Savants and Social Intelligence

We might describe the routes by which information about alleged anomalies travels to savants as a 'social intelligence system'. Whereas some social scientists might view the meteorite controversy as a case of 'the resistance of scientists to scientific discovery' s1B. Barber, 'Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery', in B. Barber and W. Hirsch (eds), The Sociology of Science (Glencoe, III.: Free Press, 1962), 539-56., I feel it would be more accurate to see it as an instance of the resistance of the scientific community to social intelligence about anomalies. Social intelligence about events which fall within accepted models of reality are not likely to encounter the same resistance that meteorites did. In regard to those which fall outside such accepted models, however, many scientists (both in the eighteenth century and today) would agree with Hume's feeling about miracles:

The knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I would rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than to admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature s2D. Hume, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 2nd edn. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962), 128..

Polanyi has argued very cogently that it may be better to reject anomalous experimental data out of hand than carefully to refute them s3M. Polanyi, 'The Growth of Science in Society', Minerva, Vol. 5 (1967), 533-45.. Often such data may be due to errors which are difficult to detect, and it may be better to ignore them, rather than to waste valuable scientific effort trying to prove them wrong. If such a course of action can be recommended with experiments by scientists, is not an equally strong course of action implied in confronting the uncontrolled experiences of non-scientists? Why should time be wasted in pursuing events that in all probability have not occurred, when tangible problems await solution?

But scientists' distrust of the social intelligence system is selective. While many scientists are willing to believe that non-scientists' reports of anomalous events are generally to be disregarded, they also believe that somehow the 'genuine' anomalous events will be successfully transmitted by the system. It follows from this principle that a lack of reports constitutes evidence that the anomaly does not exist. For instance, John Pringle, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and later its President, stated in 1759 that it was his belief that meteors never fell to the ground:

And here I would venture to affirm, that, after perusing all the accounts I could find of these phenomena, I have met with no well-vouched instance of such an event; nor is it to be imagined, but that, if these meteors had really fallen, there must have been long ago so strong evidence of the fact, as to leave no room to doubt of it at present s4J. Pringle, 'Some Remarks upon the Several Accounts of the Fiery Meteor (Which Appeared on Sunday the 26th of November, 1758) and upon Other Such Bodies', Phil. Trans. Vol. 51, Pt. 1 (1760), 259-74, at 272..

We do not know what information Pringle used in coming to this decision, but one wonders if he knew of the observation by Henry Barham of a meteor striking into the earth in Jamaica about 1700 s5H. Barham, 'A letter of the curious Naturalist Mr Henry Barham, RSS to the publisher, giving a Relation of a Fiery Meteor seen by him in Jamaica, to strike into the Earth', Phil. Trans., Vol. 30, No. 356 (May-June 1718), 837-38.. This observation is all the more significant in that it had appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the same Royal Society of which Pringle was a Fellow.

It must be recognized that the argument against the existence of many controversial anomalies is at least partly sociological. When it is argued that, 'if there really were such a thing as X, I would have heard about it by now', the person speaking is making assumptions not only about the physical properties of the anomaly, but also about the workings of this social intelligence system in regard to anomalous events. Scientists tend to assume that reporting is more complete than it often is. There are a number of reasons why this fallacy of complete reporting is in error. As an example we could consider the reporting of meteorite falls in the twentieth century. H. H. Nininger, who devoted most of his life to the search for meteorites, indicated that all three of the following estimates were often in error due to incomplete reporting and inadequate search:

1. the amount of material involved in a given fall;
2. the number of falls in a given area;
3. the overall weight of meteoritic matter falling upon the earth s6H. H. Nininger, Find a Falling Star (New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1972), 237-40..

In one case the amount of matter involved in a Texas fall was revised upward from 68.2 pounds to 1500 pounds, a twenty-two fold increase s7Ibid., 237.. Nininger also found that some finds were not reported to avoid ridicule and embarrassment s8Ibid., 30, 55-56.. We have already seen that ridicule was effective in preventing the publication of some meteorite reports. What would have happened to Pringle's opinion if Tata's report had been printed in 1756 and Pringle had seen it?

A related problem is the fallacy of centrality. Many scientists seem to believe that if reports have been made, they personally would know of them. DeLuc's belief that alleged meteorite falls were actually optical illusions led him to suggest that where there are few stones, these optical illusions do not occur. In the Amazon region, where one can go for miles without having seen a stone, there are no meteorite reports: 'having no object which could give rise to such illusions, they are not produced' s9DeLuc, op. cit. note 61, 100.. One wonders what he would have said if he had been aware of the discovery in 1784 of an enormous mass of 'native iron' standing isolated in a Brazilian coastal region s10Chladni, op. cit. note 12, 343.. As with the Siberian mass found by Pallas, it was hard to see where this mass had come from, if not from the sky. And in fact this mass is a meteorite. But DeLuc did not know of this find, and it seems not to have been published until 1816.

Similarly, Charles Blagden in 1784 speculated on whether meteors might be some sort of terrestrial comets. He rejects this hypothesis, saying:

But such a crowd of revolving bodies could scarcely fail to announce their existence by some other means than merely a luminous train in the night; as, for instance, by meeting or justling sometimes near the earth, or by falling to the earth in consequence of various accidents ... s11C. Blagden, 'An Account of some late fiery Meteors: with Observations', Phil. Trans., Vol. 74 (1784), 201--32, at 223-24.

He is apparently unaware of any accounts of stone-falls connected with meteors. Surely, he thinks, if such stone-falls had occurred, he would know of them. But they had occurred, and very recently, and he did not know of them.

Considering these mistaken assumptions, one might be tempted to see them as the result of arrogance and dogmatism. But this would be a mistake. For the presumption was, in fact, a very reasonable one. If events less anomalous had been involved, the savants probably would have heard about them; it was precisely the anomalous character of the events which made reporting about them so unsatisfactory. If witnesses and savants who wished to report falls had not been subject to incredulity and ridicule, knowledge about these falls would have been much more widely distributed. In this case, the presumption of non-existence served to prevent the transmission of information which would have indicated that meteorites did exist.