Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This book is a real travesty. It is a vicious, disorganized, and utterly illogical personal attack on Carl Sagan. Despite the extensive references, the reader should not be persuaded to believe that this volume represents anything remotely approaching scholarship. The author does not know how to provide citations (no year on journals, no publishers) and a good many of the citations are incorrect. Things placed in quotes are not always exact quotations. These are of course only minor irritations. The main difficulty is with the content. On virtually every page there are errors in fact or logic, non sequiturs, or irrelevancies. Here are a few random examples: 1) On page 56 Ginenthal provides two rebuttals to Sagan's complaint that Velikovsky almost completely ignores the question of synchronism of legends. The first rebuttal, a quote from V., is irrelevant since it refers to the time of day, not the historic period. The second quote is not from Velikovsky! (and has other problems as well). 2) On page 379 and 380, Ginenthal quotes someone named Willhelm who claims that V. says that Mars gave to Earth certain gases and not vice versa, against Sagan's statement that V. indicates that the gases were exchanged between the planets. I direct the reader to page 368 0f the 1977 Pocket Book edition of Worlds in Collision where V. states "In all theses contacts between Venus, the Earth, and Mars, there was an exchange of atmospheres ...". 3) On page 373, Ginenthal claims that Sagan supported a theory that the moons of Mars are artificial, indeed it is treated (middle of page) as though it is his theory (see also page 420). However, the quote given by "Sagan" from Intelligent Life in the Universe by Sagan and Shklovsky, needs to be followed up. In fact this book was an unusual joint project, wherein Sagan added notes and additional material. The material he added is clearly indicated using a typographic convention. The quote is NOT Sagan's but Shklovsky's. The reader needs to read the entire section on S. and S.'s book to appreciate how much Ginenthal has distorted the issue. In any event, the issue is entirely irrelevant to the V. debate but a convenient vehicle to attack Sagan. There are many, many examples like this that could be cited, and some are much more egregious scientifically but not easy to describe in a few words. The comments on orbits and collisions and the criticism of Sagan's rough probability calculations are extremely problematic. Some of the "scientific" discussions were incomprehensible to me (I am a professional mathematician). I would not advise anyone to bother purchasing this pile of nonsense unless, as I am, they are planning to present a lecture on pseudoscience.

Ginenthal here presents an excellent rebuttal of Sagan's critique of Velikovsky, succesfully countering 95% of his criticsms, and more importantly shows the (often) wholly unscientific approach of the so called scientific mainstream to the subject of recent Catastrophism. No doubt he will be criticized for daring to oppose this giant of 20th century astronomy, but I would urge readers to keep an open mind, do what Ginenthal suggests, and go back to the original texts, rather than basing an attack on preconceived prejudices. If scientific study is to advance fruitfully into the next millenia (man), we could certainly do with a few more researchers who are not blinded by establishment dogma...

In only a thousand words??! How could anyone describe how bad this book is in a thousand words? The author starts out to prove that Sagan was wrong and ends up proving that he was right. This is about as bad as pseudoscience gets. I started off willing to be objective, but I started laughing after page eleven. Don't buy this book; it's simply silly and often so bad that I have to think the author meant to lie and cheat.