Paradigms for Transmutations - Introduction

This article introduces a series of seven articles to be written with the aim of discovering how the phenomenon of the biological transmutation of chemical elements might best be understood.

Questions

The first question that most people want to know is: What is meant by the phenomenon of the biological transmutation of chemical elements?

The trouble is, this simple question does not lead to easy answers. A short answer might be: it is the idea that living organisms are capable of alchemy; that plants and animals may be capable of transmutating one chemical element into another, all of which mainstream science considers to be totally impossible.

This leads to further questions:

However, the answers to the above 3 questions are influenced by three more crucial considerations:

The Challenge

These are all very difficult but important questions. They are particularly challenging because different people have given different, and apparently contradictory answers, and I do not as yet know which, if any, are correct. More good experiments are required to help find answers. My task here is to develop an in depth understanding of these questions in order to discover the best approach for a programme of experimental research.

Due to the diversity of the subject matter, I expect that those reading this will be from a diverse range of scientific and non-scientific backgrounds. Thus, whilst many of you will already know much of which I write, I cannot assume that any one subject area is familiar to all. This is also a highly controversial subject. Therefore I do not expect everyone to agree at all points with that which I have written. To you all I beg your patience and open-mindedness. My approach is to lay out both my reasoning and the evidence for my reasoning as transparently as possible. Thus each step is intended to lead on to the next with as few assumptions as possible.

Lavoisier's Law

For some it may be obvious that matter is composed of chemical compounds which in turn are composed of chemical elements, which are different types of atoms whose properties are determined by the numbers of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. You may already know that some two hundred years ago the French chemist Lavoisier revolutionised chemistry by demonstrating that in a closed system all that may occur are particular arrangements and rearrangements of individual chemical elements thereby producing new chemical compounds. Since each the weight of a chemical element always remains the same, this was tested by measuring the total weight of a closed system of chemicals before and after a chemical reaction. Such experiments were conducted many times with inorganic chemicals, and the weight was found to remain constant. This is principle is therefore known as Lavoisier's law, or the law of the conservation of mass.

Nuclear physics

Many reading this will know that about one hundred years later this was found to be only partly true; a chemical element is capable of changing into another chemical element, but only under extra-ordinary circumstances. This marked the beginning of a new science of chemical element transmutations, known as nuclear physics.

Physicists have studied chemical element transmutations in high energy nuclear reactors. They believe that only unstable, radioactive isotopes (particular types of chemical element) are capable of low energy transmutations. On the basis of their high energy experiments, they are now so confident in their theories that it has become dogma that low energy transmutations are impossible with stable isotopes. But some scientists believe that certain low energy nuclear reactions are possible. This is known as Cold Fusion. However mainstream science believes that cold fusion scientists are wrong in believing that such low energy transmutations are possible, despite the accumulation of some very convincing evidence.

But even these fringe scientists believe that only certain very limited low energy transmutations are possible, and certainly not those claimed by most biological transmutation researchers. Biological transmutation research is thus conducted beyond even the fringes of mainstream science.

Evidence

Presumably most of you already believe that biological transmutations are possible. Unfortunately, to convince others, a coherent body evidence is required. You may know that Lavoisier's Law, whilst almost certainly true for inorganic chemistry, for a number of reasons, has hardly ever been directly tested with living organisms, and that the results are inconclusive. Both Professor Holleman and myself have to admit that the experimental evidence for living organisms being able transmute chemical elements is not good. However, the purpose of this series of articles is not to provide a detailed critique of the evidence, but rather to find out how new, revolutionary, scientific evidence might best be attained.

In my next article I will be introducing Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions which details how such scientific revolutions have successfully occurred in the past. To help us in this endeavour I will also be introducing the guiding ideas of Goethe. Not only did he provide the inspiration for several biological transmutation researchers, but he also, some 150 years before Kuhn, stated that the history of science is science itself. Therefore, the following article considers how we may best learn from history.