SOMETHING IN IT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 24, 28 December 1925, Page 8

SOMETHING IN IT.

FORESEEING THE FUTURE. A SCIENTIST’S PLEA. “It is proverbially easier to prosecute the rogue who steals the goose from off the common than the practitioner on a larger scale who steals the common from the goose,’’ writes Sir Oliver Lodge in a letter to the London Times on the prosecution of London’s swarm of fox-tune-tollers and crystal-gazing seers. “The extent and power of human inference cannot be considered fully known as yet, and it is unwise for the law to condemn people for attempting to forecast the future as if that vvere so manifestly impossible as to be ipso facto fraudulent.

“Admittedly there are certain ridiculous superstitions—as if human destiny could be determined by the fall of playing cards or by tho position of planets-—but tho extent to which forecasting of the future can be achieved is a matter for scientific inquiry. There is nothing absurd in the idea. “A railway time-table predicts the trains at least a month ahead. An. astronomer can predict eclipses several centuries in advance. Some experts succeed in foretelling tho weather for, say, 24 hours. And statesmen attempt to foresee the result of an election or the probable attitude of a self-govern-ing state. So some power of prediction is known to exist, though manifestly subject to uncertainty. “The law against foretelling was passed in times of ignorance and unscientific stupidity. Legislation should not be used for stopping material for investigation, even if intended only as a wholesome check on fraud. I would not deny that foolish people may be mulcted of shillings or half-crowns by pretended seers—who are an admitted nuisance—but it sems a trivial evil about which to set the law in action.

“The serious aspect of the present position is that the law makes no discrimination between honesty and dishonesty. How far foretelling of tho future is possible is not a legal but a scientific question.” Commenting on these opinions, “A.R.”, in the Manchester Guardian, writes:—

“What is certain is that in his concern for seeing more clearly into the future. Sir Oliver is thinking of knowledge in general.

“The indifference of the rest of us may, no doubt, partly be explained by the present incompetence of foretelling as a science. Sir Oliver himself can only bring forward, as examples of those who are doing their bit in this direction, statesmen who forecast the results of general elections, officials who draw up railway time-tables, astronomers and weather forecasters.

“It is not a very encouraging list. Prophetic scientists who cannot do better than most of these may expect to be ignored. But, nevertheless, we dare not laugh altogether. Some day even weather reports may be put beyond doubt of inaccuracy, and the whole future may come flooding into the experts’ laboratories as smoothly as the latest news is now spun by the tape machine into the lobbies of tho club’s.