FRINGE-SCI AND CRACKPOTS AND BREAKTHROUGHS, OH MY!       1997 Bill Beaty


> I'd been using your
> amazingly great website for some time as a means to get science projects
> and ideas to teachers. I had a free moment the other day, so I decided to
> check out "the man behind the curtain" as it were. I was, of course,
> suitably impressed by your resume. Then I decided to read your FAQ. I feel
> I have to take issue with your characterizations of both scientists and the
> practice of science.

Hi Bruce B., thanks for the voluminous comments!

First, I think you might have misinterpreted the intent of this section of
my FAQ.  More than once I've been asked to explain my involvement with
"WEIRD SCIENCE."  Sometimes the question seems to be accompanied by a
sneer, if I interpret the emails correctly.  I put the FAQ there to answer
this question.  It details my reasons for creating that part of my
website, and explains my opinions and beliefs behind them.  Does it
instead sound like an attack on science?  It is not specifically intended
that way, it's simply the answer to a frequently-asked question.  Yes, I
am extremely critical of some fundamental parts of science, and of some of
the behaviors of scientists. I am also fanatically pro-science (jeeze,
just look at my amateur science section!)  Thus my website has a
conventional science education section as well as a very unconventional
section.

>	My first objection has to be with your characterization of
> scientists. I don't know who you are talking about, but it is directly at
> odds with the working scientists that I know.

Because of the subjects I deal with, I am exposed to an entirely different
side of scientists which you NEVER would see.  (It's like bringing up
religion or politics with your friends; when discussing certain subjects
they'll turn into totally different people!)  I don't think it's valid to
argue that my view is incorrect because yours is different.

Imagine what it must be like to be a proponent of unpopular research such
as Cold Fusion or Parapsychology.  It's like being a Democrat in a room
full of hostile Republicans!  In this analogy, any Republican would assume
that Republicans are not so bad, insisting that he knows many Rebublicans,
and they are all wonderful people.  But then ask the lone Democrat for his
views!  He would see a crowd of hostile, "ignorant" people who all tend to
follow a strict concensus (while loudly denying it,) and who hold contempt
for the views of others (also while denying it.)  So, whose opinion is
correct?  Is the Republican's self-image accurate, or does the Democrat
outsider perceive the true situation? Same question as, "What are
'Scientists' really like?"  Both views are correct of course.  A
researcher might be a perfectly nice person, but when confronted with a
controversial topic about which he/she maintains a strong opinion, then
emotions often rule, and that person can resort to unreasoning attacks,
intolerance, demonizing the enemy, contempt, ridicule, etc.

It's this political and social side of science that I hate.  For the most
part, this negative side of science is denied and kept in the closet.  I'm
convinced that this denial allows it to have a much freer reign than it
might otherwise have if it was a well-known and accepted subject among 
sicentists.  Democrats and Republicans know these issues.  So do Catholics 
and Muslims.  But Scientists are mostly clueless about such things.

The negative side of science is not always hidden.  "Pathological
Science," the fooling of oneself, currently has public status;  it is
firmly out of the closet.  Most everyone in science is on guard against
allowing their own desires to warp their perceptions and make us see the
things we want to believe.  However, the opposite side of the coin is
usually hidden and denied.  The opposite of "Pathological Science" is
"Pathological Skepticism;" it'is our human tendency to become blind to
things we DIS-believe.  Negative desires can warp our perceptions and
cause us to miss the things that we don't wish to see.  The delusions of
Pathological Science are well known, while the blindness of "Pathological
Skepticism" among scientists is hidden and denied, even though history is
full of examples.

I am convinced that this "Blindness caused by Disbelief" is at least as
common as the delusions caused by beliefs.  To research this topic, look
into books on the Sociology of Science.  That's where the "belief
mechanics" of science is discussed and analyzed.

The most famous examples of "Pathological Science" were Blondlot and his 
N-rays, and Fey??? (Russian) and his Polywater.  Famous examples of 
"Pathological Skepticism" were the angry responses of Galileo's 
contemporaries, the researchers, not church officials, who refused to look 
through his telescope because all staunch Aristotleans KNOW that the moon 
has no mountains.  Another example is the physical-sci community in 1900 
who KNEW that the Wrights were hoaxers, because heavier-than-air machines 
are impossible.  Even though the Wrights operated their aircraft publicly 
in Dayton for about a year, no scientist (or even any newspaper reporters) 
agreed to come and witness the many flights.  Another: the response of the 
Geophysics community to Weltner and his ideas about continental drift.  
See: if we DISbelieve something, then the strongest evidence becomes 
insignificant in our eyes.

> You say that they have
> "damaged their creative ability and capacity to brainstorm". Almost to a
> man (or woman), every scientist I have met has been a lively, creative and
> fun individual. When I spent a year working in a protein characterization
> lab, each morning my boss (a double Ph.D. in biochemistry and chemistry)
> would walk in and say, "Let's have fun today". Most other scientists that I
> have met, young or old, have the same attitude. 

I see your point.  I wasn't saying that scientists in general aren't
lively and funloving.  When I mention a "damaged" creative ability, one
could ask "damaged in comparison to what?"

This hits the nail on the head.  I personally believe that the majority of 
researchers should function on a level approaching that of a Thomas Gold 
or an RP Feynman.  But instead Gold and Feynman are outliers.  I believe 
that, although a major part of Feynman's ability did come from inborn math 
skills, etc., a significant portion also came from his out-of-box thinking 
style, and from his extreme tendency to "march out of step" with the rest 
of the world.  He would look at what everyone was doing, shun it, then do 
something radically different. I believe that scientists as a whole tend 
to NOT to march out of step with their colleagues.  Instead they all tend 
to see the world pretty much from the same viewpoint, and a strong general 
concensus exists regarding the nature of the physical world.  If this were 
not true, then Kuhn's "paradigm shifts," the events where the 
mass-viewpoint undergoes sudden step-functions, could not occur.  
Paradigm shifts are caused by fierce resistance to certain new ideas, and 
by the discontinuous mob-event when the resistant community suddenly (as a 
whole!) capitulates and accepts the idea.

I see their tendency towards concensus-following as being a fault.  It
results in social forces which lead to self imposed-conformity. 

On the positive side this leads to widespread recognition/acceptance of
real truths, and preserves the foundations of science against delusion or
even manipulation by self-interested individuals.  However, in the past it
has also led Science as a whole to suppress new discoveries;  it causes
groups of people to ignore good evidence while simultaneously they
remained convinced that the new discoveries were impossible.  The
derogatory name for this is "herd mind behavior."

You look at scientists and see creative people.  I look at the same group
and see that their creativity could be a hundred times greater.  I see
that the sciences could have immensely more variety than they do
currently.  If only more people would intentionally try to march out of
step, try to care less about reputations and about what people think, and
try to constantly test out viewpoints that are everywhere disparaged as
offbeat or crazy.  Feynman is proof that offbeat/crazy is sometimes GOOD.

> The only place I have seen
> attitudes like those that you describe are in the cartoonish opinions of
> believers in pseudoscience, and "creation scientists".

To this population of the pseudoscience-believers and "creation
scientists,"  you might also wish to add a few other, more-reputable
groups who have identical critical attitudes toward mainstream science.  
For the most part, these other groups are the researchers involved with
work in unorthodox subjects.  They include those doing work in
parapsychology, those researchers still involved in "cold fusion", those
who track down anomalies which seemingly contradict Relativity, and in
general, those who encounter evidence which contradicts widely held
scientific ideas.  I'm trying to collect examples of these on my
"Closeminded Science" page http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html

Characterizing those who have less than glowing regard for science as
being Pseudoscientists and Creationists is unfair.  However, I guess I
tend to do a similar, but opposite thing: advocates of the unorthodox
call the working scientist a "closeminded pathological skeptic
herd-follower", while the working scientist calls the unorthodox-advocate
a "gullible pseudoscientific UFO-believer creationist."  The intent on
both sides is to demonize the enemy, to indulge in contempt and to
suppress communication instead of promoting civilized debate.


> One of my friends is
> a heavy believer in U.F.O.s, and during an argument he expressed this
> opinion of scientists. I asked him if I and two other science students he
> knew were like that, to which he replied in the negative.

The topic of UFOs brings up a noteworthy example of the aspect of science 
we are discussing here.  A recent article (I don't remember the source)  
quoted a poll of scientists where a significant portion (maybe even a 
majority, I don't recall now) were in favor of devoting funding to UFO 
research.  But wouldn't you agree that, in general, science views the 
reports of UFOs as exclusively coming from deluded people?  And, if so 
many researchers are UFO-friendly, where is the funding?  Individual 
scientists may be in favor of UFO research, but "Science" as a whole has 
only contempt for such things.

My view is that scientists tend to maintain separate public and private 
sets of opinions.  Those involved in maverick research and 'taboo' topics 
must carefully hide themselves. The science culture creates this tendency.  
When privately polled, scientists support extremely unorthodox research.  
However, in the public arena, anyone who comes out in favor of such 
research will be attacked by their fellows, and so they must either keep 
silent, or they must hide their true beliefs and instead voice the opinion 
of the majority.  Doing otherwise would risk damaging their reputations 
and careers.  And therefore, the reigning public stance regarding UFOs is 
one of contempt.  So, again as you say, scientists individually do not 
resemble the tarnished image presented by the crackpots you mention.  But 
this doesn't necessarily mean that, when not functioning as a single 
complicated "extended organism", individual scientists ARE just like that 
stereotype.  Contempt for UFOs seems to be an emergent global behavior on 
the part of the scientific community and is not necessarily exhibited by 
individual members of the group.  UFOs are just one example of this social 
phenomenon.  The majority of individual scientists may also support many 
other "disreputable" fields (parapsychology, etc.), yet at the same time 
it is a Very Bad Thing if any scientist publicly acquires a label of 
"parapsychology supporter."  If you publicly support UFO research or 
parapsychology, you will not be seen as a scientist.  You will be seen as 
a "UFO-believer" or "telepathy crackpot" and your reputation as a 
researcher is damaged.

Where else do we find a situation where individuals believe one thing, but 
they are forced to say the opposite in public?  During the 1600s 
witch-hunt craze?  Or more recently, in Nazi Germany.  You might have 
Jewish friends, but if you don't publicly desparage them, you may become a 
"Jew lover" in the public eye, and so risk your life.  And during the 
witch-hunt craze, if you don't join the crowd throwing stones, then the 
crowd might come after YOU.  This is the negative side of concensus- 
think.  And very unfortunately, it invisibly rules science.  It promotes 
INTOLERANCE OF INTELLECTUAL DISSENTERS. It silences the voices who would 
support parapsychology, anomalistics, cold fusion, and any number of other 
unorthodox fields.  It ALMOST silenced the voices of those who were in 
favor of plate-tektonics, surgeons washing hands before surgery, promoters 
of non-Euclidean geometry, and many many others.  As W.I. Beveridge points 
out, we know only of those discoveries which survived this suppressive 
disbelief.

> I then asked him where this opinion came from. He had no reason for 
> this, no other scientists he knew, other that what some ufologists had 
> written. This isn't a reasonable assertion, but an article of faith.  As 
> such, it is both frightening and foolish. It exists only as an ad 
> hominem attack on anyone who disagrees with your beliefs, and it assumes 
> that any criticism can be safely ignored.

I agree that this sort of thing can sometimes indicate paranoid thinking,
as well as being a ploy to dismiss valid arguments.  However, I do not
believe it is correct to argue that, because SOME people defend actual 
delusions by accusing their attackers of suppression, therefore
intellectual suppression never exists at all?  Yes, a truely
delusional crackpot will ignore perfectly rational arguments, and will
complain that anyone who doesn't support him must be part of the
"conspiracy."  But this doesn't mean that real, conspiracy-like
suppressive tendencies cannot exist in science.  For many examples see 
http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html

If they ARE out to get you, then you aren't simply paranoid.  A researcher
with an unpopular discovery who complains that funding sources suddenly
vanish, complains that tenure is denied for invalid reasons, etc., is not
just paranoid, and is not just trying to avoid facing the truth.  When
somebody's work threatens the current concensus viewpoint of the scientist
community, sometimes the dissenting voice really does encounter a seeming
"conspiracy" to silence them.  There is no conspiracy; it's simply an
example of the majority resisting the next paradigm shift, or of people
displaying their natural response to something that threatens their system
of beliefs.

So, if someone complains that scientists are closeminded sheep, this does
not automatically indicate that the person is a crackpot.  Usually such
complaints DO indicate crackpotism.  Yet sometimes (rarely) that person
has laid hold of a genuine discovery, and as a result, is experiencing the
sorts of attacks mentioned on the "whistleblower" pages linked on
CLOSEMINDED SCIENCE.  If you were a serious scientist trying to research
UFOs or parapsychology, and if you felt that everyone in the larger
scientific community was out to get you, you would *not* be paranoid.  
This shows that we must look deeply at each particular situation to judge
if the person is delusional, or if the world really *is* out to get them.


> Finally, you accuse scientists of arrogance, of "crimes against the
> humanities" (I couldn't help the pun, sorry).

;)

I'll have to go check my FAQ, but I thought that my assertion was 
regarding religion in particular.

Would you agree that Science as a whole assumes that religion is
superstition?  If this was not so, and if religion was taken seriously by
Science, then I see that Creationists might not be held in such contempt.  
If the claims of religions were taken seriously, then I see that funding
would be available for investigating evidence of survival after death,
miraculous events, research into souls/auras, etc.  It is clear to me that
Science regards religion as irrational, and therefore Science refuses to
fund any research into religious claims, and also assumes that any
anecdotal evidence in support of religion can only be the product of
delusions.  Not to say that many individual scientists aren't religious.  
But how many of them are leading teams of researchers who investigate the
TESTABLE parts of religions, such as life after death?  Imagine what would
happen to your career if you tried to push through funding proposals for
this type of research.  You would become widely known as a soft-minded
religious nut.  Not a proper scientist at all.


> Second, I'm not sure quite what you're advocating for the
> performance of science. The very foundation of science is empirical
> evidence. Without it, any theory, no matter how creative, is invalid. Until
> something is proven, there is absolutely no reason to believe it.

Uh, not exactly.

I could argue that good theories must be falsifiable, which implies that
new evidence could arise at any time which disproves them.  Hence nothing
is ever "proven."  If we follow your suggestion, if we must disbelieve
theories until they are "proven", then we must disbelieve everything.

The most solid scientific fact is by definition on shaky ground, and in
decades or centuries it has a chance of being massively extended (or even
found to be in error.)  However I agree totally with your point about the
need for positive evidence.  Yet I contend that Science is not just based
on evidence, it is also based on our INTERPRETATION of evidence, and
therefore it is partially a system of beliefs, a worldview, as is any
religion.  The difference being that science for the most part is backed
up by detailed, well-verified data, while Religion is just a free-floating
bubble of belief.  That doesn't mean that Science cannot sometimes be just
as mutable as a religion.  Sometimes scientific concensus shifts
radically, while the known evidence stays exactly same, as when massive
evidence which had earlier been dismissed is suddenly taken seriously.

Also, there is a danger in DISbelieving all unproven theories.  It can
lead to the circular process of the rejection of good evidence on the
grounds that... a theory is not yet proven.  But why would anyone ever
work on a topic in which they disbelieved?  Disbelief in unproven theories
halts curiosity.  For example the Ball Lightning phenomenon was in just
such a catch-22 state for decades.  Everyone "knew" that it didn't exist;
we "knew" that there was no good evidence for it; that all reports of Ball
Lightning were from untrustworthy people.  Therefore any proposals to look
for evidence had a huge uphill battle.  And therefore, if a scientist saw
some ball-lightning in person, he or she would keep silent about it for
fear of being ridiculed or turned into an "untrustworthy" person who has
delusions of non-existent phenomena.  Today the situation is different;  
mounting evidence has shattered the barriers of disbelief, funding is
increasingly available for "BL" research, and witnessing ball-lightning
will not get you desparaged by your peers.

I see the situation as being one of "dry skepticism" versus "wet
skepticism".  The "wet" version entails a neutral stance, remaining
openminded, assuming that the craziest thing might be true, but never
actually believing in the crazy things unless good evidence is
forthcoming.  The "dry" version entails DISBELIEVING in crazy things,
assuming they are mistakes and delusions, and only changing this stance if
strong evidence should somehow magically develop which can withstand all
attempts to debunk it.  I'm a staunch supporter of Wet Skepticism, and see
Dry Skepticism as a force that suppresses new ideas in science.  For
example, intentional research into anomalous observations could be a
fertile part of science, but instead the investigation of physics
anomalies is for the most part shunned and desparaged.  (Ball lightning is
the most well-known example, with Cold Fusion thermal output running a
close second.)  Evidence which goes against contemporary interpretations
of physics tends to be disbelieved and ignored. Cold Fusion research finds
unexplained heat but no neutrons, and aneutronic H-fusion without gamma
photon emission is known to be impossible, therefore the heat evidence is
discarded, and the research never passes peer review.  The entire "CF"
field dies, leaving unexplored any possible new physics behind the
unexplained heat source.

> Most of what I have read of fringe science consists of
> unquestioning belief in effects that could be obtained in other ways.

This is very true, but not for the reasons you assume.  Because
professional scientists avoid the fringe, therefore most of the work is
done by untrained hobbyists and "true believers", and the result is just
as you say.  Yet a few subjects such as Parapsychology, "Amperian
Electrodynamics", cold fusion, and numerous other professional fields have
one foot solidly in the fringe, yet are pursued by clear-thinking
professionals rather than wide-eyed believers and fanatics.  These fields
don't appear in National Inquirer, popular books, etc., so it takes a
dedicated literature search before one can get a accurate view of their
current status.  The "fringe" is much more than just the Yeti-sightings
and the astrology believers, but scientists would never know this.  How 
many scientists do you know who subscribe to Journal of Scientific 
Exploration, or have even heard of the JSE?

> 	When you talk about where "the next Wright Brothers" are coming
> from, has it occurred to you that at least some of this stuff might
> actually be nonsense? Just because it's bizzarre and different does not in
> any way make it correct.

Of course it's nonsense.  It's 99% (or much more) nonsense.  I call it
"diamonds in the sewage".  My point is that the 1% of the fringe (or less)
which eventually turns out to be valid can make the 99% crap worth
investigating.  The Wright Brothers were my carefully chosen example: if
we could look at the status of flying machines in 1900, we would find
hundreds upon hundreds of crackpot inventors with flapping bat-wing
contraptions, ridiculous tiny bicycle-powered propellors, etc.  Flying
machines were the "Fringe" arena of 1900.  But if we lived back then, and
if we rejected all the flying machines as being contemptable crackpottery,
we would discard the Wright Brothers along with the crackpots.  If we
suppressed all research into flying machines because it was known to be a
"fringe" subject, then the science of Aerodynamics would remain unborn.  
(Or would be founded by a couple of amateurs who came totally from outside
of Academia, and had to move to Europe before anyone in authority would
even listen.  Which is what happened.)

I suppose it's all a matter of personal philosophy of betting on
longshots. One can work the stock market by playing safe and getting
constant small gains, or by gambling on longshots.  Neither method is
superior.  If we cannot tolerate big losses, then low-return, safer
investments are the way to go.  In hindsight, it looks to me like much
more funding should have been made available in the 1800's for
professional research into flying machines.  Lots of it would have been
wasted on untenable theories, but look at the gains which would have
resulted!  Fortunately the Wrights were there and succeeded, so the need
for funding is moot.  They were a rarity, and, had they failed, it's not
too great a stretch of the imagination to predict that powered flight
would even today be regarded as impossible "fringe" trash, fit only for
basement inventors.

> For all the examples of sucessful challengers, how
> many are there that failed? What we know are the sucesses.

Exactly.  But it's not valid to argue that longshot betting cannot
succeed.  My example of the Wright Brothers shows that it does
occasionally succeed.  Then the issue becomes: does it succeed enough that
it's worthwhile pursuing?  Should all funding be exclusively directed to
small, safe "investments", or should there be a channel whereby the
unorthodox research gets supported too?  Perhaps we should not fund
amateur antigravity research which takes place in home basements.  But
should we also refuse to fund Dr. Podkletnov's quantum gravity
experiments, and hound him out of his research position?  Since upheavals
in science are usually brought about by pursuite of "crazy" ideas,
exclusively funding the "sane" ones will present a barrier to
revolutionary discoveries.  It's been said before:  the closeminded
aspects of peer review can suppress progress.

> How many of the
> experiments that you suggest in your gravity shield section have been
> performed? How many of them actually succeeded? How many of these people
> have actually run a controlled experiment? How many of these have been
> well-designed experiments (removing other possible influences)? I don't see
> a whole lot of that here.

The gravity-shield stuff took place on my discussion group VORTEX-L.  I
wrote the Antigravity page mostly as an annex for that group.  J. Shurner
exchanged correspondence with Dr. Podkletnov and managed to reproduce the
"shielding" effect using a 1" HTSC disk, and reported various effects
using faraday shields, plastic enclosures excluding air convection,
nonmetal masses and balance beams, etc.  But then he decided to pursue
patents and has gone secretive.  Other subscribers who attempted
replications based on the small bits of info that John did communicate did
not succeed.  No one else pursued communication with Podkletnov, and the
issue has died.  Look for VORTEX-L under my Weird Science page, under the
"Other Websites: Cold Fusion" list.

You're aware of CSICOP?  That group was originally supposed to
scientifically *investigate* the paranormal, but ceased all such activity. 
Vortex-L is the physics-based equivalent, a group of scientists,
engineers, and hobbyists who investigate anomalies in physics (such as the
Podkletnov gravity claim, cold fusion, chemical-based transmutation,
claims of working "perpetual motion machines", etc.)  In other words, the
crazy stuff that physicists can only mess with in their free time, and
dare not discuss with the scientist down the hall.

> 	I am unsure why I was motivated to write this. I have in the past
> been truly impressed by your web site (it's at the top of my bookmarks
> list), and I get the impression that you're a reasonable individual. I
> guess I was just shocked by the vitriol in your FAQ, directed at a lot of
> hard-working poeple that I know (and will be joining someday). If this
> e-mail upsets you, I'm sorry. It isn't meant to. It's just sort of a random
> response to some of your comments. In any case, please forgive my rambling
> and keep up the good work on your site.

Hey, no problem.  I once hung out on compuserve science and sci.physics
newsgroup, and followed the Cold Fusion controversy for years.  You want
to see vitriol, just espouse unorthodox ideas, or criticize orthodox
viewpoints on these forums.  Much of my negative attitude derives from the
hostility directed at CF researchers by other researchers.  Admittedly a
very biased sample, and my bias is increased by observing those who attack
the "fringe" without first investigating it with an open mind.  If we are
all so certain about the nature of the "fringe", we'll never actually look
at it, and so we might descend into a kind of anti-fringe intellectual
bigotry.  "Everybody knows what fringe researchers are like!  They are
ignorant, dishonest, and dangerous, and we should never let our daughter's
marry one!"     :) 

Thanks much for the opportunity to converse!  I hope I made clearer some
of the reasons for my position.  My FAQ answer is biased, since it only 
delves into my negative views on science.  I offer the non-weird part of my 
website as evidence for the positive side of my opinions regarding science!

If you're interested in the professional side of the weird stuff, take a
look at the list "heretics" books on Closeminded Science page,
http://amasci.com/weird/wclose.html.  In particular, I highly
recommend SCIENCE LITERACY AND THE MYTH OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, and
FORBIDDEN SCIENCE.  Also, there is a professional peer-reviewed journal
dedicated to weird science research, "Journal of Scientific Exploration",
which is linked off my pages in several spots.