Path: aur.alcatel.com!news01.aud.alcatel.com!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!news1.digex.net!news3.digex.net!access5!medved From: medved@access5.digex.net (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: alt.fan.publius,alt.fan.splifford,alt.christnet,alt.mythology,sci.skeptic,talk.origins Subject: Re: New Edition of "Sagan and Velikovsky" Date: 31 Jul 1995 08:03:01 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Lines: 2065 Message-ID: References: <3v9et8$4ni@access5.digex.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: access5.digex.net Xref: aur.alcatel.com alt.christnet:26353 alt.mythology:13338 sci.skeptic:63019 talk.origins:85745 skeptic@icon.net (William C. Easttom II) writes: >So you are saying that Sagan is unqualified and that he has the backing of the >American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the same posting? You >don't see a bit of a contradiction here? >Mr. Holden you miss one major point: Sagan is not the only scientist to >denounce velikovsky, in fact all physicist/astonomers do. His ideas have been >refuted in writting numerous times. There is not controversy, velilkovsky was >a quack. Maybe what Ginenthal is saying is that, Sagan being the apparent leader of the AAAS in all questions regarding Velikovsky, the AAAS is FUBAR. Judge for yourself: CARL SAGAN Notes from Charles Ginenthal: Probably the most influential speaker at the symposium to criticize Velikovsky was Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University. He is one of the world's most recognized scientists and science spokespersons. At the symposium he raised so many points critical of Velikovsky's theory that it took this writer eight years to research nearly all of them. These criticisms of Sagan have been in the public domain since my book, Carl Sagan & Immanuel Velikovsky, was published by New Falcon Publications in 1995. This article will concentrate mostly on Sagan's self-contradictions. About a year ago (1994), I received a telephone call from a Mr. Leo Goldberg, a staff writer for an English publication in Israel. He was doing an article on Velikovsky (which I still have not seen) and wished to talk with me about the issues involved. As soon as he learned from me that I was not a PhD in the sciences, being instead a teacher of the handicapped, his tone and discussion completely changed. I had told him that in my book on Sagan there was fundamental evidence that contradicted what Sagan had said. This he passed off as of no importance coming from an amateur researcher. To make my point, I cited the following from my book, roughly paraphrased: Carl Sagan ridiculed Velikovsky for saying that comets can take on the shapes of different animals through distortion during interactions with other celestial bodies or electromagnetic phenomenon.1 Although Sagan ridiculed Velikovsky for suggesting this, he nevertheless, has a chapter in his own book, Comet, titled "A Cometary Bestiary," in which he claims that comets do take on the shapes of animals.2 At the other end of the phone line there came a sudden "What!" from Mr. Goldberg. I assured him that if he wished I would gladly tell him where these citations by Sagan can be located, and that I had many, many other contradictions in my book as damaging as this one. I further pointed out that my being a teacher of the handicapped did not change the facts that had just been disclosed to him. There followed a long silence and Goldberg finally replied, "I don't think my editor would be interested in this material." I sensed he was very uncomfortable with the information he had been given and did not know how to deal with it. This is certainly strange, since here was an indication that Sagan's work on Velikovsky was so scandalous that any journalist might wish to investigate further. This was not the case with this reporter or with the journal he represented. Nor have I found this to be the case with other journals, such as the New York Village Voice, whose editor I telephoned and requested that one of his reporters have a look at my book. Whilehe accepted my invitation and I sent the book to him, I never received a reply from him or his reporters. Apparently, some journalists feel that with respect to Velikovsky, Sagan is above criticism. As Robert Anton Wilson pointed out with respect to Sagan, "If anybody possesses all the qualifications for a fully ordained Expert in America today, Carl Sagan certainly has that dizzying eminence. Through frequent appearances on TV and in Parade (a news magazine circulated through hundreds of newspapers in their jumbo Sunday editions), Dr. Sagan has issued Expert verdicts on every possible controversial issue in science and in politics, and even in theology, for three decades now.... "You may wonder how a man who only has qualifications in astronomy can also function as an Expert on everything in general. Well, I think it requires Sagan to have a lot of raw courage, in the first place, and a strong well-founded confidence that those who don't believe his dogmas have much less access to the media than he does; if they answer him back, however effective their arguments, very few of his large gullible audience will ever hear about it."3 Taken together, the reticence of the press to expose Sagan's errors and misrepresentations to the public, and Sagan's ability to reach millions because of his access to the press and media compared to that of his critics, creates an environment where one side, Sagan's, in the Velikovsky debate is, to all intents and purposes, the only side which is propagated widely to the public. Under such conditions, the side with the access to the media determines the entire nature of the public discussion, both its direction and content. Because the other side is barely heard and, in fact, not even listed to, their case is quashed. The spreading of propaganda and misrepresentations over and over again through the press and media by highly respected and influential public figures such as Sagan, creates a witch hunt atmosphere for the person or the ideas under attack. For example, on October 5, 1993 Sagan spoke to a mass audience of about 5,000 at the University of Florida at Tallahassee. In that audience were two students, Adam Stuart and John Godowski, who wanted to raise the issue of Sagan's statements about Velikovsky. After Sagan's talk there were questions from the floor and Adam Stuart held up my book, Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky, and began to discuss the evidence in it. Sagan would have none of this and had the microphone into which Stuart was speaking killed, and delivered a statement that scientists do not take Velikovsky seriously. The microphone then miraculously came to life for the next speaker from whom Sagan expected perhaps a new direction of discussion to emerge. That speaker was John Godowski who held up another copy of my book and again raised the question on Sagan and Velikovsky and, lo and behold, the microphone again went dead so that only Sagan, speaking from the stage, could be heard. He indignantly called Velikovsky's theory "nonsense" and went into a lecture on "critical thinking," which he implied these young men were not employing. These students then found, as they went back to their seats, that they were being stared at by the audience with anger. Critical thinking, in Sagan's terms, could only be accompanied by stopping these young men from completing their statements to the audience so that Sagan could lambast Velikovsky's work with another misrepresentation. As Robert Ball explains, "[i]t smacks too much of McCarthyism where if someone calls you something [unscientific] often enough, no matter how often you deny it, there remains a cold doubt. This is unfair ..."4 Sagan did his job on these two young men well enough to cause some of the audience to jeer them creating a social setting which appeared to label these students as heretics, misfits or worse. In Nazi Germany this method was used over and over again in the media. It was purported as truth that Jews were international bankers and in control of the media and intellectual institutions and were working to destroy Germany. No matter how often this lie was denied with evidence, it was not heard above the roar of the Nazi propaganda apparatus. When these methods are employed by a scientist, then reason has been jettisoned. When Leo Goldberg refused to follow through on the information that had been presented to him about Sagan's contradictory statements about comets and their gases taking on the shapes of animals, he was helping not only to suppress evidence against Sagan, but was helping Sagan to propagate his misrepresentations, which I add is simply a dirty trick. As Wilson states, "... Sagan never fails to use every dirty trick he knows,"5 just as he did with these young men. What are these dirty tricks? What follows is a very abbreviated expose of deception and deceit that Sagan has promulgated against Velikovsky and his work over the last twenty or so years. For example, Sagan suggests that scientific papers should be submitted to scientific journals for proper peer review "because in it there are adequate standards of validity, which can be agreed upon by competent practitioners the world over."6 This is the same point raised by Norman Storer. But Sagan, himself, did not follow this procedure with his theory of Nuclear Winter, which suggests that a large comet or asteroid striking Earth would create so much atmospheric dust and smoke across the world that it would literally bring about a global freeze. When the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggested mostof the world would experience a mild nuclear autumn instead of a deep freeze, Sagan simply refused to acknowledge merit in their analysis titled "nuclear autumn." Sagan felt he did not have to answer this attack by defending his case in the scientific journals in a scientific manner. In fact, he presented his case in Parade magazine a month prior to its appearance in Science. Parade is not a peer reviewed scientific journal, nor is it a scientific journal of any kind.7 In essence, the advice Sagan gives to Velikovsky, the press, and the public he categorically ignores when it comes to playing by the same norms of science. Typical of Sagan's dirty tricks is his discussion of an anonymous "distinguished professor of Semitics at a leading university" who called Velikovsky's "Assyriology, Egyptologly and Biblical scholarship ... nonsense," exactly as he did on the stage at the University of Florida.8 Wilson explains what is underhanded about such a criticism. "Sagan likes to quote a distinguished professor of Semitics who told him no Semitic scholars take Dr. Velikovsky very seriously. Like the intelligence officer who told Newton Gingerich about dope in the White House, this distinguished professor remains anonymous, and thus Sagan's hearsay about him would get thrown out of any civilized court. Three distinguished professors of Semitic studies, however, have all shown cordial support for Dr. Velikovsky: Prof. Claude F.A. Schaeffer, Prof. Etienne Droiton, and Prof. Robert Pfeiffer. Look them up in any Who's Who of Semitic studies, archeology and Egyptology. They have a lot more prestige in those fields than Sagan's Prof. Anonymous, who doesn't have a single entry under his name anywhere in the scholarly journals (although elsewhere he receives credit for many olde ballads and almost all bawdy limericks).9 What Sagan presented was only gossip and he let it loose to do its work. Too often in his criticisms of Velikovsky, Sagan, like a politician, talks out of both sides of his mouth, saying one thing about Velikovsky in one place, and exactly the opposite in another, when not discussing Velikovsky, as he did regarding comets taking on the shapes of beasts. Robert Anton Wilson describes one of these peccadillos thus: "Consider next the high temperature of Venus (480C). As Dr. Roger Wescott and others have pointed out, Dr. Velikovsky predicted a temperature in this range for Venus when astronomical orthodoxy believed that planet much, much colder. Sagan tries to avoid giving Dr. Velikovsky credit for this confirmation of his model by claiming many had predicted a high temperature before the Venus flyby. Actually, he only names one other who made such a prediction, Dr. Rupert Wildt, and Wildt's work did not win general acceptance (others try to get around Dr. Velikovsky's correct estimate in this and other instances by describing him as a lucky guesser. That seems mere cage rattling to me. One Could as well call any scientist who made many correct predictions a lucky guesser ...)... "But the final joker came on page 153 of Broca's Brain where Sagan writes (and this really deserves caps): ONE NOW FASHIONABLE SUGGESTION I FIRST PROPOSED IN 1960 IS THAT THE HIGH TEMPERATURES ON THE SURFACE OF VENUS ARE DUE TO A RUNAWAY GREENHOUSE EFFECT. (All emphasis added and deserved) "First, Sagan claims that Dr. Velikovsky does not deserve credit for predicting high temperatures on Venus because everybody knew it, although historical fact shows that only Dr. Wildt had made the same prediction before Velikovsky. Then Sagan either tells a double lie or else suffers an alarming memory lapse that may require neurological consultation claiming that neither Dr. Wildt nor Dr. Velikovsky had made this prediction (which they had, and he had noted earlier) -- and then he brazenly claims he had originated it himself. Quite a performance wouldn't you say?"10 Therefore, the following one act drama is presented, featuring as dramatis personae Sagan the critic of Velikovsky, and Sagan the scientist when he is not criticizing Velikovsky. This performance stars two dramatic personae: Carl Sagan, Critic of Velikovsky, and his alter ego, Carl Sagan the Scientist who is not criticizing Velikovsky. The drama is titled "Sagan Confronts Sagan." Act I, scene one opens with Sagan the Critic and Sagan the Scientist standing on stage several feet away from one another. Both hold microphones in their hands which neither of them can turn off. In the audience are reporters from all the news media that attended the symposium on Velikovsky. Sagan the Critic will have his errors corrected by Sagan the Scientist. In this production Sagan the Critic of Velikovsky plays the straight man. Whether the drama is a tragedy or comedy is anyone's guess; the quoted material is all Sagan's, I have added unquoted observations for both actors. SAGAN CONFRONTS SAGAN Sagan the Critic: "Velikovsky[s] ... statement (page 283) that meteorites, when entering the Earth's atmosphere, make a frightful din, when they are generally observed to be silent;11 Sagan the Scientist: [Nonsense] "Meteorites ... can be heard; they and the fireball produce on occasion a sonic boom or a deep rumbling roar ..."12 "The Herero call them buzzing stones which doubtless reflects some direct experience with meteorite falls."13 Sagan the Critic: "If, therefore, Velikovsky's proto-Venus comet were a member of some family of objects, like the Apollo Objects or the comets, the chance of finding one Velikovskian comet 6,000 km in radius would be far less than of finding one some tens of km in radius."14 Sagan the Scientist: [That's not true at all.] "It is entirely plausible that much bigger comets than those several kilometer across were ejected into the Oort Cloud."15 [As one perfect example] "Chiron is three or four hundred kilometers across, bigger than any known comet, although it is no larger than the bigger asteroids. Could it be the most visible member of a previously unknown population of massive comets that live mainly beyond Pluto."16 "Alan Stern of the southwest Research Institute suggests that they [Titan, the natural satellite of Saturn, 1570 miles in diameter, and Triton, the natural satellite of Neptune, 825 miles in diameter] are two members of a vast collection of small worlds rich in nitrogen and methane ... Pluto yet to be visited by a spacecraft, appears to be another member of this group.17 "Larger worlds may, for all we know, also be hiding in the dark beyond Pluto, worlds that can properly be called planets."18 Sagan the Critic: "He [Velikovsky] points to certain concordant stories, directly or vaguely connected with celestial [cometary] events that refer to a witch ... clearly interpretable ... to culturally isolated peoples of very different backgrounds. No attempt is made to show that a clear form - for example, a woman riding a broom and topped with a pointed hat, could have been produced in this way,..."19 Sagan the Scientist: "When we see a picture of a comet some of us are immediately reminded of a woman with long straight hair being blown back behind her, ..."20 "Pliny noted the appearance of a comet too brilliant to be looked at directly; it was white with silver hair and resembled a god in human form ... The configuration of a coma can be complicated, and can suggest a human form."21 And you know Dr. Sagan, that witches are women who have a human form. Sagan the Critic: "From this it is easy to calculate backwards from simple tidal theory ... that Velikovsky is talking about a grazing collision: the surfaces of Earth and Venus scrape!"22 Sagan the Scientist: [Then why did you say just the opposite, in that] "Velikovsky believes that the close passage of Venus or Mars to the Earth would have produced tides at least miles high .... in fact, if these planets were ever tens of thousands of kilometers away, as he [Velikovsky] seems to think, the tides .... would be hundreds of miles high."23 [You can't have planets like Earth and Venus "scrape" and at the same time be "tens of thousands of kilometers" apart, as Velikovsky maintained they were! Sagan the Critic: "Velikovsky's thesis has some peculiar biological and chemical consequences, which are compounded by some straightforward confusionon simple matters. He seems not to know (page 16) [in the early history of the Earth] that oxygen is produced by green- plant photosynthesis on the Earth."24 Sagan the Scientist: "[Sagan's] thesis has some peculiar biological and chemical consequences, which are compounded by some straightforward confusion on simple matters he seems not to know25 [in the early history of the Earth that ... ultraviolet light is lethal to green plants. You see?] "oxygen generated by green plants must have been in short supply before the Earth was covered by vegetation. But ozone is generated from oxygen. No oxygen, no ozone. If there's no ozone, the searing ultraviolet (UV) from the Sun will penetrate to the ground. The intensity of UV at the surface of the Earth in those early days may have reached lethal levels"26 [and killed the green plants before they could even develop and generate oxygen which would form ozone to protect them!] Sagan the Critic: "... most geologists have concluded, petroleum arises from decaying vegetation of the Carboniferous and other early geological epochs, and not from comets."27 Sagan the Scientist: "[Decaying vegetation of the Carboniferous and other geological epochs is organic and, as you stated] "Organic only refers to molecules based on carbon. And organic chemicals would be produced and destroyed even if there were no life anywhere in the universe."28 "... if the Earth never outgassed at all, comets may still have brought an atmosphere, an ocean and huge quantities of organic matter. Thus, in seeking the source of organic molecules from which we [and green plants] come, we are in the embarrassing position of having two different, and apparently equally successful hypotheses."29 [So as you can see, petroleum can arise equally from both comets and plants.] Sagan the Critic: "Reading the text [of Worlds in Collision, by Velikovsky] is made still more difficult by the apparent conclusion (page 366) of Martian polar caps made of manna which are described ambiguously as probably in the nature of carbon. Carbohydrates have a strong 3.5 micron infrared absorption feature due to the stretching vibration of the carbon-hydrogen bond. No trace of this feature wasobserved in infrared spectra of the Martian polar caps taken by the Mariner 6 and 7 spacecrafts in 1969."30 Sagan the Scientist: [Don't you remember what you wrote only months before you raised this issue, Carl?] "Mars has in its winter hemisphere a large polar cap which, at various times, has been ascribed to frozen water or frozen carbon dioxide. Even at the present time its composition is unsettled."31 Sagan the Critic: "Finally, there is a curious reference to intelligent extraterrestrial life [on Mars] in Worlds in Collision. On page 364, Velikovsky argues that the near collisions of Mars with the Earth and Venus make it highly improbable that any higher forms of life, if they previously existed there survived on Mars."32 Sagan the Scientist: [Carl, don't you remember suggesting that the low density of Phobos, Mars' satellite, leaves] "only one possibility? ... Could Phobos be indeed rigid, on the outside - but hollow on the inside? A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object. Therefore, we are led to the possibility that Phobos - and possibly Deimos [Mars' other small satellite] as well - may be artificial satellites of Mars. "They would be artificial satellites on a scale surpassing the fondest dreams of contemporary rocket engineers ... "The idea that the moons of Mars are artificial satellites may seem fantastic, at first glance. In my opinion, however, it merits serious consideration. A technical civilization substantially in advance of our own would certainly be capable of constructing and launching massive satellites. Since Mars does not have a large natural satellite such as our moon, the construction of large natural satellites would be of relatively greater importance to an advanced Martian civilization in its expansion into space. The launching of massive satellites from Mars would be a somewhat easier task than from Earth, because of the lower Martian gravity ... "Let us imagine that through the next several centuries massive artificial Earth satellites are launched and maintained ... Perhaps mankind will destroy itself ... We cannot reasonably assess these possibilities, but it does seem conceivable that the lifetime of our artificial satellites may exceed the lifetime of our civilization. These satellites would then remain as unique and striking monuments to a vanished species which had once flourished on the planet Earth. "Perhaps we are observing an analogous situation on Mars."33 (Enter) Patrick Moore Critic and Scientist: "Not so long ago considerable interest was aroused by the suggestion ... that Phobos and Deimos might be artificial and were probably hollow. Amazingly enough, some newspapers treated this weird idea seriously, and a paper on the subject was solemnly read before the British Interplanetary Society. At any rate, it is an attractive theory, even if it is about as likely as the age-old hypothesis that our Moon is made of green cheese." (Emphasis added)34 (Exit) Sagan the Critic: "But when we examine Mars as seen by Mariner 9 and Viking 1 and 2, we find that a bit more than one-third of the planet has a modified cratered terrain ... and that it shows no sign of spectacular catastrophes other than ancient impacts."35 Sagan the Scientist: [I wish you thought about that before you said it. Don't you remember saying about Mars that] "The resulting geological maps reveal an enormous array of linear ridges and grooves that surround the Tarsis Plateau [on Mars] -- as if a third or a quarter of the whole surface of Mars were cracked in some colossal recent event that lifted Tarsis."36 [How can a colossal recent event that cracked Mars open and lifted the Tarsis Plateau be reconciled with your statement that Mars "shows no sign of spectacular catastrophes other than ancient impacts?" And with respect to ancient impacts on Mars, you also did a calculation "using Mariner 9 wind data, Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University calculated erosion rates [on Mars] assuming a dust storm peak of 100 mph blowing 10 percent of the time. This would mean erosion of 10 km [6.2 miles] of surface [erosion] in 100 million years."37 [On the basis of this kind of erosion rate you said] "the rate of sand blasting by wind- transported grains on Mars is perhaps 10,000 times greater than the rate on the Earth ..." (Carl Sagan, "The Solar System," (San Francisco, 1975), p. 9) [You, therefore, concluded] "Because of the efficiency of Martian crater erosion -- regardless of the mechanism -- "the surface we see is not that of very ancient Mars."38 [You can't say Martian craters are ancient and also claim they are not ancient based on erosion.] Sagan the Critic: [With respect to Velikovskian Manna from heaven] "... it is now known that comets contain large quantities of simple nitriles -- in particular, hydrogen cyanide and methyl cyanide. These are poisons, and it is not immediately obvious that comets are good to eat."39 Sagan the Scientist: "In any case, the tails of comets are extraordinarily thin, a wisp of smoke in a vacuum. The cyanogen [poison] is in turn a minor constituent in the tails of comets. Even if the Earth had passed through the tail [of Halley's Comet] in 1910 and the molecules in the tail had been thoroughly mixed down to the surface of the Earth, there would have been only one molecule of cyanogen in every trillion molecules of air -- a good deal less than the pollution caused even far from cities by industrial and automobile exhaust (and much less than what would happen in the burning of cities in a nuclear war)..."40 Sagan the Critic: [Velikovsky is in error suggesting L.D. Kaplan really meant that there are hydrocarbon clouds on Venus] "He said something like I'll tell you what I think ... He proposed that hydrocarbons would be splendid greenhouse molecules. "Kaplan's cautions were not noted by the press, and the next day headlines could be found in many American newspapers were saying, Hydrocarbon Clouds Found on Venus by Mariner 2. Meanwhile, back at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a group of Laboratory publicists ... picking up the morning newspaper and saying, Hey! I didn't know we found hydrocarbon clouds on Venus. And indeed, that [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] publication ... lists hydrocarbon clouds as one of the principal discoveries of Mariner 2: ... (Velikovsky has chosen to believe only a part of what was printed.)41 Sagan the Scientist: [But on April 8 and 9, 1963, at a scientific meeting of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an office of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was host to a group of physicists, astronomers and earth scientists who met to discuss the origin and evolution of planetary atmospheres and oceans. Carl, you were at that meeting and spoke about the scientific work of L.D. Kaplan thus] "Kaplan (Planet and Space Sci., 8, 23 (1961)) has looked at a plot of line intensity vs. rotational quantum number in the 7820 [angstrom] band and finds two intensity peaks, as if there were a superposition of two Boltzmann distributions. One peak is at a temperature of about 325 K and that the surface temperature [of Venus] approaches 700 K ... Kaplan points out that these clouds would not be water clouds,since the pressure required for their stability would be too high. He suggests they are clouds of hydrocarbons."42 Kaplan's paper is not related to a press conference but to a scientific paper published in a peer reviewed journal. Are you, Carl, trying to say that L.D. Kaplan not only fooled himself but also that peer reviewed journal and you as well so, that you also cited his work at a scientific meeting? What part of this do you expect us to believe?] Sagan the Critic: "[Velikovsky] believes that Mars ... should have a high temperature ... in the same section he badly states Mars emits more heat than it receives from the Sun ... This statement is dead wrong."43 Sagan the Scientist: "It has long been known that the observed temperature of Mars is 30 degrees centigrade higher than would result from the Sun shining on an airless planet at its distance."44 Sagan the Critic: [The surface of Venus is old because] "the planet [Venus] is ... cratered abundantly; perhaps like parts of the Moon, saturation cratered ... that is, so packed with craters that one crater overlaps the other."45 Sagan the Scientist: "There is still debate about whether such craters are of impact or volcanic origin, but the sparseness of craters on Venus shows that the surface is continually being modified - probably by vulcanism as on Io."46 [Look at all the contradictions you've made and all the doubletalk. How will all of this look to the public and the press when they read this?] Sagan the Critic: [Don't worry; it means absolutely nothing. I'm a very, and I mean very, influential scientist and media personality. No one in the press or media will pick this up or pay the slightest attention to Ginenthal's research. He's not a highly respected scientist like I am. And don't forget all my relationships with newspaper people and media people who will take my side as truth in denial of Ginenthal's research. Didn't you see how Leo Goldberg and his editor and also theVillage Voice handled his work on me? It will be absolutely no different in this case, as well.] (Both exit) The End The tragedy is that I believe the closing invented remark of Sagan the Critic of Velikovsky to Sagan the Scientist has the ring of truth, and that the press and media will do exactly as he says they will. End Part I But now let us deal with Sagan's Ten Plagues which he has put upon Velikovsky. These ten plagues are in the form of ten problems. As C.J. Ransom remarks: "At the AAAS symposium, Sagan presented ten problems with Velikovsky's ideas. Actually, if you include all the subcategories, Sagan presented many more than ten problems. However, if he referred to twenty or thirty problems, it would detract from likening these to ten plagues of Egypt. These problems (plagues) were supposed to destroy Velikovsky's thesis. Ginenthal, in his book on Sagan, demonstrates that the only thing destroyed was any appearance that Sagan attempted honest research."47 Sagan's ten problems are really ten non-problems because much of the scientific literature is replete with evidence that thoroughly contradicts Sagan's assertions. He has merely invented problems that have been dealt with in the scientific literature, and to those involved in these areas of research, his statements are meaningless attempts to becloud concepts that are well-known and well explored by his scientific colleagues. Like the statements of so many other critics of Velikovsky in this volume, he is in error from beginning to end, and like his self-contradictions, it is impossible to believe he is ignorant of such fundamental evidence, concepts and theories. Let us examine each of these: Problem I: The Ejection of Venus By Jupiter Sagan states, "Velikovsky's hypothesis begins with an event which has never been observed by astronomers and which is inconsistent with much that we know about planetary and cometary physics, namely the ejection of an object of planetary dimensions from Jupiter."48 The process Sagan is discussing is called the fission process and is so well-known and well documented in the scientific literature that an astronomer suggesting this is "inconsistent .... with planetary and cometary physics" is simply pulling thelegs of the gullible and incompetent. Sagan uses the authoritarian "we know," when in fact scientists admit they do not know how planets were formed. As Fritz Kahn stated long ago, "The dust [nebula] hypothesis is as highly speculative as all previous cosmogonies. A cosmogony [theory of the origin of stars and planets] can be nothing but speculative and cosmogonic endeavor will always have the smell of the lamp". Alan Nourse states, "Precisely how this planetary system formed is still a matter of conjecture and debate. A number of theories have been proposed to account for the formation of our solar system as it is. So far none of them adequately answers all the questions that must be answered to explain fully how the planets came to be."50 Even Carl Sagan admits as much: "From earliest times the question and evolution of the Earth and the other planets in our solar system has challenged the keenest minds. Philosophers and scientists of the caliber of Kant and LaPlace have wrestled with this problem; yet it remains largely unresolved."51 Although the nebular hypothesis is the more fashionable theory presently, proves absolutely nothing. Scientist do not really know how the solar system or the planets formed. Oh, they have ideas all right, but these are all theory with plenty of assumptions taken as facts, as was pointed out in our discussion of Henry Bauer's work above. The real question is: Do scientists offer the theory that planets can fission from other planets such as Jupiter? Of course they do, and have been doing so for a long time. Patrick Moore, in discussing the origin of the Moon as first delineated by G.H. Darwin, the son of the great naturalist, Charles Darwin, as long ago as 1879, suggested just this concept: "Darwin started by assuming that the Earth and the Moon originally formed from one body, and that the Moon was thrown off as a fluid-mass. In a modified version of this idea, the Earth had cooled down sufficiently to form a thin crust before the separation took place, and the sequence of events was worked out in considerable detail. The Earth,rotating rapidly on its axis, was in the state known as unstable equilibrium so that it became egg-shaped, spinning about its shorter axis. Two main forces were acting upon it -- the tides raised by the Sun, and its own natural period of vibration. When these two forces were in resonance (that is to say, acting together) the tides increased to such an extent that the whole body became first pear-shaped, and then dumbbell-shaped with one bell (the Earth) much larger than the other (the future Moon). Eventually the neck of the dumbbell broke altogether and the Moon moved away, settling into a stable orbit .... "A strong supporter of the fission idea was W.H. Pickering, an American astronomer [from Harvard] whose main interest was lunar work .... "For some time the fission theory was regarded as dead, but it has been revived in recent years, though not in Pickering's original form. One variant involves Mars, whose diameter is just over 4,000 miles .... It has been suggested that Mars was thrown off the Earth and moved away independently, while the Moon is merely a droplet which was formed between the two bodies during the process of separation. But the main support for a fission theory has come from H.C. Urey and John O'Keefe in America whose ideas are based upon studies of the Moon's composition .... "There is no doubt that Urey and O'Keefe have made many interesting points. The fission theory cannot be dismissed; but it is fair to say that on the [fashionable] majority view, the Earth and the Moon have always been separate bodies."52 Moore tells us that two years after Sagan introduced this criticism, scientists other than Sagan suggested the fission theory of planets being born from planets, "which has never been observed by astronomers [but] is not inconsistent with much that we know about planetary and cometary physics, namely the ejection of an object of planetary dimensions from a planet." Apparently William Pickering, the great American astronomer, was ignorant not to understand this. And so, too, were Harold C. Urey, a Nobel prize laureate, and John O'Keefe not to understand that what they were suggesting was contrary to what WE KNOW (meaning what Sagan says we know). Ernst J. Opik, the internationally known astronomer from Estonia and researcher of Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, states of the Moon's origin from the Earth by fission: "This remarkable system must have come into being in an equally remarkable manner. [Opik then reviewed Darwin's theory and adds:] "Nevertheless, the possibility of the Moon's having broken off from the earth cannot be entirely ruled out ... If this did happen, the moon itself must have broken up into smaller fragments which collected into the present body on reaching a safe distance from the disturbing earth. It is possible that the separation took place not from the present solid earth, but from a body of larger size and lower density which only later became the present earth and moon ... "Therefore, despite the clear outcome of the mathematical theory, it is still possible that the moon broke away form the earth ..."53 Sagan obviously thinks that a world renowned astronomer like Opik didn't understand what "we know." He also suggests, in complete contradiction to Sagan, that planets can be born from planets in spite of the fact that astronomers have never observed this. And Opik, too, says this concept is not inconsistent with planetary and cometary physics. Apparently, Opik was ignorant not to understand that what he was saying was contrary to what "WE KNOW." Each of these two books cited on the fission theory were written in 1976 and 1960, or sixteen years prior to and ten years after Velikovsky wrote Worlds in Collision, and fourteen years before and two years after Sagan presented this attack on Velikovsky. Have things really changed since then? In 1970, four years prior to Sagan's statement, T.F. Gaskell stated, "... an increasing body of well-informed opinion is swinging toward the old nineteenth-century idea of [Leonard] Darwin that the moon is a cast-off fragment of the earth itself."54 He then goes on to suggest that Mars formed from the Earth leaving the Moon as a droplet behind, and further adds "The Venus-Mercury system could be similar to the Earth and Mars"55 meaning Mercury fissioned from Venus! Was Gaskell also out of the loop of those in the "we know" group regarding the fissioning of planets from planets? He should have had a long chat with Carl Sagan about his apparent ignorance. In 1993, almost twenty years after Sagan said "he knows" planets cannot be born from planets, Tom Van Flandern, head of the U.S. Naval Observatory, still didn't get Sagan's "we know" planets cannot be born from planets, and wrote, "So did the Moon originate from the Earth? Certainly no consensus exists among authorities in this field of research ... My opinion is that the preponderance of evidence now favors the pure fission theory over the other possibilities. Most significant to me is that the fissiontheory is the only one which can adopt a starting point and derive a Moon closely like the real one."56 How can Van Flandern so flagrantly say that the bulk of the evidence means "we know" planets can be born from planets? And he also has the temerity to state "that Mercury originated by fission [from Venus], as has been proposed for the Earth's Moon ...."57 To compound Van Flandern's postulation, "the [fission] theory has recently been revived ... by Alan Binder and others ..."58 Apparently, Binder, a well respected scientist, and his colleagues in 1986 were not paying attention to Sagan's "we know" planets are not born from planets. While Richard S. Lewis points out: "One of the curious consequences of lunar exploration so far is that in spite of the mass of physical evidence accumulated about the Moon since 1964, there is not enough to exclude any of the major theories of its origin ... the comment of Don L. Anderson, of the California Institute of Technology, summarizes this circumstance nicely: All the classical theories of lunar origin are still with us - capture, FISSION and dual planet accretion' he said." (Capitalization added)59 Two years earlier, Sagan "knew" this simply could not be true. But what is this all based on? On Sagan bluffing the entire press corps at the AAAS symposium? What then of fissioning from Jupiter? After all, we have been discussing Mars and the Moon fissioning from Earth and Mercury from Venus; so let us turn to Jupiter fissioning off planets. Do "we" really "know" that this, too, is not a credible hypothesis, as Sagan suggests? Again, Sagan was airily leading the press corps down the garden path. Who then had the audacity to say planets could be born from Jupiter? Who? Why, one of England's foremost cosmologists, Raymond A. Lyttleton. Here is what I believe is his most terse and accurate description of the Jupiter fission concept. Speaking of the nebular (dust cloud) hypothesis occurring first, Lyttleton states: "This [nebula] material would initially be at very high temperature, and therefore gaseous in form, and it cannot be supposed that it would immediately condense into planets. What it would do is to spread out into a huge flat disc of material surrounding the sun, rather like a gigantic Saturnian ring, but necessarily much further out from the central body (the sun) in comparison. This ring would cool into separate small solidparticles, and these would begin to collect together gradually. It can be shown that small aggregates of varying sizes would form to begin with, but that once formed the largest of them would continue to grow faster, swallowing up some of the smaller concerns too, after the manner of financial corporations under laissez-faire. "Accordingly what would result to begin with would be that a few large planets would form moving round the sun at distances comparable with those of the great outer planets [Jupiter and Saturn] at the present time. But as such bodies pulled in more and more material from the disc, they must inevitably come to rotate faster and faster, because the disc has indestructible vorticity in it as a consequence of its motion round the sun. The incoming material drawn from further and further away as a mass of the growing planet increases will not at first be concerned about any internal rotational difficulties that it is going to produce for the planet. But when this [accretion] proceeds far enough, the primitive planets, as we may term them, will no longer be able to exist as single bodies, and their rapid rotations will tear them apart ... Each planet will divide into two separate main pieces, that escape completely from each other, but not necessarily from the sun, and as these recede from one another a stream of much smaller bodies will be drawn out between them, like droplets falling from something drawn out of a treacly liquid, but here the stickiness is produced by gravitational attractive forces. The nearest of them, at the two ends of the stream, will be retained by the attraction of the adjacent main bodies, and remain as satellites moving around them. But the droplets near the middle of the stream will escape from both the main separating pieces and become independent bodies. "Suppose we think of Jupiter and Saturn as two main pieces into which a single large primitive planet originally divided. The four terrestrial planets - Mercury, Venus, the Earth (and moon), and Mars - taken together do not amount to as much as one percent of the mass of Jupiter. So these four comparatively tiny bodies, plus a great deal more debris too, that would go to constitute asteroids, could easily represent the droplets in between two separating large planets. If this explanation is correct in other respects it explains at once why the terrestrial planets are so much smaller than the great outer ones, and it could even explain why our moon is so very similar in both size and mass to each of the four great moons of Jupiter. They may all have been formed adjacently in the self same stream of material."60 It was eleven years after Velikovsky wrote Worlds in Collision that one of England's foremost cosmologists, in complete contradiction to Sagan's "we know" planets cannot be born from Jupiter, claimed that planets can be so born. Finally, here is what W.H. McCrea, England's Astronomer Royal, said about Lyttleton's fission theory: "Littleton [Lyttleton] has suggested that the Earth, Moon and Mars may originally have formed (from) a single rotationally unstable planet ... He has shown that this is possible in accordance with the theory of rotating fluid masses and with the dynamics of the solar system."61 Here, a world renowned astronomer tells us that fissioning of smaller planets from Jupiter is, contrary, to Sagan's proclaimation, entirely consistent with the behavior of such large planets and also consistent with the nature of the solar system. He wrote this nineteen years after Velikovsky stated this view and five years prior to Sagan's first announcement that this cannot occur. What Sagan probably counted upon, to carry out this assault on the truth, was his hope that no one in the press corps would examine his statements by comparing them to what other scientists wrote and published in books and peer-reviewed journals all through that era. He pulled a fast one and largely got away with it! Problem II: Repeated Collisions Among The Earth, Venus And Mars Sagan states, "[t]hat a comet may strike our planet is not very probable, but the idea is not absurd" ... This is precisely correct and it remains to calculate the probabilities ..."62 Robert Anton Wilson explains what is essentially wrong with Sagan's calculation. "In several places, Sagan has published a mathematical proof that several near collisions between a comet and a planet have odds against them of a trillion quadrillion to one (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1) "Sounds pretty damned improbable doesn't it? "The problem here lies in the fact that Sagan considers each collision as an isolated or haphazard event, thereby ignoring gravity. In fact, any two celestial bodies, once attracted to each other, will tend to continue to approach each other periodically, according to Newtonian laws unmodified by Einstein. This periodicity will continue until some other gravitational force pulls one of the bodies away from the gravitational attraction of the other. Ask any physics or astronomy professor about this, if you think I'm pushing too hard here. As Robert Jastrow of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies wrote (New York Times, 22 December 1979), Professor Sagan's calculations in effectignore the law of gravity. Here, Dr. Velikovsky was the better astronomer. "[Professor] Robert Bass [at the time from Brigham Young University] wrote, even more harshly, [t]his Sagan assumption [ignoring gravity] is so disingenuous that I do not hesitate to label it a deliberate fraud on the public or else a manifestation of unbelievable incompetence or hastiness combined with desperation."63 "Well, I always had doubts about Sagan's ability to pronounce verdicts outside astronomy. When he does calculations inside astronomy and then ignores or forgets gravity, I begin to wonder about his competence in general. Perhaps the misfortunate man needs a guide or keeper to lead him about and insure that he doesn't bump into buildings. "As far as I can see, Sagan's greatest area of ability lies in one truly well-proven and absolutely undeniable talent -- for getting himself promoted in the mass media as an authority on everything in general, even though he seems to have no competence at anything in particular."64 Robert Anton Wilson titled his chapter on Sagan, "The Astronomer Who Abolished Gravity."65 Sagan has suggested that five or so near collisions between Venus and the Earth as well as between Mars and the Earth are so highly improbable that it is simply ridiculous and cannot be taken seriously. But then Sagan states that for comets to be captured from either the Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt of comets by the solar system and be funnelled into the inner part of the solar system, "most short period comets may have achieved their orbits by multiple gravitational encounters with Jupiter, or even by multiple encounters with more distant planets and eventually with Jupiter itself."66 R.D. Chapman and J.C. Brandt, authorities on comets, tell how many encounters are necessary to bring a comet into the inner regions of the solar system. "Originally it was thought that a single close encounter with Jupiter would suffice [to capture a comet].... In fact, single encounters can capture comets into short-period orbits. However, such encounters are very rare and cannot account for the observed number of short-period comets. Instead it now seems that the capture of long-period comets into the inner solar system results from accumulated perturbations ofHUNDREDS of not-so-close interactions with Jupiter and to some extent, with the other giant planets." (Emphasis and Capitalization added)67 Sagan tells us that "trillions of comets are now widely accepted by astronomers all over the world and called properly the Oort clouds."68 Hence, Sagan and his colleagues accept that long-period comets come into the solar system from the Oort Cloud and then have hundreds of near encounters with Jupiter and the other giant planets to become short period comets. Velikovsky, on the other hand, has a theory that is too improbable to accept because it suggests five or six near encounters with the Earth by Venus and Mars. The logic underlying this is as follows: It is acceptable and probable to Sagan and to his astronomer colleagues that a body on an elliptical cometary orbit can have hundreds of near encounters with planets, but it is unacceptable and improbable to Sagan and to his astronomer colleagues for a body on an elliptical cometary orbit to have five or six near encounters with a planet. The logic underlying such a conclusion is so bereft of reason that it boggles the mind. And this is what Sagan passed off to the public and the press corps as rational scientific analysis. End Part II Problem III: The Earth's Rotation In this problem, Sagan argues that if the Sun stood still in the sky during the long day of Joshua, "the most serious objection is rather at the other end. How does the Earth get started up again rotating at approximately the same rate of spin? The Earth cannot do it by itself because of the law of the conservation of angular momentum."69 But does the Earth have to cease rotating to see the Sun slow as it crosses the sky? The legends tell of a long day in Eurasia and a long night in the Americas, not that the Sun stopped its motion; the Sun moved across the sky much more slowly! According to Velikovsky's hypothesis, Venus would be approaching the Earth on the sunward side. This would cause the Earth to be pulled gravitationally inward toward the Sun. With the Earth in a closer orbit to the Sun and rotating at the same speed, the Sun would appear to move along a path across the sky more slowly. Once Venus passed outside the Earth's orbit, it would gravitationally pull the Earth away from the Sun to very near its original distance from the Sun. In this circumstance, the Earth's rotation would never have changed and the problem Sagan envisions evaporates. If one believes that such a process is not possible, I refer that skeptic to that well- known astronomer, Carl Sagan, who describes a very similar phenomena for Mercury, which has an orbit elliptical enough so that when it is closest to the Sun, the observed path of the Sun not only stops, but actually moves backward across the sky, and asMercury arcs away from the Sun along its orbit, the Sun then moves forward across the sky. Mercury's rotation does not stop at all to create this appearance. As Sagan explains, "There is another strange thing about Mercury. It has a nightly elliptical orbit. That is, there is a commensurate relation between how long the planet takes to turn once around its axis and how long it takes to go once around the Sun.... Suppose you stood at one particular place on the equator of Mercury. During the course of a day there you would observe the Sun do the following. You would see it rising ... moving toward the zenith ... Then, one degree past the zenith, it stops, reverses its motion in the sky, stops again, then continues its original motion ..."70 Because Mercury rotates so slowly, 58.667 days long as compared to that of the Earth, the length of the day and night are extended for several days.71 So as one can see, Sagan knew that the Earth does not have to come to a dead stop and then begin to rotate again to have a longer day in Eurasia or a longer night in the Americas where this is indeed stated in the ancient literature. But, of course, Sagan never mentioned this in his criticism of Velikovsky's work. Problem IV: Terrestrial Geology and Lunar Craters Here Sagan states, "To the best of my knowledge, there is no geological evidence for global inundation of all parts of the world either in the eighth or in the fifteenth century B.C. If such floods occurred even if they were brief, they should have left some trace in the geological record. And what of the archeological and paleontological evidence? Where are the extensive faunal extinctions of the correct date due to such floods. And where is the evidence of extensive melting in these centuries, near where the tidal distortion is greatest."72 Sagan claims he cannot find in the Velikovskian literature evidence that the Earth experienced great recent catastrophes. This is so very like the Aristotelian professors in the time of Galileo who refused to look through the newly invented telescope, or claimed that the telescope distorted what it saw in the heavens. Velikovsky wrote an entire book, Earth in Upheaval, to answer precisely these accusations made by others before Sagan who raised this same issue. "Velikovsky's opponents pointed out that he was talking about events that qualified as catastrophes, transcending anything that is now going on in scale and violence. They declared that this put Velikovsky out of court because the uniformitarian doctrine provided no room for such events. Velikovsky who had practiced medicine and was rather innocent as to Anglo-Saxon geological theory, was surprised at this reaction and at the violent feelings he had aroused. His response was admirable; without extensive public recrimination, he disappeared into the library for several years and compiled a book called Earth in Upheaval (Doubleday 1955). Here he marshals the original field reports on a large number of phenomena that point inexorably to catastrophes and (as a by-product since he was looking for events rather than dates) to fairly recent dates for the catastrophes. The impact of the details and the number of phenomena (close to forty) is shattering. I hold no brief for Velikovsky's theories, but I am indebted to him for collecting material that had never been assembled in one place before. "The topics in the book are discussed on the basis of reports by orthodox and reputable scientists, with Velikovsky merely acting as master of ceremonies."73 "The reader should peruse Velikovsky himself so as to get the cumulative effect of his evidence, and he should also look at some of the original material ... The wealth of specific cases pointing toward catastrophes make it impossible for me to accept the uniformitarian theory ... Catastrophes have been taboo for a century among the orthodox."74 Sagan on the other hand, claims he simply cannot locate such information. Is that truly believable? "The late Dr. Albert Einstein, during the last eighteen months of his life (November 1953 - April 1955), gave me much time and thought. He read several of my manuscripts, and supplied them with marginal notes. Of Earth in Upheaval he read chapters VII through XII; he made handwritten comments on this ..."75 Sagan claims that the book that Albert Einstein advised Velikovsky about does not seem to exist, to the best of his knowledge. Professor Harry H. Hess, Professorof Geology at Princeton University, President of the American Geological Society and Chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Science, told Velikovsky "that he knew the book by heart."76 But Sagan claims this book, so carefully memorized by one of America's foremost geologists, is too obscure to be known, to the best of his knowledge. "When the manuscript of Earth in Upheaval was complete, I asked Professor Jepsen to read it; he pleasantly consented, but after a while he called me back and asked to be excused from the task since there was opposition in the department. However, in Professor Jepsen's paleontology course at Princeton, Earth in Upheaval was required reading for the next two decades, from its publication on."77 But Sagan doesn't want to know any of this. Earth in Upheaval is so difficult for him to deal with that he will have nothing to do with it. Sagan's desire to avoid this book and its evidence and keep it closeted and unknown to the public as if it was evil is certainly interesting. The reader is urged to read that book to understand what Sagan seems to be so desperate to keep hidden. With respect to that book, Sagan's shibboleth is "See no Earth in Upheaval! Hear no Earth in Upheaval! Say no Earth in Upheaval!" His fear of squarely facing this catastrophic geological, paleontological and archeological evidence shows, in detail, the depth of his aversion to dealing honestly with this material. Like the Aristotelian professors who would not look through the telescope at the evidence that clearly contradicted their dogmas, Sagan will not look into Earth in Upheaval at the evidence that clearly contradicts his own dogmas. Problem V: Chemistry and Biology of the Terrestrial Planets Several of the points Sagan makes in this problem were presented in our little dialogue, "Sagan Confronts Sagan." These were the points where Sagan said oxygen originated in the early Earth's atmosphere from green-plant photosynthesis, but then admits that without oxygen in the atmosphere, ozone will not form and ultraviolet light will kill these early plant forms. He also made the argument that petroleum comes from decaying plants from the Carboniferous epoch and not from comets, but then says that it is also probable and feasible that these organic products came from comets. He made another argument that Mars' polar caps do not contain organic substances, while at the same time admitting the composition of these polar caps is unknown. Further, he argued that there was never intelligent life on Mars, while having presented the view that Mars' satellites were placed in space by ancient intelligent life forms. He also argued that Mars shows no signs of recent catastrophesand its craters are ancient, while he claims the Tarsis plateau and its associated lineaments appear as though the planet suffered a colossal, recent catastrophe and that the erosion rate on Mars would remove the surface craters in a very short time which might lead one to conclude that these surface features are much younger than previously assumed. Nearly every point he made in this problem against Velikovsky he contradicted by saying just the opposite about these concepts elsewhere, and yet he has the nerve to say "Velikovsky's thesis has some peculiar biological and chemical consequences, which are compounded by straightforward confusions of simple matters."78 Sagan's work on these points is not only peculiar but completely disjointed. Problem VI: Manna In this problem, Sagan also contradicts and misrepresents Sagan wherein he argued that comets contain hydrogen cyanide and methyl cyanide and are, therefore, not good to eat. He then wrote that the amount of these materials in comets is so minute that they could not poison anyone. He then ridiculed Velikovsky suggesting "Moses, however, may have been a better chemist than Velikovsky."79 However, he never has the courage to tell his large audiences or readers that Mannfred A. Hollinger, of the University of California at Davis, Department of Pharmacology, showed that Sagan chemically could not distinguish the difference between a hormone and a hallucinogen, and stated he finds it distracting that the general public is exposed to [Sagan's] pseudoscientific writing that would not pass a credible thesis committee.80 In this case, in Sagan's pseudoscientific writing, one does not know if Sagan is feeding the public and press corps hormones or hallucinogens. I personally opt for hallucinogens to make Sagan's comments in this problem palatable. As Andre Malurois wrote, "There are certain persons for whom pure truth is a poison."81 One most ironic aspect of this is that Sagan, at an Overseas's Press Club gathering, talked about a "baloney detection kit" to protect the people from those "not eager to tell the truth."82 But Sagan was perfectly willing to serve cometary cyanide to the public to ridicule Velikovsky. End Part III Problem VII: The Clouds of Venus Here Sagan says that the clouds of Venus are not composed of hydrocarbon and that he knows "the question of the composition of the Venus clouds -- a major enigma for centuries -- has recently been solved ... The clouds of Venus are composed of an approximately 75 percent solution of sulfuric acid."83 That is quite an announcement Sagan made in 1974 but, once again, only the gullible and naive took the bait. The Encyclopedia Britannica Macropedia, for 1982, Vol. 2, page 327, eight years after Sagan proclaimed this established fact about sulfuric acid clouds in Venus' atmosphere, wrote: "The Venus clouds, which cover the planet at a height of 60 to 70 kilometers (40 to 45 miles) shield the surface from ultraviolet radiation. The composition of those clouds remains uncertain; ice and mercurous chloride have been proposed, but there are difficulties with either hypothesis." Why didn't the Britannica make any mention about sulfuric acid clouds? The articles in the Britannica are written by the world's leading authorities, yet eight years after Sagan's proclamation at the AAAS symposium the authorities say in complete contradiction to Sagan, "[t]he composition of those clouds remains uncertain." Whom should we trust, Sagan or the Britannica? But let me add to what I stated earlier with regard to David Morrison and Clark R. Chapman on this point: John S. Lewis of M.I.T., in 1981, seven years after Sagan proclaimed that Venus' clouds are made up of sulfuric acid, said, "The clouds of Venus have been a favorite topic of controversy, and here the matter is still in a very uncertain state. Half a dozen species [of gases] are currently favored by different individuals as making up the visible clouds. Among the most widely advertised are water or ice, silicate and carbonate dusts, ammonium chloride, compounds of the volatile elements, mercury, arsenic, etc., carbon suboxide and its polymers, hydrochloric acid solution or solid hydrates of ChL, ferrous chloride dihydrate, etc. Each species [of gas] has more detractors than supporters."84 Why didn't Lewis make any mention about sulfuric acid clouds? Does this parade of constituents in the cloud material of Venus being offered by scientistssuggest, in any way, that the enigma that has puzzled scientists for centuries has been solved, as Sagan claims? Whom should we trust on this issue, Sagan or Lewis? Billy P. Glass apparently has also not gotten Sagan's message that the clouds of Venus are made up of sulfuric acid; he wrote in 1982, eight years after Sagan made his claim, "The nature of the clouds [of Venus] has been a question of great interest for a long time. Speculative interpretations [regarding] the principal constituent of the clouds include: water drops, ice, frozen carbon dioxide, carbon suboxide, mercury, halite, ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, silicate dust particles, carbonate particles, formaldehyde, hydrocarbon droplets, partially hydrated ferric chloride and hydrochloric acid."85 Again, eight years after Sagan's proclamation, Glass gives not the breath of a hint that the clouds of Venus are made up of sulfuric acid. Doesn't Glass know he is wrong and should apologize to Sagan for grossly contradicting him about the make-up of the clouds of Venus? Again, whom shall we trust, Sagan or Glass? If Sagan is still not convinced by all this, it is suggested he reread The Planetary System by David Morrison and Tobias Owen. In the foreword of that book, Sagan lauds the authors, whose book is "marked by a judicious and comprehensive selection of topics [with] clear qualitative explanations"86 as "pioneers in the modern exploration of the solar system." What did these two pioneers say thirteen years after Sagan said the clouds of Venus are made up of sulfuric acid? "Space probes [to Venus] that have passed through the clouds have given us a picture ... of discrete cloud layers ... But what are the various clouds made of? Are they all sulfuric acid, as are the visible [top most] layers? Only the Soviet probes have attempted compositional measurements and their results have been contradictory. Sulfur or possibly chlorine compounds of some sort are indicated, but their exact identities are unknown." (Emphasis added)87 Morrison also claims, on page 234, that the clouds are sulfuric acid. But this is merely game playing, since on page 235, after presenting a comparison of the reflectivity of various constituents, he then hedges his claim "that the clouds of Venuscould indeed be made of sulfuric acid." (Emphasis added) "[C]ould indeed be" is again doubletalk. Trying, as one may, to make the clouds of Venus sulfuric acid simply doesn't work. Sagan lauds the book that contradicts his sulfuric acid cloud model for Venus. No, I'm afraid Sagan cannot be trusted on this matter. As we pointed out above, it is now admitted that one of the probes to Venus found a great deal of methane, a hydrocarbon, on Venus, but some of Sagan's colleagues are suggesting with a straight face, that this methane was vented by a volcano which would do this only once every 100 million years. This is so improbable an explanation that it requires one to swallow one of Sagan's hallucinogens to believe it. Problem VIII: The Temperature of Venus In this problem, Sagan argues that the source of Venus' heat is a runaway greenhouse effect, and not the planet itself. "We now know from ground-based radio observations and from the remarkably successful direct entry and landing probes of the Soviet Union that the temperature of Venus is within a few degrees of 750 K ... The surface atmospheric pressure about ninety times that at the surface of the Earth consists primarily of carbon dioxide. This large abundance of carbon dioxide plus the smaller quantities of water vapor that have been detected on Venus, are adequate to heat the surface to the observed temperature via the greenhouse effect."88 Sagan is most disingenuous, as was shown earlier in our discussion on Oberg and others in this volume, that all the probes to Venus - Venera 9, 10, 11 and 12 and the four Pioneer Venus probes, exhibited measurements that Venus was giving off more heat than could be provided by the Sun. Like those who raised this issue, Sagan's statement is dead wrong. As for his statement that "the smaller quantities of water vapor have been detected on Venus are adequate [with carbon dioxide] to heat the surface to the observed temperature via the greenhouse effect," this too is completely false. Various teams have been looking for adequate water vapor in Venus' atmosphere for years and admit they cannot find what is needed in this respect. R. Cowen writes in Science News in 1991, several years after Sagan made this assertion, that a "... research team focused on a greenhouse puzzle ... The absence of water vapor above Venus mystifies scientists because models of the planet's strong greenhouse effect suggests that vapor plays a key role inmaintaining the warming. Researchers have ... looked below the cloud deck and down to the surface -- and their search has come up dry ... "Evidence of a dry Venus may force researchers to consider whether other chemicals could create and sustain the planets greenhouse effect said David Crisp of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ... who co-authored the report."89 Both the measurements by Venus probes and the measurements of water vapor in Venus' atmosphere contradict Sagan. How can an astronomer be so ignorant of fundamental evidence? One is asked to notice that Sagan's statements on these points are not supported by a single citation to the scientific literature or to anything else? Sagan expected everyone to take his word for the accuracy of these statements, and they did in general when, in fact, there was not one iota of truth to his remarks! Problem IX: The Craters of Venus While Sagan suggested that Venus "is cratered and, perhaps like the moon, is saturation-cratered, that is, so packed with craters that one crater overlaps the other,"90 in our play we showed Sagan claimed that there was a relative "sparseness of craters on Venus."91 Like so much of his work, this is more of Sagan's misinformation. Problem X: The Circularization of the Orbit of Venus and Nongravitational Forces in the Solar System Sagan argues that Newtonian mechanics will not allow for the circularization of a planet's orbit in a short time from one that is highly elliptical. Here is what Albert Einstein said regarding this problem. He claimed he could explain everything described in Velikovsky's book "on the basis of the accepted celestial mechanics of gravitation and inertia ... Even the circular orbit of Venus, though it would require a very unusual degree of coincidences."92 Was Albert Einstein so inferior a scientist to Carl Sagan that he made a claim that categorically ran contrary to the claim made by Sagan? In many places in Velikovskian literature, Einstein's working with Velikovsky's ideas and concepts is remarked upon. The difference between Einstein's attitude and that of Sagan in theiranalysis of Velikovsky's work is quite pronounced. Why then has Sagan had so much more influence with the press and the public than Einstein? Apparently the press and the public are enamored by the glib statements and glitter of celebrity which Sagan offers as opposed to the long studies of Einstein and the careful analysis he offered which lacks the razzle-dazzle and pizzazz of Sagan. Why Sagan should have greater influence than Einstein with the press and the public proves that public relations fluff carries much more weight than solid thoughtful analysis! There is a great deal more that can be written about Sagan's largely dishonest comments on Velikovsky. These are contained in my book, Carl Sagan & Immanuel Velikovsky (New Falcon Publications) 1995. Those interested in over 400 pages of a most thorough debunking of Sagan's criticism of Velikovsky should read that book. As Robert Anton Wilson stated, "I could go on and on for hundreds of pages [on Sagan's goofs] but instead I refer you to Ginenthal's book ... Ginenthal does spend hundreds of pages documenting one fallacy after another -- literally dozens and dozens of them -- in Sagan's smear campaign against Dr. Velikovsky."93 And I would point out that Robert Anton Wilson is extremely skeptical of Velikovsky's ideas. But he does know dirt when it is being thrown at Velikovsky by Sagan and is ready to admit it. This the press is sadly loath to investigate and present to the public. I shall deal with one final comment by Sagan which, I suspect, is one of the main sources of his and many other scientists' resentment of Velikovsky's thesis. Since Robert Anton Wilson said it so much better than I ever could, I will let him explain this point. "Sagan continually states bluntly and falsely, that Dr. Velikovsky intends his cosmic catastrophe theory to revive the old time religion: It is an attempted validation of religion ... Velikovsky attempts to rescue not only religion but also astrology. (Broca's Brain, p. 126) We can only conclude that Sagan either reads carelessly or engages in deliberate lying. Any close reading of Dr. Velikovsky shows numerous expressions of skepticism about both religion and astrology. "In addition, Dr. Velikovsky's theory of cometary near collisions offers a naturalistic scientific explanation for many events or alleged events in ancient history which the religious prefer to explain supernaturally as miracles. Nobody who suggests a natural explanation for allegedly supernatural events offers real support to religion, in either the judgment of the religious themselves or of those of us with agnostic disposition. "Only Sagan -- and a few others, who seem never to have read Velikovsky and obtained their knowledge about his works from Sagan -- think of the comet model as validating religion, since Dr. Velikovsky uses a hypothetical comet to replace a hypothetical god in explaining huge reported floods and other catastrophes. Most of us think of Dr. Velikovsky's theory as one which if proven, would knock one more leg from under the edifice of Bible Fundamentalism. Nobody seems likely to worship Dr. Velikovsky's comet, but millions still worship the Bible's god. "In the 30 years or more that Sagan has engaged in diatribes against Dr. Velikovsky, somebody must have pointed out this fundamental confusion to him -- mis-identifying a naturalistic theory with a supernatural theory. Evidently, he has a lot of trouble remembering such corrections. You become a leading Expert by acting as if everybody else's opinion deserves no attention ..."94 Sagan, of course, has never answered the criticisms made by me and many others of his analysis of Velikovsky. To do so would bring public and press attention to the poverty of his science and the depths to which he was ready to descend to destroy Velikovskianism. As I have shown elsewhere, the aim of the symposium was to educate the public and the press against Velikovskian concepts. As Broad and Wade show, "Paul Feyerabend of the University of California Berkeley ... not only admits nonrational elements into the scientific [debate] process but sees them as dominant. Science, he says, is an ideology, completely shaped at any moment in time by its historical and cultural context. Scientific disputes are resolved not on their merits but by the theatrical and oratorical skills of their advocates, much as are legal cases ... "Feyerabend ... believes that the distinction commonly made between science and other modes of thought is unjustified, an artificial barrier erected by scientists to set them above their fellow citizens. Those who do not like to see the state meddling in scientific matters should remember the sizeable chauvinism of science: for most scientists the slogan freedom for science' means freedom to indoctrinate not only those who have joined them, but the rest of society as well."95 Paul Feyerabend, himself, states on this matter: "Finally, let me repeat that, for me, the chauvinism of science is a much greater problem ... It may even be one of its major causes. Scientists are not content with running their own playpens in accordance with what they regard as the rules of the scientific method; they want to universalize these rules, they want them to become part of society at large and they use every means at their disposal - argument, propaganda, pressure tactics, intimidation, lobbying - to achieve their aims."96 The theatrics and machinations carried out at the AAAS symposium on Velikovsky were only public relations and indoctrination procedures. They were anything but open and honest scientific discourse. When scientists feel they are on the defensive they act irrationally, as has been amply demonstrated in this volume. The behavior of Sagan, Mulholland, Huber and Storer is the behavior of frightened, angry men seeking victory rather than the behavior of rational men seeking the truth. The whole symposium was "bread and circuses" for the press, and the press reveled in every moment of it. Nowhere will one read a press account that condemns such wantonly deliberate press grandstanding misrepresentation and hype, instead of truly thoughtful and respectful criticism, as that offered by Einstein and a few others. With enough of the press favorable to all this behavior at the AAAS symposium on Velikovsky, the scientists and organizers were able to convince their fellow scientists and the public that what they did was honorable and decent science. In fact, this book makes clear that the Velikovsky Affair has not ended. The second generation of the scientific establishment has been shown to have used all the same indecent methods employed by the first. They have misrepresented Velikovsky's work and ridiculed it even as they misrepresented it. They have suppressed Velikovsky's supporters' responses to attacks hurled at Velikovsky in the very journals where these assaults were published or promulgated. They have used administrative tactics to assure that evidence relative to the debate was never acknowledged. They have used public relations smear techniques to "educate" the public. They have failed to acknowledge tests in historical archeology that indicate that this area of established research is in serious error. They have ignored Velikovsky's rebuttals to their attacks and then misrepresented the very nature of these rebuttals. They have used every measure available to them to destroy, by means that are unethical, every vestige of evidence favorable to Velikovsky. They have violated every stated norm of science repeatedly. Over 2,000 years ago, there were other guardians of science and astronomy who wanted to create a stable universe, and thus they adopted an Earth-centered (geocentric) universe. They, too, fought to hold on to that earlier concept of solar system stability against the sun-centered (heliocentric) universe in which the planetsmoved around the Sun. Arthur Koestler explains why and how they fought against this dangerous concept. "The earth-centered ... circular view of the cosmos excluded all progress and all compromise for fear of endangering its main principle, stability. Thus, it could not be admitted that the two inner planets circled the Sun, because once you gave way on this apparently harmless point, the next logical step would be to extend the idea to the outer planets and to the earth itself ... The frightened mind, always on the defensive, is particularly aware of the dangers of yielding an inch to the devil."97 This solar system stability concept is the other dogma that astronomers hold, as with their distrust of ancient legends, as their main principle. If the scientists surrender once to the notion that even one planet has had an unstable orbit long after the planets had formed, the next logical step would be to extend the idea to other planets. Koestler realizes that, "once the earth's stability was shaken, the world would fly to pieces."98 So, too, Velikovsky's view that our solar system was recently unstable creates the same kind of dread the ancients also felt in the deepest recesses of the minds of modern scientists. Velikovsky's views are an horrendous reality that goes far beyond any danger ever conceived as solar system history. Velikovsky would say that the defensive behavior of the scientists is proof that, at some level of consciousness, they are "aware of the dangers of yielding an inch to the devil." Lucifer, I hasten to add, is one of the ancient names of Venus! End Part IV 1 Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain, (New York, 1979), p. 88. 2 Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Comet, (New York, 1985), p. 174. 3 Robert Anton Wilson, "The Astronomer Who Abolished Gravity," Cosmic Trigger III, Mask, (Tempe, AZ, 1995), pp. 193-194. 4 Fred Wendorf in Robert Ball, Impure Science, (New York, 1992), p. 16. 5 Wilson, op. cit., p. 194. 6 Carl Sagan, "An Analysis of Worlds in Collision," Scientists Confront Velikovsky, (paperback ed.), Donald Goldsmith ed., (New York, 1977), p. 45, henceforth, SCV; Carl Sagan, "Venus and Dr. Velikovsky, Broca's Brain, (New York, 1978), p. 83, henceforth BB. 7 Science, (January 16, 1987), pp. 271-273. 8 SCV, op. cit., p. 48, BB, op. cit., p. 86. 9 Wilson, op. cit., p. 196. 10 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 197-198. 11 SCV, op. cit., p. 55; BB, op. cit., p. 92. 12 Sagan and Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 225. 13 Ibid. 14 SCV, op. cit., p. 96; BB, op. cit., p. 322. 15 Sagan and Druyan, Comet, op. cit. p. 217. 16 Ibid., p. 177. 17 Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, (New York, 1994), pp. 141-142. 18 Ibid., p, 143. 19 SCV, op. cit., p. 50; BB, op. cit., p. 88. 20 Sagan and Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 122. 21 Ibid., p. 180. 22 SCV, op. cit., p. 98; BB, op. cit., p. 324. 23 SCV, op. cit., p. 67; BB, op. cit., p. 103. 24 SCV, op. cit., p. 68; BB, op. cit., p. 104. 25 SCV, op. cit., p. 68; BB, p. 104. 26 Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, (New York, 1992), p. 26. 27 SCV, op. cit., p. 69; BB, op. cit., p. 105. 28 Sagan and Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 153. 29 Ibid., p. 319. 30 SCV, op. cit., p. 68; BB, op. cit., p. 104. 31 Carl Sagan, The Cosmic Connection, (New York, 1973), p. 118. 32 SCV, op. cit., p. 71. BB, op. cit., p. 106. 33 I.S. Shklovskii, Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe, (Delta ed.), (New York, 1966), pp. 373-374. 34 Patrick Moore, The Planets, (New York, 1962), p. 96 35 SCV, loc. cit., BB, op. cit., pp. 106-107. 36 Carl Sagan, The Cosmic Connection, (New York, 1973), p. 127. 37 Aviation Week and Space Technology, (January 29, 1973), p. 61. 38 Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe, op. cit., p. 289. 39 SCV, op. cit., pp. 71-72; BB, op. cit., p. 107. 40 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 144. 41 SCV, op. cit., pp. 76-77; BB, op. cit., p. 112. 42 Carl Sagan, "The Atmosphere of Venus," The Origin and Evolution of Atmosphere and Oceans, (New York, 1964), pp. 282. 43 SCV, op. cit., p. 78; BB, op. cit., pp. 113-114. 44 Carl Sagan, " ," Sky & Telescope, (March, 1961), p. ] 45 SCV, op. cit., p. 84; BB, op. cit., p. 118. 46 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 258. 47 Charles Ginenthal, "Scientists, Journalists and Editors as Suppressors (Part II)" The Velikovskian, Vol. II, No. 2, (1994), p. 94. 48 SCV, op. cit., p. 60; BB, op. cit., p. 96-97. 49 Fritz Kahn, Design of the Universe, The Heavens and the Earth, (New York, 1954), p. 212. 50 Alan E. Nourse, Nine Planets, (New York, 1960), p. 39. 51 I.S. Shklovskii, Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe, op. cit., p. 161. 52 Patrick Moore, New Guide to the Moon, (New York, 1976), pp. 33-36. 53 Ernst J. Opik, The Oscillating Universe, (soft covered ed.), (New York, 1960), pp. 29-31. 54 T.F. Gaskell, Physics of the Earth, (New York, 1970), p. 22. 55 Ibid., p. 27. 56 Tom Van Flandern, Dark Matter Missing Planets & New Comets, (Berkeley, CA, 1993), p. 270. 57 Ibid., p. 251. 58 Thomas A. Hockey, The Book of the Moon, (New York, 1986), p. 204. 59 Richard S. Lewis, From Vinland to Mars, (New York, 1976), p. 306. 60 Raymond A. Lyttleton, The Modern Universe, 3 ed. revised, (London, 1961), pp. 170-172. 61 W.H. McCrea, Nature, Vol. 224, (1969), p. 28. 62 SCV, op. cit., p. 62; BB, op. cit., pp. 98-99. 63 C.J. Ransom, Age of Velikovsky, (Glassboro, NJ, 1976), pp. 225-226. 64 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 198-199. 65 Ibid., P. 193. 66 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet, op. cit., pp. 95-96. 67 R.D. Chapman, J.C. Brandt, The Comet Book, (Boston, MA 1984), p. 88. 68 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 201. 69 SCV, op. cit., p. 64; BB, op. cit., p. 100. 70 Carl Sagan, "The Planets," Man and Cosmos, J. Cornell E.N. Hayes, eds., (New York, 1975), p. 80. 71 Patrick Moore, The Unfolding Universe, (New York, 1982), p. 65. 72 SCV, op. cit., pp. 67-68; BB, op. cit., pp. 103-104. 73 Norma Macbeth, Darwin Retried, an appeal to reason, (Ipswich, MA, 1971), pp. 110-111. 74 Ibid., p. 116. 75 Immanuel Velikovsky, "Acknowledgements," Earth in Upheaval, (New York, 1955), p. IX. 76 Immanuel Velikovsky, Stargazers & Gravediggers, (New York, 1983), p. 326. 77 Immanuel Velikovsky, Stargazers ... op. cit., p. 323. 78 SCV, op. cit., p. 68; BB, op. cit., p. 104. 79 SCV, op. cit., p. 72; BB, op. cit., p. 107. 80 Mannfred A. Hollinger, Atlantic Monthly, (June, 1979), pp. 29-30. 81 Andre Malurois, Ariel, (1924), "Chap," 29. 82 Fred Ferguson, Overseas Press Club Bulletin, (Vol. 43, No. 5), (May, 1988), p. 1. 83 SCV, op. cit., p. 75; BB, op. cit., p. 111. 84 John S. Lewis, "The Atmosphere, Clouds and Surface of Venus," The Solar System and Its Strong Objects, B.J. Skinner, ed., (Los Altos, CA, 1981), p. 93. 85 Billy P. Glass, Introduction to Planetary Geology, (New York, 1982), p. 310. 86 Carl Sagan, "Forewords, The Planetary System, David Morrison, Tobias Owen, (New York, 1987), p. V. 87 David Morrison, Tobias Owen, The Planetary System, op. cit., p. 236. 88 SCV, op. cit., pp. 81-82; BB, op. cit., p. 116. 89 R. Cowen, Science News, (September 14, 1991) p. 167. 90 SCV, op. cit., p. 84; BB, op. cit., p. 118. 91 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet, op. cit., p. 258. 92 Charles Ginenthal, "Before the Day Breaks - A PERSPECTIVE, The Velikovskian, Vol. 1, No. 4, (1993), p. 102. 93 Wilson, op. cit., p. 198. 94 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 194-195. 95 Broad and Wade, Betrayers of the Truth, op. cit., pp. 133-134. 96 Feyerabend, Against Method, op. cit., p. 169. 97 Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, (New York, 1959), p. 76. 98 Ibid.