2012 Prediction.... Nostradamus predictions?

The 2012 doomsday predictions are unscientific nonsense, no unusual alignments are predicted for 2012, and Nostradamus never made any specific predictions for that year either.

Nostradamus never made any specific predictions.  They are all vague and the words have been twisted around so many times that they can be made to 'predict' just about anything.

Nostradamus was an alchemist, and knew nothing about astronomy. The "galactic alignment theory" is no theory and makes no scientific sense."2012" is a hoax designed to scare children and adults who know nothing about science. There is no science behind it, and no scientists believe in it.

The world has existed for over four billion years. Is it reasonable to expect that it will come to an end in less than three years? And all because of a Mayan calendar? Use some common sense.

The most interesting astronomical events in 2012 will be an annular eclipse of the Sun on 2012 May 20, a total eclipse of the Sun on 2012 Nov 13, and a transit of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun on 2012 Jun 06.

Scientists don't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen in the year 2012, or specifically on the date December 21, except for the solstice, which happens every year.

None of the "predicted" happenings for 2012 hold up under close scrutiny. "Planet X" and "Nibiru" simply don't exist. The Mayan calendar ends a cycle, but there were no predictions of the end of the world. The Sun doesn't line up with the galactic centre; it's 6 degrees off. No asteroids or comets are actually predicted to hit Earth.

All of this stuff was put together by crackpots in order to promote their books and TV shows, and shamelessly promoted by the History Channel. Don't take any of it seriously!

The best way is to _inform yourself_ about 2012 by reading factual sites about it, rather than sites that are trying to sell you something. Here are a few:
http://www.2012hoax.org/
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/69774827.html
http://blogs.jpl.nasa.gov/?p=59
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/intro/nibiru-and-doomsday-2012-questions-and-answers

Or, if you want a video, here's David Morrison of NASA:

Hey, you want us to explain the galactic alignment theory to you and you already say it makes sense to you?

The galactic alignment theory is just one thing: Wrong in all aspects. Not only that it predicts effects, that can't happen, because either cause and effect are inverted in it or not even Newtons theory of gravity is simply not understood. The claimed alignment that should initiate all events does not even happen in 2012! The last such alignment was around 1960, and it happened every winter solstice for six years then.

It is thus not our job to prove it won't happen: It is the task of those who claim that will happen, to prove this extraordinary claim. And extraordinary (=differs from the usual observations) claims require extraordinary evidence.

Just like it is easy to claim that Nostradamus predicted something AFTER it happened, and ignore all examples, where previous predictions failed. I just remind that the popular Nostradamus prediction for 9/11 was not even written by Nostradamus, but by a Canadian Highschool student, who imitated Nostradamus style of writing.

Nostradamus was also like all astrologists, far from precise in his astronomy. He used the same geocentric solar system that is still used by astrologists, and which uses imaginary planetary positions. I lately saw an astrology website, that even claims the sun is a planet. Astronomy developed from astrology, so much is right, but astronomy learned quickly, while astrology is still not even aware of Mars high inclination to the ecliptic plane.

Also, I find it very stupid about Nostradamus: His prophecies had been found to be wrong often enough, and are considered rather a piece of art, than a real prediction of something, while his real masterpiece is completely ignored. As physician or apothecary, he was really excelling, and had really done great things.

"Nostradamus was very precise in his astronomy." I think you're having a joke with us.
Galactic alignment is an invention by a bunch of crackpots in order to conjure up some sort of 'event' for 2012. Since they seem unable to provide a concise definition, we'll have to try and guess what they mean.
Could it be the Sun aligning with the centre of the Milky Way galaxy? Well, no because the centre of the Milky Way is not in the plane of the Earth's orbit, so the Sun can never line up with it.
Could they mean the Sun crossing the equator of the Milky Way? The Sun does a complete circuit of the sky every year and therefore appears in line with the Milky Way in June and December every year. So that can't be right.
What about the once in 26,000 year alignment of the solstice point with the galactic equator? Nope, that took place in 1998. No-one noticed.
All the preceding are merely line-of-sight effects as seen from the Earth's perspective. An observer on Mars would see something completely different. Some of the cranks have become confused and decided that galactic alignment must be something to do with the revolution of the whole solar system around the galaxy, taking 225 million years. During this orbit, the solar system bobs up and down a few times and measurements taken from the Hipparcos satellite reveal that the solar system is currently moving away from the central plane of the galaxy and won't pass through it for another 30 million years or so. That can't be what they mean then.
So we have: 1) Can't ever happen 2) Happens every year 3) Happened in 1998 or 4) Won't happen for 30 million years.
Take your pick.

There seems to be much confusion regarding Nostradamus. He was not an astronomer nor was he an alchemist. His college life consisted of one year of basic grammar and philosophies before the plague forced the shutdown of the French University of Avignon. He spent the following years as a self-taught apothecary. However, his herbal cures did not save his wife or children from dying from the plague. He desired a career in medicine but colleges would not accept him due to his apothecary practices. He turned to writing an almanac filled with astrological calendars, horoscopes, and advice. He held no training in this field. He did not even know how to fill out birth charts. It was this experience in writing which led him down his path.

In 1555, laws such as copyright and plagiarism did not exist. Nostradamus found earlier works in Latin written by Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Jean Froissart, Richard Roussat, Pseudo-Methodius, the Tiburtine Sibyl, Joachim of Fiore, Savonarola, Petrus Crinitus, Michael Psellus, Iamblichus, and others including biblical text. Nostradamus translated these into his home language of French. His book Les Propheties De M. Michel Nostradamus was literally The Prophesies by M. Michel Nostradamus NOT The Prophesies OF M. Michel Nostradamus.

Perhaps Nostradamus noticed the confusion of the wording, perhaps not. At any rate he rode high on his newfound popularity. It was his only source of income. He also wrote two medical books (which he had no training in) filled with plagiarism.

Again, it was 1555. A time when the Roman Catholic Church was grappling to hold onto its political power by imprisoning, torturing, and killing anyone who was deemed a threat. Nostradamus avoided heresy charges by arranging his collection of other author's works in quatrain form. His head was also spared since the French queen of king Henri II was stupified by astrology. Much like Nancy Reagan.

Although the plagiarism of Nostradamus was already beginning to be recognized in the late 1500s, this was a culture which wanted to believe in mystery and magic. Much like todays world. Few want to know the truth or have any desire to research it for themselves. So we have the internet gossip and tv shows about Nostradamus which are based upon pure fiction and nobody seems to care.

There exists no galactic alignment theory. It is a hoax propelled by internet disinformation. Remember, the internet has no laws governing truth or reliability of any website. I looked up Survive2012 on the web today. The author's name was nowhere to be found. Apparantly Patrick Geryl is beginning to fear that Nibiru will not show up to reverse Earth's magnetic poles so he has started removing his name from the internet. He only signed one page as "watcher". Beware of this kind of crap.

The Earth's axial rotation has a wobble due to torque expressed as precession. Precession causes the Sun to APPEAR to travel through the constellations such as Pisces and Aquarius. This is astrology. It is not something physical but is only something AS SEEN FROM EARTH. The 'galactic alignment' follows the same principle. If you pick a day - any day - out of our calendar, the band of the Milky Way will APPEAR FROM EARTH to go up or down in the sky according to when the sun rises. This has happened tens of times in the last hundreds of years with NO effect. In fact, technically the Sun crosses this band twice each and every year with NO effect but let's focus on the time of sunrise for now. So let's pick out the December solstice. The band of the Milky Way will APPEAR FROM EARTH to be low on the horizon at sunrise anytime between 2008 and 2016 just as it also did in 3114BC when NOTHING happened. Papyrus writing existed at this time. NOTHING was recorded about anything happening.

So how about the magic death beams from the galactic center when this happens? Notice how I stressed that this is visual only - not physical. If anyone is standing on the Moon or Mars or anywhere else in our Solar System on this day (or any other) they will not see any alignment. Only Earthlings will see it. It is NOT PHYSICAL. No unusual beams. Nothing. When you hear someone speak of a galactic alignment, remember to think of having Pluto in Gemini. It's stuff seen from Earth only. Pluto is not really in Gemini and our Sun will not be in alignment with the galactic plane. At least not for another 27 million years when our Sun WILL PHYSICALLY cross the galactic plane as it does every 33 million years. Not much to worry about until then.