The Pseudoscience Wars : Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe

Properly Analyzed, The Collective Mythological And Religious Writings Of Humanity Reveal That Around 1500 Bc, A Comet Swept Perilously Close To Earth, Triggering Widespread Natural Disasters And Threatening The Destruction Of All Life Before Settling Into Solar Orbit As Venus, Our Nearest Planetary Neighbor. Sound Implausible? Well, From 1950 Until The Late 1970s, A Huge Number Of People Begged To Differ, As They Devoured Immanuel Velikovsky's Major Best-seller, Worlds In Collision, Insisting That Perhaps This Polymathic Thinker Held The Key To A New Science And A New History. Scientists, On The Other Hand, Assaulted Velikovsky's Book, His Followers, And His Press Mercilessly From The Get-go. In The Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D.^ Gordin Resurrects The Largely Forgotten Figure Of Velikovsky And Uses His Strange Career And Surprisingly Influential Writings To Explore The Changing Definitions Of The Line That Separates Legitimate Scientific Inquiry From What Is Deemed Bunk, And To Show How Vital This Question Remains To Us Today. Drawing On A Wealth Of Previously Unpublished Material From Velikovsky's Personal Archives, Gordin Presents A Behind-the-scenes History Of The Writer's Career, From His Initial Burst Of Success Through His Growing Influence On The Counterculture, Heated Public Battles With Such Luminaries As Carl Sagan, And Eventual Eclipse. Along The Way, He Offers Fascinating Glimpses Into The Histories And Effects Of Other Fringe Doctrines, Including Creationism, Lysenkoism, Parapsychology, And More --^ All Of Which Have Surprising Connections To Velikovsky's Theories. Science Today Is Hardly Universally Secure, And Scientists Seem Themselves Beset By Critics, Denialists, And Those They Label Pseudoscientists -- As Seen All Too Clearly In Battles Over Evolution And Climate Change. The Pseudoscience Wars Simultaneously Reveals The Surprising Cold War Roots Of Our Contemporary Dilemma And Points Readers To A Different Approach To Drawing The Line Between Knowledge And Nonsense. - Publisher. Introduction: Bad Ideas -- The Grand Collision Of Spring 1950 -- A Monolithic Oneness -- The Battle Over Lysenkoism -- Experiments In Rehabilitation -- Skirmishes On The Edge Of Creation -- Strangest Bedfellows -- Conclusion: Pseudoscience In Our Time. Michael D. Gordin. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religious writings of humanity reveal that around 1500 BC, a comet swept perilously close to Earth, triggering widespread natural disasters and threatening the destruction of all life before settling into solar orbit as Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor. Sound implausible? Well, from 1950 until the late 1970s, a huge number of people begged to differ, as they devoured Immanuel Velikovsky’s major best-seller, Worlds in Collision, insisting that perhaps this polymathic thinker held the key to a new science and a new history. Scientists, on the other hand, assaulted Velikovsky’s book, his followers, and his press mercilessly from the get-go. In __The Pseudoscience Wars__, Michael D. Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses his strange career and surprisingly influential writings to explore the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk, and to show how vital this question remains to us today. Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material from Velikovsky’s personal archives, Gordin presents a behind-the-scenes history of the writer’s career, from his initial burst of success through his growing influence on the counterculture, heated public battles with such luminaries as Carl Sagan, and eventual eclipse. Along the way, he offers fascinating glimpses into the histories and effects of other fringe doctrines, including creationism, Lysenkoism, parapsychology, and more—all of which have surprising connections to Velikovsky’s theories. Science today is hardly universally secure, and scientists seem themselves beset by critics, denialists, and those they label “pseudoscientists”—as seen all too clearly in battles over evolution and climate change. __The Pseudoscience Wars__ simultaneously reveals the surprising Cold War roots of our contemporary dilemma and points readers to a different approach to drawing the line between knowledge and nonsense. The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe 4 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: Bad Ideas 12 1 The Grand Collision of Spring 1950 30 The Day the Earth Didn’t Stand Still 33 The Making of Macmillan’s Worlds in Collision 39 The Book Review Gauntlet 43 The Unmaking of Macmillan’s Worlds in Collision 47 A Question of Suppression? 53 Intentions 57 2 A Monolithic Oneness 60 From the Pale to Psychoanalysis 62 Inventing Worlds in Collision 68 History of the World, Part I 75 The Persistence of Memory 81 The Eclipse of History 84 3 The Battle over Lysenkoism 90 The Emperor Has No Clothes 93 After August 99 American Lysenko? 106 Learning the Wrong Lesson? 114 4 Experiments in Rehabilitation 117 Rebirthing the Well-Born Science 120 The Princeton Summits 127 From Past to Future 136 A Parting of Ways 144 5 Skirmishes on the Edge of Creation 146 The Price of Upheaval 149 How Flood Geology Lost Its Velikovskianism 154 Patten’s Charge 157 Rise of the Velikovskians 164 The Great Purge 168 6 Strangest Bedfellows 174 Velikovsky 101 178 Conscientious Objectors, Indians, and Other Aliens 185 Counter-Establishment Science, in Print and in Public 189 The Lion in Winter 196 Conclusion: Pseudoscience in Our Time 206 Abbreviations and Archives 224 Notes 226 Introduction 226 Chapter One 233 Chapter Two 242 Chapter Three 250 Chapter Four 258 Chapter Six 276 Conclusion 285 Index 292 "The publication of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision in 1950 was an event: the book was an instant best seller and launched Velikovsky on a long career as a writer and public figure opining on questions of science, history, myth, and more. But at the same time, Velikovsky and his theories--which claimed that antient mythological and religous writings revealed Earth's hitherto unknown prehistory of natural disasters and cosmic nearmisses--were vigorously attacked by scientists, who saw them as unscientific nonsense. In the Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D. Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses his strange career and surprosingly influential writings to explore the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk, and to show how vital this question remains to us today."--Page 4 of cover