The Sokal affair, also called the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the journal's intellectual rigor, specifically to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies—whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross—[would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."
Zecharia Sitchin was an author of a number of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he stated was a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He asserted that Sumerian mythology suggests that this hypothetical planet of Nibiru is in an elongated, 3,600-year-long elliptical orbit around the sun. Sitchin's books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.
In geology, catastrophism theorises that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. This contrasts with uniformitarianism, according to which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, brought about all the Earth's geological features. The proponents of uniformitarianism held that the present was "the key to the past", and that all geological processes throughout the past resembled those that can be observed today. Since the 19th-century disputes between catastrophists and uniformitarians, a more inclusive and integrated view of geologic events has developed, in which the scientific consensus accepts that some catastrophic events occurred in the geologic past, but regards these as explicable as extreme examples of natural processes which can occur.
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian, Israeli, and American scholar. He is the author of several books offering pseudohistorical interpretations of ancient history, including the U.S. bestseller Worlds in Collision published in 1950. Earlier, he had played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Velikovsky's work is frequently cited as a canonical example of pseudoscience and has been used as an example of the demarcation problem.
Physical Review is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1893 by Edward Nichols. It publishes original research as well as scientific and literature reviews on all aspects of physics. It is published by the American Physical Society (APS). The journal is in its third series, and is split in several sub-journals each covering a particular field of physics. It has a sister journal, Physical Review Letters, which publishes shorter articles of broader interest.
Ages in Chaos is a book by the controversial writer Immanuel Velikovsky, first published by Doubleday in 1952, which put forward a major revision of the history of the Ancient Near East, claiming that the histories of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Israel are five centuries out of step. He followed this with a number of other works where he attempted to complete his reconstruction of ancient history, collectively known as the Ages in Chaos series.
Livio Catullo Stecchini was a professor of ancient history at Paterson State Teachers College in New Jersey. He wrote on the history of science, ancient weights and measures (metrology), and the history of cartography in antiquity. He is best known as a defender of the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky and for his numerological theories about the dimensions of the Great Pyramids.
The phantom time hypothesis is an historical conspiracy theory asserted by Heribert Illig. First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, to fabricate the Anno Domini dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history to legitimize Otto's claim to the Holy Roman Empire. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence. According to this scenario, the entire Carolingian period, including the figure of Charlemagne, is a fabrication, with a "phantom time" of 297 years added to the Early Middle Ages.
Gerhard M. Sessler is a German inventor and scientist. He is Professor emeritus at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the Technische Universität Darmstadt.
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. The object allegedly changed Earth's orbit and axis, causing innumerable catastrophes that are mentioned in early mythologies and religions from around the world. The book has been heavily criticized as a work of pseudoscience and catastrophism, and many of its claims are completely rejected by the established scientific community as they are not supported by any available evidence.
Alfred de Grazia, 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 archives in the 1970s, and defended the catastrophism thesis of Immanuel Velikovsky.
Henry Hermann Bauer is an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is the author of several books and articles on fringe science, arguing in favor of the existence of the Loch Ness Monster and against Immanuel Velikovsky, and is an AIDS denialist. Following his retirement in 1999, he was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a fringe science publication. Bauer also served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Tech, generating controversy by criticising affirmative action.
Gunnar Heinsohn is a German author, sociologist and economist and professor emeritus at the University of Bremen. He was born on November 21, 1943, in Gotenhafen to Roswitha Heinsohn, née Maurer and the late Kriegsmarine Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Heinsohn, last serving on U-438. In 1984 he received a Lehrstuhl, a tenured chair in social pedagogy at the University of Bremen.
Charles Leroy Ellenberger is perhaps best known as a one-time advocate, but now a critic of, controversial writer Immanuel Velikovsky and his works on catastrophism. He first read Worlds in Collision in 1969. In 1979, he became a contributing editor 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 on Velikovsky.
Pensée: Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered ("IVR") was a special series of ten issues of the magazine Pensée advancing the pseudoscientific theories of Immanuel Velikovsky. It was produced to "encourage continuing critical analysis of all questions raised by Velikovsky's work", published between May 1972 and Winter 1974-75 by the Student Academic Freedom Forum, whose president was David N. Talbott, with the assistance and cooperation of Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon. Velikovsky -- "the man whose work was being examined 'objectively'" insinuated himself into the editing of the May 1972 issue, just as he had done earlier for the April 1967 "Velikovsky" issue of Yale Scientific Magazine.
Secondary antisemitism is a distinct form of antisemitism which is said to have appeared after the end of World War II. Secondary antisemitism is often explained as being caused by the Holocaust, as opposed to in spite of it. One frequently quoted formulation of the concept, first published in Henryk M. Broder's 1986 book Der Ewige Antisemit, stems from the Israeli psychiatrist Zvi Rex, who once remarked: "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." The term was coined by Peter Schönbach, a Frankfurt School co-worker of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, based on their critical theory.
Robert J. (Bob) Schadewald was an author, researcher, and former president of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). An internationally recognized expert on pseudoscience, Schadewald penned numerous articles on creationism, perpetual motion, flat earthism, and other pseudoscience for such magazines as Science 80, Technology Illustrated, Smithsonian, and Science Digest.
American Behavioral Scientist (ABS) is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the fields of social and behavioral sciences. The managing editor is Laura Lawrie. It was established in 1957 by Alfred de Grazia and is currently published by SAGE Publications, who acquired the journal from de Grazia.
The International Society for the Study of Time (ISST) is an interdisciplinary organization of professional scientists, humanists, and artists. Established by J. T. Fraser in 1966, society members study and explore the multiple dimensions and perspectives of time across the disciplines – the role time plays in the physical, organic, intellectual, and social worlds. Many discussions within ISST revolve around fundamental questions such as:
Michael Dan Gordin is an American science historian and Slavist.
