Free Debatable Space by Philip Palmer Page A

the work consisted therefore of psychological anatomies which didn’t ask the usual questions about such people
     – but instead, described them thoroughly and scientifically in terms of their
ways of processing reality
. Psychopaths, at one extreme, process reality in a way that is denuded of emotional content; often, killer psychopaths admit
     they don’t really feel emotion, but instead “act” emotion. Great novelists, by contrast, process reality by a process of self-glorifying
     self-fictification. Computer geeks, by further contrast, break down their lives into a series of tasks and challenges; it
     gives them huge self-confidence, but little emotional competence.
    Throughout my book, I interwove equations and poetic insights; I psychologically anatomised great artists, but also monstrous
     killers; I blurred all the boundaries between art and science and between different areas of science.
    And then I heaved a deep sigh, sent the book off to my publishers, and waited for adulation to come my way.
    It never did. The book did in fact get published, and it received a healthy amount of press attention. It even got a few mildly
     favourable reviews. But in the world that mattered to me – the universe of academe – the book was
roasted
. The whole community of the scientific establishment rose and cast stones at my essential premises, and derided my sometimes
     half-baked equations. Philosophers mocked the naivety of my treatment of Kant, which failed to acknowledge the perils of Platonic
     essentialism. Computer geeks identified flaw after flaw in my “critiques” of computer systems.
    Two men in particular rose to the forefront of the critical hostility. Both were eminent scientists – Professor John Gallagher
     of the University of Iowa, and Dr Ralph Cutler of the university of Auckland. They listed all the errors of fact in my admittedly
     overambitious analysis of emergence from the moment of the Big Bang to the birth of human consciousness. But in mocking, they
     also refined. They adapted. They, frankly, stole wholesale from the insights and ideas in my book. When, fifteen years later,
     Gallagher and Cutler jointly won the Nobel Prize for their work on emergence theory and human consciousness, there were few
     indeed willing to point out that they took their original starting point from my own work of pop science. They won the Nobel
     Prize by stealing my insights. But
You Are God
, my life’s work, barely even registers as a footnote in the history of science.
    And so, as has happened so many times in my life, I did all the work, but got none of the credit.
    And I seethed, of course, at the negative critical response. I knew I should have done as Newton did, and as Darwin did; hugged
     my insights to myself until I had properly and carefully checked every single detail and observation. But I did nothing of
     the sort. I was swamped by the material, but also exhilarated at my sense of progress. So I rushed into print, bollixed entire
     sections of the book with specious extrapolations of valid premises, made countless errors, and lost a large measure of academic
     credibility.
    And yet I was right. Read the book. See for yourself. I was the shoulders on which giants clambered, in ruthless pursuit of
     the main chance. I was the stepping stone, who got stepped upon. I was the fool.
    But curiously, not everyone mocked. The book got a wide general readership, and developed a cult following comparable to
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
and
The Tao of Pooh
.
    And among the many fans of the book was a man called John Sharpton, who was at that time Commissioner of the UN Police Force.
     Sharpton recommended the book to a number of his colleagues, who all loved the very detailed case studies of psychopaths,
     which were full of rich and practical insights into the criminal mentality.
    And, as a direct result of this, I was offered a new job, and a new career. Sharpton called me into a meeting and, to my