The Suppression (and Resurrection) of New Science
Brian O'Leary

"The resistance to a new idea increases as the square of its
importance. " -- Bertrand Russell

Research on anomalies suggests we are in the midst of a major and unprecedented scientific revolution, based on principles of consciousness and contact. Yet universities, industry, governmental agencies, and foundations continue to resist support for most research on significant new findings. The media fancies sensationalistically polarizing debates between over-interpreters of anomalous data and uninformed skeptics, thus bewildering the public. This situation is consistent with the historical studies of Kuhn and others on paradigm shifts. Scientific disciplines are fragmented into specialties to the point where peer and funding pressures limit the scope of inquiry, which lead to denials about realities beyond. Because of this (often unconscious) conservative bias, scientists can become very unscientific when it comes to inquiry outside their own box. They ignore the anomalies and blindly rely on existing theories, thus unwittingly helping perpetuate powerful vested interests and possible conspiracies. New science is also fragmented into boxes. Researchers in psychokinesis, ufology, alternative medicine, materials anomalies, new energy, and planetary anomalies rarely speak with one another, for fear that one's already shaky credibility would be reinforced by venturing into "fringe" areas outside his or her own specialty. All this can create great anxiety for new scientists. Yet the ecological mandate and our thirst for the truth require that more scientists become less afraid of free and open inquiry outside the box. New paradigm scientists will need to be supported and respected for their work, not disdained and separated from old and new colleagues, as is now the case. We have the prosperity to create the needed infrastructure. The Society for Scientific Exploration could play a major role in bringing in the new paradigm.

Reproduced here with the author's permission (January 2000).

The Explorer (SSE), Summer 1999, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 7.