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_Predestination And The Problem Of Historical Catastrophism_

_Victor Clube_

_Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford OX1
3RH, and _
_Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT 61 9DG_

Comets passing through the Solar System from the Oort cloud which have
lost angular momentum due to planetary close encounters include a
significant proportion of sungrazers. Continuously near the ecliptic
such bodies are also especially prone to orbital energy loss thereby
enhancing the prograde cometary population under Jovian control. Such
control extends to "Jupiter avoiding" resonances and an expectation on
this account of tidally weakened, giant sungrazers which remain long
enough in cis-Jovian space to be physically destroyed. We therefore
expect particularly massive disintegration streams containing a high
proportion of sub-kilometre meteoroids such as are required to explain
the zodiacal cloud and nodal intersection with the terrestrial orbit
arising in near-contemporary pairs such as are bound to impose a
cyclic bombardment and global cooling of the Earth. Thus individual
impactors produced this way are expected to produce mini-ice age,
(bio)-chemical pollution or "super-Tunguska" events depending on their
cohesive strength and level of break-up in or above the atmosphere. A
~2.5kyr Late Holocene cycle of this kind with an apparent
pre-Sub-boreal value of ~2.1 kyr which extends into the Late
Pleistocene is consistent with a previously named comet ("Chronos")
which was instrumental in producing the last major glaciation ~50-10
kyr BP and which subsequently experienced a significant cis-Jovian
planetary encounter ~5 kyr BP, the latter reducing its orbital
eccentricity whilst at the same time enhancing and broadening its
meteoroidal stream. Perceived initially as a central "tree of or
life", such a system was to evolve and become the present Taurid
Stream. It follows that the remnant of proto--Encke core of the
Taurids is then associated with predictable "dark age" catastrophes.
These last for several centuries and occur around 2000 - 250On BC; n =
0, 1, 2... being naturally combined with a less frequent, more random,
lower incidence of such phenomena at intervening epochs. Such a
sequence of events imposed upon the historical record and repeated
down the ages very naturally give rise to the awesome sense of destiny
amongst humankind which has pervaded to post-glacial rise of
civilisation and sustained the discipline of both cosmology and
theology. Astrologers and soothsayers (astronomers and priests)
belonging to the last "dark age" eras are therefore foremost both in
upholding the knowledge and experience of the predominant pre-"dark
age" civilisation [using cuneiform (n=0) and Latin (n+1) respectively]
and in underwriting the inevitable revival of "predestination" from
time to time. The _doctrine_ of predestination may of course be no
more than an intellectual fudge designed to make the best of a bad
situation: prearranged human bonding in relation to a supposed
omnipotent yet benevolent divinity may meet a very immediate need for
reassurance in respect of salvation from a predicted cosmic threat.
But if sophistry fails, the human condition seems to be one in which
secularists and hedonists in the name of  truth, beauty and
freedom will commonly respond by pursuing such as millenarianism,
utopianism and uniformitarianism, even as a recipe for revolution.
With the "establishment' of such "enlightenment" it is a moot point of
course whether English (n=2) will be the vehicle through which the
knowledge and experience of western civilisation are transmitted
beyond the next dark age.
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VICTOR CLUBE is currently funded by the Leverhulme Trust in
catastrophism/climate studies at Oxford University and Armagh
Observatory (in collaboration with Bill Napier) having previously held
a succession of career posts at Greenwich, Cape and Edinburgh Royal
Observatories. These studies have the same bearing to astrophysics as
Newton's historical/eschatological investigations had to dynamical
astronomy. As such, they represent a still comparatively rare academic
recognition of the highly erratic socio-political response to cosmic
phenomena (mostly to do with giant comet debris) which commonly puts
civilisation seriously at risk Publications include (as co-author)
_The Cosmic Serpent_, _The Origins of Comets_ and _The Cosmic Winter_.
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Presented at the SIS Conference: [1]Natural Catastrophes during Bronze
Age Civilisations.

References

1. file://localhost/www/sat/cambconf.htm