Immanuel Velikovsky’s name is, for many, synonymous with paleobabble. I can think of a few other candidates I’d move ahead of him for such an honor, but Velikovsky indeed belongs to the “modern classical period” of wacky stuff related to study of the ancient world. You can read his Wikipedia page if you’re unfamiliar with him.
I recently came across this link: “Top Ten Reasons Why Velikovsky is Wrong About Worlds in Collision.” The essay at the link is long, dense, and technical. It’s also got terrible formatting (as in no formatting) so it’s hard on the eyes. I link to it because of the pedigree of its author, Leroy Ellenberger, who describes himself as follows:
This Top Ten list is based on 30 years exposure to Velikovsky’s ideas which includes 8 years as an insider at the Velikovsky journal Kronos (1978 – 1986), confidant to Velikovsky (4/78 – 11/79), invited “Devil’s Advocate” at Aeon (’88 – ’91), and 13 years as a turncoat/critic interacting with Velikovsky’s defenders and/or successors at conferences, in private, and in Usenet (’94 -’96) & list-serve forums.
In other words, he knows Velikovsky’s material really, really well. So all the haters can just email him to defend Velikovsky. And good luck with that.
There’s also a new book on Velikovsky’s ideas (with others): The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. I just bought it so I’ll be reading it at some point this year.
Thank you for endorsing my “Top Ten Reasons…” with apologies for the poor formatting which cannot be improved since my host at uga.edu retired and his pages can no longer be accessed. If you recall, we were in email contact in August 2008 over Sitchin (who replied to my questions about 12th Planet in April 1978) and the age of the biblical patriarchs as deciphered by Hildegard Wiencke-Lotz. Check out my page for the 1965 confrontation at Brown between Abraham Sachs and Velikovsky: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/vsachs.html . I listen to Coast to Coast AM alot, but have never caught your guesting although I caught Tom Van Flandern’s last appearance during which Noory asked Tom what he thought of Sitchin; and Tom explained precisely why astronomers can give Sitchin no credit. Despite this, Noory continues to tell his audience that he believes Sitchin. Tom’s assessment has been added to the Sitchin entry at Wikipedia. I look forward to any comments you post about Gordin’s “The Pseudoscience Wars” for which I was a subject and a source of information. In January I distributed an errata and addendum list which I’d be glad to send you if you wish. Cheers, Leroy Ellenberger, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Leroy_Ellenberger , c.leroy.ellenberger@wharton.upenn.edu
You’re welcome! I’ll have to check out van Flandern’s thoughts at the Wikipedia entry and your link. George is emotionally committed to the ancient astronaut idea. I don’t believe that any amount of data would dissuade him. He wants to believe it. I’ll surely post something on Gordin’s book once I’m through it. I’m trying to devote time this year to catching up on paleobabble and pseudoscience reading. I’m almost through Poliakov’s book on the Aryan Myth, so Gordin isn’t far behind.