[Aracelis]

You'll have to wait for the rest of the gang...I stay as far away from Velikovsky as I can, you know...being a scientist and all. But of what I've read, I enjoyed this bit the best:

"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).

Yup...lots o' science in that statement!

[plusone]

Okay while I wait for the others, let's debate. Considering that we don't really know how the planets formed, there is nothing unscientific about his hypothesis. He made many predicitons about Venus (once he got his book published, and that in itself is a sad testament to the openmindedness of science) which turned out to be true. He said that Venus, being a young planet, was at the boiling point of lead. Science at the time thought it was only slightly warmer than Earth. Vel. was right. He said Jupiter emmited radio signals. Science laughed. Vel was right. He has offered a testable theory, since he made predictions that have turned out to be correct (not all, but many). And he was given the 'Gallileo' cold shoulder. Many scientists villified him without bothering to read his book. Carl Sagan wrote the difinitive attack on his theories, which, years later, were point by point discredited by another researcher, who accused Sagan of bad science. (Can't recall the name off hand).