Dan Schreiber: "The inventor of PCR believed in alien washing bears"

Scientists who believe in ghosts, billionaires trying to figure out if the universe is a video game simulation, and sports stars searching for ways to harness cosmic energy. These are some of the stories featured in the book. The theory of everything else (Captain Swing). These are compiled by journalist and writer Dan Schreiber and, beyond being an entertaining journey through utterly delusional beliefs, they also serve to show how some of the people who have made groundbreaking discoveries in the scientific field simultaneously believe in surreal theories.

If I say Kary Mullis, many people won't know who she is.

— A man claimed to have spoken with a phosphorescent laundry bear. He recounted that one night in 1985, he left his cabin in California to use the bathroom and found it in the toilet. He said the bear told him, "Good evening, doctor." Later, he claimed he had likely been abducted by an alien spacecraft.

A madman…?

— He's the man who invented PCR, a Nobel Prize winner. And I think he perfectly embodies the spirit of the book.

Because?

— Because he was someone who was told he was crazy, but he persevered and changed the world with his discovery. And at the same time, he believed in strange things—like the alien laundry bear—and dangerous things, because he denied the connection between AIDS and HIV.

It represents well the Nobilitis.

— Yes, when you win the Nobel Prize you think you can talk about anything, and people believe you because you have the Nobel Prize. Kary Mullis caused harm with his statements about AIDS, but at the same time his discovery saved us during the pandemic.

Speaking of dangerous ideas and Nobel Prizes: William Shockley.

— Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. He was in favor of sterilizing people with IQs below 100 so they couldn't have children. He may be a genius with terrible ideas.

One horrible thing that happened to Mullis is that the invention of PCR did not make him any money.

— No, because it was owned by the company he worked for. He received a $10,000 bonus. The company sold it shortly afterward for $300 million. But one story I love about PCR is the first time it was used on a hair.

It's not in the book.

— I found out about it later, and it made me furious. There's a very famous case in Australia of a man who claimed that two women had mysteriously entered his house and had sex with him. The only evidence was a hair found near his genitals. He claimed they were aliens and had a PCR test done. So, the first PCR test on a hair was done to rule out the possibility that it was from an extraterrestrial.

There are also poetic ideas in the book.

— In the 17th century, Charles Morton claimed that birds disappeared in winter because they migrated to the moon. Or Marconi, the inventor of radio, who thought that sound never died away.

Which one is your favorite?

— Paleontologist Lewis Leakey, who discovered some of the most important fossils for understanding the history ofhomo sapiens, and argued that we are the dominant species because we smell bad.

And how did he arrive at that conclusion?

— It turns out that during a trip to Senegal, I was in a tent with a friend when a lion came in, sniffed them, and left. Since I couldn't understand why it hadn't eaten them, I started investigating and discovered that when a lion or tiger finds a dead human, they let it rot for a few days, and that's when they feel like eating it. And he came up with this theory, which I think is brilliant; it sounds like something out of Monty Python.

And what's the strangest idea you've ever come across?

— I like coincidences. There's a great one about the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. It turns out that as Reagan was leaving a hotel, gunshots were heard, and Jerry Parr, a member of the Secret Service, quickly got Reagan into the limousine. He saw blood in Reagan's mouth, but they didn't know where he'd been shot, and bypassing protocol, they diverted him to the hospital. They were told that if he'd arrived five minutes later, he would have died. When Reagan thanked Parr for saving his life, Parr told him, "I'm actually here because of you."

As?

— It turns out that when Parr was little he used to go to the movies a lot with his father, and one day they saw Secret Service Code And he decided he wanted to pursue it. He succeeded, and started working as a bodyguard for Reagan, who was the actor playing the role in the film—because Reagan was an actor before becoming President of the United States. Some people believe in numbers: what are the chances of something like that happening?

Do you believe in numbers or in strange things?

— No, I'm very rational, but I like scientific stories, and I also like being around people who believe in things; life is more interesting and fun that way.

One place where strange ideas are normalized is in sports.

— The owner of Leicester City, the English football club, regularly hired Buddhist nuns to bless the players, goalposts, and changing rooms before retiring to meditate in a special room for the remainder of the match. And a friend of mine, the most rational person I know, told me during the last England final that he absolutely had to watch the game at his house because he was afraid they would lose otherwise. Sport is undoubtedly the arena where we normalize the strangest ideas.

And isn't believing in God also a rarity?

— All religions require acts of faith, and if you're rational, you wonder: is all this really based on a man sent to Earth who claimed to be the son of God? But until the rise of science and rationalism, everyone believed. That's another important thing I've observed: something is true if everyone believes it.

What distinguishes a brilliant idea from a strange one?

— They're related. It's just as good to fail as it is to succeed, because when you fail, you're saying to the next thing: "This didn't work, don't focus your search here." There's an example I really like about a man named Hans Berger. When he was young, he fell in front of a herd of galloping horses and thought his life was over. He braced himself for death, but one of the men riding the horses managed to stop them. That afternoon, he received a telegram from his father saying that his sister had had a terrible feeling, that she thought he had died. And he wondered: Does telepathy exist? And he decided to investigate it.

Obviously, he failed to prove it.

— But he dedicated himself to inventing a machine that could monitor, record, and detect telepathy. As a result, he created the electroencephalogram (EEG), which is still used in hospitals today to study and monitor the brain. The attempt to build a telepathy machine was a failure, and yet it led to the invention of a crucial tool for medicine.

Why did you write this book?

— I liked the idea of cataloging interesting beliefs, and how these have, in some cases, changed the world. I think life is more fun when you meet people who have particular theories. But some people think I like conspiracy theories. And no, I find them dangerous when they're used to discredit real facts.