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1694 censure

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A paragraph in the Publications and inventions section that was introduced back in 2013 states:

The Royal Society censured Halley for suggesting in 1694 that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact.[1] A similar theory was independently suggested three centuries later, but is generally rejected by geologists.[2]

I'm pretty sure that the statement about Halley being censured is incorrect; the source for it, The cosmic serpent by Clube and Napier (which can be borrowed from archive.org), makes no mention of censure. The same statement has been made online,[3][4] in a paper,[5] and even a book,[a][6] but all of these look to have been published after the 2013 edit to Wikipedia [b] and are similarly worded so it's likely they were just lifted from this article.

There were no doubt people at the Royal Society who took issue with Halley's comments but I haven't found a single reliable source to back up the claim that he was censured by them. I believe this actually stemmed from a note published alongside a reply to the lecture text:[7]

N. B. The foregoing Papers having Been read before the Society thirty Years since, were then deposited by the Author in their Archives, and not published; he being sensible that he might have adventured ultra crepidam: and apprehensive least by some unguarded Expression he might incur the Censure of the Sacred Order.

It would also be a good idea to get rid of the easter egg link and to mention the other hypothesis which has been compared with Halley's thoughts. Essentially, I think the paragraph should be reworked to something like this:

In 1694, during a presentation at the Royal Society, Halley suggested that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact.[8][9] The transcript of the talk was held from being published by Halley for 30 years for fear that he would be accused of blasphemy.[7][10][11] Two similarly controversial hypotheses involving comets in recent history, Tollmann's bolide hypothesis and the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, have been suggested over three centuries later.

There's a chance that I've missed something though so it would be great to get a second pair of eyes on this!

Notes

  1. ^ In fairness, the book is self-published and it does cite Wikipedia.
  2. ^ The Freedom From Religion Foundation article had no mention of censure before 2016 — https://web.archive.org/web/20160702011631/http://ffrf.org/news/day/8/11/freethought/

References

  1. ^ V. Clube and B. Napier, The Cosmic Serpent London: Faber and Faber, 1982.
  2. ^ Deutsch, A., C. Koeberl, J.D. Blum, B.M. French, B.P. Glass, R. Grieve, P. Horn, E.K. Jessberger, G. Kurat, W.U. Reimold, J. Smit, D. Stöffler, and S.R. Taylor, 1994, The impact-flood connection: Does it exist? Terra Nova. v. 6, pp. 644–650.
  3. ^ Laurie Gaylor, Annie. "Edmund Halley". Freedom From Religion Foundation. Archived from the original on 8 September 2021. The Royal Society censured him for suggesting in 1694 that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact.
  4. ^ Chapman, Alan (30 November 2014). "Astromeet Lecture Write-up: 'Edmond Halley: astronomer, geophysicist and sea captain' (Dr Alan Chapman)". Whitby & District Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 9 September 2021. In 1694 Halley then suggested that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact, this was a little too preposterous for the liking of The Royal Society who censured Halley.
  5. ^ Hannan, Martin (4 July 2016). "Team solves mystery of Halley's Comet's orbit". The National. Archived from the original on 9 September 2021. Retrieved 9 September 2021. Halley himself suggested that comets could batter Earth – an atheist, he was censured by the Royal Society in 1694 for suggesting that Noah's Flood was caused by a comet hitting the Earth.
  6. ^ Pearson, Richard (2020). The History of Astronomy. Lulu.com. p. 586. ISBN 978-0-244-86650-1. Retrieved 9 September 2021. The Royal Society censured Halley for suggesting in 1694 that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact.
  7. ^ a b Halley, Edmond (31 December 1724). "VIII. Some farther thoughts upon the same subject, delivered on the 19th of the same month". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 33 (383): 123–125. Bibcode:1724RSPT...33..123H. doi:10.1098/RSTL.1724.0024. ISSN 0261-0523. Wikidata Q108459319. N. B. The foregoing Papers having Been read before the Society thirty Years since, were then deposited by the Author in their Archives, and not published; he being sensible that he might have adventured ultra crepidam: and apprehensive least by some unguarded Expression he might incur the Censure of the Sacred Order.
  8. ^ Halley, Edmond (31 December 1724). "VII. Some cosiderations about the cause of the universal Deluge, laid before the Royal Society, on the 12th of December 1694". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 33 (383): 118–123. Bibcode:1724RSPT...33..118H. doi:10.1098/RSTL.1724.0023. ISSN 0261-0523. Wikidata Q108458886.
  9. ^ Levitin, Dmitri (4 September 2013). "Halley and the eternity of the world revisited". Notes and Records. 67 (4): 315–329. doi:10.1098/RSNR.2013.0019. ISSN 0035-9149. PMC 3826193. Wikidata Q94018436. However, [Edmond Halley] returned to the subject a year later in a lecture 'About the Cause of the Universal Deluge' read to the Society on 12 December 1694. Halley advanced a theory of periodic catastrophism; specifically, he suggested—two years before a similar idea was put forward by William Whiston—that the Flood was caused by a comet.
  10. ^ Levitin, Dmitri (2015). Ancient wisdom in the age of the new science : histories of philosophy in England, c. 1640-1700. Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-316-39824-1. OCLC 925280767. Like Hooke he presented his ideas in lectures to the Royal Society (1694-95), and like those of his friend these were only published much later, due to fear of 'incur[ring] the Censure of the Sacred Order'.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^ Colavito, Jason. "Halley on Noah's Comet". Jason Colavito. Retrieved 9 September 2021. Halley prevented their publication, however, for fear that ecclesiastical authorities would accuse him of blasphemy, and they were only published in 1723 and again in 1734.

Aluxosm (talk) 14:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

With all the above, and this sort of thing, in mind:
"The Royal Society censured Halley for suggesting in 1694 that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact. A similar theory was independently suggested three centuries later, but is generally rejected by geologists."
Might it be worth considering a link somewhere in this article to Wikipedia's entry for The Analyst?
"Alciphron was widely read and caused a bit of a stir. But it was an offhand comment mocking Berkeley's arguments by the 'free-thinking' royal astronomer Sir Edmund Halley that prompted Berkeley to pick up his pen again and try a new tack. The result was The Analyst, conceived as a satire attacking the foundations of mathematics with the same vigour and style as 'free-thinkers' routinely attacked religious truths." CatNip48 (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was looking at this for other reasons, and I agree that this claim of a formal censure appears to be complete bunk and just made up. In the published account of the 1694 talk, there is no mention of any such response after the talk and before 'deposited in the Archives', which is where it would almost certainly be (imagine writing a colophon about the reaction to the talk which didn't mention that?!); if it had triggered a formal censure, it should have been logged or published somewhere after the Society had debated, voted, and duly passed it in accordance with bylaws; if the response to the talk had been so furious and vicious as that, he would never have deposited it; and had it been deposited, it would've been quietly destroyed or lost, and not published 30 years later after approval by a Committee. And then in his detailed blow-by-blow account of Halley's controversial views, including the 1694 talk, Levitin 2013 never breaths a word of such a thing happening, even though it would have been critical context in discussing how Halley lost his 1691 bid for a plum professor job 3 years before.
Since nowhere is there any trace of where this censure supposedly is or details like when it happened and so on, I would say this ought to be removed - with prejudice, in case anyone comes back with a new citation "proving" it which turns out to have been published post-2013... --Gwern (contribs) 00:45 21 November 2024 (GMT)

Place of Birth/Death

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An anonymous editor (LDS20) wants to change the places of birth and death from England to Kingdom of England. I find this both ridiculous and superfluous. Kingdom of England is a political entity, England is a geographical one. Ones place of birth/death is geographical, hence England not Kingdom of England. Are we going to go through hundred of thousands or even millions of Wikipedia articles changing places of birth/death to the relevant political entities, instead of geographical locations? Halley, of course provides another problem. When he died he no longer lived in the Kingdom of England, the Act of Union having taken place in 1707, He, however, still lived in the geographical location England! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thony C. (talk • contribs) 07:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing about me is anonymous. And I find it quite silly this notion of "geography". You can look at the info boxes for any other high-profile person be it a sports coach, politician, high profile murderer, and yes even scientists and it will have an appropriate link to the nation / political entity of birth and death. On no other occasion have I seen that (that I can think of) where it just says the geographic location (with exceptions to overlinking a specific link). An example being George Washington. His place of birth is linked appropriately to "Popes Creek, Virginia, British America" not the latter with no links and with an arbitrary location such as just "America". I find it just bizarre why there would be such resistance to a non-vandalizing addition such as what I've been attempting to add here to no avail. And yes, I will go through as many articles as I can fixing this because isn't that the point of this website? To provide as much relevant information as possible to the articles of this site? Or are we just cherry picking what makes the cut into an article now? LDS20 (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Halley Infobox

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I believe there is an error in the HALLEY INFOBOX. (Died 25 January 1742 [O.S. 14 January 1741] (aged 85) Greenwich, Kent, England) Shouldn't that be (Died 25 January 1742 [O.S. 14 January 1742] (aged 85)? DMc75771 (talk) 17:02, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Halley Infobox

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Vol.6 of Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972) has Halley's birth date as 29 October 1656[?] and death date as 14 January 1743. What gives? DMc75771 (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Size of Paramour disagreement

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The length of sailing ship Paramuour is listed as 52 feet (16 m) 6 gun pink (sailship). For the voyages it performed (almost a year of sailing in the Atlantic a 16 m sailship would IMO be hard pressed to load all provisions for 20 people crew, and in HMS Paramour (1694) article lenghth is 64 feet 8 inches (19.71 m). I suppose 52 feet is a typo here, but did not yet clheck/verify by sources. Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 23:57, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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