E-mail from Professor Peter Wadhams to Michael Roll (May 7, 2004): Sir William Crookes

2004-May-07 Filed in: Science

In his e-mail, Professor Peter Wadhams writes:

"It is a psychological phenomenon. Deep down they know that great scientists who engage in this kind of work and get positive results should be believed and should cause this subject to become a central theme of the world's scientific effort. But they dare not accept this thought. So to square their consciences and make the dissonance less extreme they have to invent reasons to pretend that the great scientist is not actually as great as he seems, that he's somehow naive or bonkers or that his conventional discoveries weren't as important as they at first appear."