Talk:Immanuel Velikovsky/Archive 3

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Good stuff thoug that Veli

Did much to shake thing up and did bring catastrophism into focus. Wonderful fot it's scope on myths. If you take it for what it has it is very good stuff indeed.... suggestive, not definitive, connotative, not denotative.Wblakesx (talk) 08:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Ages in Chaos

Some reorganisation needs to be done here. The material in this article should be condensed and some of it moved to the Ages in Chaos article. PatGallacher (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC).

Henry Bauer re: James Hogan

James Hogan's "defense" of Velikovsky should be given no credence, as Henry Bauer explained in his review of Hogan's Kicking the Sacred Cow, pp. 425-6. There are many, like Hogan, who continue to champion Velikovsky's long-discredited heresies; but their ignorance, willful or otherwise, should not be encouraged by citations in the Velikovsky entry. Those who believe the case for Velikovsky is still open are encouraged to read David Morrison's 2001 "Velikovsky at Fifty" cited in the Velikovsky entry. Phaedrus7 (talk) 15:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

WOW such a neutral point of view you got there. At least I have an open mind and could accept some of this if there is more information presented. Heresy? Maybe misguided but not Heresy. I will add this to my pile for consideration. And believe me, I know 90 percent of Velikovsky is questionable but I would never use the term Heresy. Magnum Serpentine (talk) 18:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Dear Magnum Serpentine, What motivates your "WOW"? You evidently do not know the meaning of the word "heresy", one of whose definitions is "dissent from a dominant theory or opinion in any field". Velikovsky believed, among many other beliefs, that the orbits of Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars, at the least, have changed in the memory of man which is contradicted by everything we know about the resonances among the planets revealed by the varves in the shales of the Green River Formation and the Newark Basin. He also believed that when Venus flew past Earth ca. 3500 years ago so much debris was deposited in our atmosphere as to produce 40 years of darkness; but there is no sign of this debris anywhere on Earth: not on the ocean bottoms, not in the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, and not even in the Sea of Galilee. Robert Jastrow's 1980 article on Velikovsky in Science Digest was titled "Hero or Heretic?" Get it? A heretic holds beiefs that are heresy with respect to the dominant scientific and/or scholarly consensus. As for an "open mind", revere the words of G.K. Chesterton: "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." (Autobiography. Collected Works Vol. 16, p. 212). Phaedrus7 (talk) 20:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to say Phaedrus7, I agree with Magnum's post. You can post quotes all you like defending both your original post and your non-neutral POV regarding Velikovsky, but it doesn't make your case any stronger. On Bauer's book, in his own words: "In Part I, I attempt to tell, without bias and in chronological sequence, the story of the controversy. Part II details my personal analysis of the affair and touches on wider issues that are relevant--how to distinguish cranks from scientists, for example. I attempt to make the difficult point that one can reach personal conviction without losing sight of the fact that personal convictions are not necessarily true. In Part III, I review the affair in the light of my conclusions, seeking to show that the main themes of this controversy will be found in many other public arguments, especially that gross misunderstandings about "science" abound. And I attempt a valid but nontechnical description of what science really is." I'm sorry, this book really doesn't appear to deal with V's work, or the controversy, in any type of a detailed way. The book certainly seems to be a published soap box upon which Bauer can stand, denounce V, and espouse about psuedo this and let us all know what science really is. imo if this is the only source of your knowledge on V I would recommend digging a bit deeper before playing around in this article. X900BattleGrape (talk) 15:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Gee, X900BattleGrape, yours is quite an incongruous conclusion insofar as Velikovsky was certainly a "heretic" in the popular usage of the word. Furthermore, all the reviewers of Bauer's Beyond Velikovsky believed it did "deal with V's work", even David Morrison in his 2001 Skeptic article "Velikovsky at Fifty", cited above. Have you read Bauer's book? The book was completed in 1979 before the Greenland ice core evidence was brought to bear against Worlds in Colision in 1984; but it contains a detailed analysis of Velikovsky's archaic scientific thinking as exhibited in the 1946 pamphlet Cosmos without Gravitation, in which Bauer concludes that Velikovsky was "an ignoramous masquerading as a sage". Due to a delay in the publication date (1984), Bauer was able to insert a few additions after 1979, but was not able to incorporate the ice core evidence. As it is the published book is only two thirds of what was submitted in the manuscript. Phaedrus7 (talk) 16:55, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You clearly have an opinion which is not NPOV, and parading around this book (by an AIDS denialist, anti-homosexual, and worse) around wont help your case one iota. As to his review of Hogan he states "Hogan does not address the points made in my book as to why science had no reason to attend to Velikovsky". Pardon me for a moment, but is the point of Hogan's book to present its own view, evidence, etc. on Velikovsky? I think that it is, and Bauer sounds more like a spoiled child who's upset because A) Hogan didn't reach the same conclusion as him and B) Didn't heavily reference his book. The entire point of such endeavors, by himself or Hogan, is to go to source material and I'm sorry, but I hope you'll agree, Bauer's book is not source material. Hogan's point is largely on the controversy and reserves final judgement on the science behind it. It's telling that Bauer misses this point. I have picked up Bauer's book, and others, but for now I am slogging through perhaps the most important source material; namely V's original three books. Once done there I will dig into other books. I have read Hogan's account, and I can say with certainty that it hardly takes a stance, though it hints at one, and more aims to illuminate the controversy and does (like Bauer's book I should hope) point to all source materials which it references. It makes no claim one way or the other and it certainly doesn't play around with hot-button words in the way that Bauer's does; to me this is the indication of someone with an axe to grind. In any case I will read the book, but I recommend wholeheartedly that you expand your own scope of knowledge here before prognosticating on V based on a single book that, by initial inspection, has all the markings of a book with a predetermined agenda and POV. X900BattleGrape (talk) 14:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

ON the contrary, X900BattleGrape, what is significant about Hogan's discussion of the Velikovsky controversy is that it is based almost entirely, if not entirely, on sources published prior to 1984 when Beyond Velikovsky was published thereby ignoring both the most significant critique to that time and the practice of proper scholarship. Furthermore, Hogan ignores astronomer David Morrison's several critiques of Velikovsky, the most prominent being "Velikovsky at Fifty" in Skeptic 9(1), 2001, reprinted in The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience (and linked in the entries for Immanuel Velikovsky and Worlds in Collsion). Your POV is totally off the wall and it is well recognized that there is no NPOV when identifying crackpot nonsense such as Velikovsky's and labelling it correctly as "pseudoscience". Obviously you have no NPOV, either, since you show no understanding of just how ludicrous Velikovsky's claims were and are considering that nothing has been learned since 1950 that would give Velikovsky any more credibility or legitimacy than he had then. Velikovsky claimed that the debris Venus deposited in Earth's atmosphere 3500 years ago produced 40 years of darkness. But there is no sign of this debris that would have blanketed the Earth anywhere, not in the polar ice caps, the ocean bottoms, or even the Sea of Galilee. Furthermore, had Venus come so close to Earth, the Moon would have been loosed; but it is still here in a circular, spin-orbit resonant orbit which contradicts the Moon having been disturbed anytime recently as Velikovsky and his apostles claim. Anyone making such suggestions against the overwhelming negative evidence deserves to be labelled "crackpot" and his ideas "pseudoscience". Phaedrus7 (talk) 18:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Slanted Article

While reading this article, it is very obvious that this article is written by people who don't support Velikovsky's theories, but instead support Henry Bauer's blatant crudeness.

In Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy he states that Velikovsky based his theories on "nonconcordant facts," when, in reality, all a nonconcordant fact is is a fact that does not go along with the popular theory of the time. This shows that Bauer, and others like him, such as Carl Sagan, only try to debunk Velikovsky's theories because he proved that mainstream theories are wrong.

Velikovsky himself said that theories should made to fit the facts, not facts made to fit the theories. Read the prologue for Worlds in Collision, and you'll see that. Whatishere (talk) 18:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Whatishere: "… it is very obvious that this article is written by people who … support Henry Bauer's blatant crudeness." What exactly makes this obvious? -- Jmc (talk) 23:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

What makes it obvious is that there are no links to supporters of Velikovsky. This article also acts as though he was proven wrong by Bauer and Sagan, when in fact he was just blacklisted. No one actually found any evidence that proved his theories wrong, including in the written histories he studied, or the physical evidence that he studied across the world. People such as Bauer and Sagan bend the facts so that their theories can be proven right. Velikovsky changed his theories to fit the facts. --Whatishere (talk) 18:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

If "theories should [be] made to fit the facts", then Velikovsky did NOT do this insofar as he let hypothesis trump evidence--for example in the section of Worlds in Colision "Temples and Obelisks", in which none of this specifics accord with the evidentiary facts, as explained by Ellenberger in "Altered Temple Axes". For another example of Velikovsky's corrupt scholarship, see Abraham Sachs' "ambush" at Brown University in March 1965 which Velikovsky was never able to rebut, despite his promise to do so. Famously, Bob Forrest showed in the 1980s in his privately published Velikovsky's Sources and later in A Guide to Velikovsky's Sources (Santa Barbara, 1987), that seldom did the content of Velikovsky's sources match the spin Velikovsky applied to them. The complaint by Whatishere is completely without merit. Phaedrus7 (talk) 15:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Velikovsky used more than enough evidence. In "Worlds in Collision," he looked to historical accounts of disasters, including the Bible and other ancient texts. In "Earth in Upheaval," he looked at physical evidence. Have you been to any of the places he described? He explains why the Himalayas are the way they are. He also discusses the Columbia Plateau, the mountains in France, the Siberia in Russia, and the 'muck' in Alaska. He proves that gradualist theories can't be true. How is it that glaciers can carry erratic boulders up mountains? How can there be marine fossils in the Himalayas? How can Woolly Mammoths, which ate as much as modern elephants do, survive on the scarce food sources of Siberia? Gradualist theories answer none of these, and ignore all of them. Velikovsky answered all of them, and many more. --Whatishere (talk) 18:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Whatishere: "What makes it obvious [that this article is written by people who support Henry Bauer's blatant crudeness] is that there are no links to supporters of Velikovsky." Really? What about the section 'Organizations sympathetic to Velikovsky's work'? One has to wonder whether Whatishere has read the article. If this is all that s/he can offer to justify the epithet 'Slanted Article', then it's not a claim to be taken seriously. -- Jmc (talk) 19:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

When I say that this article is slanted, I mean that Bauer is held in reverence. And everyone is still ignoring the fact that Velikovsky was never proven wrong. This article makes it sound as though he was. --Whatishere (talk) 20:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

"Velikovsky was never proven wrong"? Ridiculous in spades. The truth of the matter is that he was hardly ever right!! Whatishere seems to think(?) that Velikovsky provided unique answers to many heretofore earth mysteries. But the truth is that every mystery Velikovsky adopted is explainable without invoking near collisions of Venus, and later Mars, with Earth. All the "evidence" cited in Earth in Upheaval for the recent times covered in Worlds in Collision can be explained in terms of the effects of solar variation on climate and/or the energetic interaction of Earth with the Taurid-Encke complex as elucidated by Victor Clube, Bill Napier, and Mike Baillie, among others, in books and journal articles cited in their bio entries. Furthermore, as I have stated here many times, Velikovsky claimed that the near collision between Venus and Earth 3500 years ago dumped so much debris into our atmosphere that 40 years of darkness ensued. But there is no trace of all this supposedly red dust in the world's ice caps and glaciers, ocean bottoms, and not even in the Sea of Galilee. And, as Phil Plait explained in Bad Astronomy, if Venus came close enough to swap atmospheres with us, the Moon would have been loosed; but it is still here as proof that Velikovsky's collision never happened. Velikovsky claimed the mammoths were killed in the events described in Worlds in Collision less than 5000 years ago; but none of the famous frozen mammoths and other megafauna whose corpses have been discovered are anywhere nearly so recent. The Pleistocene megafauna extinctions were explained in conventional terms by R. Dale Guthrie in Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe (Univ. Chicago Press, 1990). With negative evidence of this magnitude concerning key aspects of Velikovsky's "theory", how can anyone argue he deserves serious consideration? Whatishere does not know what he is talking about and is merely parroting pro-Velikovsky propaganda that has been discredited for decades. Phaedrus7 (talk) 20:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Reading your response reminds me of that age old question, "What does a vapid parrot sound like?" Quoting "Bad Astronomy" is a sure sign that you're not a scientist, but an Absurdist...that condition where extreme professionalisation and rigidification is substituted where thought is supposed to occur. Have you ever considered looking at the raw data so clearly outlined by Velikovsky instead of engaging in these cut and paste exercises that in your mind pass for scientific discourse and reasoning?--Whatishere (talk) 21:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Whatishere: "When I say that this article is slanted, I mean that Bauer is held in reverence". Really? Where exactly? -- Jmc (talk) 22:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

If Whatishere is so gosh-darned smart, instead of regaling us with platitudes straight out of the Velikovskian hagiography, pray, tell us what would really happen to the Moon were Venus to pass so close to Earth that atmospheres would be exchanged, as Velikovsky claims happened in Worlds in Collision? Regardless in what regard Whatishere holds the "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait, the "Bad Astronomer" IS correct on this score. Whatishere might also ponder the denouement to the famous 1964 flap begun in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in which Alfred de Grazia in American Behavioral Scientist lambasted Howard Margolis over supposed sloppines in an article critical of Velikovsky's scholarship concerning the "crossing of the Red Sea", but in fact it was the Velikovskian defense that was error-prone and sloppy (e.g., refusing even to admit the French idiom for "rape" really meant "rape"!), as Sean Mewhinney demonstrated in 1986 in "El-Arish Revisited", originally published in Kronos XI(2). And do not forget Velikovsky's failure to deliver his "point by point" refutation of Abraham Sachs' "philippic" at Brown University in March 15, 1965. Phaedrus7 (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I was prompted to read thru this Talk page after replying to the latest addition below which was institgated by Velikovsky's older daughter and am reminded of Whatishere's 21 September question "Have you ever considered looking at the raw data so clearly outlined by Velikovsky...." The answer is "yes". The very first "evidence" I chose to examine, the better to understand him (not debunk him), was Douglass's early 20th century Sequoia tree ring data cited by Velikovsky. I was surprised to discover that the rings that grew at times significant to Worlds in Collision looked no different than those that grew at other times. I also discovered that Velikovsky did not appreciate that Douglass's tables inserted a ficticious Year Zero which affects the dating of the years B.C. My reaction to Velikovsky's tree ring evidence was precisely that as described by Robert Jastrow in his September/October 1980 Science Digest Special article on Velikovsky, "Hero or Heretic?" and by Sean Mewhinney

in his 1996 "Tree Rings". When Velikovsky wrote Worlds in Collision the oldest known tree rings were those of the Sequoias whose growth began several centuries after the first Venus encounter with Earth. On this basis, and possibly other intuitions, Velikovsky claimed that no trees survived Earth's encounter with Venus. However, the first tree ring datings for the bristlecone pines in California were published in 1954 and showed they were more than 4000 years old, older than the date for the first Venus-Earth encounter. Although this new information was not included in Earth in Upheaval, published in 1955, Velikovsky was able to include information concerning Runcorn's discoveries on geomagnetism published in Scientific American that year. Astronomer Dennis Rawlins cited the survival of the bristlecone pines as a sufficient disproof of the entire Worlds in Collision in his 1972 (rev. 1974) critique "Freudian Astronomy or Do Planetary Orbits, Bristlecone Pines, & Velikovsky's Believers Suffer from Collective Amnesia?" which has circulated among Velikovsky scholars over the years after being rejected by Marcello Truzzi, then at Zetetic, for its strident tone. I close by pointing out that every subject important to Velikovsky's scenario that I chose to examine for myself turned out to be far less significant, and sometimes totally irrelevant, than how Velikovsky had represented it to be. Phaedrus7 (talk) 23:24, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

POV re: Criticism

I do not believe this flagging by Whatishere is appropriate because this entry has been subject to at least three rounds of editing in the recent past and there can be no disagreement among scientifically literate editors as to the true status of Velikovsky's "work". He was a serious scholar; but, as Stephen Jay Gould once remarked, Velikovsky was "greatly wrong" nevertheless, as has been explained in great detail by such critics as David Morrison (see his "Velikovsky at Fifty" linked in the main article in the first paragraph), Bob Forrest, Sean Mewhinney, Leroy Ellenberger, E.C. Krupp, Carl Sagan, Henry Bauer, Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait, Mike Baillie (Exodus to Arthur (1999)), etc., ad finitum. AS has been emphasized in many other entries, the correct labelling of a subject as "pseudoscience" is NOT a POV issue. This flag should be removed immediately, if not sooner. Phaedrus7 (talk) 22:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I support immediate (if not sooner) removal of the POV flag placed by Whatishere.

I cannot see that Whatishere has offered any reasoned justification for adding it. Under the subhead 'Slanted Article' above, Whatishere contended that "it is very obvious that this article is written by people who … support Henry Bauer's blatant crudeness." When I inquired, "What exactly makes this obvious?", Whatishere responded, "What makes it obvious is that there are no links to supporters of Velikovsky".

When I pointed to the section 'Organizations sympathetic to Velikovsky's work', Whatishere changed tack, saying, "When I say that this article is slanted, I mean that Bauer is held in reverence." When I asked "Where exactly?", answer came there none. Instead, Whatishere then added the POV flag, having offered no justification for its insertion.

As I said above, "One has to wonder whether Whatishere has read the article." One has to wonder even more whether Whatishere has read this Talk page. The issue of NPOV has been extensively covered and fully dealt with on a number of occasions.

POV flag, begone!

-- Jmc (talk) 22:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I don't see the complaints as substantial. Auntie E. 00:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If we can't be honest with ourselves, then there's not much hope for the future, or at the least, for a valid presentation of this article. Even the quickest perusal of this article reveals NONE of you are familiar with his material. Only a simpleton would attribute ANY reference to gravity when his position on such a non-existent force is well known to all unbiased Velikovsky scholars. The POV 'discussion' is simply embarrassing. --Whatishere (talk) 06:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, if Whatishere believes Velikovsky was right, then he/she does not know cowchips from kumquats about the problems attending Velikovsky's "ideas", several of which have been outlined in this discussion. An important issue that has not been mentioned is the physical state of Venus which the Venera, Pioneer, and Magellan missions have shown to be totally incompatible with Velikovsky's claim that Venus was molten as recently as 3500 years ago. This is disproved by the FACT that the atmosphere below the clouds, as indicated by the temperature gradient, is stable against convection (which means it is not being stirred up by massive volcanism--in fact Magellan detected zero on-going volcanism) and the FACT that the deep impact craters up to 35 km in diameter show that the crust is too thick to have been molten so recently. The surface of Venus looks "youthful" because the conditions that erode surface features on Earth "quickly" in terms of geological time scales are not present on Venus and its very dry regolith makes it much stiffer than the wet regolith on Earth so that topographical relief can last much longer on Venus than on Earth despite the 750 K surface temperature, as shown by S.J. Mackwell et al. in publications in the mid-1990s. Phaedrus7 (talk) 15:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The only problem with advancing this type of Baueresque argument is it is ENTIRELY based on NASA's 'findings'. An agency such as NASA which faked the public record of the moon landing has no place in a discussion relating to fact. --Whatishere (talk) 17:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Haha. Go tell that to Buzz Aldrin if you dare. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the POV flag placed by Whatishere. As, I said above, I cannot see that Whatishere has offered any reasoned justification for adding it. Nor has s/he received any support for its insertion - indeed, quite the contrary.

Furthermore, I do not consider that a person who, by his/her own admission, believes that gravity is "a non-existent force" and that NASA "faked the public record of the moon landing [sic]" is to be taken seriously as a commentator on scientific topics.

-- Jmc (talk) 20:23, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Flag gone?

No wonder SERIOUS scholars don't take Wiki seriously...

You're engaging in nothing but Absurdism. This Bauer tactic of claiming these Velikovsky facts are not concordant with 'science' (read: Absurdism) and we're therefore going to put whatever we want in this article. Well people, that is called...just another coverup. Apparently a popularity contest of what YOUR beliefs are vis-a-vis Velikovsky theories... NOT the facts. You insist on touting 'gravity'. Velikovsky clearly disagrees, the fact that there is NO REAL INDICATION of the importance of 'Cosmos without Gravity' to Velikovsky's views, UNDENIABLY brands this article as tarnished.

And as a sidenote, that you actually believe that the Apollo astronauts went to the Moon riding Saturn 5 rockets... Well that is totally in keeping with Absurdism's beliefs that brings us such gems as... in ALL of the Universe... the ONLY PROVEN intelligent life is Man.

A little help here... What is the correct enunciation of GEOCENTRIC in parrotese?

You are still primitive men... thinking primitive thoughts... And apparently the Universe does spin around the Earth and mankind... at least in your little minds and in this article.

Lastly, the next time a thunderhead topping out at something like 30,000+ feet goes floating by your head... Please be sure to publish a photo of such (with links in this article! :) ) in support of your 'the world IS flat' notions about gravity.

Guess what? Flag... Back in.--Whatishere (talk) 00:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, Whatishere does NOT know what s/he is talking about. Velikovsky's seemingly infallible beliefs were challenged in this forum with information that is independent of Henry Bauer and NASA, such as the total absence on Earth of any of the red extraterrestrial dust from Venus that Velikovsky claimed caused 40 years of darkness at Exodus ca. 3500 years ago and the fact that the Moon is still here which would have been loosed had Venus ever approached so close as to exchange atmosphere with us; yet Whatishere ignores these facts. Also, contrary to the all-knowing Whatishere, the publication is not "Cosmos without Gravity", but "Cosmos without Gravitation". In his book Beyond Velikovsky, Bauer examined its contents of this 1946 pamphlet and showed that Velikovsky did not know what he was talking about with respect to basic physics and chemistry and could deservedly be labelled therefore as "an ignoramous masquerading as a sage". In a Sept. 1981 article in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction/Science Fact Magazine (later reprinted in A World of their Own (2008)), Robert Schadewald came to an equivalent conclusion. Phaedrus7 (talk) 15:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it is undisputed that Velikovsky is 100% pseudoscience. I don't see the point in harping on that. Anything Velikovskian discussed here is done so with an understanding of WP:FRINGE -- it isn't discussed because it has any intrinsic merit, but because it happens to have caused enough of a stir in the 1970s to 1980s to be considered "notable". Velikovsky apologists on Wikipedia really have picked the wrong venue and should be directed to google groups instead. Attempts to "present the other side" in a case as clear as this are usually based on a fundamental misunderstanding of our "neutrality" policy, for which see WP:DUE: we do not give equal weight to opinions that do not have equal credibility. --dab (𒁳) 16:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Some of the things Watishere may be alluding to are, for example, one of the opening lines of the article "In general, Velikovsky's theories have been vigorously rejected or ignored by the academic community.[3]". The link? http://www.cambridge.org/asia/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521819282 A general book on catastrophism which is apparently not against catastrophism in the first place. As the page on the link indicates about the book "It also considers the way in which catastrophic events are now seen to have influenced the course of evolution in the distant past". And yet, this is the link and evidence to support a line that Velikovsky has been vigorously rejected or ignored by the academic community. If this isn't shoddyness in the article and attempting to push a POV by "hope they don't check the link" shenanigans I don't know what is. The article does, absolutely, need a thorough cleanup by those who are better able to come at it from NPOVX900BattleGrape (talk) 14:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

X900BattleGrape can't make a case for "shoddyness in the article and attempting to push a POV" from the reference to Palmer's Perilous Planet Earth. It's clear that X900BattleGrape hasn't read the book. See, e.g., p. 339: "Velikovsky's belief that the planets Mars and Venus passed sufficiently close to the Earth in historical times to cause global catastrophes could not be reconciled with the known laws of physics. Hence, although planetary catastrophism still receives enthusiastic support in some quarters, it has been firmly rejected by professional scientists." -- Jmc (talk) 20:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

"Respected" Psychiatrist?

Velikovsky was a "respected" psychiatrist in New York in the 1940s when Paul Federn, formerly president of the International Psychoanalytic Association referred difficult cases to Velikovsky, as Lawrence S. Kubie wrote to Clifton Fadiman on October 23, 1947: Dear Kip, Here is all the information I have been able to get hold of about Velikovsky. Dr. Lewin: "Only knows that he wrote some articles on Freud, either for the Psycho- analytic Review or the American Imago." Dr. Federn: "Knows him well. A genius - a great man. Excellent psychoanalyst. An M.D., member of the Palestine group. Some revolu- tionary scientific ideas that some people think are crazy, but he is a genius. Would not consider him for a teacher; but as an analyst have sent him some of my most diffi- cult cases." There is no reason why you should not approach Dr. Paul Federn of 239 Central Park West. He is a venerable old fellow, and he will tell you all he knows. Cordially, signed) Larry Lawrence S. Kubie, M.D.

This testimonial ought to count for something in this controversial and contentious subject. Phaedrus7 (talk) 16:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It's better to stick with neutral wording, especially with someone this controvertial. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 16:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(addendum) Compare with the intros for other psychiatrists in the category. The lead should be brief and to the point. Frankly, I think of "respected" in a professional bio as a red flag indicating that there's something fishy going on here and needing rather self-conscious bolstering. In line with WP:NPOV, the lead should not describe him as "respected" or "scorned"; as with many folks he could be both depending on who you asked. It is comepletely inappropriate in the lead. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 16:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you are failing to read the word 'respected' in context (i.e. the sentences preceding it): the intro paragraph is intending to convey: "Immanuel Velikovsky is chiefly remembered today for being a controversial pseudoscientist, revilved by orthodox academics, although prior to dabbling in this he was a simply a psychiatrist, and well respected by peers in his discipline". You see what I mean? "This is someone who is famous for being wacko, but ironically before that he was actually considered sound". Yes? And the further point being he was considered sound within his own discipline, and his chief wacko sin was meddling and peddling in other disciplines. Saying that he was a "respected psychiatrist" (whilst nontheless strictly true and verifiable, as Phaedrus7 has shown) is not there in the article to try appease Velikovsky fans with non-neutral wording, it is there to note an interesting point about the nature of Velikovsky's notoriety. I know this because I wrote the sentence about 5 years ago and no-one has ever quibbled with it before ;)--feline1 (talk) 23:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm happy for it to stay. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 23:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

C. Leroy Ellenberger with Immanuel Velikovsky at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, in 1978.

Below is a letter I was asked to send to the editors of Immanuel Velikovsky:

</citation> Dear Editors

As Velikovsky's elder daughter, Shulamit Velikovsky Kogan, I am very upset to see the Velikovsky page in Wikipedia being edited by Ellenberger whose sole purpose in life is to prove Velikovsky wrong, (as can be seen by all his links there) and Wikipedia lets him edit the Velikovsky page to the point that Ellenberger inserted a picture of himself with Velikovsky, in Velikovsky's page, could you please delete it?.

Being 85 years old, I am not versed enough in how to edit your pages, and I would greatly appreciate it if Wikipedia editors will add instead the picture of Immanuel Velikovsky with his wife Elisheva in their eighties, as well as the Yale Scientific cover of April 1967 which was devoted to Velikovsky's correct advance claims "Venus – A Youthful Planet", picturing Elisheva’s sculpture of Immanuel.

Thankyou, so much

Shulamit V. Kogan

<citation>

Please respect the requesting of Velikovsky's daughter --85.64.92.166 (talk) 17:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

As one of the numerous editors of the Velikovsky page, I've restored the POV deletion of the image of C. Leroy Ellenberger with Immanuel Velikovsky at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, in 1978. It's open, of course, to Shulamit V. Kogan to add the picture of Immanuel Velikovsky with his wife Elisheva in their eighties, as well as the Yale Scientific cover of April 1967 (having obtained the necessary permissions, of course). -- Jmc (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Editor Jmc's equanimity is gratefully acknowledged. Ms. Kogan's particulars in her jeremiad above are mostly factually wrong. One would never guess from her diatribe that her father gave Ellenberger permission in June 1979 to sell t-shirts and other paraphernalia emblazoned with the motto "Velikovsky's right!" Of prime importance here is the fact that Ellenberger had nothing to do with the uploading of the photograph of Ellenberger seated next to Velikovsky at Seaside Heights in July 1978. This was accomplished by another person at the University of Georgia. This photograph is one of a series taken that summer, several of which were published without permission by her younger sister Ruth V. Sharon in her 1995 biography of her father: ABA: The Glory and the Torment, The Life of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky. Ellenberger's review of this book in Journal of Scientific Exploration 1996; 10(4), 561-9 is prefaced with an Editorial Prologue by Henry Bauer: "Justification for this lengthy review-essay is that the Velikovsky Affair has been a classic case for historians of science and for people interested in scientific unorthodoxies, much written about and argued over. (Neo)-Velikovskian conferences continue to be held and neo-Velikovskian journals are being published. The book under review, a memoir of Velikovsky by one of his daughters, therefore provokes considerable interest; and this review of it serves as well as an updated bibliography of the continuing Velikovsky saga. The reviewer, Leroy Ellenberger, was a confidant to Velikovsky, a frequent visitor (often with camera) from April 1978 to his death in November 1979, and a Senior Editor of the Velikovskian journal Kronos, until the evidence forced him to conclude that Velikovsky's scientific claims were baseless. Velikovsky inscribed his copy of Ramses II and His Time "To Leroy who is consumed by the sacred flame of search for truth", 20 May 1978, and gave him permission to sell "Velikovsky's right!" T-shirts. Alfred De Grazia, impetus for The Velikovsky Affair (1966), appointed him chronicler of the continuing Velikovsky controversy in 1980. Ellenberger's last contact with Velikovsky was a phone call from him two days before he died" (from <http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cle/cle-jose.txt>). Phaedrus7 (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Mrs. Kogan reminds the reader of the April 1967 issue of Yale Scientific Magazine "which was devoted to Velikovsky's correct advance claims 'Venus--A Youthful Planet'". Velikovskians revel in citing Yale Scientific, as though it were a prestigious, scientific publication; but in point of fact it was student-run and unrefereed with a circulation of less than 3,000. No Yale faculty member participated in the composition of this Velikovsky issue. Here is the opening of a April 10, 1998, email sent to a Velikovsky list-serve that provides background on this issue: "The April 1967 issue of Yale Scientific Magazine was devoted to Velikovsky's ideas and their reception. Some of its contents were reprinted subsequently in Kronos. Critics who were unaware of the arguments presented in that issue were castigated for their ignorance in Pensée and, later, Kronos. Sagan apparently relied on Motz's article for the incorrect value for Jupiter's escape velocity in Scientists Confront Velikovsky. Robert Merrit's long letter to the editor on archaeoastronony as a disproof of Worlds in Collision was eventually published as an article in the Finnish ALFA, ca. 1977. So, just what was Yale Scientific Magazine (YSM)?

"Fortunately, in July 1984, John Crowley, the editor for 1966-1967, sent a narrative to Henry Bauer, along with a copy of the files on the Velikovsky issue, describing the background on it. Here are excerpts from Crowley's recollection. Hopefully, this memoir will also provide the reader an objective, third party perspective on the Velikovsky Affair that is lacking from the fawning, self-serving, sycophantic productions published recently by devotees:

"'I. The nature of the Yale Scientific Magazine.

"'Traditionally, YSM billed itself as the oldest undergraduate-edited science magazine in America-- a claim that is probably true. At one time, YSM may have had some claim on being a 'professional journal'; over the years a few famous scientists had contributed. But in the 1960s, YSM was a moribund student publication with no raison d'etre beyond serving as the semi-official organ of the Yale Engineering Association, whose members received obligatory subscriptions. (We ran a 'YEA Newsletter' in almost every issue.)..."

N.B.: Editor Crowley was an English major at Yale who later joined the English Dept. at Syracuse University and late in his career moved to the University of Alabama.

In one of his contributions to the issue, Velikovsky erroneously described the concept of escape velocity, an error which was repeated ten years later in Kronos by Ralph Juergens and others in their rebuttals to the criticism of Velikovsky in Scientists Confront Velikovsky. This mistake was explained to Warner Sizemore by James Oberg in a late 1978 letter. The mistake was then corrected by Ellenberger in his letter-to-the-editor "To Escape or Not to Escape: The 71% Factor?" in Kronos V(1), 1979, which was the subject of Velikovsky's phone call to Ellenberger two days before he died. As for Velikovsky's "correct advance claims" concerning Venus, they are probably a classic example of being right for all the wrong reasons, as many have explained over the years, but whose explanations have been tenaciously blocked by a willful ignorance. For example, Velikovsky claimed Venus would be so hot as to have been "candescant" only 3,500 years ago due to its recent explusion from Jupiter. But, the Venus visited recently by such space probes as Pioneer Venus, the Soviet Veneras, and Magellan cannot have been "candescant" so recently because the very large impact craters on Venus show that the crust is too thick to have been so hot so recently and the fact that the atmosphere below the clouds is stable against convection shows that large scale volcanism churning the atmosphere, expected by Velikovsky, is absent. As it turns out, the crust on Venus is so dry, and is consequently so stiff, that craters can exist for millions of years, despite the hot surface temperature of ca. 750K, unlike conditions on Earth where craters cannot last as long. Despite the initial appearance of Velikovsky's "advance claims" having been correct and despite Mrs. Kogan's affection for her father's memory, the more we learn about the state of Venus, the more apparent it is that he was woefully off-base, as the criticisms in the Wikipedia entries Immanuel Velikovsky and Worlds in Collision demonstrate. Phaedrus7 (talk) 17:40, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

What Encyclopedic value does this image have?

I just noticed the recent removal - addition - removal - addition of this image and it dawned on me that the image concerned does nothing to improve the article as an encyclopedic entry. It is obviously not a PR photo nor one of any official function, but rather Ellenberger on a couch in cut-off denim shorts looking at the camera and Velikovsky on the same couch looking disinterested. There is no mention of "Seaside Heights, New Jersey" in the article, nor any other indication that this belongs in the article for any reason. It could just as easily be taken in a hotel lobby and be of two people who didn't even know each other (I know that's not the case, but how the image appears). If we allow such uninteresting images into biographies, we might just as well have "V walks down the street" and "V combs his hair" and "V takes a dump". These would be as interesting and relevant. Whilst the same image appears on Ellenberger's page, and probably has a place there as E's only "claim to fame" is that he was both a supporter and then opposer of V, I think it should be removed from this article. Whilst Velikovsky was obviously an important part of Ellenberger's life, conversely Ellenberger was not much more than a footnote in the life of Velikovsky.Davesmith au (talk) 02:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

As the editor who reverted the removal of this image, because it was a deletion entirely without explanation, I welcome this reasoned explanation. At the same time, I'd want to argue that the image does belong in the article. Effectively it serves to illustrate the adjacent text: "... by 1984, erstwhile Velikovskyist C. Leroy Ellenberger had become a vocal critic of Velikovskian catastrophism", in showing that in 1978, they were on close enough terms to occupy a couch together, and for V to allow E to be photographed with him. Certainly, it's of more relevance and interest than "V walks down the street" and "V combs his hair" and "V takes a dump". -- Jmc (talk) 10:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"serves to illustrate the adjacent text" - In what way does it illustrate anything at all? It's two folk on a couch, in an unknown location, under unknown circumstances. Leroy's not even looking at the camera (which is what I meant to say earlier) and V is glancing at it, almost like he was caught off-guard. That they were "on close enough terms to occupy a couch together" is a stretch, when neither looks engaged by the other's presence, as already explained. I'm not saying they didn't know each other, or arguing that E was not once a supporter of V (though now very much turncoat, as I see it), I'm simply arguing that this image does NOT show anything like what's been argued, and that due to it's low quality and apparent irrelevance, it does nothing to enhance the article. As to P7's irrelevant diatribe further down, I'm not even going to respond as I have an IRL conflict with this editor. Davesmith au (talk) 13:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

This coming October, University of Chicago Press will publish Michael D. Gordin's The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe which will present the richest and most textured account to date of what has come to be known as "The Velikovsky Affair". The book will present much new information about Velikovsky's authorial career in America and his influence on, and relation to, a number of "non-scheduled philosophies", as Lenny Bruce might phrase it, in drawing heavily from Velikovsky's archives held in The Firestone Library at Princeton University as well as the personal papers of other participants. Perhaps after Davesmith au has had a chance to assimilate this new information he might find new themes on which to cavil. Phaedrus7 (talk) 22:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I assume from the foregoing that I have Phaedrus7's support for the retention of the photo of 'C. Leroy Ellenberger with Immanuel Velikovsky at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, in 1978'. -- Jmc (talk) 00:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That is a valid assumption, Sir! Another way to interpret the presence of a photograph such as this "Seaside Heights, New Jersey" snapshot is that it lends support to the existence of a "movement", in contrast to a mere "family enterprise" which was the frame of reference for The Estate's handling of Velikovsky's affairs after November, 1979, which was dominated by the older daughter resident in Israel, coincidentally enough the country of origin for anonymous editor 212.76.97.27. When this daughter first requested the deletion of this snapshot, the text of her request mentioned her father's article "Venus--A Youthful Planet" in the April, 1967, Yale Scientific Magazine as though it's arguments were still valid and had not been superceded by more recent Space Age observations from such probes sent to Venus as Pioneer Venus, the Soviet Veneras, and Magellan. She also failed to mention that in the early 1990s her son, then employed in a division of the Israeli Defense Ministry, prevailed upon a senior scientist to evaluate Peter Warlow's 1978 article in Journal of Physics A on how easily Earth might be flipped over as a tippe top by the close passage of a massive object such as Venus or Mars due to the gravitational torque on Earth's equatorial bulge. Her son was advised that Warlow's mechanism was invalid, agreeing with the analysis published in J Phys A by astrodynamicist Victor J. Slabinski, then at Intelsat and now at U.S.N.O., who was a frequent collaborator with this Israeli scientist on artificial satellite performance problems. And so it goes. Phaedrus7 (talk) 19:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Criticism without Reading Worlds in Collision: A Red Herring

The oft' raised objection to criticism of Worlds in Collision that it was made by those who had not read the book is a red herring because those vocal critics, who were mostly astronomers, knew about Velikovsky's 1946 pamphlet Cosmos without Gravitation, which Velikovsky had placed in academic libraries and sent to prominent astronomers, such as Harlow Shapley and this pamphlet provided ample evidence that Velikovsky did not know what he was talking about in science. In Beyond Velikovsky, Henry Bauer concludes after discussing the contents of the pamphlet that Velikovsky was "an ignoramous masquerading as a sage". Also, on general principles, to the mind of an astronomer, the notion that the orbits of Venus, Mars and Earth are newly arrived at within the past 3500 years, as Velikovsky proposed in Worlds in Collision is impossible and preposterous on its face. Similarly, one need not read any "proof" for trisecting an angle with only a compass and straight edge, to know that it is impossible; or, similarly, any "proof" that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter equals 3.125 instead of 3.141592.... Phaedrus7 (talk) 14:51, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Lynn Rose on Ice Cores

In a recent edit, which was wisely reverted, Siwaoracle stated that Lynn Rose's comments on the Greenland ice core evidence was "never fully answered in print." This is most definitely incorrect. Lynn Rose's distorted comments on the ice core evidence were refuted point by point by Sean Mewhinney in Catastrophism and Ancient History 1990, XII(1) and XII(2), in "Ice Cores and Common Sense". For the flavor of the wrong-headedness that willfully distorts objective fact in defense of Velikovsky's nonsense, read Mewhinney's subsequent "Minds in Ablation", which is a decortication of Charles Ginenthal's rebuttal to "Ice Cores and Common Sense" at http://www.pibburns.com/smmia.htm Phaedrus7 (talk) 19:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Dark Ages

Perhaps Velikovsky must remain the supreme example of a respected scientist/doctor going into a field for which he had no training or understanding whatever.

I might concede one point though. The may well have been a classical "Dark Age" but it was caused by the eruption of Santorini not a celestial impact.AT Kunene (talk) 09:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

AT Kunene: Please see the note at the head of this page (and every Talk page on Wikipedia): "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Immanuel Velikovsky article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." Please feel free to suggest article improvements here. -- Jmc (talk) 17:56, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

After reading the bucket-loads of diatribe above, poured out from both sides of the fence, I find the note to AT Kunene by Jmc to be, well, the best bit of comic relief I've read in I don't know how long. This article and many like it will never be good encyclopedic biographies until major COI editors stop hiding behind pseudonyms. I think hell is likely to freeze over first... Davesmith au (talk) 19:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I am proposing that the article Ages in Chaos be merged here, as:

1. The majority of that article is a recap of the book (in violation of WP:PSTS & WP:IINFO).
2. The only WP:SECONDARY sourced information is the (very short) 'Controversy and criticism' section, for which (as another editor pointed out), "most of the sources are about other books or the author's ideas in general".

I am therefore recommending that only the WP:SECONDARY sourced 'Controversy and criticism' section be retained in this merger. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support per nomination, makes sense to me. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose This article has been rated as B-class for the Books project, which indicates that it is in reasonable shape. Actually, there is nothing in the Wikipedia guidelines for non-fiction works against the majority of the article being a recap of the book, what would be a violation is for it to be solely a recap. Attempting to merge this article into the faily lengthy main Velikovsky article would still leave us with issues of alleged undue weight to this or that aspect. I believe Velikovsky's views are erroneous, but sometimes you have to give a significant explanation of erroneous views to reply to them. If there are problems with the article the sensible thing to do is improve it. PatGallacher (talk) 15:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• Yes there is something in core Wikipedia policy "against the majority of the article being a recap of the book":

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources.

— WP:PSTS

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I quote the guideline: "Summary-only description of works. Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner, discussing the reception and significance of notable works in addition to a concise summary. For more information regarding plot summaries, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Plot summaries. Similarly, articles on works of non-fiction, including documentaries, research books and papers, religious texts, and the like, should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents." PatGallacher (talk) 15:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Which in no way contradicts WP:PSTS. And the article is very close to being only "a recap or summary of the works' contents". Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 15:42, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• weak oppose (you might convince me otherwise, but let me try to convince you first). Firstly, as PG says, why burden the already long V article with this stuff? Secondly, although your point about summarising the book has merit, that could be fixed. Third, I don't think any naive innocents are going to be mislead by this article into uncritically accepting V's ideas (so I'd drop the POV tag). However, since the article is actually about several V books, it could be moved to alternative chonological theories of V, perhaps. And the section on AiC could be reworked to avoid the chapter-by-chapter stuff William M. Connolley (talk) 19:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• This article's 'Revised chronology' section already provides a reasonable summary of Velikovsky's claims. Merging the 'Controversy and criticism' from Ages in Chaos (which is the only section with third-party sourcing) into this section would provide good balance & WP:DUE weight to their criticism, without unduly increasing the length of this article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I agree with William M. Connolley. Each lemma is for a specific purpose. So dont put all together - just focus on what the lemma is (and may be create a new one additionally for stuff you don't need to read here)! --188.111.64.78 (talk) 09:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

• I have no idea what you're talking about -- and suspect that a wikt:lemma does not mean what you think it means. Also your (garbled) support of WMC's argument fails to take account of my rebuttal of it -- adding in the 'Controversy and criticism' section won't increase the size of this article significantly. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 13:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Ages in Chaos is a reasonable (though far from perfect) book article, as noted by PatGallacher. There can be no doubt that the book and its sequels are notable enough to have their own article, and the world certainly needs a good article dealing with this topic. The book summary seems to me too short, if anything. The Criticism section definitely needs expanding, and that can be achieved more easily by not merging. Worlds in Collision is a good model to follow. -- 202.124.75.236 (talk) 11:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I have undone a WP:BOLD merge, given this discussion is still ongoing (and heading, in fact, towards "oppose"). -- 202.124.75.248 (talk) 08:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support merge as badly needed per the reasons given above. No reason to have a separate article when all the notable things to discuss there would be the notable things to discuss here. Having them separate is just a WP:FORK that duplicates everyone's efforts. And I don't think a bunch of anonymous IP addresses are of any use here. DreamGuy (talk) 17:58, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• A full treatment of Velikovsky's ideas would make this article too long, and Ages in Chaos needs if anything more in its criticism section (although it's already a B-class book article). And Ages in Chaos is not a fork -- it has existed since 2005. It's only recently that large slabs of Ages in Chaos have been copied here -- a mistake, in my view. The normal (and, I think, sensible) thing would be to have short sections here on Velikovsky's work, with pointers to the two main articles Ages in Chaos and Worlds in Collision. And I don't quite see that "you're an IP" constitutes a rational argument. -- 202.124.73.78 (talk) 23:16, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Gross violation of WP:SELFPUB

I just noticed that the 'Velikovsky's life' section as a whole is cited to what appears to be his own, self-published biography. This is ludicrously inappropriate (quite apart from being poor mark-up to place a citation in a section title, and poor citation to give such a broad, unspecific citation). I would suggest removing all the material that does not have a specific, third-party citation. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

agreed, it has to go. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:58, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be better, of course, to find some specific, third-party citations -- not the bio by his daughter, obviously, but something like Ginenthal's "Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky". -- 202.124.73.78 (talk) 23:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Gross violation of WP:SELFPUB

I just noticed that the 'Velikovsky's life' section as a whole is cited to what appears to be his own, self-published biography. This is ludicrously inappropriate (quite apart from being poor mark-up to place a citation in a section title, and poor citation to give such a broad, unspecific citation). I would suggest removing all the material that does not have a specific, third-party citation. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

agreed, it has to go. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:58, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be better, of course, to find some specific, third-party citations -- not the bio by his daughter, obviously, but something like Ginenthal's "Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky". -- 202.124.73.78 (talk) 23:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Kogan's "An Answer to Sachs"

Recently "An Answer to Sachs" by S.F. Kogan was entered as a reply to another reference "Address of Abraham Sachs at Brown Univ." and the Kogan reference was deleted because, as the equivalent to a blog posting, it is not a Reliable Source. In considering the status of Kogan's "Answer", keep in mind that despite her rhetorical flourishes, the fact remains that Velikovsky was never able to complete his promised "point by point" rebuttal to Sachs, which fact is recorded in the same Sachs source from which she quotes Sachs: "The first sentence of Velikovsky's rebuttal to Sachs: 'Dr. Sachs threw so many accusations in that Phillipic of his that I am at a difficulty to answer; but I invite Dr. Sachs to spend the hour and a half tomorrow at the meeting, and everyone of you too, and point by point each of his statements will be proven wrong.' In the event the next day, Sachs did not attend, no student questions followed up on Sachs' points, and Velikovsky did not volunteer any 'point by point' refutation of Sachs. When he returned to Princeton, Velikovsky prepared final, typed rebuttals to all his adversaries at Brown except Sachs, for which only partial, pencilled notes existed in the Brown file when [Ellenberger] examined it in April 1979." Regardless whatever mistakes may infect Sachs' "Phillipic", Kogan did not show that he was wrong about the names of fixed stars having been mistranslated as planets with respect to Venus missing from a cuneiform list of planets. Concerning the seemingly errant motion of Venus shown in the "Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa" from the second millennium B.C.E., Peter J. Huber, who confronted Velikovsky at the AAAS symposium in February 1974, has pointed out that records of the motion of Venus from the late first millennium, by which time Venus had settled down, are qualitatively the same with respect to erroneous observations. Therefore, the discrepancies in the motion of Venus revealed in the Venus Tablet cannot be taken as evidence that the motion of Venus had been irregular at the time of Ammisaduqa. Finally for now, defending Velikovsky's revised chronology is an exercise in futility because the Minoan eruption of Thera, which the revised chronology would place in the tenth century B.C.E., has been confidently dated to the 17th century on the basis of volcanic acidity in the Greenland ice cores and high resolution mass spec radiocarbon dating of olive branches trapped in the tephra from the eruption. Phaedrus7 (talk) 22:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Too many ***TRIVIAL*** interwiki links

europe, medical degree, gymnasium ??????

These kinds of things make it tough to read. Sooner or later I expect to see a The show up.

Tgm1024 (talk) 22:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

While not disagreeing with Tgm1024 about the triviality of links, "gymnasium ??????" is explained by "[V was] sent away to study at the Medvednikov Gymnasium". -- Jmc (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Velikovsky's Priority re: Pathological EEG in Epilepsy

Contrary to the assertion that Velikovsky was the first to claim in 1931 (not 1930 as stated in the entry) pathological encephalograms would characterize epilepsy, which originated with Velikovsky, the true priority belongs to Prof. of Neuropsychiatry Hans Berger at Univ. Jena who published in 1929. Since the claim in the entry is not true it should be deleted, although I am not clear on what, if any, WP:RS would be needed to justify it, if any. Here is the text posted at amazon.com commenting on a review of Michael Gordin's "The Pseudoscience Wars" explaining this canard: "In the second instance, although widely misstated, Velikovsky was NOT 'the first to suggest that specific changes in EEG (electroencephalogram) were diagnostic of epilepsy', whose 1930 insight Velikovsky published in 1931. This canard has been recently put to rest by E.L. [Eric] Miller, author of 'Passion for Murder: The Homocidal Deeds of Dr. Sigmund Freud' (1984) and collaborator with Velikovsky from ca. 1969-1974 (see Gordin, p. 265, n. 7). As Miller has discovered, priority for this belongs to the inventor of electroencephalography, prof. of psychiatry Hans Berger at Univ. Jena, who published this in 1929, just before Velikovsky spent a year in Zurich and Geneva studying psychiatry [for a short period of time] with Minkowski; see Gordin, p. 55. See U.K. Misra, J. Kalita, 'Clinical Electroencephalography' (Elsevier, 2005), pp. 5-6, accessible via books.google.com for Berger's priority; also Wikipedia entry for Hans Berger. I do not fault Sinohey for falling prey to this incorrect priority for Velikovsky considering how ubiquitous this assertion is. Here is a sampling of its appearances: Juergens in 'The Velikovsky Affair' (1966); Yale Scientific Magazine, April 1967; Pensée IVR I, 1972; I. Velikovsky, 'My Challenge to Conventional Views in Science,' AAAS Address, Feb. 1974, in 'Velikovsky and Establishment Science' (1977); Ransom, 'The Age of Velikovsky' (1976); Ruth V. Sharon, 'ABA' (1995/2010); and Laird Scranton, 'The Velikovsky Heresies' (2012); plus assertions on various websites by such as Henry Zecher and Robert Mock. Interestingly, while Gordin cites the 1931 paper in German in which Velikovsky reported his ideas about pathological electroencephalograms with epilepsy (p. 232, n. 29), the context does not include this subject." Phaedrus7 (talk) 20:43, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Possible Coatracking in section "The Velikovsky Affair"

Hello. I wanted to inform the wikipedia community that there may be some coatracking in the section about Giordano Bruno. Is it really important to this article why he was burnt at the stake?
JamesJNHu (talk) 23:22, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

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