Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 02:10:11 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at keithlynch.net> To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net Subject: [WSFA] Re: Got Milk? Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> From: "Erica VD Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com> > There's a novel from the 70s (I think) called "The Hab Theory" about > this. If anyone's interested, I think I have a copy. A great > disaster novel, too! Yes. In 1976, by Allan W. Eckert. Whenever the polar icecaps become large enough, they unbalance our planet, and it tips over, placing the former polar regions on the new equator. This happens every few thousand years, and is about to happen again. Lake Chad is all that remains of the previous polar ice cap. The scientist who discovers this impending threat has a unique way of getting attention -- he shoots the President! Then the government takes his theory seriously, takes action, and everyone lives happily ever after. Too bad that the author apparently never heard of the equatorial bulge. It outweighs any conceivable polar icecap by several orders of magnitude. Velikovsky was the ultimate crackpot. Most crackpots are fairly specialized, often touting conspiracy theories which don't even violate any physical laws. Or at least critiquing only one or two fields of study. But Velikovsky trashed physics, chemistry, archeology, history, astronomy, cosmology, and theology, with wild abandon. According to Velikovsky, Venus was ejected from Jupiter during historic times, and flew by earth raining down hydrocarbons which somehow failed to burn up in our atmosphere, but instead turned into carbohydrates and were consumed during the Biblical Exodus. The close passage also caused the parting of the Red Sea, and the sun standing still. Venus then settled into its current near-circular orbit, and anyone who says it takes billions of years to circularize an orbit must be mistaken. After all, Velikovsky *did* correctly predict that Venus would turn out to be hotter than was believed at the time. (Of course he also made about a hundred other predictions, all wildly wrong. (For instance there are no hydrocarbons (or carbohydrates) on Venus.) But he did get that one right.) Von Daniken, on the other hand, only dissed our ancestors, not present-day scientists. It was impossible, according to him, for anyone to pile stone upon stone without the assistance of "ancient astronauts". However, while people thousands of years ago were terrible architects and engineers, they were wonderful artists. Whenever they drew what didn't look anything like a human being or animal, it must have been an accurate portrayal of an alien. Perhaps the very one who built the Great Pyramid. More recently, there was Richard C. Hoagland, who saw faces and whole cities in Viking pictures of Mars in which most people only saw random piles of rocks. I wonder who he thinks carved the "old man of the mountain" in New Hampshire. I enjoy alternative theories, in both fiction and non-fiction. But only when they're in accord with the known facts. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.