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Basically, a small part of the notion of ‘easy to vary’ gets to live on in Veritula as an approximation, as Popper would phrase it.

That’s only some of the criticisms though. Others have nothing to do with easy/hard to vary.

But the criticisms don’t try to find out how easy to vary the Persephone myth is. Nor do we try to find out how hard to vary the axis-tilt theory is.

But some of the criticisms basically say that the Persephone myth is “easy to vary”.

@liberty-fitz-claridge take a look at this discussion as a whole. At the time of writing, the Persephone myth (#4240) has 5 pending criticisms, whereas the axis-tilt theory (#4243) has no pending criticisms. Hence a rational preference for the latter: Veritula says to reject ideas with pending criticisms and adopt those without.

If any prediction of this theory is found to be false, we can easily change it to make different predictions. That’s bad.

If any prediction of this theory is found to be false, we could easily change it to make different predictions. That’s bad.

“[W]e have no way of knowing that Demeter is sad…” (BoI chapter 1)

“[P]eople do not generally cool their surroundings when they are sad…” (BoI chapter 1)

[T]he true explanation of seasons [says] that the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun. Hence for half of each year the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun while the southern hemisphere is tilted away, and for the other half it is the other way around. Whenever the sun’s rays are falling vertically in one hemisphere (thus providing more heat per unit area of the surface) they are falling obliquely in the other (thus providing less).
[S]urfaces tilted away from radiant heat are heated less than when they are facing it, and … a spinning sphere in space points in a constant direction.

[W]hy those gods and not others? …
[W]hy is it specifically a magic seed and not any other kind of magic? Why is it a conjugal-visits contract and not some other reason for someone to repeat an action annually?

This explanation basically just says “the gods did it.” The details have no bearing on the underlying explanation.

This explanation predicts that the seasons happen at the same time everywhere. It contradicts observation: in Australia, the seasons are ‘inverted’.

Long ago, Hades, god of the underworld, kidnapped and raped Persephone, goddess of spring. Then Persephone’s mother, Demeter, goddess of the earth and agriculture, negotiated a contract for her daughter’s release, which specified that Persephone would marry Hades and eat a magic seed that would compel her to visit him once a year thereafter. Whenever Persephone was away fulfilling this obligation, Demeter became sad and would command the world to become cold and bleak so that nothing could grow.