I believe that the predisposition of many mainstream critics of out-of-the-box thinkers as abnormal and aberrant is deeply rooted in human nature. Such intolerance is an adaptive evolutionary trait fostered by natural selection to enhance the survival of the race.
The human race is the only species that utilizes the acquisition and application of knowledge to enhance the prospects of survival. Through the culture of knowledge, we adapt the environment to our needs to enhance our prospects and wellbeing. Critics of aberrant thinking feel a deep subconscious threat rooted in this thinking as a menace to cultural knowledge. The object of this threat is to both personal survival and the continuation of humanity as a species in general. Most people will follow the example and lead of authority figures to determine truth and validity. This starts at an early age when children draw example from their parents to acquire knowledge and the appropriateness of behavior. This “normal” behavior to mimic authority figures extends throughout the schooling of the child where the child looks toward their teachers and mentors for queues in the acquisition of knowledge and the suitability and correctness of behavior. After school, the queues of culture come from their supervisors, mentors and peers. The subconscious urge to conform is deeply rooted in the essence of our humanity and is always accompanied by the need to avoid bullying, or deflect criticism from peers, and disapproval as a social sigma though it can also reflect suppression of personality. Conformity is especially strong in the young and is often associated with adolescence and the youth culture, but strongly affects humans of all ages. To understand this compulsion toward conformity in human culture, I now put forward this thesis. The recent analysis of the human genome indicates that mankind experienced an evolutionary choke point where the number of humans fell to a mere few thousand. I thing at this crucial time in the history of man, this hallmark trait of human nature was deeply ingrained in us some 70,000 years ago in the formulating crucible of modern humanity, when the harsh and forbidding South African desert environment for human survival was most cruel. There when the human race had been reduced to under one thousand breeding pairs, small bands of hunter gatherer bushmen endured and adapted to the extreme conditions by teaching their children all the hard earned survival lessens the elders gained over their brief lifetimes. These ways and means of desert survival were the only things that kept the nomadic troop alive. The children that did not learn these subsistence techniques from their elders did not live to pass on this precious life sustaining knowledge. Only the most precocious, attentive, and conformant young students learned their lessons of the desert well enough to pass on their genes in the ever present and extremes of the natural selection weeding out process. These very few and highly selected conformant individuals became the seeds from which contemporary humanity has sprung. However, there is always a genetic mutation process that flows from the impact of the environment on the genome that introduces individuals into society that literally do not see the world as most others. As it so happens in the normal course of events there comes into our existence intelligent individuals in the extreme that from the earliest age try to adapt to the formulated mechanisms of culture but most often fail to thrive. These individuals suffer from perceptual problems that cause them to see the world differently from the mainstream of humanity. These perceptual and behavioral afflictions force unusual coping mechanisms to develop in them. These coping strategies are the place where most out-of-the-box thinking comes from. These learning disabled do poorly in school when young and suffer from visual, auditory, and physical disability, dyslexia, autism, behavior compulsions, and attention disorders. As their personalities form, their behavior is most often described as eccentric or kooky by the mainstream. But their unusual perception of the world and obsessive and single minded behavior in it every so often make unbelievable and momentous breakthroughs in science, technology, art, and engineering possible that are way beyond the abilities of “normal” people. These people oftentimes support the accent of man with a quantum leap in perception, beauty and understanding that ordinary conformant people cannot. Some examples that illustrate this caliber of man is listed as follows: Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Alva Edison Albert Einstein Henry Ford Dr Temple Grandin Stephen Hawking Isaac Newton Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo Nikola Tesla Ludwig Von Beethoven Mozart Tomas Jefferson Galileo, Louis Pasteur As more is becoming known about the obsessive specialist; the way he sees the world; the way he interacts with others; the more his mainstream critics holds his unusual and eccentric nature against him. He is an out-of-the-box thinker; obsessive in behavior; steadfast in his opinions, sometimes anti-social and abrasive in his interpersonal demeanor with a great distain for the path most traveled and conformance to doctrinaire. It is quite understandable how he generates intense reactions from so many. Cheers: Axil On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Based on conversations I've had with him over the years, not in a >> million trillion gillion years would I EVER expect him to, on his own >> reconnaissance, give a single proposal related to a "CF" project the >> light of the day. >> > > Such people are ubiquitous in the scientific establishment. They are a > dime a dozen. THAT is why cold fusion has not been funded, and why it has > made such little progress. It is not because there is a conspiracy against > it, or the oil companies or plasma fusion people oppose it. It is not > because Fleischmann and Pons held a press conference on the day they > published their paper. That's silly; plasma fusion people hold a press > conference the day they do a run. They publish a paper months later, or > years later, or never. > > In my opinion, most of the reasons proposed to explain the opposition do > not hold water. They apply as much to other fields as the do to cold > fusion. > > It is simple. Scientists tend to be conservative people. Most of them are > unimaginative and opposed to progress. Most of them do not want to see > anything that upsets the applecart or makes their own training obsolete. > See also the quote from Tolstoy that Mallove used in closing his book. > Scientists have a reputation for embracing new ideas, but it is undeserved. > It is a myth. People also believe that programmers, venture capitalists, > and businessmen embrace new ideas, but the ones I know are no more inclined > to do this than any other group, such as farmers or cooks. > > People everywhere, in all walks of life, tend to be conservative, > cautious, and afraid of novelty. They stick to what works. They hate the > thought of trying anything new. I believe this is human > nature. Occasionally, you meet someone who loves to try new things and has > "overdeveloped curiosity" as someone said of Darwin. Most of the time, to > most of us normal folks, these people are pests. They waste time. They ask > too many questions and try too many things that don't work. They are like > Mizuno: they cause explosions, their labs are a god-awful mess, and their > grad students don't graduate because they get caught up in Improbable > Research that Seldom Pans Out. When children act this way in school, the > parents and teachers usually bat them down. Nowadays they force feed the > kids drugs to combat "attention deficit disorder" -- a newly invented > illness the symptoms of which happen to correspond to the way every > intelligent child I have known reacts to conventional pedagogy. If we had > these drugs back in 1910, van Neumann would never have published a paper at > 17 or gotten a PhD at 23. He would have been well adjusted. He would not > have crashed a car every year, or piled up large numbers of speeding > tickets paid by IBM, or amicably divorced his wife when she found a new > boyfriend just when he found a new girlfriend. He would not have played > loud German marching band music on the gramophone at the Institute for > Advanced Study, driving Einstein and the others batty, or brought in dozens > of unwashed engineers to build a computer in the basement of the Institute, > even though everyone else hated the idea and though computers were vulgar > toys. (After he died, they tossed out the computer and did not allow > another one until someone brought in a 386 personal computer in mid-1980s.) > > The Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng is another example of a pain in the > butt. A terribly annoying person! He keeps changing his mind, changing his > tune and making impossible demands on the U.S. government. He expects to be > given a ride on the plane with Sec. Clinton. He expects her to change the > meeting itinerary and deal with him and his personal problems. The thing > is, this guy is challenging a tyrannical communist dictatorship despite the > fact that he has no political power, no money, he is blind, self-educated, > and he knows better than anyone that the authorities might lose their > patience at any moment and beat him and his family to death. He makes > ridiculous demands on the U.S. government because that is what he does in > life. He makes even more outlandish demands on the Chinese government -- > that they should stop oppressing people. Ask yourself: What kind of person > would act that way? Answer: A very unusual person. A person with no sense > of danger, no sense that he is powerless, or that he is trying to > accomplish the impossible. Someone with tremendous self confidence. Someone > like, say, Rossi, Fleischmann, or Mizuno. In other words, a crazy person > who is *annoying* and *will not shut up*. A person who, if he dropped by > your house for a day, would stay for a month and use up all the towels > every time he took a shower. He will impose on Sec. Clinton or anyone else > because his movement and his needs come first. It is no wonder the Chinese > government is fed up with him and wants him gone. > > I understand the conservative mindset. In most aspects of life, I myself > am a stick in the mud. I like to eat the same kind of food and do the same > thing day in, day out. As Martin Fleischmann says, we are painfully > conventional people. It just happens than in a few selected areas of life, > we like to experiment and try out new ideas. I am crazy about new gadgets > that barely work, but have fantastic potential, such as microcomputers in > 1979 and cold fusion today. Once we get it to work, I lose interest. > > - Jed > >
