Hello.
What is the point in belaboring an hypothesis, "the Saturn Model", that was D.O.A. upon arrival in 1980 (there being absolutely NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE on Earth in its support and much to disprove it such as the continuous record or seasonality all thru the Holocene which refutes the "Saturn Model" right away, and whose outline in the book The Saturn Myth is at least two generations out of date? The book does not posit any role in the "polar configuration" for Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, for example. Not to mention the criticism in the present wikipedia entry. Enuf. Phaedrus7 01:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Have you read Slabinski's and Van Flandern's REFUTATIONS of Grubaugh's model for "polar configuration"? Regardless whether or not either actually used the word "refute", that is what they each did, beyond any doubt. Phaedrus7 17:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I am reminded of a California Standardized Reading Test I took in the 5th grade in which questions were asked about a story of an explorer who went up the Amazon River in February and returned to base camp in May of the next year. He was "up river" for 15 months, but nowhere in the story was the number "15" used. It seems to me that implicit information is as important and as relevant as explicit information in this story and in concluding that a critic "refuted" a model even if the word "refute" was not used by the critic. Phaedrus7 17:22, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
After you posted your comments at 18:13 GMT Saturday to talk-Phaedrus7, comments were added to the cites to Slabinski and Van Flandern demonstrating that they had indeed "refuted" or "disproved" Grubaugh's model as presented in Aeon 3:3 (Slabinski) and as revised on talk.origins (Van Flandern). If you persist in reading all of what Slabinski published in Aeon 3:3, you will hopefully appreciate how devastating that critique actually was. And if you did not monitor the discussion of Grubaugh's so-called "model" on talk.origins during summer and fall of 1994, perhaps some posts can be retrieved via googlegroups.com with judicious selection of keywords; but much of that discussion has not been archived. In any event, kindly understand that Grubaugh DID NOT perform any simulation of his model using a proper numerical integration of the relevant orbits. Instead he modelled the barycenter of the Jupiter-Saturn dyad in circular heliocentric orbit with the circular motion of Jupiter and Saturn about their barycenter computed using the parametric equations for circular motion using sines and cosines in BASIC code. This IS NOT a proper numerical integration of orbital motion; it is analogous to digital modelling of a clockwork motion. Yet Talbott defended Grubaugh's orbital fantasy against the objections of people who had really done proper numerical simulations of what Grubaugh claimed to have done, such people as Tim Thompson, Ben Dehner, Wayne Thoop, Karl Hahn, Drew Davis, Paul Gans, Richard Harter, and Scott Mullins. Regrettably, Van Flandern no longer has a copy of his critique of Grubaugh's model and none is posted to the WWW, so far as I have been able to determine using google.com. However, it is practically certain that either Dave Talbott <dtalbott@teleport.com> or Ev Cochrane <ev@icsmail.net> retain copies in their personal archives, as they from time to time resurrected excerpts from posts of theirs from this timeframe from their participation on talk.origins. If they decline to honor your request for a copy of Van Flandern's 17 Dec 1994 post for any reason, let me know and arrangments can be made. There can be no doubt that the use of "Saturnists" was purely a descriptive term for the publishing in Kronos of articles on Saturn Model themes by Dave Talbott, Ev Cochrane, Dwardu Cardona and Roger Ashton. It is correct that Harold Tresman and Brendan O'Gheogan (a.k.a. Bernard Newgrosh) published one article in this genre in an early SIS Review, but it has been lost to consciousness by the flood of material from American and Canadian authors. Also, you have my permission to re-post to talk-David Talbott anything here or in talk-Phaedrus7, if you think it would serve any useful purpose. Phaedrus7 18:01, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Ooops! And had I the presence of mind a minute or so ago, I would have concluded that had any derisiveness been intended in referring collectively to the "Saturnists", they would have been addressed as "mythomaniacs". Phaedrus7 18:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)