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Book Categories |
Introduction: Engineering and the Truth Fairies | 1 | ||
Section 1 | Humanistic Religion: The Rush to Embrace Darwinism | 9 | |
Science, Religion, and Logic | 11 | ||
Darwinism and the New Order | 13 | ||
The Triumph of the Enlightenment | 13 | ||
The Original in "Origins": Something for Everyone | 14 | ||
A Cultural Monopoly | 16 | ||
Sweeping Claims--and Reservations | 17 | ||
By Scaffolding to the Moon | 17 | ||
Rocks of Ages--The Fossil Record | 19 | ||
Slow-Motion Miracles. The Doctrine of Gradualism | 19 | ||
Life's Upside-Down Tree: The First Failed Prediction | 21 | ||
Flights of Fancy: The Birds Controversy | 25 | ||
Lines of Horses | 27 | ||
Keeping Naturalism Pure: Orthogenesis Wars | 30 | ||
Anything, Everything, and Its Opposite: Natural Selection | 31 | ||
Dissent in the Ranks: Logical Fallacy and Tautology | 31 | ||
Moth Myths. The Crowning Proof? | 33 | ||
The Origin of Originality? Genetics and Mutation | 34 | ||
Recombination: Answering the Wrong Question | 34 | ||
Random Mutation: Finally, The Key to New Things Under the Sun | 35 | ||
An Automated Manufacturing City | 36 | ||
The Blind Gunman: A Long, Hard Look at the Odds | 38 | ||
But it Happened! Science or Faith? | 40 | ||
Life as Information Processing | 41 | ||
Evolution Means Accumulating Information | 41 | ||
Bacterial Immunity Claims: A False Information Economy | 42 | ||
More Bacteria Tales: Directed Mutation | 44 | ||
And So, Back to Finches | 44 | ||
Confronting the Unthinkable | 45 | ||
Intelligence at Work? The Crux of It All | 46 | ||
Darwin's Black Box Opened: Biochemistry's Irreducible Complexity | 47 | ||
Acknowledging the Alternative: Intelligent Design | 50 | ||
Is Design Detectable? | 52 | ||
Philosophers' Fruit-Machine Fallacy | 54 | ||
Testing for Intelligence | 54 | ||
Section Notes | 58 | ||
Section 2 | Of Bangs and Braids: Cosmology's Mathematical Abstractions | 61 | |
Mathematical Worlds--and This Other One | 63 | ||
Cosmologies as Mirrors | 63 | ||
Matters of Gravity: Relativity's Universes | 65 | ||
An Aside on Spectra and Redshifts | 66 | ||
A Universe in the Red and Lemaitre's Primeval Atom | 67 | ||
After the Bomb: The Birth of the Bang | 69 | ||
Gamow's Nuclear Pressure-Cooker | 69 | ||
Hoyle and Supernovas as "Little Bang" Element Factories | 71 | ||
The Steady-State Theory | 72 | ||
The Cosmic Background Radiation: News but Nothing New | 73 | ||
Quasar and Smoothness Enigmas: Enter, the Mathematicians | 75 | ||
The Plasma Universe | 78 | ||
Hannes Alfven, the Pioneer: Cosmic Cyclotrons | 78 | ||
The Solar System as a Faraday Generator | 80 | ||
A Skater's Waltz Among the Planets | 81 | ||
Solar System to Galaxy | 83 | ||
Peratt's Models and Simulations: Galaxies in the Laboratory | 84 | ||
An Explanation for X-ray Flashes | 85 | ||
Eric Lerner and the Plasma Focus | 86 | ||
Going All the Way: Galaxies to the Universe | 88 | ||
Older Than the Big Bang | 89 | ||
Other Ways of Making Light Elements | 90 | ||
And of Producing Expansion | 91 | ||
Redshift Without Expansion at All | 93 | ||
Molecular Hydrogen: The Invisible Energy-Absorber | 93 | ||
The Ultimate Heresy | |||
Questioning the Hubble Law | 95 | ||
Halton Arp's Quasar Counts | 95 | ||
Taking on an Established Church | 98 | ||
Eyes Closed and Eyes Open: Professionals and Amateurs | 101 | ||
Quasar Cascades: Redshifts as a Measure of Galaxy Age | 102 | ||
What Happens to the Distances? | 104 | ||
What Causes Redshift? Machian Physics and the Generalization of GRT | 105 | ||
The God of the Modern Creation Myth | 108 | ||
Section Notes | 110 | ||
Section 3 | Drifting in the Ether: Did Relativity Take A Wrong Turn? | 111 | |
Some Basics | 115 | ||
Reference Frames and Transforms | 115 | ||
Inertial Frames | 116 | ||
Extending Classical Relativity | 117 | ||
Problems with Electrodynamics | 117 | ||
Maxwell's Constant Velocity | 119 | ||
Michelson, Morley, and the Ether That Wasn't | 121 | ||
Lorentz's Transforms for Electromagnetics | 123 | ||
The New Relativity | 124 | ||
Einstein: Transforming All of Physics | 124 | ||
Relativity's Weird Results | 126 | ||
Unifying Physics | 128 | ||
Dissident Viewpoints | 130 | ||
Elegant, Yes. But Is It Really Useful? | 130 | ||
Lorentz's Ether Revisited | 131 | ||
Entraining the Ether | 133 | ||
Field-Referred Theories | 135 | ||
Electromagnetic Mass: Increase Without Einstein | 137 | ||
Gravity and Electromagnetics | 140 | ||
Does "Time" Dilate? Or Do Clocks Run Slower? | 143 | ||
The Famous Faster-Than-Light Question | 145 | ||
Section Notes | 150 | ||
Section 4 | Catastrophe of Ethics: The Case for Taking Velikovsky Seriously | 151 | |
Early Work: The Makings of an Iconoclast | 154 | ||
How It All Began: A Small Question About the Exodus | 154 | ||
Implications of Catastrophism | 158 | ||
Venus and the Cosmic Connection | 159 | ||
The Universal War God: Mars | 163 | ||
Worlds in Collision | 164 | ||
The End of Everything You Thought You Knew | 164 | ||
Science in Convulsion: The Reactions | 168 | ||
Testimony from the Rocks: Earth in Upheaval | 173 | ||
The Fossil Graveyards | 173 | ||
Earthmoving and Excavation | 174 | ||
Orthodoxy in Confusion | 175 | ||
Embarrassing Confirmations | 175 | ||
More Electrical Heresies: Charges and Counter-Charges | 178 | ||
A New View of Planets: Violent Origins; Rapid Change | 179 | ||
Rejected Call for Reappraisal | 181 | ||
The Planets Speak, Regardless | 184 | ||
Slaying the Monster: The AAAS Velikovsky Symposium, 1974 | 188 | ||
A Glimpse of the Ground Rules | 189 | ||
Only the Data That's Fit to Print: The Venus Tablets | 193 | ||
Pronouncements from the Celestial Heights | 197 | ||
Carl Sagan: The Star Billing | 200 | ||
Sagan on Astronomy | 201 | ||
Problem 1. | The Ejection of Venus by Jupiter | 201 | |
Problem 2. | Repeated Collisions Among the Earth, Venus, And Mars | 203 | |
Problem 3. | The Earth's Rotation | 204 | |
Sagan on Terrestrial and Lunar Geology | 205 | ||
Problem 4. | Terrestrial Geology And Lunar Craters | 205 | |
Sagan on Planetary Biology and Chemistry | 207 | ||
Problem 5. | Chemistry & Biology of the Terrestrial Planets | 207 | |
Problem 6. | Manna | 211 | |
Problem 7. | The Clouds of Venus | 212 | |
Sagan on Planetary Physics and Surfaces | 214 | ||
Problem 8. | The Temperature of Venus | 214 | |
Problem 9. | The Craters of Venus | 218 | |
Problem 10. | The Circularization of the Orbit of Venus | 219 | |
After the Inquisition: The Parallel Universe | 220 | ||
Section Notes | 223 | ||
Section 5 | Environmentalist Fantasies: Politics and Ideology Masquerading As Science | 225 | |
Garbage In, Gospel Out | |||
Computer Games and Global Warming | 231 | ||
A Comfortable Natural Greenhouse | 232 | ||
Twiddling with Models | 233 | ||
Meanwhile, in the Real World... | 234 | ||
But the 0.5[degree]C Net Rise Is Still There: If the CO[subscript 2] Increase Didn't Do It, What Did? | 238 | ||
Global Greening | 243 | ||
The Bandwagon Rolls Regardless | 245 | ||
How the Real Scientists Feel | 247 | ||
Holes in the Ozone Logic: But Timely for Some | 248 | ||
Ozone Basics | 249 | ||
The Depletion Controversy | 251 | ||
Creating Catastrophe: The Wizards of Ozone | 256 | ||
A Few Coincidences | 258 | ||
Saving The Mosquitoes: The War On DDT | 262 | ||
Some Background Intelligence: Malaria | 262 | ||
Opening Assault: Silent Spring | 266 | ||
The Offensive Develops | 269 | ||
The 1971 EPA Hearings | 271 | ||
Well-Designed, Well-Executed Experiments: DDT as a Carcinogen | 271 | ||
A Plague of Birds | 276 | ||
Cracking Open the Eggshell Claims | 278 | ||
Everywhere, and Indestructible | 282 | ||
The Scientists' Findings and the Administrator's Ruling | 284 | ||
"Vitamin R": Radiation Good for Your Health | 286 | ||
Radiation Phobia | 286 | ||
"The Dose Makes the Poison": Hormesis | 287 | ||
Rip-Out Rip-Off: The Asbestos Racket | 292 | ||
Asbestos and the WTC Towers | 292 | ||
Insulated from Reality | 293 | ||
Makers and Takers | 295 | ||
Section Notes | 297 | ||
Section 6 | Closing Ranks: AIDS Heresy In The Viricentric Universe | 301 | |
An Industry Out of Work | 304 | ||
Storm-Cloud Over the Parade | 306 | ||
Anatomy of an Epidemic | 309 | ||
Questioning the Infectious Theory | 310 | ||
(1) | The microbe must be found in all cases of the disease | 312 | |
(2) | The microbe must be isolated from the host and grown in a pure culture | 312 | |
(3) | The microbe must be capable of reproducing the original disease when introduced into a susceptible host | 313 | |
(4) | The microbe must be found present in the host so infected | 313 | |
Science by Press Conference | 313 | ||
Biology's Answer to Dark Matter? The Virus That Isn't There | 315 | ||
An Epidemic of AIDS Testing | 318 | ||
Testing for What? | 319 | ||
Biotechnology's Xerox Machine | 320 | ||
The Export Industry: Africa and Asia | 321 | ||
"Side Effects" Just Like AIDS: The Miracle Drugs | 324 | ||
Liquid Plumber: AZT | 324 | ||
Protease Inhibitors. Hype Uninhibited | 326 | ||
A Virus Fixation | 328 | ||
Section Notes | 330 | ||
Afterword: Gothic Cathedrals and the Stars | 331 | ||
Section Notes | 340 | ||
References & Further Reading | 341 | ||
Index | 355 | ||
List of Illustrations | |||
1.1 | The "Tree of Life" as envisioned in a Victorian textbook | 22 | |
1.2 | Increase in the number of animal phyla with time | 23 | |
1.3 | Binary Decision Tree | 56 | |
2.1 | Spectra: continuous and line | 67 | |
2.2 | Simulation of plasma currents | 85 | |
2.3 | The radio galaxy Cygnus A | 87 | |
2.4 | Galaxy and quasar counts by apparent magitude | 97 | |
2.5 | Quasar pair straddling Seyfert galaxy | 100 | |
2.6 | Nucleus of Seyfert galaxy Seyfert galaxy NGC4151 | 102 | |
2.7 | Quantization of galactic redshifts | 105 | |
3.1 | Field lines around stationary and moving charges | 138 | |
3.2 | Terrestrial magnetosphere and hierarchy of magnetospheres | 142 | |
4.1 | Velikovskian orbits | 186 | |
4.2 | Babylonian Innana symbols | 194 | |
5.1 | Atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 400 years | 235 | |
5.2 | U.S. and global temperature variations | 236 | |
5.3 | Predictions of greenhouse models versus observed values | 239 | |
5.4 | Temperature variations with solar activity for the last 250 years | 240 | |
5.5 | Climate record for the last 3,000 years | 242 | |
5.6 | Natural sources of chlorine compared to production of CFCs | 254 | |
5.7 | EPA version of ozone trends compared to natural cycle | 257 | |
5.8 | Ultraviolet flux. Nonexistent trend created by skewed data |
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