Friday, May 5, 2017

Talk on "crackpot" theories

At UQ there is a great student physics club, PAIN. Today they are having a session on "crackpot" theories in science. Rather than picking on sincere but misguided amateurs I thought I would have a go at "mainstream" scientists who should know better. Here are my slides on quantum biology.

A more detailed and serious talk is a colloquium that I gave six years ago. I regret that the skepticism I expressed then seems to have been justified.

Postscript.
I really enjoyed this session with the students. Several gave interesting and stimulating talks, covering topics such as flat earth, last thursdayism, and The Final Theory of gravity [objects don't fall to the earth but rather the earth rises up to them...]. There were good discussions about falsifiability, Occam's razor, Newton's flaming laser sword, ...
There was an interesting mixture of history, philosophy, humour, and real physics.

I always find to encouraging to encounter students who are so excited about physics that they want to do something like this on a friday night.

1 comment:

  1. I find your obsession with "quantum biology" rather bizarre. Instead of acussing seious people of being crackpots, you could take some time to read the work that has been done in the 10 years that have passed since the publications quoted in your rather out of date "slides". Given your frequent comments on how much your care about students, it find it puzzling that you are happy delivering such a misleading presentation to a student audience. Hopefully, students will be clever enough to find and read more comprehensive material.

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