Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ecsvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Newman, Edison, Velikovsky
Message-ID: <738@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Nov-85 18:06:59 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.738
Posted: Mon Nov 11 18:06:59 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Nov-85 07:45:02 EST
References: <175@tulane.UUCP>, <441@looking.UUCP> <2960@ncsu.UUCP> <180@opus.UUCP> <301@inuxm.UUCP>
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 80

> Briefly, in l950, Immanuel Velikovsky proposed a reconstruction of history
> and a new look at how the Solar System attained its present status.

For what it's worth, Dr Velikovsky's efforts were hardly brief or
confined to the 1950s.  Until his death a few years ago he maintained
that he "would not change a word" of his books (mainly Worlds In
Collision and Ages in Chaos) that propounded his novel and wholly loony
notions of prehistory.

> . . .  why, in 1950, that crackpot
> predicted that the face of Mars would be pockmarked by craters and would
> have long cracks caused by other celestial phenomena; he said that Jupiter
> would have radio noise as a result of interaction with charged particles
> spewing from the sun; he indicated that Venus would be in a near-molten state
> because it was still cooling down from its history as a recently-formed
> planet; he said that the Earth's magentic field effects extended beyond the
> Moon, and even that the Moon would show remnant magnetism, and evidence of
> recent cometary impacts; he said that the Sun would have a measurable 
> electrical charge; he said that some petroleum deposits would carbon-date
> (or otherwise be dated) in thousands of years, rather than millions; he
> concluded a wild and crazy origin for Linear B script (a great mystery in
> those days).

Dr Velikovsky's defenders understandably emphasize the successes in his
theory - the claims he made that later turned out to be true.  There's
nothing wrong with this except that not one of them (to my knowledge)
was original with Velikovsky.  The notion that Cretan Linear B was an
early Greek was proposed back in the mid-40s or so, for instance
(contrary to the assertions of some Velikovsky enthusiasts).  In
addition, many of Dr V's claims are known to be totally wrong
(including a few obvious ones in the list quoted above), and in several
cases were clearly based on simple ignorance rather than original
thinking.  To use an oft-cited example, Velikovsky seems not to have
had a clear understanding of the difference between hydrocarbons and
carborhydrates.  He wrote a little-known paper denying the existence of
gravity and offering silly arguments for the idea.  (I might add that
someone can reach the correct conclusion and still be a nut.  I
remember a sitcom in which somebody kept winning football pools by
betting based on the relative ferocity of the teams' mascots.)

> Why, that crazy guy evn said that all cultures on earth have legends of
> a universal flood,

and they don't, of course.

> In summary, that crackpot, that charlatan, why he upset the uniformitarian
> paradigm of 1950.
> 
> --arlan andrews

This is not the place to go into a recent history of scientific
thought, nor I am likely to suggest that scientists are perfect beings,
but it is bogus to claim that Dr Velikovsky was rejected out of hand
simply because he failed to conform to dogma.  Why is Fred Hoyle, who
has come up with some pretty wild ideas in his time, held in such high
regard in scientific circles while Velikovsky is ignored?  A big reason
is that Velikovsky treated his critics with contempt even before they
had had a chance to criticize him (read Worlds In Collision and see
what I mean).  He derided anyone foolish enough to take ice ages or
evolution seriously.  I remember that when I first started reading WIC
I was amazed.  I admit I had expected a crackpot, but I had not
expected such an offensive, contemptuous, mean-spirited, dumb
crackpot.  Furthermore, not all of the alleged attempts at suppressing
Velikovsky's ideas were really aimed at Dr V.  Shapely's boycott
against the original publisher of Worlds In Collision really was
directed at the publisher (for presenting the book to a naive public as
if it were a great scientific achievement) rather than against
Velikovsky himself.

Anyway, as Dick Dunn says:
> Velikovsky has shown himself to be a charlatan of the first order--and a
> nasty one at that.  The scientific establishment has ample reason to be
> angry with him; they've got to deal with the crap he's slinging.
> -- 
> Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary