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The Science Cartel vs. Immanuel Velikovsky
FreeDominion ^ | September 16, 2009 | Joshua Snyder

Posted on 10/03/2009 8:26:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

Immanuel Velikovsky was too eminent a scholar to be dismissed outright as a kook, and he counted some respected people among his friends... Nevertheless, his Catastrophism was rejected outright by a scientific establishment that couldn't stomach an interdisciplinary challenge to its dogmatic Uniformitarianism, even after Velikovsky's predictions about the temperature of Venus and radio activity from Jupiter were proven true.

Stephen Jay Gould summed up mainstream scientific opinion, saying, "Velikovsky is neither crank nor charlatan -- although to state my opinion and to quote one of my colleagues, he is at least gloriously wrong ... Velikovsky would rebuild the science of celestial mechanics to save the literal accuracy of ancient legends." Velikovsky would counter that "the ancient traditions are our best guide to the appearance and arrangement of the earliest remembered solar system, not some fancy computer's retrocalculations based upon current understanding of astronomical principles."

(Excerpt) Read more at freedominion.com.pa ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; centuriesofdarkness; davidrohl; derstormer; donovancourville; earthinupheaval; exodus; headinthesand; immanuelvelikovsky; patternsofevidence; punctuatedequilibria; rohl; stephenjaygould; theexodus; velikovsky; verncrisler; worldsincollision
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To: wendy1946

“The Origins of Consiousness in the Bicameral Mind”...one of the deepest books I’ve ever read. Sagan’s “The Dragons of Eden” is right there also.


21 posted on 10/03/2009 10:19:12 PM PDT by Artie (Why are methadone addicts the happiest people on earth?)
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To: Monkey Face

22 posted on 10/03/2009 10:31:55 PM PDT by stormer
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To: devere
Translated from German (emphasis mine):

July 8, 1946

Dear Mr. Velikovsky:

I have read the whole book about the planet Venus. There is much of interest in the book which proves that in fact catastrophes have taken place which must be attributed to extraterrestrial causes. However it is evident to every sensible physicist that these catastrophes can have nothing to do with the planet Venus and that also the direction of the inclination of the terrestrial axis towards the ecliptic could not have undergone a considerable change without the total destruction of the entire earth’s crust. Your arguments in this regard are so weak as opposed to the mechanical-astronomical ones, that no expert will be able to take them seriously. It were best in my opinion if you would in this way revise your books, which contain truly valuable material. If you cannot decide on this, then what is valuable in your deliberations will become ineffective, and it may be difficult finding a sensible publisher who would take the risk of such a heavy fiasco upon himself.

I tell you this in writing and return to you your manuscript, since I will not be free on the considered days.

With friendly greetings, also to your daughter,

Your

Albert Einstein

http://www.varchive.org/cor/einstein/460708ev.htm

23 posted on 10/03/2009 10:39:57 PM PDT by stormer
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To: SunkenCiv; Swordmaker
Thanks for the pings. I've read both Worlds in Collision and Ages in Chaos and found the latter a good deal easier reading. Both provocative and no one can fault V's methods even if some of his conclusions may seem a stretch. At least they were for me.

It seems apparent that academia and the Scientific Community™ are in a symbiotic relationship with government funding and dinomedia propagandists, not to mention the gatekeepers at scientific journals. To what purpose is the question I have. What is there to gain by stifling dissent from the collective conventional wisdom of the scientific cabal? Mostly a rhetorical question I've been asking for years. I'm sure there are some "indsiders" on this forum that have a pretty good idea concerning the whys of this scam but I've yet to see a reasonable answer.

Just wondering out loud if the modern day scientific cabal is Galileo's Catholic Church? Their "religious dogma" has to be protected at all costs? Is this about power? Prestige? Seems unlikely it's just about $$$'s.

24 posted on 10/03/2009 11:05:19 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have two choices and two choices only: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!)
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To: SunkenCiv

BTW Civ, nice workaround on getting this article posted. ;^)


25 posted on 10/03/2009 11:15:31 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have two choices and two choices only: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!)
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To: SunkenCiv

Thanks for the ping. I’ll always respect Velikovsky, the vast range of his knowledge base and the independence of his thought amaze me, and have for decades since I first read his popular books.

“Government science” has really given itself a black eye with the global warming idiocy.


26 posted on 10/04/2009 1:00:29 AM PDT by Judith Anne (Drill here! Drill NOW! Defund the EPA!)
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To: stormer

What? You tellin’ me somthin’....???


27 posted on 10/04/2009 1:13:46 AM PDT by Monkey Face (I wear a yellow ribbon for ForgotenKnight, my army hero grandson.)
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To: Swordmaker; SunkenCiv; ForGod'sSake; wendy1946; Artie

Velikovsky’s Ghost Returns

http://www.thunderbolts.info/velikovsky-ghost.htm

essay excerpt:

“A costly misunderstanding of planetary history must now be corrected. The misunderstanding arose from fundamental errors within the field of cosmology, the ‘queen’ of the theoretical sciences. Mainstream cosmologists, whether trained as physicists, mathematicians, or astronomers, consider gravity to be the controlling force in the heavens. From this assumption arose the doctrine of eons-long solar system stability-the belief that under the rule of gravity the nine planets have moved on their present courses since the birth of the solar system. Seen from this vantage point, the ancient fear of the planets can only appear ludicrous.

“We challenge this modern belief. We contend that humans once saw planets suspended as huge spheres in the heavens. Immersed in the charged particles of a dense plasma, celestial bodies ‘spoke’ electrically and plasma discharge produced heaven-spanning formations above the terrestrial witnesses. In the imagination of the ancient myth-makers, the planets were alive: they were the gods, the ruling powers of the sky-awe inspiring, often capricious, and at times wildly destructive.”

It has been said that no great advance has ever been made without controversy. More than 5 decades after the Velikovsky firestorm, questions first posed by Velikovsky can no longer be ignored. At stake here is not just the billions of dollars NASA has wasted chasing chimeras, but the very integrity of scientific exploration. Also at stake is the ability of the sciences to attract and inspire new generations. And nothing is more inspirational than a sense of being on the edge of discovery.

No matter the outcome of this long-standing battle, the time of reckoning is at hand. The voice of Velikovsky’s ghost WILL be heard.


LINK TO FULL TEXT: EARTH IN UPHEAVAL

http://www.archive.org/stream/earthupheaval010880mbp/earthupheaval010880mbp_djvu.txt


28 posted on 10/04/2009 1:14:54 AM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: stormer

Thanks for your vote of confidence!!
I bet you have some interesting views of religions, too!


29 posted on 10/04/2009 7:03:43 AM PDT by Monkey Face (I wear a yellow ribbon for ForgotenKnight, my army hero grandson.)
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To: Fred Nerks

Ain’t life grand?


30 posted on 10/04/2009 7:06:25 AM PDT by Monkey Face (I wear a yellow ribbon for ForgotenKnight, my army hero grandson.)
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To: Artie; Swordmaker; SunkenCiv
Jaynes accepted an evolutionary paradigm. He basically had discovered that ancients were using a part of the human brain which is no longer used, and that the entire manner in which the human brain and mind were being used 3000 years ago were altogether different from the way it is used now.

He came to the (wrong) conclusion that human societies had evolved into a state of being guided by systems of what he called "auditory hallucinations" and I assume this was because he was limiting his view to an age from around the Exodus to about the time just prior to Alexander.

What he DIDN'T consider was the true antediluvian age as described in Genesis and by Plato and other classical authors, and whether the scheme he had discovered might in fact have been the normal basis of workable human communications prior to the event associated with the tower of Babel. In other words, there is reason to think that human "language" pror to the flood and the tower of Babel was basically telepathic.

31 posted on 10/04/2009 7:10:46 AM PDT by wendy1946
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To: Fred Nerks

Thanks Fred. It occurs to me after seeing your post, my previous statement about having read Ages in Chaos is inaccurate. I in fact have not read AIC, but WIC and EIU. I’m sure you’ve read Ages in Chaos; any thoughts on it?


32 posted on 10/04/2009 11:01:31 AM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have two choices and two choices only: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!)
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To: ForGod'sSake

“...I’m sure you’ve read Ages in Chaos; any thoughts on it?

It’s a three-course meal...WIC,EiU,AiC.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/12603312/agesinchaosvolum008120mbp

AGES IN CHAOS. A fascinating read.


33 posted on 10/04/2009 1:19:54 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Fred Nerks; ForGod'sSake; SunkenCiv; Swordmaker

Serious scholars who have followed in Velikovsky’s footsteps over the past 50 years despite the cost have split into two major groups, i.e. the group associated with the kronia.com and thunder bolts.info websites and who are primarily interested in reconstructing the antediluvian history of the world and particularly the question of the antique Saturn/Jupiter system, and then the group centered more in NY and Europe which is more interested in the sort of question involved in Ages in Chaos. The principle players in that later group are Gunnar Heinsohn, Emmet Sweeney, and Charles Ginenthal. The conclusion they have come to is that Velikovsky erred on the side of sticking with bible chronologies and did not reduce the accepted chronologies as much as is indicated.


34 posted on 10/04/2009 2:29:51 PM PDT by wendy1946
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To: wendy1946
Thanks wendy1946.
The principle players in that later group are Gunnar Heinsohn, Emmet Sweeney, and Charles Ginenthal. The conclusion they have come to is that Velikovsky erred on the side of sticking with bible chronologies and did not reduce the accepted chronologies as much as is indicated.
Also in that group is Jesse Laskin.

The Glasgow Chronology was a postmortem attempt to hammer out an alternative to V's AiC, and spawned Peter James et al ("Centuries of Darkness") and David Rohl ("Pharaohs and Kings" and other titles).

Vern Crisler runs a chronology group, which I think has moved off Yahoo, perhaps onto one of the blogger websites; and Cami McGraw runs the David Rohl group on Yahoo, which includes participants like John Bimson. Seems like I'm forgetting one...

Ted Stewart tries to come up with a chronology to put Joseph in Egypt while keeping the conventional pseudochronology, and explicitly rejects V's revisions, and comes up short.

The late Robert W. Compton (died as a result of an accident in pursuit of his high-powered rocketry avocation) self-published a very nice synopsis of V's chronology, came with a sort of timeline poster I've been meaning to tranfer to an HTML table.

Lisa Liel actually worked for V's estate, and probably still has some webpages about reconciling the "Hittite" and Assyrian chronologies (which have minor problems), and her ex-husband has some of the same work online, or did at one time.

The late Roger Henry has done IMHO the best job analyzing V's AiC series, it's probably still available (I certainly hope so).

The sci-fi writer and engineer James P. Hogan (UK) used to have a bunch of essays about the Venus stuff on his website (they weren't back up when last I checked, probably almost two years ago), but his book "Kicking the Sacred Cow" has a whole section on that material, and much else besides unrelated to V (Thomas Gold, Darwin, loads of stuff).

The late Donovan Courville (very late, he's been dead 25 or 30 years I think) had "The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications", difficult to find, two volumes, basically self-published, in which he discusses V in a concise way in one of the appendices and a footnote or two. Courville put the Exodus way back in the 1st IP, then telescopes the Egyptian dynasties.

Michael Sanders (I don't remember where I found this out, or even in the memory is accurate) has Courville's materials, which IMHO should be republished in a new edition. Anyway, Sanders has produced a TV special in which he chases down what he says is the site of Shishak's fortress -- then he wasn't allowed to excavate by the so-called Palestinians, because he isn't affiliated with any university, and he got very angry about it on the tape. :')

Martin Sieff came out of the Glasgow Chronology as well, and his stuff I think used to appear on Lisa Liel's website. Don't remember now. I'm going to stop, there are a couple of dozen more folders with names on them in the V folder, and I'd have to look at each one to see why. :')
35 posted on 10/04/2009 4:21:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: ForGod'sSake

Shh! It’s a secret. ;’)


36 posted on 10/04/2009 4:47:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Fred Nerks; Judith Anne

Thanks!


37 posted on 10/04/2009 4:48:17 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Fred Nerks

It never occurred to me to look for an online copy. MORE reading! Thanks, I think...


38 posted on 10/04/2009 5:41:48 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have two choices and two choices only: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!)
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To: SunkenCiv

Wow, you’re seriously into V’s work! Who knew??? From what little I’ve learned of the man, he seems to have been a free spirit that let his well documented research into the earliest accounts of Man’s encounters with the elements lead him where they may. Good on him! I gather his defenders never wavered and in fact their ranks have even blossomed over the years. Somewhere V’s spirit is smiling.


39 posted on 10/04/2009 6:20:35 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have two choices and two choices only: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!)
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To: ForGod'sSake

:’) My interest goes back into the 1970s; Dr V died in, hmm, 1979 or 1980, so not long after my first reading of his books. IMHO his Ages In Chaos series is much more important, and should have been published first, just as its existence preceded that of WiC, and in fact led to it.


40 posted on 10/04/2009 7:04:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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