Charles Leroy Ellenberger (born 1942, known as C. Leroy) is perhaps best known as a one-time advocate, but now a critic of, controversial writer
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky (; rus, Иммануи́л Велико́вский, p=ɪmənʊˈil vʲɪlʲɪˈkofskʲɪj; 17 November 1979) was a Jewish, Russian-American psychoanalyst, writer, and catastrophist. He is the author of several books offering ...
and his works on catastrophism. He first read ''
Worlds in Collision
''Worlds in Collision'' is a book by Immanuel Velikovsky published in 1950. The book postulates that around the 15th century BC, the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and passed near Earth (an actual collisio ...
'' in 1969. In 1979, he became a contributing editor (and later Senior Editor & Executive Secretary) to the Velikovsky-inspired
Kronos journal, and has contributed material to many other publications. In 1980 he was selected by the editor of ''Astronomy'' magazine to debate
James Oberg
James Edward Oberg (born November 7, 1944) is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian and Chinese space programs. He had a 22-year career as a space engineer in NASA specializing in orbital rendezvous. Ob ...
on Velikovsky.
His confidence in the validity of Velikovsky's ideas was shaken in January 1982 when
Kronos sponsored his attendance at the semi-annual
AAAS meeting in Washington, D.C., in order to distribute information on Velikovsky. In a wide-ranging conversation with Jeremy Cherfas, then a writer for the British weekly science magazine
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...
over how the press misunderstood Velikovsky, Cherfas had counter-arguments to many points that Ellenberger was not able to rebut. According to Professor of Social Theory
Alfred de Grazia
Alfred de Grazia (December 29, 1919 – July 13, 2014), born in Chicago, Illinois, was a political scientist and author. He developed techniques of computer-based social network analysis in the 1950s, developed new ideas about personal digital ar ...
at New York University, "By 1983 Ellenberger was preparing to abandon much of
quantavolution and found now that the story of Velikovsky was not without its shady tones, and more important, that Arctic ice cores and bristlecone pine dating technologies were directly contradicting Holocene quantavolutions . . . ; further, that
Gentry's studies of the surprising 'instant'
polonium halos of creation . . . were probably invalid."
Henry Bauer
Henry Hermann Bauer (born November 16, 1931) is an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He is the author of several books and articles on fringe science, arguing ...
described Ellenberger's role in the Velikovsky scene as follows: ". . . was a confidant to Velikovsky, a frequent visitor (often with camera) from April 1978 to his death in November 1979, and a Senior Editor of the Velikovskian journal ''
Kronos'', until the evidence forced him to conclude that Velikovsky's scientific claims were baseless. Velikovsky inscribed his copy of ''Ramses II and His Time'' 'To Leroy who is consumed by the sacred flame of search for truth', 20 May 1978, and gave him permission to sell 'Velikovsky's right!' T-shirts.
Alfred de Grazia
Alfred de Grazia (December 29, 1919 – July 13, 2014), born in Chicago, Illinois, was a political scientist and author. He developed techniques of computer-based social network analysis in the 1950s, developed new ideas about personal digital ar ...
, impetus for ''The Velikovsky Affair'' (1966), appointed him chronicler of the continuing Velikovsky controversy in 1980.
Ellenberger's last contact with Velikovsky was a phone call from him two days before he died." Also, he "has tried unceasingly but to little avail to have his former colleagues acknowledge the accumulating evidence, for example, from Greenland ice cores, that Velikovsky's claimed catastrophes did not in fact occur. Ellenberger points out, too, that Velikovsky's writings have become superfluous: astronomically plausible argument and speculation about relatively recent cosmic catastrophism can now be found in the work of
Victor Clube
Stace Victor Murray Clube (born 22 October 1934 in London) is an English astrophysicist.
He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and Christ Church, Oxford. in He played first-class cricket for Oxford University. He appeared seventeen ...
and
Bill Napier
William M. Napier (born 29 June 1940 in Perth, Scotland) is the author of five high tech thriller novels and a number of nonfiction science books.
Career
He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1963 and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in ...
(''The Cosmic Serpent'', 1982; ''The Cosmic Winter'', 1990), where the testimony of myth and historical records is also taken into account."
Ellenberger has degrees in
chemical engineering
Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...
and finance & operations research (B.S., Washington Univ.; M.B.A., Univ. of Pennsylvania). He is currently a Medical Article Retrieval Specialist in St. Louis, Missouri.
Velikovskian critic
In 1984, Ellenberger noted:
:" Over the past four years I have come to appreciate that, even if Velikovsky were right, there are good physical reasons why astronomers and other scientists have opposed him so tenaciously. Unfortunately, many of these reasons, often based on information developed since Velikovsky wrote his books, have never been discussed in Velikovskian forums or have never been discussed in a fully informed manner. Examples of the former include the Worzel Ash,
ice core
An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier. Since the ice forms from the incremental buildup of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper ones, and an ice core contains ic ...
s, and
plate tectonics
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...
. Examples of the latter include
tree rings
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
,
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
dynamics,
geomagnetism, and cosmic electricity.
:" Most often, spokesmen for mainstream science such as
Sagan,
Asimov,
Gardner, and
Oberg have not expressed their criticisms using valid arguments but, rather, tend to substitute
polemic
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
, ridicule, and caricature for serious discussion. The resulting performances are riddled with errors and are received by Velikovskian partisans with diminished credibility. Their fixation on Velikovsky's text to the exclusion of later researchers in ''
Pensée'' and
KRONOS has also been a source of frustration. As a result, focus has been shifted away from substantive criticism in depth with more cogent criticisms having gotten side-tracked."
Ellenberger's most widely read criticisms of Velikovsky were two 1985 correspondences to ''Nature'': "Falsifying Velikovsky" vol. 316, p. 386, and "Velikovsky's evidence?" vol. 318, p. 204, and two 1987 letters to the editor in New York ''Times'': May 15, p. 14, and August 29, p. 14. While citing these publications, Richard J. Huggett, Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Manchester, averred that Ellenberger "has, since his conversion to the anti-Velikovsky camp in 1984, relentlessly and mercilessly tried to show why Velikovsky's ideas were downright silly. . . ." The second ''Times'' letter was rebutted by Clark Whelton in a letter published September 29. Although the ''Times'' did not print Ellenberger's point-by-point surrebuttal to Whelton's letter, it was distributed (a) privately by mail with the September 1, 1987 "Dear Friends" letter and (b) to all attendees at the August 1990 "Reconsidering Velikovsky" Conference in Toronto.
In 1994, Ellenberger's invitation to a conference on Velikovsky was rescinded, due to other participants' stating that they would not attend if he participated. This incident came about through the efforts of a group of individuals who in 1992 had deleted the section "Magnetism, Dynamos and Neptune" from Ellenberger's memoir for ''Aeon'' that explained the ignorance of Velikovsky and many of his supporters concerning the role of electromagnetism in astronomy and the origin of planetary magnetic fields. Previously, he was an invited speaker at Milton Zysman's August 1990 "Reconsidering Velikovsky" Conference at University of Toronto, identified on the program as "Velikovsky's most unrelenting critic" who was interviewed for ''The Globe and Mail'', and he was the keynote speaker at the August 1992 Canadian Society for Interdisciplinary Studies conference in Haliburton, Ontario. He is also the author of the article "Top Ten Reasons Why Velikovsky Is Wrong About ''
Worlds In Collision
''Worlds in Collision'' is a book by Immanuel Velikovsky published in 1950. The book postulates that around the 15th century BC, the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and passed near Earth (an actual collisio ...
''" which he says:
:".. is based on 30 years exposure to Velikovsky's ideas which includes 8 years as an insider at the Velikovsky journal ''Kronos'' (1978 - 1986), confidant to Velikovsky (4/78 - 11/79), invited "Devil's Advocate" at ''Aeon'' ('88 - '91), and 13 years as a turncoat/critic interacting with Velikovsky's defenders and/or successors at conferences, in private, and in Usenet ('94 -'96) & list-serve forums."
Of these attempts to convince Velikovsky's supporters,
Henry Bauer
Henry Hermann Bauer (born November 16, 1931) is an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He is the author of several books and articles on fringe science, arguing ...
noted Ellenberger "has tried unceasingly but to little avail to have his former colleagues acknowledge the accumulating evidence, for example, from Greenland ice cores, that Velikovsky's claimed catastrophes did not in fact occur." His resignation from
''Kronos'' as senior editor in December 1986 was acknowledged by
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
, who previously noted Ellenberger's "vitriolic" letters defending Velikovsky. Regarding Ellenberger's defection, ''
Skeptic
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
'' editor
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of ''Skeptic'' magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientific ...
declared: "One major strike against
Velikovsky is that Leroy Ellenberger, a one-time Velikovsky supporter, after stepping outside of the
paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field.
Etymology
''Paradigm'' comes f ...
to examine the evidence in a clearer light, now completely rejects all tenets of the theory."
Sagan biographer Keay Davidson credits Ellenberger "In my experience" as "the single richest source of information on the Velikovsky controversy." Astronomer
Dennis Rawlins
Dennis Rawlins (born 1937) is an American astronomer and historian who has acquired the reputation of skeptic primarily with respect to historical claims connected to astronomical considerations. He is known to the public mostly from media cover ...
hails Ellenberger "the world's top anti-Velikovsky expert". NASA astronomer
David Morrison
Lieutenant General David Lindsay Morrison (born 24 May 1956) is a retired senior officer of the Australian Army. He served as Chief of Army from June 2011 until his retirement in May 2015. He was named Australian of the Year for 2016.
Early ...
, who has monitored the Velikovsky scene since 1972, has thanked Ellenberger for helping "to look at these issues from the other side and to appreciate how poorly the scientific critics communicated with the public." Ellenberger's role as a Velikovsky turncoat and critic has been recently affirmed by Ronald H. Fritze in ''Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions''. Princeton historian Michael Gordin acknowledged "a special debt of gratitude" to Ellenberger for his contributions to ''The Pseudoscience Wars''.
Clube and Napier's model
Ellenberger came to accept
Victor Clube
Stace Victor Murray Clube (born 22 October 1934 in London) is an English astrophysicist.
He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and Christ Church, Oxford. in He played first-class cricket for Oxford University. He appeared seventeen ...
and
Bill Napier
William M. Napier (born 29 June 1940 in Perth, Scotland) is the author of five high tech thriller novels and a number of nonfiction science books.
Career
He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1963 and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in ...
's model as a scientifically valid and intellectually satisfying replacement for Velikovsky-inspired models of recent, interplanetary catastrophism. Astronomer David Morrison noted "In fact, the work of Clube and Napier attracts many people who were once impressed by Velikovsky, such as Leroy Ellenberger, at one time a member of the Velikovsky inner circle and now one of the most outspoken critics of his current followers". Since 1990, Ellenberger has actively promoted Clube and Napier's model, now named "coherent catastrophism", in articles for ''Skeptic'', ''C&C Review'', and ''Catastrophism and Ancient History,'' letters to editors, and postcard mailing campaigns to Velikovskians.
[For example: 75 "To those interested in Velikovsky" dated Oct 24, 1990; 35 "A Guide to Velikovskian Studies", January 1991]
Google Groups
134 "Clube & Napier Update", August 2, 1994; 311 "Dawn Behind the Dawn", Oct 23, 1995; and 150 "The Nexus of History & Religion with Astronomy", Apr 27, 1996.
See also
* ''
Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis''
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellenberger, C. Leroy
1942 births
American skeptics
Catastrophism
Living people