Posted By: Lumo (** Lumidek **) on 'CZscience'
Title: O jednom nositeli Nobelovy ceny - Filosofie pavedy
Date: Tue Jan 13 22:03:07 1998
Ahoj lidi!
V poslednich dnech jsem zjistil dost smutne veci o jednom kdysi dobrem
fyzikovi, nositeli Nobelovy ceny z roku 1973 za objev Josephsonova
prechodu. Neberte tohle jako osobni otazku, ja ho samozrejme vubec neznam,
jen jsem s nim vymenil dva maily a je mne z toho celkem smutno.
Zaroven tim chci ukazat, na jakem principu funguji pavedy a proc dochazeji
k zaverum, ke kterym dochazeji. Jsem presvedcen, ze je treba sebekriticky
rici, ze ackoliv je pan Josephson nobelovsky laureat za fyziku, z prumerne
urovne obhajcu parapsychologie se nevymyka.
Strucny obsah pribehu je nasledujici. V roce 1997 vydal Dean Radin
(Nevada), podle vetsiny americka jednicka v parapsychologii, knihu
"Conscious Universe", prelozme to jako "Vesmir vedomi". V lednu 1998 to
oznacil B.Josephson za pro neho nejvetsi vedeckou udalost roku 1997. Jiz
23.prosince 1997 otiskla Nature recenzi teto knihy od I.J.Gooda, v niz je
samozrejme strucne receno a vysvetleno, proc je obsah knihy hloupost, proc
jsou Radinovy argumenty liche atd., ale je tam tez napsano, ze je to dobre
psana kniha, ktera dobre shrnuje argumenty pro paranormalni jevy.
Na strance http://www.psiresearch.org/ si lze precist pochvaly na knihu ze
vsech stran. Prvni je prohlaseni Josephsona a druhe je hodnoceni Nature,
z nehoz je vybrano "kniha je dobre napsana a dobre shrnuje argumenty pro
paranormalni jevy".
V mailu Josephsonovi jsem tenhle priklad, jeden z mnoha, jako doklad
nepoctivosti lidi, kteri se zabyvaji temihle vecmi. Kdyz jsem cetl v
nedeli tahle hodnoceni poprve, ucinil jsem si zaver, ze Nature otiskla
pozitivni recenzi o tehle knize, coz me tedy hodne zaskocilo a pomyslel
jsem si o Nature sve, ale nenapadlo me pochybovat o informacich z titulni
stranky hlavniho serveru jedne domeny v zone ORG.
Nadhodil jsem Josephsonovi, ze takto (podle mych zkusenosti) "funguji"
paranormalni jevy obecne. Lide v nich vybiraji jen vysledky pokusu, ktere
se jim hodi, tim samozrejme zcela degeneruji statistiku a dospivaji pak k
nesmyslnym zaverum, ktere pak s velkou slavou otiskuji v novinach i jinde.
Odpoved Josephsona je pomerne zarazejici, alespon podle meho nazoru. Pise,
ze kdyz nekdo napise recenzi o vasi knize a vam se na ni libi jedna veta,
zatimco ostatni vety povazujete za soubor miskoncepci, jste opravneni
vyjmout jen tuto jednu vetu, ktera se vam libi. A jelikoz pry je ta kniha
opravdu dobre napsana a dobre shrnuje argumenty (a clanek Gooda jsou pry
jinak hlouposti a miskoncepce), nema Josephson nic proti takovemu zpusobu
citace nazoru casopisu Nature.
Pred tim, nez dojde k originalu podstatne casti korespondence, jen
zopakuji, ze ta recenze v Nature samozrejme byla celkove negativni, jak
zduraznil i Josephson na sve strance, kde pise:
> Is it being characterised as a good thesis or paper because it is
> well-written -- or the reverse, because the arguments are faulty? I tend
> to assume the latter myself but...
---------------------------------------------
From bdj10@cam.ac.uk Tue Jan 13 15:15:19 1998
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:48:20 +0000
From: Brian Josephson <bdj10@cam.ac.uk>
To: Lubos MOTL <motl@physics.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: Paranormal phenomena
--On Tue, Jan 13, 1998 12:03 am -0500 "Lubos MOTL"
<motl@physics.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>> Well written ... good summary of the arguments supporting the existence
>> of ESP. - Nature
> (L,Motl:)
> Do you think that this citation agrees with the message of the Good's
> article? After reading this (yesterday), I assumed that Nature wrote a
> positive article about the book, maybe I was doing an elementary mistake
> in my reasoning. But such things I call "dishonest" and in my opinion they
> are exactly the things that a honest scientist (it does not matter if
> extended or not) should not practice if he wants to find the truth.
(B.Josephson:)
I suggest the following: if someone writes a review of your book, and one
sentence of the review gives an assessment you feel pleased about (and
there is no reason to assume the quote was not Good's honest opinion) while
you consider the rest consists largely of a collection of misconceptions,
then you are quite entitled to quote the bit you feel is accurate and
ignore the rest. The book is very well written and it does provide a good
summary of the arguments supporting the existence of ESP, and therefore I
have no problems with that selective quotation. I am sorry that you seem
to. Why should Radin be expected to propagate Good's misconceptions? It
would have been different if in the rest of the review Good had found a
_valid_ argument against the book, but he failed to do so and that is in
itself a recommendation.
(L.Motl)
> I would say that they chose positive results only and maybe I have
> discussed with other people than you but I saw the same dishonesty also
> during reading some books on parapsychology and discussing with people
> arguing for parapsychology
(B.Josephson:)
One needs to distinguish carefully between accredited professionals and
people in general who may be much less critical, such as you may see on
programs like the X-files or elsewhere. Many people are unable to make the
distinction...
///// Superstring/M-theory is the language in which God wrote the world.
/// O __ Your Lumidek. mailto:motl@physics.rutgers.edu, motl@usa.net
/// ---------------------------------------------------
///_______/ http://www.kolej.mff.cuni.cz/~lumo/, http://www.motl.org/
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