BBC Television programmes permalink
Science ant the Seance
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Message 1.
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
At last an unbiased program on a mainstream TV channel which treats the subject of survival sensibly, and the usual establishment hostile skeptic attack dogs were left locked up in their kennels.
I think the subject could have had more content and less panning of the camera across old photographs and film footage though. It would have been good to have had interviews from successful present day researchers, such as Michael Roll, Victor Zammit and Garry Schwartz . You could also have interviewed more people who have witnessed materialization, and why not interview Ronald Pearson who has discovered the location of the spirit world, and shown that it has nothing to do with the supernatural and comes within the scientific discipline of sub atomic physics as Sir Oliver Lodge stated.
Finally, now that Cannon Michael Perry has acknowledged the phenomena exists why was he not asked what the church was going to do about modernizing their concept of survival? They cant go on much longer maintaining the departed are laying dormant in the ground awaiting the day of resurrection and judgment if they acknowledge they are ready and willing to communicate.
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Message 2
Posted by DerbyGem (U1158336) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
Here here. I was pleased the way the subject was treated - i.e. taken seriously for once.
I was disappointed that they didn't include more up-to-date evidence that exists and experiments that have been carried out, rather than ending at the 1950's (ish). -
Message 3
Posted by JasonsMum (U1958890) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
It was really lovely to see such an honest programme compared to some I have seen in the past.
I am also glad that a Church working mediums' opinion was used, rather than a television personality medium.
It was quite funny to note the fact that it is at times of great need that people turn to Spiritualism (ie during the wars) and most of the people who come through the doors are looking for something they are unable to find in the orthodox religions.
My hope is that in time more and more programmes are shown about Spiritualism and that we (the only religion recognised by Act of Parliament) are also included in the list of religions shown on the front page of bbc.co.uk/religion, but only time will tell. -
Message 4
Posted by Ian_banjo (U1959294) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
(PSEUDO-)SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE
I was appalled and angered by this flawed and one-sided programme. It was poorly made, grossly unscientific and deeply ignorant. Unbiassed? You must be joking!!!
Where was the science? Where were the living scientists to make critical contributions? Where was the critical thinking and analysis to test the statements made by the numerous spiritualists, believers and mediums who contributed.
I can't cover all of the bad pseudo-science in this programme, but will give a few examples.
They showed an old film of Sir Oliver Lodge fiddling around with some magnets and burbling on about "the ether" and opining that it was through this medium that spirit contacts were made. But there was no mention of Maxwell's equations or the Michelson-Morley experiment (both almost certainly pre-dating the film of Lodge!), so the uninformed viewer would have been led to believe in the existence of the "ether". Let me make it clear. Science has not supported the concept of the "ether" for around a hundred years.
The programme also featured William Crookes and his radiometer, but omitted to say why it rotated and that the direction of rotation is the opposite direction to what Crookes had predicted. They also said that Crookes's work led directly to the cathode ray tube (arrant nonsense - completely omitting to mention J J Thompson in this context). By some convoluted logic that was completely beyond me they tried to make an absurd linkage between the ideas of electric/magnetic fields, the plasma in a discharge tube and the dual particle/wave nature of light to links with the "spirit world".
There were photographs of "ectoplasm", one of which definitely looking like some old girl with her net curtains stuffed in her mouth, but no attempt to analyse these critically. There were other pictures of table turning but again no critical analysis apart from a glimpse at how Michael Faraday detected the pressures that people apply when they put their hands on a table. I have seen a stage conjuror do table turning in the middle of a ballroom in front of scores of people all around him, in broad daylight. Where was James Randi when we needed him to expose this trickery?
I could go on, but won't. I despair that the BBC has used public money to produce such an appallingly ignorant, one-sided programme - especially as many people looking at this subject for the first time would, almost certainly, be left with the strong impression that spiritualism is supported by science. It isn't. -
Message 5
Posted by DerbyGem (U1158336) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
Ian_banjo, have a read of www.victorzammit.com, the online book (or you can download it). You'll find lots of scientific evidence there, and if you can prove its rubbish, there's $1m austrailian dollars in it for you
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Message 6
Posted by virtualword (U1959562) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! At last someone has produced an intelligent, educational programme about Spiritualism - a far cry from the usual programmes which decry mediumship.
What many of the people who are intent on knocking Spiritualism don't realise is that there is so much more to it than giving messages (although that is very much part and parcel of it). As one of the ladies in the programme said, it's a way of life and the whole philosophy is so very interesting.
Do hope we can have more programmes like this. Maybe one showing mediumship with questions and answers afterwards.
Spiritualism is a fascinating religion and philosophy with thousands of books having been written about. In fact it's something you never stop learning about it. -
Message 7
Posted by Ian_banjo (U1959294) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
If the "evidence" were scientific, then it would be open to falsification (Karl Popper). It is clearly an easy matter to offer rewards when the "evidence" you provide is not in this category. The James Randi Foundation (http://www.randi.org/) has been for a rather longer period offering a similar reward, not for a "disproof" (which is alway difficult with some types of historical or anecdotal "evidence") but for simple unambiguous "evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event" No applicant has even passed the preliminary tests. You might like to consider why this might be.
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Message 8
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
If my memory serves me right The Amazing Randi is judge and jury and he admitted to a friend that no one could ever win his challenge because the conditions are so one sided. Also its doubtfull if the money does in fact exist. The Victor Zammit offer was in respons to the Randi con.. The offer is assured because it is sponsored and the decision regarding succes or failure is taken by a committe of experts.
Randi is only comfortable when he is centre stage and has total control of the proceedings so that when things get uncomfortable he can order the cameras to stop filming. When he does not have control things are much different.
In the second week of 2001 Randi came up against British medium Rosemary Altea on CNNs Larry KIng TV show. The host did not let Randi dominate and intimidate and consequently Rosemary 'slaughtered' him and made him look very foolish. -
Message 9
Posted by Minnies_Dad (U1961224) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
Sadly, your memory does you a disservice regarding Randi. The Offer specifically excludes Randi from being the Judge or even on the Jury, and the $1M is lodged with Goldman Sachs. Check it out at www.randi.org/resear...
Additionally I agree with Ian Banjo’s comments. I would also add the following observations:
The Fox sisters finally admitted their fraud. In the 1870s Kate (now a Mrs Hayden) stated: ‘Every so called manifestation produced through
me in London or anywhere else was a fraud. Many a time I have wept, because, when I was young and innocent, I was led into such a life.’
(source: Ronald Pearsall, The Table Rappers 1972).
In 1888 Margaret Fox Kane explained that the sisters had made the original sounds by tying an apple to a string and pulling it down the stairs! Later both sisters discovered that they could make faint rapping sounds by cracking their toe joints. Contrary to the programme’s
statement that ‘even hardened sceptics failed to find an explanation’ they were, in fact, exposed by three local doctors as early as February 1851 (Austin Flint MD, Buffalo Medical Journal 1851).
So much for Gordon Smith claiming that they ‘were the catalyst that opened up this whole idea of people on the other side coming through.’
If you’d like to know more about the trickery practised by Florence Cook, go to www.prairieghosts.co...
Ecoplasm was usually netting, or cheesecloth, coated with a water-based luminous paint. In some photographs cotton wool stuck on to the chin was used instead.
The stage demonstration (actually in a ballroom I believe) of mass table turning that Ian Banjo refers to was probably by Derren Brown.
The programme also made much of the critical facilities of such eminent believers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Strangely, it failed to mention the Cottingly Fairies hoax in which he was soundly deceived by two English schoolgirls, who photographed themselves alongside fairies perched on branches. These were actually cut out illustrations taken from a children's book, Princess Mary's Gift Book. Elsie Wright admitted the hoax in 1978 and expressed amazement that it had ever been taken seriously. She wrote, “Surely there can not be more than one grown up person in every five million who would take our fairies seriously.” Elsie's dad, she wrote, was dismayed by it all. He asked his wife, “How could a brilliant man like Conan Doyle believe such a thing?” For more on this refer to www.randi.org/librar... and www.randi.org/encycl...
Finally, Friedrich Jurgenson’s EVP clip that was played sounded remarkably like one of several that I believe was later revealed by an investigator to be distorted German and matched precisely to transmissions by a German radio station.
Like Ian Banjo I despair that public money can be spent on such an inaccurate and poorly researched programme as this. The Truth is, indeed, out there!
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Message 10
Posted by Minnies_Dad (U1961224) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
I apologise for the typo! I should have written 'ectoplasm' not 'ecoplasm', which is probably something entirely different!
Just shows how irritated I was by this programme! -
Message 11
Posted by CuckooFarm2007 (U1794420) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
Were you really 'appalled and angered'?
Mildly irritated would have done it for me. -
Message 12
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
I am another who was extremely annoyed by this. As well as the pseudo-science and the false assertions this seemed to be another proselytising tool for the Spiritualist church. None of the assertions were challenged by a non-spiritualist yet the biases of many of the interviewees were not explicitly drawn out. Richard Noakes' sympathies did not appear until well into the programme and even then what he had to say about the history of spiritualism was presented as scientific fact. All of his publications are spiritualist friendly, but here he is introduced as a "Historian of Science". The Beeb has produced a number of programmes on spiritualism which have been uncritical. In one not so long ago Gordon Smith was followed around without anyone ever explaining how cold reading actually works in getting the enquirer to supply the answers they want. Sometimes one of the production team lets slip a sceptical note the superimposed image of Florence Cooke with Katie King's showed the same woman. But overall, as Minnies Dad and Ian Banjo have already listed, there were a lot of falsehoods and deceptions presented as fact.
By the way Zammit's challenge has conditions such as he will choose a committee which is sympathetic to his view to assess the evidence and he will vet any challengers for their qualification to challenge in the first place. So sceptics need not apply. Randi on the other hand does not reserve any such rights and the rules are simply to state what you can do what conditions you need and to allow the demonstration to be independently monitored. Mediums have said they will take him up but have always cried off at the last moment.
It might be that as with a lot of spiritualist displays the participants had demanded no sceptics. But then it needs to be said that it is not a balanced programme, or don’t make the programme.
The claim that it must be true because various scientists were believers is nonsense. Physical scientists are often quite gullible where fraud is being perpetrated. They think of everyone being as unbiased and honest as themselves. Crookes witnessed spirit writing with one of the Fox sisters. In a dark room a luminous hand appeared picked up the pen and wrote a message. A real sceptic would have grabbed the hand to see who squeaked – my money says one of the other Fox sisters. These are the levels of checking that are claimed to be scientific – i.e. not a lot.
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Message 13
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
I have not studied the Fox sisters but my understanding was that the ‘confession’ was due to a fit of pique over sibling rivalry and she subsequently retracted it but by then it was too late and the damage had been done. I am trying to check this out.
So Tom Harrison together with his friends and relatives, who witnessed full materialization every Saturday for 9 years, were the victim of a cruel hoax then. His mother, Minnie, must have had a very warped mind, because she was the medium who was in trance while all this was going on and was never aware of what happened , never accepted a penny for her services whilst providing tea for everyone. Unless of course Tom was in on it as well, but he never made a profit from it either. Admittedly he has just written a book, but why wait until he was in his eighties before cashing in? It doesn’t add up, unless of course it was true.
If psychic phenomena is all a big hoax why did the CIA spend millions of dollars and use remote viewers (who use a form of materialization) for so many years then?
Dr. Jessica Utts. Member of CIA review panel on Remote Viewing ( Utts 1995)
“Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established.”
Major General Edmund R Thomson, U.S Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence1977-81.
“I never liked to get into debates with the skeptics , because if you didn’t believe that remote viewing was real, you hadn’t done your homework.”
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Message 14
Posted by dj gordy (U000001) (U563314) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
If psychic phenomena is all a big hoax why did the CIA spend millions of dollars and use remote viewers (who use a form of materialization) for so many years then?
Because the CIA get their money from tax payers and can waste it on more or less whatever they feel like. All they have to do is say 'well, there could be something in it' and make a vague plea to national security. -
Message 15
Posted by Minnies_Dad (U1961224) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
I have not studied the Fox sisters but my understanding was that the ‘confession’ was due to a fit of pique over sibling rivalry and she subsequently retracted it but by then it was too late and the damage had been done. I am trying to check this out.
Some more background on the Fox sisters that may be of interest. The confession was, I believe, by both sisters and to a theatre audience in November 1888, which doesn’t really suggest a family tiff.
Margaret Fox explained that their pretended spirit contact began as the pranks of "very mischievous children" who began their shenanigans "to terrify our dear mother, who was a very good woman and very easily frightened" and who "did not suspect us of being capable of a trick because we were so young." The schoolgirls threw slippers at a disliked brother-in-law, shook the dinner table, and produced noises by bumping the floor with an apple on a string and by knocking on the bedstead.
Margaret Fox even demonstrated how she had slipped her foot from her shoe and snapped her toes to make the rapping sounds.
Sadly, both sisters were by then alcoholics and Kate was actually arrested for drunkenness in 1888. They did indeed recant their confessions the following year, but this was more likely so that they could tour together again and earn a living. However, by the end of 1889 their alcoholism had made further lecturing impossible.
Kate lived from then on by begging and borrowing and died impoverished in 1892. Margaret died a few months after her sister Kate, and followed her into a pauper's grave.
Your reference to Dr Jessica Utts is very interesting. You may like to refer to Ray Hyman’s report, as he was coevaluator with Utts on the Stargate project, from which Utts’ quote is taken. It’s far too long and detailed to reproduce here, but you can source it at www.csicop.org/si/96...
In it Hyman details why he reached a very different conclusion.
I hope this is of interest.
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Message 16
Posted by ColinKnight (U1158394) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
With the help of BBC TVs established distain for all things scientific and rational, it shouldn’t be long before you’ll be able to get an ‘A’ Level in “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks”.
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Message 17
Posted by alan gee (U1158644) on Thursday, 1st September 2005
Exactly. It's the same priciple as used by the US military to cover up their development of then-secret aircraft, such as the SR71 and the F117 etc (and many others we have never heard of still).
They were very happy to allow the press and the public to promote UFO stories, which were often really sightings of secret projects. They would deny the UFO, of course and pretend to look into the reports (Project Blue Book), in the full knowledge of the real source of the sightings.
The USSR did the same.
It was a smokescreen. It could also be used to dissipate funding, like their research into deep-sea submarine rescues was disguised as research into the feasibility of mining magnesium nodules from the sea bed.
If psychic phenomena is all a big hoax why did the CIA spend millions of dollars and use remote viewers (who use a form of materialization) for so many years then?
Because the CIA get their money from tax payers and can waste it on more or less whatever they feel like. All they have to do is say 'well, there could be something in it' and make a vague plea to national security. -
Message 18
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Friday, 2nd September 2005
Towards the end of the top secret remote viewing program it was decided to abandon it because David Morehouse had decided to go public while in uniform. Under these circumstances it is standard intelligence procedure to discredit the program. Ray Hyman, an acknowledged skeptic from the outset ,and hardly an unbiased investigator, was hired to do the hatchet job. He was a member of the anti-psi group CSICOP.
Notwithstanding, in his final report he wrote. “I agree with Jessica Utts that the effect sizes reported in the SAIC experiments and in the recent ganzfeld studies probably cannot be dismissed as due to chance…..So I accept Professor Utts’ assertion that the statistical results of the SAIC and other parapsychologists experiments are far beyond that expected by chance…..In addition I cannot provide suitable candidates for what flaws, if any, might be present…”
Unfortunately these final remarks did not receive publicity. The job had been done and the public were left with the view that there was little of value in the remote viewing program.
Later efforts by the CIA to debunk the program were countered by McMoneagle, one of the consistently accurate viewers. He wrote. “ They were supposed to do a full assessment of the intelligence gathering utility from 1977 to the present. There’s 121 boxes of operational files, and they were supposed to hire people to review those in detail. They had from June to September of 1995 to do that, not enough time to go through three of those boxes. So it was intended , I think, from the beginning to fail.”
According to McMoneagle only about two boxes were reviewed and even those were ‘sanitized’ beforehand because the investigators did not have sufficient clearances to see most of the raw operational data.
Not being a Spiritualist I have not had much interest in the Fox sisters, hence my lack of knowledge. I am only interested in survival and as most proof comes from Spiritualists, so be it . I respect them.
I agree that both Kate and Margaret fox made ‘confessions’ born out of spite and vengeance but there was a sequel to this story. The following is an extract from An Encyclopedia of Psychic Science, Nandor Fodor 1934.
In conclusion it is of interest to mention that at a meeting of the Medico Legal Society of New York in 1905 the subject of spiritualism was discussed. Mrs. Mellen, a woman doctor who is not a spiritualist, stood up and told the story of the last hours of Mrs. Margaret Fox Kane. In a tenement house in Ninth Street she passed some hours every day at her bedside. Mrs. Fox Kane was unable to move hand or foot. There was not a closet in the place nor any other hiding place of any kind. And yet the knockings were heard now through the wall, now through the ceiling, and again through the floor.
"They were heard," continued Mrs. Mellen, "in response to questions the woman put to her guide, as she expressed it, and she was as incapable of cracking her toe-joints at this time as I was.”
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Message 19
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Friday, 2nd September 2005
This is the remote viewing that accurately described the non-existent spaceship following the Hale-Bopp comet and triggering the mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate Cult?
The Americans went in for remote viewing because they thought the Russians were using it. America is the home of odd beliefs and the US military does not discriminate against people with them. The Regan Administration was quite prepared to fund all sorts of unscientific projects. Remote viewing has never been able to demonstrate any accuracy in a properly conducted trial. When you view a site that cannot be obsrved you can be as detailed as you like. Trials caliming accurate viewing have allowed the viewers to reinterpret their vague scribblings in light of feedback from the testers. It is not clear whether there was cynical fraud or a mistaken belief that this was a real effect (I am prepared to believe the latter) but it was a programme based on nonsense. Try reading "The Psychology of the Psychic" by David Marks as a starter for homework.
As for Minnie Harrison and sons, reading the accouns one cannot avoid the sense of it all being a bit of parlour "magic". There does not need to be any further explanation. If I have to choose between throwing out the whole basis of scientific understanding of the way the world works physically and chemically, (An explanation and model which has been openly tested and is the basis for the tecnology you are now using to read this. ) and to accept that Minnie decieved friends and family, or to believe that some anecdotes and a couple of dodgy photos I will believe in the deception theory every time. What her or her family's motives were I can't say money isn't always the driving factor. It may be she decieved herself as well, or was playing a longer game in the hope of making it big.
At several points in the programme it was asserted that scientific checks had been made many times but were never detailed, I suspect because they would never pass muster. Likewise the sceptical views of The Harrison, Foxes and Florence Cook claims were not aired. The programme tried to present a view that scientific developments of the last 150 years depended on Spiritualism for their impetus. More a case of in spite of certain scientists and engineers having irrational beliefs.
Sorry but if the stuff I can check is baloney why shoud I believe the rest of it? -
Message 20
Posted by dj gordy (U000001) (U563314) on Friday, 2nd September 2005
The programme tried to present a view that scientific developments of the last 150 years depended on Spiritualism for their impetus. More a case of in spite of certain scientists and engineers having irrational beliefs.
I made a study of, amongst others, Sir Oliver Lodge, in realtion to the attitude of scientists to Einstein's threories of relativity.
People such as Lodge did have religious beliefs which influenced their scientific thinking. But all scientists have preconceptions. However, this did not make them bad scientists per se and it does not detract from the advances they made. Scientists investigated spiriualism but, when all said and done, it was found to have no validity.
In some ways being wrong can be useful because it leads people to look into things that others might not bother with.
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Message 21
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
I don’t think that even the Americans would let a program run for 18 years if it was not producing results. According to accounts I have read some of the hits were incredibly accurate and in one instance the remote viewer came up with an installation only a few people in the CIA new existed. My understanding is that the main reason the program was discontinued was that satellite imaging became more reliable. It probably suited their purpose to dump the scheme and at the same time discredit it in order to discourage the Russians from continuing.
As for the Harrison’s playing the long game. Nine years of sitting in the parlor in the dark or low light every Saturday night, with the mother being unconscious ?
I have read other accounts of materialization testified to by credible witnesses. I have in my possession copies of signed statements by Gwen Byrne and Pat Jeffery who were reunited (by materialization) with their dead sons on a combined total of 150 occasions in the presence of a gifted medium. Fraud can be ruled out because I don’t see how anyone could be duped this often even by the most accomplished stage magician which this medium certainly was not. On some occasions up to half a dozen people materialized at the same time and talked to and embraced those present The medium concerned was not well known and never accepted any money so what could the motive be? A twisted mentality? I think not.
Just because phenomena cannot be explained by current science does not make it invalid. It just means science needs to catch up. My knowledge of physics is very basic but I understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was regarded as flawed by some eminent scientists, the inventor of the atomic clock being one.
A little known retired university lecturer, Ronal Pearson, has produced an alternative theory, which has been accepted in Russia. This theory is based on Newton’s original idea with a few modifications and unlike Einstein’s theory fits in with quantum mathematics and all current observations of the universe and overcomes the flaws in the Big Bang Theory. Unlike Einstein Ronald Pearson’s theory also allows for the spirit world and psi which would reinforce the argument that all psi comes within the laws of nature and has nothing to do with the supernatural. Unfortunately due to the peer referee system in this country he cannot get his work published in serious scientific journals over here. The referee panel is dominated by scientists wedded to Einstein jealously guarding their reputations. Refer the following by R Pearson.
An Alternative to Relativity, published by the Russian Academy of Sciences 1993
Quantum Gravitation and the Structured Ether published by the Russian Academy of Sciences following the Isaac Newton International Conference 1994.
Consciousness as a Sub Quantum Phenomena published in Frontier Perspectives Temple University 1997.
All this can be accessed vie the Campaign for Philosophical Freedom website run by Michael Roll at www.cfpf.org.uk. Michael Roll has experienced materialization first hand and there are accounts on his website. Materialization, I hasten to add, is in solid form but not in flesh and blood because that is impossible.
I wonder why it is nearly always the closed mined skeptics who are guaranteed to get negative results who always get the grants for investigation and anyone getting positive results gets nothing. If those who hold the purse strings are so sure psi is rubbish why do they not grant the funding so that everything gets into the public arena where it can be thoroughly examined? That to me is proof enough that the orthodoxy are afraid of what may come out. -
Message 22
Posted by dj gordy (U000001) (U563314) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
I have in my possession copies of signed statements by Gwen Byrne and Pat Jeffery who were reunited (by materialization) with their dead sons on a combined total of 150 occasions in the presence of a gifted medium. Fraud can be ruled out because I don’t see how anyone could be duped this often even by the most accomplished stage magician which this medium certainly was not..
On the contrary, it is fairly easy to dupe people, especially if they want to be duped because someone offers to put them in contact with loved ones that have died. This is how mediums work, by preying on the emotionally vulnerable.
Just because phenomena cannot be explained by current science does not make it invalid. It just means science needs to catch up. My knowledge of physics is very basic but I understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was regarded as flawed by some eminent scientists, the inventor of the atomic clock being one.
On the other hand, just because something can't be explained by modern science that doesn't make it valid. The idea that 'science needs to catch up' is just wishful thinking.
The opposition to Einstein's theories was actually small and came mostly from older scientists who wanted to hold on to the idea of the lumineferous ether and the notion of absolutism in time and space.
People say that those who don't seek alternatives to relativity are in some way blinkered, much as they say against people to don't accept alternatives to Darwinism. But Einstein over threw ideas that had been held ever since Newton and before. Relativity is such a powerful theory that it enabled people to dispense with ideas that had been around for centuries so that isn't in accordance with the idea that adherents to the theories are idealogically conservative. -
Message 23
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
Einstein wrote to a friend on his 70th birthday saying he was not happy with his theory and doubted it would stand the test of time. Looks as though his fears are about to come true.
Orthodox scientists agree that when they look through a telescope at the universe they can only observe 10% of the mass that should be there according to the motion of distant galaxies. In other words 90% of creation is missing!
Ronald Pearson has found it and has a theory and the mathematics to back it up. If you also take into account the observations of survival researchers its an impressive package.
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Message 24
Posted by janeinoz (U1970536) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
Firstly I am a skeptic and I try to look at things logically and will read up on the science regarding the subject. However, I am also very open minded and try not to be closed on a subject that is not familiar or is not of part of my paradigm. Through years of research, I also realise that the truth of many things is not being made available to the general public. This is not new. We, the general public, are kept in the dark about a range of things. It is easier that way - knowledge is power remember. One of these things that is being kept from us is the exciting scientific discovery (via subatomic physics) that we all survive death regardless of what we believe in. Some people don't want us to know this fact. Many people think that it just cannot be possible. But there's also people who know that there's something more than this physical world that we occupy for a short period. They have just not been told, via the mainstream media and scientific journals, that surviving death is just a natural law of nature and that it has always happened, regardless of beliefs. What would happen to the many religious organisations in the world if this was public knowledge? What would happen to the Universities that are teaching Einstein's theory of Relativity? You see, there is so much at stake. I also know about the UK Scientist Ronald Pearson and his scientic theory explaining how we survive death (this was mentioned by someone in a previous posting on this site). It is so easy to say, "oh that doesn't exist - it is impossible". I hardly think Sir Oliver Lodge, John Logie Baird, Sir William Crookes, Lord Dowding, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Findlay and the many other great minds would bother wasting their time on a subject that doesn't exist. Michael Roll in Bristol runs an excellent website www.cfpf.org.uk. The scientific backup is on the site for anyone to read.
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Message 25
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
The programme tried to present a view that scientific developments of the last 150 years depended on Spiritualism for their impetus. More a case of in spite of certain scientists and engineers having irrational beliefs.
I made a study of, amongst others, Sir Oliver Lodge, in realtion to the attitude of scientists to Einstein's threories of relativity.
People such as Lodge did have religious beliefs which influenced their scientific thinking. But all scientists have preconceptions. However, this did not make them bad scientists per se and it does not detract from the advances they made. Scientists investigated spiriualism but, when all said and done, it was found to have no validity.
In some ways being wrong can be useful because it leads people to look into things that others might not bother with.
I don't think we are in disagreement here. I have just checked Lodge's dates and clearly he would be a luminiferous ether physicist from his period of education. He was dead before the full theory of Quantum Electrodynamics had been formulated and tested. He would be more a comtemporary of Plank and Thompson. Plank always thought his quanta were not real but were just a useful mathematical device and Thompson had problems with the ideas of atomic and nuclear physics. These men were wrong in light of informatio we now have in a number of ways. That as you say is not really an appropriate acknowlegement of their achievements. They were giants on whose shoulders Rutherford, Einstein, Feyneman etc. stood. However to run a clip of film showing Lodge explaining magnetism in the way the programmers did was to imply an authority he no longer had and to attempt to present the understanding of electromagnetism as allowing for a "god of the gaps" approach to spiritualism. The idea seemed to be to offer a way for spirits to exist in the ether. The fact is that the ether had been conclusively demonstrated to be non-existent years before Lodge was filmed. Quantum field theory (and theory here means proven to the point of being acceptable as fact) explains magnetism in terms of exchange particles. Modern discoveries in computer science and neurology demonstrate how much physical infrastructure is needed to operate a mind so there is no room for a hope that some physical mechanism exists for the spirit of the departed to survive in.
My pint was that the programme's implication that without Spiritualism Crookes would not have done the pioneer work that eventually resulted in the cathode ray tube is stretching a point way too far. -
Message 26
Posted by DaveWheeler1 (U1971870) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
It is interesting that when the one documentary that doesn't use the likes of Richard Wiseman to belittle the subject of the paranormal (out of, how many, certainly 'tens' of documentatries that have?) is finally allowed onto our screens we get a "I can't believe the BBC wastes its money..etc etc" response.
I would be interested to know what qualifies those of you who have assessed the history of paranormal research as pseudo-science. An objective person would surely conclude that the records of scientists such as Crookes and Lodge would amply support the view that they would be the very last persons to indulge in pseudo-science. I think that if I were Crookes I would be rather indignant to be told I had been fooled by a sheet of cheesecloth! The idea is less credible than the ectoplasm hypothesis
I am all for being sceptical and scientific, particularly when dealing with extraordinary claims, but you have to look at the evidence and if you do it objectively and fully, you soon find that it is overwhelming. After one has made a full study, it becomes a matter of little importance whether or not the Fox sisters were bogus, or even whether Crookes had been fooled by, or colluded with, Florence Cook, for they are just a publicised drop in the ocean of evidence for the so-called paranormal -
Message 27
Posted by dj gordy (U000001) (U563314) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
for they are just a publicised drop in the ocean of evidence for the so-called paranormal
Don't you mean thimble-full of evidence? -
Message 28
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005
I think ocean was a good metaphor
Maurice Barbanell researcher
‘For well over a century, in almost every country in the world, evidence for survival has accumulated and reached such a volume that no impartial person could dismiss it. It belongs to the category which would be accepted in courts of law unless all human testimony is to be dismissed as unreliable. Every test capable of establishing survival has been successfully demonstrated . There are tens of thousands of books written by people of unimpeachable integrity recording this evidence.’
If you don’t believe this try visiting the ISS website at . www.survivalafterdea...
Even the church is gradually having to admit that the phenomena exists, though the Anglican church tried to suppress their evidence. These organizations would be the last to accept the evidence because it blows their concept of survival right out of the water.
Canon Dr Michael Perry. Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies (CFPSS) in their quarterly review.
‘Between us and the departed there is a veil. It can on occasions be lifted, so that communication is occasionally possible’
Extract from suppressed report into Spiritualism commissioned by Dr Cosmo Lang Archbishop of Canterbury 1937.
'On the other hand certain outstanding psychic experiences of individuals, including certain experiences with mediums, make a strong prima facie case for survival and for the possibility of spirit communications while philosophical, ethical and religious considerations may be held to weigh heavily on the same side.'
Father Gino Concetti writing in the Osservatore Romano the daily paper of the Holy See in 1995
"According to the modern catechism the Church has decided not to forbid anymore to dialogue with the deceased...this is as a sequel to new discoveries within the domain of the paranormal."
for they are just a publicised drop in the ocean of evidence for the so-called paranormal
Don't you mean thimble-full of evidence? -
Message 29
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
Einstein wrote to a friend on his 70th birthday saying he was not happy with his theory and doubted it would stand the test of time. Looks as though his fears are about to come true.
Orthodox scientists agree that when they look through a telescope at the universe they can only observe 10% of the mass that should be there according to the motion of distant galaxies. In other words 90% of creation is missing!
Ronald Pearson has found it and has a theory and the mathematics to back it up. If you also take into account the observations of survival researchers its an impressive package.
Sorry but this takes credulity to new extremes for me. Ronald Pearson's papers read like he studied Physics under Stanley Unwin. The reason he has not been published is because his theory is nonsense nothing to do with conspiracy theories. His writing looks a lot like Creationist attempts at getting round Quantum Mechanics for the simple reason that he is trying to construct a world that fits his beliefs rather than accepting that the World is as it is and we have to accept it as it comes.
Einstein's comment was because he knew there were still issues needing reconciliation between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Any reconciliation would need to explain Newton's Mechanics and the macroscopic behaviour of light and electromagnetism as Relativity and Quantum Mechanics had done.
On the subject of the remote viewing being funded for 18 years. The CIA got rid of it after a few of those and presumably there is the reluctance to admit to having been had. Jessica Utts was the believing auditor and Ray Hyman the sceptic. Neither of them were involved in the details of experimental design or evaluation of results, that was done by Ed May. Utts and Hyman were called in to assess the effectiveness of the program. Utts statistical analysis showed that 4 out of 10 experiments were statistically significant. In her evaluation she is careful not to over egg this and her assessment is not as unequivocal as the quote above implies. Needless to say Hyman was not so forgiving. Because Ed May was Judge, Director and keeper of the raw data this cannot be regarded as an objective test and there is a lot of evidence of the "file-draw" effect where results that do not agree with the desired result are hidden away. If this idea had any real results the commercial spin-offs run by the ex-viewers from the RV programme could demonstrate them or claim Randi's million, nothing so far.
My reference to the cheesecloth was actually about the photo of Minnie Harrison but I am willing to accept that is might be a net curtain. If these are the best results and if DaveWheeler1 is quite happy to accept they are bogus that does not say much for the rest of the evidence. As with other religious proofs it is all anecdotes and unsupported assertion that the medium/prophet, whatever, is totally honest not deluded. People may believe they have genuinely seen something but that does not mean that their interpretation is correct. Spiritualism is not the only fad that is based on faked evidence and gullible acceptance of tall tales. The UFO craze was pumped up with supposed abductee tales and pictures of car hubcaps.
This is not just about parlour tricks but the exploitation (I accept that it is not always for money) of the desperately grieving.
As for the report of the C of E meaning that they really accept the truth of this stuff. This is a bit Mickey Mouse in that any declaration by the C of E that spiritualism is based on fraud would mean the miracles could be dismissed on the same basis, thus shooting themselves in the foot. I am not sure that a single Cannon’s word about anything amounts to delivering the C of E’s definitive view anyway.
-
Message 30
Posted by DaveWheeler1 (U1971870) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
I take it you mean that 'thimble-full' should replace 'ocean', not 'drop'?! You are arguing then that there is a meagre amount of evidence for the paranormal? If so, you are ill-informed and my proof for that would depend on your willingness to do the research yourself. I would heartily recommend you see Michael Roll's site www.cfpc.org as a good starting point, since this has a lot of the eggs in one basket so to speak. I am a skeptic, a doubter and a 'supporter' of the scientific method, and do not 'believe' anything, but 'accept' hypotheses based on the evidence - and there is indeed a great deal of evidence for the acceptance of paranormal claims
-
Message 31
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
The Russians have taken Rons theory seriously
Randi and CSICOP are professional debunkers. That’s how they make their living. They only have to admit one incidence of psi and their appeal and income will plummet. To admit one instance would be to them defeat and they would be finished. Its no wonder they fight like polecats to discredit anything and everything and that during their whole history they have never come up with one positive result despite the fact that respected researchers all over the world have. I find that quite telling, especially as experiments with non human subjects, incapable of committing fraud, such as body cells, random number generators and even the humble house plant have produced results for open minded researchers.
They used the cheesecloth/net curtain ploy when Helen Duncans seance was raided by the police and they found nothing. Someone even acused her of stuffing it up her anus to avoid detection. I would not recommend anyone tries this at home!
-
Message 32
Posted by datawonder (U1964161) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
With the help of BBC TVs established distain for all things scientific and rational, it shouldn’t be long before you’ll be able to get an ‘A’ Level in “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks”.
LOL HA HA HA HA
I completely agree -
Message 33
Posted by Ian_banjo (U1959294) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
Perhaps some of the people who appear to be convinced of survival-after-death, by what they deem to be solid evidence, could explain something to me. Professional scientists make their careers on pushing forward the boundaries of our knowledge and understanding of the universe. (I should say here that I am using the term "knowledge and understanding" fairly loosely. What science actually produces is a coherent, rational and self-consistent model of the universe that fits the observations and allows accurate predictions to be made.)
Some scientists (eg Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Crick & Watson) have made their names by introducing a major paradigm shift in our knowledge and understanding. Many have been awarded Noble prizes for such work. Scientists, like all human beings, are competitive and many would relish the opportunity to make major fundamental discoveries. It is a basic tenet of science that the current model is always open to question and to change when observations are made that show it to be incomplete or incorrect. So it is in the nature of scientists not to be dogmatic but to be open to new ideas; that is the way that science progresses. This is one of the most important attributes of science that distinguishes it from rigid religious belief, dogma and faith. But scientist also exercise healthy scepticism and so any new idea that challenges the accepted model must be tested at least as rigorously as the accepted one. Naturally, the further the new idea pushes the accepted model, the more rigorous should be the testing.
So why haven't the survival-after-death theories impacted the scientific mainstream? If the evidence is that convincing, it would produce exciting advances in our understanding of nature. Remember how scientists reacted when cold fusion was announced in the early 90s. It all seemed pretty unlikely, but nevertheless scientists all over the world jumped into action and tried to reproduce the results. Unfortunately, the results seemed unrepeatable and it became clear that the original experimenters were probably mistaken. If the evidence for survival after death is that compelling, why isn't every University science department researching this exciting new field?. There would be several Nobel prizes in it for someone who could develop a sound scientific model for this. -
Message 34
Posted by michaelroll (U1973304) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
Readers may like to hear what the magician James Randi thinks of those of us who are reading survival after death as a branch of physics - natural and normal forces in the universe.
He calls us "scoundrels"!
This includes a current Nobel Laureate for Physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University where Rutherford split the atom - Professor B.D. Josephson.
Well done BBC Radio 4 for giving this real balance. A very simple choice here: James Randi or Professor Josephson?
[Unsuitable link removed by Moderator]
Randi is very good at taking on mediums but not so good when he comes up against a top scientist. -
Message 35
Posted by dontdoitbudd (U1672859) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
Our friends who believe in the Spiritual and Paranormal world are big on bluster and bombast but low on empirical evidence of their ludicrous claims.
Mr. Randi's money is very safe when even the simplest of controlled tests are flunked repeatedly by so-called gifted people. -
Message 36
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
Readers may like to hear what the magician James Randi thinks of those of us who are reading survival after death as a branch of physics - natural and normal forces in the universe.
He calls us "scoundrels"!
A very simple choice here: James Randi or Professor Josephson?
Randi is very good at taking on mediums but not so good when he comes up against a top scientist.
Linus Pauling had two Nobel Prizes but he still was not right about vitamin C he and his wife still got colds (though they called them sniffles). A Nobel Prize does not confer god-like omniscience or infallibility. I usee to know a double first in Maths from Cambridge who would forget he had put on his tie and just tie another over the first. Josephson still believes in Benveniste who was uncovered as a fraud by a group headed by the editor of Nature. (I am aware that James Randi was involved.) They demonstrated this by not letting the assistants who analysed the results know which samples were supposed to be the homeopathic ones. The proceedure was agreed with Benveniste in advance to be fair to both sides. In the end it was clear one lab assistant was inflating counts in samples they knew were the homeopathic. Josephson seems to be unaware or to have ignored this little point. So I would have to accept Randi on this one rather than Josephson.
I am not aware of Josephson trying for the Randi challenge. BTW the Josephson Junction was independently checked by other laboratories something the paranormal rarely if ever accepts, and never without failing.
I agree with Randi. The programme that started this thread is a case in point. The newspaper reviewers were not given preview tapes so that they could not express an opinion on the content but only on the very positive sounding summary. Were the makers worried that a viewing prior to airing would give the game away. Even in the programme it was admitted by Gordon Smith that 80% of mediums in the past had been fakes.
Though as P T Barnum pointed out they do rely on the one born every minute.
-
Message 37
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
By this statement he is implying that 20% were genuine. There are good, bad and indifferent in all walks of life.
Didnt someone once say that to disprove the theory that all crows are black you only have to find one that is white? There appear to be a whole white flock out there.
Surely if Ron Pearsons theory is accepted in Russia it should at least be passed by the referee system in this country. <quote><quote>
. Even in the programme it was admitted by Gordon Smith that 80% of mediums in the past had been fakes.
</quote> -
Message 38
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Sunday, 4th September 2005
Who in Russia accepts Ron Pearson's theory? As I said before it is nonsense start to finish and qualifies as pseudo-science. If it is accepted then there will be papers published in reputable Russian scientific journals verifying his predictions or making predictions based on his ideas. The Russian scientific press operates a referee and peer review system just as here or the USA.
A glace at Pearson's tract setting out his theory shows errors and misunderstandings of even classical physics. He fails to understand the law of conservation of angular momentum. He even has excuses ready for why his model of time dilation does not work and Relativity's does! He comes out with the idea of pure kinetic energy which is meaningless. The equivalence of mass and energy and their interrelation in nuclear binding energy is is well tested by more than his waffle. These things are not just handwaving assertions by scientists as he does there are years of effort and experimental examination of minutiae to verify experimentally the implications of Quantum Mechanics, the Standard Model, Relativity both Special and General. He has no explanation for electromagnetism either Maxwellian or Quantum. He does not explain why the Bohr atom works or how spectra result from this. His ideas if true would have already been observed.
That's quite enough on something so silly. -
Message 39
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Friday, 9th September 2005
I am not qualified to answer the technical points in your posting so I will not try. I would make one observation though. I understand that Ron Pearsons theory is the only one to answer the problem of the cosmological constant, i.e. the universe expanding far too slowly for the Big Bang theory to be valid and the fact that there are stars in distant galaxies which appear to be older than the universe itself.
Experiments with sub atomic particles are showing them to display properties which defy the known laws of physics so current understanding is obviously lacking. Rons theory may be flawed for all I know, however I understand he has answered all criticism leveled at him so far, but unless it is published in serious journals where it can be thoroughly scrutinized how will we ever know? His ideas may be radical but if it was not for people like him we would still be worshiping sun gods and thinking the earth was flat. There may be someone out there who can improve on his ideas, or is prepared to conduct experiments which Ron has devised but are beyond his means, which would prove or disprove his theory. At least he should be given a fair hearing. Scientists are supposed to be truth seekers, not suppressors of ideas. Lets not create another Dark Age. We had a bellyful of that from the church for centuries and it appears to have resulted in a backlash from the supernatural to the super rational.
When orthodox scientists finally have to acknowledge psi due to the weight of evidence piling up their model of the universe will collapse like a house of cards and they will have nothing to replace it with unless they think the unthinkable and take alternative views seriously. Experts are not infallible. The erstwhile Astronomer Royal once said that space flight was ‘Utter bilge,’ a mere 18months before the first Russian satellite went into orbit. BSE is a more recent example and it seems hardly a month goes by without differing opinions being expressed by experts about the health benefits of certain foods and whether or not mobile phones are safe.
At least with the help of the Internet Ron has got some publicity and it will be difficult for an ‘approved’ orthodox scientist to come up with a new theory in the future based on his ideas and claim it was all his own work.
-
Message 40
Posted by AZebrasViewpoint (U1660614) on Friday, 9th September 2005
(PSEUDO-)SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE
I was appalled and angered by this flawed and one-sided programme. It was poorly made, grossly unscientific and deeply ignorant. Unbiassed? You must be joking!!!
Where was the science? Where were the living scientists to make critical contributions? Where was the critical thinking and analysis to test the statements made by the numerous spiritualists, believers and mediums who contributed.
I can't cover all of the bad pseudo-science in this programme, but will give a few examples.
They showed an old film of Sir Oliver Lodge fiddling around with some magnets and burbling on about "the ether" and opining that it was through this medium that spirit contacts were made. But there was no mention of Maxwell's equations or the Michelson-Morley experiment (both almost certainly pre-dating the film of Lodge!), so the uninformed viewer would have been led to believe in the existence of the "ether". Let me make it clear. Science has not supported the concept of the "ether" for around a hundred years.
The programme also featured William Crookes and his radiometer, but omitted to say why it rotated and that the direction of rotation is the opposite direction to what Crookes had predicted. They also said that Crookes's work led directly to the cathode ray tube (arrant nonsense - completely omitting to mention J J Thompson in this context). By some convoluted logic that was completely beyond me they tried to make an absurd linkage between the ideas of electric/magnetic fields, the plasma in a discharge tube and the dual particle/wave nature of light to links with the "spirit world".
There were photographs of "ectoplasm", one of which definitely looking like some old girl with her net curtains stuffed in her mouth, but no attempt to analyse these critically. There were other pictures of table turning but again no critical analysis apart from a glimpse at how Michael Faraday detected the pressures that people apply when they put their hands on a table. I have seen a stage conjuror do table turning in the middle of a ballroom in front of scores of people all around him, in broad daylight. Where was James Randi when we needed him to expose this trickery?
I could go on, but won't. I despair that the BBC has used public money to produce such an appallingly ignorant, one-sided programme - especially as many people looking at this subject for the first time would, almost certainly, be left with the strong impression that spiritualism is supported by science. It isn't.
Has not every Christian and Islamic programme been flawed and one-sided? -
Message 41
Posted by janeinoz (U1970536) on Friday, 9th September 2005
If Ron Pearson's theory is flawed - fine... just give him the opportunity in the main stream science papers and a chance to defend and explain his theories in the public domain. But no! he's not allowed to do this! This is ridiculous and seems to me that some people out there are trying to suppress what he is saying... surely not? I mean, the discovery of the ether and the fact that people/animals etc survive death is the most important thing that we can learn about in our lives. So why hide it? Come on, let's get Ron Pearson's theory out in the UK/World media and then let's discuss it. If it's wrong then it's wrong but don't hide it away from everyone. I know that we survive death - I have had way too many experiences to prove this. I am not a nutter or a "believer". I am logical, need proof and often accept nothing until I have experienced it. My personal experiences of "supernatural" phenomena have proved to me that something exists beyond this life and this physical world. Ron has given a scientific explaination for something that I know exists. When Parapsychologists say there is no afterlife or mediumship or anything other than this world then they need to wake up and realise they don't have all the answers to everything that this universe has on offer. That would demonstrate a rather inflated ego. Not nice.
-
Message 42
Posted by michaelroll (U1973304) on Friday, 9th September 2005
Ron Pearson's scientific discipline is thermodynamics - he is an expert on how gas behaves under pressure. He is a former university lecturer, now retired.
Scientists across every discipline agree that suns are turned on from a primordial gas. Who better to come to conclusions about cosmology than an expert on gas?
Doing away with the ether (the so-called spirit world) in 1905 following the publishing of Einstein's theory of relativity has set scientific endeavour back 100 years.
These blocked discoveries in physics are all covered on my website. www.cfpf.org.uk -
Message 43
Posted by ronpearson (U2016517) on Saturday, 10th September 2005
Science and the Séance: A reply to “normalynormal” messages 29 & 38
I feel a need to contest some misleading comments made in several contributions, mainly from “normalynormal” in messages 29 and 38. He implies that I make errors even in classical physics but is careful not to mention what he thinks they are. I had better begin therefore by showing what triggered my interest in cosmology. This is the interest that led to developing a mathematically based physical theory; showing mind is not mere brain function and could survive death.
An article by the physicist, Professor Edward Tryon (New Scientist March1984) caused me concern. He said gravitation contributed a negative energy that could cancel the positive energy needed to create the universe. A flaw existed that, amazingly, had passed all assessors. So I thought this needed correction (for the mathematically minded he had failed to evaluate the “constant of integration”).
Many letters of rejection came back from nearly all-scientific journals approached, all refusing to accept that any flaw existed. Only the last attempt received a positive response. It was by then August 1987 and the reply was from the very eminent Professor J.P. Vigier of Paris, the gravitational consultant of "Physics Letters A". In his reply, dated 2/8/87 he said that both he and his colleagues agreed that I was correct and that the critique should be published. He followed by giving advice on possible journals. He added that he hoped I would succeed in this and that I could quote his letter to help. However, he made it clear that, for some undisclosed reason, publication in Physics Letters A was not permitted.
Realising the considerable effort made had been futile, I wrote to Professor Paul Davies, a physicist who also writes many popular books about physics. I asked him how the Big Bang theory, that tried to explain the origin of the universe, would be affected, since Tryon's argument was a part of this. Davies responded by sending me a copy of the theory of "inflation" written by its originator, Dr. Alan Guth, for inclusion in a book under preparation to be called, "The New Physics" (Edited by Davies 1989).
I was astonished to discover flawed logic that caused this theory to make a hopelessly false prediction called the “Problem of the Cosmological Constant”. This still totally invalidates all the projections the big bang theory makes. The problem arises from postulating a means for producing an explosive creation that cannot be switched off. The theory began by trying to cancel an energy density of space with a negative pressure: something violating a thermodynamic principle. Then an equation containing a pressure term had been used way outside its range of applicability to switch gravity from an attractive to a repulsive force –all totally unacceptable!
To show how serious the problem is considered to be, a paper by the physicist and Nobel laureate, Steven Weinberg published in “Reviews of Modern Physics” Jan.1989 is worth quoting. He wrote:
“The cosmological constant represents a veritable crisis for physics”.
The difficulty has been troubling many physicists and Dr. Brian Greene in a book published in 1999 admits string theory can offer no solution. As far as physicists and cosmologists are concerned the problem still remains unresolved.
What is exasperating is that I published a solution to this problem in Russia in 1993 since assessors here refuse to recognise submissions from other disciplines. However, nobody has been able to fault the solution and eventually a non-mathematical description was published by the scientific journal "Frontier Perspectives" in 1997. A copy of this ”Consciousness as a Sub-Quantum Phenomenon”: can be downloaded from:
[Broken link removed by Moderator] (gives illustrations)
My solution appeared by studying the mechanics of a sub-quantum background medium built as a mix of positive and negative energies. Not only did this resolve the original problem, a fine grain structure of filaments and blobs emerged from the maths suggesting this could produce the organised waves needed at the quantum level.
It soon emerged that a common background of this kind could support several interpenetrating universes. Only the latter would be truly real with the rest only seeming to be so: just as dreams seem real when you are in them. In this way I realised that survival became compatible with this new aspect of physics. When our brains die our consciousnesses, each part of the background, simply switch to a parallel universe.
In this way physics can be extended to support survival and indeed every aspect of the "paranormal" now seen as real and not illusory. There is no longer any need to try and discredit the evidence since it does not pose a threat to science.
Ridicule is no substitute for valid critique. If normalynormal thinks my work is flawed it is more probable that is he who lacks adequate understanding.
-
Message 44
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Sunday, 11th September 2005
Science and the Séance: A reply to “normalynormal” messages 29 & 38
I feel a need to contest some misleading comments made in several contributions, mainly from “normalynormal” in messages 29 and 38. He implies that I make errors even in classical physics but is careful not to mention what he thinks they are.
Here are a couple: In your pamphlet you refer to applying a force with constant speed [page 6]. A force is not applied at constant speed. For one thing force is a vector and speed is a scalar (a schoolboy howler in physics). But force is anyway not applied with a constant velocity (the correct vector term). Forces as you seem to accept in the following mathematics cause changes in velocity. What you omit in your argument is the point that this requires a rest mass to be accelerated, which photons do not have, so all the maths about force and acceleration do not apply to photons anyway. The reason for this is that momentum for a photon is related to its wavelength and through that to its energy. An equivalent mass can be calculated for a classical approach but you need to know the energy, which makes the exercise even more pointless. The reason being that photons carry electromagnetic energy not the “pure kinetic energy” you seem to have invented. The energy of a photon depends on its frequency and this dictates wavelength and hence momentum. Your derivation takes no account of this; indeed you seem ignorant of the whole idea. One of the reasons the ether idea fell, besides Michelson-Morely, was because it could not account for the Quantum theory of light or indeed for Maxwell’s equations.
Further on [page 10] you talk of how to calculate time dilation for a pion. Relativity deals with muons as well for the simple reason that it does not depend on the internal stricture of the particle. You state erroneously “If the pion is accelerated bodily to a linear speed v, then firstly, the axis of rotation will line up with the direction of acceleration due to gyroscopic forces.” Angular momentum is a conserved property and a gyroscope as you describe of a rigid dumbbell spinning will retain the orientation it began with or precess around the direction of acceleration. If your statement was correct then gyroscopic compasses would not work and nor would the party trick of putting a gyroscope with its axis horizontal and when spun up to speed it rotates around the support. Your argument proceeds from an odd model of the internal structure and behavior of a pion, which would have been observed by now if there were a strong component of angular momentum besides the spins of the individual quarks as the pattern of decay products would have to conserve this angular momentum. Your statement about pion decay implies you believe in the idea of “hidden variables” and seem to have no idea about the probalistic nature of decay events. There have been many of attempts to make “hidden variables” work not least by Einstein and his associates but to no avail. Experiments proposed by Einstein and later carried out have only confirmed the probalistic hypothesis. Your discussion of the binding of quarks also raises the question of your understanding of Field Theory. This has made numerous predictions which have been confirmed. The theory relies on Quantum theory particularly the Uncertainty principle being more than just a limit on human observational accuracy but a real effect which allows virtual particles to be used as exchanges resulting in binding energy appearing as a reduction in mass of the whole system.
You are attempting to support a religious belief with impartial science. This will result in on of two outcomes. Science will prevail and the religious belief will be found to be just another groundless delusion, or the delusion will distort your view of reality to produce rationalisations that support your belief. This is he case here.
-
Message 45
Posted by michaelroll (U1973304) on Monday, 12th September 2005
Answer to message 44 from Normalynormal:
Thanks for coming forward with constructive criticism of Ron Pearson's secular scientific case for survival after death. Ron will of course be only too pleased to answer your points.
However, the bit at the end hit us like a punch in the nose - that Ron is attempting to support religious beliefs!
Our website [Broken link removed by Moderator] is presenting the secular scientific case for survival after death without any connection whatsoever with the divisive religious hatred connected with priestcraft.
We are saying loud and clear that nothing is supernatural or paranormal. That if something happens then there has to be a rational sciientific explanation for what we are witnessing. -
Message 46
Posted by pierrelapin (U1895691) on Monday, 12th September 2005
Normalynormal-religion
You may have a good grasp of physics but you appear to have lost the plot as far as this discussion about survival goes. The whole object of the exercise was to show that survival is, like birth, a process which falls within the laws of nature and has nothing to do with religion or faith
Further, if you had visited the Victor Zammit website you would see that he clearly expresses the view that whenever science and religion clash science always prevails. On that point we are obviously batting for the same side.
<You are attempting to support a religious belief with impartial science. This will result in on of two outcomes. Science will prevail and the religious belief will be found to be just another groundless delusion, or the delusion will distort your view of reality to produce rationalisations that support your belief. This is he case here.
</quote> -
Message 47
Posted by Normalynormal (U1959500) on Tuesday, 13th September 2005
Sorry, I didn't mean to offend but religion covers more than just a system with a priesthood. In essence it is a belief system which cannot be falsified. For example when prayers are not answered the believer declares this to be god's acting for greater good, whatever that is. In this case the belief that people survive death overrides any evidence to the contrary. So the obvious hoaxes are seen by the believer to be evidence or at least not a disproof of the view that spirit contact is real. In fact the view is only validated by belief.
One giveaway is the role of the medium. Like revelation in other religions a human interprets or passes on the communication of the god or spirit. A simpler explanation is that this is just the medium's opinion or a result of interaction with the audience in the case of cold reading. One imbalance in the programme was to omit the fact that Houdini was able to debunk every medium he encountered as a fraud. It was telling that Archie Roy concludes by pointing out that promises of real evidence never seem to come to fruition. I have heard Montague Keen say the same thing, and remark that it is interesting that the spirit communications go in fashions, knockings, table tipping, ectoplasm now interpretaion by a medium who gets a vague impression. -
Message 48
Posted by michaelroll (U1973304) on Wednesday, 14th September 2005
To Normalynormal:
I am so glad we have got everything on a friendly basis.
I was also puzzled regarding the remarks of Professor Archie Roy at the end of this programme because it was me who in 1983 introduced Archie to the Rita Goold experiment. Rita is a materialisation medium. The only type of medium that can actually prove survival after death with repeatable experiments under laboratory conditions. Every time Rita gave a demonstration six recently deceased people fully materialised for hours on end. They have been physically reunited with their families who are still on Earth.
This is the experiment that Sir William Crookes was unable to carry out when Katie King materialised at his experiments because Katie had passed over so long ago that she had no living friends and relations.
This full report is on my website: www.cfpf.org.uk
To be fair to Professor Archie Roy as he is a university professor he does not have my freedom to report such a revolutionary experiment. He would be crucified by his peers - orthodox scientists who start from the base that the mind and brain are the same and that death is the end of everything.
After Archie witnessed the same thing that I did he telephoned to say that everything I witnessed he also witnessed. However, there was no way he could submit a report like mine without doing the same exercise as Sir William Crookes - to carry out repeatable experiments under laboratory condition, "It could take a year."
As Prof. Roy was unable to complete his experiments he was unable to back my report. This is why we are now pleading for another first class materialisation medium like Florence Cook or Rita Goold to come forward and dedicate their wonderful gift to scientific advancement. Needless to say the safety of the medium would be number one priority during the experiments. -
Message 49
Posted by ronpearson (U2016517) on Wednesday, 14th September 2005
Science and the Séance
Answering the critique of “normalynormal”: Message 44
I consider that the physicist, writing under the pseudonym “normalynormal”, was not being quite fair in his critique of my “Exact Classical Mechanics”. In any fair assessment the whole of a document has to be considered on its merits and credit given for any novel features that add insights that are flaw free. Normalynormal ignores everything except for one small item. This describes the mechanics of a rotating dumbbell showing that its rotational speed reduces as it is accelerated to a high linear speed. It demonstrated that if the lifetime of a particle is measured as the number of rotations made, then lifetimes will increase with linear speed. It suggests that time does not need to dilate as implied by relativity theory. Normalynormal debunks this on grounds that the pion, I used only by way of example, does not rotate. He ignores the extension that shows the same effect applies to the components of the particle. The proposal was to suggest that everything might be made entirely from kinetic energy –which he deplores as my own invention. This was only a suggestion not a firm proposition.
Using the same model he implies that I am unaware that the energy carried by the photon is electromagnetic and not kinetic. But there is a phenomenon called, “wave particle duality” of which he is fully familiar. The photon has an effective mass due to the energy it carries and so electromagnetic energy can in this case be regarded as a form of kinetic energy for evaluating such effects as radiation pressure.
The only place his critique is fair is in pointing out that I ignored the gyroscopic effect. I am very angry with myself about this because it was an oversight made in the first derivation and one I corrected shortly afterwards by changing the wording to: “The direction in which the dumbbell is accelerated linearly has to be parallel with the axis of rotation of the dumbbell”. I was traumatised to find the original version was still there. This was my fault entirely since it shows I had not made a proper check.
In his final sentence he says:
“You are attempting to support a religious belief with impartial science. This will result in one of two outcomes. Science will prevail and the religious belief will be found to be just another groundless delusion, or the delusion will distort your view of reality to produce rationalisations that support your belief. This is the case here.”
This implies a lack of knowledge of the overwhelming nature of survival evidence and treats it as unsupported and delusory religious belief. He is at present unable to accept even the possibility that survival could be true. My hope is that he will be open-minded enough to look into this evidence. If he does he may well realise he is wrong here. He will discover it to be an experimentally verified fact.
He says that my survival theory is based on “hidden variables”, a concept studied by Einstein and others long ago and finally abandoned. I am fully aware of this having read the book “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” by David Bohm. The electron and other sub-atomic particles are regarded as objects travelling along with a jitter imposed due to the quantum fluctuations produced by the hidden variables. It is obvious that this will not satisfy all the experiments and so only this interpretation is disallowed.
In my theory “Consciousness as a Sub-Quantum Phenomenon”, published in 1997:
[Broken link removed by Moderator] an intelligent background medium generates organised waves that produce the effect of sub-atomic particles. These do not travel like jittering objects but jump about in a random way though constrained by wave interference patterns. They are manifestations joined end to end in time but not in position. This fits in with all the experiments perfectly and so this version of hidden variables is different from those that have been abandoned. Normalynormal wrongly implies that I know nothing about the probabilities involved in quantum theory from his reading of my “Exact Classical Mechanics [Broken link removed by Moderator].
A new book by Steven Adler, (clearly a physicist) “Quantum Theory as an Emergent Phenomenon”: Cambridge University Press May 2004 copies my lead in providing a sub-quantum background, based on “an extension of classical dynamics”, from which the quantum level emerges. This is the same as saying he uses a revised Newtonian mechanics which is what my “Exact Classical Mechanics” is derived to do.
A final comment: the survival theory implies that only the background is truly real with the quantum and macroscopic levels produced in the manner of a semi-virtual reality. The “semi” means it is based on real energy but these are intelligently organised. It means that some internal contradictions, such as are present in relativity and quantum field theory, can then be permitted. They are not permissible in the background that is fully real and was the reason for developing this mechanics. A contradiction-free mechanics was only essential for the background and for solving the problem of the cosmological constant that is dealt with in the consciousness article.
-
Message 50
Posted by becksmum (U2046962) on Wednesday, 14th September 2005
I agree wholeheartedly, this programme was excellent compared with those of the past which were mostly controlled by sceptics. I am not a spiritualist and follow no religion whatsoever but I am a serious afterlife researcher. Since my study began four years ago I have experienced some amazing and evidential phenomena on a personal level - the most wonderful being an answerphone message to my ex husband from my daughter who had passed three years previously. I fully realise the ridicule I have opened myself up to from sceptics by stating this fact but care not for the truth is the truth, it would be ludicrous for anyone to suggest that my husband and I could not recognise our own daughters` voice. Congratulations to the BBC for presenting such an enlightening programme - more please!. It was really lovely to see such an honest programme compared to some I have seen in the past.
I am also glad that a Church working mediums' opinion was used, rather than a television personality medium.
It was quite funny to note the fact that it is at times of great need that people turn to Spiritualism (ie during the wars) and most of the people who come through the doors are looking for something they are unable to find in the orthodox religions.
My hope is that in time more and more programmes are shown about Spiritualism and that we (the only religion recognised by Act of Parliament) are also included in the list of religions shown on the front page of bbc.co.uk/religion, but only time will tell.
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