Immanuel Velikovsky

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[[Image:VelikovsyBook.png|thumb|left|200px|Velikovsky's book cover]]
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[[Image:VelikovsyBook.png|thumb|left|upright|Cover of ''World's in Collision'']]
 
'''Immanuel Velikovsky''' (1895–1979) was a Russian psychologist and [[pseudohistory|pseudohistorian]] notable for his controversial 1950 book ''Worlds in Collision'' and his rather extreme form of [[catastrophism]] in which he postulated that many of the stories of ancient legend (especially those of Greco-Roman [[mythology]] and the [[Bible]] such as the [[Global flood]] and the destruction of the [[Tower of Babel]]) were the result of a game of pinball with bounces, collisions, and close encounters between the planets of the solar system, particularly interactions involving [[Venus]] (which he theorized to be a monstrous comet), [[Jupiter]] (from which Venus was supposedly ejected around 1500 [[BC]]), and Earth.  
 
'''Immanuel Velikovsky''' (1895–1979) was a Russian psychologist and [[pseudohistory|pseudohistorian]] notable for his controversial 1950 book ''Worlds in Collision'' and his rather extreme form of [[catastrophism]] in which he postulated that many of the stories of ancient legend (especially those of Greco-Roman [[mythology]] and the [[Bible]] such as the [[Global flood]] and the destruction of the [[Tower of Babel]]) were the result of a game of pinball with bounces, collisions, and close encounters between the planets of the solar system, particularly interactions involving [[Venus]] (which he theorized to be a monstrous comet), [[Jupiter]] (from which Venus was supposedly ejected around 1500 [[BC]]), and Earth.  
  

Revision as of 18:27, 20 January 2012

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Immanuel Velikovsky (1895–1979) was a Russian psychologist and pseudohistorian notable for his controversial 1950 book Worlds in Collision and his rather extreme form of catastrophism in which he postulated that many of the stories of ancient legend (especially those of Greco-Roman mythology and the Bible such as the Global flood and the destruction of the Tower of Babel) were the result of a game of pinball with bounces, collisions, and close encounters between the planets of the solar system, particularly interactions involving Venus (which he theorized to be a monstrous comet), Jupiter (from which Venus was supposedly ejected around 1500 BC), and Earth.

While Velikovsky continues to have followers (including the notorious internet kook Ted Holden), his teachings can be quite easily rejected on their face for a number of reasons. Among other things, he made very few testable predictions, and produced much butchered science:

Venus, from a geological point of view, is Earth 10% smaller. Compare to Jupiter. Velikovsky is silent as to how Venus is supposed to come from Jupiter.
  • No mechanism was ever offered to eject Venus from Jupiter, and current science shows no way to do this without expending impossible amounts of energy or disrupting the rather complex Jovian orbital system, including its rings and many moons. Velikovsky also does not explain why a body consisting mostly of hydrogen would eject one whose geology much more closely resembles that of Earth in this odd game of planetary pinball. In addition, we know what comets are; scientists most succinctly refer to them as "dirty snowballs", blobs of water ice and organics. Venus is a rocky planet with a stable orbit, with no comet-like qualities save a large amount of water gas in the atmosphere (although comets don't really have much of an atmosphere). How this is supposed to emerge from Jupiter of all places is baffling. How Venus is supposed to change from a comet to a planet is also unexplained.
  • In attempting to explain the fall of manna in the story of the Exodus, Velikovsky routinely confused hydrocarbons with carbohydrates, a mistake that should be impossible for any person with a high school education in chemistry.
  • Velikovsky also butchered his mythology, twisting known historical chronology and making elementary mistakes such as conflating the goddesses Aphrodite and Athena to explain the origin of the myth of Athena's birth from a hole in Zeus' head cut by the god of fire.

Despite all this utter bullshit, Velikovsky's legacy lives to this day: his planetary billiards paved the way to Zecharia Sitchin's planet Nibiru, which in turn mutated into Nancy Lieder's Planet X, which is one of the contenders for the current 2012 end-of-the-world scare. Internet crank Robert W. Felix has piled a good deal of his own nonsense on top of Velikovsky's pseudo-scholarship. However we may hope, this won't disappear December 22.

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