Worlds Still Colliding
A Velikovsky Update
Leroy Ellenberger
The reaction by many Velikovskians to the litmus test in the ice is a study in classic cultic delusion. One
might have thought that the Velikovsky movement would have ended with the crucial test in Kronos 10:1,
1984, of the Greenland ice cores the absence of a visible layer of debris specific to Velikovskys
scenario - that disproved Velikovsky's planet-juggling catastrophes, which had been proposed by R.G.A.
Dolby in SIS Review 2:2, 1977. Such a rational expectation proved to be wrong, making all the claims to
"interdisciplinary synthesis" and urgings for "objective re-examination" of the evidence a charade.
In Kronos 12:1, 1986, &; 12:2, 1987, Lynn Rose (then Prof. of Philosopy at SUNY-Buffalo), one of
many critics, granted the antiquity of the ice, but, unable to find any trace of Velikovskys catastrophes
therein, claimed Velikovskys signal is the ice at depth in the so-called brittle zones, deposited
between the Venus and Mars episodes when supposedly Earths axis had no tilt. However, this ignores
the fact that the ages of the brittle zones do not coincide with Velikovskys dates; nor does it explain why
the ice should be brittle. Rose assumes Velikovsky was correct and ignores the concordance of tree rings
and ocean sediments with ice cores. In 1990, Rose refused to defend his ice core arguments against this
writer at the Reconsidering Velikovsky conference in Toronto.
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Most surviving Velikovskians now accept that Worlds in Collision and Ages in Chaos are seriously flawed,
if not completely wrong. Many therefore propose that the real interplanetary catastrophes occurred earlier
than Velikovsky claimed, often in the context of the Saturn theory, inspired by an unpublished
Velikovsky manuscript. The Saturn theory envisions Earth as part of the polar configuration that
orbited the Sun such that a nearby Saturn loomed continuously over the north pole as a rotating crescent.
Saturnists claim mythology preserves the record of that alignment and transition to the present Solar
System by 2000 B.C.E. The rotating crescent motif, unsupported by any independent, contemporary
evidence, is only a figment of the imagination. The ice cores also contain information that contradicts the
former existence of any "polar configuration." Having failed to make a prima facie case
<ftp://ftp.primenet.com/pub/lippard/cle-antidote>, the Saturnists shift the burden-of-proof by challenging
critics to prove their model wrong.
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Since conventional physics precludes any such arrangement of planets, Velikovskians have adopted the
plasma-theoretic electric universe model, propounded by civil engineer Ralph Juergens, as a deus ex
machina. Supposedly the Sun is an electric discharge powered by an influx of electrons. Based largely on
various analogies, this theory has no quantitative basis and is disproved by everything known about the
Suns behavior <http://www.geocities.com/Tim_J_Thompson/electric-sun.html>. Juergens work is
carried on by the Holoscience project <http://www.holoscience.com>, promoted by retired computer
systems engineer Wal Thornhill, now a "physicist" on the basis of his 1964 B.S.
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The resistance of Velikovskys successors to all the contradictory physical evidence mounting since 1977
and their failure to embrace Clube and Napier's model indicate they are congenitally incapable of changing
their core belief, namely recent interplanetary catastrophism. By contrast, the revolutionary terminal
Cretaceous impact 65 million years ago was accepted during this same time by most scientists within a
decade; see J.L. Powell, Night Comes to the Cretaceous (New York, 1998).
jerrypournelle.com
There's a scientific term for Velikovsky, Charley. It's "crank". |
