John G. Taylor

For other people named John Taylor, see John Taylor (disambiguation).

John Gerald Taylor (18 August 1931 – 10 March 2012) was a British physicist and author.

Biography

Taylor gained a PhD from Christ's College, Cambridge (1950–1956). He had a wide ranging academic career in mathematical physics and artificial intelligence. He was an Emeritus Professor and Director of the Centre for Neural Networks at King's College London and Guest Scientist of the Research Centre at the Institute of Medicine in Jülich, Germany. From 2007-2012, Prof. Taylor had led a unique research program at Commerzbank's Alternative Investment Strategies (COMAS) Group. The program uses artificial intelligence techniques to create portfolios of hedge funds. This is the first program of its kind in the fund of hedge funds industry.

In 2011, Prof Taylor co-founded Commonwealth Capital Management LLP together with Nathaniel Philip Rothschild and Mehraj Mattoo. The company launched its first systematic fund of CTAs on Deutsche Bank's dbSelect platform based on Prof. Taylor's artificial intelligence models developed while he worked at COMAS.

His previous positions and interests, while still at Kings College, were in mathematics and physics. He is the author of many popular books.

Taylor also trained as an actor and performed in plays and films, wrote several science fiction plays as well as directing stage productions in Oxford and Cambridge.

Parapsychology

Taylor after witnessing metal bending by Uri Geller became interested in parapsychology. At first he believed that Geller's feats were genuine as well as other alleged paranormal phenomena. He wrote a book titled Superminds (1975) in which he argued for a physical explanation for the paranormal. He believed the explanation for metal bending, psychokinesis, ESP and other paranormal phenomena may be found in electromagnetism. He was concerned to establish whether there is an electromagnetic basis for the phenomena however after failing to find it, he did not believe that there could be any other physical explanation. His experiments under laboratory conditions were negative which left him skeptical regarding the validity of paranormal phenomena.

Taylor wrote that the physicalist explanation in which properties of objects have been explained in terms of their constituents has been most successful in science. The forces holding them together being gravity, radioactivity, electromagnetism and the nuclear force. Taylor wrote only one force could possibility explain alleged paranormal phenomena; electromagnetic forces acting on the normal constituents of bodies. Taylor wrote that when science faces up to the supernatural it is a case of "electromagnetism or bust". In a four year investigation into the paranormal, Taylor and his colleague Eduardo Balanovski searched for abnormal electromagnetic signals in parapsychological experiments. Electromagnetic and radio-wave detectors were used, however, no abnormal electromagnetic signals or paranormal effects were observed.

Taylor wrote that an unknown fifth force causing psychokinesis would have to transmit a great deal of energy. The energy would have to overcome the electromagnetic forces binding the atoms together. The atoms would need to respond more strongly to the fifth force while it is operative than to electric forces. Such an additional force between atoms should therefore exist all the time and not during only alleged paranormal occurrences. Taylor wrote there is no scientific trace of such a force in physics, down to many orders of magnitude; thus if a scientific viewpoint is to be preserved the idea of any fifth force must be discarded. Taylor concluded there is no possible physical mechanism for psychokinesis and it is in complete contradiction to established science.

In his book Science and the Supernatural (1980) Taylor concluded all the paranormal phenomena he investigated turned out to have a naturalistic scientific explanation or did not occur under careful controlled conditions. He wrote many of the results could be explained by fraud, credulity, fantasy and sensory cues.

Quotes

We have searched for the supernatural and not found it. In the main, only poor experimentation, shoddy theory and human gullibility have been encountered. There is also the realization that nearly all of the claimed paranormal phenomena are in complete contradiction to established science. John Taylor (1980) Science and the Supernatural

Published books

He is author of the following books:

• The Mind: A User's Manual, (2006), ISBN 0-470-02222-1.
• Neural Networks and the Financial Markets Predicting, Combining, and Portfolio Optimisation (2002), ISBN 1-85233-531-9
• The Race for Consciousness (1999), ISBN 0-262-20115-1.
• The Promise of Neural Networks (Perspectives in Neural Computing), (1993), ISBN 3-540-19773-7.
• Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician (1980), ISBN 0-85117-191-5
• Superminds: An Enquiry into the Paranormal (1975), ISBN 0-333-17701-0
• New Worlds in Physics (1974), ISBN 0-571-10258-1
• Black Holes: The End of the Universe? (1973), ISBN 0-380-00327-9
• The New Physics (1972), ISBN 0-465-05066-2
• The Shape of Minds to Come (1971), ISBN 0-7181-0788-8

External links

• Webpage at King's College London
• Race For Consciousness website