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Flat Earth Community / Re: Assessing "Kings Dethroned" by Gerrard Hickson
« on: June 16, 2022, 08:35:38 PM »
Chapter 9
We return to the transits of Venus across the sun’s face, this time in 1874 and 1882. As the author says, 1874 was not a great success, in some cases because observers were clouded out. He then claims that of the many measurements in 1882, only two were deemed especially fit for purpose: those from Bermuda and from Sabrina Land.
The observations made from Bermuda by astronomer John Isaac Plummer are easily found, but Sabrina Land? This is a section of the Antarctic coast almost due south of Perth, Western Australia, and the author dismisses the site as being unable to see the 1882 transit properly. That may be, but where are these observations supposedly from Sabrina Land? Who made them? They are not to be found.
The reason none are to be found is because they never happened: Sir George Airey apparently advocated sending an expedition to Antarctica but dropped the idea before plans for expeditions were finalised: Proctor relates this in Old and New Astronomy p262 and following. Hickson’s shoddy case collapses.
The author spends the rest of the chapter recapping the methods and results he vainly hopes he has debunked, but he has no more proved his case than when he started, nor has he even explained how Hipparchus et al were mistaken about the stars. There remains only his proposition for a “new” astronomy – can he finally redeem himself with a solid alternative to the astronomers’ methods and theories?
We return to the transits of Venus across the sun’s face, this time in 1874 and 1882. As the author says, 1874 was not a great success, in some cases because observers were clouded out. He then claims that of the many measurements in 1882, only two were deemed especially fit for purpose: those from Bermuda and from Sabrina Land.
The observations made from Bermuda by astronomer John Isaac Plummer are easily found, but Sabrina Land? This is a section of the Antarctic coast almost due south of Perth, Western Australia, and the author dismisses the site as being unable to see the 1882 transit properly. That may be, but where are these observations supposedly from Sabrina Land? Who made them? They are not to be found.
The reason none are to be found is because they never happened: Sir George Airey apparently advocated sending an expedition to Antarctica but dropped the idea before plans for expeditions were finalised: Proctor relates this in Old and New Astronomy p262 and following. Hickson’s shoddy case collapses.
The author spends the rest of the chapter recapping the methods and results he vainly hopes he has debunked, but he has no more proved his case than when he started, nor has he even explained how Hipparchus et al were mistaken about the stars. There remains only his proposition for a “new” astronomy – can he finally redeem himself with a solid alternative to the astronomers’ methods and theories?