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Title: When the Earth Nearly Died: Compelling Evidence of a World Cataclysm 11,500 Years Ago by D. S. Allan, Derek Allen, J. Bernard Delair ISBN: 1-85860-008-1 Publisher: Gateway Books Pub. Date: January, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.38 (24 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Read my lips: _torque_, dammit, _torque_!
Comment: I found WHEN THE EARTH NEARLY DIED to be a fascinating book. Certainly as a scholarly work it is very well done, exquisitely researched and documented. The authors do present compelling evidence for the hypothesis that one or more great cataclysms have happened to this planet during the tenure of our species upon it, and that these have been memorialized in legend and lore all over the world. Up to that point, I found it an outstanding piece of research, and would have given it five stars -- and _then_ found that a) they had postulated that only _one_ such cataclysm had occurred, that 11,500 years ago; b) that it caused an extremely rapid (within days) shift of the Earth's pole of rotation such that areas in the tropics were shifted to the temperate or arctica zones and vice-versa; and c) made a great many mistakes that those well-trained in history and the sciences would not have, such as referring to George Gamow, the great astronomer and cosmologist, one of the pioneering proponents of the Big Bang theory of cosmological evolution, as a "geologist." Concerning a), there now exists a tremendous amount of hard evidence to show that our planet has been repeatedly bombarded from space by comets and asteroids as well as undergoing atmospheric explosions of really large comets ever since it first began cooling out of its molten phase, at the end of the Hadean Eon, some 4 billion-plus years ago. For example, a barrage of four or more of these was responsible for the end of the Cretaceous Period/Mesozoic Era of Earthly life, 65 million years ago. Another, far larger such barrage was probably the cause, or one cause, of the Permian catastrophe, the largest Great Extinction of life on Earth, which terminated the Paleozoic Era of life, around 250 million years ago. In fact, such barrages, whether large or relatively small, seem, given the cratering that can still be seen on our world as well as corroborating evidence from the fossil record, to have been responsible for most or all of the terminations of various geological periods from the beginning of the Phanerozoic Eon of life onward and almost certainly before then, all the way back to the formation of our world, 5 billion years ago. Such terminations occur many times during the Cenozic Period, from 65 million years ago to the present. It would be strange if several, relatively minor such impacts and attendant disasters hadn't occurred numerous times throughout human history and prehistory -- one such may in fact have precipitated the Dark Ages, just 1500 years ago. So why just _one_ such disaster? To fit all the geological and other evidence of multiple cosmic disasters that have happened to our wrold into just one such, and that relatively recently, the authors had to conflate and confabulate their data nearly to death, thus destroying its usefulness. As for b)-- can you say "torque," children? If the Earth were to suddenly (within a few days or even less time) somehow "tip over" so that its axis of rotation was thereby noticeably shifted from its original position, by at least five degrees, as a result the Earth's crust would be peeled off its mantle like the rind off an orange, and melt down to the mantle in the process, thanks to the phenomenon of "torque," which is the resistance of a rotating, moving object to any change in angular momentum (which would perforce occur with a pole-tipping of the sort the authors postulate). Nothing would have been left of life on Earth after such a disaster, because the resistance of the Earth to such a change in its movement would liberate so much kinetic energy over such a short time that for a while, at least, what was left of this planet would be a very close approximation of Medieval ideas of the hotter parts of Hell. Obviously that hasn't happened since the Hadean eon; life has hung around here for over 4 billion years, so no such rapid change of the world's axial tilt, or of the positions of its tectonic plates relative to the poles of rotation, could have occurred in all that time. Back to the drawing board, gang . . . And as for c, mistakes such as those make it clear that the people who did such heartbreakingly careful work on their scholastic research weren't well-grounded in scientific method, the various scientific models and hypotheses pertinent to their subject, or important changes in those models since about 1985, when Luis and Walter Alvarez and their associates first revealed the results of their ground-breaking research on the Terminal Cretaceous Event to the world. Nice try, gang, and you certainly deserve an "E" for effort -- but you get a D+ for lack of scientific acumen, education, and awareness.

Rating: 4
Summary: If you're into catastrophism read it
Comment: I'm tired...don't feel like writing much. I read this a few years ago. I remember being impressed with the research the author had done in ancient mythology. 'Course for all I know, he could have made it all up! But I doubt it. I liked the book. I think if you're into this sort of stuff and haven't read this one yet, it's worth the cash. I'm goin' to bed. Night.

Rating: 5
Summary: An Open Minded Reader
Comment: Great, excellent, provocative! I rate this book 5++++. To anyone considering buying this book, totally ignore critiques citing statements like "pseudo science" "balderdash", yada, yada, yada, etc. Such readers are obviously incapable of thinking outside the orthodox box. As has been said before, "science(and other discipines)progress funeral by funeral"! The research for this book is impeccable. The authors, in addition to their monumental citations of other sicentists, historians, etc, have developed an extremely interesting hypothesis. Well worth the cost and the time it takes to devour all the details. And, finally thank goodness, they demonstrate that not all educated people think world wide myths and legends are based on fabrication. Like, duh . . . .

If you are interested in alternative theory as compared to the same ol' BS indicative of close mindedness, I know you will love this book.

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