Jump to content

Worlds in Collision

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dmesg (talk | contribs) at 17:13, 8 April 2006 (→‎Critical reaction and controversy: removing duped clause). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Worlds In Collision book cover.

Worlds In Collision is a book written by Immanuel Velikovsky, first published in 1950 by Macmillan Publishers (ISBN 1199848743). Despite the books popularity, Macmillan was forced to stop publishing it by the scientific community and transferred the book to Doubleday within two months (Friedman 1995:14). Being Velikovsky's most criticized and controversial book, it was an instant New York Times non-fiction bestseller when it was first published.[1]

Core ideas

"Worlds in Collision is a book of wars in the celestial sphere that took place in historical times. In these wars the planet earth participated too. [...] The historical-cosmological story of this book is based in the evidence of historical texts of many people around the globe, on classical literature, on epics of the northern races, on sacred books of the peoples of the Orient and Occident, on traditions and folklore of primitive peoples, on old astronomical inscriptions and charts, on archaeological finds, and also on geological and paleontological material." - Worlds In Collision, Preface.

The book proposed that around the 15th century BCE, a comet or comet-like object (now called the planet Venus), having originally been ejected from Jupiter, passed near Earth. The object changed Earth's orbit and axis, causing innumerable catastrophes which were mentioned in early mythologies and religions around the world. Fifty-two years later, it passed close by again, stopping the Earth's rotation for a while and causing more catastrophes. Then, in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, Mars (itself displaced by Venus) made close approaches to the Earth; this incident caused a new round of disturbances and disasters. After that, the current "celestial order" was established.

Velikovsky arrived at these proposals using a methodology which would today be called comparative mythology - he looked for concordances in myths and written history of unconnected cultures across the world, in particular following a rather literal reading of their accounts of the exploits of planetary deities. In this book, he argues on the basis of ancient cosmological myths from places as disparate as India and China, Greece and Rome, Assyria and Sumer. For example, ancient Greek mythology asserts that the goddess Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. Velikovsky identifies Athena with the planet Venus. The Greek counterpart of the Roman Venus was Aphrodite. Velikovsky identifies Zeus (whose Roman counterpart was the god Jupiter) with the planet Jupiter. This myth, along with others from ancient Egypt, Israel, Mexico, etc. are used to support the claim that "Venus was expelled as a comet and then changed to a planet after contact with a number of members of our solar system" (Velikovsky 1972:182).

Critical reaction and controversy

The plausibility of the theory was summarily rejected by the physics community and the book was even banned in some institutions. Although some express doubts whether many scientists even read Velikovsky, both the cosmic chain of events, and the fact that they left no known trace on Earth except as myths, were described as simply contradicting the basic laws of physics.

Velikovsky's ideas had been known to astronomers for years before the publication of the book, partially by writing to astronomer Harlow Shapley of Harvard, partially through his 1946 pamphlet Cosmos Without Gravitation, (Friedman 1995:11) and partially by a preview of his work in an article in the August 11, 1946 edition of the New York Herald Tribune (Bauer 1984:3-4). Shapley, along with others such as astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (also at Harvard), instigated a hostile campaign against the book before it was even published. They were highly critical of publisher Macmillian's initial notion to include on their textbook list. The fundamental criticism against this book from the astronomy community was that its celestial mechanics where irreconcilable with Newtonian celestial mechanics, requiring planetary orbits which could not be made to conform with the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum. Velikovsky conceded that the behavior of the planets in his theories are not consistent with Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation. He proposed that electromagnetic forces could be the cause of the movement of the planets, although such forces between astronomical bodies is essentially zero (Friedman 1995:11-12).

Velikovsky tried to protect himself from criticism of his celestial mechanics by removing the original Appendix on the subject from Worlds in Collision, hoping that the merit of his ideas would be evaluated on the basis of his comparative mythology and use of literary sources alone. However this strategy did not protect him: the appendix was an expanded version of the Cosmos Without Gravitation monograph, which he had already distributed to Shapley and others in the late 1940s — and they had regarded the physics within it as egregious.

In the 1960s, some of Velikovsky's specific predictions which appeared to be confirmed by space probe findings, for instance:

  • the high surface temperature of Venus.
  • hydrocarbons in the atmosphere of Venus.
  • Jupiter's generation of radio noises.

However in all such cases, the scientific community did not accept that these successful predictions could be used as proof of Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision scenario, preferring alternative explanations such as a "runaway greenhouse effect" on Venus.

By 1974, the controversy surrounding Velikovsky's work had permeated US society to the point where the American Association for the Advancement of Science felt obliged to address the situation, as they had previously done in relation to UFOs, and devoted a scientific meeting to Velikovsky. The meeting featured, among others, Velikovsky himself and Carl Sagan. Sagan gave a critique of Velikovsky's ideas and attacked most of the assumptions made in Worlds in Collision. His criticisms are present in his book Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science and is much longer than that given in the talk.[2] Sagan's arguments were popular in nature and he did not remain to debate Velikovsky in person, facts that were used by Velikovsky's followers to discredit his analysis.[3] Sagan rebutted these charges, and further attacked Velikovsky's ideas in his PBS television series Cosmos. The controversy that still surrounds the book today can be attributed to Sagan.

A thorough examination of the original material cited in Velikovsky's publications, and a severe criticism of its use, was published by Bob Forrest.[4] A short analysis of the position of arguments in the late 20th century was given by Dr. Velikovsky's ex-associate C. Leroy Ellenberger, the former editor of Kronos (a journal to promote Velikovsky's ideas), in his essay.[5] Almost ten years later, Ellenberger attacked some of Velikovsky's ideas in the book in another essay.[6]

The storm of controversy created by his publications may have helped revive the Catastrophist movements in the last half of the 20th century; it is also held by some working in the field that progress has actually been retarded by the negative aspects of the so-called Velikovsky Affair. Works with similar themes, such as those of de Santillana and von Dechend,[7] Allan and Delair,[8] and Clube and Napier,[9] [10] have met in part with an academic tolerance never experienced by Velikovsky himself, and even with acclaim by critics of the originals.

More recently, the absence of supporting material in ice core studies (such as the Greenland Ice-3 and Vostok cores), bristlecone pine tree ring data, Swedish clay varves, and ocean sediments has ruled out any basis for the proposition of a global catastrophe of the proposed dimension within the later Holocene period.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Velikovsky, Immanuel (1950). Worlds in Collision, MacMillan. ISBN 1-19-984874-3.
  2. ^ Sagan, Carl, (1979) Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Random House. Reissued 1986 by Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-33689-5. reprinted as chapter 15 of Science and the Paranormal: Probing the Existence of the Supernatural, edited by George O. Abell and Barry Singer, Scribners, 1981, ISBN 0-684-17820-6. Originally appeared in Scientists confront Velikovsky.
  3. ^ Ginenthal, Charles (1995). Carl Sagan & Immanuel Velikovsky. New Falcon Publications, Tempe Arizona.
  4. ^ Forrest, Bob (1981). Velikovsky's Sources. In six volumes, with Notes and Index Volume. Privately published by the author, Manchester.
  5. ^ Ellenberger, Leroy (1986). A lesson from Velikovsky. Skeptical Inquirer, 10 (4), 380-81.
  6. ^ Ellenberger, Leroy (1995). An antidote for Velikovsky delusions. Skeptic, 3 (4), 49-51.
  7. ^ de Santillana, Giorgio and von Dechend, Hertha (1977). Hamlet's Mill: an Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time. Godine, Boston.
  8. ^ Allan, D.S. and Delair, J.B. (1995). When The Earth Nearly Died. Gateway Books, UK. published in USA as Cataclysm by Bear & Co, 1997. A précis is available here.
  9. ^ Clube, V. and Napier, Bill (1982). The Cosmic Serpent. Universe Books, New York.
  10. ^ Clube, V. and Napier, Bill (1990). The Cosmic Winter. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

References

  • Bauer, Henry H. (1995). Velikovsky's place in the history of science: A lesson on the strengths and limitations of science. Skeptic, 3 (4), 52-56.
  • Cochrane, Ev (1995). Velikovsky still in collision. Skeptic, 3 (4), 47-48.
  • Morrison, David (2001). Velikovsky at fifty: Cultures in collision at the fringes of science. Skeptic, 9 (1), 62-76.
  • Linse, Pat (1995). Velikovsky's believe it or not: Some basic claims of Velikovsky. Skeptic, 3 (4), 46.
  • Forrest, Robert (1983). Venus and Velikovsky: The original sources. Skeptical Inquirer, 8 (2), Winter 1983-84, 154-164.
  • Bauer, Henry H. (1984). Beyond Velikovsky. The History of a Public Controversy. University of Illinois, Urbana ISBN 0-252-01104-X
  • Friedlander, Michael W. (1995). At the Fringes of Science, Westview Press, ISBN 0-8133-2200-6, 9-16.
  • Miller, Alica (1977). Index to the Works of Immanuel Velikovsky. Glassboro State College, Glassboro.
  • Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1952). Worlds in collision. in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 96, Oct. 15, 1952.
  • Pensée (1972-1975). Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered. I - X. Student Academic Freedom Forum, Portland.
  • Ransom, C.J. (1976). The Age of Velikovsky. Delta, New York.
  • Rohl, David (1996). A Test of Time. Arrow Books.
  • Talbott, Stephen L. (1977). Velikovsky Reconsidered. Warner Books, New York.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Worlds_in_Collision&oldid=47572776"