At 12:21 19/09/2007, you wrote:
On 18/09/2007, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, unfortunately unless you know the history here (Sagan was monumentally unpopular in his field, as popular as he was to the public), it's easy to be confused.
And Sagan was particularly annoying even by his own standards in this set of arguments, I vaguely recall.
It's a single quote from a "mainstream" astronomer; given the circumstances surrounding the debate, I think we can safely assume it was someone calling Sagan a twerp rather than calling Velikovsky a respected scientist! The dangers of contextless quotation...
Yes, context is important. Jastrow noted: "Dr. Velikovsky had his day when he spotted a major scientific boner in Professor Sagan's argument" concerning the odds against the collisions in Worlds in Collision. The "error lay in the assumption that the collisions were independent of one another.... Dr. Velikovsky pointed out that the collisions are not independent; in fact, if two bodies orbiting the sun under the influence of gravity collided once, that encounter enhances the chance of another, a fact well known in celestial mechanics. Professor Sagan's calculations, in effect, ignore the law of gravity. Here Velikovsky was the better astronomer." Robert Jastrow, "Velikovsky, a Star-Crossed Theoretician of the Cosmos," The New York Times (December 2,1979), p. 22E.
We may speculate that Jastrow was knocking Sagan, but his quote notes specifically that Velikovsky was better on this point (which is not the same as suggestion he was a respected scientist).
Jastrow had also noted that Velikovsky was "a man of extraordinary talents" with "powers of scholarship and intellect", and his theory as "radical, exciting, and potentially fruitful", and acknowledges three correct predictions: "Venus is hot; Jupiter emits radio noise; and the moon's rocks are magnetic" (and then notes seven false predictions).
Regards,
Ian Tresman www.plasma-universe.com
Ian Tresman wrote:
Jastrow had also noted that Velikovsky was "a man of extraordinary talents" with "powers of scholarship and intellect", and his theory as "radical, exciting, and potentially fruitful", and acknowledges three correct predictions: "Venus is hot; Jupiter emits radio noise; and the moon's rocks are magnetic" (and then notes seven false predictions)
This points to an "all-or-nothing" approach that some take to information sources. From the above they might say that because Velikovsky had a 70% error rate, none of what he said should be considered valid. Similarly, if he had been 70% correct there would be pressure to accept everything he said as being correct. The fact is that generally brilliant people sometimes jump from a cliff with a ridiculous theory; similarly, kooks can occasionally have amazing insights.
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At 18:14 19/09/2007, you wrote:
Ian Tresman wrote:
Jastrow had also noted that Velikovsky was "a man of extraordinary talents" with "powers of scholarship and intellect", and his theory as "radical, exciting, and potentially fruitful", and acknowledges three correct predictions: "Venus is hot; Jupiter emits radio noise; and the moon's rocks are magnetic" (and then notes seven false predictions)
This points to an "all-or-nothing" approach that some take to information sources. From the above they might say that because Velikovsky had a 70% error rate, none of what he said should be considered valid. Similarly, if he had been 70% correct there would be pressure to accept everything he said as being correct. The fact is that generally brilliant people sometimes jump from a cliff with a ridiculous theory; similarly, kooks can occasionally have amazing insights.
Could be indeed, which is why it's not good to over-generalize. And I have no doubt that many would disagree with Jastrow. I have quotes which consider Velikovsky's three "successful" predictions to be nothing of the sort, and other quotes which consider his "failed" predictions to be... nothing of the sort.
Regards,
Ian Tresman www.plasma-universe.com
On 19/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ian Tresman wrote:
Jastrow had also noted that Velikovsky was "a man of extraordinary talents" with "powers of scholarship and intellect", and his theory as "radical, exciting, and potentially fruitful", and acknowledges three correct predictions: "Venus is hot; Jupiter emits radio noise; and the moon's rocks are magnetic" (and then notes seven false predictions)
This points to an "all-or-nothing" approach that some take to information sources. From the above they might say that because Velikovsky had a 70% error rate, none of what he said should be considered valid. Similarly, if he had been 70% correct there would be pressure to accept everything he said as being correct. The fact is that generally brilliant people sometimes jump from a cliff with a ridiculous theory; similarly, kooks can occasionally have amazing insights.
Wow this thread has gone off topic! Oh well;
In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held. Contempt interferes with the first part of this process, and reverence with the second. Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had some intelligence, but that no man is likely to have arrived at the complete and final truth on any subject whatever. When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true. This exercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the scope of our thinking, and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind.
-- Bertrand Russell
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