Arguments Against The Hypothesis
There are several dating methods which contradict the hypothesis.
- Observations in ancient astronomy agree with current observations with no "phantom time" added;
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- sightings of Halley's Comet.
- Archeological remains and dating methods such as dendrochronology refute, rather than support, phantom time.
- Regarding the Gregorian reform: It was never intended to bring the calendar in line with the Julian calendar as it had existed in 45 BC, the time of its insitution, but as it had existed in 325, the time of the Council of Nicaea, which had established a method for determining the date of Easter Sunday by fixing the Vernal Equinox on March 20 in the Julian calendar. By 1582, the astronomical equinox was occurring on March 10 in the Julian calendar, but Easter was still being calculated from a nominal equinox on March 20. The Gregorian reform was never intended or purported to restore the relationship between calendar date and astronomical equinox to what it had been at the time of the institution of the Julian calendar in 45 BC, 369 years before the council of Nicaea, when the astronomical vernal equinox took place around March 23. Illig's "three missing centuries" thus correspond to the period between the institution of the Julian calendar in 45 BC and the fixing of the Easter Date at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.
Read more about this topic: Phantom Time Hypothesis
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“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
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