More Ladies of the Second Sight

Two of the most famous clairvoyants were men, the brothers Alexis Didier and Adolphe Didier. In the posts here and here I discuss some of the astonishing evidence they provided for paranormal phenomena. But it rather seems that female clairvoyants are more common than male clairvoyants (just as it seems that female mediums are more common that male mediums).  In previous posts I discussed some very dramatic cases of female clairvoyants such as:

• The case of Mrs. Croad and five other female clairvoyants, discussed here;
• the similar and even more astonishing case of Mollie Fancher, discussed here;
• the equally astonishing case of Mrs. Morel, discussed here;  
• the equally astonishing case of Emma, a clairvoyant whose abilities were described at length by physician Joseph Haddock, as discussed here;
• the equally astonishing case of Semantha Mettler, discussed here;
• the equally astonishing case of Adele Maginot, discussed here;
• the no-less-astonishing case of "E,"discussed here, a female clairvoyant that William Gregory (a professor of chemisty at Edinburgh University) stated "frequently exhibited direct clairvoyance in every form, not only in those just mentioned, but also in that of seeing prints or pictures shut up in boxes." 

Below are some additional cases of female clairvoyants. In the 1898 book Glimpses of the Unseen by B. J. Austin we read of tests of a clairvoyant female in  France:

"He  had  been  told  that  the  patient  could  see through  the  darkest  substance,  and  read  writing  and  letters  through  walls.  He asked  if  this  were  really  the  case,  to  which  she  replied  in  the  affirmative.  He therefore  took  a  book,  went  into  an  adjoining  room,  held  with  one  hand  a  leaf  of this  book  against  the  wall,  and  with  the  other  took  hold  of  one  of  those  that were  present,  who,  joining  hands,  formed  a  chain  which  reached  to  the  patient, on  whose  stomach  the  last  person  laid  his  hand.  The  patient  read  the  leaves that  were  held  to  the  wall,  which  were  often  turned  over,  and  read  them  without making  the  smallest  error....This  narrative  contains  nothing  that  is  not  confirmed  by  numberless  experiments ;  one  circumstance  is,  however,  remarkable,  that  the  lady  in  question can  read  at  a  distance,  without  coming  into  immediate  contact,  when  a  line  of persons  take  hold  of  each  other's  hands,  the  first  of  whom  lays  his  hand  upon the  pit  of  the  heart — not  of  the  stomach,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the matter — and  the  last  holds  the  letter ;  however,  she  reads  through  neither  the partition  nor  the  wall,  but  through  the  soul  of  him  who  holds  the  book  or  letter. "

In pages 354-355 of Glimpses of the Unseen (quoting a story in the Duluth Herald  of  February 13th, 1897) we have an account of a female clairvoyant named Ethel Gilliam who woke up blind after being put in a glass case when it was assumed she was dead.  We read this:

"An  examination  then  showed  that  the  child  was  totally  blind,  though every  other  faculty  was  perfect.  Although  blind  she  seemed  endowed  with  a wonderful  power  that  enabled  her  to  read  and  see  by  the  sense  of  touch  alone...Although  blind,  this  girl  can  read  by  passing  her  fingers  over  the  printed or  written  page,  and  can  describe  persons  whose  pictures  were  handed  to  her... Mr.  Gray  first  handed  the  sick  girl  his  watch,  and she  told  him  it  was  a  gold  watch, and  the  time  of  day  by  passing  her  lingers  over the  glass. To  make  sure  that  her  power  was  genuine  a  paper  was  held  between  her face  and  a  photograph  that  Mr.  Gray  handed  to  her,  and  she  described  the picture  perfectly  as  that  of  an  old  gentleman  with  gray  whiskers,  wearing  a  dark suit  and  a  cravat.  She  read  from  books  and  papers  handed  to  her,  by  the  use of  her  fingers.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gray  tell  many  other  wonderful  things  in  relation  to this  child.  She  has  now  been  ill  ten  days,  and  has  not  been  able  to  digest  any food." 

We again have a case of transposition of the senses, one documented also in the case of Mrs. Croad described here, and also in my posts here, here, here, here and here.

In one book we read of a clairvoyance experiment of a hypnotized subject in Russia:

"They then started on an imaginary trip to Mr. M.'s apartment, M. telling the subject to ask the name of the servant. ‘ I don’t feel it’s the right thing to do,'  said E. ‘ Never mind, do it.' She says she's called Dunia,' said the subject. This was correct. They then entered the hall and there was an old helmet above the door. ' What's in it? ' asks M. 'Some old bones,' answers E. Indeed, there was a skull inside the helmet. "

In Italy in 1851 a 26-year-old female named Orsola Bajo produced very impressive results in a series of stringently designed tests of clairvoyance. In a scholarly book we read this:

"Six sittings were held with her from 3 to 19 January 1851...According to the report, it was possible to establish the fact of vision with eyes closed and perfectly bandaged (13, p. 31). The eyes were covered over with cotton and with a thick and wide coloured scarf, wrapped round eight times. All those present superintended the bandaging, some testing it on themselves, and all agreed that it was absolutely impossible for the patient to see. Besides, in the course of the first sitting the cotton and the shawl were substituted by a mask, consisting of two pieces of cardboard stuck together, which hermetically sealed the eye sockets. Bajo correctly read several words written in printed characters on little pieces of cardboard which were given her to hold and which were unknown to the [hypnotist], who stood at several paces distant with his face turned away. In the course of the sitting Bajo succeeded several times in distinguishing various colours (handkerchiefs, playing cards), in counting exactly the number of persons present and in recognizing those persons who were presented to her and the positions they assumed, in distinguishing the value of playing cards and naming various other objects shown to her. Few errors were noted....This series of experiments may be considered particularly interesting on account of various factors present : firstly they were all conducted within a hospital and there were always present qualified persons representative of the medical faculty of the said hospital....During the course of the sittings, moreover, precautionary measures were also taken which, even if not entirely satisfactory, can be considered among the more scrupulous of those generally adopted, as compared with similar experiments conducted in Italy at the same period. The results, especially with the subject Bajo, are very, perhaps excessively, surprising: almost no mistake in the clairvoyant experiments."

In the account below, we read of apparent clairvoyance of a woman named Marie in Belgium:

"Sometimes when on his way to Marie, Lafontaine bought a book at some bookseller’s shop, a book of which he knew only the title at the moment of buying. Hardly had Marie been put into the somnambulistic condition than she named the title of the book just purchased, its author, and what was still more remarkable, she said whether it was a good or a bad book and whether it would interest Lafontaine or bore him. Then, upon his request and without her having touched the book or before the book had been opened in her presence, she read a sentence on a certain page indicated and of which he did not have the slightest knowledge, having himself not read the book or even having opened it (8, i, p- 65). Lafontaine stated that he obtained from Marie all kinds of information about what his friends were doing, what they experienced and what was happening in their entourage. He had often the greatest pleasure in seeing his friends become completely dumbfounded when he related to them what they had done or said or even thought in the greatest secrecy a short time before."

Later we read this about the same Marie:

"Lafontaine goes on to remark that Marie’s somnambulism was in a high degree of a clairvoyant ( lucide) nature. She could with the greatest ease perceive what happened in rooms other than the one in which she found herself. This also was the case with events happening outside her home. One day, for example, she correctly announced to Lafontaine that a client was approaching her house and was going to order a suit of clothes to be made by her father who was a tailor (8, i, p. 72)."

Later in the same scholarly work we read of the astonishing powers of another female Belgian clairvoyant, the daughter of a highly respected writer. We read of another case of clairvoyance in a hypnotized subject (the "somnabulistic condition" refers to being put into a deep hypnotic trance):

"Lafontaine wrote that after having been present at a mesmerist’s sitting at Mons on 1 July, 1839, and on her way home, Mme Magauden, a young married woman of 19, fell into a somnam- bulistic condition. In that state she could divine all kinds of hidden and wrapped objects put in her hands or applied to her forehead. She could perceive the words 'Idjiez' and 'thélésie' penned on a piece of paper and presented to her in the middle of two opaque pieces of blank paper....When a closed box was placed in her hands she was able to say in a few moments that a ring of enamel with a dog’s head imprinted upon it could be found in that box. The statement was correct. For the second time the same box was presented to the young woman. But now she remarked that the box contained a small ring belonging to her sister; this, too, was the correct answer....In the somnambulistic state she was able to perceive a word or figures written on a piece of paper far away from her; she also correctly indicated two portraits and a miniature locked in a box. She could also say exactly what movements a person made who was completely outside her normal sight. All this and several other remarkable experiments Mme Magauden performed in the somnambulistic condition, and every time with excellent results. Lafontaine stated that a report of all the remarkable performances and mesmeric demonstrations given by the somnambulist was drawn up by Mme Félix de la Motte, who was Mme Magauden’s mother and herself a distinguished writer and literary critic....Mme Felix de la Motte and her daughter, Mme Magauden, were well-known and respected persons belonging to the higher Belgian society circles. The former had built up for herself an excellent literary reputation as a poetess and playwright, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the phenomena occurring in Mme Magauden’s somnambulistic state happened as described, and that Mme Magauden had suddenly developed into an excellent subject for the production of paranormal phenomena."

We read here of a case of what is called "transposition of the senses," in which vision capability seems to be displaced to some other part of the body. 

"One morning he stated (4, pp. 23-24) that his patient (Mrs. Millet, aged 19) had greatly heightened clairvoyant faculties. She could perceive clearly anything held before the pit of her stomach, e.g. a portrait which she could identify so clearly that she could even give the name of the person who was pictured thereupon. She could also tell the time on a watch that was held before her; and she could always name the exact minute to which the hands of the watches pointed. The various watches held before the pit of her stomach all differed in the time indicated. In a further instance (4, pp. 25 ff.) van Ghert stated that she not only could see very well by means of the pit of her stomach but she even assured them that she saw her sister walking in the Plantage (i.e. the plantation in Amsterdam). The sister was dressed in a new gown of a yellow colour that the somnambulist had never seen, and she said that the sister intended to visit her doctor at 1 o’clock. After investigating the matter it was found that the course of events had been precisely as the clairvoyant had indicated. The sister did take a walk in the Plantage, being dressed in a yellow gown. Next day the sister, with the same yellow dress on, came in order to be present at the magnetizing séance of the subject. When the subject awoke from the magnetic sleep, she declared that she saw her sister’s yellow dress for the first time."

The 1838 book An Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism by the Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy is a book that abundantly testifies to the reality of clairvoyance during hypnotic trances (at the time of its writing, the term "animal magnetism" was the most common term used for hypnotism). For example on page 109 we read of the clairvoyance of a girl named Arron. We read this: 

"This girl, when plunged in a state of somnambulism, answers with precision the questions put to her. Though she be asleep, she perceives not only such external objects as are around her, but also those which are concealed ; and, what is still more surprising, objects removed to a very great distance. Nay, she does more, she can divine the thoughts of those who put questions to her. Many physicians in this department went to pay her a visit, and they were all amazed on witnessing a phenomenon which all their science cannot explain."

Below we read of a conversation between this Arron and a newly arrived stranger:

' 'Who am I?' — 'You are a physician.' ' Whence do I come ? '  '---From Chartres.' ' Where is my house at Chartres ? ' — ' In a small street running down a declivity.'  ' Can you see my house ? ' — 'Yes, sir.' 'Is there any company in it?' — ' Yes, sir; four ladies, one old, two middle-aged, and one young lady.' ' For what purpose have I come in this part of the country?' — 'To see a female patient.' 'Where is her complaint?'— (Here she pointed to the part affected, which we cannot just now recollect.) ' Where did I dine ? '— ' At M.W '  'Was there a good dinner ? ' — ' Yes, sir.' ' Could you tell me what dishes we had?' — ' Certainly.' (She names every dish and its particular place on the table.) ' What do I hold in my hand ? '— ' A small wooden box.' ' What does it contain ?'  — ' Sharp little iron tools.' ' Now what have I in my hand ? ' — ' Some money.' ' How much ? ' — (She names the sum.) 'In what coins?' — (She specifies the various coins.) ' Can you tell me my thought at this moment?'—' Yes, sir.' ' Say it.'— 'I dare not ; I must not tell you.' ' Well, I will tell you : I think of giving you this money.' — ' So you do, sir ; but I could not say so.' All these answers were perfectly correct." 

In the same 1838 book we read of the phenomenon of being able to read regular text only with the fingers, a phenomenon which many witnesses have described very consistently in different parts of the globe, for more than two centuries. We read this:

"Other minutely detailed accounts of sight without the assistance of the eyes, will be found in a memoir by Dr. Delpit, on two nervous affections. 'One of the patients read,' says the author, 'and that very distinctly, when her eyes were hermetically closed, and by running her fingers over the letters. I made her read printed characters in this manner, both in the open day-light or in the most profound darkness, on opening the first book that came into my hand ; and oftentimes written characters, by giving her sundry notes, which I had prepared previous to my coming. Whether the sense of sight was in her case supplied by that of touch, I cannot tell ; but I affirm that she read fluently by running her fingers over the letters.' "

The book What Happens When You Die by Robert Crookall is one of several books of his filled with very many cases of out-of-body experiences, most of them reported directly to Crookall. In the book we get countless accounts of people who reported observing their bodies after floating out of them, often seeing a kind of "silver cord" connecting their floating "soul-body" or "astral body" and their physical body.  We also get some mention of female clairvoyance. On page 101 we hear that the distinguished psychologist Pierre Janet experimented with a woman named Leonie, who under hypnosis reported mentally traveling to the Paris laboratory of Charles Richet, and claiming that the lab had caught on fire. It was later found that the lab had caught on fire on the same day. On the same page we read of a traveling clairvoyance experience by a Mrs. Z, who reported that a particular person at a distant location had been struck by his wife. It was later found that the man had indeed been struck by his wife on that day.  

Then there is the case of Ellen Dawson, a name I mentioned only in passing in one previous post. The case is well worth a fuller discussion. The original source material is the July 1845 edition of the journal The Zoist, which you can read here. On page 226 an M. Hands begins telling us about Ellen. Hands notes severe medical problems suffered by Ellen, which he attempted to treat. He then states this: 

"One day Ellen being in the sleep-waking state, I observed her take up some publications which lay on the table and read the titles of them, by which I perceived she was clairvoyant. In order to test this faculty, I filled the tops of some pill-boxes with cotton and tied them over her eyes with a fillet of ribbon, taking care that the edges of the boxes should rest upon the skin ; still, she read and distinguished colours as before. I now placed her in a room from which I had shut out every ray of light, and then presented to her some of the plates in Cuvier's Animal Kingdom ; she described the birds and beasts, and told accurately the colour of each, as I proved by going into the light to test her statements. She also distinguished the shades and hues of silks, as indeed did her sister, who is also clairvoyant."

Hands then describes testing whether Ellen could perform what was called "traveling clairvoyance," a widely reported paranormal phenomena. In such tests a person would urge a clairvoyant to travel with him in imagination along some path that the person knew well but the clairvoyant knew nothing about (typically some distant home of the person doing the test).  Hands describes Ellen starting to pass the test very well, with her reporting that she saw Mrs. Hands playing cards and declaring a victory in a card game just as the hour that Mrs. Hands did do just that (page 229). We then read this on page 230:

"I now said let us leave the church. In travelling along, she perceived the castle. I wished her to visit it, and soon found from her observations she had entered the hall. ' Ob, what a large room ! ' she exclaimed, ' look at the beautiful painted windows.' I asked what she saw at the bottom of the hall, and she described the figures in armour, the flags, swords, and spears collected there; I told her to go down the steps into the housekeeper's room,— she there saw, or rather felt...a bald-headed old man, and a woman with spectacles. I knew these parties from the description. She now entered the dining-room, and there saw and described each painting it contained, particularly the one called ' the Tribute Money.' "

The narrative continues like this for several paragraphs, with Ellen apparently describing in great detail and accuracy various unusual architectural features in places she had never been to (page 230).  A bit later (page 231) we read this description of Ellen telling all kinds of details about a package she had never seen:

"A few days after this Mrs. H. returned by railway from Bristol. One of her boxes was left behind in that city, and she was told it should follow her by the next train, and that it would be in town by eight o'clock. Ellen came to my bouse whilst the servant was gone to inquire about the box ; I put her in the [hypnotic] sleep, and asked if she thought it would be lost, or whether it would come by the eight o’clock train ? Her reply was that it would not be lost— that it would not arrive at eight o’clock, but would come by the ten o’clock train; that we should not receive it that night, but at breakfast time on Sunday morning. Such proved to be the case. She also described many of the things in the box, especially a large doll, its dress, the colours, and even told Mrs. H. who it was for."

Ellen apparently could tell details in some paranormal way about some unseen person, for we read this on page 231:

"The clairvoyant became much interested in one of the daughters, and Mrs. H. asked ' where is that young lady’s mother ?'  Her countenance instantly assumed the most striking picture of pity. She made all present feel that grief which those only experience who have lost a mother, and exclaimed, ' She is dead and in her grave.'

' What did she die of?'

' Dropsy. Why did they bleed her ?' 

She died a few hours after the last bleeding."

Bleeding was an archaic medical practice in which blood would be drained from someone in hopes that it would improve their health.  The narrative next describes Ellen correctly describing the death (by poisoning) of another unseen person she had no normal knowledge of, although on the second try. Then we have much further narrative of Ellen's continued success at traveling clairvoyance, including apparently mentally finding the brother of Mr. Hands and correctly describing his distinctive finger ring (page 232).  On page 233 Hand describes Ellen as correctly describing details of Windsor and various other British locations.  Later on page 235 Ellen is apparently able to correctly describe many very distinctive details of a very troublesome sea voyage that a distant unseen subject was undergoing. 

Beginning on page 236, we have a narrative by Carolina Courtenay Boyle, who also attests at great length to the "traveling clairvoyance" of Ellen Dawson.  On pages 236 to 240 she describes going with Ellen on a mental journey to France, on which Ellen correctly describes countless details that were observed by Carolina but never seen by Ellen (who had not been to France).  On page 240 we read this:

"She also told me of a conversation 1 held eleven years ago in the church of Santo Spinto at Florence; described the person 1 was there with, and who has never been in England, and what objects (some of which were peculiar, and which she was a long time making out or seeing, as she told me) were around us at the time. Strange, passing strange, 1 admit; nevertheless, strictly true, I most solemnly declare. Ellen Dawson's discrepancies were those of one anxious to tell all, yet speaking too eagerly to be quite accurate; besides which, she  invariably corrected herself, and her details were then strictly true. And now, my dear sir, 1 will conclude. .. If I did not believe in Ellen Dawson’s clairvoyance, 1 could never again hope to believe in the evidence of my own senses, as no truth ever came home to me in so forcible a manner."

Are "Alien Close Encounters" More Psychic Than "Nuts and Bolts" Affairs?

When asked to describe a typical story of a "UFO close encounter" or "alien close encounter," the average man might tend to think of a very "nuts and bolts" kind of experience.  Maybe he might imagine some metallic space ship appearing, with some human abductee being taken into a spaceship. Then he might imagine strange-looking creatures using physical equipment on an abductee.  

But according to the 2018 book "Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non Human Intelligence," UFO close encounters may often be more spiritual or psychic than such stereotypical ideas. FREE is the Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences. Early in the book we read this about a survey of people claiming such close encounters:

"FREE's research suggests that the physical aspects are but a small fraction of the attributes associated with these complex manifestations. Indeed, it is the persuasive non-physicality, the parapsychological and other paranormal aspects, that comprise the majority of survey respondents' experiences. We firmly believe that the field of parapsychology needs to take note and,  instead of remaining distant from the UAP phenomenon, the field needs to embrace it." 

Next in the book we read an interesting hypothesis. Using the term NIH for "non-human intelligence," the book states this:

"FREE hypothesizes that types of contact with NIH (contact via NDEs, OBEs, UAP Contact, Remote Viewing, Channeling, communication with ghosts/spirits, Hallucinogenic Shamanic Journeys, Telepathic Contact, sightings of Orbs, PSI, and other types of 'paranormal' Contact with NIH) might actually be one phenomenon that should not be studied separately. We call all of the ways that humans have pierced the veil and have had contact with NIH the 'Contact Modalities'...We firmly believe that cross comparative academic research on 'Experiencers' of the Contact Modalities may provide insight into the validity of various models of consciousness. Once the necessary cross comparative research has been undertaken among the various Contact Modalities, numerous commonalities will be derived that are shared by many of the experiencers of the Contact Modalities."

That's quite a mouthful, and to aid anyone confused by this "alphabet soup," let me explain some of the terms used:

• "NDE" means "near-death experience."
• "OBE" means "out-of-body experience," a type of experience which most commonly occurs near death, but which can also occur in those not near death. 
• "UAP Contact" means contact (visual or otherwise) with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (another term for UFOs). 
• "Remote Viewing" is a reported ability to observe in a paranormal fashion distant locations.
• "Channeling" is when someone speaks (often in an unusual voice) in an anomalous way, and later claims that the words came not from his own mind but from some other person's mind (living or dead).  A very similar term is "voice mediumship." 
• "Hallucinogenic Shamanic Journeys" can occur after someone takes a drug or uses a natural substance (such as certain mushrooms), and may then report seeing otherwordly beings. 
• "Sightings of Orbs" sometimes occurs visually (as in the 32 cases described here), but the most common related experience is photography of hard-to-explain orbs (as shown here, here and here). 
• "Psi" is a general term for human "sixth sense" abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and mind-over-matter. 

The hypothesis that all these very diverse things are "one phenomenon" is rather hard to believe, although it may be that some of these things are strongly interrelated.  The idea that such things should be studied collectively is probably a wise one.  At least, people studying one anomalous phenomena should study many other types of anomalous phenomena, without raising artificial barriers restricting what they study. 

From the Facebook site here

Some of the "stick to your specialty" research habits of anomaly investigators make no sense.  For example:

• UFO researchers are very interested in things reported in the sky or reports of close encounters that might have been spaceships from other planets; and they focus almost exclusively on events occurring after 1940.  Such researchers seem to have almost no interest in the 120+ years of voluminous reports of paranormal phenomena made between 1820 and 1940.  That doesn't make sense. 
• Parapsychology researchers are very interested in experimental evidence for ESP and also reports of spontaneous ESP experiences. But they don't seem to be interested in studying reports of ESP occurring in UFO encounters.  That doesn't make sense. 
• SETI scientists (often radio astronomers) are intensely interested in discovering anomalies in deep space that might indicate extraterrestrial intelligence. But such astronomers (for example Seth Shostak) seem to have zero interest in studying evidence for earthly anomalies (such as UFO/UAP sightings) that may indicate the earthly presence of extraterrestrial visitors. 
• UFO researchers are very interested in photos of anomalous objects in the sky that could be extraterrestrial spaceships. But they seem to have no interest in studying photos of anomalous orbs in the sky (or mysterious orbs taken indoors) that do not appear to be extraterrestrial spaceships.  This makes little sense, because such orb photos may actually seem to show signs of intelligence, such as my photos of strongly repeating stripe patterns in mysterious orbs, or my photos of 800+ mysterious striped orbs.  It's as if there was some researcher principle such as "I'm interested in inexplicable things in the sky, but only if it could be a spaceship," or maybe "I'm interested when humanoid creatures are photographed in your home, but not other inexplicable phenomena photographed in your home."  We should remember that extraterrestrials might be millions of years more advanced than us, and (having powers beyond our imagination) might make themselves shown to us through 1001 ways other than "nuts and bolts" spaceships. 
• Wishing to attract interest from mainstream professors, and realizing that so many mainstream senselessly refuse to accept abundant evidence for psi phenomena such as telepathy, a UFO researcher might downplay psychic or paranormal aspects of a UFO report.  For example, the UFO incident in Ruwa, Zimbawe in which children reported telepathic contact with mysterious visitors may be described without mentioning the report of telepathy. 
• A UFO researcher may be very interested in some reported "other-worldly encounter" with some mysterious "shining being" as long as the person having the encounter reports the being as being an extraterrestrial. But the moment the witness claims the "shining being" was a ghost or a spirit or an angel, the UFO researcher will lose all interest. Similarly, a researcher with strong conventional religious beliefs may be very interested in such an account, but only if the witness claims the shining being was an angel or God. As soon as the witness claims the shining being was an extraterrestrial or a ghost, the researcher may shun the account. 

One of the sources mentioned above tells us that some multiple author "magnum opus" of cross-disciplinary study on paranormal phenomena (including UFOs and UAP) will be available on www.amazon.com in June of this year. 

The Curious Case of Biocosmology

At the site www.biocosmology.earth we have four scientists (Stuart A. Kauffman, Lee Smolin, Marina Cortês and Andrew Liddle) offering some new thing they call "biocosmology." There is a link to a press release claiming that biocosmology will be  "remagining life's place in the Cosmos." The page has a link to three scientific papers and a plain English article by one of the four scientists. One of the papers is entitled "Biocosmology: Towards the Birth of a New Science." 

The article (by Marina Cortes, one of the four scientists) opens up with some grandiose talk, stating this:

"Biology. Cosmology. Biology and cosmology. Two fields that are normally thought to have nothing in common and nothing to teach each other. We — Stuart Kauffman, Andrew Liddle, Lee Smolin and I — are putting an end to this. By reformulating cosmological physics to include biological systems, we have developed a common currency with which their respective systems can be counted and compared. This ‘currency’ allows us to quantify the value of biologicals systems when set against the character cast of cosmology: galaxies, dark energy and black holes."

Wow, so is now someone going to do some quantification thing allowing us to tell the worth of a biological system such as a human being compared to the worth of, say, a black hole? Put me down as being very skeptical about the possibility of such a thing.  My confidence is not increased when the article by Cortes states, "The new way of thinking makes sense of complex systems and their evolution by considering the number of possible future states those systems could take." For example, you don't explain how we got humans who can do philosophy by pondering the possible number of future states that humans can have. 

Later in the article we have this strange claim:

"This means that life already surpassed the universe in complexity already 3.5 billion years ago, in the RNA world. As cosmologists we could never, in a billion years, have anticipated that such a number would stem from the evolution of living organisms. It took us three years of calculations, endlessly revising and double-checking our mathematical models, before we can now support the numbers we present today." 

This doesn't make sense. Life is something in the universe. So how could it be that "life already surpassed the universe in complexity"? Should you not always be calculating everything known to exist in the universe if trying to calculate the universe's complexity? If you do that, then you cannot correctly be calculating that life has surpassed the universe in complexity.  The article then ends up with this silly statement about our planet: 

"A tiny, insignificant, barely there, corner of the Universe can create diversity and complexity that compares with that of everything else in the Universe. Through this, cosmology can contribute to the climate change debate by conveying an idea of what we are worth and are risking to lose."

The first sentence quoted above is unwise for two reasons: (1) very, very far from being insignificant, our planet is the only planet known to have any type of life; (2) because we do not understand the contents of the universe (whether there are other planets with life or life far more advanced than ours), we should not be making claims that we are as complex as anything else in the universe. As for the second sentence quoted above, it does not at all follow from the first statement. Why would people be more likely to fight global warming if they thought our planet was an "insignificant, barely there, corner of the Universe"? If people thought that, they might be more likely to do nothing about climate change. 

One of the three scientific papers listed on the www.biocosmology.earth site is a paper co-authored by the four scientists, one entitled "The TAP Equation: evaluating combinatorial innovation."  We read about some "model of combinatorial innovation" that includes some speculative equation that seems designed to make us think that wonderfully functional combinations of matter can occur accidentally.  We read this: "It is assumed that at each timestep, new objects can be created from any combination of the existing objects, while some fraction of existing objects expire (extinction or obsolescence)."  Kind of like what would happen if all the alphabet letters in a house-sized vat of Alpha Bits were to suddenly leap up and accidentally form into a long, wise philosophical essay. We read, "The equation permits dramatically-explosive behaviour, much faster than exponential, because not only do the combinatoric terms rapidly become vast, but so too does the number of terms in the summation."  It seems like what we have in the paper is a little math that is trying to encourage the "crumbs into castles" explanations that are most implausibly advanced by modern scientists.  Such math work does not change the rules of probability calculation, which still prohibit such "crumbs into castles" combinations from having any appreciable chance of accidentally occurring. 

Another of the three papers on the www.biocosmology.earth page is the paper here, entitled "Bicosmology: Biology from a Cosmological Perspective."   Page 16 makes this very strange statement: " You exist in the Universe for and by means of your heart, liver, kidney."  Speculating about what a person exists for is not science but philosophy or religion, and it makes no sense to say that a person exists for his heart, liver or kidney.  On page 21 the paper attempts something that has proven to be notoriously difficult, which is to make a definition of life. We read this:

"Then our definition of life is: A living organism is a Kantian Whole within a Type III system that is a non-equilbrium self-reproducing system with a metabolism, an identity and a boundary, and which is capable of open-ended evolution by heritable variation and selection or drift."

The definition is sloppy and incorrect. There are individual organisms such as microbes that are self-reproducing systems (for example, a single amoeba manages to split into two different organisms). But a human being is not a "self-reproducing system." It requires two humans to reproduce rather than just one. And the term "open-ended evolution by heritable variation and selection or drift" is a term used in connection with a species of organisms considered over multiple generations, not an individual organism.  If you are going to try to define an organism, use terms that only apply to an organism; and if you are going to try to define a species, use terms that only apply to a species. Don't carelessly mix up characteristics of the two, and call that a definition of an organism (like someone mixing up a definition of a lifetime and an event, and calling that a definition of an event).  Eager to spout some Darwinist phrases, our authors have made a mess of their definition of life.

At the web site telling us about biocosmology, there is a link to a press release. In that press release we read these incorrect claims:

"Nowhere in the one-hundred-year-old history of Cosmology does the fact of the existence of life enter the story....When we account for the Universe, life is nowhere on the ledger."

To the contrary, in the literature of cosmologists we have a great deal of discussion in which cosmologists ponder how the fundamental physical constants of the universe (and some early universe parameters such as the universe's expansion rate) seem astonishingly fine-tuned for the existence of life.  Cosmologists and physicists wrote many papers on such a topic, often using the term "anthropic principle" in their discussion of it. Cosmologists and physicists such as John Barrow, Frank Tipler, Luke Barnes, Geraint F. Lewis and Lee Smolin wrote long books on such a topic (including Barrow and Tipler's opus The Anthropic Cosmological Principle and the book A Fortunate Universe by Barnes and Lewis).  A search for "anthropic principle" on the Cornell physics paper server gives 176 matches, and a search for "multiverse" gives 225 matches, with most of those matches resulting from physicists and cosmologists paying very much attention to the life and its requirements. Many similar papers linking together cosmology and biology can be found using a search phrase of "fine-tuning." So it's not true at all that cosmologists have been ignoring biology for a hundred years.  An example of one of the papers mentioned above is the excellent paper by Luke Barnes here, entitled "The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life." 

In the same press release announcing biocosmology, we read this:

"The new papers report the first, and stunning, evidence that this standard view of Cosmology is, to put it bluntly, wrong. We will have to think – and count - again. The way to demonstrate this claim is to count up how complex the total universe is without life, and to count up how complex is just our own planet Earth."

But it has long been very evident to careful students of biology that earthly life is vastly more complex than anything found in the non-biological universe.  We don't need any new calculations to know that. 

At first it might seem that there is no clear and obvious connection between cosmology and biology, making the prospects of such a thing as a science of "biocosmology" seem rather dim. Cosmology deals with the origin of the universe and the large scale structure and composition of the universe. Biology deals with something very different: living things. But there is one big thing that cosmology and biology have in common: in both issues of fine-tuning frequently come up.  

The physical nature of our universe and its current habitability depend on fine-tuned fundamental constants of nature, such as a proton charge that is the very precise opposite of the electron charge. In biology we see fine-tuning everywhere, particularly in fine-tuned protein molecules.  Your body has roughly 20,000 types of fine-tuned protein molecules, each of which requires a different "just right" configuration of hundreds of amino acid parts to allow that type of molecule to have a particular functional role in the grand scheme. The first priority of someone claiming to link together cosmology and biology might be to somehow link these two giant classes of fine-tuning, perhaps under a common explanatory framework. But our four scientists announcing a "biocosmology" program seemed to have done no such thing, and don't seem to be very cognizant of such a similarity in biology and cosmology.

Somewhere in the three scientific papers listed on the biocosmology web site there may be some great novel insight, but the average person will have difficulty finding such a thing.  The fact that the biosphere is gigantically more complex than lifeless matter is an important insight, but it is one that was widely stated long before anyone coined the term "biocosmology."

It seems that biocosmology is a rather low-ambition affair. One of the four scientists involved (Lee Smolin) previously had much grander ambitions regarding a program that would link biology and cosmology.  In a book entitled "The Life of the Cosmos," Smolin discussed a speculative theory he called cosmological natural selection, one he thought might explain the fine-tuning of our universe's fundamental constants. Speaking crudely, we can say that at the core of the theory  was the idea that Mommy universes produce baby universes. Smolin was never clear as to how such reproduction could occur. Not very credibly, he tried to appeal to the strangeness of black holes to advance this speculation, kind of reminding us that very weird things happen around black holes. 

Smolin's theory did not gain traction, partially because one of its predictions failed (as discussed here). In the three papers listed at the biocosmology site, we have only a single passing mention of this theory of cosmological natural selection. It seems that Smolin has now trimmed his sails quite a bit. Rather than offering a grand speculative theory as to why the fundamental constants of our universe are so fine-tuned,  his biocosmology program now seems to be only much less grand statements, such as making the rather obvious claim that living things are far more complex than the nonliving parts of the universe. 

One of the four biocosmology scientists (Stuart Kaufmann) made this prediction in 2003:

"...It's only going to be a matter of perhaps 10, 15, or 20 years until, somewhere in the marriage between biology and nanotechnology, we will make autonomous agents that will create chemical systems that reproduce themselves and do work cycles. This means that we have a technological revolution on our hands, because autonomous agents don't just sit and talk and pass information around. They can actually build things. The third thing is that this may be an adequate definition of life." 

It's now roughly twenty years after such a statement, and no progress has been made in creating any living things from scratch. There is no realistic prospect that in the next 50 years scientists will be able to make a living thing from some combination of lifeless chemicals. 

Perhaps we can best understand this word "biocosmology" if we think of it as a publicity device. Scientists face the big problem that the average scientific paper gets almost no readership. It has been estimated that the average scientific paper is read by only about 10 people. So how do you attract readership if you have a few scientific papers finding nothing very new or interesting? One way is to coin some neologism and announce the birth of a new science. So, for example, if you have three papers that discuss some astronomy and also deal with podiatry (the science of feet), you can announce the birth of a new science called "astropodiatry." The term "biocosmology" and hype about the birth of a new science will probably help these three papers attract higher-than average readership.  

Withholding Key Facts Is Very Common in the Mainstream's Science Coverage

Some scientists (Oba and others) recently made an analysis of old meteorites, and claimed to have found some of the chemical subunits of DNA in such meteorites, simple chemicals such as cytosine and thymine. The mainstream media's reporting on this scientific activity gave us a classic example of how mainstream media withholds key facts that conflict with the narrative the media is trying to sell. 

There were four main relevant facts here:

(1) The DNA subunit chemicals supposedly found were found only in the tiniest traces of a few parts per billion.  The paper stating the scientific results plainly states this: "Pyrimidine nucleobases, such as cytosine and thymine, as well as their analogs containing a pyrimidine ring, were identified by their chromatographic retention times, accurate mass measurements of their parent masses, and mass fragmentation patterns in the MS/MS measurements (Supplementary Table 1), with concentrations ranging from 0.02 to 6 ppb (Table 2)." That ppb stands for parts per billion. 

(2) When scientists report finding chemicals in amounts of merely a few parts per billion, such claims are not very reliable, and are often disputed by other scientists. For example, last year scientists claimed to have found phosphine in the atmosphere of the planet Venus, with an abundance of merely 20 parts per billion. Later several other papers by other scientists disputed such a claim, and said that phosphine had not actually been detected in the atmosphere of Venus.  One paper by a single author states, "There is thus no significant evidence for phosphine absorption in the JCMT Venus spectra." Another paper with many co-authors is entitled, "No phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus." A third paper states there is "no statistical evidence for phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus."  Another paper says, "These findings, along with the recent papers by Encrenaz et al. (2020), Snellen et al. (2020), Lincowski et al. (2020), and Villanueva et al. (2020) undermine the reported detection of PH3 [phosphine] by Greaves et al. (2020a,b) and its possible biogenic origin." 

(3) When meteorite chemicals are reported in incredibly tiny trace amounts such as a few parts per billion, there is no way to reliably tell whether such chemicals were actually in the meteorite when it was in outer space, or whether such chemicals result from earthly contamination. 

(4) Two of the types of DNA subunit chemicals reportedly found were not found by previous scientists investigating the meteorites.  

In general, the mainstream media conveniently withheld most or all such facts in their coverage of the paper by Oba and others. None of the news stories mentioned that the chemicals found were reported in abundances of only a few parts per billion. None of the news stories pointed out that the reported abundances were no greater than the reported abundances of phosphine on Venus, in claims that were quickly disputed or debunked by other scientists.  Few of the news stories even mentioned the issue of terrestrial contamination, the fact that it is very hard or impossible to tell whether a chemical in a meteorite did or did not arise from contact with Earth life, particularly when the chemical is reported in only the tiniest trace amounts such as a few parts per billion.  Several of the mainstream media sources engaged in outrageous distortion and misinformation when covering the paper by Oba and others, giving us more of what we have in great abundance these days: science-flavored fake news. 

Here are examples of the misleading or incompetent coverage we got:

• The NBC News story (on www.nbcnews.com) failed to tell us that the chemicals were reported to have been found in abundances of only a few parts per billion,  and completely failed to tell us in any way that the chemicals were found in only the tiniest trace amounts.  The article quotes an unfounded claim by one of the study's authors that the study "buttresses the theory that meteorites could have been an important source of organic compounds necessary for the emergence of Earth’s first living organisms," failing to tell us that the reported abundances of a few parts per billion were so small that such a theory has not at all been buttressed. 
• A NASA page shamelessly has the headline "Could the blueprint for life have been generated in asteroids?" The idea that DNA is a blueprint for making living things is a mythical claim that some scientists have long advanced for ideological reasons. Having only low-level chemical information, DNA does not have any blueprint or recipe or algorithm for making an organism or any of its organs or any of its cells.  The NASA page failed to tell us that the chemicals were reported to have been found in abundances of only a few parts per billion,  and completely failed to tell us in any way that the chemicals were found in only the tiniest trace amounts. No mention is made of the issue of terrestrial contamination. 
• A Sky and Telescope story vaguely refers to "low concentrations" of the DNA subunit chemicals, but fails to tells its readers that the chemicals were reported to have been found in only the tiniest trace amounts of a few parts per billion. 
• A LiveScience.com story also fails to tells its readers that the chemicals were reported to have been found in only the tiniest trace amounts of a few parts per billion, and merely vaguely refers to "their scant presence in the meteorites."  
• A USA Today story  also fails to tells its readers that the chemicals were reported to have been found in only the tiniest trace amounts of a few parts per billion, and doesn't even tell its readers the chemicals were found in low amounts. 
• A Daily Mail story has a headline making the utterly fictional claim that DNA was found on meteorites.  A DNA molecule is an information-rich collection of a vast number of chemical subunits arranged to produce a huge library of functional information (the human genome has 3 billion nucleotide base pairs).  Finding some of these building blocks in an abundance of a few parts per billion is nothing like finding a DNA molecule. The Daily Mail's headline is as false as seeing a twig form the letter I, and describing this as finding an informative book (on the grounds that the letter I is one of the building blocks of books).  Totally failing to indicate that the chemicals were reported to have been found in only the tiniest trace amounts, the Daily Mail falsely claims the research gives a major boost to the theory of panspermia. 
• Another news source has the fake news headline "NASA scientists find evidence that life on Earth may have come from an asteroid. " This is followed by the even phonier fake news statement that "NASA scientists find evidence of origin of life from an asteroid."  No mention was made that the chemicals were reported to have been found in only the tiniest trace amounts. 

Such coverage is not surprising. It is merely the latest example of what is constantly going on in the mainstream media's coverage of science: the withholding of very relevant key facts, in order to better serve some ideological narrative that is being pushed, or some unfounded "important research" claim that is being made.  Below are other examples of such withholding:

• Neuroscience experimental studies claiming important results are typically reported in the mainstream press without any mention of the way-too-small study group sizes that were usually used, a defect that makes any study unreliable. No mention is made of the exact differences reported in brain scan studies (typically only about 1 part in 200, as we might expect to get from chance variations),  and we will get instead vague phrases such as statements that some brain regions "are more active." 
• When neuroscience experiments fail to do sample size calculations and fail to follow a blinding protocol (as usually happens), the mainstream press reports on such studies without telling us about such failures that cast doubt on the studies.  
• In innumerable mainstream discussions of DNA, often including misleading language describing DNA as a "blueprint of life" or a "recipe for life," we are not told that no one has discovered any specification in DNA of the overall structure of an organism, and that no one has has discovered any specification in DNA of the structure of an organ, and that no one has discovered any specification in DNA of the structure of a cell. 
• In innumerable mainstream discussions of evolution, the earthly appearance of complex life is depicted as a very gradual thing. We almost never hear mention of the fact that according to the fossil record all or almost all of the animal phyla (the main divisions of the animal kingdom) appeared during the same relatively short span (the Cambrian era), during the Cambrian Explosion. 
• Innumerable times in mainstream discussions of the brain, claims are made that synapses are the basis of memory. We almost never hear mention of three supremely relevant facts discrediting all such claims: (1) the fact that the average lifetime of protein molecules in synapses are only a thousandth (.001 percent) of the longest length of time that humans can remember things; (2) the fact that a chemical synapse (the main type of synapse) transmits a signal with a reliability of only between 10% and 50%; (3) the fact that every traversal across a synapse is a "speed bump."  A consequence of the these facts is that a synaptic network requiring thousands or millions of such synaptic traversals would be both extremely slow, extremely unreliable and extremely unstable (in contrast to human memory recall which occurs instantly and reliably). 
• Innumerable times in mainstream discussions of life in space, we are told inaccurately that Earth-like planets have been discovered. It is merely Earth-sized planets that have been discovered. No planet has ever been discovered with Earth-like characteristics (such as high oxygen levels), a fact conveniently omitted from most discussions of life in space. 
• In innumerable mainstream discussions of the brain including unfounded claims that brains are the storage place of memories and the source of human thinking, we get no mention of such basic facts as the fact that no neuroscientist has a detailed credible theory of how a brain could translate human learned information into synapse states or brain states, the fact that no neuroscientist can explain how a human is able to instantly retrieve a memory, the fact that no learned information has ever been found by studying the brain of a corpse,  the fact there is no known place in the brain where learned information could be stably stored for decades, and the fact that the brain lacks the things in human products that allow a quick retrieval of information (such as indexes and a coordinate system). 
• Innumerable times in mainstream discussions of the brain, the claim is made that the brain is the source of the human mind.  Countless facts that defy such a claim are conveniently omitted, such as the fact that people can think well and remember well after half or more of their brains have been removed (to treat severe seizures) or lost to disease (as discussed here and here), or the fact that, as one scientific paper states, in tests of intelligence "mouse lemurs performed surprisingly on par when compared with chimpanzees and orangutans, which have a 200-fold larger brain".  The mainstream media almost always fails to mention countless observations defying such claims that brains make minds, such as frequent reports of people suffering from cardiac arrest observing their bodies while floating above their bodies during out-of-body experiences (which should be impossible if your brain is producing your mind).  
• The basic facts of physical biological complexity are not presented in innumerable mainstream discussions of biological origins. Such facts can easily be stated: that humans have about 200 different types of cells each as functionally complex as a factory or a jet airplane, and that inside each human body there are roughly 20,000 types of complex inventions, there being some 20,000 different types of protein molecules in our body, each type being a different fine-tuned arrangement of hundreds of amino acid parts to achieve a particular functional end, with an average complexity of about 400 amino acids per protein molecule.  
• The mainstream media withholds coverage of paranormal experiences, which polls show a majority of people experience. A recent news story tells us, "Recent polling, conducted in October 2021 by Cinch Home Services, a leading home warranty company, indicates that 83% of American adults report having experienced paranormal activity in their homes," mentioning experiences such as lights turning on by themselves. We have roughly two hundred years of serious scientific research reporting the paranormal, much of it conducted by professors, physicians, scientists and long-standing organizations such as the Society for Psychical Research. But you will hear scarcely a word about such facts in the mainstream media.  As Jeffrey Mishlove PhD states, "Our academic, scientific, and religious institutions have failed to educate the public about 140 years of research into paranormal phenomena.”
• Endlessly withholding the fact of speculation when speculation occurs, the mainstream media very often uses inappropriate "discovery" language when announcing purely speculative work, such as a very recent press release using the headline "Revealing the secret language of dark matter" to refer to a "speculations heaped upon speculations" paper that did not reveal or discover anything. 
• Endlessly reproducing phony diagrams making it look like cells are not-very-complex things that have only a few organelles, mainstream discussions of cells will fail to tell us that cells typically have many thousands of mitochondria, that cells typically have hundreds of lysosomes, that cells have up to millions of ribosomes, and that cells have as many as hundreds of Golgi apparatus cisternae. 

I could give a hundred other examples of the withholding of key facts in science coverage by mainstream sources.  The withholding of key facts is one of the pillars of bad science journalism.  Other such pillars of bad science journalism are shown below.