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KillRide
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I've been coming across sites like these for quite some time : How much truth is there in the articles they represent?
http://www.armageddononline.org
Thoughts?
http://www.armageddononline.org
Thoughts?
No more than divining the fate of the empire based on the cracks in tortoise (?) bones when stuck with a hot poker! (or the entrails of a slain goat, or ...)Marijn said:i'm not only referring to this particular story.
More in general.
Do any of you guys think ancient stories hold any value in predicting future disasters?
Kerrie said:and russ...don't knock the mayans to harshly...they had a firm grip of mathematics which is quite close to the same reality we use today...
No. None whatsoever. Not even biblical Revelations (and I'm a Christian).Marijn said:Do any of you guys think ancient stories hold any value in predicting future disasters?
I'm not knocking them at all. The fact that they had a calendar (and it worked) is a major achievement for the time. What I'm "knocking" is the conspiracists who read-into that things that aren't there. The Mayan didn't make this prediction - some guy selling a book did.and russ...don't knock the mayans to harshly...they had a firm grip of mathematics which is quite close to the same reality we use today...
Locrian said:What does mathematics have to do with end of the world predictions?
Kerrie said:armageddon is just a fancy name for Earth changes that the religious human population has yet to experience...other then that, these Earth changes have happened before the time of the human population.
hopefully most of us here know thatChrono said:Wasn't the term "armageddon" coined in the Bible?
Nereid said:Krakatoa-sized volcanic eruptions are very likely in 'the next few hundred years'; how much death and destruction they do depends on where they are, and how much warning there is.
Chrono said:What about over-population? Would that be considered an appropriate scenario? It's the most environmental threat out there.
LURCH said:I didn't see "viral epidemic" anywhere on that page. If we're talking about destruction of mankind in particular, I'd say that one's the most likely.
sage said:so not only will population exceed 12 billion it will mostly be concentrated in the poorer countries who would not be able to deal with it.
even if population is controlled, a stagnant population will result is dramatic alteration in young/old ratio that will become a cause for serious strain in the economics of the world at large.
It does not follow that any physicist, let alone a highly accomplished one,Andre said:But HB, what is this?? Don't you know that a poleshift is physically impossibe? Ask any physisist.
Not to be facetious, but nothing "on Earth" could cause a pole shift. TheAndre said:A rigid spinning symmetrical body maintains the direction of it's spinning axis unless a torque is acting on it. That would cause precession. So what on Earth could cause a poleshift?
So because certain individuals have been the target of intense scrutinyAndre said:No, Hugh Auchincloss Brown, Charles Hapgood, John White have been thorougly debunked.
Perhaps not, but to do so does not immediately invalidate the theoryAndre said:And those other names like Velivkovsky and Cayce should not be mentioned at all in a physics phorum
Many of my points thusly stated. It's a rare individual who is willing toAndre said:So the most taboo subject for Earth science is the poleshift and even if it was true, it would take a couple of hundred years to overcome the aversion against it. Forget it.
You're speaking to one who finds value in those observations, not oneAndre said:But how about the mammoth? the cuban city 2200 feet below sea level? Ice sheets below the great lakes in the USA? The fresh sea bottom diatoms below the ice sheet of West Antarctica? The pine needle underneath the ice sheet of Greenland? The lucious green Sahara during the ice age? Almost tropical conditions in Mid Asia during the ice age? etc, etc.
No it can't be. Can it?
Read/study the Venus thread. There is a BIG message in it for Earth.
If you wish to refrain from exploring outside the realm of acceptableAndre said:But let's keep it strictly physical, no tales of floods or so, no Velikovsky-Cayce hanky panky
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12818&start=26Andre said:I know, in the business of persecuting paradigms, it’s not wise to state anything without robust substantiation
But what have we here? “Counterintuitive”? It’s natural to appeal to intuition or common sense (the prejudice acquired by age eighteen - Albert Einstein) but you, Astronomers, are very used to gigantic phenomenons, super novas, big bangs, black holes, nothing is too weird, yet the moment that we deliberate terrestrial planets with some unusual gigantic phenonenons, “intuition” kicks in. ;) Personally I think physical laws defeat intuition. Precession for instance is not something you would have thought of intuitively. Anyway.
I also ran across a thread here on PF that highlights my dismay at theAndre said:No more objections agains Venus big brake? Perhaps it is allowed to philosophise a bit about Earths big brake. I know, I'm triggering all your http://www.carlsagan.com/revamp/carlsagan/baloney.html [fingerwag] But rest assured; all the evidence is in peer reviewed publications.
True, deda quickly "retracted" the sentiment to leave PF altogether, butdeda said:It’s been more than two years since I’m member here on PF. At first I only had a hunch that something’s not right with the traditional physics but, now I’m sure and I know exactly the reason for it. It’s Newton’s mechanics being incompatible with the law of lever. Nowadays you cannot publish something not based on something else previously accepted by the authorities. My question is: How Newton managed to publish his mechanics though it’s against the physics of lever accepted years before Newton’s time? Because today’s physics starts with Newton’s mechanics instead of the law of lever it’s entirely wrong.
It seems that PF is a Mega Maze where folks with revolutionary ideas end up lost in the effort to get to the public opinion and remedy it. PF is Mega Maze where folks like me end up fighting windmills. What’s the point of PF any way? Talk, talk, just talk and do nothing. I think I had enough of it. But before I leave I want you all to make my time and money spent here worthy a while. I want those of you experienced in publishing to help me compose solid undeniable scientific paper and submit it in some physics journal. Let's do finally something that matters. Make my effort finally effective.
[/URL]Andre said:Let me give one example of that evidence. After working our way trough much recent geologic work we reconstructed the North Pole during MIS-3, roughly 55-30,000 years ago:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/mmm.gif
Delving further into that article, Andre, you will find some informationDavid Sunfellow said:When John White first published "Pole Shift" in 1980, his book sent re-affirming shocks waves through the Earth changes community. Many Earth change believers (including this reporter) believed White's book "proved" that Edgar Cayce, and a host of other psychics, had correctly foreseen a global catastrophe that would destroy much of the planet along with major portions of the human race. White's book was particularly powerful because it was written by a man with serious professional credentials and, perhaps more importantly, because it seamlessly wed modern scientific data with contemporary psychics and ancient myths and prophecies. While White refused to say in "Pole Shift" that he was absolutely certain that a pole shift was coming, he left no doubt that he thought one might strike sometime near the year 2000.
Now, however, White has publicly said that he doesn't believe there is going to be a pole shift -- at least the kind of cataclysmic variety envisioned by Cayce, Gordon-Michael Scallion, and others. And while "Pole Shift" is still selling like hot cakes (it is presently being published by the A.R.E., Edgar Cayce's organization), the 1995 edition now contains an epilogue that discusses why a pole shift WON'T be visiting planet Earth anytime soon. White also challenged the themes championed in "Pole Shift" in another book of his published in 1990, "The Meeting of Science and Spirit." In that book he writes, "On the basis of a decade's hindsight, I think that the possibility of a catastrophic pole shift at the end of this century is increasingly unlikely. To be more precise, I do not think a pole shift will occur as predicted."
Since then, White has apparently become even more convinced that a pole shift won't happen. In an interview that appears in the current issue of ATLANTIS RISING (Number 9), White called the possibility of a geological pole shift around the year 2000 "nonsense and fantasy." Furthermore, he also believes that there has probably NEVER been a pole shift, although he doesn't rule out the possibility that it could occur someday in the distant future. White is, however, careful to distinguish the difference between a magnetic pole shift and a geological one. While acknowledging that there have been at least 181 occasions recognized by science when the magnetic field of the Earth has completely collapsed and re-established itself in the opposite polarity, White says that these reversals were never accompanied by catastrophes. "Or," says White, "certainly not catastrophes of the sort predicted by pole shift theorists and predictors." White also said that as far as he knows, such magnetic shifts do not occur on any cyclical basis, nor are they triggered by outer-space events.
Why, exactly, does White believe a pole shift won't happen?
One thing to add that supports your thesis, but you didn't say:Locrian said:Yes, comparing humans with bacteria and mice is a common argument for the dangers of overpopulation.
Those comparisons are fundamentally flawed for the following reason: they assume that humans, like other animals, grow in population until recources are used up. This statement is not currently true of humans. There are places in the world with zero population growth that could very well afford to grow. This proves that, although some people may grow till recources are gone, not all do. I further argue that those populations not growing all have common societal traits.
The "overpopulation problem" is really just another way of saying "if people were dead, we'd have no problems." Although tautologically true, it nevertheless seems to miss the point of solving problems that allow people to live and live well.
Its already here: AIDS is "fixing" Africa's overpopulation problem in a pretty decisive way. Right now people are talking about infection rates, but in 10 or 20 years, the death rates due to AIDS in many African countries will be upwards of 50% (lifetime). And I don't think there is any stopping it.LURCH said:I didn't see "viral epidemic" anywhere on that page. If we're talking about destruction of mankind in particular, I'd say that one's the most likely.
Many prominent scientists, in fact, have theorized that we are currently experiencing a pole shift. What it is and what happens as a result of it, however, is nothing at all like what you are describing. If it happened overnight, the biggest problem we'd have is the decision of whether to re-label all of our maps or all of our compasses.Human Being said:My point, regarding the concept of a "pole shift" event, is that even
those who suggest it may have happened in the past, can happen in
the future, or will happen in the "near" future, are subject to intense
amounts of resistance that can cause them to change their position.
But I'm not talking about the type of shift that prominent, established scientists are describing. I know full well of magnetic pole shifts. And I guarantee you that even in the event of a magnetic pole shift, humanity would have more problems than with their compasses. Ecosystems would be severely modified, since the animal kingdom relies on the magnetic field for direction. This would affect ecologies on a not so small scale.russ_watters said:Many prominent scientists, in fact, have theorized that we are currently experiencing a pole shift. What it is and what happens as a result of it, however, is nothing at all like what you are describing. If it happened overnight, the biggest problem we'd have is the decision of whether to re-label all of our maps or all of our compasses.Human Being said:My point, regarding the concept of a "pole shift" event, is that even
those who suggest it may have happened in the past, can happen in
the future, or will happen in the "near" future, are subject to intense
amounts of resistance that can cause them to change their position.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, so your misunderstanding is really my fault. In spite of that, you've fallen victim to a common misunderstanding among pole shift catastrophe disbelievers: the lack of understanding of the difference between a magnetic pole shift and a geographic pole shift. As I said, I wasn't clear enough for you. If the core were to "suddenly" realign to a foreign magnetic field, whether it took a day or a decade, the lithosphere would be "dragged" in a similar direction. This would result in the physical reorientation of land and sea with respect to the ecliptic. When this foreign magnetic field became absent, the sun's magnetic field would resume its proper influence, and in time the Earth's core would realign with it. Furthermore, yes it would indeed take nothing less than a "Jupiter-class" body. I took care not to suggest what that object could be, but I assure you such an object which could induce a geographic pole shift would be several Jupiter masses. If you wish to pin down what I'm talking about, there are better ways, Russ, than the one your have chosen. It seems that Andre's initial sarcasm went over my head, but his subsequent post sheds light on what he was really getting at.russ_watters said:Andre - you have fallen victim to a common misunderstanding among pole shift catastrophe believers: the lack of understanding of the difference between and relationship between the magnetic and geographic poles. Trying to pin down which they are talking about may just change your axis of rotation! You are, of course, right that nothing less than Jupiter pasing close by could affect our rotational axis. Changing the magnetic poles is much easier, but don't try to explain the difference...
You are absolutely right, Andre. Very few people take the possibility of a geographic pole shift seriously. They often twist it, pun intended, into a magnetic pole shift, and then state how harmless one of those would be. I agree that Venus would not have shifted Earth's poles in the manner I describe, but it could have caused other dramatic effects that "inspired" mankind to retell the event through the ages. I also try to tread cautiously here, since I understand this is the type of forum where references to published data are highly preferred. I agree that an enormous amount of data of past eras is likely misinterpreted by academia. Yet, I disagree that it will be thousands of millenia before the next "global catastrophe" happens. Perhaps Russ would like to take up discussion of this scenario more seriously. Regardless, as I am a "professional layman" I don't expect my ideas to be warmly welcomed by the majority of the membership here.Andre said:HB
I'm afraid that my in my previous post has missed it's ironical intend. I was only playing the standard debunker like Mewhinney.
The point that I was trying to make is that something like a poleshift is no longer taken seriously at all. Especially with the high Cayce woo-woo level. It's the biggest taboo in geology. See also the previous comment of Russ Watters.
No a passing object like Venus could never have shifted the spin axis. Several big thinking errors. It's not about shifting axes at all.
The Venus mechanism could be one step short of something similar on Earth. I have a hypothetical physical possible construction ready for the ultimate result of a misalignment of the spin axes of Earths inner core and mantle.
But this site is very hostile against crackpots So I continue to manoeuvre cautiously, making sure that everything is both totally documented and physically sound. Mind you we have an enormous amount of data of the past Pleistocene ice age that needs to be re-interpretated as possible Rapid True Polar Wanders and the vision is blurred by the Clathrate gun.
But no-one will take it seriously until the next event in about 50-80,000 years.
Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
That's easy, if the North Pole was somewhere else, in North Canada for instance, in that time, the associated climates compared to lattitude, would make perfect sense .Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena.
Oops Earth is physics and we need either a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation. The latter seems rather impossible. So we need a causal mechanism. That's a thoug one. HAB and John White had none. Charles Hapgood had the Earth Crust Displacement but debunking that is taking candy from a baby, I'm afraid. Velikovki had Venus passing by. This has nothing to do with reality whatsoever. No wonder that something like a poleshift can make serious geophysisists very angry.In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.