We continue our discussion about ‘science’ and ‘pseudo science’ by taking a look at one idea that purports to be ‘scientific’, namely the idea of ‘reverse speech’. The website ‘reversespeech.com’ is owned by David Oates who claims to have invented, or at the very least, was a pioneer.
With the advent of magnetic tape in the 1950’s, sound engineers noticed ‘voices’ coming out when the the tape was played backwards. This phenomenon had long been known before Oates was born, so to claim discovery of this phenomenon by him is false.
More silly is the critics who deny that it exists at all, simply because it cannot be heard by some people. Often these people will also quote irrelevant scientific qualifications and percentages of random, untrained listeners who also cannot hear it on a web test.
The ancient Greeks thought anyone who could not speak Greek to be a barbarian, just making ‘bah bah’ noises like sheep. We could indeed call all those ‘Reverse Speech Deniers’ barbarians too!
So who discovered what? In the late 1980’s, Greg Albright discovered Indian and Hindu cultural reversals in recordings of central Australian Aborigines, contrary to all expectations of the ‘scientific knowledge’ of the day.
Rather than be ridiculed, he left the field to David Oates, despite newer evidence in DNA studies that do indeed show connections between South India and the Australian Aborigines.
Also in the late 1980’s, Oates found that a conversation between two TV journalists, conducted completely by a speech reversal on a TV recording, which accurately documented the true feelings of the journalists rather than the bland and non-defamatory (forward spoken) words.
In revealing that speech reversals were received and responded to in a meaningful, Oates has probably supplied the complete explanation to ‘telephone listener intuition’
So why is Oates not a darling of scientists? Why is he considered a ‘crackpot’ and a ‘loony?’
Like Franz Mesmer (1734 – 1815) (of ‘mesmerisation’ fame), who made money from stage hypnotism, Oates entertained his audience by revealing ‘Christian’ singers who had genuine beliefs (boring), but who really just wanted money – for example televangelists of the 1960’s, Jim and Tammy Bakker. By making wild pronouncements about certain prominent people, Oates made some money and lots of bitter enemies, including ‘scientists’ who saw him as a rival for their grant money.
Science broadcasters love reporting on, and indeed, setting up crowd research projects, so that everyone thinks science and scientists are really nice, as well as being figures of authority. Rarely is it revealed how much crowd-science is sabotaged by competing rival scientists. Like the rest of us, scientists are human with all our associated flaws. For example, the ‘Climategate’ scandal, where climate scientists knew their data was false but still peddled the same lies to get grant money.
Similarly, David Oates is a human being with flaws. When speech reversals revealed a parent’s feeling of guilt after a child’s death, he leapt to the conclusion that a crime had been committed. A newsworthy, but risky leap that could potentially be defamatory.
His web site offers therapy, but with no statistical evaluation of past results. Now bearing in mind that this is also typical of much of the typical medical treatments, at least with those, more is expected of them to gain any form of acceptance in current times. Oates may just be doing it for the money (like so many other scientists!)
Like climate change protagonists, who often have vested interests (for example, Tim Flannery’s financial interest in a failed geothermal plant in the Australian outback), and themselves pointing out the vested interests of their opponents (‘Climate Change Deniers’), anyone who questions the claims of these individuals, or indeed the details of them, may choose to reserve their judgment.
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