Darwin and Velikovsky : Cataclysmic Metamorphic Evolution a Materialist Theory of Evolution Based on New Principles and Evidence

By Charles Ginenthal

The basis of evolutionary change, according to Ginenthal, is master genes that have been conserved from the time of the Cambrian explosion to the present. By following these master genes and using the fossil record as the true evidence of evolution, is it shown why no new phyla have developed since the Cambrian explosion and why the chronology for dating evolution is in serious error. Ginenthal then outlines the evolution of the vertebrates from their earliest appearance to the present via saltations that morph and metamorph new species at the times of Velikovskian global cataclysms. Throughout the book, Ginenthal elucidates how the master genes operate to do this and also presents new evidence connecting this process to physics. Those who read this volume will have an entirely new understanding of evolution and may never think about it in the same way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365833984

Book preview

Darwin and Velikovsky : Cataclysmic Metamorphic Evolution a Materialist Theory of Evolution Based on New Principles and Evidence

DARWIN & VELIKOVSKY

CATACLYSMIC METAMORPHIC

EVOLUTION:

A MATERIALIST THEORY

OF EVOLUTION BASED ON NEW

PRINCIPLES AND EVIDENCE

By Charles Ginenthal

DARWIN & VELIKOVSKY

DEDICATED TO

LYNN E. ROSE

THE VELIKOVSKIAN

A JOURNAL OF MYTH, HISTORY, AND SCIENCE

Quota pars operis tanti committitur?

Charles Ginenthal

Editor-in-Chief

Associate Editors

Irving Wolfe

Clark Whelton

Copy Editor

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Technical Consultant

Theodore Holden

Vol. XI, Nos 1, 2, 3, 4

Copyright© 2016

IVY PRESS BOOKS in association with Kronos Press

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

Today, our duty is to destroy the myth of [Darwinism] evolution, considered as a simple understood and explained phenomenon which we keep rapidly unfolding before us... The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies of falsity of their beliefs.

Pierre Paul Grasse

Evolution of Living Organisms (NY 1977, p. 8)

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

John Dewey The Copernican Revolution, John Dewey The Later Works Jo Ann Boydson ed. (Southern Illinois University 1984), p. 247

Dissatisfaction by various scientists with Darwin’s theory that evolution changed species quite gradually by mutations and Natural Selection has resulted in several new theories that explain these changes. Immanuel Velikovsky in his book, Earth In Upheaval (1955) presented the concept that evolution proceeds by saltation or jumps during periods of catastrophes in one or two generations. He was writing this at the time when Richard Goldschmidt’s theory, as presented in his book, The Material Basis of Evolution, claimed that evolution proceeded in one generational jumps. Velikovsky, at the time he wrote about evolution, was under a massive attack by nearly the entire scientific community for offering the concept that the solar system had been unstable thousands of years ago, based on his analysis of ancient records. The dismal and never-ending attacks and tactics employed by the scientist, historians, and the press echoing each other had deeply damaged Velikovsky reputation. For a broad picture of these deplorable tactics see Stephen J. Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky, Dale Ann Pearlman editor (Forest Hills, NY 1996) and Carl Sagan and Emmanuel Velikovsky by Charles Ginenthal (Tempe, AZ 1995).

Velikovsky clearly did not want to bring further attacks by citing Goldschmidt, omitted his work. There was, however, a distinct difference between his theory and that of Goldschmidt that may have caused Velikovsky not to cite him, namely that Velikovsky had a mechanism that existed in nature that created evolutionary jumps from one organic form to that of another—catastrophes—that Goldschmidt lacked and Velikovsky called his theory Cataclysmic Evolution.

This book is an analysis of evolution as conceptualized by Velikovsky, but in a sense is a defense of Goldschmidt’s theory, as well. It is to be sure, a rehabilitation of Goldschmidt, as well as an analysis of scientific evidence that supports Velikovsky that has been discovered over the past several decades, will be presented in this volume.

I have dealt with Velikovsky critics on evolution elsewhere.[1] Since that time, new evidence has emerged, and the presentation of it in this book will be immensely enlarged and developed to include a new understanding of genetics as it applies to cataclysmic evolution. In his last book on the last two pages, Velikovsky wrote: "The most exciting controversies of the 1980s appear to revolve around alternatives to Darwinian evolution (actually a long-overdue decision of the two points raised by Velikovsky [about evolution] in Earth in Upheaval in 1955) the cause of mass faunal extinctions."[2]

The following analysis is an attempt to fulfill that alternative that is long overdue. Nevertheless, although I will, in general, pursue Velikovsky’s theory, the specific data, principles, and analysis to be presented below are mine. In this respect, the overall theory in this volume is mine and I take full responsibility for it, although I acknowledge my great debt to Velikovsky for pioneering these concepts. My theory in every way runs counter to that of Neo-Darwinism and is also a thorough overturning of all accepted concepts presently held by the vast majority of scientific evolution establishments. It explains more with less—Occam’s razor—and, therefore, deserves a rational and balanced consideration of the evidence presented.

---

[1] Charles Ginenthal, Henry Bayer and Immanuel Velikovsky, Stephen J. Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky, Dale Ann Pearlman ed., (Forest Hills, NY 1996), pp. 191-203 and in the same book and in my initial discussion of evolutionary theory, Charles Ginenthal, Stephen J. Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky, pp.552-590, Charles Ginenthal, Metamorphic Evolution, The Velikovskian, Vol. IV, no. 2 (1988) pp. 1-30.

[2] Immanuel Velikovsky, Stargazers and Gravediggers Memoirs to Worlds in Collision (NY 1983) pp. 337-338

CHAPTER ONE

MANY THEORIES OF EVOLUTION

It’s a possibility that there’s something [about evolution] we don’t fundamentally understand, that it’s so different from what we’re thinking about it yet.

Leonard Kruglyak, Nature Vol. 456 (Nov. 6, 2008), p. 21.

...everyone will agree that a real and permanent step in science is only taken when someone looks at an old problem and common facts from [a] naive point of view and applies to them unorthodox methods of research.

Raymond Pearl in Jeffrey Schwartz, Sudden Origins (NY 1988), p. 276.

Zoological science stands in urgent need of a constructive book on evolution - - books with neither leaning toward [Darwinism], Wallaceism, nor Lamarckism, nor DaVriesim; books that shall set forth facts of all kinds concealing none, not even those which do not admit explanation in the present state of our knowledge.

Douglas Dewar, Frank Finn, The Making of Species (London/NY 1909) pp. VI-VII

Why another theory of evolution, especially one based on the concept of Richard Goldschmidt and Immanuel Velikovsky, these disreputable names in the modern science? One, Goldschmidt was a professional scientist working in the field of evolution, the other, Velikovsky who held a medical degree, but in evolution was an amateur. The answer I offer as stated above in the citations is that evolution is far from fully understood or proved, as French physicist Charles Noel-Martin claims: Despite the vast number of facts he has at his fingertips, the modern biologists still knows next to nothing about life itself, its origins, or it’s working.[3] Furthermore, Ernest Mayr, the doyen of modern Darwinian evolutionary theory, admits Darwin himself was an amateur.

It has often been remarked how extraordinary it is that none of the great zoologists—whether physiologist, embryologist, or cytobiologists [cell scientists]—made any contribution at all to evolutionary theory during the nineteenth century, they all completely misunderstood the whole problem of evolution. How remarkable it is also said that to such ‘rank amateurs’ as Darwin and [Alfred Russel] Wallace found the solution.[4]

The greatest biologists of the nineteenth century knew that the geological column of the past history of the Earth showed that life forms had gone extinct and other species had to take their place, but their inflexibility caused them to hold to the concept that there was an absolute fixity of life forms that precluded species change of any kind. In this work, I maintain that the professional biologist, embryologist, paleontologist, etc. have also all completely misunderstood the whole problem of evolution today, the scientist, evolutionist, and Darwinian theorist still see the concept of Goldschmidt and Velikovsky not only as untenable, but impossible. Because of their deep understanding and immersion in Darwinian gradualism, they have become rigid and dogmatic regarding the concept of sudden evolutionary change. Believing as they do in their theory, they have become overly sure that they might be right and look down on Goldschmidt, and especially Velikovsky, as philosopher of science Imre Lakatos suggests:

"Among scientists, the most influential tradition in the approach to scientific theories is elitism—… Elitists claim that good science can be distinguished from bad or pseudoscience, better than worse science. Elitists acknowledge the vast superiority of Newton’s, Maxwell’s, Einstein’s, Dirac’s [and Darwin’s] achievement over... Velikovskian theories... in their view, you can be judged by [established scientific] case law, and the only judges are the scientists themselves. If they are right, scientific autonomy is sacrosanct and the layman outsider [like Velikovsky], must not dare to judge the scientific elite... Only a privileged elite has the craft of science... Only a privileged elite has the craft of [scientific] politics [that determine which theories are admitted into science]...

They give this reason why the layman cannot be a judge in approaching theories... only they can judge their work.[5]

But, Darwin and Wallace being amateurs, completely contradicts their elitist claim. George Gaylord Simpson, another great authority of modern evolutionary thought, also admits, Until the utopian day when the processes of evolution are really well understood, we cannot afford to close our minds conclusively to any factors that might prove to be at the root of many [evolutionary] mysteries still remaining.[6] I, along with many recent critics of Darwinian evolution, suggest that his theory is not established in truth, established science even in the face of Darwin’s proponents saying that the matter is closed. Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s Bulldog, who had to fight Darwin’s battle for acceptance argued:

The improver of natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith, the one unpardonable sin. And, it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of [elitist] authority, the cherishing of the keenest skepticism, the annihilation of blind faith.[7]

And for the proponents of Darwin’s theory of evolution today—the reigning paradigm for over 150 years—is still seen as completely established and beyond rational doubt, as University of Chicago Jerry A. Coyne proclaims:

The mantra of [Darwinian] evolution opponents whether in America or elsewhere is always the same: ‘The theory of evolution is in crisis.’ The implication is always that there is some profound observation about nature that conflicts with Darwinism. But [Darwinian] evolution is far more than a ‘theory’ let alone a theory in crisis. [Darwinian] evolution is a fact period and far from casting doubt on Darwinism, the evidence gathered by scientists over the past century and a half supports it completely, showing that [Darwinian] evolution happened and that it happened [gradually] largely as Darwin proposed through the working of Natural Selection.[8]

More emphatically, Coyne states elsewhere:

There is only one going theory of evolution, and it is this: organisms evolved gradually over time and split into different species, and the main engine of evolutionary change was Natural Selection. Sure, some details of the processes are unsettled, but there is no argument among biologists about the main claims... while mutations occur by chance, Natural Selection which builds complex bodies... saving the most adaptive mutations...[9]

Richard Dawkins, along these same lines, states:

...there is no longer any serious doubt in any serious mind, and scientists speak, at least informally of the fact of [Darwinian] evolution. All reputable scientists go on to agree that Natural Selection is one of the most important forces [driving evolution], although—as some biologists insist more than others—not the only one. I have yet to meet a serious biologist who can point to an alternative to Natural Selection as the driving force of adaptive evolution.[10]

Given these accolades, one would think no reputable or serious scientists could ever doubt, let alone disagree with Coyne and Dawkins’ proclamations. The fact of the matter is that there are serious, reputable, and highly-renowned scientists that indeed dispute these absolute pronouncements. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History explicitly states:

No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of Natural Selection. No one has ever gotten near it and most of the current arguments in Neo-Darwinism are about this question. How can a species originate and is it there that Natural Selection seems to be fading out and chance mechanisms of one sort or another are being invoked?... all one can learn about the history of life from systematics, from groupings one finds in nature. The rest of it [evolution] is storytelling of one sort or another.[11]

Elsewhere, Patterson brings thunder from above on Coyne and Dawkins’ absolute assurances:

"Now, one of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary—well... was [that] last year, I had a sudden realization. For over twenty years, I thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning, I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I have been working on this stuff for twenty years and that there was not one thing I knew about it. That was quite a shock to learn that one could be so misled for so long... So for the last few weeks, I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people.

The question is this: can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing you can think is true? Is there one thing you can tell me about evolution? I tried this question on the geology group at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the evolutionary morphology seminar—at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists—and all I got there was silence for a long time. But, eventually, one person said, ‘I do know one thing – it ought not be taught in high school.’[12]

Is Colin Patterson to be regarded as disreputable or not serious as Coyne and Dawkins submit for saying those who support Natural Selection are storytelling? Pierre Grasse, one of the greatest authorities of biology, examined Darwinian evolution and wrote:

"Through the use and abuse of hidden postulates of often ill-founded extrapolation, a pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the very heart of biology and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists who sincerely believe that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated which is not the case [and]

The explanatory doctrines of biological evolution do not stand up to an objective, in-depth criticism. They proved to be either in conflict with reality or else incapable of solving the major problems involved.[13]

Of course, Grasse is a reputable, serious, and a highly respected scientist, yet he questions the efficiency of Darwin’s theory of evolution despite the claims of Coyne and Dawkins. Paul Lemoine, former Director of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris writes:

The theories of evolution in which our student youth was cradled constitute a dogma that all the world continues to teach. But each in his own specialty, zoologist or botanist, comes to the conclusion that none of the available explanations is adequate… The result of this summary is that [Darwinian] theory of evolution is impossible.[14]

Is one to assume Lemoine is not reputable or serious? How is one to determine if biologists, geneticists, paleontologists, etc. is reputable or serious. The answer apparently is that they are only so if they agree with Dawkins or Coyne. Like Carl Sagan’s argument about critical thinking. If one agrees with Carl Sagan’s ideas and concepts, one is using critical thinking. If one disagrees, one is not using critical thinking. In this sort of analysis, the only way to be accepted as serious or reputable is to agree with Dawkins, Coyne, or to think critically is to agree with Sagan. The use of terms like serious, reputable, etc. is employed by people who have set themselves up as authorities on what is supposedly serious and reputable when in fact they are attempting to humble anyone who contradicts what they hold as scientific truth. It is, in reality, a form of psychological intimidation masquerading as rational criticism. Dawkins is both the authority on evolution and the character of anyone who disagrees with what he tells us must be true. If you maintain that Darwinian evolution and Natural Selection is not scientifically true, Dawkins and those who agree with him know in some deep unknown way that you are not serious and not reputable. Their judgments are the only ones that matter. This brings us to the first heretic insider that challenged Darwin who was not only taken seriously, but whose reputation was destroyed.

---

[3] Charles Noel-Martin, The Role of Perception in Science, A.S. Pomerous transl. (London 1963), p. 76.

[4] Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance (Cambridge, MA 1982), p. 424.

[5] Imre Lakatos in Mathematics Science and Epistology Vol. 2 (Cambridge UK/NY et al., 1997), p.111.

[6] George Gaylord Simpson in Genetics, Paleontology and Evolution, G.L. Jepsen, G.G. Simpson, E. Mayr eds., (Princeton, NJ 1949), p. 222.

[7] Thomas Henry Huxley, T.H. Huxley on Education (Cambridge UK, et al., 1971), p.72.

[8] Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution is True (Oxford UK/NY 2009), p. XII.

[9] Jerry A. Coyne Don’t Know Much Biology, (June 6, 2007), (Internet).

[10] Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (NY 2009), p. 18.

[11] Colin Patterson Classics, interview by the British Broadcasting Corporation, (March 4, 1972) Peter Franz interviewer, Brian Lak producer.

[12] Colin Patterson "Evolution and Creationism: Can You Tell Me Anything About Evolution, (November 1981), presentation at the Museum of Natural History, New York City.

[13] Pierre P. Grasse, Evolution in Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation (New York 1977), p. 6 and p. 262.

[14] Paul Lemoine in Introduction, De Enclyclopedie Framcaise, Vol 5 (Paris 1937) p. 6.

RICHARD GOLDSCHMIDT

Most people do not enjoy having their entire worldview discredited: it sets them uncomfortably adrift. Scientists are no exception. A paradigm tends to be so greatly cherished that as new knowledge or evidence turns up that contradicts it calls into question, the paradigm is embroidered with qualifications and exceptions—anything no matter how intellectually disrespectful or craven, to avoid losing the paradigm… But outworn paradigms ordinarily stand staunchly until somebody within the field [in this case Richard Goldschmidt] makes a leap of insight, imagination, and courage sufficient to dislodge the obsolete paradigm and replace it.

Jane Jacobs, Dark Ages Ahead. (Toronto/NY 2004), p. 70.

The person who attempted to dislodge the Darwinian paradigm was the first great apostate who presented a concept that evolution happens in one generational salutations, and, thus, rejected Darwin’s gradualism out right. He maintained that Darwinian evolution did not and could not lead to macroevolutionary change, but it merely led to micro-evolutionary or very small changes, and these never created a new species. He therefore proposed:

"For a long time, I have been convinced that macroevolution must proceed by a different genetic method… A pattern change in the chromosomes completely independent of small gene mutation, nay, even of the concept of the gene will furnish this new method of macro evolution-so-called gene mutation and recombination with a breeding population may lead to a kaleidoscopic diversification with the species which may find expression in the population of subspecific categories… But all this happens within an identical general genetic pattern which may be called a single reaction system. The change from species to species is not a change involving more and more additional atomistic changes, but a complete change of the primary [genetic] pattern or reaction system into a new one, which afterward may again produce [tiny] variation by micromutation. One might call this different type of genetic change a mutation, though it does not have to occur in one step… Whatever genes or gene mutations might be, they do not enter the picture at all. Only the arrangement of the serial chemical constituents of the chromosomes into a new spatially different order, i.e., a new chromosomal pattern is involved."[15]

In essence, seeing that Darwinian gradualism did not have evidence to support gradual change, Goldschmidt was driven to suggest that the changes necessary to transform one species into another were not and could not be small mutations and Natural Selection, but that such transformations had to be far greater, namely a full systematic genetic change that created a new species in one generation in a systematic way by some kind of massive mutation that affected the entire organism’s genome. When he wrote this in 1940, he could not explain why or how this systematic change came about: he only believed, and deeply believed, that there was no other way by which macroevolutionary solutions could occur. As Stephen J Gould suggests,

"With systematic mutation [that affected the entire organism], Goldschmidt felt that he had escaped ‘the dead end reached by Neo-Darwinian theory’ (p.203). ‘The systematic pattern mutation—as opposed to microevolution: i.e., evolution beyond the blind alleys of micro-evolution’ (p. 245).[16] what he had was a theory of re-patterning of all the genes in some way to create a new species. In fact, he ended by denying genes themselves of ‘the classical atomistic theory of the gene’ (p.209), Goldschmidt wrote: it is this theory which blocks progress in evolutionary thought… We have already foreshadowed the twilight of the gene’ (p.210)."[17]

But even earlier than Goldschmidt postulated systematic transformation of the genome, there were other scientists who also looked at Darwin’s theory and finding it lacking, also claimed that evolution proceeded by sudden jumps as Peter Bowler points out:

"In our world, opposition to the principle of [Darwinian gradual] continuity was particularly strong among those biologists, who tried [as did Goldschmidt] to understand the nature of heredity. Francis Galton, for all that he stressed, the power of selection acting on normal variation to ‘him prove the breed,’ nevertheless insisted that a saltation was needed to form a new species. He compared the species to a polygon balanced on one face – normal variation is represented by rocking about on that face, but real evolution requires a disturbance strong enough to topple the polygon onto a new face. Several of the biologists associated with the emergence of modern genetics approach the topic through the assumption that new characteristics were created continuously. Hugo DeVries, William Bateson, and Thomas Hunt Morgan all became saltationists and wrote a provocatively anti-Darwinian text, Evolution and Adaptation in 1903.

The theory implied that new species established by saltations could perpetuate themselves whether or not they were adapted to the environment than the parent form… Bateson and Morgan both attack the idea that the struggle for existence could prevent any mutation form from establishing itself… For Bateson and Morgan, the whole adaptionist paradigm was misconceived-the environment simply didn’t have characteristics by mutation.[18]

Goldschmidt, like Galton, Bateson, and Morgan denied the most essential aspect of Darwinism-gradual change and the Darwinist response to Goldschmidt for suggesting this was to bring the world down on his head. When he wrote that the many missing links in the paleontological record are sought for in vain because they have never existed,[19] it drove the Darwinists into a frenzy. Ernst Mayr responded to Goldschmidt’s concept that a dinosaur could lay an egg and out of it would hatch a bird—a hopeful monster"—with these words:

The occurrence of genetic monstrosities by mutation… Is well substantiated, but they are such evident freaks that these [new species] monsters can be designated only as ‘hopeless.’ They are so utterly unbalanced that they could not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through [natural] selection. Giving a thrush the wings of a falcon does not make it a better flyer. Indeed, having all the other equipment of the thrush, it would probably hardly be able to fly at all… To believe that such a dramatic mutation would produce a viable new type, capable of occupying a new adaptive zone is equivalent to believing in miracles.[20]

Notice how adroitly Mayr misrepresented Goldschmidt’s theory when he placed falcon wings on a thrush. Goldschmidt’s theory was that the entire species changed, not just a part. Thus, Mayr could not fathom nor grasp and therefore claimed Goldschmidt requires believing in miracles. In Chapter 2 on cichlid fishes, I will present clear-cut factual evidence that one species can change into four species in one generation. In fact, I began that chapter by citing Mayr’s awareness that Darwinism doesn’t explain this saltation. Because of this evidence and other forms of evidence, I, along with Velikovsky, though not believing in miracles, but in materialistic science, will show that Goldschmidt was right and that the Darwinists refuse to accept evidence. I will explain this theory of systematic changes of one species to another via saltations throughout this book. All in all, Goldschmidt’s reputation was destroyed. David Sepkowski summarizes this destruction:

The biologist Richard Goldschmidt… was cast into oblivion for directly challenging the synthetic [Neo-Darwinian] account. Goldschmidt is infamous for, proposing that macromutations, or ‘hopeful monsters’ account for all major taxonomic novelties, and his name has been banished to the fringes of biology ever since… Goldschmidt advanced the radical proposal that ‘ species and the higher categories [genre, families, orders, classes and phyla] originate in single macroevolutionary steps as completely new genetic systems’ as a result of sudden dramatic mutations…[21]

Gould further shows:

"On his reception by Neo-Darwinians, Goldschmidt claimed (1960 p.324) that he ‘certainly had struck a hornet’s nest. The Neo-Darwinians reacted savagely. This time, I was not only crazy, but almost a criminal.’ Ernst Mayr (1980 p. 420), ‘Even though I personally got along very well with Goldschmidt, I was thoroughly furious at his book, and much of the first draft of [my book] Systematics and the Origins of Species, was written in angry reaction to Goldschmidt’s total neglect of such overwhelming and convincing evidence [for Neo-Darwinism].’

"The counterattack was successful, if not triumphant though Goldschmidt… Had largely himself to blame for burying his gem so deeply in unacceptable and overextended claims indeed, he suffered the worst fate of all [just like Velikovsky] to be ridiculed and unread…

"I have witnessed widespread dogma only three times in my career as an evolutionist and nothing in science disturbed me more than the ignorant ridicule based upon a desire or perceived necessity to follow fashion: the hooting dismissal… And almost ritualistic ridicule of Goldschmidt by students (and teachers) who had not read him… But I [also] know that I experienced it in the classroom as a graduate student in the mid-1960s [when Velikovsky was undergoing the same experience]. My experiences are neither unique nor misrepresented for Frazzeta (1975, p.85) reports from the same time and different place, ‘No one stopped to consider whether in all of Goldschmidt’s assailable propositions, there existed anything worth thinking about. There was no time for such consideration as long as they are was so much merry mayhem to be carried out. In my university classes, the name Goldschmidt was always introduced [like Velikovsky] as a kind of biological ‘in’ joke, and all of us students laughed and snickered dutifully to prove that we were not guilty of either ignorance or heresy.’ An eminent senior colleague and former professor told me he went to his library to consult [Goldschmidt’s] The Material Basis of Evolution after reading an article that I had written in Goldschmidt’s defense. He could not find it and was frustrated until he remembered—and then he was merely angry—that he had thrown it out several years ago as containing nothing of value. I do not think I exaggerated [Gould 1977 a] in comparing Goldschmidt [who became] the object of daily ‘two minute hates’ in Orwell’s 1984.)[22]

David Michael Lindsay, a creationist has joined the chorus of sneers and hoots, saying:

In the 1940s, the German-American geneticist Richard Goldschmidt from Berkeley invented… the ‘hopeful monster’ theory of immediate rather than gradual evolutionary change from one species to the next, such as a dinosaur giving birth to a bird or lemur giving birth to a monkey. That absurdity doesn’t even merit the ink on this paper. Another wacky theory of evolution…[23]

Philip E. Johnson, clearly not a Darwinian, echoes Mayr above:

If Goldschmidt really meant that all the complex interrelated parts of an animal could be reformed in a single generation by a systematic macromutation he was postulating a virtual miracle that had no basis either in genetic theory or experimental evidence… to suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a simple complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to suppose that an improved watch can be designed by throwing the old one against the wall.[24]

Everyone was so absolutely sure that an organism cannot change into another in one generation that the very idea of turning to it was a sign of total failure to recognize what science is all about. Norman MacBeth brutally described the concept in these words:

Goldschmidt recognized that he was, to some extent, pipe dreaming, but he felt it necessary to pipe dream because the synthetic theory [of Neo-Darwinism] offered no evidence of gradual change. I sympathize with Goldschmidt personally, but I do not espouse the idea of a hopeful monster because as any fool can see, it is extremely difficult to document, in fact, impossible. This is not a scientific theory; it is only a statement that shows we are in such terrible shape that we have to admit that [evolutionary] changes must have been on the order-of-a-miracle.[25]

Richard Dawkins calls the concept of one generation evolutionary change a fairytale:

To turn one complex organism into another complex organism in a single step—as in a fairytale—would indeed be beyond the realms of realistic possibility.[26]

Nevertheless, Goldschmidt did have his supporters among a tiny segment of the scientific establishment who also saw that the claims of the Neo-Darwinians were empty and, therefore; that evolution had to be saltational. John S. Davison, on this, shows:

"Richard Goldschmidt, Leo Berg, and Otto Schindewolf all favored saltation as an evolutionary device. This is significant because they approached evolution from completely separate directions, genetics, zoology, and paleontology respectively.

"Of paramount importance is the agreement that had been reached to Schindewolf and Goldschmidt especially since each drew his conclusions independently. It is dramatically demonstrated in the following excerpt from Schindewolf’s Basic Questions in Paleontology (German ed. 1950, English translation 1993), p. 352.

‘Richard Goldschmidt laid out his intellectual edifice in1940… with which I was not yet familiar when I prepared this manuscript. His earlier communication on this subject have had considerable influence on my thinking or have strengthened it, but in essence, the concept described here grew out of my own analysis of the paleontological material. All the more surprising and pleasing, then, is the broad agreement in our views.’ ‘Schindewolf’s theory is practically identical with that of Goldschmidt’s as D.D. Davis (1949) observed recently based on my 1936 publication. I regard this convergence of views arising from different premises as a welcome sign that we are on the right track.’[27]

Goldschmidt was, of course, grateful that there were others who understood that the inadequacy of Neo-Darwinism required saltational macroevolutionary changes, writing:

Schindewolf and a few others also realize that the genetical and phenogenetical facts and ideas from my thesis were derived furnish the basis for an understanding of such a process of evolution. Thus, we see that the results of paleontology—see Schindewolf for references to other authors who have come to similar conclusions—vindicate the thesis which we developed here. It is gratifying that all the disciplines which furnish material for the understanding of evolution—taxonomy and morphology, descriptive and experimental embryology, static and dynamic (physiological) genetics, comparative anatomy, and paleontology—supply ample and parallel evidence for a theory of evolution which is more plausible than Darwinian theory.[28]

"Leo Berg offered very similar conclusions in a series of ten comparisons he made between Darwinism and Nomogenesis (evolution according to law) at the very end of his book. Number 3, 5, 7, and 8 are in complete accord with [Goldschmidt and Schindewolf’s ideas]… In each instance, the Darwinian view is presented first, followed by Berg’s view:

"3. Based on chance variations based upon laws

"5. By means of slow scarcely perceptible continuous variations – by leaps, paroxysms, mutations.

"7. The struggle for existence and Natural Selection are progressive agencies… The struggle for existence and Natural Selection are not progressive agencies, but being on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard.

8. Species arising through divergence are connected by transition [al fossil lineages]—species arising through mutations are sharply distinguished one from another [without fossil lineage].[29]

The meat of this book will show that the evidence conforms to Goldschmidt and Schindewolf and not with that of Darwin.

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[15] Richard Goldschmidt in Stephen J Gould’s Introduction, The Material Basis of Evolution (New Haven, CT 1982), p. XXVII.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid., p. XXIX.

[18] Peter Bowler, Darwin Deleted: Imagining a World without Darwin (Chicago, IL 2013), p. 167.

[19] Ibid., p. 395.

[20] Ernst Mayr, Populations Species and Evolution (Cambridge, MA 1970), p. 253.

[21] David Sepkoski, Rereading the Fossil Record… (Chicago 1912), p. 25.

[22] Gould Introduction, The Material Basis of Evolution, op. cit., p. XIV.

[23] David Michael Lindsay, The Beast in Sheep’s Clothing… (Gretna, LA 2005), p.187.

[24] Phillip R. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL 2010) p. 54.

[25] Norman MacBeth in Lutner Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma, (Green Forest, AR 2002), p. 116.

[26] Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True (NY/London et al., 2011), p. 26.

[27] John A. Davidson, Unplublished Evolutionary Papers of John A. Davidson, Phillip Engle ed., (US 2010), p. 78., Phillip Engle ed., (US 2010), p. 78.

[28] Ibid., p. 80.

[29] Ibid., p. 87.

BARBARA MCCLINTOCK

Nobel laureate, Barbara McClintock, after reading Velikovsky’s book Earth in Upheaval where he outlined his theory of evolution is said to have told friends not to dismiss Velikovsky so quickly that there might be a grain of truth in his [evolutionary] work.[30]

What was McClintock’s evidence and concept, and how did it support and complement Goldschmidt’s and therefore Velikovsky’s theory that proposed macroevolutionary change in one generation? What McClintock proposed was that her research has indicated that there were not only genes that express a species’ characteristics, but that there were other genes that control them, implying that they were master genes. Therefore, if such master genes were changed in some way, they would alter the expression of the other genes and could create a new species in one generation. McClintock did, as we will see, suggest this and; therefore, after it was found that these master genes existed and could allow macroevolutionary changes.

Michael Anthony Cory explains:

"In the 1930s, the concept demonstrated that stress can induce transposons [jumping genes] activity within the genome… But if stress can induce transposon activity, and if transposon activity can reorganize the entire genome, then it follows that stress can reorganize genomic reorganization. Going one step further, if genomic reorganization can result in the spontaneous production of new characters and new species, then it follows that external stress must also be potentially capable of inducing major changes in the evolutionary descent of organisms… On this view, the genome is so ingenious and versatile, that it can respond to stress by involving itself into a plethora of new forms and structures…

"In other words, the genome seems to possess within itself [the ability] to produce many of the relevant variations in any given species, long before any significant environmental contact has been made [that induces stress]. Such as a prori adaptive capacity, only seems to make sense if it were programmed into the genome from the very start of the evolutionary process.[31] This, of course, ran directly against Darwinian gradualism and McClintock paid a price for presenting this concept, as Jeremy Cherfas and Steve Connor report:

Today, students of biochemistry take for granted the existence of different types of genes—those that produce proteins and others that regulate the production of proteins. But in the 1940s when Barbara McClintock presented evidence suggesting the evidence of controlling elements in addition to structural genes… she was ignored and even ridiculed.[32]

Cherfas and Connor added:

"While she was mapping the first controlling element, McClintock made the discovery that is now recognized by the Nobel Committee. She found that the controlling element shifted from one generation to the next. And, when it moved, it brought a different structural gene under its control…

This concept of gene regulation was entirely new to geneticists, and at the time she presented it, she was virtually ignored. John Finchman, Professor of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, says there were two reasons for the muted response. She went against the accepted doctrine of the time (that chromosomes [over time was largely] stable) and presented the complicated evidence too rapidly for her peers to absorb.[33]

Notice it was McClintock’s fault her colleagues did not understand her theory. I suggest that, in reality, they did understand it because she went against accepted doctrine [that chromosomes did not change rapidly over] time. What was implied is that genes changed in one generation, thus the ridicule she was to receive came directly because of this challenge to Darwinian gradual genetic change. What McClintock took was harking back to was what was presented in 1913 by Jacob von Uexkull according to Robert G.B. Reid, namely: in 1913, Jacob von Uexkull proposed that Mendelian element must be regulated by ‘super genes:’ a hierarchy of control must be involved in evolutionary change.[34] That is, the concept that there were super genes or master genes existed in the literature, and these could drive rapid macroevolution, but then as in McClintock’s time and today this concept which could lead to overturning of Darwinian gradual evolution so it had to be ignored or destroyed.

Thus, even before Velikovsky wrote about "Cataclysmic Evolution, there were scientists who held the evolutionary change was saltational and there existed master genes that controlled the rest of the DNA and could change a species via a systematic type of mutation that affected the expression of the other genes giving rise to new species. Velikovsky did not know about these master genes" when he presented his theory in 1955 in Earth in Upheaval. The actual discovery of the true master genes known as hox-genes or Homeo genetic genes came in 1984 five years after Velikovsky died in 1979.

Barbara McClintock was open to Velikovsky’s theory of Cataclysmic Evolution because she shared with him the concept that massive abrupt changes in the environment she called stress could bring about macroevolutionary change in the genome of the organism rapidly. Here, R. Hunze, H. Saedler, and W.E. Lonnig point out:

We will now turn our attention to what might be termed the most controversial idea of McClintock’s: the hypothesis that extraordinary environmental stress can induce an avalanche of activities… Activities generating entire genome restructuring, including the induction of an unusually high amount of adaptive mutations for the formation of new plant and animal species (McClintock took 1951a, 1978, 1984). This idea is in fact, very similar to that of Goldschmidt… [As well as to that of Velikovsky (1955)] (and in certain respects also to Bateman and Dimichele, (1994) on the origin of new species and higher categories by sudden genome reorganization in contrast to the Neo-Darwinian process… is probably due to such implications of the subject… That some Neo-Darwinian have not been very enthusiastic about it. Discussing the role of… Repetitive DNA for these questions Maynard Smith (1988) and Maynard Smith and Szathmary (1995), for example, caution [against McClintock] ‘It is, therefore, dogmatic views about… Evolution.’ (Maynard Smith 1988). He is probably right, but we would extend this caution also to Neo-Darwinism and the many other views currently discussed on the origin of species and hired taxa. [35]

Michael Gordon of Princeton University, however, has three pages 140–143 connecting Velikovsky to the creationist George McCready Price with whom he corresponded. Thus, anyone who reads Gordon’s book will connect Velikovsky’s concept of Cataclysmic Evolution to creationism. What Gordon’s thesis is saying is Velikovsky was in some way the impetus for the creationist movement. There is nowhere in Gordon’s book a hint that Velikovsky was connected conceptually with Barbara McClintock’s ideas regarding master genes. If Gordon wished to give a balanced presentation of Velikovsky’s ideas, he would have shown that not only was Velikovsky’s approach to evidence picked up by the creationists, he would have also shown that Velikovsky’s concept of evolution was in accordance with McClintock, Goldschmidt, Schindewolf’s who were none of them in any way creationists. Anyone who reads Michael Gordon’s book from cover to cover, including the footnotes, would never know that Barbara McClintock had a theory that agreed with Velikovsky’s theory of Cataclysmic Evolution, wherein environmental stresses – catastrophes that brought about great environmental changes, also could bring on speciation. None of these evolutionists were creationists and Gordon surely had to have known this. Rather than presenting a fair and balanced concept of how Velikovsky’s theory of evolution had support from non-creationist, it seems clear he went out of his way to make sure his readers would never be presented with this evidence. As one who has followed my work over the years can see, The Velikovsky Affair, is alive and it seems will never end.

Interestingly, McClintock also suffered ostracism for her work on master genes, just as Goldschmidt and Velikovsky. Aron Katsenelinboigen reports on how McClintock was treated even after she received the Nobel prize:

"Well-recognized by some biologists, including James Shapiro, McClintock’s ideas did not receive universal acceptance in the biological community. Even today, many biologists have a poor understanding of her achievements. In 1983, Evelyn Fox Keller wrote in her book devoted to the life and work of Barbara McClintock… ‘Barbara McClintock remains in crucial respects an outsider.’ … Little has changed since then as far as the attitude espoused by the leading biologists toward McClintock. For instance, in 1990, a conference was held devoted to new trends in evolutionary theory. It brought together many leading American evolutionists. The name of Barbara McClintock was missing. It was not found in the index of names listed in the conference proceedings. The sole exception… A single sentence to the effect that about forty years earlier, Barbara McClintock discovered transposable [DNA] elements and that this discovery was met with great skepticism and it was only in the last two decades that these elements are found in abundance in living organisms. No reference was made to any of McClintock’s work.

"While most evolutionists are somewhat condescending to ward [sic] McClintock’s ideas, a number of molecular biologists are beginning to recognize her achievements.

"In his obituary statement, James Shapiro wrote the following words about McClintock: ‘one day she may well be seen as a key figure in twentieth-century biology.’

"His praise is based… On the global vision of the biological mechanisms of [macro evolutionary] change, [a] vision which might prove influential in the twenty-first century.

"Standard theories [of evolution] are still framed in terms of independent genetic units [via Neo-Darwinism]. Whereas McClintock thought of the genome as a COMPLEX UNIFIED SYSTEM EXQUISITELY INTEGRATED INTO THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM.

‘…There is good reason to believe that McClintock’s integral view of the genome proved to be prophetic.[36]

McClintock’s challenge to Darwinian gradual genetic change created a deep scar that Darwinist will never let heal. Katsenelinboigen makes it clear that her reputation among her colleagues was that of a ‘crazy old woman.’[37] Here then is an excerpt from McClintock’s Nobel Prize address delivered in Oslo, Norway, in 1983:

Because I became actively involved in the subject of genetics only twenty-one years… [After] the discovery in 1900 of Mendel’s principles of heredity… I have had the pleasure of witnessing and experiencing the excitement created by revolutionary changes in genetic concepts that have occurred over the past sixty odd years. I believe we are again experiencing such a revolution. It is altering our concept of the genome: its component parts, peer organizations, mobility, and their modes of operation. Also, we are now able to integrate activities of nuclear genomes those of other components of the cell. Unquestionably, we will emerge from this revolutionary with modified views of components of cells and how they operate, but only; however, to await the emergence of the next evolutionary phase that will bring startling changes and concepts [of evolutionary change].[38]

She was not the only scientist to discover that there were controlled genes. While McClintock found these genes in plants, Françoise Jacob and Jacques Monad found comparable control genes in bacteria as they wrote:

The fundamental problem with chemical physiology and embryology to understand why tissue cells do not all express, all the time, the potentialities inherent in their genome… The discovery regulator and operator genes and the repressive regulation of the activity of structural genes reveals that the genome contains not only a series of blueprints, but a coordinated program of protein synthesis and the means of controlling its execution [via control genes].[39]

That is, there appeared to be control or master genes in plants and animals that affected the expression of the structural genes. Fox Keller goes on to explain:

"When Barbara McClintock saw Monad’s and Jacobs first paper in Comptes Rendu, she was overjoyed. Here was an elegant analysis of a bacterial system that she herself worked out for maize. Common input was the identification of two [sets of] controlling elements: one adjacent to the other independently situated and through its effect on the first controlling elements, exerting indirect control on the gene. The fact that the controlling elements in her own system were transposable [movable] may have been essential to their initial discovery, but it was not essential to the operation of such a control system. Indeed, in one class of gene loci under control of McClintock’s… System, both the element analogous to what Monad and Jacob called the ‘operator’ gene and the [McClintock] system itself [did not move but] remained fixed—just as the bacterial system.

"The similarities between [control genes in] her own work and the work of Monad and Jacob were so striking that the latter seemed to provide just the kind of independent confirmation needed to the resistance she had thus far encountered [to the concept of control genes for rapid saltational evolution]…

"Promptly, she sent off a paper to American Naturalist entitled ‘Some Parallels Between Gene Control Systems in Maize and in Bacteria,’ in which after outlining the basic features of [her]… system, she concluded:

"‘It is expected that such a basic mechanism of control of gene action will be operative in all organisms. In higher organisms, lack of means of identifying the components of a control system of this type may be responsible for delay in recognition of their general prevalence, even though there is much genetic and cytological evidence to indicate that [genetic] control systems to exist. It is anticipated, however, that control systems exhibiting more complex levels of integration will be found in the higher organisms.’"[40]

McClintock research produced evidence that shocks or stresses during catastrophes that affect the environment drastically can in some way also affect the control or master genes that reorganize the expressionism of genome of plants and animals, and according to McClintock will be found in higher organisms leading to macroevolutionary saltations. Interestingly, all this foment was going on while Velikovsky pursued his own model of Cataclysmic Evolution. According to Evelyn Fox Keller, McClintock was turning biology into a bona fide field of science —a science like physics than most ardent experimentalists had ever thought possible.[41] Below, I will present evidence of the connections between master genes and physics. Nathaniel C. Comfort cited McClintock on the following:

"In 1971, McClintock asked an audience at Cold Spring Harbor [on Long Island, New York] ‘If all organisms have the same basic parts and can produce basic tools, why do we have so many different organisms?’ Her answer was that different organisms simply express different patterns. In an interview with Will Provine and Paul Sisco in 1980, she explained, ‘Years ago, I began to realize that any genome can make any other, practically.’ The genome she imagined was a set of interchangeable parts like an erector set, by using different combinations of genes in different arrangements, one can build almost any organism from a single set. These potentials reflected the ‘extraordinary integration of the genome.’ All organisms, she said, had an ‘overall pattern that’s built into the genome somewhere, so that it builds itself.’ [A] Pattern is built into the genome, ‘If [the] pattern shifts the organism changes.’[42]

Basically, McClintock had touched upon the basic concept that will be presented in this volume, that all organisms exhibit patterns that separate them from other groups, namely different phyla. These patterns, I maintain, are fundamental. As will be shown below these patterns were there from the beginning of Mesozoic life at Cambrian explosion and even before these patterns have been repeated with variations on that phyletic theme through the remaining history of life. A further major point that McClintock introduced according to Comfort:

"Asked in 1980 whether her races-of-maize shed light on evolution, McClintock replied, ‘Yes. Macroevolution undoubtedly.’ Since at least 1951, she had agreed with Goldschmidt’s thinking that chromosomes [altogether], rather than genes, with a proper unit of heredity… She concluded, ‘The main changes in evolution are regulatory. They have to be…’

At the level of genome, she reasoned speciation could be structurally related to metamorphosis [where a tadpole/fish becomes a frog/amphibian in one generational saltation]. If so, then, in theory, all organisms could be derived from a single set of genes.[43]

In terms of catastrophic or other stress that affected processes of macroevolution via metamorphic saltations, she said:

I believe there is little reason to question the presence of innate [control] systems that are able to restructure the genome [to give rise to new species]. It is now necessary to learn of these systems and determine why many of them are quiescent and remains so over very long periods of time only to be triggered into action by forms of [catastrophic] stress.[44] Lastly, Comfort points out:

"These ideas [of macroevolution via metamorphic type saltations] of restructuring and reorganizing the genome brought her to the final question of her career, concerning the seats of the control. What ‘told’ the controlling elements when the where [and how] to act? What guided genome [macroevolution via metamorphic-like] restructuring and reorganization?… It was on this subject, the source of control that McClintock sounds most mystical [to Darwinists]. The organism themed to have knowledge of every cell, where it belongs [and acts] in the system [of an organism]."[45]

It is the greatest respect and profound gratitude that I will follow the ideas that Goldschmidt, McClintock, and thereby Velikovsky pointed to regarding evolution throughout the remainder of this book. These heretics were, in my opinion, the greatest thinkers of the nature of evolution since Charles Darwin!

---

[30] Nathaniel C. Comfort, The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock’s Search for the Pattern of Genetic Control (Cambridge, MA 2001), p. 152.

[31] Michael Anthony Cory, Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil (Landham, MD/Oxford, UK 2000), p. 18.

[32] Jeremy Cherfas, Steve Connor, "How Restless DNA was Tamed" New Scientist (October 13, 1983), p. 78.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Robert G.B. Reid Biological Emergence: Evolution by Natural Experiments (MIT, MA 2007), p. 224.

[35] R. Hunze, H. Saedler, W.E. Lonnig, Plant Transposable Elements, Classical Papers Advances in Botanical Research Incorporation Advance in Plant Pathology, vol. 27, J.A. Callow, ed. (London/NY et al.), 1997, p. 436.

[36] Aron Katsenelinboigen, Evolutionary Change: Toward a Systemic Theory of Development and Maldevelopment (Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1997), p.199 (Capitalization added.)

[37] Ibid., p.101.

[38] Barbara McClintock, The significance of the genome to challenge, Science Vol. 226 (1983) p. 792ff.

[39] Françoise Jacob, Jacques Monad, in Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism (10th Anniversary Edition) The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (NY 1983), p. 176.

[40] Ibid, p. 177 (Emphasis added.)

[41] Ibid, p. 181.

[42] Nathaniel C. Comfort, The Tangled Field, (Cambridge, MA/London 2001, p. 221 (Emphasis added.)

[43] Ibid, p.122.

[44] Ibid, p. 224.

[45] Ibid, p. 224.

IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY

CATACLYSMIC EVOLUTION

What Velikovsky interjected into the evolutionary debate was the stress that brought about macroevolution, namely, cataclysms. He maintained that catastrophes, of all kinds, especially global catastrophes, not only changed environmental conditions, but affected species genomes strongly enough to cause saltations to new species. He spoke mainly of radiation, but during such events, these would be accomplished by heat or cold, chemical changes, intense light or darkness, great noise, etc. At the time Velikovsky’s book, Worlds in Collision, appeared in 1950, the scientific establishment had banished catastrophism and had attached itself to Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian concepts that all change was gradual; what we observe happening today was no different in the past—the present was the key to the past. Therefore, not only was Velikovsky rejecting Darwin and siding with Goldschmidt, Schindewolf, and McClintock, all banished by the science establishment, he was also presenting the concept of nineteenth century catastrophism that the scientific establishment maintained had been completely discredited.

In this regard, Trevor Palmer reports that Schindewolf did in a real sense to hold as Velikovsky did that catastrophes create macromutation and evolutionary saltations:

"In contrast to Velikovsky, Schindewolf could not be accused of lacking the credentials needed to put forward theories concerning the evolution of life on Earth. He was a professor of paleontology at Tubingen University… Nevertheless, he had already been subjected to ridicule in the English-speaking world when in 1950, he suggested that some of the significant steps in evolution could be due to macromutations, and that a new family or order of animals might as a result of the single gross mutation… As Steven Stanley commented in macroevolution… ‘However unacceptable such visions may have seemed, Schindewolf at least [as did Velikovsky] confronted the failure of the fossil record to document slow integration between higher taxa.’

When Schindewolf put forward his supernova [catastrophic] hypothesis in 1954, seeing waves of radiation as the cause not only of mass extinctions, but also of macromutations that could produce successors to the extinct species, he emphasized that it was a ‘desperate move,’ because he could not explain the breaks in the fossil record in a more scientific way.[46]

Bring catastrophism back into geology and evolution and having the public and some scientists accept this possibility drove these critics into a frenzy. As far as they were concerned, catastrophism was dead. In Velikovsky’s book, Mankind in Amnesia, he deals with one of the naysayers, Loren Eiseley on the concept that global cataclysms could even happen:

"From the many cases at my disposal, I shall select the case of Loren Eiseley, anthropologist and historian of science…

"In 1960, he published The Firmament of Time. On the very first page, one reads:

"‘… scarcely 200 years have passed since a few wary pioneers began to suspect that the earth might be older than 4004 years B.C. assigned to it by the theologians. At all events, the sale of Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision a few years ago was a formidable indication that after the passage of two centuries of scientific endeavor, man in the mass was still enormously susceptible to the appeal of cataclysmic events however badly sustained from the scientific viewpoint. It introduced to our modern generation, bored long since with the endless small accretions of scientific truth, the violence, and catastrophism in world events which had impressed our forefathers.’

"Eiseley’s book was written to combat the reemergence of the discarded concept of catastrophic interruptions in history that was the teaching of the founders of the sciences of geology and paleontology in the early nineteenth century. But, they, Murchison, Sedgwick, and Buckland, were not among those who subscribe to the idea of [theological] creation in the year 4004 for the present era: they had actually identified the millions of years Silurian and the old Devonian and the Permian rocks and with them the periods so classified, the great divisions the geological succession that antedated the emergence of man.

"In Earth in Upheaval, I quoted several authors who described the enigmatic and unquestionable catastrophic destruction of numerous animal species at the end of the Pleistocene or Ice Age… I cited a paper that Eiseley published in 1943…

"‘…in certain regions of Alaska, the bones of these [Pleistocene] animals lie so thickly scattered that there can be no question of human handiwork involved. Though man was on the scene on the final perishing, his was not the appetite nor the capacity for such giant slaughter.’

"…In this great carnage are myriads of animals torn limb from limb in great heaps over tens of miles, mixed with splintered trees. It was not a mirage or a phantasmagoria: other scientist subscribed to. The animals from all kinds of habitats forms still existing and forms extinct alike. The same phenomenon is repeated in numerous places of the North and South American continents. Eiseley wrote:

"‘We are not dealing with a single isolated relic species but with a considerable variety of Pleistocene forms, all of which must be accorded…an approximately similar time of extinction.’

"In Earth in Upheaval, I also quoted other authors of the same school as Eiseley, and their clear statements that catastrophic events of continental, even global dimension took place. ‘At approximately the same time, we witness a similar extinction of mammal faunas of Africa and Asia.’ This is how I describe the consensus concerning the great extinction:

"These species are believed to have been destroyed ‘to the last specimen’ in the closing Ice Age. Animals, strong and vigorous, suddenly died out without leaving a survivor. The end came not in the [Darwinian] course of the struggle for existence – with the survival of the fittest [via Natural Selection]. Fit and unfit and mostly fit old and young with sharp teeth, with strong muscles and fleet legs, with plenty of food around all perished.

"Eiseley wrote on the score that the facts: ‘…Drive the biologists to despair as he surveys the extinction of so many species and genra in the closing Pleistocene.’

"…and again: ‘It seems odd that a fauna which had survived the great ice movement [and other Ice Ages] should die out at its close. But, die it did.’

"He professed not to know the cause of extinction, but he described it in catastrophic terms. He could only state that geological climate changes occurred at the same time as animals were destroyed to the last in many places, decimated in others.

"The ‘despair’ of the scientist turned into denial of catastrophes, a very interesting and well-authenticated psychological problem. Alexis Carrell, a biologist who was much interested in psychology, wrote in Man, the Unknown concerning this phenomenon of denial as it applied to scientists in the problems to which they do not know an answer:

"‘Certain matters are banished from the field of scientific research and refused the right of making themselves known. Important facts may be completely ignored. Our mind has a natural tendency to reject the things that do not fit into the frame of the scientific or philosophical beliefs of our time. After all, scientists are only men… They willingly believe the facts that cannot be explained by current theory do not exist.’

"Returning to Eiseley’s The Firmament of Time, we read:

‘Catastrophism, in essence, may be said to have died of common sense.’[47]

In this book, I will be presenting important facts that the scientific biological community is familiar with, but do not fit into the scientific or philosophical beliefs of our time. Because these facts cannot be explained by current [Darwinian Theory the scientists claim that they] do not exist," or are unimportant.

Today, of course, catastrophism is now a well excepted, even a highly-regarded concept in establishment science, but as with Goldschmidt and McClintock’s concept, so too it is with Velikovsky bringing catastrophism back into the evolutionary debate—especially as it directly contradicts Neo-Darwinian gradual evolution. Here then is how Velikovsky presented Cataclysmic Evolution theory:

Great catastrophes of the past accompanied by electrical discharges and followed by radioactivity [and other stresses and shocks] could have produced sudden and multiple mutations of the kind achieved today by experiments, but on an immense scale.[48]

What certain scientists now claim is that catastrophes act as the process that creates new