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How Do TV's Pseudoscience Specials Rate? and the Case of the Quadro Tracker

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How Do TV's Pseudoscience Specials Rate? and the Case of the Quadro Tracker MEDIA WATCH C. EUGENE EMERY, JR. How Do TV's Pseudoscience Specials Rate? And the Case of the Quadro Tracker ow popular are pseudoscience fate of the world. A February 4 special addition, producers hoping to score big specials on television? Not par- on Atlantis was on 12 percent of the ratings and, ultimately, get a commit- Hticularly. A check of the Nielsen television sets turned on during that ment for a weekly series may be willing ratings for eight such programs that aired time slot (an estimated 11.3 million to sell a show to a network for a bargain- during the winter and spring of 1996 viewers), and a June 8 repeat of "The basement price. reveals that such shows never win their Mysterious Origins of Man" special, Such programs may also be used for time slot and often come out near the which said that dinosaurs and humans "counter-programming," in which a net- bottom of the heap in the ratings race. lived at the same time, also got a 12 per- work offers a radical alternative on a Yet the impact of a poorly rated show cent share, or 6.9 million viewers. night when it can't get respectable ratings can still be enormous, with millions of The other three shows in this sample anyway. "Prophecies III," for example, people exposed to warped facts in a were "Put to the Test" (April 29, ABC), did very well (with a 14 percent share) world where good science is often which garnered 8 percent of the audi- even though it was pitted against the swamped by bogus blather. ence; "Miracles and Visions" (March 31, Grammy Awards on CBS, which drew Consider the lowest-rated show of the Fox), which got 7 percent; and "Real 23 percent of the viewing audience. eight: "Psychic Detectives," which aired Ghosts 3" (February 13, UPN) with 4 Finally, the networks sometimes have on the fledgling United Paramount percent. To put these numbers in per- a financial interest in such specials, Network (UPN) on February 6. It drew spective, the top-rated comedy series according to my colleague John Martin, only 3 percent of the people watching Seinfeld typically is on about 32 percent the television writer at the Providence television. It was the lowest-rated show of the television sets in use on Thursday Journal-Bulletin. Broadcasting them for the network, the lowest-rated show of evenings and has about 32 million view- may be part of a push to sell the pro- the evening, and the lowest-rated special ers. The X-Files has gotten nearly 11 mil- grams to other countries or promote to be aired that week. Yet 2.5 million lion viewers and a share of 19 percent. sales if the show is going to be available people saw the program, in which psy- Clearly the networks aren't airing on videocassette. chics seemed to be giving new clues to these shows because they draw huge rat- Pseudoscience specials may not be unsolved mysteries and no reliable tests ings. Although the "Origins of Man" the most popular fare on the tube, but were done with solved crimes to see if the rerun and "Prophecies IV won second the willingness of the networks to psychics had any talent in the first place. place in their timeslots for NBC, those broadcast them in the face of mediocre The highest-rated pseudoscience two programs still ranked as the two ratings demonstrates that the programs shows all appeared on NBC. "Proph- lowest-rated shows that the network are giving the networks a return on their ecies III" (February 28) got 14 percent aired that week. The UPN, Fox, and investments. of the viewers—nearly 13 million indi- ABC programs also ended up at the bot- And with the pseudoscience theme viduals. "Prophecies IV" (June 8) pulled tom of the ratings barrel for each respec- more popular than ever, things show no in 13 percent of the audience, or 8.8 tive network. signs of changing. million viewers. Both were two-hour So why do the networks keep airing programs that used dramatic music and pseudoscience specials? selectively presented information to give First, they're cheaper to produce than One of the few bright lights in the an uncritical look at forecasts about the entertainment programs and specials. In media's coverage of the paranormal in 2 0 January/February 1997 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 1996 came from Dateline NBC when it X-ray photos showed no such thing. one schools in Seminole County, aired its expose of the Quadro Tracker, "There are no electronics, motors, or Florida, was unable to identify the also known as the Positive Molecular any other electrical devices inside the locker that contained a pouch of mari- Locator. handle," according to the Sandia report, juana. Using the Tracker, he later walked The Quadro Corporation in released through the NIJ. When the right past the pouch when it was resting Harleyville, South Carolina, which made researchers opened the gunpowder chip, in the pocket of NBC reporter Lea che Tracker, claimed the device could be they uncovered a piece of plastic-coated Thompson. In another test, a man used to find drugs, weapons, explosives, paper that couldn't conduct electricity trained by Quadro failed to select a film currency, drug users, and missing people and had no trace of gunpowder. canister with marijuana in four out of from one hundred miles away or more. One chip, according to an Associated five trials, a result expected by chance. Ranging in cost from $400 to $8,000 Press report, "contained dead ants that Two months later, on April 22, and consisting of a retractable portable had been frozen and put on paper with United States District Court Judge Thad radio antenna mounted on a handle, it epoxy glue." Heartfield granted a permanent injunc- was essentially a dowsing rod, sensitive to Based on all the test results, the tion against Quadro, saying the com- the subconscious hand movements of the Beaumont, Texas, office of the FBI pany, Fisk, and two other top officials operator. The customer slipped a large issued a statement calling the device "a were "engaged in a scheme to defraud" plastic "programming chip" (also known fraud." because "the defendants knew that there as a "locator card," "tuned frequency If such a device really worked, it was no reasonable scientific basis" for chip," or "signature card") labeled "gun- would be relatively simple to test it Quadro's claims. powder," "marijuana," "cocaine," or under conditions that would reduce the likelihooThd e ocasf eluc okf thoer Quadrfraud. o BuTracket thre was whatever the operator was looking for school officials and police officers who more than the case of a device that did into the device, and the antenna was sup- purchased Trackers, in a living testament not live up to its claims. In his decision, posed to point the way. The device was to the sorry state of critical thinking Heartfield noted that the lives of inno- also sold as the Golfball Gopher to help skills among supposedly educated peo- cent people can be ruined if they're golfers find lost balls, and Quadro had ple, obviously had no idea how to per- falsely accused of possessing drugs, law suggested that it could be used to pin- form such a test. Dateline NBC, after enforcement officials risk having legiti- point both people and donated blood consulting magician James Randi, did. mate cases thrown out of court if they infected with the AIDS virus. are tainted by the use of questionable More than a thousand units were sold First they collected testimonials from techniques, and a reliance on a Quadro to police departments, school systems, believers, including the assertion by Tracker "poses a danger to anyone rely- and correction facilities based on testi- Quadro vice president Raymond L. Fisk ing on the device" to keep weapons or monials and "tests" in which Quadro that the Tracker had a 90 percent success explosives out of schools, airports, or personnel were present or the unsuspect- rate. Then the Dateline staff conducted office buildings. ing operator knew the direction of the some on-camera experiments to see if The case was yet another example of object he was searching for and uncon- the device could live up to the claims. In how belief in pseudoscience isn't as sciously let the antenna point to it. one, the security consultant for the fifty- harmless as many people think. "I was probably as skeptical as they come, but I've seen it work," said the security director for one Kansas school Ninth Euro Skeptics Conference Tentative Program system, demonstrating how skepticism La Coruna, Spain is useless when people don't understand Averroes and the science, especially human psychology. Science, Enlightenment Quadro, in its product literature, UFOIogy 1997— said the Tracker "consists of an inductor, Pathological Science, 50-year Anniversary conductor, and an oscillator." When The Role of the researchers at Sandia National Laborato- and Pseudoscience Media: The Need ries in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Thursday, Sept. 4 - Sunday, Sept. 7, 1997 for Education examined the device at the request of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Unravelling For details, contact Miracles Alternativa Rational a las Pseudociendas (ARP) Gene Emery is a science and medical Attn: Miguel A. Sabadell Parapsychologists Apdo. 1516 writer. His weekly computer software col- versus Skeptics umn appears on the Reuters news service. E-50080 Zaragoza Spain Pathological His address is 46 Highland Street, Fax: +34 76 761140 • Tel.: +34 76 290043 or +34 07 201671 Science Cranston. Rl 02920.
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