In article ,
Tom Van Flandern wrote:

"Paul Schlyter" writes:

[Schlyter]: In your original Eros challenge, . you said: "If the NEAR
rendezvous with Eros shows it to be an isolated, single body, or even
a simple "binary asteroid", but without a debris field orbiting it, I
will publicly concede before the next Division of Planetary Sciences
meeting that the hypothesis leading to that prediction has failed."
The NEAR rendezvous with Eros showed it to be an isolated body. No
debris field was orbiting it - it wasn't even a binary asteroid. So
your challenge obviously failed - but you have so far not publicly
admitted the failure of your hypothesis, as you said you would.

You took that quote out of context and completely misrepresented the
challenge. It was never a one-way street - "heads you win, tails I lose".
The "challenge" was an effort to get the mainstream to take a specific
position, and to make a concession if that position failed.

Well, it wasn't a one-way street in the other way either, was it?

Does that mean that if someone had accepted your challenge, then you
would by now have admitted the failure of your EPH hypothesis? After
all, no debris field was found orbiting Eros, as you predicted when
you first made that challenge.

Specifically, the next sentence read: "If the NEAR rendezvous
with Eros shows it to be accompanied by a debris field (i.e., multiple
orbiting moons), acceptors of this challenge will publicly concede
before the next DPS meeting that the hypothesis that made that
successful prediction has earned a second look by planetary scientists."

That was your requirements on those accepting your challenge. But
are you seriously suggesting that the success or failure of your EPH
hypothesis should be dependent on whether others accepted your
challenge or not?

The challenge was issued only on the condition that someone accepted its
terms. No one ever did. The one party who discussed terms withdrew over
exact wording issues when I added the caveat (first stated in print in
1991 and 1993) about the fate of orbiting satellites if the gravity
field was unstable.

So why did you add this caveat? Why didn't you include it in your
original challenge?

And what if someone challenged you, and you wanted to enter that
challenge - but then that person started adding caveats to his
original challenge. Would you accept that?

So the challenge failed because it did not get any mainstream astronomer
to make a specific prediction about what would or would not be found at
Eros, not because my original wording was faulty.

That's probably because they had a realistic and healthy view about what
their models could and couldn't predict.

As always, mainstream theorists refuse to place their models at risk of
falsification by making specific predictions.

Really? If so, how come eclipses and occultations are routinely
predicted to high precision? Yes, these predictions are done using
mainstream theories - and these predictions are very specific. And
how come NASA even risked human lives by sending men to the Moon, by
making specific predictions on how the spacecraft would move if
subjected to a specific kind of engine burn? Again using mainstream
theories. If those theories used when computing spacecraft
trajectories had failed, the astronauts would probably have died.

Be more careful about using a word like "always" -- things aren't always as
you believe....

EPH has no such hesitancy to make specific predictions that place it at
risk of falsification; and its specific prediction for Eros, as worded
in print a year before the event, turned out to be correct. The same is
apparently the case so far with its specific predictions for Comet
Tempel 1, which had no contingencies attached.

If you take the opporturnity to modify your prediction from time to time,
its chance of success increases drastically. In particular if you increase
the number of situations you require should be regarded as a success.

BTW what was the predictions according to "the mainstream theories"
you refer to? Did all of them firmly predict that what was observed
should not have been observed, or what?

Wouldn't it be lovely if all the people attached to models that failed
to correctly predict the nature of Comet Tempel 1 would publicly announce
that failure? Don't hold your breath.

Wouldn't it be lovely if you, as you originally promised, had announced
the failure of the EPH hypothesis when no debris field orbiting Eros
was found? Don't hold your breath there either....

Theories which failed are usually not publicly declared as failures.
Instead they eventually die away, as they get fewer and fewer supporters.
In some 20-30 years we'll know better than today which theory did succeed.

Also: science is one thing, gambling is another thing. Your
challenge wasn't science, it was gambling. If a poker player wants
to exchange his cards more than the rules allow, nobody wants to play
with him - right? In your challenge, you did something equivalent:
when you found someone willing to meet your challenge, you started
adding caveats to your challenge - caveats which all were in your
favor. Naturally, that guy bowed out. Are you surprised? I'm not.

Btw did you ever consider becoming a lawyer? You seem to have a clear
talent for that....


[tvf]: But I learned of 1995 and 1996 Scheeres papers showing that
the satellite orbits around Eros were unstable because of its
elongated shape only a year before the encounter, in 1999.

[Schlyter]: Were you really unaware of Eros' elongated shape before
1995-1996?

We all learned of Eros's elongated shape from the 1973 stellar
occultation results.

Some knew about it earlier.... its elongated shape was obvious
from its light curve, decades before 1973.

[Schlyter]: Or didn't you realize that the gravitational field around
such an elongated body could cause orbits nearby to be unstable? If
so, aren't you an expert in celestial mechanics?

No, I didn't realize that the gravity field was unstable,
and yes, my principal field of training and subject of my 1969 Yale
Ph.D. dissertation was celestial mechanics. I relied on intuition that
even an elongated object could have stable orbits around an axis of
symmetry. But I should have calculated, as Scheeres did, instead of
relaying on intuition. That was a mistake. I do make them, and I also
admit them. I also did not know about Scheeres' calculations until the
aborted 1999 encounter showed the shape of Eros to be so irregular and I
started looking into gravity field stability.

You know that celestial mechanics sometimes work in uninituitive ways,
don't you? Such as when an Earth satellite in LEO is being "slowed
down" by air resistance from the very uppermost parts of our atmosphere,
it actually gains speed at first.


[Schlyter]: It's not surprising that your own web site claims your
adjusted prediction was correct - people rarely disagree with
themselves. But is there any other source (publication, paper, web
site, whatever), outside of your control, which agrees with your
conclusion here?

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking for.

I'm asking whether you know about anyone else who agrees with
your conclusion. But all you did was to provide further details and
comments about your own hypothesis.

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