Debate on telepathy between Rupert Sheldrake and Lewis Wolpert

The famous science journal Nature reported it some months ago, a debate on telepathy held Jan. 15 at the Royal Society of Arts, London. Before an audience of about 200 people, intervened: Rupert Sheldrake, as counsel for the reality of the phenomenon, the author of several books featuring practical experiences often simple and ingenious (including the feeling of being watched, on guess who made the call on the phone, on the attidude of the dog or cat when the master comes home from work, etc..) and Lewis Wolpert, as a skeptic, a biologist at University College London and the famous popularizer UK. Here is the French translation of this debate.


Professor Wolpert will first talk for 15 minutes. He said that was all he needed! He is obviously confident. Rupert Sheldrake will then have half an hour to recap some of the evidence of the existence of telepathy. Lewis will have 10 minutes to submit this evidence to a critical review and Rupert Sheldrake will have 10 minutes to respond. The debate will then be open to the public for an hour and a half, after which the two players will each have 5 minutes to present their final position.

In association with the foundation Nowhere

Speakers:
Rupert Sheldrake, biologist and author of The Seventh Sense
Lewis Wolpert, Professor of Anatomy, University College London

Chaired by: Edward Q. Nugee C.

Date: January 15, 2004

Location: RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London

NB This is a novel transcript of the event. Although every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, there may be phonetic errors, or other, due to inevitable variations in recording quality and written translation. Thank you to contact us to report any errors we will promptly correct.

The views expressed are not necessarily those of the RSA or its members.

Edward Nugee: Liz Winder introduced us but it is actually the second series of conferences of this 250th anniversary of the Royal Society of Arts. There was another one last night called "get rid of the law" but we do not get rid of the law is so easy and I am privileged to have been chosen to chair the debate tonight on the telepathy. This debate is supported, as Liz pointed out, by the Nowhere foundation and we are pleased to welcome Terry Ingham, CEO and six other members of the foundation and the group. If you want to know more about the foundation Nowhere, go on the internet. All I will say, among other things, is that the foundation seeks to set foot in the revolutionary projects of our knowledge and for me, the debate tonight is a good example of such a project and I 'm not surprised that he has aroused much interest, so that any interest was complete in three days of reservation in December. Now I will briefly introduce our speakers.

To my right, Professor Lewis Wolpert. Since 1966 he has been Head of Department of Biology, practiced medicine, first at Middlesex University Hospital and then, I believe, was part of the college's Faculty of Medicine. It is a permanent member of the Royal Society for almost 25 years and has been for five years, Chairman of a Scientific Information. He was also chairman of the Committee for the Public Understanding of Science. He has published several books, including one with the intriguing title, to my eyes, The Unnatural Nature of Science and has presented numerous programs on Radio 3 and BBC2. You may remember, five years ago, a series of three programs entitled A Living Hell based on his book Malignant Sadness, The Anatomy of Depression and its name, I am sure, is well known to most of you.

To my left is Rupert Sheldrake. Rupert is a biologist. He was Director of Research in Biochemistry at Clare College, Cambridge for 6 years and a member of the Royal Society research. During four years he was a physiologist at Hyderabad in India where he worked on the physiology of plants in semi-arid condition, situation found in much of India and, I think, has made a significant contribution to the ability of this country to feed its population is now over one billion people. He has published over 50 articles in scientific journals and has written numerous books including the best known is probably in September experiences that can change the world who was elected Book of the Year in 1994 by the British Institute for Social Inventions.

Here is our program tonight, Professor Wolpert will first talk for 15 minutes, he says it's all he needed! He is obviously confident. Rupert Sheldrake will then have half an hour to recap some of the evidence of the existence of telepathy. Lewis will then have 10 minutes to submit this evidence to a critical review and Rupert Sheldrake will have 10 minutes to respond. The debate will then be open to the public for an hour and a half, after which the two players will each have 5 minutes to present their final position. After the debate, you are all invited to a cocktail.

Before I ask the Professor Wolpert to open the debate, it seems interesting to propose a show of hands to see whether or not you believe in the existence of telepathy. That those who believe that telepathic communication between humans or between humans and animals is possible or likely to occur, raise your hands. Oh Lewis, you're more minority ... and those who have an open mind on the issue? Well, there are some people who came without preconceived ideas. We refer to the same end of the evening to see if any have changed their minds. Now, Professor Wolpert, open debate.

Professor Lewis Wolpert: Okay, thank you very much. I'm boring speaker. Rupert will tell you more interesting things. I am absolutely amazed that you are as much to you all for coming and so many of you believe in telepathy. It's fascinating. I am writing a book about belief but I will not go into now. Well, let me explain my position on telepathy and other paranormal phenomena. I think it would be very very very exciting if it was true. You know, it would open up, and I think Rupert has understood, if any of these phenomena, say if angels existed, I think it would be absolutely wonderful. If there really were fairies in the garden, it would be fascinating! If the thoughts really could pass from one person to another, it would be a totally new phenomenon and it would be extremely exciting and I think the way I take, and it's a boring way, I admit, is that the very nature of science is based on the evidence and the highlight is that there are none of persuasive. Now it may be that the Queen is a Russian spy. This is an opportunity, indeed. But the evidence is not very convincing. I think you'll agree with me. There are ghosts, I know. I have close friends who have seen. There is however no doubt. It does not mean that because she has seen ghosts, it does not mean they actually exist.

My position with regard to telepathy and paranormal is that it would be wonderful if that were true but there is no evidence that supports this. No reliable evidence. Now, let me tell you what I think. Currently, one way to address this phenomenon in its entirety is based on the idea of ​​a famous chemist Irving Langmuir called. It was a brilliant chemist who coined the term "pathological science" and what he meant by pathological science, it is these kinds of science that focus on many phenomena totally staggering. The observed effect is still tiny. It is at the limit of detectability. The magnitude of the effect seems independent of anything. This theorem is usually a fantastic and when there are criticisms of the experiments, there are always ad hoc explanations of why they occur. I think, in terms of telepathy-I looked at the literature on this subject-there is not a single example in any scientific literature that supports this phenomenon reliably. I will repeat myself in case you do I would not of course! There is not, in any scientific literature, properly referenced in appropriate journals as British Journal of Psychology, one article that is compelling about the ability of thoughts to be transferred, and it is not really surprising. I'm not saying it's impossible.

You see, we once asked Richard Fineman, a very famous physicist, if he believed in flying saucers and Fineman answered "no" and was told "this is a poor science. What is the evidence that they do not exist? ". He replied "I have no evidence that they do not exist. It is my intuition and I'm terribly sorry. Evidence about them is very meager. "But make no mistake. The fact that the evidence is thin does not mean that it does not exist and there are many examples in history of science where the evidence was very thin and finally, finally it turned out to be true. "One of the best examples (he said, quoting his own book!) Is of course continental drift. "If you remember, Alfred Wegener, a distinguished German geologist, believed that the continents had drifted apart and this is why South America seems to fit so well with Africa. Nobody believed him, he was taken for a fool. The physicists said "I never heard such nonsense" and then, ultimately, the evidence has emerged and it turned out he was right. The great Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest physicists of all time, really had misconceptions about the age of the earth. This is because his ideas were wrong temperature. He knew nothing of radioactivity. Thus, scientists can be really opposed to certain ideas and then finally go wrong, one of the best examples - and I love it - is Newton himself. When Newton put forward his ideas about gravity, can I remember what Leibniz said, that "every physical body exerts a force of attraction on the other. You can not believe you and me sir but we attract each other! "As does the rest of the audience. These lenses are attracted to each other by a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. And when it happened, the great German physicist Leibniz called "a senseless occult property that I can never solve, maybe even a spirit, if not God himself, was at work to explain it. "And Newton said" you know, it is difficult, and it is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter can, without modification or anything non-material, act and influence other matter without hardware support. "And he went but I do not indulge the full quote" that's so absurd that I believe no man with a philosophical sense can fall in there but gravity must be caused by an agent because that is what that show the evidence. "So this is really ... whole issue, it is evidence.

Now I believe none of you want to deny the body - we really still do not understand the seriousness that I see - these bodies, you and I are attracted to each other by our weight. You more than me, you are heavier than me! It's reciprocal. This is absolutely amazing and when you come to some remarkable things like quantum mechanics, it's really surprising ways that are all but be careful. There were so many claims and one of the most famous is, if you remember, Benveniste who published a paper in Nature saying that although a particular substance has been diluted so many times that n ' no longer remains in the water molecule, this substance could still have an effect and that memory resided in water. It has been shown that it was false and therefore, again, the whole question lies in the evidence. All I can tell by looking at literature and listening to the remarks of Irving Langmuir is that all studies related to extrasensory perception and telepathy wonderfully fall into the category of pathological science. Very small effect, unrepeatable, many apologies from those who can not do it again and of course this goes against the intuition that something is happening in the brain. Any physicist or biologist who would think that it is highly unlikely. It does not mean that it is not true. As I keep saying, there were many instances in science where we thought the wrong things and they have proved true.

Why do people believe in these things? Well, there are so many coincidences. You know, you receive a phone call and you say "gosh, I was just thinking ... ". I have a friend, Pat Williams, who often says she knows when I'll call but coincidences happen and it's not the problem. I believe that much of the confusion comes from what I would call confusion "Clever Hans". Let me tell you about Clever Hans. This goes back over 100 years. There was a Russian aristocrat called William Von Osten who was anxious to show that animals are much smarter than people think. He bought a horse that led to solve mathematical problems by tapping his foot and he traveled around the world with this horse, Clever Hans, to show how this animal was intelligent. Oh, that was awesome! But there came a scientist named Oscar Vogt said that "it's very strange, I will prepare a series of tests to see if Hans is as smart as I do. "When he asked Hans to a series of questions that Von Osten did not know the answer, the horse was very bad and it turned out that if we put blinkers on him for that look of slate and is asked to type ... bad news. It turned out that the horse had learned to look at the head of Von Osten who was moving slightly as-did you see my eyebrows to rise? Horses are very sensitive to the eyebrows and apparently that's how Clever Hans knew that thinking. I think we should, with these experiences, be very very careful about the experimental error, the influence of research and, although it took me 10 minutes to talk and 36s, my position is also simple as that: there is no evidence to support the idea that thoughts can be transmitted from one person to an animal, animal to person, person to person or from animal to animal an animal. Thank you very much.