Kit Pedler

I am watching the old BBC drama series Doomwatch on DVD. Made about 50 years ago, it deals with the activities of a fictitious government department tasked with investigating the harmful side-effects of scientific and technological research, and particularly their impact on the environment. Kit Pedler was the co-creator of the series, and had also been an adviser for Doctor Who and co-creator of the Cybermen.

I had heard of Pedler, but hadn't realised he was also interested in parapsychology. Shortly before his death in 1981 he co-presented with Tony Bastable a TV series entitled "Mind over Matter," which was accompanied by a book entitled "Mind Over Matter: A Scientist's View of the Paranormal" published in the same year. The series is described online as the first British TV series on the paranormal.

Wikipedia has a damning comment on the book, but of course that may just be Wikipedia:
"Pedler was the author of Mind Over Matter (1981) which was based on the television series. The book argued for psychic phenomena such as psychokinesis and remote viewing. He also wrote there may be evidence for an "intelligent and massively ordered design" in the universe.[10] The book was criticized for making incorrect statements about science.[11] The science writer Georgina Ferry in a review wrote that the book and television series contained errors, lacked objectivity and is "not good science, neither is it good television".[12]
10. Astrological Magazine, Volume 77, Issues 6-12. p. 17
11. Nicolas Walter. (1981). Cheating in science. New Scientist. 28 May. p. 582
12. Georgina Ferry. (1981). Mind over matter. New Scientist 21 May. p. 511"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Pedler

I could find only one episode of the TV series online:

Just to add, perhaps Pedler's interest in psi accounts for the otherwise unexplained presence of a parapsychology library in this Doctor Who episode from the 1960s. The serial was based on a story by Pedler:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-h...0#pid20520

I am watching the old BBC drama series Doomwatch on DVD. Made about 50 years ago, it deals with the activities of a fictitious government department tasked with investigating the harmful side-effects of scientific and technological research, and particularly their impact on the environment. Kit Pedler was the co-creator of the series, and had also been an adviser for Doctor Who and co-creator of the Cybermen.

I had heard of Pedler, but hadn't realised he was also interested in parapsychology. Shortly before his death in 1981 he co-presented with Tony Bastable a TV series entitled "Mind over Matter," which was accompanied by a book entitled "Mind Over Matter: A Scientist's View of the Paranormal" published in the same year. The series is described online as the first British TV series on the paranormal.

Wikipedia has a damning comment on the book, but of course that may just be Wikipedia:
"Pedler was the author of Mind Over Matter (1981) which was based on the television series. The book argued for psychic phenomena such as psychokinesis and remote viewing. He also wrote there may be evidence for an "intelligent and massively ordered design" in the universe.[10] The book was criticized for making incorrect statements about science.[11] The science writer Georgina Ferry in a review wrote that the book and television series contained errors, lacked objectivity and is "not good science, neither is it good television".[12]
10. Astrological Magazine, Volume 77, Issues 6-12. p. 17
11. Nicolas Walter. (1981). Cheating in science. New Scientist. 28 May. p. 582
12. Georgina Ferry. (1981). Mind over matter. New Scientist 21 May. p. 511"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Pedler

I could find only one episode of the TV series online:

I've now watched the video. I have to say I was very surprised that this could have been made by a commercial TV station in the UK in 1981, and I don't think it could be now. There were no gee-whiz experiments - just a succession of talking heads discussing scientific ideas and philosophy. Partly Kit Pedler and Tony Bastable in the studio, and partly Lawrence LeShan, David Bohm, Brian Josephson (whose YouTube channel the video was posted on), Geoffrey Chew, Charles Tart, Elizabeth Rauscher, and Fritjof Capra in filmed contributions. Brian Inglis is also credited as an adviser.

Pedler seems to have been in the forefront of those seeing Bell's Theorem (though it wasn't named) as a relevant to parapsychology, though I didn't think he pushed it too far as an explanation. (In the compendious Handbook of Parapsychology published in 1977, the few  references to Bell that I can see relate only to his criticisms of hidden variable theories.) Possibly the description was simplified a bit for the programme, and it would be interesting to read exactly how he described it in the book. But from the tenor of his comments in the programme, I'd be surprised if there was very much for scientific critics to take offence at, unless it was the mere fact of openness to psi. I also found it interesting that as early as 1981 physicists were seen as more sympathetic to the possibility of psi than those in other disciplines.

Apparently this was the sixth and penultimate episode of the series, in which Pedler and Bastable gave their conclusions. It seems there was to be a final episode of discussion. (An online source gives the broadcast dates as "12 May - 23 Jun 1981 (6 pts)", but unless there was a break that would indeed mean seven parts.)

I have ordered a copy of the accompanying book (despite already having a pile of books waiting to be read), which is available online for next to nothing.

Wikipedia has a damning comment on the book, but of course that may just be Wikipedia:
"Pedler was the author of Mind Over Matter (1981) which was based on the television series. The book argued for psychic phenomena such as psychokinesis and remote viewing. He also wrote there may be evidence for an "intelligent and massively ordered design" in the universe.[10] The book was criticized for making incorrect statements about science.[11] The science writer Georgina Ferry in a review wrote that the book and television series contained errors, lacked objectivity and is "not good science, neither is it good television".[12]
10. Astrological Magazine, Volume 77, Issues 6-12. p. 17
11. Nicolas Walter. (1981). Cheating in science. New Scientist. 28 May. p. 582
12. Georgina Ferry. (1981). Mind over matter. New Scientist 21 May. p. 511"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Pedler

One really does have to take this stuff with a grain of salt.

What this refers to is a letter that Kit Pedler wrote to New Scientist, published on 21 May 1981, correcting a reference he had made in the TV series to a survey previously published in New Scientist, under the title "Cheating in Science." Apparently the majority of the readers who replied to the survey had seen cheating among their colleagues, but the then editor objected to Pedler's description of it on the grounds that (1) not all New Scientists' readers were scientists and (2) the readers who replied may have been unrepresentative. Pedler went to the lengths of rerecording the comment, though the programme had already been transmitted in some regions.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bs9c...&lpg=PA518

Nicolas Walter wrote another letter the following week, saying that the error had also been in the book, complaining that there had been no broadcast correction and also claiming that Pedler had sent him a letter threatening legal action:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=79YS...&lpg=PA582

An incorrect statement relating to science, I suppose, but scarcely what I'd been expecting on the basis of what Wikipedia said.

Wikipedia has a damning comment on the book, but of course that may just be Wikipedia:
"Pedler was the author of Mind Over Matter (1981) which was based on the television series. The book argued for psychic phenomena such as psychokinesis and remote viewing. He also wrote there may be evidence for an "intelligent and massively ordered design" in the universe.[10] The book was criticized for making incorrect statements about science.[11] The science writer Georgina Ferry in a review wrote that the book and television series contained errors, lacked objectivity and is "not good science, neither is it good television".[12]
10. Astrological Magazine, Volume 77, Issues 6-12. p. 17
11. Nicolas Walter. (1981). Cheating in science. New Scientist. 28 May. p. 582
12. Georgina Ferry. (1981). Mind over matter. New Scientist 21 May. p. 511"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Pedler

And Georgina Ferry's review is here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bs9c...&lpg=PA518

While it does say that (the first episode of) the series lacked objectivity and was "not good science [etc]," the only error mentioned in either the programme or the book is the same point about the description of the "Cheating in Science" survey. Given the tenor of Georgina Ferry's review, I assume if there had been any substantive scientific errors in either the first programme or the book, she would have mentioned them.

I have ordered a copy of the accompanying book (despite already having a pile of books waiting to be read), which is available online for next to nothing.

I found the book a bit disappointing. It's interesting as an overview of parapsychology in 1981 aimed at the layperson, and includes accounts of Pedler's visits to various labs during the making of the TV series and extracts from interviews with parapsychologists and sympathetic physicists (though probably the TV series would be more interesting than the book from this point of view). But in making the connection with the "new physics" I felt he went too far in trying to make it all easy and accessible, and perhaps ended up with something that on the one hand wasn't entirely correct and on the other was a bit too vague to be satisfying. Bell's Theorem had featured in Gary Zukav's book "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" published a couple of years earlier, which Pedler refers to.