Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Fordist

Sooner or later we have to deal with Charles Ford in this book.For Ford turned his heaviest cannon on the astronomers, and let his imagination run wild, inventing unorthodox views of the heavens at will.Therefore, it seems appropriate to introduce him from this aspect. Charles Ford was born in Albany, New York in 1874.He was very fond of science since he was a child, and collected many minerals and insect specimens, and sometimes made specimens of birds.He never went to college, worked as a reporter for a while, tried a novel, "The Abandoned Manufacturers," 1909) and some short stories (published in Theodore Dreiser's "Smith Magazine), and later he received a small inheritance, which enabled him to freely pursue his vast research work.In the last 26 years of his life, he searched through old newspapers and magazines, and extracted all the anecdotes and strange things that happened in the past that did not conform to the established scientific theories.The vast majority of this work was carried out in the British Museum.He later returned to New York, where he lived in the Bronx with his wife, Anna, and continued his research at the New York Public Library.

In Ford's room were shoeboxes of notes and newspaper clippings, stuffed spiders and butterflies on the walls, and an asbestos-like filth that had fallen from the sky beneath a glass pane.He played a single-player pastime of his own invention called "super checkers," which involved thousands of soldiers on a large chessboard with thousands of squares.According to novelist Tiffany Thayer, his wife never knew what was going on in her husband's head and "never read a book he wrote or anyone else wrote." Ford had only two friends, Dreiser and Thayer.Convinced of Ford's genius, Dreiser persuaded his own publisher to publish the first of Ford's four books, The Book of the Lost.Ford uses the word "sinking" to mean all those ideas that have been rejected by dogmatic science, those "suffering" materials.Ford made it his mission to "rescue" these materials from the sinking.The writing style of this book is peculiar and dull.But sometimes there are passages of wit, wit, and beauty.

Ford's second book, The New Land, was published in 1923, with an introduction by Booth Tarkington.At this point, many American writers were drawn to Ford's yelling attack on what he called the "clergymanship" of the scientific world. In 1931, Thayer invited writers to a historic banquet at Savoy Square.From this gathering, the Ford Association was born.In addition to Dreiser and Thayer, the founders of the association included Alexander Woolcott, Tarkington, Ben Hecht, Burton Lasker, and John.Cowie Powys and other literary celebrities. Ford's third book was called "Look! ".Thayer writes, "'Voila!' was the title I suggested because it's about astronomers doing endless calculations, pointing to the sky and saying, 'Look! "There was going to be a new star, or some kind of phenomenon. But there was nothing to be seen in the place they pointed to. As soon as Ford heard the name, he immediately agreed." Ford's last book, " The Gift of the Wild, published a few weeks after his death in 1932.

In 1937, Tiffany Thayer began publishing at his own expense The Ford Association Journal, later called Doubtful.Ford once bequeathed 32 boxes of unpublished notes to Thayer (an action that angered Dreiser).Because one of the purposes of that magazine is to publish these notes, a part of each issue.However, the main purpose of this journal is to antagonize the scientists as much as possible, and it publishes all kinds of news that the scientists cannot explain, or things that demean the scientists.The Doubt gleefully reported on an English astronomer who once fell from a telescope.The news was provided to Thayer by "correspondents" from the "Ford Association" and readers of the magazine.

A pamphlet issued by the association states the purpose of the association as follows: The Ford Society is an international organization of philosophers, a group of men and women who can live with equanimity in the absence of law.Their behavior is not the result of conditioned reflexes, but the result of brain thinking, or rather, the result of some mysterious eccentricity of their own... Well-known scientists, physicists and doctors, chiropractors, spiritualists Christians and Christians (even Catholic priests) are required to be members of this association... The Association provides a refuge for those causes which have failed, most of which would have been extinct had it not been sympathetic.  …Many flat-earth advocates, anti-vivisectionists, anti-compulsory vaccinations, anti-syphilis bacteria testers, and those who still believe that disarmament of countries is a good thing..., have been able to become members of this association.

Our members embrace the only "theory" of Fordism, which is to be slow to draw conclusions, to accept temporarily, to doubt forever... In many respects the Ford Society resembled the Sherlock Holmes admirers of the Baker Street Squad.Just as the Squad insisted on the elaborate narrative that Holmes was real, so the Fordists insisted on the elaborate narrative that Ford's wild conjectures were as likely to be as accepted science (which Ford called "confirmed"). fallacy") is as true.This association is actually a big joke,.But Thayer and most of the members took it very seriously, and the fact that they made a fuss about telling a joke was enough of a joke in itself.Incidentally, all the communications between members of the Ford Association use a calendar of 13 months. The year 1931, when the association was established, is the "Year 1", and the 13th month is naturally called "Ford Month".

Before examining Ford's attitude towards science and drawing some conclusions about it, it is perhaps best to look at his unique theory of the universe. Ford was very disgusted with astronomers. The first half of The New Land is devoted almost entirely to proving that all astronomers are dumb, worse than astrologers at predicting events, that their great discoveries are made by chance, and that Be slick and hide from the public that their "medieval science" cannot be trusted at all. Ford wrote, "They calculated the orbit of Uranus. Uranus went somewhere else. They explained, and they made more calculations. They went on explaining, and they went on calculating, year after year, and on and on, and Uranus has been orbiting elsewhere." Finally, to save face, they asserted that Uranus was "perturbed" by another planet.For the next 50 years, they pointed their telescopes all over the sky until they stumbled across Neptune.The motion of Neptune is still unpredictable.If astronomers are as good as they think they are, Ford challenged them to find another planet beyond Neptune.Sadly, he wrote it before Pluto was discovered in 1930, but Ford still came out victorious because Pluto turned out to be much smaller than astronomers expected.

Ford did not formulate a cosmology in detail.He did, however, offer a series of ideas which he did not consider any more absurd than the solar system proposed by scientists. "...the decaying colossus of the solar system, whimpering through space, the sores on the sun and the ghastly moon, and all the civilizations that have arisen out of science, shocking the capable and sound universe .. the solar system is a leper that stretches out tremblingly into the vastness of space into which the merciful universe drops golden comets..." Ford proposed that the earth is relatively stationary. "Maybe, the earth is indeed rotating, but on a yearly cycle. As for which statement is reasonable, like others, I have my own views. This is my compromise." He also waved to Foucault. This traditional "evidence" of the daily rotation of the earth is answered in considerable detail.

In order to explain that the stars are moving around the earth, Ford believed that there is an opaque shell not far from the earth.The stars are holes in the shell through which the light shines.The reason why the stars flicker may be due to the "vibration" of the shell.The shell is not hard. "There may be a vortex of dense matter in some places, so the stars or pores will revolve around each other..." Meteors splashed from time to time, passing through the jelly-like part of the shell.As the meteor flies by, it separates clumps of material.Ford compiled hundreds of records of jelly-like material falling from the sky during meteor spatters.He warned sailors that they might one day find themselves "glued like raisins," but admitted, "I myself think it's absurd to say that the whole sky is jelly, if only Certain areas are like that, which seems acceptable."

Ford proposed that the nebula is a luminous body attached to the shell.Dark nebulae are opaque.Some nebulae may be protrusions, hanging "like giant stalactites in a large dome-shaped cave."One, known as the Horsehead Nebula, is "a lone and spooky one that doesn't mix with the other nebulae into a phosphorescent mottle. It's a solid-looking mass of darkness, like the Woolworth House where the Republicans sat on election night." Even as the rest of Broadway basks in the celebratory craziness of the Democratic victory, it remains equally murky." Ford in "Look! "It is written in the book, "In the lands of the stars, there may be civilizations, or it is the case that in the concave surface of the star-studded shell, there are still large habitable areas, waiting for the human beings on the earth. Go pioneering. Here’s Ford’s verse imagining a future of space travel:

the time has come, The slogan has been raised: Hey, fly to the sky! People flock to the stars.There are many explorers, but there are also movie news, newspaper reporters and interviews.A man traveling to the Lyra constellation saved money by revealing the brand of cigarettes he was carrying. Ford claimed that somewhere in the sky there was a sea of ​​kelp with an island in it that he called "the birthplace."All kinds of objects and organisms that descend on the earth often come from these "birthplaces".Ford collected thousands of references to worms, fish, dead birds, bricks, carved stone and iron, colored rain, tiny frogs (to his bewilderment, tadpoles were never found), and the oddity of conch shells. record of the phenomenon.Most of these things are some garbage that was blown into the sea of ​​​​kelp from the earth or other planets in recent times or many centuries ago. There are indeed examples of red rain falling from the sky.The usual explanation is that the red dust was mixed with water.But Ford's explanation is even better: The blood-river-like veins are distributed in the sea of ​​albumen, or in other words, there is a hatching egg-shaped body, and the earth is a partial center of its growth.In the "birthplace" there are many blood vessel arteries.The sunset glow will show their appearance.These arteries sometimes dye the sky red with the Northern Lights... In other words, our entire solar system is a living thing.The rain of blood falling on Earth is the internal bleeding of the solar system. In other words, there are a large number of living things in the sky, just like there are a lot of living things in the ocean. Or rather, there was a special guy in a special place at a special time.This thing is the size of the Brooklyn Bridge and lives in outer space.Another guy the size of Central Park killed it. Then it dripped blood. Charles Ford had a thousand other equally prolific theories, which I shall have occasion to mention in later chapters of this book.However, we now have to be clear about how to treat his messy statements.Was Ford a humorist, or a madman?Were his books, as Hecht puts it, a "highly conceived joke," or did he really believe what he said? Tiffany Thayer should know.His 1941 introduction to Ford's four-book bound set a definitive answer. "As a close friend of the author for many years, allow me to assure you that he does not believe this narrative at all...Charles Ford was by no means a paranoid. Believe—any sane person would know that from the facts themselves. He made the argument, only in jest—as the Lord must have made the platypus, so that man might..." Thayer had written earlier in the same essay that Ford "had a laugh at writing in any respect . , made him laugh. He laughed at their mistakes, he laughed at their mistakes, he laughed at his readers and reporters. He also laughed at himself for engaging in this kind of research, for such stupid things. Those book reviews I wrote, even responded with a helpless wry smile. He laughed even more when he saw that I spent a lot of money and money to start the "Ford Association". "...Charles Ford had an astonishing 'sense of humor' which enabled a thoughtful man to take a tolerant attitude to life. Never forget this when you read him. If Forget this and you will be fooled. Sometimes he will make you very angry. But when your anger rises, remember that he intends to make you angry. And just when you are furious, he will raise his head , why did you sneer at you..." At this point, one can't help but ask why Ford spent 26 years on what he once called "insignificant problems" and read 25 years of "London Daily" if he didn't believe in his theories. What about the Daily Mail?The answer is that, behind Ford's madness, there are more hidden meanings than can be seen at a glance. Ford was a Hegelian.In the final analysis, existence, not the universe we see, but everything in the universe, is a unity.There is an "underlying unity," a "mutually sustained interconnectedness" that ties everything together.He wrote, "I think we are a bunch of worms and rats, each reacting differently to a rich block of cheese." Ford is not religious, but he admits that the totality of things may be intelligent organisms, and it is not wrong to say that It is God. "Maybe it was he or it that casually made comets and earthquakes..." Thus, there is ultimate reality and truth.But for us little worms and mice, light can only be intermittent, truth can only be half-truths, and truth can only be in name.Everything is in an "ambiguous state".Ford has always liked to use adjectives such as "true or false", "like or not like", "good or bad", "material or non-material", "understanding or not understanding".Since everything is continuous with everything else, it is impossible to draw a line between truth and fiction.If science accepts red and rejects yellow, what about orange?Similarly, everything that science "contains" contains errors, and everything "condemned" by science contains a certain amount of truth. Ford had this meditation on continuity in everything, and it led him into extreme skepticism.Like the skeptics of ancient Greece who were convinced of the maxim "no more" (meaning that one belief is "no truer than" another), Ford believed in everything.He wrote, "The six sickle-shaped stars of the constellation Leo...shine in the sky like a big question mark...God knows all the answers." He wrote, "I don't believe in anything. clumsy, do not listen to the teachings of the sages of the past, do not listen to the teachings of the great teachers of the ages, perhaps it is the solitude that makes me so hospitable. I close the front door to Christ and Einstein, but I open the back door to Little frogs and conchs extend their hands in welcome." Ford could have written, "I don't believe anything I've written," but he didn't believe everything he'd read, and that's a big deal worth mentioning.He said in the book "The Gift of the Wild", "In this book, I ... clearly call everything a fiction", but he went on to say that, like Newton's "Principles" and Darwin's, A fiction in the sense of a mathematical principle, like all American history books. Ford doubted everything, including his own speculations.His brilliant admirers insisted that he was not science's number one enemy, but against scientists who had forgotten the ephemeral nature of all knowledge.What they wanted to emphasize was the sound, healthy side of Fordism.It's not bad that there are no indisputable scientific theories.It is also true that all scientific "facts" are subject to constant revision as new "materials" are discovered.It is impossible for any scientist worthy of the name to think otherwise.But it is also true that scientific theories can be substantiated to varying degrees.Ford's blindness to this basic fact is the fallacy and unhealthiness of this blindness.If a member of the Baker Street squad starts to think that Holmes is a real person, all good fun in the game will be lost.Likewise, when a member of the Fordist faction seriously believes that all scientific theories are equally absurd, the rich sense of humor of the Ford Society fades away, giving way to ignorant derision. Ford himself admitted that while everything is continuous, there is also "discontinuity".He explained it in his own way.Microscopically, he says, some forms of life don't tell you whether they're animals or plants, but that doesn't mean we can't tell the difference between something as disparate as a hippopotamus and a violet.Clearly it never occurred to Ford that, having admitted this, it would be possible to draw a dividing line between theories of great truth and theories of least truth. It is necessary to elaborate a little on this matter, which has important implications for every problem dealt with in this book.If we are unable to distinguish truth from falsehood, science from pseudoscience, then this book would be better off simply introducing figures like Newton and Darwin.A decent Fordist would have said "Of course!" But, the fact is clear, we can make the distinction.Of course, there will be many situations in between, such as orange and yellow between red and yellow. When encountering similar situations, we cannot categorically say that a certain theory should be respected or dismissed. reasonable or unreasonable.But with something as disparate as a hippopotamus and a violet, we can distinguish the scientific value of Einstein's work from the contribution of Velikovsky.Let's admit for a moment that Einstein could be wrong and Velikovsky could be right, but the odds are extremely small, but the two extremes of this continuum are so different that we have Reasons may call one of them a scientist and the other a pseudoscientist. Ford himself must have been well aware that the line could be drawn.In a book he wrote he spelled out why he didn't mention Santa Claus.He wrote, "I am strict with arguments. I have seen no record or so-called record of mysterious footprints found on the snow, on the roof, going to the chimney...".Lacking evidence, Ford therefore tends to "rule out" the Santa claim. There is a very interesting section in The Gift of the Wild.In this section, Ford argues against a newspaper report of a dog saying "Good morning" and disappearing in a pale green mist.It wasn't the talking dog that troubled Ford, because there was a lot of talk about animals in the newspaper clippings he collected.What troubled him was that the dog disappeared in the light green smoke.So he said, "You can't fool me with your story about the dog."But he made it clear that he drew the line only because everyone has to draw a line in some way.He is careful not to state this line in terms of truth and falsehood. Perhaps we took Ford's words too seriously and fell for him in another way.Ford was by no means an ignorant fellow, so his remarks on the "uncertainty principle" in modern quantum theory show that he has a deep understanding of the topic.It is currently out of date to object to the idea that the movement of electrons is "random".However, Ford's sarcasm is consistent with the more specialized criticisms of Einstein and Russell!Even if Ford made one of those silly and ludicrous mistakes in science which he has occasionally made in the past, it is hard to tell whether he made it on purpose or through lack of knowledge. Oddly enough, Ford had no interest in science fiction.There is no indication that he ever read a single sentence of the novel.Perhaps this explains why his speculations, while interesting, are not particularly original.For example, his idea of ​​a star with a rotating shell is a clumsy creation, when in fact an Italian paranoid had already suggested it.It is often said that Ford had a strong influence on modern sci-fi, but this seems to be an exaggeration.True, about a dozen novels and dozens of short stories were based on some of his ideas.But these works are not so much science fiction as they are fantastic stories of all kinds, and such Fordist terms as "teleportation" have become the main features of science fiction.But in general, his ideas proved too banal to form the plot of the story.Dreiser once tried unsuccessfully to convince HG Wells that Ford's work contained material for writing science fiction.Wells always believed that Ford's conjectures were nothing but scientific nonsense. How the Ford Association can continue to exist is difficult to understand.If we live in an age where most citizens have a clear understanding of science, it might make sense to maintain an organization that reminds scientists of their shortcomings.The astrology magazines on the bookstores, as well as the sales of the books Velikovs refers to, are enough to show that we are still far from such an era. There was a lot of Coke in 1931.Now that the magazine of the Ford Association, Doubt, is still alive, the joke should have been buried with Ford.The magazine was nothing more than a cliché that glorified Fordism, reported news that wasn't ridiculous, and published the worthless notes that Ford bequeathed Thayer.Its recent attacks on tonsillectomy and vivisection are particularly repugnant and humorless.Not to mention the fact that the editors often mixed in their reports political biases that had nothing to do with Fordist theory. Even those promoted by the Ford Association as "scientists" are mostly mediocre and uninspired.Major General Alfred Drayson, for example, was the number two Fordist figure after Ford himself.In the second half of the last century, Drayson was a professor at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, England.He explained that the Earth's ice ages were caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis. "Drayson's hypothesis" is very popular in Britain, especially in the military.Drayson himself spent a great deal of money, published books and pamphlets, and took to heart the opposition of orthodox astronomy to his views.The late astrologer Alfred Bailey, a member of the Ford Institute, published The Drayson Problem in 1922.The Ford Association is now selling the book again, in case anyone wants to explore the major general's theories. In recent years there has been a visible, though small, Fordist tendency among the upper echelons of education.This tendency may have been partly due to the revival of religious orthodoxy, partly due to dissatisfaction with the atomic bomb.It is at its most acute in some parts of the famous Hutchins-Adler movement.Admittedly, not everything about this movement is in official form, but if you know many of the "classic" educators.You'd be surprised by the fact that most of them see scientists collectively as a stupid bunch.The so-called stupidity is compared with the professors of the humanities, especially those who are actively engaged in the work of "classics". The scientific "classics" collected in Hutchins-Adler's 54-volume "Masterpieces of the Western World" (1952) have a long period of time and special content, except for experts who specialize in the history of science. Apart from reference value, it has little meaning for other readers.As Bernard Kornger, associate professor of the history of science at Harvard University, said in a review of this collection (Sunday Review, September 20, 1952), "The scientific masterpieces collected in this collection have only An archaeological value. Not only is a field such as geology neglected, but almost all the important scientific trends of the last two and a half centuries are barely reflected". The educational ideas of Robert Hutchins were practiced with great success at St. John's College in Annapolis.Indeed, they have done a great deal in science.The college's schedules blatantly show that they require more mathematics courses and laboratory experiments than any other college.Moreover, there is even a pretentious list of all the instruments used by the students, such paraphernalia as compass, compass and ruler.But with the emphasis on the history of science in the past, there is not much time left for a firm grasp of modern scientific knowledge. British chemist Anthony Standen (now an American citizen) wrote the book "Science is a Divine Cow" in 1950, criticizing "scientism".Standen taught at St John's College from 1942 to 1946.According to The Catholic World (February 1950), Standen's teaching experience "finally converted him to the Church." According to Standen, modern scientists as a whole are overconfident, cocky, pretentious, and not as brilliant as they think they are.Educators of such lofty enthusiasm as Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins were believed to be modest and unassuming.John Dewey was reviled for arguing that the future of civilization depended on the popularization of scientific ideas.Didn't Hilaire Bellock tell us that the more popular science is, the worse the world will be? (The book gives a brief introduction to Belloc's scientific knowledge in Chapter Eleven.) Standen makes similar advocacy for Aristotle.The Greek philosopher was right because he said that heavy objects fall faster than light objects, because the resistance of the air has less influence on heavy objects. Why should he praise Galileo so much?Also, Galileo didn't drop his two weights on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, that was on some other tower.Standen does not tell us that Aristotle used the example of falling bodies as a proof of the sheer absurdity that he wanted to show that a vacuum cannot exist. Standen tells us that "the first purpose of science is to know and praise God by what he has done with his own hands".Social scientists are foolish enough to think they can develop an ethics without theology.Biologists try to make us think of evolution as a slow process through stages; in fact, there are equally good reasons to think of evolution as leaps and bounds (Standen does not reveal his inner motivation here. If It is said that evolution is a leap, then man can have a soul that is completely different from that of animals).When a biologist spouts nonsense that the ultimate purpose of animal life is to seek comfort, "the necessary and sufficient answer to this question is 'nonsense.'" Standen concluded, "We must be careful that scientists do not force anything upon us." Charles Ford expressed the same thought: "...if no one tells the astronomers Those questions are looked up, tested, and they can say whatever they like." Science, Standen wrote, “is the great cow of our time.”If scientists had any sense of humor about it, they would find it ridiculous that they bowed down to science.It's doubtful, though, that scientists will be much interested in what Ford is talking about about the cows. On May 25, 1899, the Toronto Globe carried a story about a cow that gave birth to two lambs and a calf. Ford commented, "I don't know if this story will surprise everyone, but in the eyes of a competent biologist, if I were to tell people that an elephant gave birth to two bicycles and a small Like, it is not necessarily more absurd." Poor old Ford! Hey, fly to the sky!