C. Leroy Ellenberger - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Charles Leroy Ellenberger (b.1942, known as C. Leroy) is perhaps best known as a one-time advocate, but now a prolific critic of controversial writer Immanuel Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...

and his works on catastrophism. He first read Worlds in Collision
Worlds in Collision
Worlds in Collision is a book written by Immanuel Velikovsky and first published on April 3, 1950. The book proposed that around the 15th century BCE, Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object, and passed near Earth...

in August 1969 after discovering it while browsing in the B. Dalton's Bookstore in Crestwood, Missouri. In 1979, he became a contributing editor (and later Senior Editor & Executive Secretary) to the Velikovsky-inspired Kronos

Kronos (journal)

Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis published articles on a wide range of subjects as diverse as ancient history, catastrophism and mythology. It ran 44 issues from the Spring of 1975 to the Spring of 1988. The title is an homage to the Greek name for the Roman god Saturn whose...

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 Oberg

James Edward Oberg is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian space program.-Biography:...

on Velikovsky. His confidence in the validity of Velikovsky's ideas was shaken in January 1982 when Kronos

Kronos (journal)

sponsored his attendance at the semi-annual AAAS

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

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

New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...

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

Alfred de Grazia, is a political scientist and author. He has defended the catastrophism thesis of Immanuel Velikovsky.-Education:De Grazia attended the University of Chicago, receiving an A.B...

at New York University, "By 1983 Ellenberger was preparing to abandon much of quantavolution

Alfred de Grazia

Alfred de Grazia, is a political scientist and author. He has defended the catastrophism thesis of Immanuel Velikovsky.-Education:De Grazia attended the University of Chicago, receiving an A.B...

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

Robert V. Gentry

Robert V. Gentry is a nuclear physicist and young earth creationist, known for his claims that radiohalos provide evidence for a young age of the Earth. He is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.-Career:...

studies of the surprising 'instant' polonium halos

Radiohalo

Radiohalos or pleochroic halos are microscopic, spherical shells of discolouration within minerals such as biotite that occur in granite and other igneous rocks. The shells are zones of radiation damage caused by the inclusion of minute radioactive crystals within the host crystal structure...

of creation . . . were probably invalid." Henry Bauer

Henry Bauer

Henry H. 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 such topics as the Loch Ness Monster and Immanuel Velikovsky, and is an AIDS denialist...

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
Kronos (journal)
Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis published articles on a wide range of subjects as diverse as ancient history, catastrophism and mythology. It ran 44 issues from the Spring of 1975 to the Spring of 1988. The title is an homage to the Greek name for the Roman god Saturn whose...

, 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

Alfred de Grazia, is a political scientist and author. He has defended the catastrophism thesis of Immanuel Velikovsky.-Education:De Grazia attended the University of Chicago, receiving an A.B...

, 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

Victor Clube

Stace Victor Murray Clube is an English astrophysicist.He was educated at St John's and Christ Church, Oxford...

and Bill Napier

Bill Napier

William M. Napier or Bill Napier is the author of five high tech thriller novels and a number of serious scientific books....

(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

Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...

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

Ice core

An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet, most commonly from the polar ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland or from high mountain glaciers elsewhere. As the ice forms from the incremental build up of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper, and an ice...

s, and plate tectonics

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...

. Examples of the latter include tree rings, ice age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

dynamics, geomagnetism, and cosmic electricity.

" Most often, spokesmen for mainstream science such as Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...

, Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

, Gardner

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...

, and Oberg

James Oberg

James Edward Oberg is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian space program.-Biography:...

have not expressed their criticisms using valid arguments but, rather, tend to substitute polemic

Polemic

A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...

, 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
Pensée (Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered)
Pensée: Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered was a special series of ten issues of the magazine Pensée 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...

and KRONOS

Kronos (journal)

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 was disinvited from a conference on Velikovsky because other participants said they would not attend if he participated. This incident was instigated by the same group who in 1992 had deleted the section "Magnetism, Dynamos and Neptune" from Ellenberger's invited 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
Worlds in Collision is a book written by Immanuel Velikovsky and first published on April 3, 1950. The book proposed that around the 15th century BCE, Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object, and passed near Earth...

" 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 de-program Velikovsky's supporters, Henry Bauer

Henry Bauer

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

Kronos (journal)

as senior editor in December 1986 was acknowledged by Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner

, who previously noted Ellenberger's "vitriolic" letters defending Velikovsky. Regarding Ellenberger's defection, Skeptic editor Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer

Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...

declared: "One major strike against Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky

is that Leroy Ellenberger, a one-time Velikovsky supporter, after stepping outside of the paradigm

Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...

to examine the evidence in a clearer light, now completely rejects all tenets of the theory." Sagan

Carl 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

Dennis Rawlins is an American astronomer, historian, and publisher.-Polar controversies:While studying historical magnetic declination data in polar regions, Rawlins was surprised to find that there were no such data from the 1909 expedition of Robert E. Peary, eventually leading him to become...

hails Ellenberger "the world's top anti-Velikovsky expert". NASA astronomer David Morrison, 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.

Clube and Napier's model

Ellenberger came to accept Victor Clube

Victor Clube

Stace Victor Murray Clube is an English astrophysicist.He was educated at St John's and Christ Church, Oxford...

and Bill Napier

Bill Napier

William M. Napier or Bill Napier is the author of five high tech thriller novels and a number of serious scientific books....

'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

Society for Interdisciplinary Studies

The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies is a membership-based organization "formed in 1974 in response to the growing interest in the works of modern catastrophists, notably the highly controversial Dr Immanuel Velikovsky"...

, and Catastrophism and Ancient History, letters to editors, and postcard mailing campaigns to Velikovskians.

Velikovskian critic

Clube and Napier's model

See also