The Great Planet X Debate,11p-12a PST,coast to coast

coasttocoastam.com ^ | may-13-2003 | Phil Plait ,Nancy Lieder .

[RightWhale]

That was RCH, I believe.

[plusone]

You've done better than me. I've read condensations of Sitchkin's work, and seen a few video presentations, but I have yet to read his books. Are they good? Some folks just close their mind and refuse to even discuss such far fetched notions as these. Me, I am the opposite. This 'fringe science' is interesting. Even if wrong, it still leads to some good debates.

[plusone]

Interesting letter. Actually, they found an opened copy of Vel's book on Einstein's nighttable the day Einstein died. These may have been his last ponderings...

[ohmage]

Thanks for that Shakinah link. It looks like no matter how the story is told it all comes down to Good vs Evil.

Sounds simple enough. Yet we just don't seem to grasp it, do we?

[plusone]

Very interesting link. Thanks. Several points come to mind. First, the idea that Venus sprang from Jupiter as a result of a collision is not without prededent. One scientific explanation for our own moon is that it resulted when 'something the size of Mars' collided with the Earth, gouging out what is now the Pacific Basin and creating the moon from this debris. While not a currently held theory, it was widely accepted for a long time. True, Vel treated the planets as if they were billiard balls, tossing them around to achieve the effecte he needed. It is hard to imagine that such things could happen without destroying the inner solar system. Today, it is almost trendy to be anti status quo, to knock the established order. But back in the conservative 50's, such an atitude was heresy. It condemned a researcher to intellectual exile. Vel had the strength of character to take on the ruling clique. He lost, but his core idea, of 'catastrophism', has survived. Interestingly enough, at about the same time, another researcher posited the idea of pole shifts. Charles Hapgood wrote, 'The path of the Poles', explaining why ice ages occured. His was the idea that the outer crust of the Earth acutally shifted (though he never gave a trigger mechanism), placing new areas of the globe within the arctic circle. There is enough evidence to support both ideas. And the notion that the Earth is in a slowing evolving steady state has crumbled away. Science, grudgingly, accepts the idea now that catastrophies occur, but of course, always in the distant past! The science establishment pillored Vel (Hapgood too) for rocking the boat. The original publisher of his book had to withdraw it (though it was a best seller) due to protests from scientists. Where is the open mind that they trumpet? Vel may have been wrong about the cause of catastrophies. But the results he uncovered by simply taking ancient legends at face value and not dismissing them slight-of-hand as mere mythology I think stand up on their own.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 2003.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·