Human knowledge
Isn't human knowledge a wonderful thing.
My mother recently forwarded me an email and asked if I could verify a few of the claims.
The first concerned a 1984 Omni magazine investigation of "Super Psychics of China", claiming that the children passed all the tests "flawlessly". The email did not have any date or reference on it, but after some Googling I found the following article, dated May 1999, which is basically the email word-for-word (plus several variations or reposts with later dates).
You can read the claims for yourself: http://www.newconnexion.net/article/05-99/dna.html
This did not seem too difficult a problem. Omni magazine is now defunct, but the publisher is still around. Better yet, checking the online catalog at the State [reference] Library of NSW shows that they hold the periodical from 1980-1995.
The State Library is only two blocks away from where I work in Circular Quay, so I paid a visit today at lunch time. They got me the catalog number, then I put in my request for them to get it from the stack. As the email claimed the investigation was in 1984, I thought to play it safe I had better ask for 1984 issues plus early 1985.
Not a problem -- they give you this little reference slip whilst they head down to the basement to find what you want, letting me know it might take half an hour. Off I head to Chifley Square for a quick lunch of Japanese inari sushi, potato croquet (not very Japanese I would have thought), and miso soup.
Getting back to the library it was only a short wait before the guy arrived with the cart carrying four large bound volumes of the magazine, six issues in each. (If you've ever looked at periodicals in a library, you will know exactly what I mean.)
Off I head and start browsing through the contents of each issue, checking any articles which mention China or psychic powers just in case they are the right one.
I reach the end of 1984 (the first two books), without any luck and am hoping that it isn't some one paragraph news article which I have to read through every page of every issue to find -- plus the fact that they seemed to be missing Mar 1984 was annoying.
So, I open up 1985 and there on the front cover of January is the headline "China's Psychic Savants" (see, I knew it was a good idea to also check early 1985 :-)
Well, they got that right -- Omni magazine did do an article on psychic Chinese children.
Of course you have to read the article to find out that just about every other thing they claim is wrong: The actual trip to China was in October 1981. The writer met we three groups of supposed psychics.
Quoting from the article the first group of four girls "didn't score a single hit" on guessing symbols written on paper, whilst the second group of three children, guessing cards held up, "got every answer wrong" (despite one test where one of the children "actually left the room and took the target card with her").
With the third group of four children reading messages on folder paper under their armpits the writer "for the first time in two weeks, I saw these children score several hits", however he was a bit concerned about the validity of the tests as the children fidgeted (moved a lot) and the hosts often blocked their view of the children during the tests.
As an example of the problems with the test "one girl given a specially sealed container prepared by us returned it with the seal undone".
The article concludes that "as the trip drew to an end, those in our group agreed that we had seen no convincing evidence of EHF [exceptional human functions]."
It just goes to show how easy it is on the Internet to completely misquote an article and then have your claims passed on as 'fact'.
... Next to check up on another claim the email made (in the URL above) about some testing performed by UCLA regarding some mutated DNA. It's already suspect as some of the statements they make about DNA are simply wrong (for example there are no "turned off" codons, all 64 are functional -- the number 20 probably refers to the different basic amino acids which can be produced, not codons).
Irrespective of the incorrect statements, it should be relatively easy to contact the UCLA genetics department and find out if they have any record of the claimed experiments.
My mother recently forwarded me an email and asked if I could verify a few of the claims.
The first concerned a 1984 Omni magazine investigation of "Super Psychics of China", claiming that the children passed all the tests "flawlessly". The email did not have any date or reference on it, but after some Googling I found the following article, dated May 1999, which is basically the email word-for-word (plus several variations or reposts with later dates).
You can read the claims for yourself: http://www.newconnexion.net/article/05-99/dna.html
This did not seem too difficult a problem. Omni magazine is now defunct, but the publisher is still around. Better yet, checking the online catalog at the State [reference] Library of NSW shows that they hold the periodical from 1980-1995.
The State Library is only two blocks away from where I work in Circular Quay, so I paid a visit today at lunch time. They got me the catalog number, then I put in my request for them to get it from the stack. As the email claimed the investigation was in 1984, I thought to play it safe I had better ask for 1984 issues plus early 1985.
Not a problem -- they give you this little reference slip whilst they head down to the basement to find what you want, letting me know it might take half an hour. Off I head to Chifley Square for a quick lunch of Japanese inari sushi, potato croquet (not very Japanese I would have thought), and miso soup.
Getting back to the library it was only a short wait before the guy arrived with the cart carrying four large bound volumes of the magazine, six issues in each. (If you've ever looked at periodicals in a library, you will know exactly what I mean.)
Off I head and start browsing through the contents of each issue, checking any articles which mention China or psychic powers just in case they are the right one.
I reach the end of 1984 (the first two books), without any luck and am hoping that it isn't some one paragraph news article which I have to read through every page of every issue to find -- plus the fact that they seemed to be missing Mar 1984 was annoying.
So, I open up 1985 and there on the front cover of January is the headline "China's Psychic Savants" (see, I knew it was a good idea to also check early 1985 :-)
Well, they got that right -- Omni magazine did do an article on psychic Chinese children.
Of course you have to read the article to find out that just about every other thing they claim is wrong: The actual trip to China was in October 1981. The writer met we three groups of supposed psychics.
Quoting from the article the first group of four girls "didn't score a single hit" on guessing symbols written on paper, whilst the second group of three children, guessing cards held up, "got every answer wrong" (despite one test where one of the children "actually left the room and took the target card with her").
With the third group of four children reading messages on folder paper under their armpits the writer "for the first time in two weeks, I saw these children score several hits", however he was a bit concerned about the validity of the tests as the children fidgeted (moved a lot) and the hosts often blocked their view of the children during the tests.
As an example of the problems with the test "one girl given a specially sealed container prepared by us returned it with the seal undone".
The article concludes that "as the trip drew to an end, those in our group agreed that we had seen no convincing evidence of EHF [exceptional human functions]."
It just goes to show how easy it is on the Internet to completely misquote an article and then have your claims passed on as 'fact'.
... Next to check up on another claim the email made (in the URL above) about some testing performed by UCLA regarding some mutated DNA. It's already suspect as some of the statements they make about DNA are simply wrong (for example there are no "turned off" codons, all 64 are functional -- the number 20 probably refers to the different basic amino acids which can be produced, not codons).
Irrespective of the incorrect statements, it should be relatively easy to contact the UCLA genetics department and find out if they have any record of the claimed experiments.