From stassen@alc-ohio.alc.com Sun Jun 12 16:53:09 1994 Date: Sun, 12 Jun 94 19:25:42 EDT From: Chris Stassen To: lippard@rtd.com Subject: Re: another favor--or rather, the same one again... Jim, Here you are: Article: 35203 of talk.origins From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins Subject: Re: Message for John Godowski Date: 1 May 1994 13:28 MST Organization: University of Arizona Lines: 144 Distribution: world Message-ID: <1MAY199413282728@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 In article , ingria@BBN.COM writes... [In reply to Ev Cochrane's non-reply to some criticisms of Godowski/Velikovsky that I posted on behalf of Leroy Ellenberger:] >you show us nothin' but surrender? If you've got real evidence, >present it, otherwise, quit while you're behind, 'cause you ain't >persuadin' nobody, and it ain't 'cause they're closed-minded, it's >'cause you're a jack-ass. Speaking of jackasses, when I said that Ev Cochrane saw fit to publish in _Aeon_ an article by George Talbott which called Leroy Ellenberger a "jackass," Cochrane accused me of lying and said that to the best of his knowledge _Aeon_ had never published anything at all by George Talbott. When I replied giving the citation (George Talbott, "Candor At Last!", _Aeon_ II:4, pp. 126-127), an issue published and edited by Cochrane, he offered no response. (By the way, George Talbott also published in _Aeon_ I:6.) And with regard to the publication of Leroy Ellenberger's "Potpourri" article, Cochrane has said that parts after part one were not published because (a) they contained personal attacks. (b) they contained no new information and were not of reader interest. (c) they could not even have been accepted because Ellenberger kept making changes every other day. In my opinion, (a) is false. Even if (a) were true, Ellenberger has said he would have been more than happy to make changes in wording, but no specific complaints were offered. In fact, he was told that the remaining parts would not be published because of cancelled subscriptions and threats of cancellations as a result of part one, and that when Lewis Greenberg was brought aboard _Aeon_ one condition he specified was that Ellenberger no longer be published in _Aeon_. Ellenberger has sent me correspondence from the time which shows that this is what he was telling other people as the reason for the cancellation of the rest of the article. (b) is just false, at least regarding new information. In fact, the section of his article on magnetism which I posted here contained information damaging to Velikovsky which has not appeared in the Velikovskian literature. That section was part of the part one of his article, but was omitted from the published article without Ellenberger's consent. (c) is also false, since Cochrane typeset the entire article (by scanning the typewritten text Ellenberger sent him) and sent galleys to Ellenberger. The complete article was in his possession for months before Ellenberger was told that the rest would not be published. Finally, Cochrane has said that Ellenberger is still welcome at _Aeon_. But in a letter to Ellenberger dated June 29, 1993, in reply to Ellenberger's request for a clarification to one portion of his published article, he wrote that "I am responding to your request for more space within the pages of AEON. Neither our editors nor our readers are interested in anything you have to say. That's the plain truth of the matter, whether you like it or not. ... _We are not interested in this kind of junk._" (emphasis in original) Here is what Cochrane was rejecting: "Ignotum per Ignotius": A Clarification Speaker: Leroy Ellenberger The universe is indeed turning out to be queerer than hitherto imagined... but not so queer that arguments and evidence ... cannot serve as reliable guides. Daisie Radner & Michael Radner, _Science and Unreason_ Galileo established forever the principles of exact science against the Aristotelians, when he wrote that one necessary reason, once found, destroys utterly a thousand merely probable reasons. Giorgio de Santillana in A.C. Crombie (ed.), _Scientific Change_ Two corrections and a clarification to my discussion of the Venus Tablets in AEON III:1, pp. 98-103, should be noted. Since the article went to press, John D. Weir has informed me that the repeat interval for Venus phenomena is not a constant 219 years as I reported (p. 100). He writes: It would appear that groups of solutions alternate between intervals of 219 and 275 years; but with variations. That arises because the 56 and 64 year sequences between individual solutions are different with each group. Thus, if one extrapolates downwards, one should expect a possible error of +/- 8 years. (Weir to Ellenberger, 8 Jan. 1993) The table he included for Venus Tablet solutions between -2000 and -1000 shows intervals of 219, 275 and 283 years. In footnote 13 (p. 100), the text was submitted with the dates as negative numbers, but they were printed with the minus sign swapped for a "BCE" label. Correctly, -357 becomes 358 BCE; -1701 becomes 1702 BCE. Footnote 13 used the 219 year interval to discredit Lynn Rose's proposed downdating of Ammisaduqa's Year 1 from -1701 to -357. Despite the correction to the applicability of this 219 year interval, noted above, a -357 solution is still not feasible, even though 1) its difference from -1701 is divisible by both 56 and 64 and 2) it is similar to Solution -1645 (Weir to Ellenberger, 26 Nov. 1992), which was rejected in Huber's analysis. Solution -357 is disqualified by the absence of a suitable pair of eclipses visible at Babylon that presaged the end of the First Dynasty of Babylon 51 years after Ammisaduqa's Year 1. Peter Huber discussed this issue, noting that the desired pair, _i.e._, a lunar eclipse followed by a solar eclipse 14 days later, occurred in -1658, or 43 years after Ammisaduqa's Year 1 in -1701 (P. Huber, _Astronomical Dating of Babylon I and Ur III_ (Malibu, 1982), pp. 40-41). No eclipse pair matched Solution -1645. Regardless, no eclipse pair occurred in -314, either, which is 43 years after -357. The closest possible pair occurred in -309, but they were 15 days apart, not the required 14 days, while the solar eclipse on VIII 15 Julian was partial since Babylon is about 5.5 south of the centerline of totality. For eclipse data, see T.R. von Oppolzer, _Canon of Eclipses_ (1887/1962) and B.-L. Liu & A.D. Fiala, _Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1500 B.C.--A.D. 3000_ (1992). The futility of drastic chronologica revisions is indicated by the recent work of V.S. Tuman who has shown that the astronomical symbols on Mesopotamian boundary stones, _i.e._, Sun, Moon and five planets located along the zodiac, encode the date of placement. When all the planets are shown, a unique astronomical date for the search interval 2000 B.C. to 500 B.C. is obtained that is within the error limits of Brinkman's Assyro-Babylonian Chronology. When a planet is missing, multiple solutions occur; but one has always been close to Brinkman's date. See, _e.g._, V.S. Tuman and R. Hoffman, "Rediscovering the Past... Astronomical Dating of Kudurru SB22...", _Archaeoastronomy_ (College Park) X, 1987-8, pp. 124-138. Tuman's procedure is independent of Sothic dating and has passed a blind test on Kudurru IN80908 in a challenge from C.B.F. Walker of the British Museum whose result will appear in _Sumer_. The evidence from eclipses and Tuman's dating procedure cannot legitimately be discounted as being "uniformitarian." The Moon's spin-orbit resonance with Eart, which is difficult to achieve quickly, is evidence against recent disturbance. Similarly, all records of the synodic month are consistent with the present value of 29.53 days. Because there is no physical evidence in the Earth-Moon system even to remotely suggest that it has been disturbed so recently as to invalidate eclipse dating and Tuman's astronomical datings of boundary stones and related artifacts, retrocalculation is a legitimate working hypothesis, especially when all of the mythico-religio-literary "evidence" can be interpreted without impacting terrestrial and Earth-Moon dynamics. And as if it were not necessary to note, there can be no question that the Moon was here all during the development of civilization, which is the clear implication of footnote 17, p. 103. Jim Lippard Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU Dept. of Philosophy Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721