THE VELIKOVSKY AFFAIR
SCIENTISM VERSUS SCIENCE
PART SIX
by Alfred de Grazia
THE SCIENTIFIC RECEPTION SYSTEM
When a scientist writes a book of his controlled experiences, a publisher ponders its audience, and a colleague weighs its value, the special order of human relations called science is in being. Their patterns of motive and behaviour emerge from and return to the larger sphere of social behaviour. They are different from, yet the same as the general social order.
Perhaps then never can it be said that 'this could only happen in science': in a scientific sense science cannot follow laws uniquely its own. Also it would be exceedingly risky to reason that, though possessed of a basis of generally understood behaviour, science receives from somewhere a unique moral code that cannot be evaluated by general moral codes.
THE CONCEPT OF RECEPTION SYSTEM There is, in every social order, a reception system. In the sub-order of scientific behaviour, the reception system consists of the criteria whereby scientists, their beliefs, and their practices are adjudged by scientists as a community to be worthy, true and effective.
The importance of a reception system in every social order is manifest. The reception system shapes the character of new recruits to the order and therefore forms the product of the order. If the term itself is new, the reception processes in themselves are well known. Whenever a scientist concerns himself with the training methods and the curriculum of his field, or with its system of publications and the criteria for evaluating work, he contributes to the building or enforcement of the order. Political parties and mass movements, religious groups, business enterprises, bureaucracies, and a host of voluntary associations have similar reception systems, and of course there is little difference between the natural and social sciences in this regard.
The principal elements of the reception system are doctrines and an operational formula with typical tactics of acceptance and rejection. Thus, 'truth according to empirical principles' constitutes a doctrine of the science reception system. It is generally believed that some criteria satisfying this goal must be extracted from those who contend for acceptance. The operational formula sets forth a number of methods by which behaviours are to be tested to determine the degree to which they fulfil the obligation of 'empirical truth. ' And a set of tactics is employed to admit or reject offerings determined to have succeeded or failed according to the formula. For instance, a journal will return a manuscript with a polite note of refusal or fit an article meeting its criteria into its publishing schedule. Ultimately the social and scientific consequences of this reception system must be discovered and analyzed in order to pass judgment upon the system and to enable an applied science of science to revise and reform doctrines, formulae, and tactics.
Such a reception system may be postulated to operate when a person, belief, or practice is projected upon the perceptive and cognitive screen of scientists with an implicit or explicit demand for acceptance. We therefore view Dr Velikovsky, his theories, and his practices as a case relevant to the study of the reception system of science.
The interpretation of the science reception system may be facilitated by fitting its activity to assumed models. Models of social behaviour in
THE VELIKOVSKY AFFAIR: CHAPTER 6: THE SCIENTIFIC RECEPTION SYSTEM
THE VELIKOVSKY AFFAIR
SCIENTISM VERSUS SCIENCE
PART SEVEN
by Immanuel Velikovsky
ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF CORRECT PROGNOSIS
In 1950 - as it is still largely today - it was generally accepted that the theory of uniformity must be true and that no process which is unobservable in our time could have occurred in the past. It was also believed that celestial bodies, the Earth included, travel serenely on their orbits in the void of space for countless eons. In
Worlds in Collision (1950), however, I offered these theses: '( 1) there were physical upheavals of a global character in historical time; (2) these catastrophes were caused by extraterrestrial agents; and (3) these agents can be identified' (from the Preface). These claims were termed a 'most amazing example of a shattering of accepted concepts on record' (Payne-Gaposchkin).
The consequences of the theory affected almost all natural sciences and many social disciplines. Especially objectionable was the assertion that events of such magnitude took place in historical times.
Worlds in Collision describes two (last) series of cataclysmic events that occurred 34 and 27 centuries ago. Not only the Earth, but also Venus, Mars, and the Moon were involved in near encounters, when the Morning Star, then on a stretched elliptical orbit following its eruption from the giant planet Jupiter, caused turmoil among the members of the solar system before settling on its present orbit.
The description was derived from literary references in the writings of ancient peoples of the world. The archaeological, geological, and paleontological evidence for the theory was collected and presented separately in
Earth in Upheaval (1955). In order to explain how certain phenomena could have taken place - how, for instance, Venus, a newcomer, could obtain a circular orbit, or the Earth turn over on its axis - the theory envisaged a charged state of the sun, planets, and comets, and extended magnetic fields permeating the solar system. This appeared even more objectionable since celestial mechanics had been solidly erected on the notion of gravitation, inertia and pressure of light as the only forces acting in the void, the celestial bodies being electrically and magnetically sterile in their inter-relations.
Worlds in Collision, in its Preface, was acknowledged as heresy in fields where the names Newton and Darwin are supreme.
The only quantitative attempt to disprove one of my main theses was made by D. Menzel of Harvard College Observatory (1952)
[1] . He showed (' if Velikovsky wants quantitative discussion, let us give him one'), on certain assumptions, that were I right the sun would need to hold a potential of 10 to the 19th power volts; but, he calculated that the sun, if positive, could hold only 1800 volts, and, if negative, it follows from the equation, no more than a single volt.
In 1960-61, V. A. Bailey calculated that to account for the data obtained in space probes (Pioneer V) the sun must possess a net negative charge with the potential of the order of 1019 volts
[2] .
In 1953 Menzel wrote: 'Indeed, the total number of electrons that could escape the sun would be able to run a one cell flashlight for less than one minute. '
[3] My affirmation of electromagnetic interactions in the solar system became less objectionable with the discovery of the solar wind and of magnetic fields permeating the solar system.
My thesis that changes in the duration of the day had been caused in the past by electromagnetic interactions was rejected in 1950-51
[4] . In February 1960, A. Danjon, Director, Paris Observatory, reported to l'Académie des Sciences that following a strong solar flare the length of the day suddenly increased by 0.85 millisecond. Thereafter the day began to decrease by 3.7 microseconds ever
THE VELIKOVSKY AFFAIR: CHAPTER 7: ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF CORRECT PROGNOSIS
