I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
Sunflower rejects science. Fine. S/he thinks science is a “delusion”. This appeals to the restricted viewpoint of teabaggers and “self-made men” who think they made everything themselves, and they have nothing to thank society for.
They educated themselves, they invented all the medical science that kept them alive, they built the roads they use, they discovered architecture from first principles and built their own house – hell, they even used New-Age common sense wherewithall to make their own computer and put themselves online!
But don’t pretend you didn’t make it personal, Sunflower – you most certainly did. You accused my wife of being a killer – part of the UN’s plot to reduce the population one cancer patient at a time. You called me all sorts of things, but I don’t really mind too much. I could go on, your accusations are legion. But don’t try to pretend to be inoffensive when you’re so eager to label good people as killers, destroyers and conceited deceivers. Nice people don’t do that sort of thing. I trust that you never, never, ever visit the doctor yourself, particularly about anything serious.
The Clark and Glenn Henry Ford school of opinion: “You can have any opinion as along as we agree with it”
Chris Jones: Are you really so unable to grasp the point? We can disagree about any opinion, that’s fine – but you (and anyone else) are not entitled to their own facts. Particularly if it’s a dump-and-run “fact” of which SB is so very fond. Opinions and facts are different things.
For instance, I cannot have an “opinion” on the boiling point of water, which is rightfully at odds with a different yet equally valid “opinion”. The boiling point of water (at a given pressure) is simply a fact which does not vary. Science is an extrapolation of this principle. You seem to consider polite behaviour a matter of respecting whatever someone says what they’d like – in this example the temperature of boiling water – to be.
Tell me – is the boiling, or freezing, point of water a fixed fact, or is it subject to opinion? Should someone claiming that water freezes at 20 degrees C be respected in their view, even when they (say) teach others that food can be stored safely at 20C because such icy conditions prevents spoiling?
Chris Jones, wrong. Sorry. We just want a bit of authentication. It’s not mass hypnosis. Do you know that you can calculate the speed of light by carefully observing Jupiter and the shadows of its moons through household binoculars? You do need some maths and theory, too, mind.
It isn’t me and Glenn constraining opinions; it’s Nature herself. People like Glenn and myself just admit that there is something bigger and more powerful than our opinions.
Sorry i did get sb and jg mixed up. I read back and SB was linking unscrupulous dross there anyway.
Chris you are wrong to cast this as a just conflicting opinions. It is rejection of completely made up, fake, fantasy psuedo science, which wastes readers time and denigrates the blogs veracity if let remain and be repeated after serious discussions. Deal with it specifically, dont just complain that your differing opinions aren’t being tolerated – anyone claiming anything can resort to that.
Re: Rupert Sheldrake – I have read some of his stuff and i really like it, as examples of refreshingly alternative perspectives. He seems to me to be quite a decent theorist. His theories havent produced new discoveries iirc, he does NOT make outlandish claims of the kind SB and Sunflower and Zoologist and Chris Jones proffer – such as everyone existing in a universal computer simulation which people can reprogram with their thoughts and become godlike and such..
I read Sheldrake earnestly and intelligently proposing original vistas of lifes perplexing complexety while defending the right to research anomolies.
He has beef with mainstream skeptics who are simplistic and obstructive in ways, but i expect plenty of scientists could entertain and appreciate his originality and authentic standards.
He would not have one jot for SBs reality warping videos, he writes “Healthy skepticism plays an important part in science, and stimulates research and critical thinking. Healthy skeptics are open-minded and interested in evidence.”
Chris Jones, SB et al – you arent being healthy skeptics. You are suspending critical thinking. The universal computer concept cannot be (at least) easily
reprogrammed by video makers with nothing but passionate, stylistic testimonies to suggest that it is possible to do so. If you respect Sheldrake, respect that He makes No similar claims…
Sheldrake is a scientist. He puts forward scientific proposals; by which I mean proposals that make predictions, which can then be tested. The “virtual reality” stuff doesn’t seem testable to me. It’s exactly what the Flying Spaghetti Monster parody proposition highlights; if any observation contradicts the hypothesis, its proponents can just say, “well, the virtual reality is just set up so that you can’t detect it”, ie. “the Flying Spaghetti Monster influenced my instruments with His Noodly Appendage…”
Still, ‘Scuse Billy refuses to engage, or rather, points out how infantile I am, expecting to be “spoon fed”. Sunflower claims to have left the building. Maybe they’re just fed up with all the “delusional misconception of superiority engraved in the mind since the cradle”…
…or maybe they’re only prepared to present their “arguments” in the limelight of more current threads.
Looks like some people can’t handle the dissonance.
Not my fault you people can’t think beyond the bounds of your programmed paradigm.
Obviously ThatCrab hasn’t read or even watched Sheldrake’s talk on the Science Delusion.
And, duh, Clark metaphysics and the philosophical underpinnings of science are being brought up – testable isn’t necessarily important in such a context…
Still it’s amusing to see some of you bouncing off the walls – hope they’re padded, amigos 😉
Scouse Billy, it’s not just for my benefit that you should post your links here; this is a public site, and anyone following the argument should also be offered the appropriate links. It’s not about “spoon feeding” me.
Please post the links you suggested I/we examine.
Billy, I’m also busy moderating this site; it’s quite demanding today, what with the Ship to Gaza, and people posting 9/11 comments off-topic. It’s up to you whether you’re cooperative or not.
And Scouse Billy, your hostility still shows through. It isn’t just projection on my part. Maybe your self-awareness is insufficient for you to recognise it yourself.
“it’s amusing to see some of you bouncing off the walls”
That is the essence of your internet presence isnt it?
I haven’t watched Sheldrakes science delusion particularly because of all the other crap you associate it with. Are you suggesting that he too has uncovered the secret to unlimited fulfillment and awareness and shite that your favoured vids promise? Is he going to take up spamming human rights forums with dysfunctional fantasies too?
Actually, Clark, I had to construct rather carefully the comment that I think you are referring to – so that I only put in one link to avoid pre-moderation.
Any thoughts on allowing say 3 links without automatic pre-mod?
Anyhow, to get an overview of where Bruce Lipton is coming from with epigenetics (the Biology of Belief) – and he is a very serious scientist, btw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjj0xVM4x1I&feature=related
ThatCrab, he examines the implicit assumtions underlying modern science that people simply accept without critical analysis or, in most cases, even any awareness.
Try it you might learn something.
And don’t go for the Dr Alan Roberts version- it’s ruined by someone coughing next to the mic.
Scouse Billy: “it’s amusing to see some of you bouncing off the walls”
Thatcrab’s reply: “That is the essence of your internet presence isnt it?”
Thatcrab, thank you for articulating this so much more clearly than I did myself. Yes, Scouse Billy was using his suggestions for my friend’s cancer treatment as a form of entertainment for himself. I got so angry I felt like lashing out. I made the “mistake” of revealing these feelings. Later, Scouse Billy used that as an excuse to avoid engagement, describing me as “psychopathological”.
It is also revealing that these anti-rational contributors employ scientific terms only when it suits them. “Psychopathological” is a term from psychiatry, which, surely, is one of the sciences that Billy considers discredited.
Scouse Billy, 20 Oct, 2:37 pm:
Sorry, our comments crossed. Thank you for cooperating. You asked:
I’ve been… (sorry, interruption…) I’ve been arguing among the site team here to get this change implemented, but so far, I’ve had no success.
No, that was ThatCrab’s interpretation of my motives – actually I was trying to help in the case of your friend.
I am a psychology graduate and I have very little time for psychiatry – if you were familiar with its history you would maybe understand this.
Ironically one of my heroes is a professor of psychiatry, Thomas Szasz who wrote The myth of Mental Illness and has strong views against drug prohibition – you might like him, Clark.
Anyway I have things to attend to so will be away for a while but I do recommend the Lipton talk even if he does admit he is now a “new-ager”.
Scouse Billy 20 Oct, 3:01 pm
Billy, that’s somewhat reassuring, and thanks for this investment of personal information; I regard personal context as vitally important. You may have noticed that I occasionally quote M Scott Peck:
See you later… And thanks for returning to the attempt to bridge the gap.
I watched just enough of Lipton emoting about his revelatory ‘download from the universe’ to be in no doubt of his self aggrandisement and ineptitude.
Sunflower links to him talking about information recieving cell membranes – later he is spouting the most pathetic quasi-religious doctrine of belief that i dont even want to return to it.
But he begins by contending that the cell membrane contains the most significant mechanisms which actuate and individuate nucleus DNA, making no mention of the almost intractably complex role of proteins (aka the proteome) which are known without doubt to be the main chemical medium of genome expression.
He talks about the cell membrane as “the computer chip” stating explicity – “the physical structure and function of the cell membrane is the exact same physical structure and function of the computer chip” – Which is completely untrue on any level. The cell walls primary and essential function is to separate the inside and outside of the cell, computer chips primary function is to process proscribed representations of information. Beside both structures involving tiny details and both consisting of atoms, their physical structures are chemically, topologically completely dissimilar. Cell walls are heat sensitive pliable layered organic emulsion, computer chips are rigid crystaline heat insensitive substrates. The man is just saying things which sound nice in complete ignorance of fundamental knowledge.
Animal cells also contain many many distinct membranes which form numerous sub-cellular functional units such as ‘organelle’s which thousands or millions of specific proteins act throughout. Animal cells contain subunits so complex and distinct in their own right as to sometimes considered separate entities, such as mitochonria, with their separate genetic material and ability to divide, die and travel between cells.
Liptons description of cell biology is so blatantly dumb and incompetent it is a slight relief to me because i could not easily spot a disingenuous expert. If he were to be an expert, he would be generously disguising his expertesse very well and self limiting his con talk to the very ignorant and desparate. I have read real textbooks on the subject enough to be in no doubt of the mans ineptitude. Want to be amazed by wonders of microbiology? The veteran virtual wonder caster and ex-“Psychology Graduate” Scouse Billy would have us believe Lipton’s cosmi-babble is a better place to begin than this
Thanks for yet another complete waste of time and imagination as usual SB. I think you know the sillyness of this stuff you taunt serious forums with.
If not then get back to us when your cell membrane universal computer downloads and uploads -actualy provide the supposedly remarkable and positive physical results to your life and loved ones, as you and Sunflower seem to expect. Get back to us on that, impress us with what you have done with it.
@ThatCrab – I’ll take cell biology lessons from an acknowledged expert, someone who was cloning stem cells back in 1967 – not from an opining but never contributing crustacean.
If you haven’t grasped that environment mediated by neural filters (belief) is what facilitates gene expression, then more fool you – ignorance is bliss but knowledge empowers.
Let the placebo effect remain just one o’ dem mistries, eh 😉
@sunflower – let me know when you will next be around here, maybe find a way to exchange information…
@ScouseBilly, I’ll check with Clark.
You really do believe that stuff ?? – It wasnt a lesson Scouse Billy, it was some fragments of modern contemporary introductory cell biology -iirc. I challenge you to familiarise yourself enough to fairly consider the body of knowledge worked out by countless hard working researchers over generations, and not to accept that disconnected incongruent waffle from a personality as any kind of summary or breakthrough to leapfrog into a new realities.
He is teaching fantasy jargon not neural filters or neural amplifiers or whatever. You will get nowhere with it, he does NOT “download information from a universal computer” and neither will you. Regrettably.
Do let us know in a whacky thread sometime >When you think that that kind of thing is actualy starting to happen though and how it is benefiting you – after all the envisioning and videos etc. I assume there must be excercises involved besides the watching of lengthy spaced out and chatty youtube episodes… Till then good luck communing with in relevant forums. I hope you are satisfied that you have given it thorough airing here.
@ThatCrab to which Lipton video do you refer as “incongruent waffle”?
Well his bio reads as follows:
“Bruce H. Lipton, PhD, bestselling author of The Biology of Belief, is a cellular biologist and former Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine. His pioneering research on cloned stem cells at Wisconsin presaged the revolutionary field of epigenetics, the new science of how environment and perception control genes. Subsequently, as a Fellow in Pathology at Stanford University’s School of Medicine his published research on the human immune system yielded insight into the biochemical pathways that bridge the mind-body duality. Dr. Lipton’s latest book is Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a way to get there from here, is co-authored by Steve Bhaerman”
So tell me where he went wrong in Wisconsin and Stanford – not ad hominem gibberish as above but a clear refutation of his work. I challenge you.
Scouse Billy, my bio reads as follows:
Hmmm, I wonder where I went wrong at Queen Mary’s College, London University.
Scouse Billy, I’m not suggesting, in my comment above, that Bruce Lipton is unqualified or incompetent or anything like that. I’m making a point about how things come to be regarded as well established, and how someone comes to be recognised as an expert in their field.
You can scoff at my claims for my own importance above, and I can sort of hint that it’s all been covered up by some grand conspiracy that guards against any threat to the established order. I can then challenge you to knock down my claim, and when you point out the lack of evidence for my claim, I can say that the conspiracy “disappeared” it all.
This is “the argument from disbelief” that Glenn pointed out (have you seen this, Glenn? Correct me if I’m wrong). It also constitutes the “stick throwing” that Glenn mentioned. You send Thatcrab off to look for evidence to demolish your claim of Lipton’s authority, when what you should do is post evidence in support of your claims and Lipton’s.
In any case, it matters little. Scientists sometimes go mad just like other people do. Even if Lipton did formerly do pioneering work on stem cells, that doesn’t mean that he never “got (some whacky personal) religion” and skewed entirely away from evidence-based science.
Scouse Billy, have you read Persig at all? He really did go mad. He also had the depth of character to recognise what had happened, and he… No, any more would spoil the story. Have you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
Scouse Billy:
This is Lipton’s self-written bio, right? But he’s being disingenuous. Yes, he was an Associate Professor, but in anatomy, not in cellular biology. Check Wikipedia, link below. Warning: I’ve set up a trap that you could fall into. But it’s also an opportunity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lipton
“So tell me where he went wrong in Wisconsin and Stanford – not ad hominem gibberish as above but a clear refutation of his work. I challenge you.”
SB, your focus there is entirely ad hominem, concentrating on the mans self penned description instead of the subject matters – which i would love people to share my own wonder and amazement with. Which is why i wrote a little about what i have read, and challenged you to at least compliment your comprehension of liptons talk with some interest in modern contemporary science.
I have an impressed intrest and a smattering of reading of the subject matters he was talking about, but his talk was not merely questionable in the light of what is discovered by well recognised visionaries in the history of this science and by hoards of uncelebrated researchers -still deserving of respect, his talk was child like in its disconnections to the existing corpus of hard won insights. It was like listening to a child describing how robots are made or something. Thats why im exasperated to the point of demeaning myself with curses around this stuff.
I want to effectively criticise the lipton vid to stop people wasting precious attention on a blatant charlatain and stop the extremely urgent issues discussed in this human rights forum from being stained by association with charlatains.
Immediately from the outset of the segment which sunflower linked to, Lipton is stating bloopers and howlers about precise material which is definitely already mapped -although never completely understood (because nothing essentialy is) But the ultimate unknowableness of, the place and trueist meaning of anything and everything, is not a license to just make things up in contradiction of our most familiar and confirmed discoveries. Lipton does not place his redefinitions and extensions onto existing mysteries either, and its fortunate that he doesnt because it would be harder to convince his errantness if he did.
He places his wonder mechanisms and fancy jargon onto a most unsuitable part of life -the skin/shell/cell membrane. The outer membranes of a cell are already the most familiar and researched ones, being most accessible they are relatively unmysterious. Cells are full of membranes(!) all doing different things which modern science has large amounts of data and understanding off, yet always incomplete because of the huge diversity and subtelty of lifes workings.
Liptop says nothing of and adds no sense, to one the biggest existing lesser publicised puzzles of microbiology which is its unworkable diversity; Only a small fraction of microbial forms which science is familiar with are culturable in petri dishes and lab mediums. The diversity of unculturable microbes is so great that attempts to categorize them are never ending, the air and soil and waters and matters around use are teaming with an almost uncountable number of unculturable microbes of undiscovered forms. As far as their cell membranes are concerned there is an unworkable variety of shapes and consistencies, some static, some metamorphosize, some more common, some so rare as to be possibly unique -it cannot be known until they are all counted which is a seemingly endless task.
/Now would you be more interested about these mysteries if i was telling you that the simple answers to them allowed me to download wisdom on political and geostrategic issues and happyness and success and everything – like Lipton and his associates do? More fool you if so… /
Lipton states that DNA is ‘processed’ by cell membranes which perform as antennas to conciousness. But another underpublicised aspect of modern microbiology is that DNA is a much simpler and less complicated material than the protein chemistry – which surrounds (while it lives) genetic material – rna and dna – and it is known without doubt and researched by securely proven supercomputer simulations as well as advanced microscopy and lab chemistry, that dynamic interactions with changing and incredibly diverse and complex forms of proteins is what ‘processes’ genetic material -if that were a suitably descriptive word to use to describe the relationship between ‘genome’ and ‘proteome’.
So even if outer cell membranes would contain ‘antennas’ to conciousness, to not even mention the place of proteins in the relationship is as hollow as explaination of pysiology without mentioning blood, or of forests without mentioning soil.
Seemingly everything in a cell has been observed to be built-by and mostly-of; the quite magicaly diverse and useful organic chemical molecules -proteins.
….
I do not need to attack Liptons history SB, i have no time for reviewing his personality, his talk is inept, uninteresting dross – sorry to curse it, but i do so because it is beyond doubt sci-fi.
Try some sci-non-fi, it is just as mind blowing! You will download more auspicious info from the universe and better enhance your neural filters. You should like Bill Bysons “A Short History of Nearly Everything” for entertaining and educational reading on contemporary sciences – so that you can better judge ‘alternative’ testimonies. Possibly Piratebay the audiobook if skint, its great.
I dont mind fortean type talk and enquiries at all when they dont impinge on the standing of Craigs concerns here btw, which they would do if poor quality sources are traded in serious threads.
All the best.
Thanks Clark, very good wp entry point there.
Bruce Lipton’s academic credentials are in developmental biology particularly concerning the growth of muscle cells – not psychology or philosophy, which are the focus of his outlandlish conjectures. The first part of his book “The Biology of Belief” concerns cell biology, but then he takes a huge disciplinary leap into the theory of consciousness. He doesn’t even understand the problem, never mind provide the answers. He concludes by informing his readers that the solutions to life’s greatest problems (including a cure for cancer) can be found in the mystical cult of PSYCH-K – providing pointers to life-enhancing workshops (in which he is an investor) for interested readers. He has more in common with scientologists than scientists.
Lipton’s early work in cell biology and behaviour is virtually canonical – but like Crick, Penrose, Sheldrake and Calvin, amongst many others, his success went to his head. He presumed he must have a guru-like insight into enduring philosophical problems outside his field. He underwent a “conversion” in the early 1990s (he refers to himself as a “transformed scientist”) – and ventured into fields for which he has no training: spirituality, consciousness, ethics, oncology. He has fallen sway to an Icke-like ego delusion. He assumes his opinions constitute proof.
Lipton has no authority outside his narrow field of expertise. I’ll outline my rebuttal of his central philosophical thesis later. For now, the mathematicians amongst us might be able to spot a slight rhetorical inaccuracy. On p.195, he states: “Until 1975, the only geometry available for study was Euclidean”. Corrections on a postcard, please.
In “The Biology of Belief”, Lipton recounts his epiphany that single cells must be conscious when he was studying the behaviour of a single-celled Paramecium under a microscope at school. Paramecium cells can manifest what something like classical conditioning to physical environments and light conditions. For instance, if they enter a capillary tube and detect a noxious chemical substance, they back off, turn around and flee (this is known as the “backing reaction”). For the next 20 minutes or so, they back out of capillary tubes whether there is a noxious substance in them or not. The behaviour is so sophisticated, early biologists assumed it must imply some kind of capacity for decision-making. But the mystery was solved in 1960s/70s, when the dynamics of cytoplasm chemistry were mapped out.
Inspired by the same phenomenon, I researched appraisals of paramecium psychology over a decade ago. I designed a questionnaire with a series of abstract descriptions of laboratory experiments with unspecified “subjects”. These included the “A-not-B” error (with human children); maze-learning (with rats) and the backing reaction (with paramecia). The task was to tick the boxes for the minimum cognitive capacities required by the experimental subjects in order to manifest the experimental behaviours. I struck gold. Under observation, virtually everyone (including psychologists, biologists and philosophers) attributed cognition, memory and decision-making to the “subject” in the backing reaction. After they completed their answers, the next page then revealed that the subject was a single paramecium cell, for which the molecular mechanics were well known. Cue conspicuous attempts to amend previous answers (requiring turning back one page, which was expressly prohibited by the instructions). Pwned!
This experiment busted the myth on which Lipton’s entire conjecture rests. He assumes the manifest intelligence of single cells implies not only that they can cognize on their own, but also that they must have some kind of psychic “antennae” capable of responding to a conscious field transmitted by other cells. It’s an interesting idea – albeit with absolutely no supporting evidence and negligible scientific credibility.
I conclude that, despite his estimable scientific credentials in cell biology, Lipton’s foray into the metaphysics of psychology represents pseudoscience at its most hyperbolic.
Nextus, good to see you, and what a remarkable coincidence that you, personally, designed the questionnaire which referred to the “backing reaction” which launched Lipton upon his strange speculations.
You wrote:
Sorry; which experiment?
You also wrote:
I note that Lipton’s Wikipedia page makes no mention of this “virtually canonical” work, nor of his financial involvement with “PSYCH-K life-enhancing workshops”. If you would be so kind as to post here any appropriate (reliable) sources that you know of, I will update Wikipedia. You probably know this anyway, but reliable sources can include academic papers or books; they do not need to be links to Internet sources. Academic sources are recommended, I believe.
The “experiment” I was referring to was a questionnaire survey, which I conducted in 1999-2000. I had to prune from my thesis for reasons of length, and it remains unpublished. (I could probably fish out the questionnaire from an archive and run the experiment again, if needs be … )
Yes. I first became aware of Lipton’s work when studying biology as an undergrad. See his publication list on the CV on his homepage: http://www.brucelipton.com/curriculum-vitae. Notice the considerable gap between his last scientific publication in this field (1992), and his first woo-woo publication on “Chiropractic Philosophy” (1998). His “conversion” occurred during this period (which coincided with his funding running out and his conventional career stalling).
The website for PSYCH-K is: http://psych-k.com/ You’ll see Lipton’s footprints all over it.
He explicitly recommends it in the addendum to his book:
http://www.life-forward.net/DUPLICATE.html
Note that PSYCH-K is a divinity doctrine, not far removed from dianetics (“Remember, we are divine!”)
For details of joint PSYCH-K workshops with Bruce Lipton and Rob Williams (the proprietor and trademark owner), see http://spirit2000.com/change/