
BA Science Festival, 2006
University of East Anglia
The Times Editorial, September 06, 2006
Are you thinking what we're thinking? We thought so, and ordinarily that would obviate the need for this article. But it seems that some sceptics are still clinging deaf to the inner voices of their own minds to the dull empiricism that deems telepathy not just implausible but impossible. For them, it is worth spelling out: the evidence for mind-to-mind communication is now so overwhelming that it has been presented at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This has dire implications for the telecoms and polygraph industries. The treasured careers of secret agents, diplomats and war reporters will suffer if they cannot master this newly respectable skill. Professional poker is doomed, lying is more perilous than ever and human courtship will never be the same again.
Full disclosure requires that we acknowledge in old-fashioned print, as well as via what Upton Sinclair called mental radio, the depth of dismay occasioned by Rupert Sheldrake's presentation at the BA of the results of an experiment in which participants were invited to guess which of four friends was about to call them on the telephone. He says some guessed right 40 per cent of the time, proving the existence of telepathy. Crusty traditionalists say that this proves the existence of nothing but intuition and dumb luck. We say ponder The Times's input-output theory, aka Tinpot: we take in so much food, water and inspiration, and our cerebral cortices generate so much measurable electrical activity, that it is absurd to think that none of it escapes in the form of transmittable brainwaves. That's what we're thinking, and it's the thought that counts.
The Science Festival Controversy
About the Science Festival
- The Times: Theories of telepathy and afterlife cause uproar at top science forum
- The Times editorial: It goes without saying that telepathy works
- BBC Radio 5 Live: Transcript of the Atkins-Sheldrake Debate
- Rupert's Article in The Times Gosh, I was just thinking about you
The BBC Radio 4 Science Programme: The Material World
ABC Radio Conversation with Robyn Williams
- The Science Reporter Editorial, Telepathy cuts down on phone bills