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| | Product Details | | Author: | R.Robin Baker | | Paperback: | 144 pages | | Publisher: | Hodder Arnold | | Publication Date: | March 01, 1981 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0340260815 | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 3 reviews |
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 "How We Got To Where We Went To" Dec 12, 2005
By Russell A. Rohde MD
"Owl"
"Human Navigation & The Sixth Sense," R.Robin Baker, NY, Simon & Schuster, 1981 ISBN 0-671-44390-, HC 122 pgs., & Append. I/II 6 pg., Ref. 5 pg., Index 5 pg., 9 1/2" x 6 1/2"
With 3 prior treatises on migration, Dr. Baker (Biology) Univ. Manchester, Eng. proposes a generalized hypothesis of exploratory patterns & migratory mechanisms in Man & animals. He includes his own experiments on students, plus a thorough literature review on migration, a study in part due to prior solicitation by Jrnl. Nature (1873) for "contributions on the mysterious & instinctive sense of direction in Man and other animals, " Charles Darwin having been a donor.
HN&T6S is a remarkable book - Baker, virtually alone as earnest savant of human navigation, scientifically narrates experiments, displays the raw data & methodology of analyses. He advises "navigation" is directional finding over unfamiliar domain where pilotage is over familiar domain, both (target) goal orientations as opposed to mere orientation (point of a compass). He affirms necessity of species exploration for survival (food & refuge) & lists the 5 major & 3 other human senses (taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell, temperature, balance & time) all conscious, & ponders Man's unconscious 6th sense as magnetic navigation (latter is in Erithacus rubecula (European Robin), Apis mellifera (Honey Bee), Columba livia (Homing pigeon), the last two also using sun's position, etc.
HN&T6S is crammed with fascinating tidbits from this zoologist - most major bird migrations occur at night which also take note of wind direction; infra-sound (0.1 - 10.0 Hz) generated by ocean waves & mountain ranges may be utilized by migratory birds; that Peromyscus maniculatus (Deermice) & Nocua pronuba (Underwing Moth sp.) orient by stars; the moon's shadow may be used for orientation by birds, sandhoppers & moths, etc.
Baker notes Humans & animals utilize several reference systems for navigation, there being species distinct hierarchy of those senses within rule of "least navigation" hypothesis, which factors effort & accuracy with magnetic sense likely at the bottom (least conscious, local magnetic anomalies, electrical storms, etc.) He concludes with discourse on Man's genetic inheritance, a studied comparison of male vs. female navigational skills, explication on anthropomorphism & reminder that cerebral sense of location is a human characteristic. An excellent read.
Can Humans Perceive the Geomagnetic Field and Utilize it for Navigation? Apr 13, 2011
By Harry Magnet
As evidence has accumulated that many animals utilize the Earth's magnetic field (aka the geomagnetic field) for navigation, it's reasonable to wonder if humans also do so. Since some members of every group of vertebrates possess the magnetic sense, why shouldn't humans? Aren't humans animals? Doesn't modern biology, including the subdisciplines of genetics, evolution, physiology and anatomy, neuroscience, etc., emphasize the link between humans and lower animals? How can animals have an entire sensory apparatus that nature neglected to grant to humans?
Robin Baker, formerly a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, asked these same questions over 30 years ago. He didn't just ask questions, but conducted a pioneering research project to answer these questions. This book focused on only one type of experiment, bus experiments (he would later add chair and walkabout experiments). It talked a lot about the animal magnetoreception research that motivated Baker to conduct his human research. A frequently-mentioned example was homing pigeon experiments. Since pigeons can find their way home after being displaced tens of kilometers, why not see if humans can do the same? Since a pigeon's ability to find its way home is disrupted if a bar magnet is attached to its head, wouldn't the same hold for a human? That's the logic that motivated Baker, whose background is zoology, to apply to humans what researchers up to his time had only studied in animals.
How can you prove that humans use a "sixth sense," i.e. a magnetic sense, to navigate? The simplest and most cost-effective way to transport people from home to the release point is by bus or van. People can make note of landscape details and roads traveled as they are driven around. If they are familiar with the area, they can make educated guesses about where they are based on what they observe.
To get around this problem, Baker decided to blindfold his subjects. Blindfolded subjects wouldn't be able to observe landscape details. Unless they had an ability to navigate by feeling the twists and turns of the bus (i.e. an "inertial sense"), they would quickly get lost. By suppressing their visual sense, he believed, their magnetic sense would become activated.
Baker drove his blindfolded subjects between 6 and 52 km from the university, which was the "home" reference point. Some experiments involved transporting subjects in a van, and others a motor coach. Along the way, and after reaching the destination (the "release point"), subjects were asked to write down or say their estimate of direction of home and air-line distance from home, and to point to home. They had to do this while still blindfolded.
To summarize the results, Baker found that blindfolded subjects possessed a weak but statistically significant navigational ability. Bar magnets or helmets with electromagnetic coils disrupted this navigational ability. Baker concluded from these results that the blindfolded subjects' weak navigational ability was due to a "compass in the head", i.e. a magnetic sense.
Baker made frequent use of charts and diagrams in the book to present his results. Despite these visual aids, I found it hard to understand what was going on. Some of the results could have been more thoroughly explained. The biggest problem, however, was trying to connect the results to a coherent theory. On this conceptual level I found the book lacking.
Reading this book three decades after it was published, I have the advantage of knowing the subsequent bizarre history of the project. During the 1980's, other scientists in Great Britain and the United States tried to replicate his results. They focused on his claim that blindfolded humans driven in a bus have a weak navigational ability to locate home. The majority of attempted replications failed. To add to the confusion, Baker claimed that the supposedly failed replications actually succeeded, but that the researchers drew the wrong conclusions from the data.
Baker eventually left the human magnetoreception research field, and no one else picked it up. It disappeared, as if it fell into a black hole. Unlike the animal magnetoreception field, which developed into a prolific research specialty, the human magnetoreception field went into a long-term coma after Baker left it.
There were fundamental problems with Baker's experimental methodology that led to his failure to scientifically establish the existence of a human magnetic sense. One problem was that he blindfolded subjects. We now know the magnetic compass that birds and some other animals use for navigation is part of the visual system, and requires light. This is known as the "radical pair" mechanism. Blindfolding subjects will block such a compass, assuming that humans have one. To be fair to Baker, when he began these experiments over 30 years ago there was little evidence in favor of the radical pair mechanism.
Another fundamental problem was that Baker assumed that the magnetic sense was unconscious. Since we can't ask animals what they feel or perceive, we don't know if their magnetic sense is conscious. But the five "basic" senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) are conscious, so it's difficult to accept the existence of an unconscious sense. It's even more difficult to prove it, as Baker found out after publishing this book. Baker compares the magnetic sense to a sense of time, which is unconscious. But time isn't an environmental stimulus that is sensed by a specific organ, as the geomagnetic field is believed to be sensed by the magnetic sense organ.
Robin Baker was a pioneer, but most pioneers fail. Human magnetoreception has always been a controversial subject, one that few researchers dared to touch. I give Baker credit for jeopardizing his career by being the first person to systematically study the human magnetic sense. The world now needs a scientist with the courage to follow in Baker's footsteps and restart human magnetoreception research.
 Just remarkable Nov 05, 2010
By Gene Jus
"Gene"
Based largely on the work Baker published in Science, but with more info, and nice photos and discussion.
I consider it a classic.
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