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ROGER D. NELSON "Wishing for Good Weather: A Natural Experiment in Group Consciousness," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 47-58, 1997

---------- 摘要 ------------

Many human activities are affected by the weather, and there is a long history of rituals and ceremonial efforts aimed at controlling it. In modem societies, such efforts are largely vestigial and amount to informal hoping or wishing for good weather for special occasions. Reunion and commencement activities at Princeton University, involving thousands of alumni, graduates, family and others, are held outdoors, and it is often remarked that they are almost always blessed with good weather. A comparison of the recorded rainfall in Princeton vs. nearby communities shows that there is significantly less rain, less often, in Princeton on those days with major outdoor activities.

---------- 结语 ------------

Although many of us wish fervently for nice weather for special occasions,and some are even motivated to offer up a little prayer, it doesn't seem likely that many of us believe it will do any good. A modern education (such as Princeton delivers) tends to include a surfeit of implicit reasons and arguments against such an eventuality, and it certainly doesn't fit easily within our current scientific models of the world. Yet, we recognize that these models are incomplete,perhaps most glaringly because they have so little to say about human consciousness, including such hopes and wishes as might, possibly, affect the weather.

We have recently learned to view weather patterns in terms of chaos theory,where infinitesimally small effects can expand into great changes; the beat of a Brazilian butterfly wing may propagate through complex weather systems to cause a downpour in a small New Jersey town. Could the effects of communal interest from a great concentration of Princetonians compete with that butterfly wing?

A look at actual weather data seems to suggest that precipitation tends to stay away from Princeton for the P-Rade, and Class Day, and Commencement,to a somewhat unlikely degree. These intriguing results certainly aren't strong enough to compel belief, but the case presents a very challenging possibility,because if the analysis is correct, the only good candidate to explain the apparent differences, other than chance, would seem to be an influence from an informal but powerful communal wish for dry weather. In any case, it surely is premature to conclude, as the graffito has it, that God went to Princeton, but we may need to reconsider the old saw, "Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

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