Response to Keating Critique of Geocentrism

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Dear Neophyte:

You write: You’re right, I should have left out the slam, it was uncharitable. But I did provide meat with the habaneros, in the form of my comment about reference frame transformation.>>

Thank you for the admission. Have you ever presented your critique to him? Have you looked to see if he has already answered it? Doesn’t it make sense to do that? I’m sure Mr. Sungenis doesn’t want the universe rotating around your navel…it seems a terrible burden to bear. 😉

You write: I hold a degree in Mechanical Engineering (with honors), and believe that I am qualified to comment on Sungenis’ argumants. >>

Wonderful. Then you would be just the sort of person to engage him about this. Only, I would suggest holding the habaneros…go heavy on the meat.

You write: They are indeed poorly formulated.>>

Perhaps, perhaps not. That’s what such discussions/debates will help others (like myself) to determine.

You write: I find it a bit convenient that he offers a reward for proving him wrong, but makes himself the judge rather than someone who’s qualified by training and experience. It would be more accurate to say that the reward is for convincing Bob rather than for proving him wrong.>>

Oh, I tend to agree there’s a marketing angle to the “challenge”. But, I’m not sure there really is a truly objective “judge” available, either, as you imply. I kind of think you have also tipped your cards, too…

I hope you’re not only interested if you think you can pick up a quick $1,000. 😉 (joking!) I will say this, however, I have seen Mr. Sungenis change his mind on important matters…not the least of which was returning to the Catholic Church. So, if you intend to imply that he is not genuinely and deeply concerned with the truth, you are very mistaken, and once again, delving into unnecessary personal judgment.

I would also ask, exactly what do you know of Mr. Sungenis’ background in science in order to make that judgment (not qualified by training or experience)? What do you know his partner, Dr. Robert Bennett? Are you just assuming that one must be necessarily uneducated in science in order to hold to geocentrism?

You write: I don’t expect that Bob will win many converts by speaking so long and eloquently about something that he obviously knows nothing about. >

Okay. First, I very much disagree with you as to your opinion of the significance this issue may have to faith. Reread my first post regarding the Fathers and the popes on this issue. They certainly seemed to consider this very important and were quite adamant about it. This issue has been used ever since by non-Catholics, secularists, etc to bludgeon the trustworthiness of the Fathers and our popes.

Yes, I know the usual way we have found around that bludgeon…, but I believe it was a “best retreat available” route, really…still quite damaging, any way you slice it. I believe that, in light of the density and intensity of public, historical Church teaching on this issue, that it would be an amazing blow to the secularists if it turned out our popes and saints were right…all along. And unlike many people, neither I nor Mr. Sungenis hold modern scientific dogma in such high esteem that it cannot be rigorously tested and questioned…that kind of absolute obedience is reserved for true dogma and doctine…Catholic belief, no more, no less. Science, the pursuit of “knowledge”, by its very nature, is prone to terrible pride and deception. It is only by God’s great grace that man does not succumb to the Devil’s hubris in such pursuits.

Still, I’m certainly not going to fall apart and lose faith if geocentrism ends up being untrue in the end. But neither will I raise secular science to the level of Catholic dogma, ever.

Second, you wrote “something that he obviously knows nothing about.” :confused: I hope you can at least admit to some heavy hyperbole there, or else perhaps it would be better not to discuss this with Mr. Sungenis after all. He’s Italian and can give as good as he gets 😉 …but, being a scientifically minded person, interested only in truth, I know you would rather generate more light than heat, right?

God bless,
Michael Forrest
 
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All4lifetoo:
Michael Forrest,

I am not a scientist, but I am not a dunce either.

SNIP.

The observable/measurable data does not support the theory that the Earth is stationary and the stars revolve around the Earth.

.
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Indeed it does not. I *am *a scientist and I do have the tools to assess Sungenis’s claims. The plain fact is that Sungenis is a crank, rightly ignored by real scientists. He could be the archetype for whom St Augustine wrote his famous admonition.

You don’t need to have done anything more than an undergraduate course in classical mnechanics to realise just how mixed up and wrong Sungenis is about this.

You have mentioned the fact that rocket launch sites are better placed near the equator where you get that 1,036 mph speed boost due to the earth’s rotation (only the European Space Agency site in French Guiana comes very close to this - think about why the ESA would put its launch site in this out-of-the-way place rather than in continental Europe). The USA site at Cape Canaveral is about as far south on the contiguous USA as NASA could get. They get a 915 mph boost there. Most satellites are launched to the east to get the boost of the earth’s rotational speed.

Here are some other things:

Everyone on this thread (and on every other thread on this subject on this site) seems to ignore the fact that there is difference between inertial (ie non-accelerating) and non-inertial (ie accelerating) frames of reference. The fact is that any frame of reference located on the earth’s surface (a non-inertial frame) experiences unresolved forces unlike an inertial frame. All forces in an inertial frame are resolved, but in a non-inertial frame residual forces exist; in the case of the earth, coriolis and centrifugal forces arising from diurnal and annual rotation, amongst many others. These forces can be easily measured. Here are three obvious examples: Foucault’s pendulum demonstarates plainly and without ambiguity the coriolis force arising from earth’'s diurnal roatation. So is the fact that winds always rotate counter-clockwise about depressions in the northern atmosphere and clockwise about depressions in the southern hemisphere.The oblate shape of the earth is a consequence of the centrifugal force of diurnal rotation.

So much for diurnal rotation - what about annual rotation? Well, first of all, there is no classical scenario in which a light object like the earth can remain still in absolute terms and have an object many times more masive than it is rotate around it, unless we are to reject Newtonian mechanics altogether - and then what would we replace it with? In looking at the star field we see parallax shifts and doppler shifts as the earth orbits the sun. If the earth were to be still, we would have to have the entire star field, 14 billion light years across, not only orbiting the earth once per day, but doing so with an annual wobble with exactly the same diameter as the diameter of the earth’s orbit around the sun (or the sun’s orbit around the earth as Sungenis would have it), where the plane of the wobble is angled to the plane of rotation by 23.5 degrees. That’s simply bizarre. Oh - and then there’s the proper motion of the sun and planets within the galaxy - the rotation of the solar system about galactic centre - or should we believe that the earth is still and that all these proper motions are superimposed on the star field and the planets. What on earth is the origin of all the bizarre forces we would need if we claim the earth’s surface is an inertial frame? Retrograde planetary motion is explained with overwheling power by the Copernican system and is quite intractable to a cosmology with a stationary earth. Sungenis is monumentally wrong.

To be continued
 
Continuation

But wait - it doesn’t get better when we turn from classical mechanics to general relativity. There is, for example, an anomaly in the precession of Mercury’s perihelion that cannot be explained by Newtonian mechanics - 532 arc seconds of precession per century is explained by Newtonian mechanics but 43 arcseconds per century can only explained (and is predicted) by GR. GR will not predict this observation if we take earth as the fixed frame and have Mercury behaving lke a classical Greek planetai - a wanderer about the sky.

But GR makes yet another prediction - that *rotating *masses distort space-time in their vicinity (this is called frame-dragging). So we should be able to detect the distortion of the curvature of space-time by the *rotation *of the earth. The practical problem is that it is a tiny effect. Nevertheless two months ago the frame dragging effect of the earth’s rotation was detected:

Ciufolini & Pavlis ‘A confirmation of the general relativistic prediction of the Lense–Thirring effect’ Nature 431, 958–960 (2004), with this abstract:

‘An important early prediction of Einstein’s general relativity was the advance of the perihelion of Mercury’s orbit, whose measurement provided one of the classical tests of Einstein’s theory. The advance of the orbital point-of-closest-approach also applies to a binary pulsar system and to an Earth-orbiting satellite. General relativity also predicts that the rotation of a body like Earth will drag the local inertial frames of reference around it, which will affect the orbit of a satellite. This Lense–Thirring effect has hitherto not been detected with high accuracy, but its detection with an error of about 1 per cent is the main goal of Gravity Probe B—an ongoing space mission using orbiting gyroscopes. Here we report a measurement of the Lense–Thirring effect on two Earth satellites: it is 99+/-5 per cent of the value predicted by general relativity’

In conclusion, Sungenis is ignored by the scientific estblishment, not because there is a conspiracy to silence him, but because his claims are laughable - they are simply silly, unsupported by theoretical or empirical science. Anyone who cares for the Church should distance themselves from his buffoonery.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
Dear Alec,
You write: Indeed it does not. I *am *a scientist and I do have the tools to assess Sungenis’s claims. >>

Great. This should be enlightening then. By all means, send it to Mr. Sungenis. Write a paper, logically dissecting his points/contentions. Maybe a lot of people will benefit from it. 🙂

You write: The plain fact is that Sungenis is a crank, rightly ignored by real scientists. He could be the archetype for whom St Augustine wrote his famous admonition…
his claims are laughable - they are simply silly, unsupported by theoretical or empirical science. Anyone who cares for the Church should distance themselves from his buffoonery.
Or perhaps not. 😦 With all due respect, Alec, I only see one relatively “plain fact” (as you put it) in front of me after reading your post, and it has nothing to do with Mr. Sungenis. Did you take the time to notice that others on this thread already indicated that they were geocentrists? Personally, I haven’t made any hard and fast decisions, but I am intrigued by the issue to a degree. Perhaps if you tone it down and omit the personal insults and invective, you might be heard by people other than those who already agree with you.

I always find it odd how upset and personally insulting many supporters of heliocentrism/relativity/evolution immediately get when they are questioned…even indirectly, as in this case (no one wrote to you personally, Alec…you jumped in to an ongoing discussion).

I understand getting that upset about babies being killed in their mother’s wombs, people dying outside the Catholic Faith, priests molesting young men and being returned to parish work…that kind of thing. Even then, I don’t see the point of launching into such tirades and insults from the get go, especially when no one has even said “boo” to you personally. But over this? No, I don’t see it.

In Christ,
Michael Forrest
 
Mike Forrest << Did you take the time to notice that others on this thread already indicated that they were geocentrists? >>

Well, sure I’ll be a geocentrist. I walk outside, I notice the sun moves. 😃 And the earth appears flat, with a tent-like blue-sky firmament, and the blue sky being “the waters above the firmament” since that’s where the rain falls from, just like Genesis says. Plus we have those three verses in Psalms (93:1, 96:10, 104:5) and the “sun-stopping” in Joshua to explain. 😛

HECD has a Ph.D. in astronomy or physics, I forget which. I trust his judgment. Many great posts from him on the science issues in these forums. Now if we could get Bob and HECD in a thread together, that would be fascinating. Just for fun. :cool: :eek:

Phil P
 
Phil writes:

Well, sure I’ll be a geocentrist…>>

Really, Phil…there is no need to insult people who disagree with you over a matter like this (speaking generally here by “you”). It seems to me that at least the geocentrist has in his favor the fact that the fathers and saints of Church were very clear on this, as well as the popes. To a geocentrist, this can be viewed as a matter of faith. For the non-geocentrist, it is de facto NOT a matter of faith. The non-geocentrist has to finesse/interpret the statements of popes, fathers and saints so as to make them essentially irrelevant to faith. That fact alone makes me consider the issue worth viewing with an open mind.

You write: HECD has a Ph.D. in astronomy or physics, I forget which. I trust his judgment. >>

And Dr. Bennett (working with Mr. Sungenis on his book) has a PhD as well. Personally, degrees do not impress me, in and of themselves. I’ve known absolute idiots with PhDs, Masters, whatever. And I’ve known brilliant minds with no advanced degrees. Some, especially along the Montessori lines of thinking, contend that advanced degrees only tend to insure group-think. I think they may have a point. The creators of google, for instance, were Montessori trained, and they credit their ability to “think outside the box” to their non-conformist training. Ironically, Einstein, a man very relevant to this discussion, didn’t exactly have a stellar educational background, and advanced in unorthodox ways.

Phil writes: Many great posts from him on the science issues in these forums. Now if we could get Bob and HECD in a thread together, that would be fascinating. Just for fun. :cool: :eek: >>

If the personal insults and invective could be omitted, I think that would be very interesting, too.

God bless,
Michael Forrest
 
Michael Forrest:
Dear Alec,
You write: Indeed it does not. I *am *a scientist and I do have the tools to assess Sungenis’s claims. >>

Great. This should be enlightening then. By all means, send it to Mr. Sungenis. Write a paper, logically dissecting his points/contentions. Maybe a lot of people will benefit from it. 🙂
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I am not debating Sungenis (although were he to turn up here I’d be delighted to debate him). I’m debating you. You started this thread and I am responding with substance to* you*. It’s for you to answer your claims - or are you just Sungenis’s innocent bag carrier? The world is filled with cranks of every hue and Sungenis is a crank of a very virulent colour.
You write: The plain fact is that Sungenis is a crank, rightly ignored by real scientists. He could be the archetype for whom St Augustine wrote his famous admonition…
his claims are laughable - they are simply silly, unsupported by theoretical or empirical science. Anyone who cares for the Church should distance themselves from his buffoonery.
Or perhaps not. 😦 With all due respect, Alec, I only see one relatively “plain fact” (as you put it) in front of me after reading your post, and it has nothing to do with Mr. Sungenis.

You only see one thing of substance? Let’s review what you have avoided answering:
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  1. *]Satellites are launched to the east
    *]Satellite launch sites are as close to the equator as nationally possible
    *]Inertial frames of reference have no unresolved forces
    *]The earth has obvious unresolved forces
    *]Foucault’s pendulum
    *]Weather systems
    *]Oblate earth
    *]Newtonian mechanics
    *]Parallax in the starfields as a consequence of earth’s rotation round the sun
    *]Red shift in the star field as a result of ditto
    *]14 billion light year star field rotating around the earth once a day and wobbling with a amplitude of 186 million miles at an angle of 23.5 degrees annually is untenble
    *]Rotation of solar system about galactic centre and other proper motions
    *]Forces to explain retrograde planetary motion
    *]Precession of perhelion of Mercury
    *]Frame dragging around the rotating earth (just empirically demonstrated)

    If you are here to promote Sungenis’s nonsense, then this what you have to explain. We’re waiting.
    Did you take the time to notice that others on this thread already indicated that they were geocentrists?
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    So what? What’s the significance of that?
    Personally, I haven’t made any hard and fast decisions, but I am intrigued by the issue to a degree.
    Click to expand...
    I suggest that if you rely on dentists for your teeth, doctors for your guts, aeronautical engineers for your air travel and civil engineers for your bridges (as you surely do), then you should rely on scientists for your science.
    Perhaps if you tone it down and omit the personal insults and invective, you might be heard by people other than those who already agree with you.
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    I am not a politician nor an apologist. I am a scientist. I am not here to persuade people with a smooth tongue but with facts. Answer the 15 points. People can decide whether to agree with me or not, but I suggest they do so not on sugary blandishments but on plain science.
    I always find it odd how upset and personally insulting many supporters of heliocentrism/relativity/evolution immediately get when they are questioned…even indirectly, as in this case (no one wrote to you personally, Alec…you jumped in to an ongoing discussion).
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    I think this is an open forum not a private debate. I am not upset. I am simply stating a fact, coldly and rationally. Sungenis is a crank. You came here to defend Sungenis’s views. Fine. There are 15 points above for you to respond to. We are all waiting. Substance always prevails over rhetoric.
    I understand getting that upset about babies being killed in their mother’s wombs, people dying outside the Catholic Faith, priests molesting young men and being returned to parish work…that kind of thing. Even then, I don’t see the point of launching into such tirades and insults from the get go, especially when no one has even said “boo” to you personally. But over this? No, I don’t see it.
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    No tirades, no insults. Just plain facts backed by substance. Now, you are perfectly welcome to debate me on the 15 points above. I look forward to it. Where’s Bob?
    In Christ,
    Click to expand...
    Michael Forrest
    Alec
    evolutionpages.com
 
Does this theory of Sungenis mandate a spherical Earth? I still haold to the my faith that mandate it be flat.
 
Michael Forrest:
Dear Alec,
You write: Indeed it does not. I *am *a scientist and I do have the tools to assess Sungenis’s claims. >>

Great. This should be enlightening then. By all means, send it to Mr. Sungenis. Write a paper, logically dissecting his points/contentions. Maybe a lot of people will benefit from it. 🙂
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Are you representing Sungenis? If not, why should anyone send anything to him. You started the thread, you are the one that Alec replied to. If Sungenis wants to get involved, great. Otherwise, you should try to answer the substance of Alec’s post and not lecture him on his delivery. As Alec noted, the dispute is about science, not how to deliver the message.

As far as Alec refering to Sungenis as a crank, well, quite frankly, anyone who genuinely holds to geocentrism will be considered a crank because the idea is scientifically preposterous.

Peace

Tim
 
Michael Forrest:
On another string, Mr. Keating offered some opinions on the difficulties with geocentrism and the work of Robert Sungenis. I forwarded them on to Mr. Robert Sungenis of Catholic Apologetics International (Mr. Sungenis is a promoter of geocentrism). Below is Mr. Sungenis’ response to me.
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Wow! My head is spinning! (There is a pun in there somewhere!)

On the issue of the earth’s rotating (or not rotating) I recall one of my favorite places to go visit, in my teen years, to Griffith Park Observatory overlooking Los Angeles. In the main hall, a huge dome, hung a massive Foucault’s Pendulum.

I would get there early on a Saturday morning, as the attendant places a long line of little blocks of wood in a circle just inside the limits of swing, the great pendulum, now stationary, would soon be be made to swing. And then the moment arrived that the attendant would take hold of the great ball, with a ponter on it’s bottom side (and barely above the floor) and bring it to the limits of swing he desired, and let then let it go…

Of course two of the blocks would be knocked down; one where he released the ball, and at the other extremity, when the pointer on the bottom of the ball would knock over the wooden block on the opposite end of it’s swing.

Los Angeles is not at the North Pole, but it is at last midway, approximately, between the North Pole and the equator. But for the moment, assume it is on the North Pole, and it is set to swing. The moment of enertia would always have the pendulum (a heavy ball on a long steel wire secured to the roof of the dome) swing in the same direction, just as a gyroscope wants to maintain the same axis of rotation when it is rotated.

Now, if the earth was not rotating, our pendulium would always be swinging, passing over the two blocks of wood previously knocked down and that would be it, until the observatory closed for the day, and the pendulium would slowly slow due to the friction of the air, until it stopped once again. Only two block would be knocked down.

But low and behold, as the day progressed, the pendulium would seemingly change direction of it’s swing and eventually, another set of blocks would be knocked down, and then another set, and anothert set, and another, until, if allowed to continue to swing, (and if the pendulium could be maintained in it’s swing without decaying to zero) would, in 24 hours of dinurial time, have the pendulium make a complete (relative) “rotation’” around it original state of swinging, until the last block in the circle comes tumbling down!

The only explanation is, the earth is rotating around a pendulium which does not change it’s direction of swing!

Incidentally, the phenomenon would still be seen in Los Angeles at it’s real location, although not as pronounced, as I understand, at either of the two poles. At the equator, there would be no effect at all, which actually confirms what I am getting at with a little reflection…

Do an experiment. Take a convenient weight, handing from a string, and hold it out from your body and get it to swinging. And then walk around the swinging pendulium and note that it does not change it’s direction of swinging! That is exactly what our big pendulium does when the earth rotates around it!

Does Robert Sungenis have an explanation for this?

God bless,

PAX

Bill+†+

Regina Angelorum, ora pro nobis!
 
William Putnam:
Wow! My head is spinning! (There is a pun in there somewhere!)

On the issue of the earth’s rotating (or not rotating) I recall one of my favorite places to go visit, in my teen years, to Griffith Park Observatory overlooking Los Angeles. In the main hall, a huge dome, hung a massive Foucault’s Pendulum.

I would get there early on a Saturday morning, as the attendant places a long line of little blocks of wood in a circle just inside the limits of swing, the great pendulum, now stationary, would soon be be made to swing. And then the moment arrived that the attendant would take hold of the great ball, with a ponter on it’s bottom side (and barely above the floor) and bring it to the limits of swing he desired, and let then let it go…

Of course two of the blocks would be knocked down; one where he released the ball, and at the other extremity, when the pointer on the bottom of the ball would knock over the wooden block on the opposite end of it’s swing.

Los Angeles is not at the North Pole, but it is at last midway, approximately, between the North Pole and the equator. But for the moment, assume it is on the North Pole, and it is set to swing. The moment of enertia would always have the pendulum (a heavy ball on a long steel wire secured to the roof of the dome) swing in the same direction, just as a gyroscope wants to maintain the same axis of rotation when it is rotated.

Now, if the earth was not rotating, our pendulium would always be swinging, passing over the two blocks of wood previously knocked down and that would be it, until the observatory closed for the day, and the pendulium would slowly slow due to the friction of the air, until it stopped once again. Only two block would be knocked down.

But low and behold, as the day progressed, the pendulium would seemingly change direction of it’s swing and eventually, another set of blocks would be knocked down, and then another set, and anothert set, and another, until, if allowed to continue to swing, (and if the pendulium could be maintained in it’s swing without decaying to zero) would, in 24 hours of dinurial time, have the pendulium make a complete (relative) “rotation’” around it original state of swinging, until the last block in the circle comes tumbling down!

The only explanation is, the earth is rotating around a pendulium which does not change it’s direction of swing!

Incidentally, the phenomenon would still be seen in Los Angeles at it’s real location, although not as pronounced, as I understand, at either of the two poles. At the equator, there would be no effect at all, which actually confirms what I am getting at with a little reflection…

Do an experiment. Take a convenient weight, handing from a string, and hold it out from your body and get it to swinging. And then walk around the swinging pendulium and note that it does not change it’s direction of swinging! That is exactly what our big pendulium does when the earth rotates around it!

Does Robert Sungenis have an explanation for this?

God bless,

PAX

Bill+†+

Regina Angelorum, ora pro nobis!
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That would be number 5 of the15 points:

  1. *]Satellites are launched to the east
    *]Satellite launch sites are as close to the equator as nationally possible
    *]Inertial frames of reference have no unresolved forces
    *]The earth has obvious unresolved forces
    *]Foucault’s pendulum
    *]Weather systems
    *]Oblate earth
    *]Newtonian mechanics
    *]Parallax in the starfields as a consequence of earth’s rotation round the sun
    *]Red shift in the star field as a result of ditto
    *]14 billion light year star field rotating around the earth once a day and wobbling with a amplitude of 186 million miles at an angle of 23.5 degrees annually is untenble
    *]Rotation of solar system about galactic centre and other proper motions
    *]Forces to explain retrograde planetary motion
    *]Precession of perhelion of Mercury
    *]Frame dragging around the rotating earth (just empirically demonstrated)

    Thank you, Bill

    Alec
    evolutionpages.com
 
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hecd2:
That would be number 5 of the15 points:

  1. *]Satellites are launched to the east
    *]Satellite launch sites are as close to the equator as nationally possible
    *]Inertial frames of reference have no unresolved forces
    *]The earth has obvious unresolved forces
    *]Foucault’s pendulum
    *]Weather systems
    *]Oblate earth
    *]Newtonian mechanics
    *]Parallax in the starfields as a consequence of earth’s rotation round the sun
    *]Red shift in the star field as a result of ditto
    *]14 billion light year star field rotating around the earth once a day and wobbling with a amplitude of 186 million miles at an angle of 23.5 degrees annually is untenble
    *]Rotation of solar system about galactic centre and other proper motions
    *]Forces to explain retrograde planetary motion
    *]Precession of perhelion of Mercury
    *]Frame dragging around the rotating earth (just empirically demonstrated)

    Thank you, Bill

    Alec
    evolutionpages.com
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  1. You are welcome, noticing a few typo’s in my post. Oh well, can’t be perfect…

    Looked at your web site, and wow, you are into it!

    Reminds me of previous discussions I would have with Fundamentalists who insisted that the Grand Canyon was only 4,000 years old or so!

    I used to go to “TalkOrigins” all the time for material. Phil Porvaznik, knows me from the old FidoNet days! 🙂

    Just got banned from CARM so here I IS! 🙂

    God bless,

    PAX

    Bill+†+

    Pillar and Foundation of Truth, the Church. (1 Tim 3:15)
 
Michael Forrest:
Have you ever presented your critique to him? Have you looked to see if he has already answered it?..I would also ask, exactly what do you know of Mr. Sungenis’ background in science in order to make that judgment (not qualified by training or experience)?..I hope you can at least admit to some heavy hyperbole there…being a scientifically minded person, interested only in truth, I know you would rather generate more light than heat, right?
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Michael,

I visited his site when I heard of the challenge, and spent about 30 minutes going through some of the debate on his site. Sungenis’ pattern of misunderstanding the arguments made it clear to me that he would not be convinced.

As for his background, his detailed biography neglects to say what his undergrad degree from George Washington University was in, but I’m sure his coursework at Westminster Theological Seminary didn’t prepare him for this topic. I know that no one who paid attention in classes relevant to this discussion would say the things he does.

For example (as if alec’s 15 points weren’t enough):
If, as Sungenis claims, the earth is at the center of mass of the universe, then it (and the rest of the solar system) is at a location where the component of gravitational field strength due to the rest of the universe is exactly zero. All of his arguments about the effects of gravity from distant bodies are then meaningless, the system reduces to a single large mass orbited by a small number of little ones, and the whole solar system can drift off in whatever direction the nearest group of stars yanks it (at which time it stops being at the center of mass). This is material that gets covered in the sophomore year in college (twice, since it’s the same story for gravity and electromagnetics).

I’m not at all implying that he’s not genuinely concerned with the truth, far from it. I have most certainly not made any personal attacks on him, and I have no doubt that he really believes what he’s saying. What I have done is critique his claims, and I will not admit to any hyperbole: he just flat-out has no idea what he’s talking about.
 
Michael Forrest,

All4: For the first 10 of my 21 years in the Air Force I was a member of a Titan II ICBM Combat Crew. You may recall that the Titan II was the space launch vehicle for the Gemini Program. If the Earth did not rotate on its axis then it would be necessary for satellites to have no forward motion once they were in “orbit.” Satellites are given forward motion during launch and this acceleration is measurable. For a satellite to be stationary over a stationary Earth this acceleration would have to be reversed or negated. The satellite would have to be decelerated to zero velocity. Deceleration is also measurable. If it were necessary to decelerate the forward velocity to zero, we would know it because we could measure it. No such deceleration is measured on the satellite.>>

Michael Forrest: I believe Mr. Sungenis has already dealt with this issue, All4. Have you taken the time to look his writings over first? You can find them at www.catholicintl.com (along with a whole host of other issues aside from science, of course). But if you don’t believe he has, by all means, bring it to his attention, as I wrote previously. He almost always takes the time to respond, in my experience. I don’t think you’re going to be able do your opinions justice in this forum, really.

You posted a link to the home page of CAI. I have visited his site in the past and decided it was not worthy of future visits. I am not going to search his site for articles that refute what I stated above. The burden is upon you to do that and to provide a specific link to any such refutation, or to post the refutation here. I will gadly read and consider it, but I’m not going to research your position for you.

That satellites are accelerated to orbital velocity and placed into orbit without any deceleration to zero velocity is not my opinion. It is a fact of physics. You won’t be able to do your position justice by labeling such facts as opinions.
All4 writes: I am one who does not believe that modern scientific knowledge is opposed to Biblical writings. Any apparent contradiction is just that, apparent, not real. It is not necessary to invent theories that disprove current understanding of the Earth’s motion in order to justify Biblical writings. The efforts to prove geo-centrism simply fail when empricial evidence is examined.>>

Michael Forrest: You are certainly entitled to your opinion. You could be right. But simply asserting something is not the same as proving it.

I provided you with two facts of physics. One is already addressed above. The other, which you cut, deals with the acceleration of satellites launched to the east as opposed to satellites launched to the west. These are not merely my opinions. You have evaded posting any counter argument by trying to label these facts as opinions. You have not advanced your argument by this tactic.
Others have posted about Foucault’s pendulum as evidence of the Earth’s rotation. It is very convincing evidence of the Earth’s rotation. I remember watching it in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC years ago. Perhaps you should spend some time watching it.
 
Alec writes:
am not debating Sungenis (although were he to turn up here I’d be delighted to debate him). I’m debating you. You started this thread and I am responding with substance to* you*. It’s for you to answer your claims - or are you just Sungenis’s innocent bag carrier? The world is filled with cranks of every hue and Sungenis is a crank of a very virulent colour.>>
Click to expand...
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Alec, much as I hate to disappoint you by not taking such really enticing and subtle bait… I think I made it perfectly clear why I posted what I posted, and that reason is perfectly legitimate.

Mr. Keating made some observations/critiques of Mr. Sungenis and geocentrism on this forum and I thought they looked substantive. So I forwarded them to Mr. Sungenis. He took the time to answer them, and I offered to post his response (although he wrote the response primarily to be put up on his website)…he said “okay”. And so I did. Mr. Keating has not answered himself, but it appears you have taken it upon yourself to pick up the mantle for him. That’s fine.

Personally, I don’t really have a dog in this race. I’ve made the observations I wish to make already, and you are only adding credence to certain of them by your vitriol.

I only hoped to encourage an honest examination of the topic for those of us who are not expert in it. From what I’ve read, there are quite a few people who think this is interesting and worth reading about, too. So if you really want to beat up on me, I guess you can. But I’m not sure what you’ll gain by it. I never claimed to be an avowed geocentrist, nor did I claim to be an expert on the topic at all.

Alec writes: You only see one thing of substance? Let’s review what you have avoided answering:…If you are here to promote Sungenis’s nonsense, then this what you have to explain. We’re waiting.>>

Yes, as I wrote, I am not an expert in astrophysics, astronomy…but I do think I have a pretty decent handle on how Christ taught we are to deal with one another. And in my opinion, you’re out of line, yes. That is what I saw, and that is what I continue to see in every post you have made so far.

Quote:
Did you take the time to notice that others on this thread already indicated that they were geocentrists?

Alec: So what? What’s the significance of that?

Okay, I’ll take your questions at face value, Alec. Let me ask you, if you walk into a room where you know there are Democrats (and you are a Republican), people you’ve only just met, would you jump right in saying, “Democrats are cranks and nutcases and shouldn’t be taken seriously…etc, etc”? If the point of discourse is to persuade, to convince, then jumping down people’s throats and insulting them from the get-go is usually not very effective. Or is that not your objective? I really don’t know. Most people don’t respond well to that.

Quote:
Personally, I haven’t made any hard and fast decisions, but I am intrigued by the issue to a degree.

Alec: I suggest that if you rely on dentists for your teeth, doctors for your guts, aeronautical engineers for your air travel and civil engineers for your bridges (as you surely do), then you should rely on scientists for your science.

Continued on next post…
 
Bill Putnam << I used to go to “TalkOrigins” all the time for material. Phil Porvaznik, knows me from the old FidoNet days! >>

Oh yeah, I remember you introducing me to some of their articles back in 1997, before I knew what the Internet was! Good to see you again.

Phil P
 
(continued from previous post)…

And which scientists, Alec? The ones that tell me there is no connection between abortion and breast cancer? The ones that tell me that there is no problem with my wife taking hormones to stop ovulation? The ones that tell me that homosexuality is not really a psychological illness anymore, and should not be dealt with as something negative? The kind that derided the idea that germs could cause infection? The kind that still put fraudulent drawings of human embryonic development in science text books? The kind that gave us Piltdown Man? By all of this, I am only saying that I am not as absolutely confident in and trusting of modern science as you are, and I don’t think that’s crazy. I’m trying my best to learn independently from different sources…but it isn’t always easy.

You see, in regard to my teeth and guts, I don’t recall Fathers of the Church or Popes making any plain statements about flouride and laxatives. This situation is different. Honestly, if it weren’t for the strength of the statements of the Fathers, saints and popes on the position of the earth in the cosmos, really, I wouldn’t even be wasting my time on this, and I doubt Mr. Sungenis would be spending time on it, either.

Quote:
Perhaps if you tone it down and omit the personal insults and invective, you might be heard by people other than those who already agree with you.
Alec: I am not a politician nor an apologist. I am a scientist. I am not here to persuade people with a smooth tongue but with facts. Answer the 15 points. People can decide whether to agree with me or not, but I suggest they do so not on sugary blandishments but on plain science.>>

And if you would stick to facts rather than insults, that would be much easier. One need not be a politician nor an apologist to refrain from insult and invective, Alec. Most humans beings I know admit that don’t enjoy being insulted…it causes negative reactions that tend to hinder reason, not help it. This area particular area seems to clearly be foreign to you, so take some advice from me this time, think before you submit your entries. Wait a minute and reread them again. If your aim is truly to be understood and not simply to intimidate and insult, then you ought to know that there is no logical reason for such bravado and posturing. Let your plain arguments speak for themselves.

As for your arguments, I sent them to Mr. Sungenis and he has already replied. I will be posting his reply shortly.

Quote:
I always find it odd how upset and personally insulting many supporters of heliocentrism/relativity/evolution immediately get when they are questioned…even indirectly, as in this case (no one wrote to you personally, Alec…you jumped in to an ongoing discussion).

(Alec) I think this is an open forum not a private debate.>>

I didn’t say otherwise. I simply pointed out that you jumped in, insults and bravado blazing from the get-go…essentially without provocation. People are people, regardless of the venue, Alec. You may simply have screen in front of you right now, but there are living, breathing humans with souls with whom you are interacting.

(Alec): I am not upset. I am simply stating a fact, coldly and rationally. Sungenis is a crank. >>

And I would say that it is your opinion. I hope your other “facts” are less subjective.

(Alec) You came here to defend Sungenis’s views. Fine.>>

Alec, all this does is push me to question your ability to analyze information accurately. Please quote for me, right now, exactly where I indicated that I “came here to defend Sungenis’ views”? I have expressly stated my aims from the very first post, and that was clearly NOT my aim. I think you have proven that even self-described, cold, logical scientists can have difficulty interpreting data correctly when they have an agenda they are intent on proving.

(continued on next post)…
 
(Alec) There are 15 points above for you to respond to. We are all waiting. Substance always prevails over rhetoric.>>

Are you Catholic Alec (seriously, I don’t know)? If so, then you must know that our Lord spent a great deal of time dealing with how we ought to treat one another. St. Paul spent a great deal of ink on it, too. You paint a false dichotomy by your last comment here.

(Alec) No tirades, no insults. Just plain facts backed by substance. Now, you are perfectly welcome to debate me on the 15 points above. I look forward to it. Where’s Bob?>>

I’ll hold you to that, Alec. Regarding your points, below I’ve copied Mr. Sungenis’ response. Honestly, I had no intention of continuing on this way… (which I indicated from the get-go), but for now, I’ll pass it on.

In Christ,
Michael Forrest
 
I sent Alec’s first response to Mr.Sungenis. He put his work aside and responded at my request…below. Let me repeat, lest I be accused of being a dupe, a coward, or whatever…I still think this forum stinks for such detailed, heavy debates. It should be done by the other means I suggested. Also…I may NOT be around for a bit…so kindly don’t accuse me of “avoiding” you, Alec.

Sungenis Response:

Alec writes:

“The observable/measurable data does not support the theory that the Earth is stationary and the stars revolve around the Earth.”

Indeed it does not. I am a scientist and I do have the tools to assess Sungenis’s claims. The plain fact is that Sungenis is a crank, rightly ignored by real scientists. He could be the archetype for whom St Augustine wrote his famous admonition.

You don’t need to have done anything more than an undergraduate course in classical mnechanics to realise just how mixed up and wrong Sungenis is about this.

You have mentioned the fact that rocket launch sites are better placed near the equator where you get that 1,036 mph speed boost due to the earth’s rotation (only the European Space Agency site in French Guiana comes very close to this - think about why the ESA would put its launch site in this out-of-the-way place rather than in continental Europe). The USA site at Cape Canaveral is about as far south on the contiguous USA as NASA could get. They get a 915 mph boost there. Most satellites are launched to the east to get the boost of the earth’s rotational speed.

Here are some other things:

Everyone on this thread (and on every other thread on this subject on this site) seems to ignore the fact that there is difference between inertial (ie non-accelerating) and non-inertial (ie accelerating) frames of reference. The fact is that any frame of reference located on the earth’s surface (a non-inertial frame) experiences unresolved forces unlike an inertial frame. All forces in an inertial frame are resolved, but in a non-inertial frame residual forces exist; in the case of the earth, coriolis and centrifugal forces arising from diurnal and annual rotation, amongst many others. These forces can be easily measured. Here are three obvious examples: Foucault’s pendulum demonstarates plainly and without ambiguity the coriolis force arising from earth’'s diurnal roatation. So is the fact that winds always rotate counter-clockwise about depressions in the northern atmosphere and clockwise about depressions in the southern hemisphere.The oblate shape of the earth is a consequence of the centrifugal force of diurnal rotation.

R. Sungenis: Pardon me for the intrusion but it seems to me that Alec is either ignorant of the whole picture presented by the present laws of physics, or he does indeed know them but is deliberately hiding them from the public. I don’t claim to know which is the case. (Incidentally, the following information was also forwarded to Mr. Gary Hoge over a similar discussion we were having concerning the origin of centrifugal and Coriolis forces. Mr. Hoge has yet to respond to me concerning it).
Here are the facts: It has been plainly shown, both in theory (Mach, Einstein) and in tensor calculus, that the radial centrifugal force, the axial centrifugal force and the Coriolis force can have one of two causes: a rotating earth in a fixed-star frame, or, a rotating star-frame around a fixed earth. That work was completed first by Hans Thirring in 1918, and affirmed by Einstein himself, and then again by Hans Thirring and Joseph Lense in late 1918 and 1920. I suggest Alec avail himself of the original papers.
In the meantime, allow me to supply you with a synopsis of their work written by a well-respected physicist named Max Born: “…Thus we may return to Ptolemy’s point of view of a “motionless earth”…One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein’s field equations, by distant rotating masses [stars]. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein’s point of view, Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right” (Max Born, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Dover Publications, 1962, pp. 344-345). So much for me trying to pull the wool over the public’s eye.

Alec: So much for diurnal rotation - what about annual rotation? Well, first of all, there is no classical scenario in which a light object like the earth can remain still in absolute terms and have an object many times more masive than it is rotate around it, unless we are to reject Newtonian mechanics altogether - and then what would we replace it with?
 
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