George wrote about the "discovery" of Noah's ark from South Africa.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of george murphy
>Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 7:27 AM
> The 30 April issue of _Weekly World News_ (pp.24-25_) announces
>that Noah's Ark has been seen on Mars by the Ross-Waterhaus Observatory
>in Johannesburg.
South Africa has a renown history of such "discoveries". Consider this from
the history of 19th century astronomy.
ěPublic interest in the possibility of lunar life climaxed in the late
summer of 1835 with a series of popular articles by Richard Locke that were
published in the New York Sun. Locke reported that the British astronomer
Sir John Herschel (son of William Herschel), while observing the moon at the
Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, had discover bizarre, winged, batlike
creatures swarming over it. Locke wrote, ëCertainly they were human beings.
They averaged four feet in height, were covered, except on the face with
short-glossy, copper-coloured hair, and had wings composed of a thin
membrane.
ěThe circulation of the Sun soared as New Yorkers devoured the news of
these exotic lunar beings. A womenís club in Massachusetts was so impressed
that they wrote to Herschel asking how to contact the lunar bat-men so that
they could convert them to Christianity. The story rapidly spread to Europe,
where it became the subject of a heated debate sponsored by the Academy of
Sciences in Paris.
ěHerschel, a hemisphere away at the time, was unaware of this
idiotic story
when it first appeared. As soon as news of it reached him, he denied it
furiously, but it was too late. This cruel and pointless hoax had a
devastating effect on his career. In 1839 he wrote to a friend, ëI have made
my mind to consider my astronomical career as terminated.î Christopher Wills
and Jeffrey Bada, The Spark of Life, (Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing,
2001), p. 219-220
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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