DEAN JUSTIFIES PSYCHIC RESEARCH
CIA-STARGATE
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Summary:
The document discusses various studies conducted on animal behavior and the potential for animals to possess innate knowledge. It highlights studies on the reactions of monkeys to different stimuli and notes that, although they make mistakes, there is an order to these errors. The document also mentions a study on the use of fluoride tablets to prevent dental caries, which found that the protective effects of fluoride continued even after treatment ceased. Another topic covered in the document is the legitimacy of studying psychic phenomena, with the author arguing that such research should not be dismissed and offers insights into the potential nature of psychic abilities. Additionally, the document mentions the importance of satellite communications research and the return of NASA to this field of study. Finally, it briefly covers the 1979 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Awards, which recognized scientists' contributions to the understanding of DNA and brain functions.
Text
Body: monkeys may react to the same sound
quite differently.
The vervets are not absolutely consist-
ent about what intruder triggers an alarm
call, so the scientists in the field kept track
of the "mistakes." They found that the
adult monkeys seldom err, juveniles err
more frequently and infants err most fre-
quently of all. The juveniles, for instance,
give the eagle call on occasion at the sight
of an innocuous bird such as a stork or a
spoonbill. Infants carry their caution even
further; one gave the eagle alarm at the
sight of an airborne leaf.
"Although they make mistakes, there is
an order to the errors," Marler says. The
young monkeys, for instance, may give an
eagle call at the sight of a pigeon, but they
never mistakenly give the eagle call in re-
sponse to a leopard. "It's as though they
have a generally preordained mechanism,
which specifies that the eagle alarm call
should be given to something that may be
defined as `moving up above' of a certain
size and with a certain trajectory," he pro-
poses. Initially for the young monkey,
many stimuli satisfy that requirement.
Gradually, however, the animals' percep-
tion becomes more discriminating, like
children sharpening their semantic sense,
Marler says. .
Marler suggests that these animal
studies offer a glimmer of hope for ex-
perimental elucidation of the process by
which a child brings "innate knowledge" to
the task of developing understanding. "We
blind ourselves to the prospect of new
discoveries if we insist on treating animals
as though they were automata. The
knowledge they have of companions and
their surroundings is probably as intricate
and complex as our own, though with an
emphasis that is unique to each species,"
Marler says. In other work Marler observes
among songbirds a complex mix of innate
tendency, imitation, modification and in-
vention (see p. 362). In discussion at the.
recent meeting in Atlanta of the Society for
Fluoride: Prevents
caries longer
Research-started in 1969 when the 1,064
children were in first or second grade.
After the original check-up, they were re-
examined at intervals of 30 months, 55
months and six years
Following the six-
.
Tooth decay may not be the most seri- year check-up, the fluoride/placebo
ous or painful health problem in the treatments were stopped. Then in 1977,
United States, but is probably the most after one and a half treatment-free years,
common and certainly the most enduring. 354 children who had also been checked
Most - but not all - dental researchers after six years were re-examined. This ex-
consider fluoridation the most effective amination showed that ".., cariostatic
means of preventing dental caries (SN: [anti-caries] benefits continue to be ap-
9/1/79, p. 152). Now, in the most recent parent for both [one and two] tablet
follow-up of a clinical study started in treatment procedures at the end of seven
1969, it looks as if fluoride's protective ef- and one half years.... Thus, the caries pre-
fects continue after treatment with fluo- ventive benefit did not diminish as a result
ride tablets ceases. A year and a half after of discontinuing such treatment."
treatments were discontinued, the chil- The study examined not only the pro-
dren in the Wayne County, North Carolina tective effects of fluoride tablets, but also
Public Health Service study who had re- looked at the cost-effectiveness of using
ceived one or two fluoride tablets daily for the treatment on large numbers of chil-
six school years had fewer dental caries dren. Overall, the fluoride treatments cost
than those who had received a flavored about $25 per child for six school years
placebo tablet. Both during and after and - if the post-treatment period is in-
treatment, the fluoride group had between cluded - prevented 3.65 "decayed, miss-
32 and 35 percent fewer caries than the ing or filled" tooth surfaces from occurring
control group. in each child during seven and a half years.
The study - conducted by William S. This means that it cost about $7 to prevent
Driscoll, Stanley B. Heifetz and Janet A. each decay, compared with the $10 to $20
Brunelle of the National Institute of Dental it costs to have a decayed tooth filled. (]
Dean justifies
psychic research
Many respectable scientists, from Ein-
stein on down, have speculated on the
credibility of so-called "psychic"
phenomena and on how they can be
studied scientifically. Generally such ef-
forts to legitimize this study have been
thwarted by the obvious presence of char-
latans and fools among reputed psychics
and by open hostility from the scientific
community at large. Perhaps worst of all,
few new theoretical or experimental ap-
proaches to the subject h
b
ave
een gen
-
Neuroscience, James L. Gould of Prince- erated.
ton University challenged the idea that Now a fresh set of "psi" experiments
complexity of a behavior necessarily im- involving sophisticated technology has
plies cognition. He says that what appears been designed by Princeton University's
to be animal awareness and intentions dean of Engineering and Applied Science,
may just be preordained, preprogrammed Robert G. Jahn, and his co-workers. Al-
learning routines combined with scien- though Jahn is not yet ready to publish any
tests' i
norance of h
g
ow complicated suchlil h
concusve resuts,e has offered some
programs can get. His work with bees thoughts on a theoretical approach to
(SN:11/17/79, p. 342) indicates that appar- psychic phenomena and has concluded
ently complicated feats of communication that "once the overburden of illegitimate
can be described by simple rules that activity and irresponsible criticism is re-
could be genetically determined. moved, there is sufficient residue of valid
Donald R. Griffin of Rockefeller Univer- evidence to justify continued research."
sity emphasizes the importance of gather- Jahn best known fo h'
for
Chart produced by physical changes in a
Fabry-Perot interferometer clearly shows
different effects when a subject just relaxed
(base) or tried to influence the instrument
through psychokinesis (PK).
~s poneernng
ing information about whether nonhuman work with plasma discharges, summarized experiments, results of which can be
animals have intentions or are aware of his two-year experience with psychic re- scrutinized but not clearly interpreted.
themselves in relation to their surround- search during a recent science writers' What the Princeton researchers have tried
ings. "A cognitive ethology can thus hope meeting in Palo Alto. to do is design experiments in which the
to illuminate the fundamental dim si ns q to statis-
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and which, in their most versatile manifes- tion of anecdotes of spontaneous events, The work started when an undergradu-
tations, are the sources of our most pro- which tend to be spectacular but unverifi- ate, Carol K. Curry. asked.Iahn tn c,inPnricP
data pro47essing skills. The researchers NASA back into power levels." But, he adds, this band has
began w:..th soI e simple extrasensory bee" inadequately explored, and technol-
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we were indeed capable of generating ef- in e United States.' e agency wi e
fc'cts to study" -then moved on to design- studying multi-beam antennas, on-board
ing equipment to measure psychokinesis signal-switching and other technologies,
- a palpable disturbance of a physical but there is far more to the satellite com-
system by thought alone, munications problem than the opening of
The psychokinesis experiments illus _ additional frequencies.
Irate well why such research can be both As the SAB committee's report empha-
'ntalizing and frustrating. Rather than try o a sized, there are many potential satellite
to rer)roduce spectacular, "macroscopic" ~, n r communications users who are too small
uiects, such as spinning a compass with- or widely scattered to form a feasible
nt touching it (which has been reported commercial market. The Ka band is
poorly documented studies), Jahn and primarily relevant to large-scale, wide-
irry concentrated on easily observed band traffic, while the small users often
nicroscopic" phenomena. In one ex per- tX can use narrow-band, lower-frequency
lent, a subject was to raise the tempera- equipment - which is also less costly.
re of a thermistor by a few thousandths __ jf 3I Some of NASA's new technologies will be
a degree. In another, the goal was to applicable there, but much of the small-
:. iiange the separation of two mirrors in a user activity is being studied amid a
Iabry-Perot interferometer by a hundred- thicket of other agencies and organi-
housandth of a centimeter. The observa zations. The matter is thorny - and far
tions were specific and even dramatic. 2 ` from solved. 0
Subjects did, indeed, seem capable at
times of raising the thermistor tempera- RCA Satcom I11: Due soon, but then what? Lasker Awards:
ture or changing the optical pathlength of
the interferometer at will. But neither ex- Satellite communications, more inti-
periment DNA and the brain
was fully "reproducible" in the mately woven into contemporary life than
scientifically accepted sense: The effects perhaps any other aspect of Space Age
varied unpredictably from person to per- technology, owes much of its solid footing The 1979 Albert Lasker Basic Medical
son and from day to day. Because of this to years of research and development by Research Awards were presented to three
unpredictability, Jahn prefers to call the the National Aeronautics and Space Ad- scientists whose basic research has po-
results of work so far "tutorial" rather than ministration, which was ultimately able to tential for clinical as well as laboratory
technically conclusive. That is, they pass on most of the effort to private indus- use. Roger W. Sperry of the California Insti-
should be used as models for more exten- try as a self-sustaining enterprise. In 1973, tute of Technology received a $15,000
sive research rather than as any sort of prompted by tight budgets, NASA virtually award for his investigations into the work-
"proof" of the validity of psychic dropped its R and D program in the field. ings of the brain's hemispheres, and Walter
phenomena. Nevertheless, analysis of Now NASA is back in the game, with a Gilbert of Harvard University and Freder-
these experiments has offered two impor- five-year program "aimed at retaining U.S. ick Sanger of the Laboratory of Molecular
tant insights that can be further tested in world leadership in satellite communica- Biology in Cambridge, England shared
future research. tions research and technology." another $15,000 for their independent de-
First, the ability to produce measurable Several factors have contributed to the velopment of new methods of rapid
psychic effects appears to be trainable. restored effort: Early in 1977, a special sequencing of DNA.
Neither Jahn nor Curry was aware of any committee of the National Research In 1953, Sperry developed the technique
initial psychic ability and both got better Council's Space Applications Board of "split brain" research, in which he se-
as they went along. An important element strongly recommended just such action vered the bundle of nerve fibers that con-
in such training appears to be feedback (SN: 4/9/77, p. 231). A year later, President nects the two halves of the brain. He dis-
that is "visible and attractive," Jahn says. Jimmy Carter's reorganization plans pro- covered that the two hemispheres func-
Second, Jahn speculates that psychic duced the National Telecommunications tion independently in this situation; the
phenomena may have an inherently statis- and Information Administration, charged right brain does not know what the left
tical nature. If so, theories dealing with in part with easing the way for NASA com- brain is learning. Sperry found that the two
such phenomena are likely to involve munications experiments into commer- halves of the brain govern two sets of ac-
abstruse concepts related to the for- cial use. Further support came from vari- tivities; there is no one "dominant" hemi-
malism of quantum mechanics or statisti- ous federal agencies and industries in the sphere for all mental processes.
cal mechanics, rather than some easily form of responses to a questionnaire from The second Basic Research Award was
grasped intuitive explanation. In particu- the White House's Office of Science and presented jointly to Sanger and Gilbert (a
lar, psychokinesis appears to involve a re- Technology Policy. The satellite-allocated 1949 Westinghouse Science Talent Search
duction of entropy-a statistical measure portions of the communications spectrum winner), whose rapid sequencing tech-
of disorder-and the equivalence of phys- have become increasingly crowded, and, niques will allow molecular biologists to
ical "information" and energy. NASA points out, the U.S. is facing more discover the sequence of DNA compo-
An ad hoc committee of the university foreign technology competition. nents in a few days, instead of months.
has established a charter for Jahn's work The new NASA effort, based at the agen- Gilbert's method uses chemical reagents
on psychic phenomena to proceed and he cy's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, is to break the DNA molecules into frag-
has brought in developmental psycholo- concentrated on the high-frequency, 20- ments, and Sanger's employs an enzy-
gist Brenda Dunne to work full time on the to-30-gigahertz portion of the spectrum matic reaction in its sequencing proce-
program. In an interview Dunne said that a known as the Ka band. Lower frequencies dure.
growing number of reputable scientists, are fast approaching saturation, and, says The Lasker Special Public Service
are becoming active in psychic research,' NASA's Donald K. Dement, "this Ka-band Award was presented to Sir John Wilson,
but that "the field as a whole is struggling allocation is the last potential opportunity President of the International Agency for
for recognition asApprovedl For Relleasei 2001 /03/26 i: CIAbe-devel-RDP96the-Prevention of
NOVEMBER 24, 1979