The Effect of Ridicule

When the Prince of Tarsia first related to Tata how a stone had fallen from the air near the River Crati, Tata tells us

I had trouble containing the desire to laugh which came upon me at hearing the story related to me by this young cavalier with the most naive air of conviction. I only asked him if he could send me this stone from Calabria (where he had left it) and procure me a circumstantial report from the eye-witnesses to its fall s1 Ibid., 16..

As we have seen, Tata was impressed by the receipt of the stone and the affidavit which accompanied it. Yet he did not publish his account until 1794 (39 years later), after another fall near Siena. His reasons are interesting:

Since that time, the Prince of San Severo and the Marquis Mauri often tried to persuade me to publish all the details; but other friends dissuaded me. They warned me that the savants and the half-savants (even more to be feared) would attack me on this subject or pretend to be gracious to me while treating me only with incredulity. These reasons decided me in favour of silence s2Ibid., 23..

Nor were these fears unjustified. The behaviour of Saint-Amand and Bertholon in regard to the Barbotan fall many decades later is only one of many similar reactions which took place during the controversy.

Part of the problem was the low status of many of the witnesses. The physicist Patrin, in evaluating the chemical analysis of Howard and de Bournon, noted that although many eminent persons had been involved in getting the stones to the chemists, the actual witnesses were not even named. He stated that 'it is easy to see that this type of evidence is not even a probability; because everybody knows that thousands of absurdities have been certified by thousands of witnesses of this nature' s3E.-M.-L. Patrin, 'Considérations sur les Masses de Pierres et de Matières Métalliques qu'on Suppose Tombées de l'Atmosphère', JPCHN, Vol. 55 (1802), 376-93, at 379. (Emphasis in original.). The 'lightning-stones' previously brought forward had been one example of the credulity of the multitude. There was also the problem of optical illusions. The geologist DeLuc believed that the witness to the Wold Cottage fall had seen lightning striking a rock, giving rise to the belief that it descended with the lightning s4G. A. DeLuc, 'Sur la Masse de Fer de Sibérie, et sur les Pierres supposées tombées de l'Atmosphère', Journal des Mines, Vol. 13 (1803), 92-107.. He felt it was dangerous to treat such accounts seriously, because

It is thus that events badly seen and badly judged, of which volcanic phenomena above all demonstrate many examples, cause naturalists to err who, believing in the exactitude of the accounts, will form systems based on them which will be without foundation s5Ibid., 106..

Acceptance of this kind of data would short-circuit the quality control system which had taken so long to construct. The system could be protected only by rejecting data so difficult to check.

Another part of the problem was the intrinsic implausibility of what was alleged to happen. Where could the stones come from? Volcanoes and whirlwinds were suggested by some savants as possible agents, and others even went so far as to suggest that the stones might be formed in the air s6Izarn, op. cit. note 13; also Guettard in Pliny, op. cit. note 40; J. de La Lande, 'lettre de Jerome de la Lande au C. Delamétherie, sur les Pierres de Foudre', JPCHN, Vol. 55 (1802), 451-53.. Chladni suggested that their origin might be cosmic, but this was hardly any better, as far as the majority of the scientific community was concerned. One physicist suggested that even if one of the stones fell at his feet, he still would not believe it s7Chladni, op. cit. note 12, 9.. Until Laplace and Biot suggested that they might have their origin in lunar volcanoes s8Biot, op. cit. note 25., none of the explanations seemed tenable. And probably what could not be explained, had never happened in the first place!

Freud makes a very apposite remark in his New Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis, where he contrasts two ways of treating an hypothesis. Suppose, he says, someone tells us that the centre of the earth is filled with carbonic acid. We might feel that this is improbable, but if they should show us a way of testing this hypothesis, we might indeed make the test. But now suppose they tell us that the centre of the earth is filled with jam. In this case, we would not even consider the idea. Instead, the focus of attention would be shifted, and 'we shall ask ourselves what sort of person this must be who can arrive at such a notion, or at most we shall ask him where he got it from' s9S. Freud, trans. J. Strachey, The Complete Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis (New York: Norton, 1966), 496.. In many ways the meteorite witnesses and their champions were treated like persons who had put forward the jam theory. Instead of the meteorite hypothesis being seriously examined, attention was focussed on the way witnesses might have fallen into error, and great stress was laid on the 'true physicists' avoiding this error themselves s10See Fougeroux et al., op. cit. note 16, 251.. More than once it was suggested that a 'love of the marvellous', very dangerous to science, lay behind the belief and interest in these accounts s11 Patrin, op. cit. note 60, 393; C. Barthold, 'Analyse de la Pierre de Tonnerre', JPCHN, Vol. 50 (1800), 169-76, at 174.. In this struggle against 'superstition', ridicule was a very useful tool. Because of its employment, many persons (like Tata) hesitated to forward accounts ; others, like Stütz, put forward their hypotheses very reluctantly. Some waited until other reports were made before making their own n1'I never related this narrative and shewed the concreted substance to any persons (which I should not have done but that the subject was now agitating) ...' W. Bingley, letter in Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 60, Pt. 2 (1796), 727.. Chladni, who daringly published his own conclusions in an unequivocal way, was attacked on many sides s12Chladni, op. cit. note 12, 8-9. Ridicule was a most effective tool in the controversy; unfortunately, it was directed at the wrong object. There is no question in this case that it slowed the advance of science.