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Royal Mail's Nobel guru in telepathy row

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday September 30, 2001
The Observer

It was meant to be a simple celebration of the world's greatest
intellectual prize. But this week's issue of six special stamps to
honour the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prize has dropped the Royal
Mail into an unexpected, and decidedly bitter, scientific row.

Scientists are furious that a booklet, published as part of the stamps'
presentation package, contains claims that modern physics will one day
lead to an understanding of telepathy and the paranormal.

'It is utter rubbish,' said David Deutsch, quantum physics expert at
Oxford University. 'Telepathy simply does not exist. The Royal Mail has
let itself be hoodwinked into supporting ideas that are complete
nonsense.'

Last week Royal Mail officials defended their actions by pointing out
that the offending paragraphs had been written by a Nobel laureate,
Cambridge physicist Brian Josephson. 'Yes, I think telepathy exists,' he
told The Observer, 'and I think quantum physics will help us understand
its basic properties.'

Professor Josephson won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1973 for proving
that some materials could act as switches operating close to the speed
of light, and could revolutionise computing and power transmission. He
said he had deliberately used the booklet to redress a serious imbalance
in reporting paranormal research work. 'I think journals like Nature and
Science are censoring such research,' he said. 'There is a lot of
evidence to support the existence of telepathy, for example, but papers
on the subject are being rejected - quite unfairly.'

Josephson believes that psychics and telepaths may be able to direct
random energy at sub-atomic levels for their own purposes, and in the
commemorative stamp booklet writes that developments in information and
quantum theories 'may lead to an explanation of processes still not
understood within conventional science, such as telepathy'.

Full text -
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,560604,00.html

Mick.
--
"You are the music while the music lasts" - Antonio Damasio (after TS
Eliot).