Broca's Brain (22 page)

There are many strange inconsistencies in
Worlds in Collision
, but on the next-to-last page of the book,
a breathtaking departure from the fundamental thesis is casually introduced. We read of a hoary and erroneous analogy between the structures of solar systems and of atoms. Suddenly we are presented with the hypothesis that the supposed errant motions of the planets, rather than being caused by collisions, are instead the result of changes in the quantum energy levels of planets attendant to the absorption of a photon—or perhaps several. Solar systems are held together by gravitational forces; atoms by electrical forces. While both forces depend on the inverse square of distance, they have totally different characters and magnitudes: as one of many differences, there are positive and negative electrical charges, but only one sign of gravitational mass. We understand both solar systems and atoms well enough to see that Velikovsky’s proposed “quantum jumps” of planets are based on a misunderstanding of both theories and evidence.

To the best of my knowledge, in
Worlds in Collision
there is not a single correct astronomical prediction made with sufficient precision for it to be more than a vague lucky guess—and there are, as I have tried to point out, a host of demonstrably false claims. The existence of strong radio emission from Jupiter is sometimes pointed to as the most striking example of a correct prediction by Velikovsky, but all objects give off radio waves if they are at temperatures above absolute zero. The essential characteristics of the Jovian radio emission—that it is nonthermal, polarized, intermittent radiation, connected with the vast belts of charged particles which surround Jupiter, trapped by its strong magnetic field—are nowhere predicted by Velikovsky. Further, his “prediction” is clearly not linked in its essentials to the fundamental Velikovskian theses.

Merely guessing something right does not necessarily demonstrate prior knowledge or a correct theory. For example, in an early science-fiction work dated 1949, Max Ehrlich imagined a near-collision of the Earth with another cosmic object, which filled the sky and terrorized the inhabitants of the Earth. Most frightening was the fact that on this passing planet was a natural feature
which looked very much like a huge eye. This is one of many fictional and serious antecedents to Velikovsky’s idea that such collisions happen frequently. But that is not my point. In a discussion of how it is that the side of the Moon facing the Earth has large smooth maria while the averted face of the Moon is almost free of them, John Wood of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory proposed that the side of the Moon now turned toward the Earth was once at the edge, or limb, of the Moon, on the leading hemisphere of the Moon’s motion about the Earth. In this position it swept up, billions of years ago, a ring of debris which surrounded the Earth and which may have been involved in the formation of the Earth-Moon system. By Euler’s laws, the Moon must then have altered its rotation axis to correspond to its new principal moment of inertia, so that its leading hemisphere then faced the Earth. The remarkable conclusion is that there would have been a time, according to Wood, when what is now the eastern limb of the Moon would have been facing the Earth. But the eastern limb of the Moon has an enormous collision feature, billions of years old, called Mare Orientale, which looks very much like a giant eye. No one has suggested that Ehrlich was relying upon a racial memory of an event three billion years old when he wrote
The Big Eye.
It is merely a coincidence. When enough fiction is written and enough scientific hypotheses are proposed, sooner or later there will be accidental concordances.

With these enormous liabilities, how is it that
Worlds in Collision
has been so popular? Here I can only guess. For one thing, it is an attempted validation of religion. The old Biblical stories are literally true, Velikovsky tells us, if only we interpret them in the right way. The Jewish people, for example, saved from Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings and innumerable other disasters by obliging cometary intervention, had every right, he seems to be saying, to believe themselves chosen. Velikovsky attempts to rescue not only religion but also astrology: the outcomes of wars, the fates of whole peoples, are determined by the positions of the
planets. In some sense, his work holds out a promise of the cosmic connectedness of mankind—a sentiment with which I sympathize, but in a somewhat different context
(The Cosmic Connection)
—and the reassurance that ancient peoples and other cultures were not so very dumb, after all.

The outrage that seems to have seized many otherwise placid scientists upon colliding with
Worlds in Collision
has produced a chain of consequences. Some people are quite properly put off by the occasional pomposity of scientists, or are concerned by what they apprehend as the dangers of science and technology, or perhaps merely have difficulty understanding science. They may take some comfort in seeing scientists get their lumps.

In the entire Velikovsky affair, the only aspect worse than the shoddy, ignorant and doctrinaire approach of Velikovsky and many of his supporters was the disgraceful attempt by some who called themselves scientists to suppress his writings. For this, the entire scientific enterprise has suffered. Velikovsky makes no serious claim of objectivity or falsiflability. There is at least nothing hypocritical in his rigid rejection of the immense body of data that contradicts his arguments. But scientists are supposed to know better, to realize that ideas will be judged on their merits if we permit free inquiry and vigorous debate.

To the extent that scientists have not given Velikovsky the reasoned response his work calls for, we have ourselves been responsible for the propagation of Velikovskian confusion. But scientists cannot deal with all areas of borderline science. The thinking, calculations and preparation of this chapter, for example, took badly needed time away from my own research. But it was certainly not boring, and at the very least I had a brush with many an enjoyable legend.

The attempt to rescue old-time religion, in an age which seems desperately to be seeking some religious roots, some cosmic significance for mankind, may or may not be creditable. I think there is much good and
much evil in the old-time religions. But I do not understand the need for half-measures. If we are forced to choose between them—and we
decidedly
are not—is the evidence not better for the God of Moses, Jesus and Muhammed than for the comet of Velikovsky?

THROUGHOUT
human history there have been attempts to contrive rational arguments to convince skeptics of the existence of a God or gods. But most theologians have held that the ultimate reality of divine beings is a matter for faith alone and is inaccessible to rational endeavor. St. Anselm argued that since we can imagine a perfect being, he must exist—because he would not be perfect without the added perfection of existence. This so-called ontological argument was more or less promptly attacked on two grounds: (1)
Can
we imagine a completely perfect being? (2)
Is
it obvious that perfection is augmented by existence? To the modern ear such pious arguments seem to be about words and definitions rather than about external reality.

More familiar is the argument from design, an approach that penetrates deeply into issues of fundamental scientific concern. This argument was admirably summarized by David Hume: “Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it; you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines.… All these various machines, even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the production of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man; though possessed of much larger faculties proportioned to the grandure of the work which he has executed.”

Hume then goes on to subject this argument, as did Immanuel Kant after him, to a devastating and compelling
attack, notwithstanding which the argument from design continued to be immensely popular—as, for example, in the works of William Paley—through the early nineteenth century. A typical passage by Paley goes: “There cannot be a design without a designer; contrivance without a contrivor; order without choice; arrangement without anything capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office and accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind.”

It was not until the development of modern science, but most particularly the brilliant formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, put forth by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859, that these apparently plausible arguments were fatally undermined.

There can, of course, be no disproof of the existence of God—particularly a sufficiently subtle God. But it is a kindness neither to science nor religion to leave unchallenged inadequate arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, debates on such questions are good fun, and at the very least, hone the mind for useful work. Not much of this sort of disputation is in evidence today, perhaps because new arguments for the existence of God which can be understood at all are exceedingly rare. One recent and modern version of the argument from design was kindly sent to me by its author, perhaps to secure constructive criticism.

NORMAN BLOOM
is a contemporary American who incidentally believes himself to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Bloom observes in Scripture and everyday life numerical coincidences which anyone else would consider meaningless. But there are so many such coincidences that, Bloom believes, they can be due only to an unseen intelligence, and the fact that no one else
seems to be able to find or appreciate such coincidences convinces Bloom that he has been chosen to reveal God’s presence. Bloom has been a fixture at some scientific meetings where he harangues the hurrying, preoccupied crowds moving from session to session. Typical Bloom rhetoric is “And though you reject me, and scorn me, and deny me, YET ALL WILL BE BROUGHT ONLY BY ME. My will will be, because I have formed you out of the nothingness. You are the Creation of My Hands. And I will complete My Creation and Complete My Purpose that I have Purposed from of old. I AM THAT I AM. I AM THE LORD THY GOD IN TRUTH.” He is nothing if not modest, and the capitalization conventions are entirely his.