THE BIBLICAL FLOOD
 
AND THE ICE EPOCH
 
http://www.creationism.org/patten/                               by DONALD W. PATTEN
CHAPTER  XI
Cosmogony and Uniformitarianism
 MAIN PAGE
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII


THE ANCIENTS experienced occasional celestial havoc, and endeavored to understand their situation and their origin in terms which often took fanciful modes, related to such forces as Zeus, Jupiter, Dyaus Pitar, Ra, Marduk and associated pantheistic views.

Science-oriented hypotheses had to await modern knowledge associated with higher mathematics, the telescope and related tools. Modern cosmologies, appealing to science for their basis, have developed only since the era of Newton (circa 1700).

There have been three principal views on the origin of planets. One is that they came from the outer reaches of space. Newton and Whiston held this view, but few followed their thinking. A second view is that a passing star either approached near to, or collided with the Sun, and the debris or solar tidal material became planets. Buffon propounded this. A third view is that before contracting, a nebular sun spun off the material which later coalesced into planets. This third view, a strictly uniformitarian one, was propounded by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
 

Immanuel Kant A General Theory of the Heavens (1755)

Kant, as a youth, was educated as a Lutheran Pietist. In his early academic career, he turned sharply away from his religious heritage, and ultimately he became one of the leading skeptics of the modern age. He founded the school of German rationalism, which has given us such figures as Feuerbach, Hegel, Marx (who in turn influenced Lenin), and Nietzsche (who in turn influenced Hitler). The main thrust of Kant's life was in critical philosophy and theology, and he must be recognized as a highly motivated figure.

Even though philosophy was ultimately the main thrust of his life, this was not so in his early teaching and writing career. Originally he concerned himself with such subjects as astronomy, history, mathematics and physical geography. His early academic development was influenced by such diverse persons as Descartes the cosmologist, Leibnitz the mathematician, Newton the astronomer, and Swedenborg, an apparently insane engineer who claimed to have seances with men on Jupiter and other planets and stars. So Kant was motivated to do better, and at the age of 31, he propounded a view of the origin of the solar system, the so-called Nebular Hypothesis. It was set forth in a work entitled General History of the Nature and Theory of the Heavens. (1755).

Earlier in our volume, an interesting tendency or trend was noticed relative to the catastrophist, George McCready Price. Price more or less set the style and established the path in which subsequent catastrophists almost invariably followed. Price was a trail-blazer. So it was with Kant also. Kant's influence upon 18th, 19th and 20th century cosmogenists and cosmologists has been profound, since they have invariably accepted his uniformitarian celestial assumption, usually without any questions, more often subconsciously rather than consciously.

In Kant's day, only six planets and nine satellites were known. An explanation for the origin of these fifteen bodies was Kant's objective. Kant suggested that the Sun was once a giant and diffuse nebula, which shrank due to self-gravitation. Most of the material collected into the central star, but some of it did not. The remnants collected on a thin disc which orbited around the Sun. Some of the details of the problems, such as the motion of the planets, the composition of the elements of the planets, the orbits of the planets, and the presence of satellites, were either unexplained, or discussed in a very loose fashion. Nevertheless this view became established, and has held sway in the minds of the academic world for over 200 years.

Kant's conception of our solar system was like a Swiss watch, in which the mainspring was wound up billions of years ago. He conceived that the solar system was billions of years old, and was billions of years in devolving to its present state without outside interference. Thus he had to posit that the planets and the Sun must have had a common physical origin. The solar system was wound up billions of years ago and has been allowed to run unimpeded and without interference of any external kind ever since.

Later astronomers reviewed, tested and tried the Kantian hypothesis, and developed some very serious physical problems. Nevertheless early scientists viewed the disc-like rings of Saturn, and appealed to them for proof of the validity of Kant's hypothesis. Here supposedly, was evidence of the principles under which the solar system itself was formed. Here was the process of formation of another satellite for Saturn. And the thin, disc-like rings were considered just another proof that the Sun, at one time in the primordial past, had also possessed a thin, disc-like ring, from which planets were formed.
 

Simon Laplace The Nebular Hypothesis (1796)

Laplace's ideas of the origin of the solar system paralleled Kant's views in most essentials. Laplace, too, postulated that the progenitor of the solar system must have been a vast gaseous fluid which cooled and contracted, leaving behind particles which later condensed into planets. The ideas of Laplace are sufficiently similar to those of Kant to be co-identified as the Kant-Laplace Nebular Hypothesis.
 

Because his theory lacked computational and observational verification, Laplace placed little confidence in it. Nevertheless, this became the accepted theory of the origin of the solar system for many years.1


The Kant-Laplace hypothesis was considered to be scientific fact for the next 100 years, and these were the years during which the ideas of gradualism were developed and refined. Hutton, the early Scottish geologist, applied this principle to geology, as did Lyell, Darwin applied this principle to biology, as did Huxley. However, as in the case of Ptolemy's geocentric hypothesis, the Kant-Laplace hypothesis continually became a stumbling block to the interpretation of observed data.

And as it was with the Ptolemaic theory of geocentricity, so it has been with the Kantian hypothesis of heliogenesis (the assumption that the planets were derived from the solar material). In the Ptolemaic theory of geocentricity, every time a planet suddenly reversed its direction in its procession across the sky, another epicycle was added, which explained the immediate problem but did nothing for the total proposition. So it has been with the Kantian theory of heliogenesis.

Every time an astronomer has come forward with a severe question, an answer has been organized, or rigged, which possibly might satisfy the moment, but has made the total proposition ultimately more abstruse. This is why there is a tradition among cosmogenists that any scientist who accepts a cosmogenetical theory in one generation invariably becomes an academic widow in the next. Yet amid this unsatisfying situation in cosmogeny, an underlying assumption, Kantian heliogenesis, continues to be assumed.
 

George Darwin The Evolutionary Tidal Theory (1881)

George Darwin was the second son of Charles Darwin. Although inbred, George Darwin nevertheless achieved high academic standing in the fields of mathematics, physics and astronomy. He specialized in the problems of tides caused by the Sun and Moon, and in this area, he made some valuable contributions to human knowledge.

G. Darwin kept the uniformitarian or gradual perspective of the Kant-Hutton-Lyell-C. Darwin view. But he introduced the subject of solar tides as a possible explanation for the planets. Darwin, in introducing this subject, also revived thought on Buffon's earlier idea of a collision of our Sun with a passing star. G. Darwin proposed that there had been no collision, but had merely been a close approach. This approach caused immense solar tides to be emitted on a disc-like plane.

Darwin proposed that the approaching star caused a tidal extrusion of gaseous material from the Sun. Thus Darwin, like Kant and Laplace, postulated that all of the material in the planets came from the Sun originally, but G. Darwin held it did not occur until after contraction of the Sun to its present approximate size.

He also proposed not only that the Earth came out of material from the Sun, but with evolution in mind, he also proposed that the Moon was borne of the Earth.

George Darwin postulated great solar tides, catastrophic in nature, despite the total lack of evidence of any star ever approaching the Sun. But never once did he mention the possibility of ancient, historic, planet-sized tides involving the Earth and her oceans, so prominent in the catastrophism of Cuvier and so prominent in the Genesis record. George Darwin's hypothesis on the origin of the solar system commanded some stature in cosmology, due in part to his father's fame. George's hypothesis on the origin of the solar system is laden with physical impossibilities. Yet his ideas accurately reflect the predominant thinking on cos-mogeny during the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century.

The truly immense problems involved in his proposition are reflected in his discussion of the genesis of the Moon, which he claimed was issued out of the Earth even as the Earth was issued out of the Sun. He knew that the Moon was receding from the Earth at a rate of about 5 inches per year. Thereupon he pronounced that it had departed from the Earth, like a baby from its mother, some 4,000,000,000 years ago; the Pacific Basin was left as proof of an abdominal, scar-making departure. Supposedly it has been receding uniformly ever since. The dimensions of problems in this proposal are extreme, Roche's limit being but one.
 

Thomas Chamberlin and Forest Moulton The Planetesimal Hypothesis (1902)

Chamberlin, a geologist, came to doubt the concept that the Earth originally was hot gas, which gradually cooled through the molten to the solid state. Chamberlin's review of Ice Epoch phenomena was integral to the reasons why he rejected the Kant-Laplace approach. For instance, Chamberlin showed that if the Earth was white hot and molten, it would not retain gases with molecular weights such as that of water vapor. Chamberlin traced the idea of an Earth, cooling off from a gaseous state, step by step, in terms of molecular motion, and concluded that at each step, the idea was invalid. Thus Chamberlin's approach was dynamically scientific appealing as it did to such principles as the kinetic speed of molecules, dissipating characteristics of gases, centrifugal force and gravitational contraction.

These factors gradually assumed the proportions of overwhelming evidence, and led Chamberlin and Moulton to seek an entirely fresh approach. They too went back to the collision ideas as proposed by Buffon, some 150 years before. They suggested not quite a collision, but a close approach between an intruding star and our Sun, which resulted in violent eruptions and the ejection of solar material which ultimately condensed into small bodies, called planetesimals. These small, cold planetesi-mals then coalesced into what ultimately became the various planets of the Sun's family.
 

James Jeans Problems of Cosmology and Stellar Dynamics (1919)

James Jeans, an English astronomer, later modified the ideas of Chamberlin and Moulton into the idea that a passing star pulled out a filament from the Sun. The filament was thicker at the center than at the extremities, and was cigar-shaped. According to his concept, this helps explain why the larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are the more remote.
 

Harold Jeffreys The Collision Hypothesis (1924)

Jeffreys, along with Jeans, tried several variations of collision, or near-collision (grazing) hypotheses, discarding one in favor of another as new problems were brought to his attention. Jeffreys' idea, going back to Buffon's, proposed that an approaching star actually hit the Sun, not directly but tangentially, a glancing blow, distending the Sun. This, he hoped, might explain the distribution of matter in our solar system. What it actually accomplished was to emphasize the acute problems involved in trying to explain the planets as originating from the Sun.

Among the problems which came to be recognized was that of angular momentum. This problem has come to be considered as the thorniest of the whole group in explaining a theory of the origin of the solar system.

Angular momentum is defined as the product of (1) the mass of a body, and (2) the velocity of revolution (tangential), and (3) the distance of the body from the center of the Sun. If the body is rotating, the following product is added to the first product: (4) the mass of the body, (5) the average distance of the mass from the axis of rotation, and (6) the average rotational velocity. The sum of these two products (1, 2 and 3 plus 4, 5 and 6) is the angular momentum, and it cannot be changed internally, but only by an outside force.

The distribution of the angular momentum in the inner reaches of our solar system is as follows:


TABLE 8

1.  Jupiter
59.6%
2.  Saturn
24.4%
3.  Neptune
8.2%
4.  Uranus
5.3%
5.  SUN
1.9%
6.  Pluto
0.4%
7.  Others
0.1%

The question which kept being raised was: How did the planets derive 98% of the angular momentum of the solar system from the Sun's 2%, especially since the Sun possesses 99.85% of all of the mass in our solar system? This problem is not overcome by wishing it away. It called for fresh approaches. Again one is reminded of the problems which kept arising in the Ptolemaic system, when each new and unexplained reversal of the orderly procession of the planets was explained by a new and somewhat arbitrary epicycle.
 

H. N. Russell The Binary Star Hypothesis (1935)

The binary star hypothesis was first promoted by Russell, and later modified by Lyttleton (1938). Russell desired to avoid the difficulties in the nebular, tidal and collision theories. But he continued to maintain their assumption that the Sun's material was the original material from which the planets were constructed.

He noted that many, indeed at least half of the stars in our galaxy are binary stars. Binary stars are couples or multiples of stars, revolving around each other, but more technically are revolving around a common center in space.
 

It occurred to Russell that if the Sun was at one time not just a single star but rather a binary, and if a third star approached these two, tidal phenomena could be postulated, but the requirement of angular momentum might also be simultaneously satisfied.

One of the several problems with Russell's idea was that if a third star passed that close to the Sun, why did it not come permanently under the Sun's influence, and become another member of the binary, becoming now a theoretical triple binary. Another problem is to demonstrate how a filament would be pulled out and escape the Sun's gravitational control. A third problem is to demonstrate how such a passing star maintained a hyperbolic orbit, and moved out from beyond our solar system, and then where did it go?

Our nearest star is 4.3 light years away, and gives no evidence of having been in a near collision with the Sun. Neither is there evidence of any other star ever being near the Sun. In fact the chances of such an occurrence can be calculated. The chances are substantially less than 1 in a trillion over a billion year span of time.2 In fact the chances are fair that such a chance approach has not occurred within our entire galaxy, containing over 100 billion stars, within the last billion years, let alone in our tiny part of the galaxy. Thus there are substantial problems with all theories of the approach of a star.
 

R. A. Lyttleton A Variation of the Binary Star Hypothesis (1938)

Lyttleton endeavored to improve on Russell's model. He proposed that the Sun originally had a binary partner, a small companion, which was broken up by a passing third star. The specifics from there become increasingly complicated, partly due to the fact that Lyttleton presented several variations of his original model.3

These variations of Russell's Binary Star Hypothesis did not serve to simplify the problem. Others kept bringing up increasingly severe problems. To cope with some of these, Fred Hoyle suggested in 1944 that the planets were remnants of a former companion to the Sun which exploded as a supernova.

There have been a series of others who have suggested ideas as to the origin of the solar system. While Russell, Lyttleton and others relied on passing stars, which are very difficult to substantiate, appealing to the concepts of Buffon, yet other modern cosmologists have returned to the nebular approach of Kant and Laplace. Gerard Kuiper's hypothesis of Tidal Stability, C. F. Von Weiszacker's hypothesis of Turbulence and H. Alfven's hypothesis of Magneto-Hydrodynamic Forces are examples.

In Chapter X, it was stated that one protein molecule within a cell, or the simplest one-cell animal, is infinitely more complex than our solar system. The simple amino acid molecules contain an extremely complex chain-like architecture with molecular weights ranging from 12,000 to 750,000. DNA and RNA molecules range up to 2,000,000 molecular weight. Explaining the origin of the solar system ought to be much easier to do, and it ought to be achieved sooner than the explanation of the origin of biochemical life even on the simplest level. Observe, however, the great diversity and lack of unanimity which exists among current cosmologists, of which four (Alfven, Hoyle, Kuiper and Von Weiszacker) have been mentioned. There are others, with divergent approaches.

In our chapter on Orogenesis (Chapter V), the near despair of Scheidegger was observed, in reviewing the lack of effectiveness of uniformitarian approaches to orogenesis. Observe, somewhat similarly, the near despair of H. Spencer Jones, and his penetrating review of efforts in cosmogeny.
 

"... each new objection raised against any theory of the origin of the solar system has to be overcome by the introduction of some new additional assumption, making the theory in itself less probable."

Appearing to be near total despair, Spencer Jones concluded :

"The solar system must have had an origin; if we cannot account for it except by the introduction of many special and somewhat artificial hypotheses, we shall have to conclude that the probability of other stars having systems of planets is very small."4


The near total despair of Scheidegger on orogenesis, also held by Hartshorne, is not unlike that which Jones displayed on cosmogeny. Scheidegger was evaluating only theories of orogenesis which have issued out of uniformitarianism. Similarly, Jones has been reviewing theories of cosmology which, at least in the majority of their elements, have issued out of Kant's heliogeneti-cal uniformitarianism. It was demonstrated that Scheidegger's evaluation of orogenetic (mountain-building) theories was commendable, if negative. It was also pointed out that a theory of orogenesis involving astral or celestial catastrophism is badly overdue. Could the same be true of cosmology? It was held, in Chapter V, that the failure to conceive of planetary catastrophism as an explanation for orogenesis hardly was logical. And this failure was related to the current monopoly of uniformitarianism in geological thought. This then, can be classified as one major academic blindspot; it is only one among several.
 

Six Academic Blindspots

This study has presented a series of academic blindspots, of which six of the more important ones are given below. Each revolves around uniformitarian assumptions.
 

(1) Disregarding Genesis and Job as history

(2) Disregarding the stratigraphical evidences of a global Flood

(3) Disregarding the indications of astral upheaval as the cause for mountain-building (orogenesis)

(4) Disregarding the indications of celestial havoc for the origin of the Ice Epoch (glaciogenesis)

(5) Disregarding the thrust of genetics, endocrinology and catastrophism in the origin of biochemical life (biogenesis)

(6) Disregarding celestial mechanics as an explanation for ancient folklore and mythology


Of the six points herein listed, they all emanate from the first, which was basic in Kant's uniformitarian celestial (nebular) assumption. Since uniformitarianism was accepted in cosmogeny, it also became accepted in astronomy, in biology, in classical literature, in geology, in history, in paleoclimatology, in theology and in other areas. Thus, uniformitarianism can be termed a "cosmology" since it is a super-philosophy. It has been the essential foundation for anti-spiritual skepticism, and the rationalism which followed in its wake.5,6

One may prefer to disregard Genesis and Job as to their spiritual content; this in no way requires that they be rejected for their historical content. Yet this is what has been done, and it illustrates a system of fuzzy thinking engaged in by those who describe themselves as "rationalists." This brings to mind a famous statement by our late President, Mr. Kennedy, on myths.
 

For the greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie-- deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. (Yale University, June 11, 1962.)


These six academic blindspots, hardly credible, hardly logical, but so persistent, begin to merge into a syndrome. Medically, a syndrome is a group of concurrent symptoms of a disease or disorder. This syndrome suggests the rejection of the Judeo-Christian heritage by the academic world may be the basis for uniformitarianism. Whether or not the spiritual rejection of Genesis is justified is a matter for each person to make his own conclusions. However, the rejection of history, especially such basic history relative to an understanding of the past of our planet, is not justifiable. Therefore, this rejection must be rejected.

Rousas J. Rushdoony, in a book on education, discussed the habit of modern society to exhibit academic blindspots.7 He entitled his volume, with appropriateness, Intellectual Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a loss of contact with reality of one sort or another, but in the case under discussion, we are only considering a loss of contact with historical reality. If catastrophism and Creationism are facts, as the evidence strongly suggests, then the modern intellectual world is schizophrenic, and the case is not a mild one. Uniformitarianism is taught to the near total exclusion of catastrophism and Creationism in 99% of the college classrooms of Western Civilization, and it prevails to the total exclusion of catastrophism and Creationism in Russia and China. Six academic blindspots have been reviewed, but this basic list is not complete. There are at least two more, and both are related to Kant's and Laplace's uniformitarian assumptions in cosmology.

Our seventh academic blindspot is the blithe hypothesizing of historical solar tides with a complete lack of substantiating evidence. This lack is coupled with the failure to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence for historical, geophysical Earthian tides of enormous magnitude, both in the oceans and in the oceans of magma within the Earth's crust.
 

Academic Blindspot 7--Planetary Tides and Solar Tides

A review of the important theories of the origin of the solar system has been given. They include theories by Kant, Laplace, G. Darwin, Chamberlin and Moulton, Jeans, Jeffreys, Russell, Lyttleton, and mention was made of several more recent cosmologists, including Alfven, Hoyle, Kuiper and Von Weiszacker. These theories all assume (with the exception of Hoyle) that the matter which now comprises the planets once was part of the Sun, or its primordial nebula. This is an assumption which shall shortly be questioned on several grounds.

Notice how many of these theories suggest that another star approached our Sun. Some posit a direct collision. Some posit a grazing collision. Some posit a near approach to the range of Mercury's orbit. Some posit a near approach to the range of Saturn's orbit. Some posit a hypothetical binary partner for our Sun. Some posit a third hypothetical solar visitor.

Some posit that the gaseous material of the Sun was pulled out in a disc-like swirl. Some posit that it was pulled out in a filament. Some posit that it was pulled out by solar eruptions. Some posit that it originally condensed from a thinner nebula in the present locations. The Sun is composed mostly of hydrogen, with some helium. Are the planets composed similarly?

Our Sun is located toward the rim of our galaxy, which is shaped something like the elusive Flying Saucer. It is in a fairly remote section of the Milky Way. The nearest star is Alpha Centauri, some 4.3 light years away (26 trillion miles), observable in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, one of the nearest stars is the giant binary, Sirius A and B, some 8 light years away. If a solar body passed near our Sun, where is the evidence of it? What receding star might it be?

The chances of any two stars in our galaxy colliding or nearly colliding with each other is remote during a period of a billion years. And the stellar population in our galaxy is much more dense in the more central regions than in the more remote regions, where the Sun is located. To postulate that another star approached our Sun is perhaps not impossible, but it is stretching the limits of credibility.
 

Since our galaxy contains roughly 2 x 1011 stars, perhaps only one or two collisions have occurred during the past 5 billion years ... If the Sun had been one of the partners in such an encounter, our solar system would be practically unique. However, evidence from other solar-type stars indicates that planetary systems are common in space. Collision theories, therefore, should be discarded.8


Despite the extreme improbability, and despite the total lack of supporting evidences of solar tides, this approach has been common as an operational hypothesis.9 One good reason why so many have endeavored to set forth newer theories on the origin of the solar system is because the others have been so problematical.

Cosmologists have consistently suggested ideas of solar catastrophes and solar tides, for which evidence is not only feeble, but in fact is non-existent. At the same time, cosmologists have consistently been closed to ideas of historical Earth tides and Earth catastrophes, for which the evidence becomes increasingly overwhelming. Do we have here an academic blindspot? The evidence is sufficiently consistent and strong, that here occurs a seventh symptom in the uniformitarian syndrome previously mentioned.
 

Academic Blindspot 8--Heliogenesis

Ptolemy's Geocentricity
Copernicus' Heliocentricity
Kant's Heliogenesis
Ptolemy's conclusions, something of a consensus of ancient thought, was codified in his Almagest. Ptolemy had adopted in bulk the astronomical views of Hipparchus (circa 150 B.C.-100 B.C.). He agreed with Hipparchus that the Sun and the planets, like the Moon, revolved around the Earth, which was so central to the viewpoint of man. Copernicus, in his studies on revolutionary movements, and without the aid of a telescope, developed the conclusion that the Earth and the planets revolved around the Sun and only the Moon revolved around the Earth. Ptolemy's view was geocentric. Copernicus' view was heliocentric. The reaction against the Copernican view was great. In some cathedrals of medieval learning, where those installed at the time of Copernicus assumed they already possessed a near monopoly on truth, this became a rather painful situation in the long run.

A reaction to Ptolemy's geocentricity was in order; however, it is maintained, the reaction developed into an overreaction. It is something like a pendulum of a grandfather clock, which swings from one extreme through center to another extreme.

Subtly, usually subconsciously, and without even stating the details of the assumption, the post-Newton cosmologists, beginning with Kant, appealing to heliocentricity, assumed that the planets not only revolved around the Sun; they also originated from the solar material. This assumption, usually tacit rather than explicit, is heliogenesis. It is something quite different in order and in kind than the heliocentricity of Copernicus. For instance, in a family organization, all of the children who orbit around parental authority were physically generated from the parents. However, in a business organization, all of the employees orbit around the manager, but usually none of them are generically derived from him. They are adopted into the business family. This illustration is given to demonstrate why heliocentricity need not require heliogenesis. But such a tacit transition has occurred in modern cosmology. Kant blazed the way for this erroneous path, and most cosmologists are still making the same assumption. Why do we need to assume that the planetary material originated generically from the Sun, as even such great modern astronomers and astrophysicists as Alfven, Kuiper and Von Weizsacker still assume? The problems associated with this assumption are immense.
 

Planetary Elements from the Sun?

We do not know the composition by elements of the various planets, although some general estimates have been made. However, the composition of the Earth is known. It contains several dozen elements in trace amounts. The following fifteen elements are estimated to comprise in bulk the composition of the Earth's crust.
 


TABLE 9

COMPOSITION OF EARTH'S CRUST


Oxygen
46.60%
Titanium
.44%
Silicon
27.72
Hydrogen
 .14
Aluminum
8.13
Phosphorus
.12
Iron
5.00
Manganese
.10
Calcium
3.63
Sulphur
.05
Sodium
2.83
Carbon
.03
Potassium
2.59
Chlorine
.03
Magnesium
2.09
All others
.50

The Earth's magma is considered to be composed similarly to the Earth's crust. The Earth's oceans are composed primarily of oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, sodium, and trace salts. The Earth's oceans comprise less than 1/30,000 of the Earth's mass and the atmosphere less than 1/1,000,000 of the Earth's mass.

Is the composition of the Sun or the other planets similar to the Earth? If the presence of most of the Earth's elements has been identified in the Sun in trace amounts, does this indicate that the Earth's material came from the Sun? The density of the small Earth, 5.52 (water=1) is the densest of all the planets. Saturn, with its far greater gravity, has a density of but .071, and the Sun, with its immense gravity, has a density of but 1.41. The composition of the Sun is quite different from that of the Earth, the Moon, Callisto, Neptune and other members of the solar system. The composition of the Sun is indicated from the following source:
 

The first extensive investigation of the solar spectrum was carried out by Russell in 1929. His most important result was the establishment of the fact that abundance of hydrogen is much greater than had been thought possible. Russell . . . concluded that, the solar atmosphere contains 60 parts of hydrogen (by volume), 2 of helium, 2 of oxygen, 1 of metallic vapors, and 0.8 of free electrons practically all of which comes from the ionization of metals.10


One problem in the assumption of heliogenesis is to explain how the earth-abundant materials are derived from the Sun. A second problem arises in comparing the other densities of the various planets, ranging from the heaviest (Earth, 5.52) to the lightest (Saturn, 0.71), each issuing variously from the Sun (1.41).
 

Angular Momentum from the Sun?

Any hypothesis which considers the Sun to be the source of the planetary material must necessarily cope with the principle of motion, and must ascribe or attribute, somehow, the momentum of the planets to the Sun. It has already been demonstrated that the Sun comprises 99.8% of the mass of the solar system, and yet it contains less than 2% of the angular momentum.

It is the problem of angular momentum, more than any other single problem, which led cosmologists of the early 20th century to discard Kant's gradualistic nebular approach for Buffon's collision or near collision approach. Yet other problems, equally severe to the collision approach have been raised.

George Darwin introduced the idea of solar tides and a near approach to the Sun to avoid some of the problems in the Kant-Laplace idea. Chamberlin and Moulton introduced the idea of erupting ejections to improve on the previous ideas. Jeffreys, revising earlier ideas, tried to account for angular momentum by a grazing collision rather than a close approach. Jeans, Russell, Lyttleton, and others have wrestled with the ever-increasing number of problems which have emerged from either of assumptions of nebular origin or collision or near-collision approaches to the Sun. Perhaps it is these assumptions which need re-examination, and not the particular details of this heliogenetical hypothesis over and against that heliogenetical hypothesis.
 

Ellipical Orbits from the Sun's Rotation?

In Table 1, Chapter III, page 36, the eccentricities of the 9 planets were given, along with such remarkable examples as Hidalgo (an asteroid) and Pluto's Nereid. The eccentricities of the planets are quite diverse. They range from the extremes of Mercury (.206) and Pluto (.249) down to Neptune (.009) and Venus (.007). Here again, as in the case of angular momentum, and as in the case of planet densities, diversity rather than similarity is a fact. And this leads toward the suspicion that diversity rather than similarity is a principle in understanding the origin of the planets.

The two planets with the least eccentricity are Venus, second from the Sun, and Neptune (at present second from the outermost, but soon to become the outermost). The two planets with the greatest eccentricity are Mercury, the innermost, and Pluto, the outermost (but soon to become the second from the outermost). The eccentricity of Venus is l/12th that of Mars, while the eccentricity of the Earth is but l/5th that of Mars. Why?

Any heliogenetical explanation of the eccentricities of planetary orbits must also account for the eccentricities, and origins, of the satellite systems. Why is the orbit of our Moon 5 times as eccentric as the orbit of the Earth? Why is the orbit of Nereid 83 times as eccentric as the orbit of its home planet, Neptune?
 

The Angle of the Axis of the Various Planets and the Sun?

The non-uniformity of the eccentricities of the planetary orbits may be one significant variable. Another is the non-uniformity of the planetary plane with the Sun's equator, and the Sun's axis. If the Sun spun out the planetary materials at an ancient date, it would be reasonable to conclude that they were spun out parallel to the Sun's equator, and perpendicular to its rotational axis. But this also is not the case. The disc-like plane of the planets is oriented. But its orientation is not to the Sun's axis. Rather it is to the Sun's galactic orbit. The plane of the planets almost coincides with the galactic plane, another anomaly in any heliogenetical proposition, especially when coupled with the difference of this plane and the Sun's rotational axis. Following is the inclination of the axis of the Sun and the several planetary orbits.
 


TABLE 10

INCLINATION OF EQUATORS TO ORBITS


Sun 7° 10'
Mercury no axis
Venus ?
Earth 23° 27'
Mars 24°
Jupiter 3° 7'
Saturn 26° 45'
URANUS 98°
Neptune 29°
Pluto ?

According to the heliogenetical viewpoint, it is merely a coincidence that the Earth's axis is 23° 27'. Further, it is merely a coincidence that the axis of Mars is about 2/3° greater. And it is merely a coincidence that the Earth's period of rotation is 24 days, and the period of Mars' rotation is 41 minutes greater. While these facts may be coincidences, they may also not be coincidences. Concerning Mars, further data is to be given in Chapter XII where further "coincidences" may be correlated. However, for the moment, this observation of these twin coincidences of the angle of the axis and the rotational period of these two planets should be kept in mind. Neither conform to the Sun's axis, 7°, nor to the Sun's rotation, 24.7 days.

Another problem implicit in any uniformitarian proposition is the problem of the retrograde rotation of Uranus. Most of the planets revolve in direct motion, and their axis varies between 3° (Jupiter) and 29° (Neptune). However, the axis of Uranus is 98°, and it nearly points directly toward the orbital plane, whereas the axis of the other planets is somewhat perpendicular to the orbital plane. Further preliminary information about Venus is indicative that it, too, revolves in retrograde motion. Why? Why is there such a vast amount of non-conformity in a theory which idolizes uniformity, and indeed takes its name from the word "uniform"?11
 

A Passing Star?

It has already been discussed that the chances of a collision among any of the stars of our galaxy, within the next billion years, is remote. And chance collisions, if any, will more likely occur in the more densely populated regions of our galaxy, as contrasted with the more remote regions where our Sun is located. This possibility, regarding our particular star, the Sun, is so remote as to be unacceptable, considering the associated lack of other supporting evidence.
 

Action and Reaction?

The reaction was not limited to the observable conclusions regarding heliocentricity, as posited by Copernicus, and as defended by Galileo and Kepler. The reaction included an overreaction by Kant to the extent that the Sun was not only the center of the planetary movements; it was also the mother of the planets. Kant, like his later uniformitarian disciple, Darwin, was not only interested in ideas which sounded scientific, but was particularly interested in promoting or conceiving ideas which were simultaneously anti-Genesis. Thus part of the reaction to the Ptolemaic system was on scientific grounds, but part of it was on other grounds.

The Judeo-Christian heritage had been identified with the Ptolemaic system, although both Ptolemy and his antecedent, Hipparchus, were neither Jews nor Christians. The Judeo-Christian heritage was identified in part with the Ptolemaic system because of the disposition of the monolithic ecclesiastical system of the medieval age, which had adopted Ptolemy along with Aristotle, Moses, Paul and Peter, and endeavored to defend them all. But obviously this cannot account for the depth or breadth of the reaction.

The propagation of the Judeo-Christian heritage includes such principles as the opposing dualities of (1) the flesh against the spirit, (2) holiness against unholiness, (3) morality against immorality, (4) salvation against condemnation, and (5) the temporal against the eternal.

These principles, whether held correctly or incorrectly, are hard, harsh and abrasive on the "nature of the flesh." Thus we find reaction against this particular ethic, wherever it is propagated. It is of interest to note that in the modern world this ethic was propagated particularly effectively in Germany and England. And it was particularly in Germany, with such figures as Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and others, and in Great Britain, with such figures as Blount, Hume, Mill, Darwin and the immigrant Marx that reactions to the Judeo-Christian ethic was most pronounced.12 This geographical similarity is hardly coincidental.

For these reasons, it is held, the reaction to the Ptolemaic logic was not the only factor in the reaction from geocentricity, through Copernicus' heliocentricity, to the improbable but scientific-sounding view of heliogenesis, as propounded by Kant.

Rejecting the Kantian principle of (1) heliogenesis, an overreaction of heliocentricity, is in order. Rejecting the parallel principle of Kant, (2) uniformitarianism, is also in order. But rejecting a principle without viewing a superior alternative is not constructive. Therefore what is needed is a newer approach, with more substantive supporting data, to the problem of origin of the solar system. Toward this end, the thinking of Professor J. H. Oort of Leyden, Netherlands, is of value.

Oort has made a study in depth of comet phenomena. He found that the Comet Delavan moved not in a hyperbolic orbit as had been formerly assumed, but rather it moved in an extremely long but closed elliptical orbit. Its major (elongated) axis was found to be some 15 to 16 trillion miles (170,000 a.u.). But it is a regular, periodic member of our solar system, similar to Earth, Hidalgo or Jupiter. However its period is somewhat longer. It will return to perihelion (its closest approach to the Sun) in about 24,000,000 years. Oort found the Comet More-house had a significantly shorter period than the Comet Delavan. It had a period of only 500,000 years.

The Comet Delavan, with an orbit some 15 trillion miles in axial length, extends out well beyond half the distance to the nearest known star system, the Alpha Centauri triple binary. This means that comets verge on being intergalactic.

Oort proceeded with studies on comets. Over one thousand comets are recorded. The orbits of half are known with some degree of precision. Some are constantly being discovered. Some are perturbed into either shorter or longer orbits as they are influenced by the planets. No one knows how many comets reside in the vast regions beyond Pluto. They may exceed one billion in number. Oort proposes that the true number of periodic comets, regular members of our solar system, may well be numbered in excess of 100 billion. Only a few of them approach within 100 million miles of the Sun, where they might, by chance, be illuminated sufficiently to be detected by man's astronomical hardware. Thus, Oort proposes, there is a comet cloud in the regions between the nearer stars. And this comet cloud, or comet reservoir, includes comets of many different eccentricities, many different perihelions (distances of approach to the Sun), many different angles to the ecliptic, and many different masses.

What Oort has accomplished has been to reorganize our understanding of the extent of our Sun's solar system, and its influence. When Saturn was the outermost known planet, during the days of Kant, Newton and Whiston, it was conceived that the solar system extended out for one billion miles. Then Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered. The recognized limits of our solar system were extended to 3 or 4 billion miles. This is the effective limit of our telescopes.

In Oort's approach, the effective limit of our solar system appears to be some 15 trillion miles, and possibly more. This is the zone of the Sun's gravitational dominance. Of the large number of comets which Oort estimates to be periodical to our solar system (and can be considered as bona fide regular members), he believes that less than one in a million have been identified.

Most do not approach even as close as Pluto, some 4 billion miles distant. Only a very small proportion approach the closer in planets, where they may by chance be perturbed into shorter orbits, and become classified as cometary members of a planetary family.

It is established that there are only nine planets (ten counting the former Electra), within the inner 4 billion miles of our solar system. But could there be thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands more out beyond the region where our astronomical hardware can detect them? There is no reason to eliminate this possibility, and there are some reasons to maintain it.

Could it be that a planet-sized body zoomed in from this region in a markedly elliptical orbit, approached Electra, an inner planet, and caused an historical fragmentation? Could it be that smaller, asteroid-sized bodies have periodically swept through the inner parts of the solar system? Could this viewpoint assist in explaining the approach of an icy visitor near Saturn, which fragmentized into disc-like icy rings? And what about the curious Nereid, or Pluto?

Many think Pluto was once a satellite of Neptune. Kuiper thinks it may have formerly been a satellite of Jupiter. Forward made the following observation:
 

Apparently Pluto is a stranger which arrived in its present orbit from the regions of space. One suggestion is that it was once a moon of Neptune. There is obviously something wrong out past Uranus. It is as if Pluto had come along, interacted with Neptune, and pushed it into an inner orbit. We actually know very little about Pluto, but it is imperative that we learn more.13


We can presume that celestial bodies, on historical occasions, have orbited in an elliptical fashion, into the regions of the inner planets. This helps to understand the origin of the rings of Saturn, the craters of our Moon, and also the principle of Earth catastrophism. This principle undergirds our view of The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch.

Immediately it should be noticed that we, along with Oort, are back to the cosmological assumptions of Halley, Newton, and Whiston. They assumed elliptical orbits were possible for celestial bodies, large and small, beyond the remotest planet. Whiston, the early leader in this concept, has been forgotten. Meanwhile, the views of Kant (heliogenetical and uniformitarian) and Buffon (solar collisions and near solar collisions) gained numerous adherents. The approach of Whiston, over and against those of Buffon or Kant, is recommended for the reader's consideration. The parallel thinking of Oort is similarly recommended.
 


TABLE 11

THE JOVIAN PLANETS

  Characteristic  Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Average
Eccentricity of Orbit .048 .056 .047 .009 .040
Number of Satellites 12 9 5 2 7
Mass (Earth=l) 318.3 95.3 14.5 17.2 111.3
Diameter (Miles) 86900 71500 29500 26800 53675
Density (Water =1) 1.35 0.71 1.56 2.47 1.52
Distance From Sun (6) 483 886 1783 2791 1486
Rotation (in Hours) 9.86 10.03 10.75 15.80 11.66
Albedo (Reflectivity) .51 .50 .66 .62 .57

TABLE 12

THE TERRESTRIAL PLANETS
 

  Characteristic  Mercury Venus Earth Mars Pluto  Average
Eccentricity of Orbit  .206 .007 .017 .093 .249  .114
Number of Satellites  0 0 1 2 .6
Mass (Earth=l)  .054 .813 1.0 .107 .033?  .401
Diameter (Miles)  3010 7610 7927 4140 3600?  5206
Density (Water=l)  5.45 5.06 5.52 4.12 2.???  4.43
Distance From Sun ( 6 36 67 93 141 3671  801
Rotation (in Hours)  2112 720? 24 24.6 150?  606
Albedo (Reflectivity)  .06 .76 .39 .15 .16  .30

What is the origin of the various members of our solar system? Firstly, there are two general classes of planets. There are the Jovian planets, which include the ones which are large, low in density, and rapidly rotating. These include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The other group is the terrestrial planets, which are small, relatively dense, and mostly slow in speed of rotation. The terrestrial planets are also mostly the closer-tn ones, with one exception. The terrestrial planets include Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Pluto. Of these, the Earth is the largest, the densest, and by virtue of its particular location, is the only one capable of maintaining life as we know it.

The differences between the terrestrial group and the Jovian group are consistent. The Jovian group, when compared to the terrestrial group, are huge, and are spinning very rapidly. They are also relatively low in density. The terrestrial planets on the average are about three times as dense as the larger planets. The differences in the composition between the terrestrial planets and the Jovian planets is significant; further, the differences in the composition between the Jovian planets and their respective satellites may also be significant.

The Earth is composed of large proportions of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron and calcium, plus smaller amounts of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. The Jovian satellites are composed mostly of various ices, primarily water ice, plus some rock. However, the Jovian planets are composed mostly of hydrogen and/or helium, plus lesser amounts of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and (particularly with Uranus and Neptune) possible rock cores.

Diversity seems to be a principle rather than uniformity between the planets as well as various Jovian satellites. This same principle, incidentally, holds for the Earth and its satellite, both of which are composed primarily of rock. The Earth's density is 5.45 that of water; the Moon's is 3.3.

The terrestrial planets, mostly rock, are poor reflectors, with the exception of Venus and its canopy, and the Earth with its reflective oceans. The Jovian planets, with their methane and ammonia atmospheres, are good reflectors. The Jovian planets rotate with a general uniformity. The rates of rotation for these immense planets vary from 9 hours, 50 minutes through 15 hours, 48 minutes.

Based on similarity in masses, diameters, densities, rotational velocities, compositions, orbital eccentricities, reflectivities (albedos), and distance from the Sun, it is suspected that each of these four Jovian planets may have a common origin quite different from the origins of the various terrestrial planets. At this juncture, this discussion shall reach out beyond our solar system for possible clues as to the origin of these four large, icy, major planets in our solar system.
 

Stars in the Milky Way

The Milky Way is shaped something like the elusive flying saucer. The Sun is located toward the rim. Our galaxy is one of several billion galaxies and our galaxy may contain as many as 100 billion bright stars together with an undetermined number of dark stars and lesser planet-sized material. Our galaxy is rotating around its center, and faster at the center than the rim, where our Sun is located. Our galaxy is traveling at a rather high velocity through the universe.

One fact about the stars in our galaxy is that there is a great diversity among them. There are many kinds of stars, possessing many characteristics. In terms of diameter, some are as small as small planets, while others are huge in comparison to our Sun. The largest stars have a diameter over 1 billion times that of the smaller stars. Some stars are extremely bright, while others have either a low luminosity, or are completely dark.

Some stars are fairly small in diameter but are unbelievably dense. Sirius, a close neighbor to our Sun, is a double-star system. It was originally believed to be a very bright, hot and large star (Sirius means "The Scorcher" in Greek). But wobbles were observed in its movement, which could only be accounted for by another near star, which was not apparent.

Sirius' partner formerly was considered to be a dark star, but this dark partner has subsequently been recognized; it has a low luminosity. It is a white dwarf. Sirius A, the bright and large one, is sometimes called the Dog, while the small and dim one, Sirius B, is sometimes called the Pup. The Pup is considered to be 27,000 times as dense as the Sun, or about 40,000 times as dense as water. One quart of the Pup weighs about 80,000 Ibs., or 40 tons. Some stars are many times denser than the Pup.

Stars also vary in brightness, distance, composition, motion, temperature, pulsation, and in other ways. Surface temperatures of some dark stars are very frosty, whereas on other stars, surface temperatures may approach 100,000°F. The diversity among stars, even within our small galaxy, is enormous.

Particular attention is turned toward one particular feature about stars. Many stars occur in groups, and inter-revolve. Such stars which revolve in pairs or groups are called binary stars. It is estimated that at least half of the stars in the nearer part of our galaxy are binaries.

Furthermore, many of the binaries are not merely double-star systems, but are multiple-star systems, containing three or more which are revolving around a common center. Our nearest stellar neighbor, the Alpha Centauri group, is a triple system. It contains two main stars, which are revolving around a common center in space. A third remote companion of this set is Proxima Centauri, which revolves around the common center of the other two at a distance of about one trillion miles. Proxima Centauri is about 25 trillion miles distant from our Sun. Its period around the inner Alpha Centauri pair may be millions of years.14

Also of interest is the multiple system, Zeta Cancri. It contains two pairs of stars. One pair revolves around a common center every 17.5 years. The other pair revolves around a common center every 59.7 years. Each pair together revolves around a common center once every 1150 years. The entire group then revolves around our galaxy, which in turn revolves around the universe. Another double-double (quadruple) system of stars is Epsilon Lyrae.

The Castor system is known to include six stars, including three separate pairs. Each pair revolves around a common center. Two pairs revolve fairly close together around a common center, and the third remote pair revolves around the center of the other four.

Of the 30 stars nearest our Sun, 13 are known to be multiples, containing at least 29 component stars. Thus binary stars are not only common, but are common among our Sun's closest neighbors. In some systems, one partner is dark. In some systems, neither partner is dark. And it must be suspected that in some systems, both partners are dark, and hence are undetected and undiscovered.

In some binaries one star is much denser than the other. In some binaries one star is much larger in diameter than the other. In some binaries, one star is much hotter than the other. In some binaries, spectrographic analysis indicates that the components are dissimilar. In some binaries, the period of rotation is measured in hours, while with others, it is measured in millions of years. Diversity is a general rule; this leads to a major suspicion.
 

Galactogenetical Hypothesis

If a small, spherical, planetary-sized body became involved in a two-star binary system, it would revolve differently than does either a comet or a planet around our Sun. If the body had a highly eccentric orbit, it would revolve in two different manners: (1) At remote distances, it would revolve with one of the foci being the center of gravity between the two star partners, a point containing nothing. (2) But at nearer distances, in its pattern of orbiting around the inner turn point, it would be perturbed by first one star partner, and then perhaps also the second. Its orbit would be changed. The change in the orbit would be either to (a) a closed orbit of reduced major axis, (b) a closed orbit of greater major axis, or (c) an unclosed hyperbolic orbit. In being wrapped up within the interacting and counter-dominating gravity of the two partners, many kinds of new orbits would occur in various approaches.

Under such circumstances, hyperbolic orbits would be produced occasionally. If hyperbolic orbits are produced by binaries, they may be produced by the binary star systems which are neighbors to our Sun, including the Alpha Centauri triple binary, the Sirius pair, and the pair known as Barnard's Star. Then, we posit, Oort's view of comets, and his comet-cloud hypothesis may be understated. He thought that the origin of the Sun's comets was the zone halfway between the nearer stars. Rather, it may be the nearer binary stars themselves, and their interacting gravities.

The Sun travels across our Milky Way galaxy at a galactic speed of about 12 miles per second, in the direction of the constellation Hercules. This is in addition to the speed of the Milky Way, which is about 170 miles per second. However, Barnard's star, the Sun's second closest neighbor, has a galactic speed of 300 miles per second, in addition to the speed of the entire Milky Way galaxy. Barnard's Star is a binary in which only one member is luminous, which shows that non-luminous bodies in our galaxy can travel at high velocities relative to our Sun's galactic speed.
 

We have already said that there is no reason why solar systems should not be common phenomena, and these revelations of 61 Cygni and 70 Ophiuchi give food for thought.... In April 1963 Dr. van de Kamp, director of the Sproul Observatory, announced the discovery of a third extra-solar planetary system. From a study of photographs taken of Barnard's Star, which is a mere 6 light years away, he inferred the existence of a planet 1 1/2 times the mass of Jupiter, revolving at a distance of about 400,000,000 miles.15


There are many binary systems in our galaxy, traveling at many different speeds. Forward has suggested that the slow-moving Pluto arrived from the regions of space, a circumstance which is suggestive that the Sun, in its galactic travels, may have overtaken little Pluto.

Is it possible that, at one time in our Sun's travels around our galaxy, it may have overtaken a group of four, hydrogenous bodies which each contained several cold, icy satellites. Is it possible that these four bodies interrevolved in the manner of a quadruple binary (a double double binary), even though in distance they may have been several hundreds of millions of miles apart? Is it possible that they formerly had physical characteristics similar to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune with respect to composition, density, diameter and satellite systems. But is it also possible that they had orbital or revolutionary characteristics similar to the Epsilon Lyrae group, or the Zeta Cancri quadruple binary?

Is it possible that our Sun, with its immense gravity, and its galactic speed, first overtook such a binary, then seized it, and then, when the binary had moved into the inner phase of its eccentric orbit, is it further possible that the Sun's gravity dismembered it? Is it possible that the dismembered bodies of this binary were ultimately influenced to settle down in their present proximate orbits, due partly to this enormous new fifth factor, the Sun? Is it possible that they were influenced to settle down in such a manner that the largest of them (with the greatest gravity) settled down as the innermost? And the second largest as the second innermost? And the third largest the third innermost? And the smallest the outermost? And is it possible that these four bodies were later viewed by man on the neighboring Earth, and were named Dyaus Pitar (or Jupiter, or Zeus) and Remphan (or Saturn) and Uranus and Neptune?

If this is plausible and possible, then a galactogenetical approach is superior to the existing heliogenetic systems, which strain logic well beyond the point of reason, and which verge on the impossible. If our galactogenetic approach approximates correctness, then many problems are changed. One does not need to endeavor to attribute the angular momentum of the Jovian planets to the Sun, for their angular momentum preceded their entrance into the Sun's inner family. If this galactogenetical theory is correct, then one need not worry about deriving the satellites of Jupiter or the others from the Sun, for they, too, along with their parent planets, pre-existed as satellites prior to their adoption into the Sun's family. One need not be concerned about deriving their components such as carbon, ice, iron, methane, nitrogen and silicon from the Sun, for the Sun did not generate their components. These components were generated trillions, and conceivably quadrillions of miles from the Sun under circumstances which were far removed from those in our Sun's domain.

This hypothesis is that the Jovian planets, with pre-existing satellite systems, were influenced to assume stable orbits in the inner portion of our Sun's sphere of dominance. This hypothesis does not explain their genesis; it endeavors to explain their arrival. This hypothesis does not explain their date of entrance into the inner portion of the Sun's domain, and it does not necessarily explain their high velocities of rotation. But it does explain their method of arrival.

This hypothesis may be found to have two practical benefits, one negative and one positive. The negative benefit is to ascribe with a reasonable degree of certainty where the various planets did not originate. They did not originate with the Sun, either as a condensing nebula, in stellar collision, or even in a near collision. All the variations of the heliogenetic approach can be dismissed. This includes not a small amount of cosmological speculation to date. The positive benefit is to ascribe, with a reasonable degree of certainty, as to the method of arrival of the Jovian planets.

Early in this chapter, three possible approaches to the origin of the solar system were mentioned. One was the nebular approach, as set forth by Kant. A second was the collision approach, as set forth by Buffon. The third was the galactic approach, of large bodies following cometary orbits, as was suggested by Whiston, apparently with Newton's approval. In reviewing the thinking of Oort and the galactogenetical hypothesis as herein discussed, there emerges something remarkably parallel to the embryonic ideas of Whiston, some 270 years ago.

Perhaps the real structure of our solar system escapes our telescope in the remoter regions. Perhaps the real dimensions of our solar system extend halfway out to the nearest stars. In the binary conditions of our stellar neighbors, perhaps astronomical bodies of varying orders do occur, and are perturbed by the counter-gravities of those star systems. Perhaps some celestial material is occasionally perturbed in the direction of our Sun. Perhaps then the origin of the Sun's cloud of comets is not merely half way out to the nearest stars, as Oort suggests, but is out to the star systems themselves.

If this is reasonable, then the origin of the Jovian planets may not be the immediate issue; rather, the immediate issue is the manner of their adoption into the Sun's family, either as an adoption of a quadruple binary, or perhaps as two adoptions of two simple binaries. Perhaps this explains why the Jovian planets describe a plane similar to the galactic plane, a plane significantly dissimilar to the plane of the Sun's axis. If this is so, then (1) the adoption of the Earth-Moon binary becomes easier to conceive, along with (2) its orbital similarity to the Sun's galactic plane.

First, it is reasonable to suppose that the Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) along with most of their icy satellites, were formed under similar conditions since their characteristics of composition, density, volume, diameter, speed of rotation, satellite arrangement and so forth are generally similar.

Secondly, it is reasonable to suppose that the Earth, with its rock-like composition and density, generally similar to the Moon's may have been formed under conditions similar to those involved in the formation of the Moon.

Thirdly, it is reasonable to suppose that conditions under which the Jovian planets were formed were markedly different and distant from the conditions under which the Earth-Moon binary was formed. These two regions of origin may have contained different relative abundances of various elements, a condition that is a reality among other stars in our galaxy.

Fourthly, it is reasonable to suppose that the Jovian planets, as a former quadruple binary (or perhaps two independent binaries) have been separated from each other's dominating gravitational influence due to the Sun's greater influence in association with the distances involved between them. In contrast to this, the Earth-Moon binary has not been separated due to the lesser original distance.

By viewing the conditions of the Jovian planets, one may come to a reasonable conclusion as to some of the circumstances surrounding their origin, and their method of entrance into the inner portion of our solar system. By comprehending this, one may attain a better understanding of the method of entrance of our Earth-Moon system into the inner portion of the Sun's domain. This is even though the two groups were formed at different times, of different materials, and in different regions, remote in location from each other and remote in location from the Sun.

We have considered reasons supporting the hypothesis that there were two binaries which entered the inner regions of the solar system in ages past. This study does not overrule a third possibility that a third binary may also have become involved in the Sun's inner family. The characteristics of Mercury and Pluto are sufficiently similar to at least raise the question of a possible similar origin for both.

This hypothesis of GALACTOGENESIS16 utilizes three concepts: elliptical orbits, perturbations, and the inherent diversity of the galactic conditions. Each of these three concepts broadens the background and undergirds the understanding of The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch, which was a celestial catastrophe, sufficiently recent to be recorded by man.

This study has endeavored to discuss the manner of entrance of some of the planets into the inner domain of the Sun, but has not been greatly concerned with the circumstances and conditions under which the planets were originally formed. However, in a brief consideration of these formative circumstances, the proper perspective needs to be maintained.

It is easily demonstrated that the Moon's revolving motion around the Earth is it most apparent motion. However the Moon also has orbital motion around the Sun, as it follows the Earth's orbit. Hence the totality of the lunar motion cannot be described without relevance to the Sun.

Similarly, it is posited, it is not possible to explain fully the orbits of the Jovian planets without consideration of influences beyond the nearer-in region of the Sun's domain, which is a very limited view.

The Sun is one of the more remote stars in our galaxy, located toward the rim, in the direction of the galaxy Andromeda. If one cannot properly understand the motion of the Moon without bypassing the obvious (the Earth), then one must search for both the non-obvious as well as the obvious. And perhaps one cannot understand the nature of the orbits of the planets without understanding galactic motion and historical captures, the non-obvious. Then further, one perhaps will not be able to understand the galactic conditions under which the Sun's planets were formed without understanding the entire galaxy (rather than merely the more obvious, the near portions). It is all a matter of perspective. The fullest perspective is the best, which includes both the non-obvious as well as the obvious. Hence it is suspected that the more distant regions within our galaxy may yield more information as to the processes and principles under which the Earth-Moon binary was formed, or under which the Jovian quadruple binary was organized, than will a thorough understanding of merely the nearer parts of our galaxy.
 

Catastrophic Timing

If this binary approach for the presence of the Jovian planets is reasonable, a similar binary approach for the explanation of the presence of the Earth-Moon binary is also reasonable. Then one is faced with two problems of Earth history, and not just one.

One of these problems is the replacing of the Lyellian time scale, which recognizes neither Catastrophism or Galactogenesis. Refuting the Lyellian time scale may be worthwhile, but refuting such a negative approach to Earth history without replacing it with a more positive and more defensible approach is not right.

Heliogenesis must be discarded in favor of Galactogenesis. Galactogenesis implies that our planet Earth, and its satellite, the Moon, both have spent ample astronomical time both beyond our solar system as well as within it. Hence, and secondly, a catastrophic time table must include both pre-solar time (galactic time) and intra-solar time (time spent within the Sun's domain).

Following is Lyell's Geological Time Scale, which fails to credit such celestial considerations as catastrophism and galacto-genesis. It is supposedly the principle of Earth history for this, our era, and in being simultaneously anti-theistic, it has become a basic but brittle precept for modern humanism.


TABLE 13

Lyellian Time Chart

  PRE-CAMBRIAN

Archaeozoic and Proterozoic      5,000,000,000   -   550,000,000
 

  PALEOZOIC

Cambrian      550,000,000   -   450,000,000
Ordovician      450,000,000      380,000,000
Silurian      380,000,000      355,000,000
Devonian      355,000,000      310,000,000
Carboniferous:      310,000,000      225,000,000
    Mississippian
    Pennsylvania
Permian      225,000,000      185,000,000
 

  MESOZOIC

Triassic      185,000,000      158,000,000
Jurassic      158,000,000      125,000,000
Cretaceous      125,000,000      60,000,000
 

  CENOZOIC

Paleocene )      60,000,000      50,000,000

Eocene )      50,000,000      40,000,000

Oligocene ) Tertiary      40,000,000      30,000,000

Miocene )      30,000,000      15,000,000

Pliocene )      15,000,000      1,000,000

Pleistocene )      1,000,000      10,000

Recent ) Quaternary      10,000      to date
 


TABLE 14

Catastrophic and Galactogenetic Time Chart

CATEGORY I

GALACTIC TIME      date of origin   -   to date

A. Pre-solar Time      date of origin   -   10,000,000 B.C.
B. Intra-solar Time      10,000,000   -   to date
 

CATEGORY II

PRE-SOLAR TIME

A. Pre-lunar Time      date of origin   -   1,000,000,000 B.C.
    (Era preceding Capture of Moon)

B. Post-lunar time      1,000,000,000   -   10,000,000 B.C.
    (Era of Movement toward Sun's Domain)
 

CATEGORY III

INTRA-SOLAR TIME

A. Outer-solar Time      10,000,000   -    100,100 B.C.
    (Era wherein Earth-Moon system moved slowly
across the Sun's domain, across trillions of miles of
space, at a rate of centimeters per second, toward
the inner region of the Sun's domain. This period is
comparable to the half period of Delavan's comet,
which is about 12,000,000 years, in its travels out to
the edges of the Sun's domain and back.)

B. Inner-solar Time      100,100   -   to date
    (Era wherein the Earth-Moon binary was influenced
to take its present proximate location and orbit.
During this era, the surface of the Earth warmed,
ices melted, oceans filled, and climates were or
ganized.)
 

CATEGORY IV

OUTER-SOLAR TIME

A. Invisible Era      10,000,000   -   100,100B.C.
    (Era wherein Earth-Moon system was sufficiently
distant, 5 billion to 15 trillion miles, that it was be
yond the region of Neptune's and Pluto's orbit, yet
was within the Sun's domain.)

B. Visible Era      100,100   -   100,000 B.C.

    (Era wherein Earth-Moon system was sufficiently close to cross orbits of Pluto and Neptune.)
 

CATEGORY V

INNER SOLAR TIME

A. Pre-Hydrocarboniferous Era      100,000   -   20,000 B.C.

    (Era during which Earth's surface became warmed, ices melted, oceans filled, water evaporated, climates were organized, erosion proceeded.) (This and previous eras correspond to the Lyellian scale defined as "pre-Cambrian" and "proterozoic.") (During this era, the Earth and the Moon may well have been subjected to massive series of minor catastrophes.

(During this era, either little or no biological life occurred.)

B. Hydrocarboniferous Catastrophic Era      20,000   -   10,000 B.C.

(During this crisis era, the formation of the Appa-lachian-Caledonian-Herzynian zone of orogenetic uplift occurred.)

(During this crisis era, ammonias, hydroxyls, hydrocarbons and related compounds were deposited upon the Earth, resulting in strata of coal, pools of petroleum, and additional volumes of nitrogen in the atmosphere.)

(This era coincides with that which Lyellians term "paleozoic.")

(During this era, life in various forms was created, probably instantly.)

C. Carboniferous Interlude      10,000   -   2,800 B.C.
    (During this period, the Earth's canopy and Green
house Effect was fully developed, and antediluvian
climatology was organized.
(During this period the Earth's climate was based on heat equilibrium.)
(During this period, the major part of the Earth's biology was created.)

D. Floodtide Catastrophe 2,800 B.C.

    (Era of recent orogenetic uplift of Alpine-Himalayan and Circum-Pacific zones.)

(Era of glacial deposition in magnetic polar regions.)

(Era of repeated uplift of oceanic tides of continental proportions.)

(Era of burial and fossilization of vast collections of biology.)

(Era of flotation of Noah's barge.)

(During this era most strata were formed which Lyellian thought classifies as "mesozoic" and "cenozoic.")

E. Post-Diluvian Interlude 2,800 - 1,450 B.C.

    (Era of repopulation of planet, with many zoogeographical migrations.)

(Era of rise of Han, Mohenjo-daro, Inca, Mayan, Minoan, Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations.)

(Era of pyramid-construction in Egypt by slave labor.)

(Era of isostatic adjustment, including rifting of Earth's crust in Africa.)

(Era during which astral catastrophes periodically threatened.)

(Patriarchal Era.)

F. Exodus Crisis Era 1,450 - 1,400 B.C.

    (Era of Moses and Hebrew migration from Egyptian slavery.)

(Era of plagues befalling Egypt and the entire world.)

(Era of Hyksos, or Amalekite invasion of Egypt.)

(Era of Hebrew invasion of Palestine.)

(Era of Phaethon story and Joshua's long day.)

G. Post Exodus Interlude 1,400 - 800 B.C.

   (Era of Hyksos dynasty in Egypt.) (Era of Judges and Davidic dynasty in Palestine.) (Era of Philistine, or Minoan settlement of Palestine.) (Era of the rise of Troy and Assyria.)

H. Amos-Homeric-Isaiahic Crisis Era 800 - 700 B.C.
    (Era of celestial bards of Greece, led by Homer.)
(Era of destruction of Troy, and founding of Rome.)
(Era of the Hebrew fire and brimstone prophets,
led by Isaiah.)

I. Modern Era--or Interlude

    (Age of Greek, Roman, Medieval and Western civilizations.)
 

In contrast to Lyell's Geological Time Chart, a Catastrophic Time Scale has been proposed, one which is to be considered as flexible rather than brittle, one which is indicative for the sequences of Earth history. The Catastrophic Galactogenetic Time Chart, like the Lyellian (Uniformitarian) Geological Time Chart, makes several assumptions. One is that the Earth was formed trillions, if not quadrillions of miles from the Sun's domain. So was the Moon. So was the Jovian foursome.

The Kantian, heliogenetic approach requires not only that the Earth, but that all nine planets, all asteroids, and all thirty-one satellites were derived from the Sun. As originally proposed, this also included all of the comets, which may number in the billions. The heliogenetic approach requires the Sun to be the generic source of all (or at least almost all) of these bodies. In all likelihood, the Sun did not generate a single planet, a single asteroid, a single satellite or a single comet.

A second assumption in the Catastrophic Galactogenetic Time Chart, is that the Moon revolved around the Earth long eons before the Earth revolved around the Sun.17 Heliogenesis assumes that the Sun is older than the planets and the planets are older than the satellites. In the hypothesis of Galactogenesis, the author does not state whether the Earth, Moon, Jupiter or the Sun is the oldest. It is merely assumed that the Earth and the Moon were formed in the same region, and under comparable conditions, long before they entered the inner part of the solar system.

The hypothesis of Galactogenesis does not overlook the galactic motion of the Sun, which is 12 miles per second, in the direction of the constellation Hercules. Forward suggested that perhaps Pluto, whose velocity is 2 miles per second, approached the Sun, and interacted with Neptune. On the other hand, perhaps the Sun, with its greater galactic speed overtook Pluto, perhaps even while Pluto may have had a partner.

Herein is presented a cosmology which directly contradicts the cosmology of Kant. Kant partly contradicted the Ptolemaic view, but also partly accepted the Ptolemaic cosmology. And undoubtedly the Ptolemaic cosmology, in its earlier form under Hipparchus, partly contradicted a prior cosmology.

There is nothing wrong with the Ptolemaic (geocentric) cosmology, as long as it isn't taken too seriously. It is proposed that Thomas Aquinas, Tycho Brahe and Pope Urban, among others, took it too seriously. However, for practical purposes, Ptolemy's geocentricity explained many things sufficiently well to be workable.

Kant then proposed a hypothesis, incorporating the eternal regularity of Descartes and Ptolemy, the dreams of Swedenborg and the astronomy of Copernicus and Newton. Kant's idea was that the solar system was set in motion something like a Swiss watch, eons ago. It was wound up, and has proceeded without interruption or without outside interference ever since. As long as it isn't taken too seriously, it too explains many things sufficiently well to be satisfying. However Kant himself, along with Hutton, Lyell, Darwin, Marx and many others took it too seriously. The problem seems to have arisen, often decades or centuries later, when leaders of subsequent generations take the earlier viewpoints too seriously.

If Kant was granted the academic latitude to propose the origin and development of the solar system in a word picture, that of the regularly-running clock, proceeding without outside interference, perhaps this study can take the academic latitude to propose that the origin and development of the solar system was something like a cowboy punching cattle.

In the pioneer days of the Great Plains, railroads were a new thing, the Indians had just been closed off on reservations, and the buffaloes were killed off. Neither homesteaders nor barbed wire had yet arrived. Spreads (individual ranches) encompassed several counties. The vast, rolling plains were used for grazing great herds of cattle. The cowboys would herd their cattle from range to range, and from water hole to water hole.

In their work, they would occasionally come across some mavericks, unbranded strays. Sometimes the mavericks were in groups; sometimes they were alone. They would then bulldog the stray or strays, apply the branding iron, and increase the size of the herd. Now, instead of wandering aimlessly across the broad prairies, the calves would orbit around the cows, and the cows would orbit around the cowboys, as they were herded conjointly across the endless plains.

This is like the Sun, traveling across the broad, endless region of our galaxy. From time to time, our Sun has encountered a dark, stray, celestial maverick, or perhaps a small group of them. They were adopted into the Sun's family. We do not know how many planets the Sun has, including some possibly out beyond Pluto. But we have reason to think that one inner planet (Electra) got "shot." If the truth were known about the dark, outer reaches of our solar system, some 10 and 15 trillions of miles away, it. is possible to conceive that the Sun not only gains a few members now and then, but the nearer stars may rustle a few away on occasion also out near the edge of the gravitational domain.18

This concludes the discussion of academic blindspot number 8, the assumption of Heliogenesis. If this erroneous assumption stood alone it would be still a cause for concern. But such is not the case. It stands conjointly amid several other major and related erroneous assumptions. The reality may be as follows:
 

(1) Genesis, like Job, is a valid historical document, and may be a valid spiritual one, too.

(2) The Flood is an historical, global fact, and is not a fanciful, Sumerian myth.

(3) Orogenesis historically was accomplished suddenly and by tidal upheaval.

(4) The Ice Epoch enveloped the Earth suddenly, and was composed of celestial ice.

(5) The astral motifs of ancient civilization contain a core of historical truth.

(6) The earlier Greenhouse Effect promoted longevity, flourishing fauna and flora.

(7) The major assumptions and hypotheses of Darwin were as mistaken as were his marital genetics.

(8) Historical Earth tides and not the hypothetical solar tides, are the fact.

(9) Galactogenesis, and not heliogenesis, is a reasonable cosmogenetical approach.

(10) Uniformitarianism, to the exclusion of other cosmological approaches such as catastrophism, is ludicrous in formulating a creditable explanation of Earth history.


These several erroneous uniformitarian assumptions seem to merge into a syndrome, a group of concurrent symptoms characterizing a disorder. This syndrome, involving heliogenesis and uniformitarianism, suggests a schizophrenic condition of our academic age. Schizophrenia is defined as a flight from reality; in this case, it is a flight from historical reality.

Is it possible that this disorder is also an academic flight from the Biblical ethic, upon which Western Civilization was founded? Is it possible that the reaction against catastrophism which has set in has in reality been geared to reject the spiritual ethic contained in Genesis? Is it possible that, through confused thinking, the rejection of the spiritual ethic also involved the rejection of the historical reality contained in Genesis?

Is there a correlation between uniformitarian cosmology, the rejection of Earth catastrophism, and the increasing intellectual rootlessness of our age? Is the rise of uniformitarian cosmology related to the increasing dominance of anti-spiritual principles in our generation? And is the increasing dominance of the anti-spiritual something new to history, or did Greece also experience this phenomenon of pioneer faith and struggle, followed by growth, prosperity, culminating in moral decline and political disintegration? And did Imperial Rome also experience such a phenomenon? And have the Hebrews experienced one, two, or three separate cycles of this same phenomenon which is gripping Western Civilization at the current time?

Could this mean that we have good grounds to be skeptical of the professional skeptics of our age? Could this mean that the self-styled rationalists of our age have been making irrational assumptions in Earth history of an extensive magnitude? Might this mean that our "Age of Reason" may be something less than that? And if one becomes markedly skeptical of the professional skeptics, who then may be identified as the real skeptic? And if the uniformitarian skeptics have been quick to accuse others, others that perhaps have a pro-spiritual viewpoint, of gullibility, might the question be raised as to just exactly which viewpoint requires genuine gullibility?

And if uniformitarian thinking has been essentially negative thinking, what is the significance of such negative thinking in our stage of civilization? It is to this subject, uniformitarianism and Western Civilization, to which Chapter XII, our final chapter, is dedicated.
 

"The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch" by Donald W. Patten - is ©1966 by Pacific Meridian Pub. Co.


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