George Sarton: What Did Homer Teach?

"What did Homer teach? In the first place, he taught the Greek language. His immortal works helped to standardize that language, or rather to lift it up to that level of excellence and dignity which can be reached only by means of literary masterpieces. His writings became for the Greek people a kind of Bible, to which they were always ready to listen and which gave them and their children patterns of honor, of good breeding, and of good language. In spite of its mythological contents, the Bible was a lay Bible; that is, there was nothing sacerdotal in it, and it was remarkably free of magic and superstitions. The Ionian poet was truly an ancestor of the Ionian scientists whose achievements will be explained later. In the second place, the Iliad and the Odyssey taught history, the history of the Minoan and Mycenaean origins, which were in some respects dim and distant, yet in other respects near enough in the form of tools, usages, words, and folklore to be easily recognized and understood by the listeners. It is the very function of epic poetry to record the past for posterity and prevent it's oblivion."

"Homeric poetry offers us a mirror of the Mycenaean age, which was then vanishing, yet was vividly and joyfully remembered by the old people and the minstrels. Like every epic, it was turned toward the past; it is thus a little paradoxical to call it the harbinger of a new age. It is a climax or an ending rather than a beginning yet it proivided the new people, the Greeks, with a solid foundation upon which to establish a new culture; it provided them with a standard of propriety and a guide of conduct; it gave them pride and dignity. To put it otherwise, I am more and more convinced that the Greek culture of Homeric days was not something radically new but rather a sec ond growth of the Aegean culture which had been completely destroyed, however; consider, for example the rich growth of plants in a region devastated by volcanic eruptions or desiccated by a long drought. One might think that everything is dead, but it is not. Life is dormant and may remain so for a long time, yet let the blessed rain fall and the mercy of heaven permit it, and it will soon reappear as vigorous as ever. Much is lost in the process, of course, and new elements are mixed with the old ones. The new Greek culture was a revival of the old one; that revival was deliberate, at least from the point of view of the minstrels and their patrons. It was different in many respects from the Aegean one, for the conditions of life were deeply modified. For one thing this was the age of iron; the days of bronze could never come back."

George Sarton: The Father of the History of Science

"It is childish to assume that science began in Greece...." –- George Sarton, professor, History of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

Greatest zinger ever?

Thus Harvard professor George Sarton considered all Darwinists, especially Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, to be immature thinkers and mere children.

"It is childish to assume that science began in Greece; the Greek ‘miracle’ was prepared by millennia of work in Egypt, Mesopotamia and possibly in other regions. Greek science was less an invention than a revival." -- George Sarton, professor, History of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

"Some of the conclusions reached by Eudoxos and Aristotle are still essential parts of the knowledge current today." -- George Sarton, professor, History of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

"We well know that whatever amount of civilization we enjoy today is the gift of many nations; we do not know so well that the same was already true thousands of years ago. Prehistorians have proven beyond doubt the existence of sophisticated cultures at very early times in many places." -- George Sarton, professor, History of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

"Some people are more advanced than others, nor do they all pass through the same stages. The passage from nomadic to settled life occurred many millennia ago in some places, yet it has not been completed today by the Arab Bedouins." -- George Sarton, professor, Historian of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

"No savages have ever been found near water who were not able to navigate it...." -- George Sarton, professor, History of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

"According to the Norwegian archaeologist Anton Wilhelm Brogger, there was a golden age of oceanic navigation during the period roughly defined as 3000 to 1500 B.C., that is, before the days of Phoenecian navigation." -- George Sarton, professor, History of Science (Harvard University), Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, April 18th 1951

"We have already referred to the prehistoric knowledge of herbs and other drugs, knowledge distilled from immemorial empiricism, trial and error doggedly continued for hundreds and thousands of years. It is impossible for us to understand how such vague and casual experiments could be repeated long enough, their results taken note of and transmited from generation to generation, but the fact is there: our prehistoric ancestors, like the primitive people who can still be observed, had managed to try many plants and other objects and to classify them in various groups according to their utility or danger."

"We have already spoken of the stars. It was impossible for any reflective man to observe them night after night without asking himself a number of questions, which were primarily scientific questions."

"It is not necessary to emphasize the antiquity of Egyptian medicine...."

"The people [Darwinists] who speak of Hippocrates as the father of medicine should bear in mind that Hippocrates comes about half way between Imhotep and us. That would improve their perspective of ancient science."

"... will the scientists of the year 5000 think as favorably of our methods as we do ourselves?"

"Some readers having at the back of their minds the prejudice that science is a Greek invention (have not scholars repeated that for centuries?) will insist and say, 'That may be science, but not pure science.' Why not? At the end of his admirable investigation of the Smith papyrus, Breasted concluded: Indeed these two men, the surgeon who was the original author of the treatise, and his later successor, who wrote the glosses forming the ancient commentary, both living in the first half of the third thousand years B.C., were the earliest known natural scientists. In the long course of human development they are the first men whom we can see confronting a great body of observable phenomena, which they collected and stated, sometimes out of interest in scientific truth, as inductive conclusions which they drew from observed fact."

"Let us repeat once more that the whole Greek science (as opposed to Hellenestic and Roman science) was developed in a period of time that was not only preceded but followed by Mesopotamian (and Egyptian) activities. If we replaced time by space, we might visualize Greek science as a small island surrounded by an Oriental sea."

"'Babylonian' science is prior to the first millenium, that is, it is completely prior to Greek 'historic' times, prior to Homer and Hesiod, not to mention the Ionian philosophers."

Democritus Guesses Again

Science in cryptomnesia:

"He [Democritus] said that the ordered worlds are boundless and differ in size, and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, but that in others, both are greater than with us, and yet with others more in number. And that the intervals between the ordered worlds are unequal, here more and there less, and that some increase, others flourish and others decay, and here they come into being and there they are eclipsed. But that they are destroyed by colliding with one another. And that some ordered worlds are bare of animals and plants and all water." -- Hippolytus, priest, 2nd century

Discovery News: WEIRD [sic] EXOPLANET DISCOVERED ORBITING TWO STARS.

If you could stand on the surface of Kepler-16b, you'd have two shadows. At sunset, you would see an orange star about the size of the sun and next to it a much fainter red star. As the stars slipped toward the horizon, they would change places in the sky, like partners in a square dance.

Carbon In Deep Mantle

An old rediscovery = science in cryptomnesia.

Science Daily: Carbon Cycle Reaches Earth's Lower Mantle: Evidence of Carbon Cycle Found in 'Superdeep' Diamonds From Brazil.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2011) — The carbon cycle, upon which most living things depend, reaches much deeper into Earth than generally supposed -- all the way to the lower mantle, researchers report.

The findings, which are based on the chemistry of an unusual set of Brazilian diamonds, will be published online by the journal Science, at the Science Express Web site, on 15 September. Science is published by AAAS, the non-profit, international science society.

"This study shows the extent of Earth's carbon cycle on the scale of the entire planet, connecting the chemical and biological processes that occur on the surface and in the oceans to the far depths of Earth's interior," said Nick Wigginton, associate editor at Science.

"Results of this kind offer a broader perspective of planet Earth as an integrated, dynamic system," he said.

Precious Metals From Meteorites

Science Daily: Where Does All Earth's Gold Come From? Precious Metals the Result of Meteorite Bombardment, Rock Analysis Finds.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 9, 2011) — Ultra high precision analyses of some of the oldest rock samples on Earth by researchers at the University of Bristol provides clear evidence that the planet's accessible reserves of precious metals are the result of a bombardment of meteorites more than 200 million years after Earth was formed.

The research is published in Nature.
During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its centre to make the core. This took with it the vast majority of the planet's precious metals -- such as gold and platinum. In fact, there are enough precious metals in the core to cover the entire surface of Earth with a four-metre thick layer.

The removal of gold to the core should leave the outer portion of Earth bereft of bling. However, precious metals are tens to thousands of times more abundant in Earth's silicate mantle than anticipated. It has previously been argued that this serendipitous over-abundance results from a cataclysmic meteorite shower that hit Earth after the core formed. The full load of meteorite gold was thus added to the mantle alone and not lost to the deep interior.

To test this theory, Dr Matthias Willbold and Professor Tim Elliott of the Bristol Isotope Group in the School of Earth Sciences analysed rocks from Greenland that are nearly four billion years old, collected by Professor Stephen Moorbath of the University of Oxford. These ancient rocks provide a unique window into the composition of our planet shortly after the formation of the core but before the proposed meteorite bombardment.

The researchers determined the tungsten isotopic composition of these rocks. Tungsten (W) is a very rare element (one gram of rock contains only about one ten-millionth of a gram of tungsten) and, like gold and other precious elements, it should have entered the core when it formed. Like most elements, tungsten is composed of several isotopes, atoms with the same chemical characteristics but slightly different masses.

Isotopes provide robust fingerprints of the origin of material and the addition of meteorites to Earth would leave a diagnostic mark on its W isotope composition.

Dr Willbold observed a 15 parts per million decrease in the relative abundance of the isotope 182W between the Greenland and modern day rocks. This small but significant change is in excellent agreement with that required to explain the excess of accessible gold on Earth as the fortunate by-product of meteorite bombardment.

Dr Willbold said: "Extracting tungsten from the rock samples and analysing its isotopic composition to the precision required was extremely demanding given the small amount of tungsten available in rocks. In fact, we are the first laboratory world-wide that has successfully made such high-quality measurements."

Humans Shaped Stone Axes 1.8 Million Years Ago

Darwinists wrong AGAIN (shock and awe)!

Science Daily: Humans Shaped Stone Axes 1.8 Million Years Ago: Advanced Tool-Making Methods Pushed Back in Time.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2011) — A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, recently published in Nature, raises new questions about where these tall and slender early humans originated and how they developed sophisticated tool-making technology.

Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine

On Prisca Sapientia: Ancient Thought in Modern Dress

"But the idea was not ours, it is that of antiquity."

"For, archaic astronomy, and the ancient, physical and mathematical sciences, expressed views identical with those of modern science, and of far more momentous import."

"Modern science is ancient thought distorted, and no more."

Earth, Peopled From Heaven

"The 'Watchers' reign over man during the whole period of Satya Yuga and the smaller subsequent yugas, down to the beginning of the Third Root Race; after which it is the Patriarchs, Heroes, and the Manes (see Egyptian Dynasties enumerated by the priests to Solon), the incarnated Dhyanis of a lower order, up to King Menes and the human kings of other nations; all were recorded carefully. In the views of symbologists this Mythopaeic Age is of course regarded as a fairy tale. But since traditions and even Chronicles of such dynasties of divine Kings -- of gods reigning over men followed by dynasties of Heroes or Giants -- exist in the annals of every nation, it is difficult to understand how all the people under the sun, some of whom are separated by vast oceans and belong to different hemispheres, such as the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, as well as the Chaldeans, could have worked out the same 'fairy tales' in the same order of events."

Nothing New Under the Sun

"For the truly astral light of the derided Kabalists has strange weird secrets for him who can see in it; and the mysteries concealed within its incessantly disturbed waves are there, the whole body of Materialists and scoffers notwithstanding. These secrets, along with many other mysteries, will remain non-existent to the materialists of our age, in the same way as America was a non-existent myth for Europeans during the early part of the mediaeval ages, whereas Scandinavians and Norwegians had actually reached and settled in that very old 'New World' several centuries before. But, as a Columbus was born to re-discover, and to force the Old World to believe in Antipodal countries, so will there be born scientists who will discover the marvels now claimed by Occultists...."

The Metaphysics of Physical Science

"Sir Isaac Newton held to the Pythagorean corpuscular theory, and was also inclined to admit its consequences; which made the Count de Maistre hope, at one time, that Newton would ultimately lead science back to the recognition of the fact that Forces and the Celestial bodies were propelled and guided by Intelligences (Soirees, vol. ii). But de Maistre counted without his host. The innermost thoughts and ideas of Newton were perverted, and of his great mathematical learning only the mere physical husk was turned to account. Had poor Sir Isaac foreseen to what use his successors and followers would apply his 'gravity,' that pious and religious man would surely have quietly eaten his apple, and never breathed a word about any mechanical ideas connected with its fall. Great contempt is shown for metaphysics generally and for ontological metaphysics especially. But we see, whenever the Occultists are bold enough to raise their diminished heads, that materialistic, physical science is honey-combed with metaphysics; that its most fundamental principles, while inseparably wedded to transcendentalism, are nevertheless, in order to show modern science divorced from such 'dreams,' tortured and often ignored in the maze of contradictory theories and hypotheses."

The Geology of Enoch: The Expanding Earth

"The Earth and mankind, like the Sun, Moon, and planets, have all their growth, changes, developments, and gradual evolution in their life-periods; they are born, become infants, then children, adolescents, grown-up bodies, grow old, and finally die."

The Archaeology of Legend

Telegraph: King Arthur's round table may have been found by archaeologists in Scotland.

The King's Knot, a geometrical earthwork in the former royal gardens below Stirling Castle, has been shrouded in mystery for hundreds of years.

Though the Knot as it appears today dates from the 1620s, its flat-topped central mound is thought to be much older.

Writers going back more than six centuries have linked the landmark to the legend of King Arthur.

Archaeologists from Glasgow University, working with the Stirling Local History Society and Stirling Field and Archaeological Society, conducted the first ever non-invasive survey of the site in May and June in a bid to uncover some of its secrets.

Their findings were show there was indeed a round feature on the site that pre-dates the visible earthworks.

Historian John Harrison, chair of the SLHS, who initiated the project, said: "Archaeologists using remote-sensing geophysics, have located remains of a circular ditch and other earth works beneath the King's Knot.

"The finds show that the present mound was created on an older site and throws new light on a tradition that King Arthur's Round Table was located in this vicinity."

Stories have been told about the curious geometrical mound for hundreds of years -- including that it was the Round Table where King Arthur gathered his knights.

Around 1375 the Scots poet John Barbour said that "the round table" was south of Stirling Castle, and in 1478 William of Worcester told how "King Arthur kept the Round Table at Stirling Castle".

Sir David Lindsay, the 16th century Scottish writer, added to the legend in 1529 when he said that Stirling Castle was home of the "Chapell-royall, park, and Tabyll Round".

It has also been suggested the site is partly Iron Age or medieval, or was used as a Roman fort.

Extensive work on the royal gardens was carried out in the early 17th century for Charles I, when the mound is thought to have taken its current form.

The first known record of the site being called the King's Knot is from 1767, by which time it was being leased for pasture.

Locals refer to the grassy earthworks as the "cup and saucer", but aerial photographs taken in 1980 showed three concentric ditches beneath and around the King's Knot mound, suggesting an earthwork monument had preceded it.

The new survey -- funded by Historic Scotland and Stirling City Heritage Trust -- used the latest scientific techniques to showing lost structures and features up to a metre below the ground.

It also revealed a series of ditches south of the main mound, as well as remains of buildings, and more recent structures, including modern drains which appear at the northern end of the gardens.

Mr Harrison, who has studied the King's Knot for 20 years, said: "It is a mystery which the documents cannot solve, but geophysics has given us new insights.

"Of course, we cannot say that King Arthur was there, but the feature which surrounds the core of the Knot could explain the stories and beliefs that people held."

Archaeologist Stephen Digney, who coordinated the project, said: "The area around Stirling Castle holds some of the finest medieval landscapes in Europe.

"This investigation is an exciting first step in a serious effort to explore, explain and interpret them. The results so far suggest that Scotland's monarchs integrated an ancient feature into their garden, something we know happened in other countries too.

"We are looking forward to the next stage in September when we hope to refine some of the details."

Dr. Kirsty Owen, Cultural Heritage Adviser at Historic Scotland, added: "The project has the potential to add to our knowledge of the landscape context of the medieval and early modern occupation of Stirling Castle.

"The ditches identified may intriguingly be part of historically documented earlier garden features, or if prehistoric in origin could add to our scant knowledge of prehistoric activity at Stirling Castle.

"We look forward to seeing the results of the next phase of investigations."Futher work including a ground-penetrating radar survey, is now planned to take place next month to find out more.

A small display of the interim results can be seen close to the site at the Smith Museum.

Ancient Protractor Denied By Darwinists

New Scientist: Egyptian tomb mystery may be world's first protractor.

The bizarre object to the right was found in the tomb of an ancient Egyptian architect. For over 100 years, it has languished while archaeologists debated its function.

Now, a physicist has thrown her hat into the ring, arguing that it is the world's first known protractor. The intriguing suggestion – which has drawn scepticism from archaeologists – is based on the numbers encoded within the carvings on its surface.

The architect Kha helped to build pharaohs' tombs during the 18th dynasty, around 1400 BC. His own tomb was discovered intact in 1906 by archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli in Deir-al-Medina, near the Valley of the Kings. Among Kha's belongings were measuring instruments including cubit rods, a levelling device that resembles a modern set square, and what appeared to be an oddly shaped empty wooden case with a hinged lid.

Schiaparelli thought this last object had held another levelling instrument. The museum in Turin, Italy, where the items are now exhibited identifies it as the case of a balancing scale.

But Amelia Sparavigna, a physicist at Turin Polytechnic, suggests that it was a different architectural tool – a protractor. The key, she says, lies in the numbers encoded in the object's ornate decoration, which resembles a compass rose with 16 evenly spaced petals surrounded by a circular zigzag with 36 corners.

Sparavigna says that if the straight bar part of the object were laid on a slope, a plumb line would revealed its inclination on the circular dial (as illustrated in this graphic).

The fraction of one-sixteenth features in a calculus system the Egyptians used, says Sparavigna, and they also identified 36 star groups called the decans, which later formed the basis of a star clock. She suggests the object was "a protractor instrument with two scales, one based on Egyptian fractions, the other based on decans".

But Kate Spence, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge who specialises in ancient Egyptian architecture, is not convinced and maintains the object is simply a decorative case. She says that unlike those on known measuring instruments, the markings in question are not particularly accurate: "When the Egyptians want to be precise, they are." She says the Egyptians tended to define angles by measuring the two sides of a rectangle, and that no similar instrument is known.

Why Should We Care About the Opinion of the Many?

"But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they happened." -- Socrates in Plato, Crito, 360 B.C.

The Expanding Earth and Antediluvian Devolution

"We want to make clear that the existence of giant people [in ancient times] ... must be regarded as a scientifically certain fact." -- Louis Burkhalter, paleontologist, 1950

"Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men's bodies was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up as he faught, and ran, and hurled, and cast it:

Scarce twleve strong men of later mould
That weight could on their necks uphold,

thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of incredible size have been found and rolled out. I, myself, along with some others, saw on the shore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such size, that if it were cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances of of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men. And he mentions that Homer in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the ancients [See the account given by Herodotus (BK. I. 67) of the discovery of the bones of Orestes, which, as the story goes, gave a stature of seven cubits], and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay." -- St. Augustine, City of God, XV, 9

Plate Tectonics Says Sun Has No Impact on Earth

Science Daily: New Images Reveal Structures of the Solar Wind as It Travels Toward and Impacts Earth.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 18, 2011) — Using data collected by NASA's STEREO spacecraft, researchers at Southwest Research Institute and the National Solar Observatory have developed the first detailed images of solar wind structures as plasma and other particles from a coronal mass ejection (CME) traveled 93 million miles and impacted Earth.

Moon Younger Than Previously Believed

"The stars did not yet revolve in the heavens; the Danaides had not yet appeared, nor the race of Deucalion; the Arcadians alone existed, those of whom it is said that they lived before the Moon, eating acorns upon the mountains." -- Apollonios Rhodios, librarian, Argonautica, ~246 B.C.

"These were Arcadians of Evander's following, the so‑called Pre-Lunar people." -- Plutarch, historian, Moralia: The Roman Questions #76, 1st century

"In the remotest times, before the Moon accompanied the Earth, according to the mythology of the Muysca or Mozca Indians, the inhabitants of the plain of Bogota lived like barbarians, naked, without any form of laws or religious worship." --Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, Researches, 1814

"The passages in Ovid as to the existence of the Arcadians before the Moon are universally known." -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1851

"We shall commence with a few of the principal passages from the ancients, which treat of the Proselenes. Stephanus of Byzantium (v. 'Apkas) mentions the logographs of Hippys of Rhegium, a contemporary of Darius and Xerxes, as the first who called the Arcadians proselenous. The scholiasts, ad Apollon. Rhod. IV 264 and ad Aristoph. Nub. 397, agree in saying, the remote antiquity of the Arcadians becomes most clear from the fact of their being called proselenoi. They appear to have been there before the Moon, as Eudoxus and Theodorus also say; the latter adds that it was shortly before the labours of Hercules that the Moon appeared. In the government of the Tegeates, Aristotle states that the barbarians who inhabited Arcadia were driven out by the later Arcadians before the Moon appeared, and therefore they were called proselenoi." -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1851

"...the pre-Hellenic Pelasgian inhabitants of Arcadia called themselves Proselenes, because they boasted that they came into the country before the Moon accompanied the Earth. Pre-Hellenic and pre-lunarian were synonymous." -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1851

"Capture of our Moon becomes the only option, it cannot have been created from the Earth." -- Wallace Thornhill, physicist, October 2000

"Currently, the moon is moving away from the Earth at such a great rate, that if you extrapolate back in time — the moon would have been so close to the Earth 1.4 billion years ago that it would have been torn apart by tidal forces (Slichter, 1963)." — Dennis J. McCarthy, biogeographer/geologist, 2003

Science Daily: Moon Younger Than Previously Thought, Analysis of Lunar Rock Reveals.

The research team, which includes scientists from the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institute's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and Université Blaise Pascal, used newly-refined techniques to determine the age of the sample of a FAN that was returned by the Apollo 16 mission and has been stored at the lunar rock collection at the NASA Johnson Space Center.

The team analysed the isotopes of the elements lead and neodymium to place the age of a sample of a FAN at 4.36 billion years. This figure is significantly younger than earlier estimates of the Moon's age that range to nearly as old as the age of the solar system itself at 4.567 billion years. The new, younger age obtained for the oldest lunar crust is similar to ages obtained for the oldest terrestrial minerals -- zircons from Western Australia -- suggesting that the oldest crust on both Earth and the Moon formed at approximately the same time.

This study is the first in which a single sample of FAN yielded consistent ages from multiple isotope dating techniques. This result strongly suggests that these ages pinpoint the time at which this sample crystallised. The extraordinarily young age of this lunar sample either means that the Moon solidified significantly later than previous estimates -- and therefore the moon itself is much younger than previously believed -- or that this sample does not represent a crystallisation product of the original magma ocean. Either scenario requires major revision to previous models for the formation of the Moon.

St. Augustine On Myth, Astrolatry, and Platonism

"But whether Venus could bear Aeneas to a human father Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor, we leave as unsettled questions. For our own Scriptures suggest the very similar question, whether the fallen angels had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is with enormously large and strong men." -– Augustine, City of God, III, 5

"... though the verses of the poets are mythical, they are not altogether devoid of truth...." –- Augustine, City of God, III, 11

"But possibly these stars which have been called by their names are these gods. They call a certain star Mercury, and likewise a certain other star Mars. But among those stars which are called by the name of gods, is that one which they call Jupiter, and yet with them Jupiter is the world. There also is that one they call Saturn, and yet they give him no small property beside, namely all seeds." -- Augustine, City of God, VII, 15

"The Italic school had its founder Pythagoras of Samos, to whom also the term 'philosophy' is said to owe its origin. For whereas formerly those who seemed to excel others by the laudable manner in which they regulated their lives were called sages, Pythagoras, on being asked what he professed, replied that he was a philosopher, that is, a student or lover of wisdom; for it seemed to him to be the height of arrogance to profess oneself a sage." -- Augustine, City of God, VIII, 2

"If, then, Plato defined the wise man as one who imitates, knows, and loves this God, and who is rendered blessed through fellowship with Him in His own blessedness, why discuss with the other philosophers? It is evident that none come nearer to us than the Platonists." -- Augustine, City of God, VIII, 5

"Whatever philosophers, therefore, thought concerning the supreme God, that He is both the maker of all created things, the light by which things are known, and the good in reference to which things are to be done; that we have in Him the first principle of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happiness of life -- whether these philosophers may be more suitably called Platonists, or whether they may give some other name to their sect; whether we say that only the chief men of the Ionic school, such as Plato himself and they who have well understood him, have thought thus; or whether we also include the Italic school, on account of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans and all who may have held like opinions; and, lastly, whether also we include all who have been held wise men and philosophers among all nations who are discovered to have seen and taught his, be they Atlantics, Libyans, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Gauls, Spaniards, or of other nations -- we prefer these to all other philosophers, and confess that they approach nearest to us." -- Augustine, City of God, VIII, 10

"... he [Porphyry] is at a loss to understand how the sun and moon, and other visible celestial bodies – for bodies he does not doubt that they are – are considered gods." -- Augustine, City of God, X

Humans Travelled the High Seas 130,000 Years Ago

Archaeology News Network: Homo Erectus travelled the high seas.

Early manlike creatures may have been smarter than we think. Recent archaeological finds from the Mediterranean show that human ancestors traveled the high seas.

A team of researchers that included an N.C. State University geologist found evidence that our ancestors were crossing open water at least 130,000 years ago. That's more than 100,000 years earlier than scientists had previously thought.

Their evidence is based on stone tools from the island of Crete. Because Crete has been an island for eons, any prehistoric people who left tools behind would have had to cross open water to get there.

The tools the team found are so old that they predate the human species, said Thomas Strasser, an archaeologist from Providence College who led the team. Instead of being made by our species, Homo sapiens, the tools were made by our ancestors, Homo erectus.

The tools are very different from any others found on Crete, Strasser said. They're most similar to early Stone Age tools from Africa that are about 700,000 years old, he said.

Initially the team didn't have any way to date the tools.

That's where NCSU geologist Karl Wegmann came in.

At the time, Wegmann didn't know much about archaeology, but he did know quite a bit about Crete's geology. He had been figuring out the ages of Crete's rock formations to study earthquakes.

A few of the stone tools the team had discovered were embedded in those same rock formations. Those rocks were formed from ancient beach sands, Wegmann said.

Today, the rocks and the tools embedded in them are hundreds of feet above the shore.

The same process that drives the region's strong earthquakes - colliding continents - is pushing Crete upward out of the sea at a rate of less than 1/20 of an inch every year.

The island's slow rise has preserved beaches from many eras as terraces along the coast.

The lower terraces are the easiest to date. Scientists can measure the age of seashells embedded in the rock using radioactive carbon dating.

This method estimates the age of those terraces at about 45,000 and 50,000 years old.

"We know that (the tools) are tens of meters above the terrace we dated at 50,000 years old, so we know right off the bat that they have to be at least that old," Wegmann said.

But 50,000 years ago is carbon dating's limit. Anything older has to be dated using another method.

Dating by terraces

Crete's rise from the sea gives a fairly simple way of doing that. Once they know the age of lower terraces, geologists can calculate the age of higher terraces just by measuring the difference in the beaches' elevation.

If geologists know how much farther the older terrace traveled upward from the newer, and they know how fast it was going, they can figure out how long it took to get there.

Or, in other words, its age, in this case a record-smashing 130,000 years old.

"The thing to me that really makes this unique and exciting is ... these other sister species maybe weren't entirely stupid like we portray them," Wegmann said. "They were capable of really complex things."

Retarded Science

"It is remarked that no physician in Europe who had reached forty years of age ever, to the the end of his life, adopted Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood; and that his practice in London diminished extremely from the reproach drawn upon him by that great and signal discovery. So slow is the progress of truth in every science, even when not opposed by factions or superstitious prejudices." -- David Hume, philosopher, History of England, 18th century

Beetle Vicariance Also Proves Plate Tectonics A Lie

Associated Press: Rare destructive beetle intercepted at LA port.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Friday that agriculture specialists at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex intercepted the live adult beetle in a shipment of pineapple from Costa Rica, and immediately began working to return it.

The insect — strongylaspis corticarius Ancita — is a cousin of the Asian long-horned beetle.

On the Brink of Fairy-Story and History

"... an equally basic passion of mine ab initio was for myth (not allegory!) and for fairy-story, and above all for heroic legend on the brink of fairy-story and history, of which there is far too little in the world (accessible to me) for my appetite. I was an undergraduate before thought and experience revealed to me that these were not divergent interests -- opposite poles of science and romance -- but integrally related." --- John R. R. Tolkien, professor of English (Oxford University), 1951

Special Relativity Confirmed?

Hong Kong scientists 'show time travel is impossible'.

Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe".

"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.

"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."

The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal -- or faster-than-light -- propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.

It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.

Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.

"The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein's causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause," the university said.

"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.

"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."

The team's study was published in the US peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

Orr's Law

"Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove." -- Robert Anton Wilson, polymath, Prometheus Rising, 1983

Walking 2 Million Years Older Than Darwinists Assumed

Science Daily: Ancient Footprints Show Human-Like Walking Began Nearly 4 Million Years Ago.

ScienceDaily (July 19, 2011) — Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that ancient footprints in Laetoli, Tanzania, show that human-like features of the feet and gait existed almost two million years earlier than previously thought.

Many earlier studies have suggested that the characteristics of the human foot, such as the ability to push off the ground with the big toe, and a fully upright bipedal gait, emerged in early Homo, approximately 1.9 million years-ago.

Liverpool researchers, however, in collaboration with scientists at the University of Manchester and Bournemouth University, have now shown that footprints of a human ancestor dating back 3.7 million years ago, show features of the foot with more similarities to the gait of modern humans than with the type of bipedal walking used by chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas.

The footprint site of Laetoli contains the earliest known trail made by human ancestors and includes 11 individual prints in good condition. Previous studies have been primarily based on single prints and have therefore been liable to misinterpreting artificial features, such as erosion and other environmental factors, as reflecting genuine features of the footprint. This has resulted in many years of debate over the exact characteristics of gait in early human ancestors.

Power From Air

"Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe." -- Nikola Tesla, physicist, 1892

Science Daily: Power from the Air: Device Captures Ambient Electromagnetic Energy to Drive Small Electronic Devices.

ScienceDaily (July 8, 2011) — Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. By scavenging this ambient energy from the air around us, the technique could provide a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips.

"There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it," said Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research. "We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability."

Tentzeris and his team are using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. The resulting self powered wireless sensors could be used for chemical, biological, heat and stress sensing for defense and industry; radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging for manufacturing and shipping, and monitoring tasks in many fields including communications and power usage.

A presentation on this energy scavenging technology was given July 6 at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium in Spokane, Wash. The discovery is based on research supported by multiple sponsors, including the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration and Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

Francis Bacon On Dogmatic Censors and Editors

"They who have presumed to dogmatize on nature, as on some well investigated subject, either from self-conceit or from arrogance, and in the professorial style, have inflicted the greatest injury on philosophy and learning. For they have tended to stifle and interrupt inquiry exactly in proportion as they have prevailed in bringing others to their opinion; and their own activity has not counterbalanced the mischief they have occasioned by corrupting and destroying that of others." -- Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620

When Did Homo Erectus Live in Indonesia?

Science Daily: Human Ancestor Older Than Previously Thought.

The team applied two different dating techniques to the sites. Like earlier work, they used the techniques -- U-series and Electron Spin Resonance, or ESR -- that are applied to fossilized teeth. They also used a technique called argon-argon dating that is applied to volcanic minerals in the sediments. All three methods use radioactive decay in different ways to assess age and all yielded robust and methodologically valid results, but the ages were inconsistent with one another.

The argon-argon results yielded highly precise ages of about 550,000 years old on pumices -- very light, porous volcanic products found at Ngandong and Jigar.

"Pumices are hard to rework without breaking them, and these ages are quite good, so this suggests that the hominins and fauna are this old as well," said project geochronologist Carl Swisher of Rutgers University.

By contrast, the oldest of the U-series and ESR ages, which were conducted at Australian National University by Rainer Grün, are just 143,000 years.

The difference in the ages means that one of the systems is providing an age for something other than the formation of the sites and fossils in them. One possibility is that the pumices are, in fact, reworked, or mixed in, from older rocks. The other possibility is that the ESR and U-series ages are dating an event that occurred after the sites were formed, perhaps a change in the way groundwater moved through the sites.

Either way, the ages provide a maximum and a minimum for the sites -- and both of these ages are older than the earliest Homo sapiens fossils in Indonesia. Thus, the authors concluded that the idea of a population of Homo erectus surviving until late in time in Indonesia and potentially interacting with Homo sapiens seems to have been disproven.

Foundations of Science and Mathematics

“If we consider, for instance, the concept of the electron and seek it’s meaning, we are led back to Faraday’s investigation of electrolysis, and to J.J. Thompson’s study of deflection of cathode rays acted upon by electric and magnetic fields. Faraday found that the weight of a metal deposited in electrolysis is proportional to the amount of electricity employed, and, in fact, that the amount of electricity required to deposit a given number of atoms of any metal is always the same or else a small whole-number multiple of the unit quantity. Since all chemical substances were regarded as consisting of atoms, he hypothesized that electricity was also atomic in character, that is, made up of discrete unit charges. This result depends, then, on the prior development of an atomic theory of matter, and on the prior development of means measuring quantity and intensity of electricity.” –- Curtis Wilson, Dean, St John’s College, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“The unearthing of presuppositions and buried meanings carries us back beyond Newton to the first deductive science of all, the science of geometry, which has its faraway origins in the everyday techniques of the surveyor and the carpenter….” –- Curtis Wilson, Dean, St John’s College, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“… for the most part the best way to become acquainted with the methods of science is to read what great scientists themselves have to say about their discoveries – how they came to make them, how they interpreted them, and by what reasoning they arrived at their conclusions concerning them.” -- Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“Falsity is not a problem in the mathematical works. The truths demonstrated by the ancients are still acknowledged to be true.” -- Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, polymaths, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“The word itself [geometry], meaning ‘earth measurement,’ indicates the quite earthy and practical origin of the science in ancient Egypt and Babylonia.” – Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, polymaths, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“The names of many ancient mathematicians and scientists are quite unfamiliar to most of us.” -- Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, polymaths, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“We are inclined to think that, although the Greeks may have had keen mathematical insight, they entirely lacked knowledge of the structure of the physical world. We regard the science of physics as a modern development, dating back only to the 16th century. A cursory glance at Archimedes’ work on the equilibrium of centers of gravity of bodies should dispel this erroneous idea. Here is a work on theoretical physics, written in the 3rd century B.C. It deals with typical physical problems of weights, balances, and distances, and it demonstrates the solutions in much the same way as we do nowadays.” -- Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, polymaths, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“Archimedes was not only a first rate scientist, but also a brilliant mathematician.” -- Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

“The motions of the heavenly bodies have played a prominent role in the thoughts and lives of men since the earliest known times.” –- Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff, polymaths, Foundations of Science and Mathematics, 1960

Science In Myth

"It's that little grain of truth that we always look for in a myth. There it was." -- Mythbusters

Proton Reveals Magnetic Secret

"But come: let us follow more closely the tracks of this similarity of the planetary reciprocation [libration] to the motion of a magnet, and that by a most beautiful geometric demonstration, so that it might appear that a magnet has such a motion as that which we perceive in the planet." -- Johannes Kepler, astronomer, New Astronomy, 1609

Protons, neodymium magnets, and planets all obey the same laws.

Buchanan, M., Lonely, Spun-out Proton Reveals Magnetic Secret, New Scientist, Apr 22nd 2011 (Hat tip: Arbeit Macht Frei)

The magnet causes the lone proton to "precess" like a spinning top, at a frequency that depends on its g-factor. The researchers deduced this frequency using radio waves that flipped the orientation of the proton's magnet only when their frequency matched the precession frequency (arxiv.org/abs/1104.1206v1).

"According to the papyrus found in the monastery of Abu Hormeis, (translated into Arabic 225 AH), the deluge was to take place when the heart of the Lion entered into the first minute of the Crab's head, at the declining of the star; which is obviously an astronomical observation relating to the inundation of the Nile. It is rendered backwards as if applied to the ending of a cycle in precession." -- Gerald Massey, egyptologist, 1881

"The Greek astronomers had enough instrumentation and data to detect the motion, which is immensely slow, and they saw that it applied to the whole of the sky. Hipparchus in 127 B.C. called it the Precession of the Equinoxes. There is good reason to assume that he actually rediscovered this, that it had been known some thousand years previously, and that on it the Archaic Age based its long-range computation of time. Modern archaeological scholars have been singularly obtuse about the idea because they have cultivated a pristine ignorance of astronomical thought, some of them actually ignorant of the Precession itself." -- Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, polymaths, Hamlet's Mill: An Essay On Myth and the Frame of Time, 1969

"Personally I believe that when we really understand this Mill and how it works we will find out where we are in time and that's something that's very precious that I think has been lost by this linear view that anything that came before us must be more primitive. With that view, there's really nothing that we can learn in ancient history." -- Walter Cruttenden, author, October 2008

Money Offered to Prove CO2 Effect

Mikklesen, J., Money Offered to Prove CO2 Effect, The Observer, Apr 26th 2011

BELIEVERS in the science [sic] of global warming, you now have the chance to spread the word and at the same time make yourself $10,000 richer.

This has to be really simple, as almost everyone from PM Julia Gillard down, including much of our mainstream media, has been telling us it’s a fact – the science says so, anybody who thinks otherwise is a fringe-dwelling extremist, a denier who won’t accept the evidence and doesn’t deserve to be heard.

According to Ms Gillard, climate change is happening and the time is right for a carbon tax.

This could cost Australian families $863 a year, according to a Treasury forecast, but then you might still end up making a profit.

It’s pretty much a moving target, so it depends who you believe and what they are saying this week.

The Treasury forecast was based on a moderate carbon price of $30 a tonne, but chief climate advisor Professor Ross Garnaut (an economist, not a climate scientist, certainly not a rocket scientist) seems to think we will get it all back at the end of a merry money-go-round where the “big polluters” pay, but you won’t; or not a lot, providing you are a low to middle-income earner.

The PM originally said it won’t lighten your wallet because all the tax proceeds would be paid back in compensation, but now Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says we will only get about half back, yet millions of us will actually end up with more in our wallet.

The other half will go to compensating the big polluters but ours will be permanent, theirs will be “transitional”, which probably means at least until the next election.

They haven’t quite figured how the compensation will apply equitably to pensioners, the unemployed, self-funded retirees or mature-aged workers who now pay little or no tax, but we can trust them to sort all that out by about July. And they are not saying how many will still be worse off.

Treasurer Wayne Swan initially claimed the new tax wouldn’t really be a tax because it won’t show on your payslip. But when electricity generators, oil companies, transport operators, food suppliers and major manufacturers pass on their costs, try telling that to your mortgage holder or landlord while you wait for your compensation package.

If all this sounds too confusing, that’s when the lazy $10k prize on offer could really come in handy. All you have to do is come up with empirical evidence that “increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning drives global warming”.

Victorian locomotive engineman Peter Laux has pledged the prize in a statutory declaration witnessed by a police officer, and the challenge is open for 20 years .

Ms Gillard says the overwhelming evidence of “climate change” (I think she means the human-caused variety) is “accepted by every reputable climate scientist in the world”, so just hop on to Google and track that evidence down.

But wait, there are just a few apparent “disreputables” who don’t accept it, so perhaps you should check them out too: international scientists Prof. Richard Lindzen, Henrik Svensmark, John Christy, Dr Ferenc Miskolczi, Dr Miklos Zagoni, our own Prof. Bob Carter, Ian Plimer, Dr David Evans and many others including more than 30,000 scientists who signed a petition in the US stating that CO2 was not causing dangerous climate change.

Prof. Carter and Dr Evans have written numerous articles on the topic, including one in Quadrant Online co-authored by Alan Moran, an economist specialising in energy policy. They debunk the government’s case for human-induced climate change and a carbon tax, point by point.

But don’t be put off, surely with the overwhelming scientific consensus we keep hearing about, the truth really is out there? Peter Laux just wants you to find it.

He describes himself as a “militant trade unionist” – a member of the oldest rail union in the world, the Locomotive Division of the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), and vice-president of his local branch. He says:

“I have watched over the past couple of decades as the so-called left side of politics has been easily duped, co-opted and corralled by the Northern Hemisphere elite over the issue of the Greenhouse Effect or Global warming or Climate Change or Climate Chaos or whatever new slick PR advertising spin they need to use today.”

AGW proponents constantly claim “overwhelming evidence” and yet incredibly never show any…

“For those who despise the source of their prosperous lives and wish to burden those who can least afford it with carbon taxes and cripple the development in the Third World, I offer you $10,000 (AUS) for a conclusive argument based on empirical facts that increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning drives global climate warming.”

That won’t be as easy as we first thought, but are you up to the challenge?

The Telescope of Leonardo Da Vinci

"Fa occhiali da vedere la luna grande (Make/construct glasses in order to see the moon large)." -- Leonardo Da Vinci, polymath, Codex Atlanticus, ~1478-1519

Holtun: Lost City Found In Guatemalan Jungle

Than, K., Lost City Revealed Under Centuries of Jungle Growth, National Geographic News, Apr 26th 2011

Hidden for centuries, the ancient Maya city of Holtun, or Head of Stone, is finally coming into focus.

Three-dimensional mapping has "erased" centuries of jungle growth, revealing the rough contours of nearly a hundred buildings, according to research presented earlier this month.

Though it's long been known to locals that something—something big—is buried in this patch of Guatemalan rain forest, it's only now that archaeologists are able to begin teasing out what exactly Head of Stone was.

Using GPS and electronic distance-measurement technology last year, the researchers plotted the locations and elevations of a seven-story-tall pyramid, an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, several stone residences, and other structures.

The Maya Denver?

Some of the stone houses, said study leader Brigitte Kovacevich, may have doubled as burial chambers for the city's early kings.

"Oftentimes archaeologists are looking at the biggest pyramids or temples to find the tombs of early kings, but during this Late-Middle Preclassic period"—roughly 600 B.C. to 300 B.C.—"the king is not the center of the universe yet, so he's probably still being buried in the household," said Kovacevich, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"That may be why so many Preclassic kings have been missed" by archaeologists, who expected to find the rulers' burials at grand temples, she added.

The findings at Head of Stone—named for giant masks found at the site—could shed light on how "secondary" Maya centers were organized and what daily life was like for Maya living outside of the larger metropolitan areas such as Tikal, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) to the north, according to Kathryn Reese-Taylor, a Preclassic Maya specialist at Canada's University of Calgary.

Head of Stone, which has never been excavated, "was not a New York or Los Angeles, but it was definitely a Denver or Atlanta," said Reese-Taylor, who called the new mapping study "incredibly significant." ...

King of Stars

During special events at Head of Stone, such as the crowning of a king or the naming of a royal heir, "there would have been a lot of people—not only the 2,000 people living at the site itself but all the people from surrounding areas as well. So, several thousand people," Reese-Taylor said.

Thick gray smoke and the smell of burning incense would have filled the air. Gazing up at the temple top through this haze, a visitor might have seen "ritual practitioners" performing dances and sacred rituals while adorned with elaborate feathered costumes and jade jewelry.

During the solstices or equinoxes, the crowds would have moved farther south and higher up in the city, surrounding the buildings that made up the astronomical observatory.

"During the solstices, you would've been able to see the sun rising in line with the eastern structure, and the common people would have thought that the king was commanding the heavens," study leader Kovacevich said.

The researchers, though, are directing their gaze downward. This summer they hope to begin excavating residential structures and the observatory, as well as to possibly remove the undergrowth from the main temple.

And, by using ground-penetrating radar, they hope to bring Head of Stone into even sharper relief.

By seeing through soil the way the previous mapping project saw through trees and brush, radar should reveal not just the rounded shapes of the city but the hard outlines of the buildings themselves.

The Real History of the Telescope

Even mainstream historians contradict Doug Weller and the Wikipedia censorship bureau.

"Owing to the clamours of [Jacob] Metius and [Zacharias] Jansen and to the fact that 'many other persons had a knowledge of the invention', the States-General finally declined to grant a patent to [Hans] Lippershey." -- Henry C. King, historian, The History of the Telescope, 2003

"As a result of the lack of documentation and because records have been lost in the course of time, the invention of the telescope cannot be simply attributed to a single person. ... In fact, many historical snippets have been found which could hint at other inventors of the first telescope, including Roger Bacon." -- Geoff Andersen, historian, The Telescope, 2007

Controversy Over Telescope Origin, BBC, Sep 2008

New evidence suggests the telescope may have been invented in Spain, not the Netherlands or Italy as has previously been assumed.

The findings, outlined in the magazine History Today, suggest the telescope's creator could have been a spectacle-maker based in Gerona, Spain.

Leonardo Da Vinci: On the Expanding Earth

Above: Franco Rosselli's 1508 map showing the island of Atlantis (Antarctica).

"OF THE EARTH'S INCREASE

INSTANCES AND DEDUCTIONS AS TO THE EARTH'S INCREASE

Take a vase, fill it full of pure earth, and set it up on a roof. You will see how immediately the green herbs will begin to shoot up, and how these, when fully grown, will cast their various seeds; and after the children have thus fallen at the feet of their parents, you will see the herbs having cast their seeds, becoming withered and falling back again to the earth, and within a short time becoming changed into the earth's substance and giving it increase; after this you will see the seeds springing up and passing through the same course, and so you will always see the successive generations after completing their natural course, by their death and corruption giving increase to the earth. And if you let ten years elapse and then measure the increase in the soil, you will be able to discover how much the earth in general has increased, and then by multiplying you will see how great has been the increase of the earth in the world during a thousand years. ... For do you not perceive how, among the high mountains, the walls of ancient and ruined cities are being covered over and concealed by the earth's increase? Nay, have you not seen how on the rocky summits of the mountains the live stone itself has in course of time swallowed up by its growth some column which it supported, and stripping it bare as with shears and grasping it tightly, has left the impress of its fluted form in the living rock?" -- Leonardo Da Vinci, polymath, Codex Atlanticus, Of the Earth's Increase, 265 r.a., ~1478-1519

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

"There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment." -- Codex Atlanticus, 147 v. a

"The knowledge of past time and of the position of the earth is the adornment and the food of human minds." -- Codex Atlanticus, 373 v. a

"Nothing can be written as the result of new researches." -- Codex Trivuliziano 53 a

"Every wrong shall be set right." -- Library of the Institut de France

"Omne grave tendit deorsum nec perpetuo potest sic sursum sustinieri, quare jam totalis terra esset facta spherica (Every heavy substance presses downwards [Me: except the Moon and clouds which press upwards], and thus cannot be upheld perpetually; wherefore the whole earth has been made spherical)." -- Library of the Institut de France

"OF CHILDREN WHO ARE WRAPPED IN SWADDLED BANDS

O cities of the sea [Atlantis], I behold in you your citizens [believers in Prisca Sapientia], women as well as men, tightly bound with stout bands [reference to the gods] around their arms and legs by folk who will have no understanding of our speech [Darwinists]; and you will only be able to give vent to your griefs and sense a loss of liberty by making tearful complaints, and sighs, and lamentations to one another; for those who bind you will not have understanding of your speech nor will you understand them." -- Codex Atlanticus

Cassini Probe Discovers Electric Gravity

"When first observed by Voyager, the spoke movements [of Saturn's Rings] seemed to defy gravity and had the scientists very perplexed. Since the spokes rotate at the same rate as Saturn's magnetic field, it is apparent that the electromagnetic forces are also at work." -- Ron Baalke, astrophysicist, 1998

If gravitation were real, Saturn's rings would not be in a flat plane perpendicular to the lines of force of Saturn's magnetic field.

Astronomy.com: Cassini probe sees electric link between Saturn and Enceladus.

By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. — Published: April 21, 2011
Saturn-north-pole

NASA is releasing the first images and sounds of an electrical connection between Saturn and one of its moons. The data collected by the Cassini spacecraft enable scientists to improve their understanding of the complex web of interaction between the planet and its numerous moons.

Scientists previously theorized an electrical circuit should exist at Saturn. After analyzing data that Cassini collected in 2008, scientists saw a glowing patch of ultraviolet light emissions near Saturn's north pole that marked the presence of a circuit, even though the moon Enceladus is 150,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) away from the planet.

The patch occurs at the end of a magnetic field line connecting Saturn and Enceladus. The area, known as an auroral footprint, is the spot where energetic electrons dive into the planet's atmosphere, following magnetic field lines that arc between the planet's north and south polar regions.

"The footprint discovery at Saturn is one of the most important fields and particle revelations from Cassini and ultimately may help us understand Saturn's strange magnetic field," said Marcia Burton from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "It gives us the first visual connection between Saturn and one of its moons."

The Eye of Zeus

"The wondrous thing is: how could Kepler have known of the red spot in Jupiter, then not yet discovered? It was discovered by J. D. Cassini in the 1660’s, after the time of Kepler and Galileo. Kepler’s assumption that Galileo had discovered a red spot in Jupiter amazes and defies every statistical chance of being a mere guess. But the possibility is not excluded that Kepler found the information in some Arab author or some other source, possibly of Babylonian or Chinese origin. Kepler did not disclose what the basis of his reference to the red spot of Jupiter was — he could not have arrived at it either by logic and deduction or by sheer guesswork. A scientific prediction must follow from a theory as a logical consequence. Kepler had no theory on that. It is asserted that the Chinese observed solar spots many centuries before Galileo did with his telescope. Observing solar spots, the ancients could have conceivably observed the Jovian red spot, too. Jesuit scholars traveled in the early 17th century to China to study Chinese achievements in astronomy." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, polymath, On Prediction in Science, ~1960-70

Jupiter's red spot: to the Egyptians it was "the eye of Horus."

Hesiod called Jupiter's famous red spot "the eye of Zeus."

"The eye of Zeus, seeing all and understanding all...." -- Hesiod, poet, Works and Days, 8th century B.C.

Hesiod deliberately says eye of Zeus (singular) not eyes of Zeus (plural).

The playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides refer to "the eye of Zeus" as well.

"... glancing down on thee the Father's [Zeus's] eye ...." -- Aeschylus, playwright, Prometheus Bound, 430 B.C.

"... on the eye of Zeus may fall the balm that shall assuage desire." -- Aeschylus, playwright, Prometheus Bound, 430 B.C.

And again.

"... Zeus, whose awful eye is over all." -- Euripides, playwright, Hippolytus, 428 B.C.

In addition, Hesiod describes the giant gaseous planets as stones wrapped tight in cloud bands, like a mummy.

"... to the mightily ruling son of Heaven, the earlier king of the gods [Saturn], she gave a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes [cloud bands]." -- Hesiod, poet, Theogony, The Children of Cronus, 8th century B.C.

Lucian relates that Homer referenced the striped bands of Jupiter.

"In Homer and Hesiod particularly many things are found that have reference to the astrology of the remote periods. As, for example, what Homer says respecting the golden chain of Jupiter...." -- Lucian, author, Of Astrology, 2nd century

Hesiod and the ancients also observed the rings of Saturn.

"But the bright and glorious star Tishtrya [Ishtar] keeps that Pairika [Saturn] in bonds, with twofold bonds, with threefold bonds, that cannot be overcome...." -- Avesta

"To you, O Saturn, Zoilus dedicates these chains and these double fetters, his first rings." -- Marcus V. Martialis, poet, Epigram XXIX, 1st century

"... and yet the King of Gods, the first and eldest one, is in bonds [rings], they say, if we are to believe Hesiod and Homer and other wise men who tell this tale about Cronus [Saturn]...." -- Dio Crysostom, philosopher, Fourteenth Discourse, 21, 1st century

"... they say he [Saturn] stands bound in chains [rings]." -- Lucian, author, Of Astrology, 2nd century

"... Saturn is bound..." -- Porphyry, philosopher, On the Cave of Nymphs, 3rd century

"There is a singular agreement between what is mythologically asserted of Jupiter, the Demiurgus of the universe, by ancient theologists, and what modern observations, through the telescope, have found of the planet Jupiter.... The remarkable agreement I allude to, and which has I believe been hitherto unnoticed by all modern writers, is this, that Jupiter the Demiurgus is said by ancient theologists, to have put his father Saturn in chains, and also to have surrounded himself with bonds; and that the moderns have found the body of the planet Jupiter to be surrounded by several substances resembling belts or bands, and likewise that there is the faint resemblance of a belt about the planet Saturn." -- Thomas Taylor, classicist, On the Coincidence Between the Belts of the Planet Jupiter and the Fabulous Bonds of Jupiter the Demiurgus, The Classical Journal, Volume XX, Pages 324-326, Sep/Dec 1819

"It has, indeed, been suggested that the proper name Assir, represents the name of Osiris [Saturn]. ... the best interpretation of 'assir' is prisoner." -- A.S. Yahuda, polymath, The Osiris Cult and the Designation of Osiris Idols in the Bible, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 3, Number 3, Pages 194-197, Jul 1944

"We must take note how philosophy, like myth, has proceeded as a sublimation of catastrophic memory. It is fairly certain, then, that the cloud bands and belts of Jupiter were well-known in the earliest times." -- Alfred De Grazia, philosopher, The Bonds of Saturn and Jupiter, 1977

Like Planks of a Shipwreck

"But howsoever the works of wisdom are among human things the most excellent, yet they too have their periods and closes. For so it is that after kingdoms and commonwealths have flourished for a time, there arise perturbations and seditions and wars; amid the uproars of which, first the laws are put to silence, and then men return to the depraved conditions of their nature, and desolation is seen in the fields and cities. And if such troubles last, it is not long before letters also and philosophy are so torn in pieces that no traces of them can be found but a few fragments, scattered here and there like planks from a shipwreck; and then a season of barbarism sets in, the waters of Helicon being sunk under the ground, until, according to the appointed vicissitude of things, they break out and issue forth again, perhaps among other nations, and not in the places where they were before." -- Francis Bacon, philosopher, Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, Book XI: Orpheus or Philosophy, 1609

UPDATE: I'm Just Sayin': Flood's a sobering reminder of earth's power.

Earlier this month I caught the end of a Science Friday program on NPR that included some pretty depressing predictions about the future of humankind.

The theme of the program, which featured author Cormac McCarthy, filmmaker Werner Herzog and physicist Lawrence Krauss, was about how art and science converge to inform us about the past, present and future of the universe.

One of the three guests, I think it was McCarthy, said he didn't think Earth would include humans at some point in the not-too-distant future. It might be 500 years or 1,000 years or 2,000 years, but he said he didn't think humans have what it takes to keep the species going beyond a couple more millennia.

As Though They Had Never Been

"Besides this, however, many of their discoveries [the ancients] were ultimately lost to the world, some, as at Alexandria, by fire -- the bigoted work of a Mohammedan conquerer -- some by irruption of barbarians; and all were buried so long and so completely by the night of the dark ages, that they had to be rediscovered almost as absolutely and completely as though they had never been." -- Oliver J. Lodge, physicist, Pioneers of Science, 1893

Lenses in Antiquity

"It is a short and simple step to place one lens in front of another to make a basic telescope, and the chances are it could have happened and many times. Galileo himself noted that 'the 'ancients' were aware of telescopes. The question is just how good these telescopes were and how much knowledge the astronomer/priests of these early civilizations were able to obtain from them. Yet Brecher and Sagan give no consideration to this at all! Their narrow vision cannot alter the facts, but their writings do cast light on the root of their problem...." -- Hunter H. Adams III, archaeoastronomer, African Observers of the Universe: The Sirius Question, 1983

Contrary to Darwinist faith-based belief, there was widespread use of magnifying lenses over several millenia.

Sines, G., and Sakellarakis, Y.A., Lenses in Antiquity, American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 91, Number 2, Pages 191-196, Apr 1987

A recent find in the Idaean Cave in Crete of two rock crystal lenses of unusually good optical quality led to this investigation of other lenses from antiquity. The evidence indicates that the use of lenses was widespread throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin over several millennia. The quality of some of these lenses was sufficient to permit their use as magnifying glasses. The use of lenses as burning glasses in Classical Greece is noted, as is the need for magnifying lenses to authenticate seal impressions. The probability that magnifying lenses were used by gem carvers and seal engravers is discussed. The fine detail of Roman gold-glass portrait medallions and the discovery of a lens in the house of an engraver in Pompeii and another in the house of an artist in Tanis are presented as evidence for the use of the lenses for magnifying purposes. Methods of producing optical quality lenses by simple procedures are also presented.

A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

"Primitive man never existed, and there never was a Stone Age. They are nothing more than deceptive inventions produced by evolutionists with the help of one section of the media. Human beings have been human since the day they came into existence, and have possessed a fully elevated culture from that day to this." -- Adnan Oktar

INTRODUCTION

The evolutionist historical perspective studies the history of mankind by dividing it up into several periods, just as it does with the supposed course of human evolution itself. Such fictitious concepts as the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are an important part of the evolutionist chronology. Since this imaginary picture is presented in schools and in television and newspaper stories, most people accept this imaginary picture without question and imagine that human beings once lived in an era when only primitive stone tools were used and technology was unknown.

Yet when archaeological findings and scientific facts are examined, a very different picture emerges. The traces and remains that have come down to the present—the tools, needles, flute fragments, personal adornments and decorations—show that in cultural and social terms, humans have always lived civilized lives in all periods of history.

ASTONISHING REMAINS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

THE SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION

In describing the supposed "evolutionary march" of the history of mankind, Darwinist scientists are quite helpless on another subject: Man's mind, by which mankind has built universities, hospitals, factories and states, composed music, held the Olympic Games and traveled into space—in short, one of the most important characteristics that makes Man what he is.

Evolutionists maintain that human mind assumed its present capacities by evolving after Man diverged from chimpanzees, our so-called closest living relative. They ascribe the alleged leaps that took place in the mind's evolution to random changes occurring in the brain, and to the improving effect of tool-making skills. You'll frequently encounter such claims in television documentaries and in articles in magazines and newspapers, telling tall tales concerning ape-men who first learned how to make knives out of stone, and then spears. But this propaganda is not valid. Although they attempt to portray the scenarios they set out as scientific, they are actually based solely upon Darwinist preconceptions, and completely unscientific. The most important point of all is that human mind cannot be reduced to matter. By documenting the invalidity of materialism, this fact alone totally undermines any claims regarding the evolution of mind.

Evolutionists maintain that mind emerged through evolution, but they have no means of experiencing what a primitive level of intelligence is like, nor of replicating the conditions in the supposed evolutionary process. Despite his being an evolutionist, Henry Gee, editor of Nature magazine, well known for its evolutionist content, openly admits the unscientific nature of such claims:

For example, the evolution of Man is said to have been driven by improvements in posture, brain size, and the coordination between hand and eye, which led to technological achievements such as fire, the manufacture of tools, and the use of language. But such scenarios are subjective. They can never be tested by experiment, and so they are unscientific. They rely for their currency not on scientific test, but on assertion and the authority of their presentation. 61

Besides being unscientific, such scenarios are also logically invalid. Evolutionists maintain that thanks to the intellect that supposedly emerged through evolution, the ability to use tools emerged and developed, thanks to which, in turn, intelligence developed. Yet such a development is possible only when human intelligence is already present. According to this account, the question of whether technology or mind first emerged through evolution goes unanswered.

Phillip Johnson, one of the most effective critics of Darwinism, writes this on the subject:

'A theory that is the product of a mind can never adequately explain the mind that produced the theory. The story of the great scientific mind that discovers absolute truth is satisfying only so long as we accept the mind itself as a given. Once we try to explain the mind as a product of its own discoveries, we are in a hall of mirrors with no exit.'

The fact that Darwinists are quite unable to account for their own human minds reveals that the claims they make about Man's cultural and social history are also invalid. Indeed, all the facts and findings we have reviewed so far makes Darwinists' claims regarding the "evolution of history" totally meaningless.

Contrary to what evolutionists claim, the history of mankind is full of proofs that ancient peoples possessed far superior technologies and civilizations than had been believed. One of these civilizations is that of the Sumerians. The artifacts they left behind are some of the proofs of the accumulated knowledge possessed by mankind thousands of years ago.

On Wonderful Ancient Instruments

"In the thirteenth century, however, a really great scientific man appeared, who may be said to herald the dawn of modern science in Europe. This man was Roger Bacon." -- Oliver J. Lodge, physicist, Pioneers of Science, 1893

"His [Roger Bacon's] own work suffered from the prevailing ignorance...." -- Oliver J. Lodge, physicist, Pioneers of Science, 1893

Bacon, R., The Non-Existence of Magic, ~1265-1278

IV. On Wonderful Artificial Instruments

I will first tell of the wonderful works of art and nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and manner of them, in which there is nothing magical, that it may be seen that all magic power is inferior to these works, and worthless. And first for the quality and reason of art alone. For instruments of navigation can be made without men as rowers, so that the largest ships, river and ocean, may be borne on, with the guidance of one man, with greater speed than if full of men. Also carriages can be made so that without an animal they may be moved with incalculable speed; as we may assume the scythed chariots to have been, with which battles were fought in ancient times. Also instruments for flying can be made so that a man may sit in the middle of the instrument, revolving some contrivance by which wings artificially constructed may beat the air, in the manner of a bird flying. Also instruments can also be made for walking in the sea or rivers, down to the bottom, without bodily peril. For Alexander the Great used these that he might view the secrets of the ocean, according to what Ethicus the astronomer narrates. These things were done in ancient times, and done in our own, as is certain, unless it may be the instrument for flying, which I have not seen, nor do I know any man who has seen; but I know that the wise man who planned this device completed it. And such things can be made almost infinitely, as bridges across rivers without pillars or any other support, and machines, and unheard of devices.

V. Of Experiments in Artificial Sight

... Glasses can be so constructed that things placed very far off may appear very near, and vice versa; so that from an incredible distance we may read the minutest letters, and number things however little, and make the stars appear where we will. For this it is believed that Julius Caesar, on the shore of the sea in Gaul, discovered through huge glasses the disposition and sites of the castles and towns of Great Britain.

Nimrud Lens: World's Oldest Telescope!

"It is a short and simple step to place one lens in front of another to make a basic telescope, and the chances are it could have happened and many times. Galileo himself noted that the 'ancients' were aware of telescopes. The question is just how good these telescopes were and how much knowledge the astronomer/priests of these early civilizations were able to obtain from them. Yet Brecher and Sagan give no consideration to this at all! Their narrow vision cannot alter the facts, but their writings do cast light on the root of their problem...." -- Hunter H. Adams III, archaeoastronomer, African Observers of the Universe: The Sirius Question, 1983

Contrary to Darwinist faith-based belief, neither Hubble, nor Galileo, nor any Dutchman invented the telescope.

World's Oldest Telescope?, BBC, Jul 1999

If one Italian scientist is correct then the telescope was not invented sometime in the 16th century by Dutch spectacle makers, but by ancient Assyrian astronomers nearly three thousand years earlier.

According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy.

But experts on Assyrian archaeology are unconvinced. They say that the lens is of such low quality that it would have been a poor aid to vision.

Magnifying glass

It is called the Nimrud lens and it was found in 1850 by the legendary archaeologist Sir John Layard, during an epic series of excavations at the palace of Nimrud in what is now Iraq.

Upon his return to England, he showed the lens to physicist Sir David Brewer who thought it could have been used as a magnifying glass or to concentrate the Sun's rays.

Used as a magnifying glass, it could have been useful to Assyrian craftsman who often made intricate seals and produced minuscule texts on clay tablets using a wedge-shaped script.

It is a theory many scientists might be prepared to accept, but the idea that the rock crystal was part of a telescope is something else. To get from a lens to a telescope, they say, is an enormous leap.

Saturn's serpents

Professor Pettinato counters by asking for an explanation of how the ancient Assyrians regarded the planet Saturn as a god surrounded by a ring of serpents?

Could they not have seen Saturn's rings through their telescope and interpreted them as serpents? An unconvincing argument, say experts. The Assyrians saw serpents everywhere. And why is it in their many astronomical reports on clay tablets there is no mention of such a device?

The conventional understanding of the invention of the telescope is that it was developed in the 16th century by Dutch spectacle-makers who held one lens in front of another.

One thing is sure: Galileo did not invent it - a common misconception - although he was one of the first to turn it towards the sky. By then, lenses used as spectacles had been known for hundreds of years at least, and it has been a puzzle to historians why it took so long for the telescope to be invented.

Commercial and military use

It may have been developed and then forgotten, or even kept secret. However, experts regard this as unlikely given the commercial and military uses that a telescope could serve.

Whatever its origin, as ornament, as magnifying lens or part of a telescope, the Nimrud lens is the oldest lens in the world. Looking at it evokes mystery and wonder. It can be seen in room 55 of the British Museum, in case 9 of the Lower Mesopotamian Gallery

It may not be unique. Another, possibly 5th century BC, lens was found in a sacred cave on Mount Ida on Crete. It was more powerful and of far better quality than the Nimrud lens.

Also, Roman writers Pliny and Seneca refer to a lens used by an engraver in Pompeii. So perhaps the ancients knew more about lenses than we give them credit for.

Also see my earlier post on ancient Egyptian telescopes.