"Wacky' science thrives at Stanford societyMembers publish serious analyses not found elsewhere on UFOs and ESP05/23/93SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINERYou're a scientist who studies psychic phenomena, UFOs,reincarnation, extinct Martians, ESP or sea monsters,but orthodox scientific journals won't publish yourresearch. "TOO WACKY," they scoff.So who you gonna call? The Society for ScientificExploration!"Fringe" science is the raison d'etre of theStanford-based society. It's small - about 400 membersworldwide - and its quarterly Journal of ScientificExploration looks like any other scientific journal:peer-reviewed articles with footnotes, leaden prose andlogarithmic charts.Its members believe that subjects such as UFOs and ESPshouldn't be left to gullible amateurs but deserve to bescrutinized via the scientific method - throughcontrolled experiments, analyzed with the latestcomputerized and statistical techniques.The journal may be the world's only scientific periodicalwith the temerity to subtitle an article "A LaboratoryReplication of a Miracle."In its seventh year, this handsome quarterly has becomethe journal of last resort for scientists whose researchis far out - so far out, in some cases, that their orthodoxcolleagues may scorn them as cranks, and their bosses maydeny them funds or lab space."I think we're just babes crawling on the floor of theuniverse," says Stanford University materialsscientist William A. Tiller, who thinks his psychicexperiments may explain historical miracles - forexample, Jesus' transformation of water into wine.Because of his effort to show how volunteers could"psychically" control the motion of electrons in ascientific instrument, Tiller's colleagues "WOULDPREFER I WAS DOING WORK AT ANOTHER INSTITUTION," hejokes. "If I hadn't been tenured when I was doing this(research), I might not still be here."Many journal articles are the veriest nonsense,sometimes based on questionable statistics and datacollection, skeptics say."They tend to begin with a bias that things go bump in thenight," charges Paul Kurtz, head of the Committee forScientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, aBuffalo, N.Y.-based group.One of the world's best-known astrophysicists, ThomasGold of Cornell University, wrote an essay for the journala few years ago. But he says he didn't realize how muchemphasis the journal would put on topics such as UFOs andreincarnation, and because of that "I WOULD NOT SUBMIT ANARTICLE TO THEM NOW. I don't believe in UFOs orreincarnation."You can turn to Science and Nature magazines to learnmainstream scientific news - such as what's happening inplate tectonics research, or what the Ulysses space probeis learning as it speeds toward the sun. But if you're intoSPOOKS AND SPACE VISITORS, turn to the journal. Amongother subjects, it has had articles on:"Sunken" prehistoric cities off the Bahamas.Efforts to control the motion of microbes psychically,by researchers at the University of Delaware, and topredict computer simulations of coin-tossing, atPrinceton.Correlations between geomagnetic storms and cancer.The use of faith healing to regrow amputated limbs ofsalamanders (THE SUBJECT OF A RECENT ARTICLE BY FOURRESEARCHERS IN ORINDA).Photographic evidence from space probes of "A PASTHUMANOID CIVILIZATION... ON MARS." The data include"what appear to be large carved faces," researcherswrite.Unknown sea creatures. "VARIOUS LINES OF SOFT EVIDENCECONVERGE UPON THE TENTATIVE CONCLUSION THAT ANUNCLASSIFIED SEA-ANIMAL OF SIGNIFICANT SIZE IS LIVING,OR AT LEAST RECENTLY LIVED, IN THE OCEAN WATERS OF BRITISHCOLUMBIA," reports Michael D. Swords of WesternMichigan University.Critics question the journal's scientific standards."I think they're good people, but I don't think they'renecessarily always objective.... They're people whoreally want to believe in something and find evidence forit," says Kendrick Frazier, editor of the Committee forScientific Investigation's journal, Skeptical Inquirer."I don't necessarily believe everything I publish in thejournal either," responds Journal of ScientificExploration managing editor Bernhard Haisch, anastrophysicist. "But I still think they deserve to bediscussed and looked at scientifically."A major Society for Scientific Exploration figure is IanStevenson of the University of Virginia. In the journal,he has presented what he describes as evidence forreincarnation and, more recently, the idea that "apregnant woman may be so frightened by the sight of somedeformity on another person that her baby will be affectedby a similar defect."The supermarket tabloids make millions selling similarstories, but fortune has eluded the journal. The editorsadmit they're mystified by its failure to become more thana "WELL-KEPT SECRET" with only several hundredsubscribers.Last year Haisch told readers it faced "ALIFE-THREATENING BUDGET DEFICIT." It also lost ameasure of prestige when it was dropped by itsdistinguished long-time publisher, Pergamon, which hadtroubles of its own connected with the financial collaps its owner, the late Robert Maxwell.The society's president, Peter Sturrock, becameinterested in fringe science in the 1970s. Someone senthim metallic fragments from an alleged flying saucercrash in South America. He had the fragments chemicallyanalyzed and concluded they were highly purifiedmagnesium - interesting, but hardly evidence of alienvisitors.His interest in UFOs apparently hasn't hurt his academiccareer: He is director of Stanford's Center for SpaceScience and Astrophysics, and recently won an award fromthe American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronauticsfor his astronomical research.Other society members take their lumps.When Albuquerque, N.M., geophysicist John Derr andanother scientist suggested in a different journal thatalleged sightings of a glowing Virgin Mary wereelectromagnetic "PLASMAS," some colleagues ridiculedthe idea. These luminous clouds of electrons and ionsmight form when movement on earthquake faults stripselectrons from rocks, Derr suggested."The hard-core skeptics think their duty, as a hammer, isto hit anything that's a nail," Derr complains. "Why bea scientist if you're not going to investigate new andinteresting things?"
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