MARTIN GARDNER'S BOOK: In the Name of Science is the bible of the modern skeptical movement.
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Editor's note: In light of the recent death of Martin Gardner, we are republishing this column from the March 2002 issue of Scientific American.
In 1950 Martin Gardner published an article in the Antioch Review entitled "The Hermit Scientist," about what we would today call pseudoscientists. It was Gardner's first publication of a skeptical nature (he was the math games columnist for Scientific American for more than a quarter of a century). In 1952 he expanded it into a book called In the Name of Science, with the descriptive subtitle "An entertaining survey of the high priests and cultists of science, past and present." Published by Putnam, the book sold so poorly that it was quickly remaindered and lay dormant until 1957, when it was republished by Dover. It has come down to us as Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, which is still in print and is arguably the skeptic classic of the past half a century.
Thankfully, there has been some progress since Gardner offered his first criticisms of pseudoscience. Now largely antiquated are his chapters on believers in a flat Earth, a hollow Earth, Atlantis and Lemuria, Alfred William Lawson, Roger Babson, Trofim Lysenko, Wilhelm Reich and Alfred Korzybski. But disturbingly, a good two thirds of the book's contents are relevant today, including Gardner's discussions of homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathy, iridiagnosis (reading the iris of the eye to deter- mine bodily malfunctions), food faddists, cancer cures and other forms of medical quackery, Edgar Cayce, the Great Pyramid's alleged mystical powers, handwriting analysis, ESP and PK (psychokinesis), reincarnation, dowsing rods, eccentric sexual theories, and theories of group racial differences.
The "hermit scientist," a youthful Gardner wrote, works alone and is ignored by mainstream scientists. "Such neglect, of course, only strengthens the convictions of the self-declared genius." But Gardner was wrong by half in his prognostications: "The current flurry of discussion about Velikovsky and Hubbard will soon subside, and their books will begin to gather dust on library shelves." Adherents to Immanuel Velikovsky's views on how celestially caused global catastrophes shaped the beliefs of ancient humans are a quaint few surviving in the interstices of fringe culture. L. Ron Hubbard, however, has been canonized by the Church of Scientology as the founding saint of a world religion.
In 1952 Gardner could not have known that the nascent flying saucer craze would turn into an alien industry: "Since flying saucers were first reported in 1947, countless individuals have been convinced that the Earth is under observation by visitors from another planet." Absence of evidence then was no more a barrier to belief than it is today, and ufologists proffered the same conspiratorial explanations for the dearth of proof: "I have heard many readers of the saucer books upbraid the government in no uncertain terms for its stubborn refusal to release the ‘truth' about the elusive platters. The administration's ‘hush hush policy' is angrily cited as proof that our military and political leaders have lost all faith in the wisdom of the American people."
Even then Gardner was bemoaning that some beliefs never seem to go out of vogue, as he recalled an H. L. Mencken quip from the 1920s: "Heave an egg out of a Pullman window, and you will hit a Fundamentalist almost anywhere in the U.S. today." Gardner cautions that when religious superstition should be on the wane, it is easy "to forget that thousands of high school teachers of biology, in many of our southern states, are still afraid to teach the theory of evolution for fear of losing their jobs." Today creationism has spread northward and mutated into the oxymoronic form of "creation science."
And the motives of the hermit scientists have not changed either. Gardner recounts the day that Groucho Marx interviewed Louisiana state senator Dudley J. LeBlanc about a "miracle" cure-all vitamin- and-mineral tonic called Hadacol that the senator had invented. When Groucho asked the senator what it was good for, LeBlanc answered with surprising honesty: "It was good for five and a half million for me last year."
What I find especially valuable about Gardner's views are his insights into the differences between science and pseudoscience. On the one extreme we have ideas that are most certainly false, "such as the dianetic view that a one-day-old embryo can make sound recordings of its mother's conversation." In the borderlands between the two "are theories advanced as working hypotheses, but highly debatable because of the lack of sufficient data." Of these Gardner selects a most propitious example: "the theory that the universe is expanding." That theory would now fall at the other extreme end of the spectrum, where lie "theories al- most certainly true, such as the belief that the Earth is round or that men and beasts are distant cousins."
How can we tell if someone is a scientific crank? Gardner offers this advice: (1) "First and most important of these traits is that cranks work in almost total isolation from their colleagues." Cranks typically do not understand how the scientific process operates—that they need to try out their ideas on colleagues, attend conferences and publish their hypotheses in peer-reviewed journals before announcing to the world their startling discovery. Of course, when you explain this to them they say that their ideas are too radical for the conservative scientific establishment to accept. (2) "A second characteristic of the pseudo-scientist, which greatly strengthens his isolation, is a tendency toward paranoia," which manifests itself in several ways:
(1) He considers himself a genius. (2) He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads....(3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against. The recognized societies refuse to let him lecture. The journals reject his papers and either ignore his books or assign them to "enemies" for review. It is all part of a dastardly plot. It never occurs to the crank that this opposition may be due to error in his work....(4) He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein....(5) He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.
We should keep these criteria in mind when we explore controversial ideas on the borderlands of science. "If the present trend continues," Gardner concludes, "we can expect a wide variety of these men, with theories yet unimaginable, to put in their appearance in the years immediately ahead. They will write impressive books, give inspiring lectures, organize exciting cults. They may achieve a following of one—or one million. In any case, it will be well for ourselves and for society if we are on our guard against them." So we still are, Martin. That is what skeptics do, and in tribute for all you have done, we shall continue to honor your founding command.
Michael Shermer is founding publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and author of How We Believe and The Borderlands of Science.
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35 Comments
Add CommentNow just hold on there a second...he has some great insights, but he is not 100% on some of the subjects you mentioned. I have seen "dowsing rods" work and I know that was not a crank or pseudoscience. The people who engaged in this experiment had no way of knowing where the jar of water was hid and with a metal dowsing rod found the water 4 out of 5 times. Now he was right about it being a crank when pseudoscientists said that it will only find water if it is a willow dowsing rod...the metal dowsing rod was more accurate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisslight of hand has been "dowsing" the unwashed since the dawn of time ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess Einstein would need to be discounted as well as countless other geniuses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess that means we would need to eliminate loners like Einstein and countless other geniuses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a matter of fact, Einstein was well integrated into the scientific community. He himself once said
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation."
--Albert Einstein
As a matter of fact, Einstein was well integrated into the scientific community. He himself once said:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation."
modly, it’s not a matter of discounting Einstein; it’s a matter of applying skepticism to his claims, which is exactly what was done. His work was subjected to peer review from the outset. General relativity made very detailed predictions, which were tested by other people within the scientific community. General relativity was shown to be valid because scientists who did NOT trust Einstein conducted their own experiments, which showed Einstein’s predictions to be stunningly accurate. That’s how science works. Scientists who were trying to prove Einstein wrong were the ones who provided the evidentiary support for his theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"He was the math games columnist for Scientific American for more than a quarter of a century."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA math whiz ?
JamesDavis, if you are aware of a peer reviewed study that adheres to the scientific method and shows that dowsing is accurate, please share it. Otherwise, if some folks did some tests and did not publish their results in a scientific journal or make their results and methods available for critique by the scientific community, then it is most definitely pseudoscience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think the "crank criteria" listed in this article hold up to reality. Newton and Darwin did not publish in peer-reviewed publications - they self-published, and they also worked alone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the number of self-centered, socially weird scientists is very long, probably because a strong scientific ability is linked to Asperger's syndrome and schizophrenia (ex. John Nash, Grigory Perelman)
Legitimate scientists also need to coin new terms - basically all the scientific words and terms were new at some point in history.
Finally, it is a distinct possibility that a genius' insights could be so far ahead, that for the establishment such ideas would seem completely crazy. In such cases it is physically impossible to tell the difference between a crazy person.
This article is lacking depth. Was this a high-school project? :(
GG, regarding the insights of a hypothetical genius who is far ahead of everyone else: The key issue, I think, is whether his or her insights yield predictions. Either they do or they don’t. If an idea does yield predictions, then it can be tested. If it doesn’t, then it’s not a scientific theory (although if it has the possibility of some day yielding predictions, then it’s worth pursuing). Just because a person is smarter than everyone else doesn’t exempt his or her ideas from methodological scrutiny. The same principle applies to self-centered, socially weird scientists. A person with Asperger syndrome or schizophrenia can certainly produce a sound theory, but that theory still has to be subject to a protocol for verification before we can take it seriously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to keep in mind that there is a tendency for scientists to accept scientific truths as dogma and not as a body of assertions that rest on experimental verification.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery textbook lists experiments and their results, but most of us accept them without trying to repeat them ourselves. This becomes a habit, even among specialists, which results in most scientists being armchair experimenters.
Since we are all specialists we certainly take most of the truths of the other specialties completely on faith and wouldn't even know how to begin to set up an experiment to verify them.
This produces a mind set that is closer to the religious mind set than to the scientific one. In the past, it excluded theories such as quantum mechanics, relativity theory, non-Euclidean geometry, psychoanalysis and Marxism because they contradict the axioms of Newtonian physics, Euclidean geometry or Karl Popper's definition of science.
But as we know from history, science has been defined, and is defined today, in many different ways and there is no consensus on how all scientists do it. Riemann's differential geometry seemed almost whimsical when it was invented out of thin air but fifty years later Poincare and Einstein found a practical, scientific use for it.
It seems healthier to accept the cranks as a necessary part of science and do as the British do, elevate them to a special place in society. A thousand cranks are worth the price of one Einstein, Lobachevsky, Pasteur or Koch.
As for the L Ron Hubbards of the world, America has been full of them from the beginning and there is little hope they will ever disappear. They only stray into the scientific world occasionally and tangentially, and they are easy to identify. They are no more noxious than P.T. Barnum and company and no less perennial.
But cranks such as Wilhelm Reich are there for a special reason. They test the capacity of the scientific world to construct experiment to falsify or verify their claims. It is a painful fact that we must remain open to any "truth" that we cannot falsify or verify. This was Martin Gardiner belief also, as his essay on Karl Popper proves.
Science gives us the best truths we have but it leaves us happily swimming in a sea of possibility too. If we remain closed to these mysteries then we are little better than those among us who still wear pointed hats with stars on them and chant verses against the wall.
jstreet, it’s a misrepresentation to say that general relativity was excluded because other scientists had a religious mind set. Rather, general relativity was not accepted UNTIL there was experimental confirmation. When an idea has no experimental support and a person doesn’t accept it, that’s not being religious. That’s the opposite of being religious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGG: Pretty clear you missed the point. It's not talking about if you hang out on your own, but if your theories stand up to the face of other scientists that doubt you and if you are a forefront on a new brach of science of course you need to come up with new words. Nit-pick and miss the forest much?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article does more to foster ignorance than to insure good science. There is no level of brilliance or acceptance that can assume infallibility, regardless of minions. There is no mind so intelligent that it cannot fool itself. Acceptance by society will always require tacit collusion, if not outright corruption, regaling Galileo postmortem will not change that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr Schermer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs science war by another name? Do you have any compassion at all for 1} the construction of a sentence 2} the people who actually have been helped by Gardiner's "quacks"?
Please remember that scientists are not well known for introspection, and that you are not on a military campaign. Your own definition of Science [points to your 'belief'] indicates a faith that functions well in hierarchies.
It is good to remember that all the wolves behind the leader in a wolf pack are following an asshole.
If you need weapons - instead of mystery then say so. And please do investigate Strunk and White on what constitutes a sentence; unless you just need followers. That's all that scientology needs.
You are yourself no different than a crank if you make a claim like that without actual evidence to support it. where is the double-blind randomized studies that support your statement? whatever you're talking about i can guarantee isnt based on real science. If this were true the technique would be used EVERYWHERE. Are you feeling like the aforementioned description of a crank that was given in the article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Your own definition of Science [points to your 'belief'] indicates a faith that functions well in hierarchies. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is NOT a belief system, but a strong set of principle of which to follow in order to investigate the natural world. How can you be a reader of this site and not understand that. This isn't a homeopathy/naturopathy blog. Go elsewhere if you're not going to discuss anything of value.
Though I have been sceptical enough to earn a PhD, when I took a pair of metal rods into my sceptical hands I was able to find a hidden metal beam 12 feet below me. Obviously some sort of subtle magnetic phenomenon, perhaps not unlike instrument joggling anomalies one encounters at sea. Even critics must be taken with a grain of salt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMCG
.........that would be a doctor of phrenology I assume.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Gurnemanz - Excellent! Now it should be an easy matter to construct working hypotheses to explain your phenomenon, and experiments to confirm or disprove them. Please report back with your results, when you have done so. Inquiring minds want to know! And don't forget the journal quotations!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been reading and hearing from both sides of the battle between fringe science and theory in opposition to the skeptics and their supporters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have discovered that many of the theories by "quacks" have some validity even though their statements fell short of the truth behind their claims. I myself have been ostracized by my scientific peers and have been refused to be published in journals due to the controversial nature of my research.
When you are refused to be published, and acknowledged even when you have shared and corroborated by colleagues from other institutions, then told not to report your findings...
What do you do? Who can you turn to?
Their is a blindside in science and skeptics that if its not popular or goes against popular belief, even if your proof is validated, then you will not be given any credence, and likewise pointed out as a "pseudoscientist".
I will continue to work and inform people even if I can't be validated by peer papers and public acknowledgment.
Remember that many of the quack theories of his time are now science fact and in use by millions today. Think about it before you cast judgment.
More and more evidence has arisen in recent years that creativity and intelligence are related to mental illness -- a very high rate often found in mathematicians -- such that one might conjecture that a single dose of the related genes confers increased intelligence and creativity while a double dose or too many repeats of those genes leads to illness. Thus, Mr. Gardner, and other skeptics, are really saying that they represent the arbiters of reality as against the mentally ill who labor in isolation and obscurity. There was a great movement in the United States in the 1840s for the humane treatment of the mentally ill -- perhaps we could use some humanity today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore and more evidence has arisen in recent years that creativity and intelligence are related to mental illness -- a very high rate often found in mathematicians -- such that one might conjecture that a single dose of the related genes confers increased intelligence and creativity while a double dose or too many repeats of those genes leads to illness. Thus, Mr. Gardner, and other skeptics, are really saying that they represent the arbiters of reality as against the mentally ill who labor in isolation and obscurity. There was a great movement in the United States in the 1840s for the humane treatment of the mentally ill -- perhaps we could use some humanity today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom your latest article on the concept of time, and-I-quote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Some physicists argue that there is no such thing as time. Others think time ought to be promoted rather than demoted. In between these two positions is the fascinating idea that time exists but is not fundamental."
Ah, yes: There's nothing like scientific precision for exposing the wishy-washies of pseudo-science!
Quote: a good two thirds of the book's contents are relevant today, including Gardner's discussions of iridiagnosis (reading the iris of the eye to determine bodily malfunctions),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnswer: Eye Test For Alzheimer's? The protein that forms plaques in the brain in Alzheimer's disease also accumulates in the eyes of people with Down syndrome.
Perhaps the point should be that we don't know whether a claim belongs to pseudoscience or to valid science, no matter who claims it, until it undergoes review by some sufficient sample of the community of scientists who follow generally accepted scientific methods. Other criteria are superficial, as other readers pointed out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery funny comments. On the UFO subset, until, if ever, we are able to travel to stars, the question will give nothing but pennies for somebody, if such aliens existed, it can't be expected they call for a press summit in the Capitol explanade or make any appearance giving evidences that will put our civilization upside-down. These things have lovers, as love literature has, but nothing more. However, some claim that the Chinese government issued an official acknowledgement that UFO's exist, but they don't know what they are. Messing with this subject is useful only to heavily damage your reputation and future. Forget about it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jamesdavis. I've heard a lot about dowsing. Lots of folk swear by it. If theres a study that shows some validity to that, I'd enjoy seeing it. Particularly, you say the dowsers did not know where the jar was buried. The first two questions I'd have are (1) was anyone who knew where it was buried present when the dowser was looking around (2) What did the holes look like for jar vs no jar?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjstreet: Your comment is what I would write. The irony is that Martin Gardner was open to his readers but like many people he assumed that what he knew everyone else knew, or should know. What is a 'crank'? It was a new word to me except that when I was a kid we had a neighbor that everyone said was a 'crank'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 'crank' writes to authors of books because what the author has said 'resonates' within in some way. I'm sure that's not the only definition but it's the one I found out about, ironically from Mr. Gardner when I thought Dr. Matrix was a real person.
He informed me, nicely that the book was a spoof of cranks and numerologists. I'd written to him about some truly astonishing 'coincidences' that happened when I read The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix.
What does the word 'resonate' mean? A sense of being on the same wave length sounds right to me, a reverberation within that arises as one reads. A kind of 'synchronization'. Now we are in the quantum physics realm, because human motives, activities and passivities (it seems likely) are the bottom line and at the heart of that invisible 'world'.
What is a numerologist? Actually Martin Gardner was one, he just knew a lot and he had a gift.
Recently I 'resonated' with words in a different book, it's by Norman O. Brown: "Human consciousness in addition to the function of exploring the outside world is burdened with the additional task of discovering the sequestered inner world."
I could quote more from the book, (Life Against Death, The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History) but the 'sequestered inner world' is almost certainly what creates or makes possible the 'resonation within' the individual . That's very likely the only point where it may be identifiable specifically. Generalization doesn't prove everything. Mr. Gardner was gifted with pattern recognition and symbol interpretation and he could learn and think independently whatever came from that 'sequestered realm within' it seems to me.
In the collective, where science requires the kind of proof that is repeatable, by anyone only the pattern level is operative, it seems to me. I suspect many wars are the results. Mr. Gardner was synchronized at many points in his life with that 'sequestered inner world', in my opinon.
in Manhattan playwright Larry Myers wrote
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Edgar Cayce's Autograph"
after visting the Gulf oil spill area
Dr Myers is a knowledgeable historian about spiritualism & theater expert...he uses dramtic arts to convey the tragi-comedic circumstances of many looking for answers! Since all others were asleep the desperate contact Edgar Cayce!..
Most people tend to become brainwashed by unscrupulous guys, but are not attracted to genuine scientific ideas. They believe in mysterious forces and energies apart from the basic laws of physics and chemistry. Perhaps that is the beginning of religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people get brainwashed by cranks and pseudo-scientists. They believe in mysterious forces and energies apart from the basic laws of physics and chemistry. Is this a hangover from the beginning of humankind when most natural events were cloaked in mysteries?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope you understand that the basic laws of the physical world are invisible, only their effects can be studied. The news in 1932 was about quantum level physics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBelow I've typed the content of that article, it was on the front page, a major news story on the day I was born, January 2, 1932, published on January 3, 1932. It's the article about Arthur H. Compton that was on the front page of the Sunday Chicago Tribune.
The entire newspaper article:
SCIENCE FINDS COSMIC CLEW TO HUMAN DESTINY
Flaws detected in Material Formula
(The reference to 'material formula' is to Einstein's formula: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared: e=mc2
By Philip Kinsley.
Science has a New Year’s message of good news to present.
It concerns the invisible worlds of cosmic rays and atoms but it gives a glimpse of a new golden age of humanity, a future in which man may become the master of his destiny, instead of the victim of an unreadable whimsical fate. New energy in the physical world knocks at this door and a practical understanding of that primary unity of the physical and the mental which looms up as the hinterland of the most searching experiments in the new physics.
Prof Arthur Holly Compton, Ph D., Sc D., LL.D, professor of physics at the University of Chicago and a Nobel Prize winner of 1927 comes today as an interpreter of significant events in European and American Laboratories and as the projector of a new world survey which within the next two years is expected to give a more adequate picture of the structure and action of the universe.
BASED ON SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
As a philosopher, finding his sanctions in principles discovered in scientific research of the last few years, he is ready now to touch this picture with new perspective and depth. His own experiments in electronic structure, wave lengths and the behavior of atoms have contributed much to the view now held by an important group of younger scientists in England, Germany and America, that strict physical causality, or determinism, must be dropped out of the explanation of the action of atoms, and therefore out of the human mind.
It is no longer necessary from a scientific standpoint, Prof. Compton, believes, to consider this universe as a place of chaos and night, with mankind sailing aimlessly along desolate shores and perilous seas, with certain doom ahead. It is, on the contrary, permissible, on this same basis of science, to postulate a fundamental unity, and order and to think of all living and perhaps nonliving things as well, as (being) controlled by something approaching consciousness, something greater than the individual.
This of course may be further interpreted as a new basis for religion, a new way of looking at an old thing, but Prof. Compton does not flinch at that. He would however substitute understanding for faith.
“That nonphysical factors may determine the actions of atoms is quite in the air today.”, was one of his significant statements.
Studying Cosmic Ray:
Prof. Compton is to devote the next two years to the problem of the comic rays, the most penetrating and least known form of radiant energy. He intends to find out what these rays consist of, and where they come from, whether from the sun or from inter galactial space, hundreds of millions of light years from the earth.
He will start out next March on six months expedition to Peru, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and Alaska to continue experiments already begun in the Rockies and in the Alps. Three other cooperating expeditions will be organized for a world survey, one in South America, another in South Africa, and in a third in the Himalaya mountains. This work is made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.
Measurements of the rays will be taken in standard ionization chambers at 18 widely distributed stations and at heights varying from 7,000 to 20,000 feet. north and south polar expeditions will also carry the measuring instruments.
His Expectations in Test
"A survey such as this," said Prof Compton, "should give the most adequate test that has yet been devised to distinguish whether the cosmic rays are photons, as are light and X-rays or electrons such as give rise to the Earth's aurora. Because of the effect of the earth's magnetic field electrons should give less intense rays near the equator than near the pole. Likewise if the cosmic rays have their origin in the earth's atmosphere there should presumably be variations with the geographic locations.
"The cosmic rays are a type of radiation that strikes the earth from above. They are measured by means of sensitive electrical equipment designed to measure the electrical conductivity of air. At high altitudes the air is electrically a better conductor than at low altitudes, due to the fact that these rays are more intense at the high altitudes. It seems probable that the electrical conductivity of the Kennelly-Heaviside layer, which makes long distance radio broadcasting possible, may be due to the ionization of the upper atmosphere produced by these rays.
Similar to Star Light
"If as now seems probable the cosmic rays enter the Earths atmosphere almost uniformly from all directions, it would indicate that the rays originate in some part of the heavens which is the same in all directions. This would mean that they come from interstellar space. Thus the cosmic rays are similar to star light in that they are due to events which took place millions of years ago at remote portions of the cosmos. The energy in the cosmic rays is found to be, roughly, the same as that of starlight. Though this may seem to be a very small energy, when it is remembered that the emission of light is the chief business of a star, it will be seen that as cosmic events go, the cosmic rays are thus of very great importance."
In experiments last year Prof Compton found that the rays are of equal intensity in the Rockies and in the Alps, and are very slightly more intense by day than by night. His findings are in general with those of Prof. R. A. Millikan. Dr. Millikan has advanced the theory that the cosmic rays are indicative of the building of process in the universe, picturing them as creative streams of energy offsetting the running down process involved in the destruction of atoms through radiant energy.
To Release Atomic Energy
This work in cosmic rays looks toward the ultimate release of atomic energy, for they are little particles of terrific energy. Science hitherto has conceived of energy as based on a destructive principle. Prof. Compton points to the recent report of a German scientist, Bothe, that he had found what he believed to be the production of very high frequency gamma rays, almost cosmic rays, through the union of atoms. He regards this as one of the most important pieces of scientific news in years. These odd pieces of laboratory information may fuse together some day into a great discovery, for this is the way that discoveries come.
It took may minds to produce Einstein, and the revolutionary idea of relativity, which is just beginning to seep into human thinking, is but the precursor of more radical changes in thinking.
There is the quantum theory, (which is) " the unsubstantial (non-material) pageant of space, time and matter crumbling into grains of action," as an outgrowth, and now the principle of indeterminacy, or uncertainty in the atomic field, formulated by Heisenberg in 1927 and considered by some scientists, notably Prof. A. S. Eddington of Cambridge as ranking in importance with relativity.
Key to Physics Problems
It is with this principle that Prof Compton now deals. he finds it the key to the solution of many riddles in physics and the answer to much in psychology. He takes his stand with Eddington and that school and against Bertrand Russell and Planck, who would have it that the theory is based merely on scientific ignorance.
The statement of this theory is that a particle may have position, or it may have velocity, but it cannot in any sense have both.
"A large majority of those who have studied the newer developments agree with Eddington and with me, that the uncertainty relation is a thing that represents real limitations of our physical knowledge." said Prof. Compton.
"The principle of uncertainty really says that in making measurements by physical apparatus a limit is set to the amount of information we can get and beyond that limit there is no method of telling what the outcome of physical events is going to be. It is not ignorance, but the fact that physical measurements are not of the kind that make such knowledge possible. I have a feeling that Russell and his group have not quite grasped that. The laws of the new physics cannot predict any event; they tell only the chance of its occurrence."
Effect on Human Thought
"As one whose experiments are partly responsible for this dramatic reversal of the physicists' point of view, I have been especially interested in tracing what the significance of this change may be to human life and thought.
"So far as physical , however, is not the only permissible point of view. One may suppose a strict order but that physical measurements are not of the kind that tell us what that order is.
"Imagine a faint ray of light passing through a tiny hole, which then spreads by defraction into a broad beam. In the path of this broad beam we may place two photo-electric cells, each connected with an amplifier. These will be made so sensitive that the entrance of a single photon into ether cell is recorded. A shutter in the path of the light ray remains open long enough to transmit a single photon.
"Into which cell will the photon fall? There is no way by which we can be sure. The photon follows the light wave and if we try to make its path more definite by using a smaller hole to transmit the light ray, we merely make the transmitted beam more diffuse by defraction. Though the first photon may enter one cell, with the initial conditions identical as far as any real test can show, the next photon may enter the other cell.
A Matter of Chance
"This is what we mean by saying that the law of causality does not hold in our present experiments; for by reproducing the initial cause we cannot reproduce the same effect. The result, so far as scientists can now see, is truly a matter of chance. It means that no physical experiment can test this principle on an atomic scale. As a physical principle the law of causality must be abandoned.
"This uncertainty may be seen in large scale events. In the experiment of the ray of light passing through a tiny hole, we may connect one of our amplifiers with an electrical device which will explode a stick of dynamite and the other amplifier with a switch which will open the circuit. Now what will happen when the shutter transmits a photon? If it enters one cell, the dynamite will explode, and the apparatus will be blown to bits. If the photon enters the other cell, the switch will be pulled and the apparatus is no longer in danger. Thus any event which depends at some stage upon the outcome of a small scale event is essentially unpredictable on the basis of previous history."
Depends on Small Things
"Charles G. Darwin mathematical physicist at Edinburgh, in discussing this principle, takes a fling at those who find room for freedom of action in living organisms out of such experiments. He says this does not apply to large things such as people. It does apply however, due to the fact that large actions are determined by small scale things such as nerve currents.
"Prof. Ralph Lillie has pointed out that the deliberate actions of living organisms are events of just this kind. The sensation which starts the nerve pulse may itself be initiated by a small number of elementary events, such as a dozen photons of light entering the eye. The living organism, in turn, acts as an amplifier of very great power which may be set in operation by events on a scale comparable with the elementary events which we know to be indeterminate. Considering the complexity of the small scale events associated with any of our deliberate acts, one may say with assurance that on a purely physical basis the end result may have a relatively great uncertainty.
"There is not necessarily any suggestion of an ability of the organism to choose a course of action. It's energetic actions may correspond merely to its lack of skill.
"If we wish to retain any exact relation between cause and effect, we must postulate a world, related to the physical world but regarding which experiment gives us no information, (yet) in which the events may be determined.
Follow Laws of Chance
"In such a non-physical world it is possible that motives and thoughts may play a determining part, while in the physical world, in which such things remain unnoticed, events appear to follow the laws of chance.
"The new physics does not suggest a solution of the old question of how mind acts on matter. It does definitely, however, admit the possibility of such an action and suggests where the action may take effect.
"It is conceivable that some such system may hold as far as one could go. One cannot draw a limit. Consciousness may be associated with inorganic matter. There is no reason to say yes or not. Physical laws must be satisfied for any system, atoms or people. Physical laws are not sufficient to tell us what people or atoms are going to do. We say that people determine their course. With atoms we say it is chance. It may be merely that we do not know the non-physical factors which largely determine the atom's actions, as well as we do those of living organisms.
"Professor Sommerfield of Munich definitely takes the attitude that in the relations between waves and particles the dual characteristic of nature, the waves correspond to a state of consciousness, much the same as our own consciousness.
"In the psychological field, I feel that the things that are accounted for by physical means represent only a limited portion of reality, that they fail to account for the fact that men individually and collectively achieve human motives.". It seems that some degree of uncertainty, such as the physicist has recently found, is necessary if non-physical things, as for example, thoughts and motives, are to have any relation to the physical world. Without this flexibility in physical law, it is doubtful whether there could be an organic evolution with its incessant struggle for life. It is, in short only, because the world in a physical sense is not wholly, reliable that it can have any human meaning.
There's no way to be certain that Martin Gardner was conscious of the way his mind operated, he was a whiz at seeing the kind of relationship that 'cranks' see wasn't he? The physical world is maintained by another world, that's what quantum physics 'says', where forces, invisible except as to their effects govern every material object, and we are each a material object. Thoughts, actions, motivations, impulses, the restrictions of them (especially those) from having 'civilized' ourself are all in some level an effect of those invisible forces. I posted a long post, maybe too long but it's an article from 1932 about Arthur H. Compton's work with gamma rays. He and others recognized and tried to explain the 'flaw found in material formula', (e=mc2) Science is a process, not knowledge but no knowledge is permanent.
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