<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jeremy</i>
<br />I have always wondered why there is such kneejerk insulting of the man.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">There is no uniform definition. It is applied with comparable frequency to individuals with disordered thought processes and to individuals who do not march to the beat of the mainstream drummer.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I would be very interested to know what you thought of him at the time. Any anecdotes? Who was telling you he was a whacko?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The TJJ See era ended long before I arrived at USNO in 1963. But when I came, mere mention of his name would bring out smirks or even loud cackles from all who knew of him.
It would have been bad for one's image and reputation to inquire into what a "known crackpot" wrote. But after a while, it became clear to me that few of the staff had any real knowledge of See. Local history had simply thrown him into the same coal-bin with Velikovsky.
It was 15 years later when I first read something Velikovsky had actually written, as opposed to reading opinions of others about what he had written. I remember being shocked that the man's words were actually rational, and that his ideas, even at their worst, were no more wrong than one finds in every issue of the Astrophysical Journal. -|Tom|-
