EdgeScienceNumber 9 October–December 2011 Current Research and Insights The Plasma Universe of Hannes Alfvén by David Talbott Coincidence Studies A Manifesto by Bernard D. Beitman, M.D. A publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration EdgeScience #9 October–December 2011 EdgeScience is a quarterly magazine. Print copies are available from edgescience.magcloud.com. CONTENTS For further information, see edgescience.org Email: [email protected] THE OBSERVATORY Why EdgeScience? Because, contrary to public Anecdotal Evidence perception, scientific knowledge is still full of By Robert McLuhan unknowns. What remains to be discovered — what 3 we don’t know — very likely dwarfs what we do know. And what we think we know may not be entirely correct LETTERS: or fully understood. Anomalies, which researchers Tunguska, UFOs, and Pluto tend to sweep under the rug, should be actively 4 pursued as clues to potential breakthroughs and new directions in science. PuBliShEr: The Society for Scientific Exploration EdiTor: Patrick huyghe Associate EdiTorS: dick Blasband, FeatureS P.d. Moncreif conTriBuTorS: Bernard d. Beitman, The Plasma Universe robert Mcluhan, david Talbott Design: Smythtype design of Hannes Alfvén 5 By David Talbott The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) is a professional organization of scientists and scholars who study unusual and unexplained phenomena. The primary goal of the Society is to provide a professional forum for presentations, criticism, and debate concerning topics which are for various reasons ignored or studied inadequately within mainstream science. A secondary goal is to promote improved understanding of those factors that unnecessarily limit the scope of scientific inquiry, such as sociological constraints, restrictive world views, hidden theoretical assumptions, Coincidence Studies and the temptation to convert prevailing theory A Manifesto into prevailing dogma. Topics under investigation cover a wide spectrum. At one end are apparent by Bernard D. Beitman, M.D.11 anomalies in well established disciplines. At the other, we find paradoxical phenomena that belong to no established discipline and therefore may offer the greatest potential for scientific advance and the expansion of human knowledge. The SSE was founded in 1982 and has approximately 800 members in 45 countries worldwide. The Society also publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of BACKSCATTER Scientific Exploration, and holds annual meetings in In Memory of William Corliss the u.S. and biennial meetings in Europe. Associate 18 By Patrick Huyghe and student memberships are available to the public. To join the Society, or for more information, visit the website at scientificexploration.org. PresidEnT: William Bengston, St. Joseph’s college VicE-PresidEnT: robert Jahn, Princeton university SEcretary: Mark urban-lurain, Michigan State university TreasurEr: John reed European coordinator: Erling Strand, Østfold college, norway copyright © 2011 Society for Scientific Exploration The authors retain copyright to their work. cover image: A coronal mass ejection. credit: SPHO/lASCO consortium EDGESCIENCE #9• OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2011 / 3 {THE OBSERVATORY| By Robert McLuhan Anecdotal Evidence ne of the skeptic’s most popular arguments is that anec- His mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends Odotal evidence can’t be relied on. If you agree with that, and acquaintances said that he was no longer Gage.” you can ignore, for example, much of the case for psi—the Yet Harlow said little about any of this when he first whole human experience bit. With that out of the way, the publicly talked about the case, when Gage was still alive. In experimental data can be waved away on the grounds of meth- 1850, two years after the accident, a Harvard professor of sur- odological flaws and wishful thinking. gery stated that Gage was “completely recovered in body and I’ve been reading up on neuroscience recently and started mind,” making no mention of any personality change. to notice how often the Phineas Gage story crops up. Gage was In subsequent accounts by other writers Harlow’s later a nineteenth century railway worker who miraculously sur- testimony was embellished. Gage was now said to have become vived an explosion in 1848 that sent an iron bar 43 inches long a drunkard and a boastful exhibitionist, as well as suffering and more than an inch in diameter right through his skull. an absolute lack of foresight—all unmentioned by Harlow. In Although Gage suffered massive damage to his frontal lobes, fact, most of what has been said about Gage subsequent to his he remained conscious and eventually recovered, still able to physical recovery, Macmillan says bluntly, is “fable.” function normally in most respects (although it eventually Coincidentally, I’ve been reading Marilynne Robinson’s did him in—he died 11 years later). However he underwent excellent Absence of Mind, an attack on the view of human- a major personality change: having been a solid, dependable ity represented in what she calls the “parascientific literature” sort he now became roguish and disreputable, given to drink- of Richard Dawkins, E. O. Wilson, Stephen Pinker, Daniel ing and swearing, to the extent that his friends no longer knew Dennett, etc. On the subject of Gage, she asks whether it is him as the man he had been. really so remarkable that a man who has had a crowbar pass The story is told to demonstrate the dependence of the through his brain should not start to act in ways that other personality on the brain, and, more specifically, the frontal people find less than reasonable. lobe as the seat of emotion. It’s a colorful piece of evidence Are we really to believe that Gage was not in pain during given in support of the orthodox view that the mind is what the years until his death? How did that terrible exit wound in the brain does. If the structure of the brain is compromised, his skull resolve? No conclusion can be drawn, except that in then so too will the personality be. 1848 a man reacted to severe physical trauma more or less as a The case is big in popular culture; apparently there are man living in 2009 might be expected to do. rock bands named after him. It’s also much referred to in aca- As for the attention the story gets from neuroscience, demic books about cognitive psychology and neuroscience: I Robinson says, “It’s as if there were a Mr. Hyde in us all that did a quick search on Questia and came up with 122 mentions. would emerge spluttering expletives if our frontal lobes weren’t I can’t tell in detail what each mention there consists of, but there to restrain him.” from the excerpts the majority seem to raise it as demon strating Nicely put. the dependence of personality on the brain. And it continues Anecdotal evidence—that is to say, reported human expe- to be influential; for instance, it’s a key piece of evidence in riences—are absolutely valid in scientific discourse. Surely Antonio Damasio’s controversial recent book Descartes’ Error, most scientists accept this. Psychology and medical science in which proposes that rationality is largely guided by emotions. particular wouldn’t get far without it; it’s just in writing about But how true is the story? According to author and psy- psi and other anomalies that it’s so suspect. What matters is chologist Malcolm Macmillan, who did some sleuthing, the that a story be properly validated. That’s not the case here, before-and-after contrast has been greatly exaggerated. and it’s interesting to see such a key element of the materi- The main testimony comes from John Harlow, the physi- alist worldview being illustrated by a story with such slender cian who attended Gage an hour after the accident and more foundations. or less put him back together. In 1868, eight years after his patient’s death, he wrote: “The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculty and animal propensities, ROBERT McLUHAN is an oxford graduate and seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulg- former foreign correspondent for the Guardian ing at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previ- newspaper. he has long been interested in psychic ously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fel- research and the science of spirituality, and blogs lows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his at Paranormalia (www.paranormalia.com). he re- desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and cently published Randi’s Prize: What sceptics say vacillating, devising many plans of future operation, which are about the paranormal, why they are wrong and why no sooner arranged that they are abandoned in turn for others. it matters. 4 / EDGESCIENCE #9 • OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2011 {LETTERS | Tunguska, UFOs, and Pluto Henry Bauer’s criticism of the 1908 Tunguska event [in What is pseudo science is to suggest that a UFO may have “Pseudo-Science in Science,” EdgeScience #8] is interesting, caused the Tunguska event. Additionally, it also depends what but misses the point. No one human saw the impact who one means by UFO. If it is “unidentified object,” then we have was able to describe it. zero clue of what they are, and have zero evidence that they However seismic detec- exist (other than unverified hearsay). tors recorded the event This reminds me of the recent saga about Pluto being a all around the world. It planet or not. Science says that Pluto is a certain size object is not in dispute that a gravitationally bound to the Solar system and it has certain catastrophic event hap- physical characteristics that we can measure and deduce (mass, pened at a certain loca- mean density). That is all. Science does not say anything about tion at a certain time.