Sociologist Deng Weizhi dictated: The sensational "ear recognition" turmoil

"A drop of cold water" drops on a hornet's nest

On "Ear Recognition", I have published a book called "Critique of Pseudoscience". Today, let's talk about some of the unknown stories in the book!

The general process is as follows: On March 11, 1979, the Sichuan Daily reported a sensational news: Tang Yu, a twelve-year-old man in Dazu County, Sichuan Province, could read and write with his ears, and the person in charge of the provincial party committee met with Tang Yu. The news quickly spread throughout the country, and a number of men and women who knew how to read and write by ears and other parts immediately appeared in various places. However, I, a curious person, were not moved by this "sensational news". I laughed it off.

In August 1979, I participated in the review of the first volume of the encyclopedia at the Party School of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee at No. 2 Chegongzhuang, Beijing. A friend in Shanghai came to see me in Chegongzhuang, and said that Wang Bin and Wang Qiang, who were masters of ear recognition, lived in the staff dormitory of Xinhua Printing Factory opposite the Party School of the Municipal Party Committee. He also said that Wang Bin and Wang Qiang of Chegongzhuang are better than Tang Yu. Tang Yu put a piece of paper on his ear, while Wang Bin and Wang Qiang read through a metal tea box. My friend was going to check it out and pulled me along. Because it was nearby, I went with him. We put the pieces of paper we wrote on in the tea box, and Wang Qiang took it and placed it under his armpit covered by clothes. Wang Qiang walked around, and we suddenly heard the sound of the lid of the tea box opening, and after a while, she recognized it well. When we opened the tea box, we found that the flat piece of paper had become wrinkled. If the paper had not been removed, no matter how the paper was shaken in the box, it would not have crumpled like this. We have points in our hearts.

Later, the teachers of Beijing Normal University invited Wang Bin and Wang Qiang to the school's laboratory and pulled me to see them. After the teacher of Beijing Normal University glued the piece of paper with paste, he handed it over to Wang Bin and Wang Qiang to recognize. Wang Bin and Wang Qiang knew that they couldn't recognize it if they didn't open it, and they would show their feet if they opened it, so they had to admit that they were in a bad mood at this moment and couldn't recognize it. Later, the teacher of Beijing Normal University came again: there was no paper on the letterhead, but there were words on the credible envelope. After a while, the sisters said, "I didn't write." The answer is yes, but how did they get around the envelope and get to the stationery?

However, at this time, I still regarded ear recognition as a trick that happened everywhere, and I didn't take it seriously. However, when the ears were full of TV stations and the temple of science, especially when the "Nature" magazine run by the Shanghai Science and Technology Publishing House called the two sisters Wang Bin and Wang Qiang in Beijing the "champions" of ear and armpit literacy, I thought they were making a fuss, so I talked to a few friends who had heard the rumors of ear recognition about what they had seen in Chegongzhuang. Unexpectedly, the story I was telling was known to a reporter with a keen sense of hearing and smell, and asked me to write it. In view of the fact that many of the people who hyped up the ear literacy were acquaintances, I was afraid of hurting the harmony, so I took a pseudonym. However, the manuscript was sent to the editor-in-chief of Wen Wei Po, Mada, who said: "People say that it is true that the ear can read and write, and the real name is used." Deng Weizhi said that it was fake, how can he use a fake name? "I've always had a lot of respect for motors, so I listened to him. This is the article "Eyewitness of the "Recognition" of the Word "Recognition" in the Ears and Armpits" published in the "Wen Wei Po" on January 7, 1980 with his real name.

I wrote at the end of the article: "When I say this, I may be dropping a drop of cold water on the nascent 'ear heat'. "It's not that simple, it's a drop of cold water dripping on the hornet's nest, which has caused endless trouble: threatening letters, anonymous letters, reporting to the authorities, giving briefings, scolding me for everything. Once, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine asked me to give a lecture. Someone wrote to the University of Chinese Medicine and called me anonymously, to the effect that: "If Deng Weizhi criticizes the ear for reading and writing in his speech, we can fly Deng Weizhi's speech out outside the venue and knock Deng Weizhi unconscious on the podium." "I went to speak, and I began by telling the participants the contents of the letter and asking that no one come within a metre of me. I said: My speech is four pieces of paper, and in the course of my speech, if there is one less one, it will be a "great victory of the special function", and if you knock me down from a meter away, I will bear it, and I will not report to the police or prosecute. That day, the lecture lasted for two hours, the meeting was in good order, the speech was safe and sound, and I was safe and sound.

One general said that I "don't believe if you don't look" is idealism

After many failed performances of ear recognition, the advocates came up with two ideas: one was to change "ear recognition" to "human body's specific function". The change to "human body-specific functions" seems to be a retreat, but in fact it is an attack. That is to say, not only can the ears read and write, but also all parts of the human body have magical special functions, such as taking objects through the wall, the soul passing through the wall, seeing Daqing from Chongqing with the naked eye, seeing the father who has been dead for many years with the naked eye, and so on. By this time, ear literacy had evolved into a down-and-out "living ghost" spirituality. The second is to pull the banner and find the backstage. They found a general who had gone to college and was both civil and military. After watching the performances of the special people Zhang Baosheng and Yan Xin, the general believed it and unswervingly contributed money and efforts to the so-called special functions of the human body. Then I naturally became the opposite of the general.

The general wrote to the leaders of the State Science and Technology Commission, saying, "There is a Deng Weizhi, and he said that he can be sure that there is no special function without looking at the special function. This is typical idealism".

The leaders of the State Science and Technology Commission did not take the general's letter seriously. Because they not only know that I have seen it many times in Shanghai, but also know that I have watched many tricks of special people with their research office of the State Science and Technology Commission and the research office of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

I saw the ears of the daughters of FAW workers in Changchun FAW. When she performs, she must pull a child who claims to have no special abilities to perform with her. A child who doesn't have a special ability can walk around and flip around, and after she peeks at it almost blatantly, she tries to tell the child with a special ability. After the child with special abilities knew everything, she pretended not to know, deliberately posed in the distance, and then accurately said the word that the other child had already told her. They "succeeded". Finally, I took out my ID, put the back cover side up, and asked the children what was on the cover. A few minutes later, I put my ID in the pocket of my shirt. Children who don't have special functions can't look through my pockets, and children with special functions can't recognize them. Her father was smart, and through another child, he told the child with special abilities and said loudly: "Work permit." I took out my ID again, and the three big words "press card" appeared impressively. I was afraid that the child would be embarrassed, so I comforted her and said, "The right word, the testimony is right." "

I saw "tongue recognition" in Zhengzhou, Henan. My approach is still the same: paralyzing first, then serious. paralysis is to create conditions for their fraud and make her interested in testing; Seriously, I want to win the final victory, otherwise it will be contrary to the purpose of the test. The lady who knows the words on the tip of the tongue recognizes first, and then not. When I took my leave, the lady who knew how to read hurriedly caught up with me and said exactly what it was. I smiled wryly, saying goodbye was the biggest paralysis.

I also watched a lady in the corridor have a conversation with a cosmic person at the Nanchizi European and American Alumni Association in Beijing. They claimed: the words of the cosmic man were launched on this lady. We do hear the sound of "buzz", "buzz", but we don't understand the meaning of "buzz", "buzz". All translated by the lady: "Hello", "Have you eaten", etc. At that time, Yu Guangyuan, Gong Yuzhi, He Zuoma, Lin Zixin participated in the observation, and I remember several scientists from Hong Kong. Everyone can see at a glance how the trick has changed, just because she is a woman, it is inconvenient to lift her clothes to see what is going on.

Well, how could the general say that I don't watch? There is a reason for this: the newspaper said that the child of a teacher at Nanjing Agricultural College was able to read and write genitally. Someone asked me to look at it, and I said, "You can tell if it's fake without looking." "

As a result, I don't know whether someone else cut off the head and tail and told the general, or the general himself took it out of context, so he sued me to the top. Arguments are most avoidably emotional. Emotionality is the knife that castrates facts and truth.

I love my teacher, and I still love the truth

I have always had great respect for the great scientist Qian Lao, and Qian Lao also cared about me personally.

In 1980, Mr. Qian was integrating natural science and social science to establish a system. He needs young people to do something concrete for him. Someone close to him suggested to him that there was a Deng Weizhi in Shanghai who was engaged in social sciences before the "Cultural Revolution" and natural sciences during the "Cultural Revolution". Mr. Qian summoned me in the office, and we were full of interest and had the intention of keeping me by his side.

Who knows, just after that, he made a series of remarks to cheer up pseudoscience. Specific functions, he said, "could lead to a new scientific revolution in the 21st century, perhaps a greater scientific revolution than quantum mechanics and relativity in the 20th century." He also said: "The special function is the green leaf of socialism. "I was so sad when I knew, he was the one with the highest tone. I feel sorry for him. I told my colleagues that the performance of the special function is a real verification that "gentlemen are easy to deceive, but villains are difficult to deceive". I, Deng Weizhi, are small people, no matter what tricks they play, we will expose them mercilessly. The gentleman is different, when watching the performance, he sits upright, and will not stare at the performer "one by one", needless to say, it is difficult for the gentleman to see the flaws. This is where Qian Lao is worth understanding and should be forgiven.

Soldier against soldier, general against general. I am reminded of Zhang Xiangtong, a well-known expert in brain physiology at home and abroad. He has told me stories in the past that the state has repeatedly asked him to identify similar peculiar people. He said that in 1964, a young girl in Guangzhou claimed to be able to see the contents of the sealed letter. Some people didn't believe it at first, but then they believed it because they couldn't see any deceptive tricks. reported layer by layer, because Zhang Xiangtong, like Qian Lao, was also the property abandoned in United States in 1950, and took the opportunity to go to the Switzerland for a meeting, and returned to China with a small suitcase, and was the No. 1 brain scientist in China. Guangdong found such a strange person and asked him to take a look. He didn't believe it theoretically, but he couldn't find any cheating on the part of the girl. It's just that I feel that the girl always has to go to the bathroom after getting the envelope, which seems unreasonable. This time the girl went to the bathroom again, and the secretary of the party committee of the institute who accompanied Zhang Xiangtong said to several experts present: "I'm this old, and I haven't had that kind of thing for a long time, I'll go to the bathroom to have a look." He leaned under the door of the toilet room and looked up, and found that the girl did not urinate at all, but was holding "high-grade" tools and medicines to open the envelope. I think it was probably because of the "lack of assistants to go to the toilet with special people" around Qian Lao that he believed in pseudoscience.

However, Qian Lao should not praise the "special functions" of these people so highly, and when he mentions the height of the "scientific and technological revolution", he really has the sour taste of shouting "10,000 catties per mu" during the "Great Leap Forward". "I love my teacher, and I still love the truth." I said something about Qian Lao's "green leaf theory": "The special function is not the green leaf of socialism. Later this sentence made a briefing. Qian Lao saw it, sighed, and said to the people around him: "Alas! This guy is really ......."

Needless to say, in the chart of the discipline system established by Qian Lao, there is not a drop of sweat from me.

Defeat pseudoscience with science

We must not allow pseudoscience to flourish. Wherever pseudoscience goes, we have to expose it. Pseudoscience is demagogic by preaching its wonders. To a certain extent, they will inevitably become "strange gods". The most amazing of the peculiar people in the later period was Zhang Baosheng, who was also the most valued by Qian Lao and the aforementioned general who was both civil and military. He claimed that "the fire in Xing'anling was extinguished by him." That's big enough. Let's think about it, how much damage was caused by the Xing'anling fire more than 30 years ago! How much sacrifice did the firefighters make to extinguish the fire. Zhang "Qishen" blew and died, how amazing! However, "miraculous" and "miraculous" cannot withstand the criticism of science, neither the criticism of natural science nor the criticism of social science. After listening to Zhang Baosheng's boasting, a scholar rejected Zhang Baosheng: "Are you Chinese?" You have the ability to extinguish fires, why do you wait until the damage is great? Do you have a Chinese conscience? With this question, Zhang Baosheng never said that he extinguished the Xing'anling fire. Someone deliberately mentioned that he had extinguished the fire in Xing'anling, and he said to himself: "That's a joke." "

Science is the gravedigger of cults. Why do big scientists also believe and promote pseudoscience? The reason is simple. There is a specialization in the art industry. No big scientist is omnipotent. Those who are in their own profession have the right to speak; Out of their own major, it's hard to say how much to say. For missiles, Qian Lao has the most right to speak; When it comes to physiology, Zhang Xiangtong has the most right to speak. Again, curiosity is an essential quality for scientists. However, no matter what "strange" you catch, you think it is a great discovery, and that is also a taboo for scientists. Science is honesty.

[Professor Deng Weizhi, a native of Xiao County, Anhui Province, was born in November 1938. He is currently a professor at the Department of Sociology of Shanghai University, president of the Shanghai Sociological Association, and advisor of the Chinese Sociological Association. He graduated from the Department of Economics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 1960. He has worked in the Mao Zedong Thought Study Room and Research Office of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the Political Research Office of the East China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Shanghai Branch of the Encyclopedia of China, and the International Politics Office of the Information Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. 】