Call Arthur Koestler

Back in the '80s I ran a research foundation set up by Arthur Koestler and Brian Inglis to look at areas in science which lie beyond the bounds of orthodoxy. Koestler had already written two books on the subject of coincidence: "The Roots of Coincidence" and "The Challenge of Chance". Brian Inglis and I went on to collaborate on a book on intuition: "The Unknown Guest". I gathered the case studies -- rather as you're doing we developed a scheme for classifying them. After Koestler's death I decided I'd had enough of bashing my head against the brick wall of scientific orthodoxy so turned to other interests: human rights, biodiversity, the environment and health -- and most recently food and farming. The complete set of Koestler's books sat on my bookshelves but I didn't take any down to read. Until that is a week or so ago. I was running a conference here in Oxford on farming (The Oxford Real Farming Conference) and had managed to recruit a young post grad to help organise it. Her mother had been a farmer she told me, though she had studied PPE at Lady Margaret Hall; she herself had a Masters in development studies. Her mother came to the conference and we duly met. But rather than talk about how the conference was going she told me how delighted she was to see the name of Alister Hardy's research unit still there on the door in Mansfield Road. Why? Because her first husband had worked with Alister Hardy and had written a book with him and Arthur Koestler on chance. She had no idea of my connection with Koestler. I rarely talk about my time with him. I was intrigued and that evening (January 6) took down "The Challenge of Chance" and had a quick glance at it -- but that was all. I determined to take it away with me to read once the conference was over. I started reading her dad's chapter on January 13. The next morning I heard the item on Radio 4 about this research work. I hope you've read the book. It certainly deserves renewed attention. I also hope that being a Prof in the Public Communication of Risk you don't assume that Jo public is just gullible, ready to claim meaning where none exists. I found that when I did some consultancy work for the WHO (Euro) on the communication of risk -- looking at environment and health issues, s/he was in many cases ahead of the game.