Forbidden Science

[Correa Neto]

A quick summary of the evidence against Venus being a comet ejected from Jupiter:

1) Venus´ composition is similar to the composition of Earth, Mars, Mercury and the Moon, being very different from the composition of Jupiter and comets.
2) Venus´ atmosphere is different from the atmosphere of Jupiter and comet´s tails (coma) - the cometary equivalent of an atmosphere, that BTW are created by a group of phenomena that are very different from those responsible by the formation of the atmosphere of Venus, Earth and Mars.
3) Computer models of the Solar system can predict with accuracy Venus´ orbit without Velikovisky´s "billiard ball" orbital mechanics.
4) Comets are quite cold, while Venus is quite hot (due to greenhous effect run amok) and Jupiter is quite hot at its deeper atmospheric layers (due to a crushing pressure).
5) The geological record shows no evidences supporing the recent catastrophes that according to Velikovisky happened on Earth and the Moon due to close encounters with Venus

So, could any defender of Velikovisky´s model please point me to evidence that it can be correct?

And can someone please explain me the mechanism responsible for the ejection of Venus from Jupiter? Vague mentions to "unstabilities" do not qualify.

 

[Ladewig]

Consider hypothesis H0 vs hypothesis H1
H0 predicts cold Venus,
H1 predicts hot Venus.
Experiment: measure temperature of Venus.
Result: hot
Conclusion: Evidence to prefer H1 over H0 found.

It's called hypothesis testing. It's the way Science used to be done.

There is a problem with your analysis of the situation. Velikovsky didn't just say "here is my hypothesis: Venus is much hotter than any current prediction." Velikovsky said that
1) there are no recorded sightings of Venus prior to 3500 years ago
2) because Venus was ejected from Jupiter at that time
3) much the same way that a dog shakes water off of himself.
4) Venus had a comet-like tail,
5) that consisterd of edible carbohydrates,
6) which fell on the Earth and were eaten by the Jews escaping from Egypt.
7) Venus wandered about the solar system and passed close to the Earth at least three times,
8) once causing the Noah's flood,
9) once stopping the Earths rotation before moving away (see Joshua 10:12-13)
10) and then returning closer to Earth to restart its rotation to the exact speed it had before stopping
11) and once to cause the Ten Plagues of Egypt before feeding the Isrealites.
12) Venus then lost its tail and slid into a nearly perfectly circular orbit
13) which can be accounted for by some unknown electro-magnetic force the Sun exerts on the planets.
14) Therefore Venus must be hot from its launch out of Jupiter.

That's H1. That hypothesis is wrong for dozens of reasons, many of which were listed by previous posters. In addition to those, it is worth noting that Venus was visible and does appear in written records prior to 3500 years ago (The Adda seal, dating from the third millenium B.C.), the energy required to launch Venus is so great that the planet would be vaporized, the difference in composition between Jupiter and Venus is so different as to destroy the entire theory, the moons of Jupiter display a regularity that could not be acheived in 3500 years, there is no way that life on Earth could survive three near misses with a body the size of Venus, there is no geological record of a global flood, there is no record of food falling from the heavens outside of that chapter in the Bible, comet tails are the result of icy comets melting or subliming as they near the Sun, there are no edible carbohydrates on Venus, Venus falls precisely where Titus Bode Law predicts it will be, no one has ever detected the strange electro-magnetic force hypothesized, there is no explaination as to why this undetected force would put Venus into a very circular orbit and not put all the planets into very circular orbits.

These are just some of the reasons to reject H1. That hypothesis has no useful value. That hypothesis provides no useful predictions.

I guess they don't teach this in schools nowadays, they just tell you what the conclusion should be, and then you fit the experiment around that.

Wow. Sarcasm again.

Everyone here has patiently described why Velikovsky was wrong. What is your response?

ETA: Much of my resonse comes from Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" (Wiley & Sons, 2002) and Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" (a published companion to the TV series (Random House, 1980)).

 

[Correa Neto]

Another point, that Ladewig´s post remembered me- Earth regularly passes through the remains of comets´tails, as its orbit crosses the orbits of comets. The result? The regular predictable meteor showers we enjoy watching every year. Anyone has ever seen mana falling from the sky at these opportunities? Love, check the composition of these meteors. Now tell me- could you eat one?

 

[BillHoyt]

Love, check the composition of these meteors. Now tell me- could you eat one?

Heated, and with enough honey butter, they're really not all that bad...

 

[luchog]

In science, it doesn't matter how you come up with your hypotheses.

This is completely and totally wrong. In true science, the methods for deriving your hypotheses are of paramount importance to it's validity and applicability.

This old science failed to predict these basic things about Venus, that Velikovsky got right.

Wrong. Velikovsky got one characteristic, out of roughly a dozen, right. He failed on everything else. With a less than 10% success ratio, and a 50% chance of being right on that one characteristic, he could have done just as well by guessing.

Science, on the other hand, predicted accurately, once it had the tools necessary to make the prediction.

 

[Ladewig]

This is completely and totally wrong. In true science, the methods for deriving your hypotheses are of paramount importance to it's validity and applicability.


Wrong. Velikovsky got one characteristic, out of roughly a dozen, right. He failed on everything else. With a less than 10% success ratio, and a 50% chance of being right on that one characteristic, he could have done just as well by guessing.

Science, on the other hand, predicted accurately, once it had the tools necessary to make the prediction.

or to put it another way...

Velikovsky inverted almost everything in planetary astronomy; the orbits of planets are believed stable, so Velikovsky makes them unstable. Astronomers believed Venus to be temperate and Jupiter cold, so Velikovsky makes them both hot. The Moon is considered geologically dead, so Velikovsky makes it recently active. The principal force on the planets is said to be gravity, so Velikovsky invokes electromagnetic fields, too. Since astronomy in 1950 (and every other time as well) was imperfect, some generally-accepted ideas were bound to be wrong. If you formulate a theory that controverts many commonly-held ideas, you are certain to be able later on to point with pride to some spectacular cases where you were right and the experts were wrong, especially if you have a coterie of loyal fans who are eager to accept anything even remotely correct as a successful prediction. There will be many more cases where you were wrong, but then, even the experts are wrong occasionally.

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/vlkovsky.htm

The site also contains more reasons why the Velikovsky hypothesis is wrong.

 

[Ladewig]

Also, electro-magnetic forces from the Sun that are powerful enough to move planets into and out of orbit are powerful enough to make all iron utensils fly from peoples' hands into the sky. An event that would have occurred around the world within the period of recorded history, yet no civilization records such an event.

 

[Correa Neto]

You know, every time I bounce on a thread like this I can't help but think that sooner or later a defender of Lisenko will appear....

 

[Rolfe]

You know, every time I bounce on a thread like this I can't help but think that sooner or later a defender of Lisenko will appear....

Well, actually, going back to the OP....

I've never read the book being discussed in this thread, but I have a copy of another book by Milton, The Facts of Life, subtitled "shattering the myths of Darwinism". This book seems to be heading towards some variant of Lamarckism as the explanation for "life as we know it, Jim". Which gets us neatly into the Lysenko camp, no?

Rolfe.

 

[BillHoyt]

Well, actually, going back to the OP....

I've never read the book being discussed in this thread, but I have a copy of another book by Milton, The Facts of Life, subtitled "shattering the myths of Darwinism". This book seems to be heading towards some variant of Lamarckism as the explanation for "life as we know it, Jim". Which gets us neatly into the Lysenko camp, no?

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

You may like to check out Ted Steele's Lamarck's Signature. He's one of a very tiny handful of biologists still pushing for Lamarckian inheritance. The case he makes for it is extraordinarily strong in the immune system (monclonal antibodies and the antibody hypermutation regions), but goes very astray when he tries to push that into the germ line. His discussion of Wu-Kabat plots is also interesting; he points out Wu-Kabat show increased germline mutation when organisms are under stressors. Problem is, that actually argues against Lamarck, (because it indicates the somatic cells haven't "evolved" anything that works, but may be loosely construed as taking a scattershot approach) but he seems to have a blind spot to this.

 

[Genesius]

Hmmm. . . Love seems to have disappeared.

Ran off sulking, perhaps, because he/she didn't feel. . . loved?

 

[love]

There is a problem with your analysis of the situation. Velikovsky didn't just say "here is my hypothesis: Venus is much hotter than any current prediction." Velikovsky said that
1) there are no recorded sightings of Venus prior to 3500 years ago
2) because Venus was ejected from Jupiter at that time
3) much the same way that a dog shakes water off of himself.
4) Venus had a comet-like tail,
5) that consisterd of edible carbohydrates,
6) which fell on the Earth and were eaten by the Jews escaping from Egypt.
7) Venus wandered about the solar system and passed close to the Earth at least three times,
8) once causing the Noah's flood,
9) once stopping the Earths rotation before moving away (see Joshua 10:12-13)
10) and then returning closer to Earth to restart its rotation to the exact speed it had before stopping
11) and once to cause the Ten Plagues of Egypt before feeding the Isrealites.
12) Venus then lost its tail and slid into a nearly perfectly circular orbit
13) which can be accounted for by some unknown electro-magnetic force the Sun exerts on the planets.
14) Therefore Venus must be hot from its launch out of Jupiter.

That's right, he put a bunch of stuff together and then made some predictions to test his theory. Yes the theory may not be completely right. But that's how you make advances in science - putting forward hypotheses and testing them.

I can put a few things straight here.
1,2) I agree
3) I am unfamiliar with this claim
4) Indeed
5) I think he said was mostly carbon and hydrogen. Hydrocarbons were deposited initially. My understanding is that carbohydrates also formed as a result of the contact in the earth's atmosphere.
6) and in other places around the world; it was the ambrosia of the Greeks and formed rivers that flowed with "milk and honey"
7) Venus wandered about the solar system and passed close to the Earth at least three times,
8) OK
9) Yeah
10) The point to understand here is that it was only the crust that shifted. It's unlikely that the day remained the exact same length.
11) Yep
12) More the other way round. After Venus' encounter with Mars, it fell into a more circular orbit. The loss of the tail is over time as it's constituents are used up.
13) and gravity
14) The idea that comets are cold is based on this riduculous "dirty snowball" theory which Velikovsky clearly does not subscribe to.

If you understand that comets are formed by ejection from planets, then it is unsurprising that they have the make up similiar to their parent. This theory of comet formation was around before Velikovsky.

 

[Terry]

14) The idea that comets are cold is based on this riduculous "dirty snowball" theory which Velikovsky clearly does not subscribe to.

Ridiculous experimentally-verified theory, you mean?



no, it's not a primary source. Sue me.

 

[Melendwyr]

Do Not Feed The Trolls.

 

[Hawk one]

That's right, he put a bunch of stuff together and then made some predictions to test his theory. Yes the theory may not be completely right.

In fact, it was more or less completely wrong, for many reasons. Venus was never, ever a comet. It was not, and couldn't possibly have been tossed off Jupiter without crumbling to pieces. Like Terry just repeated, it is a known fact that comets are basically "dirty snowballs".

Oh, and Noah's Flood never happened, and more importantly, could not have happened as described in the Bible (those silly laws of physics, eh?). It's a myth, nothing more. If you think that someone's doing science when he's basing his wild guesses on the premise of a myth being true, think again.

 

[UrsulaV]

Oo! Oo! Me next!

1) Venus will be really hot
2) because the atmosphere is full of greenhouse gases
3) left over from the remains of industry
4) by super-intelligent ammonites
5) who left earth during the last extinction event
6) which is why they aren't in the fossil record any more
7) in flying ships shaped like giant nautilis shells
8) and they landed on Venus
9) with their pet mosasaurs
10) and built giant factories which spewed greenhouse gases
11) forcing them to return to earth
12) where they leave crop circles, which in the ancient shell language of the ammonite mean "Will Levitate For Food."

Okay, lemmee check...Venus IS hot, there WAS an extinction event, and there ARE greenhouse gases on Venus, so I get at least three out of twelve. So my crackpot theory is totally better than this guy's--I've got three times the hits, and I don't even have to resort to folklore!

Man, this forbidden science is EASY. No wonder they're forbidding it.

 

[bruto]

Oo! Oo! Me next!

1) Venus will be really hot
2) because the atmosphere is full of greenhouse gases
3) left over from the remains of industry
4) by super-intelligent ammonites
5) who left earth during the last extinction event
6) which is why they aren't in the fossil record any more
7) in flying ships shaped like giant nautilis shells
8) and they landed on Venus
9) with their pet mosasaurs
10) and built giant factories which spewed greenhouse gases
11) forcing them to return to earth
12) where they leave crop circles, which in the ancient shell language of the ammonite mean "Will Levitate For Food."

Okay, lemmee check...Venus IS hot, there WAS an extinction event, and there ARE greenhouse gases on Venus, so I get at least three out of twelve. So my crackpot theory is totally better than this guy's--I've got three times the hits, and I don't even have to resort to folklore!

Man, this forbidden science is EASY. No wonder they're forbidding it.

Toto! I don't think we're....Oh, ◊◊◊◊, we are in Kansas!

 

[Mojo]

But that's how you make advances in science - putting forward hypotheses and testing them.

Velikovsky managed the first stage. His ideas fall apart when tested against the currently available evidence though. See what has already been posted about the origin and composition of comets, the composition and atmosphere of Venus...

 

[Mojo]

Consider hypothesis H0 vs hypothesis H1
H0 predicts cold Venus,
H1 predicts hot Venus.
Experiment: measure temperature of Venus.
Result: hot
Conclusion: Evidence to prefer H1 over H0 found.

This, of course, assumes that there are only two possible hypotheses (the same fallacy IDers try to use to provide "evidence" for ID).

Let's try adding a third hypothesis:

H0 predicts cold Venus;
H1 predicts that Venus is hot because it is a comet ejected from Jupiter, with a hydrocarbon atmosphere;
H2 predicts that Venus is hot because of the greenhouse effect.

OK, let's test them.

Venus is hot: H0 fails.
Venus does not have a hydrocarbon atmosphere, has the wrong composition to be a comet, and has the wrong composition to have been ejected from Jupiter: H1 fails.
Venus has the right sort of atmosphere to support the greenhouse effect.

Conclusion: the evidence supports H2 but not H0 or H1.

 

[PixyMisa]

That's right, he put a bunch of stuff together and then made some predictions to test his theory. Yes the theory may not be completely right. But that's how you make advances in science - putting forward hypotheses and testing them.

You left out an important step: When they fail the test, you reject them.

I can put a few things straight here.
1,2) I agree

Well, 1 is factually false (we know this directly from Babylonian and Egyptian records) and 2 is impossible, but let's press on.

3) I am unfamiliar with this claim

We'll pass over that one, since he may have just come back from a long lunch when he wrote that line.

4) Indeed

Comets' tails are formed by the sublimation of the material of the comets themselves. Since they are composed largely of ice, and they are small and have low densities, and so very little gravity, as they approach the sun, the ice sublimates (turns directly into vapour) and streams away from them, blown by the solar wind.

Venus is made of rock and is about the size of the Earth. None of the above would apply.

5) I think he said was mostly carbon and hydrogen. Hydrocarbons were deposited initially. My understanding is that carbohydrates also formed as a result of the contact in the earth's atmosphere.

Venus's atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, with about 3.5% nitrogen and traces of sulfur dioxide, argon, water vapour, carbon monoxide, helium and neon.

No hydrocarbons. None.

And hydrocarbons cannot turn into carbohydrates "as a result of the contact in the earth's atmosphere". It is not chemically possible.

6) and in other places around the world; it was the ambrosia of the Greeks and formed rivers that flowed with "milk and honey"

No.

7) Venus wandered about the solar system and passed close to the Earth at least three times

If Venus had passed close to the Earth three times in recorded history, the Earth would not be in its present orbit, Venus would not be in its present orbit, and the Moon would probably be on a hyperbolic trajectory out of the Solar System.

It did not happen.

8) OK

Water vapour constitutes 20 parts per million in Venus's atmosphere, and there is of course no liquid water on the planet at all. Nor is there enough water on our planet to flood even all the low-lying land areas at once, much less cover the mountains. Nor is there any geological evidence of this ever happening.

It did not happen.

9) Yeah

If Venus's gravity had stopped the rotation of the Earth (mechanically impossible, but let's ignore that), the energy of rotation would have been converted to heat and melted the planet's crust.

10) The point to understand here is that it was only the crust that shifted. It's unlikely that the day remained the exact same length.

The Earth's tectonic plates move at typical rates of an inch or so per year. However, the Earth rotates at about a thousand miles per hour at the equator. If you only stopped the crust moving, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions caused by the mantle skidding past underneath at a thousand miles an hour would have destroyed the surface of the planet.

11) Yep

Frogs?

12) More the other way round. After Venus' encounter with Mars, it fell into a more circular orbit. The loss of the tail is over time as it's constituents are used up.

Mars has two small moons. If Venus had been anywhere near Mars in the recent past, they would not be there.

13) and gravity

No.

14) The idea that comets are cold is based on this riduculous "dirty snowball" theory which Velikovsky clearly does not subscribe to.

Well hard luck for Velikovsky because we have landed a space probe on a comet and done close-up fly-bys of another. And dirty snowballs is just what they are.

If you understand that comets are formed by ejection from planets

They aren't.

then it is unsurprising that they have the make up similiar to their parent.

The makeup of Venus is not in any way similar to Jupiter's. We have sent space probes to both planets. This is not speculation or inference, this is something we know.

This theory of comet formation was around before Velikovsky.

Which is relevant how, exactly?