Thank you very much.
Well, that was my speech for the skeptics at Pasadena. But I was never invited to speak there, so I never gave it.
1. Kendrick Frazier, ed., Science Confronts the Paranormal, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1986.
2. R. Razadan and Alan Kielar, “Sonar and Photographic Searches for the Loch Ness Monster: A Reassessment,” in Frazier, pp. 349–57.
3. Isaac Asimov, “Science and the Mountain Peak,” in Frazier, p. 299.
4. See Richard S. Westfall, “Newton and the Fudge Factor,” Science, 179 (1973): 751–58. For a full discussion of Newton’s entire range of working interests, from alchemy to the Old Testament, see Westfall’s definitive biography of Newton, Never at Rest, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
5. R. A. Fisher, “Has Mendel’s Work Been Rediscovered?”, Annals of Science, 1 (1936): 115–24.
6. Norman T. Gridgeman, “Geometric Probability and the Number Pi,” Scripta Mathematica, 25 (November 1970): 183 ff.
7. See L. S. Hearnshaw, Cyril Burt, Psychologist, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979.
8. Emilio Segre, From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries, San Francisco: Freeman, 1980, pp. 16–19.
9. Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists, New York: Knopf, 1977, P. 233.
10. It may be objected that “disprove” is too strong a term, that the precession of Mercury merely provoked a modification of Newtonian mechanics, or led to the understanding that Newtonian theory was only an approximation. Such arguments are evasive. Calling Einstein’s theory of relativity a modification of Newtonian mechanics is like calling the atomic bomb a modification of gunpowder. For a sensitive consideration of the profound intellectual discomfort caused by the downfall of Newtonian mechanics, see J. Bronowski, The Common Sense of Science, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978.
11. Carl Sagan, “Extraterrestrial Intelligence: An International Petition,” Science, 218 (1982): 426.
12. G. G. Simpson, “The Non Prevalence of Humanoids,” Science, 143 (1964): 769–75.
13. Marcello Truzzi, “On the Reception of Unconventional Scientific Claims,” in Seymour H. Mauskopf, ed., The Reception of Unconventional Science, AAAS Selected Symposium 25, Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1979, p. 130.
14. See C. J. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York: Random House, 1962, for the entire story.
15. Jung in fact had written his doctoral dissertation on the occult: “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena,” in C. G. Jung, Psychology and the Occult, Princeton: Bollingen Series XX, 1977, pp. 6–91.
16. Cited in Jung, Psychology, p. vii.
17. Cited in Jung, Psychology, p. ix.
18. Bronowski, Common Sense, p. 61.
19. William James, “Review of ‘A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance,’ by Richard Hodgson (1898),” in William James, Essays in Psychical Research, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986, p. 189.
20. Letter to Carl Stumpf, in The Letters of William James, ed. Henry James, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920, vol. 1, p. 248.
21. Bronowski, Science and Human Values, New York: Harper & Row, 1956, p. 20.
22. Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986, p. 65.
23. Renee Weber, Dialogues with Scientists and Sages: The Search for Unity in Science and Mysticism, New York: Methuen, 1986, p. 210.
24. Richard Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, New York: Norton, 1985, p. 261.
25. Feynman, p. 266.
26. Michael Crichton, Jasper Johns, New York: Abrams, 1977.
27. Bronowski, Common Sense, p. 109.
28. Feynman, QED, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965, p. 10.
29. Interview with John Bell in P. C. W. Davies and J. R. Brown, eds., The Ghost in the Atom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 51.
30. Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, Descartes’ Dream: The World According to Mathematics, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986, p. 275.
31. Werner Heisenberg notes: “We cannot describe atomic phenomena without ambiguity in any ordinary language.… It would be premature, however, to insist that we should avoid the difficulty by confining ourselves to the use of mathematical language. This is no genuine way out, since we do not know how far the mathematical language can be applied to the phenomena. In the last resort, even science must rely upon ordinary language, since it is the only language in which we can be sure of really grasping the phenomena.” Werner Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1971, p. 119.
32. Davis and Hersh, p. 294.
33. Davis and Hersh, p. 297.
34. Jung, Psychology, pp. 136–37.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Crichton’s novels include The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, and The Lost World. He was also the creator of the television series ER. Crichton died in 2008.
Books by Michael Crichton
The Andromeda Strain
The Terminal Man
The Great Train Robbery
Eaters of the Dead
Congo
Sphere
Travels
Jurassic Park
Rising Sun
The Lost World
Disclosure
Airframe
Timeline
Michael Crichton, Travels
(Series: # )
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