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From: michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: more on Velikovsky, large animals (short followup)
Message-ID: <206@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 18:13:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.206
Posted: Tue Sep  3 18:13:10 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Sep-85 02:46:54 EDT
References: <382@imsvax.UUCP> <205@3comvax.UUCP>
Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
Lines: 54

> [*Does* the Line Eater God exist?]

Unfortunately, I made a mental typo in my recent article on
Ted Holden, Velikovsky, and Company.  (I'll grant myself the
opportunity to make a couple of short additional comments.)  

Key:    > Me    > > Ted Holden

> [miscellaneous removed text]
>
> Catastrophe is well accepted as a factor in evolution.  It is
> also well accepted that large animals, indeed any living thing,
> is particularly vulnerable to extinction during a catastrophe.  
> And a catastrophe *was* occurring at the time these large
> animals became extinct -- the catastrophic end of the ice age.  
> 
> It may seem odd to talk about the *end* of an ice age as
> being a catastrophe, but remember that large areas formerly
> well watered (in the American West, for example) became desert.  
> Much forest land turned to grassland.  The ocean level went
> down hundreds of feet.  It was an *ecological* catastrophe.  
  ^^^^
Of course, I meant that the ocean level went *up* hundreds of
feet.  This is due to the melting of huge quantities of glacial
ice that had formerly occupied vast areas of the continents.  

> >           ... left-over large
> >           dinosaurs  and  mega-mammals  died  when  the  effect  of gravity
> >           changed after the flood, making the world no longer habitable ...
> 
> And then, when an actual catastrophe is cited, which one
> does Ted mention?  Not the ice age, which ended a mere
> 10,000 years ago, leaving in its wake massive evidence
> of its occurrence all over the world -- but the biblical
> *flood*!  Now, scientists have no more objection to a
> catastrophic flood than they do to a catastrophic ice
> age.  The real question is, *where's the evidence*?  

The rise in sea levels drowned many coastal areas around the world.  
Likely, many long-settled human communities were disrupted by this.  
In the general catastrophe of the end of the ice age there were
many floods.  Perhaps ancient stories of floods reveal some such.  

The ocean rise, however, could not have been rapid.  It's equally
likely the flood stories reflect some localized floods in the
Tigris-Euphrates Valley, where the Semites of the Bible originated
culturally.  As far as the world-enveloping, to the tops of the
Himalayas, flood demanded by Bible literalists goes, I say *No*!  

----------------
Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation
(415) 960-9367
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