The Pseudoscience Wars

June 11, 2012
Princeton historian Gordin provides an often compelling but sometimes plodding account of the scientific and cultural impact of Immanuel Velikovsky’s book, Worlds in Collision, which soared to the top of bestseller lists in 1950. The book claimed that various physical upheavals of a global character have been caused by extraterrestrial agents that, he argued, could be identified. For example, sometime around 1500 B.C.E., a massive comet was ejected from Jupiter and became trapped in the earth’s gravitational and electromagnetic fields, wreaking such havoc as the catastrophes described in the biblical stories of Exodus. Scientists fiercely rejected Velikovsky’s claims, but, Gordin argues, he ushered in a popular belief in pseudoscience. Gordin (Red Cloud at Dawn) provides a detailed historical sketch of the writing of and reaction to Worlds in Collision, and Velikovsky’s impact on the scientific community and popular culture. Gordin explores how other fringe scientists often embrace Velikovsky’s ideas, and the independent development of creationism, eugenics, and parapsychology. Gordin points out that pseudoscience is the shadow of science, for science will always exclude some domains and findings as outdated, incorrect, or irrelevant. Pseudoscience, he concludes, can be removed from contemporary science with better peer review of journal articles and books and with more scientific literacy. Agent: Christy Fletcher, Fletcher & Co.

August 1, 2012

Gordin (history, Princeton Univ.; Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly) presents here an account of what has become known as the Velikovsky affair. Immanuel Velikovsky, a Russian catastrophist who published Worlds in Collision in 1950, ignited a national controversy when he argued that Jupiter ejected Venus like a comet nearly 20,000 years ago and the passing planet caused Earth's orbit and axis to change, thus spurring the natural disasters mentioned by early mythologies and religions around the world. Gordin, who is remarkably evenhanded, tells the story of the man, his extraordinary ideas, their reverberations in academia and scientific communities, and their eventual discrediting through the present day. VERDICT This won't put an end to the debates that rage between legitimate scientific research and other fringe doctrines, but it does lay the Velikovsky affair to rest with fairness and clarity and will help to put into perspective many of the controversies swirling around today's scientific landscape. A good read for those interested in the history of science or pseudoscientific theories.--Margaret Dominy, Drexel Univ. Lib., Philadelphia

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