Original_To:  BITNET%"info-gcg@utoronto"
Original_cc:  MARK
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.info-gcg
Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 11:13:00 EST
Reply-To:     "T. Mark Reboul" <MARK@CUCCFA.BITNET>
              <INFO-GCG@UTORONTO.BITNET>
From:         "T. Mark Reboul" <MARK@CUCCFA.BITNET>
Subject:      Open-mindedness to unorthodox thinking

Regarding the message on biological transmutations and the two (so
far) severe responses which have followed it, nobody asked for my
opinion. Yet I cannot refrain from comment....

I am surprised at how one little misplaced, unorthodox message could
so pique the intolerance of well-educated and supposedly intelligent
individuals, who should know the virtue and benefit of open-
mindedness in dialogue and debate on scientific subjects?

True, the subject of that unusual message was not appropriate for
this forum. True, the tone was weird. (I'll assume the message was
sincere, and not somebody's idea of a joke.) True, the claims were
unsupported, hard to believe, and very unlikely to be valid (IMHO).
However, as long as such "radical" messages enter this discussion
only infrequently, can we not tolerate their expression of strange
and different notions?

Should Hardy have ignored the submission from Ramanujan because it
did not conform to standard guidelines (e.g., did not provide proofs
of astounding mathematical results)?

What if someone had suggested the quantum mechanics view of nature
shortly after the Newtonian view became established? Maybe someone
DID suggest such a view, but we will never know since every
Newtonian might have rejected it. (Regarding the comment on lack of
scientific method, bear in mind that quantum mechanics is accepted
now because its models predict things which match well with what is
measured in nature, and not because of verification in experiments
with controls.)

Looking from a somewhat different angle, what about that
mathematician at Concordia College in Montreal who earlier this
year went crazy and shot and killed a few people on that campus?
Somewhat prior to his violent acts, he sent hundreds of academics
all over the continent e-mail expressing his deep frustration,
stating clearly that he intended to take some unspecified drastic
action. I saw the e-mail after the fact, which a mathematician
friend of mine had received unsolicited. It was clearly the product
of a disturbed and potentially violent person.

Presumably, not one of the hundreds of recipients took the message
seriously enough to bother relating that man's high level of
disturbance to Concordia authorities, to suggest that perhaps he
needed some help. No, the crackpot tone made it so very easy to
disregard. In retrospect -- yet another one of the shooting victims
died in the last week or two -- can anyone really tell me that a
decision to ignore that message was correct?

Note Well: I do not mean to imply that the biological transmutations
message shares any characteristics with the Concordia message!

And what sort of response should be triggered by "borderline"
theories (as opposed to theories which clearly sound crazy, smack of
alchemy, etc)? What if, a few years ago, a message on the "cold
fusion" issue had wormed its way into this list? Should such a
message be regarded more or less seriously than one on alchemy?

How does that saying go.... "Chance favors the prepared mind." (Or
something like that.) When the next scientific revolution manifests
itself initially, it will no doubt be hard to believe. What if
something wildly unbelievable appears to YOU in your work (you
potential Nobel Prize winner, you)? Will you reject it because it
seems so unlikely? Or will you choose to study it because it seems
so unlikely?

What about unorthodoxy outside of science, for example, in human
relations? If you make it a habit of coldly rejecting unlikely
scientific theories, will that habit extend into your personal life,
into your feelings about people who look or act or talk differently?
How can you know in advance that a seemingly crazy person could not
eventually become your greatest friend, a true defender of yours, or
a lifelong spouse?

Don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that is easy for anyone to
be consistent in his/her relations with the unorthodox. I'm not
saying that all crazy stuff should be treated with maximum respect;
that's what judgment is for. What I am saying is that, if you choose
to reject something unorthodox, do so with complete awareness that
you may be dead wrong, that there is a one in a trillion chance that
you may be missing the boat on the biggest opportunity in your life.

Also, it's just plain rude and insensitive to ridicule a person or
his/her viewpoint when you really don't know that such strident
criticism is warranted, if indeed it ever could be. (I'll give the
two critics the benefit of the doubt and assume they were only
"flaming", which is so easy to do with e-mail, as we all know!)

My message too is inappropriate for this forum. However, hoping that
some other INFO-GCG subscribers may share a less harsh view of that
unusual message, I'm posting my comments anyway. Send your own
comments/criticism to me or the list, as you see fit.

        Mark Reboul
        Columbia University Cancer Center Computing Facility
        mark@cuccfa.ccc.columbia.edu

P.S. -- Of course, I have expressed my own viewpoint here. I have no
        idea whether it is shared by Columbia University, the Cancer
        Center, or the Computing Facility management.
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