February 26 - Happy Birthday, Camille Flammarion

nPosted on February 26, 2019

Today is the birthday of French author Victor Hugo (see “Also on this date” below), but it’s also the birthday of the now-lesser-known French author Camille Flammarion.

nFlammarion, born on this date in 1842, was a bit of a Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), who is one of my personal heroes. Both Flammarion and Sagan were astronomers as well as writers. Both popularized science, and both dabbled in science fiction. Both were prolific, with Sagan writing hundreds of scientific papers and more than 20 books, and Flammarion writing more than 50 books.

nBut Flammarion seems really different from Sagan in at least one way. Flammarion seemed to be a lot less interested in evidence and a lot more prone to believe things without, or even despite, evidence than Sagan was.

It’s hard to compare, for sure, because Flammarion lived a seriously long time ago; people-as-a-species knew a lot less, and so even rockstar scientists like Sir Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727) and Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) were likely to have old-time beliefs that don’t stand up to evidence that we now have. For example, Newton spent decades mucking about with alchemy, in part attempting to make gold out of “base metals” and thus looking for the legendary Philosopher’s Stone. And, although Darwin was an abolitionist who detested slavery, he referred to Aboriginal people as “savages” and at least once used the phrase “favoured race,” so we can see that he had absorbed and held the racist views prevalent in his time: that some races were better than others.

nBut Flammarion believed things that scientists and even some non-scientists of his own time were scratching their heads over. Here are a few of those questionable beliefs:

Martians had tried to communicate with humans on Earth in the past.

A seven-tailed comet was heading toward Earth in 1907.

Gas from the tail of Halley’s Comet would “impregnate” Earth’s atmosphere and possibly kill all life on the planet.

After death, people pass from planet to planet, improving every time they are reborn.

nI want to point out that Flammarion did write science fiction – which is sometimes called “speculative fiction” – and he may have made some of the suggestions above as mere speculation – suggestions of what if? – NOT as truth-claims.

Also, Flammarion tried to use the scientific method to examine a variety of psychic phenomena, and he was able to find evidence-based answers to many psychic claims. He pointed out that mediums often cheat and that automatic writing is explained by the subconscious mind.

But not only was he fooled by some so-called hauntings and supposed telepaths, he was fooled at a time when others were not. The famous magician Harry Houdini, who lived during Flammarion’s lifetime, reviewed a book by Flammarion and was able to point out errors in logic and evidence. (Yep, that’s right, the magician seemed to know more about the scientific method than the scientist. Sigh.)

Actually, magicians are often the people who are
able to debunk false claims, because they are
very well acquainted with how to make illusions, how
to trick people into seeing things that just aren’t so.

Above, James Randi, who has debunked loads of
modern so-called psychics and also faith healers.