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Q-CD vol. 15: The Velikovsky Affair, The Scientific Reception System         
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6. THE SCIENTIFIC RECEPTION SYSTEM

by Alfred de Grazia

When a scientist writes a book of his controlled experiences, a
publisher ponders its audience, and a colleague weighs its
value, the special order of human relations called science is in
being. Their patterns of motive and behaviour emerge from and
return to the larger sphere of social behaviour. They are differ
ent from, yet the same as the general social order.

Perhaps then never can it be said that `this could only happen in
science': in a scientific sense science cannot follow laws
uniquely its own. Also it would be exceedingly risky to reason
that, though possessed of a basis of generally understood be
haviour, science receives from somewhere a unique moral code
that cannot be evaluated by general moral codes.

THE CONCEPT OF RECEPTION SYSTEM

There is, in every social order, a reception system. In the sub
order of scientific behaviour, the reception system consists of
the criteria whereby scientists, their beliefs, and their practices
are adjudged by scientists as a community to be worthy, true
and effective.

The importance of a reception system in every social order is
manifest. The reception system shapes the character of new re
cruits to the order and therefore forms the product of the order.
If the term itself is new, the reception processes in themselves
are well known. Whenever a scientist concerns himself with the
training methods and the curriculum of his field, or with its
system of publications and the criteria for evaluating work, he
contributes to the building or enforcement of the order. Political
parties and mass movements, religious groups, business enter
prises, bureaucracies, and a host of voluntary associations have

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similar reception systems, and of course there is little difference
between the natural and social sciences in this regard.

The principal elements of the reception system are doctrines
and an operational formula with typical tactics of acceptance
and rejection. Thus, `truth according to empirical principles'
constitutes a doctrine of the science reception system. It is
generally believed that some criteria satisfying this goal must
be extracted from those who contend for acceptance. The
operational formula sets forth a number of methods by which
behaviours are to be tested to determine the degree to which
they fulfil the obligation of `empirical truth.' And a set of
tactics is employed to admit or reject offerings determined to
have succeeded or failed according to the formula. For instance,
a journal will return a manuscript with a polite note of refusal
or fit an article meeting its criteria into its publishing schedule.
Ultimately the social and scientific consequences of this
reception system must be discovered and analyzed in order to
pass judgment upon the system and to enable an applied science
of science to revise and reform doctrines, formulae, and tactics.

Such a reception system may be postulated to operate when a
person, belief, or practice is projected upon the perceptive and
cognitive screen of scientists with an implicit or explicit
demand for acceptance. We therefore view Dr Velikovsky, his
theories, and his practices as a case relevant to the study of the
reception system of science.

The interpretation of the science reception system may be
facilitated by fitting its activity to assumed models. Models of
social behaviour in a given setting can be numerous, since the
construction of any single model depends only on the
perception of a patterned dynamic of actions, and since the
validity (and utility) of such models is theoretical and
statistical, not absolute. The number of principal models may be
reduced to one in the case of purely-motivated and purely-acted
behaviour, or to several in the case of the usual complicated
performance of social institutions. In the case of the scientific
reception system the problem is to determine what postulated
pattern or complex of motives and behaviour best accounts for
what happens in most cases coming before the reception system

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for consideration. What accounts for the favourable or
unfavourable reception of men, beliefs and practices?

The historical sociology of science is obliged, in the long run,
to provide materials and analysis in a large enough number of
cases to verify empirically that one or several given models
explain in great part and usefully the vast majority of relevant
actions. A single case, as the one of Velikovsky, can contribute
to an ultimate historical sociology of science, but cannot in
itself prove the validity of the models used.

However, if there is support from materials already known to
us, and from such writings as the preceding article by Livio
Stecchini, we would be inclined to credit the hypothetical
model with somewhat more validity than the single case would
warrant per se. Moreover, in order for a rule of law to
characterize the behaviour of social groups, justice has
ultimately to be defined in relation to singular parties. Therefore
a finding of injustice in a single case is sufficient to provide
grounds for remedial action then and there, without resort to
laws of averages, or the `long run.' If a postulated model of the
scientific reception system fits a case well, and is believed to be
either personally unjust [1] or socially (scientifically) harmful,
then the question will naturally arise whether the case should be
reheard, as well as whether this condition is typical, this model
is normal, and the public or social policies (rules) of scientific
behaviour should be revised.

Four models appear to explain a good deal of scientific recep
tion-system behaviour. They may be called the Rationalistic
Model, the Indeterminacy Model, the Power Model, and the
Dogmatic Model.

THE RATIONALISTIC RECEPTION SYSTEM

The rationalistic reception system is openly displayed by scien
tists in general as the `scientific method.' It is considered in
proto-thought [2] to be the exclusive determinant of admission
policies to the corpus of science. Its goal is truth, enlighten
ment, knowledge, or just simply `science.' It postulates a purity
of science, namely that the propositions and methods of scien
tists are arrived at only by efficient, logico-empirical opera

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tions. Personal animosities, psychopathology, politics and other
social conditions are ignored, reduced in importance, or denied
a place in the scheme of science.

The rationalistic model, defender of the purity of science,
requires that the `scientific method' be pursued in validating
fact and proposition. It demands control, prefers quantification,
and honours prediction as marks of scientific work. It asserts
that new material offered for scientific examination and apprai
sal will be fairly and openly dealt with, will be communicated
freely to whoever may be in a position to judge its merits, and
will, upon approval, convey credit to its author. It resembles the
rule of law in court systems in that a set of procedures for
arriving at truth are to be required of all men regardless of their
degree of authority, their previous record, and the resources
they command.

These are some of the doctrinal, procedural, and tactical ele
ments in the rationalistic model. The socio-scientific conse
quences that are deemed valuable are `truths,' by the operation
of this process more and greater `truths' will be discovered. The
truth will be communicated. As its value becomes apparent, the
truth will be used in all applied fields that are related.

Those who operate in the name of this model tend to deny a
sociology of science. The concept of sociology implies that
men are conditioned in their behaviour by social factors lying
outside of the intellect. The scope of the psychology of science
is similarly reduced, creating a constant tendency to believe in
absolute realities. Furthermore, since those under the
rationalistic spell claim that  after all `there is an objective
method of testing reality and any reasonable person can see the
truth when it is presented to him,' they tend to dismiss political
problems as irrelevant, and to dismiss power as a factor in the
building of the corpus of science.

In detailing the rationalistic model, some of the behaviour of
scientists in the Velikovsky case that exemplify the use or non
use of the rules of the model can be described. To be noted first
of all is that the model is itself used as a mode of attack upon
Velikovsky. This is immediately apparent when articles and
correspondence dealing with his work are examined. Perhaps

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the most indignant published attacks against Velikovsky occur
at the hand of Professor Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. She
precedes them, however, with a statement of the rationalistic
doctrine of science, for she says:

In these days of loyalty oaths, scientists may
congratulate themselves that they are not, as such,
required to swear to anything. Nonetheless, every
scientific man, every man who devotes his life
sincerely to the advancement of knowledge,
commits himself to certain loyalties. His loyalties
are to principles, not to dogmas; to respect for
evidence - all the evidence, not merely such as
fulfills his expectations, respect for those
formulations that embody the evidence. We who
are engaged in research are not concerned in
preserving the existing framework of theories. We
spend our lives searching for the wherewithal to
modify and supplant them. The discovery of
discordant facts is cause for rejoicing, not
consternation. If Velikovsky had adduced any real
evidence that compelled a revision of the laws of
celestial mechanics, astronomers would have
accepted the facts, and the challenge, with delight.
His supporters imagine that we are shaking in our
shoes. This is partly true: we are shaking, but with
laughter... Our critical faculties have not been
developed only by dealing with cranks, for there is
plenty of loose thinking and misinterpretation of
evidence within the fold. The outsider might be
surprised to learn how little mercy we have on, or
ask from, our fellow scientists [3].

The Scientific Monthly, which was later incorporated into the
magazine Science, also printed an article by a professor of
philosophy that endeavoured to explain to the public the criteria
that distinguish scientists from cranks. We quote the rationalis
tic doctrine as carried there:

We have already said that there is hardly a
scientific theory that is not questioned by some
scientist of repute. This is so because science is

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unfinished business, an inquiry into the habits of
nature where all the evidence is not in and where
much of the evidence that is in has not been
digested. Under these conditions there is room for
minority opinions, some of which will, no doubt,
turn out to be correct. There is a parallel here,
though, with horse racing: long shots run in the
races, and some will no doubt win. But a sports
commentator who expected a long shot to win in
almost every race would be open to suspicion. In
the same way, the man who accepts one or two
scientific `long shots' is perfectly reasonable, but
when a man accepts too many of them, his
scientific standing becomes suspect. The crank is
one who tries to force nature into his own selected
pattern; the evidence of strain resulting from this
practice is divergence from currently accepted
views [4].

Harrison Brown, reviewing Velikovsky's work in the Scientific
American, similarly asserts several rules of the science recep
tion system:

...In the world of science the individual research
worker usually subjects his results and theories to
his fellow scientists for searching criticism and
checking before making his results known to the
public. If he is at a university he first solicits the
criticisms of his local colleagues, following which
he shows his results to scientists in other
institutions. When he has thus satisfied himself
that his results or ideas make sense, he submits a
paper to a scientific journal. The paper is sent to
anonymous referees for criticism, and if they judge
it worth publishing it is published in that journal
[5].

Earlier, writing in The Saturday Review, Brown had this to say
about the Velikovsky hypotheses:

...Modern science can... marshal far more
convincing evidence - evidence which possesses

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mathematical rigor as distinct from interpretations
of what human beings may or may not have done,
observed, or said thousands of years ago [6].

In each case, following upon or included in the doctrinal state
ments are assertions that Velikovsky has failed to fulfil the
conditions. The doctrinal statements reveal how aware the
scientific community is of the need to precede strong criticism
by a credo.

In the rationalistic doctrine the rule of publication holds
primary importance. It says that any would-be scientist should
make known the result of his investigations, and, by inference,
should have the right to publish his work. It also is expected
that a scientist's work will be discussed before publication by
those capable of evaluating it. These obligations were, of
course, fulfilled by Dr Velikovsky. He consulted many special
ists, among them the historian Pfeiffer and astronomers Adams
and Motz. The book was examined carefully before publication.
Macmillan held it for three years, and then was subjected to
pressure from leading scientists not to publish or stop selling it
after it was brought out. His work was subjected to double the
regular scrutiny by experts prior to publication because of these
pressures. It was read by at least six experts and emerged with a
favourable verdict. His book was removed from one firm and
transferred to another because of the threat to the publisher of
loss of reputation and sales. Whereas the first article by
Larrabee in Harper's was a responsible piece of journalism, and
those of Atwater and Oursler were respectable presentations, a
portion of the popular press distorted some of the features of his
work, creating an image of it that many scientists could use to
discourage other scientists from writing about the work
seriously. The scientific journals would not subsequently
publish articles by Velikovsky which adduced further proof of
his thesis or responded to criticism.

A second canon of the rationalistic model is that works will be
read before a judgment is passed. This promise is not always
fulfilled. Yet the principle of reading offered material must be
upheld lest the whole rationalistic model collapse. If the new
work cannot be guaranteed some degree of expert reading it
must naturally fail to make its mark. Science is a

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communication system as well as a method of advancing truth.
Several of the most severe attacks against Velikovsky can now
be shown to have been made by scientists who had not read the
book. Perhaps as many as half a million American have read
Worlds in Collision. Among them are relatively few of the
scientists - astronomers, geologists, paleontologists, historians 
who are directly affected by the ideas treated in the book.

Reviewing is one step beyond reading. The review is necessary
to pinpoint the audience of a book, to enlighten others as to its
contents, and to suggest considerations of its truth or falsity.
Hundreds of reviews were written of Velikovsky's book,
Worlds in Collision. The popular reviewers tended to be
favourable. The scientists were hostile. If there is such a thing
as an ideal book review, whether favourable or unfavourable, it
is not to be found in the story of Worlds in Collision. The
question may be raised whether not only Velikovsky but also
other scientists are subjected to the same inadequate treatment
of their work and whether thereby this principle of the
rationalistic model is continually being violated.

Another rule is that theories offered should be tested, not only
by the author but his critics. This rule again turns out to be
unobserved in many instances [7]. Velikovsky, whose behavior
throughout the controversy was that of person committed to the
rationalistic model, began to ask for tests of his theories four
years prior to publication of his work. He reasonably claimed to
have performed all tests within his power (the historical tests)
but sought other tests requiring the use of equipment that he did
not have access to. For instance, over a ten-year period he
corresponded with several institutions - universities, museums,
laboratories - trying to persuade someone to perform
radiocarbon tests on Egyptian artifacts of the New Kingdom,
without success. He also sought unsuccessfully to have the
spectrogram of Venus analysed for heavy molecules of
hydrocarbon. One wonders here, as in the case of other `folk
heroes,' whether a condition of accepting with grave
seriousness the rationalistic doctrine is to be innocent of
experience of the world wherein the doctrine operates.
Velikovsky, having had no university appointment or
foundation grant, was more tenacious in his adherence to the
rationalistic myth than his detractors.

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Honesty and fairness are cardinal tenets of the rationalistic
credo. Unless scientists are willing to admit the source of their
knowledge and theories, and willing to grant a fair hearing and
test to ideas brought forth, they contribute to the collapse of the
rationalistic reception system. The honesty of Velikovsky was
frequently called into question by natural scientists, in a manner
so strong and unbalanced as to constitute libel. Yet no single
case of mis-stated fact was proven in any of the four books of
Velikovsky, and it would be untrue to assert that his works are
too vague to assail; they are, in fact, exceedingly detailed and
specific.

The `ruthless honesty' that both Gaposchkin and Brown
asserted as the hallmark of science in relation to self-criticism
and appraisal of new works was quite ruthless, it is true, but
directed entirely at Velikovsky. The degree of honesty in the
appraisal of Velikovsky's studies can be judged in some of the
evidence presented in these papers.

The appraisal of works by specialists, we have said, is a neces
sary ingredient of the rationalistic model. And specialists were
brought to bear upon the work of Velikovsky. However, it
would appear that the specialists' functions in the Velikovsky
case were primarily to proclaim their competence and to
disperse the vulgar masses who claimed to see revelations of
value in Velikovsky's writings. Instead of specialism being
used as a positive weapon of analysis, it tended to be used as a
negative weapon of destruction: `Anything un-narrow must be
bad.' Professor Boring wrote in an article on unorthodoxies of
science that agreement by trained scientists is the critical
determinant of truth [8]. His theory, itself unorthodox, and not
part of the rationalistic model, was used to show why
Velikovsky was wrong even by those scientists who were
operating in the name of the rationalistic credo: since the
specialists said Velikovsky was incorrect, he must be incorrect.

Open discussion is supposed to characterize the rationalistic
model. The social setting provided for the discussion of Veli
kovsky's work were mostly arranged for and administered by
hostile critics or intimidated moderators. He was excluded from
discussions of his own work and, when he succeeded in

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participating under a special dispensation, his words were not
subsequently published. Several scientists and intellectuals who
attempted his defence were silenced or sanctioned severely. I.
Bernard Cohen, Professor of history of science (Harvard
University), wrote sympathetically, almost enthusiastically, of
Velikovsky's work in the advance summary of his address
before the American Philosophical Society in April 1952, but
changed his approach markedly in the published version of his
address in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society (October 1952).

Radical innovation, declared Dr. Gaposchkin, is no bar to the
reception of new science. This is part of her testimonial to the
rationalistic reception system. More in keeping with the facts of
the reception of Velikovsky by herself and the scientific order is
the statement by Bernard Cohen that `Any suggestion that
scientists so dearly love truth, that they have not the slightest
hesitation in jettisoning their beliefs, is a mean perversion of the
facts'[9].

Nor should radicalism in method be a deterrent to the
recruitment of ideas. Yet one of the glaring features of the
Velikovsky case is the humanistic ignorance of natural
scientists. A reading of the Velikovsky record should be part of
the proceedings of any group considering the revision of
curriculum for students of the natural sciences. Soon a century
will have passed since the beginnings of the scientific
investigation of myth, folklore, and primitive psychology. It has
been many years since a theory of the unconscious has found a
place in the instrumentation of social science. The science of
linguistics, of symbols, of the sociology of communication, has
progressed. It would appear that a more broadly educated or at
least philosophically trained scientific class would have been
able to perceive the relevance, validity, and unique capabilities
of Velikovsky's method to key problems of natural science.

But the passage of time has relegated the natural sciences prin
cipally to hardware instrumentation. The natural scientists are
still dwelling mentally in the hollow rationalistic universe of the
19th century. Indeed such a statement is unfair to the 19th
century, which was far richer in mental constructions than its
impoverished and dependent epigoni. They were victims of the

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fallacies that the present writer came to list in a previous article
as common among natural scientist [10].

The rationalistic model naturally assumes that sincerity is a
hallmark of scientific work. Harlow Shapley called Velikovsky
a fraud [11], without having read the book. Thereupon Shapley
engaged in collective action to prevent the publication and use
of Velikovsky's book, actions which he then denied upon being
accused of them. He declared in the Harvard Crimson (Sept.
25, 1950):

The claim that Dr. Velikovsky's book is being
suppressed is nothing but a publicity promotion
stunt. Like having a book banned in Boston; it
improves the sales. Several attempts have been
made to link such a move to stop the book's
publication to some organization or to the Harvard
Observatory. This idea is absolutely false.

The model of rationality demands that the populace be barred
from scientific proceedings. Sales of a work to laymen does not
disprove the validity of a work yet this seems to have been
indicated by critics of Velikovsky. We even note that
Velikovsky was criticized negatively for having found people
to buy his book, the implication being that unless a work has
the previous blessings of the scientific establishment, it has no
right to exist [12].

The rational model holds that imprecision is a defeat of scien
tific work. An ideal is quantification, though many of the sci
ences fall short of this ideal in most of their propositions.
Without foundation in fact, Gaposchkin says of Worlds in
Collision: `It contains no scientific arguments; not a formula,
not a number (save for arbitrarily assigned dates) presents itself
for analysis.' Dr Donald H. Menzel's appendix to her critique,
sturdily entitled `The celestial mechanics of electrically-charged
planets,' goes on to show quantitatively that a planet or sun
charged to the potential demanded by equations based on
Velikovsky's theory, amounting to 10 to the 19th power volts,
`would be violently unstable...trying to put such an electric field
on the sun resembles trying to hold back the entire mass of
water in Lake Mead by a Boulder Dam made of tissue paper

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sheets'[13]. Recent space probes led Professor V. A. Bailey to
the conclusion that the sun must hold a net negative charge with
a potential of the order of 10 to the 19th power volts [14]. The
coincidence is only that, for even Menzel's arithmetic was
faulty. The main point is that in astronomy and other sciences,
natural and social, to make quantification a rigid condition for
the admission of new theory, even in areas where qualification
today rules, can promote dysfunctional rigidities.

`Reject appeals to authority,' affirm the rationalistic rules of
procedure. Presumably, nothing is made true or false by the
character of its supporters. However, science has not yet
discovered a set of techniques for superseding authority, and
the corpus of science would be a skeleton if this rule were
seriously followed. We have more to say about that shortly, but
meanwhile it is well to note that in no respect was the scientific
movement against Velikovsky so much at variance with the
rationalistic model as in its reliance upon authority.

The rationalistic model, when it is sociological at all, remem
bers history, warns against the blind opposition to new science,
and as insurance that it can no longer happen in our secular and
non-magical age, offers the assertion that when at first, ideas
are rejected, they may return with additional proof for

admission and will be cordially re-examined. On December 21,
1962, Prof. V. Bargmann of the Department of Physics of
Princeton University and Prof. Lloyd Motz of the Department
of Astronomy of Columbia University published a letter in
Science magazine claiming Velikovsky's priority of prediction
of the hot surface temperature of Venus, of the existence of the
magnetosphere around the Earth, and of the radio noises
emanating from Jupiter. We quote from their letter:

`On 14 October 1953, Immanuel Velikovsky,
addressing the Forum of the Graduate College of
Princeton University... concluded the lecture as
follows: "The planet Jupiter is cold, yet its gases
are in motion. It appears probable to me that it
sends out radio noises as do the sun and the stars. I
suggest that this be investigated."... In April 1955
B. F. Burke and K. L. Franklin of the Carnegie
Institution announced the chance detection of

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strong radio signals emanating from Jupiter. They
recorded the signals for several weeks before they
correctly identified the source.'

`This discovery came as something of a surprise
because radio astronomers had never expected a
body as cold as Jupiter to emit radio waves (1. see
also the New York Times for 28 October 1962.)'

`In 1960 V. Radhakrishmah of India and J. A.
Roberts of Australia, working at California
Institute of Technology, established the existence
of a radiation belt encompassing Jupiter, "giving
1014 times as much radio energy as the Van Allen
belts around the earth".'

`On 5 December 1956, through the kind services
of H. H. Hess, chairman of the department of
geology of Princeton University, Velikovsky
submitted a memorandum to the U.S. National
Committee for the (planned) IGY in which he
suggested the existence of a terrestrial
magnetosphere reaching the moon. Receipt of the
memorandum was acknowledged by E. O. Hulbert
for the Committee. The magnetosphere was
discovered in 1958 by Van Allen.'

`In the last chapter of his Worlds in Collision
(1950), Velikovsky stated that the surface of
Venus must be very hot, although in 1950 the
temperature of the cloud surface of Venus was
known to be -25 deg C on the day and night sides
alike... By 1961 it became known that the surface
temperature of Venus is "almost 600 degrees [K]"
(4. Phys. Today 14, No. 4, 30, 1961). F. D. Drake
described this discovery as "a surprise... in a field
in which the fewest surprises were expected". "We
would have expected a temperature only slightly
greater than that of the earth... Sources of internal
heating [radioactivity] will not produce an
enhanced surface temperature. Cornell H. Mayer
writes (5. C. H. Mayer, Sci. Am.,204, May 1961),

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"All the observations are consistent with a
temperature of almost 600 degrees," and admits
that "the temperature is much higher than anyone
would have predicted".'

They urged `that his other conclusions be objectively re
examined.' Following the publication of this note, Velikovsky
on January 29, 1963 submitted to Science magazine a more
complete presentation of recent empirical evidence of the
correctness of some of his statements. On January 31, the
article was back in his hands with a formal letter of rejection.

In connection with reports of the Venus probes, Newsweek
magazine was independently developing a story about
Velikovsky at the time. The Editor of Science, Philip Abelson,
stated to the Newsweek reporter in the course of a telephone
inquiry that he had not read the Velikovsky manuscript before
returning it.

Both as a document in the present case and for its intrinsic
significance, the Velikovsky note, as submitted to Science and
rejected, is printed below (see page 215). In the months since its
submission to Science, additional corroborative finds have
occurred. The paper was written and submitted before the
results of the Mariner II probe of Venus were announced on
February 26, 1963. The probe further confirmed Velikovsky's
claims concerning the great heat of Venus (800 deg F) and the
hydrocarbons (or organic compounds) of its envelope.

It was upon an occasion shortly after reviewing the
memorandum of Velikovsky that Professor H. H. Hess,
Chairman of the Department of Geology of Princeton
University, wrote to Dr Velikovsky:

I am not about to be converted to your form of
reasoning though it certainly has had successes.
You have after all predicted that Jupiter would be a
source of radio noise, that Venus would have a
high surface temperature, that the sun and bodies
of the solar system would have large electrical
charges and several other such predictions. Some
of these predictions were said to be impossible

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when you made them. All of them were predicted
long before proof that they were correct came to
hand. Conversely I do not know of any specific
prediction you made that has since been proven to
be false. I suspect the merit lies in that you have a
good basic background in the natural sciences and
you are quite uninhibited by the prejudices and
probability taboos which confine the thinking of
most of us.

For nearly a decade, Professor Hess has encouraged a hearing
for Velikovsky and a testing of his ideas.

On February 15, Science carried a letter by Poul Anderson that
lampooned Velikovsky and criticized the Bargmann-Motz letter
on grounds that jokers and science-fiction writers had also
made fantastic assumptions that were later verified. When Eric
Larrabee, managing editor of Horizon magazine, protested to
Dr Abelson against the exclusion of Velikovsky's article and
the publication of Anderson's letter, Abelson thanked him and
replied that:

Velikovsky is a controversial figure. Many of the ideas that he
expressed are not accepted by serious students of earth science.
Since my prejudices happen to agree with this majority, I
strained my sense of fair play to accept the letter by Bargmann
and Motz, and thought that the books were nicely balanced with
the rejoinder of Anderson.

When the Reverend Warner Sizemore, a Philadelphia minister,
wrote to Science to show that the very cases that Anderson cited
might be construed in favour of Velikovsky he received in reply
a letter from Dr Abelson that declared:

Science can exist and is useful because much of the knowledge
in it is more than 99.9 percent certain and reproducible. If
science were based on suggestions that were true 50 percent of
the time, and all were free to make predictions which were only
that reliable, chaos would result. I have repeatedly seen men of
brilliance with fertile imaginations make all kinds of
suggestions. Ideas are easy. They are cheap. It is the proving of
a suggestion beyond a reasonable doubt that makes it valuable.

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At least half of Velikovsky's ideas have been proved wrong and
he has done little to substantiate the remainder. In view of this,
he is not to be taken seriously.

Yet, a few months earlier, Abelson was proclaiming the role of
ideas in a Science editorial:

The synthesis of xenon tetraflouride and related
compounds... makes necessary the revision of
many chemistry textbooks...For perhaps 15 years,
at least a million scientists all over the world have
been blind to a potential opportunity to make this
important discovery. All that was required to
overthrow a respectable and entrenched dogma
was a few hours of effort and a germ of scepticism.
Our intuition tells us that this is just one of
countless opportunities in all areas of inquiry. The
imaginative and original mind need not be
overawed by the imposing body of present
knowledge or by the complex and costly
paraphernalia which today surround much of
scientific activity. The great shortage in science
now is not opportunity, manpower, money, or
laboratory space. What is really needed is more of
that healthy scepticism which generates the key
idea - the liberating concept [15].

We must question whether the P.H.A. who wrote these lines
stands for Philip H. Abelson.

This was not the first time Dr Velikovsky had difficulties enter
ing the pages of professional journals. The Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society, which in 1952 carried
extensive attacks upon him, would not suffer his reply. In 1956,
the Scientific American carried a strong attack on both Worlds
in Collision and Earth in Upheaval by Harrison Brown. (The
magazine had refused to carry advertising of Velikovsky's
book.) When Velikovsky asked for permission to rebut, the
Editor Dennis Flanagan, wrote:

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I think you should know my position once and for
all. I think your books have done incalculable
harm to the public understanding of what science
is and what scientists do. There is no danger
whatever that your arguments will not be heard; on
the contrary they have received huge circulation by
scientific standards.

Thus I feel that we have no further obligation in
the matter.

This quotation reveals that the Editor has picked up a common
sociological misapprehension among scientists. It is that the
media of the general public can substitute for the media of
science. They cannot. Furthermore, most scientists, when they
reflect, realize that they themselves insist upon a distinct
separation of the two types of media.

Science magazine has a subscription list of 90,000. Its sponsor
ing body, the A.A.A.S., includes 71,000 individual members
and 298 affiliated scientific societies, academies, and other
professional organizations. The Scientific American sells a
quarter of a million copies. They can reach fully the diversified
audience of scientists who are concerned with Velikovsky's
work. Or they can serve as a block to the admission of new
material. If the American Behavioral Scientist prints accounts
of Velikovsky's theories, it does so in the pursuance of its
commitment to treat with the sociology of science and scientific
freedom. If Science magazine carries or does not carry the
developments of the substance of Velikovsky's work, it acts out
of its obligation to present new scientific propositions and
theories to the scientific world.

At this point the discussion of the rationalistic system of
science may be concluded. Its doctrine, formulas, and tactics
have been only feebly exercised in the Velikovsky case. It has
furnished a poor fit. A few scientists - in conversation, by
letters, and rarely by public statement - asked for the rules of
rationalistic science to be observed. The behaviours of almost
all scientists involved, with the expected exception of Dr Veli
kovsky who acted in accord with the rules of seeking

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admission, must be fitted to some other model. Perhaps it will
be that which is called here the indeterminacy model.

THE INDETERMINACY MODEL

The Indeterminacy Model postulates a scientific order that is
not replenished according to any scheme that is instrumentally
rational. Rather it almost randomly absorbs or refuses. The
lightning of discovery can strike anywhere. The pattern of
science forms and becomes recognizable out of a vast collection
of accidents. The truth value of the scientist and his product are
alleged to have very little to do with their chances of success in
being incorporated into science. Nor are they kept out by
skillful managers of power and arbiters of claims.

The indeterminacy model differs from the rationalistic in that it
postulates deliberate activities that are distributed so as to
nullify and cancel out each other, thus giving the total system
an unplanned effect. Its rules therefore are not rules of conduct
but rules of effects.

The very first rule of the indeterminacy model is that `truth'
about reality has as much chance of rejection as of acceptance.
Truth is an irrelevant trait of candidates and material.

Let us pause for a moment to contemplate this radical
expression. It does not say that truth is non-existent. It can still
hold to the theory that statements can be distinguished as to
their relative correlation with facts, patterns of fact, predictions
of events, and control of events. However, for truth to exist
does not imply truth will be admitted - even to its own domain
of science. Like the proverbial prophet, it can be without
honour in its own land.

To conceive of this situation, let us assume that all men are
scientists, even if some are more so than others. They have
problems that might be solved by logico-empirical procedures.
Taking into account all that men allow into their body of
convictions, all the statements about the world and about the
future to which they grant their assents, can it be said now, or
ever, that the bulk of these statements are true? Perhaps not, at
least not by logico-empirical standards.

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Now, moving from the common man to the scientist, can it be
said that scientists take in more correct statements than
incorrect ones? To affirm such, one would have to believe that
they have attained omniscience. He would say, as men usually
have said through history, that those who went before had
mental closets packed with the shabby clothes of superstition,
wrong theories, and unempirical ideas, whereas today, most of
what men know is true.

If pressed, one would be forced to justify his pride by the
known effects of specialization. A worn witticism says that the
scientist as specialist is one who knows more and more about
less and less. This may be granted, in which event one would
have to resort to a collectivist theory of knowledge: knowledge
is a corporate possession; apart from the question of whether
most of what is known is true, more is true today than before,
despite specialization, because science is a set of wonderful
pools connected by communicating pipes.

If this is so, then everything depends upon communications. If
the pipes are not working, truth is forever partial and in a worse
condition than when the lesser sum of it was more generally
distributed. Is this the case today ? It may be. It may be becom
ing so. The indeterminacy model postulates that it is so. Error is
not only as common as truth; but truth is fragmented for being
uncommunicated. When a truth is admitted only to a small part
of the realm of science, it does not exist except for that portion
of the realm.

Probably the extent of the admission of error into science is
underestimated by those scientists who have high morale or
rigid unconscious self-doubts. Probably also truth today does
not enter a reservoir of science but only a separate pool.
Therefore the indeterminacy model can affirm that truth does
not enter as a matter of course not because it is deliberately
excluded, but from logical, social, and psychological conditions
beyond current means of control.

The model suggests that the spirit of the times and customs
dictate what will and will not be science. Few or many people
will acquire the habits of inquiry. They will produce results,

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theoretical and practical, and they will be accepted or rejected
partly by chance, partly by favour or patronage, partly by pub
licity, partly by the use to which their work may be put.

Scientists operate under the indeterminacy system by various
myths - primarily of rationality, of causation, and of power of
choice - but in fact do not know what they are seeking, what is
available, or what are solutions. That their compensation,
whether in esteem, position, or money, is related to
performance is only an illusion. What is accepted and what is
rejected are therefore only a product of chance encounters of
purpose and provision.

Under these circumstances, scientists follow the laws of nonra
tional collective behaviour. They think in stereotypes (e.g. the
eternal harmony of the spheres, uniformitarianism,
catastrophism). They circulate ideas via popularization and
texts [16]. Thus have Newton, Galileo, Darwin, Freud and
Einstein been conveyed. Scientists are at the mercy of
popularizers. Their own minds are formed by simplistic ideas,
try as they will to evade their grip.

A new theory spreads as a rumour, simplified, overly precise,
and success comes as a surprise. No two persons understand its
extended meanings quite alike. It is resistant to rational counter
argument. And it persists until it is stale and a more vibrant
report originates. It seems to be specific and operational until it
is shown to be blind and vague; such is the fate of most past
statements about the universe.

We would expect more scientists to dislike the indeterminacy
model than the rationalistic or power models. It negates the
rationalistic model. And the power model, though disliked, en
trusts judgments to `qualified authorities,' as we shall see. The
indeterminacy threatens the whole order. It can be fully
expected that among various kinds of scientists, statisticians
and sociologists will be least offended by it, astronomers most
offended, because of their own methodology. Physics and
individualistic psychology, it may be noted, have in recent
years been prone to demand complicated systems of priorities
in giving scientific credits. Quarrelling over datelines of reports
and property in `findings' has sometimes occurred. This, it may

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be assumed, is in part a reaction against surrendering to
indeterminacy. Much greater nervousness, verging on trauma,
is approaching as scientists will consign their work to the
anonymous maw of the electronic information storage
apparatus of the future.

Under the indeterminacy model, in the jargon of avant-garde
statistics, the man/material `takes a random walk.' The random
walk signifies that for control purposes (including predictive
and tactical behaviour) there is no pattern except randomness.
Only behaviours of a low level of typicality can be discovered,
and these are too weak to determine directions. In the light of
this theory, the Galileo case reads understandably. One cannot
escape the feeling that the treatment afforded Galileo was pro
duced by a host of non-rational, inconsistent incidents and
intrigues leading up to his condemnation. A hierarchical or
power system was at work, but its instrumental rationality was
inept. The Church did not behave as a fully-aware, clearly
organized, accurately aimed body. Galileo's punishment seems
in retrospect almost to have been an accident, though an
understandable one.

The following rules prevail:

(1) There are no prescribed scientific procedures. The rule of
creative hypothesis is great and scientists `monkey around.'
Science fiction, magic, astrology, and half-rationalized ideas are
joined to logico-empirical procedures and facts, creating an
environment from which practical accomplishment emerges.
There is a chaos of communication. A person working in
science applies himself to whatever comes to him through his
peculiar interests and situs, and casts forth a product whose
destination and fate are unknown.

The indeterminacy model stresses the chance reception of
discoveries. Poincare recites how he solved a theorem of
Fuchsian functions while walking across a street [17]. Karl
Gauss after working for years on proof of a theorem succeeds
and writes: `At last, two days ago, I succeeded, not by dint of
painful effort, but so to speak by the grace of God. As a sudden
flash of light, the enigma was solved. For my part, I am not in a
position to point to the thread which joins what I knew

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previously to what I have succeeded in doing.' Where is
Velikovsky's method, more than one of his reviewers asks in
anguish. There is a method, not highly selfconscious, not
always exposed. It is much more clearly recognizable to social
scientists than to natural scientists. Sometimes the method is
concealed by an easy style that separates empirically-tied ideas
while allocating them to short sentences. Of course, a number
of the rational propositions, which lend the work its distinction,
are only as explainable as the leaps of Poincare and Gauss. The
social psychology, much less the neurology, of such events is
little known.

The indeterminancy model, in this regard, offers in place of the
rationalistic model a description of `normal' science as a quasi
administrative routine [18]. It affirms the idea over the process,
as in the letter from Professor H. H. Hess to Velikovsky (2, Jan.
1957) that refers to the memorandum he was sending to IGY:

...I will pass your ideas on to Dr Kaplan in the IGY
organization.. Scientific discoveries and ideas are
produced by the intuition, creativeness and genius
of a man. Dollars of themselves don't produce this
any more than they could be expected to produce
another Mona Lisa. This is something which I
believe you can readily understand...

(2) There are no rules for the form in which material is submit
ted, nor rules for publication. Whatever is offered is admitted or
rejected for reasons largely mythical. The works of Velikovsky
are actually high in the scale of adduced proof and formality, by
the standards of all past useful scientific production. Much of
science is passed down as lore. The procedures are habitual and
not rationally and consciously prescribed or learned. Much that
is communicated passes via devices and hardware inventions
that elude the literature of science.

The true inventor has to be dissociated from the accredited
inventor. Every famous scientist rests on the back of hundreds
of unknown inventors. Even if credit were to be assigned by a
laborious objective research process, it would not be well
enough informed to do justice to the process of discovery.

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The indeterminacy model fits the inefficiencies in maintenance
and replenishment of the corpus scientiae. Much more is
discovered and forgotten than is known. Much that is known is
unused or known in a partial form. In Velikovsky's works are
found numerous discoveries of the past that became essential
parts of his theory. The theory that a comet created destruction
of Earth was itself once propounded in various forms by
distinguished scientists, as Dr. Velikovsky and Professor
Stecchini have shown. Whenever a new scientific discovery or
invention is made, its predecessors can be unearthed.
Sometimes the ideas may be shown to be in a causal sequence.
At other times they are apparently aborted and unrelated. And
occasionally they are independently invented in the same
ideological epoch.

(3) A work penetrates into the body of science by the
machinery of publicity, through acquaintanceship circles, by
accident, by unconscious exposure and the creation of frames of
mind (subliminal stimulation). It enters also by parallel
practical operations independently derived from the same
sources or from the same, different and related sources. It joins
science by `creative misunderstanding' or by `anticreative
misunderstanding.'

(4) The rationalistic modes of presentation, as treated above,
become unreliable and the scientific establishment turns out to
be wicked, foolish, or ineffectual. There really are heroes,
whom the people adore as the Heroes of Science, but the
scientist does not learn from the heroes and cannot know the
origins of their knowledge. The heroes are really hallucinations
arising from the troubled mass mind that cannot rest with an
anonymous and uncontrolled world. Subscribing to the ideal
system of rational science, the public performs rituals and
makes obsequies to an order which they believe to exist (but
which is only fantastic and invisible) and which they believe
guides the destinies of science. The representatives of the public
act like the member of Parliament in J. H. Poincare's story who,
when asked about the value of geodesy, would answer, `I am
led to think that geodesy is one of the most useful of sciences,
for it is one of those that cost us most money.'

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To conclude, a reasonably satisfying history of science and of
the Velikovsky case might be written from what might be
called a purely phenotypical perspective. This would
decommission all the personalities of science. It would consider
only the massive output of symbols. It would reveal the patterns
by which certain applied operations, of considerable practical
value, emerged from the nodules or clusters within this
communicative system. It would conclude that there is little
control over the reception of new science. It would conclude
that other models for organizing and incorporating new
knowledge are either practical myths sustaining the morale of
scientists, and/or weak determining systems having at best a
mild effect on scientific advance and almost no effect on the
use to which science is put.

This set of problems is familiar to history, if not to the history
of science. Did Napoleon win his battles or did the French
Revolution pre-conquer Europe for him? Would science be
largely the same if Newton or Galileo or Einstein had not lived?
Does not the readiness of people - few in the case of science
and many in the case of politics - to perceive, to believe and to
use new materials, ideas and instruments constitute the
deterministic, inevitable, and overpowering structural force?
Are not all the actions of the powerful in the personalized
drama of science, like the personalized drama of political
history, a glossing upon reality, a personalizing of events not
less natural for being human?

The documents of the Velikovsky case explain in this light
some of the behaviours that take place. They point to the
immense practical impact of science while revealing the chaotic
conditions of the reception system. Scarcely any scientist
appears to have read Velikovsky properly. Practically all of the
mechanisms for appraisal of his work failed. Yet his findings
appear to be increasingly validated, if not recognized. The
science of the future may be heavily conditioned by the
existence of Velikovskian natural and historical science, even
though many of the sources of that science might have been
incubating independently of Velikovsky.

Probably some thousands of natural and social scientists might
have been among the readers of Velikovsky's works - which are

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written clearly, deal with important problems, and are
controversial - were it not for the curse of superstition and
fakery called down upon it. Nevertheless, through the
indeterminacy system, Velikovsky's works were kept alive and
read. His ideas could become part of a frame of thought among
a mass of people, and to some unknown degree, help them
develop a new vision of history, science, and nature.

THE POWER MODEL

Still a third reception system presents itself for consideration. It
is the power model. Its pure dynamics posit as an exclusive
goal the admission of scientists and their works to the estab
lishment and corpus of science only as means to the
preservation or enhancement of the power and prestige of the
ruling group.

In this model science is organized as a hierarchy operating by
power principles in the name of the rationalistic myth. The
rationalistic doctrine is embraced, formulated, and controlled as
dogma by the hierarchy, which employs it as circumstances dic
tate. As keepers of the sacred corpus of science, the hierarchs
define ethical practices. They accept or reject men and material,
and inflict sanctions, all according to their own power interests.

The power model presupposes one or more power elites. It
foresees a possibility of factual conflict among elites and also
of dissension through ineffective control systems. It also admits
the possibility of economic and political alliances that may be
employed to affect the internal power structure of a science.

In the beginning are the hierarchs of the scientific establish
ment. As in all political situations their existence can be proven
by observation of their activity, by effects of their interventions
and by correct prediction, either in the present case or by
transfer of evidence in other similar situations. Thus, if
Professor X, head of a famed University department and
incumbent of numerous professional and public specialized
offices, agitates against Dr V. and sways others to do so; if
typical sanctions of non-appointment, non-promotion, non
discussion, non-publication, and negative prestige result from
this for Dr V. and friends; if certain correct predictions are

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made about the negative response of the establishment to
projected actions of Dr V.; and if the impressive positions,
connections and behaviour of Professor X in other situations are
of a nature similar to his behaviours towards V.: then Professor
X is a hierarch and the setting in which he operates can be said
to be hierarchical and those with whom he cooperates are co
leaders and those to whom he delegates the same power tasks
are subordinate hierarchs, and the whole establishment is a
power structure to the extent to which all of these behaviours
are typical and exclusive.

An authority-sanctioned doctrine is called dogma. It is the set of
beliefs about how events occur and their rightness or wrong
ness. In science, the major dogma of method is the rationalistic
model. And a minor dogma about authority is contained here in
the power model, so that it is permissible to claim `authority'
even if authority must bow down before the `proof' of the
rationalistic model.

If a doctrine prevails in a social order, such as is science, it
cannot be ignored by the holders of power. They must rule in its
terms. They must control it. Naked power is difficult to achieve
and hold. Man can no more live by power alone than by bread
alone. This is especially true of ruling groups such as scientific
ones, that lack the sanctions of physical coercion.

The control of dogma or doctrine rests on an original legitimacy
of rule and then upon control of means. In science, appointment
to leading universities, designation to honours and esteem by
prior designees (co-option) confer legitimacy inside and outside
the establishment.

The control of dogma enables the hierarchs to dominate a
controversy in that correct dogma may be attributed to oneself
and violations of dogma, hence illegitimacy, to the opposition.
As indicated above, the establishment leaders were not remiss
in their tasks; Gaposchkin, H. Brown, Lafleur, Stewart, et al.
enunciated the code before passing judgment upon Velikovsky
and his works.

At the same time, they were equally careful to state, even if
without confirmation, that Velikovsky violated the code of sci

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ence in salient respects. He was accused of writing for money
[19]. He was accused of a hoax. In numerous varying terms, he
was labelled as incompetent to discuss his topics.

Velikovsky's detractors were vulnerable, actually, on dogmatic
grounds. But only in the public press could they be attacked
thereupon. Newsweek and Harper's carried the chief pro
Velikovsky statements, alleging the failure of the hierarchs to
conform to their asserted belief-system.

Naked power is a shameful thing in science. Members of the
establishment, realizing the vulnerability of naked power, were
quick to defend themselves against accusations of arbitrariness,
suppression, and censorship. One reason why their reviews and
letters seemed short on literary and scientific quality was that in
them they were conducting a three-fold operation - they had
often to assert their control over dogma, effectuate their power,
and act out the model of a rationalistic reception system, all at
the same time and in the same place.

There can be no ruling group without an institutional base. The
preferred situs is a university of high prestige, funds, fellow
ships, staffs, and expensive, collectively controlled apparatus.
Holding the chief position in astronomy at Harvard is in these
regards like controlling the New York State delegation at a
Presidential nominating convention. From such a position come
honours and other positions as well. In the 1952 Who's Who in
America, Harlow Shapley, Professor of Astronomy and
Director of the Lowell Observatory at Cambridge, listed
himself as an officer or member of 41 professional associations.
In this case, as happens in most power situations, the network
of influence extends outward through former students, new
appointments, and professional rewards, and also overlaps and
is reinforced by affiliations of other kinds - sometimes of a
political and ideological nature, at other times of family, of
money, etc.

The tactics of power normally operate to suppress undesired
opinion and manipulate favourable opinion. In the scientific
reception system, this involves action in two spheres, profes
sional opinion and public opinion. The points where control can

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be exercised are in the specialized and public publishing media,
and in regards to individuals.

The suppression or influencing of professional opinion in the
Velikovsky case occurred in the following ways:

(A) By word-of-mouth communication before and after the
publication of Velikovsky's book. This is an evanescent kind of
material, now consisting largely of recollections of scientists
and publishers' representatives. (It would consist of items such
as: Dr. Conant, then President of Harvard, meets the Editor of
Harper's magazine at the Century Club; he says `I have only
one thing to say about your current issue: "Really!" `)

(B) By letter and `committee of correspondence.' Item: Before
Velikovsky's book is published, Madame Gaposchkin on the
basis of Harper's article writes a violent review at the request
of The Reporter magazine and Dr. Shapley. This is
accompanied by a hortatory message prior to publication [20].

(C) By seeking recantations. Shapley asked his colleague at
Harvard, Dr. Robert H. Pfeiffer, to confirm the genuineness of
his statements supporting Velikovsky's Ages in Chaos: Pfeiffer,
Lecturer in Semitic Languages, did so. Atwater was asked by
professor Otto Struve in a menacing letter to reconsider and
perhaps clarify his favourable disposition towards Velikovsky.
At an A.A.A.S. meeting called especially to deal with problems
of publishing ethics growing out of the failure to suppress com
pletely the Velikovsky book, the Macmillan company was
permitted to recant and state a safe position. (Boards of review
for scientific publishing were suggested and considered by the
panel.)

(D) By depriving opposing persons of positions. Their support
of Velikovsky's right to be heard and/or of his theories appears
to have played a significant part in the forced resignation of
Gordon Atwater, Chairman of the Astronomy Department of
the American Museum of Nature History and Curator of the
Hayden Planetarium, and of James Putnam, a Macmillan editor
for 26 years. The converse, promoting the useful allies, is found
in Lafleur, of whom Scientific Monthly, in heralding a second
article a few months later, reported that he had been appointed

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to a new university and promoted to a departmental
chairmanship following his article on Velikovsky.

(E) The techniques of denying and avoiding public discussion,
of refusing access to scientific fora and a denial of access to
scientific publications - via articles or letters of reply, or even
advertising - are amply illustrated elsewhere in these pages.

In additions, the power model of the reception system operates
to restrict credentials. Velikovsky did not possess orthodox
credentials. This was made clear in the review of his work. He
was of course, well trained in many fields as, one by one, his
readers came around to admitting.

At that time, he had few friends, although among them was
Albert Einstein. Shortly after Einstein's death, Professor
Bernard Cohen reported that Einstein had spoken in humorous
disparagement of Velikovsky. Einstein could not respond, but a
number of personal meetings and a good deal of reading by
Einstein of Velikovsky's material would refute the surmise.
(Cohen himself retracted. Cf. the Cohen letter above, p. 15.) We
note a handwritten letter in German from Einstein to
Velikovsky, 30 days before the former's death, in
acknowledgement of a gift of Ages in Chaos.

I look forward with pleasure to reading the
historical book that does not bring into danger the
toes of my guild. How it stands with the toes of the
other faculty, I do not know as yet. I think of the
touching prayer: `Holy St Florian, spare my house,
put fire to others!' I have already carefully read the
first volume of the memoirs to `Worlds in
Collision,' and have supplied it with a few
marginal notes in pencil that can be easily erased. I
admire your dramatic talent and also the art and
the straightforwardness of Thackeray [Thackrey]
who has compelled the roaring astronomical lion
to pull in a little his royal tail yet still not showing
enough respect for the truth.

Velikovsky made attempts to conciliate the powers, partly in
conjunction with his attempts to satisfy the demands of the

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rationalistic model of the reception system. He appreciated that
Shapley and Einstein, along with others, to be sure, were two
heavily influential figures on the scientific scene. Einstein was a
source of comfort, if not of theoretical support. Shapley was
approached in the typical honest manner of `cranks,' that is, in
the course of a public forum, without introduction, and then by
letter assuming naively the rationalistic operational code that `to
test a theory, you go to a testing specialist who has the required
apparatus.'

It may be inquired why Velikovsky chose Shapley and Einstein,
and why he engaged in other actions directed at impressing the
gatekeepers of science. This behaviour is in the first place `nor
mal.' It indicates only that he himself was no enemy of authori
ty, but remained throughout a naive and quixotic believer in the
symbiosis of the rationalistic and power models. One might
pursue farther the psychology of this set of incidents. The
strongly controlled but nevertheless necessarily and typically
great self-confidence of Velikovsky, which enabled him to be a
`normal' man who could still pursue tremendous hypotheses
through many thousands of hours against many adversities, had
a side of unconscious intellectual presumption: `The Lodges
speak only to the Cabots.'

The establishment has a final weapon against hostile
innovators. It is the concealed incorporation of their ideas.

The best-known manifestation of the techniques of secret
information is sometimes called the `silent footnote techniques.'
Credit is given in sources, footnotes, and forewords only to
those who are members of the establishment in good standing.
Also there is a rule of the highly specialized to not cite anyone
less highly specialized for fear of being thought too general, too
popular. As a clique device, selective footnoting costs an
aspirant nothing (except possibly self-respect) and shows that
he belongs to the group, and he is `advanced.' It also lets him
grace the patronage chiefs and the powerful. It is a vote. A less
expensive, less discernible, and more vitriolic tactic is hard to
imagine.

To this day, despite a great deal of corroborative evidence and
the passage of thirteen years, no scientist has admitted in a

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work of his own that any glance that he may have given
towards the skies, nor any peek into ancient documents, has
been provoked by an objective and calm desire to examine
Velikovsky's evidence. When relevant findings have occurred,
they have not been associated with the name of Velikovsky.

Then, too, using the partially respectable and partly true
doctrines of the indeterminacy model, the leaders claim that the
innovator plucks his ideas and facts from the air of the times.
Examples are the `ideas are cheap' statement of Philip Abelson.
Or Harrison Brown's assertions that `Velikovsky apparently
looks upon himself as an original thinker...' and `He quotes
some data which we know to be true, some which we know to
be dubious and some which we know to be false.' Brown gives
not a shred of evidence for this statement. It is baseless, yet a
widely circulated canard among scientists is that Velikovsky
made so many predictions that some are bound to be true.

Or, using the rationalistic dogma, the establishment propagand
ists claim that `there are predictions and predictions,' meaning
that correctness is not the hallmark of good predictions. Science
works only on proper, methodical, laboratory work, it is de
clared. This mysterious science is, of course, only the power
and indeterminacy procedures at work. So Velikovsky's
catastrophes `do not upset' scientists: Madame Gaposchkin
goes out of her way to express the attitude, `See how we have
accepted the much greater catastrophes recently demonstrated
empirically and mathematically by members of the
establishment!'

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL NETWORKS

The tactics used to enhance power within the scientific estab
lishment include bringing in power from the outside. The most
obvious external networks activated in the Velikovsky case
were the economic and the political.

Here is Dr Velikovsky's description of the fatal interview in
May 1950 with the President of Macmillan Company, when the
latter requested him to free Macmillan from its obligation to
continue publishing Worlds in Collision. Mr Brett said:

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Seventy per cent of the business of this company is
in textbooks; it is the real backbone of our firm.
Therefore we are vulnerable. Professors in certain
universities have refused to see our salesmen. We
have received a series of letters declaring a boycott
against all our textbooks. Please realize how it
works. (Here Mr Brett picked up a pencil and drew
some circles.) Academic circles are not isolated
groups; they are united in local organizations, or in
professorial associations that are incorporated or
represented in larger national organizations. (And
he drew larger circles.) The American Association
for the Advancement of Science in Washington,
The American Philosophical Society, and the Na
tional Academy of Sciences are groups of national
importance where scientists in  many field are
represented. In this way the academic pressure
may become widespread.

The conversation is pursued and becomes difficult. Velikovsky
notes again:

Mr Brett, though very polite and trying to be
pleasant, was definitely committed to his decision
to free his house of a book that was arousing wrath
among the powerful of the textbook world, and he
began again to draw a pattern of circles to show
me how the scientific groups are interlocked; how
they are centred, and how they can damage a
publishing house.

The most readily available economic instrument of the
scientific establishment is the `boycott.' It is well-known but
not sufficiently appreciated that the leaders of the scientific
field wield a triple influence over publishers. They are authors
or sponsors of the leading works in the field. They influence
opinion about books; this in turn affects purchasing. And they
and their subordinates and followers in other colleges purchase
an important part of the books and materials sold in the field
and used as texts and required reading. When a publisher's
contact men find the doors to the mighty suddenly closed to
them, this is more than pressure - it can be a mortal blow.

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The establishment moved with speed and vigour to block
professional support for Velikovsky's book and to boycott it
and its publishers. The following occurs in a letter from
Shapley to Macmillan Company prior to the publication of the
book.

And frankly, unless you can assure me that you
have done things like this frequently in the past
without damage, the publication must cut me off
from the Macmillan Company.

And on February 20, one month later, and still before the book
was printed, in a letter to Ted Thackrey, Editor of Compass,
Shapley writes:

In my rather long experience in the field of
science, this is the most successful fraud that has
been perpetrated on leading American
publications... I am not quite sure that Macmillan
is going through with the publication, because that
firm has perhaps the highest reputation in the
world for the handling of scientific books.

The book was published after clearing the hurdle of a board of
censors instituted by Mr Brett but pressure continued.
Macmillan prevailed upon Velikovsky to release it from its
contract with him, presenting him with a contract with
Doubleday (the book was already on the top of the best-seller
list and over 50,000 copies of it had been sold) and making
clear that he had no other course to take if his book were to be
promoted and marketed. Indeed, the company had already
stopped publicizing the book. As every bookman knows, this
could be construed as a breach of faith with the author.

Subsequent correspondence indicated the nature of Operation
Boycott. D. B. McLaughlin, University of Michigan
astronomer, in a letter of June 16, 1950 to Fulton Oursler,
Reader's Digest, said in part:

Worlds in Collision has just changed hand, from
Macmillan to Doubleday. I am frank to state that

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this change was the result of pressure that
scientists and scholars brought to bear on the
Macmillan Company. It is our duty to the public to
prevent such fraud insofar as we can.

Paul Herget, Professor of Astronomy at the University of
Cincinnati and Director of its observatory, wrote to the
columnist Sokolsky, early July 1950:

I do not believe he [Shapley] was in any sense the
leader in this campaign. I was a very vigorous
participant myself...For your information I enclose
copies of some of my correspondence.

After the transfer was made, pressure was brought upon the
Doubleday Company.

On June 30,1950, David C. Grahame, Associate Professor of
Chemistry at Amherst, wrote:

Macmillan company abandoned it [Worlds in
Collision] because of the storm of protest it
aroused among informed persons, and you, too,
may find yourself kept busy answering letters of
indignation from scientists the country over.
Scientists are now engaged in an active boycott of
the Macmillan books, their opinion should be
heeded by any publisher who intends to publish a
book which purports to be science. I trust that you
can be dissuaded.

The Harvard University group was relentless. Professor Fred L.
Whipple, who had been Shapley's chief assistant and had
relieved him as Director of the Harvard College Observatory,
took up the cudgels with Doubleday. On June 30, 1950 he
wrote to the Blakiston Company, which was the publisher of his
book, Earth, Moon, and Planets. Commenting on an article that
Newsweek magazine had just published on Velikovsky's case
(called `Professors as Suppressors') he says:

Newsweek has unwittingly done the Doubleday
Company a considerable amount of harm. They

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have made public the high success of the
spontaneous boycott of the Macmillan Company
by scientifically minded people. This in turn
amounts to organizing a boycott of the Doubleday
Company by the thinking people who buy books.
My guess is that Doubleday Company will never
publish Volumes 3 and 4 [21]... In any case, since I
believe that the Blakiston Company is owned by
the Doubleday Company, which controls its
policies as well as the distribution of its books, I
am now then a fellow author of the Doubleday
Company along with Velikovsky. My natural
inclination, were it possible, is to take Earth, Moon
and Planets off the market and find a publisher
who is not associated with one who has such a
lacuna in its publication ethics.

He would instead, he declared, give the royalties to charity and
bring out no new edition. Indeed the entire popularly-written
Harvard series on astronomy was soon withdrawn from
Blakiston.

Whether a political network became engaged along with the
scientific and economic ones is quite unclear. It may even be
questioned whether so controversial a subject should be raised.
(Perhaps if mere Democrats and Republicans were the par
ticipants, one might not hesitate.) And yet, the evidence sug
gests that an informal left-wing network might well have been
in operation. This would help explain the intensity of emotion
and activity exhibited by Professor Shapley and various
supporters. The political affiliations of Dr Shapley during this
period were under scrutiny by official agencies. The `normal'
threats posed by the Velikovsky work might have been
intensified by the political attacks Shapley was undergoing.
Velikovsky could have been a convenient, fairly helpless target
of displaced aggressions.

Yet Shapley was not alone. He was supported by others who
were under the same kind of political attack, for example,
Kirtley Mather and Edward U. Condon. Were they all
displacing aggressions? Was the British evolutionist, J. B. S.
Haldane, several thousand miles away, subject to the same

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collective disorder? In Britain and on the Continent of Europe,
Worlds in Collision was received differently. Not accepted in
many quarters, neither was it vilified. On the other hand,
Haldane, an old friend and political ally of Shapley, wrote an
exceptional diatribe against Velikovsky, even associating the
book with those in America who wished to use Britain as a base
for atomic warfare.

If a political network theory were to be assumed, the reasons
might be several. The work of Velikovsky could be assumed to
defend Jewish nationalism. It could be assumed to defend
fundamentalism. It could be considered anti-materialist, anti
determinist, and obscurantist. An attack on it might also give a
political apparatus, with its associated branches, some needed
exercise, and, what is more, a needed victory at its lowest
moment in history. The conflict could moreover serve to bind to
the group unsuspecting sympathizers in a common cause of
science.

This is conjectural, yet it would be improper to eliminate it
entirely from consideration, even at the cost of arousing hostil
ity in readers who, until this page, might have been in full
sympathy with our presentation. To illustrate further, there
occurred a strange incident that can perhaps be best understood
as a network problem.

Shapley was among a group of progressives and more extreme
left-wingers who, when the New York newspaper PM failed,
backed its successor, Compass. On February 19, 1950, it
reprinted the original Harper's article on Velikovsky's book,
the very article which, appearing before book publication,
caused an immediate hostile outburst from the Harvard group.
On February 20, Harlow Shapley, on the stationery of the
Harvard College Observatory, wrote to Ted Thackrey, Editor of
the Compass. `Dear Ted,' he began, `Somebody has done you
dirt.' The rest of the letter was smoothly persuasive to Thackrey
and derogatory to Velikovsky. He referred to Worlds in
Collision as `a successful fraud,' `rubbish,' and `astrological
hocus-pocus.' Einstein was later to read his letter and call it
`miserable' in a marginal notation.

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However, Thackrey, far from cringing, sent back a stinging re
tort. He stated well the rationalistic ideal, and accused Shapley
of trying to suppress Velikovsky's work. Another exchange fol
lowed. The Compass was not long for this world, however.
Thackrey's views on issues such as the Korean War threw the
communists and fellow travellers into deadly opposition to him.
Eventually, key backers withdrew their financial support, and
Compass folded.

But the main struggle over Worlds in Collision was not waged
in the associated arenas of business and politics. It occurred
within the ramparts of science. Furthermore, it was a fairly clear
engagement of the one with the many. The hierarchs were not
riven by dissent. There has been no revolt. The natural resort of
the denied and dispossessed in a power system, factionalism,
was not exercised. No faction within science attempted in the
name of rationalism to substitute its interest, theories and facts
for the prevailing ones.

A different kind of power behaviour within the dynamics of the
model is visible. Dr Velikovsky has been more of the hermit
scientist than of the hierarch, cabalist, or rebel. The model of
this behaviour has the gates of scientific recognition being
forced by the single-minded dedicated scholar and a small
group of disciples. They create a disturbance that cannot be
ignored. The whole picture is one of a power struggle where the
odds against innovation are great but the addiction of the
innovator to truth is supreme.

In the end, it is the outcome of the power struggle that deter
mines whether the truth is admitted, not the rationalistic tests.
Just as a soldier or a bureaucrat will exclaim in amazement over
the gargantuan capacity of the collective organism to ingest
irrationality and inefficiency, the scientist with any degree of
historical perspective must often be shocked at the frequency
with which power determines what the laws of human and
natural behaviour `are' and how a corpus of science survives.

THE DOGMATIC MODEL

A final model, the dogmatic, requires exposition. Professor
Stecchini has given ample reason to believe that the resistance

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to the astronomical theories of Velikovsky was motivated by
sheer ideology, a dislike of challenge to an orderly universe.
Much evidence can be brought forward from other fields of
knowledge -  archaeology, biblical studies, paleontology,
geology, physics and biology - to the same effect: the theories
of Velikovsky operating against the prevailing dogma are
repulsed vigorously. Every weapon is brought into play against
the new ideas - authoritative denunciation, arguments ad
hominem, tricks of logic and evidence, suppression, denial of
rewards, and stony silence.

By the rules of the dogmatic model, what happens is explained
solely and adequately by the fact that all believers in the state of
present knowledge unite to resist the innovator. New material
and men are accepted in the proportion to which they conform
with prevailing theories and norms.

Several tests of the dogmatic model may be proposed.
(1) Is there a universal agreement against a work on grounds
other than rationalistic? If so, a dogmatic model may fit the
case. The spontaneity and generality of denunciation of
Velikovsky's work is compelling. The power apparatus is
simply not strong enough to explain it. The rationalistic model
certainly does not. Nor does the indeterminacy model. Yet the
concept of a collective obsession spread among a great many
persons on all scientific levels and in all scientific fields would
fit the dogmatic mould.

(2) Does the power elite reject new and correct ideas even
though the effects of the ideas may be expected to enhance their
power? If the answer is an unambiguous `yes,' then the
dogmatic model fits. The Velikovsky case is here ambiguous,
however. Partly this is owing to the lack of agreement over the
correctness of his theories. But other factors could cloud the
issue too. In 1950 the throne of astronomy, the queen of
sciences, was shaky. It could have been bolstered by
consideration of the Velikovskian theories. The weakness of
classical studies was evident. They could have been
rejuvenated. Biology was not in such a poor condition, but it
too could have been aided by vigorous re-examination of
evolutionary theory. Geology was vigorous, physics too. They

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needed no great prestige. All rejected the ideas. Thus power
(prestige) was not a determinant, it would seem.

However, power outside is not the same as power inside the
disciplines. Time after time in history, power elites succumb
because they are more intent of gaining or holding internal
power than in maintaining or extending the scope and intensity
of their power vis-a-vis the outer spheres. Cavalry generals
have been known to risk their country's safety in order to
protect the power of their outmoded arm within the military
establishments. An authority in the classics might readily
sacrifice the chances of his discipline to retain his personal
position within it.

We do note a perceptiveness of the larger power issues among
fundamentalists and other belief-groups that held a fringe posi
tion with respect to modern science. They could see a
movement back into science from which they had long been
displaced by evolutionary and anti-scriptural doctrines in
science.

(3) Do conflicting power factions within the power elite take
the same attitude towards plausible innovation? If so, then the
dogmatic model is indicated. In the Velikovsky case, whatever
general scientific leadership could be said to exist was either
antagonistic or silent towards him. If factions existed, then
dogmatism can be assumed. The answer is in doubt. The
factions may not have existed or perhaps they did not perceive
their `objective interests' (indeterminacy) or perhaps they were
in fact dogmatically opposed.

Going into the autonomous fields of science, the situation is
somewhat clearer. In no scientific field, of the half dozen
involved, did a faction seize upon the issues. In astronomy, for
instance, Struve, who might have opposed Shapley, took a
dogmatic position in opposition to Velikovsky. The West Coast
empires of astronomy were less unanimous in opposing him.
Again, the query: indeterminacy? A cancelling effect between
dogmatism and factionalism ?

(4) Is there in fact a high correlation between opposition and
novelty, where truth is a constant ? If so, then the dogmatic

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model fits. The Velikovsky case alone cannot serve for this test.
The measure of truth of the numerous theories is not yet agreed
to. The opposition has treated the books wholesale; hence, opin
ions of one proposition are intertwined with opinions of anoth
er.

(5) Where there is awareness and interest in a work among
several disciplines that are autonomous power groups, and
where the rationalistic code is not applied, is agreement in the
appraisal of the work conditioned by the degree to which its
theories and approach are novel to the individual fields? If so,
then dogmatism, rather than other behaviours, is manifest.

Here again, a sure answer is impossible in the Velikovsky case.
Several fields were interested, but each suffered radical as
saults. The only group that might have received the findings of
Velikovsky without shock would be psychoanalytically
oriented anthropologists of folklore. But there are few of these,
and they seem scarcely to have been alerted (again the
indeterminacy model).

(6) Are statements purporting to be empirically proven proposi
tions of science bluntly made and repeatedly hammered home?
If so, the dogmatic model would apply. Time after time, the
same simple assertions were made against Velikovsky. This is a
well-known rhetorical and propagandistic device, and would fit
the power model as such, but it is likely that the assertions were
sincerely meant as facts. Examples:

The earth cannot stop suddenly without disintegrating.
(Literally true but the affirmative was never asserted by
Velikovsky.)
The sea levels did not change in historical times. (Incorrect)
Temples and dwellings from before 1500 B.C. are still
standing. (Incorrect)
Excavations in Ur show no signs of flooding. (Incorrect)
Eclipses are checked to 3000 B.C. (Incorrect)
Clear records of Venus as a planet with orderly movements
exist from before 1500 B.C. [22](Incorrect)
Velikovsky is not scientific.

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(7) Is the language of the reviewers and commentators heavily
dogmatic and authoritative rather than rationalistic? If so, then
the dogmatic model is operative. In fact, this is the most obvi
ous aspect of the Velikovsky case. In the New Haven
Connecticut Register of June 25, 1950, there appeared a
collective review of Worlds in Collision by four Yale professors
who were shortly to republish the same review in the American
Journal of Science. I attempted a crude analysis of the contents
of the four successive reviews. Putting aside the question of the
validity of empirical statements made by the authors, I
attempted to discover the proportions of various kinds of formal
statements that appeared in the reviews. Using the sentences as
the unit of measure, I fitted each statement into one of five
categories by its form: a descriptive statement purporting to
carry information about the contents of the work; an empirical
statement presenting a factual proposition about the scientific
material; a logico-empirical statement containing a prosition of
factual or conceptual relations; a dogmatic-authorative
statement affirming a belief or a consensus of experts; and
miscellaneous statements dealing with the personal motives of
the author and publisher.

I emerged from this little exercise with 27 statements
purportedly descriptive of the work, 4 purportedly empirical
statements, 12 purportedly logico-empirical statements, 27
dogmatic-authoritative statements and 8 statements dealing
with the character of the author and publisher. A separate
summing-up of the evaluative loading of each statement
resulted in a total of 2 favourable sentences, 31 neutral
sentences and 46 negative statements about the work. In the
Velikovsky case, then, rationalistic criticism was heavily
subordinated to dogmatic-authoritative criticism of a negative
character. This kind of material, if pursued through the
Velikovsky case and also through many other scientific case
studies, might lead to a complete overhaul of the machinery of
scientific evaluation. At the very least, it would position the
review function on a low level in the order of merit for the
rationalistic appraisal of science.

The language of the academic reviewers is unequivocally harsh,
strident and hostile. The question arises, however, whether this
might not also be an indication of the power system at work.

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The language of power and the language of dogmatism are
often similar: established power is conservative.

Furthermore, we note that the popular reviewers, numbering
into the hundreds, are more disposed to rationalistic argument
with the Velikovsky ideas than the scientists. This might
indicate power, not dogma, to be the issue. The conclusion may
be that motives of dogmatism and power are both in evidence.
An unnecessary excess of abuse reveals that Worlds in
Collision struck at dogmatic and moralistic defences as well as
at existing power structures.

REFORM OF THE SYSTEM

The documentation of the Velikovsky case cannot be completed
here. Much remains to be said. It is enough, however, to the
immediate tasks, if it is shown that the Power Model, the
Dogmatic Model, and the Indeterminacy Model describe and
explain far more of the behaviours observed in the Velikovsky
case than the Rationalistic Model.

In the early stages of the Velikovsky case, numerous `wrong'
cues were given. Lacking a conscious, regular system for the
reception of new materials, the scientific establishment was
governed by intrusive psychological forces organized
irrelevantly by ideological and power networks. The frequent,
remarkable misreadings of plain textual material are merely one
of various indications of a perceptual system operating
psychopathologically.

An original spate of publicity was the red flag to the bull. It
warned the authorities that an outsider was seeking entrance
with strange credentials. In some scholars and scientists, a high
level of political anxiety (this was the period of McCarthyism)
could join with intellectual anxieties produced by `strange' and
`discredited' forms of data and proof to form a highly
combustible mixture.

The rationalistic system was suppressed and the power system
and dogmatic systems were activated. Once events had taken
this course, little could be done to evade the conclusion. All in
volved were fully committed. There was no higher court of

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scientific appeal, or other checking or remedial agencies. The
adjustment thereafter had to occur through unmobilized
elements - young, sceptical students (from time to time
Velikovsky mentions the young as his justifiers) or dissident
scientists or outside intellectuals. Interestingly, the engineering
profession is one of the best represented among Velikovsky's
adherents.

The problem that many thought had been solved ages ago - that
of recognition of new contributions - turns out to be ominously
present. Actually little was solved by the great historical cases
of Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo and Pasteur, for the problem has
always been conceived as one of improving rationality rather
than as one of the applied sociology of science and institutions.
It is in every respect like the central problems of political and
governmental organization; there, however, a long history of
scientific attention focuses on the need for more than personal
goodwill and sweet reason to preserve and promote desired be
haviours.

Also like the political order, the scientific order consists of a set
of sub-universes each with its own goals, routines, organization,
and, hence, particular problems. Generalizations about science
as a whole and subsequent policies must be based on averages
and parameters, and a priori could provide less than the total
need for policies governing the individual disciplines. That is, a
few policies may work for all fields, but each field needs its
own; and all such policies should be based upon extensive
behavioural research.

Few scientists can be immediately useful in the policy process
of science. Most are uneducated to the tasks. They do not
understand the nature of ideology. They seem not to know their
own psychology or their patterns of social behaviour. They do
not know how their organization works or what its policies are.
In the end, how can scientists be trusted to fashion solutions to
a wide range of social problems to which their special
`hardware' competence must contribute? The answer is that
they cannot. Unless and until there is the equivalent of a
Copernican revolution (or a Velikovskian revolution) in the
form of a sociological revolution in science, natural scientists as

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a group will constitute a dead weight in public and professional
policy, or worse, a potential force of evil.

The beginning of such a revolution must be in scientific self
knowledge. At present, scientists appear to study everything but
themselves. An institute for research in scientific procedure is
needed to initiate and conduct a wide variety of research pro
jects on the behaviour of scientists. This institute should be
amply supported by numerous individuals and groups and
should be beholden to none. In its own structure it should
predicate the goals that brought it into being. Its activities might
be based on the recommendations for reform that are put
forward in the passages that follow.

ON THE EDUCATION OF SCIENTISTS

The education of scientists must be broadened to include a
knowledge of the aims and methods of the humanistic and
behavioural disciplines.

The average scientist needs to know more of the history of sci
ence, but especially of an analytic sociological history of
science. Unfortunately, the history of science is largely old
fashioned chronological recitation and rationalistic technical
analysis.

The sociology of knowledge, epistemology, and pragmatic
logic should be regular instruments of all of the sciences and
philosophy.

The education of scientists should include ethical training. The
cynicism normally provoked by analysis of the type undertaken
in the present article can have a destructive effect upon creative
and sustained work unless there appear to be social and profes
sional forces working towards rationalistic ideals. The ration
alistic model of science itself needs reformulation and rein
forcement. Despite its failures in the Velikovsky case, it re
mains the most acceptable of the model reception systems of
science presently conceivable.

The more frequent employment of psychiatric techniques to
give specialists insight into their motives and behaviour would

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help to prevent destructiveness, exclusiveness, and other
unconsciously provoked behaviours.

Efforts at unified interpretations of science should be promoted.
Presently, the rewards for scholars who work on bridges across
the sciences are unattended chairs in philosophy. The largest
expenditures, and professional prestige go to the masters of
disciplinary secrets.

ON REPORTING ABOUT SCIENTIFIC BEHAVIOUR

Periodic surveys, assessments and agendas of scientific work in
every discipline are needed. A clear and frank set of observa
tions about what is and is not going on in science can help
prevent a slump into the chaos of indeterminacy and into the
evasive and irrelevant actions of the power-hungry. For science
and all of its parts, regular reports should be prepared on the
costs of maintenance, and on any imbalances between scientific
and other social costs and among the various sub-sciences.

The sociology of science should focus upon the new
communication systems that are rapidly developing, including
linguistics, information storage and retrieval, mechanical
translation, and rapid large-scale publication. The invention and
control of these systems will soon force decisions that will
critically affect power relations within science and society. The
existing organizational structures of the sciences are inadequate
to deal with such issues.

Most scientific journals are organized along lines of power;
scientific controversies are often conducted like political
campaigns. The journals lack serious intellectual goals; and
they command few resources and skills for the massive tasks of
providing free and easy communication. Their reviewing
procedures need reform. Professional reviewers' associations
might be set up within each scientific association; their
members would engage to improve the science of scientific
reviews and to use explicit agreed-upon procedures in reporting
on new works. Their reviews would carry their associational
`trademark.'

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ON THE CONTROLS OF SCIENCE

The associations of science are still among the primitive and
puerile mechanisms of modern life. The annual convention of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science has
perhaps as much to do with the advancement of science as a
state fair with the advancement of agriculture, but not more. Yet
it is not atypical of the associative activities of science.

At present, and perhaps indefinitely, awareness of the non
rationality of scientific behaviour should favour old-fashioned
means of promoting scientific freedom. For instance, the semi
independent scientific establishments that have resulted from
nationalistic separateness may be preferable to an international
establishment with semi-coercive powers.

On the same grounds, a pluralism of support of scientific endea
vour is desirable. A multiplicity of foundations, associations,
well-equipped universities and other supportive agencies may
appear costly, but brings about a larger efficiency through
increased initiative and varied development. In this connection,
the role of non-governmental companies engaged in research
and development, and of independent publishing firms, should
not be understated.

It would be well to inquire whether existing institutions have
any inherent capacity for trying and sanctioning unprofessional
practices among professionals. Two types of problems occur:
those of ethics and those of non-rationality. Most contemporary
scientists, and the public, perhaps believe that scientific
freedom is achieved when outside lay authorities are forbidden
to rule on questions of functional ethics and scientific truth.
Inquisitions are scorned. Legislative investigations are hateful.
The considerable powers of lawyers and medical practitioners
for self-government are regarded as inappropriate to scientific
affairs.

Is there then no recourse for the scientist who has been
damaged by the means detailed in these papers? Perhaps
Harvard University has within its authority the right to inquire
into the scientific behaviour of its faculty. Its officers might
make a determination `on the merits' that one or more members
of the faculty were so irrelevant and destructive in their

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scientific work as to violate plain standards of scientific
competence. They might as a result take remedial action, as, for
example, to require apologies, re-tests, re-examinations,
discussion in open forums, suspension, reprimand, resignation,
or dismissal. Lacking any of these forms of action, can a
University be said to be responsible to its own and to the
greater community for the quality of the particular activities it
performs in the name of the community and of knowledge?

Scientific associations might conduct the same kind of
inquiries. Their sanctions might be lighter; their responsibilities,
however, are no less heavy. They could extend their authority to
questions of apology, hearings, open forums, open journal
pages, and suspension or withdrawal of membership.

The machinery and practices so envisioned might be self
defeating. The unorthodox voice is likely to end as the defend
ant, not the plaintiff, in most proceedings. The rank and file are
likely to follow their leaders more than the dissident. Research
is needed, therefore, into the conditions under which a hearing
procedure and its consequences can be structured independently
of the organization as a whole, very much as an independent
court system operates in civil law.

The question arises also whether the larger society should ever
take a hand in professional affairs. The investment of the public
in the Velikovsky case is not inconsiderable. The scope and
importance of the knowledge involved are great. Beyond them
lies the public concern in how scientific scientists are. And the
education being conveyed to the young is of public interest. Nor
is it immaterial that a part of the nation's resources is being
spent each year to solve technological problems, some of which
are connected with national survival. If the public concern is
present, what public machinery is to be brought into play 
congressional investigations, a national science board to hear
and investigate complaints, a congress of scientific associations
with a judicial branch?

Such questions warrant intensive study followed by new
policies. It is this writer's belief that independent hearing and
reporting mechanisms should be invented for use by
associations and by joint scientific-public-governmental organs.

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Legislative and executive machinery should be avoided as far
as possible, but quasi-judicial machinery encouraged. Scientists
have on the whole tender sensitivities. A mild exposure and
embarrassment usually have great corrective value for them.

These then are the conclusions reached. They are as far from
the original incidents engendering the case of Dr Velikovsky as
were his astronomical, geological, and historical conclusions
from his early thought that Freud misjudged Akhnaton.

Immanuel Velikovsky propounded a synthetic theory of the
highest order. He reordered classical chronology. He derived
important truths from ancient sources that science had
abandoned. Profound experiences of man's ancestors are
revealed anew. He therefore has given us new understanding of
man's nature.

He has shown that the present order of the solar system is quite
new and that unaccounted forces help govern it. He has struck
at a great part of the Darwinian explanation of evolution. He
has upset several major theories of geology and offered
substitutes therefore. He found space a vacuum and has made of
it a plenum.

A great many of his truths are to be found scattered in the
historical and contemporary byways of science. As bits of
information and fragmented theories, they meant little or
nothing to the many scholars and scientists who may have
glanced at them and turned away. With rare imagination and
consummate skill, he fashioned them into theories of great
scope, compactness, and integration. While his ideas are not at
all beyond criticism, as a cosmogonist he appears in the
company of Plato, Aquinas, Bruno, Descartes, Newton and
Kant. What would therefore be only the duty of the critics of
science - to defend ordinary or even mistaken scholars 
becomes, by accident, an occasion to defend a great savant of
the age.

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Notes (References cited in "The Scientific Reception

System")

1. A person may be favored `unjustly' by the reception system
Thus, many irrelevant elements may enter into rewarding
undeservedly a scientist for his behaviors. Whatever principles
may be established to correct `unjust unacceptance' should also
be observedly operative in cases of `unjust acceptance.' It also
may occur that `unjust acceptance' is correlated with `unjust
unacceptance.'

2. Proto-thought is a level of assumptive prejudiced thought
midway between unconscious `thought' and self-controlled
thinking. It is prominent in ideological and stereotyped
thinking.

3. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, `Worlds in Collision,'
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 96
(October 15, 1952), pp. 519, 523.

4. Laurence J. Lafleur, `Cranks and Scientists,' The Scientific
Monthly, Vol. LXXIII (November, 1951), p. 285.

5. In a review of Earth in Upheaval, Scientific American, Vol.
194 (March, 1956), p. 127.

6. Harrison Brown, `Venus and the Scriptures,' The Saturday
Review, Vol. XXXIII (April 22, 1950), pp. 18, 19.

7. In a recent article in Science, M. King Hubbert has shown
how an erroneous formula existed in various books over a half
century without detection. ...the equation cited was for twenty
five years the most widely used equation in the petroleum
industry ... it was ruefully discovered that the equation in
question was neither physically correct nor a valid statement of
a result established a century earlier by a Frenchman named
Henry Darcy. (Science, March 8, 1963, p. 8856.)

8. Edwin G. Boring, `The Validation of Scientific Belief,' Pro
ceedings, Op. cit., pp. 535-39.

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9. `Orthodoxy and Scientific Progress,' Proceedings, Op. cit., p.
505.

10. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. VI, December, 1962.

11.Harvard Crimson (September 25, 1950), p. M2, and infra,
p.59.

12.Cf. James V. Conant, in Science and Common Sense (1951),
Preface and p. 278, and in New York Herald Tribune, February
16, 1951.

13. Proceedings, Op. cit., p. 525.

14. Nature, May 14, 1960; January 7, 1961; March 25, 1961.

15. Science, Vol. 138, October 12, 1962.

16. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(Chicago, 1962), p. 164.

17. Science and Method (London, Nelson, n.d.),p. 54.

18. Cf. A. de Grazia, Science and Values of Administration
(Indianapolis, Bobbs Merrill, reprint series, 1962), on science
as administration; T.S. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolu
tions, p.10 seq.

19. A fair estimate of Dr Velikovsky's wage rate considering
his total royalties from writing and his total research time on his
books, including Worlds in Collision, would be $1.35 an hour.
He held no university or foundation appointment at any time.
The typical Harvard professor could be said to be paid the
equivalent of royalties on sales of 30,000 books every year.

20. It was in the transition from the mimeographed to the
printed version that a clear ethical test was presented and failed
by Dr Gaposchkin. We quote here the passage from the
mimeographed text and that of the printed text:

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The mimeographed version: `If the biblical story which Mr
Velikovsky seeks to establish is to be accepted at its face value,
the rotation of the earth must have been stopped within six
hours. All bodies not attached to the surface of the earth
(including the atmosphere and the ocean) would then have con
tinued their motion, and consequently have flown off with a
speed of 900 miles an hour at the latitude of Egypt.'

The printed version (later): `Let us assume, however, that Dr
Velikovsky is right - that the earth did stop rotating. In that case
all bodies not attached to the surface of the earth (including the
atmosphere and the ocean) would have continued the motion,
and would have flown off with a speed of nine hundred miles
an hour at the latitude of Egypt.'

Nota Bene. If the earth, as she says first, decelerated within six
hours, the inertial push in objects on the earth's surface would
be 500 times smaller than their weight. A man of 160 lbs would
experience a forward push of 5 ounces. Dr Gaposchkin now had
a clear choice: Someone had called the quantitative error to her
attention. She might choose to recalculate the inertia of the
slower stop. She chose the latter. She took out the reference to
the six hours and all other qualifications Velikovsky had intro
duced and kept the 900 m.p.h. reference.

21. An incorrect prediction. Doubleday Company has
published, in addition to Worlds in Collision, Ages in Chaos,
Earth in Upheaval, and Oedipus and Akhnaton. A fifth volume,
forming a sequel to Ages in Chaos, is in page proofs.

22. We note such phenomena as the following triple play
among reviewers: Dr Edmondson of Link Observatory
obviously copies in a review from Kaempffert of the New York
Times who had copied in his review from Gaposchkin's
preview that (1) the Venus tablets from before 1500 B.C.
describe regular motions of this planet `exactly as we see it,'
and that (2) Velikovsky suppressed both this fact and the very
existence of the tablets. Both statements are untrue. The tablets
describe very erratic motions of Venus, and Velikovsky
presented the Venus Tablets in his book to support his concept.

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7. ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF CORRECT

PROGNOSIS

by Immanuel Velikovsky

In 1950 - as it is still largely today - it was generally accepted
that the theory of uniformity must be true and that no process
which is unobservable in our time could have occurred in the
past. It was also believed that celestial bodies, the Earth
included, travel serenely on their orbits in the void of space for
countless eons. In Worlds in Collision (1950), however, I
offered these theses: `(1) there were physical upheavals of a
global character in historical time; (2) these catastrophes were
caused by extraterrestrial agents; and (3) these agents can be
identified' (from the Preface). These claims were termed a
`most amazing example of a shattering of accepted concepts on
record' (Payne-Gaposchkin).

The consequences of the theory affected almost all natural sci
ences and many social disciplines. Especially objectionable was
the assertion that events of such magnitude took place in
historical times.

Worlds in Collision describes two (last) series of cataclysmic
events that occurred 34 and 27 centuries ago. Not only the
Earth, but also Venus, Mars, and the Moon were involved in
near encounters, when the Morning Star, then on a stretched
elliptical orbit following its eruption from the giant planet
Jupiter, caused turmoil among the members of the solar system
before settling on its present orbit.

The description was derived from literary references in the
writings of ancient peoples of the world. The archaeological,
geological, and paleontological evidence for the theory was
collected and presented separately in Earth in Upheaval (1955).

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In order to explain how certain phenomena could have taken
place - how, for instance, Venus, a newcomer, could obtain a
circular orbit, or the Earth turn over on its axis - the theory
envisaged a charged state of the sun, planets, and comets, and
extended magnetic fields permeating the solar system. This
appeared even more objectionable since celestial mechanics had
been solidly erected on the notion of gravitation, inertia and
pressure of light as the only forces acting in the void, the
celestial bodies being electrically and magnetically sterile in
their inter-relations. Worlds in Collision, in its Preface, was
acknowledged as heresy in fields where the names Newton and
Darwin are supreme.

The only quantitative attempt to disprove one of my main
theses was made by D. Menzel of Harvard College Observatory
(1952) [1]. He showed (`if Velikovsky wants quantitative
discussion, let us give him one'), on certain assumptions, that
were I right the sun would need to hold a potential of 10 to the
19th power volts; but, he calculated that the sun, if positive,
could hold only 1800 volts, and, if negative, it follows from the
equation, no more than a single volt.

In 1960-61, V.A. Bailey calculated that to account for the data
obtained in space probes (Pioneer V) the sun must possess a net
negative charge with the potential of the order of 1019 volts [2].

In 1953 Menzel wrote: `Indeed, the total number of electrons
that could escape the sun would be able to run a one cell flash
light for less than one minute.'[3] My affirmation of
electromagnetic interactions in the solar system became less
objectionable with the discovery of the solar wind and of
magnetic fields permeating the solar system.

My thesis that changes in the duration of the day had been
caused in the past by electromagnetic interactions was rejected
in 1950-51 [4]. In February 1960, A. Danjon, Director, Paris
Observatory, reported to l'Académie des Sciences that
following a strong solar flare the length of the day suddenly
increased by 0.85 millisecond. Thereafter the day began to
decrease by 3.7 microseconds every 24 hours [5]. He ascribed
the fluctuation in the length of the day to an electromagnetic
cause connected with the flare. His announcement `created a

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sensation among the delegates to the General Assembly of the
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics' that year in
Helsinki [5].

V. Bargmann of Princeton University and L. Motz of Columbia
University claimed for me the priority of predicting radio
noises from Jupiter, the existence of a magnetosphere around
the earth, and the high ground temperature of Venus [6]. They
stressed also that these discoveries later came as great surprises,
though I have insisted in my published works, in my lectures,
and in my letters that these physical conditions are directly
deducible from my theory.

These claims were not made casually or in a veiled form. Some
of my arguments for Jupiter sending out radio-noises can be
learned from my correspondence with A. Einstein. I could add
that if the solar system as a whole is close to neutrality, and the
planets possess charges of opposite sign to that of the sun,
Jupiter must have the largest charge among the planets.
Rotating quickly the charged planet creates an intense
magnetosphere.

In the last chapter of W. in C. (`The Thermal Balance of
Venus') I insisted that ` Venus is hot' and `gives off heat' as a
consequence of its recent origin and stormy history before
settling on its orbit. In 1954, R. Barker suggested that a layer of
ice on the night side of Venus is responsible for the ashen light
[7]. It is more probably a visible sign of incandescence. When
in 1961 the temperature of Venus was found to be ca. 600 deg
K, it was admitted that neither radioactivity nor greenhouse
effect suffices to explain why Venus is so hot.

Several of the sensors of Mariner II were beyond their capacity
to report temperatures before the nearest point to Venus was
reached, `because temperatures beyond their designed scale
were encountered,' as reported by C. W. Snyder to the meeting
of the American Geophysical Union, December 28, 1962 [8].
On December 15, 1962, a day after Mariner II passed the point
of closest approach, the `temperature had inexplicably started to
drop'[9].

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It is interesting also to know why the temperature of the upper
cloud layer of Venus measured in the 1920's by Pettit and
Nicholson (-33 deg C for the dark side, -38 deg C for the bright
side)[10] was found in the 1950's by Stinton and Strong to be a
few degrees lower (ca. -40 deg C for both sides)[11]. Could it
be that Venus cools off at this rate ? It would point, too, to its
youth as a celestial body.

In 1950 the critics of W. in C. emphatically objected to the
notion that Venus is a young Planet or that it erupted from
Jupiter.

R. A. Lyttleton (1959-60) showed why the terrestrial planets,
Venus included, must have originated from the giant planets,
notably Jupiter, by disruption [12]. W. H. McCrea (1960)
calculated that no planet could have originated by aggregation
inside the Jovian orbit [13].

R. M. Goldstein and R. L. Carpenter reported to the meeting of
the American Geophysical Union at Palo Alto, the last week of
December 1962, that radar probes from Goldstone Tracking
Station between October 1 and December 17, 1962, confirmed
earlier indications that Venus rotates very slowly and
retrogradely. According to the press, this led to the following
surmises: `Maybe Venus was created apart from other planets,
perhaps as a second solar explosion, or perhaps in a collision of
planets.'[14] To this, compare W. in C., p. 373: `The collision
between major planets... brought about the birth of comets.
These comets moved across the orbits of other planets and
collided with them. At least one of the comets in historical
times became a planet - Venus, and this at the cost of great
destruction on Mars and on the earth.'

In the section `The Gases of Venus' in W. in C. (1950), I con
cluded that Venus must be rich in hydrocarbons. This theory
was termed `surprising' (H. Shapley, 1946) when, a few years
in advance of the publication of my book, I requested that
Harvard College Observatory make a spectral search for
hydrocarbons in Venus's atmosphere [15]. In 1955, Fred Hoyle
proposes, on theoretical grounds, that Venus is covered by
oceans of oil and that its atmosphere is clouded by hydrocarbon
droplets [16]. I, however, wrote: `...as long as Venus is too hot

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for the liquefaction of petroleum, the hydrocarbons will
circulate in gaseous form.' (W. in C., p. 169).

The extraterrestrial origin claimed in my book for at least part
of the petroleum deposits, notably those of the Mexican Gulf
area, was scorned (C. R. Longwell, 1950)[17], and it was
asserted that petroleum is never found in recent sediments (J. B.
Patton, 1950).[18] However, soon thereafter, P. V. Smith
(1952)[19] reported the `surprising' fact that the oil of the Gulf
of Mexico is found in recent sediment and must have been
deposited during the last 9,200 plus or minus 1,000 years.

Hydrocarbons were subsequently found on meteorites, a fact
termed by H. H. Nininger (1959)[20] also `surprising': `These
resemble in many ways some of the waxes and petroleum
products that are found on the earth.' Several months ago, A. T.
Wilson (1962)[21] postulated an extraterrestrial origin of the
entire terrestrial deposit of oil. In W. in C. (p.55), presence of
hydrocarbons on meteorites was anticipated. The experiment in
which high molecular weight hydrocarbons were compounded
from ammonia and methane with electrical discharges (Wilson,
1960) [22] supports the view that the planet Jupiter (rich in
ammonia and methane) was the source of the hydrocarbons on
Venus, on meteorites, and in some of the earth's deposits (W. in
C., `The Gases of Venus').

My contention that Mars's atmosphere must be rich in argon
and neon and possibly nitrogen was made early in my work
(lecture titled `Neon and Argon in the Atmosphere of Mars'). A
few years later, Harrison Brown, on theoretical grounds and
independently, arrived at the same conclusion concerning
argon: `In the case of Mars, it might well be that argon is the
major atmospheric constituent.'[23] But he thought that rare
gases `are essentially non-existent' on meteorites. In recent
years neon and argon have been repeatedly discovered on
meteorites (H. Stauffer, 1961)[24], as anticipated in W. in C.
(pp. 281 ff, 367).

Concerning the Moon, I asserted that its surface had been sub
jected to stress, heating (liquefaction) and bubbling activity in
historical times. `During these catastrophes the moon's surface
flowed with lava and bubbled into great circular formations,

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which rapidly cooled off ...In these cosmic collisions or near
contacts the surface of the moon was also marked with clefts
and rifts' (W. in C., `The moon and Its Craters'). H. Percy
Wilkins (1955) described numerous domes that might be
regarded as examples of bubbles which did not burst.'[25].

Signs of tensional stresses have been detected on the Moon
(Warren and Fielder, 1962)[26]; volcanic activity has been
unexpectedly discovered by Kozyrev (1958)[27]. Sharp outlines
of lunar formations could not have persisted for millions of
years in view of the thermal splintering due to great changes in
temperature, over 300 degrees, in the day-night sequel and
during the eclipses. H. Jeffreys (1959)[28] drew attention to this
evidence for the youth of the surface features, but made it
dependent on the presence of water in the rocks. Since there
seems to be volcanic activity on the Moon, water is most
probably present in the rocks.

Assertions that the Earth's axis could not have changed its
geographical or astronomical position constituted one of the
main arguments against Worlds in Collision [29]. They gave
place to the theory of wandering poles. Th. Gold (1955ff)[30]
shows the error in the view of G. Darwin and Lord Kelvin on
the subject, and stresses the comparative ease with which the
globe could - and did - change its axis, even with no external
force applied.

Confirmed is also the conclusion that advanced human culture
would be found in the today uninhabited area `on the Kolyma
or Lena rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean' in northeastern
Siberia (W. in C., p. 329) in the region where herds of
mammoths roamed. Already in 1951, A. P. Okladnikov [31]
making known the results of his research in northern Siberia,
wrote: `about two to three millennia before our era, neolithic
races...spread to the very coast of the Arctic Ocean in the north
and the Kolyma in the east.' Twenty-five hundred years ago
copper was worked in the taiga of Yakutsk.

Under the heading `The Reversed Polarity of the Earth' (W. in
C., pp. 114ff.) is written: `In recent geological times the
magnetic poles of the globe were reversed.' The phenomenon
that could cause it was described, and the question was asked

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`whether the position of the magnetic poles has anything to do
with the direction of rotation of the globe.' Complete and
repeated sudden reversals of the magnetic poles were postulated
by S. K. Runcorn (1955)[32] and P. M. Blackett (1956)[33].
Runcorn wrote: `There seems no doubt that the earth's field is
tied up in some way with the rotation of the planet. And this
leads to a remarkable finding about the earth's rotation
itself...The planet has rolled about, changing the location of its
geographical poles.' Complete reversals would change the
rising and setting points, west becoming east, as described in
many ancient sources collated in W. in C. The pioneers in
paleomagnetic studies, G. Folgheraiter and P. L. Mercanton
[34], found a reversal of the earth's magnetic field in the
Central Mediterranean area in the 8th century before the present
era, recorded in the magnetic dip of the Etruscan and Attic
vases; their position in the kiln is learned from the flow of
glaze. This find is in harmony with the events described on pp.
207-359 of W. in C.

Radiocarbon analysis, besides disclosing that some petroleum is
of recent origin and deposit, verified also the claim (W. in C.,
`The Ice Age and the Antiquity of Man') that the last glacial
period ended less than 10,000 years ago. One of the first and
most important results of the new method was the reduction of
the time of the last glaciation. `The advance of the ice occurred
about 11,000 years ago... Previously this maximum advance
had been assumed to date from about 25,000 years ago,'
reported W. F. Libby and Frederick Johnson in 1952 [35]. Later
this figure was still more reduced; furthermore, it refers to the
advance, not the end of the retreat of the ice cover.

Possibly the most clear-cut case of vindication concerns the
antiquity I assigned to the Mesoamerican civilizations (Mayas,
Toltecs, Olmecs). G. Kubler of Yale University wrote
(1950)[36]:

The Mesoamerican cosmology to which
Velikovsky repeatedly appeals for proof did not
originate and could not originate until about the
beginning of our era.

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Kubler showed a discrepancy of over 1,000 years and asserted
that events I ascribed to the 8th-4th centuries before the present
era could not have taken place until rather late in the Christian
era. But on December 30, 1956, the National Geographical
Society, on its own behalf and that of the Smithsonian
Institution, announced:

Atomic science has proved the ancient civilization
of Mexico to be some 1,000 years older than had
been believed. The findings basic to Middle
American archaeology, artifacts dug up in La
Venta, Mexico, have been proved to come from a
period 800 to 400 or 500 A.D., more than 1,000
years later. Cultural parallels between La Venta
and other Mexican archaeological excavations
enable scientists to date one in the terms of the
others. Thus the new knowledge affects the dating
of many finds. Dr Matthew W. Sterling, Chief of
the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smith
sonian Institution, declared the new dating the
most important archaeological discovery in recent
history.

P. Drucker and his co-workers have elaborated on the subject in
Science (1957) and in the report of the excavation (1959)[37].

H. E. Suess, because of an accumulation of certain
discrepancies in the radiocarbon dates, assumes that natural
events caused a radical change in the intensity of the
magnetosphere and in the influx of cosmic rays sometime in the
second millennium before the present era. Several other
researchers came to the same conclusion [38]. This is also in
harmony with the story related in my book.

Oceanographic research brought several confirming data. H.
Pettersson of Goteborg found so much nickel in clay of the
oceanic bed that he inferred that at some time in the past there
had been a prodigious fall of meteorites [39]. In W. in C., the
descent of enormous trains of meteorites and meteoric dust and
ash (pp. 51ff) of land and sea is narrated, with reliance on
ancient sources. In 1958, J. L. Worzel found a layer of white
ash, 5 to 30 cm thick, very close to the bottom, evenly spread

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over an enormous area of the ocean bed in the Pacific, and he
thought of a `fiery end of bodies of cosmic origin'[40]. M.
Ewing cites evidence that the same ash layer of `remarkable
uniformity of thickness' found by Worzel in the Pacific
underlies all oceans and assumes `a cometary collision'[41]. It
could hardly be without some recorded consequences of global
extent,' Ewing concluded. To this a line from W. in C. (`the
Darkness') can be quoted: `The earth entered deeper into the
tail of the onrushing comet' with its `sweeping gases, dust, and
cinders' and `the dust sweeping in from interplanetary space.'

In 1950 a past collision of the earth with a comet was denied,
and comets were also regarded as very tenuous and light masses
incapable of causing much damage [42]. R. Wildt claimed that
the largest comet would have a mass equal to one millionth of
that of Venus [42]. But N. T. Bobrovnikoff (1951)[43] Director
of Perkins Observatory, took a different view. Several comets
seen in the 19th century moved in very similar orbits and `in all
probability, are the result of decomposition of one single body.'
He estimated that: `If put together' these comets `would make
something like the mass of the moon.'

Before Ewing, a cometary collision was postulated in 1957 by
H. Urey to explain the tektites and their distribution [44]. G.
Baker insists that Australian tektites (australites) have lain in
place no longer than 5,000 years [45].

3,500 years ago the oceans suddenly evaporated and the water
level dropped about twenty feet, a fact first noted by R. Daly
and later confirmed by Kuenen [46]. Rubin and Suess found
that 3,000 years ago glaciers in the Rockies suddenly increased
in size [47]. Scandinavian and German authors date
Klimastürze at 1500 and 700 B.C. - the very period of great
perturbations described in W. in C. [48].

In the ocean floor B. Heezen discovered (1960)[49] a ridge split
by a deep canyon, or `crack in the crust that runs nearly twice
around the earth.' He wrote: `the discovery at this late date of
the midocean ridge and rift has raised fundamental questions
about basic geological processes and the history of the earth and
has even had reverberations in cosmology.'

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Prof. Ma (Formosa) claims that there was a sudden and total
shift in the crust only 26 and 32 centuries ago, as evidenced by
the shift of marine sediments (1955) [50]. It was argued that in
global catastrophes of such dimensions no stalactites would
have remained unbroken, but within one year after the atomic
explosion, stalactites grew in the Gnome cavern, New Mexico:
`All nature's processes have been speeded up a billionfold.'[51]

Claude F. A. Schaeffer of College de France, in his
Stratigraphie Comparée [52] on which he worked not knowing
of my simultaneous efforts, came to the conclusion that the
Ancient East, as documented by every excavated place from
Troy to the Caucasus, Persia, and Palestine-Syria, underwent
immense natural paroxysms, unknown in modern annals of
seismology; cultures were terminated, empires collapsed, trade
ceased, populations were decimated, the earth upheaved, the sea
erupted, ash buried cities, climate changed. Five times between
the third and the first millennia before the present era the
cataclysms were repeated, closing the Early and the Middle
Bronze Ages in their wake. The number of catastrophes and
their dates relative to historical periods coincide in Schaeffer's
estimate and in my own. From source material of a different
nature - archaeological - he found that the greatest catastrophe
terminated the Middle Kingdom in Egypt (Middle Bronze).
Thus we are in agreement to a day. The catastrophe that ended
the Middle Kingdom in Egypt is the starting point of Worlds in
Collision (and of Ages of Chaos, my reconstruction of ancient
chronology).

The recent finds in astronomy, especially in radioastronomy
(sun, Venus, Jupiter), have given confirmation from above;
oceanography, radiocarbon, paleomagnetism, and archaeology
have carried their shares from below.

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Notes (References cited in "Additional Examples of Correct

Prognosis")

1. D. Menzel, Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. (October, 1952).

2. V. A. Bailey, Nature, May 14, 1960; January 7, 1961; March
25, 1961.

3. Menzel, Flying Saucers (Harvard University Press), 1953, p.
236.

4. J. Q. Stuart, Princeton University Observatory, in Harper's,
June, 1951.

5. A. Danjon, Comptes rendus des séances de L'Académie des
Sciences, 250 #8 (February 22, 1960); 250 #15 (April 11,
1960).

5a. New York Times, July 30, 1960.

6. Science, December 21, 1962.

7. R. Barker, J.B.A.A., 64, 60 (1954).

8. New York Times, December 29, 1962 (West coast ed.).

9. U.P.I. dispatch from Washington, D.C., in Philadelphia
Inquirer, December 16, 1962.

10. E. Pettit in Hynek (ed.) Astrophysics, McGraw-Hill, 1951,
revised by Pettit and Nicholson, Publ. Astr. Soc. of the Pacif. 67
(1955), p. 293.

11. Sinton and Strong, Science, 123, 676 (1956).

12. R. A. Lyttleton, Monthly Notices, Royal Astr. Soc. 121 #6
(1960); Man's View of the Universe, 1961, p. 36.

13. H. H. McCrea, Proceedings, Royal Society, Series A, Vol.
256 (May 31, 1960).

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228

14. The National Observer, December 31, 1962.

15. H. Shapley to H. M. Kallen, May 27, 1946.

16. F. Hoyle, Frontiers of Astronomy, 1955, pp. 68-72.

17. C. R. Longwell, Am. J. of Science, August, 1950.

18. J. B. Patton quoted by F. E. Edmondson, Courier-Journal,
Louisville, Ky., April 23, 1950.

19. P. V. Smith, Science, October 24, 1952.

20. H. H. Nininger, Out of the Sky (Dover Publ.), 1959, pp. 89
90.

21. A. T. Wilson, Nature, October 6, 1962.

22. Ibid., December 17, 1960.

23. H. Brown in The Atmospheres of the Earth and Planets, ed.
Kuiper, 1949, p. 268.

24. H. Stauffer, J. Geoph. Res., 66 #5 (May,1961).

25. H. P. Wilkins, The Moon, 1955, p. 42.

26. B. Warren and G. Fielder, Nature, February 24, 1962.

27. N. A. Kozyrev, November 3, 1958. Cf. Z. Kopal, The Moon
(1960), p. 96.

28. H. Jeffreys, The Earth, 4th ed.(1959), p. 377.

29. C. Payne-Gaposchkin, Popular Astronomy, June, 1950.

30. Th. Gold, Nature, 175, 526 (March 26, 1955); Sky and Tele
scope, April, 1958.

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229

31. A. P. Okladnikov, in Po Sledam Drevnikh Kultur, Moscow,
1951; Russ. Transl. series of the Peabody Museum, 1,
#1(1959).

32. S. K. Runcorn, Scientific American, September, 1955.

33. P.M. Blackett, Lectures on Rock Magnetism, Jerusalem,
1956.

34. G. Folgheraiter, Archives des sciences physiques et natur
elles (Geneva), 1899; Journal de Physique, 1899; P. L.
Mercanton, Archives des science phys. et nat., 1907 (t.xxiii).

35. F. Johnson in W. F. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating (University
of Chicago Press), 1952.

36. G. Kubler, Am. J. of Science, August, 1950.

37. P. Drucker, R. F. Heizer, R. J. Squier, Science, July 12,
1957; Excavations at La Venta (Smithsonian Institute, 1959).

38. Cf. a series of articles by V. Milojcic, Germania, 1957 ff, E.
Ralph, Am. J. of Sc., Radiac. Suppl., 19559 (note to samples p
214, p-215, p-216).

39. H. Pettersson, Scient. American, August, 1950; Tellus, I,
1949.

40. J. L. Worzel, Proc. Nat. Acad. of Sc., Vol. 45 #3 (March 15,
1959).

41. M. Ewing, Proc. Nat. Acad. of Sc., Vol. 45 #3.

42. R. Wildt, Amer. J. of Science, August, 1950.

43. N. T. Bobrovnikoff, in Astrophysics, ed. Hynek, McGraw
Hill, 1951, pp.310-311.

44. H. Urey, Nature, March 16, 1957.

45. G. Baker, Nature, January 30, 1960.

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230

46. P. H. Kuenen, Marine Geology, 1950, p.538.

47. Rubin and Suess, Science, April 8, 1955.

48. H. Games and R. Nordhagen, Mitteil. der Geograph. Ges. in
Munchen, XVI, H. 2 (1923), pp. 13-348. R. Sernander, `Klima
verschlechterung, Postglaciale' in Reallexikon der
Vorgeschichte, VII (1926); O. Paret, Das Neue Bild der
Vorgeschuchte (1948), p.44.

49. B. Heezen, Scient. American, October, 1960.

50. T.Y.H.Ma, Alterations of Sedimentary Facies on the Ocean
Bottom, 1955.

51. Dispatch by W. Hines of the Washington Star from
Carlsbad, N.M., in The Evening Bulletin, December 18, 1962.

52. C. F. A. Schaeffer, Stratigraphie comparée, Oxford
University Press, 1948; Im. Velikovsky, Theses for the
Reconstruction of Ancient History (Scripta Academica
Hierosolymitana), 1945.

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APPENDIX I

ON THE RECENT DISCOVERIES

CONCERNING

JUPITER AND VENUS

In the light of recent discoveries of radio waves from Jupiter
and of the high surface temperature of Venus, we think it proper
and just to make the following statement.

On October 14, 1953, Immanuel Velikovsky, addressing the
Forum of the Graduate College of Princeton University in a
lecture entitled `Worlds in Collision in the Light of Recent
Finds in Archaeology, Geology and Astronomy: Refuted or
Verified?' concluded the lecture as follows: `The planet Jupiter
is cold, yet its gases are in motion. It appears probable to me
that it sends out radio noises as do the sun and the stars. I
suggest that this be investigated.'

Soon after that date, the text of the lecture was deposited with
each of us [it is printed as supplement to Velikovsky's Earth in
Upheaval (Doubleday, 1955)]. Eight months later, in June
1954, Velikovsky, in a letter, requested Albert Einstein to use
his influence to have Jupiter surveyed for radio emission. The
letter, with Einstein's marginal notes commenting on this
proposal, is before us. Ten more months passed, and on April 5,
1955, B. F. Burke and K. L. Franklin of the Carnegie Institution
announced the chance detection of strong radio signals
emanating from Jupiter. They recorded the signals for several
weeks before they correctly identified the source.

This discovery came as something of a surprise because radio
astronomers had never expected a body as cold as Jupiter to
emit radio waves [1].

In 1960 V. Radhakrishnah of India and J. A. Roberts of
Australia, working at California Institute of Technology,

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established the existence of a radiation belt encompassing
Jupiter, `giving 10 to the 14th power times as much radio
energy as the Van Allen belts around the earth.'

On December 5, 1956, through the kind services of H. H. Hess,
chairman of the department of geology of Princeton University,
Velikovsky submitted a memorandum to the U.S. National
Committee for the (planned) I.G.Y. in which he suggested the
existence of a terrestrial magnetosphere reaching the moon.
Receipt of the memorandum was acknowledged by E. O.
Hulburt for the Committee. The magnetosphere was discovered
in 1958 by Van Allen.

In the last chapter of his Worlds in Collision (1950),
Velikovsky stated that the surface of Venus must be very hot,
even though in 1950 the temperature of the cloud surface of
Venus was known to be -25 deg C on the day and night sides
alike.

In 1954 N. A. Kozyrev [2] observed an emission spectrum from
the night side of Venus but ascribed it to discharges in the
upper layers of its atmosphere. He calculated that the
temperature of the surface of Venus must be + 30 deg C;
somewhat higher values were found earlier by Adel and
Herzberg. As late as 1959, V.A. Firsoff arrived at a figure of +
17.5 deg C for the mean surface temperature of Venus, only a
little above the mean annual temperature of the earth (+14.2 deg
C) [3].

However, by 1961 it became known that the surface
temperature of Venus is `almost 600 degrees (K)'[4]. F. D.
Drake describe this discovery as `a surprise... in a field in which
the fewest surprises were expected.' `We would have expected
a temperature only slightly greater than that of the earth...
Sources of internal heating (radioactivity) will not produce an
enhanced surface temperature.' Cornell H. Mayer writes [5],
`All the observations are consistent with a temperature of
almost 600 degrees,' and admits that `the temperature is much
higher than anyone would have predicted.'

Although we disagree with Velikovsky's theories, we feel
impelled to make this statement to establish Velikovsky's

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priority of prediction of these two points and to urge, in view of
these prognostications, that his other conclusions be objectively
re-examined.

V. BARGMANN
Department of Physics, Princeton University,

Princeton, New Jersey

LLOYD MOTZ
Department of Astronomy,

Columbia University, New York

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Notes (References cited in "Appendix I - On recent

Discoveries Concerning Jupiter and Venus")

1. See also the New York Times for October 28,1962.

2. N. A. Kozyrev, Izv. Krymsk. Astrofiz. Observ. 12 (1954).

3. Science News 1959, 52 (Summer 1959).

4. Phys. Today 14, No. 4, 30 (1961).

5. C. H. Mayer, Sci. Am. 204 (May, 1961).

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APPENDIX II

VELIKOVSKY `DISCREDITED': A TEXTUAL

COMPARISON

The various writings of Harvard astronomer Cecilia Payne
Gaposchkin against Worlds in Collision (The Reporter, March
14, 1950; Popular Astronomy, June, 1950, Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society, Vol. 96, October, 1952)
provided a convenient reservoir of damaging testimony from
which her colleagues as well as lesser critics drew freely in
formulating their own opinions and in preparing further
commentaries on the book.

Reproduced below are passages from Gaposchkin's paper that
appeared in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society and the material in Velikovsky's book that she
purportedly discredited. The reader may judge for himself who
is guilty of faulty scholarship and purposeful misrepresentation.

THE CRITICISM: I

Gaposchkin:

The thesis of the book is scientific, but the evidence is drawn
from an immense mass of biblical evidence and Hebrew
tradition, myth and folklore, classical literature and the works
of the Church fathers. A critic is faced ... with the herculean
labour of laying a finger on the flaws in an argument that ranges
over the greater part of ancient literature. [But] when one
examines [Velikovsky's] sources, his argument falls to
pieces...He has not only chosen his sources; he has even chosen
what they shall mean.

Let me give one example. [Gaposchkin quotes from Worlds in
Collision:] `One of the places of the heavenly combat... was on
the way from Egypt to Syria. According to Herodotus, the final

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act of the fight between Zeus and Typhon took place at Lake
Serbon on the coastal route from Egypt to Palestine.' But Hero
dotus says nothing about the battle, or even about Zeus, in the
passage quoted. [The dots denoting an omission and the italics
are Gaposchkin's. She next quotes Herodotus in Greek and
translates:] `Egypt begins at the Serbonian shore, where, they
say, Typhon is hidden.'

[Gaposchkin makes it appear that Velikovsky invented the
battle and its participants, because Herodotus speaks only of
Typhon's place of burial, not of a battle.]

THE TEXTS: I

Velikovsky (Worlds in Collision, pp. 78-81):

[The quoted sentence in Worlds in Collision follows almost
three pages of a description of the battle between Zeus and
Typhon, quoted from Apollodorus: `Zeus pelted Typhon at a
distance with thunderbolts...'] The Egyptian shore of the Red
Sea was called Typhonia (Fn: Strabo, vii, 3, 8). Strabo narrates
also that the Arimi (Syrians) were terrified witnesses of the
battle of Zeus with Typhon... `who... when struck by the bolts
of lightning, fled in search of a descent underground.'

[Restituted in full, the passage quoted by Gaposchkin reads as
follows:] One of the places of the heavenly combat between
elementary forces of nature - as narrated by Apollodorus and
Strabo - was on the way from Egypt to Syria. (Fn: Mount
Casius, mentioned by Apollodorus, is the name of Mount
Lebanon as well as of Mount Sinai. Cf. Pomponius Mela, De
situ orbis.) According to Herodotus, the final act of the fight
between Zeus and Typhon took place at Lake Serbon on the
coastal route from Egypt to Palestine. (Fn: Herodotus ii, 5. Also
Apollonius Rhodius in the Argonautica, Bk. ii, says that
Typhon `smitten by the bolt of Zeus... lies whelmed beneath the
waters of the Serbonian lake.') [Actually, the Harvard
University edition of Herodotus (Loeb Classical Library)
connects the quoted sentence about the place where Typhon is
entombed with his defeat by Zeus.]

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THE CRITICISM: II

Gaposchkin continues:

A cosmic encounter, we read, was responsible for the
destruction of the army of Sennacherib by a `blast of fire.' But
none of the three biblical accounts of the event mentions a
blast: each one ascribes the defeat of the enemy to an angel.
(Fn: II Kings, xx, 35; II Chronicles, xxxvii, 2; Isaiah, xxxvii,
36). We do find a blast in the prophecy made by Isaiah before
the event: `Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall
hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land.' (Fn: II Kings,
xix, 7). But the Hebrew word used here means `wind or spirit'
rather than `fire.'

[Thus Velikovsky is accused of suppressing the `angel' as the
agent of destruction in the story of Sennacherib's debacle; of
incorrectly interpreting `blast of fire,' which words do not
appear in the biblical narrative]

[Next, Gaposchkin implies that Velikovsky suppressed
Herodotus's version of Sennacherib's defeat:] Herodotus gives
a very different account of the defeat of Sennacherib's army,
which does not suggest any catastrophe on a cosmic scale. [The
passage in Herodotus is printed in Greek, and a translation
follows it (Gaposchkin's dots):] Afterwards...Sennacherib, king
of the Arabians and Assyrians, marched his vast army into
Egypt.... As the two armies lay here opposite one another, there
came in the night a multitude of field-mice, which devoured all
the quivers and bowstrings of the enemy, and ate the thongs by
which they managed their shields. Next morning they
commenced their flight and great multitudes fell, as they had no
arms with which to defend themselves.(Fn: History, iii;
Rawlinson translation.)

[Gaposchkin concluded:] If all readers had complete classical
libraries, and could read them; if every man were his own
Assyriologist and habitually studied the Bible in the Hebrew
and Septuagint versions, Dr Velikovsky would have had short
shrift.

[When Velikovsky submitted to the editors of the Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society evidence that he had not

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misquoted the Biblical passages, had not ascribed `blast of fire'
to a Biblical text, and had not suppressed Herodotus's version,
he was refused access to the pages of that journal for a rejoin
der. As a result, more than one irresponsible writer was misled
into echoing Gaposchkin: `Thus when Velikovsky quotes
Herodotus about a battle between Zeus and Typhon and Isaiah
on the destruction of Sennacherib's army by fire, you have only
to turn to the books cited to learn that Herodotus... and Isaiah
said nothing of the sort' - this from an article by L. Sprague de
Camp (`Orthodoxy in Science,' Astounding Science Fiction,
May, 1954.)]

[As late as the fall of 1962, the reader information service of the
Encyclopedia Britannica, in answer to inquiries about the
validity of Velikovsky's theories, mailed out a five-page-long
compilation of excerpts from critical reviews of Worlds in
Collision. More than three pages were filled with Gaposchkin
passages in the same vein as, and including, those set forth here
for comparison with Velikovsky's text.]

THE TEXT:II

Velikovsky (Worlds in Collision, pp. 230-231):

The destruction of the army of Sennacherib is described laconi
cally in the Book of Kings: `And it came to pass that night, that
the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the
Assyrians a hundred four score and five thousand; and when the
people arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and
returned, and dwelt in Nineveh.' It is similarly described in the
Book of Chronicles: .'..And the Lord sent an angel which cut
off all the mighty men of valour....'

What kind of destruction was this?... It is explained in the texts
of the Book of Kings and Isaiah that it was a `blast' sent upon
the army of Sennacherib. `I will send a blast upon him... and
[he] shall return to his own land,' was the prophecy
immediately preceding the catastrophe...

The Talmud and Midrash sources, which are numerous, all
agree on the manner in which the Assyrian host was destroyed:

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a blast fell from the sky on the camp of Sennacherib. It was not
a flame, but a consuming blast: `Their souls were burnt, though
their garments remained intact.' The phenomenon was
accompanied by a terrific noise. (Fn: Tractate Shabbat 113b;
Snahedrin 94a; Jerome on Isaiah 1: 16; L. Ginzberg, Legends of
the Jews, vi, 363.)

Another version of the destruction of the army of Sennacherib
is given by Herodotus. During his visit in Egypt, he heard from
the Egyptian priests or guides to the antiquities that the army of
Sennacherib, while threatening the borders of Egypt, was de
stroyed in a single night. According to this story, an image of a
deity holding in his palm the figure of a mouse was erected in
an Egyptian temple to commemorate the miraculous event. In
explanation of the symbolic figure, Herodotus was told that
myriads of mice descended upon the Assyrian camp and
gnawed away the cords of their bows and other weapons;
deprived of their arms, the troops fled in panic.

[Velikovsky also drew attention to the neglected fact that both
versions - in the Scriptures and in Herodotus - include a story of
a disturbance (reversal) of the sun's movement in immediate
sequence with the above narratives.]

[In a chapter dealing with the folklore of the American Indians,
Velikovsky relates a tale preserved by the Mnemoni tribe of the
Algonquin nation. The sun had been caught in a noose and re
strained from proceeding on its path:] .'..The Mouse came up
and gnawed at the string...the Sun breathed again and the
darkness disappeared.  If the Mouse had not succeeded, the Sun
would have died.' (S. Thompson, Tales of the North American
Indians, 1929)... The image of the mouse must have had some
relation to the cosmic drama...Apparently the atmosphere of the
celestial body that appeared in the darkness and was illuminated
took on the elongated form of a mouse...This explains why the
blast that destroyed the army of Sennacherib was
commemorated by the emblem of a mouse...Thus we see how a
folk story of the primitives can solve an unsettled problem
between Isaiah and Herodotus.
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