Unconventional Scientists

[kuranes]

First up is Dr. Patrick Flanagan. ( Edit - I originally thought his claims were straightforward, but they look pretty fuzzy to me now. )

http://www.rexresearch.com/flanagan/neuroph.htm

Flanagan's site -

www.phisciences.com

The theories of Royal Raymond Rife are much more controversial. He was an autodidact, who invented a number of things before his medical efforts that landed him in hot water. One invention was a powerful microscope that could see incredibly tiny things without having to kill them first. An electron microscope, on the other hand, views only dead forms, according to what I read comparing the two. The distinction supposedly allowed Rife to see organisms never before known to exist. After demonstrating the "scope" of his discoveries to some very prominent people ( the Smithsonian documented it, along with some prominent MD's ) the AMA made an offer to buy the technology and then ( after this was spurned, supposedly ) proceeeded to hound him into the dirt. Rife is often compared to Hoxsey, who finally won his court case against the AMA but continued to be hounded by them, regardless. Hoxsey could afford to fight them since he came from a family of oil wealth. Rife could not.

http://www.keelynet.com/biology/rifeway.htm

The man who wrote "The Secret Life of Plants", Christopher Bird, has a new book out regarding the trial and science theories of Gaston Naessens. Naessens' theory behind "somatids" was interesting. He claims that Pasteur was wrong, and that "germs" are a result and not a "cause" of disease, being organisms that come along in a 16 stage cycle after the body is already in trouble. His palliative is a simple "rinsing" of the lymphatic system that involves simple and very diluted materials such as camphor injected directly into the lymphatic system.

www.ralphmoss.com/naessens1.html.


Another guy I heard about studied how certain lizards can regenerate limbs that are lost, and questioned why humans shouldn't be able to do so. Supposedly he was able to induce a rat to regenerate a missing limb. I have not read his book.

It's called "The Body Electric" by Robert Becker.

Of course, Tesla comes to mind,too.

Let's hear what you think of these guys and any "unconventional scientists" that YOU are aware of. I'm more interested in people that can't be easily dismissed, although some may claim my selections disprove this preference.

[joft]

i'm curious but i don't want to click a bunch of links and read a ton of pages to find out wtf they invented/are controversial for.

please, think of the people with ADD

edit: ok, i read it. I find this stuff fascinating, although I'm highly skeptical. these guys definitely have their place in the picture of science drawn by philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, even though most scientists themselves (and people like Lee) will probably insist that they don't

[Snowflake]

Why must science be convetional? If science cannot be unconventional, what is the point of science??

[Serotonin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall

This guy received a Nobel Prize last year for proving that H. pylori causes stomach ulcers.


he H. pylori theory was ridiculed by the establishment scientists and doctors, who did not believe that any bacteria could live in the acidic stomach. To force people to pay attention to this theory, Marshall drank a petri-dish of the bacteria and soon developed gastritis. The bacteria disappeared after two weeks and the illness resolved spontaneously with the aid of antibiotics.

My honours supervisor, a prominent scientist in honeybee biology, cited that example in a conversation with me a couple of years ago, saying "That sort of vindication is what all scientists are looking for. That's the real gold in the field".

The other example that comes to mind is Ray Fuller, who developed SSRIs. To test the extent of serotonin reuptake he actually crushed up mouse brains with a mortar and pestle, and used the tissue to test the efficacy of the drug. When I read that in the book "Listening to Prozac" it really brought me back to earth about how "coalface" science is.

[kuranes]

i'm curious but i don't want to click a bunch of links and read a ton of pages to find out wtf they invented/are controversial for.

please, think of the people with ADD

Joft - I tried to give a brief summary of most of the guys I brought up. On these kind of things "the devil's in the details" as far as people trying to kick the legs out from underneath new ideas.

Snowflake - I agree that science shouldn't be shackled to the conventional. If someone doesn't accept the premises of what the "peer review" process crowd is currently engaged in, they can have a hard time of it, though. I remember when the theory first came out about a "germ" theory for ulcers. It was ridiculed for quite a while, and then all the sudden the "establishment" was saying "Well . . .we suspected it in SOME cases" etc. Soon, like the weatherman's predictions, for good or for worse, it was part of history.

Edit - I see Serotonin's thinking along similar lines.

[Architectonic]

New scientific ideas are generally on the boundaries of the various fields. But recently, I read an insightful comment that suggested that some of the greatest ideas are between the boundaries of two (established) fields.

Sometimes borrowing ideas from another field can give useful insights.
But the strength of scientist is not merely having interesting ideas, but proving those ideas. (and admitting when a logical sounding hypothesis turns out to be false...)
In Marshall's case, as a microbiologist, he certainly knew that strains of bacteria can survive in all sorts of conditions (even around fission reactors!). So he certainly would have understood the possibility of bacteria causing infections in the stomach. (combining ideas from microbiology with those of medicine)
But the strength of his research was that he did the work - He isolated the major bacteria in question and actually proved that it can be a major cause of stomach ulcers.

Also, part of being a scientist is admitting when a hypothesis (that sounded like a good idea before it was tested) is found to be false. ;)

Back to the 'unconventional scientists' though, I was under the impression that most of Patrick Flanagan's ideas still are controversial and are lacking in evidence. Kind of like his so-called degrees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_mill). ;)
The ideas I am talking about are the 'Neurophone', 'pyramid power', 'microhydrin' etc.

[Chimera]

I'd say Peter Duesberg qualifies, especially for his theories on HIV/AIDS.

http://www.duesberg.com/

For joft:

He thinks HIV and AIDS are not related, and that HIV is simply a risk marker for people who may develop immunodeficiency from other causes. So he's basically a pariah in the hyper-politicized HIV/AIDS research community.

He is, however, widely respected for his other work in molecular biology, even by the people who think he's a crank on HIV/AIDS.

[rivercrow]

Richard Feynman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman)

[eyebyte_atWork]

Here is a listing of engineers (http://www.engineeringk12.org/students/fun_section/famous_engineers.htm) with some interesting findings. (All worksafe too)

[Hustler]

Riemann. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann)

Kip Thorne. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne)

[Architectonic]

Isaac Newton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton) the alchemist. ;)

[Melody]

dunno much about kip, but he good w/ his homies for making such an elegant book 'gravitation' which is what first struck me into wanting to study physics seriously

[kuranes]

The Bubble Fusion Controversy

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may05/1119

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007a/070207BennettTaleyarkhan.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence

http://d2fusion.com/d2fteam.htm

Casimir force uses -
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/02/020219080529.htm

Tribute to a pioneer
http://www.rice.edu/energy/smalley/memorial.html

[kuranes]

Also, part of being a scientist is admitting when a hypothesis (that sounded like a good idea before it was tested) is found to be false. ;)

Back to the 'unconventional scientists' though, I was under the impression that most of Patrick Flanagan's ideas still are controversial and are lacking in evidence. Kind of like his so-called degrees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_mill). ;)
The ideas I am talking about are the 'Neurophone', 'pyramid power', 'microhydrin' etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Flanagan

You're right. I assumed that someone who had been touted on the cover of Life Magazine as a "boy genius etc." and supposedly worked with the government would have a better grounding in real science. I hadn't noticed his references to "pyramid power" in the long article. I thought it interesting that a deaf person was reportedly able to "hear" music "inside his head" using Flanagan's neurophone in the original test. A reporter for an Anchorage Alaska newspaper tried the neurophone out and he indicated that it performed as claimed, but that the sound quality was far from perfect. He wanted to take it apart, and see how it worked, but couldn't afford to buy it for $600 to do so. Sometimes fringe science comes up with interesting things, even though their explanations for why they work may be faulty.

[Arcturus]

Isaac Newton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton) the alchemist. ;)

He also apparently often dabbled in astrology. It's kind of funny; here's Newton, just about the poster child for the Enlightenment, wrapped up in these weird pseudosciences that, today, we'd call 'new age'.

As far as unconventional scientists go, apparently Kary Mullis is quite the character. He's the one who invented PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), a method of quickly duplicating DNA that's used worldwide by now. I had a prof in molecular biotechnology a couple years ago who read us some excerpts from his autobiography, in which he reports on his out of body experiences and drug-induced hallucinations that lead him to various discoveries. Quite the weird dude. Of course, the thing he's most known for (PCR) isn't some fringey, tenuous scientific speculation, so I guess the science he's done isn't that unconventional, just his character. The wikipedia link below also mentions an alien abduction encounter. Well, maybe he IS crazy...but he can do good science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis

[Herr_Rosen]

He also apparently often dabbled in astrology. It's kind of funny; here's Newton, just about the poster child for the Enlightenment, wrapped up in these weird pseudosciences that, today, we'd call 'new age'.


:rofl: I can just imagine the smack they'll talk about this generation.

[Cockroach]

Fred Hoyle-Advocate of panspermia and steady-state theory.

[kuranes]

Tesla's goal of wireless power transmission - finally demonstrated !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6725955.stm

[wildcat]

First up is Dr. Patrick Flanagan. ( Edit - I originally thought his claims were straightforward, but they look pretty fuzzy to me now. )

http://www.rexresearch.com/flanagan/neuroph.htm

Flanagan's site -

www.phisciences.com

The theories of Royal Raymond Rife are much more controversial. He was an autodidact, who invented a number of things before his medical efforts that landed him in hot water. One invention was a powerful microscope that could see incredibly tiny things without having to kill them first. An electron microscope, on the other hand, views only dead forms, according to what I read comparing the two. The distinction supposedly allowed Rife to see organisms never before known to exist. After demonstrating the "scope" of his discoveries to some very prominent people ( the Smithsonian documented it, along with some prominent MD's ) the AMA made an offer to buy the technology and then ( after this was spurned, supposedly ) proceeeded to hound him into the dirt. Rife is often compared to Hoxsey, who finally won his court case against the AMA but continued to be hounded by them, regardless. Hoxsey could afford to fight them since he came from a family of oil wealth. Rife could not.

http://www.keelynet.com/biology/rifeway.htm

The man who wrote "The Secret Life of Plants", Christopher Bird, has a new book out regarding the trial and science theories of Gaston Naessens. Naessens' theory behind "somatids" was interesting. He claims that Pasteur was wrong, and that "germs" are a result and not a "cause" of disease, being organisms that come along in a 16 stage cycle after the body is already in trouble. His palliative is a simple "rinsing" of the lymphatic system that involves simple and very diluted materials such as camphor injected directly into the lymphatic system.

www.ralphmoss.com/naessens1.html.


Another guy I heard about studied how certain lizards can regenerate limbs that are lost, and questioned why humans shouldn't be able to do so. Supposedly he was able to induce a rat to regenerate a missing limb. I have not read his book.

It's called "The Body Electric" by Robert Becker.

Of course, Tesla comes to mind,too.

Let's hear what you think of these guys and any "unconventional scientists" that YOU are aware of. I'm more interested in people that can't be easily dismissed, although some may claim my selections disprove this preference.
To be an autodidact brings about an unconventional viewpoint in a kind of natural way. I do not know enough of the ideas of Raymond and Bird to say anything.
The word science is curiously limited. I expand it a bit.
Is it logical to exclude the study of homo sapiens from the study of the primates?
This is what is done. And the results are not good.

Kalevi Wiik is an emeritus professor of phonetics in Turku. I had always thought I am the only one to think in a particular way about anthropology and history and linguistics. But when I read the quite heavy books of Week I found a curious resemblance in a way of how to define the past.
The conclusions may be different but the pattern is there.
To cross the border between diverse fields of study.
It is a sin.
The priests of the disciplines come out of the woodwork. They blast and damn.
They love to hear their own voice. Before their tv appearance they rehearse in front of the mirror.

[zago]

As far as unconventional scientists go, apparently Kary Mullis is quite the character. He's the one who invented PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), a method of quickly duplicating DNA that's used worldwide by now. I had a prof in molecular biotechnology a couple years ago who read us some excerpts from his autobiography, in which he reports on his out of body experiences and drug-induced hallucinations that lead him to various discoveries. Quite the weird dude. Of course, the thing he's most known for (PCR) isn't some fringey, tenuous scientific speculation, so I guess the science he's done isn't that unconventional, just his character. The wikipedia link below also mentions an alien abduction encounter. Well, maybe he IS crazy...but he can do good science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis

mullis is very interesting to me. the guy loves lsd. in fact, a lot of scientists seem to. read up on the guy who discovered lsd in the first place. the stories are amazing and intriguing.

[kuranes]

Interview with Thomas Gold

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html

[WhiteRaven]

I hadn't heard of this, thank you. Interesting guy. And what if he is right?

I'd like to echo this:

Richard Feynman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman)
...but add to it why. Having read a few of his books at the suggestion of one of my physics professors, I must tell you that I laughed sometimes until there were tears in my eyes. "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" is a hoot. I was involved in solid state physics in university, and the beginnings of research of nanotech was floating around. Stuff by Drexler and such. But look who started it all with this lecture:
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
This site has lots of other stuff written by him; you can observe his very readable style...
http://www.feynmanonline.com/
If I were to pick a scientist to meet while they were still alive, I think he would be it. Him or Einstein or Newton or...you get the idea. :)

[kuranes]

The Bubble Fusion Controversy

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may05/1119

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007a/070207BennettTaleyarkhan.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence

http://d2fusion.com/d2fteam.htm

Casimir force uses -
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/02/020219080529.htm



Edit - removed broken link on nanotech pioneer