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
excerpt:
“...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— ...
http://www.varchive.org/lec/aaas/transcripts.htm
That is a pretty mangled transcript. It’s pretty clear Velikovsky wasn’t permitted to correct the record officially.
Do you know if he did so unofficially?
The man wrote quite well, and so I imagine he could speak quite well too. But someone unfamiliar with his work might would walk away after reading a portion of the AAAS accounting and think the man was less erudite than he was. How convenient.