The following is the text of an article by Brian Josephson, published in the Times Higher Education Supplement, 12 ug! 1""#!

$%& Times Supplements, 'td! (ote) this material is sub*ect to copyright restrictions and may not be used for for any commercial purpose without the permission of the copyright owner! +f it is transmitted, copied or printed, then this notice, any other information herein relating to copyright, and author and publisher names, must be included in the deri,ati,e material $except for the case of brief -uotes for the purposes of re,iew or research&! .or the last six wee/s, BB%2 T0 has been running a series called 1Heretic1, detailing the responses of the scientific community to ideas generally considered unacceptable by scientists, and the treatment gi,en to those ad,ocating such ideas! Typical 1unacceptable1 claims were the effecti,eness of high doses of ,itamin %, antigra,ity, and psycho/inesis! +n e,ery case a similar story unfolded) dismissal of the claims as being nonsense or impossible, generally without any serious attempt to loo/ at the e,idence or the arguments2 the non3materialisation of the honours, promotions, in,itations to gi,e public lectures and so on that such indi,iduals might ha,e been expected to recei,e gi,en their past achie,ements2 ,iolent attac/s by other scientists2 and, for some, demotion or withdrawal of research facilities! The prestige of the indi,iduals concerned and their continuing competence in other matters is seen as being of no moment) their unorthodox claims are percei,ed merely as instances of the failings to which all human beings are sub*ect! The sense of self3superiority of the critics in many instances was in stri/ing contrast to the humility, integrity and sincerity manifested by wor/ers such as 4obert Jahn $an expert in roc/et engineering forced to resign his position as 5ean of the .aculty of Engineering at 6rinceton 7ni,ersity because of this uncon,entional side to his research interests and, for a time, not allowed to tal/ about that research&! Jahn became interested in psycho/inesis because an undergraduate at 6rinceton as/ed if he could choose as a pro*ect the in,estigation of

possible effects of mind on electronic circuits! Jahn assumed that there would be no such effects, but thought setting up an experiment to loo/ for them would be a useful exercise in itself and agreed2 to his considerable surprise the results were positi,e! These results held up under further in,estigation and since that time the phenomenon has been studied by Jahn and his associates in great detail and in a ,ariety of ways! s in a number of the cases, finding out the truth was more important for Jahn than whether others would accept his disco,eries and whether wor/ in the area would ad,ance his career! %ritics of his wor/ ha,e been numerous, but most ha,e been armchair ones, who ha,e not ta/en the trouble to find out what the experiment actually entailed! There has been more serious discussion of the ,alidity of the experiment in the scientific literature, but as far as + am aware the criticisms ha,e not stood up to detailed analysis! few years ago an aggressi,e critic from Jahn1s own uni,ersity, (obel 'aureate 6hilip nderson, wrote an article in the *ournal 86hysics Today8 containing a ,eiled attac/ on Jahn1s wor/! To her credit the editor of 6hysics Today allowed continuing discussion of the sub*ect in the *ournal1s correspondence column $which is -uite unusual for a *ournal read by mainstream scientists&, and this led ultimately to nderson ha,ing to beat a strategic retreat with a face3sa,ing response, a,oiding comment on the points at issue! 9ne saw the mind of the con,inced sceptic at wor/ in the inter,iew with another physics (obel 'aureate, Ste,en :einberg! :einberg1s attitude seems to be that the nature of the phenomenon is enough in itself to condemn the wor/ as being wrong! nd again $according to :einberg&, if such a thing as psycho/inesis exists, we will ha,e to throw away all we /now in science and start all o,er again! nderson made a similar comment in the 6hysics Today correspondence! But the point is not a con,incing one! There 8ha,e8 been ma*or re,olutions in science before, and so the fact that the existence of psycho/inesis would lead to a re,olution in science is not a good argument against its existence! But at the same time, these ma*or re,olutions ha,e in general left the pre,ious science ,ery largely intact2 so there would be no need to start science o,er again as :einberg claims! +n Jahn1s words, what would

be in,ol,ed would not be an o,erturning of science, but an expansion to ta/e consciousness into account! Jahn and others interested in expanding science beyond its present limits in this way belie,e that in such a science information $especially meaningful information&, and processes in which subsystems share information to create new forms of organisation, will play a crucial role! ;y scientific side was irritated by the fact that the matter of whether the heretical scientists that were portrayed in the series had a good case for their beliefs or not seemed to be ,ery secondary compared to the matter of how heretical scientists are treated! This /ind of thing happens fre-uently in science programs on tele,ision, whose producers often seem s/illed in explaining the social principles of science, but who sometimes ta/e an insufficiently broad scientific perspecti,e! 6rogrammes should see to it that inconsistencies are dealt with, and serious loose ends tied up! 9ne gathered that 'iam Hudson and Hans Eysenc/ disagreed o,er whether there was any e,idence showing blac/ people to ha,e a lower +< than whites in the scientific literature, but we did not learn of Eysenc/1s reaction to Hudson1s assertion that there was none! gain, it would ha,e been of interest to /now on what grounds Jac-ues Ben,eniste asserted that the experiment published in the *ournal (ature, claiming to ha,e obtained results different from those of Ben,eniste, were carried out in an incorrect manner, since that would ha,e been crucial to his case! $0ery recently Ben,eniste has gi,en his reasons in a letter to (ature, accompanied by an Editorial comment which largely ignores the details of Ben,eniste1s argument&! similarly inade-uate scientific perspecti,e was also manifest in the treatment of 'aithwaite1s attempts to generate le,itation by means of gyroscopes! The usual tone of important wor/ being un*ustly criticised was maintained in this case, despite the fact that 'aithwaite ultimately admitted himself that he had been -uite wrong in his earlier ideas concerning gyroscopes and, implicitly, that his critics had been correct! 9ne gathered that he belie,es he has ne,ertheless been successful in his latest attempts to get le,itation to wor/ using contra3rotating gyroscopes! +t is a pity that in the programme pretty graphics

showing future space ,ehicles propelled by 'aithwaitian antigra,ity de,ices too/ priority o,er showing demonstrations that might ha,e con,inced the ,iewer that antigra,ity has indeed been achie,ed by 'aithwaite here and now on Earth! ll + could see from watching the demonstrations gi,en was that the readings on a scale in an experiment fluctuated $which + can achie,e myself ,ery easily by standing on a weighing machine while mo,ing myself ,ertically&, and that when 'aithwaite turned a piece of apparatus about a ,ertical axis a spinning disc mo,ed upwards, accompanied by excited shouts that le,itation was occurring! + am not ,ery impressed, either, by the fact that it seems to be much easier than one might thin/ to raise a hea,y spinning gyroscope in the air, because the spin of the gyroscope can supply most of the energy needed for such a lift! ;y conclusion from the programme is that 'aithwaite seems still to ha,e a limited understanding of (ewtonian mechanics! Howe,er, while + am sceptical about the chances of his le,itation de,ice wor/ing + will not *oin those who say that it 8cannot8 wor/ and that he should stop his research! The heretical theories of 'inus 6auling as to the cure3all capabilities of ,itamin %, generally re*ected at the time, are now, it seems, being ,indicated by research into anti3oxidants! Ben,eniste1s experiments on homeopathic remedies are a more interesting case2 perhaps in another ten or twenty years they will also be accepted as brea/through research $or, again, perhaps not&! ;ost scientists will tell you that according to science homeopathic remedies 8cannot8 wor/, because they are so highly diluted that no molecules of the acti,e source can be expected to be present in the solution! But this argument is in,alid, because $as Ben,eniste suggests& water might ha,e a memory of some /ind, that would allow it to register the effects of past contact with biologically acti,e molecules, in the same way that magnetic tape registers the effects of the magnetic fields generated by the recording head of a tape recorder after a recording has been completed! There is a common but incorrect belief that water cannot ha,e a memory, because mo,ements of the molecules would cause any memory traces in the water to disappear ,ery -uic/ly! s a matter of principle this is not so) li-uids are /nown to exist where there are mechanisms that regenerate some /inds of information pattern as fast

as the information is lost by mo,ement of molecules! But scientific opinion is fossilised) it has been generally agreed in the past that a phenomenon such as homeopathy is unscientific, and it is next to impossible to erase such a belief from the scientific consciousness! The Ben,eniste homeopathy affair began when a wor/er in his laboratory as/ed if he could try out with homeopathically prepared samples a techni-ue that Ben,eniste himself had de,ised, to see if there were any ob*ecti,ely measurable effects! %ontrary to Ben,eniste1s expectations the experiment was successful, and confirmed by further tests! He tried to get the research published in 8(ature8 and was met with a series of demands for further chec/ing! fter he had conformed with the demands and the effect was still there the editor made the remar/able offer of agreeing to publish the paper if Ben,eniste agreed to ha,e an in,estigation carried out 8after8 publication! The se-uel was a ,isit from a committee consisting of the editor of (ature, magician James 4andi and a writer specialising in 1debun/ing1! :hen + read their report in (ature claiming that they had found Ben,eniste1s experiments to be faulty + was not impressed2 if + had been a referee for the report on Ben,eniste1s wor/ $which + belie,e was not refereed& + would ha,e pointed out a number of defects in need of clarification! The editor of (ature seemed to ha,e misunderstood $and still seems to misunderstand& the logic behind the re*ection of samples that 1do not wor/1! Ben,eniste commented in the programme that the committee did not appear to ha,e the technical -ualifications re-uired to get a difficult experiment in biology to wor/! The fact that the counting in,ol,ed in the experiment was not done blind is a ,alid ob*ection in principle, but later experiments in Ben,eniste1s laboratory done with full double3blind methods are said to ha,e reproduced the original results fully! The cases dealt with in the programme reflect badly on science! The benefits of the most crucial disco,eries could be unnecessarily lost to man/ind if these ways of dealing with unusual results were the norm, as they indeed appear to be! :hat is it that causes such reactions= ;y model for what goes on is that science in,ol,es not only facts and theories but a collection of 1defence mechanisms1, intended to maintain the 1purity1 of science! Science is ,iewed as a good that can be threatened if ade-uate standards are not

maintained! So far, so good, but problems start when scientists start to thin/ of themsel,es as experts who /now better than others what is true and what is in error! Experts do not need to go into details2 they 1/now1 what is wrong with a field and become authorities that others can loo/ up to to /now what is the truth! t the le,el of detail, if the going gets bad in an argument one can always call upon the uni,ersal mantra 1extraordinary claims re-uire extraordinary proof1, to extricate oneself from further discussion, or the need to thin/! 33333333333333333333333333 uthor1s footnote) it has been pointed out to me by 5!.! >ibbs that it is not in fact possible, according to (ewton1s laws, to utilise the energy of rotation of a gyroscope to lift its centre of mass! Thus one must see/ an explanation elsewhere! (on3paranormal explanations are by no means ruled out!