I have been setting up my new web site, and when I transferred my blog content, I noticed how angry I sometimes sounded. Usually when I was talking about how Science treats psychic phenomena. Not just angry, but like one of the conspiracy theory, left wing, way out wackos. Or, perhaps, like those right wing, conservative, science-hating wackos like Rush Limbaugh. The verbiage was the same, once you changed a few nouns and verbs around. I was tempted to remove or rewrite them, but I decided that is where I was then, and I should leave it as a chronicle of my journey. I’m not saying that my views have necessarily changed, but that I expressed them poorly, in a way that I wouldn’t pay much attention to either, if didn’t write them. I can do better, and I will, later. Though I will probably just link to others who have said it better and add a little context.
Getting angry at these people is like getting angry at politicians. It doesn’t matter which side you are on, you will see them stand up and make the outrageous statements, in public, and are never held accountable. It’s funny how I never really noticed until recently how bad it was, they all act like we’re too dumb to know the difference, and I guess there must be some truth to that since they keep getting elected. The fact is there’s as much politics in science as there is in, well, politics. As Dr Roberd Bussard said in his Google Talk ‘Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really)’ about why his fusion power project was always starved for funding, “People tend to protect their rice bowls.” (His concept, called Polywell fusion, is still in development. They recently released this paper http://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.0133v1.pdf showing that the project is still on track.) Think, just for a moment, what would happen if psychic phenomena were accepted as real, no matter how small the effect was. Can you imagine how much research funding would be sucked away from other projects as everyone jumped in to get the patents and the Nobel prizes? If that wasn’t enough, how embarrassing would it be for all those scientists who have denied it, forever, to suddenly turn around and admit they were wrong, in order to get research funds? Nope, all those important people who very publicly staked their reputations on denying the existence of psychic phenomena will not be able to back down, no matter what the data say. And the data is saying a lot.
If that wasn’t enough, scientific confirmation of psychic phenomena would step in a lot religious toes. Just about every religion in the world lays claim to the unseen, immeasurable, parts of the human mind. Scientific acceptance of even the relatively mundane psychic phenomena like telepathy, remote viewing and healing, would call into serious question many claims of divinity for saints and holy men of all stripes. If there is one thing that all religious leaders, worldwide, can agree on, it’s that they don’t want science poking it’s nose into their miracles.
But times, they are a changin’, and those who try to hold back the tide get drenched. The unthinkable will probably be achieve de facto acceptance within my lifetime. Though, like evolution, the fight will be long and hard, and, in the end, a large segment of the population will never accept it. There will be the hard-core materialists, and there will be those that are offended because whatever science uncovers doesn’t fit their religious beliefs. Recent polls say that the majority of Americans still don’t believe in climate change, and I’m sure that this will be even harder to swallow, even as people make use of the practical results that come out of it. And I’m sure practical results will come, once the scientific community stops fighting over whether it exists and puts it energy into figuring out how it works.
The three stages of scientific denial:
1. There ain’t no such thing.
2. Oh, yes. It exists but the effect is too small to matter.
3. I knew it all along.
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