Understanding science: The invaluable fringes of science

The last post [1] described clear evidence that the conventional wisdom needs to displace “science” from the God-like pedestal it has occupied for many decades; one reason is the need to pay attention to well-qualified and well-informed voices that critique the mainstream consensus.

It has become the general practice to accept as unquestionably factual what scientific authorities disseminate. But that is only whatever so-called “consensus” has attained hegemony in the particular research community. Not widely enough appreciated is that any given consensus reflects only one particular interpretation of evidence while other interpretations may be equally plausible.

As noted in my previous post [1], the widely accepted consensus on such major issues as HIV, COVID, or climate change was dissented from, and continues to be disagreed with, by a very substantially large minority of well-informed inside

One of the paths that led me to this understanding was an interest in topics that the mainstream of science regards as beyond the pale, matters often described as fringe science or pseudo-science.

The intellectual environment that I found most congenial for some three decades is the Society for Scientific Exploration [2]. It was founded by well-established scholars and scientists, most prominently a group of astronomers and astrophysicists, together with engineers, psychologists, statisticians, sociologists, and others. The astronomy theme was that claims of “ flying saucers” or “UFOs” should be investigated properly — which may now (half a century later!) be starting to happen after the claims have been renamed as “UAP”s [3].

This would not, by any means, be the first time that officialdom and mainstream science has had to admit that a topic once firmly categorized as pseudo-science is a genuinely real matter deserving, indeed needing to be studied and understood. Among other examples mentioned in my overview, Science or Pseudoscience [4], is that of the interactions between electromagnetic energy and physiological processes. That had been written off as quackery at various times during the 19^th century, yet has become even the chief continuing research interest of some well-established contemporary scientists (for example, Michael Levin [5]).

On such publicly and politically salient matters as AIDS, COVID, or climate change, the mainstream consensus was wrong in important ways: respectively, in these cases, definitely, or definitely on some points, or almost certainly. But somehow the conventional wisdom is not yet able to pay attention to highly qualified voices pointing this out. Fringe topics provide an opportunity to observe how equally qualified and informed experts are able to reach diametrically opposite conclusions; thus the fringes of science offer excellent material for learning about the complexities and difficulties of observing and interpreting different kinds of evidence.

My own continuing main interest has been the nature of the Loch Ness “monsters”; and I illustrated the difficulty of interpretation by showing how the very same pieces of evidence can be quite plausibly interpreted either as supporting the reality of the creatures or, to the contrary, their existence as only mythical [6].

My personal interpretation of the evidence that is available nowadays [7] makes me quite sure that the animals are real, albeit their exact genetic nature remains a matter for speculation [7a]. Many other well-informed individuals reached the same opinion: Tim Dinsdale, who filmed the back of a “monster” in 1960; Sir Peter Scott and several other wildlife experts; Robert Rines and his team of sonar and underwater photography experts that included Harold Edgerton, Medal-of-Freedom honoree for inventing strobe photography; Roland Watson, who has written several noteworthy books [8] and publishes a contemporary blog [9].

Many of the popular books written by professional scientists or science writers continue to deny the reality of Nessies.

An interesting individual here is Adrian Shine. For a decade or more he sought evidence for the existence and nature of “Morag”, the cousin of Nessie reported from Loch Morar. Unsuccessful there, Shine moved to Loch Ness and, during a decade or so, recorded quite an impressive array of sonar echoes from apparently large, fast-moving, underwater objects. At some point, for so-far unexplained reasons, Shine’s efforts turned to postulating alternative explanations for the various types of evidence for the reality of the creatures, efforts that Watson and I have critiqued [10]. Shine has summarized his views in a booklet [11], and has recently applied the same debunking approach to the centuries-long reports of “sea-serpents” [12], postulating similarities between eyewitness reports of Nessies and sea serpents by, among other things, greatly over-emphasizing the frequency at Loch Ness of “multi-humped” reports.

Different interpretations by equally well-informed and sensible commentators, quite often diametrically opposite interpretations, are more or less standard in topics on the fringes of science. The same is true within all of science and medicine, though that is less obvious to outsiders.

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[1] The full COVID story: an education in contemporary medicine and science and the fallibility of experts and institutions; https://henryhbauer.substack.com/p/the-full-covid-story-an-education
https://henryhbauer.substack.com/p/the-full-covid-story-an-education

[2] https://www.scientificexploration.org/

[3] “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena --- Preliminary Intelligence Assessment”; https://www.intelligence.gov/publics-daily-brief/publics-daily-brief-articles/unidentified-aerial-phenomena-preliminary-intelligence-assessment

[4] Henry H. Bauer, Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies, University of Illinois Press 2001

[5] https://drmichaellevin.org/\

[6] Henry H. Bauer, The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery, University of Illinois Press, 1986; Wipf & Stock, 2012

[7] https://henryhbauer.homestead.com/LochNessFacts.html

[7a] Henry H. Bauer, “Loch Ness Monsters as cryptid (presently unknown) sea turtles”, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 34 (2020) 93-104

[8] Roland Watson, The Water Horses of Loch Ness: An inquiry into the kelpie or water horse of Loch Ness and elsewhere, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011;
When Monsters Come Ashore: Stories of the Loch Ness Monster on Land, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018;
Photographs of the Loch Ness Monster: The good, the bad, and the ugly, 2019, ISBN-13: 9781793256843
Dragons West of Loch Ness: Tales of dragons roaming the hills and forests near Scotland’s infamous loch, Kindle, 2020;
How to Investigate a Loch Ness Monster Sighting, Kindle, 2022

[9] https://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com

[10] Henry H. Bauer & Roland Watson, “Failings of Nessie Debunkers and of Debunkers in General”, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 38 (2024) 138-54; https://journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/article/view/2877/2095

[11] Adrian Shine, Loch Ness, Loch Ness Project, 2006

[12] Adrian Shine, A Natural History of Sea Serpents, Whittles Publishing, 2025