From Brad Fregger
Following your article “Scars of a catastrophe” (21 April, p 48), it is worth reminding readers that J Harlen Bretz was not the only one preaching theories of catastrophism at that time. We must not forget Immanuel Velikovsky. While many of his hypotheses – notably that Venus is a comet ejected from Jupiter – have yet to be proven, he was the true champion for the concept that major geological (and probably societal) changes occur as a result of catastrophic events.
In the early 1970s I spent an evening with Velikovsky, who was by then a bitter man, left so because of the treatment he experienced from the scientific community. The concept of “uniformitarianism” had gained another victim – as often happens when a scientific consensus refuses to consider alternatives.
Austin, Texas, US
