SI Jul-Aug 06 Cover V1 5/30/06 12:14 PM Page 1

IN DEFENSE OF HIGHER VALUES • RIDDLE OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS • PRAYER STUDY FAILURE

THE MAGAZINE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON Volume 30, No. 4 • July/August 2006 • INTRODUCTORY PRICE U.S. $4.95 • Canada $5.95

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THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION of Claims of the Paranormal AT THE –TRANSNATIONAL (ADJACENT TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO) AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION Paul Kurtz, Chairman; professor emeritus of philosophy, University at Buffalo Barry Karr, Executive Director , Senior Research Fellow , Research Fellow Richard Wiseman, Research Fellow Lee Nisbet, Special Projects Director FELLOWS

James E. Alcock,* psychologist, York Univ., Toronto Susan Haack, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts Robert L. Park, professor of physics, Univ. of Maryland Jerry Andrus, magician and inventor, Albany, Oregon and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy and John Paulos, mathematician, Temple Univ. Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor-in-chief, New Professor of Law, University of Miami Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist, Harvard England Journal of Medicine C. E. M. Hansel, psychologist, Univ. of Wales Massimo Polidoro, science writer, author, Stephen Barrett, M.D., psychiatrist, author, David J. Helfand, professor of astronomy, executive director CICAP, Italy Columbia Univ. consumer advocate, Allentown, Pa. Milton Rosenberg, psychologist, Univ. of Chicago Willem Betz, professor of medicine, Univ. of Douglas Hofstadter, professor of under- Wallace Sampson, M.D., clinical professor of Brussels standing and cognitive science, Indiana Univ. medicine, Stanford Univ., editor, Scientific Barry Beyerstein,* biopsychologist, Simon Fraser Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Review of Univ., Vancouver, B.C., Canada and professor of history of science, Harvard Univ. Amardeo Sarma, manager NEC Ltd., Irving Biederman, psychologist, Univ. of Southern Ray Hyman,* psychologist, Univ. of Oregon California Leon Jaroff, sciences editor emeritus, Time executive director, GWUP, Germany. Susan Blackmore, Visiting Lecturer, Univ. of the Sergei Kapitza, former editor, Russian edition, Evry Schatzman, former president, French Physics West of England, Bristol Scientific American Association Henri Broch, physicist, Univ. of Nice, France Lawrence M. Krauss, author and professor of physics Eugenie Scott, physical anthropologist, executive Jan Harold Brunvand, folklorist, professor and astronomy, Case Western Reserve University director, National Center for Science Education emeritus of English, Univ. of Utah Edwin C. Krupp, astronomer, director, Griffith Robert Sheaffer, science writer Vern Bullough, professor of history, California Observatory Elie A. Shneour, biochemist, author, State Univ. at Northridge Paul Kurtz,* chairman, Center for Inquiry director, Biosystems Research Institute, Mario Bunge, philosopher, McGill University Lawrence Kusche, science writer La Jolla, Calif. John R. Cole, anthropologist, editor, National Leon Lederman, emeritus director, Fermilab; Dick Smith, film producer, publisher, Terrey Hills, Center for Science Education Nobel laureate in physics N.S.W., Australia Frederick Crews, literary and cultural critic, Scott Lilienfeld, psychologist, Emory Univ. Robert Steiner, magician, author, El Cerrito, Calif. professor emeritus of English, Univ. of Lin Zixin, former editor, Science and Technology Victor J. Stenger, emeritus professor of physics California, Berkeley Daily (China) and astronomy, Univ. of Hawaii; adjunct Jere Lipps, Museum of Paleontology, Univ. of Richard Dawkins, zoologist, Oxford Univ. professor of philosophy, Univ. of Colorado Geoffrey Dean, technical editor, Perth, Australia California, Berkeley Jill Cornell Tarter, astronomer, SETI Institute, Daniel C. Dennett, University Professor and Austin Elizabeth Loftus, professor of psychology, Univ. of Mountain View, Calif. B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Director of California, Irvine Carol Tavris, psychologist and author, Los Angeles, Calif. the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts Univ. Paul MacCready, scientist/engineer, Ann Druyan, writer and producer, and CEO, AeroVironment, Inc., Monrovia, Calif. David Thomas, physicist and mathematician, Cosmos Studios, Ithaca, New York John Maddox, editor emeritus of Nature Peralta, New Cornelis de Jager, professor of astrophysics, Univ. David Marks, psychologist, City University, London. Stephen Toulmin, professor of philosophy, Univ. of of Utrecht, the Netherlands Mario Mendez-Acosta, journalist and Southern California , professor of , science writer, , Mexico Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director, Central Connecticut State Univ. Marvin Minsky, professor of media arts and Hayden Planetarium, New York City Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading Univ., U.K. sciences, M.I.T. Marilyn vos Savant, Parade magazine Andrew Fraknoi, astronomer, Foothill College, Los David Morrison, space scientist, NASA Ames contributing editor Altos Hills, Calif. Research Center Steven Weinberg, professor of physics and Kendrick Frazier, science writer, editor, Richard A. Muller, professor of physics, Univ. of astronomy, Univ. of Texas at Austin; Yves Galifret, vice-president, Affiliated Calif., Berkeley Nobel laureate Organizations: France Joe Nickell, senior research fellow, CSICOP E.O. Wilson, University Professor Emeritus, Martin Gardner, author, critic Lee Nisbet,* philosopher, Medaille College Harvard University Bill Nye, science educator and television host, Nye Labs Murray Gell-Mann, professor of physics, Santa Fe Richard Wiseman, psychologist, University of James E. Oberg, science writer Institute; Nobel laureate Hertfordshire Thomas Gilovich, psychologist, Cornell Univ. Irmgard Oepen, professor of medicine (retired), Marvin Zelen, statistician, Harvard Univ. Henry Gordon, magician, columnist, Toronto Marburg, Germany Saul Green, Ph.D., biochemist, president of ZOL Loren Pankratz, psychologist, Oregon Health * Member, CSICOP Executive Council Consultants, New York, NY Sciences Univ. (Affiliations given for identification only.)

• • • Visit the CSICOP Web site at www.csicop.org • • •

The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (ISSN 0194-6730) is published bimonthly by the Committee for the Sci- of the January/February 2006 issue. Or you may send a fax request to the editor. entific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 1310 Sweet Home Rd., Amherst, NY 14228. Articles, reports, reviews, and letters published in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER represent the views Printed in U.S.A. Periodicals postage paid at Buffalo, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Subscrip- and work of individual authors. Their publication does not necessarily constitute an endorse- tion prices: one year (six issues), $35; two years, $60; three years, $84; single issue, $4.95. Canadian ment by CSICOP or its members unless so stated. and foreign orders: Payment in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank must accompany orders; please Copyright ©2006 by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranor- add US$10 per year for shipping. Canadian and foreign customers are encouraged to use Visa or MasterCard. Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41153509. Return undeliverable Canadian mal. All rights reserved. The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is available on 16mm microfilm, 35mm mi- addresses to: IMEX, P.O. Box 4332, Station Rd., Toronto, ON M5W 3J4. crofilm, and 105mm microfiche from University Microfilms International and is indexed in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. Inquiries from the media and the public about the work of the Committee should be made to Paul Kurtz, Chairman, CSICOP, P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226-0703. Tel.: 716-636-1425. Subscriptions and changes of address should be addressed to: SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, P.O. Box 703, Fax: 716-636-1733. Amherst, NY 14226-0703. Or call toll-free 1-800-634-1610 (outside U.S. call 716-636-1425). Old Manuscripts, letters, books for review, and editorial inquiries should be addressed to Kendrick Fra- address as well as new are necessary for change of subscriber’s address, with six weeks advance notice. zier, Editor, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 944 Deer Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122. Fax: 505-828- SKEPTICAL INQUIRER subscribers may not speak on behalf of CSICOP or the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. 2080. Before submitting any manuscript, please consult our Guide for Authors for format and refer- Postmaster: Send changes of address to SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY ences requirements. It is on our Web site at www.csicop.org/si/guide-for-authors.html and on page 69 14226-0703. SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:29 PM Page 3

Skeptical Inquirer COMMENT AND OPINION July / August 2006 • VOL. 30, NO. 4 13 In Defense of the Higher Values KENDRICK FRAZIER

ARTICLES COLUMNS

EDITOR’S NOTE Explanatory Frameworks and Investigative Exposés...... 4

NEWS AND COMMENT One Big STEP: Another Major Study Confirms That Distant Prayers Do Not Heal the Sick / Florida Psychic Jailed for Fraud / Governor Snubs Kentucky Academy of Science about / Dinosaur Adventure Land Slated for Demolition / ‘Alien Rains’ of Kerala Not So Alien after All / A Swedish Professorship in / Alien Autopsy Revealed—Again / The Wrong Stuff: Men’s Magazine’s Psychic Columnist / Center for Inquiry Opens in India...... 5

INVESTIGATIVE FILES 26 Riddle of the Crystal Skulls A Billion-dollar Boondoggle JOE NICKELL ...... 15 About a billion dollars a year is now spent on “magnet THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE therapy,” which is claimed to eliminate many symptoms When Philosophy Matters and diseases. Basic scientific principles indicate that all of MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI ...... 18 this money is wasted. BRUCE L. FLAMM NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD Houdini’s Impossible Demonstration MASSIMO POLIDORO ...... 20 29 The Philosophy behind PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS The Internet: A Shining Beacon of Truth Every intellectual endeavor, whether authentic or bogus, has ROBERT SHEAFFER ...... 22 an underlying philosophy. Science, for example, involves six kinds of philosophical ideas. These differ totally from those THE SKEPTICAL INQUIREE behind pseudoscience. Evaluating a field’s underlying Please Pass the Globster philosophy is a revealing way to make distinctions and BENJAMIN RADFORD ...... 25 judge worth. NEW BOOKS...... 61 MARIO BUNGE SCIENCE BEST SELLERS ...... 61

38 Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...... 62 So Weird after All Richard Feynman’s “least-action” approach to quantum physics in effect shows that it is just classical physics BOOK REVIEWS constrained by a simple mechanism. When the complicated mathematics is left aside, valuable insights are gained. The Singularity Is Near: When Transcend Biology PAUL QUINCEY By Ray Kurzweil JAMES N. GARDNER...... 53 44 Science Is for Sale Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (And It’s Not Only for the Money) By Mary Roach Until all types of threats to scientific integrity are discussed GREG MARTINEZ ...... 55 and handled more effectively, they jeopardize the validity of Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View medical research and the public’s trust in it. In the end, By Richard Tarnas public resources and patients’ health are at stake. GEOFFREY DEAN ...... 56 RAGNAR LEVI Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders 47 Why Great Thinkers Sometimes By Jamie Whyte Fail to Think Critically MARK DURM ...... 58 Why did two great thinkers, and Bodies: Sex, Violence, Disease, and Death Alfred Russel Wallace, believe in and other in Contemporary Legend paranormal claims? It was not because they lacked critical By Gillian Bennett thinking skills but because they were not disposed to use Organ Theft Legends those skills. By Veronique Campion-Vincent, translated by Jacqueline Simpson D. ALAN BENSLEY BENJAMIN RADFORD...... 59 SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:29 PM Page 4

Skeptical Inquirer Editor’s Note THE MAGAZINE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON EDITOR Kendrick Frazier EDITORIAL BOARD James E. Alcock Barry Beyerstein Thomas Casten Martin Gardner Ray Hyman Paul Kurtz Joe Nickell Lee Nisbet Explanatory Frameworks and Amardeo Sarma Béla Scheiber Investigative Exposés CONSULTING EDITORS Susan J. Blackmore John R. Cole Kenneth L. Feder or every issue of SI we try to provide a nourishing variety of material. First, there’s C. E. M. Hansel E. C. Krupp the variety of types of material—articles, news, columns, commentaries, book Scott O. Lilienfeld reviews, letters, and so on. Then there is the variety of topics we examine and of David F. Marks Eugenie Scott approaches to those topics. We hope there is something for everyone in this mix, Richard Wiseman Fand I think there usually is. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Austin Dacey Our feature articles tend to be evaluative, explanatory, or investigative. It interested me Chris Mooney to see how the five articles eventually selected for this issue relate to these categories and to James E. Oberg Robert Sheaffer each other. First, their authors: a philosopher, two physicians, a physicist, and a psycholo- David E. Thomas gist. That’s a fairly typical mix of fields represented in SI, which is irrepressibly interdisci- MANAGING EDITOR Benjamin Radford plinary, or cross-disciplinary. ART DIRECTOR Philosopher Mario Bunge’s article “The Philosophy Behind Pseudoscience” is, it seems Lisa A. Hutter to me, powerfully explanatory. We give it more space than usual because I think it provides PRODUCTION Christopher Fix a comprehensive, explanatory, intellectual, philosophical framework for virtually every Paul Loynes issue we address in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. Professor Bunge notes that every intellectual EDITORIAL ASSISTANT David Park Musella endeavor, “whether authentic or bogus,” has an underlying philosophy. Science has at least CARTOONIST six philosophical underpinnings and four other distinguishing features. Pseudoscience has Rob Pudim its own set. The philosophies of the two just happen to be perpendicular to each other. For WEB-PAGE DESIGN Patrick Fitzgerald, Designer example, the demanding ethics of science does not tolerate the self-deceptions and frauds Amanda Chesworth that plague pseudoscience. Bunge argues that his “exercise in border patrolling” can help PUBLISHER’S REPRESENTATIVE distinguish between good and bogus science and reveal why research guided by a wrong Barry Karr philosophy is likely to fail. Don’t miss his takes on specific fields: self-organizing systems, CORPORATE COUNSEL Brenton N. VerPloeg unconscious mental processes, psychoanalysis, computationist psychology, quantum BUSINESS MANAGER theory, string theory, and “pockets of pseudoscience ensconced in the sciences.” Sandra Lesniak Physician Bruce Flamm’s article on magnet therapy is resolutely investigative, as was his FISCAL OFFICER Paul Paulin earlier exposé in SI of the now notorious Cha/Wirth/Lobo Columbia University “pray for VICE PRESIDENT OF fertility” study. Flamm summarizes a study he and Drexel University physicist Leonard PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT Sherry Rook Finegold published in the British Medical Journal showing that the field of magnet therapy DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT is about as worthless as metal filings, “a billion-dollar boondoggle.” Duncan C. Tanner Jr. Physician/medical editor Ragnar Levi’s “Science Is for Sale” is also investigative and CHIEF DATA OFFICER Michael Cione evaluative, but here the topic is science itself, especially medical science. He finds the STAFF integrity of much medical research threatened by the economic interests of the drug indus- Darlene Banks Patricia Beauchamp try, which influences “every institution that might stand in its way.” Cheryl Catania Matthew Cravatta Psychologist D. Alan Bensley’s “Why Great Thinkers Sometimes Fail to Think Jackie Mohr Critically” goes back to the explanatory. It probes the question of how two great thinkers, Denise Riley Sara Rosten Arthur Conan Doyle and Alfred Russel Wallace, could be such good critical thinkers in Anthony Santa Lucia John Sullivan some areas and such credulous believers in others. It turns out that having good skills in Vance Vigrass critical thinking, which they did, is not the same as exercising them in all areas, which they Jay Wollin did not. PUBLIC RELATIONS Nathan Bupp Finally, physicist Paul Quincey’s “Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird After All” Lauren Becker is, I think, an intriguing and valiant attempt to explain quantum theory within a frame- EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR Amanda Chesworth work where the bizarre oddities that it reveals are understandable from a classical physics INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS viewpoint. It is, in effect, an experiment in explanation. Thomas Flynn DIRECTOR OF LIBRARIES Timothy S. Binga

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

4 Volume 30, Issue 4 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:29 PM Page 5

NEWS AND COMMENT

One Big STEP: Another Major Study Confirms That Distant Prayers Do Not Heal the Sick

BRUCE L. FLAMM

For almost a decade, investigators at six academic medical centers including Harvard and the Mayo Clinic have been working on a major study of distant prayer. The results of their monumental effort, the largest study ever to search for effects of intercessory prayer, have now been published and the conclusion is crystal clear: prayer had no beneficial effects whatsoever (Benson et al. 2006). The research, called the STEP trial (for “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer”) was meticulously designed to detect any effects of distant prayer. Note that prayer or loving words said at the bedside may reassure a patient and cause soothing physiologic mind/body interactions. In contrast, distant prayer is claimed to work via or paranormal mecha- nisms. This study was designed specifi- cally to investigate distant prayer. STEP investigators enrolled 1,802 car- diac bypass surgery patients from six hos- pitals and randomly assigned each to one of three groups: 604 patients received intercessory prayer after being informed they may or may not receive prayers (Group 1); 597 patients did not receive prayer after being informed they may or may not receive prayer (Group 2); and 601 patients received intercessory prayer after being informed they definitely would receive it (Group 3). The study enlisted tistical analysis the researchers found no anxiety levels by leading them to believe members of three Christian groups, two significant differences in any outcomes that they were so sick that they needed Catholic and one Protestant, to provide between groups 1 and 2. In other words, prayer. The high anxiety and stress thus prayer throughout the multiyear study. when patients did not know if they were generated may have caused more compli- To avoid bias and to ensure the results being prayed for, distant prayer had cations, such as irregular heartbeats. would be valid, none of the patients in absolutely no effect. Bob Barth of Silent Unity, the prayer the first two groups and none of their Interestingly, the patients who were organization in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, doctors knew which patients were being told that they definitely would receive dis- that was the Protestant group involved prayed for. This complex type of study, tant prayers (group 3) actually had worse in the study, said the results didn’t shake called a randomized double-blind con- outcomes than the other two groups. Was his confidence in prayer. “People of faith trolled trial, is considered to be the gold this the work of an angry god? Probably don’t need a prayer study to know that standard for scientific proof. not. The study authors postulated that prayer works,” he said. Dozens of news- What did they find? When the telling patients they definitely would paper articles about the study included mountain of data was subjected to sta- receive prayer may have increased their similar comments.

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NEWS AND COMMENT

This raises an interesting question. Only one randomized controlled sci- Why waste several years and millions of entific study has ever demonstrated Florida Psychic Jailed dollars conducting a rigorous multicenter apparently profound effects of distant For Fraud prayer study if you are not going to prayer (Cha, Wirth, and Lobo 2001). believe the results? Could it be that these However, as described previously in the inda Marks, 57, a self-proclaimed were not the results that investigators were SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (September/Octo- psychic who worked out of a hoping for? Would they have questioned ber 2004 [www.csicop.org/si/2004- L Delray Beach, Florida, storefront the results if prayer was found to be effec- 09/miracle-study.html] and March/ called “The Psychic Shop,” pled guilty to tive? The $2.5-million study was funded April 2005 [www.csicop.org/si/2005- three counts of wire fraud May 10, primarily by the John Templeton 03/miracle-study.html]), the Cha/ 2006, and was sentenced to four years in Foundation, an organization that pumps Wirth/Lobo “Columbia Miracle Study” federal prison, three years of probation, millions of dollars each year into efforts to turned out to be highly flawed and and payment of $2 million in restitution promote and superstitious beliefs. almost certainly fraudulent. Co-author to her victims. Her accomplice Jack Father Dean Marek, a Catholic priest Daniel Wirth was convicted of criminal Makler, 64, a recently retired Delray and co-principal investigator of Mayo’s fraud and is now incarcerated in federal Beach police detective, was sentenced to part of the STEP study opined, “I’m prison: co-author Rogerio Lobo of five years in prison with three years of sure God will be very pleased with the Columbia University has removed his supervised release and ordered to make results of this and getting people talking name from the bizarre research. restitution of $235,700. about the results of prayer in their lives.” In simple terms, the STEP and Marks was arrested in April 2005 Since the study showed absolutely no MANTRA II studies both found inter- while on probation from an earlier beneficial effects of prayer one must cessory prayer to be totally worthless. If offense involving insurance fraud. Her wonder exactly what Father Marek has prayer was a drug being tested for effec- scam was to prey on elderly patrons of in mind. Perhaps he means that people tiveness, these well-designed studies her shop, convincing them that their should be talking about the fact that would have destroyed it. A medication savings were cursed and she would prayer is a waste of time. that failed this miserably in two huge remove the evil from the money and More likely he is referring to the count- randomized trials would never be return the cash after the spell was bro- less excuses that will be used to explain the approved by the FDA. ken. Once the cash was delivered to complete failure of prayer in this major References Marks the money would disappear, and study. A few examples include: God knew Benson, H., J.A. Dusek, J.B. Sherwood, P. Lam, she would often relocate to another area it was a study so he did not answer the C.F. Bethea, et al. 2006. Study of the to start the scam again. One victim was prayers; God does not like to be tested; Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer an end-stage leukemia patient to whom God prefers prayers from family members; (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multi- center randomized trial of uncertainty and cer- she promised a cure, but instead stole the prayers were answered but not the way tainty of receiving intercessory prayer. Amer- his life savings of $320,000. we expected; and of course the classic, ican Heart Journal April, 151(4): 934–942. Makler’s part in the scam was to pro- God works in mysterious ways. The truth Cha, K.Y., D.P. Wirth, and R.A. Lobo. 2001. Does prayer influence the success of in vitro vide protection for Marks. Assigned to is that once supernatural phenomena are fertilization-embryo transfer? Journal of Repro- investigate complaints against her in claimed, the list of potential explanations ductive Medicine 2001(46): 781–787. 1994, Makler instead fell in with Marks for failure becomes infinite. In other Krucoff, M.W., S.W. Crater, D. Gallup, J.C. Blankenship, et al. 2005. The MANTRA II and her husband and became her assis- words, for true believers the claimed heal- randomized study. The Lancet. 366(9481; July tant while still pretending to work the ing effect of distant prayer is nonfalsifiable; 16–22): 211–217. complaints. He persuaded victims to nothing could ever change their minds. accept partial reimbursement to drop But for people who make decisions Dr. Flamm has been the senior investigator charges, interfered with investigations, based on evidence, intercessory pray has on more than a dozen medical research blocked her supervision while under been dealt a fatal blow. The results of the studies and is the author of several medical probation, and lied to both Delray STEP research confirm the results of the books. He has a major interest in support- Beach Internal Affairs and federal MANTRA II trial, another major study ing science over superstition. His ongoing investigators about their activities. that was published last year (Krucoff et investigation of the bizarre Columbia Marks was eligible for a fifteen-year al. 2005). The MANTRA II study eval- University “pray-for-pregnancy” study was sentence, but prosecutor John Kastre- uated prayer in hundreds of cardiac published in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER and nakes requested leniency for her patients at nine medical centers. Just has been the subject of articles in Time, because her cooperation helped convict like the STEP study, it concluded that , The Los Angeles Makler. distant prayer had absolutely no benefi- Times, and other newspapers and maga- cial effect on any health outcomes. zine all over the world. —Greg Martinez Greg Martinez works and lives in Florida. SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:30 PM Page 7

NEWS AND COMMENT

Governor Snubs Kentucky Academy Dinosaur Adventure Land of Science About Intelligent Design Slated for Demolition

lamboyant young-earth creationist Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher Kent Hovind may see his lucrative recently snubbed the Kentucky creationist theme park Dinosaur Academy of Science (KAS) in a discus- F Adventure Land in Pensacola, Florida, fall sion about whether intelligent design beneath a wrecking ball and bulldozer. should be taught in the commonwealth’s When Hovind built the park in 2001 he public schools. refused to pay Escambia County the In his January state of the com- required $50 filing fee for a building permit. monwealth address, the governor He has long argued that the fee was an ille- endorsed the teaching of intelligent gal attempt by government to control his design as an alternative to evolution. church. Hovind executed many delays in the Following this address, KAS sent the case including switching attorneys, filing for governor a letter expressing its objec- a public defender, requesting changes in the tion “to attempts to equate ‘scientific judges hearing the case due to alleged ’ or ‘intelligent design’ bias, and failing to appear in court. (See with evolution as a scientific explana- “Stupid Dino Tricks,” SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, tion of events,” according to Jeanne November/December 2004.) Harris, executive director of KAS. In March 2006, the case finally had a The governor responded with a letter hearing before Circuit Judge Michael Allen, stating that intelligent design is a “self- who ruled the owners of the park were in evident truth” and that not teaching contempt of court. Within days Escambia intelligent design in science classes County authorities locked up the museum, would “undermine the foundation of Governor Ernie Fletcher. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell science center, fossil shop, and schoolhouse our nation.” He further commented buildings, and levied a fine of $500 per day if that it “disappoints and astounds me The Kentucky Academy of Science the buildings are used or occupied. Eric that the so-called intellectual elite are so was founded in 1914, and its member- Hovind, Kent’s son, appeared before the concerned about accepting self-evident ship encompasses 700 scientists and aca- Escambia County Commission during their truths that nearly 90 percent of the pop- demics across the commonwealth. Since April 6, 2006, meeting and appealed for an ulation understands.” 1981, the academy has passed four reso- exemption from the county’s permitting However, it appears that this letter lutions opposing the teaching of cre- requirements as a religious organization. He was not even written as a direct response ationism and supporting the teaching of was advised that the park must comply with to KAS. Rather, it seems to be a form let- evolution, with the most recent being a the court’s order and accede to the county’s ter sent out by the governor’s office in unanimous vote during its annual meet- permitting requirements. The April 7, 2006, response to any letter expressing concern ing in November 2005, according to a Pensacola News Journal quoted Commission about the teaching of intelligent design. December press release. Chairman Mike Whitehead advising Hovind Immediately after the governor’s While the governor supports the that “Scripture also says ‘Render unto Caesar address in January, Brent Norris of teaching of intelligent design, he noted what Caesar demands.’ And right now, Edmonson County, Kentucky, wrote in his letter that no new legislation was Caesar demands a building permit.” the governor expressing similar con- needed because Kentucky law (KRS In late March 2006, Hovind posted a cerns, posting both his letter and the 158.177) already allows the teaching of message on the Dinosaur Adventure Land governor’s reply on his blog (www.brent- creationism in Kentucky schools. Web site decrying the actions of the court. norris.net/blog/?p=191). The governor’s Furthermore, that law requires science He asked visitors to the Web site for dona- reply to Norris was identical to the teachers to give credit on exams for tions and to contact Escambia County response he sent to KAS. According to -based accounts of human origins. Commissioners and other officials to Ken Carstens, KAS legislative commit- —David Ludden demand they “stop this madness.” He also tee chair, the academy was not initially suggests that, if their efforts fail, “DAL can aware that the governor’s response was a David Ludden is an assistant professor of move to a more God-fearing county.” A generic letter, commenting that the inci- psychology at Lindsey Wilson College in final order on this case is still pending, dent was “very interesting.” Columbia, Kentucky. awaiting a hearing of Hovind’s appeal of the previous court decision. —Greg Martinez SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:31 PM Page 8

NEWS AND COMMENT

‘Alien Rains’ of Kerala July and September 2001 have defied all Indian Express reported (on August 6, efforts to identify them. But since 2003, 2001) that the Center for Earth Science Not So Alien after All two scientists, Godfrey Louis and Studies (CESS) and the Tropical Botanic Santhosh Kumar, believe they’ve solved Since January 2006, news headlines the Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) the mystery: the particles are extraterres- world over have advanced the claim that had determined that the rains were col- trial (ET) cells released into the rains extraterrestrial microbes rained down on ored by some kind of spore. Then in from a meteor explosion. India. Even the cover of the New November of 2001, commissioned by the Scientist read “Alien Rain” (March 4, Could this be the first evidence of ET government of India, the CESS and 2006). What is the basis for such an life? Not so fast! It turns out that the gov- TBGRI issued a report concluding that extraordinary claim? The reports claim ernment of India had commissioned a the spores coloring the rain had been that microscopic particles that colored study of the colored rain. Within two grown in culture and were from an aerial monsoon rains in Kerala, India, between weeks of the first colored rain, The algae of the Trentepohlia genus that grows

A Swedish Professorship in Parapsychology

hen the Danish margarine manufacturer Poul Thorsen W died in 1962, he had recently bequeathed a large sum of money for a professorship in parapsy- chology and hypnology. The universities of Stockholm and Copenhagen declined the offer. Lund University in southern Sweden accepted it. However, two per- sons were entitled to an allowance from the same fund. Therefore, the donation could not be used until the last of them had passed away, in 2001. In May 2003 Lund University an- nounced a professorship in “psychology, Lund University including parapsychology and hypnol- ogy.” From the thirty applicants the he said that paranormal phenomena Last September 1 Cardeña was briefly University selected an American, Etzel (including , precognition, and interviewed on a national evening news Cardeña, who was appointed to the telekinesis) have been demonstrated in a broadcast. Referring to attempts to in- position in June 2005 and took office large number of controlled studies. fluence random number generators by para- on September 1. The choice was contro- In reply, two Swedish skeptics (Sven normal means he said that “there are a num- versial since none of the three members Ove Hansson and Dan Larhammar) ber of well-controlled experimental studies of the expert evaluation committee and two parapsychologists (Jan Dalkvist where people have replicated what seems to ranked Cardeña first. Cardeña is pri- and Joakim Westerlund) wrote a joint be something like this happening.” marily known as a researcher in theoret- article in which they pointed out that As yet, Cardeña has held this office only ical hypnology, and has published very Cardeña’s statements did not accurately for a few months. It remains to be seen what little within the field of parapsychology. reflect the state of knowledge in the field directions his academic activities will take. Cardeña is apparently the only professor of his professorship. Cardeña replied, —Jesper Jerkert and Sven Ove Hansson in parapsychology in Europe. claiming that he had been misquoted, A few days after his appointment, but without retracting the central claim Jesper Jerkert and Sven Ove Hansson are, Cardeña was interviewed in Aftonbladet, that paranormal phenomena have been respectively, the chairperson and founding a major Swedish daily. In the interview, scientifically demonstrated. chairperson of Swedish Skeptics.

8 Volume 30, Issue 4 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:32 PM Page 9

NEWS AND COMMENT

prolifically in Kerala. The findings were away. But by the ET theory, the particles ticles in question were found to be a published in Eos: Transactions of the that fell in the colored rains of late known variety of algal spore. American Geophysical Union (83[31]:335, September would have been falling Regarding the DNA question, 2002). None of the alarming “alien rain” straight down continuously since the Professor Milton Wainwright of Shef- reports refuted the Eos study’s findings; meteor burst in July, which, to be blunt, field University told me that his tests of they simply didn’t report those findings. is simply inconceivable nonsense that by the particles sent to him by Louis and So what was being presented as an itself refutes the whole ET theory. Kumar find that they do contain DNA. unsolved mystery was in fact a long- Other aspects of the ET story should But another DNA-test procedure did solved mystery. Yet even without the have aroused skepticism. For example, not find DNA. However, even with such official findings, there were important Louis and Kumar claim that their tests mixed DNA findings, given (1) the find- aspects of this case that should have of the particles found no DNA, and ings reporting in Eos, whose researchers raised serious skepticism. For example, from that finding Louis argues: “The grew the particles into a Trentepohlia the purported means of transporting the genetic molecule DNA is present in all algae, (2) that Louis and Kumar report alleged ET cells to the Earth was a living organisms found on Earth. So the that they heated the particles to 370° C, meteor. But the only basis for a meteor absence of DNA indicates that they are but spore DNA can be damaged above burst was merely that some Keralan res- extraterrestrial.” But that inference from 100° C, and (3) the fallacious inference idents reported extremely loud thunder allegedly unique cells to ETs is a non from oddities to ETs, there is simply no and flash of light just before the first col- sequitur, since there are no known traits reason to doubt the terrestrial origin of ored rain. But a better explanation is of ET cells. The argument simply the particles that colored the rains of common thunder, not an extremely rare invents a category of things (ET cells) Kerala, India. audible meteor burst. Moreover, how and a category-inclusion criterion (lack- —Ian Williams Goddard could a meteor burst on July 25 account ing DNA) without any prior empirical for colored rains falling sporadically justification. By the same reasoning, any Ian Williams Goddard is majoring in from July to September? The monsoon unique type of organism discovered on computer science at the University of winds passing over Kerala would have Earth could be categorized as an invasive Maryland University College and does quickly swept away airborne micro- ET. Of course, not only is the proffered archival research at the National Library scopic meteor debris to locations far inference to ETs fallacious, but the par- of Medicine.

Alien Autopsy Hoax Revealed—Again

Many people have seen the grainy, black- and-white film showing the supposed postmortem examination of one of the extraterrestrials who allegedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Some believe it; many others believe that it’s a fake. Recently, a model-making sculptor from the British film industry has publicly admitted to having created the aliens in the 1995 film. John Humphreys, a graduate of the Royal Academy who has previously worked in theater and on such projects as Doctor Who, Max Headroom, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, has admitted to sculpting the latex alien corpses that went under the knife in the 91-minute film. The infamous alien autopsy film from 1995. According to The Times of London, the States. Philip Mantle, a long-time investi- The aliens dissected in the original film was shot in an apartment in Camden gator of the hoax, told The Times that hoax film (and in a new movie that’s in the north of London, far from its sup- “Humphreys had been a prime suspect based on it) are latex models molded posed setting in the southwestern United but had never admitted involvement.” from clay sculptures, with their body

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER July / August 2006 9 SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:33 PM Page 10

REACH OUT TO A NEW FUTURE!

This phase of the campaign spotlights a family of high-impact projects.

As construction of the Center for Inquiry–Transnational expansion is completed, we turn to new challenge goals in our multi-year, $26.26 million New Future Fund campaign. The New Future Fund is an ambitious campaign to support the Center for Inquiry, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, and the Council for Secular Humanism through endowment funding and support for expanded programming. The New Future Fund was launched after thorough study, and its goals reflect needs judged indispensable if the Center for Inquiry is to The Center for Inquiry has obtained United Nations recognition as a continue serving society as the leading champion of reason, scientific nongovernmental organization (NGO), opening new avenues for naturalism, and humanist values. activism and human enrichment. The Center for Inquiry presses for humanism, science, and reason worldwide. Centers for Inquiry have been established in Argentina, China, , France, Germany, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, Russia, and elsewhere, pursuing regionally tailored agendas. The Center and its affiliates have facilitated international meetings Intelligent design (ID) theory is creationism’s new of humanists and skeptics for more than two decades. Your gift to the face, sparking some 70 new controversies in an New Future Fund will help this transnational expansion continue. astonishing 26 states. CSICOP is gearing up to fight back with grassroots outreach to mobilize skeptics at the local level when ID proposals loom; a stimu- lating new Web site, www.csicop.org/creationwatch; and media outreach, from new literature to books to The Center for Inquiry movement began with publishing, still essential top-shelf online columnists. to our mission. Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry headline a family of As ID advocates plan to shoulder Darwin and the scientific viewpoint magazines in three languages, newsletters, and Web sites. Professional out of public schools, the New Future Fund helps CSICOP say no! public education and media relations further amplify our message. Campus outreach presents our message of science and reason to the leaders of tomorrow. Your gift to the New Future Fund can support these and other Your gift to the New Future Fund can help to support core pub- urgent priorities. We gratefully accept gifts of cash, publicly traded lishing outreach (this issue of Skeptical Inquirer is four pages longer securities, paid-up insurance policies, and other assets. We are pleased to offer attractive incentive and naming opportunities to than early-2005 issues, thanks to support from the New Future honor major contributors. All gifts are fully tax-deductible as pro- Fund), fuel our exploitation of new communications technologies, and vided by law. Campaign personnel are available to meet with donors fund more aggressive on-campus programs. The New Future Fund is to provide updates on our plans and to discuss other commemora- key to the future promotion of skepticism, science, reason, and human- tive opportunities tailored to particular needs and interests. ism by the Center for Inquiry and its affiliates. Contact Sherry Rook, Vice President of Planning and Development Center for Inquiry–Transnational PO Box 741, Amherst NY 14226-0741 Please join us and declare your support today. (716) 636-4869, ext. 311 Write, call, e-mail, or return the bound-in E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.centerforinquiry.net postcard (at right) today!

The Center for Inquiry, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), and the Council for Secular Humanism are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organizations. SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:33 PM Page 11

NEWS AND COMMENT

cavities packed with “sheep brains, The 1995 film has always been from a retired American military film- chicken entrails, and knuckle joints” looked at with a great deal of skepticism maker. The original film, he says, was obtained from a nearby meat market, in at least some circles (see Joe Nickell’s damaged when it was re-exposed to air according to Humphreys. In an online piece “Alien Autopsy Hoax” in the after so many years, so recreating it was interview with the BBC, he says that he Nov./Dec. 1995 SI), but is nonetheless the best option. didn’t know what the producers of the thought to be authentic by some enthu- So is the newly released comedy a fic- film intended to do with the footage siasts. Interestingly, however, the hoaxed tion based on a hoax based on another when they hired him; he just ap- 1995 autopsy film is still said to be based hoax based on a rumor? Perhaps only proached it as “an exciting thing to be on an older film that does show the real future confessions will tell the whole involved in.” event: an autopsy performed on an story. The new movie, Alien Autopsy, is a extraterrestrial in the New Mexican —David Park Musella retelling of the making of the hoax desert in 1947. Ray Santilli, producer of autopsy film and was released in Britain the 1995 hoax, maintains that it was David Park Musella is an editorial assis- in April 2006. based on real footage that he obtained tant with the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

The Wrong Stuff: Men’s Magazine’s Psychic Columnist

hile popular women’s maga- Instead of providing any useful, inter- not going to answer. That could be dan- zines have for decades featured esting, or verifiable information from “the gerous.” For as often as stories are told of W regular columns, other side,” Shakur’s spirit—as spirits restless spirits seeking revenge for their magazines aimed at the men’s market have often do—stuck with vague information. murders, you’d think they would take the also gotten into the paranormal act. Though Not that the interviewer didn’t try: When opportunity when contacted by mediums astrology is frowned upon (studies show to avenge their deaths by giving damning that fewer men than women believe in information or directing police to incrim- astrology), magazines include columns and inating evidence. Shakur’s spirit seems to articles on topics such as ghosts and psychics prefer that his murder remain unavenged. along with scantily clad women, sports fea- Bullis also states that Shakur and Abraham tures, and reviews of the latest “guy gear.” Lincoln “hang out” together in the after- The magazine Stuff, for example, has a life; apparently the Great Emancipator regular column called “Beyond the Grave: and the rapper/convicted rapist have much Interviews with Dead Celebrities.” It’s not in common. clear how tongue-in-cheek the readers take In the following month’s installment, it, but the psychic is certainly serious about Bullis gave insight into comedian Chris it. She is “world-renowned medium Victoria Farley’s afterworldly presence. Oddly Bullis” (her Web site also insists that she’s enough, just about the only people that “internationally known”; rarely do psychics Bullis mentions whom Farley is now tout themselves as “locally known”). “hanging out with” are ex-Saturday Apparently some celebrity interviews Night Live cast members—not child- are easier to arrange after the subjects have hood friends, not other relatives—rec- died, perhaps because their schedules ognizable dead folks from his show such quickly clear up. In the April 2006 issue as Phil Hartman and John Belushi. And Bullis supposedly contacted slain rap icon how is Farley doing these days? You Tupac Shakur. The first question among asked, “Do you know who killed you?” guessed it: “He’s happy.” (Shakur’s murder remains unsolved) about a dozen asked by the magazine —Benjamin Radford (through Bullis) was how he is doing now Bullis—er, Shakur—demurred with, “Of that he’s dead, and Shakur’s fans will be course! When you pass to the next life you Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the relieved to know that “he’s doing well.” see the whole thing. That’s a question I’m SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:33 PM Page 12

NEWS AND COMMENT

Center for Inquiry Opens in India

Jawaharlal Nehru, the founder of modern India, famously called its mills and dams “temples of modern India.” Article 51(a) of the Indian constitution enjoins its citi- zens to cultivate “scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry.” The government-supported Indian Institutes of Technology are standard setters around the world. And yet, paradoxically, the orthodox Hinduism enjoys great popular- ity among India’s elite scientists, and gurus like Sai Baba command consider- able respectability and public influence. Compare the United States, where elite natural scientists are among the most sec- Dr. Vijayam Gora, director of the Gora Science in Vijayawada, and Dr. P. M. Bhargava, Vice ular-minded people: the rate of belief in a Chairman of the Knowledge Commission of the Government of India. personal deity among physicists and cos- mologists in the National Academy of Sciences is less than 10 percent. This paradoxical situation was one of the topics of a February 2006 gath- ering of outstanding scientists, acade- mics, journalists, and activists in Hyderabad, on the occasion of the launch of the Center for Inquiry’s new Indian branch. The chief guest was Dr. P.M. Bhargava, one of the country’s most distinguished cellular biologists and Vice Chairman of the Knowledge Commission of the Government of India. Also present were the noted guru-buster Premanand; Amardeo Sarma of the Center for Inquiry in Germany; David Triggle, a professor The inaugural meeting of the Center for Inquiry-India brought together experts from the fields of emeritus of pharmacology at the State science, philosophy, human rights, and international affairs. University of New York; and Austin Santishree Pandit, a professor of interna- science, and so-called Vedic science in Dacey, United Nations representative tional relations at the University of works such as Prophets Facing Back- for the Center for Inquiry in New York Pune. One of CFI/India’s first activities wards: Postmodern Critiques of Science City. The opening of CFI/India was was to meet with the Vice Chancellor of and Hindu in India (Rut- mentioned in a February 23, 2006, fea- Sri Potti Sriramulu Telugu University in gers University Press, 2003). In Febru- ture story in The Hindu, India’s largest Hyderabad to demand the discontinua- ary 2006, Dr. Nanda appeared at a English-language daily newspaper. tion of the university’s courses in astrol- Center for Inquiry conference in In the spring of 2006, CFI/India ogy and Vaastu, an ancient spiritual sys- Florida. opened offices in the high-tech city of tem of architecture and environmental The Center for Inquiry/India is on- Hyderabad and established a research design similar to . line at www.centerforinquiryindia.org. library on science, skepticism, philoso- The Center has also begun to collab- —Austin Dacey phy, and humanism. The branch will be orate with Meera Nanda, the Indian- led by Dr. Innaiah Narisetti, a philoso- born science-studies scholar who has Austin Dacey is Executive Director of the pher specializing in the work of the documented the connections between Center for Inquiry/Metro New York and Indian humanist M.N. Roy, and Dr. , postmodern anti- the Center’s representative to the UN. 

12 Volume 30, Issue 4 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:33 PM Page 13

COMMENT AND OPINION

investigators worldwide it invigorated in forcefully addressing these and sim- In Defense of the ilar claims, providing detailed scientific analyses that showed their empirical poverty, and—in the end—debunking Higher Values them. Solidly. Convincingly. Compre- hensively. I think it has been a remark- KENDRICK FRAZIER able achievement. Of course, as many of us note, although the cultural climate has shifted a lot, and in some respects for the better, the modern communica- tions revolution has multiplied almost exponentially the number and types of outlets now available for the rapid hen Paul Kurtz brought us enced and entwined broad segments promulgation of all new information to the SUNY–Buffalo cam- of society. and ideas, good and bad, reliable and Wpus thirty years ago to found And reports of UFOs, despite the unreliable—and that goes for pseudo- CSICOP, the nation was awash in what critical Condon report only seven years scientific and paranormal nonsense he called “The New Irrationalisms.” earlier, flew in regularly and gained and all its popular manifestations. Velikovskyism saw ancient world credulous publicity in the press. I won’t even begin to detail all this history through a bizarre prism here. We’ve dealt with all these of -affecting plane- matters in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER tary pinballs. We have never limited now for years—and of course Von Dänikenism attributed will continue to do so. Also, we major achievements of ancient ourselves to just the paranormal have never limited ourselves to history, especially in the New and pseudoscience. We deal just the paranormal and pseu- World, not to the ingenuity of doscience. We deal with all top- but to with all topics at the intersection ics at the intersection of sci- visiting ence, public perception, and Earth and stimulating creation of science, public perception, public misperception, with of its archaeological wonders. emphasis on those that attract Gellerism promoted a show- and public misperception, with large notice or that raise impor- man conjuror as a real psychic emphasis on those that attract tant public issues. with an ability to bend spoons What I want to do here is with his mind and to cause sev- large notice or that raise sketch out some new and—I eral prominent but credulous think—disturbing aspects of physicists to lose their grips on important public issues. the cultural climate we find reality. ourselves in and emphasize the Astrology had gained such a higher values that CSICOP and foothold on thought that astronomer In the intervening three decades the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER exemplify and Bart Bok and Paul Kurtz provoked the specific claims that we might promote—values that seem essential worldwide controversy over a simple broadly label paranormal or pseudo- to a modern, progressive, humane “Objections to Astrology” statement scientific have changed dramatically. society; values that are under assault signed by 192 prominent scientists say- Most of the specific manifestations of from broad quarters of society here ing that astrology was bunk and had the enthusiasms I just mentioned have and abroad. No matter the specific, nothing to do with astronomy. waned. Some have even disappeared. topical subjects we analyze and cri- Paranormalism seemed every- The situation has changed so much tique—the defense of these values is where, and mystical thought that Paul sometimes argues that no what we are really all about. that arose as part of the countercul- one is interested in the paranormal If thirty years ago Paul Kurtz and ture revolution of the late ‘60s influ- anymore. (I almost detect a certain others were worried that we were in longing!) We have some interesting danger of descending toward a new Kendrick Frazier is the editor of the internal debates about that, but to the dark age of superstition, paranormal- SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. This commentary is degree it is true I have argued, and still ism, mysticism, and pseudoscience, we based on his talk at the CSICOP 30th do argue, that one key reason has in fact seem now to be in danger of anniversary observance at CFI head- been the remarkable work of CSICOP descending toward a new dark age of quarters in Amherst, New York, April 1, and the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER . . . and the a slightly different—and perhaps even 2006. network of scientists, scholars, and more dangerous—sort. The first was

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more one of credulous, wide-eyed The basic rights of women to make scientific outlook itself. They are acceptance of wondrous, incredible their own choices, to be educated, and attacks on intellectual inquiry and claims. In retrospect, it all has a certain to shape their own futures. thought—the open-minded, no-holds- air of innocence. These claims all had A deep appreciation for education barred examination of competing their counterparts, after all, in science and a nurturing of environments for ideas and claims that is essential to an and could be seen or interpreted as creativity and achieving novel solu- open, democratic society. just misguided but understandable tions to problems. In many respects — although their fascinations uninformed by real sci- A related deep appreciation for not proponents in America would no ence. Show people the real science just the useful achievements of science doubt dispute being so character- and they might easily—at least in prin- but for the methods of science in ized—these are attacks on democracy ciple—shift their support to it. UFOs → determining and advancing provi- itself. For these fundamentalist parti- the Search for Extraterrestrial sional new truths, small and large, sans would—if allowed—willingly Intelligence. Astrology → astronomy. about the natural world. impose their own, very specific ideo- Van Däniken pseudoarchaeology → An acceptance that those methods of logical views on those they oppose. real . Psychic powers and science often result in reliable judgments We have to fight these trends. parapsychology → experimental psy- about what is real and what is not. We will fight these trends. chology and modern studies of Our efforts at CSICOP and in neuroscience and cognition. the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER can’t and And so on. don’t deal with these issues in But the new areas you and I the abstract. Instead, we exam- are most concerned about now The new areas we are ine, critique, review, and aren’t like that. Not at all. They report on specific, concrete arise from deep-seated ideolo- most concerned about topics, within the broad con- gies. They arise from a danger- arise from deep-seated text of science and reason. ous capturing of mainstream, But it is important to keep liberal, open-minded, religious ideologies. They arise from in mind the higher values we viewpoints by those with far nevertheless are defending: more extreme, narrow, rigid, a dangerous capturing of • Reason and rationality, authoritarian, judgmental reli- mainstream, liberal, among the highest, most hard- gious viewpoints. They a- won attributes of thinking, rise from a willingness, even a open-minded, religious independent people. devout—many think God- • The scientific outlook, sanctioned—determination to viewpoints by those with its rich tradition of cre- impose those viewpoints on ative, open-minded, empirical everyone else. We’ve seen this with far more extreme, inquiry and evidence-based abroad, but it is happening narrow viewpoints. probing of nature’s secrets. here in American too. • The skeptical attitude, a Their attacks are on many key component of the scientific things, but among those that outlook, with its obligation to concern us here are— put all new assertions to tests The open-minded tolerance of oth- A realization that we humans— of empirical evidence. ers slightly different from oneself that while unique in our humanity—are • The traditions of learning—real marks a progressive society. nevertheless part of the natural world, learning, deep and broad—and the The love of learning and the quest and derived from and influenced by a value of education not only in achiev- for new knowledge that mark a pro- long co-evolutionary history with the ing a better life for each person but in gressive society. other life forms, large to microscopic, creating reflective minds and in The willingness to entertain and of the natural world. improving the lot of society. examine new ideas that marks a pro- • The deepest traditions of democ- gressive society. In short, these attacks are on many racy—valuing human dignity and A free and open society’s distrust of key aspects of the modern world first rights, drawing on the free and open authoritarian dogma, whatever the shaped by the Enlightenment and the interplay of ideas, and depending source—biblical or otherwise. beginnings of science—when we upon an educated, informed citizenry Freedom of expression and the began to develop the first abilities to for making wise decisions. clear separation of church and state on actually deeply understand nature which this nation was founded. and, to some degree, exert some No small matters. No small chal- Reliance on science-based evi- fledgling, limited controls of it for the lenges. dence over unexamined belief well-being of people. They are attacks Are we up to it? We have to be. and prejudice. on curiosity and learning and on the There is no choice. 

14 Volume 30, Issue 4 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:34 PM Page 15

INVESTIGATIVE FILES JOE NICKELL

Riddle of the Crystal Skulls

ere and there were not mysterious enough, around the world later editions of Danger My Hare found mysteri- Ally omitted all references to ous artifacts, crystal skulls the skull, an action which that many New Age enthu- the publishers disclaimed siasts believe possess mysti- knowledge of. cal powers. Now new To answer the many claims—and new reviews of questions posed by the crys- the evidence—spark further tal skull—specifically, Did controversy. What is the Anna Mitchell-Hedges truth about these remark- indeed find it at able objects? or, if not, where did it come from? and, Does the skull “Skull of Doom” Figure 1. The Mitchell-Hedges “Skull of Doom”—carved from a block of rock actually have the mystical Perhaps the most famous of crystal, allegedly by the ancient Mayans—is shown as it appeared in the July powers ascribed to it?—I 1936 Man, at which time it was owned by art dealer Sidney Burney. the artifacts—dubbed “the began an investigation with weirdest gem in the world” work, and it was supposedly his young my forensic colleague John (Welfare and Fairley 1980, 51) and “the adopted daughter, Anna, who found it F. Fischer that ran from 1982 to 1984. granddaddy of all crystal balls” (Garvin under an altar of the ruined city of We obtained as much data on the skull 1973, 6)—is the one commonly known Lubaantun (from the Mayan word for as possible: we combed through old as the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull. It is “place of fallen stones”). (See figure 1.) newspaper records; corresponded with referred to as “the Skull of Doom” by Mitchell-Hedges mentioned the skull major museums and laboratories; con- those who believe it holds the power of in the first edition of his auto- sulted distinguished experts; amassed death over anyone who would mock it biography, Danger My Ally (1954), yet information on the Maya, on rock crys- (Nickell 1988, 30). did not specify where or by whom it had tal, on the skull motif in art; and sought Fashioned from a single block of nat- been found. He merely published a pho- out those who had examined the skull, ural rock crystal (massive clear ) tograph of what he called “the sinister as well as Anna Mitchell-Hedges herself. although its lower jaw detaches, it Skull of Doom,” stating in his customar- So far as is known, F.A. Mitchell- weighs 11 pounds 7 ounces. It allegedly ily glib fashion: “It is at least 3,600 years Hedges—a habitual liar and faker first came to light in 1927 (or 1926 or old and according to legend was used by (Nickell 1988, 38; McConnell 1998)— 1924) during the excavation of a lost the High Priest of the Maya when per- made no reference to the skull at the Mayan citadel in Belize (then British forming esoteric rites. It is said that when time of his return from Lubaantun or in Honduras). The adventurer F.A. he willed death with the help of the skull, the years immediately following. In the Mitchell-Hedges participated in the death invariably followed.” Of the skull’s 1930s he wrote newspaper articles and a provenance, Mitchell-Hedges said only book that discussed Lubaantun at Joe Nickell is CSICOP’s Senior Research that “How it came into my possession I length, but omitted the “Skull of Doom” Fellow. His Web site is www.joenickell.com. have reason for not revealing.” As if that in favor of relatively humble figurines.

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Evidence Uncovered Hedges. Might not such a person have “the result of intense concentration In fact, as we discovered, the earliest threatened to expose the deceiver? and meditation.” published reference to the celebrated We had hoped to conduct an exami- Less in touch with reality is the skull—the July 1936 issue of Man (a nation of the skull in anticipation of approach of one Joshua Shapiro, who, British anthropological journal)— learning more about its origins, and we with others, has had channeling ses- makes no reference to the adventurer. had contacted various experts—includ- sions to seek psychic impressions from Instead the skull was described as “in ing famed microanalyst Walter C. the crystal artifact. These led him to the possession of Mr. Sydney McCrone—about additional analyses opine that it was an “ancient com- Burney,” a London art dealer (Morant that might be performed. Disappoint- puter” storing messages for humanity. 1936, 105). ingly, however, Anna Mitchell-Hedges Instead of a Mayan origin, he posits Moreover, there is documentary evi- (1973) refused. Nevertheless, we learned that the skull could be from a lost civi- dence that Mitchell-Hedges bought the that, contrary to assertions that the skull lization or even some extraterrestrial skull in 1944 from Burney, who was said lacked any evidence of modern work- site (Hunter 2005). to have owned it for the preceding ten manship, there were “traces of mechani- Closer to earth, at age ninety-eight years (Morrill 1972, 28; Welfare and cal grinding” on the teeth (Dorland Anna Mitchell-Hedges told reporter Fairley 1980, 53). Anna Mitchell- 1973) and holes, intended for support Colin Hunter (2005) that the skull was Hedges has attempted to rationalize this pegs, that were drilled by metal the secret to her longevity. Hunter had damning evidence by claiming—in a (Hammond 1983). made a pilgrimage to visit her at a letter to me—that her father had left the friend’s home in Indiana. She stuck to Further Claims skull with Burney “as security for a loan her story about having found the skull to finance an expedition” (Mitchell- There remained many fanciful asser- at Lubaantun, although continuing to Hedges 1983). tions about the skull. In his autobiog- give conflicting versions of the facts. Asked if she had any record—such as raphy, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges (1954) Hunter’s investigative report reviewed a letter or newspaper clipping—that described the “Skull of Doom” as my findings and essentially substanti- might help establish her father’s prior “dating back at least 3,600 years, and ated and augmented them. ownership of the skull, Anna Mitchell- taking about 150 years to rub down As to the true origin of the Mitchell- Hedges (1983) replied that she had “no with sand”; the rock crystal, he exag- Hedges crystal skull, there is little evi- documentary evidence” but added, “all gerated, was “nearly as hard as dia- dence beyond the object itself, the mea- my father’s papers were lost in Hatteras mond.” He said further of the skull: ger historical record, and some similar during a cyclone—photographs and “It is stated in legend that it was used rock crystal skulls in museums and pri- all—also a trunk of his belongings was by a high priest of the Maya to con- vate collections. lost in Plymouth.” Be that as it may, centrate on and will death. It is said Additional Skulls none of those who were actually at to be the embodiment of all evil; sev- Lubaantun ever mentioned Anna being eral people who have cynically Various other crystal skulls exist, ranging at the site or the skull being discovered laughed at it have died, others have from as small as an inch in width to a there (Nickell 1988, 35–36). been stricken and become seriously half-life-sized one in the Musée de Subsequently, a letter surfaced that ill.” Or so “it is said.” Richard M. l’Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris further discredits Anna Mitchell- Garvin, author of The Crystal Skull and other life-sized examples, notably Hedges’s claim that she discovered the (1973, 100), concluded: “. . .the one in the . They are crystal skull at Lubaantun. Written by claims that the crystal skull has generally classified as Aztec, but there are Sydney Burney to George Vaillant of the caused or can cause death should doubts that any of them are pre- American Museum of Natural History, most likely be filed right next to the Colombian, according to Gordon F. it makes clear that Burney had the skull curses of old King Tut.” Ekholm (1983), an anthropologist from at that time (March 21, 1933), and that Other claims about the skull also the American Museum of Natural he had indeed “bought it” from an un- failed to survive scrutiny. One was that History. named collector (Burney 1933). it remained at a constant temperature of At least one, the British Museum Clearly F.A. Mitchell-Hedges’s crystal 70° Fahrenheit regardless of the temper- skull, has recently been scientifically skull did not come from Lubaantun, but ature it was subjected to. In fact, the examined. Although fashioned in a sin- he acquired it later from Burney. This skull was no different in its physical gle piece and having more stylized, cir- might explain why references to the properties from other natural quartz cular eye sockets than the Mitchell- skull were deleted from subsequent edi- crystals, according to California art Hedges skull, it nevertheless looks tions of Danger My Ally. No doubt in expert Frank Dorland (1983). remarkably like it (Nickell 1988). 1954 (some three years after Sydney Mystical properties of the skull— Ian Freestone, former head of the Burney’s death) there were persons who perceived sounds of silver bells and museum’s scientific research and now a could recall Burney’s prior ownership of images such as faces—are probably professor at the University of Wales, led the skull and its sale to Mitchell- only what Garvin (1973, 100) terms a museum team that conducted the

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examination. The scientists used dental atively inspired. They feel healing . . .” sonalities, and transporting them to a resin to obtain casts of the skull’s sur- (Max 2005). mystical realm from which they return face, then studied them with a scanning with addled senses. It seems likely that . According to pro- Toward a Solution further revelations about the crystal skulls fessor Freestone: “It does appear that in Interestingly, Jane Walsh, an archivist at will best come, not from channeling ses- some areas of the skull they have used a the Smithsonian Institution, has uncov- sions, but from science and scholarship. rotary tool, and as far as we know that ered documents showing that at least sort of technique was only introduced two of the crystal skulls were sold by the Acknowledgments after the Europeans came to the same man, a French collector of pre- The portion of this article regarding the Americas, so it’s post-Columbus.” He Columbian artifacts named Eugene Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull is largely abridged from my book Secrets of the also observed that the type of rock crys- Boban. The British Museum purchased Supernatural (Nickell 1988). Also, once tal used has never been found in its skull in 1897 from Tiffany’s, the New again I am indebted to Timothy Binga, Mexico, the domain of the . York jeweler, which in turn had bought Director of the Center for Inquiry Libraries, The evidence led Freestone to con- it from Boban. (Boban had earlier at- and Vaughn Rees for research assistance. clude that the skull was likely a fake, tempted to sell it to the Smithsonian.) References apparently fashioned from a lump of And the skull at the Musée de l’Homme Burney, Sydney. 1933. Letter to George Vaillant, rather poor quality Brazilian crystal. in Paris was donated by a collector who March 21; copy from Gordon F. Ekholm, The great gem’s cutting and polishing likewise purchased it from Boban American Museum of Natural History. was probably done by a in (Connor 2005). Connor, Steve. 2005. The mystery of the British Museum’s crystal skull is solved. It’s a fake. nineteenth-century Europe, perhaps From what we know, it is conceivable Independent News (UK), January 7. Germany, who used a rotating wheel that the Mitchell-Hedges skull was also Dorland, Frank. 1973. Quoted in Garvin 1973, like those common to the jewelry sold by Boban. Putting aside the dis- 84. ———. 1983. Letter to Joe Nickell, May 20. houses of that place and time (Pennink credited claim that it was discovered at Ekholm, Gordon F. 1983. Letters to Joe Nickell, 2005; Connor 2005). Lubaantun, the skull’s provenance traces January 5; February 1. In recent years, yet another skull— back to Sydney Burney who owned it as Garvin, Richard M. 1973. The Crystal Skull. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. dubbed “Max,” the Texas Crystal early as 1933. He wrote that it was “for Hammond, Norman. 1983. Letter to Joe Nickell, Skull—has surfaced. It is billed as the several years in the possession of the col- May 27. “largest ancient crystal skull,” and is lector from whom I bought it and he in Hunter, Colin. 2005. Caretaker to a mystery. Kitchener, Ontario, Record, August 20. reputed to be up to 36,000 years old. his turn had it from an Englishman in Kunz, George Frederick. [1913] 1971. The However, despite the allegation that it whose collection it had been also for sev- Curious Lore of Precious Stones; reprinted New was “found in a tomb in Guatemala eral years” (Burney 1933). But where York: Dover. Max, the crystal skull. 2001. Ad for an “Evening between 1924 and 1926” (“Max” did the English collector get it? Circle with JoAnn Parks,” The Learning Light 2005), there appears to be no docu- A possible source for many of the (The Learning Light Foundation newsletter, mentation of that claim. Rather, the crystal skulls was the renowned gem- Anaheim, California) 7:11 (December), 3. Max: The Texas crystal skull. 2005. Online at skull’s owner, a JoAnn Parks of stone center of Idar and Oberstein in www.v-j-enterprises.com/maxcs.html; Houston, reportedly received the skull Germany. The area underwent a resur- accessed December 22. from one Norbu Chen, a “Tibetan gence in the 1870s with the shipment of McConnell, Rob. [1996]. The Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull. Online at www.crystallinks.com/ Healer” whom she met in 1973. quartz crystals from . Those were crystalskulls.html, accessed January 3, 2005. Before his death he gave her and her carved into various objects—including Mitchell-Hedges, Anna. 1983. Letters to Joe Nickell, March 1 and April 25. husband the artifact which they kept “even a few crystal skulls”—by the Mitchell-Hedges, F.A. 1954. Danger My Ally. in a closet from 1980 to June 1987, region’s skilled artisans. (See Max 2005, London: Elek Books, 240–243; caption to while “Max” talked to her in her which displays a modern example; see illus. facing p. 241. Morant, G.M. 1936. A morphological compari- dreams. Then, seeing a television pro- also Kunz 1913, 54.) son of two crystal skulls. Man 36 (July), gram on UFOs that featured the New Agers assert that, according to 105–107. Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull, they “prophecy,” one day thirteen authentic Morrill, Sibley S. 1972. Ambrose Bierce, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges and the Crystal Skull. San began to publicize Max. ancient crystal skulls—all reputedly Francisco: Caledon Press. According to Parks, Max says he from Mexico or Central America—will Nickell, Joe. 1988. Gem of death, chapter 3 of comes both “from Pleiades” (a group of be brought together and, by uniting Secrets of the Supernatural. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 29–46. stars in the constellation Taurus) and people of all races, will heal the earth Pennink, Emily. 2005. ‘Aztec’ crystal skull ‘likely “” (the mythical continent). (Max 2001; Smoker 1995). Yet none of to be fake.’ Online at http://icwales.icnetwork. Parks adds: “He is a gift to mankind. the famous skulls appears to be pre- co.uk/printable_version.cfm?objectid= 15050983&siteid=50082; accessed January 7. He’s here as a teacher, and as a tool, to Columbian, and all may, in fact, be Smoker, Debbie. 1995. Max, the crystal skull. bring people together as a Oneness.... European forgeries. New Avenues, June/July; reprinted at Max He seems to open up an in the The chief power of the skulls seems to 2005. Welfare, Simon, and John Fairley. 1980. Arthur C. mind.... People pick up visions of the be that of attracting the credulous, Clarke’s Mysterious World. New York: A&W past, of other planets and some are cre- including some with fantasy-prone per- Publishers. 

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THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI

When Philosophy Matters

hilosophy is often accused of being ID is science” (section 4, pp. 64–89). sophical point in its own right, often out of touch with reality, the eso- Jones’s decision is compelling, and pos- ignored by philosophically naïve scien- Pteric pursuit of a vanishing acade- sibly a fatal blow to the legal aspirations tists such as Richard Dawkins). Indeed, mic elite that all but forgot about of the ID movement; more to the point the judge explicitly invokes the crucial Socrates’ habit of roaming the streets of of this column, it is a fine example of concept of methodological naturalism, Athens and talking to the local youth how philosophy matters in everyday life, the idea that supernaturalism is kept out about the “love of wisdom.” Philosophy considering that it will affect the educa- of science not as a result of an atheistic of science, perhaps, suffers from an even tion of countless children in Penn- position but as a pragmatic device that worse image problem, being often sylvania and likely, eventually, around allows science to proceed in its quest. shunned even by that other out-of-touch, the country. Supernatural “explanations” are, as academic elite—scientists themselves. Jones found that ID fails to be sci- Miller puts it in his testimony, a “sci- It was therefore refreshing to see that ence based on three points: a) it violates ence stopper.” (Amusingly, in a cross- a few months ago, philosophy of science the centuries-old ground rule that sci- examination, Michael Behe was forced was the deciding factor in a landmark ence cannot entail supernatural explana- to admit that if science were to be legal decision in defense of science, the tions; b) the central argument of ID, the broadened sufficiently to encompass ID, Dover, Pennsylvania, case against the so-called “irreducible complexity” of astrology would qualify too.) teaching of so-called intelligent design biological structures, is an example of Second, Jones notes that the idea that in public schools there. Not only were the logical of false dichotomy; irreducible complexity is a challenge to there two philosophers (Barbara Forrest, and c) ID’s attacks on evolution have evolution is built on a logical fallacy. In of Southeastern Louisiana University, not only been refuted by the scientific particular, the judge refers to a previous and Robert Pennock, of Michigan State community but, for philosophical rea- landmark decision, McLean v. Arkansas University) among the chief witnesses at sons, would not matter even if success- Board of Education (1982), in which stan- the trial, but even scientists like Ken ful, because they do not represent a pos- dard creationism was defeated on the Miller, a cell biologist at Brown itive argument in favor of ID. grounds that it is based on a “contrived University, made ample use of philo- Concerning the first point, the dualism”: even if Behe and company sophical talking points. ground rule that disallows supernatural could convincingly show that current The result was a 139-page decision explanations in science, Jones cites the evolutionary theory cannot explain suffi- handed down by Judge John Jones (a philosopher Robert Pennock as an ciently complex structures, that would do conservative appointed by George H. expert witness to the fact that the scien- precisely nothing to advance the ID W. Bush, and hence beyond suspicions tific revolution of the sixteenth through cause, since there are many other possible of “liberal activism”), which revolves seventeenth centuries has been success- alternatives, including scientific theories around a core section, titled “Whether ful precisely because it permanently that improve on or supersede the excluded the supernatural realm from Darwinian one. As paleontologist Kevin Massimo Pigliucci is a professor of evolu- the sphere of scientific discourse. Jones Padian (another expert witness for the tionary biology at SUNY–Stony Brook. He is very careful in repeating several times plaintiff) put it, “absence of evidence is is author of Denying Evolution, and can that this isn’t an argument against the not evidence of absence.” (This is deli- be reached at www.rationallyspeaking.org. existence of God (an important philo- ciously ironic, since it is a favored

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argument of supernaturalists and pseudo- tionary theory predicts. Plenty of peer- during the trial), which means— scientists, and betrays a fundamental mis- reviewed studies have also shown that again—that ID isn’t science for the understanding of science: scientists are there are, in fact, simpler versions of the philosophically sound reason that it has not rejecting, say, paranormal phenomena blood-clotting cascade, another staple failed to provide a single empirically because they can demonstrate that they of “(not quite so) irreducible complex- testable hypothesis. Indeed, Jones nails don’t exist, but rather because the positive ity.” And finally, Behe’s claim that there the coffin by saying that “the ID argu- claim for their existence is not sufficiently isn’t a single paper explaining the evolu- ment is dependent upon setting a scien- backed by empirical evidence.) tion of the immune system has been tifically unreasonable burden of proof Finally, Judge Jones noted that ID’s (metaphorically) laughed out of court. for the theory of evolution,” a classical attacks against evolution have been But Jones’s crucial third argument here type of logical fallacy. refuted in the academic arena. For is, again, philosophical. All these exam- Judge Jones has handed down a cru- example, Miller explained to the court ples show that the concept of irre- cial legal victory to science education, how scientists have in fact discovered ducible complexity is, in fact, falsifiable which has largely been a courtesy of a simpler structures related to, and func- (and has been falsified). But these are sophisticated philosophical understand- tionally distinct from, the infamous tests of evolution, not of ID (as even the ing of the debate. And you thought phi- bacterial flagellum—exactly as evolu- witnesses for the defense had to admit losophy was irrelevant. 

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SKEPTICAL INQUIRER July / August 2006 19 SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:35 PM Page 20

NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD MASSIMO POLIDORO

Houdini’s Impossible Demonstration

or a few years, magician Harry swing in space, several feet distant wrote upon the paper. When he Houdini and British writer Sir from anything. In order to eliminate returned Houdini invited him to take the possibility of electrical con- a spoon and remove the cork ball, FArthur Conan Doyle, creator of nections of any kind, Sir Arthur was which had been soaking in the white the Sherlock Holmes stories, were asked to fasten the hooks over any- ink, then to touch the ball to the left friends. One was an arch-skeptic thing in the room which would hold side of the slate. The ball “stuck” (Houdini), while the other was a true them. He hooked one over the edge of there, seemingly of its own volition. believer in Spiritualism (Doyle). a picture-frame, and the other on a Slowly, it began rolling across the sur- large book, on a shelf in Houdini’s face of the slate, leaving a white track Possibly hoping to show Doyle how library. The slate thus swung free in as it did so. As the ball rolled, it was easy it is to be fooled by mediums, space, in the center of the room, being seen to be spelling the words: “Mene, Houdini once gave his friend an extraordi- supported by the two wires passing mene, tekel upharsin,” the very same nary demonstration, in his own home, in through the holes in its upper corners. words that Doyle had written. The the presence of Bernard M.L. Ernst, The slate was inspected and cleaned. guests were speechless. Houdini now invited Sir Arthur to Houdini turned to Doyle and Houdini’s friend and lawyer. Ernst’s mem- examine the four cork balls in the said: “Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot oirs reveal what happened that night. saucer. He was told to select any one of time and thought to this illusion; I he liked, and, to show that they were have been working at it, on and off, Mene, mene, tekel upharsin free from preparation, to cut it in two all winter. I won’t tell you how it was Houdini produced what appeared to with his knife, thus verifying the fact done, but I can assure you it was pure be an ordinary slate, some eighteen that they were merely solid cork balls. trickery. I did it by perfectly normal inches long by fifteen inches high. In This was accordingly done. Another means. I devised it to show you what two corners of this slate, holes had ball was then selected, and, by means can be done along these lines. Now, I been bored, and through these holes of the spoon, was placed in the white beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump wires had been passed. These wires ink, where it was thoroughly stirred to the conclusion that certain things were several feet in length, and hooks round and round, until its surface was you see are necessarily ‘supernatural,’ had been fastened to the other ends of equally coated with the liquid. It was or the work of ‘spirits,’ just because the wires. The only other accessories then left in the ink to soak up as much you cannot explain them. This is as were four small cork balls (about liquid as possible. The remaining balls marvelous a demonstration as you three-quarters of an inch in diame- Sir Arthur took away with him for have ever witnessed, given you under ter), a large ink-well filled with white examination, at Houdini’s request. test conditions, and I can assure you ink, and a table-spoon. “Have you a piece of paper in your that it was accomplished by trickery Houdini passed the slate to Sir pocket upon which you can write and by nothing else. Do, therefore, be Arthur for examination. He was then something?” asked Houdini to Doyle. careful in future, in endorsing phe- requested to suspend the slate in the He had a pencil. nomena just because you cannot middle of the room, by means of the “Sir Arthur,” continued Houdini, explain them. I have given you this “I want you to go out of the house, wires and hooks, leaving it free to test to impress upon you the necessity walk anywhere you like, as far as you of caution, and I sincerely hope that like in any direction; then write a Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the you will profit by it.” paranormal, author, lecturer, and co- question or sentence on that piece of paper; put it back in your pocket and founder and head of CICAP, the Italian “Sir Arthur,” remembered Ernst, return to the house.” “came to the conclusion that Houdini skeptics group. His Web site is www.massimo Doyle obeyed, walking three polidoro.com. blocks and turning a corner before he really accomplished the feat by psychic

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aid, and could not be persuaded other- Europe and America, an act in which a writing the words outdoors, Houdini wise.” Doyle’s reaction, and the refusal to ball dipped in ink would spell on an iso- had checked to make sure the slip of consider trickery even when admitted by lated board the words called out by paper on which Doyle wrote was folded, the trickster, was so typical, noted members of the audience: then immediately returned it to his Houdini, that “here is little wonder in his “Berol did this by switching a solid friend. Before doing so, the magician believing in Spiritualism so implicitly.” cork ball for one with an iron core. A had switched slips. While Doyle was magnet at the end of a rod, manipulated busy retrieving the ball from the inkwell Berol’s Secret by an assistant concealed behind the and taking it to the board, Houdini read The secret of the trick remained a mys- board, caused the ball to adhere and the words. His conversation cued his tery for years until magician and histo- move—apparently under its own power. hidden assistant. Once the message had rian Milbourne Christopher revealed it After Berol retired, Houdini purchased been written on the slate, Houdini asked in his book Houdini, A Pictorial Life. the equipment. An assistant in the room Doyle for the folded slip to verify his “Neither Doyle nor Ernst,” wrote adjacent to Houdini’s library had opened words. He opened the blank paper, pre- Christopher, “could fathom this mys- a small panel in the wall and extended the tended to read from it, then switched it tery. They might have been less startled rod with a magnet through it. The ball for the original as he returned the paper had they seen Houdini’s friend Max on the slate had an iron center, of course. to his friend. Later, Houdini explained Berol perform in Vaudeville.” Berol had “Ernst had not remembered that this switching process during his public been performing for years, both in when Doyle returned to the room, after lectures on fraudulent mediums.” 

A CSICOP/CFI Institute Workshop University of Oregon at Eugene THE HEALTHY SKEPTIC

As a skeptic, you demand good evidence before you health and medical claims depend. Certainly, you have accept claims. You possess tools that help you do this. not mastered all these topics. We believe that you need However, some assertions rely on data and methods that not be intimidated when confronted with such claims. use sophisticated and specialized knowledge. Health Yes, the issues can be complex and obscure. Even the and medical issues, which will be the topic of Toolbox experts can go astray. Given certain principles and dili- 2006, are an example. You probably lack expertise in gence, you can compensate for your lack of specialized medicine, pharmacology, neuroscience, genetics, new expertise. We will provide you with the tools to cope with medical technologies, statistics, various research even the most difficult claims. This combination of tools designs, and other arcane information upon which and diligence will make you a healthy skeptic.

A CSICOP/CFI INSTITUTE WORKSHOP • August 10–13 • University of Oregon at Eugene J Register ______person(s) at $159 per person Room and Board Registration(s) $______J Please reserve ______single room(s) and board for ______person(s). Room and Board $______at Watson and Boynton Halls, Hamilton Complex, at $215 per person for three nights. J Please reserve ______double room(s) and board for ______person(s). Saturday Dinner(s) $______at Watson and Boynton Halls, Hamilton Complex, at $195 per person for three nights. Commuter Pass(es) $______Dinners and Meals (for conference participants not staying in Residence Halls) J I/we will not be staying in the residence halls but wish to attend the Saturday TOTAL $______dinner/magic show for $25.00 per person. J I/we will not be staying in the residence halls but wish to purchase a commuter pass for the cafeteria meals including the Saturday dinner/magic show at $80.00 per person. Name ______Address ______City ______State ______Z I P ______Phone______E-mail ______

J Check or money order enclosed • Charge my J MasterCard J Visa J AmEx Account # ______Exp. ______Signature ______Make checks payable to CSICOP and mail to: P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226-0703 (You can also register by calling 1-800-634-1610) • Contact Barry Karr for details at (716) 636-1425, ext. 217.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER July / August 2006 21 SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:40 PM Page 22

PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER

The Internet: A Shining Beacon of Truth

here have all the UFOs tionalist “documentary” on the Sci-Fi Finally, on April 22, Iain Hollings- gone? In recent months, Channel—and of course by the Internet. head asked in The Guardian, “Whatever W three widely read articles This is in spite of skeptical information happened to . . . UFOs?” (www.guard have been published by thoughtful readily available since the early 1990s ian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1758839,0 observers, suggesting that UFOs are no that the “crash” was nothing more than 0.html). He suggested, “it would appear longer being seen because they’ve been hysteria over the Great Lakes Fireball of that public interest in UFOs has waned “chased off by the Internet.” This repre- December 9, 1965 (see “‘Old Solved significantly since the 1970s film Close sents the first time, to my knowledge, Mysteries’: The Kecksburg Incident,” by Encounters of the Third Kind.” Note that that anyone has suggested with a Robert R. Young, SI, Spring 1991). If Hollingshead thinks that the heyday of straight face that the Internet kills off Kern is correct, belief in the Kecksburg UFOs was the 1970s, while Kern thinks nonsense and misinformation almost as crash and the September 11 conspiracies it was the nineties. Hollingshead contin- effectively as Raid kills roaches. should be fading away, not growing. ues, “Today, however, rational explana- First, this past November 9, Douglas Next, on March 31, Ben Macintyre tions appear to exist for most UFO sight- Kern suggested in the online journal wrote in The Times of London that the ings,” as if they did not in the 1950s and Tech Central Station that the “Internet ETs had “flown home—chased off by 1960s, when the U.S. Air Force gave Killed the Alien Star” (see www.tech the Internet” (see www.timesonline.co. explanations for about 95 percent of centralstation.com/110905A.html). He uk/article/0,,1068-2111848,00.html). reports it received (and even the late Dr. writes that “the rise of the Internet He suggests that “The Internet works by J. Allen Hynek, while criticizing and taught the world to be more skeptical of taking in vast swaths of hokum and reevaluating the Air Force data, came up unverified information,” apparently ignorance but it gradually sifts out the with nearly identical percentages). Of wholly unaware of the Internet’s role in chaff.” He seems to think this is an auto- course, UFO zealots derided and ignored promoting and spreading the wildest matic process, like old cars falling apart, rational explanations printed during the conspiracy stories about the September forgetting that it takes human effort to 1950s as easily as they do those posted on 11 attacks that are now finding increas- make it happen. Today’s UFO propo- skeptical Web sites today. Hollingshead ingly wide acceptance. He seems to nents are as willfully blind to skeptical does not directly blame the Internet for think that widespread belief in UFOs information on the Web as they were in killing off UFOs, suggesting only that was a nineties thing, like disco globes in the days when it was available only in “the craze has simply run its course,” the seventies: “I’m quite happy to leave print, and TV producers seeking sensa- although he quotes Roy Lake of London the aliens in the nineties, and on the tionalism and the sensational ratings it UFO Studies as saying, “The Internet milk cartons.” Yet it is only since 2003 brings can ignore skeptical Web sites as killed it off.” that the alleged 1965 UFO crash at easily as they did skeptical books. None of these fine gentlemen has any Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, has assumed Correction of error is a process requiring background in the UFO field, or has classic proportions, abetted by a sensa- human intervention, and so long as made any detailed investigations of any there are many humans who find misin- cases. None seems to realize that the last Robert Sheaffer’s World Wide Web page for formation more charming than fact, large-scale classic wave of “UFO sight- UFOs and other skeptical subjects is at error will flourish, no matter how read- ings” in the U.S. occurred in 1973, www.debunker.com. ily available the facts are. about twenty-five years before the

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Internet would be able to exert any UFOlogists, but as soon as it’s clear to “,” a trick that would still baf- noticeable cultural effect. Perhaps the most of them that their newest treasured fle present-day science, assuming it were Future Shock of the coming Internet evidence is not going to be the long- actually done. revolution set up a shockwave that trav- awaited Holy Grail that will finally This abomination of disinformation eled back in time and squelched the reveal the truth about UFOs to an unbe- was followed by a two-part show Alien sightings? In reality, the widespread lieving world, they start losing interest Engineering, which was acknowledged availability of color TV probably played in it. to be based solely on imagination and a much bigger role than anything else in “It’s hard to remember just how large conjecture. In that show, a hypothetical dampening UFO sightings, by keeping UFOs loomed in the public mind a panel of expert scientists is invited to people indoors and well-entertained and mere ten years ago,” writes Kern, trying examine a hypothetical UFO that is not outdoors, where they might puzzle to jog the reader’s distant memories by alleged to have crashed at Roswell. The over Venus or a weather balloon. (Color bringing up sensationalist TV shows panel discovers that the UFO flew using TV sets were scarce in the mid-sixties, about Roswell and the like. Apparently “inertia cancellers” to allow it to make and did not reach a majority of TV households until 1972.) If peak interest in UFOs can be equated to peak reports of sightings, and related then the peaks occurred in 1952, 1957, UFO sightings and 1966. UFO sightings and related claims have always come in waves, with claims have always come in waves, pronounced peaks and valleys. We do indeed seem to be in a valley at the pre- with pronounced peaks and valleys. sent time, but it is wrong to conclude from this that we will never again see a We do indeed seem to be in a valley peak. I well recall the deep UFO valley experienced during the mid-1980s. at the present time, but it is wrong There were some at this time who pro- nounced that UFOs had run their course and would never fly again. I also to conclude from this that we will recall the late Philip J. Klass chuckling over such pronouncements, saying, never again see a peak. “UFOs can’t be killed off so easily. They’ll be back!” And events soon proved Klass correct. In 1987, Bill Moore and Jamie he has not been watching television sharp turns at high speeds. This makes it Shandera made a huge splash announc- recently. On March 16, the History sound like a device we might start build- ing the “discovery” of supposedly secret Channel gave us five hours of uninter- ing next week, except that physics offers government papers about a crashed- rupted UFO inanity, including some of no theories of how a workable “inertia saucer group known as MJ-12, and gov- the worst sensationalist twaddle mas- canceller” might function. The saucer’s ernment UFO conspiracies were soon querading as documentary fact that I’ve propulsion system was “found” to oper- all the rage. This craze, like all others, ever seen. Real UFOs included confident ate using either an “anti-gravity drive,” ran its course, but Hopkins/Jacobs/ assertions about supposed “Nazi flying or else a “force-field generator”—appar- Mack-style UFO abductions were saucers,” claims founded upon, well, ently even top scientists can’t always quickly rising to augment it, and when other claims, which in turn are based agree on such details. To solve the prob- these in turn began to fizzle, new crash- upon still earlier claims, and so on. lem of faster-than-light travel, the saucer conspiracy yarns from Roswell and else- Despite decades of such claims, remark- was said to employ a “wormhole genera- where sounded fresh and exciting ably growing stronger and more wide- tor” with a “stabilizer” to keep the enough to generate their own buzz for a spread despite the reported UFOcidal wormhole open—those pesky worm- few years. Now that all these excite- effect of the Internet, nobody has yet holes keep closing up if you forget to ments have been widespread for several turned up a single photograph or blue- turn on your stabilizer. No explanation years and have led nowhere, just like all print of any saucer-shaped craft was given of how the saucers grab onto previous mega-claims, the field will allegedly created by the Third Reich. the fabric of space-time to warp and remain quiet until some new-sounding Despite this breathtaking dearth of evi- rend it, but in the Land of UFOria, such gimmick or angle grabs the public’s dence, the History Channel confidently explanations are not needed. While such attention in a big way. Novel UFO assured us that the Nazi saucers flew terms may sound perfectly reasonable to claims typically swell up quickly among using “magnetic effects” to produce a generation raised on Star Wars and

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pizzazz (even UFOlogists get bored with claims that go on for decades but some- how never get confirmed), so the big push over Roswell “crashed-saucer” claims largely supplanted them as the focus of . Today, conspiracy theories are all the rage, and the best way to become famous in UFOlogy is to think up a new one that will grab peo- ples’ fancy. If the Internet killed off UFOs, what are all those aliens doing on my TV screen? * * * The 1945 UFO photograph known as the “Jack LeMonde” photo (a pseudo- nym meaning “the world”) created a lot of interest in “serious” UFOlogical cir- cles when it first surfaced in 2000 (see www.nidsci.org/news/lemonde.php). It shows a young Marine seated on a horse, The 1945 “Jack LeMonde” UFO photograph. and was taken at a riding stable in Star Trek, to anyone who has studied to spill the beans about saucers, and thus Burbank, California. Behind him, a physics, they are little more than gibber- had to go. Komarek probably knows the round metallic-looking object is clearly ish. Then, on March 27, the History secret handshake that gets him info on seen, with a tall and ornate tower pro- Channel again served up a heaping plat- all the UFO conspiracies. truding. Because “flying saucers” were ter of junk food in the form of a docu- It was Marty Kottmeyer who gave us unknown in 1945, the “blemished” mentary on the Bermuda Triangle. I the best insight into what is really hap- photo was quietly pasted away in a fam- don’t know why the Internet’s Truth pening: UFOs as an “evolving system of ily photo album, its “saucer” only Beacon hasn’t yet shot down that spe- paranoia,” adapting itself to the peculiar attracting attention much later. cious claim (let alone the abysmally obsessions and fears of its host society. It UFOlogist John Alexander recently met inaccurate history now so fashionable in is not difficult to see the origins of early with the now-elderly “Jack LeMonde,” The Da Vinci Code). flying-saucer reports and the claims of and was impressed by his sincerity and Meanwhile, the buzz among certain 1950s “contactees” in Cold War fears modest ways. However, objections soon “serious” UFOlogists is that the recent over atomic weapons and missiles. As began to be raised, suggesting that the sudden shakeup at the CIA is related to American society gradually evolved “UFO” was just a light fixture sus- “exopolitics,” the supposed diplomatic toward other concerns and fears, our pended on a wire. Alexander held fast, dealings between the U.S. government fantasies changed with it. By the 1980s, arguing that no supporting wire could and extraterrestrials. Ed Komarek, a tire- popular obsessions over “victimology” be seen in the photo (perhaps not realiz- less advocate for supposed “UFO disclo- and New Age narcissism caused claims ing how easy it was for such small details sure,” writes that “In the 1950s treaties of clandestine “UFO abductions” to be to get washed out), and that the city of seem to have been made in secret under far more compelling than mere sightings Burbank was using different streetlights the highest security between the United of lights in the sky. When Budd at the time, anyway. Recently, a French- States government and one or more Hopkins published his Missing Time in language Web site (http://rr0.org/ extraterrestrial races.” On May 8 he 1981, claiming that aliens were sneaking Dossier/1945_LeMonde) revisited the wrote, “It has been suggested that into peoples’ bedrooms late at night and photograph, showing how an enhance- [anonymous] has been close to Porter secretly beaming sleepers up to hovering ment of contrast does indeed bring Goss who has recently resigned as head saucers, the book spoke directly to the out something looking very much like of the CIA. It has also been suggested popular culture of its time, and the a wire running over to the “UFO.” that [anonymous] is pro [UFO] disclo- world of UFO belief was forever Furthermore, a photo was located sure or at least not inclined to stand in changed. In this Age of Oprah, people that shows a hanging streetlamp in the way of disclosure. Also suggested is do not obsess over possible ETs flying nearby Pasadena used since the 1930s, that there has been a move afoot within overhead, but instead over what invisi- identical to the UFO in the photo. No the CIA pressing for disclosure, with ble ETs might secretly be doing to them. word from Alexander or other [anonymous] being a key figure.” So By the late nineties, Hopkins-style UFOlogists about whether they’re ready there you have it—Goss was preparing “abductions” were starting to lose their to relinquish this treasure. 

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SKEPTICAL INQUIREE BENJAMIN RADFORD

Please Pass the Globster

Bermuda island in 1988. Controversy and “when the microscopic anatomy and and mystery surrounded the creatures for biochemical composition of the Chilean Q: What is a globster and where decades, as definitive identifications and Nantucket Blobs are compared with can I find one? eluded researchers. those of the other remains, similarities In a series of articles for his publication are manifest. Thus, there is no doubt —D. Musella The Review, Canadian that they are all derived from the same marine biologist Ben Roesch examined the type of organism.” original accounts of over two dozen alleged With the application of science, one of A: A globster (or “blobster”) is a huge, sea serpent carcasses found between 1648 the world’s great mysteries of the sea has smelly, often whitish mass of flesh found and 1924. He concluded that the creatures finally been explained. The many men- on beaches throughout the world. No, “often turn out to be basking sharks, tions of globsters in books on the “unex- not tourists—dead “sea monsters.” “If sea whales, oarfish, or some other known crea- plained” will have to be revised in the cold serpents exist, why don’t we have a body?” ture.” In some especially puzzling cases— light of hard evidence and close scrutiny, asks cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, in where the information was highly suspect informing their readers that a whole sub- his field guide to sea serpents. “Well, we or especially sketchy—even a tenuous genre of “monsters” have been identified. do. Dozens and dozens of odd carcasses, identification was impossible. Yet because much of the material tends strange live catches, and huge lumps of A team of biologists led by Sidney toward mystery-mongering, it may take decaying tissue… have been recovered. Pierce began looking into the mystery and many years for the conclusions to be But what are they, exactly? Identifying tried to settle the issue. As the authors accepted and widely known. pointed out, “Wild claims, especially in often partial and decomposing remains is References no easy task.” the nonscientific literature, are regularly made that the blobs are the remains of sea Coleman, L., and P. Huyghe. 2003. The Field Guide The blobsters are obviously flesh, yet to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery have decayed so badly that they lack monsters. For example, the Tasmanian Denizens of the Deep. New York: Penguin. bones or distinguishing features. For West Coast Monster is still referred to as a Pierce, S., S. Massey, N. Curtis, G. Smith, C. monster, although an Australian scientific Olavarria, and T. Maugel. 2004. Microscopic, many people, the huge, strange creatures biochemical, and molecular characteristics of the strongly resemble sea monsters. One clas- team . . . identified it as a whale. Other Chilean Blob and a comparison with the sic globster washed ashore in 1896, when relics such as the St. Augustine (Florida) remains of other sea monsters: Nothing but Sea Monster and the Bermuda Blob are whales. Biological Bulletin June, 206:125–133. giant waves tossed a massive fleshy corpse Pierce, S., G. Smith, T. Maugel, and E. Clark. 1995. on a beach at St. Augustine, Florida. The still described by some as the remains of a On the Giant Octopus (Octopus giganteus) and rubbery, six-foot-high blob was examined gigantic octopus, even though A.E. the Bermuda Blob: Homage to A.E. Verrill. Verrill—who named the St. Augustine Biological Bulletin April, 188: 219–230. by a local naturalist, who initially specu- Roesch, B. 1997–1999. A review of alleged sea ser- lated that it was likely from a giant octo- specimen sight unseen—recanted his pent carcasses worldwide. The Cryptozoology  pus far larger than any previously seen. identification in favor of whale remains . . . Review (Parts 1–4, 2:2–3:3). Many other such blobs have washed and in spite of microscopic and biochem- ashore, including one in Chile in July ical analyses showing that they were noth- 2003 and another in Newfoundland in ing more than the collagenous matrix of Ask the Skeptic 2001. There’s also the Tasmanian West whale blubber.” In 2004, Pierce and his colleagues Heard about some dubious para- Coast Monster, the Nantucket Blob, and normal or fringe-science claim? two so-called “Bermuda Blobs,” the most examined all available globster speci- mens using electron microscopes, and Ask the skeptic! Submissions can recent of which washed ashore on be sent to: The Skeptical In- applied biochemical, molecular, and quiree, Skeptical Inquirer, P.O. DNA analyses. The conclusion: the sam- Benjamin Radford is coauthor, with Joe Box 703, Amherst NY 14226 (or Nickell, of Lake Monster Mysteries: ples matched exactly those of various [email protected]). Investigating the World’s Most Elusive species of great whales. The DNA and Creatures. molecular structure were unmistakable,

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Magnet Therapy A Billion-dollar Boondoggle

About a billion dollars a year is now spent on “magnet therapy,” which is claimed to eliminate many symptoms and diseases. Basic scientific principles indicate that all of this money is wasted. BRUCE L. FLAMM

Gerald Fried

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Among the companies touting magnet therapy I was sur- bout a year ago Leonard Finegold at Drexel University prised to find the Sharper Image, a seemingly reputable outfit. and I decided to look into the controversial field (no They offer a device called a “Dual-Head Personal Massager with pun intended) of “magnet therapy.” As a physics pro- Magnetic Therapy.” It is somewhat phallus-shaped, small enough fessor,A Finegold knows a bit about magnets and magnetic fields. As to fit in a purse, and claims to be a “discreet personal massager a physician and former research chairman, I know a bit about ther- with two independent vibrating heads.” That certainly seems apy and medical research. Perhaps a physicist and a physician could enticing enough, but they insist that it does far more that your shed some light on this interesting topic. We knew that magnets average vibrator. “A smaller pinpoint node enhances its massage were touted as a treatment for many medical conditions and we with magnetic therapy for focused treatment.” Hmm . . . magnet knew that they were popular. But we were both quite surprised to therapy for focused treatment. learn just how popular they are. In the U.S.A., their annual sales Some companies actually claim that their magnets prevent, are estimated at $300 million (Brody 2000), and globally more reverse, and cure . For example, at one site (http:// than a billion dollars (Weintraub 1999). You can get a rough idea azunimags.bigstep.com/item.jhtml?UCIDs=525663|1230205& of the magnitude of the magnet healing industry by doing a PRID=1169182) purveyors of cancer-curing magnets will sell Google search for magnet healing. A search in January 2006 yielded you, for only $2,595, the “Dr. Philpott Designed and Approved 459,000 Web pages, many of them claiming that magnets have Polar Power Super Bed Grid.” According to the site, “This is the almost miraculous healing power. Do they? Professor Finegold and strongest, deepest penetrating, permanent static magnet, bio- I reviewed the literature on magnet therapy and found very little magnetic therapy device available anywhere that we know of. It supporting evidence. An abbreviated version of our review was is used in many of Dr. Philpotts’ magnetic research protocols for recently published in the British Medical Journal (Finegold and prevention and reversal of cancer and other serious disease that Flamm 2006). What follows are a few comments on the magnet requires a full systemic deep penetrating treatment of the whole healing industry, a brief synopsis of our BMJ paper, and a look at body.” Similarly absurd claims can be found at www.stop- magnet therapy from a theoretical point of view. cancer.com/magnets.htm. Do the legions of magnet therapists and magnet purveyors really believe the incredible claims that they make? Are they well- Magnet Therapy Is Big Business meaning but misguided individuals or con artists willing to say If you try the Internet searching experiment described above you anything to make a buck? Both types are most likely involved. will notice that in addition to almost half a million pages dealing Studies on Magnet Therapy with magnet therapy, Google automatically provides a list of “sponsored links.” Your computer screen will fill with the names The overall conclusion of our BMJ review was stated in the first sen- of companies that have paid to help you find their site. What do tence, “We believe there is a worldwide epidemic of useless magnet these sites offer? If you click on www.magnetsandhealth.com, therapy” (Finegold and Flamm 2006). As you can imagine, this you will learn that “magnets help to flush out toxins in our body” statement was not well-received in the magnet healing community. and that “our magnet products have both beauty and health ben- We found that many studies on “magnet therapy” were published efits, they increase blood flow and they increase the oxygen level in “alternative” journals as opposed to peer-reviewed medical jour- in the body.” Really? They also point out that their magnets are nals. Many studies included too few patients to reach statistically small and mobile, which “allows you to heal the ailments of your- significant conclusions. Others had problems with their placebo self and your family without having major interruptions in your control groups. For example, study subjects realized that they were life and routine. You also get all the benefits without having to go wearing a magnetic bracelet rather than a placebo bracelet when it for expensive sessions with a magnetic therapist or having to take attracted paper clips or other small metal objects. In light of the vast expensive courses of drugs which can also have harmful side amounts of money spent each year on supposedly therapeutic mag- effects.” The message seems quite clear: Why bother with doctors nets, surprisingly few legitimate randomized controlled trials have and medicines when magnets are safe and effective? been conducted to evaluate their efficacy. An excellent critique of Another of the scores of sponsored links is www.magnetic- magnet therapy by founder Stephen Barrett, M.D., therapymagnets.com. This site is interesting because, in addition can be found at www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/ to selling dozens of magnetic healing devices for humans, it doesn’t QA/magnet.html. forget about Fido. For only $11.95 plus shipping they will send you an amazing pet collar that will “keep your cat or dog in excel- lent health and vitality with constant magnetic therapy.” My wife Bruce L. Flamm, M.D., is a physician and medical researcher and I are now kicking ourselves for spending thousands of dol- who has a major interest in supporting science over superstition lars on veterinary care over the past several years. If we had only and evidence-based medicine over . His ongoing investi- bought that collar! gation of the bizarre Cha/Wirth/Lobo Columbia University “Pray I don’t mean to pick on these two companies or imply that for Pregnancy” study (SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, September/October their claims are any more outrageous than any others. In fact, 2004 and March/April 2005) has been featured in Time maga- there are now hundreds of companies selling similar devices and zine, The New York Times, and dozens of other newspapers and making similar claims. magazines all over the world.

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Is Magnet Therapy Even Theoretically Possible? slim to nil. By analogy, consider chemical compounds. The num- In reality, many people find anecdotal reports of healing, partic- ber of known chemical compounds is on the order of ten million. ularly from athletes or other trusted celebrities, to be more con- However, only a handful have ever been shown to have any ther- vincing than scientific studies. apeutic effects. Yet millions are toxic. It would be most unwise to There are certainly many people touting magnet therapy. But eat or drink anything found on the shelves of a typical chemistry is there, even theoretically, any way that magnets could have any lab. If a magnet had an effect on human tissue, there is no reason healing effect? In our BMJ review we restricted our comments to to believe that it would necessarily be a healing effect. typical magnetic devices claimed to have therapeutic value: these Moreover, even the rare chemical compound that has healing use “static” magnets like those used to attach paper notes to a effects usually does so only in very specific dose ranges. Almost refrigerator door. In this context, static means nonmoving and any prescription drug can harm or kill you if you ingest enough has nothing to do with static electricity. Moving magnets or of it. If, theoretically, a magnet had some effect on human tissue pulsed electromagnets can create electric fields and electromag- and if, astoundingly, the effect was beneficial rather than toxic, netic radiation that could have some effect on living tissue. In would one not expect there to be an optimal dosage? Yet, adver- contrast, a typical nonmoving magnet produces only a magnetic tised healing magnets vary widely in their field strength. Many magnet purveyors claim that the more powerful the magnet, the Is there anything in the human greater the healing effect. This sounds good but makes little sense. All known effective therapies—including medications, x-rays, and lasers—become toxic or damaging at high levels. body that is affected by Nevertheless, the “magnet therapist” who debated me on BBC radio immediately after our paper was published chided me for magnetic fields? Surprisingly, not understanding that some magnet healers fail because they don’t use strong enough magnets. She was so convincing that I the answer appears to be no. If think she actually believes this. The BBC radio host made a point of stating that the magnet therapist was “certified.” By whom, I hemoglobin contained ferromagnetic wondered? The Intergalactic Association of Magnetic and Crystal Healers? After the show my colleague Professor Finegold, who was raised in the United Kingdom, informed me that the iron it would be simple to separate word “certified” has a derogatory mental health connotation in the UK. Perhaps the BBC host was not flattering my opponent. red blood cells from other Some magnet advocates contend that no one has conclusively proven that magnets cannot heal. Of course, they have it back- bloods cells with a magnet. wards. When it comes to healing, the burden of proof is on the seller, not the buyer. One is supposed to prove that a therapy works field. Is there anything in the human body that is affected by before marketing it to the public. If this were not true, medical magnetic fields? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be no. This companies could save billions by selling all sorts of untested drugs seems counterintuitive since most people know that oxygen in and devices. In reality, the government insists that every medicine our blood is carried by hemoglobin and that hemoglobin con- and therapeutic device be meticulously tested for both safety and tains iron. This is why iron tablets are often recommended for efficacy. This protective system generally works and only rarely do the treatment of anemia. However, the iron in hemoglobin is not unsafe or ineffective products slip through and reach the public. ferromagnetic (see www.badscience.net/?p=88 and www.hfien- Sadly, it seems that no such protective laws exist for magnets, crys- berg.com/clips/magnet.htm). If hemoglobin contained ferro- tals, amulets, magic potions, or other claimed miracle cures. magnetic iron it would be simple to separate red blood cells from Finally, in the firestorm of criticism that followed the publica- other bloods cells with a magnet. Several studies have shown that tion of our BMJ article, a frequent complaint was that I don’t have static magnetic fields do not affect blood flow (see www.hfien- an “open” mind. It might be more fair to say that my mind is berg.com/clips/magnet.htm and www.quackwatch.org/01Quack open—but not to nonsense. If properly conducted research eryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/florsheim.html). Perhaps more im- demonstrates a genuine healing effect of static magnets, I will portant, if hemoglobin contained ferromagnetic iron people cheerfully incorporate magnet therapy into my clinical practice. might explode or be flung across the room when exposed to the Until that time, I hope that parents will take their sick children to extraordinarily powerful magnetic field of a MRI scan. For a fas- evidence-based physicians rather than “certified” magnet healers. cinating look at things that can go wrong when ferromagnetic Notes materials get too close to the powerful magnetic field of an MRI 1. Brody, J. 2000. Less pain: Is it in the magnets or in the mind? New York machine, visit http://mripractice.tripod.com/mrpractice/id69. Times, November 28: F9. htm and www.simplyphysics.com/flying_objects.html. 2. Weintraub, M. 1999. Magnetic bio-stimulation in painful diabetic periph- However, for the sake of argument, what if some effect of mag- eral neuropathy: A novel intervention—a randomized, double-placebo crossover study. American Journal of Pain Management 9: 8–17. nets on human tissue could be demonstrated? What is the likeli- 3. Finegold, L., and B.L. Flamm. 2006. Magnet therapy: Extraordinary hood that it would be a therapeutic or healing effect? Probably claims, but no proved benefits. British Medical Journal 332: 4. 

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The Philosophy behind Pseudoscience

Every intellectual endeavor, whether authentic or bogus, has an underlying philosophy. Science, for example, involves six kinds of philosophical ideas. These differ totally from those behind pseudoscience. Evaluating a field’s underlying philosophy is a revealing way to make distinctions and judge worth. MARIO BUNGE

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tions and torture sessions of political opponents during the osé López-Rega was the evil gray eminence behind 1973–76 period, when he was at the peak of his political General Perón in his dotage, as well as that of Perón’s power. Thus, El Brujo (“the Wizard”), as the Minister of Jsuccessor, his wife, Isabelita. He had been a failed singer, Public Welfare was popularly known, had the backing of mil- a police officer, a bodyguard, and the author of best sellers on lennia of philosophical . business and the stars, love and the stars, and the like. He was Every intellectual endeavor, whether authentic or bogus, a firm believer in the and a practicing black magician. has an underlying philosophy and, in particular, an ontology López-Rega believed not only in astral influences and in the (a theory of being and becoming) and an epistemology (a the- spirit world but also in his own ability to conjure up spirits ory of knowledge). For example, the philosophy behind evo- and manipulate them. Once, he attempted to transfer the soul lutionary biology is naturalism (or materialism) together with of the dead Juan Perón into his dim-witted successor, Isabelita. epistemological realism, the view that the world exists on its However, this task proved to be beyond his ability (see, e.g., own and can be investigated. By contrast, the philosophy Martínez 1989). behind creationism (whether traditional or “scientific”) is supernaturalism (the oldest variety of idealism) together with epistemological idealism (which involves the disregard for empirical tests). To be sure, most scientists, as well as most pseudoscientists, are unaware that they uphold any philosophical views. Most scientists, Moreover, they dislike being told that they do. And the most popular among the respectable philosophies of science of the as well as most day, namely the logical positivists and Popper’s followers, teach that science and philosophy are mutually disjointed rather than intersecting. However, this view is false. Indeed, nobody pseudoscientists, are can help but employ a great number of philosophical concepts, such as those of reality, time, causation, chance, knowledge, unaware that they and truth. And once in a while, everyone ponders philosophi- cal problems, such as those of the nature of life, mind, math- uphold any philosophical views. ematical objects, science, society, and what is good. Moreover, the neutrality view is dangerous, because it masks the philo- Moreover, they dislike sophical traps into which bona fide scientists may fall, and it dissuades them from explicitly using philosophical tools in their research. being told that they do. Since there is no consensus about the nature of science, let alone pseudoscience, I will inquire into the philosophies that lurk behind psychoanalysis and computationist psychology.

1. Science: Authentic and Bogus López-Rega is not known to have dabbled in philosophy. We shall be concerned only with sciences and However, like everyone else, he did hold definite philosophi- that claim to deal with facts, whether natural or social. Hence, cal views. Among these were the age-old myths of the imma- we shall not deal with mathematics except as a tool for the terial soul, the possibility of paranormal cognition, and the exploration of the real world. Obviously, this world can be existence of supernatural beings. These beliefs underlie his explored either scientifically or nonscientifically. In either case, conviction that he was able to influence other people’s behav- such exploration, like any other deliberate human activity, ior by sheer mental power, as well as to get in touch with involves a certain approach, that is, set of general assumptions, higher powers. In turn, these beliefs and practices gave him some background knowledge of the items to be explored, a the self-confidence, prestige, and authority he needed to per- goal, and a means or method of proceeding. form his sinister political maneuvers. Among other things, he In a way, the general assumptions, the extant knowledge of organized a death squad that carried out uncounted assassina- the facts to be explored, and the goal dictate jointly the means or method to be employed. Thus, if what is to be explored is Mario Bunge is Frothingham Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, the mind, if the latter is conceived of as an immaterial entity Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec and the goal is to understand mental processes in any old way, H3A2T7, Canada. He is the author of more than fifty books on then the cheapest means is to engage in free speculation. Given the philosophy of science. The latest, Chasing Reality: Strife over such idealistic assumptions about the nature of the mind, it Realism, has just been published by the University of Toronto would be preposterous to try and catch it by exploring the Press (2006). He is a CSICOP Fellow. E-mail: marioaugust brain. If, on the other hand, mental processes are assumed [email protected]. to be brain processes and if the aim is to understand the

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mechanisms underlying mental phenomena, then the scien- without research, and research is likely to enrich or correct the tific method, particularly in its experimental version, is fund of knowledge. In sum, science is eminently changeable. mandatory. (This is the philosophical rationale of cognitive By contrast, the pseudosciences and their background ideolo- neuroscience.) That is, whether or not a scientist studies the gies are either stagnant (like parapsychology) or they change brain in order to understand the mind depends critically upon under pressure from power groups or as a result of disputes her more or less tacit philosophy of mind. among factions (as has been the case with psychoanalysis). In general, one starts research by picking a domain (D) of The second condition can be restated thus: to be worthy of facts, then makes (or takes for granted) some general assump- the attention of a scientific community, an idea must be neither tions (G) about them, collects a body (B) of extant knowledge obvious nor so outlandish that it clashes with the bulk (though about the items in (D), decides on an aim (A), and in the light not the totality) of the antecedent knowledge. Compatibility of the preceding, determines the proper method (M) to study with the latter is necessary, not only to weed out groundless spec- (D). Hence, an arbitrary research project (p) may be sketched ulation but also to understand the new idea as well as to evaluate as the ordered quintuple p=(D, G, B, A, M). The function of it. Indeed, the worth of a hypothesis or of an experimental design this list is to keep track of the essentials in framing the follow- is gauged partly by the extent to which it fits in with reasonably ing definitions. well-established bits of knowledge. (For example, telekinesis is A scientific investigation of a domain of facts (D) assumes called into question by the fact that it violates the principle of that these are material, lawful, and scrutable, as opposed to conservation of energy.) Typically, the principles of a pseudo- immaterial (in particular supernatural), lawless, or inscrutable; science can be learned in a few days, whereas those of a genuine and the investigation is based on a body of previous scientific science may occupy an entire lifetime, if only because of the findings (B), and it is done with the main aim of describing bulky body of background knowledge they are based upon. and explaining the facts in question (A) with the help of the The third condition, that of either using or feeding other (M). In turn, the latter may be described research fields, follows from the fact that the classification of summarily as the sequence: choice of background knowledge; the factual sciences is somewhat artificial. For example, where statement of problem(s); tentative solution (e.g., hypothesis or does the study of memory fall: in psychology, neuroscience, or experimental technique); run of empirical tests (observations, both? And which discipline investigates the distribution of measurements, or experiments); evaluation of test results; wealth: sociology, economics, or both? Because of such partial eventual correction of any of the preceding steps, and new overlaps and interactions, the set of all the sciences constitutes problems posed by the finding. a system. By contrast, the pseudosciences are typically solitary. Contrary to widespread belief, the scientific method does The fourth condition, summarized as control by the scien- not exclude speculation: it only disciplines imagination. For tific community, can be spelled out this way. Investigators do example, it is not enough to produce an ingenious mathemat- not work in a social vacuum but experience the stimuli and inhi- ical model of some domain of facts the way mathematical bitions of fellow workers (mostly personally unknown to them). economists do. Consistency, sophistication, and beauty are They borrow problems and findings and ask for criticisms; and, never enough in scientific research, the end product of which if they have anything interesting to say, they get both solicited is expected to match reality—i.e., to be true to some degree. and unsolicited opinions. Such interplay of cooperation with Pseudoscientists are not to be blamed for exerting their imag- competition is a mechanism for the generation of problems and inations but rather for letting them run loose. The place for the control and diffusion of results; it makes scientific research a unbridled speculation is art, not science. self-doubting, self-correcting, and self-perpetuating enterprise. The scientific method presupposes that everything can in This makes the actual attainment of truth less peculiar to science principle be debated and that every scientific debate must be than the ability and willingness to detect error and correct it. logically valid (even if no logical principles or rules are explicitly (After all, everyday knowledge is full of well-attested trivialities invoked). This method also involves two key semantic ideas: that have not resulted from scientific research.) meaning and truth. Nonsense cannot be investigated, hence it So much for the distinguishing features of genuine factual cannot be pronounced false. (Think of calculating or measuring science, whether natural, social, or biosocial. (More can be the time required to fly from one place to another using found in Gardner 1983, Wolpert 1992, Bunge 1998a, and Heidegger’s definition of time as “the maturation of temporal- Kurtz 2001.) By contrast, a pseudoscientific treatment of a ity.”) Furthermore, the scientific method cannot be practiced domain of facts violates at least one of the above conditions, consistently in a moral vacuum. Indeed, it involves the ethos of while at the same time calling itself scientific. It may be incon- basic science, which Robert K. Merton (1973) characterized as sistent, or it may involve unclear ideas. It may assume the real- universalism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism, and epis- ity of imaginary facts, such as alien abduction or telekinesis, self- temic communism (the sharing of methods and findings). replicating and selfish genes, or innate ideas. It may postulate Finally, there are four more distinguishing features of any that the facts in question are immaterial, inscrutable, or both. It authentic science: changeability, compatibility with the bulk of may fail to be based on previous scientific findings. It may per- the antecedent knowledge, partial intersection with at least one form deeply flawed empirical operations, such as ink-blot tests, other science, and control by the scientific community. The or it may fail to include control groups. It may fake test results, first condition flows from the fact that there is no “live” science or it may dispense with empirical tests altogether.

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Besides, the pseudosciences do not evolve or, if they do, By contrast, the scientific approach to self-organization is their changes do not result from research. They are isolated down-to-earth yet imaginative. Let us peek at a recent instance from other disciplines, although occasionally, they interbreed of this approach: the work of Adams, Dogic, Keller, and with sister bogus sciences, as witnessed by psychoanalytic Fraden (1998). Colloids consisting of tiny rods and spheres astrology. And, far from welcoming criticism, they attempt to were randomly suspended in a buffer sealed in glass capillaries, fix belief. Their aim is not to search for truth but to persuade: then left to their own devices and observed under a micro- they posit arrivals without departures and without journeys. scope. The rods were viruses, and the spheres plastic balls; the Whereas science is full of problems, and every one of its find- former were negatively charged, and the latter positively ings poses further problems, pseudoscience is characterized by charged. After some time, the mixture separated sponta- certainty. In other words, whereas science begets more science, neously into two or more homogeneous phases. Depending on pseudoscience is barren, because it generates no new problems. the experimental conditions, a phase may consist of layers of In sum, the main trouble with pseudoscience is that its rods alternating with layers of spheres, or the spheres may research is either deeply flawed or nonexistent. This is why, assemble into columns. Paradoxically, these various types of demixing are explained in terms of repulsions between the charged particles—which, intuitively, should preclude the crowding of particles with the Their is not to search same charge. And the equally paradoxical decrease in entropy aim (order increase) is explained by noting that the clumping of some of the colloids is accompanied by a raise in the transla- for truth but to persuade: tional entropy of the medium. In any event, the whole process is accounted for in strictly naturalistic terms. At the same time, they posit arrivals without the authors warn that their results are at variance with the per- tinent theory—though of course not with any general physical departures and without journeys. systems. Such incompleteness is typical of factual science, by contrast to pseudoscience, where everything is cut and dried Whereas science is full of problems, from the start. Our second example is the study of the unconscious. Much has been written about it, most of it in a speculative vein, ever and every one of its findings poses since Socrates claimed that, by clever questioning, he was able to ferret out tacit mathematical knowledge from an illiterate further problems, pseudoscience is slave boy. Thanks to Eduard von Hartmann’s best seller, Die Philosophie des Unbewussten (1870), the subject was already characterized by certainty. popular in 1900, when Freud first proposed his wild fantasies. Among other things, Freud reified the unconscious and attrib- uted to it causal powers that allegedly accounted for a number of unexplained phenomena, such as slips of the tongue and the contrary to scientific research, pseudoscientific speculation has mythical Oedipus complex. But of course, it never occurred to not delivered a single law of nature or of society. him or to any of his followers to approach this subject in an So much for a sketchy characterization of both authentic and experimental manner. bogus science. Let us now apply our analysis to a couple of inter- The scientific study of unconscious mental processes began esting recent cases: physical chemistry and neuropsychology. a couple of decades ago with observations on split-brain and blindsight patients. Since then, the various brain-imaging 2. Two Cases: Self-organization and the techniques, such as PET scanning and functional MRI, have Unconscious made it possible to ascertain whether someone feels or knows Our first example is the treatment of self-organizing systems: something even though he or she does not know that he feels complex wholes that get self-assembled in the absence of exter- or knows it. Moreover, these techniques make it possible to nal forces. Self-organization, in particular, biological morpho- localize such mental processes in a noninvasive way. An exam- genesis, is a wondrous but poorly understood process. No won- ple is the paper by Morris, Öhman, and Dolan (1998)— der that it has been the object of much pseudoscientific specu- which, unsurprisingly, does not cite any psychoanalytic stud- lation peppered with high-sounding but empty expressions, ies. Let us look at it. such as “constructive force,” “entelechy,” “élan vital,” “morpho- The amygdala is the tiny brain organ that feels such basic genetic field,” “autopoiesis,” and the like. All such factors have and ancient emotions as fear and anger. If damaged, a person’s often been regarded as being immaterial, hence beyond the emotional and social life will be severely stunted. The activity reach of physics and chemistry. And they are neither described of the amygdala can be monitored by a PET scanner; this in any detail nor manipulated in the laboratory. Hence, talk of device allows the experimenter to detect a subject’s emotions, such factors is just hand waving, when not magic-wand waving. and even to locate them in either side of the amygdala.

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However, such neural activity may not reach the conscious ridiculous ontology; and it has no use for semantics, episte- level. In this case, only a brain scanner can help. mology, or ethics. No wonder that it has had no impact on sci- For example, if a normal human subject is briefly shown an ence—except indirectly, and negatively, through its debase- angry face as a target stimulus, and immediately thereafter an ment of reason and support of . No wonder, too, that expressionless mask, he will report seeing the latter but not the for- it has not produced an intelligible philosophy of science, let mer. Yet, the scanner tells a different story. It tells us that, if the angry alone a stimulating one. face has been associated with an aversive stimulus, such as a burst of By contrast, logical positivism defends logic and the scien- high-intensity white noise, the amygdala is activated by the target, tific method; but it has no defensible semantics; it has no even though the subject does not recall having seen it. In short, the ontology beyond phenomenalism (“there are only appear- amygdala “knows” something that the organ of consciousness ances”); its epistemology overrates induction and misunder- (whichever and wherever it is) does not. Psychoanalysts could use stands or underrates scientific theory, which it regards as a this very method to measure the intensity of a male’s hatred for his mere data abstract; and it has no ethics beyond Hume’s emo- father. But they don’t, because they don’t believe in the brain: their tivism. Unsurprisingly, logical positivism misinterprets rela- psychology is idealistic, hence brainless. More on this in section 4. tivistic and quantum physics in terms of laboratory operations The number of examples of pseudoscience can be multi- instead of as representing objectively existing physical entities plied at will. Astrology, , parapsychology, characterol- that exist in the absence of observers (see, e.g., Bunge 1973). ogy, , creation “science,” “intelligent design,” Still, logical positivism is scientistic, and therefore far superior Christian “Science,” , , and memetics are to the antiscience characteristic of postmodernism. generally regarded as pseudoscientific (see, e.g., Kurtz 1985, Popperianism praises logic but rejects the very attempt to Randi 1982, and THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER). On the other do semantics; it possesses no ontology beyond individualism hand, it is less widely accepted that psychoanalysis and com- (or atomism, or nominalism); it values theory to the point of putationist psychology are also bogus sciences. This is why we regarding experiment as only a way of testing hypotheses; it shall examine them in section 3. But first, we must take a brief overrates criticism, underrates induction, and has no use for explicit look at philosophy, for some of it is bogus. positive evidence; and it has no ethics beyond the Buddha’s and Epicurus’s and Hippocrates’s injunction to do no harm. 3. Philosophy: Proscientific and Antiscientific However, Popperianism has the merits of having defended a The above characterization of scientific research involves realist interpretation of physical theories and of having philosophical ideas of six kinds: logical, semantical, ontologi- deflated inductivism. But Popper first underrated, and later cal, epistemological (in particular, methodological), ethical, accepted but misinterpreted, evolutionary biology as consist- and sociological. More specifically, it involves the notions of ing exclusively of culling misfits; he opposed the psychoneural logical consequence and logical consistency; the semantic monism inherent in biological psychology; he rejected the notions of meaning and truth; the ontological concepts of real materialist conception of history adopted by the most fact and law (objective pattern); the epistemological concepts advanced historiographic school—that of the Annales; and he of knowledge and test; the principles of intellectual honesty; defended neoclassical microeconomics, which—as I will argue and the notion of a scientific community. below—is pseudoscientific in being conceptually fuzzy and Why is this so? Because scientific research is, in a nutshell, immune to empirical falsification. the honest search for true knowledge about the real world, par- As for Marxism, it has introduced some revolutionary ideas ticularly its laws, with the help of both theoretical and empiri- in social science, particularly the materialist conception of his- cal means—in particular the scientific method—and because tory and the centrality of social conflict. However, Marxian every body of scientific knowledge is expected to be logically materialism is narrowly economicist: it underrates the roles of consistent and the subject of rational discussion in the bosom of and culture (in particular, ideology). Moreover, a community of investigators. All the expressions in italics Marxism, following Hegel, confuses logic with ontology. occur in (metascientific) discourses about any factual (empiri- Hence, it is diffident of formal logic; its materialist ontology is cal) science. And the discipline in charge of elucidating and marred by the romantic obscurities of dialectics, such as the systematizing the corresponding concepts is philosophy. principle of the unity of opposites; its epistemology is naïve Indeed, philosophy is the study of the most fundamental and realism (the “reflection theory of knowledge”), which makes transdisciplinary concepts and principles. Hence, philosophers no room for the symbolic nature of pure mathematics and the- are expected to be generalists rather than specialists. And some oretical physics; it glorifies social wholes at the expense of indi- of us often assume the ungrateful task of passing judgment on viduals and their legitimate aspirations; it exaggerates the the credentials of some pseudoscientific or ideological beliefs. impact of society on cognition; and it adopts the ethics of util- Now, different philosophical schools treat the above philo- itarianism, which has no use for disinterested inquiry, let alone sophical components of science differently or not at all. Recall altruism. No wonder that, when in power, dialectical materi- briefly only four contemporary examples: existentialism, logi- alist philosophers have opposed some of the most revolutionary cal positivism, Popperianism, and Marxism. scientific developments of their time: mathematical logic, rel- Existentialism rejects logic and, in general, rationality; it ativity theory, quantum mechanics, genetics, the synthetic the- espouses an extremely sketchy, nearly unintelligible, and even ory of evolution, and post-Pavlovian neuropsychology.

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In short, none of these four schools matches the philosophy Moreover, the reason the pseudosciences are akin to religion, inherent in science. I submit that any philosophy capable of to the point that some of them serve as surrogates for it, is that understanding and promoting scientific research has the fol- they share a philosophy, namely philosophical idealism—not to lowing characteristics (Bunge 1974–1989): be mistaken for moral idealism. Indeed, pseudoscience and reli- Logical: Internal consistency and abidance by the rules of gion postulate immaterial entities, paranormal cognitive abili- deductive inference; acceptance of analogy and induction as ties, and a heteronomous ethics. I will spell this out. heuristic means, but no claim to a priori validations of analog- Every religion has a philosophical kernel, and the philoso- ical or inductive arguments. phies inherent in the various share the following Semantical: A realist theory of meaning as intended refer- idealist principles: Idealist ontology—there are autonomous ence (denotation)—and as different from extension—together spiritual entities, such as souls and deities, and they satisfy no with sense or connotation. And a realist view of factual truth scientific laws. Idealist epistemology—some people possess as the matching of a proposition with the facts it refers to. cognitive abilities that fall outside the purview of experimen- Ontological: Materialism (naturalism)—all real things are tal psychology: divine inspiration, inborn insight, or the material (possess energy), and they all fit some laws (causal, capacity to sense spiritual beings or prophesy events without probabilistic, or mixed). Mental processes are brain processes, the help of science. Heteronomous ethics—all people are sub- and ideas in themselves, however true or useful, are fictions. ject to inscrutable and unbendable superhuman powers, and Dynamicism—all material things are in flux. Systemism—every they are not obliged to justify their beliefs by means of sci- thing is either a system or a (potential or actual) component of entific experiment. a system. Emergentism—every system has (systemic or emer- All three philosophical components common to both religion gent) properties that its components lack. and pseudoscience are at variance with the philosophy inherent in Epistemological: Scientific realism—it is possible to get to science. Hence, the theses that science is one more ideology and know reality, at least partially and gradually, and scientific that science cannot conflict with religion because they address dif- theories are expected to represent, however imperfectly, ferent problems in different but mutually compatible ways are parts or features of the real world. Moderate skepticism—sci- false. (More on religion in science in Mahner and Bunge 1996.) entific knowledge is both fallible and perfectible. However, some findings—e.g., that there are atoms and fields, that 4. The Cases of Psychoanalysis and there are no disembodied ideas, and that science pays—are Computationist Psychology firm acquisitions. Moderate empiricism—all factual hypothe- Do psychoanalysis and computationist psychology share the ses must be empirically testable, and both positive and neg- philosophical features that, according to section 3, character- ative evidence are valuable indicators of truth value. ize the mature sciences? Moderate rationalism—knowledge advances through edu- Psychoanalysis violates the ontology and the methodology cated guessing and reasoning combined with experience. of all genuine science. Indeed, it holds that the soul (“mind” Scientism—whatever is knowable and worth knowing is best in the standard English translation of Freud’s works) is imma- known scientifically. terial, yet can act upon the body, as shown by psychosomatic Ethical: Secular humanism—the supreme moral norm is effects. However, psychoanalysis does not assume any mecha- “Pursue the welfare (biological, mental, and social) of oneself nisms whereby an immaterial entity can alter the state of a and others.” This maxim directs that scientific research should material one: it just states that this is the case. Moreover, this satisfy either curiosity or need and abstain from doing unjus- statement is dogmatic, since psychoanalysts, unlike psycholo- tifiable harm. gists, do not perform any empirical tests. In particular, no lab- Sociological: Epistemic socialism—scientific work, however oratory has ever been set up by any psychoanalysts. Freud him- artisanal, is social, in that it is now stimulated, now inhibited, self had emphatically dissociated psychoanalysis from both by fellow workers and by the ruling social order, and the (pro- experimental psychology and neuroscience. visional) umpire is not some institutional authority but the To mark the first centenary of the publication of Freud’s community of experts. Every such community prospers with Interpretation of Dreams, the International Journal of the achievements of its members, and it facilitates the detec- Psychoanalysis published a paper by six New York analysts tion and correction of error. (Warning: this is a far cry from (Vaughan et al. 2000) who purported to report on the first both the Marxist claim that ideas are exuded and killed by experimental test ever of psychoanalysis in the course of one society and the constructivist-relativist view that “scientific century. Actually, this was no experiment at all, since it facts” are local social constructions, that is, mere community- involved no control group. Hence, those authors had no right bound or tribal conventions.) to conclude that the observed improvements were due to the I submit that the above philosophical principles are tacitly treatment; they could just as well have been spontaneous. met by the mature or “hard” sciences (physics, chemistry, and Thus, psychoanalysts make no use of the scientific method, biology); that the immature or “soft” sciences (psychology and because they do not know what this is. After all, they were not the social sciences) satisfy some of them; and that the pseudo- trained as scientists but only, at best, as medical practitioners. sciences violate most of them. In short, I submit that scien- The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan—a hero of post- tificity is coextensive with sound philosophy. modernism—admitted this and held that psychoanalysis, far

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from being a science, is a purely rhetorical practice: “l’art du 5. Borderline Cases: Proto- and Semi- bavardage.” Finally, since psychoanalysts claim that their views Every attempt at classifying any collection of items outside are both true and effective without having submitted them to mathematics is likely to meet borderline cases. The main rea- either experimental tests or rigorous clinical trials, they can sons for such vagueness are either that the classification hardly be said to proceed with the intellectual honesty that sci- entists are expected to abide by (even if they occasionally lapse). In sum, pychoanalysis does not qualify as a science. Contrary to widespread belief, it is not even a failed science, if only because it makes no use of the scientific method and Since psychoanalysts claim ignores counterexamples. It is just quack psychology. Computationist psychology claims that the mind is a set that their views are both true and of computer programs that can in principle be implemented in either brains or machines—or perhaps even ghosts. That is, this popular school adopts the functionalist view that mat- effective without having submitted ter does not matter—that only function does. This view is encouraged by the idealist ontologies, whereas science inves- them to either experimental tests or tigates only concrete things on various levels: physical, chem- ical, living—thinking and nonthinking—or social. rigorous clinical trials, they can hardly Moreover, the computationists beg the question whether cer- tain mental processes are computations. They have no evi- be said to proceed with the dence that all mental processes are computational; they just assert this thesis. But this thesis is false, since neither emotional nor creative intellectual honesty that scientists processes are algorithmic, and only a fraction of cognitive processes are. For example, there can be no algorithms for act- are expected to abide by. ing spontaneously, asking original problems, formulating orig- inal hypotheses, forming fruitful analogies, or designing origi- nal artifacts, such as radically new algorithms, machines, or social organizations. Indeed, every algorithm is a procedure for criteria themselves are imprecise or that the item in question performing operations of a specified kind, such as sorting, possesses only some of the features necessary to place it in the adding, and computing values of a mathematical function. By box in question. Remember the case of the platypus, the egg- contrast, original scientific findings are not specifiable in laying mammal. advance—this being why research is necessary. Whatever the reason, in the case of science we find plenty In sum, computationist psychology is nonscientific because of disciplines, theories, or procedures that, far from falling it ignores negative evidence and it disregards the matter of clearly either in the range of the scientific or outside it, may be mind—the brain that does the minding. Consequently, it iso- characterized as proto-scientific, semi-scientific, or as failed lates itself from neuroscience and social science—and discipli- science. Let us take a quick look at these cases. nary isolation is a reliable indicator of non-scientificity. The A proto-science, or emerging science, is obviously a science secret of its popularity lies not in its findings but in the com- in statu nascendi. If it survives at all, such a field may eventu- puter’s popularity, in that it does not demand any knowledge ally develop either into a mature science, a semi-science, or a of neuroscience, and in the illusion that sentences of the form pseudoscience. In other words, when a discipline is said to be “X computes Y” explain, while in fact they only conceal our a proto-science, it is too early to pronounce it scientific or ignorance of the neural mechanisms. (Remember that there is nonscientific. Examples: physics before Galileo and Huygens, no genuine explanation without mechanism, and that all chemistry before Lavoisier, and medicine before Virchov and mechanisms are material; see Bunge 2006.) Bernard. All of these disciplines matured quickly to become So much for a sample of pseudoscience. The subject of its fully scientific. (Medicine and engineering can be called scien- underlying philosophy is intriguing and vast, yet largely tific even though they are technologies rather than sciences.) unexplored (see, however, Flew 1987). Just think of the A semi-science is a discipline that started out as a science, is many pockets of pseudoscience ensconced in the sciences, usually called a science, yet does not fully qualify as such. I such as the anthropic principle, the attempt to craft a theory submit that cosmology, psychology, and economics are semi- of everything, information talk in biochemistry, the “it’s-all- sciences. Indeed, cosmology is still rife with speculations in-the-genes” dogma in biology, human sociobiology, West that contradict solid principles of physics. There are still Coast (purely speculative) evolutionary psychology, and psychologists who deny that the mind is what the brain does, game-theoretic models in economics and political science. or who write about neural systems “subserving” or “mediating” Analyze an egregious error in science, and you are likely to mental functions. And of course, many of the so-called Nobel find a philosophical bug. Prizes in economics (which are actually prizes of the Bank of

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Sweden) are awarded to inventors of mathematical models that proved very fruitful and, far from confirming the phrenologi- have no resemblance to economic reality—if only because they cal hypothesis (one module per function), it has given rise to ignore production and politics—or to designers of economic many new insights, among them, the view that all the subsys- policies that harm the poor. The game-theoretic models pro- tems of the brain are interconnected. If a tool or a theory leads posed by Thomas C. Schelling, which won a Nobel Prize in to important findings, it cannot be pseudoscientific, because 2005, are a case in point. One of them designed the strategic one of the marks of pseudoscience is that it is built around an bombing of the Vietnamese civilian population. The same old superstition. game theorist also discovered that African Americans segregate Finally, a word of caution. Most of us are suspicious of rad- themselves: they “feel more comfortable among their own ically new theories or tools, and this is the case for either of color” (Schelling 1978, 138–139). two reasons: because of intellectual inertia or because it is nec- In some cases, it is hard to know whether something is sci- essary to grill every newcomer to make sure that it is not an entific, semi-scientific, or pseudoscientific. For instance, the impostor. But one must try to avoid confusing the two rea- vast majority of nineteenth-century physicists regarded atom- sons. Inquisitive types like novelty, but only as long as it does ism as a pseudoscience, because it had produced only indirect not threaten to dismantle the entire system of knowledge. evidence for the atomic hypothesis. Worse, since there was no detailed theory of individual atoms, atomism was only weakly 6. Pseudoscience and Politics testable, namely through the predictions of statistical mechan- Pseudoscience is always dangerous, because it pollutes culture ics. But the theory became scientifically respectable almost and, when it concerns health, the economy, or the polity, it overnight as a consequence of Einstein’s theory of Brownian puts life, liberty, or peace at risk. But of course, pseudoscience motion and Perrin’s experimental confirmation of it. Only die- is supremely dangerous when it enjoys the support of a gov- hard positivists, like Ernst Mach, opposed atomism to the last. ernment, an organized religion, or large corporations. A hand- Another example: quantum theory is undoubtedly a para- ful of examples should suffice to make this point. digm of successful high-level science. But the Copenhagen , once promoted by many bona fide scientists and interpretation of this theory is pseudoscientific, because it progressive public intellectuals, was invoked by American leg- places the observer at the center of the universe, since it islators to introduce and pass bills that restricted the immigra- assumes that every physical event results from a laboratory tion of people of “inferior races” and led to the institutional- procedure. That this thesis is blatantly false is shown by the ization of thousands of children regarded as mentally feeble. facts that the theory holds for stars, which are of course unin- The racial policies of the Nazis were justified by the same “sci- habitable, and that it contains no postulates describing any ence” and led to the murder or enslavement of millions of observers. (More on this in Bunge 1973, Mahner 2001.) Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies. String theory is a suspicious character. It looks scientific The replacement of genetics with the loopy ideas of the because it tackles an open problem that is both important and agronomist Trophim Lysenko, who enjoyed Stalin’s protection, difficult, that of constructing a quantum theory of gravita- was responsible for the spectacular backwardness of Soviet tion. For this reason, and because it has stimulated mathe- agriculture, which in turn, led to severe food shortages. The matics, it is attracting some of the brightest young brains. But same dictatorship replaced sociology with Marxism-Leninism, the theory postulates that physical space has six or seven whose faithful rightly indicted the social flaws of the capitalist dimensions rather than three, just to secure mathematical societies but neglected the study of equally acute social issues consistency. Since these extra dimensions are unobservable, in the Soviet empire. The consequence was that these issues and since the theory has resisted experimental confirmation got worse, and no Soviet social analyst foresaw the sudden col- for more than three decades, it looks like , or at lapse of the empire. least, failed science. More recent cases of the pseudoscience-politics connection The case of , the “science of skull bumps,” is are the issues of climate change, stem-cell research, “intelligent instructive. It proposed a testable, materialistic hypothesis, design,” and wildlife protection on the part of the present U.S. namely that all mental functions are precisely localizable brain government. Such interferences are bound to have negative functions. But instead of putting this exciting hypothesis to impacts on science, medicine, and the environment. The lat- the experimental test, the phrenologists sold it successfully at est case of government support of pseudoscience is the deci- fairs and other places of entertainment: They went around pal- sion of the French health minister to remove from the official pating people’s skulls and claiming to locate alleged centers of Web site a report that cognitive-behavioral therapy is more altruism, philoprogenitivity, imagination, and so on. The effective than psychoanalysis (French psychoflap 2005). emergence of modern neuroscience finished phrenology. The discrediting of phrenology cast doubt not only on rad- Conclusion ical localizationism but also on the scientific attempts to map Pseudoscience is just as philosophically loaded as science. the mind onto the brain. In particular, the brain-imaging Only, the philosophy inherent in either is perpendicular to devices invented over the past three decades were first greeted that ensconced in the other. In particular, the ontology of sci- with skepticism because the very attempt to localize mental ence is naturalistic (or materialist), whereas that of pseudo- processes sounded like phrenology. But these new tools have science is idealistic. The epistemology of science is realist,

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whereas that of pseudoscience is not. And the ethics of science In short, tell me what philosophy you use (not just profess), is so demanding that it does not tolerate the self-deceptions and I’ll tell you what your science is worth. And tell me what and frauds that plague pseudoscience. In sum, science is com- science you use (not just pay lip service to), and I’ll tell you patible with the proscience philosophy sketched in section 2, what your philosophy is worth. whereas pseudoscience is not. “So what?” the reader may ask. What is the point of the References above exercise in border patrolling? Answer: it may help as a Adams, Marie, Zvonimir Dogic, Sarah L. Keller, and Seth Fraden. 1998. Entropically driven microphase transitions in mixtures of colloidal rods warning that a research project inspired by a wrong philosophy and spheres. Nature 393: 249–351. is likely to fail. After all, this is all we can do when evaluating a Bunge, Mario. 1973. Philosophy of Physics. Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel. research proposal before the data are in: to check whether the ———. 1974–1989. Treatise on Basic Philosophy, 8 vols. Dordrecht, Holland/Boston: Reidel-Kluwer. project is trivial or worse, namely, contrary to the “spirit” of sci- ence, so that it may deserve the infamous Ig Nobel Prize (Bunge 2004). Much the same holds, a fortiori, for the evalua- tion of ongoing research. For example, present-day particle physics is brimming with mathematically sophisticated theories Before jumping that postulate the existence of weird entities that do not inter- act appreciably, or at all, with ordinary matter, as a consequence headlong into a of which they are safely undetectable. (Some of these theories even postulate that space-time has ten or eleven dimensions research project, instead of the four real ones.) Since these theories are at vari- ance with the bulk of physics, and violate the requirement of check it for unsound empirical testability, they may qualify as pseudoscientific even if they have been around for a quarter of a century and get pub- philosophical lished in the most reputable physics journals. Second example: all economics and management stu- dents are required to study neoclassical microeconomics. presuppositions. However, they are unlikely to use this theory in tackling any real-life economic problems. The reason for such uselessness is that some of the theory’s postulates are wildly unrealistic ———. 1998a. Philosophy of Science, 2 vols. New Brunswick, N.J.: and others excessively fuzzy, hence hardly testable. Indeed, Transaction Publishers. the theory assumes that all the actors in a market are free, ———. 1998b. Social Science under Debate. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. mutually independent, perfectly well-informed, equally ———. 2004. The pseudoscience concept, dispensable in professional prac- powerful, immune to politics, and fully “rational”—i.e., tice, is required to evaluate research projects. The Scientific Review of capable of choosing the options likely to maximize their Mental Health Practice 2: 111–114. ———. 2006. Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism. Toronto: University of expected utilities. But real markets are peopled by individu- Toronto Press. als and firms who have imperfect information and, far from Flew, Antony (ed.). 1987. Readings in the Philosophical Problems of being totally free, belong to social networks or even monop- Parapsychology. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. French psychoflap. 2005. Science 307: 1197. olies. Moreover, the expected utility in question is ill- Friedman, Milton. 1991. Old wine in new bottles. Economic Journal 101: defined, being the product of two quantities that are esti- 33–40. mated subjectively rather than on the strength of hard data, Gardner, Martin. 1983. Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. namely the probability of the event in question and the cor- Kurtz, Paul. 2001. Skeptical Odysseys. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. responding utility to the agent. (Most of the time, the pre- Kurtz, Paul (ed.). 1985. A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology. Amherst, N.Y.: cise form of the utility function is not specified. And, when Prometheus Books. Mahner, Martin. 2001. (Ed.) Scientific Realism: Selected Essays of Mario Bunge. specified, the choice is not justified empirically.) Milton Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. Friedman (1991) boasted that, in its present form, this the- Mahner, Martin, and Mario Bunge. 1996. Is religion education compatible ory is just “old wine in new bottles.” In my view, the fact with science education? Science & Education 5: 101–123. Martínez, Tomás Eloy. 1989. La novela de Perón. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. that the theory has remained essentially untouched for over Merton, Robert K. 1973. The Sociology of Science. Chicago: University of a century despite significant progress in other branches of Chicago Press. social science is a clear indicator that it is pseudoscientific. Morris, J.S., A. Öhman, and R.J. Dolan. 1998. Conscious and unconscious emotional learning in the human amygdala. Nature 393: 467–470. (More in Bunge 1998b.) Randi, James. 1982. Flim-Flam! Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. The moral: before jumping headlong into a research pro- Schelling, Thomas C. 1978. Micromotives and Macrobehavior. New York: ject, check it for unsound philosophical presuppositions, such W.W. Norton. Vaughan, Susan C., Randall D. Marshall, Roger A. McKinnon, Roger as the beliefs that mathematical sophistication suffices in fac- Vaughan, Lisa Mellman, and Steven P. Roose. 2000. Can we do psycho- tual science, that playing with undefined symbols can make up analytic outcome research? A feasibility study. The International Journal of for conceptual fuzziness or lack of empirical support, or that Psychoanalysis 81: 513–527. Wolpert, Lewis. 1992.The Unnatural Nature of Science. London: Faber & there can be smiles (or thoughts) without heads. Faber. 

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Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All

Richard Feynman’s “least-action” approach to quantum physics in effect shows that it is just classical physics constrained by a simple mechanism. When the complicated mathematics is left aside, valuable insights are gained. PAUL QUINCEY

he birth of quantum mechanics can be dated to 1925, when physicists such as Werner Heisenberg Tand Erwin Schrödinger invented mathematical pro- cedures that accurately replicated many of the observed properties of atoms. The change from earlier types of physics was dramatic, and pre-quantum physics was soon called clas- sical physics in a kind of nostalgia for the days when waves were waves, particles were particles, and everything knew its place in the world. Since 1925, quantum mechanics has never looked back. It soon became clear that the new methods were not just good at accounting for the properties of atoms, they were absolutely central to explaining why atoms did not collapse, SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:45 PM Page 39

how solids can be rigid, and how different atoms combine We therefore have two quite different ways of describing together in what we call chemistry and biology. The rules of situations in classical physics that are equally good in terms of classical physics, far from being a reliable description of the giving the right answer. To give the simplest possible example, everyday world that breaks down at the scale of the atom, we can think of a golf ball travelling across an idealized, fric- turned out to be incapable of explaining anything much more tionless, flat green. In Newton’s view (figure 1), the ball moves complicated than how planets orbit the sun, unless they used in a straight line at constant speed, because that is what either the results of quantum mechanics or a lot of ad hoc Newton’s Law says it must do. In Maupertuis’ view (figure 2), assumptions. the ball does this because this path is the one that has the least But this triumph of quantum mechanics came with an action between the start and end points. This trivial example unexpected problem—when you stepped outside of the math- can be made more interesting by making the green have ematics and tried to explain what was going on, it didn’t seem humps and dips, which are like having forces acting on the to make any sense. Elementary particles such as electrons ball, but the principles stay the same. behave like waves, apparently moving like ripples on a pond; they also seem to be instantaneously aware of distant objects and to be in different places at the same time. It seemed that any weird idea could gain respectability by finding similarities with some of the weird features of quantum mechanics. It has become almost obligatory to declare that quantum physics, in contrast to classical physics, cannot be understood, and that we should admire its ability to give the right answers without thinking about it too hard. And yet, eighty years and unprecedented numbers of physi- cists later, naked quantum weirdness remains elusive. There are plenty of quantum phenomena, from the magnetism of iron

and the superconductivity of lead to lasers and electronics, but Figure 1: Classical mechanics—Newton’s view: the ball moves in a straight none of them really qualifies as truly bizarre in the way we line at a constant speed, because that is what things do when there are no might expect. The greatest mystery of quantum mechanics is forces acting on them. how its ideas have remained so weird while it explained more and more about the world around us. Perhaps it is time to revisit the ideas with the benefit of hindsight, to see if either quantum mechanics is less weird than we usually think it is or the world around us is more so.

Classical Mechanics in Action When we think of planets orbiting the sun, we usually adopt Newton’s view that they are constantly accelerating—in this case changing direction—in response to gravitational forces. From this, we can calculate the motions precisely, and the impressive accuracy of predictions for total solar eclipses shows how well it works. There is, however, another way of thinking about what is Figure 2: Classical mechanics—Maupertuis’ view: the ball moves in a straight line at a constant speed to any given point on its travels, because happening that gives exactly the same results. Instead of the that is the path of least action between the start and finish. Principle of Acceleration by Forces, as we might call it, there is an alternative called the Principle of Least Action, or more cor- Hamilton’s Principle is fundamentally equivalent to rectly, Hamilton’s Principle. Newton’s Laws, and comes into its own when solving more It is a principle that was first put forward about fifty years advanced types of classical problems. But as an explana- after Newton’s, in its earliest form by the Frenchman Pierre tion, it has a major flaw—it seems to mean that things Maupertuis, and in its ultimate form by the Irishman William need to know where they are going before they work out Rowan Hamilton. how to get there. The general idea is that when a planet travels through Actually, this is where classical mechanics makes its first big space, or a ball travels through the air, the path that is followed step toward quantum mechanics, if only we look at it another is the one that minimizes something called the action between way. The mathematics of Hamilton’s Principle can be the start and end points. Action, for our purposes here, is just described in words alternatively like this: given its starting something that can be measured out for some particular object moving along a particular path. It is exactly defined and is Paul Quincey is a physicist at the National Physical Laboratory, measured in units of energy multiplied by time. The details are Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW, United not important unless you need to make calculations. Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].

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points and motion, an object will end up at locations that are connected to its starting point by a path whose action is a min- imum compared to neighboring paths. If locations away from the classical path are considered, no such paths exist—there will always be a path with the least action, but this is not a minimum. It is an unfamiliar idea, but well worth a little effort to try and digest. One vital change to note is that, while still being classical physics, the emphasis has moved away from knowing the path that is followed to having a test to check whether pos- sible destinations are on the right track. And the crucial factor is being able to compare the actions of different paths. It leads to a third picture for our moving golf ball, central Figure 4: The single most potent image of quantum mechanics— to the later move to quantum physics, which we can call a surveyor’s wheel for measuring action Feynman’s view of classical physics (figure 3). each destination according to whether, with just this simple measuring tool, it can find a path of minimal action. When the actions it is trying to measure are large compared to the size of the wheel, the system typically works just as clas- sical physics requires. But in some situations the mechanism fails to produce classical mechanics and gives us quantum mechanics instead. We call the circumference of the wheel “Planck’s constant,” after Max Planck, who discovered its importance by an indirect route in 1900. You may be wondering how exactly the wheel can tell us what we need to know, but we don’t need to go into the details here—those interested should read Richard Feynman’s book,

Figure 3: Classical mechanics—Feynman’s view: the ball is found at the QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, or see the sum- black points, which happen to lie on a straight line, and not the white mary given in the box on page 43. points, because only the black points pass the “action test.” This means that there is a path from the start to the black points whose action is a Differences from Classical Physics minimum compared to neighboring paths, but there is no such path from the start to the white spots. As we might expect, the introduction of a mechanism for car- If we stay within the world of classical physics, we can rying out classical mechanics only makes a difference when the choose to ignore this strange new description and stick with mechanism can’t do its job properly. Specifically, if we want to the more comfortable idea that things are accelerated along check out destinations that are too close to the start, as gauged paths by forces, but this would be a personal preference rather by the size of the wheel, the mechanism doesn’t work. It can- than a rational one. The new view prompts the question: not say where the object should be going, and there is an “How do things work out whether possible destinations are intrinsic fuzziness associated with it, with a scale set by the linked to the start by a path of minimal action?” We should amount of action known as Planck’s constant. This is other- appreciate, however, that the old Newtonian view prompts wise known as the Uncertainty Principle. equally difficult questions like: “How do things respond to A second feature arises from the simple circular nature of forces by accelerating just the required amount, instant by the measuring device. It cannot tell the difference between instant?” Moreover, as we will see, the action version is the one paths that differ by an amount of action that is an exact whole that the world around us seems to use. number of Planck’s constants. This can lead to patterns of probabilities that look just like classical waves, because the Roll on, Quantum Mechanics mathematics of waves is very similar to the mathematics of cir- Suppose we take the action question seriously and give it a cular motion. rather simple answer: Nature has to check out all possible des- The most important change comes when we consider tinations to see if they are on the right track. It must do this objects in very small orbits, like electrons around nuclei. The by trying to find out if there is a path of minimal action to mechanism gives zero probability unless the orbit (or more each destination. It uses a device that can measure the action correctly the state) has an action that is an exact multiple of along all possible paths to each destination. Planck’s constant. This crude mechanism explains why atoms The device is a simple surveyor’s wheel for measuring can only shrink to a certain point, to a state with an action of action—just a wheel with a mark on the rim (figure 4). There Planck’s constant, where they become stable. isn’t literally a type of wheel that measures action, but we can With one extra idea, which we will mention later, the imagine that there is. The mechanism assigns probabilities to mechanism seems to explain the workings of chemistry,

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biology, and all the other successes of quantum mechanics, simple shadows we would expect if the particles were just particles, without ever really stopping being classical mechanics. we see an interference pattern, as if the electrons have dematerial- ized into a wave and passed through both slits at the same time. Three Conceptual Problems with Quantum Mechanics The way it is normally introduced, quantum mechanics is something quite baffling, and certainly stranger than just clas- sical mechanics with a mechanism. It is worth addressing the three most obvious difficulties directly: 1) Quantum mechanics gives answers that are a set of proba- bilities all existing at the same time. This is totally unreal. As Schrödinger pointed out, quantum mechanics seems to say that you could create a situation where a cat was both alive and dead at the same time, and we never see this. But this is in fact a very curious piece of ammunition to use against quantum mechanics.

We already have a very good nontechnical word for a mix- Figure 5: A schematic diagram of the two-slits experiment ture of possibilities coexisting at the same time—we call it the future. Unless we believe that all events are predeter- There are several ways of coming to terms with this. The mined, which would be a very dismal view of the world, this first thing to note is that the lack of complete information is what the future must be like. Of course, we never experi- is not really a problem that arose in quantum mechanics— ence it until it becomes the present, when only one of the it originates in the third version of classical mechanics. In possibilities takes place, but the actual future—as opposed to the Feynman version, the essence of motion is a process of our prediction of one version of it—must be something determining if a destination is on or off the right track. much like what quantum mechanics describes. This is a great Before the move to quantum mechanics, we can do this as triumph for quantum mechanics over classical mechanics, often as we like, so that we can fill in the gaps as closely as which by describing all events as inevitable, effectively we like, but the precedent has been set: physics is about deprived us of a future. testing discrete locations rather than calculating continuous Of course, there is now a new big question of how one of trajectories. If it is inherent in old-fashioned classical the possibilities in the future is selected to form what we see as physics, not just “weird” quantum physics, perhaps we can the present and what becomes the past, but we should not see relax a little. the lack of a ready answer as a fault of quantum mechanics. The second point is to clarify what the problem is. To take This is a question that is large enough, encompassing such the two-slit example, we never see electrons dematerialize, or ideas as fate and free will, to be set aside for another time. The rippling through something, we just find it necessary to think headline “Physics Cannot Predict the Future in Detail” should that they do to explain the pattern that we see on the screen. be no great embarrassment. If we deliberately try to observe where the electrons go, we see 2) Quantum mechanics means that there is a kind of instant them as particles somewhere else, but the interference pattern awareness between everything. This is quite true, but by intro- disappears. In effect, the problem is that we cannot say what ducing quantum mechanics in the way that we have, the the particles look like only when they cannot be seen. “awareness” is of a very limited kind—limited to the awareness Now this is an uncomfortable thought, because all our gained through the action-measuring mechanism as it checks instincts tell us that particles must be somewhere, even all possible destinations. It is very hard to see how the only when we cannot see them. But if quantum mechanics can result of this—a probability associated with each destination— accurately describe all the information we can ever obtain could be used to send a signal faster than light or violate any about the outside world, perhaps we are simply being greedy other cherished principle. It is rather revealing that one of the to ask for anything more. The headline “Physics Fails to few novel quantum phenomena is a means of cryptography— Describe Events That Cannot Be Observed” is, again, rather a way of concealing a signal rather than sending one. lacking in impact. 3) Quantum mechanics doesn’t allow us to say where every- The final point is a little vague but more fundamental. If thing is, every instant of the time. This is the most interesting we accept that the future is not fixed, we expect it to contain “fault” of quantum mechanics, and it can be expressed in surprises. Crudely speaking, this is not very plausible in a many ways: particles need to be in more than one place at a world where particles have continuous trajectories and an infi- time; their positions are not defined until they are “observed”; nite amount of information is freely available. It is much more they behave like waves. We will summarize this as an inability plausible in a world that is in some way discontinuous, where to say exactly where particles are all the time. the available information is limited. Even though we have set The “classic” illustration of this is the experiment of passing a aside the question of how a future full of possibilities turns steady stream of electrons through two slits (figure 5). Instead of the into an unchanging past, it must involve something that seems

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pretty weird compared to our normal experience. Perhaps this assumptions, a classical world of point-like electrons and example of physics not conforming to our expectations is nuclei is blindingly chaotic. Atoms are continually trying to weirdness of the right sort. collapse, but are prevented from doing so by the huge amount of electromagnetic radiation that is released in the process. It The Addition of Spin is not the comfortable place that the word classical implies. It was mentioned earlier that another new idea is needed As we imagine moving to the quantum realm by increasing before the classical physics of electrons and nuclei properly the size of Planck’s constant from zero, something remarkable turns into chemistry. That idea is spin, a third property of elec- happens. At some point, the blinding light disappears to reveal trons and nuclei alongside mass and electrical charge. Paul stable atoms, capable of forming molecules. Far from making Dirac showed that spin is a natural property of charged parti- everything go weird, quantum mechanics makes it go normal. cles within quantum mechanics. Wolfgang Pauli showed that To be sure, if Planck’s constant increases too far, the atoms fall the spin of the electron prevents more than one electron occu- apart and a different form of chaos takes over, but that just pying the same state at the same time—the Exclusion makes the story even more interesting. Principle—a fact responsible for the whole of chemistry. The So it seems that quantum physics is not weird and incom- details are not important here, but quantum mechanics with prehensible because it describes something completely differ- spin seems to account for pretty much all the world we see ent from everyday reality. It is weird and incomprehensible around us. precisely because it describes the world we see around us— Quantum Mechanics—Bringer of Stability past, present, and future. One of the benefits of viewing the quantum world as not fun- Reference damentally different from the classical world is that we can Feynman, Richard P. 1985. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. imagine how one changes into the other. With a few simple Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Gerald Fried

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Mapping Out the Future with a Surveyor’s Wheel

To understand how the quantum the angle it makes to the vertical, will is a path of minimal distance to mechanism works, it is easiest to change smoothly, moving around the destination. describe an analogous situation. and around. It will continue to move Instead of finding out whether there around and around as we change the is a path with minimal action to a path bit by bit in all circumstances possible destination, using a “sur- except one—if the series of paths veyor’s wheel” to measure action, we passes through a path of minimal dis- can find out whether there is a path tance, then a whole bunch of the of minimal distance to a possible paths will provide spokes in a similar destination, using an ordinary sur- position. veyor’s wheel. For reasons that will How can we tell whether our vast become clear, we will assume that the collection of spoke positions contains wheel has a single spoke connecting a bunch pointing in roughly the same the hub to the rim, like the diagram direction? We can do this simply by in figure 4. putting all the spokes end to end. If To use the simple example of a flat there is no path of minimal distance Figure 7: A “spoke chain” for all the paths plane (analogous to the golf ball exam- to the destination, the spokes tend to between a start and a destination where there is a path of minimal distance between ple of figures 1 to 3), we start with a end up in each direction equally them. particular place and direction and often—spiralling around and want to find out if another point on around—and the end of the “spoke This doesn’t give us a hard and fast the plane is connected to the start by a chain” is very near where it started, as rule for knowing whether there is a path with minimal distance. It is obvi- in figure 6. minimal path between two places, but ous to us that this will be true for If there is a path of minimal dis- it is the best we can do. What we can points directly in line with the starting tance, on the other hand, the spokes say is that the probability of there being direction, but we pretend that we don’t a minimal path is related to the dis- know this, and have to work it out tance between the start and end of the using our wheel. How is this done? “spoke chain”—the longer the dis- We suppose that for each possible tance, the higher the probability. (The destination, large numbers of sur- relative probability is actually given by veyor’s wheels roll out to it along the square of this distance.) In the con- every conceivable path, starting with text of figure 3, the black spots are very their spokes vertical. They each end dark, and the white spots are very light, up at the destination with their spoke but they are all just shades of grey. in whatever position the length of the Incidentally, the diagrams have path dictates, but with no record of been drawn with the spokes from the path they have taken. neighboring paths placed next to Can we learn from just all these each other, so that they appear to spi- Figure 6: A “spoke chain” for all the paths spoke positions if the destination is between the start and a destination where ral smoothly around, but this is not connected to the starting point by a there is no path of minimal distance necessary. Whatever order the spokes path of minimal distance? Indeed, we between them. are joined up in, the two ends will be can. Consider that all the possible the same distance apart. paths have been tried in some sys- from all the paths close to this path It would be fair to say that this is tematic fashion, with the path chang- will line up, while everything else a clumsy, if not ludicrous, mecha- ing a little bit each time. We don’t cancels out as before, so that the end nism for finding out if there is a path need the paths to have been tested of the “spoke chain” is much further of minimal distance between the start systematically in that order, but if all from where it started, as in figure 7. and the destination. But it is a mech- possible paths have been tried ran- We don’t need to know which anism that uses the simplest of mea- domly, we can pretend that we have path has led to which spoke posi- suring devices, has genuinely no pre- rearranged them systematically. tion. Putting the spokes end to conceived view of the outcome, and As we change the path a little at a end is all we need to find out what which, in the action version, seems to time, the final position of the spoke, we want to know—whether there match what we see around us. 

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Science Is for Sale (And It’s Not Only for the Money)

Until all types of threats to scientific integrity are discussed and handled more effectively, they jeopardize the validity of medical research and the public’s trust in it. In the end, public resources and patients’ health are at stake. RAGNAR LEVI

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common than previously assumed. In this sample of more he integrity of medical science is seriously threat- than 3,200 NIH-funded scientists, as many as 33 percent of ened by economic interests of the drug industry, the respondents admitted to at least one of the ten serious mis- warn editors of several leading medical journals. behaviors in the previous three years. For example, 6 percent TMarcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of admitted that they had failed to present contradicting data, Medicine, writes: “Over the past two decades the pharmaceu- and more than 15 percent said they had changed the design, tical industry has moved very far from its original high pur- methodology, or results of a study in response to pressure from pose of discovering and producing useful new drugs” (Angell a funding source. 2005). She continues: “Now primarily a marketing machine to Commercial and noncommercial threats to research sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and integrity are omnipresent. Pressures, biases, and conflicts of power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, interest are unavoidable. When the scientific community fails including the U.S. Congress, the FDA, academic medical cen- to openly discuss and handle such threats, problems appear at ters, and the medical profession itself.” Her British collegues all stages of the research process. are no less harsh in their criticism. Richard Horton of the Biases and Influences on Research Lancet self-critically notes that “journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical First, when research is funded, the priorities of various spon- industry” (Horton 2004), and according to Richard Smith, sors do not always coincide with patients’ needs for new former editor of the British Medical Journal and now a board research. Relevant studies regarding interventions that will not member of the Public Library of Science, “medical journals are generate great commercial profits are often not funded (for an extension of the marketing arm of pharmaceutical compa- example studies of major health problems in developing coun- nies” (Smith 2005). tries, and so-called orphan diseases in developed countries). By While more influential than ever, economic pressures by contrast, many irrelevant studies do receive funding even if the drug industry are certainly not the only sources of bias. they are redundant in view of previous findings. Sometimes Many players in the scientific arena are governed by political these new studies are an expression of medicalization and dis- agendas, career interests, academic competition, envy, hubris, ease mongering—attempts to widen the definition of treatable or pursuit of recognition and high social status (Nelkin 1995). illness to expand the markets for those who sell and deliver Others may suffer from fear of authorities, being unable or treatments (Moynihan 2002). It has also been shown that unwilling to question false statements, and avoiding conflict at when a pharmaceutical company funds research into drugs, any price. In addition, failures of the educational system may studies are more likely to produce results favorable to the result in ignorance and gullibility among junior researchers. sponsoring company’s product (Bekelman 2003). The history of academic medicine provides numerous exam- Second, research plans often suffer from shortcomings ples of how the intellectual inertia of senior clinicians and sci- related to methodology and the framing of questions or entists has led to a narrow-minded and irrational resistance to hypotheses. There may be a biased selection of subjects or an new and important scientific findings. inappropriate comparison and control group. Investigators’ All these processes may directly contravene the ethical expectations for dramatic and long-lasting treatment effects codes in science, first described by the science sociologist may lead them to initiate underpowered studies or neglect the Robert Merton as CUDOS (Merton 1973). In brief, CUDOS need for randomization, blinding, and adequate follow-up. states that results should be common property of the commu- Their choice of outcome measures may include surrogate end- nity and freely communicated (Communalism), and any points with little or no clinical relevance. Studies may focus hypotheses, objections, or criticisms should be considered more on benefits than on harm. Intellectual bias at this stage regardless of the nationality, race, color, or creed of its source of the scientific process also includes selective inattention to (Universality). Scientific results should not be manipulated to certain issues that do not fit with researchers’ preconceptions. serve considerations such as personal profit, ideology, or expe- Such preconceived notions may have delayed studies of, for diency (Disinterestedness), and scientific statements, which example, the benefits of beta-blockers in chronic heart failure, must be open to question, should be accepted on comparison or the risks of hormone replacement therapy. with observed facts, not on word of authority (Organized Third, in the data collection phase of research, various Skepticism). threats to objectivity pave the way for well-known method- Interference with CUDOS is likely to result in a spectrum ological problems such as systematic differences in the care of practices, from the ideal “Responsible Conduct of Research” provided, and exposure to other factors apart from the inter- (RCR) to questionable research practices and misconduct. vention of interest (performance bias), in how outcomes are Recently, a Delphi of forty experts in United Kingdom clinical trials identified thirteen types of misconduct that were Ragnar Levi, M.D., is a journalist, an award-winning medical judged by majority agreement to be both likely or very likely editor, and the Scientific Communications Director of SBU, The to distort the results, and likely or very likely to occur (Al- Swedish Council on Technology Assessment Health Care. He is Marzouki 2005). A much larger survey (Martinson 2005) also the author of Medical Journalism: Exposing Fact, Fiction, indicates that misbehavior among researchers may be more Fraud. Correspondence may be sent to [email protected].

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assessed (detection bias), and in the withdrawals or exclusions been registered at or before the onset of patient enrollment of people entered into a study (attrition bias). (DeAngelis 2004). Leading scientific publications have Fourth, analysis of the collected data entails well-docu- agreed on common standards for the reporting of scientific mented problems like data dredging—performing so many results, described, e.g., by the CONSORT statement statistical tests that significant results are highly likely to (Moher 2001). appear just by chance, leading to false positive findings. These steps are necessary but far from sufficient. Efforts to Editing or “cleaning” data can be equally problematic if it minimize bias must include the whole range of potential means, for example, excluding outliers and tailoring the data sources, even those originating within the scientific commu- to a favored hypothesis. Failing to analyze trial participants in nity itself. Strengthening the integrity of medical research the groups to which they were randomized, regardless of the should be a high priority for all stakeholders, including health type of treatment they actually received, is another question- care providers, governments, public authorities, health profes- able practice that may be related to stakeholders’ desire for a sionals’ organizations, research funders, healthcare insurers, particular result. In addition, there are, of course, innumerable political parties and their politicians, patient organizations, as ways to misuse statistical methods. well as individual patients and their families. Fifth, when summarizing, reporting, and interpreting the The public’s trust in medical science is based on its validity. findings, some authors are tempted to jump to conclusions Since biased research results may waste public resources and not justified by the actual results. Overinterpreting the results, ultimately harm patients, it is absolutely necessary that all confusing correlation with causation, reporting only a biased threats to the integrity of medical science are handled more subset of all the relevant data presented, and omitting impor- effectively. In fact, it is vital. tant findings in the reported subset may be related to the use of writing assistance or ghost writing. Some well-documented References problems include the use of relative risk reductions without Al-Marzouki, Sanaa, Ian Roberts, Tom Marshall, and Stephen Evans. 2005. The effect of scientific misconduct on the results of clinical trials: a Delphi mention of absolute risk numbers (Naylor 1992), and design- survey. Contemporary Clinical Trials 26 (3): 331–7. ing misleading graphs. Angell, Marcia. 2005. The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us Finally, there is ample opportunity for bias when research and What to Do About It. New York: Random House. Bekelman, Justin E., Yan Li, and Cary P. Gross. 2003. Scope and impact of findings are to be published, disseminated, and applied. A sub- financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research: a systematic review. stantial portion of all studies are not published or delayed Journal of the American Medical Association 289 (4): 454–65. (Scherer 2005, Misakian 1998). At the same time, other find- DeAngelis, Catherine D., Jeffrey M. Drazen, Frank A. Frizelle, et al. 2004. Clinical trial registration: a statement from the International Committee ings are published repeatedly, either as duplicates or “salami of Medical Journal Editors. Journal of the American Medical Association slices” of results (Huston 1996). Consequently, the overall pic- 292 (11): 1363–4, 2005. Horton, Richard. 2004. The dawn of McScience. The New York Review of ture may be distorted even though each published study is per- Books 51 (4): 7–9. fectly valid. House of Commons Health Committee. 2005. The influence of the pharma- Most scientific findings that reach the general public and ceutical industry. London: The Stationery Office Limited. Accessed on March 18, 2006. Available at www.parliament.the-stationery-office. health policy-makers have been filtered by the news media. co.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhealth/42/42.pdf. Judgment of every story’s newsworthiness or news value, and Huston, Patricia, and David Moher. 1996. Redundancy, disaggregation, and assumptions about their audience, guide journalists’ and edi- the integrity of medical research. Lancet 347 (9007): 1024–-6. Levi, Ragnar. 2001. Medical Journalism: Exposing Fact, Fiction, Fraud. Ames, tors’ selection, style, and formatting of health and medical sto- Iowa: Iowa State University Press. ries (Nelkin 1995). The news value that journalists and editors Martinson, Brian C., Melissa S. Anderson, and Raymond de Vries. 2005. attribute to scientific findings rarely reflects their clinical Scientists behaving badly. Nature 435 (7043): 737–8. Merton, Robert. 1973. The Sociology of Science. Chicago: University of importance (Levi 2001). Chicago Press. (Originally formulated in an article of 1942.) Misakian, Anastasia L., and Lisa A. Bero. 1998. Publication bias and research Fixing the Problems on passive smoking: Comparison of published and unpublished studies. Journal of the American Medical Association 80 (3): 250–3. It is highly unlikely that scientific observations will pass Moher, David, Kenneth F. Schulz, and Douglas G. Altman. 2001. The CON- through all these stages—from the producer to the end SORT statement: Revised recommendations for improving the quality of users—without being distorted in some way. Preventive reports of parallel-group randomised trials. Lancet 357 (9263):1191–4. Moynihan, Ray, I. Heath, and D. Henry. 2002. Selling sickness: The phar- measures are urgently needed, and some initiatives have maceutical industry and disease mongering. British Medical Journal 324 already been taken. Increasingly, declarations of conflicts of (7342): 886–91. interests, such as economic ties, are published in scientific Naylor, C. David, E. Chen, and B. Strauss. 1992. Measured enthusiasm: does the method of reporting trial results alter perceptions of therapeutic effec- reports. Demands have been raised that clinical trials tiveness? Annals of Internal Medicine 117 (11): 916–21. should use health outcomes that are relevant to patients Nelkin, Dorothy. 1995. Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and (House of Commons Health Committee 2005). To avoid a Technology. New York: W. H. Freeman. Scherer, Roberta W., Patricia Langenberg, and Erik von Elm. 2005. Full pub- situation in which only desired results are selected for pub- lication of results initially presented in abstracts. The Cochrane Database lication (while undesired results remain unknown), many of Methodology Reviews, Issue 2. Art. No.: MR000005. DOI: medical journals now require prior registration in a public 10.1002/14651858.MR000005.pub2. 1995 Smith, Richard. 2005. Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing trials registry as a condition of consideration for publica- Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies. The Public Library of Science (PLoS) tion. The results will not be published unless trials have Medicine 5: e138. 

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Why Great Thinkers Sometimes Fail to Think Critically

Why did two great thinkers, Arthur Conan Doyle and Alfred Russel Wallace, believe in spiritualism and other paranormal claims? It was not because they lacked critical thinking skills but because they were not disposed to use those skills. D. ALAN BENSLEY

ir Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician and a highly acclaimed writer. His famous character Sherlock SHolmes was a shrewd detective with formidable pow- ers of reasoning. Yet Conan Doyle showed dramatic lapses in his own critical thinking. He was a devoted convert to spir- itualism, believing that living persons could contact the dis- embodied spirits of the dead through mediums. Further- more, he believed that eight-inch-tall fairies inhabited the English countryside in Cottingley Glen. Likewise, Sir Alfred Russel Wallace had great intellectual achievements, co- discovering natural selection with Charles Darwin and pub- lishing many innovative, well-reasoned articles. Yet, he too, believed in spiritualism and endorsed phrenology (the

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reading of character from bumps on the head), now consid- low-moderate (r = .24 to .40). This suggests that people with ered a pseudoscience. How did two men with scientific train- good critical thinking skills are inclined to use them, but not ing and great intellectual achievements come to believe such always. Interestingly, we have also found some students with implausible claims? high scores on the skills test but relatively low scores on the It was not because they lacked the skills to think critically. dispositions measures. Both had the ability to evaluate the quality of evidence and Just because someone has critical thinking skills does not draw a sound conclusion (Bensley 1998). Rather, they were mean that person will use them in every situation. Someone not motivated to use their skills to think critically about spiri- might be skeptical about buying a used car, asking probing tualism and related paranormal claims. The problem was with questions and carefully weighing the evidence for each vehicle. their disposition to think critically—that is, the attitudes and That same person, however, might accept without question the traits that disposed them to use their critical thinking skills. To paranormal claim that , the celebrity channeler, better understand their problem, I will first examine critical has communicated with the spirit of someone’s dead father. thinking dispositions and skills. Then, I will use this distinc- This suggests an intriguing possibility. Perhaps eminent tion to analyze the thinking of Conan Doyle and Wallace, thinkers might not be inclined to use their superior critical comparing them to Charles Darwin, who did not fall prey to thinking skills in some situations. This could occur if using these false paranormal claims. their skills led them to conclusions contrary to their cherished beliefs. They might, for example, be less skeptical of an idea Critical Thinking Dispositions and Skills they wanted to believe. We often think of skepticism as an act Researchers have found that critical thinking skills can be use- of questioning assertions, suspending belief, and good reason- fully distinguished from dispositions. A critical thinking skills ing (Kurtz 1992). But if someone does not lean toward healthy test like the “Tasks in Critical Thinking Test” (Tasks) measures skepticism in the first place, then that person may not behave an individual’s inquiry and reasoning abilities (Educational in ways that show good reasoning (Perkins, Jay, and Tishman Testing Service 1993). In contrast, a disposition measure like 1993). From this perspective, skepticism is also a disposition. the “Need for Cognition Scale” (NFC) measures a person’s Perhaps a lack of skepticism, fair-mindedness, or other dispo- tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity sitions prevented Conan Doyle and Wallace from thinking such as critical thinking (Cacioppo et al., 1984). Research has critically about spiritualism. shown that people who have higher scores on the NFC tend to be more curious, open-minded, open to new experiences, con- Was Conan Doyle Not Disposed to Think scientious, and reliant upon empirical and rational informa- Critically? tion. They also are less dogmatic, close-minded, and authori- Basic facts from Conan Doyle’s life make it unlikely that he tarian (Cacioppo et al., 1996). Another dispositions measure, lacked critical thinking skills. He studied medicine at the “California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory” Edinburgh University, a premier medical school. His biggest (CCTDI), seeks to measure specific dispositions. For example, influence at medical school was Joseph Bell, an excellent it assesses the tendency to be intellectually curious, open- teacher, scholar, and physician. By careful observation of a minded, to use reasoning and evidence, and to seek truth even patient’s characteristics, symptoms, and appearance, Bell could if the conclusions do not support one’s self interest (Facione, correctly infer a surprising number of facts. Once, without any Facione, and Sanchez 1994). In summary, critical thinking prior information about a man, Bell determined he was a skills are thought to be more related to the cognitive ability of recently discharged, non-commissioned officer from the reasoning while critical thinking dispositions are more related Highland Regiment, stationed in Barbados who had con- to cognitive style or the traits and motives that determine the tracted elephantiasis. When Conan Doyle became clerk of tendency to use those skills in a situation. Bell’s clinic, he had many opportunities to observe Bell’s bril- Consistent with this view, research has shown that critical liant diagnostic reasoning. Conan Doyle later incorporated thinking skills and dispositions are related, but they are not the many good examples of this style of reasoning into his por- same thing, (e.g. Bensley et al., 2005; Facione et al., 1995; trayals of how Sherlock Holmes solved crimes (Booth 2000). Perkins et al., 2000; Stanovich and West 1997). For example, Conan Doyle further demonstrated his critical thinking at my university we have consistently found the performance skills when he wrote a series of newspaper articles in defense of of randomly selected college students on a critical thinking George Edalji, a myopic young lawyer wrongfully convicted of skills test (Tasks) to be positively correlated with two disposi- mutilating livestock (Hines, Womack, and Doyle 2001). tion measures, the NFC and CCTDI (Bensley et al. 2005). Conan Doyle found many holes in the prosecution’s argu- Although the correlations were significant, they were low to ments. Using his knowledge of the eye and the expert opinion of an eye specialist, Conan Doyle argued persuasively that D. Alan Bensley is a cognitive psychologist and associate professor George’s severe vision problems would have prevented him in the Department of Psychology at Frostburg State University, from traveling the mile of rough terrain in the pitch black of Frostburg, Maryland (e-mail: [email protected]). He is night in time to commit the crime and return home. Conan author of a textbook and articles on improving critical thinking Doyle offered a well-reasoned accounting of the facts, consid- and the problems posed by pseudoscience. ering the evidence on all sides and responding well to rebuttals

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Figure 1. extruding from the mouth of medium Mary M. at a 1929 séance. Note the cottony-like material of the ectoplasm seems to to his arguments. But perhaps most impressive of all, he used contain a likeness of British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone. From Psychic Powers. Edited by Neil Kagan, Pat Daniels, and Anne Horan. 1987. his critical thinking skills to actually solve the crime and iden- Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books. tify the perpetrators! Conan Doyle was not as disposed to use his formidable rea- Drayson. Drayson was an accomplished writer, scientist, soning skills when thinking about spiritualism. In 1880 he mathematician, and astronomer who believed he had con- attended his first lecture on the topic, which aroused his tacted his dead brother through a medium. At one séance, a curiosity but did not convince him. His medical training likely medium told Conan Doyle that she was speaking for a traveler made him resist the claim that the soul survives physical death. who had been killed in a theater in Exeter. The “spirit” Materialistic scientists seeking to explain the mind or spirit in instructed Conan Doyle to contact his family at Slattenmere physical terms have long been skeptical of the survival hypoth- in Cumberland. Conan Doyle posted a letter to the address, esis. These days, survival often seems implausible to skeptics but the letter was never answered because no such place exists acquainted with research showing that the mind depends on in Britain. When he asked Grayson about this troubling devel- brain activity (Bensley 2003). But in Conan Doyle’s day, it opment, Grayson responded that populated both would have seemed more plausible. this world and the next. Conan Doyle seemed to conclude that The connection between the spiritual and the physical mediums would only resort to trickery when their powers were worlds was a problem for spiritualism, too. How could the not working. nonphysical spirit manifest itself in the physical world of the Conan Doyle’s conversion to spiritualism was mostly based living? According to spiritualists, a medium was a conduit on two kinds of evidence: the endorsement of famous scientists between the spiritual and physical worlds. Connection like , and more importantly his experiences at between the two worlds was thought to occur when a medium séances. Yet, the challenges of skeptical scientists and his own extruded ectoplasm or other material from her mouth, vagina, negative experiences at séances had little effect on his belief. In or other orifice. As shown in figure 1, ectoplasm sometimes 1887 he wrote a very positive article on his experiences for Light, took the form of a glowing ribbon, or even the face of the the journal of the London Spiritualist Alliance. This (and a later dearly departed. To the credulous Conan Doyle, the ectoplasm article) signal his acceptance of spiritualism, but he did not for- was the spirit manifesting in physical form. To an expert mally declare his belief until 1916. In 1917, just two weeks observer like a magician, however, it would have been recog- before the end of World War I, Conan Doyle’s son Kingsley, nized as fluffy cloth with luminous paint (Randi 1995). weakened from the war and pneumonia, died. Within hours of Conan Doyle became more convinced as he explored these his death, Conan Doyle contacted Kingsley through a medium. phenomena with friends such as General Alfred Wilks This personal experience further solidified his belief.

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One experience that might have shaken his belief occurred ing his student years, he became increasingly skeptical of in 1919 when journalist Sidney Mosley invited Conan Doyle Catholic doctrine. As he questioned these beliefs, he came to to a séance. Before the demonstration began, those attending reject Christianity and moved towards a science-based belief put a personal article into a black velvet bag that was then system. It may be that his loss of faith troubled him and that locked in a black box. Conan Doyle put Kingsley’s ring in the spiritualism filled a gap that science could not. Like other bag. Without opening the box and bag, the medium told each Victorian-era intellectuals, he may have replaced traditional person what was inside. When she announced that she saw a religion with an amalgam of beliefs in theism, supernatural ring with Kingsley’s initials on it, Conan Doyle was very forces, and science (Cerullo 1982). It is telling that he pre- impressed. But he was not the least bit amused when told that ferred to call spiritualism “psychic religion,” and he viewed the “medium” had used trickery. With the aid of a magician, himself as a sort of missionary to spread its truth (Booth they had replaced the box and bag with duplicates and then 2000). This raises the question of whether scientists of his era opened the originals out of sight to determine the contents. who abandoned their traditional faith for spiritualism showed This trickery did not dissuade Conan Doyle from spiritualism; similar problems with their thinking. instead, he continued to promote it. During this period, he made friends with the magician and Why Was Wallace a Spiritualist? escape artist , who often exposed the trickery of Alfred Wallace did not lack critical thinking skills. Like mediums (Houdini 1924). Houdini told him how a famous Darwin, he supported his version of evolutionary theory with medium, Ira Davenport, had confessed that he used trickery to vast amounts of field data, making two long expeditions to the create believable séances. Conan Doyle replied that he didn’t Amazon and the Malay Archipelago. Wallace showed good put much faith in the confessions of spiritualists. He said it reasoning in his scientific articles, publishing 191 articles in was a common trick to say that mediums had confessed. This the prestigious journal Nature and hundreds more in the best further reveals Conan Doyle’s bias in evaluating the evidence. peer-reviewed journals of his day (Shermer 2002). He even said that Houdini’s amazing demonstrations were due Wallace did not have as much formal education as either to Houdini’s own (unrecognized) psychic powers, a claim that Conan Doyle or Darwin, but he read extensively as a young Houdini categorically denied (Polidoro 1998). man. In his seventh and final year of schooling he worked as a Similarly, Conan Doyle did not seriously question the tutor when his family could no longer pay his tuition. At four- Cottingley fairy photographs taken by ten-year-old Francis teen, he went to work with his brother, later learning survey- Griffiths and her cousin, sixteen-year-old Elsie Wright. He ing. At night they attended Mechanics’ club meetings, infor- seemed to ignore the fact that experts from Kodak said they mal science clubs much like night school for young working- could produce similar photographs. Just as he was unwilling to class thinkers. He was exposed to the socialist ideas of Robert use Houdini’s expert advice on the deception of mediums, he Owen and began his lifelong concern for improving the social was also unwilling to use the expertise at Kodak to further conditions of workers. investigate the photographs. Instead, he paid undue attention Wallace’s interest in methods for improving the human to the opinion of a presumed photography expert who agreed condition attracted him to the pseudosciences of phrenology with him about their authenticity. Nor did it bother Conan and Mesmerism. When, for example, the phrenologists Hicks Doyle that Elsie worked in a photography shop and had the and Rumbell examined thirty areas of Wallace’s head, they artistic ability to create the fairies (Randi 1982). He could not reported he had a small organ of Veneration and relatively believe that girls from an honest country family would deceive larger areas for Ideality and Wonder, as shown in figure 2. anyone, just as he trusted the claims of mediums—who were Wallace thought his smaller area of Veneration was consistent often women. with his disregard for mere authority and his large area for These examples show that Conan Doyle was treating the Wonder with his fascination for the beautiful and mysterious evidence favoring his own position differently from the evi- (Fichman 2004). He may have been inclined to believe these dence opposing it. In so doing, he was committing a common trait descriptions because of their generality. Or, these three thinking error called . In other words, apparent “hits” may have been just three lucky guesses among Conan Doyle’s lack of skepticism was partly due to his failure thirty attempts. At any rate, Wallace found these kinds of per- to show the disposition of fair-mindedness. sonal experiences to be strong evidence for phrenology. His lack of skepticism, however, seems to have been limited By the late 1860s Wallace advocated spiritualism as a legit- to spiritualism and paranormal claims. For instance, in 1890 a imate area of scientific study. Like Conan Doyle, he believed London newspaper sent him as a physician to cover the pre- science would ultimately validate its claims. But both men sentation of Robert Koch’s groundbreaking research on inocu- became frustrated as scientists and magicians repeatedly lation for tuberculosis at a Berlin medical conference. After exposed the tricks used by mediums. When he pressed other carefully studying Koch’s methods and patients treated with it, colleagues like Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley to Conan Doyle said he regretted that he could not yet report a study spiritualism, they refused. Darwin disapproved of spiri- cure for TB and that the promising initial findings required tualism and quietly gave ten pounds to help pay the costs of further research. He made these skeptical comments despite prosecuting , a medium sued by biologist Edward the hopes of many that a cure had been found. Similarly, dur- Ray Lankester. Despite Wallace’s testimony on his behalf,

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Sir Alfred Russel Wallace Figure 2. A phrenological diagram showing two of Wallace’s exceptional traits in gray according to Hicks and Rumbell. As noted by Bensley (2002), Slade was convicted of using trickery to produce what he it is implausible that indentations and protrusions in areas of the skull would in any way correspond to the amount of underlying brain tissue claimed were real psychic effects (Shermer 2002). At the trial for such traits. of another medium, Wallace testified that he had “never met a medium who was a scoundrel” (Oppenheim 1985). Although conservatism and made him more skeptical than Wallace by some scientists admired his courage for studying spiritualism, keeping his high levels of openness in check. Also, Wallace others like W. B. Carpenter publicly accused Wallace of being was more agreeable and so tended to go along with various credulous. In fact, by virtue of his belief in mediums’ claims, outlandish claims. Wallace believed in apparitions, ghosts, haunted houses, clair- This personality analysis seems plausible at a general level, voyance, levitation, and . but it does not go far enough in explaining why Darwin was In his psychological biography of Wallace, Michael more skeptical of spiritualism than Wallace yet both were Shermer has argued that Wallace’s personality characteristics skeptical of traditional religion. By analyzing their specific explain his gullibility. Shermer and Frank Sulloway had ten thinking dispositions and beliefs, we may better understand historians of science complete a forty-item personality inven- their differences. It seems clear that, like other creative scien- tory rating Wallace and Darwin on a nine-point scale with tists, both Wallace and Darwin showed high levels of open- questions like “I see Wallace as someone who was rebellious ness to experience. It is less clear, however, why Wallace had a (1) to conforming (9).” Note that ordinarily these kind of lower score on this trait than Darwin. Wallace investigated personality scales use the self-reports of the individuals in many more different areas of science than did Darwin, and question to infer their traits, but since this was not possible was more open to studying questions at the borderlands of Shermer and Sulloway had historians rate them using the science. For example, Darwin never attended an entire séance. scales. Self-reporting usually produce differences on five The one time his son George and brother-in-law Hensleigh dimensions including: openness to experience, conscientious- invited him to one, he said he felt ill and rested upstairs while ness, agreeableness, extroversion, and neuroticism. Wallace the others participated. Interestingly, Wallace’s response to scored at the 86th percentile on openness and at the 84th per- scientists who accused him of being credulous about spiritu- centile on conscientiousness while Darwin was at the 99th alism was to accuse them of not being open-minded enough percentile on both. Shermer argued this pattern of high open- (Wallace 1871). ness to experience was consistent with both men fitting a Another important difference between believers like heretic personality profile in that both were open to radical Wallace and skeptics like Darwin was in how much they were ideas and change. He further argued that Darwin’s higher willing to trust their personal experience as evidence. Whether level of conscientiousness reflected his greater intellectual Wallace was observing plants or people, he believed that what

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he observed was what was there. Like Conan Doyle, Wallace his critical thinking skills to co-discover natural selection was naïvely trusted his own experience at séances, believing that not inclined to use them to examine spiritualist claims res- what mediums showed him was real and not the result of mis- onating with his prior beliefs. direction or illusion. Likewise, both men failed to appreciate the role of expert observers in detecting fraudulent mediums. Acknowledgments As Houdini (1924) noted, magicians are especially adept at Thanks to Brian Adam, Scott Lilienfeld, and Michael Shermer for finding deception in séances. their helpful comments on the manuscript of this article. References Bensley, D. Alan. 1998. Critical Thinking in Psychology: A Unified Skills Wallace’s thinking dispositions Approach. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole. ———. 2002. Pseudoscience and science: A primer on critical thinking. In M. Shermer (Ed.). The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. (Pp. are best understood in the 195–203). Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. ———. 2003. Can minds leave bodies? A cognitive science perspective. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 27(4), July/August: 34–39. context of his beliefs about God and Bensley, D. Alan, Nicholas Clulee, A. Bates, S. Golden, M. Tower, and D. Raver. 2005. Multi-level assessment of critical thinking skills and disposi- tions. Presentation at Engaging Minds: Best Practices in Teaching Critical human progress. Like Conan Doyle, Thinking Across the Psychology Curriculum. September, Atlanta, Georgia. Booth, Martin. 2000. The Doctor and the Detective. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. Wallace rejected traditional Cacioppo, John T., Richard E. Petty, J.A. Feinstein, and W.B. Jarvis. 1996. Dispositional differences in cognitive motivation: The life and times of individuals varying in need for cognition. Psychological Bulletin 119: religion as a young man but 197–253. Cacioppo, John T., Richard E. Petty, and C.F. Kao. 1984. The efficient assess- ment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment 48: 306–307. advocated theism most of his life. Cerullo, John J. 1982. The Secularization of the Soul: Psychical Research in Modern Britain. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Darwin, Charles. 2000. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. F. Darwin Wallace’s thinking dispositions are best understood in the (Ed.). Amherst, New York: Prometheus. Educational Testing Service. 1993. Tasks in Critical Thinking. Princeton, New context of his beliefs about God and human progress. Like Jersey: Educational Testing Service. Conan Doyle, Wallace rejected traditional religion as a young Facione, Peter A., Carol A. Sanchez, N.C. Facione, and J. Gainen. 1995. The man but advocated theism most of his life. Yet, Wallace’s God disposition toward critical thinking. Journal of General Education 44: 1–25. was not the God of Christianity, but a powerful intelligence Facione, Peter A., Noreen C. Facione, and C.A. Sanchez. 1994. The California that ordered the world. In contrast, Darwin rejected theism Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) Test Manual. (2nd ed.). and the notion of an afterlife, describing himself as an agnos- Millbrae, Calif.: California Academic Press. Fichman, Martin. 2004. An Elusive Victorian: The Evolution of Alfred Russel tic (Darwin 2000). After Conan Doyle lost Kingsley and Wallace. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. Wallace his brother, they sought to contact them through Hines, Stephen, Steven Womack, and A. Conan Doyle. 2001. The True Crime mediums and believed they had. After Darwin lost his beloved Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. New York: Berkley Publishing. Houdini, Harry. 1924. A Magician among the Spirits. New York: Harper & young daughter Annie to disease, he rejected the notion of an Brothers. all-loving God and the related notion of an afterlife. Darwin’s Kurtz, Paul. 1992. The New Skepticism. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus more skeptical attitude toward the afterlife made him less open Books. Oppenheim, Janet. 1985. The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research to having the gripping personal experiences that Conan Doyle in England, 1850–1914. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. and Wallace found so convincing. Yet, Wallace did not simply Perkins, David, Eileen Jay, and S. Tishman. 1993. Beyond abilities: A dispo- believe in spiritualism because of the promise of an afterlife. sitional theory of thinking. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 39: 1–21. Perkins, David, Eileen Jay, S. Tishman, R. Ritchhart, K. Donis, and A. Rather, he believed in it because it fit well with his prior beliefs Andrade. 2000. Intelligence in the wild: A dispositional view of intellec- in human progress and the special nature of the human mind tual traits. Educational Psychology Review 12: 269–293. (Oppenheim 1985). Polidoro, Massimo. 1998. Houdini and Conan Doyle: The story of a strange friendship. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 22(2), March/April: 40–46. This is well illustrated in his revision of the evolutionary Randi, James. 1995. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and of the theory he and Darwin proposed. To accommodate his ideas of Occult and Supernatural. New York: St. Martins Press. human progress and a Supreme Intelligence ordering human Randi, James. 1982. Flim-flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. existence, Wallace proposed that the human mind was special Shermer, Michael. 2002. In Darwin’s Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred and exempt from natural selection. This revision, harking back Russel Wallace. New York: Oxford University Press. to God’s special creation of humans in the Bible, irked Stanovich, Keith, and Robert F. West. 1997. Reasoning independently of prior belief and individual differences in actively open-minded thinking. Darwin. Likewise, Wallace’s core beliefs disposed him to Journal of Educational Psychology 89: 342–357. accept the questionable evidence of mediums suggesting that Wallace, Alfred R. 1871. On the attitude of men of science towards the inves- humans had special mental powers and were progressing to tigators of spiritualism Originally printed in The Yearbook of Spiritualism for 1871. Available at www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/S191.htm. new levels. The result was to evaluate this dubious evidence as ———. 1905. My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions. Vol. II. New York: support for his prior beliefs. Thus, the same Wallace who used Dodd, Mead, & Co. 

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Evolution’s Radical Future

JAMES N. GARDNER

The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. By Ray Kurzweil. Viking, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-67003384-7. 672 pp. Hardcover, $29.95.

f Charles Darwin were alive today able for life and intelligence to achieve and aware of the truly revolutionary their ultimate capabilities lies in the dis- Itrends occurring in what might be tant cosmic future, not in the cosmic called the extended terrestrial biosphere past. As cosmologist Frank Tipler has (i.e., the totality of all life on Earth plus bluntly stated, “Almost all of space and all of life’s artifacts, a similar but more time lies in the future. By focusing limited concept of which was articulated attention only on the past and present, by Richard Dawkins in The Extended science has ignored almost all of reality. Phenotype), he would surely conclude Since the domain of scientific study is that the sturdy engine of evolution, its the whole of reality, it is about time sci- vital force undiminished by the passage ence decided to study the future evolu- of centuries, is poised to effect a change tion of the universe.” perhaps as important as the Cambrian Although you won’t read about in Explosion half a billion years ago. any New York Times or Wall Street Darwin would likely conclude as well Journal headline, the disruptive poten- that artificial selection—of which he tial of future evolution is the emerging made artful metaphorical use in The leitmotif in advanced biological theoriz- Origin of Species to illustrate his hypoth- ing today. The current intelligent design esis of speciation through natural selec- dust-up on which the popular press tion—has, in our modern era, virtually to conceive of its vastness—remains the myopically focuses will turn out to displaced natural selection as evolution’s vital arena in which evolution’s epic be a minor historical footnote to the key propellant, at least with respect to story continues to unfold. portentous evolutionary drama soon to the future pathway of human biological But Darwin would immediately rec- reveal itself. development. And the theorist would ognize that there is a crucial difference Darwin’s ghost is unlikely to grace us doubtless contemplate with awe the between the process of natural selection with a timely appearance, but happily a abiding reality that deep geological as it operated in the distant past and the satisfactory substitute is available: Ray time—the enormous stretch of millen- novel possibilities currently open to the Kurzweil, author of a magisterial new nia that utterly dwarfs a human lifespan evolutionary process. He would con- book entitled The Singularity Is Near: and challenges the very capacity of our clude that, while a vision of time’s When Humans Transcend Biology. biologically evolved human imagination immensity remains the vital key in Kurzweil is a computer scientist, prolific reaching an understanding of evolution’s inventor, and gifted futurist best known James N. Gardner is the author of radical potential, it is a realization of the for his two previous bestsellers about Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of fathomless magnitude of future time and artificial intelligence—The Age of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the future history that is of utmost impor- Intelligent Machines and The Age of Architect of the Universe. Biocosm was tance today. A modern Darwin would Spiritual Machines. Bill Gates’ enthusi- selected as one of the top ten science books concur with the conclusion of physicist astic blurb for Kurzweil’s latest tome of 2003 by the editors of Amazon.com. John Wheeler: Most of the time avail- proclaims that “Ray Kurzweil is the best

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person I know at predicting the future were at that very early stage in which tion and are given the power to improve of artificial intelligence,” and MIT guru they were so flat and so slow that they their own designs, they will inevitably Marvin Minsky gushes that this is “a looked like no trend at all. As a result, rush past our slower biological brains, observers’ expectation of an un- brilliant book with deep insights into changed future was fulfilled. Today, achieving mental skills that we can the future from one of the leading futur- we anticipate continuous technologi- scarcely imagine. ists of our time.” This fulsome praise cal progress and the social repercus- Is this radical vision truly as may be on the mark but it misses the sions that follow. But the future will dystopian as it appears—the end of most important point about Kurzweil’s be far more surprising than most peo- humanity as we know it? Kurzweil offers ple realize, because few observers have current contribution. The Singularity Is truly internalized the implications of a coy answer: Near is not primarily a set of predictions the fact that the rate of change itself is The intelligence that will emerge about the future of computing or even accelerating. [post-Singularity] will continue to technology in general. Rather it is a represent the human civilization, What specifically can we anticipate uniquely well-informed, technically lit- which is already a human-machine from this process of accelerating erate, and blindingly honest speculation civilization. In other words, future change in the near future? What does machines will be human, even if they about the very future of evolution itself. the coming era of the “singularity”— are not biological. This will be the Singularity is a book that Charles defined by Kurzweil as “a future period next step in evolution, the next high- Darwin would have written were he level paradigm shift.... Most of the during which the pace of technological steeped in the ongoing technological intelligence of our civilization will change will be so rapid, its impact so revolution that is engulfing our world. ultimately be nonbiological. By the deep, that human life will be irre- end of this century, it will be trillions As such, it should be required reading versibly transformed”—hold in store of trillions of times more powerful for anyone seriously interested in for humanity? than [unenhanced] human intelli- exploring what lies over the horizon in gence. However, to address often- First and foremost, the fusion of life’s journey from primordial bacterium expressed concerns, this does not human and machine intelligence. In the to transcendent mind. imply the end of biological intelli- post-Singularity era, Kurzweil predicts, gence, even if it is thrown from its What’s coming next on the evolu- there will no distinction between perch of evolutionary superiority. tionary road, Kurzweil believes, can be human beings and their technologies. Even the nonbiological forms will be inferred from a set of overlapping trends derived from biological design. Our As we merge with our machines, we will summarized in the 1950s by the leg- civilization will remain human— become something more than merely endary information theorist John von indeed, in many ways it will be more human. The Borg-like hybrid entity exemplary of what we regard as Neumann: “The ever-accelerating that is our evolutionary destiny will, in human than it is today, although our progress of technology . . . gives the Kurzweil’s words, “match and then understanding of the term will move appearance of approaching some essen- beyond its biological origins. vastly exceed the refinement and sup- tial singularity in the history of the race pleness of what we regard as the best of Just how far will our nonbiological beyond which human affairs, as we human traits.” But, alas, from the “per- progeny move beyond those origins? In know them, could not continue.” spective of unenhanced biological Kurzweil’s exuberant view, very far This scary quotation is, in Kurzweil’s humanity” this future state of affairs indeed. In fact, he predicts that the ulti- view, the key to understanding the “will appear to rupture the fabric of mate destiny of brainy thinking future of evolution: human history.” The only thing that machines will be to saturate the entire Von Neumann makes two important will remain unequivocally human in universe with intelligence: observations here: acceleration and such a world will be what Kurzweil singularity. The first idea is that In the aftermath of the Singularity, human progress is exponential (that regards as the defining trait of our intelligence, derived from its biologi- is, it expands by repeatedly multiply- humanity: the instinct to “extend cal origins in human brains and its ing by a constant) rather than linear [humankind’s] physical and mental technological origins in human inge- (that is, expanding by repeatedly reach beyond current limitations.” nuity, will begin to saturate the mat- ter and energy in its midst. It will adding a constant). The second is that The limitations that we will tran- exponential growth is seductive, start- achieve this by reorganizing matter ing out slowly and virtually unnotice- scend will be mental as well as physical. and energy to provide an optimal ably, but beyond the knee of the curve Kurzweil forecasts that we will have per- level of computation . . . to spread it turns explosive and profoundly sonal computer-sized devices capable of out from its origin on Earth.... transformative. The future is widely emulating human-level intelligence [T]he “dumb” matter and mecha- nisms of the universe will be trans- misunderstood. Our forebears ex- within two decades and effective soft- pected it to be pretty much like their formed into exquisitely sublime forms present, which had been pretty much ware models of human thought of intelligence . . . This is the ultimate like their past. Exponential trends did processes by the mid-2020s. Once destiny of the Singularity and of the exist one thousand years ago, but they machines achieve this level of sophistica- universe.

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In short, a capacity to engage in marily on the basis of natural selection. Kurzweil’s brave vision is in the spirit “intelligent design” of the entire uni- According to Kurzweil’s worldview, the of Charles Darwin’s historic theory—an verse is the predicted culmination of the emergent ability of intelligence to configure entirely plausible and utterly iconoclas- biological and technological evolution- and manipulate matter with ever-increasing tic analysis of life’s seemingly miraculous ary process that began, so long ago, right sophistication is the hypothesized end result capacity to yield, in Darwin’s unforget- here on humble planet Earth. of an evolutionary process that begins with table phrase, “endless forms most beau- Kurzweil does not, in the style of the ID “dumb” Darwinian natural selection, passes tiful and most wonderful” through fully community, pose such a capability as a chal- through a technology-creating threshold naturalistic means. The fact that, like lenge to Darwinian orthodoxy. On the con- (which corresponds to our current era), Darwin, Kurzweil tends to demote trary, the ultimate capacity of intelligence is and culminates with the triumph of high- humanity from the centerpiece of cre- presented as an extension and refinement of ly evolved mind over matter and the tran- ation to a supporting role in the vast Darwin’s classic proposition that nature’s scendence of the “dumb” forces of inani- emerging spectacle of the cosmos is per- organized complexity can be explained pri- mate nature. haps his greatest intellectual virtue.

rather dubious paths that try (in vain) to The Big Sleep or apply the rigors of scientific inquiry to questions that fall solidly out of the sci- Just a Nap? entific mainstream, and probably have GREG MARTINEZ no point in being asked in the first place. What is being done in the interest Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. By Mary Roach. of science inevitably runs smack into the W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2005. hard fact that the “science” of reincarna- ISBN 0-393-05962-6. 311 pp. Hardcover, $24.95. tion is shaky, and that science is not ter- ribly interested in the subject in the first r. Kirti S. Rawat is the director ness.” He is a take-charge kind of guy, place—present-day science, that is. of the International Centre for and clearly prefers that role. He arranges Spook is richly researched and pro- Survival and Reincarnation a car and driver for them, but the car is vides a vivid picture of just how much of D a preoccupation the question of the Research. A retired philosophy professor a 1965 Ambassador. Rawat admits that from the University of Rajasthan, as the car is “beginning to be outmoded,” afterlife has been for humans for many depicted by Mary Roach in her sharp but what he really likes is the driver: “He millennia. In the second chapter, “The and witty Spook: Science Tackles the is submissive. Generally, I like people Little Man inside the Sperm, or Possibly Afterlife, he seems less a scientific who are submissive.” the Big Toe,” Roach narrates a sweeping researcher than a minor character from a He also appears to like flimsy stories survey of the vast array of theories on V. S. Naipaul novel, sprung to a guileless and giving people immense benefit of the question of the nature and origin of and dithery life. doubt while entertaining their stories of the human soul. Aristotle posited that He serves as Ms. Roach’s guide past lives. Roach dutifully follows in his the soul was to be found in semen. through the “discipline” of reincarna- wake for several days, trudging through Herotodus, while busily dissecting tion research, but also serves as travel (and losing shoes in) mud and dirt to cadavers in the third-century B.C., agent. He switches their hotel after just get to the remote houses in which Rawat reported discovering the soul as residing a night’s stay in Dehli to the place where has found subjects for his research. In in the fourth chamber of the brain. he camped with famed reincarnation spite of the fact that these stories are Leonardo da Vinci eventually corrected researcher/popularizer Ian Stevenson utterly lacking in substance and proof, him by placing it at the top of the spine. (whose work was dissected in these Rawat soldiers on through his interviews Anton van Leeuwenhoek trumped them pages in 1994) while they worked and questionnaires, gathering data and all: His research with early microscopes together. Roach lists the hotel’s notable information in what he resolutely revealed the existence of tiny “animac- deficiencies, but “Dr. Rawat likes the believes is the interest of science. ules” with tails thrashing about in ejacu- vegetarian dinners, and the service is Rawat is only the first of dozens of late. He went on to craft the theory of attentive to the point of preposterous- intrepid individuals profiled in this preformationism, postulating that a smart and often hilarious volume. The teeny, tiny person rested inside the Greg Martinez lives and writes in cast of characters includes professional sperm and, after sufficient incubation Gainesville, Florida. He can be reached at scientists, dedicated amateurs, inspired inside the host mother, would emerge as [email protected]. fools, and outright kooks, all following a human being with an everlasting soul.

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Roach spends considerable time with weaves in her own research into the ecto- obstetrics at Duke University whom she those who continue this quest in the plasm phenomenon (including other interviews regarding his side project of present day. She enrolls in a three-day investigators speculations about second applying a quantum-theory equation to course titled “Fundamentals of or false stomachs and rumination of the measure the energy lost when the soul ” at “England’s stately and objects). The farcical history of this hoax departs the body admits that he cannot ancient College.” She only enhances the mirth. Finally, late in find any collaborators to assist him on visits a sheep ranch in Bend, Oregon, to the day and with only one sitter still in his project. His marriage has long since inspect the rancher’s soul-weighing the room, Roach opens the package and dissolved and his colleagues avoid the operation (which is not the first of its unfolds a swath of cheesecloth nearly subject or reject it outright. He sadly kind). She journeys to Canada to allow thirty square feet in size. The smell is tells her, “Most people don’t listen a neuroscientist to expose her brain to notable but manageable, and the blood- nearly as long as you have.” electromagnetic fields in an effort to stains mere brown smears. Like most As much fun as it is, Spook also func- detect ghost “presences.” She accompa- things psychical, it is not what it pur- tions as a friendly, informal warning to nies members of the International ports to be, but the chapter is a master- scientists and researchers who may con- Ghost Hunters Society to a national for- piece of very real gross-out comedy. template wading into the murky waters est in California to record “spirit Describing this project as a “giggly, of paranormal research. With so many voices.” These are only a few of the random, utterly earthbound assault on of your predecessors having gone down many figures she pursues and profiles. our most ponderous question,” Roach’s this path and produced little more than Most hilariously, she describes in primary comic device is to allow her folly, you may want to reconsider. Spook priceless detail her queasy trip to the subjects to speak for themselves, often at is a sort of anti-how-to book for these Cambridge Manuscripts Reading Room great length (giving them enough rope, folks: here is what not to do and here is at Cambridge University to examine in a way). A woebegone professor of how not to do it. ectoplasm. In 1989, Cambridge Uni- versity acquired the archives of the British Society for Psychical Research, one portion of which is ectoplasm mate- Saving a Disenchanted rialized by the medium at a séance in 1939. Roach sets World with Astrology? her scene in the church-like quiet of the GEOFFREY DEAN reading room, where she restlessly waits to open the box containing the sample. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. She has been warned by a representative By Richard Tarnas. Penguin Viking. 2006. of the Society that the sample is unpleas- ISBN 0-670-03292-1. 569 pp. Hardcover, $29.95. ant. A card attached to the box contain- ing it gives a brief summary of the back- California Institute of Integral Studies in ground of the object, reading in part: hanks largely to science, argues Richard Tarnas, we live in a San Francisco.1 His 1991 best-seller The She had been stripped and searched meaningless, disenchanted world. Passion of the Western Mind: Understand- with no vaginal examination. The T ing the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World material was smelling and had blood- But we can be saved by astrology, which stains on it which appeared at regular offers “a royal road across the threshold of View has been adopted as a text by many intervals. The suggestion was that the the disenchanted universe into a living American universities. His views would blood had soaked into the material cosmos of profound unfolding meaning therefore seem to deserve attention. while it was folded up, and that the and purpose.” Anyone familiar with In an interview in The Mountain most likely explanation was that it Astrologer (Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006, pp. had been secreted in the vagina. astrological writings will have heard such claims before. This time the difference is 45–51), with a preamble from which the Roach delays examining the item that Swiss-born Tarnas is a professor of above quote is taken (p. 43), Tarnas says until the room has mostly cleared, for philosophy and depth psychology at the Passion started out as a history of astro- fear of causing a scene. Would the item logical ideas and ended up as a history of be some fossilized sheep omentum, like Geoffrey Dean is a technical editor in Perth, Western worldviews. Passion divides so many of the materializations turned Western Australia (Box 466, Subiaco 6904, world views broadly into: Greek (from out to be, or some sort of ethereal tam- Western Australia). A CSICOP Fellow and 500 B.C.); Christian (peaking in the pon? While waiting, she reviews the con- former astrologer, he and his associates have Middle Ages); and Scientific (from about tents of the many pages of documenta- been investigating astrological claims since 1700). It hints at a coming worldview tion accompanying the file, and then the 1970s. based on “the emergence of a dialectically

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integrated, participatory consciousness case Tarnas explains what the particular “archetypal dynamics” of Mars (energy, reconnected to the universal” (p. 440), astrological factor means and how it assertiveness), whose precise nature can but gives no further explanation. can be discerned in the events or births be seen only after the event. Since we all In his new book Tarnas slowly lets on that are coincident with it. And vice have to be energetic and assertive at vari- that Passion was hinting at astrology. He versa. For example, the tension of ous times just to survive, a positive match tells us: “Like most products of a mod- Saturn-Neptune in 2005 coincided is guaranteed. Why be disenchanted ern education [he graduated from with the Asian tsunami and New when you can have nonfalsifiability? Harvard], I myself long viewed any Orleans flooding, or given the tradi- Moreover, as every first-year psychol- form of astrology with automatic skepti- tional connection of Neptune with the ogy student knows, positive cases do not cism.” Tarnas then noticed that many sea, “death caused by water.” Why the necessarily indicate a correspondence. famous people in history (e.g., Plato, rest of us survived is not explained. The correlation between John Nelson’s Aquinas) had supported astrology, Nevertheless Tarnas sees this sort of astrology-like forecasts of shortwave apparently without noticing that many thing as clear evidence for astrology. radio quality and the observed quality other famous people (e.g., Cicero, Unfortunately Tarnas dismisses sta- was a negligible r = 0.01, but by count- Augustine) had rejected it. The clincher tistical studies as “methodologically ing positive cases he got an apparent hit came when he started looking at the inadequate for . . . the astrological tradi- rate of 93 percent, which for thirty years birth charts of himself and others, and tion” (p. 76), which lands him in deep led him to promote the wrong conclu- at historical events. Like everyone else trouble. For example, among five outer sion. So we need to know if Tarnas’s pos- who does this without controls, he was planets there are ten possible pairs, of itive cases can also be found for control “deeply impressed by the range and which Tarnas considers six. He seems events and birth charts. If so, we con- complex precision of the empirical cor- unaware that, under his rules, each pair clude that no correspondence exists respondences” (p. 65). The result was is in aspect nearly 80 percent of the unless more rigorous tests show other- his firm belief that astrology promises time. So there will nearly always be sev- wise. But Tarnas does not use controls or “the emergence of a new, genuinely inte- eral pairs in aspect during any historical even hint at their importance. Such an gral world view,” one that “can reunite event, of which there is an almost abuse of elementary reasoning might be the human and the cosmic, and restore unlimited supply. And vice versa. Since forgiven in a newspaper horoscope, but transcendent meaning to both.” a whole pageful of words may be insuf- it is inexcusable in a Penguin Viking Interestingly, Tarnas’s belief seems to ficient to describe the astrological possi- book by a professor of philosophy. receive academic support from Roy bilities of each pair, finding a correspon- As it happens, such controls have Willis and Patrick Curry in their 2004 dence in all this mess will be even easier already been applied in astrology, either book Astrology, Science, and Culture than seeing faces in clouds, and just as inadvertently (as when astrologers (Curry teaches graduate astrology meaningful. With so much going on up unknowingly use the wrong birth chart) courses focusing on cultural astronomy there, one wonders how the Dark Ages or deliberately (in the same way that at Bath Spa University College in managed to be so dark. Ray Hyman famously gave reversed England). Like Tarnas they argue that Similar problems arise when Tarnas indications in his readings). our disenchanted world can be saved by looks at birth charts. He rarely gives The results show that wrong charts astrology. But contrary to Tarnas the the birth chart or even the birth data match people and events just as well as astrology that will save us is divinatory for his examples (the “trust me” syn- right charts. Dozens of more rigorous astrology, which Tarnas sees as an “unex- drome). Worse, he routinely breaks the tests where astrologers match birth amined (and often problematic) confla- #1 Golden Rule of Astrology, perhaps charts to case histories, or where people tion of . . . archetypal insight and con- the only rule that serious astrologers try to pick their own chart reading, crete prediction.” have ever agreed on, namely no chart show when meta-analyzed no evidence Back at Cosmos and Psyche, Tarnas’s factor shall be judged in isolation. to support Tarnas’s claims.2 claims are illustrated by an impressive Astrologers sensitive to standards in In his interview Tarnas says his array of examples that with notes astrological writing might well reject courses and seminars in archetypal occupy more than 400 pages. The his book out of hand. astrology “have been extraordinarily examples are drawn from philosophi- Tarnas stresses that “astrology is not popular with the students and have cal, religious, literary, and scientific concretely predictive but, rather, arche- influenced the rest of their studies in sources and involve two kinds of com- typally predictive” (p. 67, his emphasis). psychology, philosophy, or cosmology,” parison, namely historical events versus (Tarnas does not let on that millions of which shows how “astrology represents aspects between the five outer planets Eastern astrologers might disagree with an intellectually rich and rigorous mode Jupiter through Pluto, and prominent him.) Thus a strong Mars does not indi- of inquiry” (p. 51). But if his courses are people versus their birth charts. In each cate bullying or aggression but only the as lax as his book, their popularity is

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unsurprising. You need only watch mological assumptions . . . awakens us to Notes American television to see how easily a living universe . . . is majestic, sweep- 1. According to the Institute’s Web site enchantment trumps critical thinking. ing and profound.” But once the noise is (www.ciis.edu), the Institute is an accredited uni- versity “that connects the spiritual and practical One final distressing feature of removed the flaws become obvious and dimensions of intellectual life.” It has about sixty Tarnas’s book is its hostility to readers. the case falls apart. Astrology may still faculty, and about 1,000 students typically aged Tarnas seems incapable of writing con- have a place in society as a means of around thirty, of whom 75 percent are female. Tarnas teaches courses in archetypal studies, astrol- cisely or vigorously, or of organizing his helping therapy by conversation. But ogy and esoteric studies, history of Western material coherently. His points drown in unless you see the combination of para- thought and culture, philosophy, and depth psy- torrents of long words that induce men- lyzing unreadability, inferential incom- chology (approaches based on the unconscious and on Freudian psychoanalysis). tal paralysis and a strong disinclination petence, and unfounded conclusions as a 2. Surveys by myself and others of the scien- to read further. virtue, give this book a miss. tific evidence for and against astrology, plus other Indeed, there seems to be nothing so critical articles including an expanded version of Acknowledgment this review and a review of Willis and Curry, are concrete that Tarnas cannot render it available at www.astrology-and-science.com, rated vague and abstract. For example, Tarnas My thanks to Ivan Kelly, Arthur Mather, and by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s web- uses nearly forty chapter headings for his Rudolf Smit for help in preparing this site as “the most useful site for information on review. testing astrology.” planetary results without ever mention- ing which planets are involved, leaving you to struggle with abstractions such as “Awakenings of the Dionysian” and A Lively Guide to “Great Heights and Shadows.” (Are you any the wiser?) The notes for each of his Resisting Bogus eight parts start from scratch, so there are always up to eight notes with the Reasoning same number, but no differentiation MARK DURM appears in the notes section other than the part heading, which appears only Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of once and never in the text headers. Since Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders. the notes occupy forty-one pages of fine By Jamie Whyte. McGraw-Hill, New York, 2005. print, don’t expect to find a particular ISBN 0-07-144643-5. 157 pp. Softcover, $12.95. note in a hurry. The index is equally frustrating, with, for example, twenty Not caring about contradiction is the Times under the pen name “Outraged in undifferentiated page references to Marx same as not caring about the truth. London.” What is he so outraged about? or Jung, and no entry for important Errors in reasoning, , and mud- items such as his tables of dates of outer- he above, in one sentence, dled thinking. He adds: planet aspects. There is no bibliography summarizes Jamie Whyte’s or list of references, only a list of sources Tpurpose for writing Crimes The modern world is a noxious envi- for Tarnas’s more than 200 literary Against Logic. He believes strongly that ronment for those of us bothered by societies have become careless with the logical error. People may have become quotes ordered by page number. no worse at reasoning, but they now It needn’t be like this. Books such as truth, careless about the definition of have so many more opportunities to Dean Simonton’s Psychology, Science, truth, and care for everything but the show off how bad they are. If anyone and History (1990) on quantifying his- truth. Whyte is a former lecturer of cared about our suffering, talk radio torical events and Frank Sulloway’s Born philosophy at Cambridge University, and op-ed pages would be censored. and won the Analysis journal’s prize for Even congress is now broadcast, as if to Rebel (1996) on creative lives deal no torment were too great. with much the same imponderables as best article by a philosopher under Tarnas does, and with even larger data- thirty. He is the author of numerous Whyte then questions why, with all bases. Yet they are highly readable articles written primarily on the sub- those errors in reasoning and fallacies of (indeed hard to put down) and filled ject of truth. logic and muddled thinking, people with effect sizes every inch of the way. If He writes in the preface that he sends don’t complain more. His simple answer Simonton and Sulloway can do it, we many letters to the editor of the London is “most people don’t notice the problem should demand nothing less of Tarnas. . . . unless you know how reasoning can So in the end what can be said about Mark Durm is a professor of psychology go wrong you can’t see that it has.” He Tarnas’s turgid book? According to pre- and the chair of the Behavioral Science believes schools and universities teach views on the jacket, it “shatters our cos- Department at Athens State University. students invaluable knowledge, but

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BOOK REVIEWS

leave them incapable of identifying basic “Shut Up,” “Empty Words,” and that all victims of injustice are infallible errors of logic. “Morality Fever.” (they may not be). What is the end result of all this? Whyte doesn’t use the usual jargon At one point in the book Whyte Whyte believes it “makes for a nation of for logical fallacies, such as tu quoque, echoes what Sir Francis Bacon wrote suckers, unable to resist the bogus rea- ad hominem, and circulus in probando; 400 years ago: “A man prefers to believe soning of those who want something he writes for the lay reader. His term for what he prefers to be true.” Whyte from them, such as votes or money or words with positive connotations is writes, “It’s just that, on some topics, devotion.” hooray words; those with negative con- many people are not really interested in Whyte calls his book a “trou- notations are boo words. believing the truth. They might prefer it bleshooting guide” to reveal the logical Four of the better chapters are if their opinion turns out to be true— contradictions one faces daily. Each of “Inconsistency,” “Shocking Statistics,” that would be the icing on the cake— the twelve chapters is devoted to a logi- “Equivocation,” and “Morality Fever.” but truth is not too important.” cal fallacy. Whyte believes if the average This last is excellent and relates three Jamie Whyte wrote this book to person can be shown logical contradic- reasoning errors that commonly occur expose bogus arguments of politicians, tions, then he or she will care more when moral fever takes hold. This fever priests, journalists, and others who play about the truth. The chapters have causes one to think that what is unnat- with the truth, to make us care about names such as “The Right to Your ural is illegal (it may not be); that what the truth, and to recognize crimes Opinion,” “Prejudice in Fancy Dress,” is righteous is true (it may not be); and against logic.

The book provides insight into issues Body of Evidence beyond folklore. For example, paranor- BENJAMIN RADFORD mal claimants often suggest that the uni- formity of reports (say, of alien abduc- Bodies: Sex, Violence, Disease, and Death in Contemporary tions, near-death experiences, or Bigfoot Legend. By Gillian Bennett. University Press of Mississippi, sightings) offers proof that the experi- Jackson, Mississippi, 2005. ISBN 1-57806-789-8. 313 pp. ences are real. Bennett, however, sees Hardcover, $45. things differently: “There are two ways of interpreting recurring stories and repeated claims. The first is to believe, as Organ Theft Legends. By Veronique Campion-Vincent, Forteans believe of anomalous occur- translated by Jacqueline Simpson. University Press of rences, that the multiplicity and similar- Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, 2005. ity of the claims is evidence that such ISBN 1-57806-593-3. 236 pp. Hardcover, $45. things really happen. The other is the folkloristic approach, which sees recur- ring story patterns as evidence of the presence of folklore. I unashamedly take the folkloristic position: the more similar the pattern, the more closely I feel one should scrutinize the individual claims.” wo new books, both from the Theft Legends focuses on a specific genre. In the book’s most fascinating chap- University Press of Mississippi, Gillian Bennett examines folklore and ter, Bennett examines stories of organ tackle the fascinating theme of urban legends about bodily contamina- theft and places the narratives in a cul- T tural context. Stories of body part theft bodily harm in modern folklore. While tion, including stories of serpents slither- Gillian Bennett’s Bodies: Sex, Violence, ing into sleeping victims’ mouths and go back centuries (Mary Shelley’s Disease, and Death in Contemporary young brides who unknowingly wear a Frankenstein is a notable example), and Legend takes a broad look at the issue, dead woman’s dress. Bennett also tackles simply dismissing such stories as rumor Veronique Campion-Vincent’s Organ Satanic Ritual Abuse rumors, Blood Libel ignores the latent but very real public myths used to persecute Jews, and “AIDS antipathy toward (and mistrust of) the Benjamin Radford wrote about organ Aggressor” stories of those who intention- medical establishment. This theme is theft urban legends in SKEPTICAL ally infect others with the disease (often strong in the alternative medicine com- INQUIRER, , Pensar, and with the horrifying—if unlikely—phrase, munity and in Kevin Trudeau’s books South American Explorer magazines. “Welcome to the world of AIDS!”). (see article and review in the January/

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BOOK REVIEWS

February 2006 SI). Gillian explains that While Gillian’s discussion of the ing the urban legend. The book this distrust has been fueled by many organ theft urban legend is adequate for launches a stinging indictment of the real-life cases of hospitals and medical most readers, those wishing a more sensationalist press (not only in Latin professionals misusing, selling, or abus- complete and detailed examination will America but in Europe as well) all too ing body parts (for example, in 2004, find Veronique Campion-Vincent’s eager to recycle and legitimize ru- Tulane University officials admitted that book Organ Theft Legends an indispens- mors and disproven claims. Well- seven bodies donated to help advance able read. The goal of the book is to intentioned but gullible and agenda- medicine were sold to the military and explain why the collective belief in driven non-governmental organization blown up in land mine tests). organ theft continues despite an utter are also blamed for citing rumors as The lay public and the medical com- lack of evidence and repeated denials to fact, including the World Organi- munity have very different ideas about the contrary. The process Campion- zation Against Torture. These organi- the significance of corpses. Doctors and Vincent describes by which scraps of zations, Campion-Vincent shows, are anatomists need bodies to study and rumor become believed “fact” applies to so eager to highlight human rights vio- take transplants from, but they also need many paranormal topics. lations that they champion many mer- the approval of wary families. Because the organ theft story is one itless abuse claimants. Stories have circulated for decades of the most fascinating and complex If the book has a fault, it’s the (at about innocent children (particularly in urban legends, Campion-Vincent’s times repetitive) details of the organ-theft Latin America) who are snatched off the account touches on many issues, includ- stories and the media accounts that street in black cars, only to be butchered ing the role of Soviet propaganda in hyped them. Still, it’s hard to criticize a and their body parts sold to rich spreading the rumors; the (reputed) book for being scrupulously documented Americans or Europeans. Gillian traces involvement of organized crime; the and well-researched. It is the definitive variations of the story to 1852, in which racist elements in legends; rumors being book on the topic, and both books make a horse-drawn carriage was said to used as social control; and of course important contributions to folklore. At abduct children from the streets, the both real and imagined organ theft. $45 each, these books will have limited blood being used for a diseased king to Campion-Vincent shows in meticu- popular appeal, though folklore scholars bathe in as a cure. lous detail the media’s role in exploit- will find them indispensable. 

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Join Paul Kurtz, Joe Nickell, Benjamin Radford, Norm Allen, and other scientists, investigators, journalists, and professionals from North and South America for insightful discussions of many topics, including: • Religion, Science, and Ethics • Science and Pseudoscience • Social Sciences, Politics, and Ethics • Science and the Paranormal August 3–5, 2006 Lima, Peru

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60 Volume 30, Issue 4 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:50 PM Page 61

NEW BOOKS

Listing does not preclude future review. central message that skeptical thinking is a route to clear thinking. Chasing Reality: Strife over SCIENCE Realism. Mario Bunge. Univ- Darwin Is My Hero: Poems about Science and ersity of Toronto Press, Superstition. Craig Gosling. Craig Gosling, 9129 Sand Toronto, Canada. 2006. 342 Key Lane, Indianapolis, IN 46256, 2006. 94 pp. BEST pp. Hardcover, $75. In his Softcover, $15 +$2 S&H. A collection of simple verse latest book, distinguished about evolution, workings of the brain, blind faith, philosopher Mario Bunge hypocrisy, death, fulfillment, natural disasters, SELLERS (McGill University) explores mythology, and common sense, all meant to promote the controversies over the skeptical inquiry. The author is an associate professor Top Ten Best Sellers reality of the external world. emeritus in the Indiana University School of Medicine He offers an extended and a lifelong scientific and medical illustrator. Some Foundations and defense of realism, a critique of various forms of con- of the poems are accompanied by Gosling’s elegant Fundamental Concepts temporary antirealism, and his own version of realism. line drawings. 1 of Mathematics He examines the main varieties of antirealism— Howard Eves Berkeley’s, Hume’s, and Kant’s; positivism, phenome- Lake Monster Mysteries: nology, and constructivism—and argues that all of Investigating the World’s The Road to Reality: these in fact hinder scientific research. Genuine science Most Elusive Creatures. A Complete Guide to 2 the Laws of the is objective, in Bunge’s view, even when it deals with Benjamin Radford and Joe subjective phenomena such as feelings and fear. Nickell. With a Foreword by Universe Loren Coleman. University Roger Penrose Controversial Therapies for Press of Kentucky, Lexing- How to Grow Fresh Developmental Disabilities: ton, Kentucky. 2006. ISBN 0- Air: 50 Houseplants Fad, Fashion, and Science in 8131-2394-1 190 pp. Hard- 3 That Purify Your Home Professional Practice. Edited cover, $24.95. Two veteran or Office by John W. Jacobson, skeptical investigators asso- B.C. Wolverton Richard M. Foxx, and James ciated with CSICOP and the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER here draw A. Mulick. Lawrence Erl- upon their own detailed field research and their From So Simple a baum Associates, Mahwah, reviews of hoaxes, claims, and legends about mysteri- Beginning: Darwin’s New Jersey, 2005. ISBN 0- ous creatures in lakes. The result is an up-to-date exam- 4 Four Great Books— 8058-4192-X. 505 pp. Soft- ination from a scientific perspective of widespread mys- Voyage of the Beagle, cover, $49.95. In the past teries of alleged lake monsters. Specific lakes studied in Origin of Species, three decades a large, complex, and costly human ser- detail include Loch Ness, Lake Champlain, Lake The Descent of Man, vices system has evolved in the United States to serve Memphremagog, Silver Lake, Lake Crescent, Lake The Expression of people with mental retardation and developmental dis- George, and Lake Okanagan, plus a variety of others. Emotions in Man abilities. Much of what has been created has been unin- and Animal formed by scientific research or evaluative studies. In The State of State SCIENCE Charles Darwin this detailed and important book the editors and sev- Standards. Paul R. Gross, Darwin: The Indelible eral dozen contributors from a variety of disciplines with Ursula Goodenough, Stamp—The Evolution examine fad, dubious, controversial, pseudoscientific, Susan Haack, Lawrence S. 5 of an Idea ineffective, politically correct, and sometimes damag- Lerner, Martha Schwartz, James D. Watson ing or depriving treatments. The book is aimed at fel- and Richard Schwartz. low professionals in the field, in an effort to help dis- Thomas B. Fordham Insti- Meta Math!: The tinguish between effective and ineffective interven- tute, 1701 K Street NW, Suite Quest for Omega tions and avoid wrong-headed and costly decisions 1000, Washington, DC 20006, 6 Gregory Chaitin about care. 2005. 74 pp. Softcover. The first comprehensive review The Third Chimpanzee: Don’t Believe Everything of state science standards (for K–12 science teaching The Evolution and You Think: The 6 Basic programs) since 2000 provides mixed results. The 7 Future of the Human Mistakes We Make in good news is that nineteen states have put in place Animal Thinking. Thomas Kida. standards clear and rigorous enough to earn them Jared Prometheus Books, Am- an “honors” grade of “A” or “B.” More than half of Mathematics for the herst, New York, 2006. ISBN U.S. children attend schools in these states. (The A- Nonmathematician 1-59102-408-0. 300 pp. rated states are California, Indiana, Massachusetts, 8 Morris Kline Softcover, $19. A simple, New York, New Mexico, South Carolina, and readable introduction to Virginia.) Unfortunately, fifteen states received fail- Concepts of Modern how we think and how our ing grades, signifying either that they have no real Mathematics thinking can go wrong. standards for their science programs or that their 9 Ian Stewart Kida (Isenberg School of Management, University of standards are so vague and weak as to be meaning- Massachusetts) describes “a six-pack of problems” less. The remaining sixteen states get “C” or “D” Breaking the Spell: that leads many of us astray in our thinking: We pre- marks. The report reviews each state’s standards and Religion as a Natural 10 Phenomenon fer stories to statistics; we seek to confirm; we don’t discusses criteria and methods, grading, results, appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in life; comparison between 2000 and 2005, and common Daniel C. Dennett we can misperceive our world; we oversimplify; we problems. The state-by-state reviews can be found misremember. He draws on wide-ranging research and at www.edexcellence.net. By arrangement with writings and writes in an easygoing, conversational Scientific American style in an effort to reach a wide audience with his —Kendrick Frazier (www.sciam.com), May 2006.

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citing the fact that in 2000, NIPC spent only are “far worse than not being able to make $4.9 million on counterterrorism, which bids on eBay—potentially affecting product mostly went for office equipment and train- manufacturing and deliveries, bank transac- ing. Meinel concludes that this prevented tions, telephony and more.” She also points NIPC from having the resources to follow out in that article that as time goes on, the up on Phoenix FBI Special Agent Ken risks become greater as we become more Williams’s memo about al Qaeda members dependent upon Internet infrastructure. at flight schools, citing a book by Gerald Today, there are millions of compromised Posner in support of this conclusion. end-user machines on the Internet, which Posner’s book’s discussion of the Williams are regularly accumulated in large numbers memo (pp. 169–173) does not support into the control of individual entities, mak- Meinel’s claim. Posner makes no mention of ing them into “botnets.” Botnets are most NIPC and attributes the failure to act on the frequently used as proxies for sending spam memo to the failure of FBI middle manage- messages, but are also often used to launch ment to recognize its significance—they distributed denial of service attacks. If such considered devoting resources to check out attacks were focused on particular pieces of the students at flight schools “too costly and Internet infrastructure, they could easily time consuming, and a few even expressed cause large disruptions for any companies concerns that such a probe might be criti- that don’t have either huge amounts of band- cized in Congress as racial profiling.” width or have their critical resources Meinel’s argument unaccountably Cyberterrorism, Hoaxers, deployed in a distributed fashion without assumes that NIPC was the agency to follow sufficient redundancy and protections to and Policymakers up on the memo, rather than the FBI’s coun- withstand large-scale attacks. Most of the terterrorism division, even though NIPC’s attackers making use of these mechanisms Carolyn Meinel (“Hoaxers, Hackers, and primary focus was cybersecurity and its total today do so with impunity, with criminal Policymakers,” March/April 2006) is right to annual budget was less than $20 million a prosecutions few and far between. An argu- conclude that we should be wary of unsub- year through 2000. It makes far more sense to ment could easily be made that there are not stantiated claims from “self-described com- attribute FBI intelligence failures to its own enough resources being devoted to Internet antiquated IT infrastructure, which had forty- puter security researchers,” but her article criminal activity, rather than too many. itself makes unsubstantiated claims. She two separate database systems that could not argues that the testimony of “Dr. Mudge” be searched simultaneously. Congress with- Jim Lippard (Pieter Zatko) and fake hacker “Se7en” held $60 million in funding for the FBI’s IT Phoenix, Arizona (“Christian Valor”) before federal policymak- infrastructure between 1998 and 2000, ers about “a looming electronic Pearl Harbor” because of the agency’s failure to produce a Carolyn Meinel responds: may have been a cause of two events for which credible upgrade plan. This is because FBI she provides no evidence of a connection. Director Louis Freeh was something of a In FY 2000, NIPC diverted over $10 million The first, a possible FBI sting operation, technophobe, who didn’t devote any resources in congressionally earmarked counterterrorism in which Khalid Ibrahim, a member of Indian toward developing a plan until he hired Bob funds to the hacker beat. Total funding for separatist group Harkat-ul-Ansar, paid $1,000 Dies to begin work on the issue in July 2000. NIPC that year was $20,665,436 (GAO to “Chameleon” (eEye Digital Security’s Chief (See the “Missing Documents” chapter of 2001, 90), and of this, over three quarters Hacking Officer, Marc Maiffret), is described Ronald Kessler’s The Bureau: The Secret was congressionally designated for counter- fairly accurately in two books which Meinel History of the FBI [2002, St. Martin’s Press], terrorism. Yet as noted in my article, that year, says “hyped the raid to say that hackers were the “9/11” chapter of James Bovard’s The NIPC spent only $4.9 million on counter- in league with al Qaeda.” Neither Adam Bush Betrayal [2004, Palgrave Macmillan], terrorism. Consequently, according to two of Penenberg and Marc Barry’s Spooked: and ch. 18 of Meinel’s cited source, Gerald terrorism czar Richard Clarke’s staffers, “after Espionage in Corporate America (2001, Perseus Posner’s Why America Slept: The Failure to September 11, the FBI acknowledged . . . that Books, ch. 9) nor reformed hacker Kevin Prevent 9/11 [2003, Random House]). despite hundreds of millions of dollars of bud- Mitnick’s The Art of Intrusion (2005, Wiley, Further compounding the intelligence get increases . . . it had no more agents work- pp. 32–34) is guilty of such hype; both men- failures was the CIA’s “Alec Station” (a group ing on counterterrorism cases than it had in tion the FBI operation theory and the fact devoted specifically to Osama bin Laden), 1996. . . . The Bureau had actually assigned that, despite Maiffret’s admitting to receiving which failed to supply critical information most of these new personnel . . . [to] the FBI’s the payment, he was never indicted. Neither about September 11, 2001, hijackers to the cybersecurity unit” (Benjamin and Simon mentions al Qaeda; both correctly say that FBI or the NSA, as documented in James 2002, 348–349). Khalid Ibrahim was in Harkat-ul-Ansar. Bamford’s A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and This failure included the FBI’s overseas There’s no evidence that this incident had the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies counterterrorism operations. On September anything to do with Mudge or Se7en. (2004, Doubleday, esp. ch. 9). 20, 2002, Michael E. Rolince, Special Agent The second claim is that the hacker testi- Finally, the idea of a major Internet attack in Charge of Counterterrorism, Washington mony led to a diversion of resources and having serious consequences is not a fantasy, Division of the FBI, testified before a joint attention from counterterrorism to cyber- as Meinel herself argued in “Code Red for the hearing of the Senate and House Intelligence security on the part of the National Web” in the October 2001 issue of Scientific Committees that fewer FBI agents in total Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), American. In that article, she stated that risks were assigned to counterterrorism on

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September 10, 2001, than had been in workshop.org/), financed by the MacArthur I agree with Ms. Meinel insofar as that an August of 1998 (Risen 2002, Section A, 1). Foundation and Santa Fe Institute, in which electronic Pearl Harbor is overhyped (much Now for the real story on Khalid I have had the pleasure of participating. like Y2K was) and quite unlikely. However, I Ibrahim. He was never a member of al found her speculation about the effect of the Qaeda affiliate Harkat-ul-Ansar, a Kashmiri References cyberterrorism hoax on September 11, 2001, separatist group that existed from 1993 to Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. 2002. The speculative at best. She forcefully asserts that 1997 (Center for Defense Information, Age of Sacred Terror. New York: Random it did have an effect with the sentence, 2002). All media references to Ibrahim’s House: 234–235. “Therefore, the FBI lacked the resources to Center for Defense Information. 2002. Harakat alleged membership stem from him using it ul-Mujaheddin. Center for Defense follow up on an agent’s warning of al Qaeda as a cover story after May 1998, when con- Information, July 9. Available at members at U.S. flight schools.” tacting hackers as an FBI “narc.” www.cdi.org/terrorism/harakat-pr.cfm. We could create a lot of “what ifs” about Ibrahim first appears in the historical GAO. 2001. Report to the Subcommittee on September 11, 2001 (and far too many peo- record in 1992, when he was active with Al Technology, Terrorism, and Government ple do), but in reality, the $4.9 million for Kifah (an alleged CIA front) in its Khost, Information, Committee on the Judiciary, the NPIC is hardly that much of the FBI’s U.S. Senate: Critical Infrastructure Protection; Afghanistan, office. That was when he hooked Significant Challenges in Developing National considerable budget. It may be true that up with FBI contractor Ali Mohamed, a nat- Capabilities. General Accounting Office, money to fight cyber threats and terrorism uralized U.S. citizen from Egypt, who earlier April; GAO-01-323. came from the same pot, as she puts it, but had been a U.S. Army sergeant assigned to a Miller, Judith, et al. 2001. After the attacks: The this is hardly the only pot of money at the Special Forces unit at Fort Bragg, North organization. The New York Times, September FBI for counterterrorism. Carolina. In 1992, Mohamed and Ibrahim 16: Section 1, 18. If it was the only source of money for Risen, James. 2002. Traces of terror: The intelli- transferred together to the Al Kifah center in gence agencies; CIA’s inquiry on al Qaeda aide counterterrorism and was spent on just Brooklyn, New York, under a CIA visa pro- seen as flawed. The New York Times, cyberterrorism, then there would have been gram (Weiser 1998, Section A, 1). Apparently, September 23, 2002: Section A, 1. much more to be concerned about with the Ibrahim worked closely with the FBI in track- Weiser, Benjamin. 1998. U.S. ex-sergeant linked NPIC. With as much validity, we could cre- ing al Qaeda. Most famously, on July 13, to bin Laden conspiracy. The New York Times, ate “what ifs” about cyber attacks that never 1995, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ques- October 30: Section A, 1. Available at happened because of the training agents got www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/10309 tioned Ibrahim as part of the Terrstop investi- 8terrorist-indict.html. from NPIC. With 911 call centers having gation: “Are you familiar with the person by been disrupted by computer attacks in the the name Osam Ben Laden, O-s-a-m B-e-n L- past, there is certainly the possibility of loss a-d-e-n?” Ibrahim replied, “Yes” (Benjamin Carolyn Meinel’s excellent article, “Hoaxers, of life from cyber threats. and Simon 2002, 234–235). Hackers, and Policymakers,” was of particu- Furthermore, while an electronic Pearl This was the first public indication that lar interest to me, since I’ve worked on a Harbor is unlikely, significant disruptions bin Laden was finally on the radar screen of number of risk-assessment and due-diligence of the Internet could occur in a couple of the FBI. The fact that the FBI diverted efforts for both DOD agencies and Fortune ways. The top-level domain servers repre- Ibrahim to the hacker beat may have been a 500 companies. In fact, I saw it on the news- sent a small set of computers, whose failure consequence of priorities warped by Dr. stand at Borders, bought it, and read it on would have serious consequences. Mudge’s and Se7en’s phony training sessions the spot. I’d concur with a couple of impor- Additionally, a Cisco IOS-based worm has for FBI managers. This, despite Mohamed’s tant lessons learned that she points out. First, great potential for large-scale disruption of 1997 warning to the FBI that al Qaeda “had policymakers don’t take a systems-analysis network service. But rather than focus on planted hundreds of terrorists, known as approach to risk assessment; instead, they just worldwide disruption of the Internet, ‘sleepers’ or ‘submarines,’ who would lie low treat each risk in isolation, leading them we should notice that worms and other for years until they were activated” (Miller often to overestimate external risks and attacks have had effects on critical infra- 2001; Weiser 1998). underestimate internal ones, especially the structure on a local scale. Just from nondi- There is a gigantic difference between omnipresent internal risk of management rected attacks, airlines have been shutdown what I wrote about war in cyberspace in infighting and bureaucratic inertia. Second, for hours, 911 call centers have been Scientific American and Dr. Mudge saying he policymaking due-diligence has been severely disrupted, and respectable security could shut it down single-handedly and degraded by the mass media’s superficial researchers have argued that the August 14, Richard Clarke’s allegation that this sort of approach to all science and technology 2003, blackout was at least partially caused Internet crash could cripple the military and issues; the mass media report science and by the Blaster worm. kill lots of people. tech stories at a sensational pitch, often Electronic Pearl Harbor or not, a critical I agree that we should further secure incorrectly, with a very short shelf life. infrastructure that has suffered local failures cyberspace. However, too many places on There is hope: Internet experts’ efforts at from nondirected attacks is certainly even our planet have corrupt, failed, or hostile due diligence, through blogs or online highly more vulnerable to directed attacks. These governments for us to rely on law enforce- focused research projects, to fact-check mass threats are serious, and we should be careful ment. We need to increase basic computer- media misreporting are emerging tools to vet not to underestimate them as well as over- science research, instead of cutting it in favor these inaccurate stories, as are articles like hype them. of increased law enforcement, as the Bush Meinel’s in your publication. Perhaps, the way to avoid such overhype administration has done. Currently, private is to stop using FUD (fear, uncertainty, and initiatives are carrying most of the load. See, Christine Brim doubt) to sell security products, but to for example, the Adaptive and Resilient President, Envoy Group LLC instead use well-balanced risk analysis to Computing Security Workshops (www.arcs- Fairfax, Virginia make cases for action. FUD is easier to sell,

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but eventually, you sound like the boy that However, I disagree with three of his main agreements should allow us both to produc- cried wolf. points. First, I disagree with his generaliza- tively work toward the improvement of crit- tion about the poor state of critical thinking ical thinking. Nevertheless, we should persist Adam Slagell in the social sciences. Second, I think his pes- in trying to precisely define critical thinking, Security Researcher simistic interpretation of the widespread especially when we try to teach and assess it. University of Illinois at endorsement of critical thinking is un- We will only know if our efforts to teach it Urbana–Champaign founded. Finally, I have problems with his have been successful if we scientifically assess definition of critical thinking. the outcomes of this instruction. Finally, by I think that efforts to foster critical think- developing precise operational definitions of Critical Thinking ing in at least one social science, psychology, critical thinking for instruction and assess- are beginning to show some success. Last ment, we can further refine our scientific Congratulations and thanks to Howard October, I attended a national conference on understanding of this important concept. Gabennesch for a great piece on critical critical thinking in psychology in Atlanta. D. Alan Bensley thinking (“Critical Thinking: What Is It This conference was attended by many criti- Department of Psychology Good For? In Fact, What Is It?” March/April cal-thinking experts and over 200 psychol- Frostburg State University 2006). One issue, however, must be made ogy teachers eager to more clearly define crit- Frostburg, Maryland more explicit. In distinguishing between ical thinking and to improve their teaching skills, worldview, and values as the pillars of of it. Also, some psychology textbooks seem critical thinking, we must acknowledge that to do a fairly good job of teaching critical the last two usually rest more on emotional thinking. In the case of my own critical- Memory Wars than intellectual foundations. This is at the thinking textbook, our research has found root of our endless capacity to continue that students in classes using the textbook Martin Gardner (“The Memory Wars, Parts deceiving ourselves, even when confronted have performed significantly better on a vari- 2 and 3,” March/April 2006) describes only with facts that run contrary to our beliefs. ety of critical-thinking tasks than students one of a still growing and not-so-small num- Against this unfortunate aspect of human from comparable classes not using the text- ber of cases in which a member of the nature, the typically book. Gabennesch is right to question the Roman Catholic clergy is accused on the offers an ineffectual remedy: more, better, impact that critical-thinking instruction in basis of long-repressed and recently recov- and different truths and facts for apprecia- the social sciences is having on people’s ered memories of childhood sexual abuses tion by the intellect, the very function that everyday thinking, but I believe psychology allegedly having occurred decades ago. proves largely impotent in combating irra- is on the right track. After clergy abuse cases where the tional belief. A more effective path could be Moreover, the widespread endorsement accusers have reliable memories, which, in found in the recognition that for most peo- of critical thinking as an educational objec- many cases, can be corroborated, others ple, the passions drive behavior more than tive in psychology is a good thing, not a dan- come forward to claim that their repressed memories were “triggered” into conscious- the mind. For example, some creationists ger. Even if many teachers have somewhat ness by the publicity of these earlier cases. could be demonstrably smarter than many different definitions of critical thinking, I Quite a few of the latter, dubious memory evolution supporters on the basis of IQ tests. have found that many recognize it as closely cases have also resulted in large financial The problem, however, is that their emo- related to good reasoning, problem solving, compensations, because the greater cost of tional attachment to their beliefs makes and decision making, which it is. Their high contesting each of these cases in the courts them place their otherwise strong intellects levels of endorsement should motivate them had become financially prohibitive. in the service of an underdeveloped emo- to more clearly define it. When the Spokane diocese offered to set- tional function. There are also signs that the lack of defin- tle seventy-five cases for $45.7 million last Our skepticism will remain shallow and ition of critical thinking may be abating in at year, the number of claimants jumped to ineffectual if it fails to acknowledge the roots least some circles. The American Philo- 176, and the diocese filed for bankruptcy. of human behavior. While we must strive for sophical Association approved a consensus definition of critical thinking containing lan- The claimants in most of those latter cases more scientific and rational explanations, we maintained that they had recovered hitherto must also understand that emotional devel- guage that is mostly consistent with the lan- guage that I, a psychologist, use to define crit- repressed memories. Still, they may be opment may well prove a more effective path awarded damages (according to the Asso- to reducing people’s resistance to the truths ical thinking. Nowhere in their definition do they use the word truth, which Gabennesch ciated Press, March 14, 2006). of science and reason than the continual uses in his definition, when he says that criti- Legal opinion in the matter of refinement of intellectual arguments. cal thinking involves getting “as close as possi- repressed/recovered memory is often at odds Pantazis Mouroulis ble to the truth.” If by this, he means reaching with the scientific evidence, and judges may Glendora, California a state that corresponds to some objectively fall for the argument put forward by expert real standard, then many pragmatic philoso- witnesses for the prosecution that eighty- phers of science and skeptics who define truth three or so scientific studies support the I found myself agreeing with many, but not as “what works” would object to his defini- notion. (In psychological jargon, repression all, of Howard Gabennesch’s conclusions. tion. In fact, his use of truth seems at odds of traumatic memories is called dissociative For example, I agree that the definition of with his own emphasis on critical thinkers as amnesia.) To date, only six judges have ruled critical thinking is in need of further refine- being suspicious of certainties. on the admissibility of recovered-memory ment and that some textbooks perpe- Despite our disagreements about how to testimony, with two accepting the testimony tuate misconceptions and uncritical views. define critical thinking, I think our many and four rejecting it.

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CSICOP fellow and memory researcher “The Big Bird, the Big Lie, God, and systematic and evolutionary biology, etc. Elizabeth Loftus, together with psychiatrist Science” reminded me of my favorite Edgar True, experiments help add more strength to Harrison Pope, a Harvard expert on research Mitchell story. In his autobiography, The scientific hypotheses, but in many of these design, last November convinced Omaha, Way of the Explorer‚ Mitchell recalls a lunch sciences, the repeatability and corroboration Nebraska, District Judge Sandra L. with Uri Geller at the SRI cafeteria. Mitchell of observations of the past represent some of Dougherty that these studies fail to establish asked Geller to use his special powers to the strongest science. (We still don’t have any that “repressed and recovered memory is reli- retrieve a Hasselblad camera Mitchell had Devonian horses.) able and admissible as scientific evidence in left on the moon after completing his final As I know little about evolutionary psy- the courts” (District Court of Douglas moon walk. The serial number of that cam- chology, I have not formed an opinion, but I County, Nebraska, Rivers v. Father Flanna- era was on record with NASA, and so do think we need to know why Pigliucci gan’s Boys Home, Doc. 1024, No. 743). Mitchell knew it would prove Geller’s pow- seems to be impugning much of science. If I ers to even the most hardcore skeptic. No misunderstood his position, please explain. Adriaan J.W. Mak sooner had Geller agreed to try than he cut London, Ontario David Archibald his lip on a sharp piece of metal while eating Canada Professor of Biology ice cream. Miracle of miracles! Edgar San Diego State University Mitchell’s long-lost tie tack had miraculously San Diego, California materialized in Geller’s mouth! No, it wasn’t the Hasselblad, but since Geller was able to bring back the lost tie tack, In his column, “Is Evolutionary Psychology a Big Bird, Big Lie Mitchell was hopeful that the camera would Pseudoscience?,” Massimo Pigliucci says: soon follow. This story gave me the creeps. “. . . behaviors have an annoying tendency Ms. Neimark (“The Big Bird, the Big Lie, No one considered the results if Geller had not to leave a fossil record, and neither do the God, and Science,” March/April 2006) been successful and that big, old Hasselblad details of the (largely social and cultural) appears to be a credulous believer rather had materialized in his mouth. If that had environment under which natural selection than a skeptic. Her overriding theme was happened, I imagine Geller’s head would allegedly operated throughout recent human that the evidence was equivocal with regard have exploded like a Halloween pumpkin evolution.” I believe this is an unduly pes- to distant healing. Baloney. Only the packed with an M-80, and they would have simistic view. There are a huge number of poorly designed studies have lent equivocal been wiping what was left of his brains off the archaeological and fossil artifacts in the form results. Ms. Neimark and others make the ceiling! What a mess that would have been. of cultural objects, ancient writings, build- a priori assumption that there is actually an And can you imagine the obituary: “Famed ings, graves, and ornaments/carvings/inscrip- effect of prayer; this is not a good, scien- spoon bender dies in successful demonstra- tions that originated in religious/superstitious tific approach. tion of telekinesis”? No, thank you! beliefs. A study of these shows a remarkable These studies are not hard to design. For Gordon Reade parallelism between cultural/psychological/ example, take a random sample of 1,000 Palo Alto, California spiritual evolution in different parts of the lung-cancer patients, all in the same stage of world and provides support for and new sickness, and randomly divide them into two insights into previous speculative relation- groups. Statistically compare the groups with Evolutionary Psychology ships. These include such things as early respect to a metric (e.g., rate of remission). human migration, connections between Then, have several large-congregation I was dumfounded to read the following ancient religions/superstitions in widely sepa- churches pray for one group (the treatment rated communities, common aspects of group). The other (control) group would statement in the closing paragraph of Massimo Pigliucci’s column, “Is Evolutionary building design, cultural symbolism, and receive no additional prayer. None of the others. There may even be a bearing on the patients would know they were involved in Psychology a Pseudoscience?” in your March/ April 2006 issue: “While all this doesn’t make modern history of Islamic politics, practice, the experiment. Afterwards, again compare and influence. the metric between the two groups. evolutionary psychology a typical example of pseudoscience, say like astrology or para- In the light of this information, one must Even with all of the evidence she pro- surely accept that the study of evolutionary vided showing the dishonesty of Adam, not psychology, it certainly moves it away from mainstream evolutionary biology and into a psychology is perfectly reasonable and part to mention his ludicrous statement that a territory uncomfortably close to pure histori- of science in its broadest sense. bird had telepathically downloaded all of the cal research, where reasonable scenaria [sic] information of the universe into his brain, George F. Wood are the best one can hope for and hard data she still holds out hope (see her final para- Cheltenham are difficult to come by or interpret.” graph) that he is a real distant healer. Please! England This is dangerously close to the mis- Just tell me how a chemical reaction in your guided mantra of creationists, who claim, “If Massimo Pigliucci responds: brain (a thought) can possibly affect some- you were not there, you cannot prove it.” To one’s health in a distant location? them, historical science doesn’t exist, only I wish to reassure Prof. Archibald that my Anthony Robinson experimental science. Is this really what criticism of evolutionary psychology is not to Research Branch Pigliucci meant to imply? If so, like creation- be interpreted as a general dismissal of histor- Arizona Game and Fish ists, he would be dismissing many sciences, ical sciences. As an evolutionary biologist, I Department or parts of them, including cosmology, geol- am a (partially) historical scientist myself, and Phoenix, Arizona ogy, paleontology, biogeography, ecology, I certainly do not want to commit intellectual

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suicide. Moreover, I have actually defended ing at was fake. Fine. But what about the authority figure and he doesn’t say we should the value of historical scientific research in other experts who also somehow just “knew” trust our gut feelings. He simply says we these pages (see “Are the Historical Sciences in an instant that the Greek statue was not shouldn’t dismiss them out of hand. Sciences?,” July/August 2005). fake? Well, that’s why we use science. It’s sci- When I read the book, I felt it fit in the What I meant, both in my recent col- ence, not , that determines if the guidelines of skepticism very well and was umn and in other writings on evolutionary statue is fake or legit. Gladwell knows that, surprised to find such a scathing review in psychology (e.g., see chapter 7 of my forth- and so do we. It’s not until months later, your pages. I think Cecil missed the point. coming book, cowritten with philosopher maybe years (in the case of the statue) that Jeff Greif Jonathan Kaplan, Making Sense of we can say whose snap judgment turned out Elmira, Oregon Evolution, Chicago University Press) is that to be right and whose turned out to be evolutionary psychology is in a particularly wrong. But even that’s not very interesting. I bad situation as a historical science when mean, suppose I make a snap judgment I couldn’t agree more with Wesley Cecil’s one considers the idiosyncrasies of the about who’s going to win the next presiden- evaluation of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, human species as a subject of empirical tial election and, lo and behold, I turn out to Blink, and I was very glad to see the review investigation. It is the unfortunate combi- be right! published in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. nation of scarce information on relevant Big deal? No. Although Gladwell is to be commended for ancestral environments, the sparse and rela- But what is a big deal (and what I found both the excellent scientific backing and the tively uninformative fossil record, and the to be fascinating reading) is the discovery imagination he showed in his first book, The logistical and ethical problems with human that some aspects of our cognition, aspects of Tipping Point, which greatly supported his experimentation that makes for a perfect our otherwise touchy-feely , are thesis that social trends (such as clothing, epistemic storm that severely limits evolu- subject to scientific scrutiny. music, products, etc.) closely follow the pat- tionary psychology to a set of interesting, Be warned, however, that Blink is no sci- terns of social diseases (a few very active car- but usually untestable, speculations. ence treatise. Gladwell uses stories to make riers or trendsetters cause both to spike at a As for the comments by George Wood, I his points. He tells anecdotes. Fortunately he certain point where they reach critical mass), certainly agree that the archaeological record does it very well. Blink was not as well thought out. is both rich and informative, but it has little Recently, I recommended Blink to a I especially agree that this book doesn’t to do with evolution. Evolutionary psychol- friend and was surprised to hear me saying, quite fall into pseudoscience as much as ogists claim that “human nature” was shaped “It’s one of those books that makes you look “incomplete” science. At times, Gladwell during the Pleistocene, well outside of any at the world in a different way.” But you seemed to even contradict his thesis, and reliable archaeological record. The problem know, it does. is with the epistemic laimitations of human didn’t offer the testing, or the interviews with Steve Isaacson paleontology, not archaeology. those who could falsify or test this theory, Seattle, Washington that would make such a test adhere to the scientific method more, and thus offer some- First of all, I must say I love your publication thing to the field of neuroscience or other Don’t Blink? and appreciate the work you do on all fronts. fields that study human thought processes. Second, I would like to comment Thanks for the review. If the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER prints a negative on Wesley Cecil’s review of Blink, by book review (see “The Power of Not Malcolm Gladwell. Robert Miller Thinking Is Not Very Great,” March/April Cecil seems to have been irritated by the Irvine, California 2006), I’m not likely to read the book. book early on and never got past that feeling. Fortunately, I had already read Malcom And I think he missed the point of the book Gladwell’s Blink, and so I won’t miss out. in the process. The point of the book as I Natural Childbirth As a skeptic, I understand easily the crit- read it seemed to be that you shouldn’t icisms that Cecil (the reviewer) lobs at ignore your instincts just because someone My main problem with the answer on nat- Gladwell, and can see no obvious technical claims they already have all the answers. ural childbirth in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER faults in his review. But frankly, I don’t think Cecil accuses Blink of being anecdotal in (March/April 2006) is that in his zeal to it matters, because he so completely misses form with a cumulative message that scien- debunk the New Age adoration of “nat- the point. Let’s just say the book was over- tific analysis does not work very well. I didn’t ural” (a noble effort of which I thoroughly analyzed—something that many skeptics, notice that the book is touted as being a sci- approve), Benjamin Radford has not been myself included, are wont to do. entific treatise on anything, nor is it anti- fair to natural childbirth. Natural child- The most important thing, after having science. So what is wrong with a book being birth isn’t some New Age hype and is not read the review, is to disabuse yourself of the anecdotal in nature? Gladwell never sug- “antiscience” but is a very mainstream notion that Blink is somehow antiscience. I gested that scientific analysis does not work medical practice. Virtually every pregnant didn’t get that impression at all. In fact, it’s very well. He simply put forward the idea woman regularly seeing an obstetrician is only by virtue of science (and a concomitant that we shouldn’t assume someone has all the requested to attend the birthing classes skeptical approach at that) that what answers just because they wear a white lab provided by the hospital. These classes pro- Gladwell says makes any sense at all. coat. He stresses that we shouldn’t ignore our vide training in the techniques of “natural Consider the opening anecdote about the first instinct just because someone with the childbirth.” These techniques are simply few experts who just somehow “knew” in an aura of authority says something to the con- ways to increase physical comfort and instant that the Greek statue they were look- trary. He doesn’t say we should ignore the reduce anxiety during birth, which, in

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turn, keeps the perception of pain to a Is childbirth risky? Only in that there are women could be protected from the myths minimum. They are some of the same tech- rare but occasional complications. Is a C-sec- and old wives’ tales surrounding it and open niques used in cognitive behavioral therapy tion risky? Consider that this is major abdom- themselves to the pure joy of the moment. for anxiety. It’s just common sense to desire inal surgery requiring anesthesia and weeks of Peggy Gannon the minimum in medical interventions that recovery, whereas a woman who has given Palmyra, Maine come with a price. birth vaginally is typically on her feet imme- The quotes of Shelly Gerard unfairly give diately. Further, common sense would suggest the impression that most people who are that the onset of labor occurs when the fetus I read with interest your response to the proponents of natural childbirth are as is ready to be born. Induction or premature question regarding “natural childbirth.” The extreme as her. The reality is that the tech- removal of the infant from the uterus may not letter itself was “loaded” with its assumption niques of natural childbirth are incorporated be deleterious but can hardly be beneficial. that the move toward “natural childbirth” is in current medical practice along with pain Granted, in rare instances, a C-section is indi- “anti-science.” Most people in the so-called medication and epidurals in order to provide cated, e.g., when the baby is simply too big to “movement” are simply responding to what the best outcome for mother and baby. It is pass through the birth canal. they see as the pathologizing of the natural not “all or none.” Picture it: a laboring woman is typically process of childbirth. The amount of tech- The author unfairly lumps the unusual kept in a prone position, reducing circula- nology—and expense—that has been practice of “water birthing” with the traditional tion and oxygen both to herself and her fetus brought to bear on childbirth in our country methods of natural childbirth, and artificially and sometimes resulting in cord compres- is obscene. This is especially true, consider- creates yet another reason to deride it. Water sion; an IV needle is taped to her hand, ing the fact that, as reported by The National birthing should be treated as a separate issue. which suggests pathology rather than a sim- Center for Health Statistics, among many Finally, if given a choice, just about ple biological process; attendants are more other reviews (www.cdc.gov/nchs/press- every woman I know would love to go interested in reading the fetal monitor room/98news/midwife.htm): through labor and delivery pain free, as strapped to her abdomen than to communi- long as there was minimal danger to her or cating with the laboring mother herself; After controlling for a wide variety of her baby. But that’s not the choice they get pitocin may be administered by a nervous or social and medical risk factors, the risk of to make, unfortunately. So, Mr. Radford, impatient doctor. She has been shaven and experiencing an infant death was 19 per- cent lower for births attended by certified please don’t hold up to ridicule these very given an enema. When fully dilated, she is nurse midwives than for births attended useful tools that help women negotiate the wheeled to the delivery room, where her by physicians. The risk of neonatal mortal- difficulties of childbirth. wrists are strapped to the table. Her doctor ity (an infant death occurring in the first may offer, or even insist on, an analgesic that twenty-eight days of life) was 33 percent Rosalyn Upson will enter the infant’s bloodstream—whether lower, and the risk of delivering a low- Eugene, Oregon or not the mother appears to be in any dis- birth-weight infant was 31 percent lower. comfort. He will perform an episiotomy that Mean birth weight was 37 grams heavier for births attended by a certified nurse will likely be more painful and take longer to midwife than for those attended by physi- You were asked what’s behind the current heal than any tearing that might normally natural-childbirth movement, which is cians. Low birth weight is a major predic- occur. These procedures are humiliating, tor of infant mortality, subsequent disease, described as antiscience. The use of both counterproductive, marginalize the mother, and developmental disabilities. terms can and should be disputed. and are anything but “natural.” Certified nurse midwives attended a There is nothing new about natural My first child was born at home in order greater proportion of women who are at childbirth, which I would define as child- to avoid medical interference; my other higher risk for poor birth outcome: birth without unnecessary medical interven- African Americans, American Indians, three were delivered in hospitals entirely teenagers, unmarried women, and those tion. Grantly Dick-Read’s Childbirth With- naturally (and pain-free), back in the days with less than a high-school education. out Fear, published in the late forties, makes when one had to literally fight for and Physicians attended a slightly higher pro- a powerful case for nonintervention. His demand such a hands-off process. Twenty- portion of births with medical complica- explanation of the sensation of pain during five years later, I doubt that much has tions. However, birth outcomes for certi- the birth process is lucid and convincing. changed. The medical community is overly fied nurse midwives were better even after The “antiscience” label is equally unjusti- eager to act as managers rather than assis- sociodemographic and medical risk factors were controlled for in statistical analyses. fied. As with so many endeavors, simply tants in the birth process. because we can doesn’t imply that we ought Please indulge me in one final observa- I agree that critical inquiry is necessary, to. I submit that the current obstetrical tion: fear is the stimulus, pain is the and that everything that is called “natural” is emphasis on electronic fetal monitors, response. We are culturally conditioned to certainly not necessarily “good, safe, or induction, medication, and the frequency of expect and fear pain as a part of childbirth— healthy,” but I do believe you fell short in C-sections is no more than a response to the and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, your response to this question. rise in medical malpractice suits. In this liti- there may (or may not) be a few moments of gious climate, practitioners feel obligated to discomfort during transition, but a woman Frank Jude Boccio take all measures in their power to avoid a who appreciates that this moment is brief [email protected] potential lawsuit. No evidence exists that and temporary can get through it with a fetal monitors improve fetal health or well- grin-and-bear-it approach, sort of like hav- Benjamin Radford responds: being. Additionally, C-sections are often per- ing a tooth drilled. formed for no better reason than the conve- Childbirth is a peak—almost an orgas- Natural childbirth clearly means different nience of either doctor or patient. mic—experience. I only wish that more things to different people. While Upson derides

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my examples of Shelly Girard (as “extreme”) and the namesake of the avian research center for exclusively from small mentions in water birthing (as “unusual”), both are part of which I work. What is more “digital” about Victorian travel literature, and probably did the natural birth canon. Overall I agree with the the image of that painting than any of the not include the gruesome details of Vlad’s readers’ views on the pathologizing of birth, and other illustrations in the publication? And mayhem. McNally himself readily acknowl- as I wrote, “Modern medicine is not necessary Sutton was not credited for the image. Last, edged that the connection between Vlad for a safe, normal birth.” The question I focused the image was rotated 90 degrees. Ivory- and Stoker’s novel was, at best, ephemeral. on was whether “women have good reason to billed woodpeckers are reported to nest in Also, Polidoro would have done well to fear doctors and hospitals during childbirth,” cavities on the vertical trunks of trees, not on stipulate that these practices are far from and I think the readers agree with me that the horizontal branches, as might be inferred uniquely Romanian. Vampire hunts have answer is no. from the misprinted image. been ubiquitous throughout Eastern and Southeastern Europe, indeed throughout M. Alan Jenkins the world, and the scenes he describes in Bartlesville, Oklahoma Chilling in Kansas Romania would not have been out of place in Victorian New England. A cursory review of the recent work of folklorist The reaction of some Christian fundamen- I enjoyed Benjamin Radford’s acknowledg- Michael Bell and SKEPTICAL INQUIRER con- talists to University of Kansas professor Paul ment of the rediscovery of the ivory-billed Mirecki’s criticism of intelligent design tributor Paul Barber would have made this woodpecker. The generally accepted reason article much better. (News & Comment, May/June 2006) is for this woodpecker’s previous “extinction” chillingly reminiscent of the Muslim furor was habitat loss of virgin bottomland forest. Stu Burns over the publication of cartoons lampooning However, after studying the illustration Erie, Pennsylvania the prophet Muhammad in a Danish news- accompanying the article, it became obvious paper. Like their Muslim counterparts, some that a woodpecker, which builds its nest in a fundamentalist zealots in this country will fallen tree trunk, rather than a standing tree, Questions for ID do anything to silence their critics up to and would be subject to repeated failure due to including employing physical violence as easy predation and drowning of the nestlings The following comments on the ID question demonstrated by Mirecki being roughed up essentially reinforce those made by Kenneth by thugs in a pickup truck. at every heavy rain. Morgareidge (Letters, March/April 2006). Not only should the local sheriff’s office Or perhaps the picture is rotated 90 be investigating this, but the FBI should as degrees. ID advocates have essentially postulated a fifth force, additional to the four already well—as a possible hate crime. Peter C. Weber known to physics, for the action of will on Olney, Illinois Jerome N. Cragle Jr. matter. Whether the designer operates by Mifflinville, Pennsylvania abolishing existing structures and reassem- Benjamin Radford responds: bling their atoms into other structures or by acting more subtly on the DNA itself with a Jenkins and Weber are correct that the image Ivory-billed Woodpecker snip here and a splice there, this force neces- was erroneously rotated 90 degrees. Jenkins is sarily breaks and makes covalent chemical also correct that just because the searchers did I am disappointed in the line of reasoning bonds in a highly controlled, directed man- not report any evidence of Bigfoot doesn’t mean taken by Benjamin Radford in his News and ner—an ability that any chemist (such as that Bigfoot do not exist. That is indeed a weak Comment piece concerning the recent dis- myself) would be envy. argument and counter-scientific—as well as a covery of an extant population of the ivory- Let us, therefore, hear more about the claim I never made. In fact, I quite specifically billed woodpecker, a species once thought fifth force from the advocates of ID. stated that further research may yet find Bigfoot. extinct. He uses the failure of ornithologists Could it also be generated by physical to find any evidence of a Bigfoot as an argu- means? Does it act only on biological mater- ment for Bigfoot’s nonexistence. I, too, con- ial in vivo, or in vitro also? Can it act on inor- sider Bigfoot to be a . However, nega- In Search of Dracula ganic material too, and if not, why not? Does tive evidence, the fact that searchers for the the force obey the inverse-square law? The bird did not report any evidence of Bigfoot, I would like to thank Massimo Polidoro for electromagnetic force is mediated by the doesn’t constitute scientific evidence that his valuable column (“In Search of exchange of virtual photons; what corre- Bigfoot is nonexistent. Dracula,” March/April 2006), document- sponding statement can we make about the It’s a weak argument and not scientific, ing the continued incidence of vampire fifth force? These are all scientific questions conservative use of data. The woodpecker hunts in Romania. I do, however, take and worthy of answers. If the ID people are searchers didn’t report detection of any fish, exception to two aspects of his piece. Most not simply postulating miracles of the bibli- aircraft, viruses, or gamma rays either, but egregiously, Polidoro relies too heavily on cal type, they must put forward for scrutiny that fact doesn’t argue for those phenomena the venerable work of Florescu and a research program utilizing the methods of being mythical. McNally, which posits a link between Vlad science and incorporating the possibility of Dracula’s atrocities and Bram Stoker’s cre- Although it’s a more minor criticism, the falsification of their postulates. cutline for the “digital image” of the wood- ation. Elizabeth Miller and other contem- pecker implies that it’s a digital photograph porary scholars have shown convincingly Timothy Weakley of the bird, when, in fact, the image is of a that Stoker’s knowledge of the historical Dundee painting by the late George Miksch Sutton, Dracula was only slight, drawn almost U.K.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Reader Joseph Fusco (Letters, March/ food had appeared miraculously. Most I would propose using the word conjec- April 2006) asked how we can support a Christians have never heard of such a possi- ture, a formal term used in mathematics, science-based dialogue with creationists, bility. I would love to see a study done of defined as “inference from defective or pre- given that they are already out-converting providing such alternative explanations in sumptive evidence” or “conclusion deduced us a thousand to one. As a skeptic and a various ways to young Christians and seeing by surmise or guesswork.” While describing former Mormon missionary, I can tell you the effect on their faith later. Not all would ID pretty close to what it is, this term does how the Mormons get converts. Their be converted to a skeptical attitude; but give it some dignity, which is vital for con- leadership engaged in scientific research some would, and we could build on the structive discourse. on the process of conversion to most effective approaches. Don Keith Mormonism. They honed their approach, The present religious climate, in which Waterloo, Ontario discarded unproductive methods, and fanatics feel free to criticize atheists and Canada expanded on what was shown in their skeptics, is actually a great opportunity for research to work. us. We no longer have to be so tentative We skeptics have naïvely assumed that about challenging absurd religious views out The letters column is a forum simply being right is enough to make of respect for religious freedom and fear of for views on matters raised in offending people. They are the ones who converts. We need to do our own research previous issues. Letters should started this dialogue; we can be the ones to on what type of exposure it takes to sow be no more than 225 words. win it. seeds of doubt in people’s heads and bring Due to the volume of letters them to fruition. I know for a fact that Paula L. Craig not all can be published. there are plenty of Christians out there Falls Church, Virginia Address letters to Letters to the who have simply never been exposed to Editor, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. Send any serious argument from a skeptic by e-mail text (not as an attach- about their religion. In commenting on the ambivalence of the ment) to [email protected] Perfectly plausible naturalistic explana- word theory as it applies in science and in (include your name and tions exist for such events as the miracle of common usage, reader Dave Gardner address). Or mail to 944 Deer the loaves and fishes—for example, a (March/April 2006) suggests that we also Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM need to start prefacing intelligent design wealthy supporter of Jesus might have pro- 87122, or fax to 505-828-2080. vided food anonymously and a rumor got with something to indicate its lack of any rel- started among gullible listeners that the evant scientific status. You can make a lasting impact on the future of skepticism… when you provide for the Skeptical Inquirer in your will. CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer changed the terms of discussion in fields ranging from pseudoscience and the paranormal to science and educational policy. You can take an enduring step to preserve their vitality when you pro- vide for the Skeptical Inquirer in your will. Your bequest to CSICOP, Inc., will help to provide for the future of skepticism as it helps to keep the Skeptical Inquirer financially secure. Depending on your tax situation, a charitable bequest to CSICOP may have little impact on the net size of your estate—or may even result in a greater amount being available to your beneficiaries. We would be happy to work with you and your attorney in the development of a will or estate plan that meets your wishes. A variety of arrangements is possible, including: gifts of a fixed amount or a percentage of your estate; living trusts or gift annuities, which provide you with a lifetime income; or a contingent bequest that provides for the Skeptical Inquirer only if your primary beneficiaries do not survive you. For more information, contact Barry Karr, Executive Director of CSICOP, at 716-636-1425. All inquiries are held in the strictest confidence.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER July / August 2006 69 SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:53 PM Page 70

THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL AT THE CENTER FOR INQUIRY/TRANSNATIONAL (ADJACENT TO THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO) AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION Network of Affiliated Organizations International

AUSTRALIA. Inc. New South Wales. @kos.net. KAZAKHSTAN. Kazakhstan Commission for the Barry Williams (Executive Officer; Editor, The CHINA. China Association for Science and Technology, Investigation of the Anomalous Phenomena Skeptic). Tel: 61 (02) 9417 2071; fax: 61 (02) 9417 China. Shen Zhenyu Research Center, P.O. Box 8113, (KCIAP) Kazakhstan. Dr. Sergey Efimov, Scientific 7930. [email protected]. PO Box 268 Beijing China. Hong Kong Skeptics, Hong Kong. Secretary. Astrophysical Institute, Kamenskoye Roseville NSW 2069 Australia. www.skeptics. Kevin Ward, P.O. Box 1010, Shatin Central Post Office, Plato, Alma-Ata, 050020, Kazakhstan. E-mail: com.au. Hunter Skeptics. Hunter Region Shatin NT China. [email protected]. (Newcastle/Hunter Valley). Dr. David Brookman COSTA RICA. Iniciativa para la Promoción del KOREA. Korea PseudoScience Awareness (KOPSA) Pensamiento Crítico (IPPEC) San Jose. Adolfo (President). Tel: 61 (02) 4957 8666; fax: 61 (02) 4952 Korea. Dr. Gun-II Kang, Director. Tel.: 82-2-393- 6442. PO Box 166 Waratah NSW 2298 Australia. Solano; e-mail: [email protected]. Postal 2734; e-mail: [email protected]. 187-11 Buk- Australian Skeptics (Vic) Inc. Victoria. Christopher address: Adolfo Solano (IPPEC-CR), A.P. 478-7050, ahyun-dong, Sudaemun-ku, Seoul 120-190 Korea Short (President). Tel: 61 1 800 666 996. vic@skep- Cartago, Costa Rica. tics.com.au. GPO Box 5166AA Melbourne VIC 3001 CZECH REPUBLIC. Sisyfos-Czech Skeptics Club. Czech www.kopsa.or.kr. Australia. Borderline Skeptics. Victoria. Russell Republic. Ms. Ing. Olga Kracikova, Secretary. Tel.: MALTA. Society for Investigating the Credibility of Kelly (President). Tel: 61 (02) 6072 3632. skep 420-2-24826691; e-mail: [email protected]. Extraordinary Claims (SICEC) Malta. Vanni Pule, [email protected]. PO Box 17 Mitta Mitta Hastalska 27 Praha 1 110 00 Czech Republic. Chairman. Tel.: 356-381994; e-mail: pulevan VIC 3701 Australia. ACT Canberra Skeptics. www.fi.muni.cz/sisyfos/ (in Czech). @vol.net.mt. Address: c/o 67, Trig il-Pruna, Attard, Canberra. Dr. Pete Griffith (President). Tel: 61 (02) DENMARK. Skeptica: Association of Independent BZN04, Malta. 6231 5406 or 61 (02) 6296 4555. [email protected]. Danish Skeptics, Denmark. Willy Wegner. Tel.: 45- MEXICO. Mexican Association for Skeptical Research au. PO Box 555 Civic Square ACT 2608 Australia. 75-64-84-02; e-mail: [email protected]. Vibevej (SOMIE) Mexico. Mario Mendez-Acosta, Apartado Queensland Skeptics Assn. Inc. Queensland. Bob 7 A DK 8700 Horsens, Denmark. www.skeptica.dk. Postal 19-546 D.F. 03900 Mexico. Bruce (President). Tel: 61 (07) 3255 0499. qskep ECUADOR. Prociencia, Gabriel Trueba, Quito, Ecuador. NETHERLANDS. , Netherlands. Jan [email protected]. PO Box 6454 Fairfield Gardens Tel.: 2-894-320; e-mail: [email protected]. Willem Nienhuys, Secretary. e-mail: jnienhuy QLD 4103 Australia. Qskeptics eGroup: to subscribe ESTONIA Horisont. Indrek Rohtmets. EE 0102 Tallinn, @win.tue.nl. Dommelseweg 1A, 5581 VA Waalre, send a blank message to: qskeptics-subscribe@yahoo Narva mnt. 5. Netherlands. FINLAND. SKEPSIS, Finland. Jukka Hakkinen. PO Box groups.com). Gold Coast Skeptics. Queensland. NEW ZEALAND. New Zealand Skeptics, New Zealand, Lilian Derrick (Secretary). Tel: 61 (07) 5593 1882; 483, Helsinki 00101 Finland. Vicki Hyde, Chair. Tel.: 64-3-384-5136; e-mail: fax: 61 (07) 5593 2776. [email protected]. FRANCE. AFIS, AFIS (Association Française pour [email protected]. PO Box 29-492, Christchurch, New PO Box 8348 GCMC Bundall QLD 9726 Australia. I’Information Scientifique) France. Jean Bricmont, South Australia Skeptics. South Australia. Mr. President. 14 rue de I’Ecole Polytechnique F-75005 Zealand. www.skeptics.org.nz. Laurie Eddie (Secretary). Tel: 61 (08) 8272 5881. lau- Paris, France. Cercle Zététique, France. Paul-Eric NIGERIA. Nigerian Skeptics Society, Nigeria. Leo Igwe, [email protected]. PO Box 377 Rundle Mall Blanrue. 12 rue; David Deitz. F-57000 Metz, France. Convenor. E-mail: [email protected]. PO Box SA 5000 Australia. Western Australia Skeptics. Laboratoire de Zététique (laboratory). Professeur 25269, Mapo Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria. Western Australia. Dr. John Happs (President). Tel: Henri Broch. Tel.: 33-0492076312; e-mail:broch NORWAY. SKEPSIS. Norway St. Olavsgt. 27 N-0166 Oslo, Norway. 61 (08) 9448 8458. [email protected]. PO Box 431 @unice.fr. Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis Faculté PERU. Comite de Investigaciones de lo Paranormal lo Scarborough WA 6922 Australia. Australian des Sciences F-06108 Nice Cedex 2 France. Seudocientifico y lo Irracional CIPSI-PERU, Lima, Skeptics in Tasmania. Tasmania. Fred Thornett www.unice.fr/zetetique/. Peru. Manuel Abraham Paz-y-Mino. Tel.: +51-1- (Secretary). Tel: 61 (03) 6234 4731. fredthornett@ GERMANY. Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlich- 99215741; e-mail: [email protected]. El iprimus.com.au. PO Box 582 North Hobart TAS 7002 en Unterrsuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) Corregidor 318 Rímac, Lima 25 Peru. www.geoci- Australia. Germany. Amardeo Sarma, Chairman. Tel.: 49-6154- ties.com/cipsiperu. ARGENTINA. Alejandro J. Borgo. Revista Pensar. E-mail: 695023. E-mail: [email protected]. Arheilger Weg 11 POLAND. Polish Skeptics, Adam Pietrasiewicz. E-mail: [email protected]; Enrique Márquez, e-mail: skep- D-64380 Rossdorf, Germany. www.gwup.org. [email protected]. www.biuletynsceptyczny.z.pl. [email protected]; Juan de Gennaro, e-mail: European Council of Skeptical Organizations PORTUGAL. Associaçao Cépticos de Portugal (CEPO) [email protected]. (ECSO) Europe. Dr. Martin Mahner. Tel.: 49-6154- Portugal. Ludwig Krippahl. E-mail: cepo@inter- BELGIUM. Comité Belge Pour L’Investigation Scien- 695023; e-mail: [email protected]. Arheilger Weg 11 acesso.pt. Apartado 334 2676-901 Odivelas, tifique des Phénomènes Réputés Pananormaux 64380 Rossdorf, Germany. www.ecso.org/. Comité Para, Belgium. J. Dommanget, President of HUNGARY. Tényeket Tisztelk Társasága TTT Hungary. Portugal. http://cepo.interacesso.pt. the Committee. E-mail: [email protected]. Obser- Prof. Gyula Bencze. Tel.: 36-1-392-2728; e-mail: RUSSIA. Dr. Valerii A. Kuvakin. Tel.: 95-718-2178; vatoire Royal Belgique 3, ave. Circulaire B-1180, [email protected]. c/o Természet Világa, PO Box e-mail: [email protected]. Vorob’evy Gory, Brussels, Belgium. www.comitepara.be. Studiekring 246 H-1444 Budapest 8 Hungary. Moscow State University, Phil. Dept. Moscow 119899 voor Kritische Evaluatie van Pseudowetenschap en INDIA. Atheist Centre, Dr. Vijayam, Executive Director. Russia. http://log.philos.msu.ru/rhs/index/htm. Paranormale beweringen (SKEPP) Belgium. Prof. Dr. Benz Circle, Vijayawada 520 010, Andhra Pradesh, SINGAPORE. Singapore Skeptics. Contact: Ronald Ng. E- W. Betz. Tel.: 32-2-477-43-11; e-mail: @skepp India. Tel.: 91 866 472330; Fax: 91 866 473433. E- mail: [email protected]. .be Laarbeeklaan. 103 B-1090 Brussels, Belgium. mail: [email protected]. Maharashtra Andhashraddha SLOVAK REPUBLIC (SACT). Slovak Republic. Igor www.skepp.be. Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS) states of Maharashtra & Kapisinsky Pavla Horova, 10 Bratislava 841 07 BRAZIL. Opçao Racional, Brazil. Luis Fernando Gutman. Goa. Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Executive President. Slovak Republic. Tel.: 55-21-25392442 x4401; e-mail: opcaora Tel.: 91-2162-32333; e-mail: ndabholkar@hotmail. SOUTH AFRICA. Marian Laserson. P.O. Box 46212, [email protected]. Rua Professor Álvaro com. 155, Sadashiv Peth Satara 415001 India. Orange Grove 2119 South Africa. SOCRATES. South Rodrigues 255 apt 401 Botafogo. CEP: 22280-040, www.antisuperstition.com. Indian Rationalist Africa. Cape Skeptics, Cape Town. Dr. Leon Retief. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. www.opcaoracional.com.br. Association, India. Sanal Edamaruku. E-mail: Tel.: 27-21-9131434. E-mail: [email protected]. 5N BULGARIA. Bulgarian Skeptics, Bulgaria. Dr. Vladimir [email protected] or IRA@rationalist interna- Agapanthus Avenue, Welgedacht Bellville 7530 Daskalov. E-mail: [email protected]. Krakra 22 BG- tional.net. 779, Pocket 5, Mayur Vihar 1, New Delhi South Africa. 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria. 110 091 India. Dravidar Kazhagam, southern India. SPAIN. Círculo Escéptico. Fernando L. Frías, chairman. CANADA. Alberta Skeptics, Alberta. Greg Hart, K. Veeramani, Secretary General. Tel.: 9144- Chairman. Tel.: 403-215-1440; e-mail: 5386555; e-mail: [email protected]. Periyar Thidal, Apartado de Correos 3078, 48080 Bilbao, Spain. E- [email protected]. Alberta Skeptics, British 50, E.F.K. Sampath Road Vepery, Chennai Tamil mail: [email protected]. Web site: Columbia Skeptics, BC and Alberta. Lee Moller. Tel. Nadu 600 007 India. www.Periyar.org. Indian CSI- www.circuloesceptico.org. ARP-Sociedad para el 604-929-6299; e-mail: lee COP, India, B. Premanand, Convenor. Tel.: 091- Avance del Pensamiento Crítico ARP-SAPC Spain. [email protected]. www.bcskeptics.info. 1188 0422-872423; e-mail: [email protected]. Félix Ares de Blas. Tel.: 34-933-010220; E-mail: Beaufort Road, N. Vancouver, BC V7G 1R7 Canada. 11/7 Chettipalayam Road Podanur Tamilnadu 641 [email protected]. Apartado de Correos, 310 E- Ontario Skeptics, Ontario, Canada. Eric McMillan, 023 India. 08860 Castelldefels, Spain. www.arp-sapc.org. Chair. Tel.: 416-425-2451; e-mail: eric@we-compute. ITALY. Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle SWEDEN. Swedish Skeptics, Sweden. Jesper Jerkert, com. P.O. Box 554 Station “P” Toronto, ON M5S 2T1 Affermazioni sul Paranormale (CICAP) Italy. chairperson. Vetenskap och Folkbildning c/o Canada. www.astro. Massimo Polidoro, Executive Director. Tel.: 39-049- Sigbladh Administration Box 10022 S-181 10 yorku.ca/~mmdr/oskeptics.html. Toronto Skeptical 686870; e-mail: polidoro@.org. P.O. Box 1117 Lidingö Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]; Web site: Inquirers (TSI) Toronto. Henry Gordon, President. 35100 Padova, Italy. www.cicap.org. www.vof.se/. Tel.: 905-771-1615; e-mail: henry_gordon@- IRELAND. The Irish Skeptics Society c/o Paul TAIWAN. Taiwan Skeptics, Taiwan. Michael Turton, Director. hotmail.com. 343 Clark Ave., W., Suite 1009, O’Donoghue, 11 Woodleigh Elm, Highfield Rd., AFL Dept., Chaoyang University. 168 G-IFeng E. Rd., Thornhill, ON L4J 7K5 Canada. Ottawa Skeptics, Rathgar, Dublin 6. Ireland; www.irishskeptics.net Wufeng, Taichung 413. Ottawa, Ontario. Greg Singer. E-mail: E-mail:[email protected]. [email protected]. PO Box 1237, Station B, JAPAN. Japan Anti-Pseudoscience Activities Network UNITED KINGDOM. The Skeptic Magazine, United Kingdom. Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5R3 Canada.www.admis- (JAPAN) Japan. Ryutarou Minakami, chairperson. c/o Mike Hutchinson. E-mail: [email protected]. P.O. Box sions.carleton.ca/~addalby/cats/skeptic.html. Rakkousha, Inc., Tsuruoka Bld. 2F, 2-19-6, Kamezawa, 475 Manchester M60 2TH United Kingdom. Sceptiques du Quebec, Quebec. Alan Bonnier. Tel.: Sumida-ki,Tokyo. [email protected]. Japan Skeptics, VENEZUELA. Asociación Racional Escéptica de Venezuela 514-990-8099. C.P. 202, Succ. Beaubien Montreal, Japan. Dr. Jun Jugaku. E-mail: [email protected]. (AREV), Sami Rozenbaum, president. Address: Quebec H2G 3C9 Canada. www.sceptiques.qc.ca. Japan Skeptics, Business Center for Academic Societies, Rozenbaum, Apdo. 50314, Caracas 1050-A, Vene- Skeptics Quinte, Bill Broderick. 2262 Shannon Rd. Japan 5-16-9 Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo 113- zuela. Web site: www.geocities.com/escepticos R.R. 1, Shannonville, ON K0K 3A0; e-mail: broderic 8622 Japan. venezuela. E-mail: [email protected]. SI J-A 2006 pgs 5/30/06 1:53 PM Page 71

IOWA. Central Iowa Skeptics (CIS) Central Iowa, Rob [email protected]. Physics Department, Wake United States Beeston. Tel.: 515-285-0622; e-mail: ciskeptics@hot- Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109 US. mail.com. 5602 SW 2nd St. Des Moines, IA 50315 www.carolinaskeptics.org. ALABAMA. Alabama Skeptics, Alabama. Emory US. www.skepticweb.com. OHIO. Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry (CORI) Kimbrough. Tel.: 205-759-2624. 3550 Watermelon ILLINOIS. Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Central Ohio. Charlie Hazlett, President. Tel.: 614- Road, Apt. 28A, Northport, AL 35476 US. Land (REALL) Illinois. Bob Ladendorf, Chairman. 878-2742; e-mail: [email protected]. PO Box ARIZONA. Tucson Skeptics Inc. Tucson, AZ. James Tel.: 217-546-3475; e-mail: [email protected]. PO 282069, Columbus OH 43228 US. South Shore McGaha. E-mail: [email protected]. 5100 Box 20302, Springfield, IL 62708 US. www.reall.org. Skeptics (SSS) Cleveland and counties. Jim Kutz. N. Sabino Foothills Dr., Tucson, AZ 85715 US. Phoenix KENTUCKY. Kentucky Assn. of Science Educators and Tel.: 440 942-5543; e-mail: [email protected]. Skeptics (KASES) Kentucky. 880 Albany Road, Skeptics, Phoenix, AZ. Michael Stackpole, P.O. Box PO Box 5083, Cleveland, OH 44101 US. www.south 60333, Phoenix, AZ 85082 US. Lexington, KY 40502. Contact Fred Bach at e-mail: [email protected]; Web site www.kases.org; or shoreskeptics.org/. CALIFORNIA. Sacramento Organization for Rational Association for Rational Thought (ART) Cincinnati. Thinking (SORT) Sacramento, CA. Ray Spangen-burg, co- (859) 276-3343. LOUISIANA. Baton Rouge Proponents of Rational Inquiry Roy Auerbach, president. Tel: 513-731-2774, e-mail: founder. Tel.: 916-978-0321; e-mail: [email protected]. [email protected]. PO Box 12896, Cincinnati, OH PO Box 2215, Carmichael, CA 95609-2215 US. and Scientific Methods (BR-PRISM) Louisiana. Marge 45212 US. www.cincinnati skeptics.org. www.quiknet.com/~kitray/index1.html. Bay Area Schroth. Tel.: 225-766-4747. 425 Carriage Way, Baton Skeptics (BAS) San Francisco—Bay Area. Tully McCarroll, Rouge, LA 70808 US. OREGON. Oregonians for Rationality (O4R) Oregon. Chair. Tel.: 415 927-1548; e-mail: [email protected]. MICHIGAN. Great Lakes Skeptics (GLS) SE Michigan. George Slusher, President. Tel.: (541) 689-9598; e-mail: PO Box 2443 Castro Valley, CA 94546-0443 US. Lorna J. Simmons, Contact person. Tel.: 734-525- [email protected]. 3003 West 11th Ave PMB 176, www.BASkeptics.org. Independent Investigations 5731; e-mail: [email protected]. 31710 Cowan Eugene, OR 97402 US. Web site: www.o4r.com. Group (IIG), Center for Inquiry–West, 4773 Hollywood Road, Apt. 103, Westland, MI 48185-2366 US. Tri- PENNSYLVANIA. Paranormal Investigating Committee Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Tel.; 323-666-9797 ext. 159; Cities Skeptics, Michigan. Gary Barker. Tel.: 517-799- of Pittsburgh (PICP) Pittsburgh PA. Richard Busch, Web site:www.iigwest.com. Sacramento Skeptics 4502; e-mail: [email protected]. 3596 Butternut St., Chairman. Tel.: 412-366-1000; e-mail: mindful@tel- Society, Sacramento. Terry Sandbek, President. 4300 Saginaw, MI 48604 US. erama.com. 8209 Thompson Run Rd., Pittsburgh, Auburn Blvd. Suite 206, Sacramento CA 95841. Tel.: MINNESOTA. St. Kloud Extraordinary Claim Psychic PA 15237 US. Philadelphia Association for Critical 916 489-1774. E-mail: [email protected]. San Teaching Investigating Community (SKEPTIC) St. Thinking (PhACT), much of Pennsylvania. Eric Diego Association for Rational Inquiry (SDARI) Cloud, Minnesota. Jerry Mertens. Tel.: 320-255- Krieg, President. Tel.: 215-885-2089; e-mail: President: Richard Urich. Tel.: 858-292-5635. 2138; e-mail: [email protected]. Jerry [email protected]. By mail C/O Ray Haupt 639 W. Ellet Program general information 619-421-5844. Web Mertens, Psychology Department, 720 4th Ave. S, St., Philadelphia PA 19119. site:www.sdari.org. Snail mail address: PO Box 623, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN 56301 US. MISSOURI. Kansas City Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, TENNESSEE. Rationalists of East Tennessee, East La Jolla, CA 92038-0623. Tennessee. Carl Ledenbecker. Tel.: 865-982-8687; e- COLORADO. Rocky Mountain Skeptics (RMS; aka Missouri. Verle Muhrer, United Labor Bldg., 6301 mail: [email protected]. 2123 Stonybrook Rd., Colorado Skeptics) Béla Scheiber, President. Tel.: 303- Rockhill Road, Suite 412 Kansas City, MO 64131 US. 444-7537; e-mail: [email protected]. PO Box 4482, NEBRASKA. REASON (Rationalists, Empiracists and Louisville, TN 37777 US. Boulder, CO 80306 US. Web site: http://bcn.boulder. Skeptics of Nebraska), Chris Peters, PO Box 24358, TEXAS. North Texas Skeptics NTS Dallas/Ft Worth area, co.us/community/rms. Omaha, NE 68134; e-mail: [email protected]; John Blanton, Secretary. Tel.: 972-306-3187; e-mail: CONNECTICUT. New England Skeptical Society (NESS) Web page: www.reason.ws. [email protected]. PO Box 111794, Carrollton, New England. Steven Novella M.D., President. Tel.: NEVADA. Skeptics of Las Vegas, (SOLV) PO Box 531323, TX 75011-1794 US. www.ntskeptics.org. 203-281-6277; e-mail: [email protected]. 64 Henderson, NV 89053-1323. E-mail: rbanderson VIRGINIA. Science & Reason, Hampton Rds., Virginia. Cobblestone Dr., Hamden, CT 06518 US. @skepticslv.org. Web site: www.skepticslv.org./. Lawrence Weinstein, Old Dominion Univ.-Physics www.theness.com. NEW MEXICO. New Mexicans for Science and Reason Dept., Norfolk, VA 23529 US. D.C./MARYLAND. National Capital Area Skeptics NCAS, (NMSR) New Mexico. David E. Thomas, President. WASHINGTON. Society for Sensible Explanations, Western Maryland, D.C., Virginia. D.W. “Chip” Denman. Tel.: Tel.: 505-869-9250; e-mail: [email protected]. PO Washington. Tad Cook, Secretary. E-mail: K7RA@ 301-587-3827. e-mail: [email protected]. PO Box 8428, Box 1017, Peralta, NM 87042 US. www.nmsr.org. arrl.net. PO Box 45792, Seattle, WA 98145-0792 US. Silver Spring, MD 20907-8428 US. http://www.ncas.org. NEW YORK. New York Area Skeptics (NYASk) metropolitan http://seattleskeptics.org. FLORIDA. Tampa Bay Skeptics (TBS) Tampa Bay, Florida. NY area. Jeff Corey, President. 18 Woodland Street, PUERTO RICO. Sociedad De Escépticos de Puerto Rico, Luis Gary Posner, Executive Director. Tel.: 813-849-7571; Huntington, NY 11743, Tel: (631) 427-7262 e-mail: R. Ramos, President. 2505 Parque Terra Linda, Trujillo e-mail: [email protected]; 5201 W. Kennedy Blvd., [email protected], Web site: www.nyask.com. Inquiring Alto, Puerto Rico 00976. Tel: 787-396-2395; e-mail: Skeptics of Upper New York (ISUNY) Upper New York. Suite 124, Tampa, FL 33609 US. www.tampabayskep [email protected]; Web site www.escepti- tics.org. The Educational Foundation. Michael Sofka, 8 Providence St., Albany, NY 12203 US. James Randi, Director. Tel: (954)467-1112; e-mail Central New York Skeptics (CNY Skeptics) Syracuse. Lisa cor.com. [email protected]. 201 S.E. 12th St. (E. Davie Blvd.), Fort Goodlin, President. Tel: (315) 446-3068; e-mail: The organizations listed above have aims similar to Lauderdale, FL 33316-1815. Web site: www.randi.org. [email protected], Web site: cnyskeptics.org 201 those of CSICOP but are independent and autonomous. GEORGIA. Georgia Skeptics (GS) Georgia. Rebecca Long, Milnor Ave., Syracuse, NY 13224 US. Representatives of these organizations cannot speak President. Tel.: 770-493-6857; e-mail: [email protected]. NORTH CAROLINA. Carolina Skeptics North Carolina. on behalf of CSICOP. Please send updates to Barry Karr, 2277 Winding Woods Dr., Tucker, GA 30084 US. Eric Carlson, President. Tel.: 336-758-4994; e-mail: P.O. Box 703 Amherst NY 14226-0703.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS Gary Bauslaugh, educational consultant, Center for Laurie Godfrey, anthropologist, University of Massachusetts Massimo Pigliucci, professor in Ecology & Evolution at Curriculum, Transfer and Technology, Victoria, B.C., Canada Gerald Goldin, mathematician, Rutgers University, New Jersey SUNY-Stony Brook, NY Richard E. Berendzen, astronomer, Washington, D.C. Donald Goldsmith, astronomer; president, Interstellar Media James Pomerantz, Provost, and professor of cognitive and Martin Bridgstock, Senior Lecturer, School of Science, Alan Hale, astronomer, Southwest Institute for Space linguistic sciences, Brown Univ. Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia Research, Alamogordo, New Mexico Gary P. Posner, M.D., Tampa, Fla. Richard Busch, magician/mentalist, Pittsburgh, Penn. Clyde F. Herreid, professor of biology, SUNY, Buffalo Daisie Radner, professor of philosophy, SUNY, Buffalo Shawn Carlson, Society for Amateur Scientists, East Terence M. Hines, professor of psychology, Pace University, Robert H. Romer, professor of physics, Amherst College Greenwich, RI Pleasantville, N.Y. Karl Sabbagh, journalist, Richmond, Surrey, England Roger B. Culver, professor of astronomy, Colorado State Univ. Michael Hutchinson, author; SKEPTICAL INQUIRER representative, Europe Felix Ares de Blas, professor of computer science, Philip A. Ianna, assoc. professor of astronomy, Univ. of Virginia Robert J. Samp, assistant professor of education and University of Basque, San Sebastian, Spain William Jarvis, professor of health promotion and public medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison Michael R. Dennett, writer, investigator, Federal Way, health, Loma Linda University, School of Public Health Steven D. Schafersman, asst. professor of geology, Miami Washington I. W. Kelly, professor of psychology, University of Univ., Ohio Sid Deutsch, consultant, Sarasota, Fla. Saskatchewan Béla Scheiber,* systems analyst, Boulder, Colo. J. Dommanget, astronomer, Royale Observatory, Brussels, Richard H. Lange, M.D., Mohawk Valley Physician Health Chris Scott, statistician, London, England Belgium Plan, Schenectady, N.Y. Stuart D. Scott, Jr., associate professor of anthropology, Nahum J. Duker, assistant professor of pathology, Temple Gerald A. Larue, professor of biblical history and archaeol- SUNY, Buffalo University ogy, University of So. California Erwin M. Segal, professor of psychology, SUNY, Buffalo Barbara Eisenstadt, psychologist, educator, clinician, East William M. London, Touro University, International Carla Selby, anthropologist /archaeologist Greenbush, N.Y. Rebecca Long, nuclear engineer, president of Georgia Steven N. Shore, professor and chair, Dept. of Physics William Evans, professor of communication, Center for Council Against Health Fraud, Atlanta, Ga. and Astronomy, Indiana Univ. South Bend Creative Media Thomas R. McDonough, lecturer in engineering, Caltech, and Waclaw Szybalski, professor, McArdle Laboratory, Bryan Farha, professor of behavioral studies in education, SETI Coordinator of the Planetary Society Oklahoma City Univ. James E. McGaha, Major, USAF; pilot University of Wisconsin-Madison John F. Fischer, forensic analyst, Orlando, Fla. Joel A. Moskowitz, director of medical psychiatry, Sarah G. Thomason, professor of linguistics, University Eileen Gambrill, professor of social welfare, University of Calabasas Mental Health Services, Los Angeles of Pittsburgh California at Berkeley Jan Willem Nienhuys, mathematician, Univ. of Eindhoven, Tim Trachet, journalist and science writer, honorary Luis Alfonso Gámez, science journalist, Bilbao, Spain the Netherlands chairman of SKEPP, Belgium Sylvio Garattini, director, Mario Negri Pharmacology John W. Patterson, professor of materials science and David Willey, physics instructor, University of Pittsburgh Institute, Milan, Italy engineering, Iowa State University *Member, CSICOP Executive Council

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