Geoarchaeology and Delphi • Winchester Mystery Mansion • Fourth World Skeptics Congress Skeptical Inquirer! THE MAGAZINE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON Volume 26, No. 5 • September/October 2002 x A Skeptical Look at September 11th

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Can We React More Rationally to Terrorism?

Sheldrake's Crystals: A Critique .. • • Teaching Skepticism • Skepticism Under the Big Sky

cientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL AT THE CENTER FOR INQUIRY-INTERNATIONAl (ADJACENT TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO) • AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION Paul Kurtz. Chairman; professor emeritus of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo Barry Karr, Executive Director Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow Massimo Polidoro, Research Fellow Richard Wiseman, Research Fellow Lee Nisbet, Special Projects Director FELLOWS James E. Alcock.* psychologist, York Univ., Consultants, New York, NY Irmgard Oepen, professor of medicine Toronto Susan Haack, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts (retired), Marburg, Germany Jerry Andrus, magician and inventor, Albany, and Sciences, prof, of philosophy, University Loren Pankratz, psychologist, Oregon Health Oregon of Miami Sciences Univ. Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor-in-chief, C. E. M. Hansel, psychologist, Univ. of Wales John Paulos, mathematician, Temple Univ. New England Journal of Medicine Al Hibbs, scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist, MIT Robert A. Baker, psychologist, Univ. of Douglas Hofstadter, professor of human Massimo Polidoro, science writer, author, Kentucky understanding and cognitive science, executive director CICAP, Italy Stephen Barrett, M.D., psychiatrist, author, Indiana Univ. Milton Rosenberg, psychologist, Univ. of consumer advocate, Allentown, Pa. Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Chicago Barry Beyerstein,* biopsychologist, Simon Physics and professor of history of science, Wallace Sampson, M.D., clinical professor of Fraser Univ., Vancouver, B.C., Canada Harvard Univ. medicine, Stanford Univ., editor, Scientific Irving Biederman, psychologist, Univ. of Ray Hyman,* psychologist. Univ. of Oregon Review of Alternative Medicine Southern California Leon Jaroff, sciences editor emeritus. Time Amardeo Sarma, engineer, head of dept. Susan Blackmore. Visiting Lecturer, Univ. of Sergei Kapitza, former editor, Russian edition. at T-Nova Deutsche Telekom, executive the West of England, Bristol Scientific American director, GWUP, Germany. Henri Broch, physicist, Univ. of Nice, France Philip J. Klass,* aerospace writer, engineer Evry Schatzman, former president, French Jan Harold Brunvand, folklorist, professor Edwin C. Krupp, astronomer, director, Griffith Physics Association emeritus of English, Univ. of Utah Observatory Eugenie Scott physical anthropologist, execu­ Vern Bullough, professor of history, California Paul Kurtz,* chairman. Center for Inquiry tive director, National Center for Science State Univ. at Northridge Lawrence Kusche, science writer Education Mario Bunge, philosopher. McGill University Leon Lederman, emeritus director. Fermilab; Robert Sheaffer, science writer John R. Cole, anthropologist, editor, National Nobel laureate in physics Elie A. Shneour, biochemist, author, Center for Science Education Scott Lilienfeld, psychologist, Emory Univ. director, Biosystems Research Institute, Frederick Crews, literary and cultural critic, Lin Zixin, former editor, Science and La Jolla, Calif. professor emeritus of English, Univ. of Technology Daily (China) Dick Smith, film producer, publisher, Terrey California, Berkeley Jere Lipps, Museum of Paleontology, Univ. of Hills. N.S.W., Australia F. H. C. Crick, biophysicist, Salk Inst, for California, Berkeley Robert Steiner, magician, author. Biological Studies. La Jolla. Calif; Nobel Prize Elizabeth Loftus, professor of psychology. El Cerrito, Calif. laureate Univ. of Washington Jill Cornell Tarter, astronomer, SETI Institute. Richard Dawkins, zoologist, Oxford Univ. Paul MacCready, scientist/engineer, Mountain View, Calif. Cornells de Jager, professor of astrophysics, AeroVironment. Inc., Monrovia, Calif. Carol Tavris, psychologist and author, Los Univ. of Utrecht, the Netherlands John Maddox, editor emeritus of Nature Angeles. Calif. Paul Edwards, philosopher, editor, David Marks, psychologist. City University, London. David Thomas, physicist and mathematician, Encyclopedia of Philosophy Mario Mendez-Acosta, journalist and Peralta. New Mexico Kenneth Feder, professor of anthropology. science writer, Mexico City, Mexico Stephen Toulmin, professor of philosophy, Central Connecticut State Univ. Marvin Minsky, professor of media arts and Univ. of Southern California Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading Univ.. U.K. sciences, M.I.T. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and direc­ Andrew Fraknoi, astronomer, Foothill College, David Morrison, space scientist, NASA Ames tor, Hayden Planetarium, New York City Los Altos Hills. Calif. Research Center Marilyn vos Savant Parade magazine con­ Kendrick Frazier,* science writer, editor, Richard A. Muller, professor of physics, Univ. tributing editor and CBS News correspondent SKEPTICAL INQUIRER of Calif., Berkeley Steven Weinberg, professor of physics and Yves Galifret. vice-president. Affiliated H. Narasimhaiah, physicist, president. astronomy, Univ. of Texas at Austin; Nobel Organizations: France Bangalore Science Forum, India Prize laureate Martin Gardner,* author, critic Dorothy Nelkin, sociologist. New York Univ. Richard Wiseman, psychologist, University of Murray Gell-Mann, professor of physics, Santa Joe Nickell,* senior research fellow. CSICOP Hertfordshire Fe Institute; Nobel Prize laureate Lee Nisbet* philosopher, Medaille College Marvin Zelen, statistician. Harvard Univ. Thomas Gilovich. psychologist, Cornell Univ. Bill Nye, science educator and television host. Henry Gordon, magician, columnist, Toronto Nye Labs * Member. CSICOP Executive Council Saul Green, PhD, biochemist president of ZOL James E. Oberg, science writer (Affiliations given for identification only.)

Visit the CSICOP Web site at http://www.csicop.org

The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (ISSN 0194-6730) is published bimonthly by the Committee for the Articles, reports, reviews, and letters published in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER represent the Scientific Investigation of Claim* of the I\uanormal, 1310 Sweet Home Rd., Amherst. NY views and work of individual authors. Their publication docs not necessarily constitute an 14228. Printed in U.S.A. Periodical* postage paid at Buffalo. NY. Subscription prices; one year endorsement by CSICOP or its members unless so stated. (sue issues). S35; two years. $58: three years. $81: single i»uc, $4.95. Canadian and foreign orders: Copyright ©2002 by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Payment in U.S. hind* drawn on a U.S. bank must accompany orders; please add USS10 per year Paranormal. All rights reserved. The SKEPTICAI INQUIRIR is available on 16mm microfilm. tor shipping. Canadian and foreign customers arc encouraged to use Visa or MasterCard. 35mm microfilm, and 105mm microfiche from University Microfilms International and is Inquiries from the media and the public about the word of the Committee should be made indexed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Uteraiurc. to Paul Kunz. Chairman. CSICOP. Box 703. Amherst. NY 14226-0703- Tel.: 716-636-1425. Subscriptioni and changes of address should be addressed to: SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. Box FAX:716-636-l733. 703. Amherst. NY 14226-0703. Or call toll-free 1-800-634-1610 (ouuidc U.S. call 716-636- Manuscripts, letters, books for review, and editorial inquiries should be addressed to Kendrick 1425). Old address as well as new arc necessary for change of subscriber's address, with six Frazier. Editor. SKM'IHAI INQUIRER, 944 Deer Drive NE. Albuquerque. NM 87122. Fax 505- weeks advance noiicc. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER *ubvcribcrs may not speak on behalf of CSICOP 828-2080. Before submitting any manuscript please consult our Guide for Authors lor format and or the SKUTUAI INQUKIK. rtferences requirements. It is on our Web siic at http://ivww.csicop.org/si/guide-for-authoi\.html Postmaster: Send change* of address to SKEPTICAI INQUIRER, Box -T03. Amherst. NY and on page 69 of the March/April issue. Or you may send a rax request to the editor. 14226-0703. CONFERENCE REPORT Skeptical Inquirer Fourth World Skeptics Conference September/October 2002 • VOL. 26, NO. 5 in Burbank a Lively Foment of Ideas ARTICLES Scams, intelligent design, urban legends, fringe psychotherapies get critical attention 29 A Skeptical Look at KENDRICK FRAZIER September 11th and BENJAMIN RADFORD How We Can Defeat Terrorism by Reacting to It More Rationally SPECIAL REPORT At the one-year anniversary, we examine reactions to the September II, 2001, attacks in the context of other causes of 17 Circular Reasoning: premature deaths. An objective of terrorism is to multiply dam­ age by inducing irrational fears in the broad population. One The 'Mystery' of Crop Circles defense is to learn to evaluate such situations more objectively. and Their 'Orbs' of Light CLARK R. CHAPMAN and JOE NICKELL ALAN W. HARRIS

COLUMNS 35 Sheldrake's Crystals An exchange of views on morphogenesis leads to the conclusion EDITOR'S NOTE: One Year After September 11 4 that testing Sheldrake's ideas about crystallization is useless. NEWS AND COMMENT MARCEL van GENDEREN, BART KOENE, 'Miraculous' Image of Guadalupe Painted / 'ESP Test' Fools UK's Da/7y Mirror I APS Statement Knocks Perpetual Motion, 'Free and JAN WILLEM NIENHUYS Energy' Claims / Geoarchaeology: Ancients Right about Delphi 40 Are Melting Points Constant? Earth Gases 13 (Reply to Van Genderen, Koene, and Nienhuys) INVESTIGATIVE FILES RUPERT SHELDRAKE Winchester Mystery House: Fact vs. Fancy 41 A Last Reply to Sheldrake JOE NICKELL 20 MARCEL van GENDEREN. BART KOENE, and NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD JAN WILLEM NIENHUYS lea Stones: Yabba-Dabba-Do! MASSIMO POUDORO 24 42 Teaching Skepticism via the CRITIC PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Acronym and the Where Have You Gone, Commander Quasgaa? The CRITIC acronym provides neophyte skeptical students ROBERT SHEAFFER 26 with an easy-to-remember, step-by-step format for applied criti­ cal thinking. Practice applying this simple method of critical NEW BOOKS 56 analysis can include writing CRITIC reports on the feature articles found in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. SCIENCE BEST SELLERS 56

WAYNE R. BARTZ FORUM Oh Brother Luke, Where Art Thou? 45 Skepticism Under the Big Sky KEN PAREJKO 58 American Schools: How They Measure Up If you offer it, they will come! Since 1996, four intrepid prairie DONNA M. BROWN 60 skeptics have annually pitted approximately a quarter century of graduate study in science, medicine, and education against the Deja Vu: Descartes All Over Again claims, cunning, and innocent convictions of local truth seekers. GEORGE ENGLEBRETSEN 62

MIKE SCHWINDEN, DAVE ENGBRECHT, FOLLOW-UP JOHN MERCER, and MARK PETERSON After-Death Communications: A Misleading Critique GARY E. SCHWARTZ 64

48 Why Was The X-Files LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 65 So Appealing? The success of The X-Files was in large part due to its expres­ sion of a confluence of three powerful, ancient, and legend-like BOOK REVIEWS beliefs—paranormalism, conspiratorial thinking, and populism. Junk Science Judo ERICH GOODE By Steven J. Milloy TERENCE HINES 51

On the Cover. No Gw* Ri—A Military History of 11 SEPTEMBER 2001 - Dallas, Texas: Jeanie Quest, left, and Phillip JaDour react to photographs of the terrorist attack on New York the Korean War Incident City and Washington D.C. September 11. 2001 in a special edition By Robert L. Bateman of the Dallas Morning News. Credit: Ian Halperin/UPI ROBERT SKOLE 53 Crop circles, Avebury. England. Credit: Ron Russell/Index Stock Imagery The Natural Physicians Healing Therapies David Duchovny (L) as Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson as Agent Dana Scully. 01998 Fox Broadcasting Company. Credit: Mark By Mark Stiegler Seliger/Fox BERTRAM ROTHSCHILD 54 EDITOR'S NOTE Skeptical Inquirer THI MAGAZINE 'OR SCIENCE AND MASON

EDITOR Kendrick Frazier One Year After September 11 EDITORIAL BOARD James E. Alcock Barry Beyerstein t has been a year since the terrible attacks of last September 11. Much has Thomas Casten Martin Gardner Ichanged since then. In this issue Clark R. Chapman (Southwest Research Ray Hyman Institute) and Alan W. Harris (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) take what they call Lawrence Jones Philip J. Klass "A Skeptical Look at September 11." While not questioning the reality of the Paul Kurtz Joe Nickell visceral fears caused by the attacks—and the responsible reactions to them— Lee Nisbet they argue that our reaction to the attacks was disproportionate and that this Amardeo Sarma Bela Scheiber in turn was as damaging as the direct destruction of lives and property. They Eugenie Scott suggest that Americans can mitigate future terrorism by learning to respond CONSULTING EDITORS Robert A. Baker more objectively to future malicious acts. Susan J. Blackmore As horrible as the attacks were. Chapman and Harris point out that the John R. Cole Kenneth L. Feder total death toll was far less than the 20,000 people who died in a single earth­ C. E. M. Hansel quake in India earlier last year and also less than U.S. highway fatalities in E. C. Krupp Scott O. Lilienfeld every single month, including September of 2001. David F. Marks James E. Oberg Later in their article, they discuss the problem of risk perception, and of Robert Sheaffer course they are right that we humans so personalize things that we have a David E. Thomas Richard Wiseman skewed sense of what poses die most and the least risks to us. Shark attacks get MANAGING EDITOR enormous publicity, but only about ten people a year worldwide are killed by Benjamin Radford ART DIRECTOR sharks. Twenty-thousand Americans were expected to die from influenza in the Lisa A. Hutter winter of 2001—2002, but that got litde publicity. The social dynamics of risk PRODUCTION perception are fascinating, but one can hardly complain that people don't Paul Loynes CARTOONIST number-crunch risk-assessment data like a computer; people take more intu­ Rob Pudim itive assessments that even can have their own psychological rationality. WEB PAGE DESIGN Patrick Fitzgerald, Designer Chapman and Harris clearly have a broad perspective (they are planetary Amanda Chesworth Kevin Christopher scientists), and that perspective is shaped by worries about the risk of an event Rob Beeston that could, as they say, send civilization all the way back to the Dark Ages— PUBLISHER'S REPRESENTATIVE an impact into the earth of a kilometer-size asteroid. To them, these various Barry Karr comparisons suggest that the United States' post 9/11 expenditures have been CORPORATE COUNSEL Brenton N. VerPloeg lopsidedly large and that a more balanced approach would be advisable and BUSINESS MANAGER better for society. Sandra Lesniak FISCAL OFFICER I share their frustration about our skewed risk assessments, and I had my Paul Paulin say about the September 11 events in my Commentary "Clear Thinking and CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER the Forces of Unreason" in our March/April 2002 issue. Still, there are some Arthur Urrows DEVELOPMENT OFFICER additional points that, in my personal view, might be made: James Kimberly The authors are using the deaths/damage from the attacks of September 11 CHIEF DATA OFFICER Michael Cione as a lone point of comparison. But, to be fair, we don't know how many other STAFF possible attacks have been averted or deterred by the actions and resolve of the Darlene Banks Patricia Beauchamp military, the government, and the civilian society. Jennifer Miller In general, I think the response of the American public in supporting the Heidi Shively Ranjit Sandhu necessities of the fight against terrorism has been highly positive and for the Anthony Santa Lucia John Sullivan most part rational and proportional. Vance Vigrass Nevertheless, Chapman and Harris present an important set of arguments PUBUC RELATIONS DIRECTOR about our reactions—and possible overreactions—to terrorist events that have Kevin Christopher YOUNG SKEPTICS PROGRAM DIRECTOR been a turning point in U.S. history. Amanda Chesworth INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS Thomas Flynn DIRECTOR OF UBRARIES Timothy S. Binga

The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is the official journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, a international organization.

4 May/June 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER CONFERENCE REPORT Fourth World Skeptics Conference in Burbank a Lively Foment of Ideas Scams, intelligent design, urban legends, fringe psychotherapies get critical attention

KENDRICK FRAZIER and BENJAMIN RADFORD

Nearly 500 people attended CSICOP's New Yorker. A correspondent from die Fourth World Skeptics Conference June Latin American media giant Telemundo 20-23 in Burbank, California, hearing was also on hand, interviewing several a first-ever opening session on confi­ attendees and speakers for a Spanish- dence games and financial scams, a fas­ speaking audience. cinating semi-debate-format session on This one's overall theme, "Prospects evolution and intelligent design (featur­ for Skepticism: The Next 25 Years," ing, among others, evolutionary seemed appropriate since CSICOP biologist Kenneth Miller and ID had just completed a yearlong cele­ proponent William Dembski), Prospects for Skepticism bration of its twenty-fifth anniver­ another plenary session on urban The Next Twenty-Five Years sary. This first-ever West Coast-sited legends, and a variety of paired world conference, at the Hilton, concurrent sessions challenging Burbank Airport and Convention attendees to make difficult choices banquet the next night of CSICOP's Center, was hosted by the Center for about what not to miss. Distinguished Skeptic Award), that Inquiry-West, CFI's recendy established It seemed impossible not to miss ranged widely over politics, religion, and Southern California outpost for skeptics somediing interesting, however. The con­ skepticism, an evening keynote address and humanists, situated a few miles to die current sessions focused on fringe psy­ by MIT cognitive scientist and artificial south in Hollywood. CFI-West just late chotherapies, space-age pseudoscience, intelligence guru Marvin Minsky, and a last year dedicated die first floor of its new medical claims, "The Investigators" side-splitting Saturday night awards- building on Hollywood Boulevard, cen­ (Richard Wiseman, Joe Nickell, Jan banquet stand-up comedy routine by tral to die world's entertainment media, Willem Nienhuys), educating our future television actor Gabe Kaplan, and all the which communicate and miscommuni- (moderated by Young Skeptics Program ingredients were there for an entertain­ cate so much, good and bad, to global director Amanda Chesworth and featur­ ing and mind-expanding three-day audiences via television and film. ing, among others, Diane Swanson, intellectual and skeptical feast. CSICOP founder and chairman Paul author of Nibbling on Einstein's Brain, a The conference appeared to match Kurtz opened the conference by point­ book about science and skepticism for up well with its predecessor world skep­ ing out that the modern media, with young people; and Charles Wynn, co­ tics congresses in Amherst, New York their insatiable interest in "entertain­ author of Quantum Leaps in the Wrong (1996), Heidelberg, Germany (1998), ment and titillation," are at the root of Direction, a book for the general public and Sydney, Australia (2000). the phenomena of intetest in the para­ about pseudoscience) and the paranor­ Due to solid efforts by CSICOP's normal. In contrast, he noted, CSICOP mal around the world (with speakers public relations crew, the news media has pressed for alternative scientific and from China, India, Peru, Argentina, were well represented, with reporters rational investigation of claims, and "for Venezuela, Mexico, and Germany). from BBC Radio, Fox News, the balanced presentations, not only the pro Toss in a raucous luncheon address Learning Channel, KABC, the Burbank but the con." Throughout, he said, die by the irrepressible science fiction writer Leader, and Australian Broadcasting broader goal is "public appreciation of Harlan Ellison (recipient at the awards Corporation showing up, as well as The the scientific outlook."

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 S "It is the science and the scientific cial scams for the Australian Skeptic, us is baloney and does not work." outlook that is truly breathtaking," he expressed outrage at scammers. "How Enron, Arthur Anderson, and dot­ said. "You don't need fantasy and fiction dare they take other people's money!" he com IPOs arc not the worst Wall Street to feed the human imagination." said. Scams are bad for two reasons, he has to offer, Schroeder said. For decades, He also noted—as would happen sev­ said: "Good people lose money. Bad he said. Wall Street has lived with a eral more times in die conference—the people make money." nasty secret: Modern financial markets recent death of CSICOP Fellow Stephen The reasons people fall for scams are are efficient and it is next to impossible Jay Gould, and the losses in previous far more complex than greed. He said to beat them. And yet people, shelling years of scientist/skeptics Carl Sagan and they are analogous to optical illusions. out commissions of 0.5 percent to 1 Isaac Asimov. "Where arc the new heroes In both, "the mind is fooled." He percent, pay $35 billion to $70 billion a to emerge today, to integrate science and described a wide variety of pyramid year "to handle your investments," with to explicate and defend science?" schemes, the secret to which is hiding the hope of getting an edge, that their "We've been doing this for twenty- the pyramid with a product. The prod­ expert will be a winner. five years," Kurtz said. "This conference uct may be something people want or it Schroeder said fifty years of well- is on the next twenty-five years." may be essentially worthless, but it dis­ validated academic research show that Following are brief summaries of sev­ guises the real intent of the pyramid, to security investments follow a "random eral of the key sessions. make money for the few people at the walk"—meaning no useful information top, at the expense of all the rest. is embedded in the historical price Don't Get Taken! Virtually everyone is familiar with information of securities. Schroeder de­ The opening Thursday evening session, the notorious Nigerian letter. ("How scribed the research, published in many "Don't Get Taken," focused on a mostly many have not received one?" Lead journals and in the 1973 book A new subject for CSICOP, confidence asked the audience. Only one hand Random Walk Down Wall Street. games and financial scams. All end up went up.) Nevertheless the Nigerian let­ As for typical advice such as "buy taking innocent people's money, in ways ter scam, which seeks the recipient's 'undervalued' stock," Schroeder says, "It that may seem clever or may seem crude, help in getting large sums of money out doesn't work. There are so many bril­ but nevertheless prey on peoples trust. of Nigeria under various ruses, contin­ liant people and so much information CSICOP Fellow Robert Steiner, a ues to draw people in and take their so readily available, it is impossible for certified public accountant, professional money, or worse. "A friend lost $90,000 anyone to gain an advantage." And, he magician, and author of the book Don't to the Nigerian letter," Lead said. "He said, the stock market is efficient—it Get Taken!, listed several myths about thought all the others were hoaxes, but processes all information immediately, con games: that his was real!" The Nigerian letter is so no one has access to information that • The myth that cons are very nice so successful, Lead said, that $200 mil­ others can't get. and gentle. Not true. lion U.S. are flowing into Nigeria each "Scores of empirical studies for fifty • You cannot cheat an honest man. year as a result. And when people whose years show ... no basis for die value of "Yes, you can," Steiner countered. money has been scammed from them investment management," said Schroeder. • Conmen: "Actually some of the get so upset that they travel to Nigeria "Yet financial management interests con­ greatest con sharks are women." to try to find a way to get it back, they tinue to charge billions of dollars a year." • Only stupid and naive people get can be in mortal jeopardy. "Twenty Moderator Ray Hyman concluded taken. Wrong! people are murdered each year who go the session with some remarks on • Only the greedy get taken. Wrong there," Lead said. scammers and the psychology of decep­ again! A similar scam is the selling of tion. Con games work within a social Most scams have been around in var­ nonexistent credit cards for a Caribbean situation and depend upon the normal ious forms for generations, but some are tax haven that promises a $4,000 credit. workings of social dynamics, he said. new. New in just the last few weeks, The only thing one has to do to get this They "are a play within a play." "We Steiner said, was one involving an offer wonderful bargain is to send $150 to the are social creatures. We've evolved to to have your name taken off telephone- tax haven. That's the last they see of react to social cues." Furthermore, he solicitation lists—something appealing their money—or of the credit. said "no one wants to admit that they to most everyone. The only request: The "Wall Street tease" was the topic were taken." Give us your social security number! of Richard Schroeder, a certified financial "All these deceptions depend on Richard Lead, an accountant and planner and registered investment advi­ social trust," Hyman said. "It is because international taxation specialist (and sor. "1 can't think of anything more para­ people trust other people that society treasurer of the Australian Skeptics), normal dian modern Wall Street," said functions as well as it does—and also who writes a regular column on finan­ Schroeder. "Most of what Wall Street tells why cons work."

6 September/Ociober 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER The Inimitable Harlan Ellison

Writer Harlan Ellison gave an enter­ do! It's not, however, to do all the "I have no opinions on what hap­ taining and incisive luncheon address, rotten stuff it does. Like burning pened September 11, 2001. None discussing a proposed appearance on Giordano Bruno and turning that need be voiced, because they're the recendy defunct television show Galileo into a craven wimp; like even less informed dian yours, and Politically Incorrect. He was invited, he stoning witches to death and fling­ frankly, if you're like me you don't said, to come and talk about the ing people onto the strappado for the know actual jack.. . ." September 11 terrorist attacks. After * » « long deliberation, Ellison declined to Saturday evening Ellison was pre­ appear on die show because he felt he sented CSICOP's 2002 Distin­ really had nothing to say about the guished Skeptic Award. Before the topic. This of course puzzled and dis­ presentation the audience was tressed the television producers, who shown excerpts from a television are used to die standard procedure show Ellison did consent to partici­ wherein pundits and celebrities are pate in, a talk show in Los Angeles usually rushed on the air to com­ six months earlier about UFOs ment on big events of die day, and aliens. regardless of how ill informed self- TL - --L I- I i nt OulCfa UII we anuw wcic evident, or repetitive their commen­ of course proponents, but Elli­ tary is. The idea diat pemaps social son came armed with volumes of or political commentary should documentation of the skeptical come only after thoughtful delibera­ arguments. (He says he had tion, and not dictated by die wanted to dramatically roll demands of split-second broadcasting a wheelbarrow full of SKEPTICAL shows, seems novel in today's media. INQUIRERS and skeptical books Ellison ended his talk by slam­ on stage during the program; the ming the hypocrisies of religion. producers only allowed him to "You want an opinion [he said, have them at the table he was metaphorically addressing the TV seated at.) Ellison continually producers] ... try this: blasted back at proponent's claims "All over die globe, people are pleasure of the Inquisitions; like with facts and succinct, pungent being slaughtered in the name of banning books and art and dance; arguments; more than once he God. ... It's been that way through­ like dynamiting gloriously beautiful pulled out an SI issue or book and out history, but no one dares 'take ancient Buddhist statues; like telling read brief sections from it, then religion to task for the evil it has the gullible and uneducated that gave his own unique stylistic twist ushered into the world.' they must empty their pockets of to clinch the argument. "And don't give me any of that milk money as they hate and hate It was one of die few times a sin­ banana oil about all the wonderful and hate all those with lifestyles gle skeptic had clearly won out over things like the Renaissance and illu­ unlike the ones Jerry and Pat and the promoters of pseudoscience on a minated manuscripts that religion Osama trumpet as Moral Values; television talk show. has proffered. That's what a man- lifestyles of honor they cannot live made succoring faith is supposed to up to themselves. —B.R. and K.F.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/Ociobef 2002 7 itself. Appropriate for the conference theme, he began with a "25-year view," first asking why, when there are so many real problems facing society, should we be concerned at all about ID? The answer, he said, is because it aims to affect science education and because its most high-profile advocates are creationists. He spoke of IDs anti-evolution, anti- science agenda (with its theistic alterna­ tive), its social-political wedging tactic, its primarily religious motivation, and its primary institution, the Discovery Institute, with which both of the ID speakers on the panel are affiliated. He said ID's notorious "wedge" doc­ ument surfaced in 1999, outlining goals

From left, moderator Massimo Pigliucci and Evolution and Intelligent Design session panelists Paul Nelson. William of the Discovery Institute for the next Dembski. Kenneth Miller (with microphone), and Wesley Elsberry debate the issues. (Photo by Diane ). Blackwood) five, ten, and twenty years. The goals included: Attack the definition of sci­ Evolution and Intelligent Design Perfection is not required. ence, defeat scientific materialism, and One of the highlights of the conference He outlined the neo-Darwinian syn­ seek to influence education and politics. was the Friday morning plenary session thesis that draws on insights from mod­ The original intention was to carry pitting two prominent defenders of evo­ ern genetics (mutations and recombina­ out research first, but Elsberry said ID lution, Kenneth Miller and Wesley tions) and modern paleontology, which advocates started their political agenda Elsberry, against two leading proponents has identified several human ancestors. before doing the research program. He of "intelligent design" (ID), William In the modern frontiers of evolutionary outlined a variety of ID political activi­ Dembski and Paul Nelson. ID is of science genes and the environment ties, including ID-promoting bills in course the latest tactical approach of interact and real organisms are seen as a Kansas and Georgia, the Santorum those who seek to dethrone evolution in complex outcome of many forces (there amendment in Congress (which con­ the schools and contend that intelligent is no "beanbag" genetics, he said). There trary to ID propaganda did not become design is a scientific theory, or at least a is also much recent research interest in law), and the 2002 effort with the Ohio philosophical theory, that should get the evolution of development. Board of Education. some kind of equal billing. He then described modern ID theory He said when ID proponents are Moderator Massimo Pigliucci, an (and its leading proponents Phillip asked what their scientific program has evolutionary biologist at the University Johnson, Michael Behe, and Dembski), been or what it has accomplished, they of Tennessee (and author of the just- various scientific and philosophical can give no satisfactory answer but con­ published book Denying Evolution), responses to ID, and concluded with a tend that the reason is they "need more worked out in advance with the partici­ list of questions for ID: funding." He finds that response "ironic" pants a format in which all speakers first 1. Is ID a scientific research pro­ given the enormous financial support made short presentations, followed by a gram? If so, what testable predictions funneling into die ID movement. segment in which the participants ques­ does it make? "The ID approach is to bypass skep­ tioned, and responded to, each other. It 2. Is ID a philosophical theory? If so, tical scientists and go directly to the made for a lively and interactive session. is it likely to make a valuable contribu­ public," he said. "Political activism is the Pigliucci began with a historical tion to science? primary focus." ID "science" is "on the overview tracing the first critique of 3. Should we teach ID in schools, backburner," he said, "and the pilot intelligent design theory back to Hume and if so, in science classes, or elsewhere? light is out." in 1779. As for the evolutionary biology, Biologist Wesley Elsberry led off the Paul Nelson, a senior fellow at the he emphasized that "natural selection is panelists' presentations with an exami­ Discovery Institute and editor of the ID a satisfying, not an optimizing, process." nation of die "wedge" tactic of the ID journal Origins & Design, then spoke on It is not "survival of the fittest," he said, movement that, as he says, seeks noth­ "why this debate will not go away in but "survival of the barely tolerable." ing less than a redefinition of science American culture." He asked why ID

8 September/October J002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER should be disqualified a priori. He dis­ ationism dressed up in new arguments The point/counterpoint segment that agrees with "the rule of methodological of information theory and molecular followed allowed pointed questioning of materialism," in which the statements of biology," Miller said. speakers' positions. Some of the interac­ science must invoke only natural things He ended by countering the ID tions were interesting indeed. For and processes. contention that science is closed- instance, Nelson at one point referred to "Why not be curious?" he asked. minded to the novel. "Science is not a scientific paper on the evolution of the "What if the world were designed? hostile to new ideas," he said. Novel Krebs cycle. He said its authors "cannot Naturalism might be false. Why not sus­ ideas lead to new research, which is close die cycle" unless they de novo pos­ pend naturalism as an a priori hypothe­ then subjected to peer review and tulate "a missing enzyme." Without that sis and let the evidence decide? The obtains scientific consensus before assumption, "the evidence doesn't work." dilemma the scientific community faces reaching the classroom and textbooks. Miller asked for a few minutes. He is not being open to all possibilities. Intelligent design, said Miller, wants explained he had the paper in question Naturalism might not be true." to bypass all that messy science "and go in his laptop computer and would like Then it was the turn of Kenneth directly to classrooms and textbooks." to find die specific passage. He found Miller, whose presentation was titled This was met with prolonged applause. the paper, displayed it on the ballroom "Unmasking ID." Miller is a professor Dembski, in his presentation, did screen in full pdf format, and went right of biology at Brown University and not so much make any scientific argu­ to the passage, showing where Nelson author of Finding Darwin's God. He has ment as assert the primacy of IDs polit­ had misinterpreted its meaning. been one of the most outspoken and ical and popular power over science and Said Miller, in returning to the gen­ effective defenders of the scientific evolution. (Dembski, who has Ph.D.'s eral point: "In the evolution of metabo­ integrity of evolutionary biology. in bodi mathematics and philosophy, is lism, the achievement of the fundamen­ William Dembski's calculations author of The Design Inference, among tal steps of the Krebs cycle was not diffi­ "essentially assume what they are trying to other pro-ID books.) cult at all. Almost all of its structure pri­ prove," Miller said. In contrast, Darwin's "Over the next twenty-five years ID marily existed for very different pur­ ideas made testable predictions. "His pre­ will provide the greatest challenge to poses, and cells had to add just one dictions have been fulfilled overwhelm­ skepticism," he said. "ID is threatening enzyme ... to convert a collection of ingly by subsequent developments." to be mainstream," he said, asserting different pathways into the central cyclic "It is disingenuous to speak of design that poils show VU percent support. "ID pathway of metabolism." without speaking of creationism," he is already becoming mainstream within At anodier point the two ID propo­ said. "Design theory is creation(ism)." the public themselves," he said. "The nents were asked if they believed in the ID'ers still say everything is die result usual skeptical retorts are not going to great age of the earth. Nelson answered of design, said Miller, adding, "A theory work against ID." He contended that that the earth's age didn't matter to him. that can explain anything in reality ID "turns the tables on skepticism." Dembski said, "ID is not dependent explains nothing." Dembski contended that Darwinism upon any particular view of die age of He incisively critiqued various ID con­ "is the ultimate status quo," that it the earth. It is not relevant." tentions about biology, including its "squelches dissent." Young people, who Miller then returned to die question: claims diat die bacterial flagellum or die "love rebellion," see that and are "Paul, how old do you diink the earth is?" blood-clotting cascade could not have pro­ attracted to ID as a result, he claimed. Nelson (after a pause): "Its well gressively evolved. ID makes the same "The public supports intelligent design. known I have a young-earth position." claim that the Krebs cycle (the cyclic seties The public is tired of being bullied by Miller: "That is not so hard, was it?" of chemical changes that result in carbo­ an intellectual elite." He contended that Nelson: "I still diink it's irrelevant." hydrate metabolism and produce energy skeptics resort to rhetoric and "artifi­ He said skeptics ask die earth-age ques­ for living organisms) could not have cially define ID out of science," allowing tion "because diey get rhetorical mileage evolved. "But diere is a literature of how it in only material matters. out of it." did evolve," Miller countered. And, he Intelligent Design, in contrast, "paints To Nelson's credit, he, in contrast said, the individual parts do have function. the more appealing world picture" with Dembski, was generally amiable in "Dembski's calculations require an whereas skepticism works by being nega­ his interactions with the skeptics. He assertion we already know is false," said tive. "This doesn't set well with die pub­ contended at die beginning that he him­ Miller. "The 'evidence' for ID requires a lic. ... To most people evolution doesn't self was a skeptic and he liked the ques­ priori assumptions that an evolutionary provide a compelling view." And to sci­ tioning attitude of skeptics when he pathway to a structure is impossible. entists and skeptics who defend evoludon reads the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. "Intelligent design creationism is and die scientific process Dembski ended Nelson also consented to appear in nodiing more than old-fashioned cre­ widi a sarcastic "good luck." an impromptu informal late afternoon

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 9 -> r

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CENTER FOR INQUIRY Vv6St and the Center for Inquiry National Media Center THE PROJECT IS LAUNCHED. No longer a dream, reality has begun for our permanent Center for Inquiry - West. After a five-year search we have purchased a building at 4773 Hollywood Boulevard, in the heart of Hollywood. This ultimate Rallying Point for skeptics will house CFI-West's regional pro­ grams as well as Center for Inquiry's™ new national Media Center. This development has enormous importance for supporters of critical thinking everywhere, especially readers of Skeptical Inquirer.

And now it's up to our readers and friends. Only you can help us fulfill this bold potential. Purchasing the building took $1.6 million, which we must pay back over three years. Renovation will require another $500,000 - creating a 99-seat auditorium, library, exhibit area, media production center, and offices. We're even looking into solar panels so we can generate our own electricity! An additional $495,000 will equip the Media Center and fund its first three years of operation. Finally we must add millions more to endowment, so the new Center will always be fiscally stable.

All told, we need $5.85 million, of which less than $2 million has already been raised. It's the great­ est challenge skeptics and secular humanists have faced since our community gave more than $5 mil­ lion to build and endow the Center for Inquiry - International in Amherst, N.Y., from 1991-1995. MAJOR GIVING OPPORTUNITIES STILL AVAILABLE! A major goal demands major gifts. While gifts in any amount are welcome, we urgently need five-, six-, and even seven-figure gifts now, early in the campaign, when they can do the most to slash interest costs and spur additional contributions. Fortunately, larger gifts can be made as pledges payable over three years. Attractive opportunities exist to name various parts of the new building for oneself or a loved one:

MEMORIAL ITEM: COMMITMENT: MONTHLY Name CFI-W: your choice $1,000,000 $27,778 Entrance Hall Atrium 500,000 13,889 Meeting Room 275,000 [Already taken!] uuunjiuic 150,000 4,157 Display Area 150.000 4,167 Library 75,000 [Already taken!] Reception area and lobby 100,000 2,778 Cafe 50,000 1,389 Stage 50,000 1,389 Reading room 25,000 [Already taken!]

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CENTER FOR INQUIRY - WEST Regional Headquarters and National Media Center A joint project of the Center for Inquiry™, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, and the Council for Secular Humanism, each a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational corporation P.O. Box 741 • Amherst NY 14226-0741 • (716) 636-4869 ext. 311 • FAX (716) 636-1733 question-and-answer session the next belief that vaccines somehow cause the fiery Pentagon attack (it was in fact a dic­ day in a room off die conference hotel condition. Green said that the problem tionary); diat dead airplane passengers, lobby for a continuation of the back- isn't as bad as it used to be, due in part still strapped in their seats, were found in and-forth discussions with Elsberry and to skeptical exposes, greater public apartments adjacent to the World Trade Pigliucci (Miller had left), again moder­ awareness, and recent court decisions. Center; and various rumors that ated by Pigliucci. Eventually the small Steven Jay Lynn, of the State Nostradamus had predicted the attacks. room filled up with seventy-five or University of New York, discussed recov­ Tim Tangherlini approached the topic eighty conference attendees, most all ered memories and pointed out that from a different angle, examining the role seemingly vociferous skeptics, with "even under the best of circumstances of the mediator in reports and legends Nelson, the lone ID proponent among memory is fallible." Though the heyday dealing with monsters, aliens, or other them, genially maintaining that science of recovered memories has passed, many "outsiders." For example, one element should be open to the possibility that therapists still use recovered memories that both urban legends and accounts of naturalism just might not have all the and believe them to be an important part aliens or monsters have in common is answers and that science should be open of treatment. Carol Tavris also gave a talk, that they are almost always told not by to other hypotheses (design). Nelson, discussing the pathologizing of everyday the person who supposedly actually expe­ who has a Ph.D. from the University of problems and the danger to patients of rienced it, but by a mediator, someone telling the audience the story. Chicago in philosophy, generally spoke unregulated therapists. New, unproven from a philosophical not a scientific (and frequently outlandish) therapies Though not as well attended as some viewpoint, in maintaining that design, pop up with alarming regularity, threat­ of the earlier sessions (pardy because it was not evolution, just might have played a ening patients unaware of the shaky die last), the session dded "Paranormal role in shaping the world. At one point, foundations of such treatments. Those Around the World" was an important an audience member praised him for his needing help, she said, need to be wary of forum for international skeptics. Speak­ courage in coming into the wolf's den to people who read about (or take a seminar ers came from China, Germany, Holl­ take part in the informal session. He on) some new, unproven technique and and, Australia, Peru, Russia, Argentina, indicated he enjoyed die interplay. The anoint themselves therapists. Venezuela, and India to discuss die para­ audience, aldiough clearly unconvinced During the question and answer ses­ normal and skeptical movements in dieir native lands. Sami Rosenbaum, a skeptic by his arguments, appeared to as well. sion, one woman complained diat most of from Venezuela, spoke of the prestige that the topics covered were old news, and diat his conference attendance would bring to —K.F. the panelists were "beating a dead horse." the skeptics movement in his part of Lilienfeld noted diat diough some treat­ South America. Already, he said, inter­ Fringe Psychotherapies ments have been discredited, other views were being lined up for him back in Fringe psychotherapies was the topic of unproven therapies are unfortunately alive the capital city of Caracas. All the speakers one session moderated by Scott Lilienfeld and well: "The horse is not dead yet." discussed die need for more skepticism in of Emory University. Lilienfeld spoke their countries, and most credited CSI- Urban Legends about the proliferation of fringe psy­ COP as important in helping get die local chotherapies, and claimed that there are The session on urban legends featured groups started. Across varied skin tones over 500 such untested techniques cur- author and folklorist Jan Brunvand, and accents, die unifying message came rcndy in use. Far from being a case of a Barbara and David Mikkelson (co- through that critical thinking and science few bad apples, Lilienfeld said that sur­ creators of the urban legends Web site are important in all societies. veys suggest that die majority of practi­ snopes.com), and Tim Tangherlini of the tioners do not use empirically supported University of California at Los Angeles. A few grumblings were heard, mosdy methods with their patients. Brunvand discussed the populariza­ about the sporadic technical difficulties Dr. Gina Green gave an overview of tion of urban legends and surveyed the and the tightly-packed schedule that the pseudosciences surrounding autism, different ways in which they have been allowed little time to meet with other a disease that usually strikes the young commercialized, from teen slasher skeptics. On the whole, however, the con­ ference was a great success, and Los and leaves them mute, with impaired movies to advertisements. Urban legends Angeles proved to be a good place for mental and motor skills. Because the have turned from a folklore topic to mar­ media outreach and communicating the cause(s) of autism are still unclear, there keted, prepackaged entertainment. skeptical message to the world. is a lot of mystery and magical thinking The Mikkelsons focused on the associated with the disease. The rumors and urban legends surrounding —B.R. unproven, discredited beliefs and tech­ the September 11, 2001, attacks. Such Kendrick Frazier it Editor, and Benjamin niques include Facilitated Communi­ stories included the tale about a Bible that Radford is Managing Editor, of the cation, the hormone secretin, and the miraculously remained unburned in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

12 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NEWS AND COMMENT

'Miraculous' Image of Guadalupe Painted

JOE NICKELL Recendy, the results of a secret 1982 'ESP Test' Fools UK's scientific study of die image were reported Daily Mirror Mexico City's Image of Guadalupe—a by the Spanish-language magazine Proceso sixteenth-century portrait of the Virgin (in its May 12 and 19, 2002 issues). Art Prophecy and clairvoyance are so widely Mary supposedly imprinted miraculously restoration expert Jose Sol Rosales exam­ believed by millions of people that on an Aztec convert's cloak—has been ined the cloth with a stereomicroscope magicians are credited with psychic confirmed as merely a painting. and determined it did not originate super- powers that not even Nostradamus Nevertheless Pope John Paul II is sched­ naturally but was instead the work of an would dare claim. In fact, a lot of "ESP uled to confer sainthood on the Aztec, artist who used die materials and methods magic tricks," "mind-reading tricks," or Juan Diego, despite the pleas of some of die sixteenth century. Catholic scholars. These include the for­ According to Rosales, the canvas mer curator of the Basilica of Guadalupe, appeared to be a mixture of linen and who doubts the historical existence of hemp or cactus fiber. It was prepared Juan Diego and said such a canonization with a brush coat of white primer would be "recognition of a cult." (calcium sulfate), and the painting Now a ubiquitous symbol of Mexican was then rendered in distemper Catholicism, the image, say critics, was (i.e., paint consisting of pigment, painted by a native artist named Marcos water, and a binding medium). Cipac de Aquino. It was probably uti­ The artist used a "very limited lized by Spanish conquerors to convert palette," stated the expert, consisting the Indians to Catholicism. (A church to of black (from pine soot), white, blue, enshrine the image was built in front of green, various earth colors ("tierras"), a site where the Aztecs had had a temple reds (including carmine), and gold. "mental magic" is as much trickery as for their virgin goddess Tonantzin, thus Rosales's report confirms and amplifies pulling a rabbit out of a hat. grafting the Catholic tradition onto the what skeptics had determined from early At my Web site www.pickover.com I Indian one—a process folklorists call records, infrared photographs, and other promoted an "ESP Test" that is nothing syncretism.) evidence. (See Joe Nickell and John F. more than an old-fashioned card trick. Fischer, "The Image of Guadalupe: A Viewers concentrate on an image of a Folkloristic and Iconographic Investiga­ card, and, for the grand finale, the com­ tion," SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 9:3 [Spring puter appears to correctly "guess" their 1985], 243-255.) card. Give it a try. Do you see the trick? In addition, new scholarship In order to distract test subjects, my suggests that, while the image ESP page has all sorts of distracting was painted not long after the graphics, along with the enigmatic Spanish conquest and was words "quantum consistency" followed said to have miraculous by a random number. powers, the pious legend of I'm not die first person on the Web to Mary's appearance to Juan try simple tricks of this sort, but I may be Diego may date from the fol­ the first to catalog all of the amazing lowing century. incorrect suggestions for how the trick Meanwhile, none of this worked. Here are just a sampling of appears to have had any effect explanations, excerpted so as to reduce on the Vatican, which seems space and to give you a feel for the range set to make a saint of "Juan of explanations and theoretical musings. Diego," fictitious or not. • "The ESP experiment is awesome. I even tried thinking of one card, while Joe Nickell is CSICOP's Senior quietly having selected another. Both Research Fellow and columnist for disappeared! I have been interested in the SKEPTICAL BRIEFS. this phenomenon since 1968, when I

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 13 NEWS AND COMMENT

corresponded with parapsychologist the world by storm. On June 5, 2002, APS Statement Knocks Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine at Duke the popular UK newspaper the Daily University. Your results are signifi­ Perpetual Motion, Mirror reported on my Web site: cant and don't deteriorate over time. 'Free Energy' Claims Emotional excitation docs not even It's got to be one of the weirdest sites seem to interfere, as would be we've ever come across but it's defi­ expected if one looks at Sufi litera­ nitely worth visiting. Pop into Robert L. Park's weekly electronic ture. Therefore, there is a logical, http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pick newsletter "What's New" (American non-paranormal quantum effect over/esp.html and you'll be baffled for Physical Society, Washington, D.C., and going on." days—even months. We don't know University of Maryland) of June 28, • "I viewed the computer source code how he does it but Cliff Pickover, the 2002, had this item: and could not discover mathematical site's creator, claims he's conducting an computations that would aid the Web ESP test. Click on one of three eyes, FREE ENERGY: APS BOARD he asks, and then look at six playing page in making a decision. Perhaps SPEAKS OUT ON PERPETUAL cards. Without moving your cursor, the computer scans eye movement MOTION. and detects pupil dilation resulting pick a card, shout out its name and from concentration." then click on one of six more eyes. It Well, it's not exactly the frontier of then tells you which card you chose. It physics research, but somebody had • "Your ESP mechanism correctly claims to be correct 98 per cent of the to say it. Already this year we've had determine the playing card I selected. time but won't tell you how. Every one the Jasker Power System ("What's Knowing that you have written a book of the 60 times we tried—and we did New" 25 Jan 02), Chukanov Quan­ on time travel, I suspect you have dis­ everything we could to trick them— tum Energy (WN 8 Feb 02), and the covered a limited (but real) mecha­ they got it right. Spooky! Motionless Electromagnetic Genera­ nism of modifying past events." tor (WN 5 Apr 02). Not to mention • "I am quite impressed, Mr. Bubble Fusion (WN 1 Mar 02), Pickover. I generated random num­ My goal in conducting this little hydrino rockets (WN 21 Jun 02), and bers using the Time of Day clock on demonstration was to emphasize how whatever scam Dennis Lee is running my computer, and found the remain­ easily we can be fooled and how great now (WN 3 May 02). So, on der when divided by 3 for the first our will is to believe in the spiritual, die Saturday, June 22, the Executive number; took out the first business Board of the American Physical card that came to hand and took the paranormal, and phenomena beyond sci­ Society unanimously adopted the fol­ first phone number on there modulo ence. I do believe that our universe is a lowing statement: "The Executive 6, and then located a calculator and mysterious place, but 1 hope this simple Board of the American Physical had it generate a pseudo-random test reinforces the need for skeptical Society is concerned that in this number which I then did modulo 6.1 period of unprecedented scientific did the little experiment three times, thinking when evaluating claims of the advance, misguided or fraudulent and your program 'got' it all times. I paranormal. We certainly need rigorous claims of perpetual motion machines would like to study the Java computer controls in parapsychological research and othet sources of unlimited free code for the Web page to learn more." and better public understanding of the energy are proliferating. Such devices would directly violate the most fun­ • "I am from the University of difference between good and bad sci­ Lapland, Finland. Your program damental laws of Nature, laws that ence. Martin Gardner in his book removed several times the card I have guided the scientific advances named, even though I spoke Finnish Science: Good, Bad and Bogus emphasizes that are transforming our world." when naming the card. There are not the need for better evidence supporting many people in the Anglo-Saxon world research claims in such areas as precogni­ who can read a Finno-Ugric mind that tion, biorhythms, ESP, psychokinesis, easily (or know any Finnish)." faith healing, and psychic surgery. Given • "Just another note to tell you how disturbed I am with the program's abil­ the proliferation of United States patents ity to determine my selection infallibly. now being issued for inventions that rely I would like to be able to rule out sub­ on pseudoscience and unproven divina­ liminal flashes or influence due to the tion methods with life-threatening con­ long distance phone choices and that as far as I know, subliminal effects are sequences, increased diligence becomes extremely lessened when the subject is of utmost importance. aware that these are in operation. Are you able to detect the mysterious —Clifford A. Pickover 'visual rays' that are theorized to exist in the fringe sciences?" Clifford A. Pickover, Ph.D., is the author of thirty books on science, art, and reli­ You can read dozens of additional gion. His latest book is Liquid Earth, explanations at my Web site and in my a science-fiction novel that explores book Dreaming the Future (Prome­ the melting of reality along a rustic theus). This ESP Test has recently taken Main Street in Shrub Oak, New York.

14 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NEWS AND COMMENT

This item is from the May 3, 2002, to classical accounts. Springs bubbling The philosophers in the first century "What's New": to the surface, they said carried sweet- wrote of gases producing euphoria and of a spring emanating from fissures, or FREE ENERGY: PERPETUAL- smelling fumes. Some days and months MOTION HUCKSTER were better for prophecy than others. chasms, in the bedrock inside the oracu­ INDICTED IN KENTUCKY. The oracle spoke specifically on the sev­ lar chamber. But a dichotomy arose in the twentieth century between ancient Last Friday. Dennis Lee and his vari­ enth day after each new moon, but not ous screwball companies were barred ai all in winter. If the temple's visitor and modern interpretations for the geo­ from conducting business in demanded a forced performance at the logical source of the oracle's inspiration. Kentucky (WN 7 Sep 01). By wrong time, the oracle might tun wild In 1892 and following years, French Monday, a grand jury had indicted archaeologists including Pierre Amandry I-ce on consumer-fraud charges. Each and frantic around the room delivering excavated the temple ruins and were dis­ of the multiple felony counts could her prophecy in a frenzy. appointed to find fissures and water, but net him five to ten in the can. Other Throughout this time, the sacred site states are said to be lining up to file not the opening of a chasm. In 1904 a remained in a unique geological location. their own charges. Lee takes an old visiting English scholar, A. P. Oppe, According to a team of four researchers fashioned approach to free-energy deemed the ancients were perpetuating a scams, resurrecting failed perpetual- led by geologist Jelle de Boer of Wesleyan myth—or worse a blatant lie. He stated motion ideas from a bygone era, ihat University in Middletown, Connecticut, still have the power to bamboozle the diat Delphi did not sit on volcanic land the temple was built over the intersection scientifically unsophisticated. He and therefore the bedrock never emitted doesn't shy away from the term "per­ of two faults: one young and active and gases. Amandry in 1950 published a petual morion," and doesn't bother the other old and probably inactive. book also declaring the area volcano- and with applying for patents. What he Since 1996, de Boer and colleagues in the vapor-free. Over the decades the original sells are dealerships. Delivery is just fields of archaeology, chemistry and toxi­ around the corner. French finding of water and fissures was cology have been exploring the implica­ forgotten and the Greek interpretations tions of these faults. Embedded in oily ignored. In their place came a standing Robert L. Park is director of the Wash­ limestone, the faults vented hydrocarbon assumption that die ancients were wrong. ington office of the American Physical vapors through fissures in the bedrock Society, a physics professor at the and continue to bubble forth ethylene, Geological features beyond the University of Maryland, and author of ethane, and methane in neighboring immediate temple site provided more Voodoo Science. springs today. modern explanations on how the myth "All three hydrocarbon gases have got started. The sanctuary of Apollo sits the potential to produce an altered at the base of Mount Parnassus, where Geoarchaeology: mental state," says Henry Spiller of the Ancients Right about Poison Center at Kosair Children's Delphi Earth Gases Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, who published a paper on the toxic Greek historians wrote of an oracle at aspects of these gases in the April Delphi who provided cryptic consulta­ 2002 issue of Clinical Toxicology. tion to pilgrims plagued with questions. Ethylene in particular would have For about twelve centuries Delphic the strongest effect and is often women chosen for this job delivered the described as a sweet-smelling gas. advice of the gods, from family matters to "The onset of the effects from eth­ choosing sides during times ol war. ylene are nearly immediate. The During the late Bronze Age, around dose needed for an awake euphoric 1200 B.C., they translated for the earth feeling are significantly less than goddess, Gaia, and later in the eighth that needed for deep operable anes­ century B.C. spoke as Apollo's vocal thesia," Spiller says. During the instrument when this god took over the first human experiments with eth­ sanctuary. ylene as an anesthetic gas in 1923, The oracle sat on a three-legged stool most subjects had a very pleasant in the interior recesses of the temple, experience. However two people in calmly delivering her prose while inhal­ the twelve studied had petiods of ing the breath of the gods. This breath, excitement, confusion, and com­ or pneuma, emanated from fissures in a bative behavior, similar to a frantic floor left naked to the earth, according oracle on a bad day.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 15 NEWS AND COMMENT

faults crisscross the region like wrinkles ages." The springs left deposits of traver­ in the palm of an aged hand. Motion tine below the temple and among the along the Delphi fault, which strikes ruins. Geochemist Jeffrey Chanton of east-west under the sanctuary, is Florida State University found methane thought to have caused the destruction and ethane still trapped in the traver­ of Apollo's older temple in 373 B.C. But tine. The ethylene, a less stable mole­ ruins and landslide deposits obscure the cule, he found still emerging from exact site where the fault runs below the Kerna spring, but not in a spring 100 temple. Questions arose concerning the meters to the east of die temple. "This role of this fault in the rise of the myste­ finding suggests that the sites of hydro­ rious vapors. carbon emissions at Delphi vary in out­ Archaeologist John Hale of the put and are rather localized," the University of Louisville in Kentucky authors say. took some cajoling from de Boer to Delphi is not the only Greek site In an effort to promote begin what would become a five-year where hydrocarbon gases emerge. On science and skepticism among expedition to determine the veracity of the island of Zakynthos to the west, all generations, the Committee the ancient accounts. Over a bottle of where gas springs and tar pits are for the Scientific Investigation Dao, a Portuguese red wine, the two tourist attractions, Chanton found of Claims of the Paranormal made a bet. "Jelle de Boer caught my spring water with ethylene levels simi­ (CSICOP), is pleased to announce the launch of interest with his description of exposed lar to those in Delphi. the Young Skeptics Program. fault planes that he had seen on the Now de Boer and his team have The Web-based program slope of Mount Parnassus east and west opened the flood gates for further is geared towards students, of die oracle site, and with his assump­ research to investigate the truth of the parents and educators. tion that this fault represented the ancient accounts. "It is interesting to CSICORorg/youngskeptic chasm in the earth that ancient authors note that the Delphi oracle never held linked to the Delphic oracle," Hale says. sessions during the winter mondis, when The goals of the Young "It took a bet or a challenge to start this the god Apollo was believed to have gone Skeptics Program are: project because for almost a century it north to the land of the Hyperboreans," • To promote science and skepticism has been an article of faith among de Boer says. "This suggests that the gas within all focets of society and among archaeologists, historians, and classicists all generations. emissions at Delphi may have dimin­ • To provide multiple outlets for young that the ancient traditions about the ished during the colder periods." people to learn and involve themselves Delphic oracle were all wrong. I was Geologist George Davis of the In science, skepticism, and critical Inquiry, very reluctant to admit that a geologist University of Arizona runs a seminar • To work with parents, teachers and might be able to prove that it was mod­ that integrates geology and archaeol­ students in an effort to promote ern scholarship that was wrong, and the ogy. In January, Hale was one of his learning, defend and odvonce science education, and encourage critical ancient authors were right." guest lecturers. "I'm confident if some­ thinking In all areas of life. Last year in the August issue of one would go with Hale to that site, • To help young people make sense ot Geology, de Boer and his team reported the world by developing the tools and they would be convinced that at least gathering the Information to navigate the discovery of a second fault they one fault passes right through the site through the nonsense effectively. called Kerna, after a spring northwest of and that gases have been measured • To nurture curiosity, wonder, and the imagination while sharing in the Apollo's temple, and the gaseous find­ coming out of the fault zone that fascination of reality and the ings of the spring. The Kerna and would have affected people, including excitement our universe has to offer, Delphi fault zones contain numerous the oracle, in the enclosed chamber • To explore extraordinary claims and investigate unexplained phenomena, extensional fissures, de Boer says. above the fault," Davis says. "More while enjoying ourselves in the process. "Where the faults intersect the interpretive challenges of what may • To inspire future generations to proudly carry the torch of science and reason bedrock is especially permeable." With have happened still exist, but overall and keep the dame burning bright for regard to the absence of volcanic fumes, their story holds together." years to come. de Boer says: "Fractures all over die —Christina Reed world emit gases. Here in New England, For more information pie for instance, radon surfaces along faults Christina Reed is associate editor of contact Program Director Amanda Chesworth at in many areas. Along the fractures in Geotimes. Reprinted with permission [email protected] Delphi, warm groundwater significantly from Geotimes, May 2002. Copyright the enriched in calcium has emerged for American Geological Institute.

16 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER REPORT

Circular Reasoning: The 'Mystery' of Crop Circles and Their 'Orbs' of Light

JOE NICKELL

ince they began to capture media the vast wheal crops of the picturesque pliable, and could only be broken willi attention in the mid 1970s, and to Wiltshire countryside in 1994, at one for­ difficulty. As to the absence of tracks, Sproliferate and evolve through the mation a local dowser told me he believed they were precluded by de facto foot­ decades of the 1980s and 1990s, crop the swirled patterns were produced by paths in the form of the tractor "tram­ circles have provided mystery and con­ spirits of the earth (Nickell 1995). lines" that mark the fields in closely troversy. New books, touting "scien­ spaced, parallel rows (Nickell and tific research," continue the trend. Fischer 1992). The topic is also getting a boost Investigation into the circles from a new Hollywood movie. mystery indicated that it might be Signs, starring Mel Gibson as a profitable to look not just at individ­ Pennsylvania farmer who discovers ual formations but at the overall a 500-foot design imprinted in his phenomenon (rather on the oid crops and seeks to learn its meaning. principle that one may fail to see the At issue are swirled, often circular forest for the trees). Forensic analyst designs pressed into crop fields, espe­ John F. Fischer and I soon identified cially rJiose of southern England. several characteristics that suggested They can range from small circles the work of hoaxers (Nickell and only a few feet in diameter to elabo­ Fischer 1992): rate "pictograms," some now as large 1. An Escalation in Frequency. as a few hundred feet across. By Although there were sporadic re­ the end of the 1980s books on the ports of simple circles in earlier crop circle phenomenon had begun times and in various countries (pos­ to spring up as well, and soon circles- sibly as UFO-landing-spot hoaxes), mystery enthusiasts were being the classic crop circles began to be dubbed cereologists (after Ceres, the reported by the mid 1970s. Data Roman goddess of vegetation). Cir- on the circles showed that their clemania was in full bloom (Delgado number increased annually from and Andrews 1989; Nickell and 1981-1987, an escalation that Fischer 1992; Schnabel 1994). seemed to correlate with media Most cereologists—a.k.a. "crop­ coverage of the phenomenon. In pies" (Hoggart and Hutchinson 1995)— Hoaxers, most croppies insisted, fact it appeared that the coverage helped believed the circular designs were being could not be responsible because die prompt further hoaxes. produced either by extraterrestrials or by plants were only bent and not broken, 2. Geographic Distribution. The phe­ hypothesized "plasma vortices," suppos­ and there were no footprints or other nomenon showed a decided predilection edly "small, local whirlwinds of ionized traces of human activity. Skeptics air" (Haselhoff 2001, 5-6). A few took a replied that from mid-May to early Joe Nickell has written about crop circles more mystical approach. When I visited August the English wheat was green and in his book Real-life X-Files (2001).

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/Oclober 2002 17 for a limited geographic area, flourish­ to repeated subdivision)—all consistent ing their technique for television crews, ing in southern England—in Hamp­ with the intelligence of modern homo e.g., on ABC-TV's Good Morning shire, Wiltshire, and nearby counties. It sapiens. At the end of the decade came America on September 10, 1991 was there that the circles effect captured many designs that included decidedly (Nickell and Fischer 1992, 145-148). the world's attention. And, just as the square and rectilinear shapes, seeming to Cereologists were forced to concede number of circles increased, so their lo­ represent a wry response to the hypoth­ that hoaxers were producing elaborate cations spread. After newspaper and esized swirling "vortex" mechanism. designs and that "there are many ways to television reports on the phenomenon 4. The Shyness Factor. A fourth char­ make a hoaxed crop circle" (Haselhoff began to increase in the latter 1980s, the acteristic of the cropfield phenomenon 2001, 34). (For example, some who go formations began to crop up (so to is its avoidance of being observed in 'round in circles use a garden roller to speak) in significant numbers around action. It is largely nocturnal, and the flatten the plants [Hoggart and Hutchinson 1995].) While in the past some cereologists thought they could distinguish "real" from fake circles by Cereologists were forced to dowsing (Nickell 1995), the more cau­ concede that hoaxers were tious now admit it is not an easy matter, "certainly not as long as we do not even producing elaborate designs and that know exactly what mechanism creates "there are many ways to make crop circles" (Haselhoff 2001, 34). Nevertheless the croppies were sure a hoaxed crop circle." that some of the formations must be genuine, citing various "unexplained" features. More recently they invoked the world. Indeed the circles effect designs even appear to specifically resist new "scientific" evidence in diat regard, appeared to be a media-borne "virus." being seen, as shown by Operation such as that provided by "the BLT 3. Increase in Complexity. A very White Crow. That was an eight-night Research Team" in Cambridge, Massa­ important characteristic of the pat­ vigil maintained by about sixty cereolo- chusetts. The "B" and "T" are circle "re­ terned-crops phenomenon was the ten­ gists in June 1989. Not only did no cir­ searchers" and "L" is a semi-retired bio- dency of the configurations to become cles appear in the field chosen for sur­ physicist, W C. Levengood. He finds a increasingly elaborate over time. They veillance but—although there had correlation between certain deformities progressed from simple swirled circles to already been almost a hundred forma­ in plants and their locations within circles with rings and satellites, to still tions that summer, with yet another 170 crop-circle-type formations, but not more complex patterns. In 1987 came a or so to occur—not a single circle was control plants outside them (Levengood crop message, "WEARENOTALONE" reported during the period anywhere in and Talbott 1999). However, correlation (although skeptics observed that, if the England. Then a large cirde-and-ring is not causation, and there are other ob­ source were indeed English-speaking formation was discovered about 500 jections to his work (Nickell 1996a). As extraterrestrials, the message should yards away on the very next day! well, more mundane hypotheses for the have read "You" rather than "We"). In These and other characteristics are effects—for instance, compressed moist 1990 came still more complex patterns, entirely consistent with the work of plants steaming in the hot sun—appear dubbed "pictograms." There were also hoaxers. Indeed, as John Fischer and I to have been insufficiently considered. free-form shapes (e.g., a "tadpole"-like were about to go to press with our inves­ Crucially, since there is no satisfactory design), a witty crop triangle, and the tigative report, in September 1991 two evidence that a single "genuine" (i.e., hilarious bicycle (see Hoggart and "jovial con men in their sixties" con­ "vortex"-produced) crop circle exists, Hutchinson 1995, 59). fessed they had been responsible for Levengood's reasoning is circular: There also appeared beautifully many of the crop formations made over although there are no guaranteed genuine interlinked spirals, a Menorah, intricate the years. In support of their claim the formations on which to conduct "snowflake" and stylized "spider web" men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, research, the research supposedly proves designs, elaborate "Torus Knot" and fooled cereologist Pat Delgado. He the genuineness of the formations. But if "Magdala" emblems, pentagram and declared a pattern they had produced for the work were really valid, Levengood floral patterns, and other distinctive for­ a tabloid to be authentic, insisting it was would be expected to find that a high mations, including an "Origami of a type no hoaxer could have made. percentage of the crop circles chosen for Hexagram" and several fractals (mathe­ The pair utilized a rope-and-plank research were actually hoaxed, especially matical designs with a motif subjected device to flatten the plants, demonstrat­ since even many ardent cereologists

18 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER admit there are more hoaxed than "gen­ from "orbs" of "spirit energy" typically Acknowledgments uine" ones (Nickell 1996a; Nickell and seen in photographs of graveyards and I am indebted to CFI staff—especially Fischer 1992). For example, prominent other "haunted" places and that some­ Tim Binga, Kevin Christopher, Benjamin cereologist Colin Andrews (2001) has times appear in snapshots as UFOs. Radford, and Ranjit Sandhu—for helping in conceded that 80 percent of the British Skeptics have demonstrated that these various ways to make this report possible. crop circles are manmade; yet Levengood claims his research "suggests that over 95 percent of worldwide crop formations The crop-circle phenomenon involve organized ion plasma vortices ..." (Levengood and Talbott 1999). will continue. At least it has moved from Levengood and others who postulate the level of mere hoaxing to represent an crop-stamping, ion plasma vortices have to face the fact that those remain unrec­ impressive genre of outdoor art. ognized by science. They owe their imagined existence to George Terence Meaden, a former professor of physics globelike effects can be produced by par­ References who took up meteorology as an avoca­ ticles of dust, water droplets, and the like tion. His book The Circles Effect and Its reflecting the flash (Mosbleck 1988; Andrews. Colin. 2001. Cited in Haselhoff 2001, Mysteries (1989) is still revered by many Nickell 1994; Burton 1999). Other sim­ 37-38. Burton, Garry. 1999. Welcome to 'Orb World.' ulators of paranormal "energy" in photos cereologists. Alas, however, he merely http://membcrs.aol.com/Analogsys/index attempted to "explain" a mystery by cre­ include lens flares (die result of inter- 2.html. ating another, and—humiliated by reflection between lens surfaces), bugs Delgado, Pat, and Colin Andrews. 1989. hoaxers—eventually retired from the and debris reflecting the flash, and many Circular Evidence. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Phanes Press. scene, conceding that all of the complex other causes, including film defects and Flares spark reports of UFOs. 1999. Cornish designs were fakes (Hoggart and hoaxes (Nickell 1994). Guardian, August 19 (quoted in Howe Hutchinson 1995, 59). Sometimes, however, "hovering balls 2000, 166-167). Haselhoff, Eltjo H. 2001. The Deepening Nevertheless, many circles aficionados of light" and other "energy" effects are Complexity of Crop Circles. Berkeley, have begun to photograph supposed vor­ reported by eyewitnesses, though not California: Frog, Ltd. tex effects which, curiously, resemble only in the vicinity of crop circles Hoggart, Simon, and Mike Hutchinson. 1995. Bizarre Beliefs. London: Richard Cohen some of the same photographic anom­ (Haselhoff 2001; Howe 2000). These Books. 52-61. alies that are the stock-in-trade of ghost too may have a variety of causes includ­ Howe, Linda Moulton. 2000. Mysterious Lights and hunters. For example, in her Mysterious ing pranksters' parachute flares ("Flares" Crop Circles. New Orleans, La.: Paper Chase Press. Lights and Crop Circles, credulous jour­ 1999), various misperceived aerial craft Johnson, Jerold R. 1991. Pretty pictures. MUFON UFO Journal 275: 18, March. nalist Linda Moulton Howe (2000, 137, and other phenomena (such as ball Levengood, W. C. and Nancy P. Talbott. 1999. 255) exhibits a flash photo taken in a lightning), false claims, hallucinations, Dispersion of energies in worldwide crop crop circle that shows a bright "mysteri­ etc. In some instances, small lights formations. Physiologia Plantarum 105: 615-624. ous arch witJi internal structure that observed moving about cropfields at Meaden, George Terence. 1989. TIK Circles Effect and seems to spiral like a plasma." Unfor­ night might have come from the flash­ Its Mystery Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire: tunately for Howe (erstwhile promoter of lights of die circle makers! Artetech. Mosbleck, Gerald. 1988. The elusive photographic cattle mutilations and similar "myster­ It appears that for die foreseeable evidence, in Spencer and Evans 1988. 210. ies"), the effect is indistinguishable from future die crop-circle phenomenon will Nickell, Joe. 1994. Camera Clues: A Handbook for diat caused by the cameras unsecured continue. At least it has moved from die Photographic Investigation. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky. wrist strap reflecting the flash (Nickell level of mere hoaxing—"a form of graffiti . 1995. Crop circle mania wanes. SKEPTICAL 1996b). As corroborative evidence of this on the blank wall of southern England" INQUIRER 19:3 (May/June), 41-43. mundane cause, the bright strand-like (Johnson 1991)—to represent an impres­ . 1996a. Levengood's crop-circle plant research. Skeptical Briefs 6:2 (June), 1— 2. shapes typically go unseen by the sive genre of outdoor art. The often . 1996b. Ghostly photos. SKEPTICAL ghosthunter or cereologist, only appear­ breathtaking designs (best seen in aerial INQUIRER 20:4 (July/August), 13-14. ing in their snapshots. photographs, like die giant Nazca draw­ Nickell. Joe. and John F. Fischer. 1992. The crop- ings in Peni) are appreciated not only by circle phenomenon: an investigative report. Again, Howe (2000, 169-176) shows SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 16:2 (Winter), 136-149. several photos containing "transparent die mystery mongers but by skeptics as Schnabel, Jim. 1994. Round in Circles. Amherst, spheres" that the croppies call "energy well. Indeed as reliably reported (Hoggart N.Y.: Prometheus Books. and Hutchinson 1995), skeptics have Spencer, John, and Hilary Evans, eds. 1988. balls," "light orbs," "atmospheric plas­ Phenomenon: Forty Years of Flying Saucers. New mas," etc. They are indistinguishable helped to make many of them! York: Avon.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 19 ^ • INVESTIGATIVE FILES VT) JOE NICKELL

Winchester Mystery House: Fact vs. Fancy

t is the work of an eccentric widow, obsession. Here is some of what I found. supposedly guided by spirits, and a • Fancy: The story begins in 1862 in Iconstruction project that lasted New Haven, Connecticut, with Sarah L. thirty-eight years. It began in 1884 with Pardee's marriage to William Wirt Win­ an existing but unfinished eight-room chester. He was the son and heir of farmhouse near San Jose, California, Oliver Fisher Winchester whose repeat­ and culminated in a seven-story, tur- ing firearm became famous as "The Gun reted, Gothic Victorian mansion that That Won the West" (Winchester 1997, once contained an estimated 500 rooms. 46). However, according to one tale, The 1906 San Francisco earthquake sig­ "During a Connecticut thunder storm, nificantly reduced the stacked and Mrs. Winchester's husband and baby sprawling architectural wonder, but lost their lives in a tragic fire" (quoted in when Sarah Winchester died in 1922 it Rambo 1967, 6). But wait: Another still "contained 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, source (Smith 1967) states, "When trag­ 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fire­ edy struck this woman, it pulled no places, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens" punches. Her husband died a lingering (Winchester 1997). death from tuberculosis, and her litde Even more remarkable, the round- girl passed away almost immediately the-clock construction yielded "an inter­ Figure I, View of Winchester Mystery House, with afterward." Again, in his The National author standing in front, fails to convey the immensity Directory of Haunted Places, Hauck minable labyrinth" of "miles of twisting of the mansion. hallways" (Winchester 1997, 14). Indeed (1996) separates the deaths with a bit it became "an architectural nightmare," is elusive because she was never inter­ more time, stating that "her husband featuring rooms with odd angles, stair­ viewed and left no diary or other written and only child died within months of ways leading to nowhere, secret passage­ record. Moreover, "wild stories" about each other." ways, doors and windows opening onto her proliferated in her lifetime as well as Fact: Actually, the Winchesters' blank walls, and railing posts set upside after her death, and popular writers gar­ infant daughter Annie died first, in down (Guiley 2000; Murray 1998). bled—and invented—details to suit 1866, and it was not until fifteen years Fascinating in its own right, Sarah their purposes (Winchester 1997, 11). later, in 1881, that Sarah's husband Winchester's remarkable story has been In an attempt to sort truth from fic­ passed away (Winchester 1997, 8). embellished—rather like her strange tion, I toured Winchester Mystery • Fancy: Mrs. Winchester, grief- mansion itself—with implausible inci­ House (accompanied by Vaughn Rees of stricken but having inherited her hus­ dents, ornate details, and "facts" that the Center for Inquiry-West) on Octo­ band's fortune, sought out a Boston lead, tortuously, to dead ends. The truth ber 24, 2001, as part of a California medium to contact his spirit. The speaking and investigations tour. Subse­ medium, Adam Coons, relayed the mes­ Joe Nickell is CSICOP's Senior Research quently I delved into many of the books sage, somehow rediscovered by Susy Fellow and author of numerous investiga­ and other sources of lore and legend Smith (1967): "This is a warning. You tive books. about Sarah Winchester and her curious will be haunted forever by the ghosts of

20 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER those who have been killed by Winches­ a simple explanation: they were once the spirits, offering them caviar, stuffed ter rifles, unless you make amends to exterior windows, but the constant addi­ pheasant, and other dishes served on them." She was instructed to head west, tions to the house relegated them to the gold plates which she otherwise kept guided by her husbands spirit. inside. The doors and stairs that lead to in her safe. Sometimes, late at night, However, another source states it was dead ends are similarly explained. As to "ghostly music" was heard "wafting not a male medium but "a seeress" who the floor with trap doors, those are in a from the dark mansion" (Winchest­ provided Mrs. Winchester with the mes­ special greenhouse room; they were er 1997; Rambo 1967; Winer and sage (again, somehow rediscovered), designed to open onto a zinc subfloor so Osborn 1979). "There is a curse on your life. It is the same curse that took your child and hus­ band . . . that has resulted from the terrible weapon that the Winchester The curiously barred interior windows family created. . . . [BJuild a house not only for yourself but also for the spirits have a simple explanation: they were of those who have fallen before that ter­ once exterior windows, but the constant rible weapon. As long as you build, you will live. Stop and you will die" (Winer additions to the house relegated and Osborn 1979). them to the inside. Facts Whether the "Boston medium" was a man or woman—or whether Sarah Winchester ever consulted such— has not been proved. One local histori­ Fact: According to historical writer cal writer maintains that after her hus­ Ralph Rambo (1967, 8-9), whose father band's death, Mrs. Winchester was in­ had helped with the ground's landscap­ deed grief-stricken. "Doctors and ing, the allegedly sacrosanct "seance" friends urged her to leave the East, seek room "was also utilized as a bedroom at a milder climate and search for some all various times by her foreman, the chauf­ consuming hobby. One physician did feur, the head Japanese gardener and his suggest diat she 'build a house and don't wife." As well, the bell was used, not for employ an architect.'" That researcher midnight spirit assembly, but as a call to COnCCCICS) remaps she Wiii a Spiritual­ aiiu 11•MIi work aiiu AS an alarm in case ist," but insists, "Miss Henrietta Severs, of fire. There is no evidence Mrs. her constant companion for years, Winchester had thirteen ceremonial always firmly denied she had any Spiri­ robes; that fiction was probably inferred tualist leanings" (Rambo 1967, 8). from the total of thirteen hooks in the • Fancy: Sarah Winchester's "curious room's two closets, some of them, how­ building techniques" resulted from her ever, placed implausibly low for robes. desire "to control the evil entities and When after her death her safe was keep them from harming her." For opened, there was no solid-gold dinner example, "One stairway, constructed service, only mementos including a lock Figure 2. View from a window shows part of the sprawl­ like a maze, has seven flights and re­ ing grounds, including the bell tower that, allegedly, of her baby's hair. Acknowledging the quires forty-four steps to go ten feet" was once used to summon spirits. "legend" of the plates supposedly used (Smith 1967, 38). Some interior rooms to serve phantom guests exotic dishes, a have barred windows, a floor is com­ that runoff from watered plants could Winchester Mystery House publication prised of trap doors, and there are doors be drained by pipes to the garden be­ (Winchester 1997) states: "On the other and stairs that lead nowhere (Rambo neath (Rambo 1967; Winchester 1997; hand, this theory might have come from 1967; Murray 1998, 59). Palomo 2001). rumors about the mansion's well-fed ser­ Fact: The winding stair with two- • Fancy: Sarah Winchester's blue vants!" The "ghostly music" has an even inch steps had nothing to do with ghosts stance room, her "secret rendezvous simpler explanation: often when she was and everything to do with Mrs. with the spirits," was off limits to her unable to sleep, Mrs. Winchester played Winchester's severe arthritis and neuri­ huge staff of carpenters and servants. the pump organ in the Grand Ballroom. tis. The low steps were built to accom­ There, at midnight—while a bell in a • Fancy: Mrs. Winchester was so modate her diminished abilities (just as tower was rung to summon spirits— reclusive that she always wore a black elevators were later installed when she she donned one of thirteen ceremonial veil. She also refused admission to most was forced to use a wheelchair). The robes she wore when communing with visitors, including Mary Baker Eddy, die curiously barred interior windows have the entities. She also held parties for founder of Christian Science. President

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 21 Theodore Roosevelt, a ran of Winchester where she was trapped for several hours, Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits rifles, knocked at the front door but was bemoaning, "Oh, God help me. The (Guiley 2000): "Many visitors are unrecognized by a servant and turned evil spirits have taken over the house." haunted by various phenomena, such as away (or insulted by being sent around After servants rescued her, the terrified phantom footsteps, odd sounds, eerie to die back of die house) {Winchester widow fled to Redwood City and did quiet, whisperings, sounds of a piano 1997; Rambo 1967). However, "One of not return for six years (Rambo 1967; playing, smells of phantom food cook­ her few guests was Harry Houdini, who Smith 1967,41^*2). ing, cold spots, doorknobs turning by themselves, and windows and doors slamming shut. The floor of the gift It would be unusual if such a rambling shop has been found mysteriously cov­ old house did not have drafts and temperature ered with water and items in disarray." One guide characterized the Daisy variations and fluctuations together with odd Bedroom, where Mrs. Winchester was noises caused by changing temperatures, trapped by the earthquake in 1906, as the room that most frightened him. the settling of an old structure, and other causes. Ghost hunters Winer and Osborn (1979, 43) asked why: "'I can't really pinpoint any one thing,' replied the never spoke of his single visit to guide. 'But sometimes that room gets so Winchester House" (Houck 1996). chilly. Not the whole room but just in Fact: Although Mrs. Winchester was certain parts. And there's that feeling reclusive, the single existing photograph when I'm in there alone like maybe I'm taken of her during the thirty-eight years being watched, like I'm not alone. Some of mansion construction shows her of die odiers told me that they get the seated in her carriage, apparently gazing same feeling in that room. . . .'" at the camera, but without veil Fact: There is no scientific evidence {Winchester 1997, 6). There are various that the Winchester Mystery House—or versions of the Teddy Roosevelt story, any place—is haunted. As psychologist but Ralph Rambo (1976, 9)—who was Robert A. Baker is fond of saying, "standing directly across the road that tongue in cheek, there are instead "only "—says the President was driven past haunted people." The Winchester the house; the local Chamber of hauntees are often reporting mere feel­ Commerce had asked permission for Mr. ings, like the guide frightened by the Roosevelt to visit but received Mrs. Daisy Bedroom. I had no such feelings Winchesters sharp "No!" Whether Mary when I lingered in that room and, in any Baker Eddy gained entrance or not is un­ case, they can be the products of imagi­ certain (Hauck 1996; Smith 1967, 40; Figure 3. "Switchback" staircase takes forty-four steps nation provoked by suggestion. This in and seven turns to advance less than ten feet upward turn can be attributed to the mansion's Rambo 1967). However, Houdini did and was supposedly created to baffle spirits. But the visit the house and was admitted—even wall at right shows a silhouette of the original steps; gothic ambiance and legends of ghosts they were replaced due to Mrs. Winchester's debilities. joining in a midnight seance!—but this which can create a certain expectancy in took place in November 1924, two years Fact: The tale of Sarah Winchester's many people. after Sarah Winchesters death. Houdini grandiose but unattended reception for As well, it would be unusual if such a discussed his visit in an article in local citizens is "pure, unadulterated bal­ rambling old house did not have drafts Portland's The Oregon Daily Journal derdash!" And although she was indeed and temperature variations and fluctua­ {Winchester 1997, 42). trapped by the earthquake and subse­ tions together with odd noises caused by • Fancy: In the early years of her res­ quently relocated, that was only for a changing temperatures, the settling of an idence, Mrs. Winchester planned a lav­ period of about six months while the old structure, and other causes, includ­ ish reception for Santa Clara Valley resi­ house was partially repaired, not six ing seismic activity. "Whisperings" can dents, sending out hundreds of gilded years (Rambo 1967). be easily imagined or can be the product engravings. She had servants prepare "a • Fancy: The Winchester Mystery of wind or other effects. The sounds of sumptuous midnight banquet" and House is the "most haunted house in the ghostly music can similarly be imaginary. hired "a famous orchestra" for entertain­ country" ("Global" 2002), being ten­ In at least one instance "piano music" ment, but not a single guest appeared. anted widi "thousands of ghosts and was "heard" in the house by one person In 1906 the Great San Francisco Bay guests" (Harder 1976) as well as "the but not by her companion (Winer and Area earthquake toppled the seven-story spirit of Sarah Winchester herself" Osborn 1979, 46—47); on another occa­ tower onto Mrs. Winchester's bedroom (Murray 1998, 63). According to The sion a "psychic" claimed to hear "organ

22 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER music" although others who were pre­ condensation or prank or . . . ?), etc. their propensity for imagination and sent did not (Myers 1986). Actual music (Winchester 1997, 19; Murray 1998; fantasy (Nickell 2000)—evidence, it may even be perceived, as from a radio in Myers 1986). seems, for "haunted people." a passing car. So bent on fostering mys­ tery are some that, when odd noises are not forthcoming, the absence of them— an "eerie quiet"—will do. In one instance "a shadowy figure In one instance "a shadowy figure emerged emerged from the inner recesses of the from the inner recesses of the huge mystery house" but turned out to be a Winchester staffer (Winer and huge mystery house" but turned Osborn 1979, 46). Again, an elderly out to be a Winchester staffer. woman a tour group saw sitting at a kitchen table, which the guide only later thought was a ghost (Myers 1986, 48), may have been just a straggling member of another tour brief­ Acknowledgments ly resting. (Whether or not the I wish to thank the courteous staff woman was really "dressed al Windchester Mysteiy House for their help with my investigation, like" Mrs. Winchester, as later especially Cathy Palomo, my tour recalled, could be a misremem- guide, and Shozo Kagoshima. bering caused by suggestion.) who handles public relations. I am The occasional apparition may also grateful to Vaughn Rees of CFI-West for assistance with my be nothing more than the "California tour" that was above welling up of a mental image and beyond the call of duty. 1 deriving from a daydream or also appreciate the research assis­ other altered state of con­ tance of Tim Binga, Director of CFI Libraries, and the manu­ sciousness, that is then super­ script-preparation skills of Ranjit imposed upon the visual scene. Sandhu. This may be especially com­ mon to those who have traits Figure 4. Investigator Vaughn Rees points to damage from the 1906 earthquake References in the Daisy Bedroom. The room's austere appearance may help foster creepy feel­ associated with a fantasy-prone ings there. (Photos by Joe Nickell.) Global Halloween Alliance. 2002. personality (Nickell 2000)— Happy Halloween Magazine, vol. 3, like "psychic" Sylvia Browne no. 3: www.halloweenalliancc.com/ magazine/vo!3iss3_wmh.him.Giii who described being watched by two Once die idea that a place is haunted ley, Rosemary Ellen. 2000. The Encyclopedia spirits from across a room (Winchester takes root, almost any unknown noise, of Ghosts and Spirits, second cd. New York: 1997, 42). mechanical glitch, or other odd occur­ Checkmark Books. 405-407. A caretakers being awakened one rence can become added "evidence" of Hauck, Dennis William. 1996. The International Directory of Haunted Places. New York: Pen­ night by an unlikely sound—that "of a ghosdy shenanigans—at least to suscepti­ guin Books, 75-76. screw being unscrewed, then hitting ble people. They often cite "unexplain- Harter, Walter. 1976. The Phantom Hand and the floor and bouncing onto a carpet able" phenomena, but they really mean Other American Hauntings. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 54-61. runner" (Winchester 1997, 42)— "unexplained" and that does not in any Murray, Earl. 1998. Ghosts of the Old West. New might be due to a "waking dream." way infer the supernatural. To suggest York: Tom Doherry Associates. 57-66. This is an especially real-seeming oc­ that it does is to engage in a logical fallacy Myers, Arthur. 1986. The Ghostly Register. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 45—51. currence, although actually a common called arguing from ignorance, the stock- Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities. Amherst. N.Y.: type of hallucination that takes place in-trade of credulous paranormalists and Prometheus Books. in the twilight between wakefulness outright mystery-mongering writers. . 2000. Haunted inns, SKEPTICAL and sleep (Nickell 1995). Additional INQUIRER 24.5 (September/October): 17-21. Not everyone is susceptible. My do- Palomo, Cathy. 2001. Senior Tour Guide, reported occurrences may have still cent, a Senior Tour Guide at Winchester Winchester Mystery House. Personal commu­ other mundane explanations, such as Mystery house (Palomo 2001), has had nication, October 24. reported food smells (wafting from the no experiences herself although, if others Rambo, Ralph. 1967. Lady of Mystery. San Jose, Calif.: The Press. gift-shop restaurant?), "mysterious are to be believed, she has had endless Smith, Susy. 1967. Prominent American Ghosts. moving lights" (reflections, as from opportunities. From three decades of New York: The World Publishing Co., 35-43. one of the mansion's art-glass windows ghost investigating, I have noted a pattern The Winchester Mystery House. 1997. San Jose. California: The Winchester Mystery House. framed with glittering "jewels"?), a which suggests that, as the level of indi­ Winer, Richard, and Nancy Osborn. 1979. Haunted water-soaked floor (a leak, or spill or viduals' ghosdy experiences rises, so does Houses. New York: Bantam Books, 33-49. •

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 23 NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD MASSIMO POLIDORO

lea Stones: Yabba-Dabba-Do!

e all know that humans and those seeking evidence of something Chauvet paintings, but also most every­ dinosaurs actually coexisted, they intuitively know to be true: thing else discovered so far. Weven if that only happened dinosaurs and men shared the same land But wait, there's more! Some other in Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones car­ and sometimes the same stomach. stones, in fact, depict pictures of primi­ toons and in some popular sci-fi movies. Is there, then, any bettet evidence for tive men hunting and killing dinosaurs But what about reality? Was there ever a this idea than fake pictures and intuition? and other men flying on the back of time when a triceratops snorted at some Well, would you consider good evidence pterodactyls. What tops them all, how­ bearded man crossing its path? Or when the existence of, let's see, some ancient ever, are some precisely detailed draw­ some desperate girl ran away screaming drawings depicting dinosaurs done by ings of ancient men watching the heav­ with a hungry T. Rex on her heels? man at the dawn of time? Of course, you ens through what look like telescopes All scientific evidence so far tells us would, right? Good, now brace yourself and others piloting flying machines or that this has never been the case. because such drawings exist! performing open-heart surgery, cesarean Modern man first appeared on Earth a section births, and brain transplants! few million years after the last dinosaur Welcome the Rolling Stones Are we then in the presence of the thought something like: "Hey, where's In 1994 scientists were stunned by the astounding proof that not only everybody?" accidental discovery of some spec­ dinosaurs lived until "recent" times but This fact alone should rest the case tacular prehistoric paintings of horses, also that ancient men were far more once and lor all, one thinks, but as it rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, and mam­ advanced than we ever thought possible? usually happens, things on this strange moths on the walls of a cave at Ardeche Just give me a few more minutes before world of ours are never that simple. As Valley, south-eastern France, consid­ jumping to conclusions, will you? we have recently seen (Polidoro 2002), ered to be the world's oldest paintings until a few years ago there wete some (between 29,700 and 32,400 years Let's Rock! people who were sure that a pterodactyl old) (Chauvet 1996). Are there, any­ The story begins in 1966, in lea, a small had survived up until the Civil War era where in the world, similar paintings town on the south coast of Peru, when a only to be shot down by some over­ depicting dinosaurs? Peruvian physician, Dr. Javier Cabrera weight Union soldier. There was even a Yes there are, according to some, but Darquea, received a small carved rock as photograph that someone apparently they are not drawn with charcoal on a gift for his birthday. The carving snapped in the 1860s to commemorate some obscure grotto, instead they are looked ancient but when Dr. Cabrera the event. As we now know, the whole carved on thousands of rocks of various saw it the first thing he thought was that thing turned out to be just a hoax, shapes and dimensions, apparently it was a drawing of an extinct fish. courtesy of the creators of The Blair hand-etched some 65 to 230 million From that moment on, hearing of Witch Project. years ago. And what do these etchings the extreme interest that the good doc­ Such revelations obviously never stop show? You guessed it: brontosaurs, tor showed for that rock, local natives triceratops, stegosaurs, and the whole approached him with the fantastic news Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the dino collection of beasts! that if he wanted more stones they had paranormal, author, lecturer, and co- That alone would have made the a few and could sell them to him. He founder and head of CICAP, the Italian most sensational discovery ever, not wanted them and he got them. Actually, skeptics group. only able to eclipse the beauty of the he got so many of them (about 1 5,000)

24 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER that he allegedly abandoned his career Please, spare me answers like: "There in medicine in Lima to open up the are no traces of that civilization simply Museo de Piedras Grabadas (Engraved because they left the planet (taking Stones Museum) in lea where he everything with them, except the stones) housed his collection. to colonize another solar system!"; or: News of the opening of such a "It's all just a test of your faith from museum were greeted with hurrahs by at least three groups of people, as Robert they chose illuscrations Todd Carroll points out in his Skeptic's from comic books, school Dictionary (Carroll 2002): "a) those who books, and magazines. believe that extraterrestrials are an inti­ Cabrera objected char mate part of Earths 'real' history; b) andesice is too hard co carve well fundamentalist creationists who drool at by mere mortals using scone the thought of any possible error made tools. "True," says Carroll in his by anthropologists, archaeologists, evo­ enrry on che lea scones, "buc che lutionary biologists, etc.; and c) the scones are noc carved. They are mytho-historians who claim that graved, i.e., a surface layer of oxi- ancient myths are accurate his­ dacion has been scratched away. torical records to be under­ Cabrera assumes chac che creacors stood literally." of che scones only had scone cools avail­ Please, allow this poor the Lord, brother"; or even: "It's a able co chem. The Inca, Maya, and Aztec European to dispense coverup! That's it, I said it! Ah-ah, and culcures all (already) had advanced meral- with the creationists' you are in it! Along with those hidden lurgy by che rime che Spanish arrived. pretenses, considered powers that planned Kennedy's assassi­ Cabrera and che lea locals certainly have on this side of the nation and Elvis Presley's death-simula­ more chan scone cools available co them." ocean to be totally tion and . . ." Thank you, thank you, Thac yellowish, ancienc layer that covered absurd not only by any sensible people I've got the picture: don't call us, we'll the stones was as easily obtained, said hearing them but also by many call you. Basilio: once die ecching was done, die Catholics, the Pope included. We are trying here to examine the stones were placed in a poultry pen and The question, however, remains: facts from a scientific point of view and chickens did che resc. Finally, a recenc since man first appeared on Earth about would like to get scientific (or, at worst, examinanon of che scones, done in 2 million years ago, while dinosaurs scientific "sounding") answers. Barcellona by Jose" Antonio Lamich, were already extinct approximately 60 The matter could be easily solved by founder of che Spanish "Hipergea" million years earlier, how could these dating the stones. Have they been dated research group, revealed signs of sandpaper stones be authentic? yet? Nope, sorry. Carbon dating can only and recenc carvings, chus fueling che hoax be done on artifacts that contain organic hypothesis. When questioned why chey Stoned material, and the stones do not. The only did ic, che hoaxers answered diac ecching Now, there are many things in this story way to date them would be to examine scones was easier chan tilling die soil. that ring more than one alarm bell: 1) the strata in which they were found. Greac! Whac time is ic, now? Oops, since when does one need to get special­ Okay, then: what about that scrata? thac lace! Maybe I can make ic for a lace ized knowledge in extinct fish to become Well, there's another little problem here: nighc showing of Attack of the Clones: ic's a medical doctor?; 2) exactly what kind no one knows exactly were the stones still science fiction, agreed, buc ac lease in of extinct fish is depicted on thac famous come from. Some say they were found che movie chey have beccer special effects. first stone and when did it become by locals on the bed of a river, others in extinct?; 3) How is it that if there once an unidentified cave. References was such an evolved civilization able to As compensacion for these shortcom­ Anonymous. 1975. "Confront: . . . Las hizo Basilio Uchuya." Mundial, No. 6. Janua/y 17. build telescopes and flying machines, ings, however, one could read a very Cabrera Darquea, Javier. No date. The Menage of and perform microsurgery, the besi they revealing interview with a Basilio the Engraved Stones of lea. lea: Privately could do to preserve the memory of their Uchuya and his wife, Irma Gutierrez de Printed. Carroll, Robert Todd. 2002. "The lea Stones." in: existence was to carve crude drawings on Aparcana, two peasants from Callango, The Skeptic's Dictionary (http://skcpdic.com/ some stones?; 4) If such a civilization published some years ago by Mundial icastones.html). really existed, why is it that nowhere else magazine (Anonymous 1975). In ic, Chauvct, Jean-Marie, Eliettc Bruncl-Dcschamps. and Christian Hillaire. 1996. Dawn of Art: in the world can traces of their existence Basilio and Irma admit thac all of che The Chauvct Cave: The Oldest Known Paintings be found?; 5) And finally, why is it that scones they sold to Cabrera they had in the World New York: Harry N. Abrams. no dinosaur's fossils can be dated to an carved themselves. As tor che subjects to Polidoro, Massimo. 2002. "A Pterodactyl in the age contemporary with man? be depicted on the stones it was easy: Civil War." SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 26(3), May/June 2002: 21-23.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 25 PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER

Where Have You Gone, Commander Quasgaa?

FOlogist Karl Pflock has done alleged Roswell saucer crash. Pflock evidence of alien visitation are cases what is seemingly impossible would say that the aliens probably were like the "classic" Trent photos of 1950 Uthese days—he has come up wirJi indeed here at die time of the supposed (sec www.debunker.com/trent.html) a pro-UFO dieory that is actually new. crash in 1947, but based on the evi­ and the Nash-Fortenberry airline pilot More tiian a few veteran UFOlogists are dence he lets them off the hook for this sighting of 1952. He also is big on "the unhappy widi die sensationalism and low incident. He also writes a "fifth column" famous, and in my considered opinion, quality of UFO cases in recent years for James Moseley's UFO gossip sheet, real 1961 abduction of Barney and (aldiough the majority seem not to notice Saucer Smear (see www.martiansgo Betty Hill," although the psychiatrist or to care). They long for the Good Old home.com/smear/). to whom the Hills first told this story Days back in die 1950s and 1960s, when Pflock isn't willing to commit him­ didn't believe it, and Betty I fill has UFOs and dieir occupants behaved like self to a hard and fast date for the last since gone on to report—among other nuts-and-bolts spacecraft and living space­ authentic UFO case, but he suggests things—seeing entire squadrons of men were supposed to behave (instead of the following scenario as a "working UFOs in the skies over New Hamp­ todays typical repon of aliens floating in hypothesis": shire, babysitting a ghost, and watching through bedroom walls Based on the data. I'm a truck levitate. Pflock's own experi­ and "beaming" a sleeping subjectively certain that ence as a youth seeing a "strangely- victim up to a distant we have been visit­ behaving light in the sky," along with ed by nonhuman intel­ four other people, has also contributed craft for dreamlike sexual ligent beings—to my activities). Why have the 1950s-conditioned to his belief that at least some UFO type and kind of reports mind, most likely from sightings were real, even if none of changed? Skeptics of vari­ an extra-solar planet of them seem to be today. our galaxy. However, we Pflock suggests 1973 as a tentative ous stripes have tended to do not yet have proof of put forth socio-psycho- this—as opposed to date for the alien departure, which hap­ logical explanations: die very strong evidence pens to coincide widi the last great wave reports do not describe pointing to it—though of UFO sightings, at least in the U.S. The such proof very well implications of his theory for UFOIogy real events, and the may be in the data reports have changed already in hand, as yet are enormous: Every UFO sighting and because society has unrecognized as such. abduction claim occurring from about changed. But Pflock sees I use the past tense 1974 onward is totally, 100 percent it a different way: He sug­ Karl Pflock. Credit. Gildds Bourdais S advisedly. If I am cor­ bogus. This would invalidate such gests that the aliens were Karl Pflock rect that some sight­ UFOlogical classics as the Travis Walton ings were observations "abduction" (Pflock has elsewhere noted here during UFOIogy's of such visitors and their vehicles, I Golden Age, but diey've since left. suspect that they were here and left that Walton's account seems to have "bor­ Pflock is the author of Roswell: some time ago—arriving in the early rowed" from Heinlein's science fiction— Inconvenient Facts and the Will To Believe to mid-1940s, departing in the late see this column, July/August 2001); all of 1960s or early 1970s They stud­ die "bedroom abduction" accounts put (Prometheus Books, 2001—see www. ied our entire system and us quite prometheusbooks.com/site/catalog/ closely. Once in a while a couple of forth by Budd Hopkins and "die direat" book_962.html), a skeptical look at the grad students got out of hand and to Earth as discerned by David Jacobs; die buzzed the natives. On occasion some Mexico City sightings and videos; and all ambitious scientists overstepped a bit of the Space Shuttle "UFO videos," to Robert Sheaffers World Wide Web page for and interfered with the locals. . . . UFOs and other skeptical subjects is at mention just a few. www.debunker.com. Pflock suggests that the strongest One possibility to consider is that

26 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER the aliens did not leave Earth, but sim­ Web master of the Abduction Infor­ the same vicarious thrill of imaginary ply migrated to the South American mation Center (www.virtuallystrange. but exciting unknown powers. country of Chile. Because the locals net/aic/) writes that "the number of have reported so many UFO sightings reports that I receive directly has gone during the past two decades, Miguel from a whopping five to fifteen reports Mr. Philip H. Krapf has sometimes Marquez, the mayor of the Maipo River a day to maybe one or two a week," and described himself as the retired Metro region near Santiago, has declared his this is in spite of a steady increase in vis­ Desk Editor of the Los Angeles Times, hav­ region an official "UFO tourism zone" its to his Web site. Mark Rodeghier of ing shared in a team Pulitzer Prize, (see www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sili CUFOS has also recently noted that the although his position there has at other convalley/3463607.htm). He plans to number of abduction reports they times been more accurately described as receive has been steadily declining over have two observation centers erected, "copy editor." But no matter: he soon the past few years. Velez speculates, mark the sites of local sightings, and went to work writing a bizarre tale of tongue-in-cheek, "Have the 'Bugs' even offer workshops on important UFO contact and abduction. This should finally collected enough human DNA? subjects such as how to photograph hardly be news—hardly a day goes by, it Are the 'aliens' through with us? Has seems, that we don't hear a tale along these alien visitors. One Chilean astronomer 'Phase Two' of whatever the hell it is lines. What is remarkable, however, is not suggested that people were confused by 'They' are up to been completed/ his tale, but rather his success in getting it seeing the bright center of the southern accomplished?" Perhaps the recent believed. Krapf says that on June 11, Milky Way, or else the Southern Lights decline in abductions is further evi­ 1997, the aliens whisked him aboard their owing to Chile's southern latitude. A dence that the aliens have departed, spacecraft, subjected him not to medical better suggestion comes from UFO although Pflock would place their examinations but instead to three days of skeptic James Oberg. who notes that departure much farther back than drawn-out meetings with various mem­ Chile "is on the ground track of satellite about the year 2000. The recent cancel­ bers of the interstellar bureaucracy, and launchings from Russia's Plesetsk space lation of The X-Files is probably a reflec­ commanded him to begin writing a book. center, and rocket reboost firings and tion of the public's satiation with UFO The finished product became The fuel dumps have been regularly occur­ abduction and conspiracy tales, which Contact Has Begun (Hay House, 1998). It ring over that part of the world for can only titillate for so long until the reportedly sold 20,000 copies, and was about thirty years." fickle public taste clamors for some soon followed up by The Challenge of Meanwhile, here in the U.S. the novel entertainment. UFOs will almost Contact (Origin Press, 2001). entire UFO field is presently very quiet, certainly be back—they've gone into compared to just a few years ago. ii IIK'I ual mi i scveial limes bcluic— Krapf writes of his contact with The Veteran UFOIogist James W. Moseley although it will probably require some Veidants, who are an enlightened, writes, "Let's face it, folks: Things are new angle or new "blockbuster" con­ peace-loving race coming from a planet slow in UFOlogy these days. Most of spiracy claim to revive them. It's also that is 14 million light-years away. They Farish's December 2001 issue [a UFO possible that UFOs might be sup­ have somehow managed to park a space­ planted by some entirely new and unex­ newsclipping service] is devoted to crop craft directly behind the Moon, where pected form of conspiracy-related fan­ circles and other overseas matters, as we can't see it. These superior beings, tasy entertainment that gives the public there just isn't enough going on, here on who represent an Intergalactic Federa­ this side of the pond." John Velez, the tion, are strict vegetarians. They promise You can make a lasting impact on the future of skepticism... when you provide for the Skeptical Inquirer in your will.

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SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 27 a wonderful future for Earth in which them for humanity's forthcoming among those that Krapf's peaceful all our needs will be met and everyone rebirth, in a city appropriately named Space Overlords would have to lock lives in peace and harmony. But there's a Genesis, that will be built overnight away. However, Krapf told his audience catch: approximately 20 percent of by the aliens. at the 2001 Bay Area UFO Expo that Earths population is too greedy and self- The Challenge of Contact carries he had been whisked back to the centered to accept an egalitarian Utopia. endorsements from UFO promoters Art Verdants' ship, "The Goodwill," last So these un-peace-loving people must Bell, Daniel Sheehan, Leo Sprinkle, and September 11. He was informed that be peacefully rounded up and peacefully Robert O. Dean, which should come as the events of that day had convinc­ transported to remote places of exile, no surprise. Perhaps more surprising is ed the aliens that humanity was still whether they like it or not. They must its foreword from Silicon Valley's mil­ too barbaric to join the Galactic also not be allowed to reproduce any lionaire UFO promoter Joe Firmage, Federation, and so the plans for imme­ more of their miserable lot, so that who one hopes would have enough diate contact were being indefinitely means they'll have to be sterilized as sense to stay away from such blatant postponed—which thereby conve­ well. Peacefully, of course, as the balderdash, but obviously doesn't. While niently gets him off the hook for his Verdants carry no weapons. many mainstream UFOlogists have dramatic prediction for the following While Krapf was aboard the space­ expressed serious doubts about Krapf's year. So for better or worse, the craft, he recognized many other claims, he is nonetheless quickly becom­ Intergalactic Utopia will not immedi­ prominent people who were undergo­ ing a major attraction at UFO and New ately be upon us. At least Mr. Krapf ing the same process of education that Age conferences. was wise enough to provide an excuse he was. Eight hundred fifty of these The first public announcements for his failed prediction before its failure "ambassadors" were scheduled to begin from our new alien overlords were sup­ was obvious—prophets typically wait speaking out in early 2002, and meet­ posed to have already occurred. until afterward, yet few disciples seem ing with Earth's leaders to prepare Skeptics like myself would obviously be to care. D Skeptical Inquirer Marketplace

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28 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER A Skeptical Look at September 11th How We Can Defeat Terrorism by Reacting to It More Rationally

At the one-year anniversary, we examine reactions to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the context of other causes of premature deaths. An objective of terrorism is to multiply damage by inducing irrational fears in the broad population. One defense is to learn to evaluate such situations more objectively. CLARK R. CHAPMAN and ALAN W. HARRIS

uman beings might be expected to value each life, and each death, equally. We each face numerous Hhazards—war, disease, homicide, accidents, natural disasters—before succumbing to "natural" death. Some pre­ mature deaths shock us far more than others. Contrasting with the 2,800 fatalities in the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, 2001 (9/11), we barely remember the 20,000 Indian earthquake victims earlier in 2001. Here, we argue that the disproportionate reaction to 9/11 was as dam­ aging as the direct destruction of lives and property. Americans can mitigate future terrorism by learning to respond more objectively to future malicious acts. We do not

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 29 Customers at a Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania, Wal-Mart watch President Bush give his speech to the nation after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Credit: C. E. Mitchell/Black/Star. question the visceral fears and responsible precautions taken crash victims each had families, friends, critical job responsi­ during the hours and days following 9/11, when there might bilities, and valued positions in their churches and commu­ have been even worse attacks. But, as the first anniversary of nities. Their surviving children, also, were left without one 9/11 approaches, our nation's priorities remain radically parent, with shattered lives, and much poorer than the 9/11 torqued toward homeland defense and fighting terrorism at victims' families, who were showered with 1.5 million dol­ the expense of objectively greater societal needs. As we obses­ lars, per fatality, from the federal government alone. The sively and excessively beef up internal security and try to dis­ 9/11 victims died from malicious terrorism, arguably com­ mantle terrorist groups worldwide, Americans actually feed pounded by poor intelligence, sloppy airport security, and the terrorists' purposes. other failed procedures we imagined were protecting us. Every month, including September 2001, the U.S. high­ While few of September's auto deaths resulted from malice, way death toll exceeds fatalities in the WTC, Pentagon, and neither were they "natural" deaths: most also resulted from four downed airliners combined. Just like the New York City individual, corporate, and societal choices about road safety firefighters and restaurant workers, last September's auto engineering, enforcement of driving-while-drunk laws, safe car design, and so on. Clark R. Chapman and Alan W Harris are research scientists at Southwest Research Institute (Boulder, Colorado) and the Jet Pro­ A Lack of Balance pulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), respectively. They devel­ Why does 9/11 remain our focus rather than the equally vast oped their perspectives on hazards from researching what is perhaps carnage on the nation's highways or Indian earthquake vic­ the lowest probability but highest consequence hazard of all the tims? Some say, "Oh, it was a natural disaster and nothing potential end of human civilization due to impact of an asteroid or could be done, while 9/11 was a malicious attack." Yet bet­ comet. Direct correspondence to [email protected] or ter housing in India could have saved thousands. As for mal­ harrisaw@colorado. edu. ice, where is our concern for the 15,000 Americans who die

30 Seplember/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER annually by homicide? Apparently, the death toll doesn't mat­ said, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." We can help ter, not if people die all at once, not even if they die by mali­ ensure that terrorists don't win if we can minimize our fears cious intent. We focus on 9/11, of course, because these and react more constructively to future terrorism. We don't attacks were terroristic and were indelibly imprinted on our suggest that this option is easy or will suffice alone. It may not consciousness by round-the-clock news coverage. Our appre­ even be possible. But human beings often best succeed by hension was then amplified when just a half dozen people died being rational when their emotions, however tenacious and by anthrax. Citizens apparently support the nation's sudden, innate, have let them down. massive shift in priorities since 9/11. Here, we ask "Why?" Suppose we had reacted to 9/11 as we did to last September's auto deaths. That wouldn't have lessened the destroyed prop­ By minimizing our negative reactions, erty, lost lives and livelihoods, and personal bereavement of family and associates of the we might contribute to undermining WTC victims. But no billions would have terrorists' goals as effectively as by waging war been needed to prop up airlines. Local char­ ities wouldn't have suffered as donations on them or by mounting homeland defenses. were redirected to New York City. Congress might have enacted prescription drug bene­ fits, as it was poised to do before 9/11. Battalions of National Guardsmen needn't have left their jobs Death and Statistics to provide a visible "presence" in airports. The nation might It is a maxim that one needless or untimely death is one too not have slipped into recession, with resulting losses to busi­ many. So 20,000 victims should be 20,000 times worse. But nesses, workers, and consumers alike. And the FBI might still our minds don't work that way. Given the national outpouring be focusing on rampant white-collar crime (think Enron) of grief triggered by the estimated 6,500 WTC deaths, one rather than on terrorism. While some modest measures (e.g., might have expected celebration in late October when it was strengthening cockpit doors) were easy to implement, may realized that fewer than half that many had died. But there have inhibited some "copycat" crimes, and may even lessen were no headlines like "3,000 WTC Victims Are Alive After future terrorism, we believe that much of the expensive effort All!" The good news was virtually ignored. Weeks later, is ineffective, too costly to sustain, or wholly irrelevant. many—including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld— Some leaders got it right when they implored Americans continued to speak of "over 5,000 deaths" on 9/11. after 9/11 to return to their daily routines, for otherwise "the To researchers in risk perception, this is natural human terrorists will win." Unfortunately, such exhortations seemed behavior. We are evolved from primitive nomads and cave aimed at rescuing the travel industry rather than articulating a dwellers who never knew, personally, more than the few hun­ broad vision of how to respond to terrorism. We advocate that dred people in their locales. Until just a few generations ago, most of us more fully "return to normal life." We suggest that news from other lands arrived sporadically via sailors; most the economic and emotional damage unleashed by 9/11, people lived and died within a few miles of where they were which touched the lives of all Americans, resulted mostly from born. Tragedies invariably concerned a known, nearby person. our own reactions to 9/11 and the anthrax scare, rather than With the globalization of communication, the world—not from the objective damage. We recognize that our assertion just our local valley—has entered our consciousness. But our may seem inappropriate to some readers, and we are under no brains haven't evolved to relate, personally, to each of 6 billion illusion that natural human reactions to the televised terrorism people. Only when the media singles out someone—perhaps could have been wholly averted and redirected. We, too, gaped an "average layperson" or maybe a tragic exception like in horror at images of crashing airplanes and we contributed JonBenet Ramsey—do our hearts and minds connect. to WTC victims. But from within the skeptical community When an airliner crashes, and reporters focus on a despair­ there could emerge a more objective, rational alternative to ing victims' spouse or on the last cellular phone words of a post-9/11. Citizens could learn to react more constructively to doomed traveler, our brains don't think statistically. We imag­ future terrorism and to balance the terrorist threat against ine ourselves in that airplane seat, or driving to the airport other national priorities. It could be as important to combat counseling center when our loved one's plane is reported miss­ our emotional vulnerability to terrorism as to attack Al Qaeda. ing. Actually, 30,000 U.S. commercial flights occur each day. Terrorism, by design, evokes disproportionate responses to In 2001, except for September 11th and November 12th antisocial acts by a malicious few. By minimizing our negative (when an airliner crashed in Queens, New York, killing more reactions, we might contribute to undermining terrorists' goals passengers and crew than in the four 9/11 crashes combined), as effectively as by waging war on them or by mounting home­ no scheduled, U.S. commercial air trips resulted in a single land defenses. We do not "blame the victims" for the terrorists' passenger fatality. Indeed, worldwide airline accidents in actions. Rather, we seek that we citizens, the future targets of 2001—including 9/11—killed fewer passengers than during terrorism, be empowered. As Franklin D. Roosevelt famously an average year. But statistics can't compete with images of

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 31 emergency workers combing a crash site for body parts with spend vastly more per life saved to mitigate highly feared haz­ red lights flashing. We are gripped by fear as though the ards (e.g., on aircraft safety) than on "everyday" risks (e.g., food tragedy happened in our own neighborhood, and another poisoning). Risk analysts commonly accept, with neutral objec­ might soon happen again. tivity, the disparity between lay perceptions and expert risk sta­ Some responses to 9/11 were rational. Soon after jumbo tistics. Sometimes it is justifiable to go beyond raw statistics. jets were used as flying bombs, workers in landmark skyscrap­ Depending on our values, we might be more concerned about ers might reasonably have feared that their building could be unfair deaths beyond an individual's control than self-inflicted next. With radical Muslims preaching that Americans must be harm. We might worry more about deaths of children than of killed, it might behoove us to avoid conspicuous or symbolic elderly people with limited life expectancies. We might dread gatherings like Times Square on New Year's Eve or the Super lingering, painful deaths more than sudden ones. We might be Bowl. Surely disaster managers must plug security loopholes more troubled about "needless" deaths, with no compensating that could permit thousands or millions more to be killed. But offsets, than about fatalities in the name of a larger good (e.g., when police chiefs of countless middle American communities of soldiers or police). Or, in all these cases, we might not. beef up security for their anonymous buildings, and search Why should terrorism command our exceptional attention? fans entering hundreds of sports fields to watch games of little That the 9/11 terrorists maliciously attacked the symbolic and note, official reactions to terrorism have run amok. To imag­ actual seats of our economic and military power (WTC/Wall ine that Al Qaeda's next target might be the stadium in, say, Street and the Pentagon) should concern us if we truly think Ames, Iowa, is far-fetched indeed. that future attacks might destroy our society. But who believes that? Government responses seem directed mostly at stopping future similar attacks . . . which returns us full circle to the ques­ Disproportionate expenditures on tion: why should that have become our pri­ marginal security efforts take attention, mary national goal, at the sacrifice of tens of billions of dollars, of some of our civil time, and resources away from other liberties, of our travelling convenience, and more productive enterprises. of many of our pre-9/11 priorities? Instead of rationally apportioning funds to the worst or most unfair societal predica­ ments, homeland security budgets soar. Finite Resources, Infinite Alarm Nearly every airport administrator, city emergency manage­ Americans' WTC fears only grew when six people died from ment director, mayor, legislator, school district supervisor, mailed anthrax. Postal officials patiently explained that public tourist attraction manager, and plant operations foreman felt risks were minimal. But millions donned gloves to open their compelled after 9/11 to "cover their asses" by visibly enhanc­ mail or gingerly threw out unopened mail; post offices rejected ing their facility's security. Superfluous barricades were erected, letters lacking return addresses; urgent mail was embargoed; search equipment purchased, and guards hired. Postage rates and for weeks the national dialog centered on one of the least and delivery delays increase as envelopes are searched for hazards we face. An NPR radio host asked the Postmaster anthrax. Even the governor of West Virginia announced a General if the whole U.S. Postal System might be shut down, "West Virginia Watch" program; while some vigilance in that despite expert opinion that—in a world faced with diabetes, state does no harm, it is unlikely that Wheeling is high on salmonella poisoning, and AIDS—anthrax will remain (even as Osama bin Laden's target list. a biological weapon) a bit player as a cause of death. Its sole Meanwhile, programs unrelated to "homeland security" suf­ potency is in the context of terrorism: if, by mailing lethal pow­ fer. Finite medical resources were diverted to comforting people der to someone, the news media choose to broadcast hysteria that their flu symptoms weren't anthrax ... or testing to see if into every home so that the very future of our postal system is they were. Charitable funds that would have nurtured the questioned, then the terrorist has deployed a powerful weapon homeless flowed, instead, to wealthy families of deceased Wall indeed. But his power would be negated if we were to react to Street traders. Funds for education and pollution control go the anthrax in proportion to its modest potential for harm. instead to "securing" public buildings and events. Billions of Research on risk perception has shown tJiat our reactions to extra tax dollars are spent on military operations in Pakistan and hazards don't match the numerical odds. We fear events (like Afghanistan rather than on enhancing American productivity. If airliner crashes) that kill many at once much more than those we truly believe in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that kill one at a time (car accidents). We fear being harmed and that each life is precious, we must resist selfish forces that unknowingly (by carcinogens) far more than by things we feel would take advantage of our fears and squander our energies we control ourselves (driving or smoking). We fear unfamiliar and fiscal resources on overblown security enhancements. technologies (nuclear power) and terrorism far more than pro­ Many say that spending for extra security can do no harm. saic hazards (household falls). Such disproportionate attitudes But there is harm when politicians act on views, like those of a shape our actions as public citizens. Accordingly governments New Yorker who earlier this year disparaged complaints about

32 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER airport queues, saying, "I hope that they will be inconvenienced, • In autumn 2001, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and will always be inconvenienced, because we should never for­ predicted that 20,000 Americans would die from complica­ get the 5,000 [sic] who died." 'Inconvenience" sounds innocu­ tions of influenza during the then-upcoming winter, most of ous, but it means lost time, lost money, lost productivity, as well which could be prevented if susceptible people were vacci­ as increased frustration and cynicism. Disproportionate expen­ nated. The CDC advisory was typically buried inside newspa­ ditures on marginal security efforts take attention, time, and pers whose banner headlines dealt with the anthrax attacks, resources away from other more productive enterprises. which killed just a few people. Moreover, our civil liberties are eroded by the involuntary nature • Twice as many people died in the worst U.S. flood (stem­ of our "sacrifices." When a person irrationally fears crowded ele­ ming from the 1900 Galveston hurricane) as at the WTC. vators and takes the stairs instead, only that person suffers the Floods and earthquakes are major killers abroad (each of ten inconvenience of their personal response. But when everyone, fearful or not, is forced to suffer because of the fears of others, then When a person irrationally fears crowded such measures become tyrannical: we should expect rational deliberation and justifications elevators and takes the stairs instead, only by our leaders before accepting them. But in that person suffers the inconvenience of their the aftermath of 9/11, tens of billions of dol­ lars were immediately reallocated with little personal response. But when everyone, fearful public debate. Skeptics might well question or not, is forced to suffer because of the fears our society's acquiescence to popular hysteria and proactively challenge our leaders to bal­ of others, then such measures become tyrannical. ance the expenditures of our resources.

Misperceptions of Risk disasters killed over 10,000 people, and a few over 100,000, Consider some misperceptions of risk. Many news headlines during the last three decades, chiefly in Asia) but are minor just before 9/11 concerned shark attacks and the disappearance killers in modern America. Hurricane Andrew did great physi­ of Chandra Levy, an extreme distortion of serious societal issues cal damage even though fatalities were few. What are sensible (only ten people annually are killed by sharks worldwide). We expenditures for research in meteorology and seismology, for can laugh at, or bemoan, the triviality of the media. But such mandatory enhancement of building codes and redevelopment, stories reflect our own illogical concerns. If, in allocating funds and for other measures that would mitigate natural disasters? among different hazards, we deliberately choose to value the •The 9/11 fatalities are just 1.5 percent of those in the lives of Manhattan skyscraper office workers, postal employees, nation's worst epidemic (half a million died from flu in 1918), or airline frequent flyers more than we value the lives of agri­ and also just 1.5 percent of the annual U.S. cancer fatalities. cultural workers or miners, it is a conscious, informed choice. We have waged a "war" on cancer, at the expense of research But it is rarely objectivity that informs such choices. In order to on other less feared but deadly diseases; this war's success is help laypeople and leaders to put our options into perspective, equivocal (five-year survivability after detection is up, but so skeptics, teachers, and journalists alike have a responsibility to are cancer death rates—though mainly due to decades-old put the objective past and potential threats from terrorism into changes in smoking habits). Where should "homeland secu­ contexts that ordinary people can relate to. rity" expenditures rank against medical expenditures? Let's compare 9/11 with other past and potential causes of • Impacts by kilometer-sized asteroids are extremely rare, but mass death. Note that we generally can't compare prevention one could send civilization into a new Dark Ages. The annual­ costs with lives saved; at best, we can compare expenditures ized American fatality rate is about 5 percent of the WTC fatal­ with lives not saved. For example, we can compare the cost of ities, although such a cosmic impact has only 1/100th of 1 per­ air traffic control with midair collision fatalities, but we can cent chance of happening during the twenty-first century. Just a only guess at the toll without any such air traffic control. couple million dollars are now spent annually to search for • We've noted that 9/11 deaths are similar to monthly U.S. threatening asteroids. Should we spend many billions to build a traffic fatalities. Whatever total private/public funds are spent planetary defense shield, which would statistically be in propor­ annually, per life saved, on improved highway and motor vehi­ tion to what we now spend on homeland security and the war cle safety, alcohol-while-driving prevention efforts, etc., it on terrorism? Might the threat to our civilization's very existence hardly approaches homeland security budgets. raise the stakes above even the terrorist threat? •The 9/11 fatalities were several to ten times fewer than To us, these comparisons suggest that the nation's post- annual deaths from falls (in the home or workplace), or from 9/1 1 expenditures have been lopsidedly large, and that a bal­ suicide, or from homicide. One can question the effectiveness anced approach would "give back" some funds to reduce of specific safety programs, counseling efforts, or laws; but, deaths from falls, suicide, murder, highway accidents, natural clearly, comparatively paltry sums are spent on programs that disasters (including even asteroid impacts), malnutrition, and would further reduce falls, suicides, and murders. preventable or curable diseases ... and give back our civil

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 33 liberties, and just the plain pleasures of life, such as the arts know...but there are things we do know and can understand. and humanities, exploration, and national parks. And if truly Rather than scaring people about sharks, serial killers, and effective means to end wars could be found, they would be anthrax, the mass media could help people understand the real especially worthy of funds, given the death toll from twentieth risks in their everyday environments and activities. century wars. Before homeland security becomes dominated Educational institutions should help students develop critical by vested bureaucracies and constituencies, there may yet be skills necessary to make rational choices. While avoiding intru­ time to question its dominant role in our priorities. sions into personal liberties, government could nevertheless We advocate shifting toward objective cost-benefit analyses collect and assess statistical data in those arenas (like air travel) and equitable evaluation of the relative costs of saving human where potential dangers lurk, concentrating protective efforts lives. Of course, subjective judgements have some validity and law enforcement where it is most efficacious. beyond strict adherence to numerical odds. But we need a To conclude, we suggest that most homeland security national dialog to address these issues dispassionately so that expenditures, which in the zero-sum budget game are diverted future governmental decisions can eschew immediate, impul­ from other vital purposes, are terribly expensive and dispro­ sive reactions. Individual skeptics, in our own lives, can exem­ portionate to competing needs for preventing other causes of plify sensible choices. Among the many dumb things we death and misery in our society. While prudent, focused should avoid (e.g., smoking, driving without a seatbelt, or let­ improvements in security are called for, the sheer costs of most ting kids play with firearms), we must also avoid driving security initiatives greatly distort the way we address the many instead of flying, acquiescing uncomplainingly to ineffective threats to our individual and collective well-being. Our great­ searches at local buildings and events, and generally yielding to est vulnerability to terrorism is the persisting, irrational fear of the new "homeland security" mania. Clear thinking about terrorism that has gripped our country. We must Stan behav­ risks, rather than saying that "any improvement in security is ing like the informed, reasoning beings we profess to be. worth it," can reduce our societal vulnerability to terrorism. One constructive antidote to post-9/11 trauma is to Acknowledgments enhance the information available and to foster sound appre­ The authors are grateful to many friends and colleagues, especially ciation, evaluation, and use of the information. Life is inher­ David Morrison, for comments and criticisms that helped us to frame ently risky, unpredictable, and subject to things we cannot these issues. •

st of Tucson, Arizona, there is a countryside, and drinking beer, have Moreover, a 300-foot perimeter now mountain cliff, over which water inherent dangers. Our society lacks the surrounds airport exteriors within sometimes flows, called Tanque Verde ability to ensure everyone's perfect which new security rules are in effect. Falls. It was once a popular place for safety. But regulations seeking just such Even far outside those perimeters, young people to visit, get naked, and near-perfect safety are now imposed on automobiles are checked when they drink beer. Each year, several would visitors to all U.S. commercial airports. enter airport parking lots. What does slip over the edge and die on the To prevent terrorists from using air­ any of this have to do with keeping rocks below. The authorities eventu­ planes as flying bombs, it would be suicidal terrorists from using airplanes ally erected a fence and made it logical to secure the flight decks of as bombs? Very little. And the threat unlawful to approach the cliffs edge. large jetliners: strengthening doors, from hijackings, generally, is small: in Yet in the mountains surrounding enhancing the security of aircraft con­ the three decades before 9/11, only Tucson and throughout the country, trols, perhaps equipping pilots with eighty-nine people were killed in there are countless other cliffs and stun guns, perhaps tightening certifica­ events involving U.S. air carriers or waterfalls, many equally accessible tion of pilots (to ensure they don't have airports. Yet, after 9/11, travellers may and potentially dangerous. Should we suicidal or terroristic tendencies). no longer eat, drink, or even just chat fence them all off, to save lives? The portal to secure is the entrance with friends and family inside airport Should we ban entry to the Grand to the flight deck. But following concourses since non-travellers are Canyon to prevent people from slip­ September 11 th, new measures also now banned from entry. How is that ping over the edge? Indeed, we could further protect airplane passenger a rational response to the WTC col­ ban access to all rugged lands. compartments. And entrances to jet- lapse? We are erecting fences on all But that would be ridiculous. The ways. And especially to concourses. the cliffs.

34 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Sheldrake's Crystals

An exchange of views on morphogenesis leads to the conclusion that testing Sheldrakes ideas about crystallization is useless.

MARCEL van GENDEREN, BART KOENE, and JAN WILLEM NIENHUYS

upert Sheldrake is an unconventional scientist—a biologist by training—who has invented morpho- Rgenetic fields. Originally, the word morphogenetic meant influences on the growth of embryos. One may think of gradient fields of specific signal substances, but the word is actually much older than the idea that signal substances might be involved. In various texts between 1920 and I960 we find several proposals about the nature of these fields, some of them highly metaphorical. However, Sheldrake thinks that any kind of natural process that eludes a clear and complete description is par­ tially controlled by such fields, especially when there is some kind of pattern. The basic idea is that such patterns cannot

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Seplember/October 2002 easily arise naturally, because we don't see how. However, once a lize: weeks or even months may elapse before crystals appear in pattern is formed, it becomes more and more easy to form again. a supersaturated solution. Moreover, generally speaking, com­ Sheldrake thinks that patterns create morphogenetic fields. pounds become easier to crystallize all over the world the more These fields spread out immediately through the universe often they are made" (131). without loss in strength. They favor the creation of the same This has been put to the test—but with a computer, under pattern. That is morphic resonance. the assumption that filling the memory of a computer is a process akin to crystallization. One may wonder how many people were impressed by this test. Sheldrake certainly wasn't, and Ordinarily chemists think that melting points our discussion of the thermodynamics of rise, at least in the literature, because of crystallization below will enable the readers 1 greater purity. There is no other explanation. to make up their minds on this. More recently Sheldrake has proposed Sheldrake thought that this is a circular that easier crystallization would also imply a reasoning, as purity of substances is rise in melting point. Historically many compounds have shown rises in melting ascertained by means of melting points. points. This suggested a test to one of the sympathizers of the Dutch skeptics organi­ zation Skepsis. In research labs, for instance Sheldrake even thinks that the basic laws of physics have those of pharmaceutical companies, many new compounds are been frozen into their present form by morphic resonance. But routinely made. any generic phenomenon can be considered as a pattern, so the Why not save some of these in a refrigerator and re-measure morphic fields amount to an explanation for almost anything their melting points after some time? Doing this with, say, a that is not explicable in detail. dozen compounds that were synthesized and crystallized Testing tiiese ideas is hard, because anything that is pre­ again, and a dozen compounds for which this didn't happen, cisely predictable is excluded from morphic resonance. might settle the issue. We decided to contact Sheldrake and Sheldrake does claim some evidence from phenomena for discuss this with him. This article is the outcome of our dis­ which any decent explanation seems to be lacking. Typical cussion with Sheldrake. examples are flocks of birds, blue tits getting the cream out of We discussed several issues, among them practical matters, milk bottles left at the front door, homing pigeons, clairvoyant such as how to determine melting points. What rise in tem­ dogs, solving crossword puzzles, and crystal formation. peratures should be expected? And should the samples be kept as solutions or as crystals? Morphogenesis and Crystals Why did Sheldrake think that melting points go up? Why Sheldrake writes in his book The Presence of the Past (1988) not down, for instance? Why to a limit? Why not up without about crystallization: "It is in fact well known to chemists that bounds? Why only after a few weeks or years, rather than a few newly synthesized compounds are usually difficult to crystal- microseconds or several millennia? What does the melting of a compound have to do with the process of crystallization from Marcel van Genderen is board member of the Dutch organization a solution? Skepsis. He works in the section Organic Chemistry of Eindhoven An important pan of the discussion centered on die actual University of Technology, where he teaches (among other topics) historical rises in melting points. This is important because if one chemical thermodynamics. Address: Dr. M.H.P. van Genderen, wants to interest a research chemist to spend time and energy on Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven something, then one should present some motivation. University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, We quickly decided that discussing the theoretical issues Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] Bart Koene is a should precede die planning of an actual test. Sheldrake was­ physicist working in the section of Electrochemical Technology of n't inclined to see any experiment as decisive. He was merely Eindhoven University of Technology. Address: Dr. L. Koene, interested in exploratory research. In other words, see what Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven happens. He argued that no skeptic has changed his material­ University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, istic world views on the basis of some of Sheldrake's experi­ Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. Jan Willem Nienhuys is a ments, so why should he do otherwise? retired teacher of mathematics of Eindhoven University of The theory question seemed easy. Sheldrake had consulted Technology, a board member of the Dutch organization Skepsis, with a chemist, who pointed out to him that "if morphic res­ and editor of its periodical Skepter. He is coauthor of a Dutch onance leads to a progressive strengthening of the morphic encyclopedia of pseudoscience. Address: Dr. J. W Nienhuys, fields of crystals, not only should they crystallize more readily, Dommelseweg 1A, 5581 VA Waalre, Netherlands. E-mail: but also die stronger field of the crystal should mean that the [email protected] Earlier versions of this article appeared in crystal is more stable and that its melting point should rise the Skepter (Netherlands) and Skeptiker (Germany). more often the compound is crystallized."

36 September/Octobei 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Ordinarily chemists think that melting points rise, at least in to the system, nothing (no freezing, no melting) happens. the literature, because of greater purity. There is no other expla­ Only differences in Gibbs free energy make reactions and nation. Sheldrake thought that this is a circular reasoning, as phase transitions go. Similar remarks apply to a saturated solu­ purity of substances is ascertained by means of melting points. tion in contact with crystals of the dissolved material. We disagree, and we told him so. Chemists have many ways "Nothing happens" is microscopically incorrect. All the to ascertain purity of compounds. For the last forty years, any time there are water molecules settling into the ice, while oth­ new compound is put into a nuclear magnetic resonance ers get kicked out. We speak about a dynamic equilibrium: set­ (NMR) machine. Mass spectrometry is another option, (gas) tling down and kicking out occur equally often. chromatography too. Element analysis for organic compounds What happens when we add salt to the mixture of water consists of burning a sample very carefully and then measuring and ice? The salt dissolves, and near the ice surface there are the amount of combustion products very precisely. This yields fewer water molecules settling into the ice. The number of ice the precise amounts of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen in the molecules kicked into the solution doesn't change, so now compound, and by comparing it with the theoretical formula, there is net melting. The dynamic equilibrium can only be one can estimate the purity. Chemical companies such as established at a lower temperature. Chemists observe that dis­ Aldrich have on-line catalogs, and they show for many of their solving salt into the water raises the entropy, hence decreases products certificates with reports of such purity analyses. the Gibbs free energy of the fluid, hence creates a difference in In fact determination of the melting point is hardly—if at Gibbs free energy between ice and fluid, and this "causes" the all—used to establish purity. To begin with, you need crystals system to evolve into one with more fluid and less ice. The for that, and that means you already have a quite pure sub­ advantage of using the Gibbs free energy is that one can cal­ stance. Then, determining a melting point is somewhat cum­ culate by how much a given amount of dissolved salt will lower bersome. The most common technique consists of wiggling a the freezing point, not only for water and salt, but for any tiny amount of powdery material into a capillary tube (one compound and any kind of impurity dissolved into a melt. hopes that hygroscopic material doesn't attract water during this The result of such a calculation is that the melting temper­ process), and then watching the tube contents through an opti­ ature goes down—unsurprisingly—in proportion to the con­ cal device while the tube is suspended in a fluid bath that is centration of the impurity in the fluid phase. slowly heated. The information from a single melting point is The decrease is also proportional to the square of the melting limited to just a single number. At most one can see from such temperature of the pure substance in equilibrium with the pure a number that the purity has not improved compared to a pre­ melt (a slightly better approximation is the product of the "pure" vious effort. The other methods give much more information. melting temperature and the "actual" melting temperature). However, the decrease is inversely proportional to the melt­ Melting and the Gibbs Energy ing heat of the substance. That is important to know, because What is the chemical theory behind melting points? When it means that for substances with a small melting heat a little chemists describe chemical processes, especially those that pro­ impurity may make a large difference.-' ceed without change in temperature and pressure, they often Conversely, for a substance with a large melting heat (such use a theoretical quantity called the Gibbs free energy (named as water) enormous amounts of salt are necessary to make the after the famous nineteenth century American theoretical melting temperature go down by an appreciable amount. physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs). One may think that chemical If we are dealing with an "impure" crystalline material, reactions and phase transitions try to go in the direction of we usually have a powder of pure crystals of various lower Gibbs functions for the systems involved. The role of the Gibbs function in chemical processes, not only melting and evaporation but also chemical reactions, was discovered by the famous French physicist and philosopher of science Pierre Duhem at the end of the nineteenth century. One should keep in mind that the Gibbs free energy is best thought of as a bookkeeping quantity. It contains an energy term and an entropy term, but the entropy term has a minus sign. For example, if we have ice and water in contact at the melting temperature of ice, then the water has a higher heat content (enthalpy) than the ice. But the addition of melting heat increases the entropy, which means that the energy can be distributed in more different ways among the molecules. Microscopically, entropy is a mea­ sure for the number of these ways; macroscopically, an increase in entropy is heat added, divided by the temperature. In fact there is no difference in Gibbs free energy between ice and water at the melting temperature. If no heat is added

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 37 substances. The impurities may, for example, consist of left­ Sheldrake seems to neglect the entropy term in the Gibbs over reagents that produced the bulk of die material. The function. In a crystal the entropy is clearly lower than in the above theory applies to the system consisting of the bulk mate­ fluid. Even so, different crystal forms also differ in the exact rial covered with a very thin film of impure fluid. Maybe the amount of freedom of motion of the molecules (that is one of reader is familiar with the phenomenon that melting ice with the reasons why the Gibbs function is so hard to compute salt (and obtaining a cooling effect as well) works better if a bit from theory alone). It is not certain at all that stronger forces of water is added to the mixture of ice and salt. between the molecules in a crystal lattice will lower the Gibbs Sheldrake, however, has stated to us that the "Gibbs free free energy. A tighter packing will lower the entropy, hence energy is not a part of any argument [he] raised," and that it is raise the Gibbs function. not particularly relevant. "[T]he morphogenetic field does act Nonetheless it seems to us that Sheldrake's hypothesis as a kind of catalyst." This view corresponds to Sheldrake's about melting points is a claim about forces and energies and view that his morphogenetic fields help probabilistic processes freedom of motion. For chemists, the Gibbs free energy is along in some way. On the other hand he stated that if "the what ultimately describes whether the crystal will melt or not Gibbs free energy of a substance is fixed quantity independent at a certain temperature. So implicitly the Gibbs function is of time and predictable in advance," then his hypothesis "does involved, but explicitly Sheldrake denies that it plays any role not make sense." in his thinking. Moreover, explicitly he stated that if the Sheldrake thinks that for many substances there are many Gibbs function is a fixed quantity, then his hypothesis is out, slightly different crystal forms possible, each corresponding to a and implicitly he hypothesizes that the Gibbs free energy of local energy minimum that differs a bit from the others. The any given crystal can change after it has been formed, merely morphogenetic field merely helps to choose the best minimum. by having similar crystals produced somewhere in the same That means a catalytic action indeed. It would explain quicker or a different lab. From the point of view of chemical ther­ and easier crystallization. But Sheldrake also believes that his field modynamics, this effect on the stability of crystals means somehow makes the crystal stronger in some sense, and thereby that Sheldrake implicitly supposes that there is an extra term protects it a bit against melting, in other words the morpho­ in the Gibbs function. He merely has to tell us what that genetic fields act both as catalyst and as stabilizer. But those two term is, and then we can study its properties and properly actions are fundamentally different, at least to chemists. design experiments.

Crystal Glossary

morphogenetic field entropy L- and D-forms In Sheldrake's view, a kind of influ­ In physics, a measure of disorder in a sub­ When a carbon atom is bound to four ence that is created by any character­ stance. In thermodynamics one divides different groups or atoms, one gets a istic pattern. any heat loss or gain by the temperature, molecule that is not identical with its and one obtains then a quantity that is mirror image, much like a left hand morphic resonance called the change in entropy. Heat is and a right hand. In simple cases one In Sheldrake's view, the morpho­ energy of random motion, entropy is a is called L and the other D. genetic field helps to create or sus­ measure for the evenness of the distribu­ tain analogous patterns. All forms of tion of this energy, more even meaning amino acids memory are in fact examples of mor­ higher entropy. In an amino acid a carbon atom is phic resonance of a brain with itself bound to a hydrogen atom, one acid at an earlier time. But a substance, Gibbs free energy group, one amino group and a third for example cocaine, can also A bookkeeping quantity in physics group. So unless the third group is "remember" how to form crystals, and chemistry, namely total heat just a hydrogen atom (resulting in and so cocaine can perfom better at (also called enthalpy) minus the glycine), amino acids come in L- and that task, once cocaine has been crys­ product of total entropy and temper­ D-forms. Proteins are chains of amino tallized somewhere, sometime. Shel­ ature. One may think of any process acids. Life on earth almost exclusively drake believes that the basic laws of such as melting or chemical reactions uses the L-forms of twenty different physics have also been created by as driven by differences in Gibbs free amino acids; asparagine, threonine morphogenetic fields. energy. In an equilibrium situation and phenyl alanine are three of (ice and water at 0 degrees Celsius, them. crystal or salt and a saturated brine) the Gibbs free energy of both compo­ A substance in which the atoms or racemic mixture nents is equal, and nothing (no melt­ molecules are ranged in orderly pat­ A substance containing equal num­ ing, freezing, dissolving etc.) hap­ terns. Often the crystals have charar- bers of two types of molecules that pens. In other words, the melting acteristic shapes. Examples are ice, are non-identical mirror images of point is the temperature where the s OT many minerals such as diamond or each other. fluid and solid phase have exactly the the grains in granite, table salt, and same Gibbs free energy. sugar. * * * *

38 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Concrete Examples tion. A chemist must conclude that there is something wrong here. Theoretically mirror symmetric molecules (such as these Why should those fields not cause the melting points to go up D- and L-compounds) ought to have the same melting points. without bounds? Sheldrake answered that many such processes Generally speaking, any scientist who can discover a basic dif­ have natural limits, such as the four-minute mile. We were not ference in physical behavior between mirror symmetric situa­ impressed by his example. The time for running a mile isn't a tions would achieve instant fame. The indication "decomposi­ natural process, but the result of an athlete wanting to outper­ tion" however, raises a red flag for a chemist. form others. Comparing track sports to crystals is merely using Sheldrake didn't seem to care much about discrepancies yet another anthropomorphic metaphor for crystal formation. between D- and L-forms. As far as we can tell, he agrees with us As most of humankind still can't run a mile in four minutes, that the limiting value of the melting point should be the same for morphic resonance doesn't work too well there! Many natural both forms, but D-forms, or their crystals, are usually newer than processes, such as the weather, earthquakes, and animal popu­ the L-forms, which are abundant in life on Earth, so it would take lations, don't go to any limit but keep varying up and down. some more time until morphic resonance has brought the D-crys- The very first microscopically small crystal will contain on tals close to their limit melting point. He sees no cause for con­ |( the order of 10 molecules. Why is a million billion learning cern in difference between L- and D-forms. That happens occa­ opportunities not enough? For blue tits and people much less sionally, he said. It does require explanation, and in fact there are learning suffices for much more complicated behavior! To this several standard explanations. One is that in the literature melting Sheldrake had essentially no answer. More important, we asked points are often copied from older sources, rather than remea- him if he had any concrete examples of inexplicable historical sured. Data about the "natural" L-forms are often older than those rises in melting points. Sheldrake gave several examples, taken of the newer D-forms. L- and D-forms are made in different from catalogues of companies such as Aldrich, Merck, and also ways, so their impurities differ. More specifically, L-compounds from the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, the so-called can contain certain amounts of the corresponding D-compounds "Rubber Bible." He spent much effort in obtaining substances (or vice versa), which tends to lower the melting point. Only an from chemical companies and checking the melting points by intensive investigation can reveal which explanation applies in a measuring them himself (actually having an assistant do it for particular case of a specific item in a specific catalog. him). We emphasize that he actively acquired data to support Sheldrake gave another example of a compound whose his views. However, he never provided any purity data. melting point did not go up, namely asparagine: its melting He gave one famous substance as example: 18-crown-6 point was 236 degrees in 1936, and it still is. We checked, but crown ether, first synthesized by Charles J. Pedersen, who again we found in Aldrich an anomalous high melting tem­ reported a melting point of 38 to 39.5 degrees in 1977 (all tem- perature of 280 degrees for the (synthetic) D-form, and again peratuies aie in degices Celsius). lis mating puint is now about melting with decomposition for aii forms. So we see here the 4 degrees more, namely 42—45 degrees. Sheldrake won't believe same mystifying anomalous behavior as for threonine. that this modest four degree rise has anything to do with We have asked Aldrich for an explanation. They mentioned improved purity after more than ten years. Certainly Pedersen the standard explanation, but for asparagine they took the must have done his best to get a pure compound? But chemists trouble to remeasure the melting points of their products. spend much of their time in isolating, separating, and purify­ They found for L-asparagine 240.5 degrees, and for D- ing substances. In this case absence of any increase would mean asparagine 274—280 degrees, which rules out the "copied from that chemistry would not have been able to make any progress older data" explanation in this case. after this compound was synthesized for the first time. For the moment, we must consider the melting points of His other examples were cocaine and seven amino acids. We asparagine and threonine as puzzles that might have any of didn't think they were good examples. The most serious objec­ several plausible solutions. Whatever these solutions, one can­ tion is that many of those melting points are listed with the not very well say that threonine's melting point has gone up, remark: "with decomposition," i.e., at die so-called melting and asparagine's stayed constant. temperature the stuff starts decomposing: it often turns yellow Sheldrake says that asparagine in some plants serves to or brown. Among chemists it is assumed diat tbis type of melt­ transport nitrogen, from the roots to the leaves. Sometimes the ing point isn't very reliable. The decomposition products can act sap of the plant is exuded at the leaftips, the water evaporates, as impurities with disastrous effects on the melting point, they and then the asparagine crystals are left. So crystalline may be fluid—creating the illusion of melting—and the judg­ asparagine has been occurring in nature for millions of years, ment that a discoloration is visible is somewhat subjective. and that explains to him why asparagine melting points don't Again, there is no problem here for Sheldrake. Melting and go up in the literature. He did not proffer an explanation for decomposing is the same to him: disruption of the structure. the high melting point of D-asparagine. His morphic reso­ For example. Sheldrake reported a melting point of 239 nance idea predicts a lower melting point for the D-form. degrees for threonine in 1934 and 270 degrees in 1993. There is only one amino acid that doesn't decompose at However, we found modern melting points of slightly over the so-called melting point. That is phenylalanine. Here the 239 degrees for the racemic mixture of D- and L-threonine, D- and L-form behave almost exactly the same, and the slight 256 degrees for D- or L-threonine, excepting Aldrich who difference can be explained from the purity data which are mentioned 274 degrees for D-threonine, all with decomposi­ available in this case.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Seplember/Octobei 2002 39 r

Conclusion more about the thermodynamics of melting than we knew Experiments to test these theories are possible, and if anybody before this discussion. It was only hallway through our corre­ wants to do them, we would be willing to cooperate in the spondence that it dawned upon us that we were basically dis­ design phase. But a null result will not change anybody's mind: cussing the Gibbs free energy. certainly not Sheldrake's and not any chemist's. Sheldrake does not consider chemical thermodynamics, he states things that Notes seem to us to be in contradiction with each other and also with 1. See, for example, Francisco J. Varela and Juan C. Letelier, Morphic this century-old and well-tested theory, and he only gave anec­ Resonance in Silicon Chips, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 12 (3) (Spring 1988), p.298-300. Morphic resonance test (Letters). SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 13 (1) dotal support for his conjectures. (Fall 1988), p.100-101. Follow-Up, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 13 (2) (Winter We see no possibility to convince a professional chemist 1989), p. 203-205. The Varela-Letelier experiment was deemed unacceptable that diere is something worth their effort and their (and their because their computer was controlled by a clock, but the students Warner, McNelis. and Losh built a clocklcss computer that, when properly cooled, bosses') time to investigate. For that, one needs an example of gave die same results (private communication). a substance with a given purity showing an historic rise in 2. For the cognoscenti (most of whom probably had to memorize this very melting point that cannot be explained from a change in formula during their studies) we mention that the concentration must be given in mol per mol, and then the proportionality constant happens to be the purity. Sheldrake has not given even a single such example. universal gas constant R, times a correction factor close to 1, to account for This discussion has had some use for us. We know much non-ideal behavior. D

Are Melting Points Constant?

RUPERT SHELDRAKE

(Reply to the article by Van Genderen, Koene, and Nienhuys)

ike van Genderen, Koene, and physical assertion. Evolutionary cosmol­ will be no pre-existing morphic field for Nienhuys (subsequently GKN) I ogy raises die possibility that the laws of this compound. But once the chemical Lam a skeptic, but of a different nature may themselves evolve. has crystallized, subsequent attempts to kind. I think it is important to question We can even question the concept of crystallize it in other places will be influ­ fundamental assumptions that are usually natural "laws." This is a very anthro- enced by morphic resonance from the taken for granted. In particular, I am pocentric notion, since only humans first crystals. As the compound is crystal­ skeptical about the idea that the "laws of have laws. As the English writer C.S. lized repeatedly there will be a cumulative nature" are constant. This theory was Lewis once said, "To say that a stone effect. It should therefore, on average, built into the foundations of modern sci­ falls to earth because it is obeying a law become easier to crystallize that chemical. ence in the seventeenth century, and was makes it a man and even a citizen." The morphic field of the crystal originally based on rJieology. The laws of Perhaps the regularities of nature are works, I suggest, by patterning the crys­ nature were created by God and shared in more like habits than laws. Habits imply tallization process toward one of the God's nature: they were changeless, uni­ a kind of unconscious memory. In my many possible minimum-energy struc­ versal, and omnipotent. hypothesis of formative causation, I sug­ tures that the compound is capable of Until the Big Bang cosmology gest that self-organizing systems, includ­ taking up. Morphic resonance from past became orthodox in the 1960s, there ing molecules, crystals, cells, organisms crystals should strengthen the morphic seemed no reason to challenge this and animal societies, are organized by field, and hence not only make the com­ belief. But we now have a radically evo­ morphic fields which contain an inher­ pound easier to crystallize, but also more lutionary cosmology. In this context, ent memory given by the process I call resistant to disruption. Therefore a does it make sense to say that all the laws morphic resonance. I give a detailed higher temperature would be necessary of nature were fixed at die Big Bang, like account of this hypothesis in my book to break it up. Thus the melting point a cosmic Napoleonic code? Or to claim The Presence of the Post. would be expected to rise. that they existed before the Big Bang? According to this hypothesis, the first According to the hypothesis of mor­ There can be no experimental evidence time a new chemical substance crystal­ phic resonance, compounds diat have for such a claim. This is clearly a meta­ lizes in die history of the universe, there crystallized in nature for millions of

40 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER years will show little or no change in ing points could actually change. I pro­ that melting points of chemicals are melting point. There would be a very vided a range of examples from the constant because textbook theories small incremental effect of new crystal­ chemical literature showing that such assume they are. They bring confusion lizations against a background of influ­ rises apparently occur, some as great as rather than clarity to the empirical ques­ ence from countless crystallizations in 30°C. When his chemist colleagues tion of whether melting points can actu­ the past. By contrast, new compounds checked my figures, they found very sim­ ally change. They try to make skepti­ first synthesized or crystallized in labora­ ilar figures. GKN have now fallen back cism about the constancy of melting tories or industrial processes should on the circular argument that when melt­ points seem unnecessary. But whether show increasing melting points. ing points go up, it must mean samples they like it or not, in an evolutionary In fact, for example, cocaine in its are purer. And how do we know they are universe, the evolution of the regulari­ natural form had a melting point of purer? Because they have higher melting ties of nature is an open question. The 98°C in 1915, and its melting point was points! If GKN had actually produced comfortable doctrine that all "laws" and still the same in 1989. By contrast, data for changes in purity, their argument "constants" are fixed cannot be taken for cocaine hydrochloride, the cocaine of might have had some force. In fact for granted. If the universe and everything commerce, is man-made. Its melting most of the melting points in the older within it evolves, it would be strange if point increased from 184°C in 1918 to literature no data on purity are available. chemistry were somehow immune. 197"Cin 1989. GKN have now shifted their ground I would be grateful to hear from any Nienhuys first wrote to me four years to theoretical arguments about the chemists who have empirical data rele­ ago challenging my suggestion that melt- Gibbs free energy. In effect, GKN claim vant to these questions.

A Last Reply to Sheldrake

MARCEL van GENDEREN, BART KOENE, and JAN WILLEM NIENHUYS

pparent regularities in data are ground. Science can progress with the should have a constant melting point called laws, especially when they acquisition of new data or with new the­ and threonine not, whereas we found Aseem to have universal validity. ory that better explains old data. that these substances (as sold by Hence human laws imposed by tradition Sheldrake produces data, but they are Aldrich) exhibit the same anomalies. or authority arc only used as metaphors in not useful, and not only because most of Suppose these anomalies would turn out the context of science. Asking who or his melting points are "with decomposi­ to be inexplicable and not merely the what set die laws of nature is confusing the tion." Impurities lower melting points. result of unequal admixtures of mirror metaphor with die real thing, like asking That's a fact. Chemists are improving molecules, then Sheldrake's theory for the wavelength of die light of reason. their methods all the time. That's a fact would predict that the D-forms have a About the Gibbs function, it is too. So it isn't surprising that purities low melting point, exactly opposite of Sheldrake, not us who tries to turn the and hence melting points go up. We reality. How can he maintain that his tables. Already for about a century the have explained why they might go up a data warrant a systematic search for sup­ Gibbs function has served quite well to lot, namely in cases of low melting heat. port of his ideas? explain chemical phenomena in general Sheldrake's data—also these cocaine Science has arrived at understanding and melting in particular. Sheldrake data—lack essential purity information. evolution and the Big Bang by assuming proposes an entirely different theory in We actually told him that such informa­ constancy of laws of nature across the which entropy (an essential term in the tion might be found in specialized liter­ depths of time and space. Observations Gibbs function) plays no role whatso­ ature, but we didn't feel that we should have never forced science to give up that ever, and in which no distinction is do his work of searching for it. assumption. Stringing words like "evo­ made between catalysis (making reac­ We repeat diat we offered to act as lution" and "Big Bang" together doesn't tions go more quickly) and stabiliza­ intermediary between him and industrial make a case for the variability of natural tion and which predicts neither magni­ chemists interested in performing the laws in general, let alone for looking for tude nor speed of these changes in experiments he proposed. For that he such variation in esoteric subjects like melting points. should present convincing data. He didn't. the thermodynamics of melting of He is the one trying to break new Sheldrake explained why asparagine organic compounds. d

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 41 Teaching Skepticism via the CRITIC Acronym and the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER

The CRITIC acronym provides neophyte skeptical students with an easy-to-remember, step-by-step format for applied critical thinking. Practice applying this simple method of critical analysis can include writing CRITIC reports on the feature articles found in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. WAYNE R. BARTZ

ost college students slouch into the first day of class assuming they already know a great deal about the Mworld around them. As a result they may have to unlearn an accumulated wealth of misinformation in addition to absorbing the priceless new pearls of wisdom teachers toss their way. An improvement in critical thinking skills should facilitate that sometimes painful process. When it comes to widely accepted extraordinary claims, the sources bombarding today's students are rich, the specu­ lations boundless, and critical analysis is generally lacking. Dubious claims familiar to readers of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER abound: Exposure to "crystal energy" improves health and mental functioning; gifted "psychics" can

42 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Claim? Role of the claimant? Information backing the claim? Test? Independent testing? Cause proposed? C—Claim: The first task is to describe exactly what is being proposed. Spell it out, define it, make it specific enough to be observable and measur­ able. For example, how might a claim of crystal- inspired "improved mental functioning" actually be demonstrated? What measurable mental per­ formance would be expected and how would we determine whether or not it actually occurred? With some claims it immediately becomes apparent that we cannot pin down exactly what is being proposed, making it impossible to seriously test the claim. For example, I could assert that invisible "N-rays" emanating from Earth disturb mental functioning, but this newly discovered force cannot yet be measured. Not only that, but the effects are sporadic and influence different people in different ways, so describe your innermost desires, divine the future, or speak they cannot be readily documented. The essential requirement with the dead; basic "personality traits" can be revealed by of falsifiability can be introduced and most students will studying the features of an individual's face. Students routinely understand why a claim that cannot be falsified is worthless. assume such claims to be true, or else they would not be R—Role of the claimant: Who is making the claim and is prominently featured on radio and TV, in books, newspapers, there something in it for them, e.g., money, fame, power, and magazines. Rarely is the slightest critical thought demon­ influence, publicity? If the public accepts the claim, will the strated in credulous media portrayals of paranormal events claimant profit? Does the claimant appear to be an unbiased (recent television network examples include NBC's The Others observer or a "true believer" with something to sell? Might he and Mysterious Ways). The challenge for an educator is to moti­ or she be motivated to slant things in a specific direction for vate students to critically evaluate interesting claims without personal benefit? Some years ago Roger Smith, then president having the benefit of background courses in research method­ of General Motors, claimed on the Donahue show that GM ology and statistics (which most students never take). manufactured the "highest quality vehicles produced in the Introductory psychology classes have always stressed a sci­ world." Might viewers have reason to hesitate in taking his entific approach to the study of behavior, with skeptical word for it? If there if some benefit for the claimant, that does modes of thought being emphasized long before "critical not necessarily demonstrate die claim to be false, but it cer­ thinking" became a buzzword in education. Some years ago a tainly suggests using vigilance and caution in accepting that panel of psychologists assembled by the American individual as a reliable fount of knowledge. Psychological Association concluded that the primary objec­ I—Information backing the claim: What evidence is tive of an undergraduate psychology degree is graduates who offered in support of the claim? Is it public information that could be described as "amiable skeptics about much of what can readily be verified? Or is it anecdotal or testimonial? they encounter." We in the skeptical community might hope GM's Roger Smith supported his Donahue show claim about this outcome would occur no matter what college major a world-beating quality by pulling a letter from his pocket and young person selects, but widespread acceptance of fanciful reading it aloud. The letter was purportedly received from a notions by college-educated adults suggests this is a vain happy Buick owner who described driving his car more than hope. During three decades of teaching college psychology 300,000 trouble-free miles. The common uncritical use of courses and encouraging the development of "amiable skep­ testimonials and anecdotal evidence in the media and in tics," I devised a practical system of applied critical thought advertising can be discussed here, along with why such use based upon the easy-to-remember acronym CRITIC. It could be used in a variety of courses, is readily understood by most college students, and would probably be effective even with Wayne R. Bartz is a recently retired college professor and clinical high school and junior high school students. It is basically a psychologist. He lives in Meadow Vista, California. This article is simplified application of the scientific method without the adapted from a book in preparation titled The Ultimate complex terminology: Liberation: From Religion and Other Popular Delusions.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Seplember/October 2002 43 should always raise a red flag. We can also question whether harden and strengthen the metal and plastic used in all its die information cited is genuine, who actually provided it, vehicles?" If a new force or energy is proposed it is not nec­ and for what purpose? For example, how could Donahues essarily impossible, but must be considered highly suspect viewers know for certain whether or not the Buick owner's and demands especially rigorous proof before being taken letter was genuine? Finally, are we being provided with infor­ seriously ("extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evi­ mation that was obtained under scientific, controlled condi­ dence"). Often with claims about paranormal events the pos­ tions and published in recognized peer-reviewed scientific sible causal mechanism is simply ignored or shrugged off as journals, and why is that important? something wonderful but totally unknown. This is the case when astrologers say "We don't know how the movement of the planets affects During three decades of teaching human lives, it just does." Claimed events that suggest no feasible explanation are college psychology courses I devised a unlikely to be true (this provides an practical system of applied critical thought opportunity to discuss Occam's razor). based upon the easy-to-remember Applying CRITIC acronym CRITIC. After outlining this CRITIC system for my students we then apply it to a variety of widely accepted claims such as those made T—Test: If there is some reason to doubt the claim, how by astrologers, mind readers, faith healers, and New Age prac­ might we design an adequate test? What would provide rigor­ titioners, each accompanied by an illustrative, entertaining ous conditions that preclude uncontrolled variables, system­ video example lifted from the electronic media. I encourage atic error, or cheating from biasing the results? What is students to consider not whether their instructor or psychol­ required to conclude that a claim is probably true beyond a ogists in general accept what is being presented, but rather reasonable doubt and what is reasonable doubt? The basic how they might approach the question critically and answer it ideas of statistical analysis, probability, and significance can be for themselves. introduced here, along with some introductory concepts of For students willing to try applying their CRITIC experimental design. (Beware of sudden student brain-lock acronym skills in exchange for some extra credit, I developed when instructors begin waxing poetic about statistics and a simple essay questionnaire to be filled out after reading a research methodology.) feature article in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER at the college I—Independent testing: Has any unbiased source actually library. The questions on the report correspond to the carried out a rigorous independent test of the claim and pub­ CRITIC acronym. For example: lished the results, ideally in a reputable, peer-reviewed 1. What is the claim being considered? (The student responds research journal? Does it back up the claimant? If indepen­ with a written answer: "Training in Yogic flying can allow a dent tests have failed to confirm the claim, was this reported person to hover above the ground or move around freely in by the claimant? If not, why not? Considering the General space. The training involves. . .") Motors quality question, a check of Consumer Reports's yearly 2. Describe the apparent role of the person, group or organi­ zation making the claim: (etc.) survey of automobile owners' experiences would provide some quick, relatively unbiased data. Does it come as any sur­ This written exercise lets them practice applying critical prise that Roger Smith never mentioned Consumer Reports thinking and has the added benefit of giving most students when singing GM's praise to Donahue's 8 million viewers? I their first exposure to the pages of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. wonder why? The ultimate goal of the CRITIC acronym is to nudge stu­ C—Cause proposed: What is held out as a causal expla­ dents toward application of a more systematic and scientific nation for the claim and is it consistent with the physical approach to the fascinating world around them ... as an alter­ laws of the universe? (It is not suggested that students can native to the impressionistic, faith-based, and often authori­ instantly make that judgment—rather, they are alerted to tarian approaches that have been foisted upon them all their this being an important question that could be pursued, e.g., lives. A study involving 130 introductory psychology students by asking a reputable astronomer, physicist or biologist.) For found that those who had experienced the CRITIC-based example, could there be something special about GM's course introduction were indeed more skeptical and likely to assembly line, quality control system, or workers' contract use the CRITIC terminology when evaluating controversial that might result in better vehicles? Perhaps, and each of claims at semester's end than were students who did not these causal hypotheses is something that could be examined. receive CRITIC training (p < .001). But what if the proposed cause transcends the laws of physics and proposes the existence of a completely new and mysteri­ Acknowledgment ous force or energy? What if the claim is that "General My thanks to Richard Rasor, Bud Gallagher, and Bob Tallmon for their Motors has discovered a way to focus N-rays to specially assistance in the study mentioned at the conclusion of this article. D

44 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Skepticism Under the Big Sky

If you offer it, they will come! Since 1996, four intrepid prairie skeptics have annually pitted approximately a quarter century of graduate study in science, medicine, and education against the claims, cunning, and innocent convictions of local truth seekers. MIKE SCHWINDEN, DAVE ENGBRECHT, JOHN MERCER, and MARK PETERSON

otivated by a desire to promote an entertaining, yet more critical examination of popular scientific Mand medical claims (especially by senior citizens), we offered a ten-week course titled "Investigating the Fringes of Science and Medicine." The course was held through the public school district's Adult Education Program four times in the past five years. Here are some highlights.

Day One/Year One Wearing an assortment of surgical garb, crystals, and tie- dyed lab coats, the four of us strolled into the classroom to the inviting voice of Mary Chapin Carpenter singing, "I Feel Lucky." During our introductions, one of John's sci­ entific colleagues (who looks more like a truck driver than a

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Septembei/October 2002 45 scientist) rushed in, shouted at John, and stabbed him with a Do You See What I See? cardboard knife—spurting fake blood all over John's shirt. The One night we discussed the paranormal phenomena of ESP assailant vanished as quickly as he came. After a long fifteen and mental telepathy and invited the class to participate in a seconds, John stood up (to the palpable relief of many!). Next, casual experiment. We paired off couples to act as senders and we asked the students to write down what they had seen and receivers and reserved five students to serve as judges. The heard. We collected and shared the wildly disparate accounts, senders blindly selected one picture from a box of pictures making an important point: that reliable people do not neces­ clipped from magazines. They were directed to various isolated sarily make reliable witnesses. nooks and closets of the building where they were to sit down, As an icebreaker, we asked for volunteers to share any strange concentrate, and send an image of their picture to their receiv­ or mysterious phenomena they had personally experienced. The ing counterpart—who drew what he or she had received tele- students numbered about forty-five; ages ranged from two pathically. (Critics may point out that with all those psychic female friends in their early twenties to several married couples signals crossing as they passed through the building, it is no in their late sixties; backgrounds included nursing, farming, gov­ surprise that the extrasensory effect disappeared!) ernment workers, homemakers, pharmacy, and several retirees; a Pictures and drawings were shuffled, labeled, and set out few came as skeptics, though most came predisposed to believe for the judges to match up. The hit rate was a whopping zero. claims of the paranormal. A brave and bubbly woman of fifty There were some interesting sidebars to this activity, however. rose to the challenge. "I'll tell you one," she chirped. "Oh, you've One receiver finished her drawing (of a crude bird) and said, all had it happen—the phone rings and before you pick it up, "I had the strongest image of trees and mountains." Of course you know who it is." So who needs Caller ID? they weren't strong enough for her to draw them, but she was We thanked her for volunteering. The floodgates were inadvertently giving her team extra chances for a hit. open. Most of our adults, it seemed, had experienced some­ Unfortunately for her, her husband had telepathically sent her thing unusual or bizarre. A woman in her early forties recalled, an image of a man on a camel in a treeless desert. "One time, oh, this is so strange, I was meditating in my liv­ Another intriguing reaction came from a woman (receiver) ing room. Suddenly, I looked down and realized 1 was floating who had drawn nothing more than a simple triangle. Her two feet in the air. Then the carpet turned into sand as I stared sender had sent her an image of a man holding a large fish. down in disbelief." We resisted the urge to suggest that per­ The judges had failed to make a connection, but as she stud­ haps she had merely dozed off". Nevertheless, we thanked her ied her drawing and the picture, she suddenly observed that for contributing; relationships based on mutual trust and the fisherman's arms formed sort of a triangle with the fish as respect were being established. There would be plenty of time the base. She tried to appeal the judges' decision! for alternative explanations. Finally, there was the woman who noticed that the back Over the next nine weeks, we discussed a multitude of side of the picture her boyfriend was looking at actually resem­ paranormal, pseudoscientific, and fringe medicine topics— bled her drawing. She wondered if maybe she accidentally many of which were derived from twenty-five years of back received the flip side image! One year, we had concluded the issues of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER or How We Know What Isn't So telepathic viewing activity and were at least thirty minutes into by Thomas Gilovich. the next topic. All at once we realized sweet, gray-haired Edna Because we knew that active participation was crucial for was missing. A quick search through the building revealed maintaining the students' interest, we tried to budget time Edna sitting patiently in a closet, serenely continuing to send for frequent hands-on psychic experiments. For example, one her giant tortoise image to her roommate who was too shy to of us would run through a deck of Zener cards, pressing the let us know that her sender had not returned. small cards against his forehead and squinting mightily for effect while the students wrote down their predictions on You Can Lead an Old Dowser to Gold their own scorecard. Afterward, we would console the Two years ago, we were delighted by the attendance of a very inevitable post-exercise "I-hoped-I-was-psychic" depression opinionated, very outspoken, elderly gentleman dowser (we'll with an optimistic "this doesn't prove you aren't psychic— call him Clyde). Clyde was learned in every pseudoscientific maybe next time!" subject we would bring up, but his passion was for dowsing. He insisted that his dowsing rods had diagnosed his wife's medical condition when her doctors couldn't. He said they Mike Schwinden (formerly of Great Falls, Montana) is an ele­ could be used to find lost objects when held over a map mentary school principal in Needham, Massachusetts. He is also although he had not yet been able to locate his own missing an adjunct faculty member for Embry Riddle Aeronautical bicycle. This he attributed to his inexperience with the rods— University. He can be reached by e-mail at: schwinden he had no doubt that a professional dowser would have been @mediaone.net. Dave Engbrecht is a family practice physician; successful by now. Mark Peterson is an anesthesiologist; John Mercer is a molecular It took very little coaxing to get Clyde to bring his dowsing geneticist at the McLaughlin Research Institute and adjunct fac­ rods to the next class. That night he proudly held the L-shaped ulty member of University of Montana and Montana State dowsing rods up to some volunteers' faces and showed how the University. All three live in Great Falls, Montana. rods moved away in response to the strength of their auras. He

46 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER let the instructors try. We were able to reproduce the aura effect; however, we said we were causing it to happen by slight movements of our wrists. Clyde was unimpressed. He inter­ preted this as further evidence for a dowsing effect—we skep­ tics were merely denying our gifts! Eventually Clyde asked to be put to the test. He said the rods could determine which hand held Mike's gold wedding band. He had a 50/50 f^s chance and we almost hoped this kindly man would be successful— he wasn't. That darn shyness effect appeared once again (or maybe Mike needs a new jeweler! Each year we explained the "basics" of numerology—with a twist. We gave the stu­ dents the personality profiles associated with would take place, her prediction would have seemed accurate if each number (with all reference to the number removed). you had gone months before her prediction or months after­ Students were told to review the profiles and initial the one wards. Furthermore, she probably knew you were a teacher that most accurately described them. Only then were they told (Eileen was a regular client), and since teachers are constantly going to the University of Montana (in Missoula) for addi­ which profile is associated with which number. The results tional coursework that seems like a pretty safe guess. Also con­ were predictable—except for the night when a numerology sider that Missoula is the second largest city in the state, the expert, familiar with the profiles, nailed it. She was quick to closest "big city" shopping and medical care center, not to men­ add that street addresses also give accurate personality profiles tion a popular recreation area. Given the scarcity of cities in Montana, your psychic could have predicted a trip to either one of houses—to tiie enlightened! of the two most populous cities and probably scored a hit. We used the same "decide before you know" strategy with horoscopes, personality-based blood-typing, and I Ching. The Eileen: Well, how do you account for the fact that she knew results were again predictable. Some simple probability math my son had nosebleeds? helped most of the students appreciate that chance could Instructors: We aren't here to dispute her claim; however, account for the occasional successes. remember that most kids have nosebleeds. Also, your son has We always took advantage of the fact that our students had allergies and if that information had come out in an earlier Visit, the DSyCulC WOUld ccilauiiy have made a note of u. Ill seen die movie Jurassic Park. The movie story about preserved diis dry climate, kids with allergies are particularly susceptible and re-animated dinosaur DNA provided John an opportunity to nosebleeds. to demonstrate how difficult it is for the average person to determine when real science stops and fringe science begins. Medicine and Drugs John explained that expecting a biologist to reconstruct a Fringe medicine always generated the most interest and excite­ dinosaur from a few fragments of DNA is like asking an engi­ ment. Dave often began by reading the disclaimer found on neer to build a space shuttle given a few strands of wire and a herbal medicine pill bottles. After reading it verbatim, he para­ piece of the tail fin. phrased the manufacturers words, "We make no promises regarding contents, quality, dosage, or concentration; there are To Guess or Not To Guess no known benefits; you could have had a porterhouse steak One evening a middle-aged woman, Eileen, dared us to with the money you wasted on these weeds." The pharmacist explain away the accurate predictions from her recent visit to in the audience laughed the loudest. a local psychic. Eileen credited the psychic with knowing she It is probably safe to say that most people never have an had relatives in Minnesota, predicting a trip to Missoula, and opportunity to engage two physicians in an informal discussion knowing her son had nosebleeds. Our exchange with Eileen about the universally fascinating topic of dying, so it was no sur­ went something like this: prise the subject came up on the night both Dave and Mark Instructors: Tell us what she said about relatives in Minnesota. were in class. This provided our physicians an opportunity to Eileen: "1 see you have relatives in either Minnesota or maybe graph the progression of a chronic illness and demonstrate how it's Pennsylvania." unscrupulous people can take advantage of these cycles to pro­ mote and peddle quack cures. It also gave them a chance to Instructors: (to the class) How many of you have relatives in either Minnesota or Pennsylvania? (Over half of the hands examine near-death experiences and brain chemistry. went up—not much of a surprise given the large Scandinavian Another popular medical theme was manipulation in its population.) What did she say about Missoula? various forms: chiropractic, massage therapy, reflexology, and Eileen: "I see you taking a trip to Missoula," and, in fact, a friend offered me a ride to Missoula two weeks later. SKEPTICISM UNDER THE BIG SKY Instructors: Since the psychic didn't specify when the trip Continued on page 63

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 47 Why Was The X-Files So Appealing?

The success o/The X-Files was in large part due to its expression of a confluence of three powerful, ancient, and legend-like beliefs—paranormalism, conspiratorial thinking, and populism. ERICH GOODE

he demise of The X-Files series cries out for an assess­ ment of its appeal. In the volatile world of big-time Ttelevision, a decade-long run is no small potatoes. Clearly, the show said something to audiences that most pro­ grams don't. What was The X-Files' special magic? What made it intriguing to tens of millions of viewers? My sense is that the program's appeal was confluence of two immensely attractive and primordial ideas: paranormal­ ism and conspiratorial thinking—along with a strain of pop­ ulism, which often comes with paranormalism, and nearly always accompanies conspiracy theories. The X-Files was not a documentary, of course—it was fiction. (At the same time, or so the show's producers

48 September/October 200J SKEPTICAL INQUIRER claimed, it was "inspired" by "documented accounts.") It didn't lecture to us a paranormalist or a conspiratorial (or a populist) point of view. In fact, my guess is, its creators and producers adopted a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward the occult events it depicted. For most of us, the events it depicted were just a bit too fantastical to be taken seriously as fact. [See also " The X-Files Meets the Skeptics," SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, January/February 1997.] But the program did contrast a paranormal/conspiracy point of view (Agent Mulder's) with a more scientific or skep­ tical perspective (Agent Scully's)—and week after week, the skeptical perspective always lost. Moreover, viewers actually saw evidence of both paranormalism and conspiracies at work with their own eyes. We saw the aliens scuttling about in the shadows and we saw the Cigarette-Smoking Man and his cronies, also in shadowy places, conspiring to cover up evi­ dence that the aliens are on our planet. Spotting The X-Files' paranormal theme is a no-brainer. Not only were the words "paranormal activity" flashed on the screen in the program's opening credits, but throughout, Mulder's supernatural theories were always verified. When Scully told him that that the presence of aliens on Earth contradicts the laws of physics, Mulder replied, when it comes to aliens, "the laws of physics rarely apply." At another point, Scully, who is trained as a doctor, said: "I've always held science as sacred. I've always put my trust in accepted facts." Mulder had a different take on the matter: "Might we not," he asked, "turn to the fan­ tastic as a possibility?" Week after week, the show overturned David Duchovny (I) as Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson as Agent Dana Scully. ©1998 Fox Broadcasting Company. Credit: Mark Seliger/Fox. Scully's trust and validated Mulder's "possibility." No doubt about it: In The X-Files, traditional science was thrown out the traditional rather than revolutionary, conventional rather than window and paranormalism reigned supreme. going against the grain. The X-Files was also a classic case of a conspiracy narrative. In conspiracy theories, the conspirators control public life Conspiracy theories argue the following. First, treachery is by controlling access to valuable information. To fight against afoot; somebody (or something) is trying to do harm. Second, a conspiracy, we must first believe in it. And the central idea of not only do the conspirators want to do harm to others, they conspiracy theories is that we must uncover the truth, which is want to do harm to us— good, decent people. Third, the con­ what The X-Files is all about. As usual, Mulder said it best: spirators are organized; indeed, that's what conspiracies are all "The answers are there. You just have to know where to look." about. Fourth, their actions are secret and clandestine; the In principle, by telling the truth, we can undermine the con­ conspirators are very good at covering their tracks. And fifth, trol that the powerful have over us. One of the things that they are powerful; in fact, all conspiracy theories are centrally makes The X-Files interesting is its ironic twist on this age-old about the distribution of power, about monopolizing and theme. More on this momentarily. withholding it (Fenster 1999). There are many varieties of conspiracy theories. One major Conspiracy theories are nearly always populist theories as type is the paranormal conspiracy theory. What paranormal well: They support and trust the common man and woman, conspiracy theories share with conspiracy theories in general is especially, first, their view of things, and second, their right to the view that nothing is as it seems. There are evil, shadowy fig­ power. Conspiracy theories and populism share a strong dis­ ures who hide valuable information from the public. In TheX- trust of the elite, people in high places, the rich, the powerful, Files, the conspirators constituted a multinational "consortium" the well-connected—including scientists and other well-edu­ that "represents certain global interests," which kept the truth cated, pompous pundits. And, crucial for our understanding from the rest of us. It was a conspiracy so vast that even the FBI of The X-Files, most varieties of populism see science as sym­ was kind of a pawn, a puppet, a middleman between these bolizing or representing elitism—diat is, as contrary to the views and the interests of the common man and woman. Erich Goode is Visiting Professor in the Department of Science is complicated and difficult to learn and superficially Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of Behavioral and it seems to be monopolized by, and to support the interest of, Social Sciences, University of Maryland College Park, MD the powers that be. Turning the tables on what most scientists 20742-8235, and the author of Paranormal Beliefs: A think, the populist strain of conspiracy theories sees science as Sociological Introduction.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 49 powerful forces and the public. The valuable information in and woman is right; second, a condemnation of government this case was of a paranormal nature—that extraterrestrials are secrecy—it is opposed to the fact that the powers that be are with­ here, they are here as a result of violating the laws of physics, holding valuable information from the public and are harming us; and they mean to do harm to us by coloniz­ ing our bodies. In the paranormal conspiracy theory, the Turning the tables on what most scientists underdog tries to reveal the truth about sci­ think, the populist strain of conspiracy entifically unexplainable phenomena and undermine, and ultimately defeat, the theories sees science as traditional rather dominant, establishment view, thereby than revolutionary, conventional rather empowering the public. The underdog is opposed to a "rigid scientific view of the than going against the grain. world." In place of this rigid view, the anti- conspiracy theory favors intuition, what feels right, what and third, the hero, the outsider, the paranormal believer, discovers seems right, experience, memory—in short, what contradicts evidence that contradicts the official, dominant view, and attempts or can't be explained by science. to unmask the conspiracy and empower die powerless, rhe com­ In such paranormal narratives, there is usually a believer and mon man and woman, by giving us this valuable information. a skeptic, and the tension of the narrative is introduced in the Of course, in The X-Files, the conspiracy couldn't really be debate between them. We want to be there to witness its reso­ unmasked and the treachery couldn't be defeated because it was lution, that is, the manifestation of the truth of paranormal an ongoing series and hence the same evil forces had to continue powers. The believer has usually seen evidence of paranormal to do their machinations in episode after episode. There was no powers with his or her own eyes, but cither can't get his or her triumph, no resolution. The only triumph was the reality of the hands on hard, physical evidence, or the evidence keeps being evidence that Mulder and Scully gathered. But, again, because stolen or destroyed by others, usually the conspirators. In con­ the conspirators were so powerful and commanded such a huge trast, the skeptic has faith in traditional science, trusts hard evi­ arsenal of resources, that evidence had to be destroyed or taken dence, and thus debunks the paranormal point of view. One away; hence, the triumph of getting their hands on the evidence fascinating feature of The X-Files is that week after week. Agent was negated. The only true victory in The X-Files was the view­ Scully, a physician, an extremely intelligent woman, never quite ers' knowledge of what really happened. comes to accept Mulder's paranormal and conspiracy beliefs. As a result, the triumph of the paranormal and conspirato­ Most commonly, the believer is a powerless, marginal per­ rial views in The X-Files was only an intellectual and cognitive son and often a woman; the skeptic is almost always a man victory—not a political one. At the end of each show, the evil (Hess 1993). In The X-Files these sex roles are reversed because remained; only our view of the world changed. We know the the screenwriter and creator, Chris Carter, explicitly stated that truth, but the evil in our midst, it seems, will always abide. he wanted to "flip" traditional sex stereotypes and make Mulder the believer and Scully the skeptic. References So, the populist, paranormalist, and conspiracy elements in The Fenster, Mark. 1999. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American X-Files are expressed by: first, an anti-scientific viewpoint, that is, Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hess, David J. 1993. Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders the view that traditional, established science is wrong, the laws of and Debunkers, and American Culture. Madison: University of Wis­ physics can be overturned, and the intuition of the common man consin Press. •

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DatDatee co f filing: July 30, 2002. Title: The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. Frequency of issue: Bi-monthly. Complete mailing address of known office of pub­ licationlln««. : 3965 Rensch Road, Amherst. Erie County, NY 14228-2713. P.O. Box 703. Amherst. Erie County, NY 14226-0703. Publisher: CSICOP, Inc. (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), 3965 Rensch Road, Amherst. Erie County, NY 14228-2713. Editor: Kendrick Frazier, 944 Deer Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122. Assistant Editor: Benjamin T. Radford, P.O. Box 703, Buffalo. NY 14226-0703. Owner: CSICOP, Inc. (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), 3965 Rensch Road, Amherst. Erie County, NY 14228-2713. P.O. Box 703, Buffalo, Erie County, NY 14226-0703. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders: None. Aver, no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months: A. Total no. copies (net press run) 53.840. B. Paid and/or requested circulation (1) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales 16,635 (2) Mail subscriptions 34,747. C. Total paid and/or requested circula­ tion (sum of B[1] and (2)) 51,382. D. Free distribution by mail (samples, complimentary, and other free) 797. E. Free distribution outside mail (by carrier or other means) 0. F. Total free distribution (sum of D and E) 797. G. Total distribution (sum of C and F) 52,179. H. Copies not dis­ tributed (1) Office use, left over, spoiled 1,661; (2) returns from news agents 0. Total (sum of G, H [1) and [2]) 53,840. Percent paid and/or requested circulation 98.473%. Actual no. copies of single issue published nearest filing date: A. Total no. copies (net press run) 55,833. B. Paid and/or requested circulation (1) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales 17,265 (2) Mail subscriptions 35,196. C. Total paid and/or requested circulation (sum of B(1] and [2]) 52,461. D. Free distribution by mail (samples, complimentary, and other free) 800, E. Free distribution outside mail (by carrier or other means) 0. F. Total free distribution (sum of D and E) 800. G. Total distribution (sum of C and F) 53,261. H. Copies not distributed (1) Office use, left over, spoiled 2,572; (2) returns from news agents 0. Total (sum of G, H (1) and [2D 55,833. Percent paid and/or requested circulation 98.498%.

50 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS

A Blunderbus Approach to Criticism of Statistics

TERENCE HINES

Junk Science judo. By Steven J. Milloy. CATO Institute, 2001. ISBN 1-930865-12-0. 215 pp. Hardcover, $18.95.

unk Science Judo is an annoying and by his oft-rcpcatcd phrase "statistics study thai reports only statistical results shallow book chat will nor provide aren't science." This is like saying "tools can prove a cause-and-effect relation­ the reader with anything like a full aren't carpentry." True enough, but one ship" (emphasis added). This is a simply Jaccount of the problems with junk sci­ is going to get damn little carpentry absurd statement and would never be ence and the means to combat it. The made by an author who had even a basic author discusses some of the usual out­ knowledge of statistical procedures. rages of the health hysteria mongers such There is an entire class of statistical as claims that cell phones cause brain analyses, called inferential statistics, cancer and that Alar was a carcinogen. which are designed precisely to allow But the book is oddly incomplete in this JUNK researchers to draw causal inferences. regard. Missing is any coverage of the Milloy's comment would be true if he claims that power lines cause cancer or substituted "correlational" for "statisti­ that breast implants result in immune cal." It is certainly true that the finding diseases. These are two of the clearest SCIENCE of a correlation (the term doesn't even cases of hysteria-mongering, and their appear in the book's index) between two inclusion would have made the book variables does not allow one to conclude much more compelling by giving crystal- that there is a causal relationship be­ clear examples of why the media- JUDO tween the two correlated variables. But induced fears are unfounded. Oddly, the Milloy's ignorance of this fundamental real target of this book seems to be a SELF-DEFENSE AGAINST difference between correlations and inferential statistics renders his argu­ poorly defined boogeyman labeled "sta­ HEALTH SCARES & SCAMS tistics." Certainly, sloppy use and inter­ ment confusing, to say the least. pretation of statistics is one of the major At other times, Milloy uses the term problems at the heart of unfounded STEVEN |. Ml LLOY "statistics" in slightly different ways. health fears. A book that would clearly While he never discusses what inferential explain the often subtle statistical errors statistics are, and how they can be used made by promoters of health fears would done without tools, even if tools can properly to draw conclusions, he does be a valuable contribution. Unfor­ (duh!) be abused and used incorrecdy. discuss (in chapter 6) the concept of sta­ tunately, this is not that book. The real problem is that Milloy, as tistical significance and p values. A p Milloy's crude broad-brush condem­ judged from his writing, simply doesn't value is a probability value ranging from nation of statistics is nicely summed up understand statistical techniques well 0 to 1 that gives the probability of the enough to be able to write cogent criti­ obtained result being due to chance. The Terence Hines is in the psychology depart­ cisms of the poor statistical techniques higher the p value, the more likely the ment. Pace University, Pleasantville NY used to support various health scares. In obtained result is to have been the result 10570-2799. A second edition of his book most cases when he uses the term "sta­ of chance factors. Putting it the other Pseudoscience and the Paranormal is tistics" he really means "correlations." way around, the smaller the p value, the being published by Prometheus this year. For example, on page 59 he states, "No greater the probability is that the results

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 51 BOOK REVIEWS

are not due to chance factors—that rhey between exposure and the rate of a productive life but before they have a arc due to the factors manipulated in the numerous different types of cancers (or chance to develop many of the chronic experiment. By general agreement, a p other ailments). When one, or maybe and debilitating, to say nothing of value of .05 or less is accepted as a "sig­ two, significant relationships are found, extremely expensive, diseases of old age nificant" result. When discussing p val­ die "fact" thai substance X "causes" can­ such as Alzheimer's disease. Dead smok­ ues (p. 108) Milloy makes another cer type Y is certified. This is the prob­ ers are also less likely collect social secu­ lem of multiple comparisons. If we rity payment and retirement benefits. accept a p value of .05 as indicating sig­ The point is not that it is "good" that nificance, we are also accepting that 5 smoking kills people. The point is that Milloy's ignorance percent of the time, a result will be "sig­ any rational economic analysis of the of the fundamental nificant" simply by chance alone. So, if effects of a behavior like smoking must you look at the effects of exposure to, take into account both the real costs and difference between say, postage stamps on 120 different die real cost savings associated with the correlations and types of cancer even if postage stamps behavior. For example, a recent Dutch do not cause cancer, for 5 percent of the study (Barendregt et al. 1997) estimated inferential statistics cancer types examined there will be a diat the lifetime average health care renders his argument "significant" relationship. Now, of costs for smokers is $83,700 and for course, on average three of these rela­ non-smokers $97,200. confusing. tionships will show that postage stamp The numerous serious flaws in the exposure increases the risks of the can­ logic and coverage of this book render it cers and three will show that exposure essentially useless as a guide to die absurd statement: "How researchers cal­ decreases the risks. The decreased risk detection of junk science. This is a real culate the /rvalue is not important." findings just never get any press. This shame as the book does contain inter­ This is like saying, going back to the tool sort of serious statistical blunder is espe­ esting and important nuggets of infor­ and carpentry analogy, that it doesn't cially serious in studies claiming to link mation. I was unaware, for example, matter how a carpenter makes a hole in power lines to various cancers and PCB that in studies of the risks of second­ the wall—a bulldozer is as good as a skill pollution to developmental disorders hand smoke the EPA arbitrarily saw. In fact, there are hundreds of dif­ (Hines 2002). But Milloy barely men­ changed the p value for significance ferent statistical procedures that can be tions this problem. from .05 to .075, thereby shifting a used to calculate a p value. Deciding In anodier instance, Milloy simply finding of the risks from "non-signifi­ which one to use on a particular set of seems not to have read the relevant liter­ cant" to "significant." It appears that data is far from a trivial problem. It is a ature. On page 118 he is properly criti­ secondhand smoke isn't a health risk— problem that diose of us who teach sta­ cal of estimates of the economic costs of though in my view that doesn't mean tistics probably spend more time on in cigarette smoking by noting that the smoking shouldn't be banned. Second­ class than anything else. If you do use die claims that "differences in medical hand smoke is still annoying, and that is wrong procedure, you'll get ap value that expenditures between smokers and sufficient grounds for a ban—just as we is simply wrong. And you will often be nonsmokers are due only to smoking" would feel no compunction about ban­ badly misled as to what your results are "probably not true" due to other ning drinkers at a bar from spitting part really mean. I have found (Hines 1998, differences between smokers and non- of their bourbon and water on the folks 2001) that using the wrong procedure to smokers. But those huge estimates of around them. As the book stands, it calculate a p value is very common in the economic "costs" of smoking can comes across as little more than an ill- experiments that claim to support vari­ be criticized on much more serious thought-out temper tantrum against ous pseudosciences. grounds. Reports of smoking-related those damn "statistics." The author's ignorance of die real costs are just that—reports of the costs References nature of, and problems with, statistics only. They do not take into account the cost savings that result from smoking. Barendregt, J.J., L. Bonneux. and P.J. van der time and again prevents him from mak­ Maas. 1997. The health care costs of smoking. ing his arguments against various health Unfortunately, us non-smokers aren't New England Journal of Medicine 337. scares as effective as they should be. In immortal. We're going to die of some­ 1052-1057. thing. The fact is that lung cancer, the Hines. T.M. 1998. Comprehensive review of bio- chapter 11, "Tricks Are for Kids," he rhythm theory. Psychological Reports &5. 19-64. discusses studies that claim to show that major fatal disease of smokers, kills you . 2001. The Doman-Delacato patterning exposure to this or that substance causes relatively young and relatively fast, and treatment for brain damage. Scientific Review thus relatively cheaply. So smokers gen­ of Alternative Medicine 5, 80-89. cancer. A common procedure in such . 2002. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. 2nd studies is to examine the relationship erally die at a time when they have lived edition. Amherst NY: Prometheus Books.

52 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS

there were seven war correspondents at NO eo« iti An Historian Debunks No Gun Ri. Six were British or Austral­ ian, one was American—from AP, no AP's Pulitzer Prize- less. None wrote a word, even in private notes, indicating they had seen such a Winning Story; An Expose thing as hundreds of bodies that would ROBERT SKOLE have been left from a massacre. They could not see any bodies, and no one No Gun Ri—A Military History of the Korean War Incident. ever has seen any, because there were By Robert L. Bateman. Published by Stackpole Books, none—a fact the AP story ignored. Mechanicsburg, PA 17055. 2002. 302 pp., There was little censorship during $22.95, hardcover. the Korean War, and certainly seven reporters—including one from AP and o Gun Ri—A Military History San Francisco Chronicle staff writer, that one from the highly respected Times of of the Korean War Incident one of the three AP reporters made a London—could not have been involved N should be read by every shocking attempt to suppress Major in a cover-up. Four of those reporters are American who values honest media cov­ Bateman's book before it was published. still alive. According to a note Bateman erage. It should be a required textbook In an April 7, 2002, article, Taylor sent this reviewer, they were outraged for every journalism school student— revealed that Charles Hanley late last with the original AP "massacre" story— and an eye-opener for working reporters year wrote a nine-page letter to and shocked that nobody ever contacted and editors. Stackpole Books, the Pennsylvania pub­ diem for their version when the story This book, by historian and sold­ lisher, saying it would be a "grave mis­ got worldwide attention. ier Robert L. Bateman, thoroughly take" to publish Bateman's "diatribes debunks the highly publicized Asso­ and defamations." Taylor wrote, "A copy Bateman thoroughly ciated Press (AP) story, published in of the letter, filled with personal attacks September 1999, that claimed U.S. against the author, was made available to debunks the highly troops "massacred" up to 400 civilians The Chronicle? publicized Associated in the early days of the Korean War. In Most journalists fight tooth and nail April 2000, the story won the Pulitzer against any type of "prior restraint." Press story that Prize for investigative reporting. Taylor wrote that Hanley's letter "is the claimed U.S. troops Although serious questions were raised kind of dark threat that gives free speech shortly after about the accuracy of the experts the chills." One can only con­ "massacred" up to story, AP has insisted its research, clude that Hanley was willing to violate 400 civilians in the early sources, and facts were accurate, and basic American journalism ethics that hundreds of civilians were slaugh­ because he so greatly feared that days of the Korean War. tered at No Gun Ri on July 26, 1950, Bateman's meticulous, painstaking by troops of the 2nd Battalion, 7th research and analyses would completely Cavalry Regiment. demolish the AP story. One minor fault of the book is that Robert Bateman's book, once and for Major Bateman, an associate profes­ the original AP story should have been all, presents solid, overwhelming evi­ sor of history at the U.S. Military placed at the very beginning, so as to dence that die AP story was more than Academy at West Point, tells how the provide readers witn an early reference, highly exaggerated. It was untrue. AP initiated and based its investigations an opening gun, so to speak. Instead, In a new bizarre twist to the story, it primarily on fabrications of Edward the AP story is in the final chapter, has been revealed by Michael Taylor, a Daily, a self-created "war hero." Daily which is aptly entitled "Making (Up) recently pled guilty in Federal Court of History." An appendix has the executive Robert Skole is a reporter, author, and for­ being a war-veteran fraud and a summary of the U.S. Government's eign correspondent. He has written for swindler of over $400,000 in veteran's investigation into the "massacre" allega­ McGraw-Hill business and trade publica­ benefits. In Part Two of the book, enti­ tions. The extensive investigation, tions, including Business Week; and his tled "The Story of the Story," Bateman ordered by President Clinton, clearly articles have appeared in Esquire, the describes the AP story and the leading shows the tremendous publicity the AP Washington Star, The Nation, Japan role Daily played in it. story received. Times, and in other publications in Bateman reveals that the AP shock­ As an old reporter, from the old Florida, Massachusetts, and Europe. ingly ignored and never reported that school—an old school that insists on

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 53 BOOK REVIEWS

honest, accurate reporting—I cannot picions, if not definite knowledge, that hope in his recommendations. imagine how AP can avoid returning the their famous "hero" was a fraud who Well, perhaps although he boldly Pulitzer, just as the Washington Post did was never at No Gun Ri. Obviously, if uses the word "cure" he means the word some years ago when its prize-winning Daily were exposed as a con artist at only in a manner of speaking. Surely, he reporter was revealed to have written fic­ that time, it would ruin AP's chances does not mean to cure cancer, or macu­ tion instead of fact. for a Pulitzer—not to mention raising lar degeneration, or anorexia, or colitis, The AP's prize-winning "reporters" really serious questions about the accu­ or the multitude of "health conditions" will have to live with themselves, and the racy of the whole story. with which we humans struggle. nai've Pulitzer Committee will have to Bateman's book is well footnoted and Perhaps he only means "feel better." We live with egg on its face. referenced, and includes detailed maps shall see. And then there's NBC's Tom Brokaw, of the action at No Gun Ri. Bateman Stengler has a distinguished history author of The Greatest Generation. As far provides an excellent description of the in the healing arts, with the doctorate in as this reviewer knows, Brokaw has not months before the war, the communist naturopathy (N.D.) and a certificate in acknowledged that he was totally guerrilla action in Korea, the poorly homeopathic medicine, both from the conned, and he has not apologized to his trained Cavalry troops going into battle, National College of Naturopathic millions of Dateline NBC viewers, for and the days and hours of the No Gun Medicine. He has trained as a general featuring "war hero" Edward Daily at Ri incident. family practitioner and has "expertise" No Gun Rj, boldly lying about how he After reading Robert Bateman's para­ in nutrition, nutritional supplements, machine-gunned civilians. graph-by-paragraph, detail-by-detail herbal therapy, and "many other modal­ Only the AP reporters know why debunking of the AP story, you'll surely ities." Of great interest (though perhaps they did not warn Brokaw and other take a new, critical, healthily skeptical perplexing) is his membership on Yale media people, and kept secret their sus- view of today's journalism. University's Complementary Medicine Outcomes Research Project. He has achieved distinction as a writer and as a talk show host, and that he trademarked ran v- i ca Do | ira Remedies Guide Confuses DO'U Know his self-chosen title, The Natural The Natural Science and Anecdote Physician, lends a sense of confidence to Physician's BERTRAM ROTHSCHILD his pronouncements. Healing Clearly, this is a man of many parts Therapies The Natural Physician's Healing Therapies. By Mark Stengler, who, by resume alone, we surely must MARK STENGLER. N.D. N.D. Prentice Hall, 2001. ISBN 0-73520250-8. 562 pp. take seriously. When he says in the body TV NaMri r*,«i*» laroo*, n*kh.M II $30, hardcover. of this book that there is research that backs up an anecdote, we must accept that, although frequently he offers no his book is no doubt a boon to equally physicians, their degrees in natur­ reference. Homeopathic treatments are humankind. For diose of you opathic medicine), because his "cures" are to be accepted on his say-so. He offers Twho are ill, chronically or acutely, complementary to standard medical many anecdotes about how the treat­ this book will provide cures, yes cures, is practice. And, while one might disagree ments cured him and his patients, all the word author Stengler uses. It is a self- with my characterization of his remedies with an aura of verisimilitude. Once he help book that advertises "proven reme­ as cures, in the section entitled: "Quick noted (in himself) the onset of the flu dies that medical doctors don't know." Cure Finder: An A to Z Guide to Health accompanied by a strong sense of fear. Here is a wonderland of solutions for Conditions and Therapies," he offers Deciding that anxiety is one symptom of your aches, disabilities, distressed mental "cures" for 372 (more or less—you get the flu, he concluded that homeopathic states, and what-not. Stengler describes a the idea) health conditions. And each of aconite would cure the illness. Five min­ multitude of illnesses which herbs, chem­ the conditions usually has several treat­ utes after ingesting the substance, he felt icals, homeopathic nostrums, acu­ ments. Back pain can be "cured" with calmer and within a half-hour the other puncture, etc. will fix. Stengler does not horse chestnut and nux vomica. Breast symptoms significantly diminished. At argue that sufferers should avoid seeing cancer is preventable with flaxseed and the end of die day, he was ... cured. Yes, physicians (oops, that is ambiguous phytonutrients. Bronchitis has seven we should take him seriously. because he and others of his ilk are "cures" (astragalus; bromelain; cell salts; Or should we? A boast of this book is food sensitivity therapy; hydrotherapy; that he provides references for the variety Dr. Rothschild is a retired clinical ipecacuanha; pulsatilla), and cancer has of treatments he recommends. That psychologist. fourteen. Any sufferer would find great impresses, and I eagerly searched out the

54 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS proper section. Sure enough, there are have frequently failed upon replication, in a variety of stores; what a sense of con­ forty pages of professional references, but and sometimes there is a seesaw effect, trol one has to find the right treatment upon examination, doubts emerge. For so that to rely heavily on one study without authoritarian intervention. And example, he suggests ginger root for seems inappropriate. We have no way of finally, we have both ignorance of and arthritis, bloating and flatulence, cardio­ knowing how many similar studies hostility toward science. For many, scien­ vascular disease, diarrhea, high choles­ failed. One positive study amid several tific medicine is anathema. terol, morning sickness, motion sickness, failures provides no useful information, nausea, and vomiting. For all these con­ no matter how provocative. It is plausible, even ditions, there are only four references, Thus, in spite of the references, he one from Chinese herbal medicine and provides little useful evidence that his likely, that some of his the other three from standard medical recommended "cures" will make any dif­ recommendations are journals. But those three deal with die ference. Of course, people following his same topic: the reduction of nausea. advice will get better—most illnesses are sensible, but we will not While ginger, he explains, reduces cho­ self-correcting. know because he, the lesterol in rats, it does not do the same To his credit, each treatment section for humans. But he does not mind rec­ includes a discussion of possible nega­ proponent, has not ommending it; he says that if you take it tive consequences. By happenstance, I thought it important to for some other reason, who knows, it saw my physician about tinnitus while might help with cholesterol. Parting working on this review. He told me that find out. company with many of his herbalist col­ gingko biloba is sometimes useful, but leagues, he does not believe that ginger advised against it because I also take Finally, the question remains: Is this can help arthritis, but also says, "It can warfarin. Stengler makes that point, so book dangerous? At one level, it is dan­ be helpful to some people as part of a even if I had not searched it out 1 would gerous in the sense that people might comprehensive herbal formula . . •" So, have been adequately warned. (So much try to "cure" themselves of illnesses whatever the outcome, he is right. for his boast that ". . . medical doctors when they would better see a physician. About 28 percent of the references don't know.") But worse, every day that passes means are from 1997 or later (my arbitrary cut­ For whom is this book written? that the book has become more out of off for currency)—the rest are earlier Physicians? Not too likely, though other date. Stengler writes as if the research than 1997, the oldest dating back to health care providers might be enthusi­ on prayer has definitely shown the 1935. That means about 70 percent of astic about some of Stengler's claims. validity of such intervention. But the references are old without any sug­ Scientists? Again, not likely. The readers already this is no longer valid. Another gestion of ongoing investigation. Some of this magazine, with a skeptical bent example: gingko biloba, touted as a of the references have no citation, and and a sense of curiosity about claims? memory enhancer, has failed in current some with citations have no year Nope. But, I know many more people, research, no better than glucose-spiked reported. Many of the journals cited are as we all do, who are more likely to find lemonade or attention arousing activi­ devoted to Chinese medicine or naturo­ this book valuable than not. ties. Still lingering is the possibility it pathic medicine and many are from I suspect there are five factors will help those with Alzheimer's disease; Europe. And many simply indicate that involved with many peoples enthusiasm research continues. Whatever might a study was done. For example: "One of for such "cures." One surely is that des­ have been reasonable upon the publica­ the few studies on arsenicum album was peration drives the search for relief when tion of this book will become super­ done on rats that were given arsenic," or, medical doctors can offer only insuffi­ seded by more current findings; and "A study was done with forty people cient help. Anodier is that the use of potential dangers lurk in substances with chronic venous insufficiency . . . ," such remedies provides a comfortable that currently seem safe. He offers no or "Researchers examined twenty-nine challenge to orthodoxy and "establish­ warning about this reality. One would overweight individuals who also had a ment" medicine; by their successful use, be wise to get up-to-the-minute infor­ family history of diabetes." There are one feels like a winner. Another is word- mation from one's doctor. many such notes, giving the aura of of-moudi. A friend says: "I had the flu What is sad about this book is that it research success but not providing even and aconite fixed me in one day." Who is plausible, even likely, mat some of his a hint of the findings. Many of the cita­ would not at least consider taking that recommendations are sensible, but we tions start with the line: "One study has "cure" in the face of ongoing discomfort? will not know because he, die proponent, shown ..." Stengler does not inform the Another is that the use of such treat­ has not thought it important to find out. reader that basing a cure or treatment on ments provides a powerful sense of inde­ He cannot distinguish between anecdote one study is shaky. Positive findings pendence. One can find diese nostrums and science, and that is a great failing. D

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 55 NEW BOOKS

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56 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER and Kachelski I G rlos Castaneda and New Age anthropology, Gardner. FILL IN THE GAPS IN YOUR JULY/AUGUST 1999 (vol. 23, no. 4): Specia Issue: Science and Religion. Conflict or Conciliation? Celebrating creation, Raymo I Should skeptical inquiry be applied to religion?, Kurtz I The 'Science and Skeptical Inquirer COLLECTION Religion' movement. Scott / Science and the versus of religion, Palevitz I Science vs. religion, Pazameta I • 15% discount on orders of $100 or more • Anthropic design. Sfenger / Scientific skepticism, CSI­ • $6.25 a copy, Vols. 1-18 ($5.00 Vols. 19-25). To order, use reply card insert • COP, and the local groups. Novella and Bloomberg I Two mind-sets, Allen I God is dead, after the weather and sports. Reiss I Whence religious belief?, Pinker I JULY/AUGUST 2002 (vol. 26, no. 4): Special Report: mal te ach us ab consciousness?, Blackmore I Non-overlapping magisteria, Gould I You can't have it Alternative medicine and the White House commission, Sponta leous huma nfabulation, Nienhuys I Italy's both ways: Irreconcilable differences?. Dawkins I The Gorski, London I Special Section: Science and pseudo- of Harry Ho i. Nisbet IA psychological case concerns of science, Mayr I The religious views of science in Russia, Kurtz, Efremov, Knjglyakov I Who of 'de visitation, Reisner I Distant Stephen Gould and Charles Darwin, Gardner. abused Jane Doe? Part 2, tortus and Guyer I The high healing and Elizabeth Targ, Gardner. MAY/JUNE 1999 (vol. 23. no. 3): Special Section: Urban cost of skepticism, Tavfist Graham Hancock's shifting cat­ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2001 (vol. 25, no. 1): Special legends. The snuff film. Stine I Bitter harvest: The aclysm. Brass / The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Ladendorf Section: Issues in Alternative Medicine: Medicine wars, organ-snatching urban legends. Radford I 8igfoot's and Bartholomew! Moscow mysteries, Nickell. Seidman I Herbal medicines and dietary supplements. screen test Daegling and Schmitt I Tracking Bigfoot MAY/JUNE 2002 (vol. 26. no. 3): Who abused Jane Alle i / Psychoactive herbal medications. Spinella I on the Internet Zuefle / Statement analysis. Shearer I Doe? Part 1, Lottus and Guyer / Is the Mars Effect a Chir ipractic. Homola I Damaged goods? Science and NAGPRA, science, and the demon-haunted world. social effect?. Dean I Gray Barker's child sexual abuse. Hagen / Special Clark I Urine therapy, Gardner. book of bunk, Sherwood I The king of Report: Science indicators 2000 / quacks: Albert Abrams, M.D., Haines I Facilitated communication. Gardner. MARCH/APRIL 1999 (vol. 23. no. 2): Special Report: Benny Hinn: Healer or hypnotist?. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 (vol. 24. The ten-percent myth. Radford I Superstition and the Nickell. iger. Saw'tsJcy, and Gilovich I no. 6): The face behind the Face on regression effect. Psychology of the nee. Wiseman I Dowsing and i. Posner I The new paranatural MARCH/APRIL 2002 (vol. 26. no. 2): archaeology, van L •n I Hidden messages in DNA?. Special Reports: Bioterrorism and alter­ digm, Kurtz I Francis Bacon and the Larhammar and Chatzidimitrit )u / The I Chief native medicine, Atwood / 'Mothman' ids of skepti Friedberg I Seattle was not a spiritual ecol ogist. Abr \zzi I Joint solved! Nickell I Bigfoot at fifty. Ids in collisi : Where reality meets pain and weather, Quick I Acupi le therapy. Rodford I Cripplcfoot hobbled. Radford I Why bad and reflexology. Gardner. Daegling I Pseudohistory in ancient >n't die, iester / Supernatural JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1999 (vol. 23. no. 1): Special coins. Carrier I Are science and religion id cuftu al evolution, Layng I Report: Armageddon and the prophets of doomsday. compatible?. Kurtz I The emptiness of itality of Dr. Bettelheim, holism, Ruscio I Undercover among the Fears of the apocalypse, Kurtz / The Bible and the spirits, Nickell. prophets of doom, Larue I Science and pseudoscience SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 (vol. 24, no. in Russia. Kapitza I Testing dowsing: The failure of the JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 (vol. 26, no. 5): Voodoo science and the belief gene, Munich experiments. Enright IA fallibilist among the 1): Myths of murder and multiple Park I Rogerian Nursing Theory, Raskin I cynics. Haac* / The internet: A world brain?. Gardner. regression, Goertzel I Education, scientifi owledge. Sun sign columns, Dean and Mather I The psychic staring NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1998 (vol. 22. no. 6): Gaps in and belief in the par mormal. Goode I A u liversity's effect Marks and Co/we/// Management of positive and the fossil record: A case study, Thomas I The Martian struggle with chiropf ictic. DeRobertis I Sn iring the negative responses in a spiritualist medium consulta­ Panic sixty years later Bartholomew I The perils of Fowler: Mark Twain debunks phrenology, Lopez / tion, Greasley I The laws of nature: A skeptic's guide, post-hockery, Ruscio / May the force be with you, Three skeptics' debati tools examined, Ca: ) / Mickey Pazameta I Special Report: On ear cones and candles. Krauss I The Mead-Freeman controversy: A fresh look: Mouse discovers thi 'real' Atlantis, Hairderse n / Kaushall and Kaushall I Little Red Riding Hood. Gardner. Much ado about nothing The 'Fateful Hoaxing' of Atlantis behind the myth, Christopher! 10th European Margaret Mead. Cdte I Margaret Mead. Derek Skeptics Congress report. Mahner I Voodoo in New JULY/AUGUST 2000 (vol. 24, no. 4): Thought Field Therapy: Can we really tap our problems away?, Freeman, and the issue of evolution, Shankman I Orleans, Nickell I Some thoughts on induction, Second World Skeptics Congress: So Gardner. Gaudiano and Herbert I Absolute skepticism equals nd reason cies,. ce and lii. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 (vol. 25. no. 6): A cri­ kind occur on a Japanese beach in 1803?, Tanaka I nknowable, G, rdnet tique of Schwartz et al.'s after-death communication Rethinking the dancing mi 113. Bartholomew I Has sci- SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1998 (<. I. 22. no. 5): Special studies. Wiseman and O'Keeffe I Magical thinking in ence education become ai enemy of scientific ,m. complementary and alternative medicine, Stevens / Section: What are the ch ices?. Coincidences: nality?, Ede I Krakatene: Explosive ps :ience fr< Remarkable or random?, Marti / Numerology: Comes Educational malpractice Moore / Philosophe-s and the Czech Academy of science, Slani I / David Bohm the revolution, Dudley IC ulated risks, Cole I How to psychics: The Vandy epi ode, Oldfield I CSIC09 25th and Krishnamurti, Gardner. study weird things, Trocc / Why would people not Anniversary section: The origins and evolution of CSI- MAY/JUNE 2000 (vol. 24, no. 3): Special Report: The believe weird things?, Andersc n / Starkle Itl rkle, lit COP. Nisbet I Never a dull moment. Kan i John new bogus MJ-12 documents. Klass I Mass delusions tie twink. Hayes I Of planets ari d cogniti The use Edward: Hustling the bereavedbei , Nickell I Ernest and hysterias of the past millennium, Bartholomew of deductive inference in the na tural scier CCS andpsy Hemingway and Jane, Gardner. and Goode I Doomsday fears at RHIC, Guiterrez I Save chology. Schlinger Jr. I What's going o Temple SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2001 (vol. 25, no. 5): at our science: The struggle for rationality University?, Gardner. Issue: Science and Religion 2001. Holy wars. at a French university. Broch / The dangerous quest for cooperation between JULY/AUGUST 1998 (vol. 22, 4): Paraneuroscience?. Kirkland I Bohm's and religion, Pandian I Design yes, intelligi Special Report: Mars Global Surveyor pho­ guided wave theory. Gardner. iSKJBTI&k tographs 'Face on Mars', Morrison I Piglii / A of life for agnostics?. Lovelock I MARCH/APRIL 2000 (vol. 24, no. 2): Risky Magnetic therapy: Plausible attraction, Scien ligion.'and the Galileo affair, Moy/The god business: Vividness, availability, and the Livingston I Biomagnetic pseudoscience of fallini g bodies, Stenger I The relationship between media paradox. Ruscio I Physics and the ooau and nonsense claims, Sabadell I Catching paranoirma l beliefs and religious beliefs. Sparks I paranormal, 'r Hooft I Efficacy of prayer, H^B^H up with eighteenth century science in the ScienceI and religion in an impersonal universe. Young Tessman and Tessman I Can we tell if evaluation of therapeutic touch. Ball and / Arthu • C. Clarke's 'Credo,' Clarke I A designer uni- someone is staring at us?. Baker I SB55 Alexander I Paranormal depictions in the verse?, Weinberg I An evolutionary-genetic wager, Assessing the quality of medical Web media: How do they affect what people Avise I Shroud of Turin scandals. Nickell I Murtverses sites, lew / The demon-haunted sen­ Ins. believe?. Sparks I Planting a seed of and blackberries, Gardner. tence, Byrne and Normand I Mad messi- doubt Shneour I Essiac: The not-so- remarkable cancer remedy, McCutcheon / ahs, Gardner. JULY/AUGUST 2001 (vol. 25. no. 4): Confronting vet­ • "•"••• Near-Earth objects: Monsters of Doom?, erinary medical nonsense, Imrie I Junk science and the JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2000 (vol. 24, no. Eft — - Gardner law, Dodes I Chevreul's report on the mysterious oscil­ 1): Special Report: The ten outstanding lations of the hand-held pendulum. Spit! and skeptics of the twentieth century / Two MAY/JUNE 1998 (vc .22, ro. 3): Special Marcuard I CSICOP 25th Anniversary section: A quar­ paranormalisms or two and a half ?, Goode I Anna Eva Section Th, Aliens Files, Abductii .by liens or sleep ter-century of skeptical inquiry, Paul Kurtz I Thoughts Fay, Polidoro I The pseudoscience of oxygen therapy, paralys , Blackmore I Before Roswell: The meaning on science and skepticism in the twenty-first century, Allen I Confessions of a (former) graphologist, behind the crashed-UFO myth, Bartholomew 1 Case Kendrick Frazier I Proper criticism, Ray Hyman I The Tripician I The Second Coming of Jesus, Gardner. closed: Reflections on the 1997 Air Force Roswell lighter side of skepticism, Pudim I A skeptical look at NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999 (vol. 23, no. 6): The report. Gildenberg and Thomas I Gray Barker: My Karl Popper, Gardner. Universe and Carl Sagan, Davidson I The millennium friend, the myth-maker, Sherwood IA skeptic living in thought contagion, Lynch / Debunking the debunkers: Roswell, Churchill I Zero-point energy and Harold MAY/JUNE 2001 (vol. 25. no. 3): The shrinking file- Puthoff, Gardner. drawer, Stokes / The Pokemon Panic of 1997. Radford A response to astrology. Kelly I The physics behind I The Antinous Prophecies. Pickover I Common myths four amazing demonstrations. Willey I Another lunar MARCH/APRIL 1998 (vol. 22. no. 2): Special Report: of children's behavior, fiorello I Bertrand Russell and effect put to rest Sweet I Special Report: Blooming The price of bad memories, Loftus I Science, delusion, critical receptiveness. Hare I CSICOP 25th Anniversary shroud claims. Nickell I The star of Bethlehem. and the appetite for wonder, Dawkins I A mind at section: From the editor's seat: 25 years of science and Gardner. play: An interview with Martin Gardner. Frazier I skepticism. Kendrick Frazier I Science vs. pseudo- SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1999 (vol. 23. no. 5): Special Houdini and Conan Doyle: The story of a strange science, nonscience, and nonsense, James Alcock I CSI­ Report: Flash! Fox news reports aliens may have built friendship, Polidoro I Sponntaneou s human combus- COP timeline / Primal scream: A persistent New Age the pyramids. Carrier I Where do we come from?. tion: Thoughts of a fo : biologist BenecAre / Did therapy. Gardner. Pigliucci I Profits and prophecy. Wise I Projective mea­ Adam and Eve have na , Gardner. sures of personality and psychopathology: How well MARCH/APRIL 2001 (vol. 25, no. 2): Darwin in mind. do they work?, Ullenteld I What every skeptic ought Edis IA bit confused. Roche / What can the paranor- For i omplete listing of back issues, call 800-634- to know about subliminal persuasion, Epley, Savitsky, 1610, or see http://www.csicop.org/si/b3ck-issues.html. FORUM

Oh Brother Luke, Where Art Thou?

KEN PAREJKO

The Sibling Society has already devel­ in the Environmental Science oped, in just a few years, an internal class, and have a pretty good consistency, so that what happens in one part of the United Suites happens in all idea where he regularly sat, I cannot parts. The damage to children happens attach anything particularly memorable in all states and all townships. We have to him. to have a strong stomach to take in the When Luke's manifesto to the knowledge of how deep the damage to children is. Badger Herald in Madison became available on the Web I hurried to read Robert Bly, The Sibling Society it, with some apprehension. Would he, through some colossal misunder­ standing of something I'd said in class, remember him as a bright, smiling, name me as the person who sent him compucer-sawy and seemingly ordi­ down the street of no-return toward nary college kid who turned his work I domestic terrorism? Was I in some way, in on time and cooperated with his large or small, responsible for the pain friends on a Web page project. But it's not and suffering he'd caused, and was him­ true that a persons eyes are windows into self enduring? In fact I didn't find much their souls. 1 had a friend once, long dead, of myself in his manifesto, only a bit in years ago a fellow altar boy at our small the few sentences condemning us all for rural Catholic church, who while County mistreating the earth—and for our greed District Attorney was also a prime suspect and materialism. in a murder over drugs. After that, when Most (though certainly not all) of the I shook his hand and looked into his eyes students I have in my classes are remark­ and laughed at his jokes I always won­ ably fine people, polite, ready to learn, dered, Are you a murderer? who care about each other, the nation, In a typical semester teaching biology and the earth we live on. The chance to 5s? ' at the University of Wisconsin-Stout 1 interact with them, at whatever level, is usually have close to two hundred stu­ one of the pleasures of an academic dents. I get to know a few very well, career. For those of us in state universities are likely to attest, a lecture-room full of some only a little, most hardly at all. it certainly isn't the pay. At least until the students is a living, breathing but mostly Luke Helder, arrested in May and recent collapse of the dot-coms, bachelors opaque creature. They're usually reticent, charged with pipe bombings in several of science in applied math at our univer­ unsure of themselves, hesitant to get states (SI, July/August 2002, p. 5), was sity were graduating and starting out involved in a discussion. So I test the one of the latter. While I can recall him earning average salaries greater than I was waters now and then with a little being paid, with a Ph.D. and ten years joke. When they laugh appropriately, I Ken Parejko is in the biology department college teaching experience. know they're there in more than just at the University of Wisconsin. E-mail: During classtime, as other academics body. But for many of us there is little parejkok@uwstout. edu.

58 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER FORUM opportunity to have the kind of one-on- This trap that Simon Magus, Luke As Robert Bly says in his book The one interaction diat would let you know, Helder, and many others today have Sibling Society, "In many ways we are as a teacher, what they make of you and fallen into is called solipsism and it has, now living in a culture run by half- your class. unfortunately, a long lineage. It is the adults." By honoring his inner adoles­ I'm saddened by these events, sorry mistake of thinking we each are the sep­ cent. Bill Clinton showed how half- for the people who were hurt; all diose arate creators of the universe. It is the lie adult he was. It seems to be that our who were afraid to get or deliver mail; as a disempowered people tell themselves boys and young men are suffering die father of two young men myself, deeply to pretend they are powerful. It has been most, and strike out in confused anger. sorry for his parents; and sad too for a a predominate theme in New Age The patriarchy (from Aristotle to bright, smiling ordinary college kid gone thought, and is popular because it ques­ Thomas Jefferson) has been demeaned bad enough, it seems, to spend a good tions the authority of scientists like and discarded, only to be replaced by part of his coming life in prison. myself who protest that there actually is Kurt Cobain and Snoop Doggy Dogg. Can I explain it? Not any more than a physical reality of which I am only Is this not cause for worry, that men anyone can explain how Ted Kascynski, part, and not the creator. This physical who have barely come to know them­ Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrators of reality demands my respect and a certain selves or the world, and often relate to it Columbine, or Do (of Heaven's Gate conformity. Solipsism on the other hand through an angry drug-induced haze, fame) ended up as they did. Since Luke is an in-your-face attitude, popular in an have become for so many the new cul­ has gotten the attention he asked for in-your-face American pop culture. tural icons, the new authorities? (though I think not of the kind he "Now wouldn't it be wise to question Luke, you share with Simon Magus a wanted), there will be explanations. authority?" Luke asks in his manifesto. kind of messianism. "I'm at an advan­ As a scientist I too want to under­ Who has lived through the Sixties and tage in this society, and so is every other stand, to explain. Though I know it's does not know that phrase by heart: spiritually well-rounded person. We easier to understand how DNA or an "Question authority!" But wait. That understand," you wrote. This messian­ ecosystem works than what motivates sentiment, too, is millennia old, for we ism is rooted in the belief that as self- people, still I try. Though I didn't know find St. Paul himself saying "I will actualized gods we each have the right Luke that well, he seems to have come destroy the wisdom of the wise, and set and the ability to completely change the from a caring home town and family. at naught the cleverness of the clever" (I world. This Bly describes as "a deep My explanations are more distal— Corin. 1.19.) But when all authority is insult" to the dead, who prepared the aimed at the amorphous society which is questioned, die wisdom of the wise and world for us, and from whom we rent it America at the beginning of the millen­ the cleverness of the clever facilely dis­ but for a litde time. In a culture of solip- nium, in which Luke lived, like a fish in carded before diey are even understood, sistic narcissism, essentially amoral and water. I know that the more distal the the only remaining authority is the self, horizontal, and without the verticality explanation, the weaker the inferences it and the result is a sad collapse into a her­ of a cultural tradition, Luke Helder is, it relies on; but still, I try. metic narcissism. seems, inevitable. Luke's confused "manifesto" helps. We are from our birth as a nation a No, Luke, "The kids who get the 'As' In it I find echoes from two thousand culture of rebels. Our continuing dis­ are not the only 'smart' kids." But your years ago, when in the deserts of Judea trust of government is the basis of a term paper, turned in not to me but to a charismatic preacher attracted a thousand conspiracy theories which the whole world to read, evidences a great following. This preacher claimed flood the Web with useless words: a true strikingly deep irrationality. On the one to be Son of God, then God Himself. democracy in which anyone's ideas, no hand you say "Treat others how you Yet when Simon Magus followed his matter how untested or unverifiable, want to be treated . . . this mentality can own logic far enough, he became how dangerous or demented, are appar­ only produce more positive emotion/ unbalanced, and in claiming to be ently equal to those of all others. In fact, love," then admit to ". . . dismissing a God, no longer had limits to what he the government conspiracy Luke Helder few individuals from reality, to change could or should do. As Luke Helder alludes to is eerily reminiscent of the fol­ all of you for the better, surely you can put it: "You are your own god!" and lowing, still on the Web: "To us, die understand my logic." This is ironically "You can do anything you want." most obvious infringement is upon the the logic of a deep conformer, who like Again: "As you all begin to realize the freedoms of the individual by the gov­ the rest of our pop culture, believes far potential you have as a conscious­ ernments of the world. The strongest too much in itself and sets no limits to ness/soul/spirit, you will begin to har­ government and the one that acts die what it can or should do. ness the abilities you have to produce most righteous is the USA" (from the If in fact I could "do anything I realities . . . mentally, and physically, "Earth Exit Statement" of Chkody, one want," I would take you aside as the you produce your own reality." of the Heaven's Gate suicides). class was shuffling out of the room, and

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 59 FORUM

ask you how you were, Luke, and if you It is our enduring dream, as acade­ with the geography of terror, across the cared to have a soda or cup of coffee. I'd mics, that we change the course of our middle of the nation. I do not share probe your mind and heart, as much as students' lives for the better, and in so your conviction that "everything will you'd let me, and maybe I'd uncover the doing, make the world a bit of a better be perfect in the end." Perhaps in time, key to your confusion and lay it on the place. We intervene when students which I suspect will come to lay heav­ table so wc could both see it, and we'd show evidence of confusion, stress, or ily upon you, you may come to share spend some time, however much time depression. But you seemed so happy, my doubts. it took, until you understood that so adjusted, that I saw no reason to Meanwhile I am left with die empti­ though you cared so much for the rest intervene. Unfortunately, your self-sat­ ness diat comes from a missed opportu­ of us, you were only a young man, isfaction was ill-placed, your "adjust­ nity, which I promise myself to transform whose adolescent "insights" into how ment" only mirroring our facile soci­ into a renewed vigilance, futile as it might the world works were as puerile as your etal superficiality. We have become a be, to try against all odds to prevent the belief that by hurting a few you could feel-good smiley-faced culture; it is inevitable. Which of us, 1 sometimes save the rest of us. said you wished to draw a smiley-face, wonder, is the more delusional?

American Schools: How They Measure Up

DONNA M. BROWN YOU'RE STUPID WASTEFUL INEPT. IN A* \ DREAMWORLD AND YOU LOOK .FUNNY. TOO. The myth that American education fails ^~7~ generally in international comparisons is balderdash.

—Berliner and Biddle (1995, 63)

or the past several decades, die American public has been bom­ Fbarded with bad news about schools. Confronted widi statistics sup­ plied by government agencies, inter­ national committees, and watchdog groups, many Americans have come to believe that the schools their children attend are inferior to those in other

Donna M. Brown has been a teacher and in die curricula of school districts across counselor at Kennewick High School in the country. Before we go any further in Kennewick, Washington, since 1992. She nations. This belief and others have fixing what may not be broken, it is time has been a teacher of adults and secondary formed die basis for a widespread educa­ to start examining some of the claims students for over thirty years and fre­ tional reform movement that is in die made about the alleged deficiencies of quently writes about education. process of introducing sweeping changes American schools and of American youth

60 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER FORUM

as compared to their peers in other coun­ Those who do not generally leave school secondary studies and of students who tries. In doing so, we will find that many take a job or are placed in an appren­ will eventually attain a bachelors de­ such claims are oversimplified and mis­ ticeship. Those who succeed and remain gree (Huelskamp 1993, 3). [See also leading. The fact is that while American in school are students who, in the "Perspectives on Education in America: youth may learn differently than stu­ United States, would be taking the most Sandia Study Challenges Misconcep­ dents in other countries, the end result rigorous, academically challenging hon­ tions," SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Fall 1993.] is that adults in America may be among ors or Advanced Placement classes. Thus, studies that compare only same- the most knowledgeable, skilled, and In the U.S., students who have hand­ age students from different countries in educated in the world. icaps that affect their learning, who their knowledge of a subject are essen­ To make a valid comparison between achieve below grade level, and who are tially meaningless. Because American two groups, the groups must be similar learning English as a second language are students often study the same curricula in every respect except the variable being served in the same schools as the most in different grades and at different ages, considered. Thus, to fairly compare the academically talented students. All these the only meaningful comparison would performance of American students on a students are included in most state and be between young adults who have com­ particular subject test with that of their national achievement tests, and their pleted their education (Berliner and counterparts in Europe or Asia, analysts composite scores are often compared to Biddle 1995, 53). should ensure that the two groups are much more homogeneous groups of high American cultural attitudes and val­ similar in all respects except the country achievers in other countries. The results ues have shaped educational curricula in in which they reside. However, there are must necessarily range from meaningless the U.S. Americans are deeply commit­ numerous factors that distinguish to dangerously misleading. ted to the concept of breadth of educa­ American students and their schools One result of the heterogeneous tion and encourage their children to from their counterparts in other coun­ nature of American secondary schools is engage in sports, develop leadership tries, including the following: that they tend to offer a range of classes skills through clubs and activities, con­ • typical American middle schools in each subject area so as to meet the tribute to their communities through and high schools serve all students needs of students with various capabili­ youth groups, and have jobs so as to in their geographic district, where­ ties. Thus, ninth grade students in learn fiscal responsibility and manage­ as the schools to which they are ment skills. Their same-age counterparts compared in other countries tend English in the same school may be rak­ to select only students who are ing, according to their abilities, honors in the gymnasia of other countries are most advantaged and academically English, a language skills-building or unlikely to engage in any of these activ­ talented; remedial English course, a "sheltered" ities, pressured as they are in highly • American students and their English class for emerging English competitive schools to maintain excel­ European and Asian counterpans speakers, or an English as a Second lent grades. Berliner and Biddle (1993, often study the same subject matter 53) remark that by comparison, "at any at different ages; and Language class for newly arrived immi­ given age American students are likely • cultural values in America uniquely grants. Similarly, students in ninth grade impact how American students mathematics may take courses ranging to be more broadly educated than are spend their time in school. from remedial or "basic" mathematics to students elsewhere though they may not yet have as much detailed knowledge of Without taking these factors into con­ geometry to second-year honors algebra. specific academic subjects. They will sideration, it is not possible to draw American schools, recognizing that acquire this knowledge over time, of meaningful conclusions from single- readiness to learn in any given subject course; and they should, on average, end point data comparing student perfor­ area varies according to individual cir­ up with a knowledge base that is mance on subject-area tests. cumstances, provide subject matter uniquely broad as well as deep." In countries to which the U.S. is appropriate for a wide range of abilities. Perhaps it is time to stop believing often compared in terms of academic Although fewer students in a typical everything we hear and read about achievement, students are identified American public school are taking the the allegedly sorry state of American early as being on a vocational or acade­ highest-level courses, American students education. mic track, and only those most academ­ tend to stay in school longer than their ically capable proceed to the gymnasia, European or Asian counterparts and References where higher-level academic skills are eventually master the more advanced Berliner, David C, and Bruce J. Biddle. 1995. taught. Comprehensive tests at the end materials. The U.S. ranks among die The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and of each school year determine whether highest countries in the world in die the Attack on America's Public Schools. students have masteted subject matter percentage of seventeen-year-olds en­ Cambridge. Massachusetts: Perseus Books. Huelskamp. Robert M. 1993. Perspectives on well enough to continue to the next rolled in school and first in the percent­ Education in America. Phi Delta Kappan. level (Berliner and Biddle 1995, 52, 54). age of students who will pursue post- May. Available at www.proquest.umi.com. O

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 61 FORUM

DejaVu: Descartes All Over Again

GEORGE ENGLEBRETSEN

hink of the times: academics labors and accept them. And, of course, They believe that we know (and, in fact, and intellectuals of all kinds there are any number of sages lurk­ already know) much about die world, T.engage d in a bewildering array ing about ready (sometimes for quite but there is far more left to know. We of paper debates and feuds concerning modest tariffs) to provide the Truth. know, or aim at knowing, lots of truths the questions of what is knowable and Sometimes learning these truths turns about die world. However, none of these how it is known. It's a three-ring circus. out to be life-altering; sometimes it's are to die for. We could be wrong. All of In the first ring: let's call them the to die for. our claims to know are revisable in light Ancients. They tend to believe that In the center ring: the so-called of further observation or better theories. whatever is worth knowing at all has Moderns. They tend to hold diat there is The Moderns are not Skeptics (who been discovered and is now available to a real world that is independent of us (of deny the possibility of knowledge alto­ us. The things that are knowable (and what we believe or say), and that it can gether), then, but they are cautiously worth knowing) concern such things as be known. Moreover, they tend to skeptical inquirers. God, the fate of dead people, and the believe the best way to know about the In the third ring: the Mystics. Like ultimate purpose of life. Since the truths world is by slow, systematic, careful the Ancients and the Moderns, the about these and related things have observation, and diat we can make sense Mystics are committed to the view that already been discovered, analyzed, scru­ we can know. Moreover, they agree with tinized, understood, and interpreted, the Moderns that we can know much our only epistemic task is to seek out about the world around us. But, with the the results of these ancient Ancients, they accept that such knowl­ edge can be something to die for. And this is because the Mystic takes the process of coming to such knowledge to be very different from the difficult one prescribed by the Moderns. For the Mystic knowledge is hermetic; it is a secret revealed to only those few who have what it takes. Of course, what it takes could be almost anything: access to a secret code hidden in an ancient text or of such observation in the stars or in the palm of your hand, by offering tentative the­ a rare sixth sense that allows one to see ories based on, but going auras or hear spirits or feel occult forces. beyond, those observations. Those in the audience of this circus cannot help but notice that lot of work George Englebretsen is at Bishop's is going on in the center ring. There's University, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada. lots of sweat. Progress is slow. There's

62 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER FORUM not much flash. Still those down in the ful to temper their skepticism, not included Copernicus (the sun-worshiper), ring seem to enjoy what they're doing, wanting to be completely outside the Paracelsus, Brahe, Bacon (who took leave even if the audience doesn't. The audi­ tent (like those Skeptics Bayle and now and then from the troupe of ence does enjoy the antics in the other Montaigne). Ancients), and Kepler. But the bright­ two rings; that's where the trapeze The Ancient troupe was in its ring est luminary among the Mystics was that artists and the bare back riders are, the of course. William Harvey and Francis mean, petty, little genius, Newton, who jugglers and the clowns. It's not a bad Bacon were stars here. These Ancients, often played two rings simultaneous­ circus as circuses go. It is an old circus; more ancient than ours but still not lit­ ly, leading the Moderns between stints it's been around for a very long time. It erally ancient, saw the world not as a at alchemy and Bible coding among has come to our town before; it will giant clockwork but as an organism. the Mystics. come again. And it hasn't changed So Aristotle and Galen were the As I said, it's not a bad circus that we much—no mattet how new it all seems ancients whom the Ancients admired. have today. It's an old circus; it's been to us children. Four hundred years ago While the Moderns were creating around a very long time. It has come to it was pretty new. That was the age of modern mathematics, physics, and our town before; it will come again. Of Descartes, the ringmaster par excellence astronomy, the Ancients were making course, the next time it comes to town in the age when Modernism really was modest advances in the older disci­ the changes we see may be greater than modern. The ringmaster, remember, is plines of biology and medicine. usual. There is a completely new troupe, always in the center ring. There with Even though in Descartes's day much put together and trained first in le pays him were Galileo, Boyle, Pascal, of the action was in the center ring, de Descartes, but now touring college Hobbes, Gassendi, Maersenne, the Mystics in the third ring still campuses in the New World. They aim Leibniz, and the rest of the troupe, all commanded lots of attention. Con­ to replace completely the Moderns in dedicated, to one degree or another, to tinuing a hermetic tradition much the center ring. They call themselves the the notion that the world was a vast older than themselves, these Mystics Post-Moderns. And what do they have machine and that it could be under­ were, as mystics tend to be, fairly to say about the world out there and stood with the help of observation and anti-intellectual, committed to the how we know it? Well, that all depends. theory and explained in the language of alchemic quest to turn lead into gold, At any rate, they will probably be wear­ mathematics. Finally, though Gassendi and therefore, secretive about their ing fright wigs, rubber noses, and big found it hard at times, most were care­ doings. The stars of the third ring floppy shoes.

SKEPTICISM UNDER THE BIG SKY investment seminars, and so on. Through our initiative, From page 47 the local newspaper took our picture and ran an interest- generating story before our first class. No doubt this con­ therapeutic touch. Mark brought in a model spinal column and tributed to our record-setting first-year attendance. The sec­ explained its parts and functions. He demonstrated how, with ond and third years, we didn't have a story (because, as my some of his chronic back pain sufferers, he administered injec­ reporter friend explained, we were no longer new news) and tions of analgesic medicine near the site of the pain, thereby our enrollment declined. The fourth year we decided on a allowing the medication to saturate the enervated region. One new angle—we offered the class but with a $250 teward for woman was particularly incensed by this strategy. She said that evidence of psychic ability—we got our story, our picture, chiropractors and massage therapists "go right to the spot" of and our enrollment. the pain. She suggested that maybe doctors, instead of working Mike had called Joe Nickell at the CSICOP office for near the spot should consider going right to the spot. She con­ advice before we went public with this monetary challenge. Joe tinued with her "spot" analysis for several minutes. cautioned us that he could easily fly in a magician who would Whether Dave was explaining the real reasons (immuniza­ take our money. Mike told Joe that if we got in a bind, we tion, antibiotics, sterilization, etc.) people live longer or Mark would call him, describe the situation, and have him bail us was showing slides of early twentieth-century medical con­ out! Joe laughed and agreed to help us if he could. traptions, these class sessions inevitably ended too quickly as In the end, it's not at all clear how much healthy skepticism far as the students were concerned. In addition to Dave and was imparted to our students. We answered some questions but Mark's medical expertise, we made regular use of Stephen raised more. We shed light on licensing, credentials, and exper­ Barretts wonderful Quackwatch Web site. tise. We brought in experts from the pseudoscientific side and attempted to teach die students how to devise alternative expla­ Getting Publicity nations. We hope we gave the students the confidence to ask Enrollment in an adult education class is always an issue. questions, examine evidence, and apply their reasoning skills. We competed with sewing classes, painting workshops, We do have anecdotal evidence that everyone had fun!

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 63 After-Death Communications: A Misleading Critique

GARY E. SCHWARTZ

-Wiseman and O'Keeffe (W/O) ing" can do so where the subject is con­ Wiseman and O'Keefe correcdy point \ \ I have extensively criticized cealed and unknown and die medium out that the greater the number of VV (SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Nov­ denied verbal feedback. We would wel­ deceased relatives for the mediums to ember/December 2001) die paper on come such experiments. identify, die greater the likelihood of a mediumship communication which my Our paper stated that later research, chance explanation; but that applies colleagues and 1 published in the peer- employing long-distance readings where equally to the simple-guessing control reviewed Journal of the Society for all visual, auditory or olfactory clues group. In any case this hypothetical con­ Psychical Research in January 2001. By a were eliminated, would be published in cern can't explain that in Study 1, for combination of selection of some and the October 2001 JSPR. It was. The example, all five mediums reported a suppression of other facts they have suc­ results effectively answer the W/O criti­ deceased son; three reported the initial M; one the name Michael; three that the ceeded in misleading SI readers, few of cisms. But SI readers were unaware of death was quick, and two reported or whom would have seen die original study this, and were left with the impression implied suicide by gunshot. Not only recording die high degree of accuracy and that, far from being fully conscious of were all these answers both correct and replicability of after-deadi communica­ the importance of such precautions, we ignored by W/O; they equally ignored tions via five prominent mediums. were ignorant or dismissive of them. the converse, i.e., that no medium First, W/O fail to acknowledge die The aim of the first experiments was reported a deceased daughter, or gave an fact that we discussed as questions for not to rule out possible judging bias but incorrect initial for the son, or a name future research many of the issues they to minimize it. The sitters rated every other than Michael, or suggested a differ­ raise, as though they had never been item from dieir respective transcripts con­ ent cause of death. addressed by die experimenters. These servatively. They were required to justify were mainly questions of sensory leakage, each answer and provide validation where That is not only seriously misleading, it transgresses the rules of fair criticism judging bias and die use of an "inappro­ appropriate. Moreover the summary sta­ rhat Ray Hyman and others have priate control group." But we made it tistics were limited to the most definitive repeated. An example of selective quota­ clear diat die purpose of die original +3 ratings. Were diey likely to forget or tion relates to die "once, twice, thrice" experiment was not to preclude every pos­ confuse die initials or names of dieir dead statement concerning the loss of children. sible source of sensory clues but to start by children or parents, or forget die causes of eliminating visual and much auditory Here W/O failed to mention that diis dieir deaths? True, double-blind proce­ medium then referred to a miscarriage feedback to the mediums (by allowing dures would eliminate any such bias, but only yes/no responses from sitters), and which the sitter had kept secret from her W/O failed to mention diat we had dis­ dien to progress to a protocol allowing as husband, as well as the experimenters. cussed precisely this kind of experimental clues no more than subde breathing, body It is not responsible science for W/O to design for future experiments—since suc­ movement, sighs, and possibly odors (the ignore data inconsistent widi dieir criti­ cessfully carried out. But in any case we silent-sitter pan of Study 2). That was cisms. Skeptics have a duty to practice are unaware of any evidence diat rater bias simply a first step towards falsifying con­ what they preach: even-handed skepticism. has operated under even the less rigorous ventional sensory hypodiescs, and this Taking all the data together, die most was clearly stated in die paper. conditions described. parsimonious explanation to account for As for our "inappropriate control the largest amount of the data is current­ Could these remaining clues (e.g., group," our aim was not perfection but ly the continuation of consciousness breadiing, chair movements) by con­ simply to eliminate simple guesswork to hypothesis, a conclusion, I might add, cealed and unknown subjects explain explain the data: particularly important strongly supported by later experiments as how mediums could obtain 60—90 per­ in die sitter-silent conditions. For diat evidenced in our second paper, of which cent accuracy in giving specific names, purpose die control group was not in W/O have offered no criticisms. initials and historical facts which apply to the least inappropriate: simply a specific individuals? We are unaware of straightforward way of guessing by intel­ Wiseman has been invited to respond in a any scientific evidence diat "cold read­ ligent individuals. following issue. —Ed.

64 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

mistakes, but once out of their fields of is invoked several times. According to pub­ expertise they can't always tell between pie- lished and online sources I consulted. on-the-face goofs and stakc-through-the- Abrams never had any affiliation of any kind heart lies. This picture or the wrong item is a with Stanford. mistake having the pie nature—but a mis­ Haines refers to Cooper Medical College take nonetheless. as "the predecessor of Stanford University." In a related note, Bob McCoy's Museum This is about half correct. Cooper was not of Questionable Medical Devices has closed, the predecessor of Stanford University, but it and is in the process of migrating to the was the predecessor of Stanford's medical Science Museum of Minnesota. It'll end up school. Stanford University was founded by getting more exposure there, but I can only Leland and Jane Stanford in 1891. Cooper hope they manage to retain Bob's personal­ Medical College was founded in 1858. ity, because Bob himself was a major part of Stanford University took Cooper over in what made his museum so fascinating. 1908 and made it into the nucleus of Stanford Medical School. Ellen Kuhfeld, Ph.D. Haines also refers to Albert Abrams as a Curator of Instruments, "Stanford professor." This is completely The Bakken incorrect. According to online sources (for Minneapolis, Minnesota example, www.prcmicrl.net/-raines/abrams. html), Albert Abrams was a professor of pathology at Cooper Medical College from Albert Abrams, I greatly enjoyed J.D. Haines's article on 1893 to 1898. Thus, his quack writings King of Quacks Albert Abrams and agree that he should hold (which began in 1901) were all published the title "King of Quacks." Yet there is after he left Cooper. Abrams had been gone another physician who is a close runner-up, from Cooper for ten years when Stanford As a supplement to your article on Dr. Albert Dr. John R. Brinkley, who practiced in Kansas took it over. Abrams ("The King of Quacks . ..," May/ in the early part of die twentieth century. June 2002), the Bakken Library and Museum Contemporary accounts of Abrams's Doc Brinkley made a fortune performing has a collection of Abrams manuscripts, quackery (such as those in JAMA and the "Brinkley Procedure" which entailed trans­ including letters and blood samples. We also Scientific American) refer to him simply as planting the testicles of a specific variety of have one of the earliest oscilloclasts, many of "Dr. Albert Abrams of San Francisco." billy-goat into a man in order to "rejuvenate" its successors, and a fair collection of litera­ him. This surgery was the Viagra of its day and 1 enjoyed the article, but I wanted to ture for them all. And while they may have it is suspected diat President Woodrow Wilson clear my alma mater of the apparently unjus­ been "the kind of devices a ten-year-old underwent the operation. The story goes that tified accusation of sheltering quacks! would build to fool an eight-year-old" I con­ one of Brinkley's patients while complaining fess that they've done a decent job of exasper­ Melanic Nickel of impotence saw a billy-goat mount a ewe ating and disheartening this physicist as well- San Diego, California outside of Doc Brinkley's window and told the However, the instrument illustrated on good doctor that he wished he could perform page 47 docs not seem to be a dynamizer. It like the goat. Brinkley said that it wasn't a bears a strong resemblance to a "short-wave Years of reading the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER has problem, castrated the goat and stuck die tes­ oscillotron" in our collection. It also seems to taught me to be very skeptical of all that I ticles in the man's abdomen. Nine months have been crossbreeding with a violet-ray read, including the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER itself. later the patient's wife gave birth to a baby boy machine; this is not unknown, as devices The article by J.D. Haines mentions that they named "Billy." such as Holder's Diastatic Condensator Albert Abrams was a professor at Cooper demonstrate. Brinkley also operated the most powerful Medical College, with reference to its being radio transmitter in the country so that he a predecessor of Stanford University. In addi­ could make his sales pitch into a gold-plated tion, Abrams is referred to as "this Stanford microphone. In addition to the "Brinkley professor." Procedure," he sold a variety of "cures" for A brief bit of research on the Internet every ailment imaginable. I he cures were all turned up an online copy of John L. Wilson's difFerent dilutions of indigo-blue dye. authorized history of "Stanford University You noted in the News and Comment School ol Medicine and the Predecessor section how the NCCAM is promoting Schools, An Historical Perspective." A signif­ quackery and I fear that we will soon see icant portion of Chapter 26 is devoted to Dr. many trying to assume the title of "King." Abrams. A very specific quote by Ray Lyman Wibur, M.D., as president of Stanford Thanks for a great issue. University in 1922, clarifies that Dr. Abrams 1 am enclosing an excerpted illustration. John E. Dodes, D.D.S. was never a member of the Stanford (It is probably from the October 1923 issue Forest Hills, New York University faculty: of Science and Invention.) It shows an exact May I call your attention to the enclosed twin to the dynamizer in our collection. We clippings, apparently sent out from your have to be careful about details like this: In the article on Albert Abrams, it is unfor­ office, indicating that Dr. Albert Abrams People can recognize misstatements and tunate that the name of Stanford University is connected with Leland Stanford

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SeptemBer/Oclober 2002 65 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

University. The same error has been cor­ "recruiting the elements which make up Thus, Dean's compelling evidence for rected several times. Dr. Abrams has never our invincible army, we cannot ignore what faking may be symptomatic of a greater had any association with Stanford is obvious and which will militate against social force at work. In general, die stronger University. He is a graduate of Cooper die combative prowess of our forces in this Medical College, which was taken over by war.... From a military viewpoint, the die societal belief in planetary influence, the Stanford University long after his gradua­ homosexualist [sic] is not only dangerous, more incentive for parents to fake birth data tion. It is evident that Dr. Abrams, or but an ineffective fighter.... It is impera­ . .. but also the bigger the Pygmalion effect someone associated with his publicity tive that homosexualists be recognized by on the larger mass of unfaked data. The work, has tried to keep up the fiction of his the military authorities." detection of even small amounts of parental association with Stanford. It seems to me faking may therefore have enhanced explana­ bad enough for such a responsible institu­ To my knowledge neither Shilts nor tory power for the Mars Effect. tion as die Associated Press to herald far Haines were aware of Abrams's "other" repu­ and wide the scientific rubbish of Dr. tation, another strong argument for the Abrams, and worse still to connect die widest possible distribution of skeptical Robert I. Masta name of the University in any way with Ann Arbor, Michigan such absurdities. reporting. In addition, Haines apparently accepts John Coffin Dr. Abrams's claim of a degree from the El Cerrito, California I think Geoffrey Dean has come up with a University of Heidelberg at face value. plausible explanation for the "Mars Effect": However, Dr. Wilson refers to Dr. Abrams J.D. Haines responds: the changing of recorded birthdays for supposed credentials as follows: superstitious reasons. "Who's Who in America for 1922-1923 I'm not surprised that the Stanford folks want My brother, sister, and I were adopted as contains a lengthy entry on Albert to distance themselves from Doc Abrams. But infants through die same Catholic adoption Abrams, physician: 'Born in San Francisco they did catch me when I stated Cooper home in Massachusetts. Our adoptive par­ 8 December 1863: M.D. University of Medical College was the predecessor of Stanford ents were told that I was born on August 8, Heidelberg. 1882; A.M. Portland 1959, my brother was born on November University, 1892: and LL.D. (date and University I intended to say that Cooper was 27, 1960, and my sister was born on institution not specified).' The M.D. the predecessor of Stanford's medical school a degree in 1883 from Cooper Medical division of the greater university Abrams was a February 15, 1964. College is not mentioned. When the Cooper Medical College professor since Stan­ In the last five years we have each found American Medical Association sought to ford had not yet acquired the college during our biological mothers. They confirmed the validate Abrams' credentials, it was found Abrams's tenure. Many of Cooper's faculty were birthdates for my brodier and me, but my that he had previously given his date of birth variously as 1862. 1863 and 1864: retained by Stanford when the affiliation sister's biological mother said she was actu­ that there was no evidence of his having began. Fortunately for Stanford, Abrams had ally born on February 13. Was her birthdatc received an M.D. degree from Heidelberg; departed for "greener fields" when Cooper was changed by die Catholic agency because it and that there was no record of the exis­ acquired. My humble apologies to any was an "unlucky" day? We'll probably never tence of a "University of Portland" at the Stanfbrdites unintentionally offended. know, but after reading Geoffrey Dean's arti­ time. It would appear that the LL.D. cle I have my suspicions. degree was also ephemeral." August Berkshire Nonetheless, I found the article interest­ Mars Effect a Social Effect? [email protected] ing reading, and agree with its concluding thoughts rliat today's social climate still is Geoffrey Dean (May/June 2002) makes an fertile ground for quackery, now in the form excellent argument that the Mars Effect is of "alternative medicine." Barker's Book of Bunk really a social effect, the result of parental Paul A. Kuckein fudging of true birth hours and dates to After reading John C. Sherwood's article Los Altos, California those more socially favorable in that era. He "Gray Barker's Book of Bunk" (May/June makes the point that even if the parents did­ 2002), I wanted to add my own experiences n't believe in planetary effects themselves, with Barker, which closely parallel his. I knew Thanks for your article on Abrams, the orig­ they might have been motivated to give their Barker, having met him at several UFO con­ inal "black box" quack. I had recently begun child an advantage in a society where such ferences and having carried on a correspon­ reading Randy Shilts' book Conduct beliefs were common. dence with him over several years. If you sat Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. However, if societal beliefs were so strong down widi Barker and chatted with him one- Military, lo and behold, on page 15 appears that parents would resort to this kind of fak- on-one, he was surprisingly cordial with the following paragraph: ery, then faking would most probably not skeptics (which is quite unusual for a major even be needed to account for a Mars Effect: UFOlogist). He would more or less admit The idea of excluding people for having a dial most of what he wrote was bunk, diat he homosexual orientation, as opposed to Children who by chance had auspicious births punishing only those who committed might be favored by society and given extra knew it was bunk, and diat he wrote such homosexual acts, was born during World encouragement or assistance toward a profes­ things primarily for the money. (He is not die War 1, and advanced by practitioners in the sional career. They would riius be more likely only well-known UFO writer to have made fledgling field of psychiatry. After San to appear in a subset of prominent profession­ such a confession to me.) Barker did have Francisco police found a number of sol­ als. This "Pygmalion effect" might be small, some son of vague belief diat "somediing diers during a raid on a gay club, a San odd" was going on, but he was by no means Francisco psychiatrist, Dr. Albert Abrams, but, as Dean points out, only a small effect is wrote in Septembet 1918 that while needed to explain die data. dogmatic about it. He said to me, "If you

66 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

want to understand what I really think and the world gunpowder, fireworks, paper, ink quotation that I have heard cited. believe, you should read my book The Silver and books, silk, the magnetic compass, Supposedly, a reporter was interviewing Bridge" (mentioned by Sherwood). Barker spaghetti, and many other technological and John Maynard Keynes and challenged promised to send me the book, and an auto­ cultural advances. Professor Keynes to explain why he had graphed copy soon arrived. It is not a book Even if one were to date the discovery of changed his opinion on a particular eco­ that makes wild and emphatic claims about the giant panda from when the first nomic issue. Keynes replied: "The facts paranormal goings-on. Instead, it is a book European described it, Polidoro would still changed. Since the facts changed, I changed about ordinary people in real-life situations, be wrong. It was in 1869, when the French my position. What do you do, sir?" and the difficulties they face. It reaches no Jesuit missionary and zoologist Armand firm conclusion. The sightings of Mothman David realized that a panda skin brought to Steve Chaffin and alleged encounters with aliens are placed him by a hunter belonged to an animal [email protected] within this context. Barker seems to be saying unknown to Western science. that when people face difficult situations in Polidoro also appears to make the com­ life, they may turn to such fantasies. mon mistake of including pterodactyls 1 object to two of the ideas propounded in It should be noted that another hoax that among dinosaurs. Based on widely accepted the article by Estling. Barker helped to promote but did not origi­ criteria, pterodactyls and other pterosaurs are 1. Wegener's Continental Drift proposal nate (similar to his role in giving us the Men not dinosaurs. The only flying dinosaurs of 1912 should not have been dismissed out in Black) is Alternative 3, which began as an were—and are—birds. This is why I would of hand in the period 1912-1950, as the April Fools joke on a British TV network. also quibble with the author's statement that author asserts was proper. It was a plausible The premise of the story is that there is a dinosaurs "arc long gone." explanation of the jigsaw puzzle Africa/ South America fit, and was certainly more secret space program conducted jointly by Finally, Polidoro referred to the ptero­ the U.S. and USSR (the Cold War being just likely than the alternative, coincidence. Of dactyl in the hoax as "the holy grail" of cryp- course, it should not have been accepted either, a hoax diversion) to transport the Earth's tozoologists. There is no cryptozoologist elite to Mars to escape a coming ecological with no mechanism postulated. But there is "holy grail." Even if a flock of living ptero­ room in science for temporary speculation. catastrophe. Barker's June 1979 column in dactyls were to be discovered tomorrow, it UFO Review claims that this book was would not provide evidence for the existence 2. Theories don't require "proof" for ten­ "banned" in the United States. However, a of goat suckers, the Loch Ness monster, or any tative acceptance, just high plausibility and trivial investigation revealed that the "ban" other legendary creature. Each claim must be agreement with what is known. The Big simply meant that the Canadian distributor supported by its own evidence. Scientists at Bang, for instance, has not been proven, and of the book—the first edition to reach North first were skeptical about the existence of may even be found wrong. But it is currently America—did not have rhr rights rn sell duckbilled platypuses. Nevertheless, proof of accepted. copies in the U.S. (see www.dcbunker.com/ the existence of platypuses did not prove the texts/alternative3.html). A U.S. edition from existence of unicorns, abominable snowmen, Stefan Silverston a different publisher soon followed. None­ or Pigasus, the flying pig. Chandler, Arizona theless, to this day, the supposedly "banned" Alternative 3 has become a fixture of con­ Andrew A. Skolnick spiracy lore, and will probably remain so for Forest Park, Illinois Ralph Estling takes in his column as an many years to come. example Wegener's hypothesis continental drift, which according to him was "dismissed by almost all geologists of the day." This Robert Sheaffer Any photo that is odd, bizarre, and unusual statement is biased. Only almost all Lakeside, California we should automatically think might be a American geologists rejected it. Wegener Robert Sheaffer, author of UFO Sightings, is fake. I'm glad photo experts/Civil War histo­ presented many good arguments for his SI's "Psychic Vibrations" columnist. rians were able to pick apart the pterodactyl hypothesis, and many geologists in Europe, and Union soldier picture the way they did. Africa and the East Indies accepted the idea. Knowing the profiles of your average Union See Edelman 1988 and Oreskes 1999! soldier and then observing their wear was a Pterodactyls and Giant great way to detect some kind of forgery. References Pandas Some people have plenty of time on their Edelman. Nils. 1988. Wegener and Pseudoscience: hands to create such a fraudulent picture. Some Misconceptions. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Massimo Polidoro made several mistakes in 12(4), Summer 1988, pp. 398-402. Irene Ayala his first "Notes on a Strange World" column, Oreskes, Naomi. 1999. The Rejection of Vallejo, California Continental Drift. Oxford Univ. Press, p. 420. "A Pterodactyl in the Civil War"(May/Junc 2002). First, he wrongly stated that the giant Nils Edelman panda was discovered in the twentieth cen­ Professor emeritus of geology tury. Pandas have been described in Chinese Wegener's Drift Abo, Finland writings going back more than 2,000 years. It would be chauvinistically dishonest to My compliments to Ralph Estling for a very claim that an animal is only discovered after good article ("The Logic That Dare Not Proposition: There is a misogynist in the a European first stumbles upon one. That Speak His Name," May/June 2002). His Forum section of this publication wearing would be especially so if one were to dismiss paragraph regarding Albert Wegener and green tights who believes the year is 1901, the written history of the Chinese who gave continental drift reminded me of an amusing women's brains arc smaller than men's, and

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 67 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

servants not only arc still on the social land­ where a component of the displacement is also like people who contribute meaningful scape, but, like those aforementioned women, across the road and a component is along the comments. Thank you very much for both. also have diminished mental capacities. road's length, allegedly uphill. Now, many After the request for reports was printed in SI, Proof? What else can I possibly make of roads have an upward hump that runs along dozens of very interesting and intelligent the following statement, excerpted from the middle of the road that slants down accounts of allegedly magnetic mountains came Ralph Estling's article: ". . . but it cannot be toward the edges allowing rainwater to flow in. It was very clear to everybody that this is an printed in a publication that may fall into off" the road, like a slanted roof. You can in optical illusion. However, laughing does nei­ the hands of women, children, servants, and fact detect such a central upward hump in ther explain nor solve the question why the illu­ persons of high moral certitude and rather this road, and the slant of shoes of those sion exists even on photographs, film, etc. Being lower mental prowess." standing on the road show that the road a forensic biologist, I prefer to look at the scene I was absolutely shocked when 1 came slants downward toward its edges. The water to measure, and to understand everything across this outrageously irresponsible poured on the road runs to the edge it is myself. This was and is the use of my request. and callous piece of writing. Should 1 poured closest to, following the downward Thank you very much to the numerous people expect more of this from your maga­ slant across the width of the road, exactly as from all around the world who contributed zine? Is this perhaps why out of twenty- Newton's theory of gravity would predict. photographs, personal observations, measure­ four letters to the editor, only one is iden- This then raises the question: why would ments, maps, and of course hints how to mea­ tifiably from a woman—not because of the water flow both uphill (in the component of sure the angle of curved and at the same time size of her brain, but because of hostile atti­ displacement along the road's length) and severely bent streets. tudes hidden in SKEPTICAL INQUIRER? downhill (across the width of the road) at the With such a display of retarded social same time? awareness you'll have a hard time wooing Obviously the logical answer is that it Chopra's Exploitation me back to your readership. always flows downhill, and it is an illusion that the road's length slants upwards. Naomi Nissen I'm sure you've gotten sufficient letters New York, New York Ian Goddard already taking SKEPTICAL INQUIRER to task Rockville, Maryland for the section in J.D. Haines's essay Ralph Estling responds: "Laughter: The Real Ageless Timeless Medicine" (May/June 2002) in which I note that Ms. Nissen says not a word in It seems to me that the obvious way to solve Haines compares Deepak Chopra's Indian defense of children, not to mention persons of the problem of the water flowing "uphill" is accent to that assumed by Peter Sellers in his high moral certitude and rather lower mental to place a bubble level on the surface and see brownface role as a faux Indian in The Party. prowess. 1 would like to know therefore why she which way the surface is tilting. In keeping I have to say, I really am surprised that such hates and despises these unfortunates so vehe­ with Occam's razor, let's look for die simplest an insensitive gaucherie made it through mently. What has a child or person of high explanations first. your usually astute editorial filter. moral certitude etc. ever done to her to deserve But I think there's an object lesson here. Anthony J. Newman such outrageously irresponsible and callous The very fact that Chopra's alternative med­ Canton, Connecticut treatment? We can only wonder. Indeed, there is ical guru act would bring Peter Sellers to the a great deal to wonder about in her letter. author's mind is a shameful reflection on Mr. Silverston's objections are largely Chopra's exploitation of his Indian heritage As a skeptic, I had to laugh at the fact that answered by Mr. Chaffin. Scientists make a sharp to bring credibility to what he probably anyone wants to study the "Magnetic distinction between theory and hypothesis, die knows full well is unscientific flimflam. Mountains." As an amusement park fan and latter being a plausible guess, the former, as in the historian, I thought you might like a look at Using the mystique of his (to us) exotic eth­ Theory of Evolution or the Theory of Relativity, the history of the commercial side of these nic origin to put one over on the American an established scientific explanation for which "mysterious" anomalies. The first known public is what used to be known as Uncle substantial evidence exists. The Big Bang falls attraction featuring a room set akilter was Tomism. It docs dishonor to both his people somewhere between; some evidence exists but it is patented in 1905 and the oldest known com­ and to all Third World scientists. not yet fully proven. The fact that it "may even be mercial "mystery spot" still exists in the form found wrong" is enough to show it is not (yet?) a Anne Sharp of the Oregon Vortex in Gold Hill, Oregon, theory in the scientific sense of the word Livonia, Michigan dating back to the 1930s. If you would like to learn more about the J.D. Haines responds: history of the "tilt house", please sec my arti­ Magnetic Mountains? cle at http://dafe.org/attractions/related/ As a writer, the worst thing that can happen is tilthouse.htm. no response from the reader. So I must conclude The short article "Magnetic Mountains" (SI, Keep up the great work! my piece on Dr. Chopra was a success, given May/June 2002) purports to present possible comments like "racist and fallacious" [in a let­ evidence of water flowing uphill on a "mag­ Rick Davis ter not included here] and "insensitive netic mountain" in the Philippines. The photo, Vienna, Ohio gaucherie." / am really quite impressed. I want however, appears to provide sufficient evidence to remind my critics of one small point—this is to debunk such a paranormal hypothesis. Mark Benecke responds: a humor piece, folks. It's okay to poke fun at The second photo shows water poured people who are preying upon the public, what­ on a road that runs along a 45-degrce angle I like people who laugh (I laugh a lot, too). I ever their race is. Sure I think Dr. Chopra has

68 September/October 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

a funny accent. And like I said in the essay, so people like Stephen Jay Gould. A Nonphysical God? do I. Somehow my critics missed this point in We must continue to light candles of their zeal to wave the flags of racism, insensi- rational humanism against the faith-based In Letters, in the May/June 2002 issue Craig tivity, and gaucherie. blackness that threatens to snuffout the light Payne writes, ". . . religion thinks of itself as I happen to be a member of the only of Western civilization. providing an accurate description of reality." minority group that it is politically correct to And later, "Of course, the reality that reli­ attack. That's right, I am a white male Gary L. Bennett Emmett, Idaho gion describes is not physical, which moves Southerner. My northern friends think it's the description outside the realm of physical funny to call us rednecks, crackers, and white science." I hate to disturb Mr. Payne's conve­ trash. But that doesn't make them racists, just nient dichotomy, but I feel the need to point ignorant. I'm not attacking Chopra's race. If Spotlight on UFOs out that religion(s) do attempt to describe my observations that Chopra and Peter Sellers the same physical reality as science. sound alike makes me a racist or insensitive, I had the luck to see a truly amazing UFO If we agree that "god" exists in a reality then my critics need to get busy attacking event. The amazing part was that although that has no effect, measurable or otherwise, 99% of all humor writing. My advice to my the event seemed like a UFO, it came up on the reality in which we live, then I am critics is to lighten up. . . . short on all three counts: It was explain­ happy to leave "god's" existence unchal­ able, it wasn't actually flying, and it wasn't lenged (as Mr. Payne's argument is reduced an object. to a variation on the "undetectable tiger" On Stephen Jay Gould It was cither May 26, 1993, or some argument so well refuted by Ralph Estling other night, when I was driving through the ["The Logic That Dare Not Speak Its mountains of Tennessee between Chat­ With the death of Stephen Jay Gould Name," SI, May/June 2002]). Proponents of tanooga and Knoxville on Interstate 75- another candle has gone out. this "non-physical" god would have to This is an extremely scenic drive during the accept, however, that this god cannot affect Gould was a shining example of die day, but at night I saw something even events in this reality in any way, let alone cre­ Renaissance person our age so desperately more extraordinary. I saw two lights, low in ate it or direct its progress. If the "non-phys­ needs. He could speak authoritatively on sci­ the sky, bright enough to shine through the ical" god could do these things (as almost ence, music, literature, politics, and sports. clouds. At first I thought the lights were every religion claims it can), then it has phys­ He always had an insight that provided a low-flying aircraft, but they seemed to ical properties, which are clearly within the bright, new perspective. hover in one place, then accelerate faster realm of scientific inquiry. I was privileged to hear him speak some than any human aircraft could. Then the years ago at the Carnegie Institution in lights disappeared and reappeared soon If we cannot agree on the total impotence Washington. D.C. Wirhnnr notes he spoke after in another place in the sky, again hov- of the "non-physical" god then the boundary for over an hour to a rapt, standing-room- ering, then moving at incredible speeds. between the "physical" and "non-physical" only audience. It was an unforgettable Clearly, this was the work of an advanced (hallucinatory? delusional?) reality becomes evening, a true intellectual feast. civilization. blurred beyond the point where they can be Gould was scheduled to speak at Boise distinguished. As I moved to a valley in the mountain. State University in October. His insights on I could see that it was two spotlights, pro­ Hulbert Silver science (and on evolution in particular) jecting onto the low cloud cover, advertis­ Vancouver, British Columbia, would have been extremely beneficial in ing a car dealership's Memorial Day sale. Canada helping us resist the anti-science virus of cre- This was the work of a civilization so ationism that threatens Idaho's students. advanced they had internal combustion We had earlier lost illuminaries like Carl engines and electronics available to a wide Sagan and Isaac Asimov and now we have range of their citizenry. I couldn't see the lost Stephen Jay Gould. As the forces of origin of the lights earlier, because the The letters column is a forum darkness spin their treacherous webs, reach­ mountain obscured them. Thus the lights for views on matters raised in ing out from bases in Teheran, Virginia really were "pure energy," but were neith­ previous issues. Letters should Beach, and Colorado Springs, we more than er unexplained, nor flying (unless you be no more than 225 words. ever need the rational reasoned voices of count beams of photons as "flying"), Due to the volume of letters nor "objects" in the conventional use of not all can be published. the word. Address letters to Letters to This may explain other "mysterious lights the Editor, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. in the sky" that outperform fighter jets, espe­ Send by mail to 944 Deer Dr. cially on cloudy nights near Air Force bases NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122; (with signal lights). Hopefully this letter will by fax to 505-828-2080; or by help put such similar "unexplained" reports e-mail to [email protected] in the ex-files. (include name and address). Thank you for your time and your noble work.

Scott Takacs, Ph.D. [email protected]

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2002 69 THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL AT THE CENTER FOR INQUIRYHNTERNATIONAL (ADJACENT TO THE STATE UNIVERSrTY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO) AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION Network of Affiliated Organizations International AUSTRALIA. Canberra Skeptics. Canberra nology, China. Shen Zhenyu Research Center, the Investigation of the Anomalous Australia. Peter Barrett President. PO Box 555. P.O. Box 8113. Beijing China. Hong Kong Phenomena (KCIAP) Kazakhstan. Dr. Sergey Civic Square ACT 2608 Australia. Australian Skeptics, Hong Kong. Brad Collins, P.O. Box Efimov, Scientific Secretary. E-mail: efime Skeptics Inc., Australia. Barry Williams. 1010, Shatin Central Post Office, Shatin NT China. afi.south-capital.kz. Astrophysical Institute Executive Officer. Tel. 61-2-9417-2071; e-mail: COSTA RICA. Iniciativa para la Promotion del Kamenskoye Plato Alma-Ata. 480020 Republic skepticsekasm.com.au. PO Box 268, Roseville Pensamiento Crftico (IPPEQ San Jose. Victor of Kazakhstan. Committee for the Scien­ NSW 2069 Australia, www.skeptics.com.au. Quiros V. Tel.: 506 275 43 52; e-mail: victorcr tific Expertise of Claims of the Paranormal Australian Skeptics—Hunter Region eracsa.co.cr. A.P. 1513-1002 Paseo de los (C5ECOP). Newcastle/Hunter Valley. Dr. Colin Keay, Estudiantes San Jose, Costa Rica. http://webs. KOREA. Korea PseudoScience Awareness President. Tel.: 61-2-49689666; e-mail: demasiado.com/vicr. (KOPSA) Korea. Dr. Gun-ll Kang. Director. Tel.: bolideehunterlink.net au. PO Box 166. Waratah CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Sisyfos-Czech Skeptics 82-2-393-2734; e-mail: KOPSAechollian.net. NSW 2298. Australia Darwin Skeptics. Club. Czech Republic. Ms. Ing. Olga Kracikova, 187-11 Bukahyun-dong. Sudaemun-ku, Seoul Northern Territory. Australia. Simon Potter, Secretary. Tel.: 420-2-24826691; e-mail: 120-190 Korea www.kopsa.or.kr. Secretary. Tel.: 61-8-8932-7552; e-mail: dwnskep- olgakracikovaeemail.cz. Hastalska 27 Praha 1 MALTA. Society for Investigating the ticeais.net.au. PO Box 809, Sanderson NT 0812 110 00 Czech Republic, www.fi.muni.cz/sisyfos/ Credibility of Extraordinary Claims (5ICEC) Australia. Gold Coast Skeptics, Queensland. (in Czech). Malta. Vanni Pule, Chairman. Tel.: 356-381994, Australia. Lilian Derrick, Secretary. Tel.: 61-7- DENMARK. Skeptica: Association of e-mail: pulevanevol.net.mt, P.O. Box 31. 5593-1882; e-mail: Imderricketelstra.easymail. Independent Danish Skeptics. Denmark. Hamrun. Malta. com.au. PO Box 8348, GCMC Bundall QLD 4217 Willy Wegner. Tel.: 45-75-64-84-02; e-mail: MEXICO. Mexican Association for Skeptical Re­ Australia. Queensland Skeptics Assoc Inc. skepticaeskeptica.dk. Vibevej 7 A DK 8700 search (SOMIE) Mexico. Mario Mendez-Acosta, (Qskeptics) Queensland. Bob Bruce, President. Horsens, Denmark, www.skeptica.dk. Apartado Postal 19-546 D.F. 03900 Mexico. Tel.: 61-7-3255-0499; e-mail: qskepticeuq.net.au. ECUADOR. Pablo Cevallos Estarellas. Apartado 09- NETHERLANDS. Stichting Skepsis. Netherlands. PO Box 6454. Fairview Gardens QLD 4103 01-5603 Guayaquil, Ecuador. Rob Nanninga. Secretary. Tel.: 31-50-3129893; Australia. South Australia Skeptics (SAS) ESTONIA Horisont. Indrek Rohtmets. EE 0102 e-mail: skepsis©wxs.nl. Westerkade 20. 9718 AS South Australia. Mr. Laurie Eddie, Secretary. Tel.: Tallinn, Narva mnt. 5. Groningen, Netherlands, www.skepsis.nl. 61-8-8272-5881; e-mail: allangetxc.net.au. PO FINLAND. SKEPSIS, Finland. Jukka Hakkinen. PO NEW ZEALAND. New Zealand Skeptics, New Box 377, Rundle Mall SA 5000 Australia. Box 483. Helsinki 00101 Finland. Zealand, Vicki Hyde, Chair. Tel.: 64-3-384-5136; Australian Skeptics in Tasmania Inc., e-mail: Vickiespis.co.nz. PO Box 29-492. Christ- Tasmania, Australia. Fred Thornett, Secretary. FRANCE. AFIS, AFIS (Association Franchise pour church, New Zealand, www.skeptics.orgnz. Tel.: 61-3-6234-1458; e-mail: fredthornettehot- I'lnformation Scientifique) France. Jean mail.com. PO Box 582. North Hobart, TAS 7000 Bricmont, President. 14 rue de I'Ecole NIGERIA. Nigerian Skeptics Society. Nigeria. Leo Australia. Australian Skeptics—Victorian Polytechnique F-75005 Paris. France. Cercle Igwe, Convenor. E-mail: dpceskannet.com.ng. Branch Victoria. Grant Stevenson, President. Tel.: Zetetique. France. Paul-Eric Blanrue. 12 rue; PO Box 25269, Mapo Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria. 61-3-9531-9905; e-mail: contacteskeptics.com.au. David Deitz. F-57000 Metz, France. NORWAY. SKEPSIS. Norway St. Olavsgt. 27 N0166 GPO Box 5166AA Melbourne VIC 3001 Ajstralia. Laboratoire de Zetetique (laboratory). Oslo, Norway. www.skeptics.com.au. WA Skeptics. Western Professeur Henri Broch. Tel.: 33-0492076312; e- PERU. Comite de Investigaciones de lo Para­ Australia. Dr. John Happs. President. Tel.: 61-8- mail: brocheunice.fr. Universite de Nice-Sophia normal lo Seudocientifico y lo Irracional 9448-8458; e-mail: wa.skepticseaustraliamail. Antipolis Faculte des Sciences F-06108 Nice CIPSI-PERU. Lima, Peru. Manuel Abraham com. PO Box 899, Morley, WA 6062 Australia. Cedex 2 France, www.unice.fr/zetetique/. Paz-y-Mino. Tel.: +51-1-921S741; e-mail: cip- GERMANY. Gesellschaft zur wissenschaft siperueyahoo.com. El Corregidor 318 Rimac, BELGIUM. Comite Beige Pour ^Investigation lichen Unterrsuchung von Parawissen- Lima 25 Peru, www.geocities.com/cipsiperu. Scientifique des Phenomenes Reputes schaften (GWUP) Germany. Amardeo Sarma. POLAND. Polish Skeptics, Poland. Adam Pananormaux Comite Para, Belgium. J. Chairman. Tel.: 49-6154-695023. E-mail: Pietrasiewicz. E-mail: redaktoreiname.com. Dommanget, President of the Committee. E- infoegwup.org. Arheilger Weg 11 D-64380 www.biuletynsceptyczny.z.pl. mail: omer.nyseoma.be. Observatoire Royal Rossdorf, Germany, www.gwup.org. European PORTUGAL. Associacao Cepticos de Portugal Belgique 3. ave. Circulaire 8-1180. Brussels, Council of Skeptical Organizations (ECSO) (CEPO) Portugal. Ludwig Krippahl. E-mail: Belgium, www.comitepara.be. Studiekring Europe. Dr. Martin Mahner. Tel.: 49-6154- cepoeinteracesso.pt. Apartado 334 2676-901 voor Kritische Evaluatie van Pseudoweten- 695023; e-mail: infoeecso.org. Arheilger Weg Odivelas. Portugal. http7/cepo.interacesso.pt. schap en Paranormale beweringen (SKEPP) 11 64380 Rossdorf, Germany, www.ecso.org/. RUSSIA. Dr. Valerii A. Kuvakin. Tel.: 95-718-2178; Belgium. Prof. Dr. W. Betz. Tel.: 32-2-477-43-11; HUNGARY. Tenyeket Tisztelk Tarsasaga TTT e-mail: V.KUVAKINeMTU-NET.RU. Vorob'evy e-mail: skeppeskepp.be Laarbeeklaan. 103 Hungary. Prof. Gyula Bencze. Tel.: 36-1-392-2728; Gory, Moscow State University. Phil. Dept. B-1O90 Brussels, Belgium, www.skepp.be. e-mail: gbenczeermki.kfki.hu. c/o Termeszef Moscow 119899 Russia, http://log.philos.msu. BRAZIL. OPCAO RACIONAL. Brazil. Luis Fernando VilAga. PO Box 246 H-1444 Budapest 8 Hungary. ru/rhs/index/htm. Gutman. Tel.: 55-21-548-2476; e-mail: fernan- INDIA. Atheist Centre. Dr. Vijayam, Executive SINGAPORE. Singapore Skeptics. Contact: dogutmanehotmail.com. Rua Santa Clara, 431 Director. Benz Circle, Vijayawada 520 010, Ronald Ng. E-mail: ronaldngeiname.com. Bloco 5, Apt. 803, Copacabana-Rio de Janeiro Andhra Pradesh, India. Tel.: 91 866 472330; Fax: www.skeptic.iwarp.com. 22041-010 Brazil, www.opcaoracional.com.br. 91 866 473433. E-mail: atheistevsnl.com. SLOVAK REPUBLIC (SACT) Slovak Republic. Igor BULGARIA. Bulgarian Skeptics. Bulgaria. Dr. Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Kapisinsky Pavla Horova, 10 Bratislava 841 07 Vladimir Daskalov. E-mail: egosheveeinet.bg. Samiti (MANS) states of Maharashtra S Goa. Dr. Slovak Republic. Krakra 22 BG-1504 Sofia. Bulgaria. Narendra Dabholkar, Executive President. Tel.: SOUTH AFRICA. Marian Laserson. P.O. Box 46212, CANADA. Alberta Skeptics, Alberta. Greg Hart. 91-2162-32333; e-mail: ndabholkarehotmail. Orange Grove 2119 South Africa. SOCRATES. Chairman. Tel.: 403-215-1440; e-mail: hartg com. 155, Sadashiv Peth Satara 415001 India. South Africa, Cape Skeptics. Cape Town. Dr. ehumaneffort.com. PO Box 5571, Station www.antisuperstition.com. Indian Rationalist Leon Retief. Tel.: 27-21-9131434; e-mail: 'A', Calgary, Alberta T2H 1X9 Canada. Association, India. Sanal Edamaruku. E-mail: leonreiafrica.com. 5N Agapanthus Avenue, http://abskeptics.homestead.com. Alberta edamarukuevsnl.com or IRAerationalist Welgedacht Bellville 7530 South Africa. Skeptics. British Columbia Skeptics, BC and intemational.net. 779, Pocket 5, Mayur Vihar 1, SPAIN. El Investigador Esceptico. Spain. Felix Alberta. Lee Moller. Tel. 604-929-6299, e-mail: New Delhi 110 091 India. Dravidar Kazhagam, Ares de Bias Gamez/Ares/Martinez, P.O. Box 904. leemollereshaw.ca. 1188 Beaufort Road, N. southern India. K. Veeramani. Secretary General. Donostia-San Sebastian 20080 Spain. ARP- Vancouver. BC V7G 1R7 Canada. Ontario Tel.: 9144-5386555; e-mail: periyarevsnl.com. Sociedad para el Avance del Pensamiento Skeptics, Ontario. Canada Eric McMillan, Periyar Thidal. 50. E.F.K. Sampath Road Vepery, Critico ARP-SAPC Spain. Sergio Lopez, Chair. Tel.: 416-425-2451; e-mail: ericewe-com- Chennai Tamil Nadu 600 007 India. Borgonoz. Tel.: 34-933-010220; e-mail: arpOarp- pute.com. P.O. Box 53003, 10 Royal Orchard www.Periyar.org. Indian CSICOP, India, B. sapc.org. Apartado de Correos, 310 Blvd.. Thornhill. ON L3T 7R9 Canada. Premanand. Convenor. Tel.: 091-0422-872423; e- E 08860 Castelldefels, Spain, www.arp-sapc.org. mail: dayaminiemd4.vsnl.net.in. 11/7 Chettipa- www.astro.yorku.Ca/-mmdr/oskeptics.html. SWEDEN. Swedish Skeptics. Sweden Dan layam Road Podanur Tamilnadu 641 023 India. Toronto Skeptical Inquirers (TSl) Toronto. Larhammar. professor chairperson. Tel: 46-18- Henry Gordon. President. Tel.: 905-771-1615; e- ITALY. Comitate Italiano per il Controllo delle 4714173; e-mail: vetfolkephysto.se. Medical mail: henry_gordonehotmail.com. 343 Clark Affermaxioni sul Paranormale (CICAP) Italy. Pharmacology BMC. Box 593, Uppsala 751 24 Ave., W., Suite 1009, Thornhill. ON L4J 7K5 Massimo Polidoro, Executive Director. Tel.: 39- Sweden, www.physto.se/-vetfolk/index.html. Canada. Ottawa Skeptics. Ottawa, Ontario. 049-686870; e-mail: polidoroecicap.org. P.O. TAIWAN. Taiwan Skeptics. Taiwan. Tim Holmes. Greg Singer. E-mail: skepticeottawa.com. PO Box 1117 35100 Padova, Italy, www.cicap.org. PO Box 195. Tanzu. Taiwan Perspective Box 1237. Station B. Ottawa, Ontario KIP 5R3 JAPAN. Japan Anti-Pseudoscience Activities Net­ UNITED KINGDOM. The Skeptic Magazine, United Canada.www.admissions.carleton.ca/-addalby/ work (JAPAN) Japan. Ryutarou Minakarni, chair­ Kingdom. Toby Howard. E-mail: tobyOcs.man. cats/skeptic.html. Sceptiques du Quebec. person. E-mail: skepticee-mail ne.jp. c/o Ohta ac.uk. P.O. Box 475 Manchester M60 2TH Quebec. Alan Bonnier. Tel.: 514-990-8099. CP. Publishing Company. Epcot Bid. IF, 22. Arakkho. United Kingdom. 202, Succ. Beaubien Montreal, Quebec H2G 3C9 Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-8571 Japan. Japan VENEZUELA. La Asociacion Racional y Esceptica de Canada, www.sceptiques.qc.ca. Skeptics Skeptics, Japan. Dr. Jun Jugaku. E-mail: Quinte, Bill Broderick. 2262 Shannon Rd. R.R. Venezuela (A.R.E.V.). Guido David Nunez jugakujneccnao.ac.jp. Japan Skeptics, Business Mujica, 10th Street, 13th av. corner. Mini centra 1. Shannonville. ON KOK 3A0; e-mail: Center for Academic Societies, Japan 5-16-9 Honk- brodericekos.net. comercial Oasis, Valera, Trujillo state. omagome, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo 113-8622 Japan. Venezuela. Web site: www.geocities.com/escep CHINA. China Association for Science and Tech­ KAZAKHSTAN. Kazakhstan Commission for ticosvenezuela. Beeston. Tel.: 515-285-0622; e-mail. ciskepticsOhol- e-mail. imacshivaOsyracusenet.net 201 Milnor United States mail com. 5602 SW 2nd St. Des Moines, IA 50315 Ave. Syracuse. NY 13224 US. US. www.skepticweb.com. NORTH CAROLINA. Carolina Skeptics North ALABAMA. Alabama Skeptics, Alabama Emory ILLINOIS. Rational Examination Association of Carolina. Eric Carlson. President Tel.: 336-758-4994; Kimbrough. Tel.. 205-759-2624. 3550 Watermelon Lincoln Land (REALL) Illinois. David Bloomberg. e-mail: ecarlsonOwfu.edu. Physics Department. Road. Apt. 28A, Northpott. AL 35476 US Skeptics- Chairman. Tel.: 217-726-5354; e-mail, chairman Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109 Freethought Forum of Alabama Skeptics Oreall.org. PO Box 20302, Springfield. IL 62708 US US. www.carolinaskeptics.org. Freethought Forum. Richard Rich, 1801 Beech St. 5E. www.reall.org. OHIO. Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry (CORD Decatur. AL 35601-3511 US. E-mail: rrbama66©hot- KENTUCKY. Kentucky Assn. of Science Educators mail.com and Skeptics (KASES) Kentucky. Prof. Robert Central Ohio. Charlie Hazlett President. Tel.: 614- Baker. 3495 Castleton Way, North Lexington, KY 878-2742; e-mail: charlieOhazlett.net. PO Box ARIZONA. Tucson Skeptics Inc. Tucson. AZ. James 282069, Columbus OH 43228 US. South Shore McGaha. E-mail: JMCGAHAOPimaCC Pima.EDU. 5100 40502 US. Contact Fred Bach at e-maiF fredw- N. Sabino Foothills Dr.. Tucson. AZ 85715 US. bachOyahoo.com. Skeptics (SSS) Cleveland and counties. Jim Kutz Phoenix Skeptics. Phoenix. AZ. Michael Stackpole. LOUISIANA. Baton Rouge Proponents of Rational Tel. 440 942-5543; e-mail: jimkutzOearthlink.net. P.O. Box 60333. Phoenix. AZ 85082 US. Inquiry and Scientific Methods (BR-PRISM) PO Box 5083, Cleveland. OH 44101 US. www.south CALIFORNIA. Sacramento Organization for Rational Louisiana. Marge Schroth Tel.: 225-766-4747. 425 shoreskeptics.org/. Thinking (SORT) Sacramento. CA. Ray Spangen- Carriage Way, Baton Rouge, LA 70808 US. Association for Rational Thought (ART) burg, co-founder. Tel : 916-978-0321; e-mail: MICHIGAN. Great Lakes Skeptics (GLS) SE Michigan Cincinnati. Roy Auerbach. president. Tel: 513-731- kitrayOquiknet.com. PO Box 2215. Carmichael, CA Lorna J. Simmons, Contact person. Tel.: 734-525-5731; 2774. e-mail: raaOcinci.rr.com. PO Box 12896. 95609-2215 US. www.quiknet.com/-kitray/indenl e-mail: Skeptic310aol com. 31710 Cowan Road, Apt. Cincinnati, OH 45212 US. www.cincinnati skept html Bay Area Skeptics (BAS) San Francisco—Bay 103, Westland. Ml 48185-2366 US. Tri-Cities ics.org Area. Tufly McCarrolL Chair. Tel.: 415 927-1548; e- Skeptics, Michigan. Gary Barker. Tel.: 517-7994502; OREGON. Oregonians for Rationality (04R) Oregon. mail: tullyannepacbell.net. PO Box 2443 Castro e-mail: barkergOsvol.org 3596 Butternut St., Dave Chapman, President. Tel.. 503 292-2146; e-mail: Valley. CA 94546-0443 US. www.BASkeptics.org. Saginaw, Ml 48604 US. Sacramento Skeptics Society. Sacramento. Terry dchapmanOiccom.com. 7555 Spring Valley Rd. NW. MINNESOTA. St. Kloud Extraordinary Claim Salem. OR 97304 US. www.o4r.org. Sandbek. President. 4300 Auburn Blvd Suite 206, Psychic Teaching Investigating Community Sacramento CA 9S841 Tel.: 916 489-1774 E-mail: PENNSYLVANIA. Paranormal Investigating Com (SKEPTIC) St. Cloud, Minnesota. Jerry Mertens Tel. mine* of Pittsburgh (PICP) Pittsburgh PA terryOsandbeck.com. http://my.ispchannel.com/ 320-255-2138; e-mail: gmertensOstcloudstate -tsandbek/Skeptics/skeptics htm San Diego Asso­ edu Jerry Mertens. Psychology Department, 720 Richard Busch. Chairman. Tel.: 412-366-1000; e- ciation for Rational Inquiry (SDARI) President: 4th Ave. S. St. Cloud State University. St. Cloud. MN mail: mindfulOtelerama.com. 8209 Thompson Run Todd Rockhold. Tel.: (Todd's personal phone) 760 56301 US. Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15237 US. Philadelphia 943-8977. Web site: www.sdari.org. E-mail Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT). much infoOsdari.org. PO Box 623. La Jolla. CA 92038-0623 MISSOURI. Gateway Skeptics, Missouri, Steve Best. 6943 Amherst Ave., University City. MO 63130 US of Pennsylvania. Eric Krieg, President. Tel. 215-885- 2089, e-mail: ericOphact.org. PO Box 1131, North COLORADO. Rocky Mountain Skeptics (RMS) Colo.. Kansas City Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Wyo.. Utah. Mont Bela Scheiber. President. Tel.: 303- Missouri. Verle Muhrer. United Labor Bldg, 6301 Wales, PA 19454 US. www.phact.org/phact. 444-7537; e-mail: rmscentralOmindspring.com. PO Rockhill Road. Suite 412 Kansas City, MO 64131 US. TENNESEE. Rationalists of East Tennessee, East Box 7277, Boulder. CO 80306 US. httpy/bcnboulder NEBRASKA. REASON (Rationalists, Emplracists Tennessee Carl Ledenbecker. Tel.: 865-982-8687; e- co.us/community/rms. and Skeptics of Nebraska). Chris Peters. PO Box mail: AletallOaol.com. 2123 Stonybrook Rd., CONNECTICUT. New England Skeptical Society 24358, Omaha, NE 68134, e-mail. reasonOIOhot- Louisville, TN 37777 US. (NESS) New England. Steven Novella MD. President. mail.com; Web page: www.reason.ws. TEXAS. North Texas Skeptics NTS Dallas/Ft Worth Tel.: 203-281-6277; email: boardOtheness.com. PO NEVADA. Skeptics of Las Vegas, (SOLV) PO Box area, John Blanton, Secretary. Tel.: 972-306-3187; Box 185526. Hamden, CT 06518-5526 US. www. 530392. Henderson, NV 89053-0392. Email: rban- e-mail: skepticOntskeptics.org PO Box 111794, lheness.com. dersonOskepticslv.org. Web site: www skepticslv. Carrollton, TX 75011-1794 US. www.ntskeptics.org. DC/MARYLAND. National Capital Area Skeptics org J. VIRGINIA. Science & Reason, Hampton Rds.. Virginia. NCAS, Maryland, DC. Virginia D.W. "Chip" NEW MEXICO. New Mexicans for Science and Lawrence Weinstein. Old Dominion Univ.-Physics Denman. Tel.: 301-587-3827. e-mail: ncasOncas.org Reason (NMSR) New Mexico. David E. Thomas, Dept, Norfolk. VA 23529 US. PO Box 8428, Silver Spring. MD 20907-8428 US. President. Tel.: 505-869-9250; e-mail: nmsrdave http://www.ncas.org. Oswcp.com. PO Box 1017, Peralta, NM 87042 US. WASHINGTON. Society for Sensible Explanations. www.nmsr.org. Western Washington. Tad Cook. Secretary. E-mail: FLORIDA. Tampa Bay Skeptics (TBS) Tampa Bay, k7vwOarrl net. PO Box 45792. Seattle. WA 98145-0792 Florida. Gary Posner, Executive Director. Tel.: 813- NEW YORK. New York Area Skeptics (NYASk) met­ 5840603, email. tbskepOaol.com. 5319 Archstone ropolitan NY area. Ted W. Debiak. President. Tel.: US. http://seattleskeptics.org. Dr. #102, Tampa, FL 33634 US. http^/members S16-735-8739; e-mail: infoOnyask.com. 57 South aol.com/tbskep. Windhorst Ave., Bethpage. NY 11714-4931 US. The organizations listed above have aims similar to GEORGIA. Georgia Skeptics (GS) Georgia. Rebecca www.nyask.com. Inquiring Skeptics of Upper those of CSICOP but are independent and Long, President. Tel.: 770-493-6857; e-mail: arlong New York (ISUNY) Upper New York. Michael autonomous. Representatives of these organizations Ohcrc.org. 2277 Winding Woods Dr., Tucker. GA Sofka, 8 Providence St., Albany, NY 12203 US. cannot speak on behalf of the CSICOP. Please send 30084 US! Central New York Skeptics (CNY Skeptics) updates to Bela Scheiber. PO Box 4482. Boulder, CO IOWA. Central Iowa Skeptics (CIS) Central Iowa, Rob Syracuse. Lisa Goodlin, President. Tel: 315 446-3068; 80306.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS

George Agogino, Depl. of Anthropology. Eastern New Laurie Godfrey, anthropologist University of Massachusetts James Pomerarrtz, Provost and professor of cognitive and Mexico University Gerald GokSh. mathematician, Rutgers University, New Jersey linguistic sciences, Brown Univ. Gary Bausiaugh. educational consultant. Center for Donald Goldsmith, astronomer; president Interstellar Media Gary P. Posner, MD, Tampa, fla. Curriculum, Transfer and Technology, Victoria. B.C. Canada Alan Hale, astronomer. Southwest Institute for Space Daisie Radner, professor of philosophy, SUNY, Buffalo Richard E. Berendzen, astronomer. Washington, D.C Research. Alamogordo. New Mexico Michael Radner, professor of philosophy, McMaster Martin Bridgstock. lecturer. School of Science, Griffith Clyde F. Herreid. professor of biology. SUNY, Buffalo University, Hamilton, Ontario. Canada University, Brisbane, Australia Terence M. Hines, professor of psychology, Pace Robert H. Romer, professor of physics. Amherst College Richard Busch. magician/mentalist Pittsburgh, Penn. University.Pleasantville, NY. Karl Sabbagh. journalist Richmond, Surrey, England Shawn Carlson, Society for Amateur Scientists, East Michael Hutchinson, author; SKEPTIGU INQUIMH represen­ Robert J. Samp, assistant professor of education and Greenwich, Rl tative, Europe medicine. University of Wisconsin-Madison Roger B. Culver, professor of astronomy, Colorado State Univ. Philip A. lama, assoc. professor of astronomy, Univ. of Virginia Steven D. Schafersman, asst. professor of geology, Felix Ares de Bias, professor of computer science, William Jarvis, professor of health promotion and public Miami Univ.. Ohio health, loma Linda University, School of Public Health University of Basque, San Sebastian, Spain Bela Scheiber,* systems analyst Boulder, Colo. Michael R. Dennett writer, investigator, Federal Way, I. W. Kelly, professor of psychology. University of Chris Scott statistician, London. England Washington Saskatchewan Stuart D. Scott Jr., associate professor of anthropology, Sid Deutsch, consultant, Sarasota, Fla. Richard H. Lang*, M.D., Mohawk Valley Physician Health J. Dommanget, astronomer, Royale Observatory, Plan, Schenectady, N.Y. SUNY. Buffalo Erwin M. Segal, professor of psychology, SUNY. Buffalo Brussels. Belgium Gerald A. Larue, professor of biblical history and archae­ Nahum J. Duker, assistant professor of pathology. ology, University of So. California. Carta Selby, anthropologist /archaeologist Steven N. Shore, professor and chair, Dept. of Physics and Temple University William M. London consumer advocate. Fort Lee, New Jersey Barbara Eisenstadt psychologist, educator, clinician. East Rebecca Long, nuclear engineer, president of Georgia Astronomy, Indiana Univ. South Bend Greenbush, N Y. Council Against Health Fraud. Atlanta, Ga. Waclaw Szybalski, professor. McArdle Laboratory, William Evans, professor of communication, Georgia Thomas R. McDonough. lecturer in engineering, Caltech, University of Wisconsin-Madison State University and SET! Coordinator of the Planetary Society Ernest H. Taves, psychoanalyst Cambridge, Mass. John F. Fischer, forensic analyst Orlando. Fla James E. McGaha, Major. USAF. pilot Sarah G. Thomason, professor of linguistics. University of Robert E. Funk, anthropologist New York State Museum Joel A. Moskowitz. director of medical psychiatry, Pittsburgh & Science Sen/ice Calabasas Mental Health Services, Los Angeles. Tim Trachet journalist and science writer, honorary chair­ Eileen Gambrill, professor of social welfare. University of Jan Willem Nienhuys, mathematician, Univ. of man of SKEPP, Belgium. California at Berkeley Eindhoven, the Netherlands Sylvio Garattini. director, Mario Negri Pharmacology John W. Patterson, professor of materials science and •Member, CSICOP Executive Council Institute. Milan. Italy engineering, Iowa State University "Associate Member, CSICOP Executive Council

METRO NEW YORK PERU CENTERS FOR INQUIRY Walnut and Green, 89 Walnut Street D. Casanova 430. Lima 14, Peru wvvw.centerforinquiry.net Montclair, NJ 07042 Tel.: (973) 655-9556 EUROPE INTERNATIONAL Dr. Martin Mahner P.O. Box 703 Arheilger Weg 11, D-64380 Rossdorf, Germany Amherst NY 14226 FRANCE Tel:+49 6154 695023 Tel.: (716) 636-1425 Prof. Henri Broch. Universite of Nice MOSCOW WEST Faculte des Sciences Professor Valerii A. Kuvakin 4773 Hollywood Blvd. Pare Valrose. 06108 119899 Russia, Moscow. Vorobevy Gory, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Nice cedex 2. France Moscow State University, Tel.: (323) 666-9797 www.unice.fr/zetetics/ Philosophy Department Center for Inquiry International "... to promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor."

THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL

Beauty in the Eye of Hubble

Like many other so-called planetary nebulae, IC 4406 exhibits a from the dying star. From Earth, we are viewing the donut high degree of symmetry; the left and right halves of the from the side. This side view allows us to see the intricate ten- Hubble image are nearly mirror images of the other. If we drils of dust that have been compared to the eye's retina, could fly around IC4406 in a starship, we would see that the gas and dust form a vast donut of material streaming outward Image Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScl/AURA)

The Committee is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization. The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is its official journal. The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the such inquiries to the scientific community, the media, and the Paranormal encourages the critical investigation of paranormal public. It also promotes science and scientific inquiry, critical and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of thinking, science education, and the use of reason in examining view and disseminates factual information about the results of important issues.

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7HF M A G A 7 I N F FOR SCIENCE A NO REASON • CENTER FOR INQUIRY INTERNATIONAL • P.O. Box 703 Amherst. NY 14226 • Tel.: (716) 636-1425 WEST EUROPE METRO NEW YORK Los Angeles, California Rossdorf, Germany Montclair, New Jersey PERU FRANCE MOSCOW Lima, Peru Universite of Nice, France Moscow State University