Transcripts of the Morning and Evening Sessions
of the A.A.A.S. Symposium on
“Velikovsky’s Challenge to Science”
held on February 25, 1974

Transcribed and Edited
by Lynn E. Rose

INTRODUCTION

Full, verbatim transcripts were prepared by me between 1977 and 1979, covering both the Mornig Session and the Evening Session of the A.A.A.S. Symposium in San Franscisco; these were based not only upon my own tapes but also upon other tapes kindly provided by Warner B. Sizemore and by Frederic B. Jueneman. A few spots that have remained inaudible are marked with “[?],” “[inaudible],” or the like.

The prepared papers themselves are simply mentioned at the points where they were delivered; they are not included as part of the transcripts. All six of the speakers eventually published papers elsewhere anyway, either in Pensée IVR VII or in Scientists Confront Velikovsky, or in Velikovsky and Establishment Science (Kronos III:2). Velikovsky’s paper was ready to be printed on the very day of the Symposium, and three of the other papers were also published more or less as delivered. In various noteworthy respects Huber’s paper was established altered prior to publication (See Kronos IV:2, especially pages 33-34 and 53-54). Sagan’s own paper, as many now realize, was radically revised and greatly expanded, virtually into a new paper. Much of that new paper, including all of the much-touted Appendices, was not seen by Velikovsky or by any of his supporters until nearly two years after the Symposium. Meanwhile, Velikovsky was being required to answer in 30 days a paper that Sagan had taken nearly two years to produce! But that is another story.

The editing of the transcripts themselves has in nearly all cases been by way of deletion. If a speaker repeated the same word, or the same string of words, I have deleted the repetitious material. If a speaker made an error, and immediately corrected that error, I have deleted the incorrect version. If a speaker began a sentence, abandoned it, and started a new sentence, I have deleted the incomplete sentence. (All “uhs” and the like have also been deleted.)

If a speaker made an error, and did not correct it himself, I have not amended his actual remarks. In such situations, and in other situations as well, I have sometimes inserted editorial notes in square brackets. But I emphasize that everything not in square brackets was actually spoken.

For the sake of readability, I have sometimes deleted a superfluous word, or even an inappropriate s. In other cases, an ungrammatical form has been deleted in its entirety, but then replaced by the correct form in square brackets.

Let me illustrate some of these editorial procedures. When Velikovsky referred to his New York Times article of the “twenty-fist of July, nineteen thirty-sixty-nine,” I simply deleted the “thirty.” But when Velikovsky referred to Hatshepsut of the “Nineteenth Dynasty,” and did not catch himself, I let that stand, and added a correction in square brackets. At one point Storer’s actual remarks were: “No, I don’t, I don’t think that the, the panel has been set up. It’s not rigged. and as far—It’s, It’s an occason for the public to watch a scientific debate.” After deletion of the repetitions and the false start, this became: “No, I don’t think that the panel has been set up. It’s not rigged. It’s an occasion fro the public to watch a scientific debate.”

Two of the participants (Velikovsky and Huber) were not native speakers of English, but I think it should be pointed out that the remarks of all of those who spoke (myself as well, when I rasied a question from the audience) seemed to cry out for the kind of vetting by deletion that I have just illustrated in the case of Storer. All of the participants have benefitted about equally from this. In no case have any of the editing procedures affected matters of substance.

Lynn E. Rose

THE MORNING SESSION

KING:

Good morning. I would like to welcome you to this first session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and to apologize, first of all, for our delay in getting started. One of our speakers has not yet arrived.

One of the funcitons of the A.A.A.S. is to act as a bridge between scientists and the public, and, as science becomes more specialized, this responsibility becomes more important.

Today we are going to consider a set of ideas that have at their core a completely unconventional picture of planetary motion. Most scientists would say that this picture is totally impossible, because it violates many of the most firmly established principles of physics.

To this Dr. Velikovsky would reply that there is overwhelming evidence that these events really did occur, and that, if they cause difficulties for the scientists, it is up to the scientists to resolve their own problems.

No one who is involved with the organization of this symposium believes that Dr. Velikovsky’s ideas are correct. Yet millions of people have read his books, and, after more than twenty years of condemnation by the scientific establishment, he still has a large and often devoted following.

It is for this reason that we believe that discussion of his ideas at a meeting of the A.S.A.S. is a public service. It’s in this spirit that we present this morning’s symposium.

The program includes six speakers. Since early on the first morning of the meeting some of you will have been unable to visit the registration desk to pick up your programs, I’ll outline it briefly.

The first speaker is going to be Professor Norman Storer, of the City University of New York, who will give a sociological talk devoted to “The Sociological Context of the Velikovsky Controversy.”

Then we’ll have Professor Peter Huber, of the Eidgnössische Technical [sic] Hochschule of Zürich, who will talk about “Ancient Historical Records.”

The third speaker will be Dr. Velikovsky, whose talk is entitled “The Challenge to Accepted Ideas.”

Fourth will be Professor J. Derral Mulholland, of the University of Texas, who will talk on “Considerations of Dynamics.”

We will then have Professor Carl Sagan, of Cornell University, speaking on “Venus and Dr. Velikovsky.”

And the sixth speaker will be Professor Irving Michelson, of the Illinois Institute of Technology, who will give a talk entitled “Mechanics Bear Witness.”

And, finally, as we have it scheduled, there will be an opportunity for Dr. Velikovsky to give an answer at the end of the program.

I would like to remind you also that our schedule goes on just this morning. We must vacate the room by one o’clock, and I do hope that if [only for the sake<] of the weariness of the audience, that we don’t go on that long. [laughter]. But we will resume our meeting again at seven-thirty this evening, where we will have all the panelists at that time seated on the platform, and we will have an open discussion, without any formal program, with the opportunity for everyone who wishes to participate.

We will have an opportunity after each speaker talks this morning for questions from the audience. I would like to ask that the questions be framed in the form of questions, and that members of the audience not use the occasion to make speeches [laughter]; I am sure you will bear with us on that. The time is somewhat limited, and we’ll do our best.

Each speaker will have twenty minutes, and after each speaker we’ll have about ten minutes available for the discussion. There will be one exception to this rule. When the program was originally put together, Dr. Velikovsky insisted that he should have at least thirty minutes for the presentation of his ideas. I only learned last night that Dr. Velikovsky intends to overrun even this time limit. I can only deplore this, and hope that Dr. Velikovsky will return our courtesy in inviting him here by keeping the length of his talk within reasonable bounds. [laughter].

Well, you haven’t come here to hear me talk, [laughter] so let’s move on now to our program. [laughter] The first speaker is Professor Norman Storer, of Baruch College in the City University of New York, where he is Chairman of the Sociology Department. Professor Storer has made a speciality within sociology of studying the sociology of the scientific community, and he is going to give us a talk entitled “The Sociological Context of the Velikovsky Controversy.”

And may I mention that I have, courtesy of my wife, a little timer, and I’ll ring a bell at eighteen minutes and set it again for two minutes.

STORER [to King]:
     Do you want me to field questions ... [inaudible]...?

KING [to Storer]:
     I will come up again and help you take questions.

STORER [to King]:
     Great.

STORER:
     [Storer’s paper, entitled “The Sociological Context of the Velikovsky Controversy” was presented at this point.]
     That’s the end! [applause]

KING:
We have some time now for questions from the other participants or the audience. Yes.

QUESTIONER:
Yes, Dr. Storer?

STORER:
     Right.

QUESTIONER:
     Yes, I would like to comment on the introduction that Dr. King gave, which, to me, put this symposium in the context of the recognized scientists’ setting the layment straight on what’s really going on, with no mention of the validation of some of Dr. Velikovsky’s assertions, not that that makes his conclusions correct.

STORER:
     All right. The question is, would I comment [delayed applause], would I comment on Professor King’s introduction, which the questioner construed as saying, “Here is the real science, and we’re gonna show you people what’s wrong with Dr. Velikovsky.” I don’t think it needs to be read that way. [laughter] As a matter of fact, my stance, anyway, is, is determined, dogged neutrality on this. [laughter] Nobody would believe me if I said, sure, comets do this or that.
     No, I don’t think that the panel has been set up. It’s not rigged. It’s an occasion for the public to watch a scientific debate.

STORER and KING [briefly conferring]:
     ... [inaudible]...

STORER:
     Next, the lady over there.

QUESTIONER:
     As a sociologist, I would seriously like to challenge a great many of the things that Professor Storer has been telling us about the sociology of science. I can’t begin to go into some of the reaons why I feel it’s very much open to question. I would like to recommend that some of you look at Stuart Blume’s Toward a Political Sociology of Science. And he also ... [inaudible]...the power of lobbying.

STORER:
     Could you give the second reference again?

QUESTIONER:
     The separate table of the power of lobbying... [?]

STORER:
     Oh, I see. Yeah, I happen to be reading that book right now. It’s a good book.

QUESTIONER:
     Stuart Blume, Toward a Political Sociology of Science.

STORER:
     Toward a Political Sociology of Science, by Stuart Blume, published by Free Press in this year.

KING:
     Back there.

QUESTIONER:
     I wonder if Dr. Storer, offhand, could give me just two examples in which a brilliant new idea now accepted as fact was welcomed by the scientific community. [laughter, applause]

STORER:
     I am tempted to defer this to some of the historians of science here. [laughter] It’s my understanding that Albert Einstein’s ideas met very little resistance among the top physicists of that day. You disagree with that statement.

QUESTIONER:
     ...[inaudible]... the mathematicians.

STORER:
     I’m sorry, What?

QUESTIONER:
     He was attacked by the mathematicians. The seocnd rank took him off.

STORER:
     Oh. [laughter]

KING:
     Dr. Mulholland.

MULHOLLAND:
     I would like to reply to the last question. I think, [laughter] I think two examples that can be brought to answer that question are the discovery of mass concentrations on the Moon and the internal heat in the Moon, which have both thrown the discussion of the history, the evolution of the Moon, into a state of extreme excitement, and has totally rejuvenated the entire subject. [applause]

KING:
     I should mention that, with the lights shining in our faces here, it’s a little bit hard for me to see people’s hands, so raise them high.

QUESTIONER:
     May I ask—

KING:
     Yes.

QUESTIONER:
     I would have thought the normal way of dealing with a crackpot is to ignore him. Is it the usual practice in scientific publications to review books by proclaiming that you have not read them before you review them? [laughter]

STORER:
     It’s frequently charged by the injured authors of those books, [laughter] and denied just as often by the men who did review them.

KING:
     One more question.

VOICE:
     Mr. Velikovsky had his hand up.

KING:
     Oh, I’m sorry. Did you wish to say something? [laughter]

VELIKOVSKY:
     I wish to ask Professor Mulholland whether he knows who was the first to claim, in time, a steep thermal gradient under the surface of the Moon?
     I wish to also ask whethere there is an explanation for the mascons on the Moon, beside the explanation that the Moon was clsoe to some heavy, gravitating body that pull out some mass towards the surface? [applause]
     And besides, would you consider these two observations as fundamental theories?

VOICES:
     No, no.

KING:
     Can you answer that briefly?

MULHOLLAND:
     Yes. [delayed applause] I regret to say I do not, in fact, know who might have first suggested the Moon was hot inside. I will acknowledge definitelyi that Dr. Velikovsky did so, many years ago. And I must blushingly admit that he has put a finger on a weak point in my statement, because what I have as the response a few moments ago were observational determinations rather than theoretical structures. [applause]

VOICE:
     I think we refuted it ...[remainder inaudible]...

KING:
     I am sorry we have not been provided with a second microphone. What I will ask, since it’s understood that people are asking questions rather than making speeches, I’ll ask that, if a question is not easily audible, that the person who is up here at the microphone repeat the question, as Dr. Storer did with at least the first question that was asked of him.
     We’ll move on to our second speaker now. Professor Peter Huber, of the Eigenössische Technical [sic] Hochschule in Zürich, has made a study of the ancient archaeological records relating to astronomy. He also, incidentally, has a second specialty in statistics, and we’re very pleased to have him speaking to us today on “Ancient Historical Records” Professor Huber. [Huber, of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich, has statistics as his first and only professional specialty. He also, incidentally, has repeatedly described himself as a “hobby-assyriologist.” Thus King has conferred upon Huber a profession status that Huber does not have. The A.A.A.S. Program misrepresented Huber in the same sort of way, describing him as a “Prof. of Ancient History” }page 23].]

HUBER:
     [Huber’s paper, entitled “Early Cuneiform Evidence for the Planet Venus,” was presented at this point.]
     That’s the end! [appluase]

VOICE:
     Question?

KING:
     Dr. Velikovsky says he has several questions, and would like to use the microphone for them.

VELIKOVSKY:
     Understand, I had not chance to have your paper before this morning, so I did not know the phenomena that you would record.
     We had yesterday a short chat. You mentioned that the most important statement is an eclipse that was calculated for something like—what would it be?

HUBER:
     Perhaps I get the document. [pause] What is most important eclipse is a total eclipse of -708 [astronomical; 709 B.C. would be historical], July—which, I’ve forgotten—July 17, which—

VELIKOVSKY:
     It is from China?

HUBER:
     It’s from China, from these Spring-Autumn Annals.

VELIKOVSKY:
     What is from Ras Shamra? You spoke of Ras Shamra.

HUBER:
      No, I didn’t mention Ras Shamra.

VELIKOVSKY:
      But you mentioned to me yesterday—

HUBER:
      No.

VELIKOVSKY:
      —that most important—

HUBER:
      No, not Ras Shamra.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Fine.

HUBER:
      I’m sorry.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Well, Chinese date, was in this document mentioned also the place?

HUBER:
      For this particular eclipse the place is not menioned, but—[laughter]

VELIKOVSKY:
      As long as—

HUBER:
      But there is something else. For some otehr eclipses it is mentioned that the eclipse happened in the province. The inference is that this particular eclipse happened at the capital. And to make it precise, what I mean is, if you take the probably most reliable eclipse we have now from antiquity, it’s the Babylonian eclipse of -135 [astronomical; 136 B.C. historical], and use this to determine the—

VELIKOVSKY:
      Which eclipse?

HUBER:
      Babylonian eclipse, -135. We only learned about it last December. [laughter] It’s very definite, description of a total eclipse, with all the details. If you take this eclipse, which is absolutely certain, and—

VELIKOVSKY:
      That’s 135?

HUBER:
      Ja. And if you use this eclipse to determine the values for the secular accelerations, and calculate back to -709 [historical], you obtain the eclipse as total right at the capital of where this dynasty was reigning.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Let me ask you, Professor Huber, are you familiar with the same discussion that I had with Princeton astronomer Stewart, printed in June, 1951 issue of Harper’s?

HUBER:
      Ja.

VELIKOVSKY:
      You are. He brought at that time, ont he basis of a lecture of Fotheringham, three ancient eclipses: one from China, one from Assyria, one from Babylonia. I replied. Stewart claimed that three only existing established dates of full solar eclipses. I replied. I have the reply with me. Do you agree with Fotheringham and my opponent, or do you agree with me today?

HUBER:
      I agree you were quite right in rejecting these three Fotheringham eclipses as right evidence.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Yes.

HUBER:
      [They are] not well-dated.

VELIKOVSKY:
      So—

HUBER:
      The date is established astronomically in these cases.

VELIKOVSKY:
      So in that case we will say so, that the argument that was brought by astronomers in 1951 in the debate on the pages of Harper’s, three eclipses as if established, were, well, answered by me, and I showed that noen of them was really eclipse, neither the date could be a date of eclipse, because eclipse doesn’t happen on the twenty-sixth of a lunar month, neither the places were indicated, and neither they fit into chronology. Place is very important. If the total eclipse is in Brazil, you cannot look into records of North America.
     Now, next question. Do you believe that, as you have written to me, ther eis some very strong argument, for one specific eclipse that is beyond any doubt, established by Stephenson, I believe?

HUBER:
      Stephenson and Muller, yes.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Did they publish their work?

HUBER:
      It’s not yet published. I learned about this last January.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Yes.

HUBER:
      It’s going to be published in the proceedings of a conference on changes in the rate of rotation of the Earth—

VELIKOVSKY:
      Do you know the year of the eclipse?

HUBER:
      Which eclipse do you mean?

VELIKOVSKY:
      Of Stephenson, the one he claimed [as] the one, and you believe it is the most strong evidence?

HUBER:
      The most strong evidence against these catastrophes, in minus sixteen [presumably meaning the eighth century]—?

VELIKOVSKY:
      Yes.

HUBER:
      That is the one of minus seven hundred and eight, July 17.

VELIKOVSKY:
      No, I asked you about the work of Stephenson.

HUBER:
      Yes, that’s the work of Stephenson.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Did not Stephenson wrote about the eclipse discovered in the library of Ugarit?

HUBER:
      I am not aware of—

VELIKOVSKY:
      Are you aware of his publication in Nature?

HUBER:
      Which publication in Nature? We had a discussion—

VELIKOVSKY:
      About the eclipse yesterday.

HUBER:
      We had a discussion—

VELIKOVSKY:
      Yes.

HUBER:
      —yesterday—

VELIKOVSKY:
      About the eclipse.

HUBER:
      —and we couldn’t agree on which publication it was.

VELIKOVSKY:
      He published only one papaer in Nature on one eclipse, that he believes this is the only one [that early] that he established with complete, absolute, so to say, firmness, and he referred to the library of El-Amarna [meaning Ras Shamra].

HUBER:
      I am not aware of that.

VELIKOVSKY:
      You were not aware. It was published in Nature. It was published by Stephenson in Nature. This issue is of November 14, 1970. He speaks about the eclipse of 1375. He believes that this is the only one [that early] that is established beyond doubt, and let me say, if you have read my Ages in Chaos, you know, of course, that Ugarit is no more, in reconstruction, related to the fourteenth century, the library of Ugarit, but to the ninth century. So in that case of course, all the calculation would not fit.
     Interestingly, also, it is said that Rashap, which is Mars—correct?—was in attendance. Interestingly, this eclipse is described in Greek sources; [it] is described, however, as something very different from regular eclipse. The Sun was distrubed in its motion, and Stephenson printed: “The Sun went down (in the daytime) with Rashap [or Mars] in attendance.” And we have exactly the same statment in Greek sources, referring to the date when Romulus supposedly was born, that Mars caused distrubance in movement of the Sun, and at the same time it occurred that Sun and Moon were in eclipse.
     Well, let us come to the question of Sumerian materials that you claim that Venus was referred [to] in early ages. You refer to 3000 B.C., and to 1900 B.C., and to the time of Ammizaduga tablets.
     Now, let me ask you, this Sumerian hymn, in your opinion, refers—and is the best proof that Venus was already observed earlier that it became a morning and evening star. That Venus was observed before it came into conflict with Earth is clear from what I wrote. It did not come from Jupiter just on the eve of that collision. [laughter] It came thousands of years before. It could be seen. However, you are right. In that hymn, Venus is referred [to] as connected with morning and evening. But what is else in that hymn? And I am very thankful to you for giving me the text of that hymn.
     First, it is in Sumerian. Sumerian as a living language really extinguished rather early. But Sumerian was the Latin of the cuneiform-writing people, and it survived as long as Latin survived, past the Roman Empire, so the fact that it is written in Latin doesn’t say much about the age.
     Here is spoken about Inanna. Let us assume that Inanna referred to Venus. So we know that Ishtar—and I stressed this in my book—at some time in the past was the name for Jupiter, became later the name for Venus.
     Now, “Inanna shines as bright ass the Sun,” Is Venus shining as bright as the Sun today?
     Now, in the same hymn, says, Inanna is a star foreign to use, fremdartige Stern, not from this family.
     Now, it’s again said, on daytime, on middlay, it shines as bright as the Sun. Does it today?

HUBER:
      I... [inaudible]....

VELIKOVSKY:
      Also it says during the night as the Moon.

HUBER:
      You are twisting the translation from German into English.

VELIKOVSKY:
      “Zur Natchzeit sendet sie Licht aus wie der Mond, am Mittag sendet sie Licht aus wie die Sonne.”

HUBER:
      Which means that—

VELIKOVSKY:
      “shined as bright as the Moon in the night, shined as bright as the Sun—”

HUBER:
      The “bright” is not there.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Where is?

HUBER:
      She sends out light like the Sun.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Like the Sun?

HUBER:
      And this passage—

SAGAN:
      Dr. Huber, talk into the microphone, I can’t hear.

HUBER:
      Yeah. This passage, actually it was used by Schaumberger in the third Ergänzungshefte [to Kugler’s Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel] as an argument that Venus was visible during the day, and you quote, in Worlds in Collision, that passage from Schaumberger, if I remember correctly. [See Worlds in Collision, page 164.]

VELIKOVSKY:
      Yes, and I quoted many other passages from Babylonian sources that say that Venus is like a torch, like a torch in the sky, that Venus covers all the sky. And this is not only from Babylonian sources.
      Now, also there is spoken about honey and cakes being given to Inanna. If it is Venus it would be exactly what was given later to Athena, and which is also observed in so many religious cults up to today. [laughter]
      Now, let me ask you, [laughter] as to this Sumerian hymn, it would be good if you could discuss it on the basis of the original, because this is the German translation, again translated into English. do you read Sumerian? [laughter]

HUBER:
      I read cuneiform, but I do not really speak the Sumerian language. [laughter]

VELIKOVSKY:
      No, I didn’t ask whether you speak Sumerian language. I asked you whether you read Sumerian language.

HUBER:
      I’m not so familiar with Sumerian as a Sumerologist would be.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Fine. So you are not familiar with Sumerian language. [laughter] Let us say, let us ask you, [as laughter finally dies away] let us ask you whether cuneiform in Akkadian language is, well, your main occupation. Do you teach cuneiform or ancient history in Zürich?

HUBER:
      No, I don’t.

VELIKOVSKY:
      You don’t. So you don’t teach [them]. You teach, I understand, and you are very foremost in the field of statistic, and it is correct that Akkadian language, self-taught, si your hobby? 

HUBER:
      Yes.

VELIKOVSKY: 
      Correct?

HUBER:
       Not quite self-taught.

VELIKOVSKY:
       Well. Well. [laughter] Now let us say this. The Babylonian sources, by Weidner and by many others, show the fact that for long periods of time, as also in India, [there] was in Babylonia four-planet system. Later Venus was figured, as you have seen, together with the Sun and the Moon, in a triad, separately from the planets, and it was called the new planet that joined the other planets.
     And then it of course was referred to as moving not in a perfect orbit. Here were the tablets of Ammizaduga. As to tablets of Ammizaduga—in the hard-cover edition of Worlds in Collision, pages 199-200 [the entire discussion being cited extends from page 198 to page 200], if my memory is right, are dedicated.
      It is not as it was shown here [in Huber’s slides], if Venus—this is a translation, because otherwise it could not be understood. In the Akkadian text there is no such things as, if Venus appears on this day or on that day, Just it is said, it appears on this day or on that day. And there is a way to check on it. It is mentioned. It appears on that day. It disappears on that day. And in between are so many days. You have the way to check, because if from fifteen of Sivan to the seventeen of Tammuz, or whatever the dates are, you can calculate by the calendar, but, interestingly, by the calendar of thirty days in a month, and thirty days in the month without intercalary months is the prerequisite to understand what is going on there.
     Those who try to understand those tablets and to translate them needed to correct the translators and ascribe to scribes great errors. West is changed into east. Evening is changed into morning. Nine months and five days are changed just into five days [the interval of nine months and five days is based on B.M. 36395; several otehr tablets suggest that the interval was nine months and four days], to make sense, because as today, Venus, when in inferior conjunction, which means between the Earth and the Sun, disappears from sight for approximately one single day, but when it is in superior conjunction, which means when the Sun is intervening between Venus and the Earth, today it is about—not always exactly so—two months and six days.
      Now, in the tablets it is nine months and several days, and very different other figures which are not given to understanding. It is nothing of the “if.” It is just as it is.
       Now, interesting again, as I say, it is a calendar of thirty days, without intercalary months, even if there are two references to Elul the second. Will you say that there is no refernec ein Langdon and Fortheringham to thirty-day calendar, without intercalary—

 PANELIST:
      Give him the microphone.

PANELIST: 
      Give him the mike!

KING:
      Could you let Dr. Huber have the microphone?

VELIKOVSKY:
      Yes.

KING:
      He has a number of things to answer now.

VELIKOVSKY: 
      Yes.

HUBER:
      One point is the question of the “if.” Now, that’s really a question pertaining to essentially all omina. Many of these omina begin with just a vertical bar at the beginning. Now this vertical bar is either the stenographic notation for summa, “if” or it’s something like our horizontal bar, if you make a list. Usually it’s taken as the “if” nowadays, and I just joined the majority. It doesn’t really matter if you replace it by a horizontal bar. The factual meaning is the same.
      But the question of the intercalary months is: we have intercalary months from documents which were written in the old Babylonian times, and I thought I made quite a fuss about the fact that seven intercalary months were recorded in contracts written in the time of Ammizaduga, and that these same intercalary months could be established from the Venus tablets. [Actually, there are eight or even nine attested intercalary months from the time of Ammizaduga, and only four of these clearly fit the months that would be required for a uniformitarian reading of the Ninsianna tablets; in addition, there are three months required for a uniformitarian reading of the Ninsianna tablets that are not attested from the time of Ammizaduga: Huber’s claimed seven-for-seven fit is a fabrication.] That was my main argument for establishing the date of the Ammizaduga tablets. And these intercalary months are discussed by Fortheringham in Langdon-Fortheringham-Schoch. That’s one comment.
      The second comment, you said something about Venus joining the ranks of the great stars, if I am quoting correctly. Now, I followed that quote through. This is one of the quotes which I mentioned in the beginning, as they are based on a questionable translation. I took care to take along the cuneiform text of that. And I can tell you exactly what happened there. The cuneiform text has something—Now, “the great star which is beyond the great stars which in the certain part of the sky.” Now, “the great star which is beyond the great stars.” That is a literal translatoin. Somehow, this got into “the great star which joins the great stars.” But there’s a grammatical technicality involved. Akkadian doesn’t have the superlative. You have to express the superlative by syntactical means, and what this means is nothing more [than] “the great star which is the greatest of the great stars” which is, oh, that’s a grammatical question. And I didn’t want to go into these details, but since you started it, I have to do it.

VELIKOVSKY:
      I wish to refer again to Ammizaduga tablets. Ammizaduga tablets were tablets describing twenty-one years of appearance and disappearance of Venus. These tablets were ascribed by [that is, “to”] Ammizaduga by Jesuit Father Kugler. Before this they were thought by astronomer and orientalist Schiaparelli, as referring to events of the seventh century B.C., not of the time of Ammizaduga., which would be fifteen, fourteen, or whatever century, or even earlier.
      Now, again, what is the time of Ammizaduga? Ammizaduga was the last king of the First Babylonian Dynasty that started with Hammurabi. When I started my work, the research on it, Hammurabi was put in twenty-second century. Since then, the work of Albright and Sidney Smith reduced it more and more, until today it is 1680, approximately, the time till when Hammurabi ruled, and Ammizaduga would be at least a hundred years later. So Amizaduga would be in that case just before the time of the Exodus, or the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt.
      But if Hommel and Schiaparelli are right—and there is reason to think that they are right—the reason is exactly the fact that the calendar used in these calculations of the scribes is thirty-day months, and there is no mistake on this. This needed to be stressed. When in the tablets it is mentioned from this day to that day, immediately is given also the wayof chekcing, by number of days inserted—not inserted later, inserted immediately in the text—they show that the months were thirty days ong, and there were only twelve months, and there were no intercalary months, even if some occasion was Elul second.
      Now, on this basis, I come now to the conclusion to which I had not yet come when I wrote Worlds in Collision, namely, that those tables were a little earlier than Schiaparelli thought, but not much earlier. Certainly they are not of the time from the First Babylonian Dynasty. It would make no difference for the thesis that the catastrophic events took place, that Venus did not move as it moves, but it is just for the purpose of establishing something of historical value.
      Thirty-day months, twelve months, year of 360 days> as I put quite a long list, actually, from all ancient calendars, from Incan and from Mayas, from Peru—which [Mayas] means in Mexico—from all ancient European, like ancient Roman and Greek, and also Asian, near Eastern, and Far Eastern civilization. From each of them I put quotes from authority: twleve months of thirty days, strange as it is, without intercalary. Intercalary months were brought later in. And so later there were two Moon’s calendars, Moon calendar of thirty days, and the new Moon calendar.
      Well, in these circumstances, I come to the conclusion that Amizaduga tablets were created between the time of the catastrophic events of the middle second millennium and the catastrophic events that took place from the 776 on, from which the Greeks counted their Olympian Age, and more probably in the later part of it [that is, probably in the tenth, ninth, or eighth century], and then it will be very plainly what it is.
      However, this disappearance to nine months and more, interestingly, is not a disappearance due to going of Venus beyond the Sun, as it would be in superior conjunction, because even then Venus was seen like a torch, and going behind the Sun would not hide it enough.
      However, we have a series of data from many civilizations, also from China, like Soochow table, that Venus at that time was traveling to the south, was not traveling in ecliptic, which means in the plane of Earth’s revolution. it was traveling to the south and reaching the star Sirius. Now, hti is in various sources. Now, in that case, the disappearance of Venus would follow, not from going behind the Sun, but from disappearing as any southern star would disappear from the northern latitutde where Babylonia or Egypt are located.
      Thank you. [applause]

KING:
      This is a discussion that clearly could go on for a long time. [laughter] I have put my head together with Dr. Huber, and have induced him not to reply to this until the evening session, in the interests of getting on with our morning program. During the evening we will have a free discussion, and I think I can freely predict that this particular vein will continue. [laughter]
      Our next speaker on the program is Dr. Velikovsky. [laughter, applause] He has informed me that he has prepared a manuscript which he has gotten together in the interests of speaking clearly, so that everyone will understand what he has to say. I have already said that I regret the length of it, but we’ll allow him time to go through this manuscript. [applause]

VELIKOVSKY:
      [Velikovsky’s paper, entitled “My Challenge to Conventional Views in Science,” was presented at this point.]
      And thank you. [applause, lasting 35 seconds]

KING:
      Thank you very much for your talk, Dr. Velikovsky, and also for your excellent and clear delivery.
      I am getting very concerned about the hour of the day. We have three speakers remaiing. We had planned a half hour per speaker, including the discussion, and we must be out of this room by one o’clock. Things are going to be very tight.
      I will ask if there are any questions now that can be answered briefly, and I would like the answers to be brief, because we must get on to the other speakers. Yes.

QUESTIONER:
      I was wondering if any of Dr. Velikovsky’s predictions have turned out to be untrue so far, and if he would talk about those, if there are any, I don’t know.

VOICE:
      Repeat—

KING:
      The question is, have any of Dr. Velikovsky’s predictions turned out so far to be untrue, and would he discuss those?

VELIKOVSKY:
      I do not know of any prediction proven to be disproven.
      Professor Hess, the late Chairman of Geology at Princeton, who claimed that he knows at least one of my book by heart, Earth in Upheaval—it is a required reading in geology and paleontology at Princeton for over fifteen years—he was also Chairman of the Space Science Board of National Academy of Sciences that has supervision over NASA activities—he made a public statement in writing that my predictions were made long in advance of discoveries, that when they were made they were far away from what was commonly thought, and actually in contradiction, and that he does not know a single prediction that went wrong. If anybody knows, let me hear.

KING:
      Dr. Sagan.

SAGAN:
      Right. These microphones wired?

KING:
      I think this is the only one that is connected yet.

SAGAN:
      I think I know a large number of predictions which are incorrect, and I also think that I can show that the ones which are correct are not original with Dr. Velikovsky, but I will get to that when it’s my talk.
      What I would like to ask, just to ask a specific question. In Dr. Velikovsky’s presentation to us now, he has said that the hydrocarbon clouds of Venus are consistent with all ultraviolet, visible, near infrared and far infrared observations, with the refracive index, and the volatility.
      That is not my impression, so I’d like to ask, which organic compound has a refractive index of 1.44, as we know the Venus clouds do, from the polarization data, has a 3.1 micron and 11.2 micron absorption feature in the infrared, and is able to explain the discontinuity in the water abundance above and below the clouds?
      I ask this because about a seventy-five percent solution of sulphuric acid explains all of these very well, and I know of no organic compound which does. And I’ve read the papers by Burghstahler and Velikovsky in the latest issue of Pensée.

VELIKOVSKY:
      What Professor Sagan here said is in advance of what he will say, so I cannot judge what he would claim as wrong predictions. I had only the chance to read Newsweek magazine statement this week, in which Sagan was quoted, after his visiting Newsweek editorial staff, that Velikovsky predictions are eitgher very vague, or they are in condradiction to physical laws, or that they are not original.
      I believe that he will have a hard time to prove this. Maybe we will not be able to discuss it all in the morning session. We will have the evening session; then we’ll discuss it at greater length.
      But let us go to the question of the Venus clouds. I claimed about Venus number of things, and all of them went into fulfillment.
      I claimed about Venus that it wold be found incandescently hot when it was thought that it is not much above the terrestrial annual mean temperature.
      I claimed that Venus was disturbed in its rotation.
      I claimed that Venus has a very massive atmosphere at the time when my opponent and critic, the Royal Astronomer of England, Spencer Jones, claimed that Venus has less atmosphere than Earth, and as you know now, there are about ninety, maybe ninety-five atmospheric pressure close to the ground.
      Now, as to the composition of the clouds, let us say the first thing this. The question of recentness of Venus is solved by the question of the origin of Venus’ heat.
      Professor Sagan clings to an unsupportable statement ath this heat could have been a result of greenhouse effect. We will discuss this. already many authorities—

VOICE:
      That’s not the question.

VELIKOVSKY:
      Already many authorities put it clear: it could not.
      Now, in the last issue of Pensée—which, by the way, will be found at the door of this hall, where representative of that Student [Academic] Freedom Forum organization has a table—I was given the opportunity to answer Professor Burgstahler, chemist of University of Kansas—[aside to Lorraine Spiess] I wish number VI—as to the constituency of clouds..
      I never put it that clouds must be composed of hydrocarbons. [Notice that this statement already makes the “specific” part of Sagan’s question irrelevant.] I have, however, claimed that Venus had hydrocarbons three and a half thousand years ago, and some of the deposits of petroleum on Earth came from Venus’ clouds, or trailing part of it.
      But I also introduced this statement by words, “I assume.” I also said under what circumstances they can be llod for and where: in the deep infrared, and probablynot at the top of the clouds, because, as heavy molecules, by physical law they will not be there.
      But then again, Burgstahler came up, in this article of his, review of the literature, with the idea that more probable sulphuric acid diluted in twenty-five percent of water reflect the conditions in various parts of the spectra.
      I answered, and the answer in here in Pensée instead of quoting my answer, which can be read, on page 31, is a table that answers Sagan.

SAGAN:
     It does not.

VELIKOVSKY:
      The table is not my words. The words are of Burghstahler. As to the refractive index, as to the volatility, as to the ultraviolet spectrum, as to the near infrared, as to infrared, and as to deep infrared. In no occasion is any word of mine.
      And there is also a statement of Burghstahler, added to my article: he “appreciate ... Velikovsky lucid discussion... I appreciate...of my article,” of his article, “and especially the provocative tabular presentation of the spectral comments drawn from it.” [Burgstahler’s complete statement was: “I appreciate Dr. Velilkovsky’s lucid discussion of my article, and especially the prvocative tabular presentation of spectral comments drawn from it.” He then acknowledges Velikovsky’s priority in explaining the yellowish coloring of Venu, and menions the possible “compatibility of sullfuric acid clouds with the sustained presence of appreciable amounts of hydrocargons, especially in the lower regions of the atmosphere.”]
      Now, the question was put to me, which of the organic molecules has the refractive index of 1.44. Let me say this, the entire problem started with an article by Professor Plummer, of University of Massachusetts, who published on the fourteenth of March, of 1969, in Science magazine, an article questioning the presence of hydrocarbons in the clouds of Venus. I answered this article; however, [I have] not reworked it to the desire of the reviewers for Science, and it was printed now here in Pensée.
      The question was of the refractive index, who claimed what. Plummer claimed water. Sagan claimed water. I claimed there is no water, because the refractive index is not of water.
      Sagan was proven wrong, because 1.44 is not refractive index of water,which is 1.33, approximately, ice and water. And today exactly this statement of mine is repeated by a number of scientists: Plummer was wrong, Sagan was wrong, because of refractive index.
      Now comes Sagan and asks me, where is the refractive index of organic molecules? Here is statement of organic chemist, who is Professor Burgstahler, and I have with me two or three statements more, of Professor Harris, organic chemist, whose speciality [it] is, of Furman University in South Carolina, and another statement, of Professor Bush, of the North Carolina University in Charlotte, both working on the spectrum of infrared of organic molecules, stating that many organic molecules have infrared index of 1.44. And I have another statement, from a resident of this area, Dr. Ballinger, who works as research chemist on organic material for the Exxon Company of Califormia, and the statement is again the same.
      And besides, what is the question? Plummer, for example, investigated—

MULHOLLAND:
      We’ve forgotten by now.

VELIKOVSKY:
      What is the question? Plummer investigated seventeen organic molecules, not on their refraction index. There are hundreds of thousand of organic molecules, either hydrocarbons or carbohydrates. They were not investigated. And tehre are many and many that have the refracting index of 1.44.

KING:
      May I ask you to terminate your answer now?

VELIKOVSKY:
      Well, this is the answer. I believe I answered completely.

KING:
      It was a very complete answer. [laughter, appluase]. We have on record your reference to page 31 of Pensée, and Dr. Sgan’s remark that that does not satisfy his question. Let’s leave it at that. We have two hours to discuss things in the evening. [Notice that King is still unaware that Sagan is leaving.]
      Now, we have three more speakers on our program. The next two speakers are going to talk on different subject matter but in a similar vein, and the way I am going to organize the program is that I will ask Dr. Mulholland to give his talk, and hope very much that he will stick tothe twenty-minute limit, and after that we will have Dr. Sagan immediately, and following that we’ll have a chance for some more discussion, which I hope will be brief. Remember, we have two full hours for discussion this evening, and we have one more speaker after both Mulholland and Sagan.
      So let me introduce the next speaker, Professor J. Derral Mulholland, of the University of Texas, in Austin, who is a celestial mechanician whose name is almost synonymous with high precision. [laughter]

MULHOLLAND:
     [Mulholland’s preliminary remarks, not included in this paper, were as follows:]
     Before I am asked the question, I would like to point out that I first read Dr. Velikovsky’s work in 1950 in Collier’s magazine when I was sixteen years old, and I have read the same work [sic] three times since, the most recent yet this year. [What Collier’s printed was the equivalent of six magazine-size pages that were “Excerpted and Adapted by John Lear from Worlds in Collision by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky”; Velikovsky objected to the way Collier’s treated his book, since he had agreed only to serialization, not to condensation, and the planned third installment of Lear’s condensation was never printed. Worlds in Collision itself contains xii + 401 pages.]
     I found it very entertaining when I was sixteen, incidentally, and I stil do.
     [Mulholland’s paper entitled “Movements of Celestial Bodies—Velikovsky’s Fatal Flaw,” was presented at this point.]
     Thank you. [applause]

KING:
     As I announced previously, we’ll move on immediately to the next speaker, and I wish to amend something that I said earlier.
     Unfortunately, Dr. Sagan will not be allow-, will not be available, will not be with us this evening, on account of a previous commitment out of town.
     I’ll call on Professor Carl Sagan, of Cornell University, to talk on “Venus and Velikovsky.”

SAGAN:
     [Sagan’s preliminary remarks, not included in his paper, were as follows:]
     Thank you, Professor King.
     I first started working on this paper, that I have here, on the invitation of Stephen Talbott, the editor of Pensée, who invited me to give a critique of Velikovsky’s views about Venus, which I started to do, but then discovered that it’s very difficult to keep one’s focus only on Venus, because Velikovsky’s perspective is extremely broad. And so what has come out is a manuscript called not “Venus and Dr. Velikovsky” but someting called “An Analysis of ‘Worlds in Collision,’” which is much too long to read here, and especially in the interests of time I’m going to just go through a fraction of it, something like a third of it. I don’t know what Mr. Talbott will do when I talk about him about the manuscript.
     Well—
     [Sagan’s paper, now retitled “An Analysis of ‘Worlds in Collision,’” was presented at this point. The decision to put Worlds in Collision in quotation marks rather than italics was Sagan’s.]
     Thank you. [applause]

KING:
     Thank you very much, Dr. Sagan.
     Although I found your ten points immensely interesting, as chairman, trying to keep this meeting running, I feel as if I’ve been visited with the ten plagues. [laughter]
     We are going to have to make a change in the schedule. It is obvious that discussion at this point is necessary. The time is already seventeen minutes to one. We are required to be out of the room at one o’clock or shortly afterwards.
     And I must apologize to Professor Michelson, to be last speaker, that we must postpone his talk until the evening meeting. He has graciously agreed to do this, in order that we can have some discussion, which I imagine will be largely between Dr. Velikovsky and Dr. Sagan. [laughter]
     I am sorry, Dr. Michelson, in my incompetence in manipulating people in the presence of ideas. [laughter, applause]
     May I ask for one or two questions from the audience, in the hope that the questions will be brief, and the answers equally brief. Question.

BASS:
     I have four brief questions that I wish to ask. [laughter]

KING:
      You have been recogized to ask one question. Choose one of them, please.

BASS:
     Where is Mulholland? Is Mulholland going to answer?

MULHOLLAND:
     Yes.

BASS:
     Yes. Yes, Mulholland. All right. Are you familiar with the published work of J.G. Hill’s Yeale Ph.D. thesis, 1970, Michael We. Ovenden, Nature, 1972, and Vistas in Astronomy, in press, Celestial Mechanics, in press, and several other journals, in press, A. H. Wilson of the University of Chicago—by the way, Michael Ovenden is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society—A. H. Wilson—

MULHOLLAND(?):
     And a friend of mine, I might add...

BASS:
     —a dynamical astronomer, of—Also, are you familiar with the works—

MULHOLLAND(?):
     We should say yes and just sit down.

BASS:
     —of the three leading celestial mechanicians in the world from the point of view of rigorous mathematical proof, which exceeds that even of physical experiments—

MULHOLLAND:
     Would you like to give you opinion as to who those three are before I say yes?

BASS:
     [Bass has continued to speak, but was drowned out by Mulholland’s question.] ... and I refer, of course, to V. I. Arnol’d of Moscow, [J. K. Moser of New York University, and Carl Ludwig Siegel of Göttingen, because these four gentlement—I can give you the page referneces of their journal articles—have published explicit statments which show that almost everyting you said was superficial, and they diametrically refute many of your leading points. [applause]

VOICE:
     Well.

KING:
     ... [inaudible] ... brief answer.

VOICE:
     ...[inaudible] ... controversy....

VOICE:
     That’s not the question.

KING:
     This was a speech, not a question.

MULHOLLAND:
     As I passed up here, somebody said that’s a controversy, not a question. I will answer very briefly. Yes, am familiar with most of those works, and no, I do not agree with you that they confute anything that I said. [applause]

KING:
     Thank you for your [brevity?].

SAGAN:
     Alos, the represent an argument from authority. There was not a single substantive point in your question. It was all, “Have your read X, Y, X, or Q?”

KING:
     One more question from the audience.

QUESTIONER:
     I have a very brief question for Dr. Sagan. Following the recent Pioneer X encounter with Jupiter, there was a wire services stroy in which there was a quotation attributed to you that there were hydrocarbons in the atmosphere of Jupiter that were precipitating “like manna in the wilderness.” I wonder if— [laughter]

SAGAN:
     This is another idea due to Rupert Wildt in 1940, about ten years before 1950. [laughter] Rupert Wildt, in fact, turns out to be the eminence grise of this subject amtter, having thought of, but for the correct reasons, all of Velikovsky’s principal arguments which are used to justify his thesis post hoc, almost all.
     And it was Wildt who has correctly identified methane in the atmosphere of Jupiter, and Saturn, in the 1930’s, and he proposed that other simple hydrocarbons were to be found there, which indeed turns out to be correct. In fact, just in the last few months, acetylene and ethane have been found in the atmosphere of Jupiter, in small quantities.
     We have done laboratory experiments in which we duplicate the methane, ammona, hydrogen, and probably water, which exist in the atmosphere of Jupiter, supply energy sources to it, and fid that a large range of organic compounds are produced, including the precursors of amino acids. For this reason we think that Jupiter is of substantial interest for pre-biological organic chemistry, and I do think that organic matter is dropping form the skies of Jupiter like manna from heaven. It’s on Earth where I have difficulty understanding manna from heaven. Jupiter makes perfect sense.

KING:
     The two previous talks were directed largely to Dr. Velikovsky, and I think he should be the next one to comment on them.

VELIKOVSKY:
     I think that Professor King made the right decision, and I thank Professor Michelson for agreeing to speak in the evening.
     Actually, Professor Michelson was selected by the organizers of this Symposium to discuss the subject of celestial mechanics, requiring advanced knowledge in mathematics and physics. He is international authority in his field and I am pleased to say that I will yield to him to answer manythings that I would have answered to Professor Mulholland.
     However, one thing I wish to say. All what Professor Mulholland mentioned here was based again on the assumption that noting had happened and could not have happened in the past, and therefore it must have begun as it goes. But this is not a law; this is a principle—

MULHOLLAND [overlapping]:
     I’m sorry, that’s not true, That was no assumption. These were observations.

VELIKOVSKY:
     Yes.

MULHOLLAND:
     Data, not assumptions.

VELIKOVSKY:
     One of my data wass that electromagnetic phenomena do participate, to whatever extent, in the celestial mechanic, and other catastrophic circumstances to much greater effect than, of course, a normal condition.
     The discovery, for example of Professor Danjon, Director of Paris Observatory, that made sensation when he announced it, in the summer of 1960, at Helsinki, about the change in the rotation of the Earth, if only in milliseconds, following a flare, a regular flare on the Sun, was unbelieved by those who atended the International Geophysical Union session. But then it was confirmed, in Helsinki again.
     So these electromagnetic phenomena were entirely not in calculated [that is, calculated in, included in the calculations], but when now the celestial mechanics is presented in textbooks, the authors, like Clemence and others who are great authority in the field, have excused themselves, saying they knowingly omit phenomena that certainly do exist, but they do not in calculate [that is, calculate them in]. They still go by pre-Faraday astronomy. Of course, Newton was not to blame. Evening I will read a sentence from Newton, becuase he was farsighted. He saw the phenomena which I—well—had long battle for with astronomical society. I was considered outcast exactly for, more than for anything else, for claiming that, besides inertia and gravitation, also electromagnetic forces and fields do participate, and on one of my letters, the late Einstein worte, “Yes,” this was the main cause of the great agitation against you.
     Now, as to Professor Sagan—[laughter, applause]

VOICE:
     That’s good. Right there.

VELIKOVSKY:
     —let me quote one single sentence from his new book. In his new book he says, “Jokes are a way of dealing with anxiety.” [laughter, applause] And this is exactly what I said in my lecture. I wrote it before I read his book. I bought it only here, in San Francisco.
     Well, you hear jokes. It is easy to put in a book something what is not there, and then make it a joke. I believe this is an action of a person who defend a position that is undefendable. [applause]
     I would not have spoke on this subject now, but I heard that Professor Sagan will not attend the evening session, when we would have more time to discuss the matter, and since he is not prepared, or made advacne—well—agreement on being somewhere else, though this Symposium already being prepared for more than half a year, so how advance could it have been? I would like to confront him in the evening, and i have with what to confront.
     Nevertheless, to put into my book the story about Moses opening the sea, or Joshua asking the Sun to stop still, and then at the nick of a moment here coming the comet and do what Joshua or Moses asked, where I clearly said that these things are entirely fabulation of folklore, that the story as it is need to be searched from one place to another place.
     And though Professor Sagan claimed that he is not versed in mythology or folklore, but he went into that area, and had some ideas. But I already discussed these ideas, I think to satisfaction of those who deals with question of mythology, because mythology has a reason in fact, a basis in fact. It was not just carried from one population, from one island to another. The story were told differently, but the theme is always the same.
     Now, again, to put into my book story that frogs were faloling fromt he sky—not in his lecture here, but according to a tape recording of a lecture before tuition-fee paying students at Cornell—that frogs were falling from the sky, and this [was] what Velikovsky said, and I said exactly the opposite, that frogs were the brood of the Earth, because the quotes in the Bible is exactly to this.
     He said also that mice were falling from the sky. Now, well, mice? Well—You need to know the Ten Plagues. There was no Mice Plague among the Ten Plagues. And certainly warm-blooded animals did not fall from there.
     I even did not claim that flies came with Venus. I put in that way: It could be` it is anybody[’s] guess. So the idea of contaminationof the EArth goes back to the beginning of the century, and you can find it in wok of a Swedish geo-physicist of that age.
     Now, again, as to the life on Venus, and the Venus clouds—
     By the way, the story of the fogs falling from the sky was also a matter of discussion on the third of December when Jupiter probe, Pioneer X, passed by, and [there] was a press conference, and there was a confrontation between [Sagan and] Professor James Wawick, whom I never met, who demanded a fair treatment to me, claiming for me the advance claim of Jupiter noises. Now, well, this is one of the cases where Velikovsky made generalized statements. Jupiter noises, so clear as this, and who else said it?
     So again Professor Sagan said, what is Jupiter noises? Frogs were falling from Jupiter clouds. But in the book, just I wuote it now, 1974, he claims that—well, some few things. One of the things is that on Mars there may be animals today, of the size of polar bears, they sleep thousand-year hibernation sleep, and they get their food by, well, eating or taking stores into their mouth and extracting water from the stones. Well, somebody who comes with those ideas should be very careful to criticize. [laughter] Well— Well-documented, from many civilization, idea of contamination of the Earth by some larvas coming with cometary tails, which I did not subscribe [to], but presented for discusssion.
     Now, again, let me ask about the correctness of prediction. In that new book I read that Professor Sagan claimed for himself such clear predictions in 1963 that Venus is very hot, and that Venus has many atmospheric pressures, and he claimed that he said it already in 1962.
     Well, possibly he said it in 1962, but I have with me an article in Science from 1961, where he claimed that if the atmosphere is 600, and it was already stated by Professor Meyer in 1956. As soon as Jupiter noises were found, all planets were subjected to tests. Venus was found producing certain radiation, and htis was not of the same length as from Jupiter, so it was not of the same kind. It was thermal signals. Now, these thermal signals would be like 600 degrees. It was not believed that 600 degree could be right. Sagan belived that it could be right, 600 degrees, but he said if the surface temperature is 600 degree, Venus would then be approximately four atmospheric pressures, and this is Science and this is twenty-fourth March, ’61.
     Now he claims in his new book, that in ’62 he was such a great prophet that he claimed already fifty presures. Well, from one year to another—

VOICE:
     He’s not perfect.

VELIKOVSKY:
     No.

VOICE:
     He’s not perfect.

VELIKOVSKY:
     He’s not perfect. [applause]
     Now he is opposing hydrocarbons on Venus. But I will quote some authorities concerning hydrocarbons on Venus. For example, here is an authority who says that about possible existence of some hydrocarbons in the lower atmosphere. Will you agree with this statement, Professor Sagan?

SAGAN:
     Well, what was the statement? There is a possibility—

VELIKOVSKY:
     Possible existence of hydrocarbons—

SAGAN:
     How much?

VELIKOVSKY:
     —in the lower atmosphere.

SAGAN:
     How much?

VELIKOVSKY:
     Not a question of how much.

SAGAN:
     Yes, it is a question of how much. In fact, that’s the theme which cause the most difficulty in this area. Remember [?]—

VELIKOVSKY:
     There are at the end of Worlds in Collision two section dealing with physical condition on Venus. In one I dealt with the constituency of the clouds and atmosphere, and I explained where, if there are hydrocarbons, to look for them; I said also how hydrocarbons could have been created from methane and ammonia. And this was confirmed ten years later by experiments, exatly this how it was done.
     I claimed also later, in 1951, how hydrocarbons could be changed into carbohydrates, and this was in debate with Stewart that I mentioned before, in June ’51, of Harper’s.
     Now, again, second section dealt with the thermal balance of Venus. And there I said if oxygen is still there, there must by hydrocarbon or petroleum fires. Now, you understand all right that if there is heat, as it is, and if there is oxygen, and if there are fires, hydrocarbon would not last. Actually if it is still there, it would only be a time clock to find out how long the process is going on. The ther way of transforming would be in[to] carbohydrates. But nevertheless, little or much, are hydrocarbons there? It is not the question of quantity` it is question of quality.
     Do you agree with this statement, that I claim, that hydrocarbons could be there?

SAGAN:
     Do I answer?

VELIKOVSKY:
     Yes.

KING:
     Would you please answer into the micro—

VELIKOVSKY:
     I would ask first this question, becasue immediately I will continue.

SAGAN:
     You made a number of statements. Let me try to answer some of them.

VELIKOVSKY:
     No, maybe I would continue, then you answer the others, but this I would ask.

SAGAN:
     We are running our of time, and I am running out of remembering what your comments were. So how about letting me make some responses, and—

VELIKOVSKY:
     Well, I wish to continue on this one question. [laughter]

SAGAN:
     Well, why don’t you let me answer, and then you can continue.

KING:
     Please let him answer.

VELIKOVSKY:
     No, because I am in the middle of an argument about hydrocarbons. [laughter]

SAGAN:
     You’re not in the middle of an argument if you don’t let me answer.

VOICE [to Sagan]:
     Say yes or no and sit down.

VELIKOVSKY [to Sagan]:
     Well, if you wish.,

SAGAN:
     I’ll be glad to respond. No, you see, it is not just a yes or not question. Let me say why.

VOICE:
     Why not?

SAGAN:
     I’ll explain.

VOICE:
     Then qualify it first, sir.

SAGAN:
     Many of the difficulties with the Velikovskian approach is the absence of quantitative thinking. So it’s no enough to say, for example, that I said there were going to be large magnetic effects, and [it] turns out that Jupiter has a magnetic field of six gauss or whatever. There is bound to be some residual magnetism everywhere. There is bound to be, just as in the Earth’s oxidizing atmosphere there are today hydrocarbons. Methane is one part per million of the Earth’s atmosphere. That has nothing to do with manna. It has nothing to do with any of this. If you look closely enogh you are going to find a large number of things.
     Let me try to respond to a few of the remarks Dr. Velikovsky has made, and then I’ll be gald to hear the resto fo this discussion and, if I can, try to respond to that.
     In his response thus far, there has been very little substantive commentary on my remarks, but, on the other hand, he hasn’t heard many of them befor enow, so I don’t object to that. [Actually, Velikovsky had heard almost all of them before.]
     The idea of oxygen burning fires on Venus is very bizarre, because Venus would come from Jupiter. Jupiter has an excess of hydrogne. There can be no oxygen on Jupiter. It would all have been reacted with hydrogen to form water. Therefore, there should be no oxygen on Venus, and, indeed, there is none, as has been clearly shown by ground-based spectroscopic observations.
     Dr. Velikovsky has criticized me for having changed my mind. I do not consider that to be a serious flaw. I think that it is precisely the ability to change one’s mind which is the method by which sicence advances, and the unwillingness to change one’s mind, the idea [an idea that Velikovsky has never presented!] that texts are canonical and need no revision in the light of twenty-five years of subsequent study, that I find more strange.
     I do not consider this to be a debate between my theories and Dr. Velikovsky’s theories. As I understood the function of this Symposium, it is merely to discuss Dr. Velikovsky’s views in “Worlds in Collision.”
     To respond specifically to the remark he made, between 1961 and 1962 a significant change in our knowledge of Venus has occurred. It was the question of whether the atmosphere was mostly nitrogen or mostly carbon dioxide. Nitrogen had been deduced there by default. We then realized that the spectroscopic deductions were in error. The atmosphere was therefore mostly carbon dioxide. Therefore, the specific heat at constant pressure was different. Therefore, the adiabatic temperature gradient was different, and, therefore, to get down to 650 or 750 Kelvin you had to go much further down the adiabatic gradient, and therefore you got to much higher pressures. And it is precisely because we learned something new that we changed our views, and by 1962 the views that several of us had proposed turn out to be correct.
     Now, on the question of frogs, mice, toads [no one mentioned toads before, not even Sagan], flies and other vermin from the skies, it is quite true that Velikovsky does not say that mice fell, nor in this lecture, have I. [The words “in this lecture” were spoken with such rapidity as to be unnoticed by most of those in the audience.] It is almost true that Velikovsky says that frogs have not fallen. I say “almost true,” because he quotes an Iranian text, in apparent approval, which Iranian text seems to show frogs from the sky. [The Iranian text and other such texts are discussed in Worlds in Collision, pages 183-187, which Sagan is totally garbling.] But he does not say that. He says “probably” or words to that effect. [Actually, Velikovsky’s words were “must be,” which are hardly to the same effect as Sagan’ “probably.”] It was the heat produced by this cometary interaction which caused indigenous terrestrial frogs to proliferate.
     That’s fine, but notice that Velikovsky is now asking to have it both ways. Some of the plagues come from space, and others do not. Now, what is the decision as to which ones to accept and which ones not to accept based upon? A consistent view would be to say either “I have believed the accounts in Exodus” or “I don’t ” But to say “I will choose to accept some and not others” is very strange. [These questions are ones that are answered in Velikovsky’s writings. Even if Sagan has never consulted the written answers, he should be able to recall how Velikovsky answered these questions no more than fifteen minutes earlier in the discussion. Velikovsky repeated once again that “mythology has a reason in fact, a basis in fact.” Velikovsky accepts those elements of the mythological stories that have a plausible physical explanation and that are independently reported by different peoples. The stories “are told very differently, but the theme is always the same.” Local embellishments that have no plausible physical epxlanation “are entirely fabulation of folklore,” and each “story as it need[s] to be searched from one place to another place,” if the common theme is to be found. See also Velikovsky’s “Afterword,” where he explains that he rejects any local embellishments that do not have a plausible physical basis, is not testified to by other people, and is therefore to be regarded as an inaccurate elaboration by one people upon what actually transpired.” Sagan’s continueing need to describe his own garbled version of Velikovsky as “very strange” is itself “very strange.]
     Let me give one specific example.

KING:
     With all due respect,—

SAGAN [overlapping]:
     OK. One second.

KING:
     —I think you are introducing new material rather than respoding.

SAGAN:

     No, I am trying to respeond to the question about frogs and mice. [applause]
     Exodus states that manna fell every day for forty years, with the exception of the sabbath. It did not fall on Saturdays. Instead a double portion fell every Friday. [laughter] It didn’t actually say fell. It said appeared. But, using the Velikovskian verb, let’s say fell. [The verb is not Velikovskian, but biblical: Nubers 11:9 says, “the manna fell.”]
     Now it seems to me to pose seriuos problems with Velikovsky’s hypothesis. How 1010 kilometers net path away from Earth, did the compet know to hold back on Saturdays but to give a double ration on Fridays? [Herre, again, Sagan displays no understanding of what Velikovsky’s views are. The 1010 kilometers is the approximate distance that Venus might have traveled during forty years. This, of course, has nothing to do with Velikovsky’s theory, which is that various materials from Venus were transferred to Earth’s atmosphere at the time of the Exodus. These materials were modified in Earth’s atmosphere and over a period of time precipitated out of Earth’s atmosphere. Sagan’s idea of a dialy shipment from Venus to Earth, transported over the distance that Venus has covered since the Exodus (which was many times greater than the distance between Earth and Venus at any given moment], is entirely his own invention, and proves nothing, except that he is quite ignorant about the theory that he is attacking.]
     So this is something that, of course, we see is absurd, so we do not invoke it. But why not? Why this preferential use of the fraction of Exodus which seems to match some preconceptions, ad the avoidance of other things in Exodus?
     If I had to choose—and we certainly don’t have to choose, fortunately—but if we had to choose, is not the evidence almost as good as for the God of Moses as for the comet of Velikovsky? [This rhetorical question is essentailly the last sentence of Sagan’s paper, which he had omitted when he read the paper.]

KING:
     The time is almost ten after one. I will hope that Dr. Velikovsky can give his present answers in five minutes and then postpone everyting else until the evening.
     ... [inaudible] ...

VELIKOVSKY:
     On the one hand I am accused of having gone into too many fields. On the other hand I am accused o having not gone far enough, and not calculated everything to last detail. I left something for Sagan to do. [laughter]
     As to the question of the energy required for explosion from Jupiter, I discussed this subject in a special issue of Yale Scientific Magazine, dedicated completely to the question of my thesis of Venus being a young planet. It was April 1967, and there, with Professor Motz as my opponent, Lloyd Motz of Columbia University, I discussed and explained this subject.
     It was not a king of volcanic explosion. It was a fission of the planet being disturbed in a way how also British cosmologist, Lyttleton, describes in Man’s Veiw of the Universe—it’s a popular work—1961, page 36, but also a year before in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in England, namely, how Jupiter had to come out of embarrassing situation by splitting in two unequal parts.
     This of course Lyttleton put much farther in time, but the argument is even better if you know my argumens in the two volumes that precede Earth in Upheaval [meaning Worlds in Collision], describing the events concerning flood, universal flood, and other catastrophic events of the time. [Velikovsky is here referring to Saturn and the Flood and to Jupiter of the Thunderbolt, the two volumes that describe the earlier catastrophes, those that preceded “the last two acts of the cosmic drama” that are described in Worlds in Collision.]
     As to the figures of mathematician and physicist, how they thow them! One less I had to give. Professor Straka, of Boston University, presented his piece, with calculation, with figures, to Pensée. It was printed in the second issue of Pensée dealing with Velikovsky. There are altogether ten, six already out, seventh to go to print soon, [it] will have all of these debates in it probably.
     Now, in that occasion I took to give lesson to a mathematician. Read it. Read the figures, how they are put together, how [they] are brought before the lay public, and then read my answer.
     I received a letter from Arthur Clarke in Ceylon. He says he would like to be present in the class of Straka, when sutdents would bring that article into the class.
     I don’t claim to be a mathematician, and I leave this work to others, and I am happy that Professor Michelson, who started entirely uncommitted, not selected by me—not even asked I was whether I agree to selection of Professor Michelson. He will present to you in this evening—and I strongly advise you to be present—with complete answer to Professor Mulholland. Though he is not a philologist, not an historian. He will not go into this field. But he willcome with two great calcuations that will be something in science to remember, of his own.
     Now, as to question of manna and Saturday, you see another joke. Of course I didn’t say in my book, as if in my book is spoken about manna falling six days in the week and not on Saturday. Of course I did not say this. Of course I did not say that the Israelites were much more fortunate than the Egyptians. At the Sea of Passage many of them perished. In the Plague of Darkness, despite the biblical statement, other rabbinical statements say that forty-nine of fifty Israelites perished during the Plague of Darkness.
     So I stressed these points, this disagreement with the Bible. I am not a fundamentalist at all, and I oppose fundamentalism. So this brining story of manna as if it is my story is, of course, not serving the purpose of scientific debate.
     Now, as to the oxygen on Venus, I think Professor Sagan is just wrong. The Russian probes found small quantities of oxygen below the clouds. Not did not find. They found it. And they found that it is a hot, oxidizing atmosphere, and so it is referred to numerous time in the recent literature in America, too. So how not to know this, if Sagan serves also as editor of a magazine on planetary sciences?
     Now, as to prediction in general, on this I stand: Nobody yet brought a wrong prediction of mine. Some thing is not yet completely confirmed.
     The question of clouds on Venus, what it consists, is a question still of debate. But I asked something [of] Professor Sagan. He interrupted me, and he did not go into that question. And the question was whether he agrees with the idea that hydrocarbons are in lower atmosphere of Venus. He did not answer, but this was quotation from his article. [laughter].
      Now, he also did not answer other questions, but let us say taht he prentends that he did not claim me writring in my book about frogs falling from the sky, and mice, too. Now he says he didn’t say about mice, but this is on the tape. The tape exists. [Sagan made this and other outrageous statements on March 28, 1973, in a widely publicized lecture on “Venus and Velikovsky.”]
     And about frogs, we have here, in Pens0e number VI, also from a tape, discussion between Professor Warwick and Sagan on third of December, and Sagan say here, clearly: “Let me. Velikovsky explicitly predicts the presence of frogs and flies int he clouds of Jupiter,” and here you heard that he says, no, he didn’t say some things like this. But he said it only on third of December. So—

KING:
     May I ask you, since it’s a quarter after one, to stop?

VELIKOVSKY:
     Yes, I am finishing with this. On this point I stop. I think that Professor Sagan, claiming water on the clouds, and there are none; claiming lower temperature, pressure, and it happened to be very high (of course subsequently he changed his view); and claiing now organic materials, and even life, in the clouds of Venus, and we heard here something contradictory to this, and this is another article of his. So if somebody has six days in the week for six opinions, he maybe sometimes be right, too. But with me, it happened so, that my claims were made long in advance of the findings.
     And thank you. [applause]

KING:
     May I thank Professor Michelson again for graciously allowing his talk to be postponed till the evening.
     [aside] Yes.
     I would like to make one ... [inaudible]
     ... [inaudible] ...

QUESTIONER:
     I would like to requst that Professor Sagan be asked to continue his point of view.

VOICES:
     ... [inaudible]...

QUESTIONER:
     I present it to the podium. If one man made the sacrifice of allowing him to continue, I think he should make the sacrifice to attempt to stay here.

KING:
     When I was describing the genesis of this Symposium, I mentioned that A.A.A.S. put this Symposium together out of a feeling that the work of Dr. Velikovsky was worth presenting at a public forum. What I did not mention at that time was that Professor Sagan is not only a vigorous defender of science, he is also a vigorous defender of scientific freedom, and the suggestion that we hold this Symposium came directly from Professor Sagan. [This is false; the suggestion that A.A.A.S. should hold such a Symposium was first put forward by Walter Orr Roberts. Robers’ idea was later “supported” by Sagan and others.]
     The meeting is now adjourned.

*      *      *

 

THE EVENING SESSION

GOLDSMITH:

     How about now? Is this better?

     My name's Donald Goldsmith. I'll be the chairman of tonight’s .session. We will have until ten o'clock, at which lime, by the rules of the A.A.A.S. and the hotel, all thes other things that have been worked out, to get the room ready for tomorrow, we'll have used up the time allotted to us, all too short—[filled -up] the morning. We'll have a full aiscusssion of all the points people would like to discuss. So that I'd like to urge you to be short in your answers, short in your questions.. It would be nice if there were not enough people who had a lot to say, so that we could have a full, complete discussion. But I’m afraid that that will not be the case, and it'll be of extreme importance to use the time.
     We'll start tonight with a talk by Professor Michelson, which he so kindly postponed until this evening: in order to allow for the extra time that was used up during the morning session. And after he speaks, we'll go into a panel format, with the members at the morning discussion here, who will answer questions, I hope never speaking more than one at a time, or perhaps two or three at a time. at a maximum. We have a microphone in the audience for those who wish to ask questions, make it easier, so that people won't have to get up and down here. And with luck we can have a reasonable exchange of views. With bad luck, we'll simply run out of time and all go home a little bit disgruntled. So we'll first have a talk by Professor Irving Michelson of the Illinois institute of Technology, who will speak to us on the topic of "Mechanics Bears Witness." Professor Michelson.

MICHELSON:

     [Michelson’s paper, entitled "Mechanics Bearn Witness,” was presented at this point.]
     That's all I have. [applause]

GOLDSMITH:
      Thank you, Professor Michelson.
      Before we go to the panel discussions, we will have a brief discussion period concerning the talk which Professor Mtchelson has just given. I will take questions from the audience for a brief while. Let me first call on—Professor Mulholland?

MULHOLLAND:
     I would like to point out, with respect to this last calculation here, which produced such remarkable results, in a correspondence between the energy required to flip Lhe Earth over and the energy expended in a solar flare of great magnitude [Michelson had spoken of a geomagnetic storm, not a solar flare!], falls a little short when one realizes, that the Earth, as seen from the Sun, represents rather less than ten to the minus eighth power of the total space into which the energy of that flare is expelled. Therefore, the 1023 ergs results in less than 1015 ergs at the Earth. Thank you.