Peter Wadhams is Professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Marine Sciences Group in the Scott Polar Research Institute.

Sir William Crookes was poisoned by thallium!

Dear Michael,

I saw the article in Paranormal Review and the mention of thallium poisoning, but I have never heard about it before. It fits of course - it is necessary to demonstrate that Crookes was out of his mind because experimental evidence that does not agree with the standard settled world view has to be discredited in some way (if the evidence is produced by obscure scientists it can be ignored, of course, and the scientists' careers made to suffer, but if it is produced by a great scientist and so cannot be ignored it must be discredited). The same thing goes on everywhere in science and in every context: Alfred Wegener put forward the idea of continental drift in 1912 but was discredited on the grounds that he was a meteorologist not a geologist and so was unqualified to pronounce on geological questions, and the idea was not accepted until 1965.

In another context, though, the article by Bernard Carr is a very positive description of how appropriate it is that a physicist should get involved in the paranormal,

Best wishes

Peter

The Chemist Sir William Crookes Proved Survival With Repeatable Experiments Under Laboratory Conditions - by Michael Roll

Tawdry New Efforts To Attack Sir William Crookes - Michael Roll's e-mail about Sir William Crookes (August 4, 2002) and the reply from Prof. Peter Wadhams (August 5, 2002) are also posted on the Jeff Rense site: www.rense.com.