From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Jul 12 1997 - 10:28:17 MDT
[bounced message; resending long after the fire & fury has died down,
probably]
>> "Consider next the high temperature of Venus (480C). As Dr.
>> Roger Wescott and others have pointed out, Dr. Velikovsky
>> predicted a temperature in this range for Venus when
>> astronomical orthodoxy believed that planet much, much colder.
>> Sagan tries to avoid giving Dr. Velikovsky credit for this
>> confirmation of his model...
>
>That's no more a "confirmation of his model" than the fact that
>polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were found in a Mars rock are
>confirmation of 50s sci-fi films.
Quite. If Velikovsky had suggested that Venus is the biblical Hell, would
its observed high temperature provide `confirmation' for this great
scientific notion? Would anyone sensible be righteously shocked if Dr
Sagan had refused to `give credit' to the Hell theory?
RAW is an amusing gadfly, but taking his `multi-disciplinary' gags
seriously (even when he does himself) is all too often a recipe for...
cross-sterilization.
Damien Brodrick
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