In 1950 Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky published his book Worlds in Collision and set off a worldwide controversy in scientific and intellectual circles. Not only did his ideas about the solar system raise serious issues concerning how the latter had been formed, but they called into question the very processes by which scientific truth was to be established. The scientific establishment rose up in arms against Velikovsky’s claims about how our solar system had been formed and even sparked a serious debate about how scientific truth is to be determined.
The central claim of Velikovsky’s book is that between the 15th and 8th centuries BCE the earth experienced a series of violent catastrophes. Parts of the surface were heated to such a degree that they became molten and great streams of lava welled out, the sea boiled and largely evaporated, some mountain ranges collapsed while others rose up, continents were raised causing great floods, and a pall of darkness shrouded the earth, followed by huge fires. Moreover, Velikovsky claimed that these events had been recorded in the literature of the ancient cultures of the Hebrews, the Hindus, and the Greeks.
Moreover, Velikovsky claimed that numerous collisions between planets had occurred in the recorded history of humanity. Further, he claimed that the paths of many comets flew around in our solar system with one of them colliding with Mars, losing its tail and becoming the planet Venus. Thus, Mars shifted its course and nearly collided with earth, causing the latter to shift its orbit and our moon to completely change its orbit as well. Perhaps the most astounding claim made by Velikovsky was that many if not most of these catastrophes took place within the centuries of recorded history and were documented by ancient scholars of Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and detailed as well by the events of the Old Testament.
Needless to say, the scientific and scholarly worlds were scandalized by these claims. Nonetheless, several of Velikovsky’s cosmological claims were later substantiated by modern astronomical physics. For example, scientists had always claimed that Venus is a cold planet, but when they finally were able to check its temperature, it turned out to be extremely hot, thus corroborating Velikovsky’s
Idea that it had been formed recently. There proved to be many more such solid verifications of Velikovsky’s theories.
Nevertheless, the scientific community continued to attack his views, basically ostracizing both him and his books. Lawsuits were threatened and even some attempts to silence him completely were put into practice. The entire drama of Velikovsky’s attempt to contravene much of modern astronomical theory and the efforts of the scientific community to ban him and his ideas is documented in a book by Alfred DeGrazia titled The Velikovsky Affair. Velikovsky continued his battle seeking to get a fair hearing from the scientific community for his main book titled Worlds in Collision. There is another book by Velikovsky titled Ages of Chaos in which he traces out the historical implications of his cosmic theory. He consistently sought to exonerate himself to the established scientific community, but never really accomplished this task.
While I was studying at Duke University in 1965 the university invited Dr. Velikovsky to speak and explain his main ideas. The two main things I remember from his talk were (1) the fact that several of his key predictions he had made about both astronomical and geological had been corroborated, and (2) the genuine humility he showed in sharing his ideas with the audience in spite of the negative treatment he had received nationwide from the so-called “scientific” community.
It will be interesting, indeed exciting, to see if the new Webb Telescope turns up any information that might bear on the Velikovsky affair. Both the astrophysical and the socio-political dimensions of this issue will be worth tracking. To adapt from Hamlet’s remarks to Horatio: “There is more to be known about the so-called “facts” than that contained in our various theories.”