My go-to example for this is Turing. The genius of our field, and apparently duped into credulity about telepathy (probably based on faulty/fraudulent results by people at then-respected institutions)
To be fair, tons of scientists and technical people believed at that time that telepathy might be real. For example if you go back and read science fiction from the 40s, 50s, even 60s, there is a ton of telepathy and mental powers. This reflects both the authors’ efforts to predict future scientific advancement, and their audience’s willingness to believe it.
No it represents the editor's (John W. Campbell) passions - he would suggest using those ideas to authours and was more likely to accept stories with those ideas.
He had an overwhelming presence in SF until the New Wave of the 1960s
snowwrestler|3 months ago
pasc1878|3 months ago
He had an overwhelming presence in SF until the New Wave of the 1960s