Fortean and Conventional Science
Charles Fort was a thinker and studier of science that would push the boundaries and rationalities of conventional science. Fort loathed the fact that certain ideas of science, mostly those that could be rationally explained, were widely accepted and that those ideas that could not be fully explained were not accepted or just disregarded and ignored altogether. During his time in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, Fort’s ideas that have been come to be known as Fortean Phenomenon, were largely criticized. It’s interesting to see how many of Fort’s ideas have been come to be the accepted ideas of conventional science today.
Fort’s first observation was that the lines between actual science and pseudoscience seem to not be clearly defined. He also noted that these unclear lines have a possibility of changing over time. Pseudoscience is when there are scientific theories and practices that appear to be scientific but have nothing to prove the theories. He also referred to the idea of magical thinking. Although he never mentioned the phrase specifically, he did insinuate the idea of people having control over what happens physically by taking control over what happens mentally. This concept has been extensively talked about today and specifically, the power of positive thinking to help us in our daily lives.
Fort is also quite famous for pointing out different ways that science works, and the flaws within the system. He stated that although the scientific facts were not biased one way or the other, the one interpreting the facts had a natural bias of some sort and therefore, it is not the facts that are flawed but rather that the interpreter’s idea of those facts may be what is flawed with science. He made example of this when speaking of scientific experiments, which are integral to a scientist’s work. He concluded that because the same experiment could be performed by two or more people and have a different result for each person conducting the experiment, then this proves that it is those conducting the experiment and the biases they bring with them rather than any flaws of the experiment itself.
Fort was way ahead of his time and he was one of the very few people of his time that wanted to question why things were or why they weren’t. He was a true scientist in the way that he did not enter any study to prove a point or a hypothesis; he simply wanted to find out the facts based on the data that was available.