> One case history was about the guy who insisted that Venus was a planet, not a comet as dictated by the astronomers of the time.
Entirely backwards. Velikovsky [sic?] loudly proclaimed that Venus was a comet spat out (somehow) from Jupiter, that (somehow) wandered around the inner solar system and (somehow) caused much of the ruckus described in the Odl Testaments (stopping the sun ion the sky, partign the Red Sea, etc.) and then (somehow) settled into a perfectly sedate solar orbit.
Astronomers have known that Venus was a planet and not a comet for millenia.
You do raise a point with Velikovsky, though. Many people have produced "radical" views, like Galileo, Kepler, Darwin and Einstein, and been sometimes badly and wrongly mauled by their peers. But many *more* radical ideas, like Velikovsky, the Dean Drive, Larmarck, Marx, the IDers, etc. are just dead wrong. Just because you're novel doesn't mean you're right.
"ut many *more* radical ideas, like Velikovsky, the Dean Drive, Larmarck, Marx, the IDers, etc. are just dead wrong. Just because you're novel doesn't mean you're right."
A few notes on your list:
1) Vellikovsky's main point was not that his explanation was correct, but that the evidence of worldwide testimony of cataclysm demanded _some_ form of explanation. The academic community relentlessly harped on the specific details while missing the big picture of massive historical documentation of cataclysm.
2) Lamarck is actually regaining prominence in biology. Lamarckism was actually never disproved, only a caricature of it was, and a few specific examples were shown to be false. But for more biochemical change, it has actually shown to be somewhat accurate.
3) The ID'ers are right, just give them time :)