Site Section Links
Introduction Material
Articles
The Third Story
Features
Cosmology, Origins
The Nature of Time
Nature of Time video
The Nature of Space
The Neutrino Aether
Nature of Force Fields
Geophysical Material
Origin of Modern
Geology
Niagara Falls Issues
Climate Change Model
Climate Change Questions
Philosophy Material
Philosophy Links
Reconstruction &
Mythology Material
Modern Mythology Material
Language/Symbol Development
1994 Velikovsky Symposium
Pensee Journals TOC
Selected Velikovskian Article
Miscellaneous Material
Modern Mythology
State of Religious Diversity
PDF Download Files
Open letter to science editors
|
Velikovsky and Establishment Science
[1]
Lewis M. Greenberg
Editor's Note., A good deal of the commentary in
this issue is concerned with unpublished AAAS manuscripts which may have
been subsequently revised.
Editor's Preface ...
On February 25, 1974, a Symposium on Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in
Collision was held by the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Nearly one and one-half years had passed since the seed of the idea for an
AAAS symposium devoted to Velikovsky's work first took root in the mind of
Walter Orr Roberts, a past-president of the association. Regrettably, what
ultimately transpired could hardly qualify as a meaningful and objective
scientific exchange, though it did provide "bread and circuses" for a
hungry press that appeared uniformly orchestrated.
The symposium's moderator -- Ivan King -- was totally uninformed on the
subject at hand and displayed unbelievable prejudicial impropriety both
before and during the symposium. Moreover, the symposium panel itself was
like a stacked deck.
Sociologist Norman Storer was unable to find the time, prior to the
symposium, to travel from New York City to Princeton so that he might avail
himself of Velikovsky's archival material. Thus, he remained ignorant of
the primary documents pertaining to the "Velikovsky Affair". At the
symposium, Storer merely employed some fancy rhetoric to rationalize and
absolve the ignoble behavior of the scientific community towards
Velikovsky. His paper, like his presence, was pure filler. Later, in a
personal letter to another sociologist, Storer confessed that he hadn't
"gone very deeply into the specific details of the [Velikovsky] case --
assuming [his] role to be primarily one of establishing perspective."
Not until he was prodded by Velikovsky did statistician Peter Huber
acknowledge current non-uniformitarian literature when dealing with the
Venus tablets of Ammizaduga. Even then, Huber preferred to invoke "scribal
errors" when data did not conform to his expectations and had to juggle more
than 50% of his material to get it to "work".
J. Derral Mulholland, celestial mechanician, destroyed his reputation for
precision with his very first symposium statement: "Venus and Mars erupted
into the sky and ... finally, the two giant comets [sic] settled down
into their present harmless orbits and became peaceable planets. - ." Then,
Mulholland conceded that "if a planetsized object were to pass close
by the Earth, then giant tides would be raised, there would be global
earth-quakes, the north pole would change direction. The day, the month,
the seasons, the year would all change . . . . these are unavoidable
consequences of the laws of motion as we presently know them. We must
accept that the dynamical aspects of Velikovsky's visions of hell on Earth
are largely acceptable."
After these opening remarks, however, Mulholland spent the rest of his
time denying that the events described in Worlds in Collision
could have occurred. As a devastating retort, we may cite some recent
publications by Prof. Robert W. Bass, Rhodes Scholar, who took his
doctorate in 1955 under the late Aurel Wintner -- then the world's
leading authority on celestial mechanics. The reader is referred to the
following articles by Bass: "Did Worlds Collide?" Pensee VIII
(Summer, 1974), pp. 8-20; "Can Worlds Collide?" KRONOS 1:3 (Fall, 1975),
pp. 59-71; " 'Proofs' of the Stability of the Solar System," KRONOS 11:2
(November, 1976), pp. 27-45.
Carl Sagan, astronomer, outdid all of his colleagues combined when it
came to the number of errors committed, ad hominem quips, and
unscholarly behavior. The capstone of his actions was a premature
departure from the AAAS symposium in order to appear on the Johnny
Carson Show.
Of all the statements contained in Sagan's AAAS paper, perhaps the most
heinous, unprofessional, and ill-conceived was the one about
Velikovsky's originality, priority, and predictive correctness: "My
conclusion will be that where Velikovsky is original, he is very likely
wrong; and that where he is right, the idea has been preempted by
earlier workers. There are also a large number of cases where he is
neither right nor original." A remark like that is better saved for its
author and runs contrary to the Space Age evidence of more than twenty
years.
Sagan's attitude stands in marked contrast with the earlier decency and
fairness of such prominent members of the American scientific community
as Bargmann, Motz, and Hess. V. Bargmann, physicist (Princeton
University), and Lloyd Motz, astronomer (Columbia University), wrote a
joint letter to Science (December 2 1, 1962, Vol. 138, pp.
1350-1352) claiming for Velikovsky the correct prediction of the great
heat of Venus, the radionoises from Jupiter, and the existence of a
magnetosphere around the Earth, even though they did not agree with his theories.
Shortly thereafter, Professor H. H. Hess, Chairman of the Space Board of
the National Academy of Sciences, wrote the following in a letter to
Velikovsky dated March 15, 1963: "You have after all predicted that
Jupiter would be a source of radio noise, that Venus would have a high
surface temperature, that the sun and bodies of the solar system would
have large electrical charges and several other such predictions. Some
of these predictions were said to be impossible when you made them. All
of them were predicted long before proof that they were correct came to
hand. Conversely I do not know of any specific prediction you made that
has since been proven false."
By the time the present reader comes upon these words, Cornell
University Press will have published an anti-Velikovsky book Scientists
Confront Velikovsky -- containing the AAAS papers of Storer, Huber,
Mulholland, and Sagan. Emblazoned on its jacket cover are the words
"For the First Time, a Group of Eminent Scholars Reply to Velikovsky's
Theory of Worlds in Collision". The book purports to be "a full-scale
critique of Velikovsky's work from several perspectives". Nevertheless,
the more discerning reader will quickly discover that the Cornell book
is no more effectual than the impotent arguments of the entire
generation that preceded it.
What is set forth here in the following pages -- beginning with
Velikovsky's original AAAS address -- is a full-scale rejoinder to
Cornell, the AAAS symposium, and the "high society" (to borrow Donald
Goldsmith's phrase) of scientific orthodoxy. It is also meant to set
the record straight and right a grievous wrong; and the reader will
clearly see why the standing ovation accorded Velikovsky, by the nearly
1400 people present at the AAAS symposium, was truly deserved.
In a recent informal TV interview, Velikovsky said that "you can fool
history for so long, but you cannot fool it forever". For Sagan,
Asimov, Goldsmith, et al, the moment of historical reckoning is
near at hand.
Prior to the AAAS symposium, Ivan King proclaimed that "what disturbs
the scientists is the persistence of [Velikovsky's] views, in spite of
all the efforts that scientists have spent on educating the public". To
this, we may paraphrase a well-known admonition "Scientist, Educate
Thyself?"
[1].
Dr. Velikovsky is not responsible for the editorial policies of
KRONOS and is not to be held accountable for the views, the
contents, nor the expressions of other contributors contained
herein. - The Ed.
|