The II • The James Ossuary Controversy • : Case Closed?

The Importance of Missing Information

Acupuncture, Magic, i and Make-Believe

Walt Whitman: When Science and Mysticism Collide Timothy Ferris or eries 'Taken' James Oberg on 1 fight' Myth David Thomas on oking Gun'

Published by the Comm >f Claims of the THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION off Claims of the Paranormal AT THE -INTERNATIONAl (ADJACENT TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO) • AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION Paul Kurtz, Chairman; professor emeritus of philosophy. State University of New York at Buffalo Barry Karr, Executive Director , Senior Research Fellow Massimo Polidoro, Research Fellow , Research Fellow Lee Nisbet Special Projects Director FELLOWS

James E. Alcock,* psychologist, York Univ., Susan Haack, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Loren Pankratz, psychologist Oregon Health Toronto Sciences, prof, of philosophy, University of Miami Sciences Univ. Jerry Andrus, magician and inventor, Albany, C. E. M. Hansel, psychologist, Univ. of Wales John Paulos, mathematician, Temple Univ. Oregon Al Hibbs. scientist Jet Propulsion Laboratory Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist, MIT Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor-in-chief, New Douglas Hofstadter, professor of human Massimo Polidoro, science writer, author, execu­ England Journal of Medicine understanding and cognitive science, tive director CICAP, Italy Robert A. Baker, psychologist, Univ. of Kentucky Indiana Univ Milton Rosenberg, psychologist, Univ. of Stephen Barrett, M.D., psychiatrist, author, Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Chicago consumer advocate. Allentown, Pa. and professor of history of science. Harvard Wallace Sampson, M.D., clinical professor of Barry Beyerstein.* biopsychologist. Simon Univ. medicine, Stanford Univ., editor. Scientific Fraser Univ., Vancouver. B.C.. Canada Ray Hyman,' psychologist Univ. of Oregon Review of Irving Biederman, psychologist. Univ. of Leon Jaroff, sciences editor emeritus. 77me Amardeo Sarma, engineer, head of dept. Southern California Sergei Kapitza, former editor. Russian edition. at T-Nova Deutsche Telekom, executive Susan Blackmore, Visiting Lecturer. Univ. of the Scientific American director. GWUP, Germany. West of England. Bristol Philip J. Klass,* aerospace writer, engineer Evry Schatzman, former president, French Henri Broch, physicist. Univ. of Nice. France Lawrence M, Krauss, author and professor of Physics Association Jan Harold Brunvand, folklorist, professor physics and astronomy. Case Western Reserve Eugenie Scott, physical anthropologist, executive University emeritus of English, Univ. of Utah director, National Center for Science Education Edwin C. Krupp. astronomer, director. Griffith Vern Bullough, professor of history. California Robert Sheaffer, science writer Observatory State Univ. at Northridge Elie A. Shneour, biochemist, author, Paul Kurtz,' chairman. Center for Inquiry Mario Bunge, philosopher, McGill University director, Biosystems Research Institute. Lawrence Kusche, science writer John R. Cole, anthropologist, editor. National La Jolla. Calif. Leon Lederman, emeritus director, Fermilab, Center for Science Education Dick Smith, film producer, publisher. Terrey Hills, Nobel laureate in physics Frederick Crews, literary and cultural critic, pro­ N.S W, Australia Scott Lilienfeld, psychologist Emory Univ. fessor emeritus of English, Univ. of California, Robert Steiner, magician, author. Lin Zixin, former editor, Science and Technology Berkeley Daily (China) El Cerrito, Calif. F. H. C. Crick, biophysicist. Salk Inst, for Jere Lipps, Museum of Paleontology. Univ. of Victor J. Stenger, emeritus professor of physics Biological Studies. La Jolla. Calif; Nobel Prize California. Berkeley and astronomy. Univ. of Hawaii; Visiting fellow laureate Elizabeth Loftus, professor of psychology, Univ. in philosophy, Univ. of Colorado Richard Dawkins. zoologist. Univ. of Washington Jill Cornell Tarter, astronomer. 5ETI Institute. Geoffrey Dean, technical editor. Perth. Australia Mountain View, Calif. Paul MacCready, scientist/engineer, Cornells de Jager. professor of astrophysics. Carol Tavris, psychologist and author, Los AeroVironment. Inc., Monrovia. Calif. Univ. of Utrecht, the Angeles, Calif. John Maddox, editor emeritus of Nature David Thomas, physicist and mathematician, Paul Edwards, philosopher, editor. Encyclopedia David Marks, psychologist City University, of Philosophy Mario Mendez-Acosta. journalist and Peralta, New Mexico Kenneth Feder, professor of anthropology. science writer. Mexico City, Mexico Stephen Toulmin, professor of philosophy, Univ. Central Connecticut State Univ. Marvin Minsky, professor of media arts and of Southern California Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading Univ., U.K. sciences, M I.T Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director, Andrew Fraknoi, astronomer. Foothill College. David Morrison, space scientist, NASA Ames Hayden Planetarium. Los Altos Hills, Calif. Research Center Marilyn vos Savant Parade magazine contribut­ Kendrick Frazier,* science writer, editor, Richard A. Muller, professor of physics, Univ. of ing editor and CBS News correspondent Calif., Berkeley Steven Weinberg, professor of physics and Yves Galifret. vice-president, Affiliated H. Narasimhaiah, physicist, president Bangalore astronomy, Univ. of Texas at Austin; Nobel Prize Organizations: France Science Forum, India laureate Martin Gardner.* author, critic Dorothy Nelkin, sociologist New York Univ. E.O. Wilson, University Professor Emeritus. Murray Gell-Mann. professor of physics, Santa Joe Nickell.* senior research fellow. CSICOP Havard University Le* Nisbet* philosopher, Medaille College Fe Institute; Nobel Prize laureate Richard Wiseman, psychologist. University of Bill Nye, science educator and television host, Thomas Gilovich. psychologist Cornell Univ. Hertfordshire Nye Labs Henry Gordon, magician, columnist, Toronto Marvin Zelen, statistician. Harvard Univ. James E. Oberg. science writer Saul Green, PhD, biochemist president of ZOL • Member. CSICOP Executive Council Irmgard Oepen. professor of medicine (retired). Consultants. New York. NY Marburg. Germany (Affiliations given for identification only.)

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

Tlic SamCAl iNQUOte* (ISSN 0194-6730) b published bimonthly by the Commute* tor ihc Article-;, reports, review-,, and letter-, published in the SKEPTICAL INQL'IRF.R represent the Scientific Investigation of Qiims of the Paranormal. 1310 Sweet Home Rd.. Amherst. NY views and work of individual authors. Their publication does not necessarily constitute an 14228. Printed in USA. IVriodicals postage paid at Buffalo. NY. Subscription prices: one year endorsement by CSICOP or its members unless so stated. (six issues). S3 5: two yean. $60; three years, S84; single issue. $4.95. Canadian and foreign order*,: Copyright ©2003 by the Committee lor the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Payment in L'.S. hinds drawn on a U.S. bank must accompany orders; please add L'SSIO pet year Paranormal. All rights reserved. The SKIFIICA1 INQUIRER is available on 16mm microfilm. for shipping. Canadian and foreign customers air encouraged to use Visa or MasterCard. 33mm microfilm, and 105mm microfiche from University Microfilms International and is Inquiries from the media and the public about the work of the Committee should be made indexed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. to Paul Kurtz, ( iu.inun. CSICOP. Box "03. Amherst. NY 14226-0-03. Tel.: 716-636-1425, Subscriptions and changes of address should be addressed to: SKEPTICAL INQI IRJ-R. BOX FAX: 7 16-636- I7J3 -03. Amhent. NY 14226-0703. Or call toll-free 1-800-634-1610 (outside US. call 716436- Manuscripts, letters, books for review, and editorial inquiries should be addressed to Kendrick 1425). Old address as wdl as new arc necessary for change of subscriber's address, with lb Frazier. Fditor. SkUTKAl INQL'IREJI. 944 Deer Drive NE. Albuquerque. KM 8~122. Fax 50V weeks advance notice. Ski FT* A] ISQMRER subscribers may not speak an behalf of CSICOP 828-2080. Before submitting any manuscript, please consult our Guide for Audioes for format and ortheSkH'iiiAi INSURER. n-tcrerk.es requirements. 11 is on our Web site at hnp://ww»-cucop.org/!^guHic-TW*authorvhtml Postmaster. Send changes of address to SKEMlCAl KQURIR. Box "03. Amherst. Ni and on page 60 of the January/February issue. Or you may send a fax request to the ediror 1122641703. COLUMNS

Skeptical Inquirer EDITOR'S NOTE 4 March/April 2003 • VOL 27, NO. 2 NEWS AND COMMENT AAAS Board Urges Opposing 'Intelligent Design' Theory in Science ARTICLES Classes / Death, Taxes, and Failed Predictions: Tabloid Fail Again In 2002 / Bigfoot Hoaxer Dies; Legacy Lives On 37 The Blank Slate / 'Miss Cleo' Settles with the Federal Trade Commission / South Park TV Satire Skewers John Edward Psychic Pretensions / Clone The Modern Denial of Human Nature Claims Result in Publicity But No Proof / Dean, Krauss, Stenger, Many intellectuals and social critics have still not moved Wilson Elected CSICOP Fellows 5 beyond the simplistic dichotomy between heredity and environment to acknowledge that all behavior comes out of COMMENTARY an interaction between the two. The author explores wiry the I lessons of the 'Fake Moon Flight' Myth extreme position (that culture is everything) is so often seen as moderate, and the moderate position is seen as extreme. JAMES OBERG 23

STEVEN PINKER INVESTIGATIVE FILES Germany: Monsters, Myths, and Mysteries 42 Omission Neglect JOE NICKELL 24

The Importance of THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE Missing Information The Strange Case of Cathode Rays and Although missing information is often important, people What Counts for Evidence are surprisingly insensitive to omissions (or unmentioned MASSIMO PlGLIUCCI 29 options, features, issues, or possibilities). This can have serious consequences for decision making. PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS Levity with Lifters FRANK R. KARDES and ROBERT SHEAFFER 31 DAVID M. SANBONMATSU NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD 47 , Magic, William S. Marriott's Gambols with the Ghosts and Make-Believe MASSIMO POLIDORO 33 Traditional Chinese acupuncture is an archaic procedure of inserting needles through the skin over imaginary NEW BOOKS 61 channels in accord with rules developed from pre-scientific SCIENCE BEST SELLERS 62 superstition and numerological beliefs. New research offers a scientifically based alternative to the previous FORUM metaphysical theories and magical rituals. Cobb County Clowns Stage Another Pi Fight GEORGE A. ULETT WILLIAM J. HOYT, JR 63 51 Walt Whitman The Inconsolations of Philosophy When Science and Mysticism Collide RALPH ESTLING 65 Whitman was the first important American poet to celebrate LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 68 science. He rejected the Romantic notion that science despoils the virgin purity of nature and preys on the poetic imagina­ tion. But Whitman was a false paladin. He violated the spirit of science the better to gratify his cosmic affirmations and mystical worldview. Despite his putative defense of science. Whitman was imbued with a Romantic mentality REVIEWS GARY SLOAN

Portrait of a Killer: REPORTS jack the Ripper, Case Closed Patricia Cromwell 13 Taken' Off JOE NICKELL 55 TIMOTHY FERRIS

16 Bait and Switch on 'Roswell: The Smoking Gun' Bible Code 11: The Countdown DAVID E. THOMAS Michael Drosnm DAVID E. THOMAS S9 19 Bone (Box) of Contention: The James Ossuary JOE NICKELL EDITOR'S NOTE uirer

EDITOR Kendrick Frazier Taking Intellectual Life Out of Its Parallel Universe EDITORIAL BOARD James E. Alcock Barry Beyerstein he nature/nuture controversy can be irksome. That culture (environment) Thomas Casten Martin Gardner Tand our genes both contribute in a complex mixture of interactive ways to Ray Hyman everything that makes us human seems reasonable, and it is a view well sup­ Lawrence Jones Philip J. Klass ported by modern biological science. Yet as Steven Pinker points out in this issue, Paul Kurtz the idea that heredity plays any role at all in explaining human thought and Joe Nickell Lee Nisbet behavior "still has the power to shock.... Any claim that the mind has an innate Amardeo Sarma Bela Scheiber organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be correct but as a Eugenie Scott thought it is immoral to think." In "The Blank Slate," taken from his new book CONSULTING EDITORS Robert A. Baker of the same title, Pinker examines the doctrine that our minds emerge from birth Susan J. Blackmore blank, unaffected by hard-wired influences of human evolution. He maintains John R. Cole Kenneth L Feder he is not countering an extreme "nature" position with an extreme "nature" posi­ C. E. M. Hansel tion. But he explores "why the extreme position (diat culture is everything) is so E. C Krupp Scott O. Lilienfeld often seen as moderate, and the moderate position is seen as extreme." David F. Marks James E. Oberg Pinker, the Peter de Florez Professor of Psychology at MIT, author of How Robert Sheaffer the Mind Works and The Language Instinct, and a CSICOP Fellow, does not David E. Thomas Richard Wiseman mind academic controversy. He shows how the modern denial of human MANAGING EDITOR nature has "led to a disconnect between intellectual life and common sense" Benjamin Radford ART DIRECTOR and "left us unequipped to analyze pressing issues about human nature just as Lisa A. Hutter new scientific discoveries are making them acute." Pinker says acknowledging PRODUCTION Paul Loynes human nature, although unpopular in many intellectual circles where ideology Christopher Fix reigns supreme, shouldn't be feared. "It means only taking intellectual life out CARTOONIST Rob Pudim of its parallel universe and reuniting it with science and, when it is borne out WEB PAGE DESIGN by science, with common sense.' Patrick Fitzgerald, Designer Amanda Chesworth Kevin Christopher Rob Beeston This issue is filled with timely special reports, commentaries, and reviews. Space PUBLISHER'S REPRESENTATIVE Barry Karr engineer James Oberg tells the story of his effort—temporarily sidetracked CORPORATE COUNSEL when NASA got embarrassed by the tone of news reports—to counter the Brenton N. VerPloeg BUSINESS MANAGER wackos who contend the moon landings never happened. Science author Sandra Lesniak Timothy Ferris examines "Taken," Steven Spielberg's widely viewed Sci Fi FISCAL OFFICER Channel miniseries about alien abductions. Physicist David E. Thomas finds Paul Paulin CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER that the same channel's "documentary" hyping an archaeological dig at the sup­ Arthur Urrows posed Roswell saucer crash site was a classic "bait and switch." CSICOP inves­ DEVELOPMENT OFFICER James Kimberly tigator Joe Nickell discovers reasons to doubt die claims made about die CHIEF DATA OFFICER recently reported James Ossuary. Nickell then examines Patricia Cornwell's Michael Cione claims that she has solved the case of Jack the Ripper. Dave Thomas critiques STAFF Darlene Banks The Bible Code II. He uses the same "code" to find this message in the book: Patricia Beauchamp Jennifer Miller "The Bible Code is a silly, dumb, fake, false...dismal fraud and snake-oil hoax." Heidi Shively Robert Sheaffer finds levity in the rising numbers of antigravity claims. Ranjit Sandhu Anthony Santa Lucia There seems no end to the new emergence of both serious claims that John Sullivan deserve careful examination and silly claims that nevertheless easily gain cred­ Vance Vigrass PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR ulous adherents. Applying science and reason to them and then informing the Kevin Christopher PROGRAM DIRECTOR public about what science really knows has never been more needed. Amanda Chesworth INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS Thomas Flynn DIRECTOR OF UBRARIES Timothy S. Binga

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

4 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NEWS AND COMMENT

AAAS Board Urges Opposing 'Intelligent Design' Theory in Science Classes

KENDRICK FRAZIER

In a welcome move that should provide AAAS Board Resolution aid to scientists and educators battling on Intelligent Design Theory die latest inroads of creationism into the schools, the Board of Directors of die The contemporary theory of biological evolution is one of the most robust American Association for the Advance­ products of scientific inquiry. It is the foundation for research in many areas of ment ot Science has issued a statement Biology as wen as an essential element oi science cuucaiion. 10 uciuinc urging policymakers to oppose teaching informed and responsible citizens in our contemporary technological world, "Intelligent Design Theory" within sci­ students need to study the theories and empirical evidence central to current ence classrooms. It asks them to keep it scientific understanding. separate, in die same way that creation­ Over the past several years proponents of so-called "intelligent design the­ ism and other religious teachings are ory," also known as ID, have challenged die accepted scientific theory of bio­ currently handled. logical evolution. As part of this effort they have sought to introduce the teach­ The resolution (see full text adjacent) ing of "intelligent design theory" into the science curricula of the public schools. was passed by the AAAS Board on The movement presents "intelligent design theory" to the public as a theoreti­ October 18, 2002, and issued on cal innovation, supported by scientific evidence, that offers a more adequate November 6. With 134,000 members, explanation for the origin of the diversity of living organisms than the current the AAAS is the world's largest general scientifically accepted theory of evolution. In response to this effort, individual scientific society. scientists and philosophers of science have provided substantive critiques "The has promised of "intelligent design," demonstrating significant conceptual flaws in its that no child will be left behind in the formulation, a lack of credible scientific evidence, and misrepresentations of classroom," said Alan I. Leshner, CEO scientific facts. and executive publisher for die AAAS. Recognizing that the "intelligent design theory" represents a challenge to "If intelligent design theory is presented the quality of science education, the Board of Directors of the AAAS unani­ within science courses as factually based, mously adopts the following resolution: it is likely to confuse American school­ Whereas, ID proponents claim that contemporary evolutionary theory is children and to undermine the integrity incapable of explaining the origin of the diversity of living organisms; of U.S. science education." Whereas, to date, the ID movement has failed to offer credible scientific evi­ American society supports and dence to support their claim that ID undermines the curtent scientifically encourages a broad range of viewpoints, accepted dieory of evolution; Leshner noted. While this diversity Wl/ereas, the ID movement has not proposed a scientific means of testing enriches the educational experience for its claims; students, he added, science-based infor­ Therefore Be It Resolved, diat the lack of scientific warrant for so-called mation and conceptual belief systems "intelligent design theory" makes it improper to include as a part of science should not be presented together. education; Biologist Peter H. Raven, chairman of Therefore Be Further It Resolved, that AAAS urges citizens across the nation die AAAS Board of Directors, agreed: to oppose the establishment of policies that would permit the teaching of "The ID movement argues that random "intelligent design theory" as a part of the science curricula of the public imitation in nature and natural selection schools; can't explain the diversity of life forms Therefore Be It Further Resolved, that AAAS calls upon its members to assist or their complexity and diat these things those engaged in overseeing science education policy to understand the nature may be explained only by an extra-natural of science, the content of contemporary evolutionary theory and the inappro- intelligent agent," said Raven, Director of priatcness of "intelligent design theory" as subject matter for science education; the Missouri Botanical Garden. "This is Therefore Be Further It Resolved, that AAAS encourages its affiliated societies an interesting philosophical or theological to endorse this resolution and to communicate their support to appropriate concept, and some people have strong panics at the federal, state and local levels of the government. feelings about it. Unfortunately, it's being Approved by the AAAS Board of Directors on October 18, 2002 put forth as a scientifically based alterna­ tive to the theory of biological evolution.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 5 NEWS AND COMMENT

Intelligent design theory has so far approve new state science standards that, predictions a few years ago. not been supported by peer-reviewed, for die first time in die states history, One exception was die January 8, published evidence." include evolution. Intelligent Design cre- 2002, edition of the Star, where Kenny In contrast, the AAAS said, the ationism will not be part of die standards. Kingston, a real person, made not- theory of biological evolution is well- Meanwhile, ID theorists have reportedly surprising, often-vague, or frequently supported, and not a "disputed view" been active in Missouri, Kansas, New unconfirmable forecasts on twenty within the scientific community, as Mexico, New Jersey, and odier states, as celebrities. (For example, he predicted some ID proponents have suggested. well Ohio and Georgia. that "a sectet trial separation is ahead for "The contemporary theory of biolog­ While asking policymakers to oppose Barbra [Streisand] and hubby James ical evolution is one of the most robust the teaching of ID theory within science Brolin." If it's secret, how are we sup­ products of scientific inquiry," the classes, the AAAS also called on its 272 posed to confirm it?) He said Nicolas AAAS Board wrote in the resolution. affiliated societies, its members, and the Cage and Lisa Marie Presley would "AAAS urges citizens across the nation public to promote fact-based, standards- marry, and that Who Wants to Be a to oppose the establishment of policies based science education for American Millionaire would be cancelled. But his that would permit the teaching of'intel­ schoolchildren. Martha Stewart prediction made no ligent design theory' as a part of the sci­ mention of her stock market scandal, Kendrick Frazier is Editor of the ence curriculum of the public schools." and he said Hillary Clinton will be SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. The AAAS Board resolved to oppose "much in the headlines with a scandal claims that intelligent design theory is Death, Taxes, and Failed that will rival anything involving her scientifically based, in response to a husband Bill." number of recent ID-related threats to Psychic Predictions: The latest batch of predictions did public science education. Tabloid Psychics Fail not forecast the Florida election fiasco, In Georgia, for example, the Cobb Again In 2002 Jimmy Carter winning the Nobel Peace County District School Board decided Prize, or the Maryland sniper case. in March 2002 to affix stickers to science The Super Bowl will be cancelled after Instead, the tabloid psychics were saying textbooks, telling students that "evolu­ the fitst half of play. People will be able that in 2002: tion is a theory, not a fact, regarding the to go back in time, although there won't • Satan would be discovered working origin of living things." Following a law­ be any way to bring them back home. in a homeless shelter, reading to the suit filed August 21 by the American Psychic forecasts for 2003? Nope. blind and delivering Meals on Wheels. Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, the Those are events that were supposed • The Super Bowl would be can­ school board on September 26 modified to come true in 2002, according to the celled after die first half because team its policy statement, but again described supermarket tabloids whose editors say owners would refuse to cough up an evolution as a "disputed view" that must they gathered die forecasts from some of extra $10,000 for each player. be "balanced" in die classroom, taking the world's best psychics. • A time tunnel would be created to into account other family teachings. The Actually, psychics and astrologers allow people to make a one-way trip exact impact of die amended school seem to have fallen on tough times back into time. (A way to make the board policy in Cobb County classrooms recently. The September 11 terrorist return trip is supposed to be discovered remains unclear. attacks graphically illustrated that peo­ in 2006.) A similar challenge is underway in ple who claim to have psychic powers The accuracy of the odier tabloid Ohio, where die state's education board are frauds or are deluding diemselves. forecasts made at the beginning of 2002 on October 14 passed a unanimous, Witness the fact that nobody predicted can't be judged because the psychics though preliminary, vote to keep ID the destruction of the World Trade never said when the predictions will dieory out of the state's science class­ Center towers, otherwise diousands of come to pass. rooms. But their ruling left the door deaths would have been averted. For example, die "world's top psychics open for local school districts to present As a result, most of the tabloids that and seers" said in die Sun diat Prince ID theory together widi science, and still publish forecasts have now resorted Charles will marry Camilla Parker- suggested that scientists should "con­ to using "psychics" who may not even Bowles in a royal shotgun wedding, die tinue to investigate and critically analyze exist. They don't show up on Internet U.S. capital will move to Wichita, a aspects of evolutionary theory." search engines. That turns out to be true gorilla fluent in sign language will lead a The Ohio State Education Board for the Sun and Weekly World News. The new , Elvis will be found buried invited further public comment through best known tabloid, the National next to Princess Di, animal performances November. In December, the Ohio State Enquirer, gave up its tradition of pub­ will be banned, and Dick Clark will Education Board unanimously voted to lishing beginning-of-the-year psychic become a much-lauded ballet dancer.

6 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NEWS AND COMMENT

But they don't say when. That means Clark, Prince Charles, and Parker-Bowles will have to die before it becomes certain that these "psychics" were incorrect. Annual tracking of the tabloids and their sometimes-silly predictions gives consumers a reality check and shows them that psychics, when put to the test, can't live up to their claims.

—Gene Emery Gene Emery is a science writer and long­ time SKEPTICAL INQUIRER contributor.

Bigfoot Hoaxer Dies; Legacy Lives On

One of the leading figures of the North American Bigfoot legend died on November 26, 2002, at the age of 84. Dale Lee Wallace with the original alder wood feet his uncle Ray Wallace strapped on to help make Bigfoot Ray Wallace was the subcontractor on a tracks in 1958. road-building operation in Humboldt process of making a documentary about Wallace is credited with a number County, California, in the summer of Bigfoot, and set out that day specifically of unconvincing Bigfoot photographs 1958 when giant footprints began to film the creature. Wallace apparently and films as well as detailed stories of appearing overnight on the freshly told Patterson exactly where to look to his personal encounters with Bigfoot cleared road. Tracks would appear inter­ obtain the coveted footage. Though (including one creature's voracious mittently in the area, attracting amazed Wallace never claimed credit for the appetite for frosted flakes). While onlookers and reporters eager for a good hoax, he did say he knew it was faked— Wallace never confessed to any Bigfoot mystery to write about. Upon his death, and who was in the suit. hoaxes during his lifetime, his narra­ his family confirmed what had been sus­ The image of Wallace's nephew hold­ tives surrounding Bigfoot indicate that pected for decades—Ray Wallace spawn­ ing his uncle's monster props is also par­ he regarded the Bigfoot legend as a ed Bigfoot with a practical joke diat got ticularly telling, since the details of the source of innocent amusement instead out of hand. different sets of bogus feet match up of legitimate scientific inquiry. Bigfoot Wallace's nephew displayed the over­ well with footprints found in the region proponents apparently did not appre­ sized wooden feet that Ray and his well after the 1958 tracks appeared. ciate Wallace's sense of humor. Chor­ brother Wilbur had used to mystify and Most significant is the presence of a sec­ vinsky notes that in Bigfoot books, tantalize the road crew, Bigfoot hunters, ond furrow behind the big toe in one of Ray Wallace's contributions to and the public. It wasn't until 1959 that the phony sets—a feature that Bigfoot Bigfoot's storied history are marginal­ Bigfoot captured American popular proponents have hailed as the "double- ized or completely ignored. interest, when True magazine published ball" trait and is thought to be one hall­ Still, staunch supporters of Bigfoot's an article describing the discovery of mark of legitimate Sasquatch prints. reality are unmoved. According to the large, mysterious footprints in Bluff The Wallace family revelations Associated Press, Bigfoot's most enthusi­ Creek a year earlier. Not only were came as vindication for Strange maga­ astic champion in the academic com­ Wallace's hoaxed footprints among the zine editor Mark Chorvinsky, who, in munity, Jeff Meldrum of Idaho State first documented Bigfoot tracks, but a series of columns over the years, has University, maintains that without Wallace also had a link to what many argued that Wallace has been systemat­ Wallace's inventory there remain over Bigfoot researchers consider the best evi­ ically ignored by Bigfoot enthusiasts forty "genuine" footprints attributable dence for the unknown creature: the as a major contributor to Bigfoot lore to an unknown primate. Bobbie Short, 1967 film showing a large, hairy crea­ and legend. The reason for the white­ who runs the comprehensive Bigfoot ture crossing the Bluff Creek drainage. washing of Wallace's role in the search Encounters Web site, also doesn't buy Filmer Roger Patterson was in the for Bigfoot is not hard to discern: Wallace's involvement in the Patterson

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 7 NEWS AND COMMENT

film. Some of the casts from footprints Under the settlement, ARS and PRN was born an American citizen. In June left from that encounter, she says, con­ have agreed to erase $500 million in 2002, she invoked her Fifth Amend­ tain dermal ridges (toeprints) that can't customer debts, stop using pay-per-call ment right against self-incrimination be carved onto wooden feet. phone numbers to sell their "services," during a deposition when asked to dis­ Media reports of Wallace's passing, and pay a $5 million fine to die FTC. cuss a birth certificate showing that she including a long piece in die Seattle Adding to ARS's federal settlement, was born on August 13, 1962, in Los Times, announced that Bigfoot is now the corporation has settled suits in sev­ Angeles to American parents. dead as well. Other articles and Wallace eral states. Among others, the settle­ Despite the legal troubles of ARS, it obituaries were soon flitted around, some ments include the following: remains to be seen whether the corpo­ implying that all Bigfoot sightings were • In Florida, ARS agreed to forgive ration will survive the judgements and hoaxed. This, of course, sent some $44.3 million in bills to Florida residents, restrictions of the various settlements, Bigfoot researchers spinning to do dam­ pay $40,000 to the state to reimburse the or finally succumb and pass into the age control. One lamented the "media costs of investigation, and to cease run­ chronicles of scams perpetrated on the mixing of the lies and rumors with a few ning pay-per-call services or signing up gullible. A November AP story quoted facts" in the Wallace story and responded new customers for prepaid services; FTC director Howard Beales, who that Wallace was a known prankster who • In Connecticut, ARS has agreed to claimed, "They're getting out of the never fooled anyone. forgive $1.9 million in billings to cus­ business. It won't resume." An excellent It is true that some press reports of tomers in that state; and online source for history and current Bigfoot's death were greatly exaggerated; • In Missouri, Steven Feder and Peter news regarding the various lawsuits no one, not even Ray Wallace, is single- Stoltz, ARS's owners, were sentenced by against ARS and its owners, in addition handedly responsible for die Bigfoot a state court to probation and fines. to relevant original documents, can be phenomenon. But Wallace, who undeni­ Even fellow tarot practitioners found at www.courttv.com/news/fea ably played a major role in creating and turned on ARS when details about its ture/cleo/. promoting Bigfoot for decades, was operations began to be exposed by —Kevin Christopher finally confirmed to be a playful hoaxer. attorneys general and the media. In Revelations of Wallaces rampant hoax­ October, 2001, Nancy Garen, the Kevin Christopher is Public Relations ing have tainted what was once consid­ author of the book Tarot Made Easy, Director for CSICOP ered credible data in a field that is already filed a lawsuit in California against desperately short of hard evidence. Feder and others at ARS claiming that South Park TV Satire the so-called psychic readers had pla­ —David Daegling and giarized sample readings in her book Skewers John Edward Benjamin Radford word-for-word, and even posted Psychic Pretensions excerpts on their Web sites. The lawsuit David Daegling and Benjamin Radford seeks damages in excess of $250 mil­ Now that the Osbourne clan has both wrote articles on Bigfoot for the lion. A motion by the defendants to knocked the cable TV cartoon South March/April 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. dismiss the suit was denied by a U.S. Park from its place of preeminence in District Court in February 2002. the pantheon of shock and vulgar 'Miss Cleo' Settles with While Feder and Stoltz have been humor, what's left for the show's cre­ pummeled by criminal charges as prose­ ators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to do the Federal Trade cutors try the stamp out the ARS tarot to deliver a jolt to a jaded national Commission phone scheme, Youree Dell Harris, the audience? In one of the best episodes in woman identified as Jamaican tarot the series, the jolt administered to viewers of the November 27, 2002, A November 2002 Associated Press arti­ reader Miss Cleo in TV ads and Web broadcast was an unexpected blend of cle announced the settlement between sites, has managed to dodge prosecu­ skepticism and debunking in a satire tion. The Florida attorney general's the Florida-based Access Resource worthy of Twain at his most cutting, office dismissed charges against Harris Services, Inc. (ARS) and the Federal with psychic huckster John Edward the in December 2002. She had been Trade Commission (FTC). Reacting to focus of Stone and Parker's venom. accused of deceptive trade practices in mounting claims of fraudulent phone ads promoting die psychic hot line. South Park has blazed a trail across the charges from ARS customers, the FTC For Harris, most of the scandal has cable spectrum since 1997 as a center­ filed charges against ARS and its sister focused on the fact that she is not really piece of programming on the Comedy company. Psychic Readers Network, the Jamaican mystic she claimed to be. Central network. It uses its premise of the Inc. (PRN), in February 2002. Early in 2002, it was revealed that she lives of four ordinary nine-year-old boys

8 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NEWS AND COMMENT

in a hick Colorado mountain town as a mansion with monogrammed doors, a producer is in die crowd and he pro­ starting point for attacks on politics and butler, and walls covered in portraits of claims Stan die next star TV psychic. We popular culture. For a program with a Edward himself. Edward receives Stan cut to Stan being introduced during the reputation for gloves-off parody, the blis­ after the butler has played a recording of taping of his first show. He opens with an tering attack on Edward was unusually an introduction of him complete with explanation that what will follow is a personal, which somehow made the show canned applause. Stan asks Edward to trick. Even though he explains what he is all the more satisfying. In the show admit to Kyle that his aa is just all a trick doing stcp-by-step, his of Edward is portrayed as a diin-skinned, so that Kyle can return to his home and the crowd gains him the same swooning self-serving faker, or, as one of the shows resume going to school with his friends. response as he got while performing in principals Stan so pithily repeats the street. throughout the program, "a liar," After the taping, an incensed "a fake," and "a douche." Stan confronts Kyle with testi­ Edward became a character on monials and articles he has the show as part of a story arc that downloaded from the Internet has dominated this season of South describing Edward planting lis­ Park. In a previous season one of tening devices in his audience the show's principals, Kenny, was and using actors as plants to finally killed off for good, but the improve his "hits." Edward memory and spirit of Kenny has appears and challenges Stan to a hung on to provide more opportu­ face-off on TV to demonstrate nities to depict an increasingly that he is the better psychic. Stan sour view of human nature. agrees to the challenge as an In an earlier episode, Kenny's opportunity to expose Edward. spirit had taken up residence in Their confrontation is disrupted Cartman, die most scabrous of the by the arrival of a spaceship filled children. In this episode, the pres­ Episode 615: The Biggest Douche in the Universe. When a famous psy­ with various aliens. They explain chic fails to help him exorcise Kenny from his body, Cartman takes ence of two souls in one body is other steps to achieve his goal. He and Chef travel to the moors of that they have come to take Scotland, where Chefs mom tries a little of her voodoo magic on him. Edward to appear at the cere­ causing Cartman to fall gravely ill, Meanwhile, after the boy's encounter with the TV psychic Kyle is par­ and the show's lone (somewhat) alyzed with fear at the thought of members of the spirit world watch- monies for the "Biggest Douche ing over him. Only by debunking those who claim they can communi­ sensible adult, Chef (voiced by cate with the dead can Stan save Kyle. Copyright O 1997-2000 Comedy in the Universe Award." Edward musician and actor Isaac Hayes), Partners. is whisked away and deposited in recognizes that the condition can­ an audience with his fellow nom- not be cured by medicine, but that Edward insists that it is not a trick, and Surrounded by blobs, reptilians, Kenny's spirit must be liberated from the argument between the two escalates grays, and tentacled aliens, Edward Cartman's body. He takes Cartman and until Edward flees to his panic room with glumly sits through the introductions of his morJier and two other boys, Stan and Stan promising to nominate him for the each nominee. Despite his shrieked Kyle, to a taping of The Other Side with "Biggest Douche in the Universe denials, Edward wins and the show closes John Edward in order to try to commu­ Award." While leaving, Stan notices with an enormous-eared, green skinned. nicate with Kenny's spirit. Edward Edward's bookshelf and takes a few Dean Martin-like alien serenading him: appears and does his usual cold reading books down. He sifts through several "Here he is, die biggest douche in the and guessing games before a hopelessly with tides like, "How To Be A Psychic," universe. ..." credulous audience. Chef and Stan see "Cold Reading: The Secret of the Once you strip away the dirty jokes through Edward's act immediately, but Psychics," and "How to Convince and name calling, what remains of this Kyle is beguiled by his bogus ability to Women That You Are Psychic! (And episode is a clear, concise explanation speak to Kyle's dead grandmother. Chef Then Have Sex With Them)." of cold reading and how people like admits, "I can't believe I was fooled by Kyle continues to resist accepting the Edward exploit die grief of others for that asshole ... they must edit the show facts and Stan angrily gives an their personal gain. However, the show is down to only show him getting mostly impromptu demonstration of cold read­ particularly brave and acute when it right answers.'' Chef, Cartman, and his ing on the streets of New York. depicts people as happy collaborators in mother go off to seek out another cure, Passersby, just as credulous as those in the deception. Like the best satire, there while Stan stays in New York to convince Edward's studio audience, are astounded is a genuine moral center in the midst of Kyle of Edward's deception. by Stan's "gift," despite Stan explaining all the sick jokes. Sadly, the righteousness Stan journeys to Edwards home, a how he is just doing a trick. A television of the anger probably will do little to

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apnl 2003 9

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counter Edward's popularity. At least House of Representatives the previous Nucleosynthesis. His scientific paper "Age Parker and Stone have given skeptics day. "The bill got a jump start this ses­ Estimates of Globular Clusters in the twenty-two minutes of very funny sion," writes Porteus, "after Clonaid ... Milky Way: Constraints on Cosmology" ridicule of a richly deserving target. claimed it had delivered a human clone leads off a special section on globular —Greg Martinez baby and had three more on the way." clusters in the January 3, 2003, Science. The bill would ban both reproductive • Victor A. Stenger, Emeritus Greg Martinez is a database manager in and therapeutic cloning. This has many Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Gainesville, Florida. scientific groups worried, since therapeu­ University of Hawaii, and Visiting Fellow tic cloning is a promising technique for in Philosophy, University of Colorado. Clone Claims Result in replicating specific types of cells rather Pioneer in very high energy gamma ray Publicity But No Proof than an actual embryo. A ban, say astronomy and neutrino astronomy. researchers, would undermine efforts to Author of Has Science Found God?, The media ended 2002 and ushered in find cures for Alzheimer's and diabetes. Timeless Reality, The Unconscious Quantum, Pljysics and Psychics, and Not 2003 with claims that the first success­ —Kevin Christopher fully cloned baby had (possibly) been by Design. Editor of High Energy born. Unfortunately, the media got Neutrino Astropbyiiii. things backwards: It should have been Dean, Krauss, Stenger, • Edward O. Wilson, University science first, publicity second. Without Wilson Elected CSICOP Research Professor, emeritus, and Hon­ a shred of corroborative evidence, the Fellows orary Curator in Entomology, Harvard French UFO cult visionary Rael University. Author of such noteworthy (formerly known as Claude Vorilhon) Four scientists have been elected Fellows books as Consilience, Naturalist, The and the cloning company he founded of the Committee for the Scientific Biophylia Hypothesis, The Ants (Pulitzer in 1997, Clonaid, were catapulted into Investigation of Claims of the Prize winner). On Human Nature the world spotlight by the suspect Paranormal (CSICOP), publisher of the (Pulitzer Prize), Sociobiology, and The announcement that a bouncing baby SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. CSICOP Fellows Insect Societies. Recipient of the National clone had been born on December 26, are distinguished scholars, scientists, or Medal of Science. 2002, at an undisclosed location, to investigators who have made significant In addition, two other scientists have American parents. contributions to science and skepticism. been elected CSICOP Scientific or Now that it has become clear that the Fellows are nominated and elected by the Technical Consultants: first alleged human clone will not be ver­ CSICOP Executive Council. • Massimo Pigliucci, professor of ified through DNA testing after all, sev­ The new Fellows are: evolutionary biology, Departments of eral media watchers are sifting through • Geoffrey Dean, technical editor, Botany and Ecology and Evolutionary the smoking wreckage of this crashed Perth, Western Australia. Noted critic of Biology, University of Tennessee, Knox- media cycle. CNN's Reliable Sources host astrology. Author of numerous detailed ville. Author of Denying Evolution: Howard Kurtz and critiques including many published in SI, Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature columnist Tim Rutten, among others, such as "Is the Mars Effect a Social of Science and Tales of the Rational. criticized the excessive coverage and Effect?" (May/June 2002), "Sun Sign Also author of numerous articles on faulted Michael Guillen, the former ABC Columns" (September/October 2000), science, evolution, and rationalism, News Science Editor who had been orga­ "Astrology Strikes Back—But to What including several in SI, most recendy nizing the independent testing of Effect? (Fall 1993), and the two-pan "Hypothesis Testing and the Nature Clonaid's results. Guillen has now pub­ series "Does Astrology Need to Be True?" of Skeptical Investigations" (November- licly distanced himself from the fiasco. (Winter 1986-87 and Spring 1987). /December 2002). He created and writes While the publicity storm over Rael, • Lawrence M. Krauss, Ambrose the new "Thinking About Science" Clonaid, and just how the media were Swasey Professor of Physics and As­ column for SI. so easily duped might soon merciful­ tronomy and Chairman of the Physics • David G. Willey, physics instructor. ly blow over, the fallout in the United Department, Case Western Reserve University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown States may be lingering and catastroph­ University. Author of Beyond Star Trek, and member of the board of the ic to legitimate cloning research. A The Physics of Star Trek, Fear of Physics: Pennsylvania Science Teachers Associa­ January 9, 2003, Fox News Channel A Guide for the Perplexed The Fifth tion. Has a traveling physics road show online story by Liza Porteus announced Essence: The Search for Dark Matter in the and has made frequent appearances as the the introduction of a new Human Universe, Cosmic Microwave Background "resident mad scientist" on The Tonight Cloning Prohibition Act bill in the U.S. Anisotropies, and (co-editor) of Big Bang Show with Jay Leno. LJ

12 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SPECIAL REPORT

Taken' Off

TIMOTHY FERRIS

once met a young man who described views. As the Pulitzer prize-winning jour­ door if we get too close to the truth, or himself as a "freelance investigative nalist and CIA expert Thomas Powers are worried that disclosing it will cause a Ijournalist," and who, after a few min­ has pointed out, those charged with public panic. We have our faults and utes' conversation, said he firmly believed keeping secrets sooner or later lose track foibles and our bad apples, like any pro­ that a crashed flying saucer with alien of just which parts of them are meant to fession, but we're not an unalloyed gaggle bodies aboard had been seized by the be kept secret. Inadvertently, they let of dimwits and cowards, and we certainly U.S. Air Force in 1947, near don't much care about causing a Roswell, New Mexico, and was panic: We're in the panic-pro­ now being held in a hanger at moting business. Rather, it's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base because every capable journalist in Ohio. has a bullshit detector, and "Why aren't you there?" I we think—in our admittedly asked him. bemused and imperfect way— "Where?" that this story is bullshit. "At Wright-Patterson, work­ Indeed, from our standpoint, ing the story." UFO news has been on life sup­ "It's top secret," he replied. port for decades. It used to be "No way they'd let a reporter that flying-saucer stories nor­ anywhere near it." mally proffered a mix of eyewit­ While this brief exchange ness accounts and physical evi­ shed little light on UFOs, it suf­ dence. The eyewitness accounts ficed to establish that the young may have been conflicting and man was no journalist. A real journalist things slip, and you can leverage those suspiciously blinkered (as when a few who shared his outlook would have been tidbits to give subsequent interviewees people would report seeing a UFO in a the impression that you know more than on that story like a coat of paint—living piece of sky visible to thousands of others you really do, which inclines them to for months on end in cheap lodgings who saw nothing) and the physical evi­ mention other things, until eventually near the air base, shooting pool with fly- dence paltry (a scorched spot on a road­ the picture comes together. The process boys in the local fun zones, crashing par­ way here, a fuzzy photo there), but at is time-consuming, but worth it if the ties at the officers' club, ceaselessly dig­ least there was some semblance of empir­ ging until something turned up. story is big enough—and not many sto­ ries arc bigger than a UFO crash. ical data. But then UFO tales tilted into Something will turn up, if there's a story there and you work it properly. So why haven't journalists swarmed all Timothy Ferris is emeritus professor of Secrets are not dial easily kept. People over Wright-Patterson Air Force Base? It's journalism at the University of California. like to talk, especially about themselves; not because we find it inconceivable that Berkeley. His latest work. Seeing in the you'd be surprised at how much even an alien spacecraft might have pancaked Dark, was named by The New York hardened cops and federal agents will in the desert, or fear that jack-booted Times as one of the seven bat books pub­ spill in the course of a few solid inter­ troopers will kick down the motel room lished in 2002.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Match/April 2003 13 the realm of alien abductions. Abductees sailed on wide oceans of feelings—and tion] stories raise. What do they want were expected to produce neither coher­ feelings sell a lot more tickets than with us? What can they discover by tak­ ent eyewitness accounts nor any physical thoughts do. Abduaee reports may be ing us that they couldn't discover simply evidence whatever. All they had to do was wildly implausible and woefully lacking by taking a small scraping of skin or a fol­ claim to feel that something had hap­ in verification, but science fiction is a licle of hair? Why physically abduct us? pened to them—something rather like "what-if" medium: What if they're telling And why do it the way they do it, so having a bad dream—that might have the truth? secretly? Why not just come to us with a involved aliens in spaceships. Abduction That speculation is die mainspring Petri dish and say, 'Could we have a little interpreters took it from there, like ora­ driving the longest TV mini-series ever DNA, please?' We wanted to come up cles reading tea leaves. John Mack, the made, Steven Spielberg's twenty-hour with a story that tries to provide an Harvard psychologist who went belly-up Taken. Billed as a "history" of alien answer to some of those questions." for abduction yarns years ago, argues that abductions, Taken was a hit, a "water- As you might expect, the answers what he calls "the alien encounter phe­ cooler event" that put the Sci Fi Channel proffered by Taken don't add up to much, nomenon" may be inherendy exempt on the map as the most watched basic but that doesn't prevent its being a pretty from the customary rules of evidence, if it cable outlet in the nation for ten delirious good show. Budgeted at $40 million, "derives from a source which by its very December nights. It reached well over ten Taken looks and plays as if it had cost nature could not provide the kind of hard million viewers in the U.S., will be seen even more, thanks to Spielberg's undeni­ evidence that would satisfy skeptics for by many more around the world, and able story-telling genius, his weird but whom reality is limited to die material." doubtless will persuade plenty of viewers, genuine devotion to flying-saucer lore, That's us journalists, all right: We're especially younger ones, that the alien and the impressive team he assembled to "limited to the material." We prefer facts abduction phenomenon is real—that, as make it. The special effects, by Jim Lima to dreams, feelings, and expressions of Sean Macaulay wryly put it in the (Space Jam, Spider-Man), are gorgeous. faith, and we don't even trust putative London Times, "It is true, it is part of Although Lima's aliens disappointingly facts until we've checked them out. America's history, and it has been covered resemble the big-eyed, skinny-bodied (Journalism students are advised, in the up for too long." humanoids familiar from a hundred words of a onetime Chicago city-room What fills all that time is, essentially, a pulp-novel covers, they have a chilling editor, "If your mother says she loves you, demonstration of the logical dictum that amorality and an air of cold intelligence check it out!") Alien abductions don't all sorts of conclusions may be derived that rings true—they're lab technicians as even begin to check out, as Johnny Mack from a false premise. (The syllogism, "If seen by lab rats—and die flying saucers implicitly concedes. So the more abduc­ Chicago is south of Miami, I am the king they tool around in are spectacular, even tion-oriented the UFO yarns got, the less of Bavaria" is logically true.) If you start if they are sometimes upstaged by the we journalists would have anything to do by asserting, say, that giant squid are the finned fifties Buicks that adorn the with them. smartest creatures on Earth, then you show's period pieces. The directors (a dif­ But from a science-fiction standpoint, immediately have a lot of questions to ferent one was used for each of the series' alien abductions put solid-rocket boost­ answer—like, "How come giant squid ten two-hour segments) include innova­ ers on the UFO story. The flying-saucer aren't running the planet and hijacking tors like Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw spotter of old was a passive observer, who cruise ships?" or, "Do they have condos Massacre, Poltergeist) and Breck Eisner had suffered, at most, a few moments of and cool discos down on the bottom (Dead Of Night). The solid ensemble puzzlement or fear. His report, and its of the sea?" To a journalist this all sounds cast, which includes Headier Donahue evaluation by skeptics and believers, silly, but for a fiction filmmaker— (The Blair Witch Project), Joel Gretsch belonged to the empirical realm of evi­ especially one who's trying to have it both (Minority Report), Julie Benz (Buffy the dence and logical inference—that is, of ways—the plethora of questions is a plus. Vampire Slayer), and the remarkable child thinking. But once he claimed to have Spielberg, the executive producer and actress Dakota Fanning (I Am Sam), been abused by aliens—to have been guiding light of Taken although he manages to breathe life into a stolid but plucked from his farm, taken aloft, and directed none of it, is a fiction filmmaker heartfelt script by Leslie Bohem (Dante's rudely probed, and his poor wife probed, to the marrow. His artistic vision is as Peak), who wrote the whole thing after too—die emotional quality of his role brilliant, if not much deeper, than the reportedly being converted from flying- improved immensely. Rather than merely layer where light bounces off the silver saucer skeptic to true believer by being inconvenienced, like an owl stirred screen, and he is ill-disposed to let facts Spielberg. to flight by the click of a birdwatcher's get in the way of what works dramati­ Taken is freighted with portentous camera, he became a terrified victim. His cally. As he told , pseudo-profundities ("Life is like a roller tale, no longer confined widiin die nar­ "I've always been fascinated with all of coaster ride") and dramatic infelicities. A row riverbanks of factual thinking, now the questions diat these [UFO abduc­ sequence in which a crazed abductee

14 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER holds the other members of his abductee It's a cliche that Spielbergs tales are abducted and—you guessed it—ruthlessly support group hostage at gunpoint is so character-driven, and this is certainly probed.) But it is told from a relentlessly unintentionally funny as to recall the true of Taken, which traces fifty years in infantile point of view—which makes young Harrison Ford's complaining to the alien-fretted lives of three families— sense, since that's the one perspective George Lucas, on the set of die first Star the Keys, the Clarkes, and the from which its many absurdities can be Wars movie, "George, you can write this Crawfords. The Keys are abducted, sustained without letting bothersome shit, but you can't say it." Yet it also has probed, and tossed back to Earth repeat­ questions get in the way. How come moments of startling originality, and it edly, like human recycling bins. The enormous flying saucers, flying low, are sustains a dramatic coherence remarkable Clarkes become half-breeds after Sally seen by only a handful of people? Go in so iong a work. Told in a pseudo- Clark, a Eougii cc.ee shop waitress fiw-rc. Why don't more of rnnse who do documentary framework, with superim­ (played with admirable three-dimen­ see them come forth with their stories? posed dates and place names bestowing sionality by Catherine Dent) has a fling Because bad men in the military kill or on each sequence a persuasive if unearned with an alien cleverly disguised as a imprison them. (We see a lot of these aura of authenticity, it appeals to an even human hunk (Eric Close, who played a bad guys, glowering down into the cam­ wider audience than the 100 million or federal agent whose wife was abducted— era like stepfathers bawling out their so Americans who say they believe that small world—in the NBC series Dark wards.) Why do the military officers spaceships have visited Earth, and two Skies). The Crawfords, a military clan, suppress the story, when exposing it percent (more than the entire population busy themselves trying to kidnap the would quadruple their budgets of Manhattan!) who claim to have been Clarkes and killing anybody who gets in overnight? Because they're frightened abducted themselves. the way. Their scion, che maniacally evil and mean. (As our child narrator The problem, of course, is mat all this Capt. Owen Crawford (Joel Gretsch), patiently explains, adults get mean talent is wasted on telling a story that viciously murders his girlfriend, his wife, because they're frightened. Thanks, kid, swallows every absurdity of the alien and even a couple of Boy Scouts, but in but did you know adults can also get abduction mydi—with the sole excep­ the Spielbergian universe his ultimate testy when they're treated like children?) tion of crop circles, which are dismissed crime is that he neglects his children. In the end. Taken belongs to the as fraudulent in a sly bid to make it all In a sense, children are the only char­ time-honored sci-fi tradition of two- seem plausible by showing that the film­ acters who really matter in Taken. The dimensional heroes rescuing anxious girls makers aren't thoroughly gullible. series is narrated by a ten-year-old from reptilian aliens, and there's little Spielberg obviously loves the story, and (played by an estimably composed harm in that. Sitting through it does his affection sells it on an emotional level. Dakota Fanning, who manages to breeze make you wonder, though, what would "If it's just another urban myth," he said through lines like, "People are lonely in happen if all that talent, money, and time recendy, "then it's certainly one that has this world for lots of different reasons"), were devoted to a grown-up subject. The sustained itself for decades, and with and it makes room for a few adolescents, Indian wars, for example: Imagine a remarkable similarities from one case to among them a Berkeley journalism stu­ twenty-hour TV miniseries, rooted in the next. They have been around since dent who fearlessly tracks down an alien fact rather than fancy, with characters long before I made Close Encounters of the tomb and gets his brain and body fried ranging from Sitting Bull and Red Cloud Third Kind m 1977, and they've persisted for his trouble. But its grownups are card­ to George Armstrong Custer and U.S. way after." It doesn't seem to bother him board cutouts. They're adults as seen by Grant, that covered, say, rhe forty years dial a similar argument could have been children—exemplifications of good or between the great council that brought employed, at other times, to justify the evil, lacking in emotional subdety except thousands of Plains Indians to Fort burning of witches, throwing Christians where children are directly involved, Laramie in 1851 and the 1890 massacre to the lions, or expelling Jews from Spain. whose grown-up lives, especially when at Wounded Knee. The fan that Taken Nor should it, necessarily: Spielberg is in sex rears its head, dissolve into a confus­ was a hit demonstrates that viewers are the entertainment business, which gener­ ing jumble. prepared to spend as much time watch­ ates profits by showing people what they This is not to say that the series is ing a movie as it would take to read a sub­ want to see, not what they need to know. meant to be seen by children: Like most stantial book, provided that diey find die Yet Spielberg's; wide-eyed, "what if?" sentimentalized treatments of child­ drama sufficiendy compelling. It may be approach, devoted at such length to hood, it's too scary and routinely cruel too much to hope that an epic of compa­ so bogus a subject, ultimately drains for that. (Try showing your kid the rable quality will soon be devoted to a Taken of the value that great story­ upsetting although spectacularly beauti­ serious subject like the Indian wars, telling, as opposed to virtuoso movie­ ful episode in which a little boy is lured much less the quest for intelligent life making, can evince. In the end the show from his bed by an alien disguised as a beyond Earth. But surely it can be done is, literally, childish. favorite cartoon figure, only to be for one that's not claptrap.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 15 Bait and Switch on 'Roswell: The Smoking Gun'

DAVID E. THOMAS

n November 2002, the Sci FPi Fi, but most observers got the obvious "While the story has a life of its own, Channel heavily promoted a ne:ww impression diat the new "smoking gun" there is probably a grain of truth, what­ Idocumentary about the Roswelc]l| must have something to do with the offi- ever it might be, at the heart of what UFO Incident. The promotion for thhee cial, scientific archaeological dig the Sci Fi anthropologists call an oral tradition." November 22 program, titled "Thhe Channel was so excited about. As it 1 mentioned my concerns on the Roswell Crash: Startling New Evi^i­- turned out, nothing could have been fur- news log of the New Mexicans for dence," made this surprising declaratio3n ther from the truth. The archaeology dig Science and Reason (NMSR, www. about the program: "Working unde|err was the "bait." A dubious analysis of over- nmsr.org), writing ". . . Schmitt is a very top-secret conditions, archaeologist5ts enlarged images of a fuzzy half-century- poorly-regarded UFO researcher. He is from the University of New Mexico, ijnn old photograph would be the "switch." the author of two Roswell books with partnership with Sci Fi Channel, set ouut t I started worrying that the show Kevin Randle, but Randle broke off his to uncover conclusive physical evidencce would be a hopeless disaster when I got partnership with Schmitt when he to help prove whether the claim of aan a look at the Test Plan for the dig found that Schmitt had lied to him extraterrestrial craft crash is science fic­ic. (Doleman 2002a). The biggest red flag about his college degrees, about work­ tion or science fact. Hosted by Bryanntt was the statement that "Mssrs. Don ing as a medical illustrator, and about Gumbel ..." (Sci Fi 2002). Schmitt and Tom Carey—recognized being in the witness protection pro­ Before me airing, the leader of dine Roswell Incident researchers—will serve gram. Schmitt told Randle he was not a UNM archaeology team. Bill Dolemanuli, as technical advisors on the project." postman (on tape!), but it turned out he would only hint that he had founncdj Schmitt has severe credibility problems, was a postman after all" (see Randle "something" (Fleck 2002a). His wordds especially within the UFO community. 1997 for the details). I concluded the were limited, because me Sci Fi Channele|l There were other omens in the Sci Fi pre-show Web log with this tentative would not allow any comments prior to Channel chat (Doleman 2002b): assessment: "Has definitive proof of life die November 22 airing. In an onlinne Doleman said, "I would note that all the on other planets been found at last? Or chat for die Sci Fi Channel a few daylvs volunteers were very UFO savvy." That is this just another over-hyped event like before die program, Doleman just saijdj is, the volunteers wielding trowels and Geraldo's opening of Al Capone's vault? "Watch the show, your eyes will be bagging specimens for the ten-day dig Will UNM be at the center of the most opened wide" (Doleman 2002b). Thhe were UFO believers brought in by the ground-breaking story of die millen­ promotions for the show promised to Sci Fi Channel. Doleman did provide nium, or will UNM's integrity as a sci­ deliver starding new "smoking gun evin-­ some very reasonable comments during entific research institution be co-opted dence." It wasn't stated explicidy by Sc5cij his Sci Fi chat. He said, "I know of no by sleazy network executives out for a • professional archaeologist who claims to fast buck? Will there be a name change David £. Thomas, an Albuquerque-areaa have any evidence of alien visitation of to the UNM College of Arts and physicist and mathematician, has fol­ Earth," and "I think we all recognize the Science Fictions? Maybe we'll find out lowed the Roswell case closely for years. Hee importance of putting the pudding to November 22." is President of New Mexicans for Science'e the test, and tasring it." But Doleman When November 22 finally rolled and Reason, a CSICOP Fellow, and aa also hinted that he believes there is around, my fears were realized in SKEPTICAL INQUIRER consulting editor. somediing to the Roswell Incident: spades. As far as die archaeological dig

16 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER went, the "something" turned out to be many bags of specimens that the Sci Fi a v-shaped feature found in a backhoe Channel made a big show of having trench made at the spot where advisors guarded under lock and key. But Schmitt and Carey thought the Roswell these bags don't contain any obvi­ craft had skidded long ago. The ously intriguing specimens such as, Albuquerque Journals John Fleck say, a piece of a spaceship. In fact, summed it up this way in his November some material bagged by one of the 23 story, "Aliens Must Have Packed Up, eager volunteers as possible "fiber Left": "It might be a furrow in the earth optics" was simply some nylon from the crash of an alien spacecraft. Or strands from the team's grid lines it might be a coyote burrow. The strange (Doleman 2002c). An official analy­ furrow and some bags of dirt locked sis remains to be conducted, but away for further study are all the Sci Fi when I met with Doleman he sug­ Channel has to show for ten days of gested that there would be no "show excavation at one of the most bizarre stoppers." sites in American archaeology. . . ." So, what was the Sci Fi Channel's (Fleck 2002b) shocking new evidence? As John Fleck Doleman has said repeatedly that he described it in his November 23 story, Bill Doleman is not getting good treatment from the "The most dramatic 'smoking gun' in media. He told me in an e-mail that Friday's show came in the form of a Three days after the Sci Fi "Smoking reporting is "reductive," and that the piece of paper in an Army officer's Gun" show, I e-mailed Rudiak for the reporter will only write about what he or hand in a 1947 photo. A UFO first time, asking, "Has your method she wants heard. Doleman said that researcher, David Rudiak, claims a ever been applied to other messages with reporter Fleck had not mentioned many computer enhancement of the photo similar levels of distortion and fuzziness? of the things he had emphasized to him allowed him to read about 'victims' Have you been able to decode such mes­ personally, such as the backhoe opera­ and a crashed disk in the old memo. sages with proper blind protocols? In tor's assertion that the v-shapcd trench Critics say Rudiak's analysis is little other words, has your technique ever was not an artifact of the backhoe, and more than fuzzy blobs in the blown-up been validated?" I went on to ask Rudiak that the operator had "felt" the anomaly images interpreted to suit his precon­ to consider participating in such a test, through the controls. Doleman ex­ ceived notions about Roswell. 'It's and I offered this method of avoiding pressed more reservations about the totally subjective,' said Dave Thomas, any funny business: "... I would send media in an Archaeology Channel audio a Peralta physicist and longtime images (both fuzzy and clear) to an interview for the Web (Doleman Roswell crash skeptic. 'The 'smoking impartial, respected third party before 2002c), and said this about NMSRs gun' is just suggestive wishful thinking' any 'decoding' is performed; then, after article when asked about any negative . . ." (Fleck 2002b). you've decoded the message, that third reactions: "New Mexicans for Science Rudiak's claims about the Ramey party could easily assess the accuracy of and Reason had some things on their photo, and his belief that the words the translation, and inform all partici­ Web site that was [sic] fairly negative. "victim of the crash" can be read with pants of the results. Are you interested? Most of it I can trace to people mistak­ enough confidence to say that this If so, do you have suggestions for a enly thinking that what 1 found proved proves a spaceship really did crash near respected, impartial third party to ensure the existence of UFOs. I never said that Roswell, have been bantered around the a proper comparison? Best regards from at all." (Actually, NMSR's comments Internet for over two years. Rudiak is New Mexico, Dave Thomas." mainly expressed concern over the pro­ absolutely convinced that his analysis is I never received an answer to this let­ ject advisors Schmidt and Carey, and genuine, and spends much time rebut­ ter. I wondered if Rudiak was reacting to said nothing about the still-embargoed ting his critics. One of his strongest crit­ it, however, when his Web site added a findings of the UNM archaeologists.) ics is UFO author Kevin Randle, who new poll asking visitors to judge lor And that was about all there was to has extensively tested Rudiak's claims themselves. Rudiak's poll consists of the archaeology part of the November with Jim Houran (Randle 2002). leading questions, which simply "prime" 22 Sci Fi program. The team did turn Randies conclusion: "The real point people widi what they are expected to up an "alternative furrow," but everyone here, however, is that the word 'Victims' see. The first questions in Rudiak's lost interest in that when it turned up in is not clearly legible to those who have "Citizen's Poll" are "Are the words, 'The a 1946 photograph, taken a year before not been told that it appears in the Victims' present in the Ramey memo?" the alleged Incident. There are also the memo, or told where to look." and "Is the phrase, 'In the Disc' present

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apnl 2003 17 in the Ramey memo?" (Rudiak 2002a). be needed if there was actually any meat were "not the last word," and were But the confirmation that David Rudiak to Rudiaks claims. But to really appreci­ mainly interesting because they showed had indeed received my suggestion for a ate the depth and breadth of David that prevailing conditions that day did validation test came quite unexpectedly, Rudiaks UFO research, one must learn not rule out the possibility that Flight #4 when I stumbled upon a Web site oper­ about his attack on the character of crashed into the Foster Ranch, causing ated by UFO buff Grant Cameron Charles Moore, the physicist who the Roswell Incident. (Cameron 2002). He wrote ".. James launched the experimental balloon train So I conducted my own physics cal­ culation. I cracked open Moore's book, and typed in his givens (balloon alti­ tude, wind speed, and wind direction Rudiak claims earth-shaking proof of an over time) into a spreadsheet. I then cal­ earth-shaking event, and yet refuses to culated winds in north and east direc­ tions, and these agreed exactly with correspond with critics directly, Moore's figures. To calculate the variable preferring to demonize them. of interest here—the ground track of Moore's 1947 balloon launch—I read the legend of Moore's table (also posted on Rudiak's Web site), which specified Oberg has reappeared and issued a chal­ now widely regarded as the actual source that eastward and northward displace­ lenge to David Rudiak related to his rev­ of the Roswell Incident (Thomas 1995). ments were obtained by summing the olutionary research on the 1947 Ramey In a Web article titled "The Phony products of the appropriate wind speed UFO Memo. The research was referred Mogul Balloon Trajectory: How a components with the corresponding to by the Sci Fi channel in their recent 2- debunker scientist 'cooked the books' to time intervals. Mathematically, this is as hour Roswell documentary special as support his pet theory" (Rudiak 2002b), simple as saying that distance equals 'smoking gun' evidence. Dave Thomas, a Rudiak dissects Moore's physics analysis velocity times time. When I entered in UFO skeptic from New Mexico, has of just which way a balloon launched these formulas, my results agreed almost made the same offer to Rudiak. 'There is from Alamogordo on June 4, 1947, perfectly (less than a quarter-mile dis­ obviously a lot of collaboration going on would have traveled, given the best crepancy over the whole trajectory) with amongst these people to discredit me,' available historical knowledge of Moore's. The small differences could Rudiak said. 'That's probably a good weather conditions and balloon perfor­ easily have been due to roundoff— sign. It means my work has hit a big fat mance. Moore discussed the trajectory Moore was working with internally pre­ nerve.'. . . If Rudiak accepts the chal­ calculations in detail in a book he co- cise numbers, while I only had the lenge he immediately grants either authored with Benson Saler and Charles rounded-off values I typed in from the Thomas or Oberg an instant position as A. Ziegler (Saler 1997). Moore offered table. The main thing was that I found the official debunker on any national his analysis as "A possible ground track absolutely no evidence of "cooking the media coverage of Rudiak work. This for NYU Flight #4," and described it as books"—indeed, Moore described his instant national 'Sci Fi Channel a "qualitative test," not a quantitative work in such a fashion that another debunker' status will be gained without one. Yet Rudiak has found reams of physicist, following his directions, could having done five minutes research. It is a points to quibble with. Preferring vol­ get near-identical results. Roswell skep­ wonderful ploy for fame and fortune. umes of quantity over quality, Rudiaks tic Tim Printy has published a thought­ The test, as Rudiak knows will be a 'no- analysis runs page after mind-numbing ful analysis of many of Rudiak's claims, win' test set up to muddy the waters. . .. page. The most serious charge he levels arriving at the same conclusion I did A second major problem David is aware at Moore is that "his math is wrong .. . (Printy 2002). of is that it impossible to convince a Moore . . . ended up corrupting his own I also found that I could get close to skeptic of anything. That is because data . . ." and "Moore's calculation of a Rudiak's "very different" proposed tra­ 'skepticism' is based on an attitude, and trajectory from the table he sets up jectory by jogging the calculation by one has nothing to do with rational based on these assumptions is also time step. In the altered calculation, the thought. . . ." mathematically bogus." balloon goes eastward for one extra time Rudiak claims earth-shaking proof of I spoke with Professor Moore about step (about thirty minutes), and thus an earth-shaking event, and yet refuses all this on November 27, but he didn't to correspond wirJi critics directly, pre­ want to get into the math behind BAIT AND SWITCH ON ferring to demonize them behind their Rudiaks shrill accusations. He simply Roswell THE SMOKING GUN backs. Such cheesy tactics would hardly reiterated that his trajectory calculations Continued on page 22

18 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SPECIAL REPORT

Bone (Box) of Contention: The James Ossuary

JOE NICKELL

upposedly recently discovered, the this tradition the corpse would first be C.E.—of of Nazareth" (Lemaire James ossuary—a limestone mor­ interred in a niche in a burial cave. After 2002, 33). Stuary box that purportedly held about a year, when the remains became Lemaire believes the inscription has a the remains of Jesus' brother—is the skeletonized, the bones were gathered consistency and correctness that show subject of controversy. It has captured into a chest, usually made from a hol- "it is genuinely ancient and not a fake." the attention of theologians, secular lowed-out block of limestone fitted with The box was examined by two experts a lid [Figueras 1983, 26]). scholars, laity, and journalists around from the Geological Survey of at the world. Some have rushed die request of BAR. They to suggest that the inscrip­ concluded that the ossuary tion on it is the earliest- had a gray patina (or coating known reference to Jesus out­ of age). "The same gray side the bible, providing patina is found also within archaeological evidence of his some of the letters," he historical existence. wrote, "although the inscrip­ "World Exclusive!" pro­ tion was cleaned and the claimed patina is therefore absent Review. "Evidence of Jesus from several letters." They Written in Stone," the cover added, "The patina has a continued; "Ossuary of cauliflower shape known to James, Brother of Jesus' be developed in a cave envi­ ronment." The experts also found in ." Urged The James Ossuary: Did this limestone box—the focus of heated contro­ the contents page: "Read versy—once hold the bones of Jesus' brother? (Photographs by Joe Nickell) reported they saw no evi­ how this important object dence of "the use of a mod­ came to light and how scientists proved Incised on one of the James ossuary's ern tool or instrument" (Rosenfeld and it wasn't a modern forgery." long sides, the inscription consists of a Hani 2002). Actually, as we shall soon see, the single line of twenty small Aramaic Unfortunately, the cleaning of the matter is much less clear than such hype characters. It reads (from right to left): inscription—an act either of stupidity would suggest, and there are many ques­ "Ya'akov bar Yosef akhui diYeshua"— or shrewdness—is problematic. It might tions yet to be answered. that is, "Jacob [English James], son of have removed traces of modern tooling. Yosef [Joseph], brother of Yeshua And when we are told that the patina is Background [Jesus]." Based on the script, Lemaire found "within some of the letters," we The initial report in Biblical Archaeology dates the inscription to some time should certainly want to know which Review (BAR) was written by a French between 20 B.C. and 70 A.D. And he ones, since scholars have debated scholar, Andre* Lemaire (2002), who believes that the inscription's mention of whether the phrase "brother of Jesus" believes both the artifact and its inscrip­ a father named Joseph plus a brodicr might be a spurious addition (Altman tion authentic. Such an ossuary, or named Jesus suggests "that this is the 2002: Shuman 2002). "bone box," was used to store bones in ossuary of the James in the New Jewish burial practice during the period Testament," which in turn "would also Joe Nickell, CSlCOP's Senior Research from the first century B.C. to the Roman mean that we have here the first Fellow, is author of Pen, Ink and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (In epigraphic mention—from about 63 Evidence and Detecting Forgery.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 19 It is even possible for traces of pati- museum, and then, when the museum identified due to concerns for privacy. nation in an inscription to be original sold off some of its collection, was "It's a character issue," he told the when the carving is not. That could bought by a private collector. Associated Press (Laub 2002). "I don't happen if—as is the case of the James Provenance matters more with a like publicity." But Golan received some ossuary—shallow carving was done over sensational artifact, and the refusal or attention that may have been most a deeply pitted surface. The patinated inability of an owner to explain how he unwanted: He came under investigation bottoms of remnant pits could thus or she acquired an item is, prima facie, by the Antiquities Authority's theft unit remain inside the fresh scribings. suspicious—a possible indicator of (Scrivener 2002). In any case the patina may not be all forgery or theft. One of my cases, for According to Golan, he bought the it is claimed. According to one forgery instance, concerned a purported manu­ ossuary in the Old City (old Jerusalem) expert, because pati nation is expected script of Lincoln's celebrated Gettys­ "in the 1970s," paying a few hundred with age, "The production of a con­ burg Address (actually the second sheet dollars to an Arab antiquities dealer he vincing patina has therefore can no longer identify (Van been of great interest to Biema 2002; Adams 2002; those engaged in faking or Wilford 2002). He has said restoration" (Jones 1990). that it was the box's engraving Although false patinas are that interested him, yet noth­ most commonly applied to ing in the phrase "James, son metalwork, stone sculp­ of Joseph, brother of Jesus" tures and artifacts—includ­ ever "rang a bell" in Golan's ing fake "prehistoric" flint mind (Adams 2002). implements—have been Incredibly, the sensational treated to create the appear­ The ossuary' s inscription (a portion of which is shown here) seems inscription had to wait three ance of antiquity (Jones suspiciously sharp-edged for its apparent age. decades before finally being 1990). For example, the appreciated by Andre Lemaire. versatile forger Alceo Dossena ot what was ostensibly a two-page Many scholars were horrified that the (1878-1937) produced convincing draft, signed by Lincoln). Suspicions ossuary had apparently been looted from patinas on marble (a hard, metamor- were raised when it was reported that its burial site—not just because looting is phic limestone) that gave his works "an the dealer who sold the item wanted to illegal and immoral, but because an arti­ incredible look of age" (Sox 1987). remain anonymous, and my subse­ facts being robbed of its context "com­ The patina traces of the James quent ultraviolet and stereomicro- promises everything," according to P. ossuary inscription have already been scopic examination revealed it was a Kyle McCarter Jr., who chairs the Near questioned. Responding to the claim forgery (Nickell 1996). Eastern studies department at Johns that patina was cleaned from the inscrip­ With the James ossuary, the prove­ Hopkins University. McCarter added, tion, one art expert notes that genuine nance seems to be, well, under develop­ "We don't know where [die box] came patina would be difficult to remove ment. In his BAR article, Andre from, so there will always be nagging while forged patina cracks off. "This Lemaire (2002) referred to the "newly doubts. Extraordinary finds need extraor­ appears to be what happened with the revealed ossuary" which he would only dinary evidence to support them" (Van ossuary," he concludes (Lupia 2002). say was "now in a private collection in Biema 2002). Israel." A sidebar stated that on a recent Not only the box's provenance was Provenance visit to Jerusalem, "Lemaire happened lost but also, reportedly, its contents The reason for questioning the patina is to meet a certain collector by chance; which might have helped establish its that additional evidence raises doubts the collector mentioned that he had provenance. "Unfortunately," stated about the ossuary's authenticity. To some objects he wanted Lemaire to Andre Lemaire (2002), "as is almost begin with, there is die matter of its see." One of the objects was the James always the case with ossuaries that come provenance, which concerns the origin ossuary (Feldman 2002). from the antiquities market rather than or derivation of an artifact. Experts in The owner had pleaded with from a legal excavation, it was emp­ the fields of objets d'artand other rarities reporters not to reveal his name or tied." I lamented this reported state of use the term to refer to a work's being address, but he was apparently uncov­ affairs to a reporter (Ryan 2002), traceable to a particular source. For ered by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. observing that the bones could have example, records may show that an arti­ He is Oded Golan, a Tel Aviv engi­ been examined by forensic anthropolo­ fact came from a certain archaeological neer, entrepreneur, and collector. Golan gists to potentially determine cause of dig, was subsequently owned by a explained that he had not wished to be death. James was reportedly thrown

20 March/Apr,i 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER from the top of the Temple and stoned enough 1953) shows that the name been on the box at the time of burial, and beaten to death (Hurley 2002), so might be engraved on the decorated but the majority of this inscription is on his skeletal remains might show evi­ side if there were space for it; otherwise top of the scratches" (Eylon 2002). dence of such trauma. it might be cut on the top, an end, or The inscription's off-center place­ As it turns out, Lemairc did not the back. Wherever placed, it "probably ment is even in an area of the back that mention—perhaps he did not know— faced outwards where it could be read" suffers the least damage. Commenting that Mr. Golan has a Tupperware con­ (Altman 2002a). on what is termed biovermiculation— tainer of bone fragments he says were in In the case of the James ossuary, there that is, "limestone erosion and dissolu­ the ossuary when he acquired it. One would have indeed been room on the tion caused by bacteria over time in the piece is as iarge as one-haif inch by three _.f „:,-;_- -n-4 MY-hido* nw irr rront, yet tne scrioc ciccicu iu cai »c the rorm XJt L'II i HI;, dliu *!•...... _ V4,«- »• I inches, and has raised questions about inscription on the back. (A possible rea­ historian states: "The ossuary had plenty potential DNA evidence. Yet, according son for this will soon become evident.) except in and around the area of the to Time magazine, Golan inscription. This is not nor­ will not allow the fragments mal" (Lupia 2002). Indeed, "to be displayed or analyzed" that is one of the first (Van Biema 2002). things I had observed in studying the James ossuary. Further Suspicions It suggested a forger might In addition to the question­ have selected a relatively able provenance, the exterior smooth area of the back as a appearance of the ossuary place to carve the small, also raises suspicions. To neat characters. view the box, which was on Early on, the text of the display at the Royal Ontario inscription itself raised Museum, I recently traveled doubts among experts to Toronto with several familiar with Aramaic of my Center for Inquiry scripts. They observed that colleagues. They included The ossuary was featured in this elaborate temporary exhibit at the Royal the "James, son of Joseph" Ontario Museum in Toronto. Kevin Christopher, who has portion was in a nccmiiigly degrees in classics and lin­ formal script while the guistics, with whom I had been studying Furthermore, the box's decorations— "brother of Jesus" phrase was in a more the case (see acknowledgments). We the carved "frame" Lemaire referred to cursive style. This suggested "at least die were able to get a good look at the box, which outlines all four sides, plus the cir­ possibility of a second hand," according and what we observed raised eyebrows. cular designs—are badly worn, whereas to one expert (McCarter 2002). Another First of all, I was surprised to see the inscription seems almost pristine. states, "The second part of the inscrip­ that the ossuary was far from being That is, the decorations are blurred, par­ tion bears die hallmarks of a fraudulent "unadorned" as Lemaire (2002, 27) tially effaced, and (like much of the sur­ later addition and is questionable to say reported. He stated that " I he only dec­ face) pitted. Yet the lettering is entirely the least" (Altman 2002b). But die per­ oration is a line forming a frame about distinct and blessed with sharp edges, as ceived dichotomy in styles may simply 0.5 inch (1.2 cm) from the outer edges," if it were of recent vintage. My colleagues signal that the forger was an inexpert but he is mistaken. Significantly, on die and I were all struck with that observa­ copyist or that the effect results from the side opposite die inscribed side are circu­ tion. So was an Israeli engineering profes­ vagaries of stone carving. lar designs, badly worn but unmistak­ sor. Dr. Daniel Eylon, of the University Taken together, the various clues ably present. of Dayton, who noted that "sharp edges suggest a scenario in which a forger pur­ Now, ossuaries arc usually decorated do not last 2,000 years." chased a genuine ossuary that—lacking on only one side (Royal 2002), pre­ Dr. Eylon applied a technique that is feet, elaborate ornament, and inscrip­ sumably the one intended to face out employed in determining whether dam­ tion—cost little. He then obtained an during storage. If a name was added age to an airplane pan occurred prior to Aramaic rendition of the desired word­ (possibly with an identifying phrase), it an accident or after it. ing, carved it into what seemed a good was apparently carved after purchase by Examining photographs of the spot on the blank back, and perhaps someone such as a family member inscription for scratches accrued over added patination followed by "clean­ (Figueras 1983. 18). A look at a num­ time, he stated: 'The inscription would ing" to help mitigate against the fresh ber of ossuaries (Figueras 1983; Good- be underneath these scratches if it had look of the carving.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 21 Forgers frequently select genuine old References artifacts upon which to inflict their Adams, Paul. 2002. Ossuary's owner emerges to Nickell, Joe. 1990. Pen, Ink and Evidence: tell his story. The Glebe and Mail (Toronto). A Study of Writing and Writing Materials handiwork. Examples that I have per­ November 7. for the Penman, Collector, and Document sonally investigated and helped expose Altman. Rochelle I. 2002a. Final report on the Detective, reprinted New Castle, Delaware: include such inscribed works as two James ossuary. Online at http://web.isradin- Oak Knoll Press, 2000. . 19%. Detecting Forgery. Lexington. Ky: Daniel Boone muskets, the diary of Jack sider.com..., November 6. . 2002b. Quoted in Wilford 2002. University Press of Kentucky. 45-48.96,99-102. the Ripper, a carte de visile photo of Eylon, Daniel. 2002. Quoted in Wilford 2002. Rosenfeld, Ammon, and Shimon Hani. 2002. Robert E. Lee, a dictionary with flyleaf Feldman, Steven. 2002. The right man for the Letter to editor of Biblical Archaeology notes by , and many inscription. Review, September 17 (reproduced in Sidebar to Lemaire (2002) signed "S.F.," 30. Lemaire 2002). more (Nickell 1990; 1996). (Feldman is managing editor of BAR) Royal Ontario Museum. 2002. James ossuary Mounting evidence has begun to Figueras, Pan. 1983. Decorated Jewish Ossuaries. display text, exhibit of November 15— Leiden: E. J. Brill. December 29. suggest that the James ossuary may be Goodenough, Erwin R. 1953. Jewish Symbols in Ryan. Terri Jo. 2002. Baylor religion professors yet another such production. the Greco-Roman Period vol. 3. New York: anxious to check out "James" bone box. Pantheon Books. Tribune-Herald (Waco. Texas), November 4. Hurley, Amanda Kolson. 2002. The last days Scrivener. Leslie. 2002. Expert skeptical about Acknowledgments of James. Sidebar to Lemaire (2002) signed ossuary. Toronto Star (www.thcstar.com), "A. KH.." 32. (Hurlcv is an assistant editor November 25. Those making the December 5, 2002, trip to of BAR) Shuman, Ellis. 2002. "Brother of Jesus" bone-box view the ossuary were—in addition to Kevin Jones, Mark, cd. 1990.Fake? " The Art of Deception. plot thickens. Online at http://web.isr.iel Christopher (who drove, assisted with Berkeley: The University of California Press, insidcr.com..., November 5. research, and offered valuable observa­ 258-261. Sox, David. 1987. Unmasking the Forger: The tions)—Benjamin Radford. (Catherine I auk Karin. 2002. Ancient burial box isn't for Dossena Deception. London: Unwin Hyman. Bourdonnay, and Norm Allen. Also, Paul sale, owner says. Buffalo News, November 8. 8-9, 11.37.47,90. Kurtz provided encouragement, Barry Karr Lemaire, Andre. 2002. Burial box of James the Van Biema. David. 2002. The brother of Jesus? brother of Jesus. Biblical Archaeology Review, Time magazine. Online at www.timc.com/ financial authorization, Tim Binga research 28:6 (November/December), 24-33, 70; assistance, and Ranjit Sandhu word process­ time/magazine/printout/..., October 27. sidebar 28. Wilford. John Noble, 2002. Experts question ing, while other CFI staff helped in Lupia, John. 2002. Quoted in Altman 2002a. authenticity ol bone box of 'brother of Jesus.' McCarter, P Kyle. 2002. Quoted in Wilford 2002. many additional ways. New York limes, December 3.

BAIT AND SWITCH ON photographs and shrill charges of con­ Fleck. J. 2002a. "UFO Search in Roswell Turns Up ROSWELL THE SMOKING GUN' spiracy. It promised solid new scientific Surprise." Albuquerque Journal November 5. . 2002b. "Aliens Must Have Packed Up. From page 18 evidence, but the Sci Fi Channel Left," Albuquerque Journal November 23. exploited the UNM archaeologists' care­ Printy. T 2002. "Rudiak: Right, Wrong, or just ful work, to the University's embarrass­ Ridiculous?" online at members..com/ ends up about seventeen miles farther tprinty2/rudiak.html. northeast than in Moore's original calcu­ ment. In the ongoing effort to solidify Randle. K. 1997. "Kevin Randle Responds to Radcliff lation. The small difference is within the and entrench the Roswell Myth, some on Schmitt," Nov. 3. 1997. www.ulomind.com/ cracks are beginning to show. area51 /lisi/1997/nov/a04-003.shtml. error of Moore's data. His point, after . 2002. "Re Last Night's Tragedy- all, was to show that the winds that day Fleming." June 17, 2002, online at www. did not preclude the balloon's arrival at References vi rtuallystrange.net/ufo/updatcs/2002/jun/rn the Roswell ranch. Had Moore's analysis 17-015.shtml. Cameron, G. 2002. "Oberg and Thomas Plan Rudiak, D. 2002a. Online at roswellproof. showed the balloon traveling south, say, Rudiak Attack," online at www.presidential homcstead.com/ to El Paso, now that would have elimi­ ufo.com/rudiak_skeptics.htm. . 2002b. "The Phony Mogul Balloon nated Flight #4 as a candidate for the Doleman. W. 2002a. "Archeological Testing and Trajectory," online at roswcllproof.home- Remote Sensing Study Plan for Foster Ranch slcad.com/Fliglii4_TrajcLturv.luiiil. Roswell debris source. Impact Site." September 2002, UNM Office Safer, B.. CA Ziegler, and C.B. Moore. 1997. Rudiak's charges of Moore's "cooking of Contract Archeology. UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern the books" are much stronger evidence . 2002b. "UFOIogy chat with Dr. Bill Myth. Smithsonian Institution Press: ISBN: Doleman," Sci Fi Channel Online Chat 1560987510; (August). of Rudiak's incompetence than they are Transcript, October 30, www.scifi.com/ Sci Fi 2002. "The Roswell Crash: Startling New of Moore's alleged scientific malfeasance. transcripts/2002/bdoleman 10.30.html. Evidence," Sci Fi Channel, online at In the end, the Sci Fi Channel's . 2002c. Archaeology Channel. "Extra­ www.scifi.com/roswellcrash/. terrestrial Archaeology? An Interview with Dr. Thomas, D. 1995. "The Roswell Incident and ballyhooed "Smoking Gun" turned out Bill Doleman." online at www.archaeology Project Mogul." SKEPTICU. INQUIRER. 19(4): to be just the same old stuff: more fuzzy channd.org/content/audio/dolcman.html 15-18. July/August.

22 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Lessons of the 'Fake Moon Flight' Myth

JAMES OBERG

epending on the opinion polls, ironically fueling the arguments against ities. These ranged from allegations of there's a core of Apollo moon one of the greatest technological achieve­ UFO sightings (and videotapings) by flight disbelievers within the ments in human history. astronauts, to the discovery of alien arti­ D facts on the Moon and Mars and else­ United States—perhaps 10 percent of NASA's official reaction to these and the population, and up to twice as large other questions was both clumsy and where, to miraculous and paranormal in specific demographic groups. often counter-productive. On the infa­ folklore associated with space activities, to the hoax accusations. Launius, near- Overseas the results are similar, fanned mous Fox Television moon hoax pro­ ing retirement in early 2002, decided it by local attitudes toward the U.S. in gram, which was broadcast several times was time for a detailed response to the general and technology in particular. in the first half of 2001, a NASA Apollo hoax accusations, and offered me Some religious fundamentalists—Hare spokesman named Brian Welch a sole-source contract to write a mono­ Krishna cultists and some extreme appeared several times to counter the graph that analyzed why such stories hoaxist arguments (Welch was a top- Islamic mullahs, for example—declare seemed so attractive to so many people. level official at the Public Affairs Office the theological impossibility of human Launius departed NASA soon there­ at NASA Headquarters, who died a few trips to other worlds in space. after, leaving the project in the care of a months later). The poor TV impression Resentment of American cultural junior historian, Stephen Garber. and political dominance clearly fuels he gave (a know-it-all "rocket scientist" other "disbelievers," including those denouncing each argument as false but My requests for inputs from various political groups who had been hoping usually without providing supporting NASA offices and public educational for a different outcome to the Space evidence) may have been due to deliber­ organizations soon reached the ears of Race—for example, many Cuban ate editing by the producers to make the news reporters, and some print stories schools, both in Cuba and where Cuban "NASA guy" look arrogant and con­ appeared in late October. Although NASA officials were somewhat taken schoolteachers were loaned, such as temptuous. But to a large degree it accu­ aback by the publicity, they were at first Sandinista Nicaragua, taught their stu­ rately reflected NASA's institutional atti­ inclined to defend the project on educa­ dents that Apollo was a fraud. tude to the entire controversy. The dis­ tional grounds. Like a counter-culture heresy, the appointing results of participating "moon hoax" theme had been lingering seemed to strengthen the view within Then, on Monday, November 4, beyond the fringes of mainstream soci­ NASA that the best response was no 2002, the eve of the national elections, ety for decades. A self-published pam­ response—to avoid anything that might dignify the charges. phlet here, or a "B-grade" science fiction LESSONS OF THE FAKE MOON movie there, or a radio talk show guest Roger Launius, then the chief of the FLIGHT MYTH over there—for many years it all looked history office at headquarters, was an Continued on page 30 like a shriveling leftover of the original exception to NASA's overall unwilling­ human inability to accept the reality of ness to engage the issue. As an amateur revolutionary changes. space historian and folklorist, I had been James Oberg (unvw.jamesoberg.com) But in the last ten years, an entirely discussing with him for years the need worked twenty-two years at NASA new wave of hoax theories have for NASA to fulfill its educational out­ Mission Control in Houston, specializing appeared—on cable TV, on the Internet, reach charter and to issue a series of in orbital rendezvous, and is now a fidl- via self-publishing, and through other modest monographs (a historian's term time free-lance consultant, author, speaker, "alternative" publication methods. These for a single-theme pamphlet-length and examiner of space folklore. He is a methods are the result of technological publication) on many different wide­ founding Fellow of CSICOP and a progress that Apollo symbolized, now spread cultural myths about space activ­ SKEPTICAL INQUIRER consulting editor.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 23 INVESTIGATIVE FILES JOE NICKELL

Germany: Monsters, Myths, and Mysteries

ocated in the heart of Europe, each write a ghost story" (Hindle 1992). Germany has had a more pro­ Mary Shelley would subsequently Lfound impact on the history of write in her Author's Introduction that the continent than any other country. the two poets had discussed rumors of According to one source: "From animation experiments and speculation Charlemagne and the Holy Roman that "galvanism" (electricity) might rean­ Empire to Otto von Bismarck's German imate a corpse. With such thoughts in Reich, Nazism and the rise and fall of mind, she retired after "the witching the Berlin Wall, no other nation has hour" but did not sleep. Instead, her molded Europe the way Germany has— imagination led her to see—"with shut for better or for worse" (Schulte-Peevers eyes, but acute mental vision"—"the pale et al. 2002, 17). Today, freed of its own student of unhallowed arts kneeling post-World-War-II division, Germany beside the thing he had put together." leads in the effort to unite Europe. She continued: "I saw the hideous phan­ In October 2002, I made my second tasm of a man stretched out, and then, visit to Germany, this time to speak at on the working of some powerful the biannual symposium of the engine, show signs of life, and stir with European Council of Skeptical Organi­ an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful zations and to conduct an investigations must it be; for supremely frightful would workshop for German skeptics at the be the effect of any human endeavor to Center for Inquiry-Europe in Rossdorf. mock the stupendous mechanism or the I was also able, with the untiring assis­ Figure 1. Ruins of Frankenstein Castle atop Creator of the world" (Shelley 1831). tance of the centers Executive Director, Magnet Mountain. Mary does not state how she adopted Dr. Martin Mahner, to spend the taken its name from this ruined fortress the name Victor Frankenstein for the remainder of the sixteen-day trip inves­ (figure 1), which is otherwise linked to monster's creator. However, Radu tigating a number of myths and legends, monster and bodysnatching tales. Florescu in his In Search of Frankenstein only a few of which, alas, can be dis­ Most accounts of die fictional cre­ (1975, 45-62) makes a convincing case cussed in this investigative travelogue. ation of Frankenstein's monster rely on that it was inspired by Burg Mary Shelley's own version of events. It Frankenstein (i.e., "castle of the Franks' Frankenstein Castle was a dark and stormy night in 1816. She rock"). Located about seven kilometers The great monster story and pioneering (tJien Mary Godwin) and her future hus­ from Darmstadt, the ruins are those of work of science fiction, Mary Shelley's band, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, were at a castle originally built on a smaller 1818 novel Frankenstein, may have the Swiss villa of another famous English scale about 1250. Florescu points out poet. Lord Byron, togeuSer with two oth­ that Mary and her lover Shelley had Joe Nickell is CSICOP's Senior Research ers. They had been reading French trans­ earlier visited the region, traveling Fellow and author of numerous investiga­ lations of German ghost tales when by boat down the Rhine in 1814. tive books. Byron suddenly proclaimed, "We will They must surely have known they were

24 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER in "Frankenstein country" and probably novel" (Johann 2002). Also, some of spied die castles distinctive double-towers Mary Shelley's admirers resent the silhouetted atop the mountain. implications of the evidence, that her It is even possible they visited the cas­ use of a real-life model calls into ques­ tle itself or, in any event, learned from tion her originality (Clerici 2002). their German traveling companions its However, great writers have frequently legends. These include the tale of Knight relied on sources while adapting them to Georg von Frankenstein and a dragon­ their creative purposes. like monster that had terrorized the If it is true that Dippel and Franken­ vicinity. Sir Georg was a real person stein Castle were sources for Mary whose tomb in the nearby village of Shelley's novel, it seems fittingly ironic Nieder-Beerbach bears the date of his that in recent years "monsters" have death in 1531. Although he siew the returned to the castle. No, Martin creature—probably only a snake (die Manner and 1 saw no strange creatures exaggeration being attributable to his when we prowled the ruins and sur­ popular identification with St. George rounding forest, but throughout the the dragon slayer)—it succeeded in region we did encounter posters and ads piercing his armor below the knee and so for spooky goings-on, emblazoned poisoning him (Florescu 1975, 53-69). "Halloween/burg Frankenstein." Other legends relating to Burg (Martin notes that Halloween—not a Frankenstein concern an alchemist, German tradition—was established by Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734). Americans, there still being American Although not a descendant of the Fran- army facilities in nearby Darmstadt.) kensteins, Dippel had been born in the castle and at university registered as a res­ Alien Hybrid? Figure 2. Alleged "alien hybrid" in Saxony. ident of "Franckensteina." However, after In a cabinet in a small natural-history period of the world's history abnormal two years marked by "scandalous behav­ museum in Waldenburg, Saxony, is a creatures or monstrosities, both human ior," he was forced to flee at night due to strange curio (figure 2) that one writer and animal, have existed from time to a "serious incident," rumored to have has termed "Germany's greatest mys­ time and excited the wonder of involved bodysnatching from a local tery" (Hausdorf 2000). It is die fetus mankind." The births of monsters were cemetery. Subsequently, Dippel turned to of—well, that is the question: what is it? explained in superstitious, often super­ alchemy and claimed to have discovered a Could it be—as some UFOIogists natural, terms. They might be thought secret formula by which he transmuted insist—an alien hybrid? to presage calamities and disasters, or be silver and mercury into pure gold. He also considered as evidence of Divine wrath. sought to produce an elixir of life, and to Known locally from its strange that end conducted experiments in distill­ appearance as the "chicken man," the Some believed them the result of mating ing blood and the boiled residue of bones. fetus can be traced to the year 1735 with animals (Thompson 1968). when it was stillborn in the Saxonian A widespread popular notion was In his eventual medical thesis at the village of Taucha. It was to have been the that—along with birthmarks or other University of Leiden (1711) Dippel fourth child of Johanna Sophia defects—they were caused by some­ focused on his previous chemical exper­ Schmiedt, who was in the eighth month thing the mother saw or touched during iments and animal studies. He practiced of her pregnancy. She was twenty-eight her pregnancy (DeLys 1989). In fact, vivisection on animals and came to and her husband Andreas, "a hunch­ in the case at hand, Mrs. Schmiedt's believe that the body was an inert mass back," ten years her senior. Two years patient history recorded her own animated by a spirit that could be trans­ later, in 1737, Leipzig apparent explanation, that she previ­ formed into another corpse to reanimate Gottlieb Friderici autopsied the pre­ ously had had a very frightening it (Florescu 1975, 63-86). served fetus and published a report, encounter with a marten (an animal The parallels between Mary Shelley's illustrated with two copperplate engrav­ related to the weasel). character, Victor Frankenstein, and ings and titled "Monstrum Humanum In mentioning diis, one writer sug­ Konrad Dippel, the alchemist, are strik­ Rarissimum" ("Most Rare Human gests that the recollected marten was only ing, as Florescu (1975, 86) observes. Monster") (Mullcr 1999; Monstrum a "cover memory" for an extraterrestrial Not everyone accepts the evidence, 1994; Ausscrirdisches 2002). encounter and that die deformed fetus however. One source cautions that the Dr. Friderici concluded that the term was an alien/human hybrid. Supposedly lack of substantiated information about "monster" was appropriate because of it resembles the small "grays" (Ausserir- Dippel's life "leaves much room for the fetus's divergence from normal disches 2002) but die comparison is doubt, and many of the traits attributed human anatomy. According to one trea­ poor. For example, whereas that alleged to him may postdate Mary Shelley's tise on monsters, "From the earliest type of humanoid is portrayed with a

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apt.l 2003 25 large head, it lacks the bizarre bulbous Museologist Ulrike Budig was most January 30, 1933, they began to inflict growth of the fetus. And whereas the helpful, unlocking the cabinet's glass their Nazi ideology of racism and state grays have a "distinguishing characteris­ doors so we could examine and photo­ supremacy on targeted groups: especially tic: black, wraparound eyes" (Huyghe graph the specimen from various angles. Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, the 1996), the fetus instead possesses "very We learned that genetic tests had mentally ill, dissenting clergymen, and round eye sockets" (Ausserirdisches 2002 been conducted by experts in Berlin and many others. These began to fill Dachau, [emphasis added]). Heidelberg (Monstrum 1994). They the first concentration camp, which was One source claims of the fetus that studied the chromosomes using Com­ established March 20. "nothing in either its interior or exterior parative Genomic Hybridization, an The camp also became the site of hor­ configuration corresponds to that which analytical method developed in 1993. rific medical experiments and execu­ tions. So many prisoners died or were killed there that a crematorium was built to dispose of the corpses. When it proved inadequate, in 1942 a new building— One source claims of the fetus that "nothing in dubbed "Barracks X"—was constructed either its interior or exterior configuration with four double-chamber ovens (Distel 1972; Marcuse 2001; Memorial [2002]). corresponds to that which is considered to be A gas chamber at that facility is still the human" but that is a ridiculous exaggeration. subject of controversy. Holocaust "revisionists" like David Irving have denied the existence of a gas chamber at Dachau. Irving declared that is considered to be human" (Monstrum This showed that the fetus was female those at Auschwitz and elsewhere were 2002), but that is a ridiculous exaggera­ due to the presence of two X chromo­ fakes, "just as the Americans built the tion. Not only does it have an essentially somes. More importantly, the scientists dummies in Dachau" (quoted in Evans human body structure (a head atop a discovered that large parts of chromo­ 2001). The official view of the Dachau cylindrical trunk, with arms attached to some 17 were missing and concluded memorial itself is expressed by a sign the shoulders and legs extending from that a genetic loss of that amount must on site, rendered in five languages: the hips), but the interior was found to be seen as the cause of the rare deforma­ "Gas chamber[:] disguised as a 'shower contain such organs as a heart, liver, and tion. Because no other case of this par­ room'—never used as a gas chamber." lungs, according to Dr. Friderici's ticular chromosome-17 anomaly is Others have stated that the chamber was autopsy results. known, it is assumed that the result is indeed used. The anatomy is also characterized lethal, meaning that such embryos nor­ The issue impacts the paranormal by a vertebrate skeletal structure, mally die at an early stage. Only in this when ghost-monger Dennis William although the lower-arm and -leg bones unique instance, however, a further Hauck (2000) reports ghost sightings did not each become differentiated into development of the embryo took place with regard to gas chambers at Dachau. two separate bones; the cranium had, until the third trimester of the pregnan­ "German historians insist these were in effect, burst open, and some of the cy (Muller 1999). used for disinfectant purposes," he skull bones (e.g., the upper jawbone) Dr. Dietmar Muller (1999), writing writes, "but the paranormal evidence were missing. in the museum's official guidebook, seems to contradict these claims." (More Fringe paranormalists attribute the observes sagely tliat, as occurred with on this presendy.) "Several reports," he abnormalities to the purported hybrid­ folk of the eighteenth century, such de­ continues, "of disembodied screaming, ization. One Internet source bizarrely formations have also inspired the fan­ voices shouting 'gas,' and naked running claims to have received inside informa­ tasies of some modern people. In this apparitions originate from these shower tion on the matter from "the instance, he notes, "UFOlogists" have stalls." He specifies no source for these Cassiopaeans," allegedly channeled brought "aliens" into play, thus giving reports, other than appending a general extraterrestrial entities. "They" ex­ the museum specimen an unfortunate bibliography of ghost-promoting books plained the fetus as "hybridized concep- notoriety. However, he concludes that and Internet sources. In any event, there tion/gestate" and averred: "It was not an the scientific studies clearly prove that is considerable evidence diat apparitions experiment. It was the result of Reptoid this specimen consists of human DNA. are a product of the experiencers' own 'rape'" (Monstrum 2002). psychological and cultural expectations Actually the "Cassiopaeans" are out Dachau (Nickell 2001), evidence diat it is peo­ of touch with reality. Visiting the Although closed more than half a century ple—not places—that are "haunted." museum with Martin Mahner, who has a ago, die name Dachau still evokes horror. Hauck reproduces a photo taken by doctorate in zoology, I was able to learn After Adolf Hider and his National- an American tourist that, he states, the true facts about the "chicken man." Socialists seized control of Germany on "appears to show a ghosdy figure

26 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER running out of the showers." Actually, opposite side, leading to another room Although I neither saw, heard, nor all I can see is a fuzzy, light area like oth­ that in turn leads to the ovens. photographed any apparitions at the ers that can result from any of several According to Harold Marcuse in his crematorium or anywhere else at mundane causes (Nickell 1994). Indeed, Legacies of Dachau (2001), the gas cham­ Dachau, I am not surprised that others elsewhere in his book Hauck exhibits ber was indeed made functional, although believe they have. Knowledge of the photos that, in my opinion, result not only "trial gassings" were actually con­ horrors there can easily inspire images from ghosts but from glitches. These ducted there. Until Dachau was liberated of the past—"ghosts" that, which to include some attributable to me cam­ by American soldiers on April 29, 1945, many are deeply poignant metaphors, era's wrist strap (even one with its telltale large-scale exterminations continued to to others may actually seem to erupt loop! [p. 110]), an encroaching finger­ be carried out at the Vemichtungslager {ex­ into reality. tip (p. 130), and the like, in each termination camps) like Treblinka. instance bouncing back the flash to cre­ Satan's Footprint ate a white, ghostlike form. Munich's iwiu-iowcicd fiuuciikiiil,c Even when such anecdotal and pho­ ("church of Our Lady")—erected in tographic "evidence" is not immediately 1468-1488—has a curious legend. It explainable, it still only represents the stems from an impression in the foyer's logical fallacy called "arguing from igno­ pavement that is said to be Der rance," since a conclusion cannot be Teufelstritt, "the Devil's step." drawn from an unknown. Supposedly the architect, Jorg von Moreover, if ghosts did exist, Dachau Halspach, made a pact with Satan who should actually be crowded with them agreed to supply money for the church's because, even setting aside the question construction so long as it was built with­ of gas chambers, huge numbers perished out a single window in view; otherwise there under the most horrendous condi­ the builder would forfeit his soul. When tions (Distel 1972). the church was completed, the architect The presence and use of gas chambers led the devil to a place where he could arc matters best left to real evidence. On view the well-lit nave, yet where no win­ exhibit at Dachau is a copy of a letter, dows could be seen due to their being dated August 9, 1942, from Dr. Sigmund hidden by the great pillars. Furious, the Rascher to the Reichsfuhrer (Hitler). devil stamped his foot, "leaving his Translated, it reads in pan: "As you know, black hoofed footprint in the pavement" in the concentration camp Dachau the (McLachan2001). same facilities are being built as in Linz Actually the imprint (see figure 4) is [Austria]. Since the 'invalid transports' Figure 3. Gas chamber (labeled "shower bath") not a hoofed one at all, but rather end up in certain chambers anyway, I am at Dachau. "a footprint of a human being" as it is asking whether in these chambers the Nevertheless, as indicated, great correctly described in a church flyer effect of our various war gasses couldn't numbers of Dachau's dead were cre­ ("Black" n.d.). be tested on the persons to be destined mated at "Barracks X." Paul Kurtz One could write an entire treatise on for such purpose anyway?" (1988), CSICOP's chairman who was a footprints in stone. In addition to those There was a single gas chamber at barely eighteen-year-old American GI in of fairies are footprints of various holy Dachau, built as pan of the new 1942 World War II. arrived at Dachau just persons including die Buddha, Christ, crematorium ("Barracks X") which days after it was liberated. "When I first angels. Christian saints, and others, Martin Mahner and I visited. The con­ visited Dachau, I stood in the pit where notably the Devil (e.g., Thompson fusion of Hauck and others as to there the ashes and bones of thousands of vic­ 1955, I: 178-179). Of these, some may having been several such facilities results tims were strewn," he writes. "I saw the have been the effect of imagination from confusion caused by the presence high piles of clothing and shoes that had applied to natural markings in rock, of several nearby disinfection chambers; been seized from the victims." There, while others may have been pious frauds. they were used to fumigate clothing to and later at Buchenwald and elsewhere, As to the folktale of the Teufclstritt, kill lice (Marcuse 2001). he spoke with "victims of the Nazi it exists in a number of variants (as folk- Over the gas chamber entranceway is scourge, who had suffered die torments lorists say) that give evidence of the oral the old lettering, "BRAUSEBAD" of the extermination camps, and who tradition behind it. ("shower bath"). As shown in figure 3, with muted whispers recounted the talcs The greatest divergence in the varied the door has heavy steel construction, a of horror: men, women, and children tales is whether Satan stamped his foot flange for ainightness, and external herded into cattle cars, starved and in anger or out of triumph and glee. The locking handles—all unnecessary for a beaten, driven into gas chambers, and latter versions, including die church's mere shower. A similar door is on die then reduced to ashes." own flyer, tend to omit any interaction

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 27 between builder and devil and instead genuine, stating that the floor had been The black foocprim. N.d. River from Frauen­ kirche, Munich, Germany. have Satan sneaking a view of the newly restored and that the Teufelstritt was Budig, Ulrike. el al. eds. 1999. Naturalien- built church. Standing on the spot from merely a reconstruction. kabineit Waldenburg. Waldenburg, Saxony, which no windows can be seen and The church warden was uncertain Germany: Heimaimuseum und Naturalicnk- abinctr. thinking that a windowless building is whether or not the "original" footprint Clerici. Paul. 2002. Florescu book looks at history laughable, "in triumphal happiness he had been destroyed or perhaps was behind Frankenstein. Online at www.bc.edu/ bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v5/031 /florescu. stamped into the floor, where he left this in a museum or storage somewhere. html. footprint in the ground." But as he took However, the other evidence of a post- DeLys. Claudia. 1989. What's So Lucky About a a further step, he saw the many win­ 1620 creation still demonstrates that Four-leaf Clover? New York: Bell Pub!. Co., 219-220. dows: "Out of an anger he changed the Teufelstritt and its attendant legend Distel, Barbara. 1972. Dachau Concentration himself into a great wind and hoped he are apocryphal. Camp. N.p.: Comiii International de could blow die building down. Dachau. Evans, Richard J. 2001. Lying About Hitler. But he failed; and since that cime there is always a wind blowing New York: Basic Books, 124-125. Florescu, Radu. 1975. In Search of around the towers" ("Black" n.d.). Frankenstein. Boston: New York Despite die variations, all of Graphic Society. Die Frauenkirche in Miinchen. 1999. the accounts focus on the concept Regensburg, Germany: Schncll & of a vantage point from which Steiner.Hauck. Dennis William. 2000. none of the huge windows can be The International Directory of Haunted Places. New York: Penguin, 114. seen. This is a very real effect, but Hausdorf. Hartwig. 2000. Monstrum human­ only if we ignore the great stained- um nuissimum. Fate, February, 28—32. Hindlc, Maurice, ed. 1992. Introduction glass window on the opposite end to Shelley 1831. of the church. While that is a Huyghc, Patrick. 1996. Wx Held Guide to replacement (the church was Extraterrestrials. New York: Avon largely destroyed during World Books, 13-16. Johann Konrad Dippcl. 2002. Online at War II bombings but later under­ www.english.upcnn.edu/-jlynch/Fran went years of restoration), unfor­ k/People/dippcl.html. Kurtz, Paul. 1988. Forbidden Fruit: The tunately for the legend makers Ethics of Humanism. Buffalo: there was a window there at die Figure 4. "The Devil's footprint" in the foyer pavement Prometheus Books, 249. time of the church's completion in a Munich cathedral. Marcuse, Harold. 2001. Legacies of DOCIMU. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University 1488. The legend of the non-visible win­ Press, 37-46, 185. dows must therefore have originated A possibly innocent explanation is McLachan, Gordon. 2001. The Rough Guide to after 1620 when the window was that the original footprint was put there Germany London: Rough Guides Ltd., 75. blocked by a baroque high altar (remain­ by a stone mason when the floor was Memorial site concentration camp Dachau. ing so until 1858 [Die Frauenkirche reportedly redone in 1671 (Schmeer- [2002]. Dachau brochure. Monstrum humanum. 1994. Drr Spiegel, 27 1999, 10]), thus completing the illusion Sturm 1998). It could have been placed (July 4). 165. of no windows. merely to mark die spot from which Monstrum humanum rarissimum. 2002. Online Moreover, examining the Frauen- churchgoers could observe what was, at http://cassiopaea.xmystic.com/en/cass/ after all, an intriguing little illusion. monster.htm. kirche's legendary footprint, I con­ Muller, Dietmar. 1999. "Monstrum humanum"— cluded that it was itself incompatible Then, after that purpose was no longer Die anatomische Sammlung. In Budig et al. with its accompanying folktale. remembered, die legend could have 1999,91-98. been coined—by that notorious legend- Nickel!. Joe. 1994. Camera Clues: A Handbook for Whereas the foyer's pavement is a Photographic Investigation. Lexington, Ky.: checkerboard pattern of red and gray maker, Anonymous. University Press of Kentucky, 146-159. marble, the imprint is not in one of . 2001. Phantoms, frauds, or fantasies? Acknowledgments Chapter 10 of James Houran and Rcnsc those paving stones. Instead (as shown Lange, eds., Hauntings and Poltergeists. in figure 4) it is in a smaller inset Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 214-223. square—apparently made of concrete Many additional people made my trip possi­ Schmeer-Sturm, Marie-Louise. 1998. Die ble, especially Paul Kurtz, Barry Karr. and Schwarzen Fiihrer. Munchen. Oberbayern. and covered over (except for the foot­ Amardeo Sarma. I am also grateful to Tim Freiburg, Germany: Eulcn Vcrlag. print) with a hard, mustard-colored Binga and Ranjit Sandhu for, respectively, re­ Schultc-Peevers, Andrea, ct al. 2002. Germany material that has suffered some cracking search assistance and word processing, and London: Lonely Planet Publications. and breaking. others, alas, too numerous to mention. Shelley. Mary. 1831. Frankenstein; or. the Modern Prometheus, third edition (orig. publ. 1818). The next morning, while I exam­ Reprinted London: Penguin Books. 1992. ined and photographed the spot more References Thompson, CJ.S. 1968. Giants. Dumf and Other extensively, Martin was able to strike up Oddities. New York: Gtadd Press, 17-24. Ausscrirdischcs Icbcn—Monstrum humanum Thompson. Stith. 1955. Motif-Index of Folk- a conversation widi the church warden. rarissimum. 2002. Online ai hup://acolina. Literature. 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana He admitted that die imprint was not grenzwi5scn.de/con1cnt/scti/huhnm.htm. University Press.

28 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI

The Strange Case of Cathode Rays and What Counts for Evidence

n 1859, the year Darwin published electrometer to measure the electrical rays are electrically charged, but that On the Origin of Species, German charge of the rays. He found that the they are negatively so (because negative Iphysicist Julius Plucker discovered electrometer did not register any charge, charges arc attracted to positive ones). what for some time were referred to as which led him to state that: "As far as Indeed, today we refer to cathode rays as "cathode rays." Plucker used a glass tube the accuracy of the experiment allows, electrons, which are subatomic particles filled with air and containing a positive we can conclude with certainty that no that are negatively charged. and a negative electrode. When he low­ ered the air pressure inside the tube to 0.001 mm of mercury and connected a source of electric potential to the posi­ When exactly do we take something to be tive electrode (the anode), the region of evidence for a particular conclusion? the glass near the negative electrode (the cathode) started glowing with green This is obviously of crucial importance phosphorescence. Plucker's conclusion to skeptical investigations. was that something was being emitted by the cathode, and one of his students, Johan Wilhelm Hittorf, demonstrated in 1869 that a solid placed between the electrostatic effect due to the cathode We could end die story here, with cathode and the walls casts a shadow: rays can be perceived." anotJier triumph of progressive science. the mysterious cathode rays were travel­ Notice that Hertz's conclusion is very But an important question lingers: when ing in straight lines. carefully stated: he did not say mat cath­ exactly do we take something to be Physicists soon split diemseives into ode rays arc not electrically charged, evidence for a particular conclusion? two camps providing different theories only that given the characteristics of his This is obviously of crucial importance to concerning the nature of cathode rays: apparatus, there was no reason to believe skeptical investigations as well and it is on the one hand they were thought to so. In other words, his experiment was worth pondering a bit. First off, notice be atoms or gas molecules inside the evidence for the hypothesis that cathode diat nobody here was disputing the facts. tube that had become negatively rays arc not electrically charged. Thomson never believed Hertz's conclu­ charged. An alternative hypothesis was In 1897, the British physicist J.J. sions (which is why he carried out his that the)' were not panicles at all, but Thomson repeated Hertz's experiment, experiments), but he did not question his rather a type of wave moving through obtaining die same results. However, he ether. Heinrich Hertz was among the then went further and lowered the pres­ Massimo Pigliucci is associate professor of physicists proposing die second sce­ sure of the air inside the apparatus more ecology and evolutionary biology at the nario, and in 1883 he conducted a cru­ than was technically possible in Hertz's University of Tennessee and author of cial experiment to demonstrate that days. Sure enough, Thomson did detect Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scien- cathode rays were not in fact charged a dear deviation of cathode rays toward tism, and die Nature of Science. His particles. Hertz generated cathode rays a positively charged plate, which he took essays can be found at www.rationally inside an apparatus that included an as conclusive evidence not only that the speaking.org.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 29 results. Indeed, Thomson used the same though it may not be true. Anybody in research showed that they were flawed son of conditions employed by Hertz to the same epistemic situation (i.e., with in an important respect. confirm his results before showing why the same knowledge and understanding) Most scientists (and, I suspect, many they were misleading. of Hertz in 1883 would have been skeptics) are much more interested in There are at least three ways of think­ justified in accepting Hertz's conclusions. the third (veridical) sense of evidence, ing about the Hertz-Thomson story that In the second case, we are accepting while historians and philosophers are reflect three concepts of evidence of a subjective view of evidence. What we fascinated by the first two. The problem which we need to be aware. First, one are saying is that evidence is relative to is that by the very nature of the scien­ could say that Hertz's 1883 results were a particular person or group of persons: tific enterprise we can never be sure that in fact strong evidence that cathode rays it was sensible to accept Hertz's conclu­ some evidence is veridical in respect to arc not charged, but that the latter con­ sions in 1883, but no longer in 1897. a given theory: it could always happen clusion has nonetheless turned out to be There is a subtle difference with the that the next day somebody else pub­ false in the end. Second, we could claim first case: subjective evidence requires lishes an experiment showing a flaw in that Hertz's results were strong evidence that somebody actually does believe that the procedures followed thus far in for the neutrality of cathode rays the evidence in question supports a cer­ order to demonstrate a certain conclu­ between 1883 and 1897, but no longer tain theory. The epistemic concept of sion. Just because we live in the twenty- so after Thomson published his experi­ evidence discussed above, on the other first century doesn't mean we have an a- ments. Finally, one might advance the hand, is valid even without anybody historical, God's eye view of things, so proposition that Hertz's results were in actually believing that the evidence that we know that Thomson was defi­ fact never strong evidence that cathode points to a certain conclusion: in the nitely correct and that's the end of the rays are electrically neutral. case of the epistemic situation, ;/ matter. All we can say is that, given our If we accept die first answer, we are anybody had access to the knowledge epistemic situation, it seems highly saying that evidence is a matter of epis­ that Hertz had at the time, she would likely that Thomson did in fact reach temic status, i.e., relative to the knowl­ have been justified in agreeing with his the final conclusion on the nature of edge available in 1883, the first set of conclusions. electrons. But we could be wrong. results were indeed good evidence to con­ Finally, one could say that evidence clude for the neutrality of the rays. The has to be veridical (i.e., has to carry Further Reading fact that Hertz turned out to be wrong is truth-value), so that Hertz's experi­

not a problem, since one can be perfectly ments were not good evidence for Peter Achinstein. 2001. The Book of Evidence, justified in believing a hypothesis even his conclusions simply because later Oxford University Press.

LESSONS OF THE FAKE MOON Jennings was referring to Philip Plait, And to me the moon hoax controversy FLIGHT MYTH an educator (not a professor) in was not a bothersome distraction, but a From page 23 California who runs the Bad Astronomy unique opportunity. Web site that discusses many mythical This is the way I see it: If many peo­ aspects of outer space. What Plait actu­ ple who are exposed to the hoaxist argu­ ABC's World News Tonight anchor Peter ally had said was that he felt it was ments find them credible, it is neither Jennings chose the subject for his clos­ proper for NASA to respond, but that it the fault of the hoaxists or of their ing story: "Finally this evening, we're did seem "beneath their dignity" to be believers—it's the fault of the educators not quite sure what we think about forced to do it. Contrary to Jennings's and explainers (NASA among them) this," he intoned. "But the space agency account. Plait fully supported the who were responsible for providing ade­ is going to spend a few thousand dollars monograph contract. quate knowledge and workable reason­ trying to prove to some people that the But that TV insult did it as far as ing skills. And the localized success of United States did indeed land men on NASA management was concerned. the hoaxist arguments thus provides us the moon." Their dignity called into question, and with a detection system to identify just Jennings described how "NASA had fearing angry telephone calls from con­ where these resources are inadequate. been so rattled" it "hired" somebody "to gressmen returning to Washington after I intend to complete the project, write a book refuting die conspiracy die- die election, diey decided to revoke die depending on successfully arranging orists." He closed widi a misquotation: contract. They paid for work done to date new funding sources. The popularity of "A professor of astronomy in California and washed dieir hands of die project. this particular mydi is a heaven-sent (or said he thought it was beneath NASA's Many educators contacted me in dis­ actually, an "outer-space-sent") opportu­ dignity to give these Twinkles the time may. Like diem, and unlike the NASA nity to address fundamental issues of of day. Now, that was his phrase, by the spokesmen, I had always felt that "there public understanding of technological way. We simply wonder about NASA." is no such thing as a stupid question." controversies. LJ

30 March/Apnl 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER IV;

Levity with Lifters

laims of anti-gravity keep pop­ the testing surface." So says the Lifter effect, especially now that NASA and ping up all the time—it seems FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) sec­ otJicr well-respected scientific authori­ Cthat nothing will keep them tion on American Antigravity's Yahoo ties have experimented with it." (If you down. Robert L. Park exposed certain discussion group. purchase a physics textbook that does large aerospace companies' flirtation Now, lots of devices contain electrical describe this supposed "effect," I recom­ with the so-called "Podkletnov gravity capacitors, but nobody expects to see mend that you return it as defective.) shield" (SI November/December 2002, them rising into the air. Ah, but you are However, it is indisputable that the p. 7), which has unfortunately not yet forgetting about the "Biefeld-Brown "lifters" really are rising into the air. The resulted in a gravity-shielded airliner. But according to a growing number of enthusiasts, "lifters" can use electric The lifters do indeed fly, charges to cancel gravity—and they give detailed instructions so that you can using the little-known build one of them in your own home! phenomenon of ion wind. (See http://groups.yahoo.coni/group/ americanantigravity/files/How-To- Documents/.) The leading promoter of "lifter tech­ effect," named for its supposed discover­ so-called "lifter effect" can be repeated nology" is the appropriately named ers Alfred Biefeld and T Townsend on demand, and does not conceal itself American Antigravity (www.american Brown, who founded the once-influen­ from scrutiny by skeptics or hide from antigravity.com). The Web site is filled tial UFO group NICAP. (If you want to cameras and videos, as do most alleged with pictures of actual "lifters" in flight. know more about Brown and his exper­ "unknown phenomena." So an explana­ A "lifter" is a simple triangular device iments, there's a whole chapter about tion of some kind is clearly warranted. made of lightweight balsawood contain­ him in The Philadelphia Experiment: Actually, the explanation is not diffi­ ing wires and aluminum foil that are Project Invisibility by William L Moore cult to find: the lifters do indeed fly, charged with high voltage, acting as an and Charles Berlitz.) According to the using the little-known phenomenon of electric capacitor. "The Lifter utilizes FAQ, "The Biefeld-Brown effect has ion wind. Highly electrically charged the aluminum-foil skirt as the nega­ been described as a net-directional plates will bleed some of their charge tively-charged capacitive plate, which motive force exerted on a capacitor into nearby air molecules, causing them has a very large surface area on which to when a high-voltage charge is applied. to become ionized. As these ions rush store charge compared to the corona- . . . The Biefeld-Brown effect has tradi­ toward the nearby oppositely charged wire. The difference in size between tionally been neglected in physics text­ plate, the)' run into other molecules in tJicsc two capacitive surfaces means that books because it was not well under­ their path, setting up a wind effect. If the net-directional motive force should stood and many researchers and physi­ push from the larger plate towards die cists weren't even sure if it existed. Robert Sheaffers World Wide Web page for smaller plate—in the case of the Lifter, Newer text-books may well contain UFOs and other skeptical subjects is at pushing the apparatus upward, and off information on the Biefeld-Brown www.debunker.com.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 31 the device is light enough and its electric something turned out to be nothing crash, such as die date. Still, Kaufmann charge is sufficiently strong, it will rise more than evidence of a furrow in the spoke convincingly, had documents to into the air for the same reason that a ground, which might have been caused support his tale, and seemed to supply so helicopter rises from the downward by an alien crash—or a burrowing ani­ many credible facts about the "crash" diat wind created by its rotating blades. mal. But the "smoking gun" was actually UFOlogists found it impossible to ignore However, the "lifter" will remain aloft nothing more than researcher David his account. The pro-Roswell researcher only so long as it has enough charge to Rudiak's earlier claim to be able to read Kevin Randle wrote, "It seemed diat every keep the ion wind blowing—and it about "victims" of a saucer crash in a time we began to doubt, or ask difficult must be connected by wires to a bulky blurry news photo of General Ramey questions, Kaufmann would provide power source that remains on the holding a memo while reciting die sup­ anodier a litde bit of documentation ground! Break the ion wind, and the posed Roswell "cover story" about a bal­ along with broad hints diat he had much "Biefeld-Brown effect" vanishes. Even loon (see www. roswellproof. homestead, more. He said, repeatedly, when the time NASA's "Breakthrough Propulsion com). In the most shameless example of came, he had the documents to prove Physics" group, whose mission seems to TV hucksterism since Geraldo Rivera's what he said. ... Kaufmann died in be a quest for the science fiction Holy prime-time excavation of what he called February, 2001, without ever been proved Grail of "warp drives," includes "lifters" "Al Capone's vault" uncovered precisely [sic] a liar and a fraud." and other "electrogravitic" anti-gravity nothing, The Roswell Crash ended by The proof, however, was not long in devices on its Web site under "common ostentatiously carrying bags of dirt under coming. After Kaufmann's death, errors" (www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/ heavy armed guard to be placed in a CUFOS Scientific Director Dr. Mark ComnErr.html): "Even in a vacuum, bank vault, because nobody had proven Rodigher and two of his colleagues met diere can still be enough ion motion or that they did not contain microscopic with Kaufmann's widow to attempt to corona discharge to cause counter extraterrestrial artifacts. secure whatever additional documenta­ forces. If the devices were operating by The other, more famous UFO- tion he might have had concerning the something other than ion wind, riien related programming on that channel alleged UFO crash. What they found such devices would appear to violate has been Steven Spielberg's appropri­ was truly amazing, beyond what any of 'Conservation of Momentum,' a basic ately-named big-budget mega-series, them had expected. They found law of known physics." Taken. While the series is admittedly fic­ Kaufmann's true, undoctored military American Antigravity concedes to its tional and hence beyond criticism on record that, unlike the copy he showed critics, "Although ion-wind does factual matters, it purports to be based them, revealed he had never worked in undoubtedly provide some motive-force upon real-life incidents. Indeed, the intelligence. "To put it quite plainly, on our test-apparatus, the substantial Science Fiction Channel has set up a Frank Kaufmann created an altered ver­ body of evidence at this time indicates "UFOlogy Resource Center" on its Web sion of an official document to present a that ion-wind could not provide the site at www.scifi.com/ufo, where the fic­ false version of his military career con­ necessary force that has been measured tional Taken and purportedly factual sistent with his claims about his involve­ on the Lifter and related technologies." material mingle freely. As the old adage ment with the events at Roswell. His If they are correct, we'll have to toss all warns: don't get "Taken"! supposed work in intelligence was used our old physics books into the trash— As for the "serious" Roswell evidence: to explain how he came to be so knowl­ but don't hold your breath waiting for the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), edgeable about what crashed at Roswell Biefeld and Brown to replace Newton. which purports to do scientific research and the subsequent military cover-up," Rodigher writes. Another document, a * » » on the subject (and is also reported to be nearing financial insolvency), has memo purporting to show Kaufmann's The Science Fiction Channel certainly recently acknowledged—witli admirable involvement in a "Flying Disk" recovery lived up to its name with its supposed courage—mat one of die most famous team, was dated July 25, 1947. signed documentary The Roswell Crash— and credible Roswell witnesses appears to by Major Lester Garrigues. Rodigher Startling New Evidence, which premiered have been lying all along. The late Frank determined that Garrigues was still liv­ on November 22, 2002 (see Dave Kaufmann claimed to have served in ing, and got in contact with him. Thomas's report in diis issue, page 16). military intelligence at Roswell in 1947, Garrigues not only stated that he had Prior to the broadcast, network represen­ allegedly working on the retrieval of already been transferred from Roswell to tatives were promising it contains a dead aliens and UFO wreckage (see an overseas assignment on the date in "smoking gun," aluSough after seeing the www.cufos.org/FrankKauftnannExposed. question, but produced documentation show the only thing smoking seemed to pdf)- His claims were widely believed by to prove it. Worst of all, it was deter­ have been die show's producers. Shovels UFOlogists, in spite of certain difficulties mined that Kaufmann owned an old in hand at the supposed Roswell "crash tliat they posed: his name did not appear typewriter whose typeface was an exact site," (actually, one of several alleged in die base yearbook for 1947, and some sites), the researchers had found some­ of his statements contradicted other sup­ LEVITY WITH LIFTERS thing, they tantalizingly hinted. That posed "known facts" about die alleged Continued on page 36

32 March/Apnl 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD MASSIMO POLIDORO

William S. Marriott's Gambols with the Ghosts

"s Spiritualism a fraud? Are the exponent of the theory of fraud in illusions was known as "Dr. Wilmar's spirit-rappings and the spirit- Spiritualism in this country." Spirit Paintings" and consisted in the . forms of the stance, the prophe­ Information on him, however, is production of apparently paranormal "i; paintings, duplicating the claimed psy­ cies of the palmist and the clairvoyant, quite sparse and hard to find. For this the visions of the trance mediums, gen­ reason 1 would be very grateful to any chic phenomena of the Chicago medi­ uine evidence of a spirit-world, or are reader who could provide additional ums the Bangs sisters (Nickell 2000). they mere catchpenny tricks, engineered details on his life. This, then, is some of According to writer Leslie A. Shepard, by charlatans to charm money from the what is known. author of Encyclopedia of Occultism and pockets of die credulous?" (1991), this illusion "so impressed a fellow magician P. T. Selbit These are the questions by which the that he agreed to pay Marriott a weekly editor of Pearson's Magazine introduced, royalty for the use of the illusion." in March 1910, a series of articles investi­ However, Marriott himself was not gating Spiritualism, "in order that readers entirely straightforward in claiming of Pearson's Magazine may judge for them­ rights on the illusion, since he had selves the pros and cons of this tremen­ obtained the secret from David P. dously important subject. If Spiritualism Abbot, an amateur magician. When is genuine, it ought to be a vital factor in Selbit presented the illusion at the the lives of us all: if false, then it and its Orpheum Theatre in Omaha in 1911. high priests should be ruthlessly exposed Abbott saw the show and visited Selbit and believers in it disillusioned of a faith backstage, when he learned that Selbit that is altogether vain." had already paid Marriott sonic $10,000 On such a quest, the editor declared in royalties!" of having been "fortunate in securing the co-operation of Mr. William One of his first valuable scoops con­ Marriott, who has made a life-long sisted in locating and publicizing a rare study of the occult." copy of Gambols With the Ghosts: Mind Some readers of this magazine may Reading, Spiritualistic Effects, Mental be familiar with the name of Marriott, and Psychical Phenomena and Horoscopy, however it is very likely that the major­ William Marriott shows how to fake the a secret catalog of spiritualistic para­ materialization of ghosts with props bought phernalia and tricks then circulating ity has never heard of him. This is quite from the Gambols with the Ghosts catalogue. unfortunate, since Marriott proved to be among mediums. The catalog was issued a very capable magician and skeptical Gambols with the Ghosts in 1901 by Ralph E. Sylvestre of investigator of psychic claims well William S. Marriott, a likeable fellow before Houdini turned to the same sub­ with a pair of well-waxed moustaches, Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the ject. The Spiritualist journal Light, the was a British professional magician who paranormal, author, lecturer, and co- then-official organ of the London performed under the pseudonym of founder and head of CICAP, the Italian Spiritualist Alliance, called him "the best "Dr. Wilmar." One of his best known skeptics group.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apni 2003 33 Chicago and was designed for private fered bereavement. It is on emotions as "King Draco." He gave a gracious circulation among mediums, on the and affections that ought to be sacred inclination of his head, moved his hands that the mediums trade, holding out understanding that it would be returned as if to bless, and retired into the cabinet. the hope of possible communication to Sylvestre when tricks had been with the departed friend or relative. I I will let Marriott continue the story: selected from it. believe that a great proportion of con­ This should have closed the stance. The catalog had an introductory note versions to Spiritualism are traceable Tonight an unrehearsed effect was in which stated: "Our experience during to undue influence used at times like store for the believers. As the form these; and I am certain that this factor the past thirty years in supplying medi­ entered the cabinet, he sat down on operates very largely to make the ums and others with the peculiar effects what he thought was the settee. It medium's profession as profitable as it happened to be my knees. I had in this line enable us to place before you often undoubtedly is; for, while (he quickly slipped into the curtained only those which are practical and of use, inclosure and was sitting, waiting for nothing that you have to experiment him to come back. As my arms went with. We wish you to thoroughly appre­ around him he gave a yell followed by ciate that, while we do not, for obvious language which I will noc repeat. My friend had the light up in a moment. reasons, mention the names of our And there for the faithful was the edi­ clients and their work (they being kept fying sight of the medium, clothed in in strict confidence, the same as a physi­ flimsy white draperies, struggling in cian treats his patients), we can furnish the arms of myself! you with the explanation and, where Marriott then went on detailing how necessary, die material for the produc­ the various effects seen at the seance had tion of any known public 'tests' or 'phe­ been accomplished by trickery. On visit­ nomena' not mentioned in this, our lat­ ing the house the following day, the est list. You are aware that our effects are magician found that the birds had flown. being used by nearly all prominent The medium had vanished into thin air; mediums of the entire world." though, as Marriott later found, "they This notorious catalog (a copy of contrived to keep in touch with some of which is still preserved in the Harry the circle they had gathered round them, Price Library of Magical Literature at who still, strangest of all, maintained the University of London) included their faith in these incapable charlatans." equipment for slate-writing, self-playing However, as Marriott himself guitars, self-rapping tables, materializa­ observed, true believers can't be shaken tions, and a "Complete Spiritualistic in their dearly held beliefs: "Only the Seance." Marriott obtained a number of other day," the magician observed, "I these illusions and had himself pho­ was talking to a prominent Spiritualist, tographed posing with them. Gambols with the Ghosts: a secret fake catalogue for fake mediums. whose belief is absolutely fixed; and, in A Spirit on My Knees reply to all my arguments and demon­ ordinary seance fee may be anything strations, he merely shook his head, In 1909 Marriott was approached by from half-a-crown to half-a-guinea, and, with a smile, observed: Ah, my Pearson's Magazine in order to conduct, cases have come under my notice of friend, you haven't seen what I have on behalf of the magazine, a series of mediums extorting considerable sums seen." He was wrong. Fortunately, I had investigations on mediums, clairvoy­ by foisting alleged messages from the odier world on credulous people. In seen very much more than he had seen; ants, and healers the results of which cases of this sort, of course, the medi­ and in that fact lies the whole explana­ was afterwards published, in 1910, in ums are bringing themselves well tion of one man's belief and another four issues of the magazine. All of the within reach of the atm of the law, man's disbelief—one sees too little; one articles are wonderful exposes of several but the cases where evidence is too much." then (and still now!) popular fads. obtainable arc unfortunately few. In "The Realities of the Seance!," the He records some hilarious episodes. Embracing a Ghost first installment of the series, Marriott At one seance the medium took a posi­ One of die things that most impressed takes aim at Spiritualistic seances and, tion inside a curtained enclosure, the so- Marriott during his investigation of psy­ on die basis of his experiences, writes: called "spirit cabinet," and the gaslight chic maners was the fact that illustrious At many of the seances I was particu­ was put out. After a while die curtain scientists were ready to stake their repu­ larly struck by this feet. A very large parted and a stately form emerged from tation in favor of some badly observed proportion of die regular clientele of demonstration by a medium. But, he the mediums was invariably com­ the cabinet. He was partially luminous, posed, as one could judge by the and carried a luminous globe in his hand advised, "scientists, however eminent, questions asked, and by their sombre which he held near the face to make it are emphatically not die people to inves­ dress of people who had recendy suf­ more visible. The sitters recognized him tigate these matters." Being a magician

34 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER himself, he knew perfectly well that a accordingly did—well, as any gentleman sial Italian medium : physicist is no match for a competent would do under the circumstances." "More has been written about her and trickster: "The scientist who sits where Exclamation marks, italics and all the her phenomena than about any other he is told to sit and looks where he is stereotyped forms of wonder would be medium. She has been detected in trick­ told to look is the ideal subject for the wasted on this amazing revelation. "Sir ery again and again, but she has wiles of the conjuror or the medium; William, after walking and talking with undoubtedly succeeded in mystifying and before him effects can be brought quite a large number of scientific men." off that would be impossible before an In his paper Marriott excluded any audience of schoolboys." interest in going after Eusapia: "I am To illustrate this fact, Marriott constantly being told that I really ought, describes the experiments conducted by in the interests of truth, to go out to physicist William Crookes on famous investigate this woman's phenomena. I mediums and observes: "Brilliant as he certainly do not propose to waste is in investigations where chemical pre­ months or even weeks on a journey to cision and insight only are required, he add to the exposure of this fraud, proved himself totally unable to make whether in Italy or in America." any allowance for the human equation." However, only a few months after the Crookes's experiments with the publication of these words, Marriott was medium Florence Cook, who claimed to well on his way to Naples to sit with be able to "materialize" a spirit called Katie Palladino. King, illustrate this fact. She was pho­ It had happened that Marriott's good tographed on several occasions, and Sir friend, psychic researcher Everard William Crookes wrote at the time: "But Feilding, had persuaded him to change photography is as inadequate to depict the his mind. Feilding, then Honorary perfect beauty of Katie's face as words arc Secretary of the Society for Psychical powerless to describe her charms of man­ Research, had sat with Eusapia in 1908 ner." And he proceeds to quote: A fake spirit picture, taken by William Marriott and, along with his colleagues, reached showing Arthur Conan Doyle with some of his the conclusion that "some force was in Round her she made an atmosphere beloved fairies. of life; play which was beyond the The very air seemed lighter reach of ordinary control, from her eyes, Mr. MARRIOTTS DEMONSTRATION and beyond the skill of the They were so soft, and beauti­ ful, and rife By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. most skilled conjurer" With all wc can imagine of Mr. Marriott has clearly proved one (Feilding, Baggally, and the skies; point, which is that a trained conjurer Carrington 1909; readers Her overpowering presence interested in a critical exami­ made you feel can, under the close inspection of three nation of this famous paper, It would not be idolatry to pairs of critical eyes, put a false image kneel. upon a plate. We must unreservedly also known as the "Feilding Report," can find a detailed Marriott was quite impressed: admit it. examination of it in my "In view of this panegyric, one upcoming book Secrets of the cannot be surprised at the fol­ j'TziUm £*++*+ £)^xuz 0. Psychics). lowing naive account of the A billet that Conan Doyle had to sign when he realized that he had been unable However, in 1909 and wonderful seance, found to catch Marriott in the act of faking the spirit picture. 1910, Eusapia had been absolutely convincing by Sir caught cheating in the William Crookes," who wrote fol- a young woman for two hours; after United States. This is how Marriott tells lows: "Katie never appeared to greater holding her in his arms and presumably the story: "On this occasion, Mr. Hugo perfection, and for nearly two hours she kissing her; after emphasizing the Munsterberg, an American investigator, walked about the room, conversing strength of his impression that she was a introduced a man secretly into the cabi­ familiarly with those present. On several living woman, still prefers to believe, not net behind Eusapia's chair. From this occasions she took my arm when walk­ that she was a mundane being in collu­ cabinet various objects are brought forth ing, and the impression conveyed to my sion with the medium, but that she at her seances without any apparent mind that it was a living woman by my was—a spirit!" intervention on her part, this being the side, instead of a visitor from the other 'evidence*—remarkable evidence, in­ world, was so strong that... I asked her Catching the Medium's Foot deed—of the truth of Spiritualism, permission to clasp her in my arms. In the last article for Pearson's Magazine, which the medium affords. When the Permission was graciously given, and 1 Marriott commented on the controver­ seance had commenced, this man found

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 35 Eusapia stretching one of her legs out pairs of critical eyes, put a false image LEVITY WITH LIFTERS backwards past the side of her chair into upon a plate. We must unreservedly From page 32 the cabinet, and groping with her toes admit it." match to that on three alleged Roswell for the guitar lying there ready to be Marriott had not demonstrated that documents. Rodigher concludes, "Given produced by 'spirit' agency. He naturally Hope was a fake but had shown that what all this evidence of counterfeit docu­ seized hold of her foot, Eusapia had been termed by believers "impossi­ ments, we can have no confidence in screamed wildly, and the seance broke ble" to reproduce by normal means could any details of Kaufmann's testimony, up in confusion." actually be done by a clever magician. even though he certainly was in Roswell Feilding, convinced that in 1908 he Contrary to Houdini, who offered money in 1947 and worked at the base (though had witnessed real phenomena, be­ to anyone who could perform a psychic in the personnel office, not intelligence). lieved that Eusapia resorted to fraud feat that he could not duplicate, Marriott We can speculate on his motives and only to supplement her genuine pow­ simply showed that alternative explana­ why he deceived investigators, but that ers, and so decided to return to Naples tions to apparent miracles existed and will probably be of little use today. The to verify his beliefs. He wanted to be then invited the open-minded observers critical point is that we have determined sure, however, and that's why he to decide for themselves which explana­ the validity of Kaufmann's testimony, insisted in having Marriott as his part­ tion was the more probable. and can now discard it as we seek to ner in this investigation. "If I am one of the 'scoffers'," wrote establish what exactly did, and did not, The attempt was a failure; Eusapia Marriott who was described by Harry occur at Roswell in July 1947." systematically cheated as she had done in Price as "happily still living" in 1942, "it The problem for the Roswell promot­ the United States, and as Feilding himself is not because of any original bias, but ers is, however, that with the credibility expressed it, "Everydiing this time was because of the arrant humbug, cheap of "crash witness" Frank Kaufmann's tes­ different." The verdict on the five sittings trickery, and pathetic self-delusion that I timony now refuted, as previously was (Marriott was present at the three last) have encountered at every point of my that of star "crash witnesses" Jim was that they were, "in the opinion of all investigations of Spiritualism, and I Ragsdale, Gerald Anderson, and Glen those present unquestionably mainly, and combat the teachings of Sir Oliver Dennis, little or nothing remains of so- in the opinion of Mr Marriott wholly, Lodge and his co-believers because I called "crash testimony." And Roswell fraudulent" (Feilding 1911). believe them to be in defiance of the critic Karl Pflock has recently noted that soundest of all laws—those of common if Kaufmann has not been telling the Conan Doyle Admits Defeat sense and human experience." truth, then it becomes very difficult to believe the story told by Walter Haut, Marriott, along with psychic researcher Acknowledgments founder of the Roswell UFO Museum. Harry Price and Houdini, was also Haut, the Roswell Army Air Field pub­ involved in the Crewe Circle drama 1 wish to thank Hilary Evans, owner with his licity officer who in 1947 issued the (Polidoro 2001). In 1921 a journalist, family of the singularly precious Mary Evans famous press release stating that they had James Douglas, had a photo of himself Picture Library in London (www.mepl. recovered the debris of a flying disk, co.uk) for kindly passing along some inter­ taken by medium William Hope, of the would have been in a position to know esting material on William Marriott. Crewe Circle mediumistic group, that, that Kaufmann had been lying about when developed, showed the presence working in "army intelligence"—yet sup­ References ported his story wholeheartedly. of a spirit extra. Douglas was so impressed by the phenomenon that he Feilding. E., w".W. Baggally. and H. Carrington. But like Charlie Brown who can issued a public challenge to anyone who 1909. Report on a series of sittings with Eusapia Palladino. Proceedings of the SPR always be persuaded that this time Lucy could duplicate the feat without using XXIII, 309-569. will not pull the football away just as he psychic powers. Marriott accepted the Feilding, E 1911. Proceedings of the SPR, XXV, 57-69. goes to kick it, "serious UFOlogists" will challenge and performed not only in Marriott, W.S. 1910. On the Edge of the never wake up to the reality that their front of Douglas but of Conan Doyle Unknown (The Realities of the Seance!, dreamed-of Roswell Field Goal is just an March; "Spirit Messages," April; Healers who and Everard Feilding as well. He pro­ do not Heal," May, "Physical Phenomena." illusion. And even in the unlikely case duced a picture of Douglas and Doyle June.) Pearson's Magazine, March-June. that CUFOS and certain other major with a young woman and a picture of Nickell. Joe. 2000. Spirit Paintings: The Bangs UFO organizations were finally per­ Doyle with little fairies dancing in front Sisters. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 23(3), June. suaded to abandon belief in the alleged Shepard. LA. 1991. Encyclopedia of Occultism Roswell crash, the story would still live of him. He then explained in detail how and Parapsychology. Detroit: Gale Research Inc. he had tricked them and Doyle felt Polidoro. M. 2002. Final Stance. The Strange forever in the minds of the public, compelled to write a public statement: Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. thanks now to Steven Spielberg and "Mr. Marriott has clearly proved one Buffalo: Prometheus Books. many others. Once a story of this mag­ , 2003. Secrets of the Psychics: Investigating nitude plants itself in the popular imagi­ point, which is that a trained conjurer Paranormal Claims. Buffalo: Prometheus can, under the close inspection of three Books. • nation, nothing will ever lay it to rest-D

36 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER The Blank Slate The Modern Denial of Iluman Nature

Many intellectuals and social critics have still not moved beyond the simplistic dichotomy between heredity and environment to acknowledge that all behavior comes out of an interaction between the two. The author argues not that genes are everything and culture is nothing—no one believes that— but explores why the extreme position (that culture is everything) is so often seen as moderate, and the moderate position is seen as extreme.

STEVEN PINKER

££ "1L "T*ot another book on nature and nurture! Are ^L I there really people out there who still believe JL ^1 that the mind is a blank slate? Isn't it obvious to anyone with more than one child, to anyone who has been in a heterosexual relationship, or to anyone who has noticed that children learn language but house pets don't, that people are born with certain talents and temperaments? Haven't we all moved beyond the simplistic dichotomy between heredity and environment and realized that all behavior comes out of an interaction between the two?" This is the kind of reaction I got from colleagues when I explained my plans for my new book, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. At first glance the reaction

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Match/April 2003 37 is not unreasonable. Maybe nature versus nurture is a dead have been picketed, shouted down, subjected to searing invec­ issue. Anyone familiar with current writings on mind and tive in the press, even denounced in Congress. Others express­ behavior has seen claims to the middle ground like these: ing such opinions have been censored, assaulted, or threatened with criminal prosecution.1 If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or envi­ ronmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the The idea that nature and nurture interact to shape some other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting part of the mind might turn out to be wrong, but it is not one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both wishy-washy or unexceptionable, even in the twenty-first cen­ genes and environment have something to do with this issue. tury, thousands of years after the issue was framed. When it What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possi­ issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet jus­ tify an estimate. bility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to This is not going to be one of those books that says everything is genetic: it isn't. The environment is just as endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reac­ important as the genes. The things children experience tionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. while they are growing up are just as important as the things Any claim that the mind has an innate organization strikes they are born with. people not as a hypothesis diat might be incorrect but as a Even when a behavior is heritable, an individual's behavior thought it is immoral to think. is still a product of development, and The Blank Slate is about the moral, thus it has a causal environmental com­ emotional, and political colorings of the ponent. . . . The modern understanding of how phenotypes are inherited concept of human nature in modern life. through the replication of both genetic I retrace die history that led people to see and environmental conditions suggests human nature as a dangerous idea, and I that . . . cultural traditions—behaviors try to unsnarl the moral and political rat's copied by children from their parents— are likely to be crucial. nests that have entangled the idea along die way. Though no book on human If you think these are innocuous com­ nature can hope to be uncontroversial, I promises that show that everyone did not write it to be yet another "explo­ has outgrown the nature-nurture sive" book, as dust jackets tend to say. I dichotomy, think again. The quotations am not, as many people assume, counter­ come, in fact, from three of the most ing an extreme "nurture" position with incendiary books of the last decade. The an extreme "nature" position, widi the first is from The Bell Curve by Richard truth lying somewhere in between. In Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994, some cases, an extreme environmentalist p. 311), who argue that the difference in explanation is correct: which language average IQ scores between American you speak is an obvious example, and dif­ blacks and American whites has both ferences among races and ethnic groups genetic and environmental causes. The in test scores may be another. In other second is from The Nurture Assumption cases, such as some inherited neurological by Judith Rich Harris (1998, p. 2), who Steven Pinker disorders, an extreme hereditarian explana­ argues that children's personalities are tion is correct. In most cases die correct shaped by their genes as well as by their environments, so simi­ explanation will invoke a complex interaction between heredity larities between children and their parents may come from their and environment: culture is crucial, but culture could not exist shared genes and not just from the effects of parenting. The without mental faculties diat allow humans to create and learn third is from A Natural History of Rape by Randy Thornhill and culture to begin with. My goal in die book is not to argue that Craig Palmer (2001, p. 176, quotation modified to make it gen­ genes are everything and culture is nodiing—no one believes der neutral), who argue that rape is not simply a product of cul­ diat—but to explore why the extreme position (that culture is ture but also has roots in die nature of men's sexuality. For evetything) is so often seen as moderate, and the moderate posi­ invoking nurture and nature, not nurture alone, these authors tion is seen as extreme. Nor does acknowledging human nature have die political Steven Pinker is Peter de Florez Professor of Psychology at MIT. implications so many fear. It does not, for example, require His research on visual cognition and the psychology of language one to abandon feminism, or to accept current levels of has earned prizes from the National Academy of Sciences and the inequality or violence, or to treat morality as a fiction. For the American Psychological Association. He has also received many most part I try not to advocate particular policies or to advance awards for his teaching at MIT and for his hooks How the Mind the agenda of the political left or right. I believe diat contro­ Works and The Language Instinct. He is a CSICOP Fellow. versies about policy almost always involve tradeoffs between This article is adapted from his book The Blank Slate: The competing values, and that science is equipped to identify die Modem Denial of Human Nature (Viking 2002). tradeoffs but not to resolve diem. Many of these tradeoffs, I

38 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER show, arise from features of human nature, and by clarifying ers away from it. The analysis of ideas is commonly replaced them I hope to make our collective choices, whatever they are, by political smears and personal attacks. This poisoning of the better informed. If I am an advocate, it is for discoveries about intellectual atmosphere has left us unequipped to analyze human nature that have been ignored or suppressed in mod­ pressing issues about human nature just as new scientific dis­ ern discussions of human affairs. coveries are making them acute. Why is it important to sort this all out? The refusal to The denial of human nature has spread beyond the acknowledge human nature is like the Victorians' embarrass­ academy and has led to a disconnect between intellectual life ment about sex, only worse: it distorts our science and schol­ and common sense. I first had the idea of writing die book arship, our public discourse, and our day-to-day lives. when I started a collection of astonishing claims from pundits Logicians tell us diat a single contradiction can corrupt a set of and social critics about the malleability of the human psyche: statements and allow falsehoods to proliferate through it. The that little boys quarrel and fight because they are encouraged dogma that human nature docs not exist, in the face of evi­ to do so; diat children enjoy sweets because their parents use dence from science and common sense that it does, is just such them as a reward for eating vegetables; that teenagers get the a corrupting influence. idea to compete in looks and fashion First, the doctrine that the mind is a from spelling bees and academic blank slate has distorted the study of prizes; that men think the goal of sex human beings, and thus die public and is an orgasm because of the way they private decisions diat are guided by were socialized. that research. Many policies on parent­ The problem is not just that diese ing, for example, are inspired by claims are preposterous but that the research that finds a correlation writers did not acknowledge they were between the behavior of parents and saying things that common sense the behavior of children. Loving par­ might call into question. This is the ents have confident children, authori­ mentality of a cult, in which fantastical tative parents (neidier too permissive beliefs are flaunted as proof of one's nor too punitive) have well-behaved piety. That mentality cannot coexist children, parents who talk to their chil­ with an esteem for the truth, and 1 dren have children with better language believe it is responsible for some of the skills, and so on. Everyone concludes unfortunate trends in recent intellec­ that to grow the best children, parents tual life. One trend is a stated contempt must be loving, authoritative, and talk­ among many scholars for the concepts ative, and if children don't turn out of truth, logic, and evidence. Anodier is well it must be the parents' fault. But a hypocritical divide between what the conclusions depend on the belief intellectuals say in public and what that children are blank slates. Parents, they really believe. A third is the remember, provide their children with inevitable reaction: a culture of "politi­ genes, not just a home environment. cally incorrect" shock jocks who revel The correlations between parents and in anti-intellectualism and bigotry, children may be telling us only that the emboldened by the knowledge that die same genes diat make adults loving, intellectual establishment has forfeited authoritative, and talkative make their children self-confident, claims to credibility in the eyes of the public. well-behaved, and articulate. Until die studies are redone with Finally, the denial of human nature has not just corrupted die adopted children (who get only their environment, not dieir world of critics and intellectuals but has done harm to die lives of genes, from their parents), the data are compatible widi die real people. The theory that parents can mold dieir children like possibility that genes make all the difference, the possibility clay has inflicted childrearing regimes on parents that are unnat­ that parenting makes all the difference, or anything in between. ural and sometimes cruel. It has distorted die choices faced by Yet in almost every instance, the most extreme position—that mothers as they try to balance their lives, and multiplied die parents are everything—is the only one researchers entertain. anguish of parents whose children haven't turned out the way they The taboo on human nature has not just put blinkers on hoped. The belief that human tastes are reversible cultural prefer­ researchers but turned any discussion of it into a heresy that ences has led social planners to write off people's enjoyment of must be stamped out. Many writers are so desperate to dis­ ornament, natural light, and human scale and force millions of credit any suggestion of an innate human constitution that people to live in cement boxes. The romantic notion that all evil they have thrown logic and civility out the window. is a product of society has justified die release of dangerous psy­ Elementary distinctions—"some" versus "all," "probable" ver­ chopaths who prompdy murdered innocent people. And die con­ sus "always," "is" versus "ought"—are eagerly flouted to paint viction diat humanity could be reshaped by massive social engi­ human nature as an extremist doctrine and thereby steer read­ neering projects led to some of the greatest atrocities in history.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 39 Though many of my arguments are coolly analytical—that we deal with the pressing issues confronting us. And it is for an acknowledgment of human nature does not, logically those who recognize that the sciences of mind, brain, genes, speaking, imply the negative outcomes so many people fear— and evolution are permanently changing our view of ourselves I try not to hide my conviction that they have a positive thrust and wonder whether the values we hold precious will wither, as well. "Man will become better when you show him what he survive, or (as I argue) be enhanced. is like," wrote Chekhov, and so the new sciences of human * * * nature can help lead the way to a realistic, biologically informed humanism. They expose the psychological unity of he Blank Slate was an attractive vision. It promised to our species beneath the superficial differences of physical Tmake racism, sexism, and class prejudice factually unten­ appearance and parochial culture. They make us appreciate the able. It appeared to be a bulwark against the kind of thinking wondrous complexity of the human mind, which we are apt to that led to ethnic genocide. It aimed to prevent people from take for granted precisely because it works so well. They iden­ slipping into a premature fatalism about preventable social ills. tify the moral intuitions that we can put to work in improving It put a spotlight on the treatment of children, indigenous our lot. They promise a naturalness in human relationships, peoples, and the underclass. The Blank Slate thus became part encouraging us to treat people in terms of how they do feel of a secular faith and appeared to constitute the common rather than how some theory says they ought to feel. They decency of our age. offer a touchstone by which we can identify suffering and But the Blank Slate had, and has, a dark side. The vacuum oppression wherever they occur, unmasking the rationaliza­ that it posited in human nature was eagerly filled by totalitar­ ian regimes, and it did nothing to prevent riieir genocides. It perverts education, chil- The theory that parents can mold their drearing, and the arts into forms of social engineering. It torments mothers who work children like clay has inflicted childrearing outside the home and parents whose chil­ regimes on parents that are unnatural dren did not turn out as they would have liked. It threatens to outlaw biomedical and sometimes cruel. research that could alleviate human suffer­ ing. Its corollary, the Noble Savage, invites tions of the powerful. They give us a way to see through the contempt for the principles of democracy and of "a government designs of self-anointed social reformers who would liberate us of laws and not of men." It blinds us to our cognitive and moral from our pleasures. They renew our appreciation for the shortcomings. And in matters of policy it has elevated sappy achievements of democracy and of the rule of law. And they dogmas above the search for workable solutions. enhance the insights of artists and philosophers who have The Blank Slate is not some ideal that we humans are just reflected on the human condition for millennia. too weak to fulfill. No, it is an anti-life, anti-human theoreti­ An honest discussion of human nature has never been more cal abstraction that denies our common humanity, our inher­ timely. Throughout the twentieth century, many intellectuals ent interests, and our individual preferences. Though it has tried to rest principles of decency on fragile factual claims such pretensions of celebrating our potential, it does the opposite, as that human beings are biologically indistinguishable, harbor because our potential comes from the combinatorial interplay no ignoble motives, and are utterly free in their ability to make of wonderfully complex faculties, not from the passive blank- choices. These claims are now being called into question by ness of an empty tablet. discoveries in the sciences of mind, brain, genes, and evolu­ Regardless of its good and bad effects, the Blank Slate is an tion. If nothing else, the completion of the Human Genome empirical hypothesis about the functioning of the brain and Project, with its promise of an unprecedented understanding must be evaluated in terms of whether or not it is true. The of the genetic roots of the intellect and the emotions, should modern sciences of mind, brain, genes, and evolution are serve as a wake-up call. The new scientific challenge to the increasingly showing that it is not true. The result is a rearguard denial of human nature leaves us with a challenge. If we are effort to salvage the Blank Slate by disfiguring science and intel­ not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our com­ lectual life: denying the possibility of objectivity and truth, mitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values dumbing down issues into dichotomies, replacing facts and away from claims about our psychological makeup that are logic with political posturing. vulnerable to being proven false. The Blank Slate became so enttenched in intellectual life that My book is for people who wonder where the taboo against the prospect of doing without it can be deeply unsettling. In human nature came from and who are willing to explore topics from childrearing to sexuality, from natural foods to vio­ whether the challenges to the taboo are truly dangerous or just lence, ideas that seemed immoral even to question turn out to unfamiliar. It is for those who are curious about the emerging be not just questionable but probably wrong. Even people with portrait of our species and curious about the legitimate criti­ no ideological ax to grind can feel a sense of vertigo when they cisms of that portrait. It is for those who suspect that the taboo learn of such taboos being broken: "O brave new world that has against human nature has left us playing without a full deck as such people in it!" Is science leading to a place where prejudice

40 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is all right, where children may be neglected, where their advice to their daughters, their dealings with the opposite Machiavellianism is accepted, where inequality and violence are sex, and their unguarded gossip, humor, and reflections on met with resignation, where people are treated like machines? their lives. Not at all! By unhandcuffing widely shared values from mori­ Acknowledging human nature does not mean overturning bund factual dogmas, the rationale for those values can only our personal world views, and I would have nothing to suggest become clearer. We understand why we condemn prejudice, cru­ as a replacement if it did. It means only taking intellectual life out elty to children, and violence against women, and can focus our of its parallel universe and reuniting it with science and, when it efforts on how to implement the goals we value most. We is borne out by science, with common sense. The alternative is to thereby protect those goals against the upheavals of factual make intellectual life increasingly irrelevant to human affairs, to understanding that science perennially delivers. turn intellectuals into hypocrites, and to turn everyone else into Abandoning the Blank Slate is not as radical as it might first anti-intellectuals. appear. True, ir k a revolution in many sectors of modern intellectual life. But except for a few intellectuals who have let Note their theories get the better of them, it is not a revolution in I. Hum, M. 1999. The New Know-Nothing: The Political Foes of the Scientific the world views of most people. I suspect that few people really Study of Human Naturt. New Brunswick. N.J.: Transaction Publishers; Kors. believe, deep down, that boys and girls are interchangeable, A.C.. and HA Silverglaie- 1998. The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty that all differences in intelligence come from the environment, of America's Campuses. New York: Free Press; P Rushton, "The new enemies of evolutionary science," Liberty, March 1998. pp. 31-35; "Psychologist Hans that parents can micromanage the personalities of their chil­ Eysenck, Freudian critic, dead at 81," Associated Press, September 8. 1997. dren, that humans are born free of selfish tendencies, or that appealing stories, melodies, and faces are arbitrary social con­ References structions. Margaret Mead, an icon of twentieth-century egal- Degler, C.N. 1991. In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and itarianism, told her daughter that she credited her own intel­ Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. New York: Oxford lectual talent to her genes, and I can confirm that such split University Press. personalities are common among academics (Degler 1991, p. Harris, J.R. 1995. Where is the child's environment: A group socialization 135). Scholars who publicly deny that intelligence is a mean­ dicory of development. Psychological Review 102:458-489. Herrnstein, R.J., and C. Murray. 1994. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class ingful concept treat it as anything but meaningless in their Structure in American Life. New York: Free Press. professional lives. Those who argue that gender differences are Thornhill, R., and C.T. Palmer. 2001. Rape and evolution: A reply to our crit­ a reversible social construction do not treat them that way in ics (Preface to the paperback cd.), A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

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SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 41 Omission Neglect The Importance of Missing Information

Although missing information is often important, people are surprisingly insensitive to omissions (or unmentioned options, features, issues, or possibilities). Neglecting important omissions has serious consequences for decision making. FRANK R. KARDES and DAVID M. SANBONMATSU

"^"TT"T"hen asked Dr. Watson to con- \ lL I sider the previous night's "curious incident" V V involving a dog, Watson replied that nothing happened (in "The Silver Blaze"). "That was the curious incident," observed Holmes. This clue enabled Holmes to deduce that the murderer must have been someone familiar to the victim's dog because the dog did not bark when the murderer appeared. Most people would miss this important clue because most people, like Watson, pay little attention to non-occurrences (Ross 1977). Nonevents are important in other situations as well. When forming beliefs about cause and effect, people typically focus on cases in which the cause and the effect co-occur.

42 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER *v^^ T ^^ H _

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•n Control group cases involving the absence of the cause tend to vided by clearly partisan sources? People are accustomed to using be neglected even though such cases are essential for establish­ whatever evidence is readily available to diem—however scant— ing causality. In fact, including a control group in experimen­ at die expense of otJier information that persuaders fail to men­ tal design did not gain widespread popularity until the publi­ tion (Sanbonmatsu, Kardes, Houghton, Ho, and Posavac in cation of A System of Logic by John Stuart Mill in 1887. press). Omission neglect (insensitivity to unmenrioned options, Scientists failed to recognize the critical importance of a con­ features, issues, or possibilities) is particularly problematic given trol group until relatively recently in the history of science die nature of die wodd. The amount of information used to because even scientists are remarkably insensitive to the describe various alrernarives—such as various political candi­ absence of a property (such as the absence of a cause). dates, job applicants, defendants, consumer goods, healthcare Another striking example of die difficulty people experi­ products, medical procedures, or possible decision outcomes— ence when attempting to think about non-incidents is evident typically varies dramatically across situations. Reports, speeches, in the history of zero. Numerical symbols first appeared in interviews, advertisements, and media coverage provide various 3400 B.C. However, no symbol for zero appeared until many centuries later when mathematicians began to use zero as a Frank R Kardes is a professor of marketing at the University of placeholder to replace blank spaces to distinguish between Cincinnati and the author of Consumer Behavior and numbers such as 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc. (Ifrah 1985). Zero Managerial Decision Making. He is a Fellow of the American served as a mere placeholder and was not used as a symbol for Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society the nothingness or the absence of quantity until about 800 A.D. It Society for Consumer Psychology, and the Society for Personality took early mathematicians thousands of years to develop the and Social Psychology David M. Sanbonmatsu, professor of psy­ crucial concept of zero. chology at the University of Utah, has published extensively on the In everyday life, consumers typically make decisions based on topics of attitudes, stereotypes, and judgment and decision making. diumbnail sketches of products described in advertisements and Much of the research summarized in this article was supported by odier biased promotional materials (Kardes 2002). Why are peo­ NSF grants SBR 9308383 and SBR 930830 awarded to Frank ple willing to make decisions based on scraps of information pro­ R Kardes and David M. Sanbonmatsu.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 43 levels of detail about different alternatives. Some alternatives are greater confidence when they remembered a little than when discussed at considerable length, while odiers are described only they remembered a lot (the remembering-less-and-inferring- briefly. To some extent, nearly everything is described in terms of more effect). In other words, people are often most confident limited, incomplete, or fragmentary evidence. when they are most wrong. Inferences are also influenced by beliefs about the strength of Belief and Evidence the relationship between presented and missing information. Research on omission neglect has shown that people often fail When presented and missing information are highly related, to detect the absence of important missing information, and this people can make inferences about unmentioned information leads people to form strong beliefs on the basis of weak evidence based on the presented information. For example, many con­ (Sanbonmatsu et al. 1991, 1992, 1997). Strong beliefs are sumers assume that price and quality are highly related (quality beliefs that arc overly extreme (those that arc highly favorable or increases as price increases; you get what you pay for). highly unfavorable when the available evidence is only moder­ Consequently, consumers infer that a high price signals high quality. However, consumers arc unlikely to attempt to form an inference about a missing attribute if they fail to notice that informa­ Consumers' inferences were more extreme tion is missing. When a large amount of information is presented about one product and were held with greater confidence when and a small amount is presented for another, they remembered a little than when they consumers are less sensitive to missing infor­ mation when the product described by the remembered a lot; people are often most larger amount of information is presented confident when they are most wrong. first rather than second (Kardes and Sanbonmatsu 1993). Consequently, people are less likely to form inferences and are more likely to prefer the two products equally ately favorable or moderately unfavorable, respectively) and held when the product described by the larger amount of information with a high degree of confidence. In general, people should form is presented first. more extreme beliefs when more rather than less information is available (the set-size effect; see Anderson 1981). However, Drawing Attention to Nothing when people are insensitive to omissions, people form extreme The results of research published by Sanbonmatsu, Kardes, beliefs regardless of how little is known about a topic and their colleagues suggest that omission neglect occurs (Sanbonmatsu ct al. 1991, 1992, 1997, in press). because missing information is not very salient or attention For example, people should form more favorable evaluations drawing. To the extent that this is true, omission neglect of a camera when the camera performs well on eight attributes should be reduced when the salience of missing information as opposed to only four attributes. When consumers are is enhanced. This can be accomplished by manipulating vari­ unknowledgeable or moderately knowledgeable about cameras, ables of motivation and context that increase sensitivity to however, diey form equally favorable attitudes toward the tar­ omissions and lead to more appropriate judgments. More get camera regardless of how much or how little information is moderate judgments are formed when people are sensitive to presented (Sanbonmatsu et al. 1992). Only die small subset of omissions due to an explicit warning that the given informa­ consumers who are highly knowledgeable about cameras form tion is incomplete (Sanbonmatsu et al. 1992), due to very more favorable attitudes when the target camera is described by high levels of prior knowledge about the target object or issue eight (versus four) favorable attributes. (Sanbonmatsu et al. 1991, 1992), or due to comparison Similar results are observed in inferential judgments (those processes that make it painfully obvious that some objects are that go beyond die information given; see Sanbonmatsu et al. described by a large amount of information whereas others 1991). Consumers received a brief description of a new ten- are described by a small amount (Sanbonmatsu et al. 1997, in speed bicycle and were asked to judge its durability even though press). Moderate judgments arc more accurate than extreme no information about durability was provided. When consumers judgments when information is limited (Griffin and Tversky inferred durability immediately after reading the description, 1992), are more readily updated as new information becomes diey realized that no information about durability was available available (Cialdini, Levy, Herman, and Evenbeck 1973), and and diey formed moderately favorable inferences about durabil­ are more justifiable to oneself and to others (Lerner and ity. However, when consumers inferred durability one week after Tetlock 1999; Shafir. Simonson, and Tversky 1993). reading the description, extremely favorable and confidendy- Although beliefs are generally more reasonable when peo­ held inferences were formed. This result was observed even ple are sensitive to omissions, such awareness is very difficult diough memory tests revealed diat after die one-week delay peo­ to foster. People frequently and typically neglect omissions. ple forgot most of the information diat had been presented. That Research on die tendency to learn more quickly when a dis­ is, consumers' inferences were more extreme and were held with tinguishing feature or symbol is present versus absent has

44 March/Apr,I 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER shown that people find it very difficult to learn that the Cause and Effect Reasoning absence of a feature is informative (Newman, Wolff, and People are insensitive to missing cases (as well as to missing Hearst 1980). Even when the presence or absence of a feature attributes, features, possibilities, and probability distributions) are equally informative, the relationship between the predic­ and this makes it difficult to learn the relationship between two tive feature and a desired event (e.g., food, water, positive variables (e.g., X and Y, cloud seeding and rain, holistic medi­ feedback) is learned much more rapidly when the feature is cine and good health). People often focus on cases involving the present as opposed to absent. The feature-positive effect is so presence of both variables and ignore cases involving the ubiquitous that it has been observed for humans, pigeons, absence of one or both variables (for reviews of covariation esti­ rats, cats, and monkeys, and most young children and animals mation, see Gilovich 1991, 1997; Nisbett and Ross 1980; never learn that the absence of a feature is informative Sanbonmatsu, Posavac, Kardes, and Mantel 1998). (Newman et al. 1980). Statistically, all four cells of the 2 (X present or absent) by 2 (Y Research on the fault-tree effect also shows that it is present or absent) contingency table are equally important (see extremely difficult to make people sensitive to omissions table 1). However, most people focus on the X present/Y pre­ (Russo and Kolzow 1994). A fault tree is a list of possible rea­ sent cell exclusively. This can lead people to see relationships sons for system failure (e.g., a list of possible reasons why an where none exist. For example, if a large number of people who automobile will not start take holistic medicines or a machine malfunc­ Good health enjoy good health (X pre­ tions). Many managers Cause and Effect (presumed effect) sent/Y present), many believe that a fault tree is a Reasoning people conclude chat Present Absent useful troubleshooting holistic medicines are device that helps busy beneficial. This conclu­ Present A B employees to identify the Holistic medicine sion is unwarranted, cause of a problem more (presumed cause) however, because a large quickly. It is easier to con­ Absent C D number of people who sult a list than to think take holistic medicines about all of the things that Table 1. Cause and effect reasoning contingency table. Statistically, all four cells are do not enjoy good health equally important. Psychologically, people focus mainly on cell A (cause present/effect can go wrong from scratch. present). Cases involving the absence of a cause (cells C and D) or the absence of an (X present/Y absent), a Fault trees are commonly effect (cells B and D) are often neglected. large number of people used to troubleshoot complex systems such as devices used in who do not take holistic medicines enjoy good health airplanes and nuclear power plants. However, when using (X abscnt/Y present), and a large number of people who do fault trees, people typically underestimate the likelihood that not take holistic medicines do not enjoy good health an unmentioned alternative could be the root cause of a (X absent/Y absent). problem. This result is observed regardless of how many or When attempting to assess the accuracy of their beliefs, how few possibilities are included in the fault tree (analogous people focus more heavily on the evidence that supports their to the finding that extreme beliefs are formed regardless of beliefs than on the evidence that fails to support their beliefs how many or how few attributes are presented in a product (for reviews of confirmation bias, see Gilovich 1991, 1997; description; see Sanbonmatsu et al. 1992). Nisbett and Ross 1980; Sanbonmatsu, Posavac, Kardes, and Missing information is also neglected in the Ellsberg para­ Mantel 1998). Although this bias is more pronounced when dox (discovered by the famous economist who advised people want to protect their beliefs, it occurs even when President Nixon): People prefer to bet on known probabilities people attempt to be objective. Supportive evidence about rather than on unknown probabilities (Fox and Weber 2002). the occurrence of an expected outcome is attention-drawing Most people are indifferent between red and black when bet­ and memorable. Unsupportive evidence about the nonoccur­ ting on whether a red or black marble will be drawn from a jar rence of an expected outcome is ignored or discounted as containing half each red and black marbles. Most people are a fluke. Consequently, peoples beliefs tend to be remarkably also indifferent between red and black when betting on resilient to evidence, and erroneous beliefs about psychology, whether a red or black marble will be drawn from a jar of red business, law, and medicine persevere. For example, many and black marbles with an unknown distribution. When given people believe in ESP and subliminal persuasion despite the a choice between the two jars, however, most people prefer to lack of scientific evidence for these phenomena. Investors con­ bet on the jar with the 50/50 distribution rather than the jar tinue to believe that they can beat the stock market even with the unknown distribution. Just as it is the case that com­ though the most sophisticated mathematical models (e.g., parative contexts (e.g., judgment contexts involving descrip­ nonlinear regression, chaos theory) are unable to do so. Jurors tions of more than one product) increase sensitivity to missing believe that their verdicts are not influenced by inadmissible attributes (e.g., Sanbonmatsu et al. 1997, in press), so too it is evidence, despite evidence to the contrary, and medical die case that comparative contexts (e.g., choice contexts patients spend millions on useless holistic medicines, Laetrile involving more than one gamble) increase sensitivity to miss­ clinics, psychic surgeons, and faith healers (Gilovich 1991). ing probabilities (Fox and Weber 2002). People are insensitive to so many different types of

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 45 omissions that developing effective debiasing procedures is (Newman et al. 1980). Consequently, associations among daunting. However, research on this topic suggests that it occurrences are learned more easily and rapidly than associa­ might not be necessary to encourage people to think about tions involving non-occurrences. specific omissions (Sanbonmatsu et al. 1997). Instead, merely People are accustomed to making judgments and decisions increasing people's awareness that something is missing, even if based on whatever information they happen to encounter. they do not know what, can improve judgment and decision Regardless of how much and what information is used, omission making. After reading a large (versus small) amount of infor­ neglect is common because missing information is not salient, mation about an irrelevant topic (i.e., soybeans), consumers people overestimate the importance of readily available informa­ form more moderate and appropriate evaluations of a briefly tion, and presented information interferes with the ability to described product (i.e., an automobile or camera). Detecting think about missing information. It is just as important to think unspecified omissions helps people to recognize that their critically about what we do not know as what we do know. judgments are based on limited or weak evidence. References

Anderson, N.H. 1981. Foundations of Information Integration Theory. San Diego, Calif.: Academic The more people focus on the presented Press. Cialdini, R.B., A. Levy, C.P. Herman, and S. Evenbeck. 1973. Attitudinal politics: The strat­ information, the more difficult it may be to egy of moderation. Journal of Personality and consider attributes that were not included Social Psychology 25: 100-108. Fox, C.R., and M. Weber. 2002. Ambiguity aver­ sion, comparative ignorance, and decision con­ in a product description. text. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 88: 476-498. Gilovich, T. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. New York: Free Press. One way to reduce the degree to which people overestimate . 1997. Some systematic biases of everyday judgment. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 21(2), March/April: 31-35. the importance of the presented information is to encourage Griffin. D., and A. Tversky. 1992. The weighing of evidence and the deter­ them to consider a wide range of attributes by asking them to minants of confidence. Cognitive Psychology 24: 411-435. evaluate two products described on different attribute dimen­ Ifrah, G. 1985. From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers. New York: Viking. sions. Another way is to ask people to rank the importance of Kardes, F. R. 2002. Consumer Behavior and Managerial Decision Making. each attribute in a lengthy list of attributes before asking them Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. to read a brief product description. Kardes, F.R., and D.M. Sanbonmatsu. 1993. Direction of comparison, expected feature correlation, and the set-size effect in preference judg­ To summarize, inappropriately extreme and confidently held ment, journal of Consumer Psychology 2: 39-54. judgments are formed when people overestimate the importance Ixmcr, J.S.. and P.E. Tetlock. 1999. Accounting for the effects of account­ of the presented information and underestimate the importance ability. Psychological Bulletin 125: 255-275. Mill, J.S. 1887. A System of Logic. New York: Harper & Brothers. of information that was not presented. It is surprising that peo­ Newman. J., W.T. Wolff, and E. Hearst. 1980. The feature-positive effect in ple focus so readily and so heavily on the presented information, adult human subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human given that the presence or absence of information about an Learning and Memory 6: 630-650. Nisbett. R.E., and L. Ross. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and attribute has no influence on the objective importance of die Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. attribute (e.g., miles per gallon is an important attribute even if Ross, L 1977. The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions no information about this attribute is provided for a specific in the attribution process. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 10: 174-214. brand). This effect is so strong that the presented information RUSSO. J.E., and K.J. Kolzow. 1994. Where is the fault in fault trees? Journal may actually interfere with the ability to think about unmen- of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20: 17—32. tioned information. The more people focus on die presented Sanbonmatsu, D.M., F.R. Kardes, and P.M. Herr. 1992. The role of prior knowledge and missing information in multiattribute evaluation. information, the more difficult it may be to consider attributes Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 51: 76—91. that were not included in a product description. Sanbonmatsu, D.M., F.R. Kardes, D.C. Houghton, E.A. Ho, and Our minds may have evolved to process stimuli we S.S. Posavac. In press. Overestimating the importance of the given information in multiattribute consumer judgment. Journal of encounter, not stimuli we do not encounter. The presence of a Consumer Psychology. predator is a relatively rare event that requires immediate Sanbonmatsu, D.M.. F.R. Kardes, S.S. Posavac. and D.C Houghton. 1997. Contextual influences on judgment based on limited information. attention and action. By contrast, the absence of a predator is Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 69: 251-264. a commonplace event that does not raise any immediate con­ Sanbonmatsu, D.M., F.R. Kardes, and C. Sansone. 1991. Remembering cerns. Because infrequently encountered stimuli are more less and inferring more: The effects of the timing of judgment on infer­ ences about unknown attributes. Journal of Personality and Social informative, it is more efficient to focus on stimuli that are Psychology 61: 546-554. encountered rather than on stimuli that are not. Only if a large Sanbonmatsu. D.M.. S.S. Posavac, F.R. Kardes. and S.P. Mantel. 1998. number of stimulus-outcome associations are learned does it Selective hypothesis testing. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 5: 197-220.' become unnecessary to develop a system that monitors the Shafir, E.. I. Simonson, and A. Tversky. 1993. Reason-based choice. absence of relationships among stimuli and outcomes Cognition 49: 11-36.

46 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Acupuncture, Magic, and Make-Believe

Traditional Chinese acupuncture is an archaic procedure of inserting needles through the skin over imaginary channels in accord with rules developed from pre-scientific superstition and numerological beliefs. New research has replaced this mystical sham medical procedure with a simple evidence-based no-needle treatment that stimulates motor points and nerve junctures and induces gene-expression of neurochemicals and activates brain areas important for healing. This is a scientifically based alternative to the previous metaphysical theories and magical rituals. GEORGE A. ULETT

n all early cultures around the world, people observed the magic of nature with great awe. They formulated Iexplanations in the form of myths such as the God of Thunder and the Goddess of Lightning. Behavior, including rituals of sacrifice and prayer, was governed by interpreta­ tions of such myths formed from the primitive knowledge of the time. Later, as knowledge of the world expanded, myths became scientific theories. But even these theories resemble myths in that they may be only temporary explanations that direct behavior until the theories change, augmented or sup­ planted by yet more scientific evidence. Persons who, in the face of contradictory scientific facts, continue to base their actions on disproved ancient myths are behaving in a "make-

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apni 2003 47 believe" fashion. Today scientific evidence makes the meta­ (200 B.C.). They are in the form of conversations between the physical explanations that are the basis of traditional Chinese emperor and his ministers. While some credit the Yellow acupuncture obsolete. The estimated 20,000 acupuncturists in Emperor with being the inventor of writing and author of the America are therefore practicing a "make believe" kind of med­ text, the work appears to be a compilation of ancient supersti­ icine. This was the opinion of the American Medical tions and concepts from numerology gathered by many Association quoted in newspapers on August 4, 1974, stating authors over preceding centuries. "The AMA Calls Acupuncture ." The Yellow Emperor's Classic a fascinating volume contain­ In the late 1960s, before acupuncture was introduced in the ing die metaphysical theories that serve as the foundation for U.S., I had learned of it on a trip to Japan. Dr. Kodo Senshu, all of the world's several hundred varieties of acupuncture. a retired physician, was translating one of my psychiatric texts Traditional Chinese acupuncture is based on the belief that dis­ into Japanese. When I informed him that we in America knew ease is caused by blockages of qi, a mysterious body energy said nothing about acupuncture he set about to rectify my igno­ to travel in imaginary channels known as meridians. The con­ rance. He demonstrated the technique on my teenage daugh­ cept of such a body of energy is common to many cultures ter and I returned home with a textbook and a box of needles. throughout the world. It goes by different names, including In the following months I tried the method on a number of prana, spiritus, and pneuma. The Chinese ideogram for qi was my patients. I discovered what the Chinese had known for developed from the pictogram of a pot of boiling rice with the centuries, that acupuncture could be of benefit to patients suf­ top blown off by rising steam. When I learned of this I thought fering from chronic pain. I was, however, greatly bothered by back to boyhood days of sandlot baseball when our fatigued the pre-scientific explanations of the mystical needle ritual 1 pitcher was described as "running out of steam." Today it is was using. As a seventy-year member of the International known that body energy results from inner- and intra-cellular Brotherhood of Magicians, I had long ago learned that behind metabolism manifesting in measurable nervous energy. every event that appears magical there is a string or a mirror. There are many hypothetical meridians in which qi is thought to travel. The major ones arc bilaterally paired and Early Chinese Acupuncture twelve in number, corresponding to the twelve months and My special hobby is Chinese magic and I was eager to look animals of the Chinese zodiac. They also represent twelve body for a scientific explanation of acupuncture. In tracing magic's systems, including a vaguely defined mythical organ called the early roots in China I found a copy of an engraving showing "triple heater." A minister is said to have told the Yellow the sorcerer Yu the Great in die pre-Shang court of the Emperor, "On these channels there are 365 acupoints, one for Emperor Shun, around 2,400 B.C. I learned that magicians each day of the year." These points are thought to be hollow like Yu were shamans. China's first mixed their areas, hsueh, where qi is believed to come to the surface for healing with magic rituals and whatever herbal remedies manipulation to balance the yinlyang dualism. Traditionally nature offered. These early shamans were also alchemists and such manipulation is by needles (acupuncture), finger pressure practiced astrology. Yu was an expert in divination, and is (acupressure), or heat (moxibustion). The manner of applica­ depicted predicting the future by scapulomancy (reading the tion differs with the need to weaken (sedate) or strengthen cracks produced by heating an animal's scapula or the cara­ (tonify) the body energy. pace of a turtle). He could also prophesy from patterns The early Chinese were primarily agrarian and dependent formed by casting a mixture of long and short yarrow sticks. upon the vagaries of nature. Medicine was a part of religion In later centuries the patterns formed by these sticks were and philosophy, both of which centered on the theme of one­ ultimately organized into eight trigram designs of long and ness with nature. Man is but a microcosm of the major cos­ short lines. These in turn were doubled and created the sixty- mos; what happens in nature happens in man. To understand four hexagrams of the / Ching, the "Book of Changes," one these older conceptions of Chinese medicine is to recognize of the most famous fortune-telling books of all times. this cosmogony of the world. There was no supreme creator; Although it is before recorded history, some believe that Yu instead the world arose from chaos having been formed by the the Great was a minister in the court of Huang Ti, the leg­ forces of yin and yang, darkness and light. This ancient belief endary Yellow Emperor, reputedly the father of Chinese med­ was ultimately given form chiefly in Taoism where die number icine. The book bearing his name, the Huang Ti Nei Ching, of paired opposites is seemingly endless with examples such as commonly translated as The Yellow Emperor's Manual of man/woman, black/white, heaven/earth, cold/warm, etc. The Corporeal Medicine, has been referred to as "China's need for the physicians to give prime consideration to balanc­ Hippocratic Corpus." Its two main sections, the Su Wen ing yin/yang forces in all the body's organs permeates medical (questions and answers about living matter) and the Ling Shu thinking. Actions, thoughts, food, and medicines all have their (die vital axis) were not compiled until the early Han Dynasty ying/yang attributes. Among the superstitions of ancient China, numerology George A. Ulett, M.D., Ph.D., is a clinical professor of psychia­ plays a major role. Here numbers, in addition to any quan­ try at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and titative or ordinal characteristics, have a special magic mean­ Missouri Institute of Mental Health, St. Louis, MO 63139, and ing. Of all numbers, five is by fax the most mystical. author of The Biology of Acupuncture. An important theory underlying the principles forming the

48 March/Apr,! 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER ritual practice of traditional acupuncture is commonly Acupuncture in America known as wu king, or "five element theory." Actually king Early Chinese science was advanced. The Chinese were the is better translated as movement, so the five elements-—earth, first to invent the compass, printing, and gunpowder. But fire, wood, metal and water—are usually taught using the China's isolation impeded incorporation of knowledge from term "essences." According to the "rule of correspondences," the Industrial Revolution in the West that spawned the roots derived from ancient numerology, the number five is a of scientific medicine. Opium wars with Britain and dissen­ governing magical number. Each of the five elements corre­ sion over port treaties with foreign powers enhanced a xeno­ sponds to classifications of body parts: five odors, five tastes, phobia and stifled advances of modern medicine. Missionaries five orifices, five tissues, etc. As man's relation to nature brought some knowledge of Western medicine to China, and renders him susceptible to diseases according to the weather, in the late 1800s a modern hospital and medical school were seasons of the year must also fall under the rule of five. established in Shanghai. In 1882, when the emperor saw the To solve this dilemma, summer is divided into two superiority of Western medical techniques, he banned the parts, "early summer" and "late summer." In this manner teaching of acupuncture in the Imperial Medical College. But numerology strongly determines the ritual application the triumph of science over sorcery was short lived. China's of acupuncture needles. isolation was intensified by the xenophobic Boxer rebellion, The Placebo Factor war with Japan, and the Communist revolution. Thus the acupuncture "meridian theory" continued unchanged and a Traditional acupuncture is done with needles. Needles have a "bamboo curtain" impeded the flow of knowledge between powerful advantage as it is commonly believed that a "shot" is China and the United States (figure 1). more powerful than a pill. Treatment is effected by a man in a In the 1940s, Chairman Mao faced millions in need of white coat calling himself a "doctor of acupuncture." He medical care with only a very limited number of Western- inserts needles without pain. His office is adorned with posters trained physicians. He solved the problem by re-establishing of human bodies replete with strange lines and Chinese hiero­ traditional Chinese medicine. With the stroke of a pen he set glyphics. Here, then, are all the ingredients for a strong back Chinese medical progress by two thousand years. placebo cure. Many of the treatments of alternative medicine Teenagers were taken into the Red Guard and given three depend upon such placebo action for their healing reputation. months of training in herbs, acupuncture, and First Aid. Placebo comes from the Greek, meaning "I shall please" and Armed with The Barefoot Doctor's Manual, they spread is created by the patient's belief in the treatment's efficacy. The ancient Chinese medicine throughout the country, giving response is strengthened when the doctor demonstrates his new credence to ancient beliefs that were solidly established own faith by an air of confidence. Thus placebo is a in rural areas. Chinese medical schools now taught both mind/body phenomenon. modern and traditional medicine. Research reports suggest that the placebo response is actu­ When President Nixon's delegation returned from their ated by neurochemicals in the brain. It is estimated that 30 to visit to China in 1972, they introduced traditional acupunc­ 50 percent of all healing is due to placebo action. Even the ture to a U.S. enamored of New Age thinking and alternative drama of sham surgery has, in double-blind studies, been medicine. These beliefs from the mysterious Orient came as shown to have a powerful pain-modulating action. During the yet another miracle cure-all. In view of the AMA's negative Middle Ages when medicine consisted mainly of witch's brew, pronouncement, physicians were reluctant to adopt or study civilization survived by placebo action combined with the fact acupuncture. So it was mainly those without medical training that an estimated eighty percent of all illnesses are self healing. who became "acupuncturists." They thus could play at being In 1997 the practice of Chinese needle acupuncture was doctor without the necessity of going to medical school. given strong support from a National Institutes of Dozens of acupuncture seminars offered expensive courses, Health/Office of Alternative Medicine consensus meeting. and most states soon established certification requirements of The studies reviewed were done in the traditional manner, and up to 1,700 hours of training in pre-scientific Chinese meta­ the committee stressed the need for better controlled investi­ physics. Third-party insurers are increasingly paying for needle gations. The committee was also aware of the placebo factor, acupuncture despite its unscientific basis. as its report mentions that "... so called 'non-specific' effects account for a substantial proportion of its effectiveness and Acupuncture Becomes Scientific thus should not be casually discounted." In 1972 the University of Missouri received the first National Professor Song Keel Kang of Kung Hee Medical School in Institutes of Health acupuncture grant. Colleagues and I Seoul, South Korea, wrote that, "The psychological factor designed a study to compare acupuncture and hypnosis for becomes important in methods that rely upon endogenous modulation of experimental pain. We were able to report that modulation. But whatever placebo effect acupuncture has acupuncture was not hypnosis. Most important was our find­ must be by means of an underlying physiological mechanism." ing that when the needles were stimulated by electricity it sig­ It is therefore of great importance to examine the scientific evi­ nificantly increased acupunctures ability to control pain. dence for a biological basis of acupuncture. Although aware of its placebo effect, we were convinced that

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 49 supporting evidence of a biological basis for acupuncture. Cho showed that electro- Chinese Medicine Western Medicine 2500 Legendary Yellow Emperor The GOD Ascclepios acupuncture stimulation can affect the Too Yin/Yang diencephalic area of the brain, a region that Trephination of skull to AcupuiKlurr release bad spirits promotes the body's own healing PuLse diagnosis / responses. Here sensory stimulation of the Huang 77 Sei Ching Hippocrates 500 hypothalamus enhances homeostasis / through activating the autonomic nervous Five Elements: earth, fin; The four humora: metal, wood, water phlegm, blood, system, balancing hormonal regulation by yellow bile. Mack bile action of the pituitary gland and effecting anti-pain and limbic system responses B.C._ _ "Ql^ _ _ _ '|LI_FE FORCER _ "ANIMAhL SQRn V (Cho, Wong, and Fallon 2001). A.D." FLOWSTTOOIFGVMERIDIANS" FLOWTHROIGH HOLLOW NERVES (Galen 130-201) Conclusion

Traditional Chinese acupuncture is an archaic procedure in which needles are inserted through the skin over imaginary 1700 channels in accord with rules developed from pre-scientific superstition and Electro-acupuncture 1X00 numerological beliefs. The needles are (Hlraga. Japan, 1764) Nerves are nol tubea- (Monro. 1700) manipulated to supposedly influence an Electro-acupuncture (Sartandiere, France. 1825 imaginary body energy whose blockage Electrical propagation over nerves 1900 Electro-acupuncturwe fo r (

Acupuncture Is frequency specific, not point specific (JiSheng Han) tical sham medical procedure with a sim­ ple, evidence-based, no-needle treat­ Figure I. Developing concepts of biological acupuncture and perception of the myths of ancient pre-scientific metaphysical explanations ment. This method stimulates motor points and nerve junctures. Specific elec­ acupuncture worked by some neuro-physiological mechanism trical currents induce the gene expression of neurochemicals (Ulett and Han 2002). On a trip to China I met Professor and activate brain areas important for healing. Here then is a JiSheng Han of Beijing Medical University. He showed me scientifically based alternative to the metaphysical theories that, by transfusion of spinal fluid, he had transferred acupunc­ and magical rituals of traditional Chinese acupuncture. ture analgesia from a treated to an untreated animal. This proved the neurochemical basis of acupuncture. He then spent Western medicine prides itself on being evidence-based. thirty years unveiling the biological mechanisms of acupunc­ Schools of medicine, nursing, , and ture by mapping the anatomical pathways and biochemistry of should therefore avoid teaching pre-scientific traditional needle this ancient practice (Han 1998). He found that with proper acupuncture to their students. The integration of unproven electrical stimulation of the nervous system, specific frequen­ mystical methods will serve only to contaminate a scientific cies could effect the gene expression of specific neuropeptides cutriculum with make-believe medicine. Evidence-based in the central nervous system. Thus he showed that acupunc­ neuro-electric stimulation is an effective, simple, no-needle, ture could significantly increase the spinal fluid content of sub­ drug-free method of treatment that can be taught in an hour's stances such as endorphins and dynorphins. These had specific time (Ulett and Han 2002). Our own experience and reports healing actions in the brain and spinal cord. Endorphins, for from clinics abroad have shown this to be a potent technique example, can activate an opioid receptor that is now known to giving lasting relief from chronic pain with a reduced depen­ have an important anti-anxiety effect. He also showed that dency upon medication. It has also been found useful for a vari­ there was a cross-tolerance between acupuncture and morphine ety of neurological, psychiatric, and psychosomatic illnesses. in the treatment of drug addiction. Han demonstrated that stimulation could be done with polymer conducting EKG-type References pads placed on the surface of the skin over motor points. No Cho, Z.H., E.K. Wong, and J.D. Fallon. 2001. Neuro-Acupuncturr. "magic needles" were necessary. Q-puncture. Inc.. Los Angeles. By 2001 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRJ) Han, J.S. 1998. The Neurochemical Basis of Pain Control by Acupuncture, Hu Bci Science and Technology Press. China. studies, especially those of Professor Z.H. Cho of the University Ulett, G.. and S. Han. 2002. The Biology of Acupuncture. Warren H. Green, of California Medical School at Irvine, demonstrated significant St. Louis. Q

50 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Walt Whitman When Science and Mysticism Collide

Whitman was the first important American poet to celebrate science. He rejected the Romantic notion that science despoils the virgin purity of nature and preys on the poetic imagination. But Whitman was a false paladin. He violated the spirit of science the better to gratify his cosmic affirmations and mystical worldview. Despite his putative defense of science. Whitman was imbued with a Romantic mentality. GARY SLOAN

alt Whitman was the first important American poet to extol science. In 1855, when the first edi­ Wtion of Leaves of Grass, his epochal volume, came out, the Romantic aversion to science still chafed poetic sen­ sibilities. Through its invasive procedures, the standard indictment read, science violated Nature's pristine whole­ ness, disfiguring the beauty of natural forms. "We murder to dissect," carped Wordsworth. Edgar Allan Poe depicted sci­ ence as a vulture preying on the heart and the imagination. With its voracious appetite for analysis, it eviscerated myth, wonder, spontaneity, reverie, and awe. Whitman dismissed the charges as anachronistic poppy­ cock. He raised a toast: "Hurrah for positive science! Long

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apnl 2003 51 live exact demonstration!" Geologist, chemist, surgeon, math­ Eternal 1 rise impalpable out of the land and bottomless sea, ematician, cartographer, lexicographer, the whole menagerie of Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely formed, altogether changed, exact demonstrators were welcome in his poetic parlor: And yet the same, "Gentlemen, I receive you, and attach and clasp hands with I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust layers of the globe. you. Your facts are useful and real." Useful, we shall see, was the operative word. Now, conservation of energy: Though short on expertise, Whitman had a wide-ranging Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burned, interest in contemporary science—astronomy, geology, physics, Or rendered to powder, or buried. chemistry, biology, including evolution. He was an avid, if My voided body nothing more to mc, returning to the unsystematic, reader of popular books and magazine articles on purifications, Further offices, eternal uses of the earth. science. As newspaper editor in the 1840s and 1850s, he sup­ ported scientific enterprises. Later, when The Origin of Species And stellar life cycles: had become a cause celebre, the Good Grey Poet plumped for The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, Darwinism: "It is needed as a Swelling, collapsing, ending counterpoise to widely prevail­ serving their longer, shorter use. ing and unspeakably tenacious, These lyrical evocations of nat­ enfeebling superstitions. With its ural processes show that a scien­ advent, the world of erudition, tific outlook needn't stifle the both moral and physical, cannot imagination nor swaddle the but be eventually bettered and spirit. broadened in its speculations." Had Whitman been content These superstitions were to infuse the formulations of sci­ nourished by ecclesiastical entific discourse with the finer institutions, for which the poet breath of poetry, he would have had meager respect. From his merited the epithet Poet of father, an admirer of Thomas Science, the title of a study by Paine, Whitman had imbibed Whitmanite Joseph Beaver. anti-clerical sentiments. He With a different temperament scoffed at the disparate creeds and background, he might have of , each claiming to been a modern Lucretius, the see the truth through the col­ great Roman poet of material­ ored lenses of its own dogma­ ism. As it stands, Beaver's lauda­ tism. Though scarcely an tory epithet is deceptive. agnostic, he liked the brash way Despite the hurrahs, Whitman Robert Ingersoll and Thomas relegated science to the role of Huxley twitted the religious data collector for a higher muse. establishment: "It does seem,' While science was a useful anti­ he remarked, "as if Ingersoll dote to superstition, it couldn't and Huxley without any others penetrate the spiritual substra­ could unhorse the whole Chris­ Walt Whitman tum of reality. Scientific facts, tian giant." As prophet of pan­ Whitman believed, had esoteric theistic mysticism. Whitman may have harbored similar aspi­ ramifications best elucidated by sages, seers, and philosopher- rations even though he sometimes sounds like a boisterous poets: "The highest and subtlest and broadest truths of mod­ Jesus: "O despairer, here is my neck, / By God! You shall not ern science wait for their true assignment and last vivid flashes go down! Hang your whole weight on me." Whitman of light through metaphysicians. The poets of the cosmos thought science could clear the way for spiritual regeneration advance through all interpositions and coverings and strata­ by softening hidebound creeds, fables, and traditions. gems to first principles." Leaves of Grass bristles with allusions to science. Now, mete­ Properly illuminated, the lore of science corroborated orology ("I" is the rain): Whitman's eclectic mysticism, grounded, he thought, in the first principles. Scientists may have been bemused by his metaphys­ Gary Sloan is retired from Louisiana Tech University, where he ical extrapolations. Evolution, bodi cosmic and Darwinian, was was George Anding Professor of English. His area of expertise is constrained by an idiosyncratic anthropic principle: American literature. He is a regular contributor to Free Inquiry, My embryo has never been torpid. Nodiing could overiay it; The Freethinker (London), and American Atheist on such sub­ For it the nebula cohered to an orb, die long slow strata piled jects as Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson. to rest it on, vast vegetables gave it sustenance. Shakespeare, and Lucretius. E-maiL [email protected]. Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and

52 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER deposited it with care. Is this a touch? quivering me to a new identity, All forces have been steadily employed to complete and Flames and ether making a rush for my veins. delight me. By forty, his senses dulling, he no longer vaunted in his youth­ Evolution also ratified a quasi-Hegelian dialectic of inexorable ful sap. He abandoned dualism for a monism of soul. He was spiritual progress, the whole creation spiraling toward an explicit: "I affirm now that the mind governs—and that all Absolute Idea of immortal love: depends on die mind." Matter was now a mask that disguised All, all for immortality. reality. Whitman's demotion of matter coincided with a Love like the light silently wrapping all. diminution in his poetic powers. He was more die poet of the Nature's amelioration blessing all, body than he knew. The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson, his proximate mentor, Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening. Whitman considered material phenomena cryptic symbols for The ceaseless permutations of "atomies" warranted belief in transmigration of souls: "No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. Whatever I do or say, I also Whitman's idealism was tricked out return." The First Law of Thermodynamics, with a mishmash of moral assumptions the conservation of energy, certified per­ sonal immortality. After the final transmi­ culled from American transcendentalism, gration—"promotion and transfer," Quakerism (his mother was a Quaker), Whitman termed the process—the soul both merged with the cosmos and retained enlightenment optimism, individual identity. Though he offered no details, he "had no doubt of it." and Eastern mysticism.

Scientific concepts were a portal to Whitmans true abode: "I enter by them," he said, "to an area of my dwelling." This mental domicile was spiritual truths: "The kernel of every object that can be seen, furnished with a potpourri of notions derived directly or indi­ felt, or thought of has its relations to the soul, and is signifi­ rectly from a long succession of philosophers, sages, and seers cant of something there." Everywhere he turned, he found East and West. Like Pythagoras, Plato, Berkeley, Kant, Fichte, "letters from God" waiting to be deciphered: Schelling, Hegel, and other philosophical idealists, Whitman To me the converging objects uf die universe perpetually flow, believed the sensory world is but the shadow of reality. "Real All arc written to me, and I must get what the writing means. reality," as he called it, was an immaterial mind, soul, or spirit (the terms were interchangeable) that filters, interprets, and Decoded by the Intuition, the letters revealed a suprasensible even creates the data of sensation. The objects of thought had world infused with forces, purposes, designs, and patterns more reality than the objects of sense. Unlike sullied and cor­ emancipated from mundane causality, coherence, logic, consis­ ruptible matter, mind was eternal, unfettered by time or space, tency, and probability. This ethereal wonderland obeyed a motto its own constructions. Whitman's idealism was tricked out enunciated by the mystic poet William Blake: "Everything with a mishmash of moral assumptions culled from American possible to be believed is an image of truth." Truth needn't transcendentalism, Quakerism (his modier was a Quaker), be verifiable or amenable to falsification. It was circumscribed enlightenment optimism, and Eastern mysticism. only by the limits of imagination. Afoot with vision, Whitman saw much that mystics before him had seen. The idealism, in its unadulterated form, arrived late. In his early thirties, still brimming with animal vitality. Whitman had dubbed himself "the poet of the body and die poet of the • Life is indestructible soul." He gave flesh and spirit equal billing. "There is that lot There is no stoppage, and can never be stoppage; of me, and all so luscious," he exulted. Such scrumptiousness If 1 and you and the worlds all beneath or upon their merited dispersion in the gene pool: "On women fit for con­ surfaces, and all the palpable life, were this moment ception I start bigger and nimbler babes, / This day I am jet­ reduced back to a pallid Boat, it would not avail in the long run. ting the stuff of more arrogant republics." He reveled in his We should surely bring up again where we now stand. own anatomy, lovingly itemizing its sundry delights. No pan was excepted. The scent of his armpits was "aroma finer than • Death is illusory prayer," the fat on his bones incomparably sweet, his "firm All goes onward and outward and nothing collapses. masculine coulter" miracle enough to "stagger an infidel." His And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and tactile sensations gave him an electric thrill: luckier. Has anyone supposed it lucky to be bom? I merely srir. press, fed men my tingec and am happy, I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I "lb touch my person to someone else is about as much as I can stand. know it.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 53 • God is immanent in the creation reported to have said that anyone not confused by quantum mechanics doesn't understand it. Subatomic particles, the sub­ I hear and behold God in every object. I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, stratum of all reality, have been stripped of the irreducible and each moment men, thingness associated with matter. They are now treated as the In the faces of men and women I sec God, and in my bunching of force fields, best understood as mathematical con­ own face in the glass. structs of human observers. Were Whitman alive, he might • Love unites all offer a triumphant toast. While "Science Proves Mystics Right" might fly in a And I know that the hand of God is the cldcrhand of my tabloid, it misses the point. The uncertainties of science don't own, And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my validate the certitudes of mysticism. Mysticism offers an own. immutable prescription of how the universe must be. Science And that all the men ever born are my brothers and the offers provisional descriptions of how it is thought to be. women my sisters and lovers, Science remains in constant flux as it assimilates new data. And that a kelson of the creation is love. New theories could render quantum mechanics obsolescent • Evil is part of the good (though the prospect is unlikely). The spirit of science is one of Olympian disinterest, unsullied by emotional bias. What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? Mysticism plucks from the "incorporeal air" a host of moral Evil propels mc, and reform of evil propels me. I stand indifferent. tenets that cater to human desire. My gait is no faultfinder's or rejector's gait, Rather than science preying on him, Whitman preyed on I moisten the roots of all that has grown. science. That it might feed his cosmic affirmations, he muti­ • Truth comes by intuition, not analysis lated its spirit. He wanted a universe suffused with love, good­ ness, joy, equality, and justice, not one pervaded by Herman Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, Melville's inscrutable malice or Robert Frost's desert places. 1 have no mockings or arguments. I witness and wait. Hence, in his Weltanschauung, love becomes a cosmic force, evil a virtue, death an illusion, truth an intuition, etc. He per­ • Truth is ineffable tinaciously denied metaphysical clout to pessimism. At times, Writing and talk do not prove me, his incorrigible yeasaying flirts with smugness: I carry the plenum of proof and everything else in my face, With the hush of my lips I confound the topmost skeptic. Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you my brother or my sister? Whitman's mysticism poses insuperable barriers for the ratio­ I am sorry for you. They are not murderous or jealous upon nal mind. Since he treats intuition as a higher mode of cogni­ me; tion than reason, logic, and science, his claims can't be tested by All has been gentle with me. I keep no count with his own criterion for truth. Everything he says could be true, just lamentation; as humanity could have been created five seconds ago with What have I to do with lamentation? stocked memories of a long past. Where reason must pander to Notwithstanding his "defense" of science, Whitman was imagination, anything goes. Submitted to vulgar analysis, the imbued with a Romantic mentality. Like Pascal, he thought claims emerge as semantic vacuums, devoid of intelligible everyone had an innate truth detector, the heart, which knew propositions. They have only psychological, metaphorical, or more than the head. Earnest feelings were an entree to cosmic emotional import. Two examples should suffice. truths. In A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell Without a clear definition of "God," we can't know spells out the problem with elevating one's own emotions to whether God is "in every object." Even if it could be shown universal ordinances: "he" isn't. Whitman might still see and hear him there. Perceptions can be delusive, especially when core beliefs are at There are two objections to the practice of basing beliefs as to stake. In his poem "The Snow Man," Wallace Stevens notes objective fact upon the emotions of the heart. One is that that few people can survey nature and "behold nothing that is there is no reason whatever to suppose that such beliefs will be not there and the nothing that is." true; the other is, that the resulting beliefs will be private, since the heart says different things to different people. If truth is ineffable, beyond words, we can't determine whether it can be intuited. We don't know what to test for. Whitman thought all hearts spoke a common tongue because No one can tell us. Whitman doesn't help: "There is that in they had been instructed by the same cosmic tutor. What seemed me, I do not know what it is, but I know it is in me." To elab­ true to him must be true for everyone. Had his mind been of a orate is futile: "I do not know it, it is without name, it is a scientific cast, his reading of Ingersoll and Huxley would have word unsaid." raised a suspicion that hearts are multilingual. Fortunately for At first blush, modern physics seems to bulwark Whitman's Walt Whitman, poetic license covers a multitude of dubious claim that ultimate reality is ineffable and immaterial. The assumptions when the proponent is a great poet. quantum world exhibits eerie properties that challenge verbal formulation and basic notions of materiality. Niels Bohr is Copyright 2003 Gary Stain

54 Match/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS

The Strange Case of Pat the Ripper JOE NICKELL

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed. By Patricia Cornwell. Putnam, New York, 2002. ISBN: 0-399-14932-5. Hardcover, $27.95.

I guess my woman's intuition just didn't abdomen was only slashed open. Michael Ostrog, allegedly a Russian Junction, or something! Chapman, Eddowes, and Kelly were dis­ doctor who was a "homicidal maniac" —Nancy Drew emboweled; Eddowes's uterus and left whose "whereabouts at the time of the Nancy Drew, Detective (1938) kidney were taken, as was Kelly's heart. murders could never be ascertained" (Kelly, whose body was grossly muti­ (Begg et al. 1994, 116-121, 241-245. he gruesome murders by Jack the lated, was the only one found indoors; 279-290, 340-345). Ripper—history's most notorious see Begg et al. 1994.) In the midst of the attacks, after the Tserial slasher—continue to According to an 1894 memorandum death of Annie Chapman, letters began inspire horror. And the question ot his to be received by the Central News identity continues to attract theorists, Agency and the Metropolitan Police most recendy popular crime novelist signed "Jack the Ripper" (Evans and Patricia Cornwell. But is she really justi­ Skinner 2001). The earliest one fied in pronouncing the mystery solved? (recently rediscovered [Cornwell 2002, I las her touted six-million-dollar and 211]) was received on September 17. tJiirteen-month search led her along a Most "Ripperologists" today accept the trail of evidence to finally uncover the mounting evidence that these were the maniacal culprit? Or has she begun with work of one or more journalists (Begg et an improbable suspect and worked back­ al. 1994, 209-211). Nevertheless, the ward through myriad, often-conflicting sobriquet "Jack the Ripper" stuck. details, picking and choosing, to incrimi­ As the horrible crimes remained nate him? To answer diesc questions, unsolved, popular writers began to pro­ some background is in order. pose suspects. Over the years, something of a Ripper industry has grown up, widi The Ripper Case authors proposing first one candidate Sometimes called the Whitechapel mur­ and then another. Ripperologist Martin ders, these were a series of slayings of Fido (2001) took the words out ot my prostitutes that occurred in 1888 in or mouth when he said of some of the near the Whitechapel district of books. "The common reader like myself London's squalid East End. The victims by M-L. Macnaghten, men Chief Con­ found each identification quite convinc­ were Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols (August stable, CID, Scotland Yard, there had ing as he read it, and kept changing his 31), Annie Chapman (September 8), been at least three prominent Ripper mind about which was the Ripper." Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes suspects: (1) M.J. Druitt, who was "sex­ There is a formula to such (September 30, only some forty minutes ually insane" and committed suicide (by "identifications." The author starts with apart), and Mary Jane Kelly (November drowning) after the Ripper murders; (2) someone who lived in Whitechapel 9). All had their throats cut and most "Kosminski" (apparently Aaron (or elsewhere in London, or at least in were otherwise mutilated except Stride, Kosminski), a Polish Jew who resided in whose attack was apparently inter­ Whitechapel, had a hatred of prosti­ Joe Nickel! is CSlCOP's Senior Research rupted, thus prompting the killer to seek tutes, and was subsequendy imprisoned Fellow and author of numerous investiga­ another victim. While Nichols's in an asylum for the insane; and (3) tive hooks.

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER KUfch/Apnl 2003 55 BOOK REVIEWS

England, or ... ) and proceeds to ples at the instigation of my friend and face of Mary Ann Nichols (2002, build a case against him. Maybe he fellow investigator Melvin Harris) con­ 121—122). Subjectivity and innuendo are showed an interest in the Ripper crimes firmed the presence of a modern preserv­ ever present, and Cornwell continually (who didn't?); possibly he exhibited ative; it was used in the reproduction ink speaks of Sicken as Jack the Ripper, and some odd behavior; perhaps he owned a but not, of course, in the original variety vice-versa, as if her imaginings were fact. knife. Such elements can be built up (Nickell 1995; 1997). Learning from a nephew that Sickert with speculation and innuendo, while had had operations to correct a fistula of any contrary facts can be ignored, swept Another Suspect! the penis, Cornwell admits that lacking aside, or rationalized. Voilh! To the Enter mystery writer Patricia Cornwell. medical records, she "can't say exactly unsuspecting reader, the real Jack the Like others who proclaimed that their what Sickens penile anomaly was" but Ripper has emerged from the shadows. books represented "The Final Solution," she concludes, after pages devoted to the Various suspects have come and— "The Mystery Solved," and so on (Begg topic, that the operations "would have often mercifully—gone, including et al. 1994, 216, 217), Cornwell gives resulted in strictures and scarring that assorted lunatics and doctors. The latter her Portrait of a Killer the subtitle, Jack could have made erections painful or were postulated on the notion, probably the Ripper, Case Closed. impossible." She adds, "He may have suf­ mistaken, that the Ripper's handiwork Actually, as a New York Times reviewer fered partial amputation." Cornwell showed surgical skill. Along similar correctly characterizes it, "this book is a believes her speculations establish a "pos­ lines, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator prosecution, not an investigation" (Carr sible motive" for Sickert to mutilate pros­ of the world's most famous fictional 2002). Cornwell begins with her titutes "but," she concedes, "I needed sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, opined that suspect—artist Walter Sicken (1860- more" (Ripper 2002). the murderer was a woman. He felt that 1942)—without ever really explaining Of course, intuition and a novelist's the killer would have been heavily stained how she chose him. She does state, "I imagination can carry one only so far, as with blood, but that a midwife wearing a began to wonder about Sickert when 1 Cornwell seems to know. "I'm not just a bloodstained apron could pass without was flipping through a book of his art" fiction writer," she said on a television suspicion (Begg et al. 1994, 207). (2002, 12). Elsewhere, she "has repeat­ documentary (Ripper 2002), and indeed An alleged diary of Jack the Ripper edly said that she doesn't like the look of she once worked in a coroner's office, brought me into the case in 1993. the painter's face in his self-portraits, or even "helping out" around the corpses Surfacing rwo years earlier in possession the subject matter and tone of his paint­ (Cornwell 2002, 10). She insists she is of a scrap-metal dealer named ings generally" (Carr 2002). "one-hundred percent sure" that Walter Mike Barrett, the "diary" was ostensibly Having targeted her suspect. Corn- Sickert was Jack the Riper—"absolutely by James Maybrick, a Liverpool cotton well then begins to hack and slash at poor positive," she says (Ripper 2002). Alas, merchant who died of poison in 1889. Sickens life and reputation, like a verita­ one recalls Ambrose Bierce's definition of According to the entries, Maybrick ble Pat the Ripper. Sicken, a major positive. "Mistaken at the top of one's sought revenge on his philandering wife, British post-impressionist, was a leader of voice" (Bierce 1911). perpetrating the Ripper murders in a school of painting that focused on "Ripper" Letters drug-induced frenzies. gloomy urban interiors. One such Sicken For Warner Books, which intended to work, tided Jack the Ripper's Bedroom In presenting her case, in her book as publish the text if authentic, manuscript (1908) is treated as an aba!by Cornwell. well as on TV programs, Cornwell tells authority Kenneth Rendell and I, Actually it is simply an interior of a bed­ how she took a forensic approach, together wirh a team of forensic experts, room at 6 Mornington Crescent, observing that previous Ripper identifi­ examined the diary. It proved to be an Camden Town, pan of the upper two cations were "based on theories, not evi­ obvious forgery, based on conclusive floors that Sicken rented in 1906 after dence" (Ripper 2002). Actually Corn- handwriting evidence in addition to a returning to London from France. He well did employ such forensic tech­ number of suspicious features. Eventually had come to believe that a man suspected niques as DNA testing and watermark Barrett confessed he had faked the diary of having been Jack the Ripper—a veteri­ identification. Unfortunately, the results using an old photo album from which he nary student whose name Sickert eventu­ were far less meaningful than some peo­ removed the used pages. Then he tran­ ally forgot—had lodged there in the ple have come to believe, and the proce­ scribed the text (which he had composed 1880s (Cornwell 2002, 60-61; Begg et dures were flawed by being predicated over ten days' time on a word processor) al. 1994,214,426-429). on intuition and pseudoscience. using a reproduction Victorian ink pur­ Elsewhere Cornwell notes that—to Cornwell believes that the hundreds chased at an an store. Although Barren her at least—most of Sickens "sprawling of letters supposedly written by Jack the soon retracted his confession, ink analysis nudes" look dead and that faces in a 1903 Ripper were not mostly hoaxes, as (performed on our team's remaining sam­ sketch and 1906 painting "resemble" the Ripperologists generally conclude. She

56 March/Apr,I 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS states: "It is obvious that the actual rian, paper experts, and an archivist— ble. Stating that many "Ripper" letters Ripper wrote far more of the Ripper let­ states, "It has required intellectual "show the skilled hand of a highly ters than he has ever been credited with. sleuths such as these to discover that trained or professional artist," she adds: In fact, I believe he wrote most of them. many of the Ripper letters contain tell­ "More than a dozen include phallic In face, Walter Sickert wrote most of tale signs of Sickert's handwriting." Oh drawings of knives—all long, daggerlike them." She also states, "I have no doubt really? Does a single one of these opiners instruments—except for two strange, that Sickert had an amazing ability to know that distinct similarities between short truncated blades in brazenly write in many different hands" two writings may be nothing more than taunting letters." Apparently the "short" (Cornwell 2002, 14, 181). She repeat­ edly states what she believes—not "has proof of," but believes. The problem with Cornwell is not that While stating that "Using chemicals and highly sensitive instruments to ana­ she is skeptical of handwriting evidence; lyze inks, paints, and paper is scientific," it is that having dismissed professional experts she adds: "Handwriting comparison is not. It is an investigative tool that can be in the field, she feels at liberty to replace powerful and convincing, especially in them on her team with a "letterer." detecting forgeries. But," she continues, "if a suspect is adept in disguising his handwriting, comparison can be frus­ class characteristics (i.e., those common phallic blades are cited to evoke the trating or impossible" (Cornwell 2002, to the same writing system)? Mistaking "partial amputation" of Sickens penis 167). Certainly handwriting compari­ these for individual characteristics is, that she has (in the previous paragraph) son is not an exact science but it is more according to a distinguished expert, "the fantasized (Cornwell 2002, 65-66). scientific than Cornwell appears to most common error of the unqualified As to the "professional" drawings, imagine, and qualified document exam­ examiner" (Hilton 1982, 209). one is more so than Cornwell realizes. iners have made serious studies of the There is more. Cornwell, playing lin­ Reproduced in Portrait of a Killer, it traits of natural, imitated, and disguised guist, also links many of the Ripper let­ depicts the head of a rough-looking handwritings; they can often demon­ ters together and connects them to fellow, with surrounding text stating: strate identifying individual characteris­ Sickert through certain words and "This is my Photo of Jack the Ripper[.) tics even in disguised handwriting and phrases. This seems particularly ludicrous 10 more and up goes the Sponge.] Sig hand printing (O'Hara 1973; Nickell since many of the phrases—including [i.e., signed] Jack the Ripper." 1996). As one expert notes, "the task of "ha ha," "catch me," "litde games." and Cornwell thinks the illustration is a maintaining an effective disguise grows others—were in an early "Jack the drawing, but a color photograph more difficult with each additional Ripper" letter and postcard (believed to (Evans and Skinner 2001, xii) shows word" (Hilton 1982, 169). be journalistic hoaxes, as mentioned ear­ that, in contrast to the script which Even so, the problem with Cornwell is lier). Facsimiles of these were pictured on is brownish like most aged writing ink not that she is skeptical of handwriting a Metropolitan Police flyer and further of the period, the image is jet black like evidence; it is that having dismissed pro­ pictured and quoted in newspapers printing ink. More significantly, fessional experts in the field, she feels at (Evans and Skinner 2001, 29^14). It whereas the writing has the line quality liberty to replace them on her team with seems quite probable that copycat hoax­ of a "dip" pen, the image does not, a "letterer." That's right, a "lettcrer," ers—at least three of which were actually instead exhibiting characteristics of a which she defines as someone "who caught (Evans and Skinner 2001, common wood engraving (a variety of designs and draws lettering," i.e., a callig- 72-80)—were prompted to imitate those woodcut) with its graver-scooped line rapher or graphic artist. When die letterer communications. quality and other distinctive features perused die so-called "Ripper letters," she The connection to Sickert? Wcl-l-l, such as "negative" crosshatching supposedly "connected" a number of for example, Cornwell points out that the (Gascoigne 1986). Since wood engrav­ them, says Cornwell. "through quirks and artist James McNeill Whistler, to whom ings were used in newspapers of the how the hand made the writing." She Sicken had apprenticed, was fond of Ripper period, this could be not only states, "These same quirks and hand posi­ using the word games and of cackling, evidence of a simple and obvious hoax, tions lurk in Sickens erratic handwriting "ha! ha!" Need more proof? Both Sicken but of a journalistic one as well. as well" (Cornwell 2002, 14, 181). and some of die "Ripper" letters used the In addition to the letterer, Cornwell word fools (Cornwell 2002, 54-58). Watermarks and DNA (187-188)—mentioning an an histo­ Cornwell also engages in psychobab­ Cornwell tries to boost the evidence from

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Match/Apr,I 2003 57 BOOK REVIEWS the letters by matching watermarks in the Not Guilty Cornwell is a classic example of the differ­ paper. Much effort was expended in ence between a writer of detective fiction One wonders how far into her research determining that some of the "Ripper" and a real detective. The former is in con­ Cornwell was when she realized that letters and some of Sickens bore "A Pirie trol of the evidence, creating and manip­ Walter Sicken appeared to have an alibi & Sons" and "Joynson Superfine" water­ ulating it to incriminate die imaginary for some of the Ripper crimes. On marks. Sums up a critic, the situation is perpetrator who has been decided on September 21, 1888, Sickert's wife, "roughly analogous to what we would before (Day 1996). The actual detective, Ellen, wrote to her brother-in-law stat­ have faced in 1977 if one of David on the other hand, may be bereft of obvi­ ing that Walter had gone to Normandy Berkowitz's famous 'Son of Sam' letters to ous clues, confronted with a bewildering to see "his people" (artist friends) and array of "facts," and required to discover Jimmy Breslin had been written on a would be away for weeks. evidence that may help identify—not a Hallmark card" (Carr 2002). (Her If true, that would seem to mean he storybook culprit, but a real one. reportage here is not always even accu­ was not in London to commit the last rate: In a photo caption she states that a Cornwell is well known as an enter­ three Ripper killings (that is, the double certain "Ripper" letter has a watermark taining writer of fiction. She continues murders of Elizabeth Stride and that "matches" one in a Sicken letter to that tradition with Portrait of a Killer. Catharine Eddowes on September 30 Whistler, but in fact a close look at the and the slaying of Mary Jane Kelly on Acknowledgments photographs shows that they are merely November 9). But Cornwell is commit­ from the same company [A. Pirie & For research assistance, I am grateful to Tim ted to what she calls her "crusade" Binga and Tom Flynn; for word processing, Sons]; being date watermarks, die Sicken against Sicken (Ripper 20Q2), and sniffs, Ranjit Sandhu; and for encouragement, Ben one shows an "86" while the "Ripper" "Sickert may have left, but, not neces­ Radford and Kevin Christopher—all of CFI. one an "87.") sarily for France." In fact, a Sickert note Cornwell knows the value that the References to a friend, although undated, shows he mention of DNA testing can have on lay was in a French fishing village, Saint- Begg. Paul. Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner. 1994. people. A Publisher's Weekly review of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, revised cd. London: Valery-en-Caux, in the fall of 1888 Headline Book Publishing. Portrait of a Killer (Editorial 2002) gushes, (Cornwell 2002, 214-216). Bierce, Ambrose. [1911] 1967. Tlx Devils Dictionary, "The book is filled with newsworthy rev­ Being in France, rather than commit­ facsimile cd. New York: Castle Books. elations, including die successful use of Carr, Caleb. 2002. 'Portrait of a killer": Investigating ting murders, might explain another of a historical whodunnit. The New York Times DNA analysis to establish a link between Cornwell's concerns, that Sickert's (nytimcs.com). December 15. an envelope mailed by the Ripper and Cornwell, Patricia. 2002. Portrait of a Killer Jack the "artistic productivity wasn't at its usual two envelopes used by Sicken." Ripper—Case Closed. New York G.P. Putnam's Sons. high from August through the rest of Day. Marele, ed. 1996. How to Write Crime. St. In fact, nuclear DNA could not be the year" (2002, 217). Being away from Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. obtained from any of the fifty-five sam­ Editorial reviews. 2002. Online at www..com. one's studios can have that effect. Evans. Stewart P., and Keith Skinner. 2001. Jack the ples in which DNA was sought (from According to the New York Times, Ripper: Letters from Hell. Stroud, Gloucester­ saliva traces that had moistened enve­ Cornwell's refusal to concede Sickert shire. England: Sutton Publishing Ltd. Fido. Martin. 2001. Foreword to Evans and Skinner lope flaps or stamps). Therefore, the had a credible alibi is yet another exam­ 2001, vii-x experts switched to mitochondrial ple of how she eventually "dispenses Gascoigne, Bamber. 1986. How to Identify Prints. DNA, a much less specific indicator, with even weak attempts at logical per­ N.p. [New Yorkl: Thames & Hudson. and an expert concluded that matching Hilton, Ordway. 1982. Scientific Examination of Ques­ suasion and begins to simply state possi­ tioned Documents. Rev. ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier. sequences could well be a coincidence. bilities as facts on the basis of nothing Nickell. Joe. 1995. Who was Jack the Ripper? In As one reviewer concluded, "it might more than her intuition" (Carr 2002). Wolff 1995. 59-60. have been Sicken who licked the stamps When something conflicts with her sce­ . 1996. Delecting Forgery: forensic on the alleged Ripper letter, or it might Investigation of Documents. Lexington, Ky.: nario, she even manages to convert a lia­ University Press of Kentucky. have been any one of several hundred bility into an asset. Fot instance, when 11997. The "Jack die Ripper Diary": History or thousand other people" (Carr 2002). eyewitnesses described certain Ripper hoax? International Journal of Forensic Document Examiners i.\ (January/March). 59-63. As it happened, most of the fifty-five suspects as dark, foreign-looking men O'Hara, Charles E. 1973. Fundamentals of Criminal samples were apparently contaminated with black beards or mustaches (Sugden Investigation. 3d ed. Springfield. III.: Charles C. by the DNA of other persons. Cornwell 2002), Cornwell suggests a possible Thomas. Ripper Murders: Case Closed 2002. Documentary on (2002, 168-172) also concedes, solution: Sickert, an erstwhile actor, die Learning Channel. December 9. "A drawback to our testing is diat the could have used dark grease paint, hair Sugden. Philip. 2002. The Complete History of Jack ever-elusive Walter Sicken has yet to dye, and false whiskers to effect disguises die Ripper. Revised papctbadt edition. New York: Carroll & Graf. offer us his DNA profile." (Sicken was (Cornwell 2002, 245-246). Wolff. Camille. compiler. 1995. Who Was Jack cremated.) I diink what we have in Patricia the Ripper? London: Grey House Books. D

58 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS

Monica Lewinsky and Clinton and the It's Ba-a-ack! Bush/Gore 2000 election debacle, and - The Bible Code II his ongoing search for a mysterious CODE H "obelisk" (the "key" to the Bible code, TNI COUNTDOWN DAVID E. THOMAS and to humanity's origin, which he feels is still buried in a valley near the Dead Bible Code II: The Countdown. By Michael Drosnin. Sea). Drosnin states repeatedly that he Viking Press, New York, 2002. ISBN 0-670032-107. doesn't believe in God, but he certainly 292 pages. Hardcover, $26.95. believes an intelligence higher than human created the "code." Drosnin's obsession with his own role as a major "Bible Code" player is nowhere more compelling evidence that careful selec­ n June of 1997, journalist Michael obvious than in his introduction to the tion of particular forms of words effec­ Drosnin's book The Bible Code was chapter on DNA, the genetic code: tively "tuned" Witztum's and Rips's Ireleased to great fanfare (Drosnin "Early in my search for the key to the method to their data, completely invali­ 1997). It quickly climbed to third on Bible code, I may have also stumbled dating the much-ballyhooed 1994 statis­ the New York Times bestseller list, and onto the key for the code of life... tical "test." remained on that list for weeks. According to the Bible code, our 'DNA Has Drosnin paid attention to his Drosnin's book discussed "Equidistant was brought in a vehicle.'" Drosnin critics? Not at all. He has been far too Letter Sequences," a way to derive hid­ has a whole chapter on the "aliens" he busy trying to convince Yasser Arafat den messages by selecting letters from feels may be responsible for placing and Shimon Peres of the reality of the the Hebrew Torah separated by a fixed humans on Earth. His words might number of intervening let­ offer comfort to "Intelligent ters. As an example, the rorisattackonthesamciwomon O I 1 I ou ldsuccecdandknock 1>() t h e r to w e r Design" supporters like the English word generalization Raelians of Clonaid, but i n t(R£ T a i ®T Iain contains the "hidden mes­ ha tdaynooncoim u d h J3Ea v c. i a g i n c d i t w surely will disturb most sage" Nazi, at a skip of d uD)li esaidafte i t h a p p n c d t h c w a r evangelical Christians. T)n i h c b i b eforyear o w i t w a s s o 3 (every third letter): In Drosnin's appendix, he cniisiwhodiscov c b i b geNerAliZatlon. r e d t h cxt raordinarycod tabic 0 n s c finally gets around to dis­ I discussed the Bible Code dema i ledi t tomefr hi w t a I wh cussing critics like McKay. in the November/December slcadingauthorit k s i n g roup Drosnin supplies a surprising told 1997 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER csquantumphys ics m c t h revisionist history of the (Vol. 21, No. 6), and also in hcoddsaga ins t i thappc n g b y c h a n mi b i ii I adenwa snamed h e b i b 1 c c o codes, often contradicting the March/April 1998 issue seqycncethatdeclarcd i in Ii i mg u i I what he wrote in his first (Vol. 22, No. 2). Much has i tappearedinthesamepf i c e t he o r • book. And he takes a number happened since then, most dtheysawt he smoke i sngabovet hell of cheap shots, for example, notably the publication of a Figure 1. HOAX. DISMAL, and OIL hidden in Chapter 1 of the criticizing the rebuttal by devastating rebuttal to the Bible Code II. McKay and his three Hebrew "code," and analyzing new events like original Statistical Science paper co-authors as "written by a team of the terror attacks of September 11, (Witztum 1994) that really got the "Bible mathematicians led by an Australian 2001. Drosnin describes his recent Code" going. The rebuttal, by Australian who did not read the language of the efforts in his new sequel. The Bible Code Brendan McKay, working with several Bible code." On the next page, Drosnin II, released in November 2002 (Drosnin Hebrew colleagues, showed that extols the code-supporting findings of 2002). The first chapter tells how extremely small variations in the mes­ Harold Gans, but neglects to mention Drosnin witnessed the attacks on the sages to be located, and in the procedure that Gans doesn't read Hebrew either. World Trade Center, and how he itself, produce far less impressive results He makes a major gaffe in describing quickly found the event predicted as than were obtained by Rips and Witztum the original Witztum/Rips experiment hidden messages in the Torah (the first (McKay 1999). McKay's group presented as "a classic double-blind experiment. five books of the Bible in the original The independent expert [Havlin] who David E. Thomas is an Albuquerque-area Hebrew). Subsequent chapters discuss chose the data did not even know how physicist and mathematician. He is Drosnin's meetings with Arafat and the data would affect the outcome of the President of New Mexicans for Science Peres, his attempts to meet with Ariel experiment." McKay points out the and Reason, a CSICOP Fellow, and a Sharon and President Bush, his search obvious in a new article on his Web site SKEPTICAL INQUIRER consulting editor. for hidden Torah messages about

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Match/April 2003 59 BOOK REVIEWS

(McKay 2002): "That's not double- And he says, he wrote in 1997, 'Hidden eighth row (440/55 = 8). Words with blind. In a double-blind experiment, the messages can be found anywhere pro­ other steps between letters can appear as investigators (Rips and Co.) would also vided you're willing to invest time and diagonals. The entire (and rather large) not know which data were good and effort to harvest the vast field of proba­ puzzle can be seen at the NMSR Web which bad." Drosnin unfairly labels bility. He, Drosnin, underestimates the site (Thomas 2002). McKay's open, public demonstration of power of chance combined with the Of special interest is the stunning what can be achieved by manipulation brute force of computers. He says these seven-step code for hoax, which is of data as a "hoax." And Drosnin even messages are beyond the power of encoded in just seven words from Drosnin's new book: "And I never oshoscinstcadthenextsageswhosccntriesin thought to look in tHe code fOr jurnalanevenmoredctai led staementoFhisro 'airplAne.' As I eXplained to a friend at ne sc incewa s i n formed inwt i t i ng i nadvAnceby the CIA later that day,..." dol larbil IthatwouldnotprovethatalLmoney I also looked for secret messages in nooneha sfoundanyev idenc etha t r ips i Swrong Drosnin's Appendix. And, running .findthcmwrotemckayetal ignoringrhBfactt right through his assertion that ". . . to c suit ssof the i rfi rs texpc rimentandofcour s this day, no one has found any evidence that Rips is wrong" is the hidden Figure 2. FALSE hidden in the Appendix of the Bible Code //. message false (figure 2). accuses McKay of initially finding a pos­ chance, and I've proven they are not.' Drosnin hasn't learned anything in [Lang 1997] What is your response to itive result, and then hiding it. McKay's the last five years, but perhaps the world Dr. Thomas here?" comment: "This is an absolute lie. has. Drosnin's sequel appeared on the Drosnin's reply: "It's really silly." I Nothing like this ever happened and we New York Times bestseller list at number did not even see this claim before now." agree that the Bible Code itself is 25 on December 22, 2002; by January indeed silly, but my investigations into Drosnin again claims that "No one 5, 2003, it had slipped to number 30, such codes are anything but. I have used has found in War and Peace or Moby three books below Hollywood Hulk Dick* correct prediction, in advance, of only "official" Bible Code methods to Hogan. By January 19, it had broken a world event." Had he bothered to find amazing puzzles in all kinds of into the top 15, at number 10. actually read what his critics are saying, texts, even though believers insist they Will Drosnin drop the Bible Code he would have learned about my pre­ can only be found in the Torah. and take up wrestling? I'll guess I'll check diction of the Chicago Bulls victory in I have recendy applied the "Bible the 1998 NBA playoffs, based on Code" technique to die first chapter on what looms ahead in Moby Dick. "codes" in Tolstoy's War and Peace, of Drosnin's new sequel itself, available made months before the deciding game on the Internet. The excerpt consists References (Thomas 2002). of a mere 6,966 characters, or 1,617 Indeed, Drosnin has failed to learn words, but nonetheless contains the fol­ Crossfire. 2002. December 2, 2002 transcript. the single most important fact about lowing striking secret message, encoded online at www..com/TRANSCRIPTS/ so-called "Bible Codes": this arcane in Drosnin's very own words: "The Bible 02l2/02/cf.00.html. Drosnin. M. 1997. The Bible Code. Simon & technique allows one to find virtually Code is a silly, dumb, fake, false, evil, Schuster. nasty, dismal fraud and snake-oil hoax." any desired message hidden in any . 2002: The Bible Code II. Viking Press. desired text. Figure 1 shows a small section of the Lang. S., and M. Haederle. 1997. "Code Breaker." Columnist Bob Novak discussed the complete puzzle. Drosnin's sentences People magazine, November 3. 91—94. Bible Code with Drosnin on CNN's run left-to-right, stripped of spaces, McKay. B., D. Bar-Natan, M. Bar-Hillel. and G. Crossfire on December 2, 2002. punctuation, and numbers. The puzzle Kalai. 1999. "Solving The Bible Code Puzzle," Statistical Science Vol 14-2, 150-173. {Crossfire 2002). Novak said, "Mr step is 55, which means that each letter McKay 2002: "Michael Drosnin's second book on Drosnin, as far as I can see all the comes exactly 55 letters after the one die Bible Codes," online at cs.anu.edu. experts, scientists, Judaic scholars, think appearing just above it in the puzzle. au/-bdm/dilugim/drosninIl.html. you're out to lunch on this book. And The match for dismal also has a step Thomas, D. 2002. "The Bible Code." online at let me quote one of them now, Dave of 55, so that word appears as a www.nmsr.org/biblecod.htm. Thomas in People magazine, this is not contiguous vertical column. The word Witztum, D.. E Rips, and Y. Rosenberg. 1994. "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of the late Dave Thomas from Wendy's, oil has letters that are 440 letters apart Genesis." (WRR). Statistical Science Vol. 9 this is a mathematician and physicist. in the text, so its letters appear every 429-438. D

SO MarchMpnl 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER NEW BOOKS

Listing does not preclude future review. 2002. $24. Delightful little book of Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Einstein's notes to and from child­ Modern Science—from the Babylonians to The Craft of Argument, ren from 1928 to 1955, the year of the Maya. Dick Teresi. Simon & Schuster, Concise Edition. Joseph Einstein's death. With a foreword by 2002. 453 pp. $27, hardcover. This exami­ \R(,ll\ll\l M. Williams and Greg­ Einstein's granddaughter, a short biogra­ nation of the non-Western contributions ory G. Colomb. Long­ phy by the editor, and a chapter on to science started as an effort to show man Publishers, 1185 Einstein's education. that they were paltry but ended with discov­ Avenue of the Americas, ery of examples of science from all over New York, NY 10036. Healing Yourself with the non-Western world—Sumeria, Baby­ 2003. 298 pp. [no price given], softcover. Wishful Thinking. lon, Egypt, India, China, Africa, the Arab An introduction for college undergradu­ with Wishful Arthur Bloch. Ten world, the Americas, and the Pacific Thinking ates to the principles of argumentation. It Speed Press, P.O. Box Islands—that equaled or surpassed Greek frames argument not as a way to coerce 7123, Berkeley, CA and European learning. Teresi is careful to one party into agreement with another * 94707. 2002. 130 pp., distinguish himself from promoters of but as a cooperative inquiry into a con­ $9.95, softcover. Arthur Bloch, author multicultural pseudoscience in nevertheless tested issue whose solutions will satisfy all of the Murphy's Law books and pro­ showing important exam­ parties. The authors describe thoughtful ducer/director of the PBS scries Thinking ples of early science in the argument as the basis of human rational­ Allowed, wrote this often dead-on parody, non-Greek, non Euro­ ity and focus on the ways unsound rea­ promising readers they can "Learn sophis­ pean world. soning can lead to bad arguments and ticated self-empowerment techniques Magick, Mayhem, and how careful and thoughtful arguments such as 'never-minding,' 'glossing-over,' can encourage sound thinking. Also 'blame-fixing,' and 'positive forgetful- Mavericks: The Spirited incorporates the most recent research ness.'" With chapters like "Your Spirit History of Physical from the "biases and heuristics" litera­ Guide: A Voice From Beyond Reason" Chemistry. Cathy Cobb. Prometheus ture. This attempt to help students inte­ and "Preventing Inner Child Abuse: Boob, Amherst, NY 14228-2197, 2002. grate the skills of writing, thinking, and B Enact Your Own Megan's Law," Bloch 420 pp., $29, hardcover. A gallant attempt arguing addresses issues raised in virtually skewers magical thinking, New Age to provide a popular history of physical every issue of SI. puffery, self-important self-help books, chemistry—the physics of chemistry— and much more. Who can doubt this tes­ complete with its heroes and heroines and timonial from a satisfied reader? "I lost its mavericks and renegades. Dealing with Dear Professor Ein­ my little finger when I was just a child. objects (atoms) usually too small to see, stein: Albert Einstein's Since using your Wishful Thinking pro­ always in motion, undergoing changes you Letters to and from gram, I'm sure I can see the stub begin­ Children. Edited by ning to grow." An amusing antidote to can't always measure, and behaving in ways Alice Calaprice. Fore­ the accusation that skeptics are just a you can't always predict, physical chemistry word by Evelyn Einstein. bunch of dour doubters, and a light- has its share of challenges, and Cobb's Prometheus Books, Am­ hearted nudge into skeptical thought. humanistic, historical approach results in a herst, NY 14228-2197, lively, readable account of it all. Wear Your Skepticism on your Shirt!

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62 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER FORUM

Cobb County Clowns Stage Another Pi Fight

WILLIAM J. HOYT, JR.

ive score and five years ago, our F fathers brought forth on this continent a new calcula­ tion, conceived in simplicity and dedicated to the proposition that all maths are created equal. The year was 1897. Indiana legislators, under the spell of a notorious crank, decided they would dis­ pense with inconvenient facts. They decided that 3.14159, and all those digits that just go on and on and on, could and should be simpler. After, I'm sure, what can only be properly described as a legislative pi fight, dicy decreed, that, henceforth in Indiana, pi shall have the value of 3. Or 4. Or maybe it was 9.2376. The wording was so bad, the of pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places, a value is in dispute to this day. Stubborn new worid record.) Here Indiana offered One recent example happened last cusses that they arc, those dogmatic up a far easier and tastier pi, and those September in Cobb County, Georgia. mathematicians insisted on using die old, arrogant sots didn't even bite. I'm sure that, just like the Indiana legisla­ messy value of pi. The one diat goes on I know there have since been many tors, Cobb County school officials were and on and on. (A team of Japanese other examples of governmental edicts just clowning around when they decided, researchers announced December 6, against all rationality. Most haven't I think, to open up evolutionary educa­ 2002, that they had calculated the value involved mathematical constants. Many tion to its alternatives. I'm equally certain William Hoyt, Jr. writes from Southington, recent ones have focused instead on that dicy were simply clowning around while Connecticut. other inconvenient fact, evolution. composing their written decision. It is

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 63 FORUM

quite humorous, after all: dents." How? It doesn't say teach evolu­ chey want to discuss "disputed views of tion. It doesn't say don't teach evolution. [I]t is the educational philosophy of the Cobb County School Disttict to academic subjects"? Disputed by whom? It speaks of tolerance and acceptance of a diversity of opinion. Is the hidden claim here that evolution is alone among the sciences in being a disguised religious doctrine? Or do they also want students expressing their opinions, religious or Those who dispute evolution are mostly otherwise, on whether gravity exists? Or whether the Sun rotates around Earth? drawn from the ranks of fundamentalist Or even the correct definition of pi? These discussions, if handled appropri­ and, more recently, Islam, ately, might also foster critical thinking not from biology departments. If the skills. If they become the norm for all subjects, they'll also slow learning down dispute is largely raised only by certain to a crawl, and Cobb County parents religious groups, then how does this policy will attend, along with their grandchil­ dren, the graduations of their twenty- ensure a posture of religious neutrality? five-year-old children.

Cobb County will need to hire con­ tortionists to teach biology while this pol­ icy is in effect. I can just hear such a teacher when she begins to present evolu­ tion. "No, Mary, this theory applies to all provide a broad based curriculum; Academically, evolution belongs in the life up to humankind. No, not including therefore, the Cobb County School biology departments and in peer- humankind. Uh, no, I'm not saying we District believes that discussion of reviewed biology journals. There are no disputed views of academic subjects didn't evolve. No, I'm not saying we did, papers in these journals that question is a necessary element of providing a either. Uh, you really need to take this up whether evolution occurred. Biologists balanced education, including the next period in your Comparative study of the origin of the species. are too busy nailing down the details Religion class. Uh, no, Gilroy, medical This subject remains an area of and the implications. Those who dis­ science does apply to humans. Yes, intense interest, research, and discus­ pute evolution are mostly drawn from sion among scholars. As a result, the physics and chemistry, too. Uh, just not the ranks of fundamentalist Christianity study of this subject shall be handled biological science. Well, specifically evo­ and, more recently, Islam, not from in accordance with this policy and lution. Or any part that may offend any with objectivity and good judgment biology departments. If the dispute is religion. Okay, let's talk about dinosaurs. on the part of teachers, taking into largely raised only by certain religious Yes, Jimmy, I know dinosaurs aren't men­ account the age and maturity level of groups, then how does this policy ensure their students. tioned in Genesis. I have no idea how a posture of religious neutrality? And Noah got them on the ark. Okay, I can The purpose of this policy is to doesn't this sudden subject change to see we can't continue this section without foster critical thinking among stu­ religion belie the puffery about acade­ dents, to allow academic freedom violating our neutral religious posture. mic disputes and discussion among consistent with legal requirements, Let's move onto plant pollination." to promote tolerance and acceptance scholars? With curiosity now piqued, of a diversity of opinion, and to let's dig a bit deeper into the wording. They're still arguing, five score and five ensure a posture of neutrality toward years later, what Indiana thought pi religion. It is the intent of the Cobb "The origin of the species." This should be. My guess is rJiat in 2107 they'll County Board of Education that this howler might suggest the authors are policy not be interpreted to restrict still be arguing over what the heck it is a simply interested in one species, pre­ the teaching of evolution; to pro­ biology teacher in Cobb County was sup­ mote or require the teaching of cre- sumably we humans. Or perhaps the posed to teach back in 2002. The world ationism; or to discriminate for or authors have chosen to adopt the classic against a particular set of religious creationist mangling of Darwin's title. may litdc understand nor long remember beliefs, religion in general, or non- On the Origin of Species By Means of what Cobb County said here, but it can religion. Natural Selection. I'll leave it to the never forget what they did here. Back in reader to speculate. Neither interpreta­ the bad old days, when the school board Say what? No wonder Johnny can't write tion, I'm afraid, is very charitable. staged a pi fight that nobody won, and yet clearly. What on earth do they want? Do "Foster critical thinking among stu­ the students clearly lost.

64 March/Apnl 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER FORUM

The Inconsolations of Philosophy

RALPH ESTLING

eople are remarkably good at phi­ self-running process in music, the best losophizing, though they're not music, say, a Bach fugue, Gregorian Palways aware that that's what chant, or the Kaddish, die Hebrew they're doing. This is one major reason prayer for the dead. But of course music why humans are important, if only to doesn't create itself, so please don't ask me themselves, because it is they who are the what I mean by this, as I'm not at all sure only beings (so far as we know) that sup­ and I'll only get embarrassed.) ply meaning to Life, the Universe, and Humans are important because a few Everything, including themselves, if only of them do not pick "reasons" ready- for a while and subject to searching cross- made off the rack and say that every­ examinarinn. Nothing and no one else thing is the inexplicable handiwork of can do this, for this takes intelligence. the invisible, undetectable, ineluctable There is intelligent design in die gods, but instead seek to create reasons Universe, but we had better define "intel­ of their own, which is philosophy. This ligent" and "design" very carefully. It is is a far more complicated and vexing not what the creationists say it is. Instead, process than just simply letting the gods it is what makes sense, not just to us, but get on with it, so it's not surprising that in itself, whether we think it or not It is only a small minority of humanity not conscious, it is not aware of what it is operate their minds in this fashion. I doing, it does not plan ahead, it has no think we owe this minority a lot. and this is very hard, we forget consola­ fixed purpose, no goal. Yet mere appears If there is an overall, overarching tions altogether and concentrate our to be a sensible process at work. Natural "Meaning" in Upper Case to things, we minds, like Dr. Johnson's condemned selection is clearly pan of this process and, have yet to grasp what it is and it is more prisoner, on underlying principles, fun­ or so it is beginning to seem to some, that than possible that diere isn't any, that damental and immutable truths, and something with die truly awful name of existence constitutes all the "meaning" these offer very little in the way of "self-organized complexifkation" may be in lower case that there is and so perhaps solace. I've reached the age now where too. No one has made a plan nor is we'd do well to look for another word the term "consolations of philosophy" putting it into effect. Nature isn't con­ and drop meaning altogether. Or rede­ takes on an ironic tone and the idea sciously and judiciously making choices fine it drastically, more drastically than smirks at me in a way I don't particularly in "natural selection." The physical laws we want to. So far, we don't appear ready like. Well, tough. The Universe, it diat govern and direct die Universe seem to take this step, or rather this hop, skip, would seem, was not drawn up to my to have made things, including mem- and jump, not quite. So we hunt about specifications. I've suspected as much selves, this way, for reasons we can't for other definitions of meaning and for quite some time now. (allium, or perhaps for nothing that really point, something that won't demand too It is easy to allow contempt for those merits the name of "reasons." (I some­ much from us and from the consola­ times catch myself wondering if we tions of our philosophies. Ralph Estling writes from Ilminster, detect some vague, blurry sense ot this If we are entirely honest widi ourselves. Somerset, England

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 65 FORUM

who think the Universe was made to if there is no point to anything, then We know that science is a construct of their specifications to creep in on its lit­ maybe there is no point to existentialism men and women. But what about logic tle cat feet. We slip easily into a despising either. In the 1950s and 1960s people and mathematics? Are they invented by of belief-without-cvidence and then, began to think about this and once that us or are they inherent in the cosmos and quite effortlessly, into despising those happened existentialism was doomed. discovered by us and then formalized who hold these beliefs. But contempt is French philosophies have always into our own rules and regulations, so not an attitude we can be proud of, it reminded me of French toilets. One that at first glance it looks as though we invented them and they have no exis­ tence beyond us, our minds, our for­ malisms. I think that the more we con­ The Universe, it would seem, was not drawn sider die two possibilities the more we are driven toward the latter view. The up to my specifications. I've suspected as Universe is too ordered, too mathemati­ cally organized for this to be coincidental. much for quite some time now. The physicist Eugene Wigner writes about the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in understanding how our will not make us better or happier, and it reaches high above and pulls on the Universe works. I think of mathematics is a risky business, for contempt creates majestic chain. There is an explosion as one form that logic takes and so I think contempt, and we are in no position to like the detonation of a rocket launch to of logic as existing outside us but which duck our own boomerangs with Jupiter, a thundering, an avalanche, a we can, sometimes, to some extent, tease impunity. And then there's that bit about cataclysm, a mighty rush of many out. The Universe obeys laws, if only the stones and glass houses to reckon with. waters, multicolored streamers blossom laws of probability, and the laws of prob­ We arc all unique and all the same. open and spiral down, fireworks blaze, a ability are determined, fixed, inviolate, That is our glory and our catastrophe. I military band of 110 brasses plays La whatever the particular, individual case think few of us could live without some Marseillaise, the ghosts of Joan of Arc may be. These laws must be self-created elements of self-deception. Reality is too and Charles de Gaulle descend in glory and self-maintained. A tendency toward overwhelming, too "other," it cannot be and in light . . . and one looks down ever-evolving complexity in things seems forced into a shape and size we would into the bowl to see what has happened. to be part of this general, overarching prefer it to assume and so it cannot be And one sees that nothing has hap­ principle, something we glimpse in the original, Greek meaning of cosmos as faced in its entirety. For some it cannot pened. Nothing at all. Nothing. . . . order and system, harmony and method. be faced at all. So we must console ourselves with I refuse to believe all this is merely phi­ So we seek out philosophy, though what little philosophy we have with losophy; I believe it forms the bedrock of we are less choosy than the ancient what little result it brings. Of course, we science, that it is the most important job Greeks, and incline towards the mish­ can always give up on it and take up of scientists to discover this basic, under­ mash and the hodge-podge, rather than bridge or golf or surf the Internet. lying foundation of all things and all exis­ the stoic or epicurean. Existentialism has Boethius, on the other hand, wrote his tence. Otherwise we are left with the long since passed its shelf life, and so no Consolations of Philosophy in 524 A.D. nonsenses of Copenhagenism, many- new all-purpose philosophy of life is while in prison awaiting execution. He worlds, and all that rubbish, which is with us or looming on the horizon. decided that as God could do no evil, evil where we wallow now. Some tour the horizon in search of it but did not exist and that happiness but not it isn't there—or if it is it's hiding from mere pleasure should be the aim of the We know what the stars are, we need us. In its day existentialism offered wise. "In wise men there is no place for not look up at them to know that the impressive thoughts and literary flourish hatred," he concluded. Bertrand Russell Universe is an incredible thing. about the essential absurdity of Life, the wrote that during the two centuries before Incredible diings are not to be wor­ Universe, and Everything, and a number Boethius and the ten centuries after him shipped, though they are to be revered. of people, not all of them French, were no other European man of learning was as And they are to be understood for what much taken by it. But over the years free from superstition and fanaticism. It is they are and how they came to be. there was less to it than met the eye, and no bad epitaph for a philosopher. And it is science, and not philoso­ its long-term effects tended towards the But if we believe it is a good thing to phy, that may, just possibly, take us underwhelming, because there is only so go beyond philosophy, to science, there. So let us not delude ourselves, or much one can say about absurdity as a mathematics, and logic, then we cannot if we must delude ourselves, then let us philosophy of life and then you start to stop with Boethius, as much as we delude ourselves with something more wonder if absurdity has gone too far and, might like to. worthwhile. 3

66 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER prayer, Tessman and Tessman I Can we tell if someone is staring at us?. Baker I Assessing the quality of med­ FILL IN THE GAPS IN YOUR ical Web sites. Levi I The demon-haunted sentence. Byrne and Normand I Mad messiahs, Gardner. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2000 (vol. 24. no. 1): Special Report: The ten outstanding skeptics of the twentieth Skeptical Inquirer COLLECTION century / Two paranormalisms or two and a naff?, Goode I Anna Eva Fay, Polidoro I The pseudoscience of oxygen • 15% discount on orders of $100 or more • therapy. Allen I Confessions of a (former) graphologist. • $6.25 a copy, Vols. 1-18 ($5.00 Vols. 19-25). To order, use reply card insert • Tripidan I The Second Coming of Jesus, Gardner. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999 (vol. 23, no. 6): The Universe and Carl Sagan. Davidson I The millennium JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003 (vol 27. no. 1): How not genetic wager. Aw'se / Shroud of Turin scandals. thought contagion, lynch / Debunking the debunkers: to test mediums. Hyman I Beliefs on trial, and the Nickell I Multiverses and blackberries, Gardner. A response to astrology, Kelly I The physics behind legality of reasonableness, fisner / Placebos, nocebos. JULY/AUGUST 2001 (vol. 25. no. 4): Confronting vet­ four amazing demonstrations, Willey I Another lunar and chiropractic adjustments. Homola I Pliny the erinary medical nonsense, Imrie I Junk science and the effect put to rest Sweet I Special Report: Blooming Elder: Credulist, skeptic or both?. law, Dodes I Chevreul's report on the shroud claims. Nickell I The star of Bethlehem. Parejko / Unfazed: Mark Twain mysterious oscillations of the hand-held Gardner: debunks the mesmerizer, Englebretsen pendulum. Spitz and Marcuard I CSICOP I Amityville Horror. rVrckeff. 25th Anniversary section: A quarter- SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1999 (vol. 23. no. 5): Special NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 (vol. 26. century of skeptical inquiry, Paul Kurtz I Report: Flash! Fox news reports aliens may have built no. 6): Politicizing the Virgin Mary. Eve Thoughts on science and skepticism in the pyramids. Carrier I Where do we come from?, / Hypothesis testing and the nature of the twenty-first century. Kendrick Pigliucci I Profits and prophecy. Wise / Projective mea­ skeptical investigations, Pigliucci I frazier I Proper criticism. J?ay Hyman I sures of personality and psychopathology: How well Intelligent design: Dembski's presenta­ The lighter side of skepticism. Pudim IA do they work?. Lilienfeld I What every skeptic ought tion without arguments, Perakh I Hugo skeptical look at Karl Popper. Gardner. to know about subliminal persuasion, Epley. Savitsky. Gernsback. skeptical crusader. Miller I MAY/JUNE 2001 (vol. 25, no. 3): The and Kachelski I Carlos Castaneda and New Age Alternative medicine and pseudo- shrinking filedrawer, Sfokes / The anthropology, Gardner. science, Mornstein I Are skeptics cyni­ Pokemon Panic of 1997. Radford I The JULY/AUGUST 1999 (vol. 23. no. 4): Special Issue: cal?. Mole I Psychic pets and pet psy­ Antinous Prophecies. Pickover I chics. Nickell. Science and Religion. Conflict or Conciliation? Common myths of children's behavior, Celebrating creation, Raymo I Should skeptical fiorello I Bertrand Russell and critical inquiry be applied to religion?. Kurtz I The 'Science SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 (vol. 26, receptiveness. Hare I CSICOP 25th no. S): Special Report: Circular and Religion' movement. Scott / Science and the ver­ Anniversary section: From the editor's seat: 25 years of Reasoning: The 'mystery' of crop circles and their sus of religion, Palevitz I Science vs. religion. 'orbs' of light. Nickell. Fourth World Skeptics science and skepticism, Kendrick Frazier I Science vs. Pazameta I Anthropic design. Stenger / Scientific Conference Report / A skeptical look at September pseudoscience, nonscience, and nonsense, James skepticism. CSICOP. and the local groups. Novella and 11th, Chapman and Harris I Sheldrake's Crystals, van Alcock I CSICOP timeline / Primal scream: A persistent Bloomberg I Two mind-sets. Allen I God is dead, after Genderen, Koene and Nienhuys I Teaching skepticism New Age therapy. Gardner. the weather and sports, Reiss I Whence religious via the CRITIC acronym. Bartz I Skepticism under the belief?. Pinker I Non-overlapping magisteria. Gould I big sky. Schwinden. Engbrecht Mercer and Patterson I MARCH/APRIL 2001 (vol. 25. no. 2): Darwin in mind. You can't have it both ways: Irreconcilable differ­ Why was The X-Files so appealing?. Goode / Edis I A bit confused. Roche I What can the paranor­ ences?. Dawkins I The concerns of science, Mayr I The religious views of Stephen Gould and Charles Darwin. Winchester mystery house, Nickell. mal teach us about consciousness?. Blackmore I Gardner. Spontaneous human confabulation. Nienhuys I Italy's JULY/AUGUST 2002 (vol. 26, no. 4): Special Report: version of Harry Houdini, Nisbet IA psychological case Alternative medicine and the White House commis­ of 'demon' and 'alien' visitation, Reisner I Distant MAY/JUNE 1999 (vol. 23. no. 3): Special Section: Urban legends. The snuff film. Stine I 8itter harvest: The sion, Gorski. London I Special Section: Science and healing and Elizabeth Targ. Gardner. pseudoscience in Russia, Kurtz. Efremov. Kruglyakov I organ-snatching urban legends. Radford I Bigfoot's Who abused Jane Doe? Part 2, Loftus and Guyer I The JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2001 (vol. 25. no. 1): Special screen test. Daegling and Schmitt I Tracking Bigfoot high cost of skepticism, Tavris / Graham Hancock's Section: Issues in Alternative Medicine: Medicine on the Internet. Zuetle I Statement analysis. Shearer I shifting cataclysm. Brass I The Mad Gasser of Mattoon. wars, Seidman I Herbal medicines and dietary sup­ NAGPRA. science, and the demon-haunted world. Ladendort and Bartholomew I Moscow mysteries. plements. Allen I Psychoactive herbal medications. Cfark I Urine therapy. Gardner Nickell. Spinella I Chiropractic Homola I Damaged goods? MARCH/APRIL 1999 (vol. 23. no. 2): Special Report: Science and child sexual abuse, Hagen I Special MAY/JUNE 2002 (vol. 26. no. 3): Who abused Jane The ten-percent myth. Radford I Superstition and the Report: Science indicators 2000 / Facilitated commu­ regression effect, Kruger, Savitsky, and Gilovich I Doe? Part 1. tortus and Guyer / Is the Mars Effect a nication. Gardner. social effect?. Dean I Gray Barker's book of bunk. Psychology of the seance. Wiseman I Dowsing and Sherwood I The king of quacks: Albert Abrams. M.D.. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 (vol. 24. no. 6): The face archaeology, van Leusen I Hidden messages in DNA?, Haines / Benny Hinn: Healer or hypnotist?. Nickell. behind the Face on Mars. Posner / The new paranat- Larhammar and Chatzidimitriou I The real Chief ural paradigm, Kurtz I Francis Bacon and the true ends Seattle was not a spiritual ecologist. Abruzzi I Joint MARCH/APRIL 2002 (vol. 26, no. 2): Special Reports: of skepticism. Fnedberg I Worlds in collision: Where pain and weather. Quick / Acupressure, zone therapy, Bioterrorism and alternative medicine. Atwood I reality meets the paranormal. Radford I Why bad and , Gardner. •Mothman' solved! Nickell I Bigfoot at fifty, Radford I beliefs don't die, tester / Supernatural power and cul­ Cripplefoot hobbled. Daegling I Pseudohistory in JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1999 (vol. 23. no. 1): Special tural evolution, Layng I The brutality of Report: Armageddon and the prophets ancient coins. Carrier I Are science and religion com­ Dr. Bettelheim, Gardner. patible?. Kurtz I The emptiness of holism. Ruscio I of doomsday. Fears of the apocalypse. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 (vol. 24. no. Kurtz I The Bible and the prophets of Undercover among the spirits. Nickell. 5): Voodoo science and the belief gene, doom. Larue I Science and pseudoscience JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 (vol. 26. no. 1): Myths of Par* / Rogerian Nursing Theory. Raskin I in Russia. Kapitza I Testing dowsing: The murder and multiple regression. Goertzel I Education, Sun sign columns. Dean and Mather I failure of the Munich experiments. scientific knowledge, and belief in the paranormal. The psychic slating effect. Marks and Enrlght I A falllbilist 3mong the cynics, Goode / A university's struggle with chiropractic, Colwell I Management of positive and Haaik I The internet A world brain?. DeRobertis I Snaring the Fowler: Mark Twain debunks negative responses in a spiritualist Gardner. phrenology. Lopez I Three skeptics' debate tools medium consultation. Greasley I The examined. Caso / Mickey Mouse discovers the 'real' laws of nature: A skeptic's guide. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1998 (vol. 22. Atlantis. Hardersen I Atlantis behind the myth. Pazameta I Special Report: On ear cones no. 6): Gaps in the fossil record: A case Christopher/ 10th European Skeptics Congress report, and candles. Kaushall and Kaushall I study. 7?K>mas / The Martian Panic sixty Mahner I Voodoo in New Orleans. Nickell I Some Little Red Riding Hood. Gardner. years later Bartholomew I The perils of thoughts on induction. Gardner. I5r post-hockery, Ruscio I May the force be JULY/AUGUST 2000 (vol. 24. no. 4): with you. Krauss I The Mead-Freeman NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 (vol. 25. no. 6): A cri­ Thought Field Therapy: Can we really controversy: A fresh look: Much ado tique of Schwartz et al.'s after-death communication tap our problems away?, Gaudiano and about nothing The 'Fateful Hoaxing' of studies. Wiseman and O'Keeffe I Magical thinking in Herbert I Absolute skepticism equals dogmatism. Margaret Mead. Core / Margaret Mead. Derek complementary and alternative medicine. Stevens / Bunge I Did a close encounter of the third kind occur Freeman, and the issue of evolution. Shankman I Educational malpractice, Moore I Philosophers and on a Japanese beach in 1803?. Tanaka I Rethinking the Second World Skeptics Congress: Science and reason, psychics: The Vandy episode. CMdneld I CSICOP 25th dancing mania. Bartholomew I Has science education foibles and fallacies, and doomsdays / Science and the Anniversary section: The origins and evolution of CSI­ become an enemy of scientific rationality?, fde / unknowable. Gardner. COP. Mrsbet / Never a dull moment. Kan I John Krakatene: Explosive pseudoscience from the Czech Edward: Hustling the bereaved. Nickell / Ernest Academy of science. Slanina I David Bohm and SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1998 (vol. 22. no. S): Special Hemingway and Jane. Gardner. Krishnamurti, Gardner. Section: What are the chances?. Coincidences: Remarkable or random?. Martin I Numerology Comes SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2001 (vol. 25. no. 5); Special the revolution. Dudley I Calculated risks. Cole I How to Issue: Science and Religion 2001. Holy wars. Tyson / MAY/JUNE 2000 (vol. 24. no. 3): Special Report: The The dangerous quest for cooperation between sci­ new bogus MJ-12 documents. Klats I Mass delusions study weird things. Trocco / Why would people no! ence and religion. Pandian I Design yes. intelligent and hysterias of the past millennium, Bartholomew believe weird things?. Anderson I Starkle, starkle, lit­ no. Pigliucci I A way of life for agnostics?. Lovelock I and Goode I Doomsday fears at RHIC. Guiterrez I Save tle twink. Hayes / Of planets and cognitions: The use Science, religion, and the Galileo affair. Moy / The our science: The struggle for rationality at a French of deductive inference in the natural sciences and psy­ god of falling bodies. Stenger I The relationship university, Broch 1 Paraneuroscience?. Kirkland I chology. Schfingef Ir I What's going on at Temple between paranormal beliefs and religious beliefs. Bohm's guided wave theory. Gardner. University?. Gardner. Sparks I Science and religion in an impersonal uni­ MARCH/APRIL 2000 (vol. 24. no. 2): Risky business: verse. Young / Arthur C Clarke's 'Credo.' Carte / A For a complete listing of our back issues, cad 800-634- designer universe?, Weinberg / An evolutionary- Vividness, availability, and the media paradox. Ruscio I Physics and the paranormal, t Hooft I Efficacy of 1610. or see http://www.csicop.org/si/back-issues.html. LETTE RS TO THE EDITOR

Testing Hypotheses the wrong hypothesis. Professor Pigliucci does a great service to point this out. However, this I have one clarification that I think needs to be has nothing to do with classical (or frequentist) added to the points made by my good friend statistics versus Bayesian statistics. The solu­ Massimo Pigliucci in his fine article tion is to test an interval hypothesis instead of "Hypothesis Testing and the Nature of a point hypothesis. This can be done in a clas­ Skeptical Investigations" (November/ sical or Bayesian framework. Classical and December 2002). In discussing the p-values Bayesian methods are tools; both can be used used in frcqucntist statistical analysis he men­ ot misused. Neither is a panacea. tions that a threshold of 0.05, or 5 percent, is commonly used to decide when an effect is sta­ Larry Wasserman tistically significant. He rightly criticizes this as Professor, Department of Statistics inadequate and urges that other statistical Carnegie Mellon University methods be used. I agree wholeheartedly. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 5 percent threshold implies that every twenty or so published experiments is nothing more I would like to thank Massimo Pigliucci forhi s than a statistical artifact. Unfortunately, this is interesting article, I do, however, have some the threshold used by most journals in medi­ nits to pick. cine, psychology, and parapsychology. No Pigliucci refers to parapsychological studies wonder they generate so many spurious results with low p-values alleged to demonstrate psi. that are never replicated. The problem diere is, however, not with stan­ Medjugorje Mary Apparitions dard statistical procedures nor with the notion However, I want to point out that no of a "null hypothesis." Parapsychologists are respectable journal in physics would ever pub­ I enjoyed the article on the alleged apparitions correct to reject the hypothesis that "it hap­ lish a result, and no self-respecting physicist of Mary in die November/December 2002 pened by chance"; where they go wrong is in would ever claim a new phenomenon, that is issue. However. I was surprised that die author assuming that this is the same as rejecting "it significant at only the 5 percent level. The never referred to Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz's happened by non-psychic means." Pigliucci standard for physics journals over many years voluminous book Encountering Mary. explains well how small mistakes and asymme­ now has been a p-value of 0.0001. This means Although this book is hard to find, it is the tries in a complex experimental environment that in a long sequence of identical experi­ can give marginal deviations from chance most detailed sociological account of the vari­ ments we would expect to observe an effect as expectations. However, this critique of experi­ ous Marian apparitions available. This book is great or greater produced by statistical fluctua­ mental parapsychology is independent of any extensively referred to by Joe Nickell in tions in only 0.01 percent of the cases. looking for a Mirack, which ^appear in die particular school of statistical methodology .intIn>i s bibliography. While such a low publishing standard as p (see chapter six in my book The Ghost of the = 0.05 may be justified for ordinary results that Universe). Parapsychologists have been misin­ Jonathan Harvey do no overturn established science, it is totally terpreting their statistics, while Pigliucci [email protected] inappropriate for extraordinary claims like implies that the fault lies with standard statis­ ESP or the healing power of prayer and the tical inference. Young female (and male) rustics have been see­ SKEPTICAL INQUIRER should take a stand on this. Almost any sort of nonsense can be pub­ Pigliucci further argues that science will ing strange people for quite some time. Before benefit from adopting a Bayesian approach. I the rise of Christianity, what they saw was a lished if all it takes is twenty experiments to find one diat where a statistical fluctuation doubt that switching sides in the fiery but local goddess and die place became a shrine. produces the supposed effect. Rarely are any of inconclusive debate between orthodox and After the rise of Christianity, what they saw the nineteen diat show no effect published. Bayesian statisticians would change much in was (appropriately enough) the Virgin Mary— practice. A Bayesian approach has some advan­ and the place became a shrine. Arc we really to Vic Stenger tages, but it also suffers from severe difficulties believe that all of these manifestadons were the of its own; most famously the arbitrariness of Emeritus Professor of Physics and result of "die broadest social forces"? Is it not priors and "false precision" in probability Astronomy, University of Hawaii assignments." More importantly, no matter more likely that they are the result of newly Visiting Fellow in Philosophy, what the school of statistics, statistical infer­ active hormones affecting their perceptions? University of Colorado The appropriation and use of these appear­ ence remains something of an art, because a crucial aspect of the work is always choosing ances by the nearest power structure willing to Professor Pigliucci is correct to point out that a an appropriate statistical model—something use it is hardly unusual or unexpected. I have test of a precise null hypothesis can be mis­ not given by any set procedure. Even Bayesian no doubt it has happened many times (if not leading. If there is even a small amount of bias parapsychologists could easily make the same every rime) in the past. I do find it amusing in die data, then die p-value will be tiny when old mistakes, if diey chose inappropriate mod­ that the Virgin Mary was somehow used as a the sample size is large, but this should not be els, and continued to miseharacterize the "It weapon against the Eastern Orthodox. interpreted as evidence against the null happened by normal means" hypothesis. Muslims, perhaps; but Orthodox Christians— hypothesis. The problem is that, due to I'm not doubting that it happened, but that unforeseen bias, the "scientific null" (diere is Taner Edis was quite a trick. no telepathy) does not correspond to die Assistant Professor of Physics "mathematical null" (some parameter is equal Paul Person Truman State University to some particular value). We are thus testing Seatde, Washington Kirksville, Missouri

68 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The underlying issue of the [Pigliucci] piece is certain hypothesis, while we really wish to Ecological Activism and the valid. Briefly stated it is that statistical evidence know the likelihood of a certain hypothesis for the rejection of a particular model, A (the given the observed data); second, as clegandy Bounds of Science null-hypothesis), should not be considered as demonstrated by Hedges (1987), it turns out I take umbrage to Vojtech Mornstein's inclu­ compelling evidence of a particular alternative that the apparent precision of some experi­ sion of ecological activism as an example of the model, B, unless ail other alternative models ments in physics (judged by the very narrow "mixture of pseudoscience with legitimate are less reasonable than model B. confidence intervals of the published estimates, results" ("Alternative Medicine and for example), is more illusory than we might This issue, however, is a fundamental issue, Pseudoscience," November/December 2002 wish to think repetition of the same experi­ and has nothing to do with the distinction pp. 40-43). He uses global wanning as an ment (e.g., two sets of data on the thermal con­ between Bayesian statistics and frequentist sta­ example of this pseudoscience/legitimate sci­ ductivity of gadolinium) yielded equally "pre­ tistics (or "standard statistics" as Pigliucci calls ence mixture by stating that "activists argue cise" estimates and narrow confidence inter­ it). It also does not indicate any "problem" that carbon dioxide causes measurable green­ vals, and yet the second set of values was many with p-values. house effect, but ... ignore the existence of times outside of the confidence interval of the Presenting this topic in the form of com­ natural temperature oscillations." This is first one! peting statistical conceptual frameworks and absurd. No atmospheric scientist ignores the talking about the need to have the "textbook- About the merits and problems of Bayesian historical temperature record, just as no entrenched standard approach (...] dissipate," analysis, there is obviously no space here to atmospheric scientist doubts that CO: is a sig­ is misleading and quite simply wrong. address the question, which has generated a nificant greenhouse gas. The current debate is large literature and an ongoing debate. Another misleading feature of the piece is not if human-produced CO: is contributing to However, it is worth noting that the problem singling out for praise a specific statistical tech­ global warming via the greenhouse effect, but with arbitrary priors has been over-emphasized, nique—likelihood ratios—and even a specific at what level. The majority of scientific opin­ since there arc very good solutions to it, as well formula. This gives the impression that the ion has concluded (see the Intergovernmental as evidence that even if one starts with arbitrary issue is about math. It is not. The issue is about Panel on Climate Change, www.ipcc.ch/) "the priors, one eventually docs likely converge on using common sense and keeping a skeptical balance of evidence suggests that there is a dis­ the true ones, given enough rounds of experi­ mind. No amount of math can be a substitute cernible human influence on global climate." ments (Howson and Urbach 1991). for that. This conclusion was reached after exhaustive Incidentally, my choice of the likelihood ratio study of all known natural variability. The syn­ Yoram Gat was not entirely arbitrary, since it is the most opsis of the IPCC report is "In the light of new commonly used alternative to the standard Statistician evidence and taking into account the remain­ approach, and the particular formula I gave for Palo Alto, California ing uncertainties, most of the observed warm­ calculating it is one of many mathematically ing over the last 50 years is likely to have been equivalent ones (Dixon and O'Reilly 1999). Maximn Pigliucci replies: due to the increase in greenhouse gas concen­ Concerning the mistakes of parapsyiliolo- trations." 1 think the example would have been gists, I certainly agree that they are not con­ I am very glad to see that my article on hypoth­ more meaningful if he used the Bjorn fined to misapplications of statistics. However, esis testing generated so much attention and Lomborg The Skeptical Environmentalist my point was that often enough even profes­ debate, which 1 think can only benefit both the crowd (discussed in Richard Fisher's review in sional scientists do slip, more or less subcon­ scientific and the skeptical community. Let me the same issue) as the community that mixes sciously, and make the mistake of considering begin by apologizing for my apparent lack of "blind faith (and) legitimate results" instead of the rejection of a null hypothesis as equivalent clarity on one fundamental point, which seems ecological activists. to the acceptance of a particular alternative to have generated most of the confusion: I am hypothesis. This is a good area where Bayesian Mark Moldwin, Associate Professor not claiming that Bayesian analysis is a panacea analysis is useful, not because one couldn't in statistics. What I discussed in my article arc Institute of Geophysics and Planetary avoid the problem within the standard three distinct problems, which should not be Physics approach, but because Bayesianism forces the collapsed into one: first, the fact rhat statistical Department of Earth and Space investigator to spell out all the alternative mod­ null hypotheses often do not coincide, or arc Sciences, I TCI A els being considered. not informative about, scientific null hypothe­ Los Angeles, California ses; second, that p-valucs do not measure quan­ Massimo Pigliucci As skeptics, we have an obligation to examine tities that are particularly relevant to statistical Departments of Botany and of ourselves with the same rigor we happily apply inference; third, that a Bayesian framework for Ecology & Evolutionary Biology to others. The author does an adequate, if thinking about hypothesis testing is both University of Tennessee philosophically and practically better suited to obvious, job of dismissing alternative thera­ [email protected] scientific investigation than the standard pies; and then, in what seems almost an Fisher-Pearson-Neyman framework. Literature cited addendum, includes two areas "on the bound­ aries of science" in the second of which, eco­ As far as p-values go. it is certainly true that Hedges, L V. 1987. How hard is hard science, how physics journals set their (still arbitrary) thresh­ soft is soft science? The empirical cumulativc- logical activism, he abandons reason. He states old much lower than the 0.05 level typical of ncss of research. American Psychologist that they claim that carbon dioxide causes a biological or social sciences. However, there are 42443-455. measurable green house effect (true) but two problems that such a move does not solve: Howson. C. and P. Urbach. 1991. Scientific ignore the existence of historical fluctuations Reasoning the Bayesian Approach. Open Court. in temperature (unsupported and probably first, p-valucs are still measuring a quantity that La Salle. Illinois. is not of great interests to scientists (i.e., the untrue). So what! No internal contradictions. Dixon. P.. and T. O'Reilly. 1999. Scientific versus No point made, just the suggestion that this is cumulative probability of the observed data or statistical inference. Canadian journal of of more extreme outcomes to be observed given a Experimental Psychology 53:133-149. more of the blatant silliness he has previously

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 69 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

discussed. Then he extends guilt of wrong- have been considered. Most animal rights biological effects of ultrasound. thinking by association to animal rights peo­ activists indeed do fight against killing for I cannot agree with Mr. Mautz, except ple. In the next sentence he makes it clear that entertainment and for furs as he states and his objection to the placement of vegan diet he is an animal rights person himself, just not against physically injurious testing for cosmet­ in the same category as urine consumption. a member of the most extreme wing. ics, etc., but not against testing for curative It is my mistake that it made such an Then we learn that the same silly crowd drug development. In Oregon we have an ini­ impression. Humans arc adapted to food opposes genetic manipulation ignoring the tiative on the ballot to ban genetically engi­ containing animal proteins, fatty acids, and fact that for millennia we have done this neered food products that would prevent splic­ some essential compounds which are not or through selective breeding, leaving out that ing in fish or animal genes or pesticides into only little present in plants. The vegan diet this was historically done with the filter of foods but doesn't restria normal breeding of lacks Vitamin B12, at least. The claim that interspecies incompatibility which has been plants.... these diets can be beneficial for health does removed through gene-splicing technology not mean automatically that these are the Paul Cornett (which one guesses is close to where the best ones for our health. Some components Florence, Oregon author's bread gets buttered). Finally he iden­ of the vegan and fruitarian diets are fre­ tifies these soft-headed wrong thinkers as quent causes of allergies, but allergy caused members of the anti-nuclear movement Vojtech Mornstein responds: by pork or chicken meat is rarely if ever "protesting the deleterious effects of ionizing encountered. I acknowledge that my radiation." Not so. When I wrote about "ecological activism," I remarks arc not proper arguments, but I surely did not refer to any evidence-based sci­ Many people protest the deleterious effects submit they are worth considering. of undeniably lethal by-products of nuclear ence. At least in our country [Czechslovakia], power plants with half-lives in the thousands the "ecological activists" are mainly young of years that we lack the technology to rid our­ people with poor education in natural sci­ ID'S Infinite Regress selves of. He than lumps himself with them (!) ences who arc not able to assess the differ­ ences between hypotheses and proven facts. but declares that he sees this as a temporary, Mark Perakh's article contesting William necessary evil, reducing this whole section to a However, when there is a discussion about Dembski's formulation of Intelligent Design difference on a judgment call. the level of temperature increase caused by (ID) was well argued ("Presentation Without As skeptics we should be comparing what greenhouse gases, it is difficult to understand Arguments: Dembski Disappoints," we know based on scientific methodology to the statement, "In the light of new evidence November/December 2002). But apart from what people claim to know through faith and taking into account the remaining uncer­ the theory's complete lack of evidence, ID, based systems. tainties, most of the observed warming over being an old argument under a new guise, is Let's not attach riders with our favorite the last 50 years is likely to have been due to also plagued by a more fundamental logical untested opinions to our theses; it weakens our the increase in greenhouse gas concentra­ flaw—namely the infinite regress. Let's first position. tions." I saw some temperature change plots state Dembski's obvious premise: Specified which do not seem to differ from those mea­ complexity (i.e., improbable complexity Gustave Danzer sured in previous decades. In spite of these exhibiting a specific pattern) implies Alameda, California problems I would like to underline that I did Intelligent Design. not criticize the scientific approach to the The flaw, here, is diat not only do intelli­ Vojtech Mornstein is mistaken when he places above-mentioned problems. gently designed artifacts exhibit specified com­ the vegan diet in the same category as home­ In the last chapter of my article I briefly plexity, but the attribute of intelligence itself opathy and urine consumption. The vegan introduced some related areas of pseudosci- exhibits specified complexity (i.e., it exhibits a diet is "based on real knowledge about the entific thinking without detailed argumenta­ specific pattern), even a disembodied intelli­ body," does not "cause lack of some amino gence such as a deity. Therefore, according to acids or vitamins," and, when properly fol­ tion. I am no "animal rights person," because our premise above, all intelligent designers lowed, is "beneficial for health." 1 think rights are a human invention, which can be applied only to the social life of (thus exhibiting specified complexity) imply In fact, it is modern medicine and nutri­ humans. To avoid killing of animals for mere further intelligent design, and those designers tional science that make a vegan diet possible, entertainment is not the same as to say: "No before them, ad infinitum (which explains because they have identified the nutritional experiments on animals!" without saying nothing). components necessary for maintaining opti­ As a reply, an ID theorist might abandon mal health.... what or who should be die substitute testing object. In case of genetic manipulation, I do logic for arbitrary personal preference and Randall Mautz not underestimate dangers connected widi claim a particular intelligent designer as a suf­ Missoula, Montana that. Any invention can be dangerous in a ficient First Cause (following St. Thomas certain sense. It is dangerous to drive cars, fly Aquinas). But utilizing Occam's Razor, one could just as well claim die universe itself as a The article by Vojtech Mornstein was well rea­ by airplane, to perform many sports—all sufficient First Cause. soned until he listed ecological activism as a these activities are life-threatening. However, pseudosciencc near the end of his article. who was killed by genetically manipulated These arguments. I'm sure, are not new, but if they're not effectively dealt with by Maybe in the Czech Republic his supposed foods, e.g., by rice containing Vitamin B? Dembski and other ID proponents, then ID arguments arc made by activists but it doesn't These products are used after long term test­ will remain an untenable theory. seem true here. It has already been concluded ing. 1 worry, in addition, that viruses can diat CO.- does indeed cause warming, even break the interspecies incompatibility as well. Rui Vieira though there is still uncertainty in the exact I have also nothing to do with genetic tech­ Mississauga, Ontario amount and natural temperature oscillations nologies—I am a biophysicist dealing with Canada

70 March/April 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Coin-Flip Odds percent (p=0.03). Wiseman replicated my find­ a veterinarian," immediately began giving ings, ignored my data, and then discarded most anecdotes about how successfully she tclcpath- Wc have to agree with most conclusions in of his own, to arrive at a standard skeptical con­ ically communicates with animals. Phil Mole's piece "Are Skeptics Cynical?" clusion. Nickell repeats his claim uncritically. I wrote a letter to Cynthia Huburt, the (November/December 2002). However, Phil More derails ar www.sheldrake.org. author o( the article, expressing my disap­ Mole is no statistician, and his statistical exam­ pointment that the fire was devoting a portion Rupert Sheldrake ples on pages 45 and 46 are incorrect. The sta­ of its newspaper to tabloid journalism as London, England tistical method tli.ii has to be applied in such opposed to a higher standard of journalistic cases is the "binomial formula." Indeed, it truth. As many readers of SI know, the media Richard Wiseman responds: confirms our commonsensical expectation often purport to offer balanced articles by that if wc flip fair coins, then an outcome close interviewing a token skeptic. This typical bal­ Sheldrake claims that my tests of an allegedly psy­ to 50 percent head and 50 percent tail is much ance was glaringly evident in this article. Of more probable than numerous heads or tails in chic dog support the existence of animal telepathy They do not. We conducted four experiments the 188 lines in the article, only 30 (about 15 one row. The exact probabilities can be easily percent) presented the skeptical viewpoint. My calculated from the binomial formula, or can with the dog. In each study we examined the claim that the dog's first visit to a certain door in dismay and disappointment prompted the fol­ be looked up in binomial tables found in lowing response from Ms. Hubert. many elementary statistical textbooks. The his owner's house would coincide with his owner binomial formula is somewhat similar to that setting off to return home from a remote location. On each occasion the dog failed to accurately sig­ Lighten up, pal. This was a feature story used by Phil Mole, but with the inclusion of about a woman who's sold many books and nal his owner's return. Sheldrake later re- the so-called binomial coefficient. In Phil raked in big bucks based on her thcones. It's Mole's examples these probabilities are:(l) analysed the data, noting that the percentage of our job to report on things that people arc 0.2461, (2) 0.0098, a 25-times difference, and lime tlte dog visited the door when his owner was reading, buying, and talking about, regard­ (3) 0.2734, (4) 0.0312, an almost 9-times dif­ returning home was much greater than when his less of whether or not we share the views ference in probabilities. Those who chose (1) owner was not returning home. However, this presented. Some people don't believe in Jesus Christ, but that doesn't mean wc don't and (3) as being the most statistically likely arc pattern could easily arise if the dog did very little report on the Christian faith. All wc can do, really in good company. jbr some time after his owner left home, and then began visiting the door more often, and for longer as responsible journalists, is try to report all periods, the longer she stayed away. Thus IIK pat­ sides, which is evident here. By the way, fea­ tures on this woman have been published George K. Nagy tern Sheldrake describes is not evidence for telepa­ Albany, New York not only in die Bee but in the Washington thy, as it could easily be an artefact of the dog's Post, Good Housekeeping, Ume Reader, and natural waiting behavior. Readers can find fur­ many other respected newspapers and mag­ ther details about my original experiments, and azines. Do they fityou r definition of tabloid Psychic Pets subsequent debate with Sheldrake, in The journalism as well? Thanks fui your note. British Journal of Psychology (vol 89, pages Cynthia. and Pet Psychics 453-462, 1998) and the )o\imz\ of the Society for Psychical Research (vol 64, pages 46-50, Readers of SI now have a new working def­ In "Psychic Pets and Pet Psychics" 2000). inition of responsible journalism. (November/December 2002) Joe Nickell claimed that: "Rigorous experimental protocols Terry Sandbek designed to exclude normal explanations (such Sacramento Skeptics Society as sensory cuing) tend not to show evidence for Joe Nickell's column on pet psychics psi" in pets. reminded me of an incident that occurred I have carried out more than 100 video­ here in Sacramento last spring. Carol Gurney, No Such Obligation taped trials with a dog that seemed to know an author on communication with animals, Though I share Kendrick Frazier's irritation when his owner was coming home. I found came through town touting her book. One of about such lousy programming as "Atlantis the dog waited at the door when his owner the local residents opened her home for two in the Andes" and other gobbledygook was homeward bound. He began waiting nights for locals wanting to talk with Ms. (Editor's Note, November/December when she was over five miles away, and when Gurney and were charged $ 140 for one day or $275 for two days to talk about Ms. Gurney's 2002), I must disagree with his assertion no one at home knew she was returning. He "Heart Talk" program. that "The Learning, Discovery, and History did it when she returned at randomly selected channels have an obligation to present times. He behaved in the same way when she Gurney's theories about the telepathic powers of people and animals were promi- claims and issues objectively and with some traveled in taxis, ruling out sensory cuing nendy covered in the Sacramento Bee. In the sense of critical evaluation of suspect claims, from familiar car sounds or smells {Journal of interest of "fairness," a short piece from a vet­ not just to titillate and entertain without Scientific Exploration [2000] 14, 233-55). erinarian from the University of California, regard for scientific evidence." Well, sad as it At my invitation, Wiseman et al. carried Davis was included in the article. Dr. Tynes is, they have no such obligation. They are out four tests with the same dog, using similar was quoted as saying, "... it doesn't stand up private enterprises and their only obligation methods. In my own randomized tests, the dog to scientific scrutiny. It's especially scary when is to bring profits to their shareholders. That was at the door an average of 4 percent of the people go through these communicators is how the market works in real life. Now, if time when his owner was absent, and 55 per­ rather than someone who can actually diag­ people would stop looking at those prepos­ cent during the first ten minutes of her return nose a health problem that might be responsi­ terous programs, that would be another journey (p= 0.0001). In Wiseman « al.'s tests ble for certain behaviors." The pet psychic story. But how likely is that to happens ? the respective figures were 4 percent and 78 after admitting that she was "no substitute for Not very, if you ask me. . . .

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2003 71 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Andre Pelchat courts the attention of die media." of "please don't shoot the messenger. " But that is Victoriaville, Quebec •Appeal to authority. "... rebuttals by a precisely what Lomborg tries unsuccessfully to do, Canada coterie of scientific heavyweights." by attacking scientists, using a variety of anti-sci­ • Guilt by association: "[die book gets] pos­ ence tools. In contrast to what Lomborg would itive gushes from the popular press." have us believe, scientific research is predicated upon extensive and robust scrutiny at all stages of Add to this is simple name calling (baloney The Skeptical inquiry from initial research proposals, to appli­ detection kit) and it's easy to see that Mr. Environmentalist cations for funding, leading to the impartial eval­ Fisher has an axe to grind. uation of results (for example, in the case of grad­ Any objective reader of The Skeptical Richard Fisher's review of Bjorn Lomborg's uate student oral examinations), and ultimately Environmentalist will conclude diat die work The Skeptical Environmentalist (November/ to the publication of studies, after further external makes a significant contribution to science and December 2002) reads like a crie de coeur of A review. The amount of coverup that would be reason in the debate over the environment. desperate Green. Most of his article is simply required to create and maintain a worldwide The book presents data in the proper statisti­ an overview of the negative critiques by others. green conspiracy involving environmental scien­ cal context and shows the extent to which the The main Fisher argument against the book is tists, students, and the institutions to which they environmentalist community has lied and that the author is a statistician rather than a belong, beggars belief The notion is ludicrous. exaggerated to win political battles. scientist. Still, it is just by statistics that we can Consequently we need to move on from Lomborg's delaying tactics, and together ensure that adequate judge the success or failure of environmental Thomas Pyzdek resources are committed to avoid remedy or mit­ measures taken as a result of scientific Tucson Arizona igate the past and present adverse effects of our claims activities on tlie environment. Nowhere does Fisher cite any mistake in Lomborg never claims in his book that there is Lomborg's findings; his critique consists of a not a serious environmental problem. His posi­ general condemnation without samples to tion is that we are unlikely to define die prob­ Estling on Positivism prove die point. Lomborg is said to engage in lem, let alone solve it, by sloppy science and fuzzy thinking. Spending money on imaginary ad hominem attacks and as an example Fisher Ralph Estling made some very good points problems is worse than not spending ai all: it cites the statement that "there are many grants about positivism in his Forum column in the lulls us into false security and it docs not iden­ at stake." To call diat finding an ad hominem November/December 2002 issue. My experi­ tify and address important, real problems. attack seems like a logical somersault ence is that too many people of a skeptical There is a long list of imaginary problems that bent adopt positivism because they feel safer Bo Thort have cost an enormous amount of time and talking about just their observations rather Cutler, Maine money to address and without any result except than about "realiry," perhaps because so many for serious credibility problems. These issues philosophies have twisted that simple word To say Fisher's review was unfair to a fine piece include asbestos, Alar, Love Canal, acid rain, into strange forms. and silicone breast implants. The U.S. taxpayer of work is an understatement. In his attack, Quantum physics is complicated and often has spent $ 1 billion on acid rain alone and iden­ which is what it is, Fisher employs most of die counterintuitive, so it's no wonder that physi­ tified several small lakes in upper New York logical fallacies he accuses Bjorn Lomborg of, cists find it easy to let mathematical models State that may have a problem. Lomborg docs and adds a few of his own. Primary among take control of their discussions; there often us all a service by pointing out certain shibbo­ these is: just isn't any other language available. But this leths that inflame die popular imagination and • Outright falsehoods. For example, Fisher has led to neglect of questions such as what the that are patendy incorrect, some even absurd. makes a big deal out of Lomborg's supposed "wave nature" of particles is a wave in; too Fisher appears to believe that exaggerating the straw man argument of 40,000 species a year often we hear that as long as the equations are environmental problem is a virtue being driven to extinction. According to satisfied, everything has been explained. These aren't easy questions, and the naive postulation Fisher, Lomborg states "this is a figure which William C. Harvey of an otherwise undescribed "ether" doesn't with monotonous regularity has been repeated Dallas, Texas answer them. But the work of science is everywhere until in the end we all believed it." incomplete if it neglects them. After criticizing Lomborg for using a figure from a 1979 study, Fisher glibly responds "It The Ptolemaic model of the solar system hasn't and we don't." I paid a visit to a few Richard Fisher responds: provided a fairly accurate description of plane­ environ mentalist group web sites on tary movements, but it worked without any November 23, 2002, and found the following: TIK published responses to my review of Lomborg's notion of the underlying cause, the gravita­ book seem to have missed a central point in my tional attraction of the Sun and planets. The Sierra Club: "Roughly 50,000 species van­ argument. Environmental organizations like identification of the reality behind the model ish every year." Greenpeace are in fact highly politicized Any allowed scientists to create a better model. Greenpeace: "Half of the world's biological claims that they make should be subject to heritage is threatened with extinction." healthy dose of skepticism, as should claims made Gary McGath World Wildlife Fund: "Scientific research by pro-development organizations that cloak Hooksett, New Hampshire tells us we are losing species at a rate unknown tl)emselves in supposed impartiality But that since the dinosaurs became extinct mote than same skepticism need not necessarily extend You simply have to love Ralph Estling. What a 60 million years ago." to the underlying scientific studies that the competing sides cite in support of their respective delightful writer! Sounds like Lomborg was pretty accu­ positions in the environmental debate. For the Jerry O'Donnell rate to me. anti-environmental lobby in particular, it's a case • The ad hominem fallacy. "Lomborg ... Artesia, New Mexico

72 March/Apnl 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Calculating God, Still? Christian Fundamentalism looks ridicu­ more able to assess the accuracy, balance, and lous when it attacks works of fantasy, such as validity of their [Loftus and Guyer's] work I was astonished to see that SI is still talking the Harry Potter scries, for supposed promo­ than were the readers of Corwin's work." about my science-fiction novel Calculating tion of a belief in non-divine magic; Skep­ How refreshing to find a skeptic within the God (using its latest letter column ticism looks equally ridiculous when it attacks SKEPTICAL INQUIRER readership. [November/December 2002] to essentially works of science fiction—even more so when Lynn Crook assert, "Sec, we were right all along!"). But let's the attacks are selective, ignoring the writings Richland, Washington look at lines from another science fiction by those it identifies as being by "one of us" novel: "The universe was made on pur­ while shouting down supposed apostates. pose. ... In the fabric of spec and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, Robert J- Sawyer there is, written small, tile artists signature... Toronto, Canada The letters column is a forum for there is an intelligence that antedates the uni­ views on matters raised in previ­ verse." ous issues. Letters should be no Finding a Skeptic? more than 225 words. Due to the Clearly, this is creationist propaganda volume of letters not all can be masquerading as fiction, right? Maybe so— The letters published in response to "Who published. Address letters to but the author is Carl Sagan, and the novel is Abused Jane Doc?" and "The High Cost of Letters to the Editor, SKEPTICAL Contact. Nor are these obscure references Skepticism" revealed a wide range of reactions INQUIRER. Send by mail to 944 Deer Or. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122; buried in the text, and, unlike Barry F. (Ncwember/Deccmber 2002). Seidman, in his ridiculous "review" of my by fax to 505-828-2080; or by e- One reader called the Jane Doe article a mail to letters©csicop.org (include book that started this discussion, I am not "detailed review." Others either totally agreed name and address). quoting dialog without mentioning that it is with the High Cost article, found it a dialog; the words above are straight narration "shocking" report, or defined First Amend­ given pride of place on the very last page of ment rights. Sagan's novel—they are the concluding state­ Then there was the reader who responded ment of his book. to the Jane Doe .11 title with: "Readers are no

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SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apnl 2003 73 THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL AT THE CENTER FOR INQUIRY-INTERNATIONAL (ADJACENT TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO) AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION Network of Affiliated Organizations International AUSTRALIA. Canberra Skeptics, Canberra nology. China. Shen Zhenyu Research Center, the Investigation of the Anomalous Australia. Peter Barren, President. PO Box 555. P.O. Box 8113. Beijing China. Hong Kong Phenomena (KCIAP) Kazakhstan. Dr. Sergey Civic Square ACT 2608 Australia. . Hong Kong. Brad Collins. P.O. Box Efimov, Scientific Secretary. E-mail: efime Skeptics Inc. Australia. Barry Williams. 1010. Shatin Central Post Office. Shatin NT China. afi.south-capital.kz. Astrophysical Institute Executive Officer. Tel. 61-2-9417-2071; e-mail: COSTA RICA. Iniciativa para la Promoci6n del Kamenskoye Plato Alma-Ata. 480020 Republic skepticsekasm.com.au. PO Box 268, Roseville Pensamiento Critico (IPPEC) San Jose. Victor of Kazakhstan. Committee for the Scien­ NSW 2069 Australia. wvAv.skeptics.com.au. Quiros V. Tel.: 506 27S 43 52; e-mail: victorcr tific Expertise of Claims of the Paranormal Australian Skeptics—Hunter Region eracsa.co.cr. A.P. 1513-1002 Paseo de los (CSECOP). Newcastle/Hunter Valley. Dr. Colin Keay, Estudiantes San Jose. Costa Rica. http7/webs. KOREA. Korea PseudoScience Awareness President. Tel.: 61-2-49689666: e-mail: demasiado.com/vicr. (KOPSA) Korea. Dr. Gun-ll Kang, Director. Tel.: bolide9hunterlink.net au. PO Box 166, Waratah CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Sisyfos Czech Skeptics 82-2-393-2734; e-mail: KOPSAechollian.net. NSW 2298. Australia Darwin Skeptics. Club. Czech Republic. Ms. Ing. Olga Kracikova. 187-11 Bukahyun-dong, Sudaemun-

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George Agogino, Dept of Anthropology, Eastern New Gerald GokSn. mathematician. Rutgers University. New Jersey James Pomerantz. Provost and professor of cognitive and Mexico University Donald Goldsmith, astronomer; president Interstellar Media linguistic sciences. Brown Univ. Gary Bauslaugh. educational consultant. Center for Alan Kale, astronomer. Southwest Institute for Space Gary P. Posner, M.D., Tampa, Fla. Curriculum, Transfer and Technology, Victoria. B.C. Canada Research, Alamogordo, New Mexico Daisie Radner, professor of philosophy, SUNY, Buffalo Richard E. Berendzen. astronomer, Washington. DC Clyde F. Herreid. professor of biology. SUNY. Buffalo Michael Radner, professor of philosophy, McMaster Martin Bridgstock, Senior Lecturer. School of Science. Terence M. Hines, professor of psychology, Pace University. Hamilton. Ontario. Canada Griffith University. Brisbane. Australia University, Pleasantville, N.Y. Robert H. Romer, professor of physics. Amherst College Richard Busch. magician/mentalist. Pittsburgh. Penn Michael Hutchinson, author. Sxfroou INOUIMB represen­ Karl Sabbagh. journalist Richmond, , England Shawn Carlson. Society for Amateur Scientists. East tative. Europe Robert J. Samp, assistant professor of education and Greenwich, Rl Philip A. lama, assoc. professor of astronomy, Univ. of Virginia medicine. University of Wisconsin-Madison Roger B. Culver, professor of astronomy, Colorado State Univ. William Jarvis. professor of health promotion and public Steven D. Schafersman, asst professor of geology. Felix Ares de Bias, professor of computer science. health. Loma Linda University. School of Public Hearth Miami Univ, Ohio University ol Basque, San Sebastian, Spain I. W. Kelly, professor of psychology. University of Bela Scheiber,' systems analyst Boulder, Colo. Michael R. Dennett writer, investigator. Federal Way. Saskatchewan Chris Scott, statistician, London. England Washington Richard H. Lang*, MD, Mohawk Valley Physician Health Stuart D. Scott Jr. associate professor of anthropology, Sid Deutsch. consultant. Sarasota, Fla Plan. Schenectady. N.Y. SUNY, Buffalo J. Dommanget astronomer. Royale Observatory. Gerald A. Larue, professor of biblical history and archae­ Erwm M. Segal, professor of psychology. SUNY. 8uffalo Brussels, Belgium ology, University of So. California Carta Selby, anthropologist'archaeologist Nahum J. Ouker, assistant professor of pathology. William M London, consumer advocate. Fort Lee. New Jersey Steven N. Shore, professor and chair. Dept. of Physics and Temple University Rebecca Long, luclear engineer, president of Georgia Barbara Eisenstadt, psychologist educator, clinician, East Council Against Health Fraud. Atlanta. Ga Astronomy. Indiana Univ. South Bend Greenbush. N Y. Thomas R. McDonough. lecturer in engineenng. Caltech. Waclaw Szybalski. professor McArdle laboratory William Evans, professor of communication, Center for and SETI Coordinator of the Planetary Society University of Wisconsin-Madison Creative Media James E. McGaha. Major. USAF; pilot Ernest H. Taves. psychoanalyst Cambridge. Mass John F. Fischer. forensic analyst Orlando, Fla Joel A. Moskowitz, director of medical psychiatry. Sarah G. Thomason, professor of linguistics. University of Robert E. Funk, anthropologist. New York State Museum Calabasas Mental Health Services, Los Angeles. Pittsburgh & Science Service . mathematician, Univ of Tim Trachet |0urnalist and science writer, honorary chair­ Eileen Gambrill, professor of social welfare, University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands man of SKEPP. Belgium. California at Berkeley John W. Patterson, professor of materials science and David Willey, physics instructor. University of Pittsburgh Sylvio Garattini. director, Mario Negri Pharmacology engineering, Iowa State University Institute. Milan. Italy Massimo Pigliucci. professor of evolutionary biology • Member, CSICOP Executive Council Laurie Godfrey, anthropologist Unrvervty of Massachusetts University of Tennessee, Knoxville •Associate Member, CSICOP Executive Council

METRO NEW YORK PERU CENTERS FOR INQUIRY Walnut and Green. 89 Walnut Street D. Casanova 430. Lima 14. Peru www.centerforinquiry.i CI Montclair. NJ 07042 Tel: (973) 655-9556 EUROPE INTERNATIONAL Dr. Martin Mariner PO Box 703 Arheilger Weq 11, D-64380 Rossdorf. Germany Amherst, NY 14226 FRANCE Tel: *49 6154 69S023 Tel: (716) 636-1425 Prof Henri Broch. Universite of Nice MOSCOW WEST Facult* des Sciences Professor Valerii A. Kuvakin 4773 Hollywood Blvd. Pare Valrose. 06108 119899 Russia, Moscow. Vorobevy Gory. Los Angeles. CA 90027 Nice cedex 2. France Moscow State University. Tel.: (323) 666-9797 www.unke.fr/zetetics/ Philosophy Department Center for Inquiry International "... to promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor."

THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL

V' An Old Star Gives Up the Ghost NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has recently obtained images of the plan­ etary nebula NGC 6369. This object is known to amateur astronomers as the "Little Ghost Nebula," because it appears as a small, ghostly cloud sur­ rounding the faint, dying central star.

Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScl/AURA)

Skeptical Inquirer THE MAGAZINE IOR SCIENCE AND REASON

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

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