The Medea Hypothesis - review
Richard Harter
Self-Destructive?, Peter Ward, 2009, Princeton University Press,
Princeton New Jersey, ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13075-0
Peter Ward is professor of biology and Earth and space sciences
at University of Washington, and an astrobiologist with NASA. He
is a reknowned paleontologist who appears regularly in Science
documentaries on TV. In short he is a big gun.
In this book he looks at the flip side of the Gaia hypothesis.
If Gaia was the Good Mother, Medea was very much the Bad Mother.
Gaia theory has a checkered history. When James Lovelock
introduced the concept in 1979 it raised the hackles of
establishment science. It has been reviled and refuted many
times over to no avail; the refutations ended up being no such
thing. Some parts of Gaia theory are now well established
science; some are the subject of serious scientific work; and
some are problematic.
Then there is the New Age pseudoscience and mythology. It would
be irrelevant except for the human tendency to conflate very
different things that go under the same name.
Ward identifies four major variants of the Gaia hypothesis,
optimizing Gaia, Self-regulating Gaia, Coevolutionary Gaia, and
Progressive Deterministic Gaia. He dismisses them as either
being untestable, ergo unscientific, or else trivial. I
disagree, but after all it is his book.
Ward dragon of choice is Lenton's Evolving Gaia. Lenton's view
is that life's ability to regulate the environment in life's
favor evolves over time and becomes more effective. Over time
life has become more resilent in responding to perturbations in
the environment. The great advantage of this dragon is that it
makes testable predictions - or at least so Ward claims.
The Gaia hypothesis supposes that the living Earth is a good
mother. Ward argues that the living Earth is, like Medea, a
very bad mother. Ward advances the Medea hypothesis, to wit:
"Habitibility of the Earth has been affected by the presence
of life, but the overall effect of life has been and will be
to reduce the longevity of the Earth as a habitable planet."
As a thesis, this really doesn't work. To begin with, it is
possible that if life had never developed Earth would not now be
a habitable planet. Life stripped the greenhouse gasses from the
atmosphere; without life Earth may have experienced a runnaway
greenhouse effect.
More importantly the future of Earth is simply not predictable.
It is true that that humanity has no significant long term
effect, and if we extrapolate the loss of atmospheric CO2
indefinitely, and if there are no other perturbations or
evolutionary surprises, then it appears that the biosphere will
collapse due to CO2 starvation some hundreds of millions of years
from now. There are too many imponderables here to make any kind
of reasonable prediction.
However it is fairly clear from the text that Ward is not arguing
for his nominal thesis. Instead the thesis that he argues for is
something like this:
"Earth has an intrinsic set of well-behaved geophysical
cycles that produce an environment that is favorable for
life. Life's impact on these cycles is to introduce
instabilities that occasionally become catastrophic."
To this end Ward lists a number of catastrophes and upheavals.
They include:
The Methane Disaster (3.7 Billion years BP). Methane producing
life (stromatolites) cooled that planet with a methane haze that
was balanced by volcanic heat. It is not clear to me why he
calls this a Medean event.
The Oxygen Catastrophe (2.5 Billion years BP). According to
recent work by Kirschvink the evolution of life that could live
in the presence of oxygen occurred well after the oxygen rise.
Snowball Earth I (2.3 Billion years BP). Life stripped CO2 and
Methane from the atmosphere which lead to runaway glaciation.
Canfield Oceans (2 to 1 Billion years BP). Canfield oceans are
not a type of solitaire. Rather they are anoxic oceans with H2S
poisoning due to carbon-sulfur bacteria that bloomed occasionally
in post oxygen Earth. Besides H2S poisoning said bacteria also
inhibited nitrogen compound formation.
Snowball Earth II (700 Million years BP). Eukaryote plant bloom
stripped CO2 again. This one is credited with spurring the
development of animal life.
Reduction in microbial life (600 Million BP). Animals were a
one-two punch to microbial life. Animals ate microbial slicks.
Animal fecal pellets fell to the ocean bottom and out of the
effective biosphere.
Phanerozoic microbrial extinctions (to present). Numerous global
warming events leading to anoxic oceans and Canfield events at
490, 360, 251, 201, 190, and 100 million years BP.
This is an impressive and interesting list, but one has to ask:
What does it all mean for Medean and Gaian hypotheses? In my
view, perhaps not much. Clearly life has a major impact on the
global climate. From time to time there are major extinctions,
often followed by major reorganizations of the biosphere - phase
changes, so to speak.
What it comes down to is that on the large scale, life does not
act to preserve current conditions. Rather life's impact leads
to bloom and bust cycles on geological time scales. To date, the
evolutionary potential of life has had enough resilency to
survive and prosper. Is this Medean? That is a matter of
perspective; one can look at bloom/bust/phase change as Medean
(which it certainly is for life forms undergoing the bust) or can
one can take the view that that is how the system works.
And what of Gaia? There is some truth to the idea; in the short
run ecologies tend to stabilize. To paraphrase the old saying,
the history of life is one of long periods of mind numbing
sameness interrupted from time to time by frightening disaster.
And what of the long term hability of Earth? Phase changes
happen. Sometimes they come out of the Earth in the form of
massive vulcanism. Sometimes they come out of the sky in the
form of killer asteroids. And sometimes they come out of East
Africa in the form of bipedal hominids.
Either we and our descendents will be around for the long run or
the intelligences that we create will be. We stumbled onto the
keys of life and the ability to turn them in lock of being. In
the long run the hability of Earth will be shaped by what we do.
That is the long run. At present we are not capable of using our
intelligence for the long term benefit of ourselves and the world
we inhabit. In the short run we are making a mess of things and
we and the biosphere will probably pay a high price.
The old order passeth. All that was is not and never shall be
again.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
If I do not see as far as others, it is because
I stand in the footprints of giants.
![[M]adman's profile photo](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/default-user=s40-c)
[M]adman
> The Medea Hypothesis, Is Life on Earth Ultimately
> Self-Destructive?, Peter Ward, 2009, Princeton University Press,
> Princeton New Jersey, ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13075-0
>
> Peter Ward is professor of biology and Earth and space sciences
> at University of Washington, and an astrobiologist with NASA. He
> is a reknowned paleontologist who appears regularly in Science
> documentaries on TV. In short he is a big gun.
Says who? You say this as though the man cannot be wrong.
>
> In this book he looks at the flip side of the Gaia hypothesis.
> If Gaia was the Good Mother, Medea was very much the Bad Mother.
>
> Gaia theory has a checkered history. When James Lovelock
> introduced the concept in 1979 it raised the hackles of
> establishment science.
> It has been reviled and refuted many
> times over to no avail; the refutations ended up being no such
> thing. Some parts of Gaia theory are now well established
> science; some are the subject of serious scientific work; and
> some are problematic.
>
> Then there is the New Age pseudoscience and mythology. It would
> be irrelevant except for the human tendency to conflate very
> different things that go under the same name.
>
> Ward identifies four major variants of the Gaia hypothesis,
> optimizing Gaia, Self-regulating Gaia, Coevolutionary Gaia, and
> Progressive Deterministic Gaia. He dismisses them as either
> being untestable, ergo unscientific, or else trivial. I
> disagree, but after all it is his book.
Sounds like he has read the Vedas.
Ayurveda, the Dosha's Vita, Pitta, Kapha
>
> Ward dragon of choice is Lenton's Evolving Gaia. Lenton's view
> is that life's ability to regulate the environment in life's
> favor evolves over time and becomes more effective. Over time
> life has become more resilent in responding to perturbations in
> the environment. The great advantage of this dragon is that it
> makes testable predictions - or at least so Ward claims.
>
> The Gaia hypothesis supposes that the living Earth is a good
> mother. Ward argues that the living Earth is, like Medea, a
> very bad mother. Ward advances the Medea hypothesis, to wit:
>
> "Habitibility of the Earth has been affected by the presence
> of life, but the overall effect of life has been and will be
> to reduce the longevity of the Earth as a habitable planet."
What part of "the earth was placed under a curse"? in the bible was so hard
to understand?
>
> As a thesis, this really doesn't work. To begin with, it is
> possible that if life had never developed Earth would not now be
> a habitable planet. Life stripped the greenhouse gasses from the
> atmosphere; without life Earth may have experienced a runnaway
> greenhouse effect.
Earth has seen the greenhouse effect before. It was tropical even at the
poles
>
> More importantly the future of Earth is simply not predictable.
> It is true that that humanity has no significant long term
> effect, and if we extrapolate the loss of atmospheric CO2
> indefinitely, and if there are no other perturbations or
> evolutionary surprises, then it appears that the biosphere will
> collapse due to CO2 starvation some hundreds of millions of years
> from now. There are too many imponderables here to make any kind
> of reasonable prediction.
Maybe if we cut down every living plant, tree, shrub and bush.
>
> However it is fairly clear from the text that Ward is not arguing
> for his nominal thesis. Instead the thesis that he argues for is
> something like this:
>
> "Earth has an intrinsic set of well-behaved geophysical
> cycles that produce an environment that is favorable for
> life. Life's impact on these cycles is to introduce
> instabilities that occasionally become catastrophic."
Man cannot destroy the earth but man can destroy the conditions on earth.
Why? God told us why. We are suspose to be stewards and rulers of the earth.
But look at how we treat it. And each other.
Ancient texts describes them as "eons" or "earth ages". There have been
several.'
2Peter 3:10
"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will
pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat,
and the earth and its works will be burned up."
Sounds as though even the "elements" will melt.
John S. Wilkins
Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote:
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
Richard Harter
Wilkins) wrote:
>Richard, is this your review? Nicely written.
>
>Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote:
[snip]
It is indeed mine. Thank you for the kind words. I got it and
Lovelock's latest as a pair from the Scientific American Book Club.
I mean to also write a review of "The Vanishing Face of Gaia" but I
haven't quite gotten around to it.
Richard Harter
wrote:
>Richard Harter wrote:
>> The Medea Hypothesis, Is Life on Earth Ultimately
>> Self-Destructive?, Peter Ward, 2009, Princeton University Press,
>> Princeton New Jersey, ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13075-0
>>
>> Peter Ward is professor of biology and Earth and space sciences
>> at University of Washington, and an astrobiologist with NASA. He
>> is a reknowned paleontologist who appears regularly in Science
>> documentaries on TV. In short he is a big gun.
>
>Says who? You say this as though the man cannot be wrong.
Oddly enough I suggest later on in the review that I thought he was
wrong in certain issues.
Please do consider the possibility that you are simply misreading
what you are commenting upon. I will commend to you the concept of
reading of the entirety of a post and attempting to understand what
the author is saying before commenting. I appreciate that this
degree of literacy and intellectual comprehension may well be
beyond you, but consider it as a possibility and a consumation to
be devoutly desired. Who knows, you may yet be able to write two
consecutive sentences without making a fool of yourself.
Spence...
news:4a444deb....@text.giganews
> Lovelock
In case anyone wants to investigate the issue:
I heard Lovelock on BBC Radio 4 the other week saying that all scientific
theories have a limited life, and that in his view Darwinism was 'a theory
whose time was past'... But what he said after that was a bit garbled and
suggested a lack of understanding of the topic...
Anyone know more about this? Does he go into this in any of his books...?
Sp.
TomS
<RL%0m.97807$RJ.6...@newsfe04.ams2>, Spence... stated..."
I wonder when he expects Pythagoreanism - the scientific theory that
the earth is round - to reach the end of its limited life.
Or the scientific theory that Hesperus is Phosphorus - that is really
due for retirement. (I don't know who first proposed that theory, so
I can't give it a name of N-ism.) Someone should point out that there
is a barrier between them which no possible single observation can
cross.
--
---Tom S.
"...ID is not science ... because we simply do not know what it is saying."
Sahotra Sarkar, "The science question in intelligent design", Synthese,
DOI:10,1007/s11229-009-9540-x
Matt Silberstein
<TomS_...@newsguy.com> in
<256013848.000...@drn.newsguy.com> wrote:
>"On Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:36:01 +0100, in article
><RL%0m.97807$RJ.6...@newsfe04.ams2>, Spence... stated..."
>>
>>"Richard Harter" <c...@tiac.net> wrote in message
>>news:4a444deb....@text.giganews
>>
>>> Lovelock
>>
>>In case anyone wants to investigate the issue:
>>I heard Lovelock on BBC Radio 4 the other week saying that all scientific
>>theories have a limited life, and that in his view Darwinism was 'a theory
>>whose time was past'... But what he said after that was a bit garbled and
>>suggested a lack of understanding of the topic...
>>
>>Anyone know more about this? Does he go into this in any of his books...?
>>
>>Sp.
>>
>
>I wonder when he expects Pythagoreanism - the scientific theory that
>the earth is round - to reach the end of its limited life.
>
>Or the scientific theory that Hesperus is Phosphorus - that is really
>due for retirement. (I don't know who first proposed that theory, so
>I can't give it a name of N-ism.) Someone should point out that there
>is a barrier between them which no possible single observation can
>cross.
I think it depends on what you mean by "theory" and "life". Darwinism
has been replaced by the Modern Synthesis which was changed by Neutral
theory and is being transformed with our understanding of Ev/Dev. So
in a very real way the *Darwinism* has past its prime.
(And the theory that the Earth is round has been replaced by
observations of the specific shape of the Earth. Meanwhile we have
gone from the center of the Universe to orbit around the Sun to a
minor start on the outskirts of a typical galaxy to being made of
different stuff than the vast majority of the Universe. So, yes, I
think that old theory has hit its life as well.)
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
Richard Harter
Without having heard it I can only guess. Lovelock worked closely
with Lynn Margulis for a while; he might have been echoing her
views. In any case it is a tenable view. It all turns what one
means by Darwinism and Darwinian theory.
John S. Wilkins
> On Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:36:01 +0100, "Spence..."
> <"Spence..."@garctec.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >"Richard Harter" <c...@tiac.net> wrote in message
> >news:4a444deb....@text.giganews
> >
> >> Lovelock
> >
> >In case anyone wants to investigate the issue:
> >I heard Lovelock on BBC Radio 4 the other week saying that all scientific
> >theories have a limited life, and that in his view Darwinism was 'a theory
> >whose time was past'... But what he said after that was a bit garbled and
> >suggested a lack of understanding of the topic...
> >
> >Anyone know more about this? Does he go into this in any of his books...?
>
> Without having heard it I can only guess. Lovelock worked closely
> with Lynn Margulis for a while; he might have been echoing her
> views. In any case it is a tenable view. It all turns what one
> means by Darwinism and Darwinian theory.
"Darwinism" is too fluid a term to mean anything. What Darwin thought
was disproven in the 1880s. Since then we have had at least three
"neo-Darwinisms", a Synthesis, Evo-Devo, Phylogenetics, Mendelian
genetics, molecular genetics and now epigenetics. What it is that is
supposed to have been superseded depends largely on what you learned in
first year at university.
TomS
<7rm945ts2grtpbun3...@4ax.com>, Matt Silberstein stated..."
I haven't heard what Lovelock said, and my comments are an irritated
response to the sort of ignorant irrationalism that I've heard all
too often, not necessarily what Lovelock said.
Because I realized that someone would point out that we have since
discovered that the earth is not a perfect geometric sphere, I
decided to bring up the example of Hesperus and Phosphorus.
Hesperus was the ancient Greek designation for the planet Venus in
is appearances as the evening star; Phosphorus for it as the morning
star. It was at first not realized that they are the same object. At
some time, there was proposed a scientific theory that they are the
same object. The planet Venus cannot be directly observed in its
transition from evening star to morning star to evening star, because
it makes the transition when lost to sight in the glare of the sun
(in fact, passing behind the sun).
As far as I know, the scientific theory that Hesperus and Phosphorus
are the same object has never been superseded, even though it is one
of the oldest scientific theories, and I would be quite surprised if
anyone can imagine that it will ever be considered to have outlived
its limited lifespan. It is a counter-example to the statement that
all scientific theories have a limited life.
I also suggest that it is an example of a scientific theory which,
despite its near-universal acceptance for a couple thousand years,
had no possibility for direct observational evidence. Not until we
could get observations outside of the vicinity of the earth could
there be observations of "Hesperus" "changing into" "Phosphorus".
When was the first direct observation of Venus on the opposite side
of the Sun from the Earth? Some time well after 1950, I'd say. Yet
I suspect that even flat-earthers, geocentrists, and various other
crackpots never got so far out of contact with reality as to doubt
the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus as Venus.
Maybe I'll have to use this identification as an example for the
creationists who insist that all science always needs direct
observation. Of course, this does assume that creationists have a
long enough attention span to follow this example.
I just checked Wikipedia, and there is brief mention of the
identification of Hesperus with Phosphorus (1) in the article
"Hesperus", where it is discussed in the context of its being an
example in semantics, (2) in the article "Venus", under the heading
"Early studies", where it cites Pliny the Elder - I'll have to look
that up.
Burkhard
I'm not sure a simply identity statement like this qualifies as a
"scientific theory". It "may" be a theory about historical word use, but
as such it would be falsifiable and might therefore have a limited shelf
life after all ( we could find new documents that show that people in
the past actually did not mean Hesperus, but another star roughly in
the same place but further away, for instance.
It is indeed normally used as an example to explain Frege's distinction
between the extension and reference of a term, and its intension or
meaning (something Ray always gets confused when he makes claims of the
type: atheism and Darwinism are synonymous" Hesperus and Pospherus are
co-extensional, but the terms don't have the same meaning/intension
(arguably, pace Kripke and his theory of "rigid designation of proper
names"). But these are not empirical theories.
TomS
<h233vi$9i7$1...@news.albasani.net>, Burkhard stated..."
Here is the relevant text from Pliny the Elder, Natural History, II.
vi.36 (Loeb Classical Library, tr. H. Rackham):
"Below the sun revolves a very large star named Venus, which varies
its course alternately, and alternative names in themselves indicate
its rivalry with the sun and moon - when in advance and rising before
dawn it receives the name of Lucifer, as being another sun and bringing
the dawn, whereas when it shines after sunset it is named Vesper, as
prolonging the daylight, or as being a deputy for the moon. This
property of Venus was first discovered by Pythagoras of Samos about the
42nd Olympiad, 142 years after the foundation of Rome. Further it
surpasses all the other stars in magnitude ... It completes the circuit
of the zodiac every 348 days, and according to Timaeus is never more
than 46 degrees distant from the sun."
This seems to me to be a clear scientific statement that the planet
that we call Venus appears some times as the morning star and some
times as the evening star. That is something which I rather doubt
will ever be challenged in science. It is not simply a report of
observations, but an explanation of those observations by assuming
the existence of one object to account for two distinct observations.
And it is not just about the use of the words, it is about objective
reality: it could be false, but it isn't.
>
>It is indeed normally used as an example to explain Frege's distinction
> between the extension and reference of a term, and its intension or
>meaning (something Ray always gets confused when he makes claims of the
>type: atheism and Darwinism are synonymous" Hesperus and Pospherus are
>co-extensional, but the terms don't have the same meaning/intension
>(arguably, pace Kripke and his theory of "rigid designation of proper
>names"). But these are not empirical theories.
>
Burkhard
If people had not erroneously believed them to be two objects, woudl you
still consider it a scientific statement? If not, then the theory is
entirely dependant on a previous mistake. It is a correction in an
observation, but is it really a theory? Does it make predications? Does
it support some more general law like relation? Now if there were some
underlying general reasoning , e. g.: always when we observe a celestial
object at time X in position Y, it will reappear at time X+1 in the
position Y+1, the H-P identity would be a derivable consequence, and
together they would form a theory. Obviously, that theory woudl be much
more "in danger" since some celestial objects could behave differently,
e.g. when too far away
Kermit
> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:25:58 -0500, "[M]adman" <ad...@hotmaill.et>
> wrote:
>
> >Richard Harter wrote:
> >> The Medea Hypothesis, Is Life on Earth Ultimately
> >> Self-Destructive?, Peter Ward, 2009, Princeton University Press,
> >> Princeton New Jersey, ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13075-0
>
> >> Peter Ward is professor of biology and Earth and space sciences
> >> at University of Washington, and an astrobiologist with NASA. He
> >> is a reknowned paleontologist who appears regularly in Science
> >> documentaries on TV. In short he is a big gun.
>
> >Says who? You say this as though the man cannot be wrong.
>
> Oddly enough I suggest later on in the review that I thought he was
> wrong in certain issues.
>
> Please do consider the possibility that you are simply misreading
> what you are commenting upon. I will commend to you the concept of
> reading of the entirety of a post and attempting to understand what
> the author is saying before commenting. I appreciate that this
> degree of literacy and intellectual comprehension may well be
> beyond you, but consider it as a possibility and a consumation to
> be devoutly desired. Who knows, you may yet be able to write two
> consecutive sentences without making a fool of yourself.
Unless you catch them young, Creationists are not interested in
understanding another point of view.
If he responds to you at all, he will show a frightening unconcern for
your comments, and treat them as though they were mere rhetorical
maneuvers.
>
> Richard Harter, c...@tiac.nethttp://home.tiac.net/~cri,http://www.varinoma.com
> If I do not see as far as others, it is because
> I stand in the footprints of giants.
Kermit
Matt Silberstein
<TomS_...@newsguy.com> in
<256036824.000...@drn.newsguy.com> wrote:
[snip]
>As far as I know, the scientific theory that Hesperus and Phosphorus
>are the same object has never been superseded, even though it is one
>of the oldest scientific theories, and I would be quite surprised if
>anyone can imagine that it will ever be considered to have outlived
>its limited lifespan. It is a counter-example to the statement that
>all scientific theories have a limited life.
First off, the statement about theories having a limited life was not,
I suspect, meant as some great absolute, but as a rule of thumb.
Second, that "theory" has been superseded since we know recognize
Venus as a planet, not as stars. Third, that is really not much of a
theory, is it? A theory is a predictive explanatory model. This
"theory" explains the trivial statement about observations of a light
in the sky. It has been superceded by a rather larger explanatory
theory that explains those lights and the other moving lights. And
then by larger theories that explain far more. There is no existing
theory in science that does no more than explain that the Evening Star
and the Morning Star are the same object.
[snip]
wf3h
> Richard Harter wrote:
>
> > Ward identifies four major variants of the Gaia hypothesis,
> > optimizing Gaia, Self-regulating Gaia, Coevolutionary Gaia, and
> > Progressive Deterministic Gaia. He dismisses them as either
> > being untestable, ergo unscientific, or else trivial. I
> > disagree, but after all it is his book.
>
> Sounds like he has read the Vedas.
> Ayurveda, the Dosha's Vita, Pitta, Kapha
adman subscribes to the 'million monkey' view of evidence. there are
LOTS of ancient texts. there are LOTS of stories. at some point,
people were bound to write down almost anything. therefore, by
probability, SOMETHING is bound to be close to what science finds by
the rules of logic and evidence
adman thinks this random chance is equivalent to god's word.
interesting view from a creationist...especially since so many ancient
texts...as he admits...are wrong about so much. and, unless science
does the research, it's impossible to tell which ancient text is right
or wrong
so the creationist just tosses the dice, quickly glances at a science
book, then screams "SEE, I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!"
TomS
<ah0b45t0i153ldeuv...@4ax.com>, Matt Silberstein stated..."
>
>On 26 Jun 2009 10:20:25 -0700, in talk.origins , TomS
><TomS_...@newsguy.com> in
><256036824.000...@drn.newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>As far as I know, the scientific theory that Hesperus and Phosphorus
>>are the same object has never been superseded, even though it is one
>>of the oldest scientific theories, and I would be quite surprised if
>>anyone can imagine that it will ever be considered to have outlived
>>its limited lifespan. It is a counter-example to the statement that
>>all scientific theories have a limited life.
>
>First off, the statement about theories having a limited life was not,
>I suspect, meant as some great absolute, but as a rule of thumb.
>Second, that "theory" has been superseded since we know recognize
>Venus as a planet, not as stars. Third, that is really not much of a
>theory, is it? A theory is a predictive explanatory model. This
>"theory" explains the trivial statement about observations of a light
>in the sky. It has been superceded by a rather larger explanatory
>theory that explains those lights and the other moving lights. And
>then by larger theories that explain far more. There is no existing
>theory in science that does no more than explain that the Evening Star
>and the Morning Star are the same object.
>
>[snip]
>
I accept that the statement was not to be taken all that seriously.
My reaction is just one of possibly misplaced irritation.
As to your second point, I fail to see how additional knowledge
supersedes a theory. The measurement of the mass of the neutrino
does not supersede the theory that there is a neutrino accounting
for certain features of certain nuclear reactions.
Third, I think that it is a very important theory. Dismissing it
as just being about some lights in the sky sounds, if you will
excuse my hyperbole, like laughing at studies about fruit flies.
Remember that this theory explains the observations about the
evening star and the morning star by positing an unobservable
(something which could not be observed until some 2500 years
later) continuity between them. This theory was the necessary
prerequisite to much later astronomy.
TomS
<h23cef$mj9$1...@news.albasani.net>, Burkhard stated..."
It is definitely *not* a correction in an observation. It is rather
a statement about something which was impossible to observe. (The
continuity between Hesperus and Phosphorus could only be observed
after there were inteplanetary rockets. Of coures, further
consequences of the theory, with the addition of theories about
gravity, could be observed "only" 1500 years or so later.) It can
be generalized to say that the evening-star and morning-star
appearances of other objects - Mercury, for example, but also (but
not so dramatically) Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn - are of one
continuous object.
Does it make predictions? There is the simple prediction that we
will never see Hesperus and Phosphorus at the same time. There was,
at that time, no other explanation for what may have just been a
coincidence. There *is* no explanation for that, even today, which
does not involve the "theory of the continuity of Venus". (It
happens to be that in the last 50 years or so we have managed to
develop technology which allows us to "directly observe" this
continuity.)
Come to think of it, someone *could* have come up with a "theory
of intelligent design" which would go something like this:
It is extremely improbable that Hesperus and Phosphorus would never
appear at the same time, therefore they must have been intelligently
designed that way. To anyone who proposes the atheistic theory of
continuity between them, I reply, "How do you know that they are the
same object? Were you there when one changes to the other?"
Matt Silberstein
<TomS_...@newsguy.com> in
<256099527.000...@drn.newsguy.com> wrote:
Classical mechanics has been superceded by Relativity. Classical
Mechanics is still entirely correct at V=0 and M=0. To put it
differently Classical Mechanics was once *the* theory of physics, now
it is a special cases subsumed in the larger theory.
>The measurement of the mass of the neutrino
>does not supersede the theory that there is a neutrino accounting
>for certain features of certain nuclear reactions.
You continually conflate theory and fact. Theories are predictive
explanatory models, facts are observations.
>Third, I think that it is a very important theory. Dismissing it
>as just being about some lights in the sky sounds, if you will
>excuse my hyperbole, like laughing at studies about fruit flies.
>Remember that this theory explains the observations about the
>evening star and the morning star by positing an unobservable
>(something which could not be observed until some 2500 years
>later) continuity between them. This theory was the necessary
>prerequisite to much later astronomy.
That is was important at the time does not make it important later.
That is one of the first implications of the superceded claim. It was
important, now that it is superceded it is trivial.
TomS
<v0dc45lavf8rvucuc...@4ax.com>, Matt Silberstein stated..."
My, I have to be really precisionist. Let's see if I can do this
better. I know it won't be perfect, but let me try.
I fail to see how the mere addition of knowledge is enough to
supersede a theory.
>
>>The measurement of the mass of the neutrino
>>does not supersede the theory that there is a neutrino accounting
>>for certain features of certain nuclear reactions.
>
>You continually conflate theory and fact. Theories are predictive
>explanatory models, facts are observations.
And here I thought it was *you* who were conflating theory and fact.
A theory which hypothesizes the existence of an undetected neutrino
to explain the seeming violation of conservation in the decay of a
neutron into a proton and electron. An addition of facts, such as
the mass of the neutrino, does not supersede the theory of the
existence of a neutrino.
Or, in the case of the theory of the continuity between Hesperus
and Phosphorus, our further knowledge about the nature of Venus
does not supersede the soundness of the theory about there being
one object seen under different circumstances.
Additional facts did not supersede the theory.
>
>>Third, I think that it is a very important theory. Dismissing it
>>as just being about some lights in the sky sounds, if you will
>>excuse my hyperbole, like laughing at studies about fruit flies.
>
>>Remember that this theory explains the observations about the
>>evening star and the morning star by positing an unobservable
>>(something which could not be observed until some 2500 years
>>later) continuity between them. This theory was the necessary
>>prerequisite to much later astronomy.
>
>That is was important at the time does not make it important later.
>That is one of the first implications of the superceded claim. It was
>important, now that it is superceded it is trivial.
>
And this sounds like you have defined away the possibility of ever
having a long-lasting non-trivial theory. Any theory which is good
enough to last a long time is thereby a trivial theory because it has
served so well and had such important consequences for a long time.
Sort of like how Shakespeare is a poor writer because he used all those
cliches.
But then, you haven't proposed a theory to supersede the continuity
theory of Venus.
What you are accomplishing is convincing me that this does represent
a good example to counter creationist concepts of science.