Talk:Ages in Chaos

Older discussion
I don't often delete other people's additions, but this is actually a misguided criticism of Velikovsky, which could lead to this article being attacked by Velikovskians. His chronology of Israelite history was orthodox, it was Egyptian chronology which he claimed was seriously wrong. I hope to expand this article at some time, deal with these issues properly. PatGallacher 13:02, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)


 * Having made the addition myself, I can say that your argument is completely unfounded. The document I quoted was 'Assyrian', not Egyptian, and is an archeological artifact (The Kurkh Monolith), not from the Bible. I don't believe it's fair to remove archeological information that clearly refutes him- especially from the "Critique" section- simply because it would cause panic among "Velikovskians". It's a matter of truth- archeology is a credible source, and if archeology proves him wrong, then it should be pointed out. -RomeW


 * I think you misunderstood the point I was making here. Velikovsky makes the claim near the start of Ages In Chaos that Egyptian and Israelite history are several centuries out of step with each other.  He keeps his hand close to his chest at first about which he actually considers to be wrong, but if you read on in his writings on ancient history, he eventually makes it clear that it's Egyptian history which he considers to be badly confused, he considers the orthodox chronology of Israelite history to be sound.  Therefore, while I'm aware that there are some references to Ahab in Assyrian records, Velikovsky would have considered this to be beside the point, since he did not dispute Ahab's orthodox dates. PatGallacher 12:20, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)


 * So let me get this straight- the chronology we've established for Israel (e.g., that King Ahab fought at Qaqar in 853 BC, that Samaria fell in 722 BC, etc.) he believes is correct, right? If so, my mistake. If not, then you still need to explain your deletion. -RomeW

Sweeney
Do we have any evidence that Sweeney is a reliable (WP:RS) or prominent (WP:DUE) source on this topic? Neither the Knowledge Computing nor Amazon sites would appear to be RS. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 19:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability, sources & redirect
I am therefore restoring DreamGuy's redirect. If anybody wishes to dispute this, then we can take it to WP:AFD. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 01:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:V "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" appears to give clear support for redirecting this article, as it has "no reliable, third-party sources".
 * Further, it does not appear to meet any of WP:BK.

A decision to turn an article of some significant length which a significant number of people have worked on into a simple redirect is virtually equivalent to a decision to delete. Maybe we should, but in a case of that sort it should be taken to an AFD discussion. It does include an external link to the Hatshepstut aricle, a significant anti-Velikovskian piece. Velikovsky, love him or loathe him, is an important figure, important enough that his more significant works are notable. If people feel that there is a significant pro-Velikovsky bias in the article then it should be dealt with by judicious editing, not taking a hatchet to the whole article, I thought this was ABC of Wikipedia. PatGallacher (talk) 01:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

No, PatGallacher, what you are asking for is not "ABC of Wikipedia" -- but in fact has no basis in policy whatsoever. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Redirection is not deletion. WP:REDIRECT is a completely different guideline to the WP:DELETION policy. The procedures and requirements are very different.
 * 2) *In particular, redirects DO NOT require an AfD discussion. In fact, AfD nominations for outcomes other than deletion are, not uncommonly, speedy-closed.
 * 3) WP:V: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" offers a clear policy basis for redirecting this article -- a deficiency in the article that you have NOT addressed.
 * 4) The issue is not primarily "a significant pro-Velikovsky bias in the article" -- but the fact that the article has no reliable sources at all.
 * 5) *Likewise the "Hatshepstut aricle", being self-published on Geocities, is not RS.
 * 6) *Further, the sources cited generally do not verify the information cited to them (even ignoring their general unreliability).

Taking a look at the sources that the above find reveals, it is clear that: I would therefore suggest reducing the article to a stub or redirect until such time as somebody has the time/knowledge/access-to-reliable sources to perform such a rewrite. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Reliable sources (e.g. Henry H. Bauer's Beyond Velikovsky) exist that could serve as the basis of a legitimate article. Therefore an AfD is not appropriate.
 * 2) That such reliable sources are not currently included in the article, that the current article in no way resembles an article that would be constructed from such sources, and that the article will need to be rewritten from scratch.

Relevance of 'Other chronological revisions [purportedly] inspired by Velikovsky'
The material on David Rohl's & Peter James' chronologies does not provide any sourced linkage to Velikovsky. Unless this linkage can be verified with a RS, it is irrelevant & should be removed. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

While I would accept that there are problems with this article, I have seen worse in Wikipedia. In particular, I would dispute that "the current article in no way resembles an article that would be constructed from such sources, and that the article will need to be rewritten from scratch". For one thing, any article would have to devote a large part to explaining the contents of the book, which is a reliable source for this. Good articles are often written incrementally, we are supposed to be working together.

I am not sure what you mean by the last point, I do not have page numbers to hand of where Rohl and James discuss Velikovsky, but I could find it without undue difficulty. Or do you want a source which discusses Rohl and James? PatGallacher (talk) 09:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) The claim "Although they share some common ground with Velikovsky in terms of their criticisms of the orthodox chronology there are some important differences." is unsourced. Therefore we have no sourced linkage between Velikovsky and Rohl & James.
 * 2) The page-number tags were for the fact that in order for readers to be able to verify the 'Specific proposals', we need to include the page number in Ages in Chaos where each of these proposals was made.
 * 3) A claim of "the article will need to be rewritten from scratch" is not unreasonable in an article where nothing is adequately sourced.

The James quote newly introduced into the model gives little impression of acknowledging any 'inspiration' from Velikovsky, beyond the bare idea of 'a solution by challenging Egyptian chronology' -- which he also attributes to scholars prior to Velikovsky, and his assessment of the contents of Velikovsky's work is damning. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 15:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Cryptic further reading
I removed the following from the 'Further reading section:

William H. Stiebing, Jr., Pensée IVR 5 (Fall 1973): 10–12;

idem, Pensée IVR 10 (Winter 1974–75): 24-26;

idem, KRONOS 7/3 (Spring 1982): 72–74;

Peter James, S.I.S. Review 3 (1979): 48–55;

Michael Jones, S.I.S. Review 6/1–3 (1982): 27–33

I would suggest that they not be re-included without at least (i) article titles (rather important for establishing relevance) & (ii) unabbreviated periodical titles (important for finding them). (Incidentally, 'idem'-type references are frowned upon in Wikipedia, as they easily get broken when new refs are added.) HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Bauer on Velikovsky
At some stage I'll go through and include Bauer's specific criticisms of Velikovsky's specific claims, from the copy of his book available online through Google Books. This will however not be for at least a couple of days (as I've some more pressing real-world commitments in the mean time). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Reduce to redirect?
This article has been in something like its present form since April 2009, without any attempt to reduce it to a redirect or anything quite as drastic. It has undergone significant improvement by a number of editors since then. Discussion on this talk page stopped around April 2009. It is highly disruptive to reduce it to a redirect without further discussion. If someone had just wanted to restore the notability flag and resume discusson, fair enough. It may have been discussed at length 2 years ago, but the consensus seemed to be to keep. PatGallacher (talk) 10:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I would therefore suggest that (i) restoring the redirect was not unreasonable & (ii) propose merging of the ('Controversy and criticism' section of the) article into Immanuel Velikovsky. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) I was simply belatedly following up my undisputed point above that "reducing the article to a stub or redirect until such time as somebody has the time/knowledge/access-to-reliable sources to perform such a rewrite".
 * No, it has not' "undergone significant improvement" -- it has undergone very minor improvement, predominately to the still vestigial'' 'Controversy and criticism' section. The article remains largely an unencyclopaedic recap of Velikovsky's claims.
 * 1) Further, as Kitfoxxe pointed out in tagging this article, "most of the sources are about other books or the author's ideas in general".

POV lead
I have tagged the lead as giving ridiculously WP:UNDUE weight to Velikovsky's claims, over the WP:SECONDARY commentary on them. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:18, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The first 2 paragraphs of the lead are just an explanation of what his publications on ancient history were. The 3rd paragraph is a 6-line summary of his views on ancient history, then a 3-line summary of his critics' views, not a huge disparity. PatGallacher (talk) 11:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * 6.5:1 self-description/recap over WP:SECONDARY commentary is "a huge disparity". HrafnTalkStalk(P) 12:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Criticisms addressed?
In spite of the claim that criticisms have been 'addressed', I would note that: This does not appear to address the criticisms of this article.HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) The article is somewhere around 3/4 to 4/5 over before the second third-party source is even introduced. This demonstrates blatant violation of WP:PSTS, and largely undercuts any claims of notability.
 * 2) The majority of this article is not about the book Ages in Chaos, but is rather a summary of other books that Velikovsky wrote, or criticisms of Velikovsky's claims in general.

Velikovsky's writings on ancient history are sufficiently closely linked that I suggest it is legitimate to treat them collectively under a single article, whatever title we might give it, but they are known collectively as the "Ages in Chaos" series. I also suggest that it stretching it to say that the summary of a work is unduly lengthy when it consists of only 11 lines. I am not disuputing that this article could do with improvement, I might do some more myself given time, but it would help if we did not have the sword of Damocles hanging over it. PatGallacher (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Given that Velikovsky is known for little other than said "writings on ancient history", it would seem that the correct "single article" in question is Immanuel Velikovsky itself, not one titled for an individual book. It is NOT "stretching it" to suggest that giving a summary of a single work more space than criticism of all Velikovsky's writings is grossly WP:UNDUE, particualry given the level of criticism. You have had two years to clean up this fancruft -- the merger discussion of which is not just merited, but long overdue. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Velikovsky is not known for little other than his writings on ancient history, he was known mainly for his unorthodox astronomical views, put forward in Worlds in Collision, which has its own article. If I haven't done much to this article over the past 2 years it was because I thought it had achieved some stability. I reject the suggestion that this is fancruft. Whether the summary is over-long should be judged objectively, not by comparison with other sections. PatGallacher (talk) 10:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that a claimed cause of "innumerable catastrophes which were mentioned in early mythologies and religions around the world" can reasonably be considered part of "ancient history" (and the lead of Immanuel Velikovsky explicitly places the book in this context). I would note that Worlds in Collision is not nearly as imbalanced as this article. What part of "I would therefore suggest reducing the article to a stub or redirect until such time as somebody has the time/knowledge/access-to-reliable sources to perform such a rewrite" & the numerous tags on it led you to the preposterous conclusion that "it had achieved some stability"? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:30, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Whatever his other faults, Velikovsky did try to present his attempted historical reconstruction in a way which was not dependent on his unorthodox astronomical views, simply claiming that the Exodus took place in the context of a major natural disaster, the nature of this disaster was not crucial. However Ages in Chaos and its successor works are closely linked and inter-dependent. The article was stable in the sense that little changed for 2 years. Not disputing that Worlds in Collision is a better article (probably a reflection of it being his best known work) but that is an argument for improving this article, not taking a hatchet to it, I've seen a lot worse on Wikipedia. Attempting to merge this into the main article on Velikovsky will also create various problems. PatGallacher (talk) 11:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Controversy over this article seems to have become somewhat stalled, if anyone has any criticisms I suggest we start discussing them from scratch. PatGallacher (talk) 19:57, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

David Rohl
David Rohl is a "former director of the Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences (ISIS) ["founded by researchers formerly connected with the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) whose original purpose was to examine and debate the revisionist theories of Immanuel Velikovsky"] who from the 1980s has put forth several unconventional theories [2] revising the chronology of Ancient Egypt and Israel to form an alternative new chronology." It would appear therefore that he is neither a particularly independent source on Velikovsky's work, nor a non-WP:FRINGE one (and thus not a WP:RS). The fact that A Test of Time appears to be a glossy 'book of the TV series' (it is in fact subtitled 'A Channel Four Book' on Amazon), rather than an academic textbook or similar, further detracts from is claim to reliability. I am therefore tagging this source, for eventual removal. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Lorton etc.
I know we don't usually use self-published sources on Wikipedia, but I suggest we can make an exception with Lorton's article on Hatshepsut as it does read like a serious piece of scholarship, also this article has been criticised for pro-Velikovsky bias, so it would be ironic to delete an anti-Velikovsky source. Rohl can be treated as a reliable source about his own views. PatGallacher (talk) 16:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC)