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Weird Science: An Expert Explains Ghosts, Voodoo, The Ufo Conspiracy, And Other Paranormal Phenomena
Scientist, author, and editor Michael White uses wit and humor to dispel myths relating to "unexplained" and "paranormal" phenomena, providing the possible scientific underpinnings to questions relating to alien abductions, Atlantis, poltergeists, and more. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
- GenresNonfiction
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Michael White
46 books137 followersMichael White was a British writer who was based in Perth, Australia. He studied at King's College London (1977–1982) and was a chemistry lecturer at d'Overbroeck's College, Oxford (1984–1991).
He was a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London and, 'in a previous incarnation', he was a member of Colour Me Pop. Colour Me Pop featured on the "Europe in the Year Zero" EP in 1982 with Yazoo and Sudeten Creche and he was then a member of the group The Thompson Twins (1982). He moved to Australia in 2002 and was made an Honorary Research Fellow at Curtin University in 2005.
He was the author of thirty-five books: these include Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science; Leonardo: The First Scientist; Tolkien: A Biography; and C. S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia. His first novel Equinox – thriller, an occult mystery reached the Top Ten in the bestseller list in the UK and has been translated into 35 languages. His non-fiction production included the biography Galileo: Antichrist. Novels following Equinox include The Medici Secret, The Borgia Ring and The Art of Murder.
White wrote under two further names, Tom West and Sam Fisher. He used the latter pseudonym to publish the E-Force trilogy, State of Emergency, Aftershock, and Nano.
A further novel by White, The Venetian Detective, features characters including Galileo and Elizabeth.
White wrote a biography of Isaac Newton, The Last Sorcerer. He was both short-listed and long-listed for the Aventis prize. Rivals was short-listed in 2002, and The Fruits of War long-listed in 2006. He was also nominated for the Ned Kelly Prize for First Novel (for Equinox in 2007).
He was a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London and, 'in a previous incarnation', he was a member of Colour Me Pop. Colour Me Pop featured on the "Europe in the Year Zero" EP in 1982 with Yazoo and Sudeten Creche and he was then a member of the group The Thompson Twins (1982). He moved to Australia in 2002 and was made an Honorary Research Fellow at Curtin University in 2005.
He was the author of thirty-five books: these include Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science; Leonardo: The First Scientist; Tolkien: A Biography; and C. S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia. His first novel Equinox – thriller, an occult mystery reached the Top Ten in the bestseller list in the UK and has been translated into 35 languages. His non-fiction production included the biography Galileo: Antichrist. Novels following Equinox include The Medici Secret, The Borgia Ring and The Art of Murder.
White wrote under two further names, Tom West and Sam Fisher. He used the latter pseudonym to publish the E-Force trilogy, State of Emergency, Aftershock, and Nano.
A further novel by White, The Venetian Detective, features characters including Galileo and Elizabeth.
White wrote a biography of Isaac Newton, The Last Sorcerer. He was both short-listed and long-listed for the Aventis prize. Rivals was short-listed in 2002, and The Fruits of War long-listed in 2006. He was also nominated for the Ned Kelly Prize for First Novel (for Equinox in 2007).
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 5, 2025
A ‘BOOK OF HYPOTHESES’ EXPLORING (AND MOSTLY REJECTING) THE PARANORMAL
British author and science writer Michael White wrote in the Preface to this 1999 book, “This is a book of hypotheses. There was a time… when the investigation of the paranormal commanded a certain respect and was conducted by professional scientists as much as by enthusiastic amateurs… But the paranormal remains elusive. We are no nearer to proving or disproving the existence of telepathy, psychokinesis [PK], or clairvoyance than we were over one hundred years ago., but we do have a greater collection of scientific ideas to draw upon in an effort to reach sensible hypotheses. And that is what I’ve tried to do in this book.”
He explains, “interstellar voyagers… will either have to accommodate … traveling at close to the speed of light… or else travel slower and take even longer to arrive anywhere outside their own solar system… Because of the consequence of special relativity… Imagine a human … [who] sets out on … a mission in the year 1900 returning to Earth in 2000. They may have aged less than thirty years, but the world around them would be unrecognizable to them… The only other option for sublight travel is the concept of the Ark…. To create a large spacecraft on which generations… would live during a mission that might last hundreds or thousands of years… The early generations of aliens aboard the Ark would have no hope of seeing a new world, and would be kept going only by the knowledge that their distant offspring would make it to a distant planet. It is conceivable that such a scheme would be favored by [those] who possess a very different psychological makeup than we do…” (Pg. 10-11)
He continues, “Wormholes, as theorized by … the physicists who first postulated them---Kip Thorne and Michael Morris… offer a shortcut, bypassing the need to travel between point A and point B using the conventional route. Now, this is obviously an attractive idea… [But] wormholes are still pure speculation…. assuming they do [exist], they would probably be quite rare… The second problem is that it would be impossible to know which part of the universe they linked until they were used…” (Pg. 16-17)
He states, “I’m really interested in reaching a conclusion about intelligent life-forms with which we can communicate readily. It may be that any number of exotic creatures live in this almost infinite universe, but the chances of contacting them and communicating with them is even less likely than the probability of encountering a life-form with which we can communicate.” (Pg. 30)
He notes, “Skeptics continue to pour cold water on the entire phenomenon of telepathy. One of the most usual arguments is to ask why telepathic individuals do not use their skill to win lotteries[?]… They also wonder why in lab tests the talents of the claimants mysteriously vanish. The problem with telepathy is that a century of investigation has turned up little evidence that complies with standard scientific practice…” (Pg. 57)
He states, “If PK is produced by a genuine form of mental energy or… some as-yet-unknown force, then … this force has nothing in common with others we have experienced in the universe…. To the believer… the phenomenon is not governed by the normal laws of physics, and lies above and beyond us. Perhaps PK is an adjunct to some odd quantum mechanical effect, but if this is the case, an explanation for the way it works may be a very long time coming.” (Pg. 73)
He asserts, “Ghosts certainly exist, but there is no hard evidence to suggest any form of personality or soul survives the death of the brain. Therefore ghosts appear to derive from other sources. These sources are… ranging from deliberate fraud to mass hallucination… Many ghosts proven not to be fakes, illusions, hallucinations, or freak environmental effects appear to be limited in their movements… we can only assume ghosts derive from the minds of those who see them, projections of our own desires and fears, and that they have no material form in the physical world.” (Pg. 133)
He speculates, “It seems probable that one day we will be able to utilize natural aspects of the universe such as the properties of a black hole, of… pulsars, to develop a device to travel backward in time. If this system is found to be impossible, then we might still have the chance to use suitable wormholes. Either of these will require dramatic developments in physics…” (Pg. 163-164)
He comments on Near-Death Experiences [NDE]: “A more likely explanation is that the brain is suffering what is called ‘cerebral anoxia,' or oxygen deprivation. It is this purely physical phenomenon, psychologists now believe, that is responsible for the ‘tunnel’ and the ‘light.’ It is also thought to lead to the frequently reported encounters with long-dead relatives or even a godlike figure.” (Pg. 171) He adds, “People severely injured or suffering heart attack… would naturally cling to the most secure of their fantasies or dreams. The most likely image to appear in these hallucinatory state would be lost parents, partners, or in some cases, an image of their God.” (Pg. 175)
He discounts the possibility of alien visitors: “The Earth is a tiny planet, lost in an ocean of stars and other worlds. Why would an alien race want to come here? Furthermore, why would they want to bother with us? What could an advanced race possibly gain by interbreeding with humankind? Perhaps there is a plentiful supply of dilithium crystals somewhere on earth.” (Pg. 205)
He reports, “A few years ago a new idolatry craze hit the headlines… statues in Hindu temples were observed to drink milk from a spoon placed at the mouth of the idol… the scientific community quickly came up with explanations. The high absorbency of the material used in making the statues soaked up the milk. Indeed, the liquid need not have been milk at all…” (Pg. 255)
He concludes, “Yet, none of this stops us from striving to discover, and I am not one of those trained as a scientist who totally dismisses the paranormal.. It is important we all keep open minds, but also fully functioning ones… By all means, keep questioning, prodding, and investigating. Keep watching the skies---if for nothing else but to find a window into the eternal.” (Pg.> 410)
British author and science writer Michael White wrote in the Preface to this 1999 book, “This is a book of hypotheses. There was a time… when the investigation of the paranormal commanded a certain respect and was conducted by professional scientists as much as by enthusiastic amateurs… But the paranormal remains elusive. We are no nearer to proving or disproving the existence of telepathy, psychokinesis [PK], or clairvoyance than we were over one hundred years ago., but we do have a greater collection of scientific ideas to draw upon in an effort to reach sensible hypotheses. And that is what I’ve tried to do in this book.”
He explains, “interstellar voyagers… will either have to accommodate … traveling at close to the speed of light… or else travel slower and take even longer to arrive anywhere outside their own solar system… Because of the consequence of special relativity… Imagine a human … [who] sets out on … a mission in the year 1900 returning to Earth in 2000. They may have aged less than thirty years, but the world around them would be unrecognizable to them… The only other option for sublight travel is the concept of the Ark…. To create a large spacecraft on which generations… would live during a mission that might last hundreds or thousands of years… The early generations of aliens aboard the Ark would have no hope of seeing a new world, and would be kept going only by the knowledge that their distant offspring would make it to a distant planet. It is conceivable that such a scheme would be favored by [those] who possess a very different psychological makeup than we do…” (Pg. 10-11)
He continues, “Wormholes, as theorized by … the physicists who first postulated them---Kip Thorne and Michael Morris… offer a shortcut, bypassing the need to travel between point A and point B using the conventional route. Now, this is obviously an attractive idea… [But] wormholes are still pure speculation…. assuming they do [exist], they would probably be quite rare… The second problem is that it would be impossible to know which part of the universe they linked until they were used…” (Pg. 16-17)
He states, “I’m really interested in reaching a conclusion about intelligent life-forms with which we can communicate readily. It may be that any number of exotic creatures live in this almost infinite universe, but the chances of contacting them and communicating with them is even less likely than the probability of encountering a life-form with which we can communicate.” (Pg. 30)
He notes, “Skeptics continue to pour cold water on the entire phenomenon of telepathy. One of the most usual arguments is to ask why telepathic individuals do not use their skill to win lotteries[?]… They also wonder why in lab tests the talents of the claimants mysteriously vanish. The problem with telepathy is that a century of investigation has turned up little evidence that complies with standard scientific practice…” (Pg. 57)
He states, “If PK is produced by a genuine form of mental energy or… some as-yet-unknown force, then … this force has nothing in common with others we have experienced in the universe…. To the believer… the phenomenon is not governed by the normal laws of physics, and lies above and beyond us. Perhaps PK is an adjunct to some odd quantum mechanical effect, but if this is the case, an explanation for the way it works may be a very long time coming.” (Pg. 73)
He asserts, “Ghosts certainly exist, but there is no hard evidence to suggest any form of personality or soul survives the death of the brain. Therefore ghosts appear to derive from other sources. These sources are… ranging from deliberate fraud to mass hallucination… Many ghosts proven not to be fakes, illusions, hallucinations, or freak environmental effects appear to be limited in their movements… we can only assume ghosts derive from the minds of those who see them, projections of our own desires and fears, and that they have no material form in the physical world.” (Pg. 133)
He speculates, “It seems probable that one day we will be able to utilize natural aspects of the universe such as the properties of a black hole, of… pulsars, to develop a device to travel backward in time. If this system is found to be impossible, then we might still have the chance to use suitable wormholes. Either of these will require dramatic developments in physics…” (Pg. 163-164)
He comments on Near-Death Experiences [NDE]: “A more likely explanation is that the brain is suffering what is called ‘cerebral anoxia,' or oxygen deprivation. It is this purely physical phenomenon, psychologists now believe, that is responsible for the ‘tunnel’ and the ‘light.’ It is also thought to lead to the frequently reported encounters with long-dead relatives or even a godlike figure.” (Pg. 171) He adds, “People severely injured or suffering heart attack… would naturally cling to the most secure of their fantasies or dreams. The most likely image to appear in these hallucinatory state would be lost parents, partners, or in some cases, an image of their God.” (Pg. 175)
He discounts the possibility of alien visitors: “The Earth is a tiny planet, lost in an ocean of stars and other worlds. Why would an alien race want to come here? Furthermore, why would they want to bother with us? What could an advanced race possibly gain by interbreeding with humankind? Perhaps there is a plentiful supply of dilithium crystals somewhere on earth.” (Pg. 205)
He reports, “A few years ago a new idolatry craze hit the headlines… statues in Hindu temples were observed to drink milk from a spoon placed at the mouth of the idol… the scientific community quickly came up with explanations. The high absorbency of the material used in making the statues soaked up the milk. Indeed, the liquid need not have been milk at all…” (Pg. 255)
He concludes, “Yet, none of this stops us from striving to discover, and I am not one of those trained as a scientist who totally dismisses the paranormal.. It is important we all keep open minds, but also fully functioning ones… By all means, keep questioning, prodding, and investigating. Keep watching the skies---if for nothing else but to find a window into the eternal.” (Pg.> 410)
May 18, 2019
Uneven and somewhat outdated now ( published in 1999)
Several chapters seem to lose focus and treat subjects that are not paranormal.
Interesting information, yes, but only helpful as a primer.
Several chapters seem to lose focus and treat subjects that are not paranormal.
Interesting information, yes, but only helpful as a primer.
December 17, 2008
Interesting scientific approach to an array of topics: zombies, faster-than-light travel, vampires, ghosts, etc.. . Not exactly a skeptics viewpoint, seems more to take the approach: assuming this stuff does exist, here's how it could likely work.
I wouldn't put a lot of stock in some of the radical explanations, but taken with this in mind, it's a fascinating book especially for creative sci-fi or fantasy writers who want to add some realism to their works.
I wouldn't put a lot of stock in some of the radical explanations, but taken with this in mind, it's a fascinating book especially for creative sci-fi or fantasy writers who want to add some realism to their works.
October 27, 2012
Couldn't finish it. The "expert" starts with the premise that all the paranormal phenomena actually happen, and tries to use science to explain. The "cynical" skeptics are just unbelievers. I guess I thought the book was going to be a skeptical take on the paranormal, but it wasn't. And it's kida dated (1999).
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews