Corentin Louis Kervran

Corentin Louis Kervran
Born3 March 1901
Quimper, Finistère
Died2 February 1983
Quimper, Finistère
Occupation(s)Engineer, writer

Corentin Louis Kervran (3 March 1901 – 2 February 1983) was a French scientist. Kervran was born in Quimper, Finistère (Brittany), and received a degree as an engineer in 1925. In World War II he was part of the French Resistance.[1][2]

Kervran proposed that nuclear transmutation occurs in living organisms, which he called "biological transmutation".[3] He made this claim after experimenting with chickens, which he believed showed that they were generating calcium in their eggshells while there was no calcium in their food or soil. He had no known scientific explanation for it. Such transmutations are not possible according to known physics, chemistry, and biology.[3] Proponents of biological transmutations fall outside mainstream physics and are not part of accepted scientific discourse.[4][5] Kervran's ideas about biological transmutation have no scientific basis and are considered discredited.[3]

  1. ^ "Les transmutations".
  2. ^ "C. Louis Kervran and Biological Transmutations". C. Louis Kervran and Biological Transmutations. Retrieved 2019-08-01.
  3. ^ a b c Schwarcz, Joe. (2014). Is that a Fact?: Frauds, Quacks, and the Real Science of Everyday Life. ECW Press. pp. 40-43. ISBN 978-1-77041-190-6
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference tibor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Robert Sheaffer (September–October 1998), "Uncritical Publicity for Supposed 'Independent UFO Investigation' Demonstrates Media Gullibility", Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 22, no. 5, [The Journal of Scientific Exploration has the intention] to publish supposedly scientific papers on '[list of paranormal and pseudoscientific topics], apparent chemical or biological transmutation (alchemy), etc.' Despite the impressive jargon and, in some cases, the impressive academic degrees of the authors, these papers have been absolutely unconvincing to mainstream scientific journals and organizations, and, far from pointing the way to further research, they have been quite deliberately ignored.