PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS Robert SHEAF

Apocalypse Soon

ome say the world will end by ice, will cease to function! Domino effect communications, and financial markets. others say by fire, and still others will cause a worldwide depression!" What about Social Security and Ssay by computer glitches. While Given that this publication has, over the Medicare?" The result, says North, will there has long been the general expecta- years, rarely allowed any snippets of be nothing less than catastrophic: "I tion that something absolutely dreadful nonfiction to intrude upon its wonder- think the division of labor will collapse would happen in the year 2000—the fully made-up stories, one might at first in 2000. If the power grid goes com- Reverend Louis Farrakhan still foresees a assume that their Y2K crash-and-burn pletely down, it will stay down. The plague of earthquakes, hailstorms and scenario is as bogus as their story about division of labor will collapse to early floods—until recently doomsayers soap made with holy water that revives nineteenth century levels, except that we couldn't agree on just what was going to the dead. But a lot of people are taking have lost early nineteenth century do us in. But suddenly most doomsayers such cries of an impending Cyber- skills." now agree that the Year 2000 Problem Armageddon very seriously indeed. If this scares you so much that you for computers is the menace that will Longtime fire-and-brimstone author want to head for the hills, entrepreneurs bring about the end of civilization. Gary North has devoted his entire Web are getting the hills are ready for you. A Sometimes called the "Y2K" or "millen- site to the year 2000, which he calls "the development called Heritage Farms nium" bug, it is the result of the short- year the earth stands still" (see warns of "The Millennium. The Y2K sighted programming technique of www.garynorth.com). This is the same Computer Meltdown. Economic employing only two digits to represent a author who, in None Dare Call it Recession/Depression. Doomsayers pre- year, presupposing that the first two dig- Witchcraft, warned us that UFO and dict nothing short of total collapse its would always be "19." No one denies paranormal manifestations are indeed within the next two years. Will any of it that the Y2K problem is very serious, real, but demonic in origin. North is a happen? We don't know, and we seri- and the computer industry is now leading spokesman for an extremist fun- ously hope not, but the mounting evi- spending a lot of money to repair it. damentalist sect, who has written of his dence was convincing enough to make However, according to some ic's hope that our present society will col- us look for a place to ride out the tur- already too late, and it's time to head for lapse so that it can be reconstructed moil. We have now found it in Arizona!" the hills. The Sept. 15, 1998, issue of according to strict Biblical guidelines. Located 180 miles northeast of Phoenix, the Weekly World News proclaims The Y2K problem, he warns, "may be Arizona Heritage Farms promises that its January 1, 2000, as "The Day The Earth the biggest problem that the modern "capability of total self-sufficiency, and Will Stand Still." "All banks will fail! world has ever faced. I think it is. At 12 independence from outside energy Food supplies will be depicted! midnight on January 1, 2000 (a sources" makes it "the model rural village Electricity will be cut off! The stock Saturday morning), most of the world's for what may be a whole new way of life market will crash! Vehicles using com- mainframe computers will cither shut in the first part of the next century" (sec puter chips will stop dead! Telephones down or begin spewing out bad data . . . http://www.heritagefarms2000.com). Think of what happens if the following "500 families of the New Millennium Robert Sheaffers World Wide Web page for areas go down and stay down for can grow their own food and food for UFOs and other skeptical subjects is at months or even years: banks, railroads, their neighbors to purchase or barter. http:unvw.debunker.com. public utilities, telephone lines, military They will harvest electrical energy from

1 8 Jinuaiy/Februar, I999 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER the sun and wind." Their original plan York City even if Y2K hadn't come destroyed. The system works with no for a Y2K refuge in Sully County, South along" He suggests, however, that Y2K human intervention and sends coded Dakota, was unanimously voted down was a major factor in that decision: "I've messages to the missile silos." This auto- by local zoning officials, who feared that often joked that I expect New York to matic launching system is only supposed a doomsday cult might be forming in resemble Beirut if even a subset of the to be switched on if an attack is believed their midst. Kevin Poulsen of Ziff-Davis Y2K infrastructure problems actually to be imminent, but Perez, like all Y2K TV says, "As planned, the Y2K village materialize—but it's really not a joke. catastrophists, assumes that the worst- would be one half refuge from millennial It's likely to be fairly cold on New Year's case scenario is always the inevitable one: madness, and one half Disneyland. Main weekend, and a combination of disrup- "Since the Year 2000 begins at the Street would be clean and neat with an tions in utilities, telecommunications, International Date line in the Pacific and Old West theme." A splendid place, no banking, schools, hospitals, airports, moves westward across Siberia and doubt, to stand by and watch the specta- unemployment checks, Social Security Russia, the first part of the Russian cle of the collapse of civilization. checks, food stamps, and/or welfare nuclear arsenal that would be affected If you're not quite ready to head for checks would be enough to make the will be the missile silos in Siberia and the hills but want to stockpile food for citizens of New York extraordinarily eastern Russia." Supposedly, computers anticipated Y2K chaos, check out grumpy. There's enough gunfire in the at missile sites in Siberia, believing that www.y2kfood4u.com, one of many streets even in normal times, and I'm Moscow has been destroyed because they "survivalist" Y2K sites. They offer bulk not comfortable exposing my family to cannot communicate with areas where rations of long-storage freeze-dricd food the city's ill humor if Y2K turns out to the date is still 1999, will switch over to to help ensure your survival for however be a serious problem." Yourdon posi- the automatic system and begin firing many months or years it may take for tively agonizes over the social responsi- nuclear missiles at the U.S. But wait, your grocery store to get their cash reg- bilities of programmers who, convinced there's more: "On August 22nd, 1999, isters back online in the new millen- that a Y2K disaster is unavoidable, head the GPS [Global Positioning Satellite] nium. There is even a "Year 2000 for the hills: "[N]ot every Y2K program- system is scheduled to break down," Problem Site Exclusively Designed for mer can realistically contemplate leaving according to Perez, a statement that the Women" (http://www.y2kwomen.com), town for a safe haven. Some have aging U.S. Defense Department would explaining "The Year 2000 Computer parents or other family members who strongly dispute. "If that system isn't up Problem: The 10 Things Every Woman categorically refuse to leave the urban on December 31st 1999, the United Must Do Now to Keep Herself and Her environment in which they reside; and States would be utterly defenseless and Family Safe." Presenting gloom-and- some have a combination of financial, unable to launch a retaliatory strike." doom survivalism with a gentle femi- emotional, physical, or other miscella- In recent months, Y2K survivalist nine touch, it contains advice on how to neous reasons that require them to stay advertising became a mainstay on Art handle all of the expected privations of where they are . . . the safe-haven debate Bell's late-night, high-weirdness nation- the impending millennium, even ultimately comes down to a simple and wide radio show, paying many of the including an expected interruption in basic question: what responsibility do bills for the nonstop conspiracy-and- the supply of disposable products for Y2K programmers have to stay on the UFO chatter. Indeed, many Y2K feminine hygiene. job after December 31, 1999? If we doomsday Web sites link in to "www.art- The spiritual leader of the doomsay- assume that every programmer works bell.com." Then suddenly on the morn- ers is a man whose judgment was, until eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, ing of October 13 at 02:55. just before recently, seldom questioned: Ed at whatever Y2K job he/she should be signing off, Bell announced without Yourdon. A thirty-five-year veteran of expected to carry out between now and warning, "You may recall about a year the computer industry, Yourdon attained December 31,1999, then do we have a ago ... I told you that there was an prominence in computer science as the right to expect continued loyalty beyond event, a threatening terrible event lead developer of the structured analy- that point?" occurred to my family, which I could not sis/design methods of the 1970s, as well As if starvation and riots were not tell you about." (Despite the existence of as a co-developer of contemporary serious enough problems, some proclaim a virtually complete on-line archive of methods of object-oriented analysis (see that the Millennium Bug threatens the sound files from Bell's shows, no one has www.yourdon.com). But now Yourdon ultimate disaster: nuclear war. According yet found this supposed warning.) has written Time Bomb 2000, which has to an article by conspiracy theorist "Because of that event, and a succession become a bible to the sky-is-falling Daniel Perez (see http://www.tcrminaior of other events, what you're listening to crowd. Yourdon writes that, "My wife 3armagcddon.com/conspira/nukcy2k.ht right now is my final broadcast on the air. and I recently sold our New York City ml), "[T]hc Russian 'doomsday system' This is it folks, I'm going off the air and apartment and bought a house in a is designed to be switched over to auto- will not return." This announcement, of small town in New Mexico; but I'm not matic mode by military commanders abandoning the computer field, and I and only launch Russia's missiles if it PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS would have been moving out of New senses that the city of Moscow h3S been continued on page 55

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER January/February 1999 19 BOOK REVIEWS

contained," the book offers a dubious stuffed chair she sat in and her own con- The Forteans must know that it takes suggestion that there might have been a siderable body fat obviously contributed little effort to launch an incredible claim connection with "an intense geomag- to the destruction, and the fact that the while serious, prolonged investigation netic storm" (57). But as the Forteans floor and walls of her efficiency apart- may be required to get to the bottom of a could have learned from the Summer ment were made of concrete doubtless mystery. While there arc legitimate enig- 1987 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Mrs. Reeser's limited the fire's spread. By leaving out mas and they should not be dismissed death was not so mysterious. She was last such details, Incredible Stories shows the out of hand, Forteans have a responsibil- seen smoking a cigarette after having bias it accuses scientists of and under- ity not to make frivolous claims. Like the taken sleeping pills, and thus hers was an mines Fortean arguments against the sci- boy who cried wolf, they may find them- accident waiting to happen. The large entific method. selves without credibility. O

NEW BOOKS

Dumbth: The Lost Art of based on this new work by ments in and popular attacks on contempo- Thinking. Steve Allen. philosopher and CSICOP rary evolution. Intended as a direct challenge Prometheus Books, 59 John Fellow Haack appears in this to all who would push creationism as a credi- Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY issue on page 47. ble alternative to scientific evolution. 14228-2197. 1998. ISBN 1- 57392-237-4. 445 pp. Paperback, $18.95. A wel- Taking Darwin Seriously. Editor's Choice Science Books: come new edition of this Michael Ruse. Prometheus passionate attack on unrea- Books. 59 John Glenn This New Ocean: The Story of the First son and guide to life-long Drive, Amherst N.Y. 14228- Space Age. William E. Burrows. Random learning and thinking by the 2197. 1998. ISBN 1-57392- House, Inc.. New York. 1998. ISBN 0-679- creative author, entertainer, 242-0. 232 pp. Paperback, 44521-8. 723 pp. Hardcover, $34.95. polymath, and CSICOP SI8.95. The original edition Fellow. Originally written of this book, written by a "out of what had become lit- University of Guelph profes- What Remains To Be Discovered: Mapping erally daily frustration with sor of philosophy and zool- the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of the degree of goofola think- ogy, established a naturalistic Life, and the Future of the Human Race. John Maddox. Free Press/Simon & Schuster, ing, speech, and behavior that had become approach to our understanding of life's major New York. 1998. ISBN 0-684-82292-X. 434 so dominant," Allen says the demand for a problems through the application of evolu- pp. Hardcover, $26. freshened-up edition is "a testimonial to the tionary biology. This new edition updates the ever-growing seriousness of the problem it original with a new preface and a final chap- addresses." About half of the book consists ter that addresses the most recent develop- —Kendrick Frazier of his 101 "Ways to Think Better," with thoughtful discussions of each. (No. I: "Decide that in the future you will reason more effectively." No. 8: "Recognize that PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS from page 19 you have personal prejudices." No. 22: "Know that reason need not be the enemy of course, struck Bell's already-paranoid audience like a bolt of lightning. Immediately emotion." No. 58: "Familiarize yourself with rumors began circulating that Bell, who lives in Pahrump, Nevada, not far from the the commonly accepted scientific view of the universe." No. 68: "Understand the differ- top-secret Area 51, had been silenced by sinister forces to keep him from revealing any ence between fact and opinion." No. 93: more secrets about "earth-changes," UFOs, or something even more dreadful. Nye "Get in the habit of using an encyclopedia." County Sheriff Wade Liesekc Jr., worried that Bell might be in danger, stopped by No. 99: "Be humble when consulting with Bell's home soon after the announcement and reported that the radio celebrity was memory.") "fine" and "not in danger." As for what the "terrible event" might be, Sheriff Nye said he was not at liberty to disclose it. One account said that a being named "Single Seven" who claimed to be a time Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Susan traveller from the year 2063 (who earlier had been interviewed on Art's show) had Haack. Hie University of Chicago Press, intervened with Bell to attempt to avert a catastrophe that otherwise would have 5801 South Ellis Avenue. Chicago, IL 60637. struck him. The story gained widespread credence until Bell himself came out of 1998. ISBN 0-226-31136-8. 212 pp. seclusion to deny it. Paperback, S22.50. Relativism, multicultural- Just two weeks later on October 28. Bell returned to the airwaves, explaining little ism, feminism, affirmative anion, pragma- tisms old and new. science, literature, the beyond that "the situation has improved to some degree," and that "my network stepped future of the academy and of philosophy itself in and helped me." And now the nonstop blather about aliens, conspiracies, and immi- all come under Haack's scrutiny: A chapter nent catastrophes continues six nights a week, to audiences larger than ever. O

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER January/February 1999 55