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20th and 21st Century Science

Posted by geoffkait on April 3, 2007 at 04:39:48

This post is a continuation of the discussion of PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) of last week. The following is an Abstract plus 1st section of an article by Robert Jahn, former Dean of the School of Engineering, Princeton University, and head of the PEAR Laboratory. The article can be read in its entirety at:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/R&P.pdf

20th and 21st Century Science: Reflections and Projections

ROBERT G. JAHN
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ

ABSTRACT–Twentieth century natural science opened onto a bewildering array of empirical anomalies and bemusing heuristic theories that testified to grossly inadequate comprehension of atomic-scale structures and processes. Subsequent decades saw remarkable advances in the acquisition of more definitive data, the formulation of functional models, and the postulation of profound philosophical interpretations of these curious quantum mechanical
phenomena. Later periods featured the prodigious applications of t his arsenal of new understanding in such diverse domains as nuclear weaponry, energy, technology, health care, communications and information processing, and space exploration and utilization. All of this mighty implementation
notwithstanding, at the close of this era, much as in the preceding classical science period of the 19th century, fundamental ontological understanding of the natural processes of our cosmos again began to appear inadequate to encompass
newly emerging bodies of anomalous empirical evidence, in this
case primarily related to the role of consciousness in the establishment of physical experience.

begin 1st section of article:

"As we enter the 21st century, science seems poised to execute a similar evolutionary cycle of advancement of their comprehension and relevance. We are opening with a steadily growing backlog of demonstrable physical, biological, and psychological anomalies, many of which have been featured in the meetings and journals of this society, and most of which seem incontrovertibly correlated with properties and processes of the human mind, in ways for which our preceding 20th century scientific paradigm has no rational explanations.

Meanwhile, our theorists are laboring along progressively more tortuous trails of non-linear dynamics, complex and chaotic systems, entanglement theories, zero-point vacuum fluctuations, string and super-string theories, microtubules and neuronal networks, in convoluted attempts to accommodate the phenomena without conceding their intrinsic subjectivity, perhaps reminiscent of similar earlier struggles to preserve geocentric celestial mechanics by epicycloidal orbit theories or to accommodate Rydberg’s spectra within classical radiation models.

While these esoteric efforts may provide some ad hoc utility in representing and cataloguing specific anomalous phenomena, they lack the capacity, individually or collectively, to compound to a totally comprehensive representation. That can only be approached when consciousness, in all of its subjective and objective ramifications, is accepted from the outset into scientific conceptualization as an essential, central, and proactive factor in the establishment of physical reality.

This major concession must also bring with it the redefinition of other sacred scientific tenets, such as the rigid replicability and objectivity requirements, and the admission of such foreign concepts as transdisciplinary metaphor, intersubjective resonance, and teleological causality as both enabling factors and analytical tools. Specific conceptual schema for comprehensive formulation of such an expansion of scientific methodology are at present rare and primitive, but two examples can be sketched to illustrate the requisite complementarity of physical and psychological factors.

On the threshold of the 20th century, the physical science profession was sitting rather smugly on its academic duff, quite content with the elegance of its theoretical concepts and formalisms, and with the burgeoning practical applications
thereof. Newtonian mechanics had been firmly established by many empirical demonstrations in astronomical and terrestrial venues; the heuristic concepts of the thermal sciences were enabling rapid proliferation of the prime movers that had initiated the industrial revolution; and the completion of Maxwell’s electromagnetic relations had generated a radiation theory that
was revolutionizing public communication.

A naïve consensus abounded that most of the hard work of natural science had been done; that only mop-up tasks remained. As their towering patriarch Lord Kelvin (Thomson, circa 1884) proclaimed:

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement," a sentiment echoed by their contemporary hero, A. A. Michelson (1894):

"The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. … Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals."

But over only the next few years, this same community of scholars was suddenly deluged by a blizzard of atomic-scale anomalies that severely challenged much of their comfortably nestled classical science. The frequency distribution of blackbody radiation departed drastically from the classical
electromagnetic expectations; newly accumulated data on atomic and molecular spectra and atomic-scale collisions were totally inexplicable on the basis of the prevailing atomic and molecular models; the photoelectric effect, the Compton effect, the Franck-Hertz, and Davisson-Germer experiments, and
the specific heat of solids all showed little agreement between empirical observations and the established concepts; and the growing theoretical and pragmatic interest in gaseous plasmas as a fourth state of matter was poorly supported by any viable theoretical formulations that could be mustered."

~ End of first section

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