Is Planet X (Nibiru) returning in 2012? Discuss.

[gareth19 (imported)]

Paolo, do you consider us here MASTERdebaters?

A-1 is complimented, he thinks... ...dammit, moi, see what you have done to me, now I am talking in the 3rd person...AGAIN!

...anyway, ON WITH THE SHOW...

An obscure Russian Psychiatrist, Immanuel Velikovsky, in the work "Worlds In Collision" published in 1950 proposed the collision formation theory by proposing a 'near miss' of Earth by Venus. (http://www.skepdic.com/velikov.html)

Velikovsky

was NOT a psychiatrist; to be a psychiatrist you need an MD degree and then years additional training, none of which he had. To be a psychologist, you need a bachelor's degree in any subject and a post-graduate degree in psychology (there is no record of Velikovsky's ever having done any post-graduate work at any recognized institution); to be a psychoanalyst, you have to be nuts, or more precisely to have been analyzed by another psychoanalyst and accepted into the fraternity. Velikovsky (or his publishers) make no claim for his having studied with any recognized psychoanalyst. The back of the book actually says that "he studied the human mind in Vienna" That could mean that he was cab-driver or night clerk in an hotel; if he had any genuine academic credentials, they would have said he "graduated from Harvard"; "he studied with Sigmund Fraud" Velikovsky's academic qualifications are remarkably similar to the "buttery flavor" you get with popcorn. They imply that the slop they put there is butter, but it's not; Velikovsky's publishers imply some academic training, but they stop far short of actually making the false claim. Far too many gullible people have not read the package label closely enough and it has created a myth of an educated Velikovsky, but it is entirely fictitious.

Velikovsky cites astronomical curiosities of Venus, along with old writings from various world cultures, including the Bible to support his theories. Science of the day was not accepting of these ideas and scientists were not very complementary in their dismissal of these ideas.

However, these ideas persisted as "conspiracy theories" seem to today and eventually as Geology matured and escaped from the grasp of the Creationist dogmas eventually Velikovsky's ideas emerged again. This time, however, they were not as he had justified them originally. In a completely different time frame the "Worlds in Collision" theory was re-visited as an explanation for first the Earth (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 111310.htm) and then the moon (http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect ... ation.html).

Immanuel Velikovsky wrote several books (http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovsky/earth.htm)on the subject, living to be an old man, and finally passing on in 1979 before science could pay him his due for these ideas.

They paid him his dues, pointing out that among other things, he couldn't distinguish hydrocarbons (genuinely found in some meteors and in comets) from carbohydrates (found in plant life and according to Velikovsky's bizarre misunderstanding, the source of the manna in the Bible). Velikovsky was certainly not the first person to imagine meteor collisions. This was one of the chief explanations for the Winslow Crater in Arizona, and rather than raking through pathetic renaissance writings with their confused understanding of comets and space (meteors are so named because Aristotle deemed them a weather (meteoric) phenomenon because they exhibit change which can only occur in the atmosphere but not in space where change is impossible. The Great Nova of Tycho Brahe sorta made an ass out of Aristotle and his methodology), real scientists hiked down into the crater and started digging, coming up with meteor fragments. Finding the smoking gun as it were rather than smoking whatever it was that stimulated Velikovsky's delusions.

[Dave (imported)]

DAVE, just what is wrong with reading tea leaves?????

I bet you feel the same way about crystal balls and Runes????

Actually I kind of like reading the runes myself.

Remember one mans religion is another mans belly laugh.

River

I consult the tea leaves every time I make a pot of tea (about twice a day) and then throw the tea bag out.

You have my permission to consult whatever your little heart desires. I'm not fond of our descent from the apes but I am happy we quit slinging shit as a greeting, and I'm happy we don't have to groom the bugs out of our fur anymore.

[Dave (imported)]

It does not mean that something cannot be coming at the speed of light and that it just has not yet arrived, either.

But the odds of that are slim. By the way, Einstein HATED probabilities and Newton never paid much attention to them.

So, most likely, Dave, you are correct.

It has to end there...

[/B]

Einstein wasn't a big fan of quantum mechanics (or the parts of it that existed when he was alive) because probability created such chaos.

Entropy is a bitch and probability is its handmaiden.

[transward (imported)]

It does not mean that something cannot be coming at the speed of light and that it just has not yet arrived, either.

But the odds of that are slim. By the way, Einstein HATED probabilities and Newton never paid much attention to them.

So, most likely, Dave, you are correct.

It has to end there...

For someone who hated probabilities, Einstein is one of the greatest figures in statistical physics, which employs the mathematical edifices of probability and statistics to explain how the properties of fluids arise from the movement of the atoms that make them up. His use of the theory, in a paper published in 1906, to explain in great numerical detail the precise mechanism of Brownian movement, established the use of probability to explain physical processes.

Transward

[gareth19 (imported)]

Einstein didn't like the indeterminancy of quantum theory which is a consequence of but different from probability, airily dismissing the matter in a debate with Bohr with "God does not play dice." He took this stance possibly because he was such a poor mathematician that he could rarely do the math right. As Planck observed, "the boys in the streets know more math than our Einstein." Of course, the streets were in Heidelberg.

[A-1 (imported)]

Velikovsky

was NOT a psychiatrist; to be a psychiatrist you need an MD degree and then years additional training, none of which he had. To be a psychologist, you need a bachelor's degree in any subject and a post-graduate degree in psychology (there is no record of Velikovsky's ever having done any post-graduate work at any recognized institution); to be a psychoanalyst, you have to be nuts, or more precisely to have been analyzed by another psychoanalyst and accepted into the fraternity. Velikovsky (or his publishers) make no claim for his having studied with any recognized psychoanalyst. The back of the book actually says that "he studied the human mind in Vienna" That could mean that he was cab-driver or night clerk in an hotel; if he had any genuine academic credentials, they would have said he "graduated from Harvard"; "he studied with Sigmund Fraud" Velikovsky's academic qualifications are remarkably similar to the "buttery flavor" you get with popcorn. They imply that the slop they put there is butter, but it's not; Velikovsky's publishers imply some academic training, but they stop far short of actually making the false claim. Far too many gullible people have not read the package label closely enough and it has created a myth of an educated Velikovsky, but it is entirely fictitious.

They paid him his dues, pointing out that among other things, he couldn't distinguish hydrocarbons (genuinely found in some meteors and in comets) from carbohydrates (found in plant life and according to Velikovsky's bizarre misunderstanding, the source of the manna in the Bible). Velikovsky was certainly not the first person to imagine meteor collisions. This was one of the chief explanations for the Winslow Crater in Arizona, and rather than raking through pathetic renaissance writings with their confused understanding of comets and space (meteors are so named because Aristotle deemed them a weather (meteoric) phenomenon because they exhibit change which can only occur in the atmosphere but not in space where change is impossible. The Great Nova of Tycho Brahe sorta made an ass out of Aristotle and his methodology), real scientists hiked down into the crater and started digging, coming up with meteor fragments. Finding the smoking gun as it were rather than smoking whatever it was that stimulated Velikovsky's delusions.

Most of the things I posted were taken from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky). You should attack the ideas, not the person. Of course, I realize he did not get the details right, but neither did Arthur Clarke ever launch a Satellite into a geosyncronus Earth orbit. The ideas he presented were interesting.

Velikovsky was like a "conspiracy theorist", except that he tended to piss off scientists. He is an interesting individual, regardless of his education.

Velikovsky's life[12]

[edit] Childhood and education

Immanuel Velikovsky was born in 1895 to a prosperous Jewish family, in Vitebsk, Russia (now in Belarus). The son of Shimon (Simon Yehiel) Velikovsky (1859 – 1937) and Beila Grodensky, he learned several languages as a child, was sent away to study at the Medvednikov Gymnasium in Moscow, where he performed well in Russian and mathematics. He graduated with a gold medal in 1913. Velikovsky then traveled in Europe and visited Palestine before briefly studying medicine at Montpellier in France and taking premedical courses at the University of Edinburgh. He returned to Russia before the outbreak of World War I, enrolled in the University of Moscow, and received a medical degree in 1921.

[edit] Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Upon taking his medical degree, Velikovsky left Russia for Berlin. There, with the financial support of his father, Velikovsky edited and published a pair of volumes of scientific papers, translated into Hebrew, titled Scripta Universitatis Atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitanarum ("Writings of the Jerusalem University & Library"). He enlisted Albert Einstein to prepare the volume dealing with mathematics and physics. Once completed, this project was a cornerstone in the formation of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the fledgling university was able to donate copies of the Scripta to the libraries of other academic institutions, who would then send complimentary copies of their own publications, thus helping the Hebrew University to stock its library.

In 1923, Velikovsky married Elisheva Kramer, a young violinist.

[edit] Velikovsky's career as a psychiatrist

From 1924 to 1939 Velikovsky lived in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, practising medicine (both general practice and psychiatry), and also psychoanalysis (he had studied under Sigmund Freud's pupil, Wilhelm Stekel in Vienna). During this time he had a dozen or so papers published in medical and psychoanalytic journals, including, in 1930, the first paper to suggest that epilepsy is characterised by abnormal encephalograms,[13] now part of the routine diagnostic procedure, and papers in Freud's Imago, including a precocious analysis of Freud's own dreams.[14]

[Paolo]

You have to admit, though, some of the stuff found on those ancient Sumerian tablets is pretty cool.

[Riverwind (imported)]

How true, I think I will get some copies to read while I am enjoying that goose on the Yule.

River

[jemagirl (imported)]

neither did Arthur Clarke ever launch a Satellite into a geosyncronus Earth orbit. The ideas he presented were interesting.

Interestingly, I have it on very good authority that Arthur C. Clarke's idea of putting satellites into geosynchronous orbit actually had a lot to do with such things coming to pass. Arthur also had a cat named Scooter the Neuter.

[Paolo]

River, I think you'd better do an Autumnal Equinox goose dinner as a trial run to make sure you get it right! LOL!