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Steven Novella Honored with CSI's Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical SI July August 11_SI new design masters 5/25/11 12:15 PM Page 5 [ NEWS AND COMMENT Steven Novella Honored with CSI’s Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Know May Be Hurting Us,” available (CSI) has awarded its 2010 Robert P. for purchase as audio CD, video DVD, Balles Annual Prize in Critical Think- or download. ing to Steven Novella. In a letter to Novella informing him Steven Novella, MD, is a clinical of his selection as the Balles Prize win- neurologist, assistant professor, and di- ner, CSI Executive Director Barry Karr rector of general neurology at Yale Uni - wrote: versity School of Medicine, specializing I am pleased to inform you that you in the treatment of ALS/myasthenia have been selected as the winner of the gravis and neuromuscular disorders. 2010 Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in One could easily assume that the de- Critical Thinking, presented by the mands of his professional life alone Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and KEPTICAL NQUIRER would keep him completely occupied, the S I magazine. You are being honored not for a but not Novella. He seems to be one of particular article or publication. In- those intensely driven and motivated stead, you are being honored for your people who manage to create more tremendous body of work including hours in a day. His biography and list of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Sci- activities has only just begun: ence-Based Medicine, Neurologica, your SKEPTICAL IN QUIRER column “The He is the president and cofounder of Science of Medicine,” as well as your Steven Novella, MD the New England Skeptical Society. He tireless travel and lecture schedule on is the host and producer of that group’s behalf of skepticism. You may well be evening banquet during the CSI and popular weekly science podcast, The the hardest worker in all of skepti- SKEPTICAL INQUIRER CSIcon confer- Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. He is also cism today. And to me, the truly amazing thing is you do all of this on ence in New Orleans, October 28, 2011. a fellow of CSI and a founding fellow of a volunteer basis. We are honored to Previous winners of the Balles Prize: the Institute for Science in Medicine. He present you with this award. is a medical advisor to Quackwatch and 2009: Michael Specter, staff writer at an associate editor of the Scientific Re- The Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in the New Yorker and former New York view of Alternative Medicine. Critical Thinking is a $1,500 award Times foreign correspondent, for his Novella is the author of the Neuro - given to the author of the published book Denialism: How Irrational Think - Logica blog, which covers news and is- work or body of work that best exem- ing Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the sues not only in neuroscience but also in plifies healthy skepticism, logical analy- Planet, and Threatens Our Lives general science, scientific skepticism, sis, or empirical science. Each year, the 2008: Leonard Mlodinow, physicist, au- philosophy of science, critical thinking, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry selects thor, and professor at Caltech for his and the intersection of science with the the paper, article, book, or other publi- book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Ran - media and society. cation that, in its judgment, has the dom ness Rules our Lives Novella also contributes every Sun - greatest potential to create positive day to The Rogues Gallery, the official reader awareness of currently important 2007: Natalie Angier, New York Times blog of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Uni - scientific concerns. science writer and author of the book verse; every Monday to Skepticblog; and This prize has been established The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beau- every Wednesday to Science-Based Med- through the generosity of Robert P. tiful Basics of Science icine, a blog dedicated to issues of sci- Balles, an associate member of CSI, and 2006: Ben Goldacre for his weekly col- ence and medicine. He also writes the the Robert P. Balles Endowed Memo- umn, “Bad Science,” published in The new “The Science of Medicine” column rial Fund, a permanent endowment Guardian newspaper (United King dom) in SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. fund for the benefit of CSI. Novella has completed a twenty- The prize will be presented to 2005: Shared by Ray Hyman, Joe Nick- four-lecture course with The Teaching Novella by Kendrick Frazier, editor of ell, and Andrew Skolnick for their series Company, “Medical Myths, Lies, and the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER and a member of articles in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Half-Truths: What We Think We of CSI’s executive council, at the Friday “Testing ‘The Girl with X-Ray Eyes’” Skeptical Inquirer | July / August 2 01 1 5 SI July August 11_SI new design masters 5/25/11 12:16 PM Page 6 A Pantheon of Skeptics THE PANTHEON OF SKEPTICS—a roster honoring late distin- ated in 1976 and became founding fellows; others were elected guished fellows of the Committee for Skep tical Inquiry (for- as fellows later. merly CSICOP)—has been established, and twenty-seven out- The desire is to continue honoring these skeptics’ contri- standing scientists, scholars, writers, and investigators have been butions and to provide a sense of history about the modern named to it. skeptical movement. The CSI(COP) executive council has long discussed how The Pantheon of Skeptics was created and the names cho- to keep before the public the names of the great, now-deceased sen for it selected at a meeting of the CSI executive council skeptics who made extraordinary contributions to the causes in Denver, April 1–2, 2011. They will be listed permanently at of science and skepticism in the modern era. Some were al- CSI’s headquarters in Amherst, New York, and on its website ready well established when CSICOP (the Com mittee for the at www.csicop.org. (Cur rent fellows are also listed on the web- Sci en tific Investi gation of Claims of the Para normal) was cre- site and on the inside front cover of every issue of SI.) Here are those chosen for the Pantheon of Skeptics: GEORGE O. ABELL FRANCIS H. CRICK WILLIAM V. MAYER astronomer Nobel laureate biophysicist biologist STEVE ALLEN L. SPRAGUE DECAMP WALTER MCCRONE entertainer/author/critic author and engineer microscopist JERRY ANDRUS MARTIN GARDNER ERNEST NAGEL magician and inventor author and critic philosopher ISAAC ASIMOV STEPHEN JAY GOULD H. NARASIMHAIAH biochemist and biologist and writer physicist science writer D.O. HEBB W.V. QUINE ROBERT BAKER psychologist philosopher psychologist SIDNEY HOOK CARL SAGAN T.X. BARBER philosopher astronomer and writer psychologist PHILIP J. KLASS GLENN T. SEABORG BARRY BEYERSTEIN aerospace writer and engineer Nobel laureate chemist biopsychologist PAUL MACCREADY B.F. SKINNER BART J. BOK scientist/engineer/inventor psychologist astronomer MILBOURNE CHRISTOPHER JOHN MADDOX STEPHEN TOULMIN magician and writer science editor philosopher 6 Volume 3 5 Issue 4 | Skeptical Inquirer SI July August 11_SI new design masters 5/25/11 12:16 PM Page 7 [ NEWS AND COMMENT Journal That Published Bem’s Paper Do Tomatoes Love Music? Rejects Attempt to Replicate It Genodics and Proteodies Kendrick Frazier NICOLAS GAUVRIT An unsuccessful attempt by three serious problem for science in dealing One often finds astonishing claims about psychologists to replicate the results with research on contentious claims. music helping plants grow in both journal of Daryl Bem’s recent study that no- The so-called “publication effect” is a articles (e.g., Katherine Creathe and Gary toriously claimed experimental evi- result of journals favoring research E. Schwartz’s “Measur ing Effects of Music, dence for precognition has been papers that report positive results over Noise, and Healing Energy Using a Seed rejected by the same journal that pub- research with negative results. Repli - Germination Bio assay,” Journal of Alternative lished Bem’s paper. cation is often held to be an essential and Comple mentary Medi cine, February Bem’s study was the subject of a part of the scientific method, but if in 2004) and in best sellers (such as Peter detailed critique in the March/April fact journals systematically decline to Tompkins and Christopher Bird’s 1989 2011 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER by psy- publish replication studies that come book The Secret Life of Plants). But one au- chologist James E. Alcock, who found to negative conclusions, the truth falls thor, Joël Stern heimer, has tried to make serious flaws negating its conclusions. behind. these claims look scientific by referring to Bem’s paper has sparked similar crit- them as part of what he calls “genodics.” icism elsewhere in the psychological Sternheimer not only claims that music aids and skeptical communities. The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER in plant growth but that he has found a the- British science journalist Ben independently oretical basis for the phenomenon. What’s Goldacre now reports in his “Bad Sci- more, he claims he has unlocked specific ence” column in The Guardian that confirmed the facts of melodies—which he calls “proteodies”— researchers Stuart J. Ritchie, Chris the case and obtained that will help tomatoes grow, keep them French, and Richard Wiseman re-ran the key correspon- healthy in spite of diseases, and give them three of Bem’s backwards-causation the ability to safely weather periods of experiments—and found no evidence dence involved. drought. of precognition. They submitted their Born in 1943, Sternheimer studied negative results to the Journal of Per- physics in France and then at Prince ton sonality and Social Psychology, the jour- “Replication is of critical impor- University. Once he returned to Europe, he nal that published Bem’s positive re- tance in science, especially with highly had a short career singing pop music under sults.
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