Emmanuel Velikovsky

Kluge, I have a copy of the letter you wrote to that person. If you would like me to post it here, I will. He was responding to the letter to him. His words are his response to what you said. That is not slander. It is not slander for me to consider your actions slimey. Nor is it that Barry cannot answer you. He has. If he wants to talk to you more, that is up to him. As for me, I'm finished where you are concerned, unless, of course you either want me to post the letter concerned or you want to apologize publicly for what you attempted to do to him.

 

Helen - rather than carry on this childish bickering is there any chance at all that you could answer Mark's (numerious) objections that clearly demonstrate the inadequacy of Barry's work?

I have seen dozens of threads here with unanswered questions directed toward your argument - any chance you could address those?

 

Some time ago Barry took a great deal of time to go through Mark's material bit by bit here. It's on one of the past threads someplace. But two things need to be noted:

1. I am not the one to answer for Barry. Mark is making technical challenges and although Barry responded to Mark's challenges here in the past, Mark paid no attention at all and kept on making the same errors. So I will not -- cannot -- respond to the technical matters on this forum and Barry no longer wants to, given the reception he has received in the past and the fact that his responses have been pretty much ignored.

2. Since the original challenges, Barry has opened up a Discussions section on his website where questions and challenges can be responded to. To keep the material from degenerating as it does here and at other forums, Barry has requested the questions and challenges be emailed to him so he can, first, make sure he understands what is being asked (some stuff that comes through is terribly vague!), and, secondly, respond only once on his website, where it can then be referred to in the future.

Mark Kluge has been invited to email Barry anytime. Barry has answered everyone who emails him graciously. He is often far more diplomatic than I am. Barry also emailed a technical reply to the person whose letter I partially quoted above, so that that person would know that Mark's challenges were not only answerable, but that they were based on what appears to be a fairly permanent and intentional misunderstanding of something Barry is presenting.

So no, as far as we are concerned, there will be no more discussions of Barry's material here. There is a place for it set up on the web and Barry is available to all who would like to ask him questions or challenge his material. He is not hiding.

Here is the Discussions page:
http://www.setterfield.org/discussionindex.htm

Barry can be reached at
[email protected]

 

EF I don't know about the personal attacks business and frankly, I don't care to hear someone air their personal arguments on this board or any other board. However, I did read the threads in question regarding Setterfield's work and the criticism. I can honestly say that Setterfield (IMO) has not adequately addressed most of the criticisms put forth on this board. In fact, I dare say this may be one of the reasons he can't get his work published. The criticisms levied here are not all that complex (especially if I understand them!). I suspect that the entire discussion involving Setterfield hits too close to home for you to be able to offer an unbiased opinion. That's not a bad thing because you should be supportive of your husband, but it makes your arguments less believable to readers who know the bias. Perhaps you can simply ignore the Setterfield discussions from here on out?

 

Very true Elena. My criticism goes even further, however. Any "research" that begins with a preconceived outcome and hunts for confirming facts is by no means science. That is the flaw with starting from a fundamentalist view of the Genesis accounts. True research would take all evidences and formulate hypothesis, just the opposite of Helen's declaration of her view of Genesis being the end all, be all, and that all contrary views are blatantly wrong based upon that fact.

Helen, I know you have emotional stakes in this, but everything I have read of your and Barry's representations are definitely on the fringe. Doesn't make them wrong (although I strongly believe the ARE wrong), but it is not supported by mainstream science. This is not a personal attack, just my observations and opinions.

 

One more thing....

Helen, I saw where you wrote that Barry is not in good health. My wishes for a speedy recovery go out to him.

Best regards,
CFB

 

I have challenged you on a number of technical details where you say you have to consult with Barry. A number of these I am still waiting for answers. Does your statement mean I can never expect to hear back?

 

Helen wrote:

False. Barry Setterfield has curtly responded to some of what I have written in the past. He has not responded at all to the two blunders that I have pointed out in this thread. You can see for yourself. The first blunder here, Equation (13) saying that Delta (1/lambda) = 1/(Delta lambda) I first pointed this out in a message posted June 21, 2003 09:02 PM to the "Setterfield Revisited and Refocused" thread. Setterfield has nowhere responded to this, nor can he, for it is an elementary algebraic blunder of his, subject to no interpretation.

The second error here, concerning Setterfield's mistake in his Equation (110). (He replaced X with T.) I first brought this blunder (although in different terms) in the same thread posted June 29, 2003 09:24 PM. It is easier to see that Setterfield hasn't responded to this one even if you don't understand the discussion. Since that post on June 29, 2003, he hasn't responded to anyone on any topic here, and the most recent discussion entries for his web page are dated June 26, 2003.

We need not here decide whether Setterfield has ever pointed out a significant error in anything I've written about his work. It is plain that he has not only failed to point out error in my remarks in question here, but has not even responded to them at all.

I have no interest in using Barry Setterfield's question-and-answer forum, since I have no questions for him. Why would I want to ask a question of one who published material saying that 1/(Delta lambda) = Delta(1/lambda)? How can this be a matter of my having a "fairly permanent and intentional misunderstanding" of anything when the earlier matter being brought to his attention was so brought only on June 21, 2003, and to which Setterfield has never responded?

And what good is a privately-emailed technical reply, either to us Baptist Board readers or to the recipient? Here we haven't seen it, so it cannot do us any good. It cannot do the recipient any good either. Consider Setterfield's errant Equation (13) where he tells us that Delta (1/lambda) = 1/(Delta lambda). No technical response can get around that. Anyway, since the recipient was one of the reviewers of Setterfield's paper, one should assume that he is competent to follow such elementary mathematics himself without help from Barry Setterfield.

Then there never was, is not now, nor ever will be discussion of Barry Setterfield's material here.

 

Helen wrote:

1 I retain copyright to my e-mail. (In this case it was a private e-mail.) For you to publish it would be to appropriate my property. That would be stealing. I am sure that you are tempted to publish that e-mail anyway. As a Christian you will undoubtedly resist that temptation to sin.

2 Public apologies are appropriate for public offenses. The purpose of a public apoogy is to redress public wrongs. However much you might detest what I did it was a private act. Whatever public suffering has been brought about has been rendered by your making this affair public. You are most welcome to publicly apologize for the harm that that public act has done or might have done.

 

UTEOTW -- I think I mentioned in a previous post that Barry will not be available to respond to you until sometime near the end of August. If that was not clear before, I apologize. We are both preparing for a series of lectures starting in mid-August and won't be back in the USA and functioning until then. I believe we have your email address, right? So the responses will be that way as we are not going to deal with his material here on BB any longer.

Kluge -- give it up. If you want to talk to Barry about his material, you know how to do it. Not here -- clue.

 

ColoradoFB wrote:

Yes, that is a sentiment I am sure felt by all here.

Break a leg, Barry!

 

>>>>>I believe we have your email address, right? So the responses will be that way as we are not going to deal with his material here on BB any longer.<<<<<

Helen, I think it is obvious that as much as you like to post here on evolution/creationism, that you would post your responses here if you could adequately answer your critics.

 

That was clear and was why I have not bumped anything back up to the top. I just wanted to see if yours was a general remark meaning that there hab been a change in your philosophy of dealing with things when they come up here. We seem to be on the same page, that is we will get back to it when the opportunity presents itself. Fine with me.

 

Peter, I am a member here. Barry has given some input at my request. It always interrupts him, but he is, as usual, gracious about it. He is not a member here. I can answer some general explanations about his work, but I cannot answer the technical material. He is busy. He is also recovering from flu. He is also in Australia right now!

Email Barry and ask him what you want. He will be happy to respond to personal emails, but we have both reached agreement about the worthlessness of dealing with his critics on forums. He would rather put up his responses where they will remain and he can reference them instead of rehashing some of the same material over and over again. I don't blame him a bit.

So it's not a matter of not having an answer, and you folks can quit the goad and bait game you are playing here.

 

Helen wrote:

He is free to do so. Let him respond there.. Nothing's stopping him. If he wishes to respond in his own forum to the substantive objections against his ideas lodged here, then there is nothing stopping him except his own unwillingness to do so.

Of course I do not mean immediately. I understand that he is currently ill and undoubtedly has other matters to attend to. Naturally I do not envision a timescale of days for his response. An upper bound on an appropriate time scale woulc be the time between now and the time that either Barry or Helen Setterfield claims sans reference and description of controverted issus that he has already answered someone on something.

 

Velikovsky had a very odd notion of trying to accept various Biblical miracles literally and at the same time explaining them by postulating the presence of comets or asteroids or some other astronomical phenomena with altogether improbable and unlikely effects to cause those miracles. Unfortunately he never seemed to realize that anything like the near approach of a celestial body sufficient to cause one miracle would also cause a hundred other history-making effects which somehow never happened.