOVE! lmao! Saul Levy >> > A good example of Sagan blowing the opportunity to make a simple, >> > cogent point against Velikovsky was his discussion of how close Venus [quoted text clipped - 90 lines] >"Worlds Still Colliding", eSkeptic 2001 ><http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html> > Valid myths sounds too much like religion! I don't believe it. lmao! > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Except for Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter, I haven't seen an collisions > lately. Of course you have not because the threat is an intermittent one with long periods of inactivity, as outlined by Clube and Napier in their papers and books. To repeat from Aug. 26th: The most recent period when the Taurid-Encke Complex was active occurred in the 6th century A.D., as shown by Patrick McCafferty and Mike Baillie in their The Celtic Gods: Comets in Irish Mythology (2005)--n.b., King Arthur was originally a comet! See Baillie's entry in Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Baillie>, esp. for a quote from his recent discussion on why the 6th century experience was couched in biblical metaphors, instead of declarative sentences. Also, see my "Are Comets Evil?" <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velidelu.html#ST>, written for Sky & Tel. in 1997 in response to a nonsensical article by Brad Schaeffer whose survey started in Roman times long after the Taurid-Encke complex bombardments had died away temporarily and he was clueless regarding the 6th century A.D. episode mentioned above. > DEATH FROM ABOVE! lmao! > > Saul Levy C. Leroy Ellenberger, St. Louis, MO The 6th century A.D. was the last one? That sounds so far apart that it must be a MYTH! lmao! DEATH FROM ABOVE! Every 1500 years or so! lmao! Saul Levy >> Valid myths sounds too much like religion! I don't believe it. lmao! >> [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] >> >C. Leroy Ellenberger, St. Louis, MO Is Velikovsky a GOD now, woofie? Seems likely to those who don't know anything about astronomy. What a WASTE of WORSHIP he is. lmao! Saul Levy >I'm still trying to figure out what major crimes Sagan committed against >Velikovsky. I read Pournelle's criticism, but he was just picking at >nits here and there; he didn't actually falsify any of Sagan's claims. >Velikovsky's hypothesis is basically wrong and Sagan pointed that out. I >don't understand the problem. > Is Velikovsky a GOD now, woofie? Well, that's not exactly what I wrote. > Seems likely to those who don't know anything about astronomy. I'll go along with that. > What a WASTE of WORSHIP he is. lmao! > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >Velikovsky's hypothesis is basically wrong and Sagan pointed that out. I > >don't understand the problem. SignatureTimberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com People who can't spell get kicked out of Hogwarts. Could it be that this story is a fairy tale? lmao! WartPiggy posts such all the time. Saul Levy >Glad to know at least one reader appreciated my comments. Had I not >been in a hurry, I'd also have mentioned a real shocker in the saga of [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] >J. Sci. Explor. 1996; 10(4): ><http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cle/cle-jose.txt> > Could it be that this story is a fairy tale? lmao! . . . The part about Druyan is true AFAICT, Saul. She herself wrote about how attractive Sagan was when he charmed her with the truth about Velikovsky's ramblings. And i don't think he held a gun to her head, neither! She made up her own mind to slay the myth and to uphold reality. happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com Charmed her with Velikovsky, Paine? lmao! Most women fall for ROMANCE. Ann is weird then. Saul Levy >> Could it be that this story is a fairy tale? lmao! . . . > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >don't think he held a gun to her head, neither! She made >up her own mind to slay the myth and to uphold reality. > Charmed her with Velikovsky, Paine? lmao! > > Most women fall for ROMANCE. > > Ann is weird then. What can i say? She's an astronomer AND a writer. <g> happy days and... starry starry nights! SignatureIndelibly yours, Paine Ellsworth P.S.: Thank *YOU* for reading! P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com I've known lots of astronomers |
Enable EMail Alerts
Start New Thread
Reply to this Message