Prof David Nussbaum. If you want to enjoy an intellectual workout that perhaps will challenge some of your basic assumptions about the universe, this is a good way to spend an hour.
Interestingly, near the end, Professor Gelernter (Computer Science, Yale) observes that despite the entirely scientific nature of the arguments raised showing the inability of Darwin’s theory to account for origins, rather that fine-tuning of species, the push-back from his colleagues was highly emotional, ad hominem and did not address the scientific issues (e.g., lack of sufficient time, missing predicted fossil records, top-down rather than bottom-up nature of communicating systems.)
It would appear that there is now an ideological component to Darwinisn, and anyone attacking it is dealt with in very much like someone attacking some religions during medieval times or attacking favoured ideologies at the ptesent. Regardless, an interesting and enlightening conversation.
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@Edgar
Good of you to discover the truth of things so quickly. I should have needed much longer to weed it out. Yes, it is a thrilling topic. I recall how it challenged my thoughts that everything I was learning in my ‘History’ courses, which I cherished, was based upon conclusions that were likely quite false, and still taught as valid.
As I say, I was young, but it was a great challenge to my perceptions, for which, I am sorry to say, I annoyed many of my professors with my many questions about the timeline. I believe they mostly found my inquiries as irksome and would often answered my questions with the phrase of “beyond the scope of this course”.
There was one who was fascinated by the topic, though. He was very generous with his time and I recall discussing many possibilities, one of which I later pursued with my studies in India. It is terribly ironic how much ignorance is built into the constructs which form the foundations of much of what we know as being certain.
For 3 years in the late 1990’s I was the office assistant to David Talbott, student of Immanuel Velikovsky, comparative mythologist and author “The Saturn Myth”, in collaboration with Dwardu Cardona, Ev Cochrane, Charles Ginenthal, Gunnar Heinsohn and Alfred DeGrazia. Lots of Google search strings in that sentence. If you are video inclined, head to YouTube and search the Thunderbolts Channel. All the ancient gods were sky gods, all the ancient priesthoods were astronomer priesthoods, all the ancient myths tell the same story – near extinction level event in historic times. Ever hear of the Younger Dryas Event? The Bronze Age Collapse?
This is an important and outstanding discussion. That said, what we are left with is that, even today, we have no explanation for how the laws of physics came about, and how life in its myriad forms came about. This lack of an explanation is common both to scientists and to supporters of “intelligent design”. The notion of an intelligent designer is merely a reaction to the inability of science to explain the origin of life, but saying that an intelligent designer did it gives us no more information or insight that we had before. Too bad that no one on the panel raised the question about where a supposed intelligent designer came from. Since an intelligent designer would have to be more complex than the system of life which he/she/it designed, the question about the origin of the intelligent designer is even more unanswerable than the question of the origin of life and the universe. All the evidence points to the conclusion that we will never know the answers to these ultimate questions.
Ted -I know exactly what you mean. I used to get The Biblical Archaeology review, I notice that Herhel Shanks died only very recently. Not a scholar himself he was a geat man, and avid Biblical enthusiast, very important in the Biblical Arcaelogy world and pioneered many exiting discoveries. His publications on the Dead Sea Scrolls first brought the The Review to my notice and from thenon I was a recipient and my only complaint was of the long intervals before the next issue.. great mn,
Re Velikovsky, I know Ages in Chaos was his greatess and most popuar hit. I prefer Ages in Chaos….atnd he sequels.
Edgar @Peloni,
Yes quite so. It was the time line shift which was the basis for the theory;-which is what I said in my post -although as a negative. . I have been reading some interesting stuff by Damien Mackey who shows a strong respect for Velikovsky and Courville, because they were the early and very believable advocates of re-arranging the Sothic Calendar dates, and Manetho’s lists. Also that they spawned that core you mention, who denied many of their theories, and substituted their own.
Now, even more,,I can see how fascinating this subject can be. But, as far as I am concerned, Shishak/Sheshonk, was the despoiler fo the Temple utensils and other treasure. I believe that Velikovsky showed this conclusively. Where Thutmose 3 comes into it, I have no idea, perhaps they are one and the same.
Of course, a major item is that rulers of ancient days had many names,. So 5 different chroniclers could refer to the same individual, each by a different name.
And then then the lack of vowels. The Mesha stele for example,, dated to as late as 9th cent B.C.E. The paper “squeeze” must be faulty here and there, and I have pictures of the re-assembled stele which show gaps .
Btdwd,(Bet Dawid) “The House of David”, his defeated enemy, “mr” (Omri, etc.etc). Please forgive me for bringing these up, as you well know these.
An example I always like, is the confusion over the numbers of Hebrews that Moses led into the “mdbr sn” (Midbar Sinai). The Torah census shows over 600,000 men, plus women and children, which indicateds a total of about 2.5-3 million (besides cattle etc). I am convinced that the “family heads” was mistranslated into “thousands”,(lf/lf…aluf/elef) 600 heads of families would indicate a total of about 3500-4000, total, which is sustainable, whereas assuming millions has left the credibility of the Torah bare to open derision.
@Peloni @Edgar
Thanks to both of you for reminding me of Velikovsky. I, too, was enthralled by his theories and read Worlds in Collision, Ages in Chaos and others.
Edgar also mentioned John Allegro whose path I have also crossed.
I was an avid reader of Commentary Magazine and in fact saved at least 40 monthly issues. and read everyone of them cover to cover.
I remember clearly that it published an article by Berlinski who participated in this video. Berlinski’s article was thought provoking that the following three issues of Commentary contained many letters from scientists and others who commented on it.
As Bob Hope often sang, Thanks for the memories”
Well, it was my recollection the adjusted timeline was the basis of the theory, but it was a very long time ago, and though I do recall this was their thesis, perhaps it was just the blurry vision of my youthful misunderstanding, as I say I gained an interest in it, but never mastered the debate.
I will pursue it when I am more capable, but I am currently caring for a family of 5 youths and many pets, so it might be a bit before I am better able to discover if my memory was well served or not. Let me know if you find it first, I am curious to know if the Irish Stew was in their writings or only in my head.
Edgar@Peloni.
Yes …..good old Velikovsky. He gve me some of the most interesting reading I’ve ever had.
As for Sheshonk/Shishak, being Thutmose 3 this would be impossible without the time line shift.. They seem to be 2 different Pharoahs, separated by hundreds of years. I recall that one of them, in “Ages in Chaos”,, and suitably identified as a completely different Pharaoh (his name escapes me), left a clearly identifiable (by Velikovsky facsimile drawings) record of the Temple spoils on a temple wall in Karnak. The Torah says it was Shishak who despoiled the Temple. Thutmose says it was himself, which, if he lived in the accepted 1450 period BCE, could not be, being centuries before Israel existed. It looks like an Irish Stew………???!!!
I have not read those authors you mention,but I will look for them. I am deeply interested in archaeological contrversies that challenge the accepted accounts, many of which I’ve always felt, were nothing more than “educated guesses’..
I even eagerly purchased sevaral books by the now forgotten John Allegro, who had insight and brilliance on the one hand, and a period of lack of circumspection on the other-which eventually ruined his reputation..
(like the widowed landlady with grief in one eye and calculation n the other, when interviewing a prospecive boarder-from a W.W.Jacobs novel-of whose books I have many)
Rather disappointing to me.
Don’t recommend wasting an hour watching it.
All these gentlemen say is that purely random mutations could not have lead to origins of species in such short time (70 million years).
To me it is obvious that from a scientists perspective universe must be intelligently designed. Scientists are using intelligence in their search for design and finding it.
For example if the gravitational constant, or Plank’s constant, or the speed of light, or ice melting temperature, or Avogadro’s number, or the mass of proton or electron, or the ANY OTHER PHYSICAL CONSTANT, the as we know it, could not exist.
So it seems like physics is very intelligently designed.
Now physicists would like that biology should be deducible from their constants.
But biologists have the right to have additional laws beyond those that can be deduced from physics.
@Edgar
Your mention of the redoubtable Velikovsky stirs my memories of so long ago as well as the Papyrus Ipuwer …Very good of you to pull this from the cobwebs of my lost thoughts, as I had not thought of the Egyptian timeline debate in some many, many years. The theories relating the Biblical and Egyptian timelines was a fascination of my mother who is quite well versed on the debate, consequently I became acquainted with the topic thru her endeavors when I was younger.
Though I never gained a mastery of it, as it was well before the era of interest of my own studies. I do recall, however, reading the works of Courville who was very convincing, and, also, the fascinating writings of Eva Danelius who detailed the comparison between the competing theories of Megghido vs Jerusalem based upon the geographic descriptions to determine the true identity of Shishak as being Thutmose III. Simply fascinating to think back on it, had I not already developed an interest in Macedon and later India, I would likely have pursued this research, instead.
I am told that a core of revisionist have scrapped the brilliant conclusions of these great minds after a finding some discrepancies, in spite of the archaeologic support for their theories – no doubt trying to prove the quality of their own minds against the masters of the older generation.
Edgar @ Edgar
I’ve been re-thinking a bit, and it occurs to me that if Darwin was showing the “fine tuning”, he was also intimating that this fine tuning, having gone on for billions of years,could have mutated from the original multi cellular animalcule to what he found in his own time.
The extinction of the dinosaure, with notable exceptions still around today, could have been the result of repeated Catastropes, comet collisions
( I was a great fan of Velikovsky, have aboout 6-7 of his books’ some of his theories, like the wrong dating of Egyptian history, sound very reasonable to me, the Papyrus Ipuwer seems a realistic explanation etc. also.my professor and cricket rival J.V. Luce and Dr. Marinatos investigated Thera -and I have read their findings and opinions)
Absolutely fascinating. They actaully were able to make it easy for a layman to understand. But, with all the postualtions and and assertions tha t a in 1o the 76th chance of finding a viable rotein, whitch itself is only the very first, but vitl building block,,,t, They comae to the conclusion that they just don’t really know.
I’ve read Darwin’s Origin of Species, more than once, and in never dawned on me that it was so simple, I mean the comment by one of the trio, that Darwin explains well, the “finer tuning” but not anything more. Phew, to have minds capble of offhandedly discussing such weighty matters , all based on theries and recent scientific discoveries, is a monumental gift.
Listened to the whole thing.