On Monday, February 07, 2000 11:25 AM msmith@mercurycc.com wrote:
> > Wandering the web I found the following.
>
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_555000/555473.stm
>
> > It relates to an earlier discussion on
> > this list regarding Velikovsky. I find
> > it interesting that BBC would be so
> > brazen as to publish such a thing!!
>
> > Get out the pitchforks and torches!!
>
> Whoa, there, EvMick! You're shooting from
> the hip. You suggest that the theory in
> question is as ridiculous as Velikovsky,
> and it isn't so. Actually, this theory has
> little common with Velikovsky. Yes, it has
> the orbits of planets changing over time,
> but that's where the similarities end.
>
> Without going into detail, the time frames
> are entirely different. Velikovsky has
> planets rocketing around the solar system
> during the brief duration of human history.
> This theory involves gradual changes in
> planetary orbits over hundreds of thousand
> of years. Totally different animal.
>
> As for the BBC being "brazen" in publishing
> it, you failed to note that (ahem) the journal
> "Nature" published it first. Obviously,
> it must have survived a fair degree of
> peer-review.
I have to agree here. I've been following celestial dynamics news for many
years now and the consensus seems to be moving away from a model of planets
forming where they sit (orbit) to a much more chaotic one where planets tend
to wander.
That said, Velikovsky's theory is not wrong because it has planets moving
around, but because of the time scales involved (as mcsmith points out,
though a few 100K years is very quick when you think about it:) and also
because of his evidence, some of which includes myths such as Biblical
passages. Not that the Bible is to be totally discounted as evidence, but
it certainly is not what I would my base my theory of the formation of solar
system on.:) (If we were discussing religion or philology or Jewish
history, then the Bible might be a good piece of evidence.)
Back to the emerging model, it seems confirmed somewhat weakly by extrasolar
planets and also by Neptune's affect on transneptunian objects like Pluto.
(A issue of _American Scientist_ from last year covers the latter problem.)
The resonance orbits of the latter seemed best explained by this.
Other _additive_ lines of evidence, too, lend more credence to this idea --
some of which are detailed in the BBC article, such as that there just does
not seem to be that much stuff out there to form Uranus and Neptune
according to current estimates of what the early solar system was like.
Ad astra!
Daniel Ust
The tar water hoax unveiled along with my journal entries on how I was
duped into believing tar water is consciousness and talked to me in my sleep
now at:
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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