Human Navigation and Magnetoreception: 30th Anniversary Edition

London

About the Author

Born in Wiltshire, England, in 1944, Robin Baker grew up in the small village of Manningford Bruce in the Vale of Pewsey. After obtaining a First Class Honours degree in Zoology (1965), then a PhD, at the University of Bristol (1968), he lectured in Zoology for over 25 years at the Universities of first Newcastle-upon-Tyne and then Manchester. At Manchester he was Reader in Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences from 1981-1996. In 1996 he left academic life to concentrate on his career in writing and broadcasting. A best-selling author in the field of sexual biology, his books (6 academic, 4 popular science, and 3 novels) have been translated into 28 different languages. He has also published around 100 scientific papers and articles and his work and ideas on the evolution of human behaviour have been featured in many radio and television programmes around the world. Since 2002 he has lived in the foothills of the Spanish Sierras with his partner and their family. He has six children and three grandchildren.

Also by Robin Baker

Academic

The Evolutionary Ecology of Animal Migration

Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense

Migration

Bird Navigation

Human Sperm Competition

Popular Science

Sperm Wars

Baby Wars

Sex in the Future

Fragile Science

Fiction

Primal

Caballito

The Hitchhiker’s Child

For further details: www.robin-baker.com/books/

Dedication

To Thomas, Howard and David

for tolerating a father who puts magnets on people’s heads*

&

in turn

To Nathanial, Amelia and Romany

for tolerating one who works on penes, testes and sperm

* Bookseller magazine’s ‘Best Dedication of 1989.’

Table of Contents

Human Navigation and Magnetoreception

About the Author

Also by Robin Baker

Dedication

Preface to the 30th Anniversary Edition

Original (1989) preface and acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Human navigation: the value of magnetoreception

2.1. Familiar areas and home ranges

2.2. Exploration

2.3. Navigation

2.3.1. Navigation as part of exploration

2.3.2. Route-based and location-based navigation

2.4. Magnetoreception

2.4.1. A role in navigation

2.4.2. Integration with other cues

2.5. Summary

3. The search for the magnetoreceptor

3.1. Hypotheses of magnetoreception

3.1.1. Whole-body hypotheses

3.1.2. Hypotheses based on modifications of other sense organs

3.1.3. A discrete and separate magnetoreceptor: the magnetite hypothesis

3.2. Anatomical investigations

3.2.1. The search for magnetite

3.2.2. The sinal magnetite hypothesis

3.3. From magnetoreceptor to brain

3.4. Storage of spatial information: a mental map

3.5. Summary

4. Techniques for experiment and analysis

4.1. Major types of experiment on human navigation

4.1.1. Walkabout experiments

4.1.2. Bus experiments

4.1.3. Chair experiments

4.2. Statistical analysis of estimates of direction and distance

4.2.1. Estimates of direction: circular statistics

4.2.2. Estimates of distance

4.2.3. Statistical problems

4.2.4. The statistics of replicability

4.3. Measuring levels of ability

4.3.1. Potential causes of spurious levels of performance

4.3.2. Background data: questionnaires

4.4. Testing for the role of magnetoreception

4.4.1. Types of magnetic treatment

4.4.2. Double-blind protocol

4.4.3. Interpretation of results

4.5. Summary

5. Levels of ability to judge compass direction and to navigate

5.1. General ability to discriminate between geographical directions

5.1.1. Compass orientation when sighted

5.1.2. Compass orientation when blindfolded

5.1.3. Discussion

5.2. Accuracy of map-building and navigation

5.2.1. Navigation while sighted

5.2.2. Navigation while blindfolded

5.3. Variation in ability

5.3.1. Influence of distance and complexity of the outward journey

5.3.2. Relative performance of males and females

5.3.3. Variation in ability with age

5.3.4. Influence of cloud cover

5.3.5. Influence of height of sun above or below the horizon

5.3.6. Influence of time of day

5.3.7. Influence of bed alignment

5.4. Summary

6. The influence of magnets

6.1. Large electromagnetic coils

6.1.1. Judgement of geographical direction

6.1.2. Map-building and navigation

6.2. Electromagnetic coils on helmets

6.2.1. Judgement of geographical direction

6.2.2. Map-building and navigation

6.3. Bar magnets on the head

6.3.1. Judgement of geographical direction

6.3.2. Map-building and navigation

6.3.3. Polarity of magnets and normal bed orientation of subjects

6.3.4. Conclusions

6.4. Magnetic pretreatment: manipulating the magnetoreceptor

6.4.1. Judgement of compass direction: pilot study

6.4.2. Judgement of compass direction: formal experiments

6.4.3. Map-building and navigation

6.4.4. Magnet strength

6.5. Summary

6.5.1. Judgement of compass direction

6.5.2. Map-building and navigation

7. The role of magnetoreception

7.1. Interactive roles of magnetoreception and vision

7.1.1. The role of magnetoreception when blindfolded and sighted

7.1.2. The role of magnetoreception at night

7.1.3. The role of magnetoreception by day: overcast and sunny skies

7.1.4. The conscious and subconscious roles of magnetoreception

7.2. The use of magnetoreception by males and females

7.2.1. Chair experiments

7.2.2. Integration of visual and magnetic information

7.3. The use of magnetoreception at different ages

7.4. General discussion

7.4.1. Judgement of compass direction

7.4.2. Map-building and navigation

7.5. Summary

8. The physiology of magnetoreception

8.1. Location of the magnetoreceptor

8.1.1. The Cheshire nudist experiment

8.1.2. Localised magnetic manipulation

8.1.3. The eyes

8.1.4. The ethmoid/sphenoid sinus complex

8.1.5. Conclusions

8.2. How the geomagnetic field is ‘read’

8.2.1. Features of the geomagnetic field

8.2.2. The avian compass: inclination or polarity?

8.2.3. The human compass: inclination or polarity?

8.2.4. What is read: orientation within the field or changes in orientation?

8.2.5. How the field is read: a hypothesis

8.3. The influence of magnets

8.3.1. The aftereffect

8.3.2. The aftereffect and the magnetite hypothesis

8.3.3. A case against the magnetite hypothesis

8.3.4. Discussion

8.4. Clinical considerations

8.4.1. Genetic deficiencies in magnetoreception

8.4.2. Infections of the magnetoreception system

8.4.3. Self-and environmentally induced interference with magnetoreception

8.5. Summary

9. The next eight years

References

Figures

Tables

Original (1989) Subject Index

Preface to the 30th Anniversary Edition

As I write this Preface, it is 41 years, almost to the day (11 October 1976), since I herded eight students from the University of Manchester, UK, into the back of a small van, blindfolded them, drove them into the Cheshire countryside, and asked them to point towards the University. The event was the first of what evolved to become known as the ‘Manchester Experiments’: a series of tests designed to measure how the natural ability of humans to orientate and navigate during exploration compared with the ability of other animals. Over the next decade, thousands of people from all over the world would take part in the experiments spawned by this prototype.

Three years after this initial test the first manipulations involving magnets as well as blindfolds were carried out. The results were published in 1980 in the journal Science[1] and in effect two hypotheses were advanced for further testing: (1) humans have some non-visual ability that they can use to help solve problems of orientation and navigation; and (2) this non-visual ability is based, at least in part, on magnetoreception. This publication triggered an invigorating air of hostility that at times over the next decade seemed to manifest as a series of trans-global, trans-Pennine, and particularly trans-Atlantic animosities. Most often, this hostility simply led to a commendably heightened scrutiny of experimental protocol and statistical analysis in a zealous search for flaws (e.g.,[2]). On occasion, it also descended into personal defamation (see [³]) that did little credit to those concerned.

Each science-based criticism of the Manchester Experiments was acknowledged and addressed – either willingly accommodated or forcefully rebuffed (see Chapter 4). Strengthened by the process, the experimental evidence in support of both of the initial hypotheses steadily mounted as the decade progressed. Perhaps most importantly, in 1987, I published a peer-reviewed paper[4] in the journal Animal Behaviour that finally settled the once-thorny problem of replication by others. The article showed that, despite the multiple and well-publicised protestations of failure, when all attempts at replications by others were treated as a whole their support for the Manchester experiments was P < 0.001 for non-visual ability to navigate and P < 0.005 for magnetoreception. Subsequent papers by others, especially by Gai Murphy[5] and to a much smaller degree by Mary Campion[6], served to reinforce the point still further.

As the decade entered its final quarter little of the Manchester work was still being actively opposed on scientific grounds and the time seemed right for a book to draw the whole subject together. It was also an opportunity to demonstrate how wide-ranging the studies at Manchester had been and how much progress had been made in answering even some of the more detailed questions. The time also seemed right, although I was hardly a neutral third-party, to at least attempt an even-handed summary of the main points of conflict that had arisen in the early aftermath of the 1980 Science article. The first edition of Human Navigation and Magnetoreception was intended to do all of these things and was published nearly 30 years ago in 1989.

The tone of the book was optimistic. It was also, I confess, tinged with a little pride at the progress my team of colleagues and students had managed to make in a relatively short time. At the book’s heart, of course, was the demonstration that, although weak, the ability to sense direction by magnetoreception, then to use the information to help judge the direction and distance of home during natural exploration, was real (Chapters 5-7). Much more than this, though, had been discovered and all was elaborated through the book’s pages. For example, laboratory-based experiments backed up by transequatorial displacements had shown the receptor to function more like an inclination compass than a polarity compass (Chapter 8). Also, sighted ‘forced exploration’ experiments, many through woodlands, showed that magnetoreception and vision normally worked together for navigation (Chapter 7). Either sense could work on its own, with some reduction in acuity, but without both senses orientation and navigation were reduced to the level of guesswork (Chapter 7). Among other highlights, the location of the magnetoreceptor(s) had been narrowed to the front half of the head, possibly in the eyes but at least in the block of tissue including the backs of the eyes and the sphenoid/ethmoid sinus complex (Chapter 8). An unmeasured (but low) level of light may be necessary for the receptor to function (Chapter 8). Other experiments suggested that some element of this magnetoreceptor is set overnight and is resistant, but not impervious, to change during the day (Chapter 8). A strong magnetic field could produce such a change, the receptor then requiring hours to recover (Chapter 6). The data pointed to a sensor that consists of, or contains, a patterned array of ions, molecules and/or particles. This array is fixed by a viscous matrix (or something with the characteristics of a viscous matrix) into a resistant pattern throughout the day, then repatterned or redeposited in a softened matrix during sleep at night (or when damaged). At the time (late 1980s) the generally favoured hypothesis was that this array consisted of particles of magnetite, but there were ongoing problems with this view and in Section 8.3.3 the case against magnetite was expounded and the expectation aired that this case would continue to grow.

There was no shortage, here, of hypotheses that could be tested and in my optimism I anticipated (Chapter 9) a mushrooming of work on human navigation and magnetoreception in more and more departments and laboratories around the world. This optimism, however, proved unfounded. Far from triggering new work and new hostilities the publication of Human Navigation and Magnetoreception seemed to have the opposite effect. Virtually all work ceased and the storm of argument that had so enlivened the 1980s dissipated entirely – and I may have been partly to blame. I left the field of study and in so doing perhaps removed a focus for opposition, a decision that over the years has been interpreted in various ways.

Published suggestions[7] that I left human navigation because of funding difficulties are, quite frankly, laughable. The Manchester experiments were incredibly cheap to carry out. I never did need funding for my work beyond that available to all staff at the time at the University of Manchester. Even in the total absence of external funding the experiments could have continued had I wished. Nor are the public conjectures (see[8]) true that I had lost faith in my research or was growing weary of having to defend myself. On the contrary, as Geoff Parker once wrote[9] of me: His approach, from earliest research days, was confrontational, even gladiatorial; he was out to slay the demons of past misconceptions. I had always thrived on fiery academic combat, and still do. A much more likely reason for me to move on from the field would have been the loss of opposition, not its continuation. Had I stayed, the fact that nobody did (or perhaps could) scientifically counter the detailed evidence presented in Human Navigation and Magnetoreception would have wearied me far more than any continuing opposition. As it happens, however, the real explanation for my departure was quite different.

Even while writing my navigation book, I was becoming increasingly absorbed by another virgin and potentially confrontational field in behavioural ecology: human sperm competition[10]. Scarcely, it seemed, had the manuscript to my book on human navigation been dispatched than the new field exploded into life. I quickly became totally engrossed, my excitement persisting right through to the end of my active academic life in 1996 and onward to the present day [11-12].

Inevitably, there was the vestige of a legacy – an occasional navigational distraction from my new academic passion – but nothing that required lengthy attention. For example, the statistical issue raised in 1992 by Jacques Bovet[13] concerning the replication by other authors of my experiments on non-visual navigational ability was presented more in the spirit of academic correctness than as a criticism of conclusions. Nor did the issue relate at all to the replications by others of my experiments on magnetoreception. No decisions changed as a result. When the method used by Bovet to illustrate his argument was adopted, the evidence for non-visual ability obtained by others still remained at P < 0.001[14]. After that episode, though, as far as I was concerned the field of human navigation and magnetoreception really did come to a halt.

Nearly 20 years then passed before anything of significance happened, the stagnation finally ending in 2011. A publication by Lauren Foley, Robert Gegear and Steven Reppert[15] showed that the magnetic sense of fruit flies, which is mediated partly by their version of a protein called cryptochrome, also works with the human version of the same protein, heavily expressed in the retina. The authors suggested that it was time for my work on human magnetoreception to be revisited in the context of their discovery. In the authors’ closing words: Additional research on magnetosensitivity in humans at the behavioural level … would be informative, their interest being particularly in the interaction between magnetoreception and vision.

Although Lauren Foley and her co-authors referenced Human Navigation and Magnetoreception they seemed unaware that within its pages was a vast amount of information all ready and waiting to be appraised against a cryptochrome-based detector. Nor were they alone in this predicament. Michael Greshko[8], too, in his 2015 dissertation on the furore surrounding the Manchester Experiments, was evidently unaware of the book’s contents. Although he also references Human Navigation and Magnetoreception he discusses none of the details therein and confines himself to the pre-1987 arguments that were published elsewhere. In particular, he focuses on early concerns such as blindfold design and whether subjects could discern whether they were wearing magnets or brass bars. Yet, as shown in the book, such concerns had lost all relevance by 1989.

To these two examples of publications that referenced Human Navigation and Magnetoreception but made no use of its relevant contents can be added the articles by varied journalists over the years. In all fairness, however, whether scientist or journalist, nobody can really be criticised for not knowing the contents of the book, because the volume has not easily been accessible for over two decades. Even the few copies that have been advertised for sale during that time have had asking-prices that no sensible person would entertain.

Perhaps triggered by the 2011 article by Lauren Foley and her co-authors[15] a succession of requests, even pleas, for copies of Human Navigation and Magnetoreception began arriving via my web-site. It seemed that increasing numbers of people had begun to find a need to consult the work but simply could not lay their hands on a copy. Unfortunately, I could not oblige either, my spare copies having been given away long ago. Nor could the book easily be re-published. Written in the days when manuscripts were submitted and edited on paper, with all figures hand-drawn, none of the original files were in digital form nor even still in existence.

I was urged by some who contacted me to produce an e-book, but had only two printed copies left, both precious for different reasons. It took much soul-searching before I could bring myself to sacrifice one of those copies to the destructive scanning procedure necessary to produce a tolerable version for digitisation. Even then the problems did not end. The original layout of the book and the format of the tables and some figures did not lend themselves to the full range of devices on which an e-book is expected to be read. However, after a great deal of trial-and-error, changes to the layout were made that to varying degrees suit most platforms. For me it is a poignant coincidence that this process has produced a digital version the timing of which just about qualifies the production as a 30th Anniversary edition.

This preface (and dedication) apart, this e-book is intended simply to be a digital version of the original 1989 publication. There was little need to do otherwise, apart from to correct a few printer’s errors, a handful of my own mistakes, mainly in tables, and to add the occasional clarification where it seemed necessary. Thirty years ago Human Navigation and Magnetoreception was advertised as the most complete and detailed book on the subject ever written, and it still merits that mantle even now. Not least it contains a wealth of data not available anywhere else that will be of value to any who choose to delve afresh into the field. Equally, for those interested in the history of science, the book provides a detailed and I hope, despite my natural bias, a relatively even-handed account of the controversies that dogged the 1980s. Needless to say, also, for anybody who simply finds the same fascination with the nature of natural human navigation that so fired me over 40 years ago, the book should provide the ideal academic starting point.

I am delighted that the field appears to be stirring again. I am even delighted to see traces of the old hostilities being reincarnated. Michael Greshko’s 2015 dissertation[8] is so similar in tone to the newspaper articles published in the 1980s that reading his words gave me a real surge of nostalgia for the battles of the past. Even the re-emergence of Joe Kirschvink, an old adversary, to cheekily claim (or maybe, in his defence, to have others cheekily claim on his behalf[16]) that he is on the verge of discovering the existence of human magnetoreception triggered a wry smile. Despite my delight and amusement, however, I shall not be joining the fray beyond writing this Preface and re-launching this book. My current passions still lie elsewhere.

My sole remaining task is to try to pre-empt future repeats of the question that journalists have been asking me for the past thirty years – ‘Do you still believe that humans possess a magnetic sense?’ The kernel of my response has always been the same: ‘after reading the evidence and arguments in Human Navigation and Magnetoreception how could any open-minded person not believe that the ability implicit in the title really exists?’

Robin Baker

Spain, 25 September 2017

References

¹ Baker, R.R. 1980. Goal orientation by blindfolded humans after long-distance displacement: possible involvement of a magnetic sense. Science 210:555-557. doi: 10.1126/science.7423208

² Adler, K. & Pelkie, C.R. 1985. Human homing orientation: critique and alternative hypotheses. In: Magnetite Biomineralization and Magnetoreception in Organisms: A new Biomagnetism (Ed. by J.L. Kirschvink, D.S. Jones & B.J. MacFadden), pp. 573-594. New York: Plenum.

³ Jacobs, P. 1982. Magnetic field: tests point away from 6th sense. US findings negative. Los Angeles Times 19 July 1982:1, 10-11.

⁴ Baker, R.R. 1987. Human navigation and magnetoreception: the Manchester experiments do replicate. Animal Behaviour 35:691-704. doi: 10.1016/S0003-3472(87)80105-7

⁵ Murphy, R.G. 1989. The development of magnetic compass orientation in children. In: Orientation and navigation – birds, humans and other animals; 1989 International Conference of the Royal Institute of Navigation, Cardiff, Paper 26.

⁶ Campion, M. (1991) Do humans possess a latent sense of orientation? Journal of Navigation 44: 76-84. doi: 10.1017/S0373463300009759

⁷ Merrill, R.T. 2010. Our Magnetic Earth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

⁸ Greshko, M.A. 2015. There and back again?: reproducibility and the hunt for a human compass sense (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/101362

⁹ Parker, G.A. 2010. Reflections before dusk. In: Leaders in animal behavior: the second generation (Ed. by L.C. Drickamer & D. Dewsbury), pp. 429–464. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

¹⁰ Baker, R.R. 2017. Robin Baker and Mark Bellis: Pioneers of Research on Human Sperm Competition. In: Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. (Ed. by T.K. Shackelford & V.A. Weekes-Shackelford). Basel, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3590-2

¹¹ Baker, R.R. & Bellis, M.A. 1995/2014. Human sperm competition: copulation, masturbation, and infidelity. Hardback – London, England: Chapman and Hall. E-book – London, England: Hard Nut Books

¹² Baker, R.R. 1996. Sperm Wars: infidelity, sexual conflict and other bedroom battles. London, England: Fourth Estate.

¹³ Bovet, J. 1992. Combining V-test probabilities in orientation studies: a word of caution. Animal Behaviour 44:777-779. doi: 10.1016/S0003-3472(05)80305-7

¹⁴ Baker, R.R. 1993. Human navigation: sun, star and magnetic orientation by naïve subjects. In: Orientation and Navigation – birds, humans and other animals; 1993 International Conference of the Royal Institute of Navigation, Oxford. Paper No. 39.

¹⁵ Foley, L.E., Gegear, R.J. & Reppert, S.M. 2011. Human cryptochrome exhibits light-dependent magnetosensitivity. Nature communications, 2, 356. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1364.

¹⁶ Hand, E. 2016. Maverick scientist thinks he has discovered a magnetic sixth sense in humans, Science. doi: 10.1126/science.aaf5803.

Original (1989) preface and acknowledgements

On 29 June 1979 at Barnard Castle, England, a group of 31 sixth-form pupils climbed on board a coach in their school car park and blindfolded themselves. They placed magnets on their heads, settled back in their seats, and started to concentrate. Through steady drizzle, the coach travelled tortuously through the town centre before emerging onto a fairly straight trunk road and setting off for the southwest. After 5 km or so, the vehicle stopped briefly, then turned through 135° and set off eastwards to a second position, this time 5 km southeast of the school. At each stop the passengers were asked, while still blindfold, to write on a card an estimate of their current compass direction from school. After the second stop, the cards and magnets were collected and later examined. The pattern that emerged was as dramatic as it was unexpected.

In retrospect, the final sentence of this paragraph, which began my previous book on human magnetoreception (Baker 1981b), was ill-chosen. Compared with results obtained since, those first data were suggestive rather than dramatic. Nor should the pattern that emerged have been unexpected. Every animal seriously tested has been found to have a magnetic sense, and it now seems that the final search will be for an animal that is magnetically blind. It would be more surprising to discover that the human species just happened to be that animal than to discover it was not.

Moreover, even early in the nineteenth century, many biologists had already postulated that humans had a separate sense devoted to the judgement of direction. The following passage, for example, was written by Bellamy (1839) under the heading ‘Notice of a peculiar faculty in Man and certain animals’ in a book on the natural history of South Devon:

There is an extraordinary power possessed by man, (at least by those individuals whose faculties are in due development) of directing his course in any required direction of the compass... My own experience informs me that this power is retained after a long succession of turnings and windings in all possible directions, and what is more I have further noticed that the mind, or one especial portion of it, continues engaged in ascertaining or observing the direction being pursued through all these deviating courses, without our consciousness of the activity of this sense, and in short it operates while the aggregate of the reflecting powers are abstracted on some given question.

Later, von Middendorf (1855) suggested that the sense of direction of animals may be based on sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field. In 1873, Nature invited correspondence on the sense of direction of ‘Man and other animals’, to which one of the contributors was Charles Darwin (Darwin 1873).

From the beginning, for some inexplicable reason, the idea that any animal might be sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field has generated intense and heated opposition from the more conservative sections of the scientific community. Alfred Newton, for example, the first professor of zoology at Cambridge, when accused of believing in a magnetic sense, replied ‘I had no need to declare my disbelief in Dr. von Middendorf’s magnetic hypothesis, for I never met with any man that held it’ (Cherfas 1980). Perhaps partly under the influence of such vehement opposition, nineteenth century hypotheses concerning the sense of direction of humans and other animals retreated from prominence. It was 1965 before Merkel & Wiltschko (1965) produced the first effective demonstration that an animal (the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula)) had a magnetic compass sense. Their results, after a brief series of skirmishes with opponents, eventually triggered similar demonstrations for more and more animals by more and more authors. The hypothesis of a magnetic sense of direction in humans, however, was not resurrected until the Barnard Castle and associated experiments carried out by myself and my colleagues at Manchester University between June and November 1979 (Baker 1980c, d).

One might have thought that, given the age of the magnetoreception hypothesis, and the demonstrated reality of the sense in other animals, the results of the Barnard Castle experiment should not have been unexpected and should simply have taken their place alongside those other results for other animals. Instead, these first publications (Baker 1980b, c, d, e; 198la, b, c) triggered a series of what can only be described as hostile reactions, reminiscent of Alfred Newton’s reaction to von Middendorf.

These reactions passed through a number of stages. Particularly invigorating was the article by Jacobs (1982) which appeared in the Los Angeles Times for 19 July. In it, various of my American colleagues were credited with such comments as: ‘He’s just careless’ (J.L. Gould); and ‘To get Baker’s results, you’d really have to be a sloppy scientist’ (J. L. Kirschvink). Of course, I am sure neither scientist would ever have made any such comment! The scientific reaction to my work eventually culminated in the collected papers published by Kirschvink et al. (1985a). The most perplexing aspect of the reaction of my fellow-scientists over the past seven years is the way that their resistance has borne such little relation to the data that they themselves collected as they set about repeating the Manchester experiments. I have explored this paradox elsewhere (Baker 1985b, 1987c). It may be illustrated by the titles different authors have given to their publications.

Three present only data for subjects that are clearly disoriented. However, all three series of experiments were based on small sample sizes (e.g. 7, 9, 25) and the authors chose titles that were suitably neutral:

(1)   ‘Magnetic sense in humans?’ (Zusne & Allen 1981);

(2)   ‘A study of the homeward orientation of visually handicapped humans’ (Judge 1985); and

(3)   ‘An attempt to replicate the spinning chair experiment’ (Kirschvink et al. 1985b).

Contrast these titles with those chosen by authors who obtained data that were either unequivocally supportive of my claims or were at worst equivocal, perhaps containing a mixture of significant and nonsignificant results:

(1)   ‘Human homing: an elusive phenomenon’ (Gould & Able 1981);

(2)   ‘Human orientation with restricted sensory information: no evidence for magnetic sensitivity’ (Fildes et al. 1984);

(3)   ‘Human homing orientation: critique and alternative hypotheses’ (Adler & Pelkie 1985);

(4)   ‘Absence of human homing ability as measured by displacement experiments’ (Gould 1985);

(5)   ‘Human navigation: attempts to replicate Baker’s displacement experiment’ (Able & Gergits 1985);

(6)   ‘Human homing: still no evidence despite geomagnetic controls’ (Westby & Partidge 1986).

In general, the phenomenon of negative titles and comments in the face of positive or equivocal results remains enigmatic. It is, of course, unthinkable that any of these scientists could have interpreted and presented their data with anything other than an open mind. We are forced, therefore, to look for other explanations. Perhaps, sometimes, the paradox may reflect faulty analysis or lack of familiarity with the literature. These, and other, possibilities are explored later in this book.

It has to be said that, since 1981, the atmosphere surrounding the study of human magnetoreception has, both publicly and less publicly, been just