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the Magazine for and Reason Vol. 37 No. 6 | November/December 2013

LosingLosing OurOur MindsMinds inin thethe AgeAge ofof BrainBrain ScienceScience Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld HAPPINESS

HATE

ENVY PEPSI

COKE POLITICAL AFFILIATION

LOVE GOD

Why Evolution Is Hard to Understand Cameron Smith Six Signs of , Part 1 Susan Haack The Jersey Devil Brian Regal Valentich UFO Cold Case Solved James McGaha and

Published by the Committee for Skeptical   C   I –T   

Ronald A. Lindsay, President and CEO Massimo Polidoro, Fellow Bar ry Karr, Ex ec u tive Di rect or , Research Fellow Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow Richard Wiseman, Research Fellow www.csicop.org

James E. Alcock*, psychol ogist, York Univ., Toron to Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and chief Observatory, Williams College Marcia Angell, MD, former ed itor-in-chief, of breast surgery section, Wayne State Univer- John Paulos, math ema ti cian, Temple Univ. New England Journal of Med icine sity School of Medicine. Clifford A. Pickover, scientist, author, editor, IV, MD, physician; author; Wendy M. Grossman, writer; founder and first editor, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. The Skeptic magazine (UK) Newton, MA , professor of , , MD, psychi atrist; author; consum er Susan Haack, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and City Univ. of New York–Lehman College advo cate, Allen town, PA Scien ces, professor of philos ophy and professor Steven Pinker, cogni tive scien tist, Harvard Univ. Willem Betz, MD, professor of medicine, Univ. of of Law, Univ. of Miami Brussels *, MD, family physician; investigator, Philip Plait, astronomer; lecturer; writer Irving Bieder man, psychol ogist, Univ. of Puyallup, WA Massi mo Polid oro, science writer; author; exec utive Southern CA C.E.M. Hansel, psychol ogist, Univ. of Wales direct or of CICAP, It aly Sandra Blakeslee, science writer; author; New York David J. Helfand, professor of astronomy, Anthony R. Pratkanis, professor of psychology, Times science correspondent Columbia Univ. Univ. of CA, Santa Cruz , visit ing lectur er, Univ. of the West Terence M. Hines, prof. of psychology, Pace Univ., Benjamin Radford, investigator; research fellow, of England, Bristol Pleasantville, NY. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry , physicist, Sandia National Laborato- Douglas R. Hofstad ter, profes sor of human James “The Amazing” Randi, magician; CSICOP ries, Albuquerque, NM under stand ing and cogni tive science, Indi ana Univ. founding member; founder, Henri Broch, phys icist, Univ. of Nice, France Gerald Holton, Mallinc krodt Profes sor of Physics and Educational Foundation Jan Harold Brunvand, folklor ist; profes sor emer itus profes sor of histo ry of science, Harvard Univ. Milton Rosen berg, psychol ogist, Univ. of Chic ago of English, Univ. of *, psychol ogist, Univ. of Or egon Walla ce Sampson, MD, clin ical profes sor of med icine, Mario Bunge, philos opher, McGill Univ., Montreal Stuart D. Jordan, NASA astrophysicist emeritus; Stanford Univ.; ed itor, Scien tif ic Review of T. Carroll, emeritus professor of philoso- science advisor to Office of Alter na tive Med icine Public Policy, Washington, DC phy, Sacramento City College; writer Amar deo Sarma* , chairman, GWUP, Germa ny Sean B. Carroll, molecular geneticist; vice president , executive director, Committee for Richard Saunders, president, Australian for , Howard Hughes Medical Skeptical Inquiry, Amherst, New York Institute, Madison, WI Law rence M. Krauss, foundation professor, School Skeptics; educator; investigator; podcaster; Thomas R. Casten, ; founder and of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Dept.; , Australia chairman, Recycled Energy Development, director, Origins Initiative, Arizona State Univ. Joe Schwarcz, director, McGill Office for Science Westmont, IL Harry Kroto, professor of chemistry and and Society John R. Cole, anthro pol ogist; ed itor, Nation al biochemistry, State Univ.; Nobel laureate Euge nie C. Scott*, phys ical an thropol ogist; exec utive Center for Science Ed uca tion Edwin C. Krupp, astron omer; direct or, direct or, Nation al Center for Science Ed uca tion K.C. Cole, science writer; author; professor, Griffith Obser va to ry, , CA , science writer Univ. of Southern ’s Annenberg Lawrence Kusche, science writer Elie A. Shneour, bi ochem ist; author; president and School of Journalism Leon Leder man, emer itus direct or, Fermi lab; research director, Bios ys tems Research Insti tute, Freder ick Crews, liter ary and cultur al critic; profes sor Nobel laure ate in physics La Jolla, CA emer itus of English, Univ. of CA, Berkeley Scott O. Lil ien feld*, psychol ogist, Emory Univ., , zool ogist, Oxford Univ. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer, SETI Institute, Atlanta, GA Mountain View, CA Geof frey Dean, techni cal ed itor, Perth, Austral ia Lin Zixin, former ed itor, Science and Simon Singh, science writer; broadcaster; UK Cornel is de Jager , profes sor of astro phys ics, Technol ogy Daily (China) Univ. of Utrecht, the Nether lands Dick Smith, film pro duc er; pub lish er; Ter rey Hills, Jere Lipps, Muse um of Pale on tol ogy, Univ. of CA, N.S.W., Aus tral ia Dan i el C. Den nett, Aus tin B. Fletch er Pro fes sor Berkeley Keith E. Stanovich, cognitive psychologist; of Phi los o phy and di rect or of Cen ter for Cog nitive Eliz abeth Loftus*, profes sor of psychol ogy, Stud ies, Tufts Uni v. Univ. of CA, Irvine professor of human development and applied psychology, Univ. of Toronto , writer and producer; CEO, David Marks, psychol ogist, City Univ., Cosmos Studios, Ithaca, NY Vic tor J. Sten ger, emer i tus pro fes sor of phys ics Mario Mendez-Acos ta, journal ist and science writer, Sanal Edamaruku, president, Indian Rationalist Mex ico City and as tron o my, Univ. of Ha waii; ad junct pro fes- Association and Rationalist International sor of phi los o phy, Univ. of CO Kenneth R. Miller, professor of biology, Edzard Ernst, professor, Complementary Medicine, Brown Univ. *, linguist; skeptical investigator; Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter Marvin Minsky, profes sor of media arts and scien - writer; podcaster and Plymouth, Exeter, UK ces, M.I.T. Jill Cor nell Tar ter, as tron o mer, SE TI In sti tute, Kenneth Feder, profes sor of anthro pol ogy, David Morri son, space scien tist, NASA Ames Re- Moun tain View, CA Central Connec ti cut State Univ. search Center Car ol Tav ris, psy chol o gist and au thor, Los Ange les, CA Barbara Forrest, professor of philosophy, Richard A. Muller, profes sor of physics, Univ. of CA, David E. Thomas*, phys icist and math ema ti cian, SE Louisiana Univ. Berkeley Socorro, NM Andrew Fraknoi, astron omer, Foothill College, Joe Nickell, senior research fellow, CSI Los Altos Hills, CA Neil deGras se Tyson, astro phys icist and direct or, , mathematician, Waalre, Kend rick Fra zi er*, sci ence writer; ed i tor, Hayden Plan etar ium, New York City The Netherlands S    I   Indre Viskontas, cognitive neuroscientist, tv and pod- Lee Nisbet, philos opher, Medaille College Christopher C. French, professor, Department cast host, and opera singer, San Francisco, CA of Psychology, and head of the Anomalistic *, MD, assistant professor Mari lyn vos Savant, Parade mag azine Psychology Research Unit, Goldsmiths of neurology, Yale Univ. School of Medicine contrib ut ing ed itor College, Univ. of London Bill Nye, sci ence ed u ca tor and tel e vi sion host, Nye Labs Steven Weinberg, profes sor of physics and astron - Luigi Garlaschelli, chemist, Università di Pavia o my, Univ. of Texas at Austin; Nobel laure ate (Italy); research fellow of CICAP, James E. Oberg, science writer the Italian skeptics group Irm gard Oe pen, pro fes sor of med i cine (re tired), E.O. Wilson, Univ. profes sor emer itus, organismic and evolutionary biology, Harvard Univ. Maryanne Garry, professor, School of Psychol- Mar burg, Ger ma ny ogy, Victoria Univ. of Wellington, New Zealand Loren Pankratz, psychol ogist, Or egon Health Richard Wis eman, psychol ogist, Univ. Murray Gell-Mann, profes sor of physics, Santa Fe Scien ces Univ. of Hertford shire, England Insti tute; Nobel laure ate Robert L. Park, professor of physics, Univ. of Maryland Benjamin Wolozin, professor, Department of Thomas Gilov ich, psychol ogist, Cornell Univ. Jay M. Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Pharmacology, Boston Univ. School of Medicine David H. Gorski, cancer surgeon and researcher at Astronomy and director of the Hopkins Marvin Zelen, statis ti cian, Harvard Univ. * Mem ber, CSI Ex ec u tive Coun cil (Af fil i a tions giv en for iden ti fi ca tion on ly.) Skep ti cal In quir er November/December 2013 | Vol. 37, No. 6 ARTICLES COLUMNS

30 FROM THE EDITOR Losing Our Minds in Cautions and Enthusiasms ...... 4 the Age of Brain Science NEWS AND COMMENT SALLY SATEL AND SCOTT O. LILIENFELD The Fox News Effect: Media Use and Global Warming Denial/Researcher: 36 PTSD in a Public Health Con- cern/Mysterious Moving Museum Why Human Makes Statue: , Curse, or Physics?/ Evolution Hard to Understand Medals, Honors to Loftus, Morrison, CAMERON M. SMITH Scott/After Spiritual Woman Decides She Needs to Eat ...... 5 40 Six Signs of Scientism: Part 1 INVES TI GA TIVE FILES Detective: Uncovering the SUSAN HAACK Mysteries of a Word JOE NICK ELL ...... 14 46 The Valentich THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE Truth, Part II Disappearance: Another MAS SI MO PI GLI UC CI ...... 18 UFO Cold Case Solved JAMES MCGAHA AND JOE NICKELL VIBRATIONS UFO Hoaxes? There’s an App for That! 50 ROBERT SHEAFFER ...... 20 The Jersey Devil: The Real Story SCIENCE WATCH Taking Our Medicine: What Hope BRIAN REGAL for Skepticism in Healthcare? KENNETH W. KRAUSE...... 22 COMMENTARY SKEPTICAL INQUIREE Qualifications 11 BENJAMIN RADFORD ...... 25 Why We Do This: Revisiting the Higher Values of NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS ...... 58 Skeptical Inquiry LET TERS TO THE ED I TOR ...... 62 THE LAST LAUGH ...... 66

SPECIAL REPORT 27 The Future of High Energy Scholarly : Now, Physics in the There’s Something You Don’t KEVIN T. PITTS See Every Day SHARON HILL...... 59 FORUMS Abominable Science! Origins of the , Nessie, and Famous 54 Where Is the Science in Cryptids. by and Donald R. Electronic Voice Phenomena? Prothero EVERETT A. THEMER BOOK REVIEWS A Serious Look at Psychiatry’s 55 An Inside Look at a Madness Model Psychic Successes or ‘Psychic’s’ World PETER BARGLOW...... 60 RAY HYMAN...... 57 Memory Failures? Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Psychic Blues: Confessions of a THEODORE E. PARKS Diagnosis, and Drugs Conflicted Medium by Stuart A. Kirk, Tomi Gomory, by and David Cohen [ FROM THE EDITOR Skep ti cal In quir er™ THE MAG A ZINE FOR SCI ENCE AND REA SON

EDI TOR Kend rick Fra zi er EDI TO RI AL BOARD James E. Al cock, Cautions and Enthusiasms Harriet Hall, Ray Hy man, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Elizabeth Loftus, Joe Nickell, Steven Novella, Am ar deo Sar ma, Eugenie C. Scott, n their “Losing Our Minds in the Age of Brain Science,” in this issue, Karen Stollznow, David E. Thomas, Leonard Tramiel Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld offer needed cautionary warnings about CONSULT ING EDI TORS Sus an J. Black more, Iover-enthusiastic popular simplifications and exaggerations concerning mod- Ken neth L. Fed er, Barry Karr, E.C. Krupp, Da vid F. Marks, Jay M. Pasachoff, ern neuroscience. The advent of powerful new brain imaging tools, particularly Rich ard Wis e man functional magnetic resonance imaging, is a remarkable intellectual advance. CONTRIB UT ING EDI TORS D.J. Grothe, Kenneth W. Krause, Chris Moon ey, David Morrison, James E. They acknowledge that. The brain now has a powerful cultural presence. But Oberg, Rob ert Sheaf fer uncritical coverage and hype about the images and what they may mean have DEPUTY EDI TOR Ben ja min Rad ford implied a promise of simply decoding its functionings. New stories pop up every GING EDI TOR Julia Lavarnway day. Politicians, marketers, addiction researchers, law officials, defense attor- ART DIRECT OR Chri sto pher Fix Paul E. Loynes neys—just about everyone now has a vested interest in making it seem this or PRODUC TION ASSISTANT EDITOR Sean Lachut that part of the brain explains our behavior and controls our lives. Misapplica- WEBMASTER Matthew Licata tions and misrepresentations of modern neuroscience are perhaps an inevitable PUBLISH ER’S REPRE SENT A TIVE Bar ry Karr consequence of all this new , but it is well to remember that this new CORPO RATE COUNSEL Brenton N. VerPloeg “neurocentrism” is not the be all and end all in understanding behavior; other BUSINESS MANA GER Pa tri cia Beau champ levels of analysis are essential. And we should guard against overestimating, in FISCAL OFFI CER Paul Pau lin SUBSCRIPTION DATA MANAGER Jacalyn Mohr the authors’ words, “how much neuroscience can improve legal, clinical, and STAFF Melissa Braun, Cheryl Catania, marketing practices, let alone inform social policy.” Roe Giambrone, An tho ny San ta Lu cia, Diane Tobin, Vance Vi grass * * * COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Paul Fidalgo INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUC TIONS Thom as Flynn Philosopher and CSI Fellow Susan Haack of the University of Miami here pres- DIRECT OR OF LIBRAR IES Tim o thy S. Binga ents the first of a two-part article, “Six Signs of Scientism,” from her new book DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Alan Kinniburgh

Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and Its Place in Culture. As was obvious in The SKEP TI CAL IN QUIR ER is the of fi cial jour nal of the Com mit tee for Skeptical Inquiry, her previous book, Defending Science—Within Reason (which we also excerpted), an in ter na tion al or gan i za tion.

Haack is a well-informed friend of science, not an overt critic. As she says here, The S    I   (ISSN 0194-6730) is pub lished “Science is a good thing . . . but it is not a perfectly good thing,” and we science bimonth ly by the Commit tee for Skeptical Inquiry, 3965 Rensch Road, Amherst, NY 14228. Printed in U.S.A. Peri od- enthusiasts should not over-reach toward an uncritically deferential attitude to i cals post age paid at Buf fa lo, NY, and at ad di tion al mail ing offi ces. Subscrip tion prices: one year (six issues), $35; what is, after all, a very human undertaking. I think her two-part article offers two years, $60; three years, $84; sin gle is sue, $4.95. both lively intellectual substance and valuable cautionary advice. Cana di an and foreign orders: Payment in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank must accom pa ny orders; please add US$10 per year for shipping. Cana di an and foreign custom ers are * * * encour aged to use Visa or Master Card. Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41153509. Return undeliverable Ca- I write shortly after participating in a successful 15th European Skeptics Con- nadian addresses to: IMEX, P.O. Box 4332, Station Rd., Toronto, ON M5W 3J4. gress in Stockholm, Sweden. This is the latest of a series of biennial confer- In quir ies from the me dia and the pub lic about the work of the Com mit tee should be made to Barry Karr, Executive ences established by the European Council of Skeptical Organizations (ECSO). Director, CSI, P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226-0703. Tel.: ECSO has been chaired for the past twelve years by our longtime colleague 716-636-1425. Fax: 716-636-1733. Email: bkarr@center forinquiry.net. Amardeo Sarma of Germany, a member of our Committee for Skeptical In- Man u scripts, let ters, books for re view, and ed i to ri al in quir- ies should be sent to Kend rick Fra zi er, Ed i tor, S    quiry’s Executive Council and a S I editorial board member. I , EMAIL: [email protected]. 944 Deer The Swedish Skeptics group, headed by Martin Rundkvist, ably hosted this Drive NE, Al bu querque, NM 87122. Be fore sub mit ting any man u script, please con sult our updated and expanded lively conference, which was designed to allow fruitful networking among at- Guide for Au thors for styles, ref er en ce requirements, and submittal re quire ments. It is on our website in two formats tendees. With 2,700 members, the group proudly notes that as a proportion of at www.csi cop.org/pub lications/guide. the country’s population, it may be one of the world’s largest skeptic groups. Arti cles, reports, reviews, and letters published in the S -  I  rep re sent the views and work of in di vid u al The enthusiasm of the young skeptics attending and contributing points to a authors. Their publi ca tion does not neces sa ri ly consti tute an endorse ment by CSI or its members unless so stated. bright future for science-based skeptical inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge Copy right ©2013 by the Commit tee for Skeptical Inquiry. about the real world. All rights reserved. The S   I  is availa ble on 16mm micro film, 35mm micro film, and 105mm micro- fiche from Univer si ty Micro films Inter na tion al and is in- dexed in the Read ers’ Guide to Pe ri od i cal Lit er a ture. —K F Subscrip tions and changes of address should be ad- dressed to: S    I  , P.O. Box 703, Am herst, NY 14226-0703. Or call toll-free 1-800-634-1610 (out side the U.S. call 716-636-1425). Old ad dress as well as new are nec es sa ry for change of sub scrib er’s ad dress, with six weeks advance notice. S   I  subscrib ers Committee for Skeptical Inquiry may not speak on behalf of CSI or the S    I  . “... promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use Post mas ter: Send chan ges of ad dress to S   I- of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.”  , P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226-0703. [ NEWS AND COMMENT

The Fox News Effect: Media Use and Global Warming Denial K F

Anecdotal leads to the sus- vative media, the less certain they are self-interested; 2) denigrating scientific picion that those who oppose the find- that global warming is happening. institutions and peer-reviewed journals; ings of modern climate science tend to Conversely, the more Americans use 3) equating peer-reviewed research be avid consumers of certain conserva- nonconservative media, the more cer- with political opinion; 4) accusing cli- tive media outlets, especially Fox News tain they are that global warming is mate scientists of manipulating data; and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. happening. and 5) characterizing climate science as In case there was any doubt about The study goes beyond previous a form of “orthodoxy” and doubters as that, a new communications research studies in demonstrating a media effect brave dissenters. study demonstrates the connection. on trust in scientists as the mediating John Abrahamand and Dana Nucci Specifically, it shows that using con- variable between media use and percep- telli, in their online “Climate servative media decreases one’s trust in tions of global warming. Greater use of Consensus—The 97%” column hosted scientists. This in turn increases doubt conservative media was associated with by The Guardian, note that the watch- that climate change and global warm- lower trust in scientists. dog group Media Matters has provided ing are happening. examples of Fox News engaging in all Communications researchers Jay five of these tactics. Abrahamand and D. Hmielowski of the University of Nuccitelli headlined their column about Arizona, Lauren Feldman of Amer- Using conservative the Hmielowski et al. study: “Fox News ican University, Teresa A. Myers and media decreases one’s found to be a major driving force be- Edward Maibach of George Mason hind global warming denial.” University, and Anthony Leiserow- trust in scientists. Hmielowski told the S I- itz of Yale University have published This in turn increases  that although they didn’t test an eighteen-page study in the journal the idea in their paper, they think a Public Understanding of Science (DOI: doubt that climate reinforcing process goes on. “Conser- 10.1177/0963662513480091). change and global vative media use decrease trust in A nationally representative group warming are scientists. This decrease in trust leads to of respondents were multiply surveyed further use of conservative outlets such about their beliefs in climate change, happening. as Fox News. So, yes, the media affect risk perceptions, policy preferences, and related behaviors. A total of 2,497 re- attitudes. But people’s attitudes are also spondents participated in the first wave driving people’s media use.” of data collection in the fall of 2008. Of The findings that global warm- * * * these respondents, 1,036 participated ing acceptance in the United States is in a second wave in the spring of 2011. aligned by which media outlets people There is some recent positive news on Subjects were asked how often they watch is worrisome, the authors note. the climate science–perception front. watched Fox News and listened to The “This increasing fragmentation of au- A new poll by the Benenson Strategy Rush Limbaugh Show. They were also diences across diverse media outlets Group carried out in July 2013 finds asked about their use of nonconser- likely inhibits consensus-building on that an overwhelming majority of vot- vative media sources known to align important issues.” The findings also ers under age thirty-five understand the more closely with mainstream scien- “help explain the widening partisan di- threat of climate change and already see tists’ views on climate change: CNN, visions in public opinion about global the harmful effects of it. To these young MSNBC, National Public Radio, and warming and trust in scientists. This voters, denying climate change signals network news (ABC, CBS, and NBC). political polarization is contributing to a much broader failure of values and They were asked about their trust or national climate policy paralysis in the leadership, the poll found. Sixty-eight distrust in scientists as a source of in- USA. . . .” percent said they would be less likely formation about global warming and The study notes that previous re- to vote for a climate change denier, and asked if they see themselves as liberal search has shown that conservative that was true even for 48 percent of or conservative, very liberal or very con- media create distrust in scientists in Republicans. servative. five main ways: 1) presenting con- The study’s findings are no surprise. trarian scientists as “objective” Kendrick Frazier is editor of the S- The more Americans use the conser- and mainstream scientists as biased or  I.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 5 Researcher: PTSD in Ghosts a Public Health Concern D M. S

The June 2013 issue of the Australian oration. Shades that bear these shades pography and vegetable) to maritime Journal of features an arti- should be treated fairly in the great job expansion. cle by Dr. Wasney de Almeida Ferreira market to come (which I sincerely hope Ferreira’s article is accompanied by titled “Psychological Phenomena in does not exist). six commentaries (all of them nega- Dead People: Post-Traumatic Stress Ferreira notes that there are six basic tive to varying degrees) as well as an Disorder in Murdered People and Its conceptual metaphors in the health editorial disclaimer. However, even an Consequences to Public Health.” to describe the human body: infinite number of such rejoinders may Apparently post-traumatic stress a 3D object, a machine, a factory, a not be sufficient to reverse the cognitive disorder (PTSD) does not cease at topography, a fabric, and a vegetable. damage that may be incurred by an un- death, especially among the murdered. He relates two of these metaphors (to- wary reader of Ferreira’s article. How does Ferreira know this? Through I initially thought that in view of the strict scientific protocols involving di- danger to public health brought to our rectly interviewing the dead while in attention by Ferreira, it might be ap- an induced state of . propriate (as well as highly profitable) Ferreira’s world resembles the to establish a foundation to cheer up physical world in that the deceased may the murdered. However, I soon realized still occupy houses that are facsimiles of Ferreira notes that that, as Ferreira could provide therapy the homes in which they dwelt prior to crack-addicted to these deceased persons, I would be their demise. You can still be addicted ghosts have black ethically bound to hire him to provide to drugs such as cocaine and heroin such services. Thus, yet another fast even though you’re dead. Ferreira notes skin and yellow eyes buck eludes my grasp. that crack-addicted ghosts have black in the afterlife. skin and yellow eyes in the afterlife. Douglas M. Stokes is a frequent con- This characterization is unlikely to be tributor to the literature related to the favorably received by jaundiced persons parapsychology. His most recent book of African descent. Hopefully, these is Reimagining the Soul (to be published hues will not lead to discrimination by McFarland & Co. in the fall of on the basis of dermal and ocular col- 2013).

6 Volume 37 Issue 6 | [ NEWS AND COMMENT

Mysterious Moving Museum Statue: Ghost, Curse, or Physics?

B R

An ancient statue in a British museum to know exactly what’s going on, but spot instead of wandering around the unnerved many people when it was the most likely explanation is that the display case like a lost child looking for caught on camera turning in its locked base bulges out very slightly, creating its mummy. display case in June 2013. According a convex surface. It doesn’t need to The that the statue merely ro- to an article in the Evening be obvious or even noticeable—just tates half a turn is important because it News, a millimeter or two of a protruding conforms exactly to what we’d expect An ancient Egyptian statue has spooked bump somewhere near the middle of if it’s simply shifting its weight in re- museum bosses—after it mysteri- the piece is enough. This is common in sponse to vibrations. If this is the cor- ously started to spin round in a hand-crafted items such as those made rect explanation—and it certainly seems display case. The 10-inch tall relic, of wood, stone, plaster, and other ma- which dates back to 1800 BC, was far more likely than a ghost, a curse, or found in a mummy’s tomb and has terials not cut to perfect right angles on even a cursed ghost—then the phe- been at the Manchester Museum for modern machinery. nomenon will stop because the statue 80 years. But in recent weeks, cura- has found its lowest center of gravity. If tors have been left scratching their the security camera catches the statue heads after they kept finding it fac- If this is the correct ing the wrong way. Experts decided completing its turn back to its original to monitor the room on time-lapse explanation—and position, then this explanation can be video and were astonished to see it it certainly seems ruled out. clearly show the statuette spinning Though museum visitors are the 180 degrees—with nobody going far more likely than near it. most obvious source of vibrations, there a ghost, a curse, are others, including those that occur What’s going on? Because the piece or even a cursed after hours and at night including clos- is in a museum display about ancient ing doors, traffic from a nearby road, Egypt, some have suggested a curse or ghost—then the and possibly even microtremors, which ghost. It is certainly mysterious: If the phenomenon will happen routinely around the world video is to be believed (and there’s lit- stop because the but are so slight that seismometers are tle reason to doubt it), then the statue needed to detect them. is indeed moving independently inside statue has found Some have questioned the vibration a closed case, untouched by human explanation, asking why the other stat- hands. its lowest center ues in the same display case don’t rotate I was asked to investigate the mys- of gravity. the same way. Perhaps their bases are tery by Discovery News and found either flat or concave, preventing the clues in the video that suggest another figures from rotating. But there’s an- explanation. First, note that the video other clue: Close observers may notice is a time-lapse covering about a week Usually this bump on the bottom (not, as some news reports suggest, remains unnoticed or is ignored. But in something else different about the one eleven hours). Though at first glance some rare cases, if the object is placed moving statue as compared to its three it seems to turn both day and night, a on a smooth surface with very little fric- stationary cousins: it is much taller. closer look reveals that it almost always tion to hold it in place—and unless the This means that the statue has a high turns when people are present. Second, glass case (and the floor underneath it) center of gravity and thus is less stable contrary to descriptions of the statue as is perfectly level—the statue will turn. than the others, if only slightly. “spinning,” it doesn’t actually spin at all As with the bump on the bottom of If the mysterious action truly is but instead rotates once about 180 de- the statue, the tilt does not need to be caused by a ghost, curse, or other super- grees, or a half-turn. This also means noticeable to be effective. The statue natural phenomenon, it’s pretty lame. it’s turning very, very slowly. is housed in an ordinary glass museum In centuries past ancient curses used to The favored scientific explanation case, not a laboratory platform scien- be serious business, allegedly causing is simply that the statue is rotating in tifically calibrated to maintain perfect illnesses, accidents, and even violent response to vibrations from museum level and resist vibrations. This would deaths. These days they can’t do more visitors. Without closely examining also explain why the statue rotates on than rotate a statue a few centimeters the base of the statue it’s impossible its axis, turning more or less in one each day.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 7 Medals, Honors to Loftus, Morrison, Scott

The American Psychological Founda tion has awarded its 2013 Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology to psychologist Elizabeth Loftus for “extraordi- nary contributions to our understanding of memory during the past 40 years that are remark- able for their creativity and impact.” The citation notes that Loftus “has been a pioneering scientist in the area of memory distortion and false memories. Her imaginative and rigorous research has had a profound impact on the field of psychology, on scholars outside the field, and on the administration of around the world.” Loftus was also the subject of a laudatory feature article about her decades of work exposing flaws in eyewitness testimony in the August 14 (volume 500, issue 7462). She is a Fellow and member of the Executive Council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

David Morrison has been awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal “for excep- tional achievement in exposing the 2012 doomsday hoax and using science to reassure the public and overcome widespread fear of the end of the world.” The award was given August 29. The nomination noted that Morrison was “the most outspoken scientist in NASA—per- haps in the world—using to fight the that the world would end on Dec. 21, 2012. . . . His efforts reinforce the role of scientists in reaching out to educate and reassure the public in the face of misinformation and . As a senior scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Dr. Morrison has answered questions from the public submitted to NASA’s ‘Ask an Astrobiologist’ website for the past decade.” The award also praises four videos he made, his writings for the nasa.gov website, fact sheets, and other writings and presentations. “Dr. Morrison’s spirited defense of reason in the face of widespread fear-mon- gering and his work to reassure frightened children and parents represents an exceptional achievement that reflects well on NASA and its mission of public outreach.” Morrison is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a S  I contributing editor.

Eugenie C. Scott received an honorary doctorate, her ninth, from Chapman University in May in recognition of her “work . . . in advancing the public understanding and acceptance of evolution.” Says the award citation: “Your career in defending the integrity of science edu- cation exemplifies a combination of scholarly rigor, civic concern, and tireless devotion. . . . Whereas evolution’s tenacious defender Thomas Henry Huxley called himself Darwin’s bull- dog, you like to identify yourself with a different domesticated canine—one which the Kennel Club’s breed standard describes as ‘kindly, friendly, and confident.’ We take tremendous pride in bestowing this honorary degree upon ‘Darwin’s golden retriever.’” Her commencement address to Chapman is published in the May/June 2013 NCSE Reports. She was introduced as “arguably the most effective defender of evolution education and the integrity of science education on the planet today.” Scott, a physical anthropologist, is retiring by the end of this year as executive director of the National Center for Science Education. She is a Fellow and a member of the Executive Council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

8 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer [ NEWS AND COMMENT

After Spiritual Experiment Woman Decides She Needs to Eat

B R

A woman in Seattle who she can live on nothing more than air, sunlight, and water conducted a social and spiritual “experiment” in June 2013 to see if she really needed to eat food. According to a June 5 story on Fox News, “Navenna Shine, the founder and subject of the Living on Light experiment, plans to spend the next four to six months abstaining from food of any kind and living on only light, water and tea. According to her website Livingonlight.com, Shine started the experiment in an attempt to follow a group of obscure Yogis, who for thousands of years have claimed the ability to live on light.” The claimed ability to survive with- Navenna Shine ended her Living on Light experiment after just two weeks. out food (and sometimes without water as well) is called , and those who attempt it are called “inediates” (among other things). One common version of inedia includes a belief called breathar- Shine turned her Shine seemed surprised and dis- ianism, which teaches that humans can mayed at the public reaction to her be trained to survive just on water and experimental flirtation fasting experiment, framing it as a sunlight. with starvation into matter of striking a nerve of social and Shine turned her experimental flir- something of a social cultural taboos. The issue was not, as tation with starvation into something she put it, about anger over her explo- of a social media event, filming herself media event, filming ration of alternative spiritualities or on web cams and creating a Facebook herself on web cams asking “questions [that] can’t even be page so supporters (and detractors) asked,” but instead the humanitarian could follow along. She seemed sin- and creating a Facebook concern that she might starve to death cere in her effort, blogging about her page so supporters during her misguided quest. symptoms including nausea, her con- Still, the way in which she ended versations with God, and the messages (and detractors) her potentially fatal fasting leaves some she received from the universe as her could follow along. body fought off delirium. concerns. Shine did not stop because Though the experiment was planned she changed her mind about the fact to last four to six months, she ended that people need to eat—indeed she her fast after about two weeks. Ac- remains convinced that it is possible, cording to The Seattle Times, “Shine a question, but there was just so much just not under the scrutiny of the world had dropped to 126 pounds from her negative response that that means the (and, oddly, with more money). By original weight of 159 pounds on her question can’t even be asked,’ she said. suggesting that ending the experiment 5-foot, 4-inch frame. She says she’s She also says that she didn’t want to was an altruistic public service or due quitting . . . in part because she’s run be responsible for others trying ‘Living to circumstances beyond her control, out of money, and in part because of on Light’ without having their ‘belief Shine was able to save face and keep I the public reaction. ‘I was just asking systems lined up.’” her beliefs intact.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 9 Take action with us.

You can help promote science, reason, and secular values. Imagine a world where and pseudoscience do not influence public policy—a world where religion no longer enjoys a privileged position. The Center for Inquiry is working toward these goals and educating the public to use science, reason, and secular values rather than religion and pseudoscience to establish public policy. The Center for Inquiry advances its mission through advocacy, education, and outreach programs. No other organizations advance science and secularism on as many fronts as CFI and its affiliates, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Council for Secular .

Donate today. When you make a donation to CFI, you become a member of a worldwide movement of humanists, skeptics, atheists, and freethinkers—all working together to promote the secular worldview and give voice to your values. Our major goals include: I Protecting the rights of nonbelievers I Advocating for science-based medicine I Sustaining and expanding the Make your most generous gift today, or request information on planned giving or making a bequest. To receive a brochure elaborating on what we are doing to achieve our important goals and how you can help, please complete and return the attached card or contact us at: Center for Inquiry Development Office PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226 1.800.818.7071 [email protected] www.centerforinquiry.net/donate COMMENTARY]

Why We Do This: Revisiting the Higher Values of Skeptical Inquiry

want to give some brief histori- was tremendous public fascination” skeptics groups, magazines, newsletters cal perspective about the skeptical with the paranormal and it was “heav- almost everywhere—from Australia movement, take a look at some new ily promoted and sensationalized by an and China to Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Itrends, and revisit a theme I’ve empha- often irresponsible media.” (I leave it and Nigeria; from Indian, Eastern Eu- sized before, reminding ourselves why to you to decide whether those condi- rope, and Russia to Germany, France, we do this: the higher values of skep- tions now differ.) “Our interest,” Kurtz Spain, Italy, and the , tical inquiry. stressed, “was not simply in the para- so that the Center for Inquiry/Trans- Known somewhat affectionately normal curiosity shop but to increase an national (including CSICOP) has be- throughout our first three decades as understanding of how science works.” come truly planetary in scope.” More CSICOP, the Committee was founded We thus appealed to scientists and nations can now be added to that list. on May 1, 1976, at a major conference scholars to engage with the public not We can of course debate to what degree on “The New Irrationalisms” called by only in investigating popular claims this encouragement led to the flowering philosophy professor at the that involved misunderstandings of sci- of new groups and to what degree they State University of New York at Buf- ence but in explicating the higher val- flowered on their own. falo. It was the first organized effort by ues of science and critical inquiry. In his later years, Kurtz convinced scientists, scholars, and investigators That broad spectrum of interest himself—but few others—that interest from all relevant fields of intellectual and emphasis still typifies us and most in the paranormal had diminished. “No inquiry, worldwide, to unite in explor- of the today. We one is interested in the paranormal any- ing and combatting credulous belief in skeptics do it all, investigating the more,” he would proclaim. We would pseudoscientific and paranormal claims. smallest strange mysteries that fasci- either demur or just smile. What had This, some of you may recall, was an nate the public while also explaining happened, I think, was twofold: First, era of rampant belief in (“the the powerful tools of science and reason his interest in the paranormal and Age of Aquarius”), Velikovsky and his and applying them to thinking about pseudoscience had diminished, and he planetary pinballs, von Däniken and the broadest issues of concern and con- was now devoting most of his energy , birthdate-based fusion in today’s complex societies. to bringing his profound vision of a biorhythms, the supposed Bermuda Just as science is internationalist and positive, affirmative Triangle, pyramid power, and copi- scientific principles know no boundar- informed by the findings of science to ous other unexamined nonsense. Uri ies, the misrepresentations of science broader arenas of public relevance. In Geller was everywhere bending cutlery that concern us observe no national a way, I sympathized with him; many and fooling even some physicists into borders. It was fitting therefore that of our academic colleagues blanched at thinking he had supernormal powers. Paul Kurtz (who died a year ago, on even a semantic connection to anything I covered that conference as editor October 20, 2012, at the age of eighty- paranormal—I didn’t like it much my- of Science News magazine and the next six) always advanced an internationalist self. In fact in September 2006 we on year was invited to become editor of perspective. Kurtz was an international the CSICOP Executive Council took CSICOP’s journal, the S I- ambassador for skepticism and human- “paranormal” out of the name and mis- . It has been my honor to have ism and free and open critical inquiry. sion statement of our Committee for been its editor ever since. He tirelessly traveled the world and en- the Scientific Investigation of Claims On our thirtieth anniversary in couraged skeptics everywhere to orga- of the Paranormal, shortening the 2006, Paul Kurtz himself did a major nize their own groups. They did. In his name to just Committee for Skeptical retrospective review of the committee retrospective he expressed “great satis- Inquiry—and unfortunately almost los- and the S I (SI, Sep- faction that the S I ing the acronym, and brand, CSICOP. tember/October 2006). At the time of is read throughout the world and that But second, the rise of the Internet our founding, Kurtz recalled, “There CSICOP has helped generate new and the proliferation of new cable and

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 11 satellite television channels by the hun- low the clear advice of Dr. Paul Offit, I since 2007. This topic differs dreds brought an insatiable demand for in his fine new book Do You Believe in from the others because a few of our new programming with mass appeal. ? : “The truth is, there is no such fellow skeptics are among the critics of Paranormal themes eagerly helped fill thing as conventional or alternative or climate science. No science is perfect, the need. Paranormal programming complementary or integrative or ho- especially a young science like climatol- wasn’t visible in quite the same classic listic medicine. There’s only medicine ogy, but its findings are far more robust way via books and newspapers and net- that works and medicine that doesn’t.” than its critics want to admit. We have work TV that worried us before; it ap- But this “medicine that doesn’t tried to be respectful of those skeptic peared now on smaller stages, but the work” has become an enormous in- colleagues who honestly question the stages had multiplied geometrically. dustry that requires continuing critical findings of climate science; they think, Nowadays you can’t channel hop with- examination. Thankfully many physi- I am sure, that they are being good out encountering ridiculous pseudosci- cians have become active in the skepti- skeptics. (In this case I’d prefer to call entific shows touting haunted houses cal community, even leaders (many of them contrarians.) But I believe they and ghost-hunting, searching for them associated with CSI), and their are seeing the science through their monsters, mystery-mongering about barrages of critiques are now putting own ideological filters. . . and that can supposed aliens and UFOs, or showing some needed skeptical balance and be dangerous. Especially so when in so so-called pretending to find perspective on the matter. many nonscientific forums they seem missing persons or communicate with Another new theme: conspiracy to trust the science is being denigrated the dead. It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so theories. Conspiracy thinking has al- and distorted and opposition to it is sad. Interest in the paranormal hasn’t ways been around but not in the en- being encouraged by some of the same diminished at all. It just fragmented demic way in which it now pollutes powerful political propaganda ma- and proliferated. It is everywhere. almost every aspect of public discourse. chines that have supported the tobacco Conspiracies about what? Just about lobby in the past and continue to fund everything. creationists today. Another new strand is apocalyptic Conspiratorial thinking Distrust in government and all thinking. Whether global contagions, public institutions is at high levels, not is a way of not thinking. environmental collapse, collisions with without some reason, but conspirato- nonexistent rogue planets, alien inva- It is a pernicious way of rial thinking is not just due to that. It is sions, or zombies, something ends our a way of not thinking. It is a pernicious shaping a preconceived world and civilization. Perhaps this is way of shaping a preconceived personal personal worldview a subset of conspiracy thinking. In any worldview so that it is immune from event it is endemic in our popular cul- so that it is immune criticism. Absence of evidence for the ture at the moment, and I worry, just a theory is perceived as evidence of the from criticism. bit anyway, about the effect on young conspiracy (to withhold the evidence). people growing up with the idea, for- That is not . That is merly confined mostly to religious the opposite of critical thinking. (And zealots, that the world has no future. yes, we all know there are real conspir- So psychics, UFOs, monsters, and So those are some new current their ilk continue to pop up like the acies in the world; critical thinking is strands to go along with the old, peren- unsinkable rubber ducks they are. But required to separate them from imag- nial ones that constantly crop up using there have been some new themes ined ones.) new terms and new disguises, as when since we began. Back then, “alterna- The new challenge to scientific “” tried (ultimately tive and complementary medicine” skepticism I found most surprising was unsuccessfully) to replace old-fash- didn’t even exist, at least not as a re- opposition to climate science. Climate ioned or “anomalous cog- spectable-sounding term. We called scientists’ findings that the Earth is nition” was proffered for claims of psy- it or snake oil. Or bad med- warming and that that this warming chic powers. icine. Now it has become all polite and is likely to continue due to the steady But again, our interest has never gentrified, and our medical schools and increase of greenhouse gases seems been just debunking the paranormal research institutes, funded publicly, to most of us straightforward science. or exposing the delusions of its pro- give nods of obeisance to it, providing But, as you know, the conclusions have moters and followers. Instead it is to undeserved respectability. engendered passionate opposition, encourage an appreciation for the sci- Let’s at least adopt our colleague Dr. even denial, in some quarters. Because entific outlook, with its innate initial Harriet Hall’s term “So-Called Alter- of this gap between open-minded skepticism toward new native and Complementary Medicine” and public perception, we’ve been in- claims to knowledge, its creative tools with its acronym “SCAM” or just fol- volved with this topic in the S for teasing out the about nature,

12 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer COMMENTARY]

and its reliance on high-quality evi- These attacks are on the open- • The deepest traditions of de- dence and informed peer criticism in minded tolerance of others different mocracy—valuing individual freedom, assessing the results. from oneself; on education and the human dignity, and rights and treasuring Some of these larger topics and is- love of learning and the quest for new the free and open interplay of ideas. sues, as I wrote when announcing our knowledge; on a free and open society’s new Committee for Skeptical Inquiry distrust of and authority; on So when we get tired, or discouraged, name (SI, January/February 2007), in- freedom of expression and a clear sepa- take heart that our travail has purpose clude: ration of church and state; on the basic and meaning. And we can draw inspi- rights of women to make their own ration from others facing challenges far …how our beliefs in such things choices; and on a deep appreciation of beyond ours. Consider the courageous arise, how our minds work to de- education as a progressive force for en- example of Malala Yousafzai. Malala is ceive us, how we think, how our lightenment and improvement. the sixteen-year-old Pakistani girl who critical thinking capabilities can be was shot in the head last year by the improved, what are the answers to Taliban for advocating the education certain uninvestigated mysteries, What we science-minded of girls. what damage is caused by uncrit- skeptics are defending At the United Nations in July, ical acceptance of untested claims, here goes way beyond Malala said she is not against anyone, how critical attitudes and scientific she is for “the education of girls and thinking can be better taught, how any of the specific boys, especially the children of the Tal- good science can be encouraged bizarre ideas, iban.” and bad science exposed, and on trumped-up mysteries, “The extremists are afraid of books and and on. pens,” she said. “The power of education or misperceptions frightens them. . . .The power of the voice As for SI and CSI, Kurtz always en- or misrepresentations of women frightens them. . . . Let us wage couraged these efforts to broaden our of the real world we may a global struggle against illiteracy, pov- scope and apply the tools of scientific erty, and terrorism and let us pick up inquiry to newly emerging issues where critique. What we are our books and pens. They are our most there is public confusion and where the defending are hard-won powerful weapons.” tools of evidence-based skepticism and concepts essential to a I am not suggesting that skeptics critical thinking can be of service. As plunge into these kinds of life-and- he said, “We originally criticized pseu- free and open society. death situations. (Some do, like Malala, doscientific, paranormal claims because and have paid a big price, witness the we thought that they trivialized and August 20 murder of Indian rationalist distorted the meaning of genuine sci- So what we science-minded skep- and skeptic Dr. Naredra Dabholkar.) ence.” (That was my concern as well.) tics are defending here goes way be- My point is that skepticism, and its ad- But, he continued, “Many of the at- yond any of the specific bizarre ideas, vocacy of learning and critical thought, tacks on the integrity and independence trumped-up mysteries, or mispercep- exists along a continuum that includes of science today come from powerful tions or misrepresentations of the real crucially meaningful matters. political-theological-moral doctrines.” world we may critique. What we are If this sixteen-year-old can endure Likewise, as I have written in a defending, I have written before and I and enlighten and inspire on the world S I essay, “In De- reiterate here, are hard-won concepts stage, we can forge ahead with our fense of the Higher Values” (July/Au- essential to a free and open society—if efforts to bring a modicum of reason gust 2006), the new areas we are con- that society is to have well-informed and to a modern world still cerned about “arise from deep-seated citizens capable of making wise deci- fighting ancient strands of ignorance I ideologies. They arise from a dangerous sions in a complex technological world. and intolerance. capturing of mainstream, liberal, open- Among them: minded religious viewpoints by those • Reason and rationality. Kendrick Frazier is editor of the S  with far more extreme, narrow, rigid, • Respect for the scientific outlook. I and a Fellow and member of the authoritarian religious viewpoints. Executive Council of the Committee for They arise from a devoted determina- • The skeptical attitude, a key com- Skeptical Inquiry. He received CSICOP’s In tion to impose those viewpoints on ev- ponent of scientific thinking, with its ob- Praise of Reason award in 2001. This com- eryone else.” (Both Kurtz’s SI essay I’ve ligations to put all new assertions to tests mentary is based on remarks delivered been referring to and mine are reprinted of . in our latest SI anthology, Science Under • The traditions of learning—real at the 15th European Skeptics Congress, Siege, , 2009.) learning, deep and broad, and unfettered. Stockholm, Sweden, August 22–25, 2013.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 13 [ INVESTIGATIVE FILES JOE NICKELL Joe Nickell has been a Pinkerton operative, a literary detective (PhD in English literature and folklore), and occa- sional police homicide consultant. Still later (1995) he became the world’s only full-time professional paranormal investigator. He is coauthor of the forensic textbook Crime Science (Nickell and Fischer 1999), and his work has been cited in such texts as Kirk’s Fire Investigation.

Detective: Uncovering the Mysteries of a Word

s a literary detective (my PhD informer (OED 1971, 704, 1478). By dis sertation was Literary Investi- 1605, Shakespeare was using that term Agation [Nickell 1987]), I have to describe one who finds the artfully applied linguistic evidence to famous concealed or the inherently obscure: cases—showing, as spurious, for exam- “O Heavens! That this Treason were ple, the infamous Beale treasure papers not; or not I the detector!” (King Lear (Nickell 1982) and the alleged diary of III. . 14).1 Indeed, detecter [sic] is the Jack the Ripper (Nickell 1993), among very word given for such a meaning in others. More recently, I have been Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famously “first”2 investigating another questioned text, English dictionary (1755): “. purportedly penned in the American n.s. A discoverer. Shakespeare.” South in 1846 but describing events of decades earlier. The story involved The First Detective “detectives,” but that word had not yet In time, detection became a new profes- come into , a revealing fact sion, although more time would elapse that soon drew me into further studies. before a word evolved to describe one Here is some of what I found. Eugène François Vidocq who practiced it. Such a person was Eugène François Vidocq (1775–1857) over the floor of the temple before it Early Detection who has been called “the first detec- was sealed. The ashes subsequently re- Among the earliest detective stories tive” (Morton 2012). He rose from vealed the unmistakable footprints of in literature is one related in an extra, petty criminal to police informer to men, women, and children who had apocryphal Book of Daniel (given in undercover operative, to the founder of entered through secret doors. Mystery Catholic Bibles as Daniel 14:1–21). It the French Sûreté Nationale in 1811. tells how, during the reign of Cyrus, solved. He is also credited with creating the the Babylonians persuaded the Persian The centuries, however, awaited a first private detective . Vidocq King to worship their idol Bel (or term for such a person as Daniel. There published his ghost-written memoirs Baal). Set up in a temple, the effigy was the sixteenth-century word inves- in 1829, popularizing the proverb “set daily consumed twelve bushels of flour, tigator of course (from the Latin), de- a thief to catch a thief ” (Morton 2012). forty sheep, and fifty gallons of wine scribing one who made diligent inquiry Vidocq’s memoirs were among the that the priests placed before it. Or so or examination, but without necessarily most sensational crime-chasing stories it seemed. meaning to skillfully detect—from the of the period, and French writers began A suspicious Daniel, however, in de- Latin detegere, to uncover. Eventually to base characters on him. Honoré de tective fashion, set a trap to reveal pos- there came detector (or detecter), one Balzac’s Le Père Goriot (1834) featured sible trickery. He had ashes scattered who simply revealed, like an accuser or an anti-hero Vautran who was modeled

14 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer JOE NICKELL INVESTIGATIVE FILES]

The Pinkertons after Vidocq. Later, Victor Hugo’s Les 18–24, 129, 171–172). Miserables (1862) contained two such The next major developments in detective Possibly as early as 1850, Pinker- characters (convict-hero Jean Valjean matters are credited to Allan Pinkerton ton founded what eventually became and Inspector Javert). (1819–1884) who would firmly secure Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. detective as a noun, and begin to apply Its letterhead pictured an open eye with Poe and the Detective Story adjectives to it. A Scottish fugitive the slogan, “We Never Sleep”—a trade- (he had been a radical Chartist), he Meanwhile, the great American lit- mark that gave rise to the term private stole away with his bride to America, erary genius Edgar Allan Poe (1809– eye. Pinkertons tended to be called “op- settling in Illinois and plying his trade 1849) created the genre of detective eratives” rather than “detectives.” They fiction with three stories. The first, as a cooper. In 1847, needing wood were instructed in the arts of “shadow- “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” for his barrels and seeking it on a lush ing,” role-playing, and disguise (Horan (1841), relates the horrific murders of island in the Fox River, he soon spied 1967, x, 28–29). a reputed fortuneteller and her daugh- evidence of clandestine activity. He lay Allan Pinkerton led the fight against ter in a locked-room mystery that in wait there one moonlit evening and, bank, express-company, and train rob- baffles the Parisian police. In the tale, after a repeat stakeout accompanied bers. He foiled an assassination plot Poe specifically acknowledges his debt by the sheriff, helped arrest a gang of against president-elect Lincoln, and to Vidocq. This pioneering story was counterfeiters (Horan 1967, 2–16). headed the Intelligence Service during followed by “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842–1843), based on a real, murdered American girl named Mary Rogers (Nickell 2010). Finally, he pub- Allan Pinkerton led the fight against bank, lished “The Purloined Letter” (1842– express-company, and train robbers. 1843), a tale of hiding in plain sight. Poe’s amateur detective, Monsieur He foiled an assassination plot against C. Auguste Dupin, was the coldly log- president-elect Lincoln, and headed the ical hero of what Poe called his ratioci- Intelligence Service during the Civil War. native tales (Benet’s 1987, 283). He did not call them “detective” stories; neither did he apply the word to Dupin or use it in any of his stories. The word detective first appeared in print as an adjective. The Oxford English Finding he was a born detective, the Civil War. His agents became Dictionary3 (OED 1971, 704) shows Pinkerton became, in turn, deputy sher- spies, posing as confederate soldiers “detective police” in use in London iff of Kane County, then in about 1849 and rebel sympathizers. Subsequently, as early as 1843, but it has since been Chicago’s first detective, during which with sons William and Robert, Allan shown that that term appeared earlier, work he survived an initial attempt on Pinkerton multiplied branch offices to in a letter to The Times (London), May his life. As the Daily Democratic Press create, at its height, the largest private 30, 1840. Some think therefore that reported: the shot was “discharged so detective agency in the world. Oper- detective was available to Poe but that near that Mr. Pinkerton’s coat was put ative Frank Dimaio was the first de- he may have declined to use it (Berch on fire.” Two slugs in his arm were tective to infiltrate the Mafia, among 2010). later “cut out by a surgeon together countless other Pinkerton successes In fact, it is not only unlikely that with pieces of his coat.” After a year, (Horan 1967, 418–452). Poe would have seen an obscure letter Pinkerton resigned because of “politi- Not all Pinkerton activities were to the editor across the Atlantic, but the cal influence,” but he soon had another praiseworthy, however—the most con- adjective form of the word did not give badge. As Special United States Mail trary example being the use of opera- rise to the noun for years to come. (The Agent he went undercover to solve a se- tives and watchmen against the labor suffix –ive is often added to a verb—in ries of mail thefts and robberies. Later, movement. As James Horan states this case detect—to form an adjective in 1853, the Daily Democratic Press re- (1967, 358), “That the Pinkertons meaning “to have the quality of”; sub- ported4: “As a detective, Mr. Pinkerton were acting within the law is incontro- sequently such adjectives may evolve has no superior, and we doubt if he has vertible; that they were acting morally into nouns.) an equal in this country” (Horan 1967, is another question”—a fact they be-

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 15 latedly recognized. (When I became a adopting a suitable persona, and gained 1967, 46, 81). He would later call her Pinkerton detective in 1973, the agency the confidence of the suspect’s wife. “the greatest female detective who ever had a long-established policy against When the woman asked Warne’s ad- brought a case to a successful conclu- strikebreaking or even reporting on vice about giving the stolen money for sion” (qtd. in Horan 1967, 520). lawful union activities.) safekeeping to a man her husband knew only from jail (another Pinkerton!), Detective Fiction First Woman Detective Warne knew just how to advise her. Pinkerton’s first female private detec- The Pinkertons’ deplorable anti-union Warne was also integral to thwarting tives were far ahead of their time. activities were heavily ironic in light the “Baltimore Plot”—a conspiracy to Women did not join police depart- of Allan Pinkerton’s own equalitarian assassinate President-elect Lincoln in ments until 1891 and then were only principles. As a Chartist he had pro- 1861 as he was en route to Washington. matrons, limited to caring for pris- oners. New York City did not begin using women investigators until 1903. However, women writing detective fic- Warne explained in careful detail how she could tion were early pioneers of the genre. “worm out secrets in many places to which it The first detective novel by either was impossible for male detectives to gain access.” sex was by Emile Gaboriau: his L’Af- faire Lerouge (1866) introduced Mon- Pinkerton thought about it overnight and the sieur Lecoq, the next brilliant detec- next day hired the first career woman detective tive after Poe’s Dupin, and with him, another major precursor to Sherlock in America, if not the world. Holmes. Holmes became the world’s first “private consulting detective” in fiction with the publication of A. Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scar- let (1887), and he remains the world’s moted universal suffrage, and he was It was her job to book seats in a special most famous fictional detective (Benet’s a fierce abolitionist and Underground train’s sleeper car “for a sick friend and 1987, 457, 557). Railroad activist (Horan 1967, 39–42). party.” After Pinkertons slipped Lin- Meanwhile, in the United States, Much is revealed about Pinkerton’s coln on board, an American Telegraph Anna Katharine Green of Buffalo character by the story of a young lady Company wire climber cut all lines out (1846–1935) penned The Leavenworth of about twenty-three who appeared of Harrisburg, so other conspirators Case (1878), making her the first de- at his Chicago office one afternoon in could not be alerted. While additional tective novelist in America and the first 1856. Pinkertons were positioned along the woman to publish a detective novel She introduced herself as Mrs. Kate route to flash secret “clear-ahead” sig- anywhere in the world, in any language. Warne, a widow, and she wished Mr. nals, Kate Warne “carefully drew the Green followed it with many others. Pinkerton to employ her as a detective. curtains and charmed the curious con- She paved the way for numerous other Pinkerton had never known of a female ductor” (Horan 1967, 52–61, 57). female detective-fiction writers, like in that capacity, but he asked how she When Pinkerton—alias “Major E. J. England’s Agatha Christie (1890– expected to be of value. Allen”—organized the Union Army’s 1976), who created such idiosyncratic Warne explained in careful detail Secret Service Department (forerunner sleuths as Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane how she could “worm out secrets in of the later civilian U.S. Secret Service), Marple (Benet’s 1987, 185). many places to which it was impossi- he summoned his best operatives, in- It remained for American writer ble for male detectives to gain access.” cluding Warne. She was soon involved Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) to Pinkerton thought about it overnight in intelligence operations on behalf of become “the acknowledged founder and the next day hired the first career her country, for example deftly pene- of hard-boiled fiction” (Benet’s 1987, woman detective in America, if not the trating social gatherings in the South. 421). One of the finest examples of the world. (By 1860, Pinkerton’s “Female After the war, sadly, she grew ill, and, genre, introducing his tough-guy pri- Detective Bureau” was headed by Kate following a long struggle, died in her vate eye, Sam Spade, was The Maltese Warne.) As one of a team of operatives sleep in the early morning of January 1, Falcon (1930). That and other Ham- assigned to an Adams Express Com- 1868, at the age of only thirty-five, with mett novels—like The Glass Key (1931) pany robbery, Warne went undercover, Allan Pinkerton at her bedside (Horan and The Thin Man (1932)—became

16 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer JOE NICKELL INVESTIGATIVE FILES]

popular Hollywood movies. Signifi- crime scene. For example, a perpetrator No doubt the future will be as rich as cantly, Hammett was a former Pinker- may unknowingly leave behind a strand the past. ton operative, a fact that lay just below of hair and a latent fingerprint, while the surface of some stories. inadvertently carrying from the scene Acknowledgments distinctive carpet fibers or other identi- Lisa Nolan, CFI librarian, provided exten- Modern Developments fiable debris (Nickell and Fischer 1999, sive help with online research, and my wife, I 9–12). Diana Harris, made helpful suggestions. Between real-life detectives (official In America, a government Bureau and private) and fictional ones, there Notes of Investigation created in 1908 was re- has been a wonderful reciprocity—one organized by J. Edgar Hoover in 1924 1. That term could also later mean a device often influencing the other. Nowhere is that detects, such as a lie detector. when a national fingerprint file was cre- this better illustrated than in the evo- 2. Earlier English dictionaries were compiled, ated. The official United States Crime but Johnson’s was a far greater work (Winchester lution of a type of “scientific detective” Laboratory was established at the bu- 1998, 84–88, 89–99). or criminalist. It has been said that “the reau in 1930, and in 1935 the bureau 3. For the fascinating story of the OED, see Winchester 1998. prototype of today’s criminalist was adopted the name Federal Bureau of fictional,” namely Sherlock Holmes. 4. Issue of September 9, 1853. This is ear- Investigation (FBI). Here, too, we see lier than the OED’s date of 1856 for the noun When he appeared in 1887, scientific developments that have their roots in detective. crime detection was in its infancy, yet earlier bureaus. Horan (1967, 49–50) References Holmes was portrayed—not as a mere observes that Allan Pinkerton had armchair theorist like Poe’s Dupin, but maintained an extensive Rogues’ Gal- Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, third edition. 1987. as one who visited the scene of a crime New York: Harper & Row. lery, “devising the earliest central clear- Berch, Victor A. 2010. A Note on the Word and searched for and examined trace ing headquarters for the distribution ‘Detective.’ Online at http://msyteryfile.com/ evidence. of photographs of criminals, as well as blog/?p=5701; accessed June 24, 2013. As far as is known, the first re- pertinent information about them and Horan, James D. 1967. The Pinkertons: The al-life criminalist, Austrian lawyer Detective Dynasty That Made . New their modus operandi to state, local, and York: Crown. Hans Gross (1847–1915), never read government enforcement agencies.” In- Johnson, Samuel. 1755. A Dictionary of the the Sherlock Holmes stories. But his deed, “It operated in a manner similar to English Language. . . . Abridged From the Rev. pioneer ing textbook Handbuch fur H. J. Todd’s Corrected and Enlarged Quarto that of today’s Federal Bureau of Crimi- Edition By Alexander Chalmers, F.S.A. [1824]; Un ter suchungsrichter (“manual for ex- nal Identification.” reprinted New York: Barnes & Noble 1994. amining magistrates”) seemed to bring Morton, James. 2012. The First Detective: The the fictional ideas to life. In a typical * * * Life and Revolutionary Times of Vidocq: Crim- sentence that might have come from inal, Spy, and Private Eye. New York: Over- Having tracked detective from its orig- look Press. a Holmes story, Gross wrote, “Dirt inal form as an adjective to the noun Nickell, Joe. 1982. Discovered: The secret of on shoes can often tell us more about it has also become, we have watched Beale’s treasure. Virginia Magazine of History where the wearer of those shoes had it gather adjectives of its own: private, and Biography (July). ———. 1987. Literary Investigation: Texts, last been than toilsome .” fictional, female, scientific, and so on. I Sources, and “Factual” Substructs of Literature A French disciple of Gross pointed became a paranormal detective in 1969 and Interpretation. Doctoral dissertation, to the interaction between real and and made that a unique career in 1995. University of Kentucky. fictional detectives. Edmond Locard ———. 1993. The alleged diary of “Jack the Detective will doubtless go in new Ripper”: A summary assessment of its prov- (1877–1966)—who created the world’s directions. Before the nineteenth cen- enance, internal evidence, and physical com- first real crime lab in 1920—stated, “I tury had ended (according to the OED position. Prepared for Kenneth W. Rendell, must confess that if in the police lab- 1974, 204), it had already spawned de- August 29. (Revamped as chap. 2 of Nickell 2009, 39–52.) oratory of Lyons we are interested in tectiveship (“the office or function of ———. 2009. Real or Fake: Studies in Authen tica- this problem of dust it is because of a detective”) in 1877, detectivist (“one tion. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. having absorbed the ideas formed in who professedly treats of detectives”) in ———. 2010. Historical whodunit: Spiritualists, Gross and Conan Doyle.” Locard, ed- 1892, and detectivism (“the activities of Poe, and the real Marie Rogêt. S I 34(4) (July/August): 45–49. ucated in both medicine and the law, a detective, detective work”) in 1894. Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fischer. 1999. Crime set forth his famous concept known as The Internet shows rare, scattered uses Science: Methods of Forensic Detection. Lexing- Locard’s Exchange Principle. It states of detectivology (the study of all things ton: University Press of Kentucky. Winchester, Simon. 1998. The Professor and the that a cross-transfer of evidence takes detective) as early as 1943, and, by ex- Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the place whenever a criminal comes in tension, I suggest detectivologist to apply Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. New contact with a victim, an object, or a to one who writes a study such as this. York: HarperCollins.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 17 [THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI Massimo Pigliucci is professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and coeditor (with ) most recently of Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the . His essays can be found at rationallyspeaking.org.

Truth, Part II

e have seen (“Truth, Part I,” move works well, I suspect, for this agreement is that the object of such September/October 2013) that and mathematics but not really for sci- opinion is . This is actually some- Wthe standard philosophical entific theories. There are simply too thing that I think scientists and skeptics account of truth is the so-called cor- many possible theories about the world can definitely live with. respondence theory of truth (CToT), that are coherent and yet do not actu- By contrast, I find James’s views irri- which is usually assumed by practicing ally describe the world as it is. tatingly close to incoherence, or at least scientists (and, I bet, by most skeptics). A different set of alternatives to the wishful thinking, as when he claims It says that truth consists in a corre- CToT is constituted by a number of that truth is whatever proves to be good spondence between one’s statement pragmatic theories of truth, put forth to believe, or when he defines truth as and the way the world actually is. We by philosophers like Charles Sanders whatever is instrumental to our goals. have also seen that this is far more Peirce and William James. Famously, It is by way of this sort of fuzzy think- problematic than one might think, for however, these two differed signifi- ing that James arrived at his (in)famous a variety of reasons having to do with cantly in how they looked at truth. For defense of theological beliefs: belief in God becomes “true” because “[it] yields religious comfort to a most respectable class of minds,” which ought to be con- sidered prima facie preposterous and Famously, said that William accordingly dismissed. Famously, Ber- James’s theory of truth committed him to the “truth” trand Russell said that James’s theory of truth committed him to the “truth” that that Santa Claus exists, and I am inclined to go Santa Claus exists, and I am inclined to with Bertie on this one. go with Bertie on this one. A third alternative to the CToT is represented by one version or another of verificationism. This notion goes back to the British empiricists, and particularly to Hume and his famous —the study of how we Peirce, scientific investigation con- “fork.” As he put it in the Enquiry Con- know what we think we know. verges on the truth because our im- cerning Human Understanding: “If we Another way to take the measure perfect sensations are constrained by take in our hand any volume; of divinity of the CToT is to look at some of its the real world out there, which leads or school , for instance; let principal rivals, as they have been put to a sufficiently robust sense of “real- us ask, Does it contain any abstract rea- forth in the philosophical literature ity” while at the same time maintain- soning concerning quantity or number? during the past several decades. One ing skepticism about specific empirical No. Does it contain any experimental such rival is a coherentist approach to findings and theoretical constructs. For reasoning concerning matter of fact and truth, which replaces the idea of corre- Peirce, truth is an “opinion” that is des- existence? No. Commit it then to the spondence (with facts) with the idea of tined to be agreed upon (eventually) by flames: for it can contain nothing but coherence (among propositions). This all rational inquirers, and the reason for sophistry and illusion.”

18 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer So Hume recognized two types of For instance, the identity theory says puts it: “truth is constituted by differ- truths: empirical ones, subject to ver- that true propositions do not correspond ent properties for true propositions ificationism, and logical-mathematical to facts, they are facts. It is, however, from different domains of discourse: by ones, for which he seemed to adopt not straightforwardly clear what one correspondence to fact for true prop- something like a coherence theory of may mean by saying this. Or consider ositions from the domain of scientific truth. deflationist approaches to truth: Ac- or everyday discourse about physical The problem with verificationism cording to the CToT, “Snow is white” things; by some epistemic property, is that it had its heyday with the log- is true if it corresponds to the fact that such as coherence . . . for true propo- ical positivists of the early part of the snow is white; for a deflationist, how- sitions from the domain of ethical and twentieth century, but then fell out of ever, “Snow is white” is true if snow aesthetic discourse, and maybe by still favor after sustained criticisms by phi- is (in fact) white. The move basically other properties for other domains of losophers such as W.V.O. Quine and consists in dropping the “corresponds discourse.” This essentially closes the Hilary Putnam. The most famous of to” part of the CToT. Fine, but I can’t circle, as alethic pluralism conjoins our these objections is that the verification see how this is much more than a clever discussion of theories of truth with our principle itself can neither be verified semantic move. initial —you may remem- empirically nor is it a mathematical Finally, a more interesting posi- ber—that “facts” come in a variety of truth, thereby failing the criteria set tion, in my mind, is represented by flavors (empirical, mathematical, logi- forth in Hume’s fork. something called “alethic pluralism,” cal, ethical, etc.), with distinct flavors I find a few other alternatives to the according to which truth is multiply re- requiring distinct conceptions of what I CToT to be less palatable or promising. alizable. As philosopher Marian David counts as true.

There’s much more Skep ti cal In q uir er available on our website! Here’s just a sample of what you’ll find: Former cohost Indre Viskontas interviews famous neuroscientist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks on hallucinations—what they are and how they affect us.

Robert Bartholomew takes a closer look at the famous Lake Champlain monster photo- graph taken by Sandra Mansi in 1977 (and investigated by CSI’s Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell). He finds newly uncovered documents that reveal troubling questions about the photo and the circumstances surrounding it.

For more online columns, features, and special content, visit www.csicop.org.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 19 [ PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER Sheaffer’s “Psychic Vibrations” column has appeared in the S  I for more than thirty years; its highlights have now been published as a book (Create Space, 2011). Sheaffer blogs at www.BadUFOs.com, and his website is www.debunker.com.

UFO Hoaxes? There’s an App for That!

nyone who follows news stories about UFOs knows that there Aare a heck of a lot of them these days, and that many of them involve photographs. Frank Warren of The UFO Chronicles has written an eye-opening article, “UFO Hoaxes with the Touch of a Finger” (http:// tinyurl.com/UFOapp). Warren is well known as a UFO proponent, but he is no friend to hoaxers. I knew that it was possible to create all manner of digital UFOs in photographs. What I did not realize was just how easy it has become. Warren notes that there are many iPhone and/or Android apps written specifically for inserting UFOs into photos: • UFO Camera gold • UFO Photo Prank (also sometimes called UFO Revelator or OVNICA). from paying heed to the latest hokum On June 20, 2013, news outlets re ported • UFO Camera produced.” Unfortunately, he is quite that the British Ministry of Defense • UFO Photo Bomb correct: it seems that some of the most (MoD), which closed down its UFO • Camera 360 credulous people around are report- Sightings desk in 2009, had just released Most of these apps allow you to ers, who are supposed to be skeptical the very last of its UFO files into the select the UFO you wish to add, size by their profession. I suspect that the public domain. You can read the files it, and place it where you want it to at http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/. be. One of the UFO choices in UFO cynical pursuit of sensationalism and One would expect that well-known Camera Gold is my very own Cottage ratings is really behind that. Cheese Container UFO, published What all this means is that it is now UFO proponents, who have been hol- many times, that can be seen on my trivially easy for just about anyone to lering for “UFO disclosure” for years, Skeptics’ UFO Page (http://debunker. produce a semi-convincing UFO photo would be delighted. If so, one would be com/ufo.html). Some of these apps can hoax. And since “progress” in software wrong. Nick Pope, for example, is very insert aliens into your photos as well. is inevitable, we can expect to see better upset, and so are many others. Warren cites two examples of credu- and better UFO hoax photos with each Nick Pope is a major UFO celebrity, lous UFO news stories that have been passing year. Which means: unless you originally from the United Kingdom written about fake photos made with can absolutely confirm a photo’s origin, but now living in the United States. He apps just like these. It’s true that these and confirm that a UFO was not simply claims that he was skeptical of UFOs are not great-quality fakes. Warren added using hoaxing software, you can’t prior to his work at the MoD UFO says, “For most seasoned Ufologists believe anything that you see in a sup- desk (there never was such a thing as the hoaxed photos are blatantly obvi- posed UFO photo any longer. a “UFO Project”), but in fact Pope be- ous; unfortunately, that minority won’t lieves he was abducted by aliens during stop the MSM [mainstream media] * * * a trip to Florida in January 1991, before

20 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer he began working for the MoD. The Carl Mantell of the RAF’s Air Com- from 2000 onwards my FOI cam- Sunday Times of London reported on mand, suggested the MoD should paign made me a thorn in the side try to significantly reduce the UFO February 7, 1999, that of the MoD to the extent that after work. He said it was “consuming seven years of constant pressure they The Ministry of Defence official increasing resource, but produces no relented and decided to transfer all who once headed investigations into valuable defence output.” He told surviving UFO papers to The Na- unidentified flying objects believes Mr. Ainsworth that in more than 50 tional Archives. But instead of hail- he was abducted by aliens. Nick Pope, years, “no UFO sighting reported to ing the disclosure as a breakthrough, who [allegedly] ran the ministry’s [the MoD] has ever revealed any- conspiracy nuts have portrayed it as top secret Airstaff Secretariat office thing to suggest an extra-terrestrial a cover-up because the documents during the early 1990s, believes that presence or military threat to the do not provide any support for their he, his girlfriend and their car were U.K.” Among the 4,400 pages of beliefs (http://tinyurl.com/pv6d6da). abducted from a deserted toll road documents released are: in Florida. He has described how he • A letter from a school child in Pope’s reply was quoted: was lifted aboard an alien spacecraft Altrincham, Greater Manchester, to and then wandered around its cor- A claim by the British Ministry of the MoD, dated January 2009, ask- Defence that UFOs have no defense ridors—without, however, meeting ing if aliens exist after she had seen any aliens. significance is “designed solely to some strange lights, and including keep Parliament, the media and the a drawing of an alien in a UFO public off our backs,” according to In reality, while Pope claims he ran waving. “the British Government’s UFO Proj- former MoD UFO Desk adminis- ect,” he didn’t run anything, and only • A report received via the UFO trator Nick Pope. . . . Official MoD hotline by someone who had been spokesmen and one self-styled UFO worked part-time at the UFO Desk “living with an alien” in Carlisle for expert, David Clarke, claims that the from 1991 to 1994. In the summer of some time. MoD found no evidence of a UFO 2012, Pope was in many news stories threat to the UK and, therefore, • A report from a man from Cardiff closed its UFO Desk. . . . warning about a supposed “alien in- who claimed a UFO abducted his vasion” that could come at any time. dog, and took his car and tent, while Regarding David Clarke, Pope says, He also warned of possible mass UFO he was camping with friends in “Some people would probably use the appearances during the London Olym- 2007. term ‘useful idiot’ to describe his par- pics. When my name was included on roting the MoD ‘no defense signifi- Pope has recently been on the de- a list prepared by NASA during the cance’ sound bite.” fensive, emphasizing that he did not 1970s and 1980s of people who had Clarke had made a Freedom of actually predict an alien invasion, as information on UFOs (since they did Information request of the MoD for many news stories and blogs reported not), I used to receive dozens of letters “copies of MoD papers, records, or in the summer of 2012. He said he was like this. Most of the correspondence other information relating to internal merely promoting a “space war” type came from schoolchildren requesting discussion, policy and/or briefings in of video game, and reporters took his information. I would usually reply with comments out of context. However, he response to public statements made just a page or two of skeptical materials, to the media and via the release of can’t explain away comments like, “The but I suppose that was not what they Open Skies, Closed Minds by Nick Pope government must—and has planned— wanted to receive. during the period 1995–96” (http:// for the worst-case scenario: alien attack David Clarke, according to The drdavidclarke.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/ and alien invasion. Space shuttles, la- Telegraph (June 21, 2013), “has been the open-skies-closed-files.html). sers and directed-energy weapons are National Archives ‘UFO consultant’ for As Clarke explained to Pope at the all committed via the Alien Invasion five year[s of the] project, during which time, “my request was specifically for War Plan to defence against any alien it has made public more than 52,000 ships in orbit.” Just do an Internet pages of official government files relat- ‘internal comment on your Press inter- search for “Nick Pope Alien Invasion,” ing to mysterious sightings.” Clarke is views in 1996 and MoD’s discussion which brings up many news stories, a former reporter and currently course of what line to take’ and not for access including this later one from October leader and senior lecturer in journalism to his private correspondence with his 12, 2012, “Britain has alien-war weap- at Sheffield Hallam University teaching employers over the clearance of his ons, says former government adviser,” media law and investigation skills. His manuscript (with one exception that and even “Aliens Could Attack at Any PhD is in folklore from the National concerns a specific letter which he had Time” from 2006. Centre for English Cultural Tradition, quoted from in the public domain).” One reason that UFOlogists are up- University of Sheffield. Since 2008, he Clarke’s request was not granted, and it set is that the newly released UFO files has been working with The National turns out that the reason was that Pope contain nothing whatsoever of any real Archives (TNA) as their consultant for “has written to the MoD and asked for interest, and are in fact rather embar- the ongoing release of the UFO files the information not to be released into rassing to the pro-UFO side. As re- created by Britain’s Ministry of De- the public domain.” I ported by the BBC: fence. Clarke says that So much for “full disclosure”!

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 21 [ SCIENCE WATCH KENNETH W. KRAUSE Kenneth W. Krause is a contributing editor and “Science Watch” columnist for the S  I. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Taking Our Medicine: What Hope for Skepticism in Healthcare?

hy can’t we meet with and replacements, prostatectomies, angio- “highly-caffeinated” healthcare indus- interview our primary care plasties, and hysterectomies. try. Hospitals, clinics, and physicians, Wdoctors before hiring them? Indeed, little-known research shows they say, will gleefully “sell anything,” Even during treatment, why are so that one-third of American heart by- including “tests, treatments, and proce- many of us reluctant to ask questions pass patients never required surgery. dures that are inappropriate, unafford- probing our physicians’ competence, Every year, 300,000 women—many of able, and promise more than they can rationality, or general intelligence? And whom die prematurely from cardiovas- deliver.” why do so many physicians really wear cular disease and osteoporosis-related Patients, on the other hand, tend to those gleaming white coats and fre- conditions—have healthy ovaries re- be easy marks, checking their common quently insist we address them by the moved for no reason. Tens of thou- sense and consumer skepticism at the lofty title of “doctor”? of children receive unneeded lobby doors. For whatever reasons— Such simple inquiries might lead ear tube implantations annually, and fear, hope, misplaced trust, the reckless average patients to suspect that so- a similar number of adults submit to and emotion-stoking popular media, or called “medical science” and American back surgeries unsupported by evidence a deplorably enabling and inapt insur- healthcare in particular prospers best in of success. ance scheme—American patients are a self-serving culture of secrecy, arro- Medical overuse is a money-hungry clearly convinced: more is always better. gance, and denial. But average patients, green monster, say healthcare experts The most common and expensive certain experts say, don’t know the half Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Singh. overuse occurs daily—office visits, of it. It not only “thrives on the fact that too intra-facility referrals, lab tests, and Evidence suggests, for example, little scientific evidence exists to justify X-rays, most routinely. Expensive for that one in four American patients is a great deal of today’s medical prac- patients, that is, but quite lucrative for harmed by medical mistake—the fifth tices,” it also “wants to prevent good healthcare providers. leading cause of death in the United science from informing policymakers In 2004, the National Institutes of States. Doctors operate on the wrong and the public about what really works” Health featured X-rays on its list of person or body part as often as forty (Gibson and Singh 2010). known carcinogens, capable of trigger- times per week, and, according to a The U.S. consumes more med- ing breast, lung, and thyroid cancers recent survey of leading medical pro- ical products and services than any and leukemia. Of course the benefits of fessionals, approximately 25 percent of other country on the planet. In 2010, X-rays—relatively benign, single-snap- all medications and medical procedures America spent 16 percent of its gross shot exposure techniques—generally are unnecessary. domestic product on healthcare, and, outweigh the risks for patients in need. In 2008, the nonprofit Washington according to the Congressional Budget Computed tomography (CT) scans D.C.-based National Quality Forum Office, that share will swell to a whop- are another subject. Consisting of released a list of overused tests and ping 25 percent by 2025. hundreds of X-ray beams generating treatments. Included were antibiotics, Pulling no punches, Gibson and high-definition, three-dimensional X-rays, cardiac CT scans, heart bypass Singh argue that “volume, volume, images, CT scans have become ex- surgeries, back surgeries, knee and hip volume” is the primary aim of today’s ceedingly popular. Three million were

22 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer performed in 1980. Today, Americans 200,000 heart angioplasties performed then, patients live an average of only expose themselves to sixty million every in the U.S. every year, 38 percent result one (very unpleasant) month longer. year. from “uncertain” and another 12 per- The patient decides, of course. But But that’s how the use of new and cent from “inappropriate” indications can decisions be characterized as “in- beneficial trends, right? (Chan et al. 2011). formed” when neither hospitals nor Not so fast. According to a 2007 New In 2010, a similar study revealed their physicians disclose highly relevant England Journal of Medicine study, one- that doctors were more likely to discuss facts? First, in contrast to most situa- third of adults and one million children only potential benefits, and that a scant tions involving prescription drugs, hos- annually are unnecessarily exposed to 20 percent of prospective back surgery pitals hold relative monopolies on the CT scan radiation (Brenner and Hall patients, and 30 percent of knee- and sales of chemotherapy and, as such, can 2007). A 2004 study in Radiology dis- hip-replacement patients, were ever ad- charge whatever markups they deem covered as well that one in 1,200 for- vised of potential complications (Zik- feasible. Second, ignoring potential ty-five-year-olds who undergo a single mund-Fisher et al. 2010). Yet many conflicts of interest, prescribing doc- full-body CT scan will die from radia- back surgeons, for example, maintain tors earn bonuses based on their sales tion-induced cancer later in life, as will that degenerative disc disease—the of chemo. one in fifty who receive annual scans for thirty years (Brenner and Elliston 2004). After leading the International Healthcare professionals and admin istrators are Atomic Energy Agency team to Cher- nobyl following the nuclear power ca- quick to remind us that patients frequently ask for tastrophe in 1986, Dr. Fred Mettler superfluous treatment. Nevertheless, hospitals began studying the effects of medi- cal imaging techniques in the U.S. In and the popular media often share cozy economic 2008, his Radiology report revealed that relationships in which the former control content these all-too common tests constitute our primary source of exposure to ul- and the latter forsake journalistic integrity. tra-hazardous ionizing radiation (Met- tler et al. 2008). Healthcare professionals and ad- ministrators are quick to remind us that patients frequently ask for superfluous most commonly cited indication for Professional associations like the treatment. Nevertheless, hospitals and spinal fusion surgery—can be treated AMA require physicians to disclose the popular media often share cozy just as effectively with physical therapy commercial affiliations to medical jour- economic relationships in which the and medication. nals when publishing and to audiences former control content and the latter According to Marty Makary, Johns when speaking. The government also forsake journalistic integrity. Indeed, Hopkins surgeon and associate profes- compels reporting of funds received in my hometown of La Crosse, Wis- sor of health policy, “Every subspecialty from drug and device companies. Pa- consin, a local television “news” station of medicine has its own particular tro- tients, on the other hand, are frequently has effectively reduced itself to a mere pism toward overtreatment” (Makary left in the dark during their most des- advertiser of area medical services. 2012). One problem, he explains, is perate moments. Even so, most culpable are those the common yet frequently undisclosed But hospital opacity certainly managing the dysfunctional culture of “eat-what-you-kill” model of physician doesn’t end there. Potential custom- healthcare. In 2000, one study found compensation, where doctors are paid ers would doubtless prefer to know that most elective angioplasty patients like salesmen—in part, through lucra- how many times a particular procedure could not recall being informed of tive commissions. is performed each year by a given fa- even one risk factor, including stroke, In the U.S., radiation is regularly cility’s staff. Indeed, a 2003 New En- heart attack, and death (Holmboe et prescribed for treatment of pancreatic gland Journal of Medicine study revealed al. 2000). How might misinformation cancer. Curiously, however, such can- quite clearly that volume matters. For affect outcomes? Difficult to say, but cers respond to chemotherapy only example, in hospitals where surgeons a 2011 JAMA paper found that, of the about 25 percent of the time and, even performed more than four pancreas

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 23 [SCIENCE WATCH KENNETH KRAUSE

operations annually, the death rate was like aging pilots, for example, who are encouraged to act as salespeople for 4.6 percent. By contrast, where they removed by the FAA as they lose their their hospitals or, worse yet, for equip- operated fewer than two times, mortal- vision, reflexes, or good judgment, phy- ment manufacturers and drug compa- ity rose to 14.7 percent (Birkmeyer et sicians are often allowed to work until nies. Everyone should agree that per- al. 2003). they die. Worse yet, compared to others verse incentives and conflicts of interest Even so, American hospitals tend of similar educational background and ought to be eliminated. not to divulge such information. Ad- socioeconomic status, doctors suffer Finally, consumers must aggressively ministrators might argue, for instance, from elevated rates of serious substance represent their own interests. Each pa- that doing so would harm new doctors. abuse and psychiatric disease. tient who regards him- or herself as Apprenticeships, however, are very Useful records do exist. The U.S. something less than a customer, or his common and successful in other parts Department of Health and Human or her doctor as something more than of the world. State-of-the-art patient Services, for instance, maintains the a human being providing a competitive simulators would also help train inexpe- National Practitioner Data Bank listing service, makes it that much harder for rienced physicians. But such programs all doctors who have been disciplined, the next patient who does not. are expensive and might threaten hos- suspended, or have lost or settled mal- We must unflinchingly carry our pitals’ bottom lines—not to mention practice suits. But the general public has skepticism past the lobby doors and administrators’ and older physicians’ no access. Only state medical boards into the examination room. Doctor-pa- salaries. and human resource departments can tient relationships must be derived from Instead, according to Makary, hos- retrieve the physicians’ names. mutual candor, integrity, and humility. Only then can meaningful healthcare pitals “pump endless amounts of money Overtreatment and medical mis- I into advertising campaigns.” They takes affect us all. We pay for them in reform begin. disingenuously market themselves as higher medical bills (and, as taxpayers, References “comprehensive cancer centers,” for higher Medicare costs) and in higher Birkmeyer, J.D., T.A. Stukel, et al. 2003. example, in an effort to boost their insurance premiums and deductibles. Surgeon volume and operative mortality in “essentially bogus” rankings in popular Yet, in the current culture of medical the United States. New England Journal of magazines and to lure new customers secrecy, arrogance, and denial, hospitals Medicine 349(22): 2117–27. Brenner, D.J., and C.D. Elliston. 2004. who have little else upon which to base and physicians have little or no incen- Estimated radiation risks potentially associ- their decisions. tive to compete based on medical out- ated with full-body CT screening. Radiology So what happens to consumers who comes, efficacy, and patient safety. 232: 735–38. Brenner, D.J., and E.J. Hall. 2007. Computed become patients in substandard facili- Changes are underway. Massachu- tomography—an increasing source of radi- ties or departments—will they ever be setts and Minnesota require hospitals ation exposure. New England Journal of Medicine 357(22): 2277–84. referred to better hospitals? Unlikely, to reveal the number of specific pro- Chan, P.S., M.R. Patel, et al. 2011. says Makary. “Over time,” he recalls, cedures they perform each year. New Appropriateness of percutaneous coronary “I learned that suboptimal care—even York facilities report mortality rates for intervention. Journal of the American Medical Association 306(1): 53–61. when better care was known to be just heart bypass surgery, and several more Gibson, Rosemary, and Janardan Prasad Singh. a referral away—was ubiquitous.” hospitals now use safety-attitude ques- 2010. The Treatment Trap: How the Overuse Our system of physician account- tionnaires to encourage openness, com- of Medical Care Is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do To Prevent It. Chicago: ability is no better. Makary, in fact, munication, and teamwork. Ivan R. Dee. likens it to that of the Roman Catholic But much more needs to be done. Holmboe, E., D. Fiellin, et al. 2000. Perceptions Church, which infamously chose to re- First, we must radically expand, stan- of benefit and risk of patients undergoing first-time elective percutaneous coronary assign, rather than remove, child-mo- dardize, and perhaps even nationalize revascularization. Journal of General Internal lesting priests. In 2011, Public Citizen the cache of data available or, better Medicine 15(9): 632–37. revealed that wayward doctors are sel- yet, automatically volunteered to all Makary, Marty. 2012. Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How dom reported to state medical boards. patients. Public health was revolution- Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care. Of the 10,672 physicians with disci- ized by evidence-based medicine. The New York: Bloomsbury Press. plinary actions pending between 1990 administration of healthcare is no less Mettler, F.A., W. Huda, et al. 2008. Effective doses in radiology and diagnostic nuclear and 2009, including 220 who had lost critical and should follow the same medicine: A catalog. Radiology 248: 254–63. medical privileges on an emergency model. Zikmund-Fisher, B.J., M. Couper, et al. 2010. basis, more than half went unreported. Second, we need to reconsider the Deficits and variations in patients’ experi- ence with making 9 common medical deci- But part of the problem is that med- ways in which many physicians are sions: The decisions survey. Medical Decision ical standards are not nationalized. Un- compensated. Doctors should not be Making 30: 85S–95S.

24 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer [SKEPTICAL INQUIREE BENJAMIN RADFORD Benjamin Radford is a research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and author or coauthor of six books, including Tracking the : The Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore.

Paranormal Qualifications

How do you handle people who think they are worthy of respect because of “knowledge” of an unproven field such as ghosts or : ? Q —C. Brown

The issue of expertise or ghost does not explain anything, ally are. Paranormal experts must be and authority in para- as no one knows that Bigfoot or very honest about what they do and : normal subjects is an ghosts exist, much less their nature. do not know, about distinguishing fact It’s basic logic: You can’t claim to important question, and positively identify something with- from speculation. There are countless A the answer depends on out knowing the specific nature of self-proclaimed experts in paranormal how you de fine the topic and what as- that thing. Correctly identifying X fields; sometimes they have meaning- pect you are studying. Sociologists and necessarily means you must know less diploma-mill degrees in esoteric economists, for example, are experts what X is, what established charac- or metaphysic studies. I often read teristics distinguish it from Y and on intangible and abstract subjects. It Z; there’s no way around it. Thus is quite possible to be an expert on the labels like chupacabra, ghost, fairy, folklore or concept of something that Bigfoot, and so on are useful only as Where “experts” get into may not exist. A priest, imam, or rabbi, descriptive shorthand; for an investi- for example, is a legitimate expert on gator is it more accurate and useful trouble is when they pretend to think of them as descriptors for an a specific belief system that may or experience. Once the mystery is ap- or assume (or allow others may not be objectively valid or “true.” proached from this angle, it be comes I am an expert on many areas of the potentially solvable. A scientific to assume) that these paranormal, including the chupacabra paranormal investigator can no more topics are proven or more and ghosts, in terms of the history, test, analyze, or examine a Bigfoot or ghost than a botanist can study a factual than they really are. evidence, and arguments offered for wahoozle or a car mechanic can run a them—but not as proven entities. test on a frammis. The investigation Part of the issue is a common mis- becomes one not of identifying the understanding of what exactly is being Bigfoot or ghost but of trying to un- investigated. I discuss this topic in my derstand what the eyewitness experi- biography blurbs of ghost hunters or enced, what the person interpreted as book Scientific Paranormal Investigation: a Bigfoot or a ghost. This step is one paranormal investigators that begin How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries: of the most important, and a com- with a phrase like, “I have investigated mon reason why investigations fail, Often in discussions of paranor- ghosts for forty years . . .” but the ques- or end up with ambiguous results. mal topics, the subjects themselves tion is not how long you’ve been doing You must use meaningful labels to (ghosts, Bigfoot, etc.) are treated as if something, but whether you’re good at understand the phenomenon. there was a universally agreed-upon it. What exactly has that person been definition of what these things are, or Where “experts” get into trouble is doing for four decades? Wandering what their nature is. But these terms are simply names for specific experi- when they pretend or assume (or allow around abandoned hospitals with cam- ences, not discrete objects or entities. others to assume) that these topics are eras and voice recorders? Appearing at Simply calling something a Bigfoot proven or more factual than they re- ghost conventions shilling his DVDs?

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 25 [SKEPTICAL INQUIREE BENJAMIN RADFORD

Has he actually solved any cases or in- lem is that, with a few exceptions, none expertise. Some ghost and Bigfoot vestigations or has he simply added to of the authors has any background in hunters, for example, charge the pub- the pile of ambiguous and inconclusive logic, investigation, or science. They lic for their “services” as paranormal results that he and his ilk compile with may be writers, but they do little or no experts to expel demons from houses such eagerness and proficiency? actual investigation. Merely collecting or spend a weekend searching for Sas- There are thousands of people in the ghost stories or Bigfoot reports is not quatch. world who call themselves paranormal investigation. In short, most “experts” Part of the original question was investigators, ghost hunters, or some- on the paranormal have little if any about people who feel entitled to re- thing similar. Paranormal investigation credibility; they are simply folks who spect as an authority because they know requires no certificate; anyone can do it have an interest in the topics and have something about the paranormal. In with no training, knowledge, or exper- decided to write books that mostly ig- my opinion respect is earned through tise whatsoever. Whether he is effective nore the skeptical, rational explanations genuine accomplishment—not simply or not—if he actually solves any mys- in favor of mystery-mongering. Readers from knowing something about a topic teries—is another matter entirely. should research the authors to evaluate from reading books and magazines or There are even some “paranormal their credibility and history of success- watching television but by making real investigation” handbooks claiming to ful investigation and solved mysteries. contributions to the body of knowledge instruct readers on how to look into The situation becomes murkier when about these topics through original re- I ghosts and the . The prob- people try to profit from their alleged search and investigation.

26 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer SPECIAL REPORT]

The Future of High Energy Physics in the United States KEVIN T. PITTS

he past year saw the discovery of trillionth of a second or less before de- U.S. colliders were turned off and the the Higgs boson, one of the great- caying into other, lighter particles. By LHC in Europe was turned on. The Test achievements in the history studying these collisions in detail, we decommissioning of the U.S. colliders of science. Marvin Mueller’s article can learn about the building blocks of was, in part, due to the fact that they “The Higgs Boson and the Future of nature and at the same time learn about had been running for several years and Physics” in the November/December the universe as it existed 13.7 billion each one had completed a very strong 2012 S I put the years ago—the time of the big bang. scientific program. In the case of the discovery into historical context. The Recent years have seen a dramatic Tevatron, its relevance began to wane breakthrough in the Higgs search rep- shift in the landscape for high energy with the turn-on of the LHC. Over its resents an amazing scientific advance as physics in the United States. In 2006, lifespan, Tevatron pub- well as a tremendous technical achieve- we had three major particle accelerators lished over 1,000 scientific papers in ment. The discovery took place at the operating domestically. Two were elec- peer-reviewed journals, including im- Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operat- tron-positron colliders—positrons are portant insights into the nature of the ing at the European Center for Nuclear antimatter electrons—one at Cornell Higgs boson itself. Scientists continue Research (CERN). Since the LHC is University and the other at the Stanford to analyze Tevatron data and will do so 1 the highest energy particle accelera- Linear Accelerator Center. The third for many years to come. tor ever constructed, it lays claim to was the Tevatron operating at Fermi- Could the Higgs boson have been the “energy frontier.” Although many lab outside of Chicago. The Tevatron discovered in the United States? The American scientists participate in the collided protons and antiprotons. For answer is yes. In the early 1990s, con- experimental program at the LHC, it is most of its lifespan, from the mid-1980s struction was underway in Texas on fair to ask, “Why wasn’t this discovery to 2008, the Tevatron was the highest the Superconducting Super Collider made in the United States?” And per- energy collider in the world. (SSC), a high energy collider that, if haps more important, “Is there a high Between 2008 and 2011, all three completed, would have been twenty energy physics program in the United States? What is the U.S. doing in high energy physics?” High energy physics uses large par- ticle accelerators to learn about particles and forces that have not existed natu- rally since a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang. We take advantage of the equivalence between energy and mass through Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation. In that equation, E represents the initial particle energy, m is the mass produced, and c is a constant, the speed of light. When we accelerate particles (like electrons or protons) to extremely high energy (very large E) and collide them with other particles, the collision can create new particles with very large mass. These massive particles live for a Fermilab

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 27 times more energetic than the Tevatron with matter. There are about a million havior is never seen in the macroscopic (and five times more energetic than the billion (1015) neutrinos passing through world—you don’t enter a tunnel driving current LHC running). The SSC was your body every second. They don’t a minivan and exit the tunnel in a sports scheduled to begin operations in 1999, bother you because they pass through car! but was terminated by Congress in the your body (and Earth) without inter- The transmutation of neutrinos fall of 1993. Had the SSC been com- acting at all. In fact, a typical neutrino might help explain why our universe pleted, it would have certainly found would pass through a light-year of lead has matter but no antimatter. The so- the Higgs. And given the higher en- without interacting! Most neutrinos in called “matter/antimatter asymmetry” ergy, the SSC would have also provided our neighborhood arise as byproducts is necessary for life—we wouldn’t be a better opportunity for additional dis- of the nuclear reactions fueling the Sun, around if equal amounts of matter and coveries. but neutrinos arise from many sources. antimatter populated the universe. If But the U.S. doesn’t have the SSC, For example, a typical supernova pro- the transmutation rate is different for and all of our major particle collider ex- duces 1058 neutrinos per second. That’s neutrinos and antineutrinos, that might periments have ended. So what’s next an unfathomable number. I can’t think explain how our universe ended up as for the U.S.? Europe has the energy of a way to comprehend a number that matter-dominated. If there were no frontier with the LHC. What can and big; to help you grasp how hard it is mechanism to tilt the balance in favor should we be doing? to understand, consider that there are of matter, the universe would be full of The answer is “neutrinos.” Neu trinos about 1021 grains of on Earth. photons with absolutely no chance for are particles that interact very weakly Particles like the Higgs boson and stars, planets, or life to form. the top quark (discovered at the Te- In addition, small neutrino masses vatron in 1995) are very massive. The are more difficult to accommodate top quark (a fundamental particle with theoretically than massless neutrinos. So what’s next for no observed substructure) is almost as As a consequence, it is very likely that heavy as a gold atom, which consists neutrinos can tell us about how the uni- the U.S.? Europe has of seventy-nine protons and 118 neu- verse works at an energy scale that is much, much higher than we could ever trons. Neutrinos, on the other hand, hope to access using conventional par- the energy frontier are unique because they are so light. It ticle colliders. By studying neutrinos in was originally thought that neutrinos with the LHC. What detail, we are performing research on had no mass at all. But we’ve learned the building blocks of matter that is can and should we be in the last fifteen years that neutrinos complementary to the work being done have an incredibly tiny mass, but they at the LHC. doing? The answer are definitely not massless. One of the Worldwide, the high energy physics consequences of neutrinos having mass is “neutrinos.” community has repeatedly stated that is they can transmute from one type to a program to systematically measure another. A neutrino born as an “elec- neutrino properties is a very high prior- tron neutrino” might later be measured ity.2 To do this, however, is a challenge. as a “muon neutrino.” This type of be- Neutrinos can be produced using a par- ticle accelerator, but the challenge is in detecting these neutrinos. Since neutri- nos will pass through trillions of miles of lead without hitting anything, we need enormous detectors to try to ob- serve them. And to reduce backgrounds from cosmic rays, we need to put the detector far underground. Imagine a neutrino detector the size of a fifteen-story building residing in a cavern a mile underground. It’s a chal- lenging environment and a tough way to do physics, but our desire to learn about nature has driven us to this ex- perimental configuration.

Fermilab Experiments of this type have been carried out before. We currently send

28 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer SPECIAL REPORT]

a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab portant experiment. growth stems from new technology, so in Illinois to an underground mine in To make up for the lack of domes- a modest investment in physics research northern Minnesota. The large detec- tic funding, we look for international translates directly into large gains in tor there has observed a clear indication partners. This is natural because high the economy through technology and of the neutrino transmutation described energy physics is a truly international . Some of the past products above. To learn even more about the endeavor. Unfortunately, we find that from high energy physics include: the neutrino and what it’s telling us about other nations hesitate to work with the World Wide Web, accelerator tech- nature, the United States has proposed United States because of our poor track nology for cancer therapy, and magnet the Long Baseline Neutrino Experi- record as a partner in international sci- and detector technology for medical ment (LBNE). A beam of neutrinos is entific collaboration. imaging (MRIs and PET scanners). produced by the accelerator at Fermi- In the meantime, Fermilab will use Finally, high energy physics excites lab. The beam passes underground to the high intensity proton beams to young people and motivates them to a detector residing in a mine in South carry out a suite of other experiments. enter careers in science and engineer- Dakota. The large distance between the Some of them involve neutrinos, while ing. These highly trained students go source and the detector is necessary to others involve other particles such as on to play a role in virtually every aspect give the neutrinos time to transmute muons and kaons. It’s unlikely that of our economy and lifestyle, from Sili- from one type to another. any single experiment will tell us all we 3 To make this experiment work, we need to know about how nature works. con Valley to homeland security. need the particle accelerator to produce But taken together, they will help us The U.S. high energy physics pro- a fire hose of protons, but they don’t piece together the inner workings of gram is healthy and exciting, but polit- need to be at ultra-high energies be- the cosmos. I refer to this as the “Crime ical and budgetary restrictions limit the cause neutrinos are so light. While the Scene Investigation ap proach” (the rate at which we can make progress. LHC accelerates protons to very high “other CSI!”) that has become famil- With a modest investment of taxpayer energy, the actual number of protons iar on crime TV shows. In high energy dollars, we can continue our quest to in the LHC is not very big. At Fermi- physics, we don’t have an eyewitness to understand the universe and produce lab, to carry out neutrino research, we the event, so we need to string together technological and a highly don’t need the highest energies, but we every tiny piece of evidence we can find. trained workforce along the way. Cu- do need lots and lots of protons. We No one piece of evidence by itself will riosity drives the human mind, and refer to this as a “high intensity” accel- allow us to solve the mystery, but taken technology drives the U.S. economy. erator because of the number of parti- together many pieces of evidence can A healthy high energy physics program cles accelerated. While the LHC is the help us to understand the structure and can stimulate both. We didn’t discover energy frontier, we refer to the Fermi- history of the universe. Each experi- the Higgs in the U.S., but we hope that lab research program as the “intensity ment we undertake provides evidence. the next generation of major discoveries I frontier.” In addition to lots of protons, Without many lines of evidence, we can happen here at home. you need a gigantic neutrino detector at won’t find our suspect or how the crime the remote site. In this case, the detec- was done. Notes tor will be 34,000 tons of liquid argon. In the U.S., high energy physics 1. The two electron-positron colliders in the This type of detector is dense (argon re search is funded primarily by the U.S. last decade were the Cornell Electron Storage is pretty heavy) so neutrinos are more Depart ment of Energy, with some Ring (CESR) and the PEP-II Asymmetry likely to interact, and it has very nice support from the National Science Storage Ring operating at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. properties that allow precise measure- Foundation. A common question we 2. For more information, see “Fundamental ments of the neutrinos that do interact. get is, “Why should the federal gov- Physics at the Intensity Frontier,” http://inten- This isn’t the type of experiment ernment fund this research?” The first sityfrontier.org/docs/intensityFrontierRe- that you develop overnight. The LBNE answer is curiosity. Our quest to un- port-080912.pdf. 3. For more information, see Symmetry effort will cost more than $1 billion and derstand how nature works and why Magazine, “The Benefits of High Energy take a decade to complete. A project of we are here has driven us to this next Physics,” Vol. 5, Issue 6, December 2008, http:// this size and scope is exceedingly dif- generation of experiments. But if cu- www.symmetrymagazine.org/sites/default/files/ ficult to undertake in the current U.S. riosity isn’t enough, then how about legacy/pdfs/200812/dec_2008.pdf. political and budget climate. In 2011, technology, innovation, and education? Kevin T. Pitts is a high en- the U.S. Department of Energy in- To carry out these experiments, we are ergy physicist in the De- structed physicists to de-scope the pushing the envelope in accelerator partment of Physics at the LBNE effort in order to reduce the technology, magnet technology, com- University of Illinois. cost. This will significantly lengthen puter technology, electronics, and im- the time it will take to launch this im- aging. More than half of our economic

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 29 Losing Our Minds HAPPINESS in the Age of HATE ENVY Brain Science PEPSIPSI

POLITICAL AFFILIATION Neuroscience and its new brain imaging tools are great achievements of modern science. But they are vulnerable to being oversold by the media, COKE some overzealous scientists, and neuroentrepreneurs.

SALLY SATEL AND SCOTT O. LILIENFELD LOVE GOD

ou’ve seen the headlines: This is your brain on largely exclusive province of neurosci- love. Or God. Or envy. Or happiness. And they’re entists and neurologists, the brain has now entered the popular mainstream. reliably accompanied by articles boasting pictures As a newly minted cultural artifact, the of color-drenched brains—scans capturing Buddhist monks brain is portrayed in paintings, sculp- tures, and tapestries and put on display meditating, addicts craving cocaine, and college sophomores in museums and galleries. One science choosing Coke over Pepsi. The media—and even some neu- pundit noted, “If Warhol were around roscientists, it seems—love to invoke the neural foundations today, he’d have a series of silkscreens dedicated to the cortex; the amygdala of human behavior to explain everything from the Bernie would hang alongside Marilyn Mon- Madoff financial fiasco to our slavish devotion to our iPhones, roe.” The prospect of solving the deep- the sexual indiscretions of politicians, conservatives’ dismissal est riddle humanity has ever contem- of global warming, and even an obsession with self-tanning. plated—itself—by studying the brain has captivated scholars and scientists for centuries. But never before has the Brains are big on campus, too. Take terature, neuromusicology, neuropoli- brain so vigorously engaged the public a map of any major university, and you tics, and neurotheology. The brain has imagination. The prime impetus be- can trace the march of neuroscience even wandered into such unlikely re- hind this enthusiasm is a form of brain from research labs and medical cen- doubts as English departments, where imaging called functional magnetic res- ters into schools of law and business professors debate whether scanning onance imaging (fMRI), an instrument and departments of and subjects’ brains as they read passages that came of age a mere two decades philosophy. In recent years, neurosci- from Jane Austen novels represents (a) ago, which measures brain activity and ence has merged with a host of other a fertile inquiry into the power of litera- converts it into the now-iconic vibrant disciplines, spawning such new areas ture or (b) a desperate attempt to inject images one sees in the science pages of of study as neurolaw, neuroeconomics, novelty into a field that has exhausted the daily newspaper. , neuromarketing, and its romance with psychoanalysis and As a tool for exploring the biology neurofinance. Add to this the birth of postmodernism. of the mind, neuroimaging has given neuroaesthetics, neurohistory, neuroli- Clearly, brains are hot. Once the brain science a strong cultural pres-

30 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer HAPPINESS HATE

ENVY PEPSI

POLITICAL AFFILIATION COKE

LOVE GOD

ence. As one scientist remarked, brain More complex than or neurons, each of which communi- images are now “replacing Bohr’s plan- any structure in the cates with thousands of other neurons, etary atom as the symbol of science.” the three-pound universe cradled be- With its implied promise of decoding known cosmos, the brain tween our ears has more connections the brain, it is easy to see why brain is a masterwork of nature than there are stars in the Milky Way. imaging would beguile almost anyone How this enormous neural edifice gives interested in pulling back the curtain endowed with cognitive rise to subjective feelings is one of the on the mental lives of others: politi- powers that far outstrip greatest mysteries of science and phi- cians hoping to manipulate voter atti- losophy. tudes, marketers tapping the brain to the capacity of any Now combine this mystique with learn what consumers really want to silicon machine built the simple fact that pictures—in this buy, agents of the law seeking an infal- case, brain scans—are powerful. Of all lible lie detector, addiction researchers to emulate it . . . . Now our senses, vision is the most developed. trying to gauge the pull of temptations, combine this mystique There are good evolutionary reasons for psychologists and psychiatrists seeking this arrangement: The major threats to the causes of mental illness, and defense with the simple fact that our ancestors were apprehended visu- attorneys fighting to prove that their pictures—in this case, ally; so were their sources of food. Plau- clients lack malign intent or even free sibly, the survival advantage of vision will. brain scans—are gave rise to our reflexive bias for believ- The problem is that brain imaging powerful. ing that the world is as we perceive it cannot do any of these things—at least to be, an error that psychologists and not yet. philosophers call “naive realism.” This Author Tom Wolfe was characteris- there is the very subject of the scans: misplaced in the trustworthiness tically prescient when he wrote of fMRI the brain itself. More complex than of our perceptions is the wellspring of in 1996, just a few years after its intro- any structure in the known cosmos, two of history’s most famously mis- duction, “Anyone who cares to get up the brain is a masterwork of nature guided theories: that the world is flat early and catch a truly blinding twen- endowed with cognitive powers that and that the sun revolves around the ty-first century dawn will want to keep far outstrip the capacity of any silicon Earth. For thousands of years, people an eye on it.” Now we can’t look away. machine built to emulate it. Contain- trusted their raw impressions of the Why the fixation? First, of course, ing roughly eighty billion brain cells, heavens. Yet, as Galileo understood all

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 31 too well, our eyes can deceive us. He are still poorly understood. As any good regions that “lit up” when the subjects wrote in his Dialogues of 1632 that scientist knows, there will always be were exposed to images of Hillary Clin- the Copernican model of the heliocen- questions to hone, theories to refine, ton, Mitt Romney, John Edwards, and tric universe commits a “rape upon the and techniques to perfect. Nonetheless, other candidates. Revealed in these senses”—it violates everything our eyes scientific humility can readily give way activity patterns, the authors claimed, tell us. to exuberance. When it does, the media were “some voter impressions on which Brain scan images are not what often seem to have a ringside seat at the this election may well turn.” Among they seem either—or at least not how spectacle. those impressions was that two can- the media often depict them. They are Several years ago, as the 2008 presi- didates had utterly failed to “engage” not photographs of the brain in action dential election season was gearing up, with swing voters. Who were these un- in real time. Scientists can’t just look a team of neuroscientists from UCLA popular politicians? John McCain and “in” the brain and see what it does. sought to solve the riddle of the unde- Barack Obama, the two eventual nom- Those beautiful color-dappled images cided, or swing, voter. They scanned inees for president. are actually representations of particu- the brains of swing voters as they re- Another much-circulated study, pub- lar areas in the brain that are working acted to photos and video footage of lished in 2008, “The Neural Correlates of the hardest—as measured by increased the candidates. The researchers trans- Hate” came from neuroscientists at Uni- oxygen consumption—when a sub- lated the resultant brain activity into versity College London. The researchers ject performs a task such as reading a the voters’ unspoken attitudes and, asked subjects to bring in photos of peo- passage or reacting to stimuli, such as together with three political consul- ple they hated—generally ex-lovers, work rivals, or reviled politicians—as well as people about whom subjects felt neutrally. By comparing their re- sponses—that is, patterns of brain acti- vation elicited by the hated face—with their reaction to the neutral photos, the team claimed to identify the neurolog- ical correlates of intense hatred. Not surprisingly, much of the media cover- age attracted by the study flew under the headline: “‘Hate Circuit’ Found in Brain.” One of the researchers, Semir Zeki, told the press that brain scans could one day be used in court—for example, to assess whether a murder suspect felt a strong hatred toward the victim. Not pictures of faces. The powerful com- Neuroimaging is a so fast. True, these data do reveal that puter located within the scanning ma- young science, barely certain parts of the brain become more chine transforms changes in oxygen active when people look at images of levels into the familiar candy-colored out of its infancy, really. people they hate and presumably feel splotches indicating the brain regions In such a fledgling contempt for. The problem is that the that become especially active during illuminated areas on the scan are acti- the subject’s performance. Despite enterprise, the half-life vated by many other emotions, not just well-informed , the greatest of facts can be hate. There is no newly discovered col- challenge of imaging is that it is very lection of brain regions that are wired difficult for scientists to look at a fiery especially brief. together in such a way that they com- spot on a brain scan and conclude with prise the identifiable neural counterpart what is going on in the mind of hatred. of the person. University press offices, too, are no- Neuroimaging is a young science, tants from a Washington, D.C.–based torious for touting sensational details in barely out of its infancy, really. In such firm called FKF Applied Research, their media-friendly releases: Here’s a a fledgling enterprise, the half-life of presented their findings in the New spot that lights up when subjects think facts can be especially brief. To regard York Times in an op-ed titled “This Is of God (“Religion Center Found!”), or research findings as settled wisdom is Your Brain on Politics.” There, readers researchers find a region for love (“Love folly, especially when they emanate could view scans dotted with tangerine Found in the Brain!”). Neuroscientists from a technology whose implications and neon-yellow hot spots indicating sometimes refer disparagingly to these

32 Volume 37 Issue 5 | Skeptical Inquirer studies as “blobology,” their tongue-in- and neuroentrepreneurs who tout facile But reading too much into brain cheek label for studies that show which conclusions that reach far beyond what scans matters when real-world concerns brain areas become activated as subjects the current evidence warrants—fits of hang in the balance. Consider the law. experience X or perform task Y. To re- “premature extrapolation,” as British When a person commits a crime, who peat: It’s all too easy for the nonexpert neuroskeptic Steven Poole calls them. is at fault? The perpetrator or his or her to lose sight of the fact that fMRI and When it comes to brain scans, seeing brain? Of course, this is a false choice. other brain-imaging techniques do not may be believing, but it isn’t necessarily If biology has taught us anything, it is literally read thoughts or feelings. By understanding. that “my brain” versus “me” is a false obtaining measures of brain oxygen Some of the misapplications of neu- distinction. Still, if biological roots levels, they show which regions of the roscience are amusing and essentially can be identified—and better yet, cap- brain are more active when a person is harmless. Take, for instance, the new tured on a brain scan as juicy blotches thinking, feeling, or, say, reading or trend of neuromanagement books such of color—it is too easy for nonprofes- calculating. But it is a rather daring leap as Your Brain and Business: The Neu- sionals to assume that the behavior to go from these patterns to drawing roscience of Great Leaders, which ad- under scrutiny must be “biological” and confident inferences about how people vises nervous CEOs “to be aware that therefore “hardwired,” involuntary, or feel about political candidates or paying anxiety centers in the brain connect to uncontrollable. Criminal lawyers, not taxes, or what they experience in the thinking centers, including the PFC surprisingly, are increasingly drawing throes of love. on brain images supposedly showing a Pop neuroscience makes an easy tar- biological defect that “made” their cli- get, we know. Yet we invoke it because ents commit murder. Looking to the these studies garner a disproportionate future, some neuroscientists envision amount of media coverage and shape Skilled science journalists a dramatic transformation of criminal public perception of what brain im- cringe when they read law. David Eagleman, for one, wel- aging can tell us. Skilled science jour- comes a time when “we may someday nalists cringe when they read accounts accounts claiming that find that many types of bad behavior claiming that scans can capture the scans can capture the have a basic biological explanation mind itself in action. Serious science [and] eventually think about bad deci- writers take pains to describe quality mind itself in action. sion making in the same way we think neuroscience research accurately. In- Serious science writers about any physical process, such as dia- deed, an eddy of discontent is already betes or lung disease.” As this comes to forming. “Neuromania,” “neurohu- take pains to describe pass, he predicts, “more juries will place bris,” and “neurohype”—“neurobol- quality neuroscience defendants on the not-blameworthy locks,” if you’re a Brit—are just some side of the line.” of the labels that have been brandished, research accurately. But is this the correct conclusion to sometimes by frustrated neuroscien- draw from neuroscientific data? After tists themselves. But in a world where all, if every behavior is eventually traced university press releases elbow one an- to detectable correlates of brain activity, other for media attention, it’s often the does this mean we can one day write study with a buzzy storyline (“Men See off all troublesome behavior on a don’t- Bikini-Clad Women as Objects, Psy- [prefrontal cortex] and ACC [anterior blame-me-blame-my-brain theory chologists Say”) that gets picked up and cingulate cortex].” The fad has, perhaps of crime? Will no one ever be judged dumbed down. not surprisingly, infiltrated the parent- responsible? Thinking through these The problem with such mindless ing and education markets, too. Parents profoundly important questions turns neuroscience is not neuroscience itself. and teachers are easy marks for “brain on how we understand the relationship The field is one of the great intellec- gyms,” “brain-compatible education,” between the brain and the mind. tual achievements of modern science. and “brain-based parenting,” not to The mind cannot exist without the Its instruments are remarkable. The mention dozens of other unsubstan- brain. Virtually all modern scientists, goal of brain imaging, which is merely tiated techniques. For the most part, ourselves included, are “mind-body one of its tools, is enormously import- these slick enterprises merely dress up monists”: they believe that mind and ant and fascinating: to bridge the ex- or repackage good advice with neuro- brain are composed of the same ma- planatory gap between the intangible scientific findings that add nothing to terial “stuff.” All subjective experience, mind and the corporeal brain. But that the overall program. As one cognitive from a frisson of fear to the sweetness relationship is extremely complex and psychologist quipped, “Unable to per- of nostalgia, corresponds to physi- incompletely understood. Therefore, it suade others about your viewpoint? cal events in the brain. Decapitation is vulnerable to being oversold by the Take a Neuro-Prefix—influence grows proves this point handily: no function- media, some overzealous scientists, or your money back.” ing brain, no mind. But even though

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 33 the mind is produced by the action of prises the brain and its constituent This “hard problem,” as philosophers neurons and brain circuits, the mind cells. Genes direct neuronal devel- call it, is one of the most daunting puz- is not identical with the matter that opment; neurons assemble into brain zles in all of scientific inquiry. What produces it. There is nothing mystical circuits. Information processing, or would the solution even look like? Will or spooky about this statement, nor computation, and neural network dy- the parallel languages of neurobiology does it imply an endorsement of mind- namics hover above. At the middle and mental life ever converge on a com- body “dualism,” the dubious assertion level are conscious mental states, such mon vernacular? that mind and brain are composed of as thoughts, feelings, perceptions, Many believe it will. According to knowledge, and intentions. Social and neuroscientist Sam Harris, inquiry into cultural contexts, which play a powerful the brain will eventually and exhaus- It’s no wonder, then, role in shaping our thoughts, feelings, tively explain the mind and, hence, and behavior, occupy the highest land- human nature. Ultimately, he says, that some see ings of the hierarchy. Problems arise, neuroscience will—and should—dic- neuroscientists as the however, when we ascribe too much tate human values. Semir Zeki, the importance to the brain-based expla- British neuroscientist, and legal scholar “new high priests of the nations and not enough to psycholog- Oliver Goodenough hail a “‘millennial’ secrets of the psyche ical or social ones. Just as one obtains future, perhaps only decades away, differing perspectives on the layout of a [when] a good knowledge of the brain’s and explainers of human sprawling city while ascending in a sky- system of justice and of how the brain behavior in general.” scraper’s glass elevator, we can gather reacts to conflicts may provide critical different insights into human behavior tools in resolving international political Will we one day replace at different levels of analysis. and economic conflicts.” No less tower- government bureaucrats The key to this approach is recogniz- ing a figure than neuroscientist Michael ing that some levels of explanation are Gazzaniga hopes for a “brain-based with neurocrats? more informative for certain purposes ” based on an than others. This principle is profoundly that is “…built into our brains. A lot important in therapeutic intervention. A of suffering, war, and conflict could be scientist trying to develop a medication eliminated if we could agree to live by different physical material. Instead, it for Alzheimer’s disease will toil on the them more consciously.” means simply that one cannot use the lower levels of the explanatory ladder, It’s no wonder, then, that some see physical rules from the cellular level to perhaps developing compounds aimed neuroscientists as the “new high priests completely predict activity at the psy- at preventing the formation of the am- of the secrets of the psyche and explain- chological level. By way of analogy, if yloid plaques and neurofibrillary tan- ers of human behavior in general.” Will you wanted to understand the text on gles endemic to the disease. A marriage we one day replace government bureau- this page, you could analyze the words counselor helping a distraught couple, crats with neurocrats? Though short on by submitting their contents to an inor- though, must work on the psycholog- details—neuroscientists don’t say how ganic chemist, who could ascertain the ical level. Efforts by this counselor to brain science is supposed to determine precise molecular composition of the understand the couple’s problems by human values or achieve world peace— ink. Yet no amount of chemical anal- subjecting their brains to fMRIs could their are long on ambition. ysis could help you understand what be worse than useless because doing so In fact, some experts talk of neurosci- these words mean, let alone what they would draw attention away from their ence as if it is the new genetics, that mean in the context of the other words thoughts, feelings, and actions toward is, just the latest overarching narrative on the page. each other—the level at which interven- commandeered to explain and predict Scientists have made great strides in tion would be most helpful. virtually all of human behavior. And reducing the organizational complex- This discussion brings us back to before genetic there was ity of the brain from the intact organ brain scans and other representations the radical behaviorism of B.F. Skinner, to its constituent neurons, the proteins of brain-derived data. What can we who sought to explain human behavior they contain, genes, and so on. Using infer from this information about what in terms of rewards and punishments. this template, we can see how human people are thinking and feeling or how Earlier in the late nineteenth and thought and action unfold at a number their social world is influencing them? twentieth centuries, Freudianism pos- of explanatory levels, working upward In a way, imaging rekindles the age-old ited that people were the products of from the most basic elements. At one debate over whether brain equals mind. unconscious conflicts and drives. Each of the lower tiers in this hierarchy is Can we ever fully comprehend the psy- of these movements suggested that the the neurobiological level, which com- chological by referring to the neural? causes of our actions are not what we

34 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer think they are. Is neurodeterminism ing the biological basis of pleasure explanation for understanding behav- poised to become the next grand nar- leads us to fundamentally rethink the ior, and rush to apply underdeveloped, rative of human behavior? moral and legal aspects of addiction,” if dazzling, science for commercial and As a psychiatrist and a psycholo- writes neuroscientist David Linden. forensic use. gist, we have followed the rise of pop- This is popular logic among addiction Granted, it is only natural that ad- ular neuroscience with mixed feelings. experts, but to us, it makes little sense. vances in knowledge about the brain We’re delighted to see laypeople so Granted, there may be good reasons make us think more mechanistically interested in brain science, and we are to reform the way the criminal justice about ourselves. But if we become too excited by the promise of new neuro- system deals with addicts, but the bi- carried away with this view, we may physiological discoveries. Yet we’re dis- ology of addiction is not one of them. impede one of the most challenging mayed that much of the media diet con- Why? Because the fact that addiction is cultural projects looming in the years sists of “vulgarized neuroscience,” as the associated with neurobiological changes ahead: how to reconcile advances in science watchdog Neuroskeptic puts it, is not, in itself, proof that the addict is brain science with personal, legal, and that offers facile and overly mechanistic unable to choose. Just look at American civic notions of freedom. explanations for complicated behaviors. actor Robert Downey Jr. He was once The neurobiological domain is one We were both in training when modern a poster boy for drug excess. “It’s like of brains and physical causes. The psy- neuroimaging techniques made their I have a loaded gun in my mouth and debut. The earliest major functional my finger’s on the trigger, and I like the chological domain, the domain of the imaging technique (PET, or positron taste of gunmetal,” he said. It seemed mind, is one of people and their mo- emission tomography) appeared in the only a matter of time before he would tives. Both are essential to a full under- mid-1980s. Less than a decade later, meet a horrible end. But Downey en- standing of why we act as we do and to the near wizardry of fMRI was un- tered rehab and decided to change his the alleviation of human suffering. The veiled and soon became a prominent life. Why did Downey use drugs? Why brain and the mind are different frame- instrument of research in psychology did he decide to stop and to remain works for explaining experience. And and psychiatry. Indeed, expertise in clean and sober? An examination of his the distinction between them is hardly imaging technology is a brain, no matter how sophisticated the an academic matter; it bears crucial sine qua non for graduate students in probe, could not tell us why and per- implications for how we think about many psychology programs, increasing haps never will. The key problem with human nature, personal responsibility, I their odds of obtaining federal research neurocentrism is that it devalues the and moral action. grants and teaching posts and boosting importance of psychological explana- the acceptance rates of their papers by tions and environmental factors, such This article is adapted from the authors’ new top-flight journals. Many psychology as familial chaos, stress, and widespread book, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of departments now make expertise in access to drugs, in sustaining addiction. Mindless Neuroscience (Basic Books, 2013). Extensive notes for this article (five pages) brain imaging a requirement for their Brain imaging and other neurosci- can be found in the book. new hires. ence techniques hold enormous poten- The brain is said to be the final sci- tial for elucidating the neural correlates Sally Satel is a resident entific frontier, and rightly so, in our of everyday decisions, addiction, and scholar at the American En- view. Yet in many quarters brain-based mental illness. Yet these promising new terprise Institute for Public explanations appear to be granted a must not detract from the Policy Research, a lecturer at Yale University School of kind of inherent superiority over all importance of levels of analysis other Medicine, and a practicing other ways of accounting for human than the brain in explaining human be- psychiatrist. The author of PC, M.D., she behavior. We call this assumption havior. Ours is an age in which brain holds an MD from Brown University. She “neurocentrism”—the view that human research is flourishing—a time of truly lives in Washington, D.C. experience and behavior can be best ex- great expectations. Yet it is also a time plained from the predominant or even of mindless neuroscience that leads us exclusive perspective of the brain. From to overestimate how much neuroscience Scott O. Lilienfeld is a clini- this popular vantage point, the study can improve legal, clinical, and market- cal psychologist and profes- of the brain is somehow more “scien- ing practices, let alone inform social sor of psychology at Emory tific” than the study of human motives, policy. Naive media, slick neuroentre- University and coauthor of thoughts, feelings, and actions. By preneurs, and even an occasional over- 50 Great Myths of Popular making the hidden visible, brain im- zealous neuroscientist exaggerate the Psychology. He is a Fellow and member of aging has been a spectacular boon to capacity of scans to reveal the contents the Executive Council of the Committee for neurocentrism. of our minds, exalt brain physiology as Skeptical Inquiry. Consider addiction. “Understand- inherently the most valuable level of

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 35 Why Being Human Makes Evolution Hard to Understand Our difficulty accepting evolution isn’t just because some oppose it or that it is complicated—it isn’t. The problem may be a result of how our minds work.

CAMERON M. SMITH

espite wide news coverage of evolution in recent years, deep. I think it has a lot to do with the and the fact that in January 2008 a leading science way our minds work—with, basically, journal, Nature, declared evolution a fact, “Darwin’s being human itself. That’s because the D essence of humanness is in the proac- Dangerous Idea” remains fundamentally misunderstood in tive making of things. I believe this the popular media. Even on otherwise great TV shows, like proaction—quite unique in the animal BBC’s Life, I’ve heard evolution misrepresented with script- kingdom—has conditioned the human mind to believe that complex phenom- ing that propagates certain myths about the evolutionary ena (like plants and animals) must also process: in TV land, species struggle to climb the ladder of be the result of proactive making. evolution to the pinnacle (occupied by humanity, of course); To understand how we came to think this way, we can look to the stim- species live in ecosystems of perfect balance; living things ulating new field of “cognitive archae- are locked in combat for brute survival; and species are each ology.” nature’s “solution,” designed for a certain role in the great has shown that there are at least two meanings of human- machinery of Nature. ness. “Anatomical modernity” is pos- A little bit of biology reveals that sessing a skeleton indistinguishable none of these misconceptions hold from that of modern humans, and we water, so how can as simple a process first see this in Africa by 100,000 years as evolution be so misrepresented? I ago. The other meaning of humanness don’t think it’s just a misunderstanding is “behavioral modernity,” exhibiting of how evolution works; tax form 1099 behaviors essentially indistinguishable is more complicated than evolutionary from those of modern humans, mean- principles. I don’t think it’s just because ing complex symbolism and somewhat there are some common myths about modern language. Though it’s tough how evolution works (though there to spot archaeologically, there’s decent are enough of these that I co-wrote a consensus that this is also first seen in book—The Top Ten Myths About Evo- Africa, in symbolic artifacts dated to lution—to unveil them). And I don’t almost 80,000 years ago, and without think it’s just a result of religiously question by 50,000 years ago. It’s be- based misinformation about evolution, havioral modernity that I’m concerned though there’s plenty of that (and al- with here, and what it means for the ways will be). mind—how we think—and why the No, I think the widespread mis- way our minds work can make evolu- understanding of evolution runs very tion hard to understand.

36 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Proaction, Reaction, and the do much about it. Certainly they don’t tive—just nonrandom differential sur- Invention of Invention change their bodies to adapt to the new vival of offspring born with bodies that I argue that behavioral modernity is environmental conditions, because they worked in yesterday’s environment; as rooted in proaction and creation. Non- don’t know that evolution is happening evolutionist R.C. Lewontin put it in human life-forms change by an evolu- in the first place and because there’s 1989, “The organism proposes; the en- tionary process that is entirely reactive, just no way to rapidly tailor the phys- vironment disposes.”1 and while some other animals do make ical body to fit new environments. Al- But human evolution is very differ- and use tools, humans are entirely though there is acclimatization (within ent. Humanity’s trick—and it’s a good dependent on creating things—such as boundaries referred to as the “reaction one—is the ability to quickly adjust a stone tool, an igloo, or a Polynesian norm”), such change is largely not ge- to any environmental pressure by in- sailing vessel—to survive. netically encoded to be transmitted to venting adaptations. Inventions can This is clear when we consider that the next generation; all that happens is be artifacts, like a pair of warm boots, evolution doesn’t look forward. Non- that some offspring do better than oth- or complex behaviors, such as a dance human offspring of any parent gener- ers and some do worse, meaning that that symbolically communicates how ation are born into environments with some live in better health and mate to hunt a particular animal. Whatever bodies more or less identical to those more commonly than others, sending the invention, the point is that people of their parents, and therefore more or the DNA that works for the present thought it up; they perceived a problem less suited to the environment in which environment on to the next generation. and then designed a solution specific to their parents flourished. If the current And that’s it; if the gene pool has been that problem. And we don’t just do it environment is different from the par- altered, evolution is occurring. Nonhu- for fun—we live or die by our ability ents’ environment, the offspring can’t man evolution, it’s easy to see, is reac- to buffer our frail bodies against an ev-

Humanity’s trick—and it’s a good one—is the ability to quickly adjust to any environmental pressure by inventing adaptations.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 37 er-changing array of selective pressures. intent. Superficially this seems reason- proaction has “stamped” us to think in This has allowed human behavior to able enough and it has been the basis of a particular way? The mechanism is un- become largely decoupled from our bi- the “Argument from Design” since the clear, but the effects are real. In a review ology, or at least not dictated by it, al- early nineteenth century, when Wil- of studies of child psychology, Boston lowing us to survive and thrive globally liam Paley wrote about the obviousness University psychologist Deborah Kele- not because of our bodies but despite of design in nature in Natural Theology: men found that children “teleologically them. And this capacity for inventing “Upon the whole; after all the schemes treat objects [and natural phenomena] adaptations itself evolved; current cut- and struggles of a reluctant philosophy as ‘for’ a single privileged function” and, ting-edge theory suggests that at the [to explain complex things], the neces- furthermore, that by six- to ten-years- heart of the broadly named “intelli- sary resort is to a Deity. The marks of old they “reason about non-natural gence” we use to survive is the capacity design are too strong to be gotten over. agents’ mental states…and view objects for proactively adapting to new circum- Design must have had a designer. That 5 in terms of design.” How much of stances—creativity.2 The appearance of designer must have been a person. That this “intuitive theism” is instinctual and this capacity is the appearance of a new person is GOD.”4 how much is culturally conditioned is unknown, but the pattern is clear. In this way, Paley and adherents of his view think, technically, like children who inhabit a small bubble of space and time perception. Assuming that things In this way, Paley and adherents of are designed, they must have a designer. his view think, technically, like children This is compelling in the face of almost who inhabit a small bubble of space and time incomprehensible complexity in nature, but only if we do not take the time to perception. Assuming that things are look closely at that complexity. For ex- designed, they must have a designer. ample, what we see—say, a mature oak tree—appears to be a “finished product” until we open our eyes to a time di- mension (one barely accessible to Paley and his supporters), which reveals that complexity today might well have been passively assembled over a long period variety of evolution; it is the evolution This argument is likely familiar to rather than purposively composed in a of evolution itself, and it is distinctive readers of S I, but flash of inspiration. We can open and enough in the three-billion-plus years here I’m not interested in examining its examine a spatial dimension as well to of Earth life that it has been considered logical foundations (that has been thor- look carefully even at the molecules of one of the eight main transitions in the oughly done) so much as its psycholog- 3 DNA that direct the construction of history of the evolutionary process. ical foundations; that is, why Paley was amino acids into proteins and proteins From all of this we can see that hu- compelled to argue this way. Obviously into tissues that compose the whole, manity’s most useful adaptation has it is partly a result of two thousand from bark to leaf. Such wedges be- been the invention of invention. And years of the Christian church channel- tween “common sense” and an evolu- from the day we learn that a peanut- ing the Western mind into theologi- tionary perspective—wedges between butter-and-jelly sandwich doesn’t just cal interpretations, but I think there’s spontaneously assemble itself—that it more to it than that. I think it also has technically childish and scientifically must be assembled with intent (prefer- to do with the long history of proactive educated thinking—have only come up ably by someone else)—it seems obvi- making that has supported our genus recently in civilization, particularly in ous that all of the other things we see since the origins of behavioral moder- the last century and a half of modern in the world (or at least those at least nity. Humanity has been intentionally evolutionary science. as complex as a peanut-butter-and-jelly making things to survive for at least two Where did this capacity to appre- sandwich) were similarly assembled million years, and that familiarity with ciate the space and time dimensions with intent. An acorn, for example, or proaction has stamped us to intuitively and phenomena that actually account a sturgeon: each is such a wonder of interpret “complex design” as necessar- for the complexity of living things design (you try to make one!) that we ily the result of similar proaction. Here come from? As I mentioned before, it feel they must have been made, with we draw the issue to its sharpest point: evolved, and in ways that we are start- intent, as humans make things with What do I mean when I say that this ing to understand today.

38 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Teflon, Velcro, and the At the very least, it allows a better “fit” inventing ways to avoid it. Modern Human Mind between the individual (or group) and Creativity and proactively creat- The origins of the creatively adaptive his or her world. Simple, slavish reac- ing are at the heart of humanness, mind of our genus lie in the evolution tions to alarms that mean “Climb, fast!” and when we think childishly we find of new memory systems in the brain (ground predator) or “Drop fast!” (aerial it hard to understand that evolution and information-processing capacities predator) may be wasteful and unneces- is not, also, a result of proaction. But of the mind,6 and much of this played sary. But subtler messages made a better with maturity we understand that non- out in the evolution of language. While fit of action to environment. And the human evolution isn’t actually a thing other animals certainly communicate, increased complexity of the human lan- but the completely unintended conse- humans use many complex rules to guage system allowed more (and more quence of three independent, factual, exchange large amounts of information detailed) information to be communi- and observable processes (replication of with great subtlety, at high speed, and cated rapidly; knowledge is power, and life-forms; variation in offspring; selec- 7 with relatively few errors. What is most this is how human behavior became tion among offspring). This gives us distinctive about human language, decoupled from its anatomy and how a far richer understanding of how the however, is the nature of its symbols, humanity survives despite rather than natural world works, and how all these which actively promote invention. because of our physical frames. “Velcro” wonderful slime molds, birches, Venus symbolism is also what really distin- flytraps, jellyfish, and every other living Nonhuman primate communica- I tion uses the simplest kind of symbol- guishes humans from other animals, and thing, actually came to be. ism, as when a monkey gives an “aerial from its origin—at least 50,000 years predator” screech or “ground predator” ago—humanity has been making things Notes hoot, eliciting the proper defensive be- (including sentences) with conscious in- 1. See p. 276 of Lewontin, R.C. 1983. Gene, organism and environment. In Bendall, D.S. haviors from their companions. These tent. Even receiving a message requires (ed). 1983. Evolution from Molecules to Men. vocalizations are symbols because the deciphering exactly what the other per- Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. sounds are arbitrary and they “mean” son really meant as opposed to (perhaps) 273–285. 2. For example, see Gabora, L. 2010. Revenge something else; a high screech signifies what they actually said, so even the act of of the ‘neurds’: Characterizing creative thought an aerial predator, while a low hoot sig- interpretation, shaped by the knowledge in terms of the structure and dynamics of human of intended creation by the other party, memory. Creativity Research Journal 22(1):1–13. nifies a ground predator. What is most 3. Szathmary, E. and J.M. Smith. 1994. interesting about these communica- is itself purposive creation close to the The major evolutionary transitions. Nature 374: tions is that they’re very simple; I call very heart of humanness. 227–232. So, from the beginning of what 4. Paley, G. 1881. . New these “Teflon” because nothing sticks York: American Tract Society. to them. The aerial predator screech we can call behavioral modernity over 5. Kelemen, D. 2004. Are children ‘intuitive can only ever mean aerial predator. The 50,000 years ago, we humans have theists’? Reasoning about purpose and design in been thinking about and interpreting nature. Psychological Science 15: 295–301. symbol to symbolized ratio is 1:1. 6. For more on this topic, see Smith, C.M. In the most profound contrast, hu- the world as though it were made by 2006. Rise of the modern mind. Scientific American mans “stick” concepts together, making intent, at least partly because we as a MIND August/September 2006: 32–39. species evolve by “rolling creation,” a 7. For an update to modern evolutionary the- more complex messages; this is what I ory see Smith, C.M., and J. Ruppell. 2012. What call “Velcro” symbolism, because one microsecond-by-microsecond flow of anthropologists should know about the new evo- symbol sticks to the next. For example, creation of meaning and even novel as- lutionary synthesis. Structure and Dynamics 5(2). sembly of matter. Available online at http://www.escholarship.org/ we might say, “Watch out for that guy; uc/item/18b9f0jb. he’s a real snake!” With human lan- guage, the symbol to symbolized ratio Creativity and the Cameron M. Smith, PhD, is 1:n because any word can be used Understanding of Evolution teaches human evolution and prehistory at Portland to mean anything else we choose. The Creating, making, inventing, build- State University. He has sound used to indicate “snake” can now ing, imagining—everything from written about evolution in describe the characteristics of a person. stone tools to poems—are proactive Structure and Dynamics, the Somewhere in the evolution of our human acts. Our mythologies are full American Journal of Physical Anthropol- minds, our lineage broke some kind of of creation and we venerate exceptional ogy, Evolution Education and Outreach, barrier such that symbols were no lon- creators. There is no end to human Physics of Life Reviews, and many popular ger concretely attached to one another; creation so long as there are minds science journals, as well as in the books anything could mean anything. That capable of sticking ideas and words The Top Ten Myths About Evolution (Pro- “somewhere” is currently being inten- together in new ways. Without this metheus Books, 2006) and The Fact of sively investigated. ability we would be as interchangeable Evolution (Prometheus Books, 2011). He What’s the advantage of such com- as insects, reacting (and that unknow- may be reached at [email protected]. plex language, of “Velcro” symbolism? ingly) to natural selection rather than

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 39 Six Signs of Scientism: Part 1 “Scientism” refers to a too uncritically deferential attitude toward science. In this first part of her two-part article, Professor Haack identifies the first three of six signs of scientism: using words like “science,” “scientific,” etc., honorifically; adopting scientific trappings purely decoratively; and preoccupation with the “problem of demarcation.”

SUSAN HAACK

A man must be downright crazy to deny that science has made to avoid both underestimating the value many true discoveries. of science and overestimating it. What —C.S. Peirce (1903)1 I meant by “” in this context was a kind of jaundiced and uncriti- Scientism . . . employs the prestige of science for disguise and cally critical attitude toward science, an protection. 2 inability to see or an unwillingness to —A.H. Hobbs (1953) acknowledge its remarkable intellectual achievements, or to recognize the real cience is a good thing. As foresaw cen- benefits it has made possible. What I turies ago, when what we now call “modern science” meant by “scientism” was the opposite was in its infancy, the work of the sciences has brought failure: a kind of over-enthusiastic and S uncritically deferential attitude toward both light, an ever-growing body of knowledge of the world science, an inability to see or an unwill- and how it works, and fruit, the ability to predict and control ingness to acknowledge its fallibility, its limitations, and its potential dangers. the world in ways that have both extended and improved One side too hastily dismisses science; our lives. But, as William Harvey complained, Bacon really the other too hastily defers to it. My did write about science “like a Lord Chancellor”3—or, as we concern here, of course, is with the lat- ter failing. might say today, “like a promoter,” or “like a marketer.” Cer- It is worth noting that the English tainly he seems to have been far more keenly aware of the vir- word “scientism” wasn’t always, as it is tues of science than of its limitations and potential dangers. now, pejorative. In the mid-nineteenth century—not long after the older, Yet science is by no means a per- means the only good thing, nor—only a broader use of the word “science,” in fectly good thing. On the contrary, like little less obviously—even the only good which it could refer to any systematized body of knowledge, whatever its subject all human enterprises, it is ineradicably form of inquiry. There are many other matter, had given way to the modern, fallible and imperfect. At best, progress valuable kinds of human activity besides narrower use in which it refers to phys- in the sciences is ragged, uneven, and inquiry—music, dancing, art, storytell- unpredictable; moreover, much scien- ics, chemistry, biology, and so on, but ing, cookery, gardening, architecture, tific work is unimaginative or banal, not to jurisprudence, history, theology, to mention just a few; and many other 5 some is weak or careless, and some is and so forth —the word “scientism” outright corrupt; and scientific discov- valuable kinds of inquiry—historical, was neutral: it meant, simply, “the habit eries often have the potential for harm legal, literary, philosophical, etc. and mode of expression of a man of as well as for good—for knowledge is As I indicated by giving Defending science.” But by the early decades of 4 power, as Bacon saw, and power can be Science—Within Reason its subtitle, Be- the twentieth century “scientism” had abused. And, obviously, science is by no tween Scientism and Cynicism, we need begun to take on a negative tone—ini-

40 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer tially, it seems, primarily in response to • Looking to the sciences for answers any good evidence for that?” but “Is over-ambitious ideas about how pro- to questions beyond their scope. there any scientific evidence for that?” foundly our understanding of human Needing to craft a test to help judges • Denying or denigrating the legit- behavior could be transformed by ap- determine whether expert testimony is imacy or the worth of other kinds plying the methods that had proven so reliable enough to be admitted, the U.S. 6 of inquiry besides the scientific, or successful in the physical sciences. And Supreme Court suggests that such tes- the value of human activities other by the mid-twentieth century, scientism timony must be “scientific knowledge,” 7 than inquiry, such as poetry or art. 11 had come to be seen as a “prejudice,” arrived at by the “.” 8 a “,” an “aberration” of Here, I will explain the first three of A historian arguing that there is no 9 science. By now this negative tone is these six signs (leaving the fourth, foundation in the evidence for the idea 10 predominant; in fact, the pejorative fifth and sixth to Part 2)—always try- that was connotations of “scientism” are so thor- ing, however, to keep their interrela- borrowed from the Egyptians describes oughly entrenched that defenders of the tions in sight, to signal the mistaken this idea as “unscientific.”12 The titles autonomy of ethics, or of the legitimacy ideas about the sciences on which they of conferences and books speak of 13 of religious knowledge, etc., sometimes depend, and to steer the sometimes “Science and Reason,” as if the sci- think it sufficient, instead of actually very fine line between candidly repu- ences had a monopoly on reason itself. engaging with their critics’ arguments, diating scientism, and surreptitiously An editorial in the Wall Street Journal to dismiss them in a word: “scientistic.” repudiating science. describes studies of charter schools So, as the term “scientism” is usually where students are chosen by lottery currently used, and as I shall use it, it is a trivial verbal truth that scientism should be avoided. It is, however, a substantial question exactly when, and why, deference to the sciences is appro- Naturally enough, once “science,” “scientific,” etc., priate and when, and why, it is inap- have become honorific terms, practitioners uneasy propriate or exaggerated. My primary purpose here is to suggest some ways about the standing of their discipline or approach to recognize when this line has been like to use them emphatically and often. crossed, when respect for the achieve- ments of the sciences has transmuted into the kind of exaggerated deference characteristic of scientism. These are the “six signs of scientism” to which my The Honorific Use of “Science” title alludes. Summarized briefly and and Its Cognates as “scientific and more reliable” than roughly, they are: studies of schools that select their stu- Over the last several centuries, the 14 • Using the words “science,” “scien- dents on merit. The honorific usage work of the sciences has enormously tific,” “scientifically,” “scientist,” etc., is ubiquitous. enriched and refined our knowledge honorifically, as generic terms of Naturally enough, once “science,” of the world. And as the prestige of epistemic praise. “scientific,” etc., have become honor- the sciences grew, words like “science,” ific terms, practitioners uneasy about • Adopting the manners, the trap- “scientifically,” etc., took on an hon- the standing of their discipline or ap- pings, the technical terminology, orific tone: their substantive meaning proach like to use them emphatically etc., of the sciences, irrespective of tended to slip into the background, and often. In 1953, Prof. Hobbs pro- their real usefulness. and their favorable connotation began vided a splendid list of excerpts from • A preoccupation with demarca- to take center stage. Advertisers rou- publishers’ blurbs for texts: tion, i.e., with drawing a sharp tinely boast that “science has shown” “a scientific approach”; “scientifically line between genuine science, the the superiority of their product, or that faces the problems of . . . marriage”; real thing, and “pseudoscientific” “scientific studies” support their claims. “approaches social problems from the imposters. Traditional or unconventional medical . . . scientific point of view . . . unassail- treatments are often dismissed out of able [conclusions]”; “sternly scientific”; • A corresponding preoccupation with 15 identifying the “scientific method,” hand, not as ill-founded or untested, and so on and on. And nowadays, of presumed to explain how the sci- but as “unscientific.” Skeptical of course—though departments of phys- ences have been so successful. some claim, we may ask, not “Is there ics and chemistry feel no need to stress

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 41 that what they do is science—universi- highly speculative, and that most are subjects”18 he had in mind social scien- ties offer classes and degrees in “Man- eventually found to be untenable, and tists’ efforts to look as much as possible agement Science,” “Library Science,” abandoned. To be sure, by now there like physicists—despite their radically “Military Science,” and even “Mortuary is a vast body of well-warranted sci- different subject matters. And there Science.”16 entific theory, some of it so well-war- certainly is something objectionably But this honorific usage of “science” ranted that it would be astonishing if scientistic about adopting the trap- and its cognates leads to all kinds of new evidence were to show it to be pings associated with physics, chemis- trouble. It makes it all too easy to forget mistaken—though even this possibility try, etc., not as useful transferable tools that, remarkable as the achievements of should never absolutely be ruled out. but as a smoke-screen hiding shallow the natural sciences have been, not all, (Rigid dogmatism is always epistemo- thinking or half-baked research. and not only, scientists are good, thor- logically undesirable, rigid dogmatism Even those who work in disciplines ough, honest inquirers. It tempts us to about even the best-warranted scientific no one would hesitate to classify as dismiss bad science as not really science theory included.) But this vast body of science sometimes focus too much on at all, and it seduces us into the false well-warranted theory is the surviving form and too little on substance. Epi- assumption that whatever is not science remnant of a much, much vaster body demiologists testing the side-effects of is no good, or at any rate inferior. Yes, of speculative conjectures, most of a morning-sickness drug meticulously the best scientific work is a remarkable which came to nothing—a fact bound calculate the statistical significance human cognitive achievement; but even to be obscured if we use “scientific” of their results, but fail to distinguish this best scientific work is fallible, and more or less interchangeably with “re- women who took the drug during the there is plenty of good, solid work in liable, established, solid,” and so forth. period of pregnancy when fetal limbs were forming from those who took it later;19 a medical scientist offers im- pressive-looking tables of cases, but fails to check whether the information This kind of misuse of scientific tools and in the tables matches the information techniques is even commoner in the social in the text.20 And so forth. But this kind of misuse of scientific sciences, where, as Robert Merton puts it, tools and techniques is even commoner practitioners only too often “take the in the social sciences, where, as Robert achievements of physics as the standard of Merton puts it, practitioners only too often “take the achievements of physics self-appraisal. They want to compare biceps as the standard of self-appraisal. They with their bigger brothers. want to compare biceps with their bigger brothers.”21 Those lengthy in- troductory chapters on “methodology” in sociology texts are sometimes only window-dressing; and, more often than one would like, the graphs, tables, and statistics in social-science work focus non-scientific disciplines such as his- Inappropriately Borrowed attention on variables that can be mea- tory, legal scholarship, music theory, Scientific Trappings sured at the expense of those that really etc.—not to mention the vast body of Besides encouraging the honorific use matter, or represent variables so poorly practically useful knowledge accumu- of “science” and its cognates, the suc- defined that no reasonable conclusion lated by farmers, sailors, ship-build- cesses of the natural sciences have also can be drawn. David Abrahamson’s ers, and artisans of every kind, and the tempted many to borrow the man- Second Law of Criminal Behavior is a considerable resources of knowledge of ners and the trappings of these fields, classic example: “A criminal act is the herbs embodied in traditional medical sum of a person’s criminalistic tenden- 17 in hopes of looking “scientific”—as practices. if technical terminology, numbers, cies plus his total situation, divided by And, inevitably, the honorific use of graphs, tables, fancy instruments, etc., the amount of his resistance,” or: “C = “science” encourages uncritical credu- were enough by themselves to guar- (T+S)/R.”22 The highly mathematical lity about whatever new scientific idea antee success. When Friedrich von character of contemporary economic comes down the pike. But the fact is Hayek wrote of the “tyranny” that “the theory has contributed to the curious that all the explanatory hypotheses that methods and technique of the Sciences idea that economics is the “queen of scientists come up with are, at first, . . . have exercised . . . over . . . other the social sciences”—a title to which

42 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer psychology would seem to have a much medical imaging devices to distinguish this on its head. Noting that, while more legitimate claim. But too often the traces of writing on the lead “post- no finite number of positive instances those elegant mathematical models cards” on which Roman soldiers wrote could show an unrestricted universal turn out to be based on assumptions home from the marks of centuries of statement true, a single counter-in- about “rational economic man” true of weathering;27 General Motors uses a stance is enough to show it false, Pop- no real-world economic actors.23 And, model designed by the Centers for Dis- per proposed , , or sadly, policy recommendations based ease Control to track an “epidemic” of (as he also says) refutability as the cri- on flawed sociological statistics or flawed economic models often acquire an undeserved status because they are perceived as “science-based.” Inappropriately borrowed scientific In philosophy as in the social sciences, trappings are also common in philoso- technical terminology is often not, as it could phy, where, for example, many journals and publishers have adopted such prac- and should be, a carefully-crafted sign of hard-won tices as the name-date-page-number intellectual advance, but only self-important style of reference used by psychologists, sociologists, etc., and their preference jargon designed to attract others to (what you for the most recent rather than the hope will be) a bandwagon. original dates (which can be misleading even on its own turf, and is inherently more so in a discipline where reliance on authority is wholly out of place, and catastrophic when the historical de- 28 velopment of an idea matters). Even defects in its cars and trucks. And so terion of demarcation of the genuinely 30 giving priority to peer-reviewed publi- on. What is scientistic is not borrowing scientific. A real , ac- cation, another practice adopted from scientific tools and techniques, as such, cording to Popper, can be subjected to the sciences, is a kind of scientism; peer but borrowing them for display rather the test of experience and, if it is false, review, hardly perfect as a rationing de- than for serious use. can be shown to be false; while a theory vice even for scarce space in scientific that rules nothing out is not a scientific journals,24 is inherently more suscep- Preoccupation with “the Problem theory at all. tible to corruption the more a profes- of Demarcation” This sounds simple enough. But sion is dominated, as philosophy is, Once “scientific” has become an honor- in fact it never became entirely clear by cliques, parties, and schools. And ific term, and when scientific trappings what, exactly, Popper’s criterion was, in philosophy as in the social sciences, only too often disguise a lack of real nor what, exactly, it was intended technical terminology is often not, as it rigor, it is almost inevitable that the to rule out, nor, most to the present could and should be, a carefully-crafted “problem of demarcation,” i.e., of draw- purpose, what exactly—besides the sign of hard-won intellectual advance, ing the line between genuine science honorific use of “science”—the moti- but only self-important jargon designed and pretenders, and with identifying vation was for wanting a criterion of to attract others to (what you hope will and rooting out “pseudoscience,” will demarcation in the first place; in fact, be) a bandwagon. loom much larger than it should. it became increasingly unclear. For ex- None of this is to deny, of course, Not surprisingly, as the honorific use ample, initially it sounded as if Popper that sometimes scientific tools and of “science” began to take hold in the intended to exclude Marxist “scientific techniques turn out also to be genu- early decades of the twentieth century, socialism,” along with Freud’s and Ad- inely useful to inquirers in other fields: so too did an increasing preoccupation ler’s psychoanalytic theories, as unfal- historians use a cyclotron to determine with demarcation: in logical sifiable. But in The Open Society and whether the composition of the ink in (where a key theme was the demarca- Its Enemies (1945) Popper grants that, two earlier printed versions of the bible tion of empirically meaningful scientific after all, Marxism is falsifiable—in fact, was the same as that in the “Gutenberg work from high-flown but meaningless he tells us, it was falsified by the events Bible” of 1450–1455;25 they use DNA metaphysical speculation); and, most of the Russian revolution.31 What went identification techniques to test the hy- strikingly, in ’s philosophy wrong wasn’t, after all, that the theory pothesis that Thomas Jefferson was the of science.29 The positivists had pro- was unfalsifiable, but that instead of father of the children born to his house- posed verifiability as the mark of the abandoning their theory in the face of slave Sally Hemings;26 and even borrow empirically meaningful; Popper turned contrary evidence, Marxists made ad

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 43 hoc modifications to save it. So Pop- including federal courts’ interest in dis- nor normative disciplines like jurispru- per’s supposedly logical criterion was tinguishing reliable scientific testimony dence or ethics or or episte- transformed into a partly methodolog- from “junk science,”37 or in determin- mology. And at a third approximation, ical test—a test, moreover, according ing whether “” is really to acknowledge that the work picked to which badly conducted science isn’t science, and hence may constitution- out by the word “science” is far from really science at all. ally be taught in public high schools.38 uniform or monolithic, it makes sense Again, for a long time Popper Other criteria of demarcation have to say, rather, that the disciplines we claimed that his criterion of demarca- been proposed: that real science relies call “the sciences” are best thought of tion excluded the theory of evolution; on controlled experiments, for example as forming a loose federation of inter- which, he wrote, is not a genuine sci- (which, however, would rule out not related kinds of inquiry into empirical entific theory but a “metaphysical re- only anthropology and sociology, but questions. search programme.”32 Then he changed also—most implausibly of all—astron- But if we want to get a clear view his mind: evolution is science, after omy). But the fact is that the term “sci- of the place of the sciences among the all.33 And again—quietly shifting from ence” simply has no very clear boundar- many kinds of inquiry, of the place writing of falsifiability as a criterion ies: the reference of the term is fuzzy, of inquiry among the many kinds of human activity, and of the interrela- tions among the various disciplines classified by deans and librarians as sciences, we will need to look for conti- nuities as well as differences. For there With the benefit of hindsight, it looks as if Popper’s are marked affinities between (as we criterion of demarcation proved so attractive to say) “historical” sciences like cosmol- so many in part because it was amorphous ogy and evolutionary biology, and what we would ordinarily classify simply as (or rather, polymorphous) enough to seem to historical inquiry. There is no sharp serve a whole variety of agendas. boundary between psychology and phi- losophy of mind, nor between cosmol- ogy and metaphysics. Nor is there any very clear line between the considerable body of knowledge that has grown out of such primal human activities as hunting, herding, farming, fishing, of the scientific to suggesting that it indeterminate and, not least, frequently building, cooking, healing, midwifery, is a criterion of the empirical—Pop- contested. The best we might hope for child-rearing, etc., and the more sys- per acknowledged that the category of is a list of “signs of scientificity,” none of tematic knowledge of agronomists, “non-science” includes not only pseu- which would be shared by all sciences, child psychologists, etc. doscience, but also such legitimate but each of which would be found, in Scientific inquiry is recognizably but non-empirical areas of inquiry as some degree, in some sciences. continuous with more commonplace 34 metaphysics and mathematics. By the This is not to say that we can’t, in and less systematic kinds of empiri- time you notice that he describes his a rough and ready way, distinguish be- cal inquiry: inquiry into the causes of 35 criterion as a “convention,” and even, tween the sciences and other human spoiled crops, the design of fishing in the introduction to the English edi- activities, including other human cog- boats, the medicinal properties of herbs, tion of The Logic of Scientific Discov- nitive activities, but it is to say that any etc. It is more systematic, more refined, ery, writes that scientific knowledge such distinction can only be rough and and more persistent; but sometimes it is continuous with everyday empirical ready. I might say, as a first approxima- rediscovers, and builds on, ,36 you can hardly avoid the tion, that science is best understood not knowledge. Linnaeus, for example, conclusion that the apparently simple as a body of knowledge, but as a kind of built on traditional Lap taxonomies of idea with which he started soon became inquiry; so that cooking dinner, danc- plants and animals;39 many drugs now something of an intellectual monster. ing, or writing a novel isn’t science, nor part of the arsenal of modern scientific With the benefit of hindsight, it is pleading a case in court. At a second medicine were derived from what were looks as if Popper’s criterion of demar- approximation, I would add that, since originally folk remedies. An example cation proved so attractive to so many the word “science” has come to be tied would be digitalis, extracted from a in part because it was amorphous (or to inquiry into empirical subject-mat- plant called the foxglove. Long used as rather, polymorphous) enough to seem ter, formal disciplines like logic or pure a folk remedy, digitalis was first named to serve a whole variety of agendas— mathematics don’t qualify as sciences, in 1542; its clinical properties were first

44 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Notes described by William Withering in 36, 2007: 789–819. 1. , Collected Papers, 25. Robert Buderi, “Science: Beaming in 1785, and by the mid-twentieth century eds. Hartshorne, Charles, Paul Weiss, and (vol- on the Past,” Time, Mar. 10, 1986, available it was in common use by physicians for umes 7 & 8) Arthur Burks (Cambridge, MA: at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/arti- the treatment of heart ailments.40 Harvard University Press, 1931–58), 5.172 cle/0,9171,960850,00.html. (1903). 26. Jefferson-Hemings Scholars’ Commis- Suppressing the demarcationist im- 2. A.H. Hobbs, Social Problems and Scientism sion, Report on the Jefferson-Hemings Matter (April pulse enables us to see the Popperian (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Press, 1953), p.17. 12, 2001); William G. Hyland, Jr., In Defense of requirement that a theory rule some- 3. Peirce, Collected Papers (n.1), 5.361 (1877). Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal 4. Susan Haack, Defending Science— (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009). thing out, that it not be compatible Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism 27. “Wish You Were Here,” Oxford Today, with absolutely anything and everything (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003). 10.3, 1998: 40. 5. F.A. Von Hayek, “Scientism and the Study 28. Gregory L. White, “GM Takes Advice that might happen, for what it really of Society,” Economica, August 1942: 267–91, from Disease Sleuths to Debug Cars,” Wall Street is: a mark, not of its being scientific p.267, n.2. Journal, 8 April 1999, pp. B1, B4. specifically, but of its being genuinely 6. Oxford English Dictionary online, available 29. See Karl R. Popper, Unended Quest (La at http://oed.com/, entry on “scientism.” Salle, IL: Open Court, 1979), pp.31–38; and, for explanatory. And willingness to take 7. Hayek, “Scientism and the Study of a detailed critique, my “Just Say ‘No’ to Logical contrary evidence seriously can also be Society” (n.5), p.269. Negativism,” Putting Philosophy to Work (n.23), seen for what it really is: a mark not, 8. E.H. Hutten, The Language of Modern 179–94. Physics (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956), p.273. 30. Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Dis- as Popper supposes, of the scientist 9. Peter Medawar, “Science and Literature,” covery (1934; English ed., London: Routledge, specifically, but of the honest inquirer Encounter, XXXI.1, 1969: 15–23, p.23. 1959). 10. , however, adopts the 31. Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its in whatever field. (The historian who word “scientism” as a badge of honor. Michael Enemies (1945; revised ed., 1950), p.374. ignores or destroys a document that Shermer, “The Shamans of Scientism,” Scientific 32. Popper, Unended Quest (n.29), pp.167–180. threatens to undermine his favored hy- American, 287.3, September 2002. 33. Karl R. Popper, “Natural Selection and Its 11. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 Scientific Status” (1977), in David Miller, ed., A pothesis is guilty of just the same kind U.S. 579 (1993). Pocket Popper (London: Fontana, 1983), 239–246. of intellectual dishonesty as the scien- 12. Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa (New 34. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery York: Basic Books, 1996), p.157. tist who ignores or fails to record the (n.30), p.39. 13. For example, the conference at the New 35. Id., p.37. results of an experiment that threatens York Academy of Sciences in which I participated 36. Id., p.18. to falsify his theory.) “Scientism,” as in 1996, and the corresponding volume. Paul 37. Daubert (1993) (n.11). Though the Su- R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and Martin Lewis, Hayek shrewdly observes, confuses “the preme Court doesn’t realize this, it is hard to eds., The Flight from Science and Reason (1996: think of a less suitable than general of disinterested inquiry” Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, Popper’s, which expressly denies that any scientific with the methods and language of the 1997). theory is ever shown to be reliable, to serve as a 41 14. “Do Charters ‘Cream’ the Best?” Wall Street criterion of reliability. natural sciences. Journal, September 24, 2009, A20. 38. McLean v. Ark. Bd. of Educ., 529 F. Supp. And suppressing the demarcationist 15. Hobbs, Social Problems and Scientism (n.2), 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982). Though the court in Mc- pp.42–43. impulse will also have the healthy ef- Lean didn’t realize this, given Popper’s ambivalence 16. Jerome Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and Its about the status of the theory of evolution it is not fect of obliging us to recognize poorly Social Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), clear that his criterion would classify evolution as conducted science as just that, poorly p.387, n.25. science, and creation “science” as non-science. 17. Dagfinn Føllesdal, “Science, Pseudo- conducted science; and of encouraging 39. Føllesdal, “Science, Pseudo-Science and Science and Traditional Knowledge,” ALLEA Traditional Knowledge” (n.17). us, instead of simply sneering at “pseu- (All European Academies) Biennial Handbook, 40. Jeremy N. Norman, “William Withering doscience,” to specify what, exactly, is 2002: 27–37. and the Purple Foxglove: A Bicentennial Tribute,” 18. Friedrich von Hayek, The Counter-Revolu- Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 25, 1985: 479–83. wrong with the work we are criticiz- tion of Science (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952), p.13. 41. Friedrich von Hayek, The Counter-Revolu- 19. Olli P. Heinonen, Denis Slone, and Sam- ing: perhaps that it is too vague to be tion of Science (n.18), p.15. uel Shapiro, Birth Defects and Drugs in Pregnancy genuinely explanatory; perhaps that, (Littleton, MA: Sciences Group, 1977), pp.8–29. Susan Haack is Distin- though it uses mathematical symbol- 20. Christine Haller and Neal A. Benowitz, guished Professor in the “Adverse Cardiovascular and Central Nervous Sys- ism or graphs or fancy instruments, tem Events Associated with Dietary Supplements Humanities, Cooper Senior these are purely decorative, and doing Containing Ephedra Alkaloids,” New England Jour- Scholar in Arts and Sciences, no real work; perhaps that claims which nal of Medicine, 343, 2000: 1833–1838, p.1836. Professor of Philosophy and 21. Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social are thus far purely speculative are being Structure (1957; enlarged ed., Glencoe, IL: Free Professor of Law at the Uni- made as confidently as if they were Press, 1968), p.47. versity of Miami (Coral Gables, Florida). well-warranted by evidence; and so on. 22. David Abrahamson, The Psychology of Her books include Defending Science— Crime (New York: Columbia University Press, If we still had a use for the term “pseu- 1960), p.37. Within Reason; Evidence and Inquiry; Devi- doscience,” it might be best reserved to 23. Robert L. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philos- ant Logic, ; Philosophy of Log- ophers (1958: 7th ed., New York: Simon and ics; Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate; refer to such public-relations exercises Schuster, 1999), chapter xi; Susan Haack, “Science, as the Creation Science “movement”— Economics, ‘Vision,’” in Putting Philosophy to Work: and Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry what a revealing word!—which, so far Inquiry and Its Place in Culture (Amherst, NY: Pro- and its Place in Culture (expanded edition, metheus Books, expanded ed., 2013), 97–104. as I can tell, involves no real inquiry of Prometheus Books 2013), from which she I 24. See Susan Haack, “Peer Review and Publi- adapted this two-part article. any kind. cation: Lessons for Lawyers,” Stetson Law Review,

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 45 The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved What did he see? The missing piece of the puzzle in a strange ‘UFO’ case involving the crash of a young pilot off Australia has been identified.

JAMES McGAHA and JOE NICKELL

R: Can you describe the, er, aircraft? hat is known as the “Valentich disappearance” is a V: As it’s flying past, it’s a long shape. strange occurrence in the annals of , one [Silence for 3 seconds.] [Cannot] identify more than [that it has such Wnever satisfactorily explained—until now. One of speed]. [Silence for 3 seconds.] [It us (Nickell) was asked to look into the case for a television is] before me right now, Melbourne. R: And how large would the, er, ob- show, and he queried the other (McGaha) who came up with ject be? V: It seems like it’s stationary.1 What the missing piece of the puzzle (as perhaps only someone I’m doing right now is orbiting, and who was both a pilot and astronomer could do). the thing is just orbiting on top of me also. It’s got a green light and sort of The story begins in Australia about metallic. [Like] it’s all shiny [on] the craft below five thousand. outside. [Silence for 5 seconds.] It’s 19:00 hours (7:00 ), or shortly after R: What type of aircraft is it? just vanished. . . . Would you know sunset (6:43 ), on October 21, 1978. V: I cannot affirm. It is [sic] four what kind of aircraft I’ve got? Is it A young man named Frederick “Fred” bright, it seems to me like land- military aircraft? ing lights. . . . The aircraft has just Valentich—who had left Victoria’s R: Confirm the, er, aircraft just van- passed over me at least a thousand ished. Moorabbin airport at 18:19 (6:19 )— feet above. V: Say again. was piloting a light airplane, a rented R: Roger, and it, it is a large aircraft? R: Is the aircraft still with you? single-engine Cessna 182L (registra- Confirm. V: [It’s, ah, nor-] [Silence for 2 V: Er, unknown due to the speed it’s tion VH-DSJ) over Bass Strait, heading seconds.] [Now] approaching from southeastwardly for King Island. When traveling. Is there any Air Force air- craft in the vicinity? the southwest. . . . The engine is, is what he thought was another aircraft R: No known aircraft in the vicinity. rough idling. I’ve got it set at twenty seemed to pass over him, he radioed V: It’s approaching right now from three twenty four, and the thing is— coughing. Melbourne Air Flight Service, and due east towards me. . . . [Silence for 2 seconds.] It seems to me that R: Roger. What are your intentions? spoke with controller Steve Robey. he’s playing some sort of game. He’s V: My intentions are, ah, to go to Here is the (slightly abridged) exchange flying over me two, three times, at a King Island. Ah, Melbourne, that (with punctuation and capitalization time at speeds I could not identify. strange aircraft is hovering on top of added), taken from the transcript of R: Roger. What is your actual level? me again. [Silence for 2 seconds.] It the audiotape (beginning at 19:06:14): V: My level is four and a half thou- is hovering, and it’s not an aircraft. sand. Four five zero zero. [Silence for 17 seconds, open mi- R: And confirm you cannot identify crophone, with audible, unidentified the aircraft. staccato noise. End of transcript.] Valentich: Is there any known traffic V: Affirmative. (Aircraft Accident 1982. See also below five thousand [feet]? R: Roger. Stand by. Good 1988, 175–77; Chalker 1998, Robey: No known traffic. V: It’s not an aircraft. It is—[Silence 964; Haines and Norman 2000; V: I am—seems [to] be a large air- for 2 seconds.] Baker 2000, 248)

46 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Valentich with a Cessna, similar to the aircraft he disappeared in.

Some versions of the transcript fail to match that of the accident report in important details. For example, instead Unfortunately, Valentich had failed all five of his of “[It is] before me right now,” one source (Chalker 2001, 629) gives “. . . exam subjects—not once but twice—and, just the coming for me right now.” month before, again failed three subjects. Further, The communication ended about 19:12:49. Although an intensive air, his involvement in three flying incidents came to land, and sea search was carried out the attention of officials. until October 25, no trace of the Cessna was found. An oil slick discovered on October 22, some eighteen miles north of King Island, “was not established as ories,” including those of “psychics” four instrument rating (which meant having any connection with Valentich’s (Chalker 1998, 966–67; “Valentich” he could operate at night but only plane” (Good 1988, 178). The Bureau 2013). However, none seemed to ex- “in visual meteorological conditions” of Air Safety Investigation released plain both the disappearance and the [Aircraft Accident 1982]). He had twice its findings in May 1982, stating that lights. To understand what happened, been rejected by the Royal Australian “The reason for the disappearance of we need to look more closely at Fred Air Force, due to inadequate educa- the aircraft has not been determined,” Valentich. tion. Having obtained a private pilot but that the outcome was “presumed license in September 1977, he was fatal” (Aircraft Accident 1982). Suicide? studying part time for a commercial The Pilot Staged disappearance? Alien attack or pilot’s license. abduction? Drug runners’ shootdown? Fred Valentich was a twenty-year-old, Unfortunately, he had failed all five Electrical discharge from a cloud ignit- inexperienced flyer with only about of his exam subjects—not once but ing gas fumes? There were many “the- 150 total hours flying time and a class- twice—and, just the month before,

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 47 again failed three subjects. Further, his So what was Valentich really up amond, thus explaining Valentich’s say- involvement in three flying incidents to—in addition to wanting to log more ing of the UFO that “it’s a long shape.” came to the attention of officials: once hours of flying experience? Possibly he As to the UFO’s other characteris- he received a warning for having strayed had decided to look for UFOs again tics, the “metallic” or “shiny” appear- into restricted air space, and twice he but, rather than admit that, offered ance could have been due to the power was cited for deliberately flying blindly others more legitimate-sounding rea- of suggestion alone. Having connected into a cloud, for which he was under sons for his flight. In short, he may the dots, Valentich would likely have threat of prosecution (Sheaffer 2013; not simply have encountered a UFO gone on to fill in the area as solid, even “Valentich” 2013). In brief, Valentich but instead went looking for one. If so, “metallic.” We must remember that may have been an accident waiting to his “encounter” is not surprising. As a Valentich’s impressions are those of happen. “True Believer,” observes Robert Sheaf- someone who was confused about what Moreover, the young pilot was en- fer (2013, 27), Valentich was “probably he was seeing. thralled with UFOs, watching films inclined to assume anything is a ‘UFO’ The “green light” could have been and accumulating articles on the topic. if he could not immediately identify it.” part of this confusion also. Remember, Earlier that year, according to his fa- So what did the young pilot see? Valentich’s first description of the UFO ther, Valentich had himself observed a Having clear skies, he described four involved only four bright white lights; he made no mention at that time of a green one. It could actually have been nothing more than the Cessna’s own So what did the young pilot see? navigation light on its right wing tip. That green light—or its reflection on Having clear skies, he described four bright lights the windshield—could easily have been that he mistakenly (as he later admitted) superimposed onto the UFO sighting. A witness on the ground, who de- first thought were an airplane’s ‘landing lights’ scribed having seen a green light just (that is, white points of light). above Valentich’s plane, had not men- tioned that aspect of his story at the time. However, many years later—after the green light was made public—he did mention the detail, but he is only iden- tified by a pseudonym. Nevertheless, he UFO moving away very fast. And he bright lights that he mistakenly (as he said (in the words of his interviewers) had expressed to his father his worry later admitted) first thought were an that “Its color was similar to the navi- about what could happen if such pre- airplane’s “landing lights” (that is, white gation lights on an airplane” (Haines sumed extraterrestrial craft should ever points of light). They were above him and Norman 2000, 26)! If the Cessna attack (Sheaffer 2013; “Valentich” and—except for his own movements was indeed close enough to the land 2013). As we shall see, his deep belief (more on this later)—seemed to be as to be seen by the man and his two in flying saucers may have contributed just “hovering.” Then twice and quite nieces, there is a simple explanation: to his death—and not in the way some correctly, he realized “it” was definitely that the airplane’s attitude (a steep angle saucer buffs imagine. “not an aircraft.” of bank) was such that its right wing Some thought Valentich might have As it happens, a computer search of tip was up, and so its green navigation staged his disappearance, but the evi- the sky for the day, time, and place of light appeared above the Cessna. As the dence does not support that Valentich’s flight reveals that the four witness stated, the light was positioned (Good 1988, 180). Nevertheless Valen- points of bright light he would almost “like it was riding on top of the air- tich did give two contradictory reasons certainly have seen were the following: plane,” and it kept a constant position, for his flight to King Island: (1) to pick Venus (which was at its very brightest), according to the witnesses (Haines and up some friends (as he told flight offi- Mars, Mercury, and the bright star Norman 2000, 26). But again, there are cials), or (2) to pick up crayfish. How- Antares. These four lights would have problems with the main witness’s de- ever, these reasons were found to be un- represented a diamond shape, given scription. As his interviewers acknowl- true (Aircraft Accident 1982; “Valentich” the well-known tendency of viewers to edge, his “recollection of the angular 2013). Valentich had not even followed “connect the dots,” and so could well size of the airplane’s lights is too large standard procedure to inform King Is- have been perceived as an aircraft or by perhaps several orders of magnitude” land airport of his intent to land there UFO. In fact, the striking conjunction (Haines and Norman 2000, 28). (Inci- (“Disappearance” 2013). was shaped as a vertically elongated di- dentally, misreadings by amateur writers

48 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer have now converted Valentich’s “green already inverted, producing the same enters the “graveyard spiral” that carries I light” into multiple “green lights” [e.g., effect because that plane had a gravi- him to his death. “Disappearance” 2013].) ty-fed fuel system. But what about the UFO’s move- Not surprisingly, Valentich’s air- Acknowledgments ments when it was not “hovering”? It plane going missing while he was ra- CFI Librarian Lisa Nolan provided consid- is now clear—since we have identified dioing a UFO report prompted talk of erable research assistance. the UFO as probably a conjunction of extraterrestrials and abduction. Indeed, four celestial lights—that it was not the it spawned later reports of other UFOs Note UFO moving in relation to the plane allegedly seen on the night of the Cess- 1. Haines, using special filters, believes the word stationary is actually the phrase chasing me but rather the opposite: the plane mov- na’s disappearance. These provoked a (Haines and Norman 2000, 24). ing in relation to the stationary lights. skeptical Ken Williams, spokesperson There is actually evidence from the of the Department of Transport, to References transcript that this is so. After the UFO tell a reporter, “It’s funny all these peo- Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report. has repeatedly seemed to fly over him, ple ringing up with UFO reports well 1982. Department of Transportation, Commonwealth of Australia. Ref. No. Valentich says, “What I’m doing right after Valentich’s disappearance” (“Pilot V116/783/1047, April 27. now is orbiting, and the thing is just or- Missing” 1978). Baker, Alan. 2000. The Encyclopedia of Alien biting on top of me.” Just a month after the disappearance, Encounters. New York: Checkmark Books. Chalker, Bill. 1998. Valentich Disappearance. In This points to what was really hap- the pilot of another Cessna sighted the Clark 1998, 2: 964–68. pening to the poor inexperienced pilot. outline of what he believed was a sub- ———. 2001. Valentich (Bass Strait, Australia) Distracted by the UFO, he may then merged aircraft, but on another pass UFO encounter. In Story 2001, 628–31. Clark, Jerome. 1998. The UFO Encyclopedia, 2nd have been deceived by the illusion of a over, he was unable to confirm that Edition: The Phenomenon from the Beginning, tilted horizon. That can happen when observation (Good 1988, 178). Now in two vols. Detroit: Omnigraphics. the sun has gone down but still bright- thanks to yeoman’s work by Australian The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich. 2013. Online at http://marvmelb.blogspot.com/ ens part of the horizon, while, of course, researcher Keith Basterfield, who redis- 2012/11/the-disappearance-of-frederick- the rest of it gets gradually darker far- covered the “lost” official case file, we valentich.html; accessed June 12, 2013. ther away. This imbalance of lighting have new information. As he explains, Good, Timothy. 1988. Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-up. New York: can cause the horizon to appear tilted, “parts of aircraft wreckage with partial William Morrow. so that, in compensating by “leveling” matching serial numbers were found in Haines, Richard F., and Paul Norman. 2000. the wings, the pilot inadvertently be- Bass Strait five years after the disap- Valentich disappearance: New evidence and a new conclusion. Journal of Scientific gins—not to orbit (circle), but to spiral pearance.” (Qtd. in Sheaffer 2013, 27.) Exploration 14:1, 19–33. downward—at first slowly, then with Fred Valentich’s UFO has now been Pilot Missing after UFO Report. 1978. increasing acceleration. identified. That is, we can show that a Associated Press story in Waterloo Courier, October 24; cited in “Valentich” 2013. At a most critical time therefore, group of four bright lights, consistent Sheaffer, Robert. 2013. Psychic Vibrations col- when he should have been in fully with his description, was within his umn, S I 37:2 (March/ alert mode, paying attention to his in- sight at the time he was reporting his April) 26–27. Story, Ronald D., ed. 2001. The Encyclopedia of struments, he was instead engaged in UFO. This is the long missing piece of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New something that was extremely distract- the puzzle that awaited solving because American Library. ing: flying while excitedly focusing on, the case required expertise from astron- Valentich Disappearance. 2013. Online at en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentich_disappear- and talking about, a UFO. This, as we omy as well as aeronautics. ance; accessed May 20. can now see, was a recipe for disaster. The identification underscores the James McGaha, major, USAF With Valentich succumbing to spatial inescapable fact that the disappearance retired, is a former special disorientation, his plane (like that of was simply a fatal crash. Ironically, it operations and electronic young John F. Kennedy Jr. over two de- might never have occurred but for the warfare pilot who is now also cades later) began what is aptly termed young pilot’s fascination with UFOs. If an astronomer and director a “graveyard spiral.” not actually the reason for his evening of the Grasslands Observatory at Tucson, Further corroboration of this may flight, as we suspect, the fascination Arizona. come from the pilot’s statement that nevertheless was part of why it ended the engine was “rough idling”—just tragically. Joe Nickell, PhD, is a former seconds away from his final contact. We can now reread the transcript magician and private detec- The plane’s moving in a tightening spi- of the exchanges between Valentich tive as well as a skeptical ral would cause an increase of G-forces and an air traffic controller with a new UFOlogist. His books include with a consequent decrease in fuel flow, understanding. In our mind’s eye we many UFO cases, and he con- resulting in the engine’s rough running. watch in horror as—distracted and dis- tributed to The Encyclopedia of Extraterres- Or, at that point, the Cessna may have oriented—the young pilot unexpectedly trial Encounters.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 49 ost skeptics and students of the outré know the story of the Jersey Devil. Sometime in the early part of the eighteenth century in the New Jersey forest called the Pine Barrens, a woman known as Mother Leeds gave birth to her thirteenth child and cried out, “Oh, let this one be a devil!” The “child” arrived with horse-like head and bat-like wings. It yelped menacingly and flew up and out of the chimney, disappearing into the dark to spend the centuries accosting anyone unfortunate enough to encounter it. The commonly held story of the Jersey Devil bears no resemblance to any sort of reality, however. The story is one born not of a blaspheming mother, but of colonial-era political intrigues, Quaker re- ligious in-fighting, almanac publishing, a cross-dressing royal governor, family reputations, and .

50 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer There are legions of books and a fiscal scoundrel or a cross-dresser, his surprise an order was sent out to col- websites devoted to the Jersey Devil, connection to the Jersey Devil story is lect up all the copies of the almanac but they rehash material or copy other tangential but important. not in circulation and destroy them. websites without any attempt to verify When Lord Cornbury received his Daniel Leeds determined privately to sources or check original materials. If orders to take charge of New Jersey in break with the Friends and continue you looked to the historical record with 1702, the document included a list of his almanac. the keyword of Jersey Devil, you would his councilors, one of whom was Dan- Brimming with the need to get his find little factual or reliable evidence. iel Leeds (1651–1720). Born in Leeds, ideas out and a growing resentment of Reviews of newspapers, pamphlets, England, Daniel Leeds arrived in Bur- his fellow Quakers, Leeds put together and broadsides from colonial New Jer- lington in 1677. A devout Quaker, he a book called The Temple of Wisdom sey show no references to a Leeds Devil claimed to have had ecstatic visions as a (1688). Leeds paraphrased and out- (see below) or anything like it. Reports young man. His first wife died while in right copied large sections of other of children killed by the creature or an England, so he married a second time authors to cobble together a personal attempt by a local clergyman to “exor- in 1681. This wife, Ann Stacy, gave . He included sections on cise” the Leeds Devil in the eighteenth birth to a daughter, though neither , natural magic, astrology, and century have no supporting documen- survived the birth. He then married the behavior of devils. The source he tation (also the central protagonists, Dorothy Young, who also died, though drew upon most was the work of the the Quakers, did not perform exor- not before producing eight children by German mystic Jacob Boehme (1575– cisms). As a result, the story of the Jer- 1699. He married a final time to Jane 1624) whose first book, Aurora (1612), sey Devil’s origin has been shrouded in Abbot-Smout. In 1682, Daniel Leeds was considered heretical. Boehme’s monster tales that obscure the far more joined the local assembly. He also held writings focused upon the nature of sin interesting historical events. Here is a the title of surveyor general. In the and redemption. Leeds saw Boehme reassessment of the mythos. 1690s he surveyed and acquired land as a kindred spirit: a self-taught man in the Great Egg Harbor near the At- who, like himself, had experienced Daniel Leeds lantic coast. He handed this property ecstatic visions, been called before re- down to his sons as a family seat, and ligious authorities for his work, and The European settlement of New Jer- it came to be known as Leeds Point: rebelled against the establishment. sey, originally named Nova-Caesaria, the location most associated with the Defending his astrological writings began in the 1620s. Settlers came pre- Jersey Devil legend. using Boehme’s words, Leeds said, dominantly from England. They were “Everyone that will speak or teach of mostly members of the religious order the Society of Friends, commonly The Leeds Almanac called Quakers. They were delighted Daniel Leeds began publish- to discover large tracts of land all ing an almanac in 1687. It was but empty of people nestled between printed by the Englishman Manhattan and Philadelphia. The first William Bradford (1663–1752), royal governor of New Jersey, Edward one of colonial America’s first Hyde, Lord Cornbury (1661–1723), printers. Leeds’s astrological data is remembered as one of the most did not please all his readers. vilified and hated governors of colo- Several members of the Quaker nial America. He also stands accused Meeting complained that of being a cross-dresser. A portrait Leeds had used inappropri- believed to be Cornbury hangs in ate language and astrological the New York Historical Society and symbols and names that were shows him dressed as his aunt, Queen a little too “pagan.” The notion Anne. However, a recent reappraisal of of predicting the movements his gubernatorial career shows there is of the heavens did not sit well little but slander and innuendo con- with Quaker theology. He cerning Cornbury’s cross-dressing. went to the next meeting and Regardless of whether Cornbury was publically apologized. To his

Daniel Leeds first published his almanac in 1687. His astrological material so outraged his Quaker neighbors they tried to have it burned.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 51 divine mysteries, that we have the spirit the government of England.” Another defense of Quakerism ap- of God.” Leeds was heavily invested in local peared as Satan’s Harbinger Encountered Taken in the aggregate the published politics, leaning toward royal author- … Being Something by Way of Answer to work of Daniel Leeds shows him to be ity. In one instance Leeds advised Daniel Leeds (1700). With this pam- a Christian occultist. He was no dark Lord Cornbury to not swear in several phlet Leeds stood publically accused of magician though. He used astrology to members appointed to the assembly by working for the devil. gain deeper insight into the workings local election. The rest of the assembly Daniel Leeds continued to pub- of God and the meaning of Christi- complained to Cornbury about these lish his almanac and quarrel with the anity. The readers of his work would “groundless accusations” but to no avail. Quakers until 1716 when he retired and have been unfamiliar with the esoteric The Quakers saw the Anglican Gover- turned the business over to his son Titan nature of his writings, so they saw nor Cornbury as a local tyrant repre- Leeds (1699–1738). In 1728, Titan re- more occultist than Christian in him. senting the larger empire who sought designed the masthead to include the The Quaker Philadelphia Meeting im- to keep them under control and who Leeds family crest, which contained mediately suppressed the Leeds book. opposed their religion. When Dan- three figures on a shield. Dragon-like Now at odds with the Friends, Leeds iel Leeds, as one of their own, sided with a fearsome face, clawed feet, and produced the first in a line of outright with Cornbury the Quakers saw him bat-like wings, the figures, known as anti-Quaker tracts, The Innocent Vin- as a turncoat. Leeds also backed other wyverns, are suspiciously reminiscent dicated from the Falsehoods and Slanders anti-Quakers such as George Keith of the later descriptions of the Jersey of Certain Certificates (1695). Leeds (1638–1716), an early member of the Devil. Titan Leeds then found himself argued that Quaker theology denied Society of Friends who knew founder in one of the most notorious almanac the divinity of Christ, and he accused George Fox and William Penn and feuds of them all. The up and coming Quakers of being antimonarchists. He who soured on the Friends and began Philadelphia printer—and soon-to-be left the Quakers in part because, he preaching that the Quakers had strayed Founding Father—Benjamin Frank- said, “They formerly exclaimed against too far for proper Christianity. Keith lin entered the almanac game in 1732

In 1728, Titan redesigned the masthead to include the Leeds family crest, which contained three figures on a shield. Dragon-like with a fearsome face, clawed feet, and bat-like wings, the figures, known as wyverns, are suspiciously reminiscent of the later descriptions of the Jersey Devil.

was disowned by the London Friends with Poor Richard’s Almanac. As com- and eventually converted to Anglican- petitors in a lucrative market, the up- ism, as did Daniel Leeds. start Franklin decided to go after his After a series of Leeds’s anti-Quaker established rival to boost sales. In the pamphlets such as The Trumpet Sounded 1733 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanac, Out of the Wilderness of America (1699), Franklin used astrological techniques to George Fox, the founder of Quaker- predict that Titan Leeds would die on ism, responded to Leeds’s accusations October 17 of that year. with The Case Put and Decided (1699) in Franklin approached this “feud” Having taken over from his father to publish the which he argued that Quakerism stood in a humorous vein while Leeds took almanac, Titan Leeds added the family crest which contained a creature not unlike later unjustly accused of any theological it seriously. He retaliated in the Leeds descriptions of the Jersey Devil. wrongdoing. Leeds was also accused by Almanac by saying that Franklin “has the Burlington Meeting of being “evil.” manifest himself a fool and a lyar [sic]”

52 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer for his antics. Franklin replied with with the Quaker majority. The mock outrage and hurt, saying Leeds Leeds almanac was seen as inappro- was “too well bred to use any man so priate while his Temple of Wisdom indecently and so scurrilously,” there- bordered on the heretical, and he fore the person saying these things was publically accused of being must not be Titan Leeds but a crea- Satan’s harbinger. His other writ- ture from the spirit world. He went ings such as The Trumpet Sounded on to say that he had “receiv’d much attacked Quakerism and its founder abuse from the ghost of Titan Leeds.” George Fox directly. The Quakers Even after Titan Leeds finally died in saw no hurry to give their former 1738, Franklin responded to his own fellow religionist an easy time in creation that “Honest Titan, deceased, circles of gossip. His wives had all was raised [from the dead] and made died, as had several children. His

Titan stood accused by Benjamin Franklin of being a ghost and of having been resurrected from the grave. The family crest had winged dragons on it. In a time when thoughts of independence were being born, these issues made the Leeds family political and religious monsters. Images of creatures similar to the Jersey Devil were already being published in political and satirical pamphlets in the 1640s. This one from England was startling and well known.

to abuse his old friend [Franklin].” son Titan stood accused by Benjamin family crest drifted into the mists of Largely out of fun, Benjamin Frank- Franklin of being a ghost and of hav- time, leaving only the vague notion of lin had publically cast his rival almanac ing been resurrected from the grave. a frightening denizen of the Pine Bar- publisher as a ghost, brought back from The family crest had winged dragons rens. Even the Leeds Devil was all but the great beyond to haunt his enemies. on it. In a time when thoughts of forgotten, its fragile memory remodeled It is interesting to note that the tradi- independence were being born, these into the cartoonish “Jersey Devil” while tionally believed period of the “birth” issues made the Leeds family political Mother Leeds, as much a phantom as of the Jersey Devil (the mid-1730s) co- and religious monsters. From all this her supposed offspring, materialized incides with the death of Titan Leeds. over time the legend of the Leeds Devil out of the forests of Leeds Point. In the was born. References to the Jersey Devil twenty-first century, as rubes search the The Jersey Devil do not appear in newspapers or other woods off the Jersey Turnpike and the printed material until the twentieth Garden State Parkway for a bat-winged The Pine Barrens, that area of New century. The first major flap came in beast, the ghosts of Daniel Leeds and his Jersey with its thick and seemingly 1909. It is from these sightings that the family may just be watching and smiling I impenetrable forests, dark and forbid- popular image of the creature—batlike at the absurdity of it all. ding in the heat of summer, mysterious wings, horse head, claws, and general yet beautiful in the snows of winter, air of a dragon—became standardized. so unlike the industrial, urban blight The elements that led to the cre- most associated with the state, make ation of the Jersey Devil are by and a fine place for the birth of a monster. large unknown even to monster afi- Brian Regal teaches the at During the pre-Revolutionary period, cionados. The Quaker rivalries, the Kean University, New Jersey. His latest book is the Leeds family, who called the Pine almanac wars, Daniel Leeds and his Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads Barrens home, soured its relationship son Titan, as well as their monstrous and Cryptozoology (Palgrave, 2011).

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 53 [FORUM

[FORUM

Where Is the Science in Electronic Voice Phenomena? EVERETT A. THEMER

t is hard to turn on the television today without com- The art of recording EVPs, or elec- ing across a program about ghosts and the paranormal. tronic voice phenomena, is one of the most widely accepted methods of col- IThese shows might shine an entertaining light on the lecting evidence. Originally, a portable unknown, but they are often more about their cast of char- tape recorder was used to record an in- acters and investigators than the science of parapsychology. vestigator asking a series of questions and waiting for responses in the silence Since the 1920s, when Thomas gations. Some investigators believe re- following each question. After the EVP Edison hinted that he might have at- moving objects from a location will end session, the tape was played back and tempted to build a “ghost machine” to a possible haunting. Others use objects investigators listened for intelligent and communicate with the dead, some have to capture spirits, and psychic investi- relevant responses caught on the tape tried to apply a scientific method to gators believe spirits can be blessed or but not audible to the ear at the time. proving the existence of life after death. cast away. None of these methods have The theory is that spirits do not have So far this has been unsuccessful, and been scientifically proven, yet every in- enough energy to create sounds audible to this day every group of investigators, vestigator claims that the method they to the human ear but can leave impres- both amateur and professional, has use is successful. sions on the tape. their own set of protocols as to what In pursuit of scientifically verifiable As technology advanced, digital re- is or is not considered paranormal (see evidence, tools of all types have been corders replaced tape recorders, and in- Sharon Hill’s “Amateur Paranormal employed. Many theories about de- vestigators began processing the record- Research and Investigation Groups tecting paranormal activity have been ings through computer programs and Doing ‘Sciencey’ Things,” SI, March/ tested using everything from filters. Using these filters, background April 2012). rods to Geiger counters. While the noise could be eliminated and frequen- With no universally accepted meth- evidence they provide is scientifically cies isolated. Hypothetically this made it ods of investigating the paranormal, the debated, some tools such as audio re- easier to hear the spirit voices. Lacking beliefs of investigators can greatly influ- corders have become popular mainstays any scientific protocol, some investiga- ence the outcomes of their own investi- of the paranormal investigator. tors began manipulating the speed of the

54 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer recordings. Their belief is that ghosts recordings are either intentional hoaxes est in parapsychology grows it is time for exist on a different dimensional plane or definitive proof of life after death. both believers and skeptics to look at the than the living and would communicate In its current form, the recording of field and begin to adapt some universal in a different frequency range. In their electronic voice phenomena is more of protocols for its study. Until these are opinion this means that the recordings an art than a science. With no accepted created, real evidence and data are going need to be sped up or slowed down to protocols, results are often vague and to get lost in a soup of frauds, natural I hear any responses. left to personal interpretation. Why phenomena, and poor science. Some investigators began process- would some spirits communicate on ing their recordings so much that to an different frequencies and at different Everett A. Themer is an audio independent listener it might be im- speeds while other spirits are able to engineer and copywriter for a possible to tell the between give a response that sounds almost as Midwestern marketing com- a response and ambient noise manipu- if they are standing in front of the re- pany. He used to be an active lated and processed into sounding like corder? Scientifically it stands to reason researcher into paranormal intelligent communication. At the other that spirits would respond one way or concepts until he became tired of people end of the EVP spectrum are recordings the other and that method would be going into it proclaiming that they intended of investigators asking questions and the universal within the spirit world. to be science-based but in reality just responses that they get are so obvious What happens after we die may be an wanting to find activity they could claim as paranormal. and clear without any processing that the unanswerable question, but as the inter-

Psychic Successes or Memory Failures? THEODORE E. PARKS

ou randomly encounter an old friend you have not seen in years. “That’s weird,” you think, “I was just Ythinking about him and I never do that.” It’s hard for you to accept all this as a mere coincidence—to resist the feeling that somehow, somewhere, deep in your subcon- Why are people scious you knew beforehand that you were going to meet. (including, tragically, exists! people serving on Well, not so fast. Research under- were interested in what would seem to taken by my undergraduate students be a very different question—but one juries) so willing and me (Parks 1999) suggests, indi- that would also be of interest to skep- to believe in rectly, that you may be the victim of tics—to wit, why are people (including, “recovered” an illusion: your belief that you hadn’t tragically, people serving on juries) so thought about that person in years may willing to believe in “recovered” memo- memories? be false. To see why requires a bit of ries? Our hunch was that hearing such background. testimony from a supposed victim may remind us of a time when we recalled something in our own lives along with A Side Trip the impression that we hadn’t thought I say “indirectly” because at the time about that event or thing in a very long of our research, my students and I time, if ever.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 55 But, we wondered, what if that tions, two of them repeated a topic to factor”—is your belief that you had not memory was never actually hidden or which that person had responded “Yes thought about him often before. After even dormant? What if, in fact, we had (I do recall that)” when asked about all, if you actually had thought of that actually recalled that event or thing it before. In other words, by tailoring person fairly often, the probability of before, but now had simply forgotten part of the second list to each person’s your running into him soon after think- doing so? In other words, maybe people responses to the first list, we were (un- ing about him increases dramatically. are a good deal less than perfect at, in beknown to the subjects) asking how And our findings suggest that, with- our terms, “recalling recalling.” recently they had recalled two things out your knowing it, such a series may, To find out we decided upon a two- which we knew they had recalled just a indeed, have occurred; you may have phase experiment. In the first phase we few minutes ago. recalled your friend many times without asked people various questions of the Their responses to those two items remembering that you did! form, “Do you recall ____?” (your fa- might surprise you: Despite the fact If so, then the really impressive ele- that a correct response to a repeated ment of coincidence here is the fact that topic would have been “A few minutes your meeting took place soon enough ago” or “Just now during the experi- after one such recall that the memory ment” or words to that effect (and de- of that experience could still be re- spite the fact that we were careful to be trieved—you were able to remember sure that they understood that such an thinking about your friend. But even Clearly, our ability answer was permissible) over 70 percent with this restriction, if you recalled of our subjects gave a longer estimate of your friend fairly often, the coincidence to recall recalling time-since-recalling to at least one of involved here would be much less strik- is strikingly poor. their two critical items. In fact, these ing—much less improbable—than the errors were quite large, the mean esti- one you rejected at the time.1 Taken to an extreme, mate of time-since-recall being on the it may happen that order of twenty-five weeks—roughly Precognition? there are facts of our half a year! But, of course, the main point is the So, there was a coincidence, but maybe lives that we recall basic finding that our subjects often not one that is extraordinary enough to call for an extraordinary—much less a “for the first time” failed to recall that they had just now I recalled. Clearly, our ability to recall paranormal—explanation. over and over again! recalling is strikingly poor. Taken to Note an extreme, it may happen that there 1. And such a coincidence—meeting him are facts of our lives that we recall “for “soon enough” after recalling him—is made even the first time” over and over again! more likely by the additional fact that the time But even short of that, we should be period during which retrieval could be achieved at least skeptical about the validity of was extended by the actual presence of your friend (which would have been a strong aid to retrieval). any impression that we have never be- fore recalled some particular fact—of Reference the impression, however strong, that vorite game, first date, etc.). Our pur- Parks, Theodore E. 1999. On one aspect of the “recovery” of a long lost memory has oc- evidence for recovered memories. American pose here was to trigger the recall of at curred. Journal of Psychology 112: 365–70. least two childhood events (see below). At any rate, after going through a list of twenty such questions, we asked each Back to Your Meeting of our subjects a second, individually At the same time, our results provide tailored, set of twenty questions of the the basis for an alternative, non-para- Theodore E. Parks is a pro- form, “When was the last time you re- normal understanding of what seemed fessor emeritus of psychol- called ____?” to be an astonishing coincidence: meet- ogy at the University of The important thing about this sec- ing a long-lost friend soon after think- California, Davis. His special ond list was that, while most of these ing about him. Of course, the key research interests include questions involved topics that had not element that makes that coincidence visual and memory illusions. been mentioned in the first set of ques- astounding—what gives it the “wow Email: [email protected].

56 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer BOOK REVIEWS]

An Inside Look at a ‘Psychic’s’ World RAY HYMAN

very skeptic will want to read this book. It provides a rare and Einsightful view of a self-pro- claimed psychic’s world. Mark Edward, Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium. By Mark Edward. Feral House, Port Townsend, WA, like many youngsters, began perform- 2012. ISBN 978-1-936239-27-6. 220 pp. Softcover, ing magic tricks in his early youth. $18.95 He graduated to conducting séances at Hollywood’s famous . Perhaps, as a result of performing these séances, Edward decided that stan- dard magic lacked the mystery and appeal of and . He dropped doing magic tricks and marketed himself as a psychic and a medium. This book provides fascinat- sional help. Unlike other “psychics,” ing, and often depressing, descriptions Edward takes pride in the fact that he refuses to provide advice on certain of his during twenty-five Edward currently occupies years as a professional psychic. legal or medical matters. When his Edward’s career includes a decade an ambiguous role in the client begins talking about suicide or working as a 900-number psychic for skeptical community. other delicate matters, he refers them to the . He also He is quite active in help- suicide hotlines or agencies that provide worked other venues, including stints as ing skeptical groups test help or advice on such matters. Edward seems to take pride in the fact that he a radio psychic, a spiritualist medium, psychic claims and debunk doing private readings, and providing avoids telling his clients what they want readings at parties for Hollywood ce- obviously phony psychics to hear. Instead, he says, he tells them lebrities. who exploit their clients. what they need to hear. Edward either possesses an impres- At the same time, My colleagues who are clinical sive memory or he took prolific notes Edward still performs psychologists or psychiatrists might from all his encounters. He provides question how well Edward may be detailed, often verbatim, reports of as a “psychic.” qualified to know what his clients his clients’ concerns and his responses need to hear. To support his position, to those concerns. From his vivid de- Edward quotes from a letter from a scriptions of his exchanges with callers boyfriend would return. Other callers woman named Ginger. When Ginger to the Psychic Friends Network, we re- were contemplating suicide. originally phoned Edward, “she had a alize how pathetic and desperate many Edward is aware that he is dealing loaded gun to her head and was ready of the callers were. Many callers were with clients who obviously require the to pull the trigger.” After talking with asking Edward if he could tell them if help of professional psychologists or Edward, she put the gun down “and has their boyfriend would return. Typically, psychiatrists. Like many other profes- since turned her whole life around for the boyfriend had beaten them, even in sional “psychics” I have known, he ap- the better…” The problem is that this one case gouging out his girlfriend’s parently justifies his attempts to advise is one of the very few cases in which we eye. Yet, the caller was hoping that his clients with the belief that these know an outcome. Over the many years Edward would offer her hope that the people do not have access to profes- of answering queries from callers, we

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 57 [NEW AND NOTABLE

Listing does not preclude future review. have no idea how the advice from Edward BOOTSTRAP GEOLOGIST: My Life in Science. Gene Shinn. made a difference. So it is an open ques- Geologist and occasional S  I contributor Shinn recounts his interesting career in marine , tion of whether a caller’s interaction with including some examples of pseudoscience such as his Edward made any difference—positive or debunking of the so-called “Bimini Road” evidence for At- negative—in the client’s life. lantis. University Press of Florida, 2013, 296 pp., $34.95. Arguably, many of Edward’s other in- teractions with clients may be more be- nign. This might especially be so when he THE MYSTERY OF EXISTENCE: Why Is There Anything At All? is giving readings at private celebrity par- Edited by John Leslie and Robert Lawrence Kuhn. A phi- ties. However, even when doing readings losopher (University of Guelph) and a public intellectual for “fun”—and I confess to having done and host of the long-running PBS series on science and many such readings over a number of philosophy Closer to the Truth assemble readings from years—the clients often do take the read- to the present (by a number of eminent scientists and thinkers) on the question of the title and subtitle and ings seriously. My guess is that most such all ramifications thereof (including the question “Why Ask readings are harmless. But, as I said, this is Why?”). Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, 314 pp., $29.95. just a guess. Edward takes pride in making sure he is doing no harm. However, it is fair to point out that we just have no way PHILOSOPHY OF PSEUDOSCIENCE: Reconsidering the to know. Demarcation Problem. Edited by Massimo Pigliucci and Edward currently occupies an am- Maarten Boudry. The editors argue convincingly that the biguous role in the skeptical community. nature of science and the difference between science and pseudoscience are topics of crucial interest for philoso- He is quite active in helping skeptical phers, historians, and sociologists of science and also groups test psychic claims and debunk ob- intrinsically interesting and directly relevant to people’s viously phony psychics who exploit their lives. They present twenty-four essays by prominent and clients. At the same time, Edward still per- original thinkers on the subject to help “bring some order forms as a “psychic.” He does not claim to to a large, complex, and inherently interdisciplinary field.” have psychic powers. On the other hand, University of Chicago Press, 2013, 469 pp., $35, £24.50. he does not openly disclaim such powers. He leaves it up to the client to decide if the REALITY CHECK: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Fu- reading is based on paranormal powers. ture. Donald Prothero. Prothero, emeritus professor of This position is controversial with other geology at Occidental College and coauthor (with Daniel skeptics who come from a magical back- Loxton) of several skeptical books, including Abominable ground. They insist that Edward should Science! (reviewed in this issue on p. 59), takes a close openly tell his clients that his readings look at science denial in various forums, including evo- have no paranormal basis; to do otherwise lution, HIV as a cause of AIDS, and anthropogenic global is to behave unethically. warming, arguing that science deniers pose a serious and genuine threat to society. Indiana University Press, 2013. Edward, on the other hand, insists that 368 pp., $35.00. he sees himself as a performance artist. If he openly told his clients that what he does THINK: Why You Should Question Everything. Guy P. Harri- is a fraud, it would deprive the reading of son. The author of 50 Popular Beliefs People Think Are True its mystique. challenges us to think critically and understand the wisdom Because it provides us a rare insight of questioning the “infinite number of weird claims, unusual ideas, dangerous ideas, and unlikely-to-be-true beliefs into a psychic’s world, as well as raising stalking you every day.” Organized into five lively sections: some important ethical issues for skep- Standing Tall on a Fantasy-Prone Planet, Pay a Visit to the tics to ponder, I highly recommend every Strange Thing Living in Your Head, A Thinkers Guide to Un- skeptic carefully read and ponder this usual Claims and Beliefs, The Proper Care and Feeding of a book’s contents. Thinking Machine, and So Little to Lose and a Universe to Gain. Prometheus Books, 2013, 170 pp., $16.95. Ray Hyman is professor emeritus of psychol- —Kendrick Frazier and Benjamin Radford ogy at the University of Oregon. He is also a member of the Executive Council of the Com- mittee for Skeptical Inquiry.

58 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Scholarly Cryptozoology: Now, There’s Something You Don’t See Every Day

SHARON HILL

heard the first teasers about Abominable Science! over a year ago. A volume by Iscientist Donald Prothero and passion- ate researcher Daniel Loxton on crypto- Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, zoology as a science? This was going to and Other Famous Cryptids. By Daniel Loxton be a different kind of book, one that was and Donald R. Prothero. Columbia University Press, New York, 2013. ISBN: 9780231153201. sorely needed. 424 pp. Hardcover, $29.95 When I received my review copy, I noted on social media that I was se- riously impressed with the first two chapters. This elicited a strange reac- tion from two of my online acquain- tances who lean to the “Bigfoot be- liever” side. “Is this another debunking book?” they asked. “Do they attack the Patterson-Gimlin film like the others?” and others) the authors go to the orig- Behind those questions, I heard inal written sources, as early as can be expressions of dread and annoyance. found, to determine when they ap- Those who are invested in the reality of peared and how the story developed. Bigfoot do not take kindly to scholarly There are some stunning surprises here skeptical literature about their pet sub- The most profound take for those who are not intimately famil- jects. Why? Because it demolishes their away from this book is that iar with the famous “Surgeon’s photo” work. They will not like this book. It our monsters are created, at Loch Ness and the antecedent of is too good. It is well-referenced. It is not found. the iconic Patterson-Gimlin film in solid. It is damning. which we see a detail for detail match. There are only a few truly stellar It is more than a little suspicious and cryptozoology books that are worth re- should cause serious cryptid researchers ferring to general readers and seasoned to pause and reassess their assumptions. followers of the subject. Along with We discover that a few key people— David Daegling’s Bigfoot Exposed and Both authors, like almost all cryptid often, it is one individual per cryptid— Benjamin Radford’s Tracking the Ch- re searchers, dearly wish for these crea- were responsible for its entire genesis. upacabra, Abominable Science! takes its tures to really be out there. They love Our hopes and encouragement from place upon the must-have list for cryp- the subject. If they didn’t, this book the media were responsible for their tid researchers. would not be the model of careful refer- proliferation and sometimes their re- There is a chasm between the encing and curating that it is. There is birth and second proliferation such as scholarship done by several skeptical a love of finding out that is self-evident what is currently happening with mon- researchers, such as Prothero and Lox- in these pages. If one reads this exposé sters like Bigfoot. ton, and that of the pop cryptozoology as debunking, it is only because there The most profound take away from books full of recycled stories, propa- is bunk to be called out. And there is this book is that our monsters are cre- gated errors, and rampant speculation. plenty. ated, not found. A feedback loop ex- Abominable Science! is not one of those Instead of exploring the folklore ists in modern film that creates and mass marketed mystery mongering origins of the creatures in question propagates the monsters we love. Cur- books. It’s a definitive volume. (Bigfoot, Nessie, Mokele Mbembe, rent self-appointed cryptozoologists

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 59 will find this difficult to accept. With evidence for or against viability of these ular monsterology. It is thrilling to see its extensive citations, awesome book mystery creatures. This book illustrates this. I can only hope that researchers of jacket, thick and glossy pages, and that science evolves, yet cryptozool- these topics—the Finding Bigfoot show lovely illustrations throughout includ- ogy has not. We have no Bigfoot, no people, the amateur researchers, the ing many originals, this book was many Nessie, no Yeti. None of these iconic popular authors of monster volumes, years worth of meticulous work. It is a monsters have been found, nor do we the paranormal proponents online— greatly commendable piece of schol- have any reliable knowledge about will actually read it and absorb the arship not in biology but in folklore. them. The field has changed in flavor many critical lessons it delivers. Humans tell stories; humans interpret since the inception of the Internet. the world around them as they see fit. These days, cryptozoology is sour. The Sharon Hill is a geologist and policy spe- That is different from what actually is. problems are not seriously considered cialist who also and writes on We need to understand this in order to but brushed aside. The evidence for topics relating to the paranormal, pseudo- ask the right questions and get to the cryptozoology is floppy. It can’t stand science, cryptozoology, anomalous natu- best answer. without being propped up by rampant ral phenomena, and skepticism. She has a If you call yourself a cryptozoology speculation and a quasi-religious (or master’s degree in education, specializing researcher, you must consider and con- sometimes outright religious) zeal. in science and the public, and runs the front the problems that arise in your Abominable Science! is a sharp sword popular critical thinking newsblog Doubt- subject area, its history, and the existing that cuts through the bogusness of pop- ful News (http://doubtfulnews.com).

A Serious Look at Psychiatry’s Madness Model

PETER BARGLOW

ad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs by Stuart Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and MA. Kirk, Tomi Gomory, and Drugs. By Stuart A. Kirk, Tomi Gomory, and David David Cohen comprehensively eval- Cohen. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, USA uates psychiatry’s own evidence for and London UK, 2013. ISBN: 1412849764 . 346 pp. its disease model and its justification Hardcover, $39.95. for its treatment of mental illness. It attains this goal better than all prior efforts to discredit psychiatry. The authors’ basic intellectual framework is social work and welfare, sociology, and public affairs, and I think they would like to distance their fields from aim only at reliability and clinical de- psychiatrists. Distortions of research psychiatric-medical hegemony. The scription, not validity. As a conse- are driven by a profitable drug indus- book’s major claims I’ll discuss only quence the DSM volumes currently pay try that floods populations identified with regard to schizophrenia, the single little attention to biomarkers capable of as medically ill with agents that have as most severe and researched condition distinguishing between major disor- many deleterious side effects as bene- of psychiatry. ders. Tom Insel, chief of the National fits. Two of the authors, Gomory and The first claim (with which I agree) Institute of Mental Health, also criti- Cohen (2010), aptly named this gigan- maintains that psychiatry’s illness clas- cizes psychiatric nosology for failing tic influence the “Biomedical Industrial sifications (The Diagnostic and Statis- this scientific requirement. Complex.” tical Manual of Mental Disorders, or A second claim I also accept is that A third major claim convicts psy- DSM, versions I-V) are incompetent proof of benefit for medications is chiatry of excess coercion in treat- and insufficient. However, the DSMs vastly exaggerated or even falsified by ment practices such as somatic

60 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer therapies and involuntary hospital- state’s fifty-eight counties, Nevada and On the other side of the debate, ization. Yes, overused shock treat- Yolo Counties. To return to the other Thomas Szasz, an eloquent zealot, de- ments (ECTs) and aversive condi- side, could we not predict that during nounced the dehumanization in our di- tioning methods were prominent in the immediate months following the agnosing disease and championed the World War I in Germany, France, and Sandy Hook, Connecticut, school and concept of the “myth of mental illness.” England and present in the USA during Aurora, , theater massacres, (The authors of the book don’t men- World War II. But their use has dwin- psychiatrists (echoing the public out- tion that their admired witness had an dled during the last half century. The rage) would demand lower standards earnest flirtation with pseudoscientific accusation that today’s psychiatry is for involuntary hospitalization? Scientology.) If small simple organs excessively coercive in promoting invol- like the pancreas, the kidney, or even untary hospitalization may be somewhat the tiny thumb can have a disease, why justified, but it requires cautious consid- If small simple organs like can’t the human brain with its 86 bil- eration of several variables minimized the pancreas, the kidney, lion neurons be likewise afflicted? Yes, by the authors. The values and practices or even the tiny thumb can it is dismaying that we can’t yet under- of U.S. psychiatrists and psychologists stand their failures in integration that mirror the regional legal, cultural, and have a disease, why can’t produce disease. But we also still await political values of America regarding in- the human brain with its knowledge about the etiology of most voluntary methods of treatment. There 86 billion neurons be fatal cancers. is a lively current debate about whether likewise afflicted? The only weak section of this other- severely disturbed patients were better wise persuasive and serious book is its off in the warehouses of state hospitals offering of potential alternatives to the or in the U.S. prison system. Failures to current U.S. system of medicalization of give humane care in both settings orig- mental “mad” conditions. The authors inate in funding and political priorities, I disagree vehemently with the consistently regard these as represent- but perhaps the psychiatric profession book’s fourth major claim—that no ing “personally perceived distress” or has not resisted these forces strongly evidence verifies that insanity is a med- deviant, uncooperative, morally offen- enough. ical disease. The authors quote DSM sive, or displaying socially disruptive In northern California, judges today IV’s admission that there is a paucity misbehavior. Such variations of “normal who routinely lead hearings about of laboratory findings proving a schizo- human experience,” the authors suggest, whether a patient should be forced to phrenic diagnosis, but they ignore the remain in a psychiatric facility more immediately following citation of con- can be managed without involuntary than the seventy-two hours mandated sistent brain abnormalities in size of the confinement through skilled commu- by law (designated a “5150” process) brain’s ventricular system, cerebrum, nication and ample emotional support. lean heavily toward protection of civil and hippocampus. During 2012, good The book maintains that involuntary liberties even of potentially violent pa- statistical evidence emerged demon- treatments are ineffective anyway in tients. Between 1936 and 1955 psychi- strating 50 to 100 genetic loci to be as- preventing homicide and suicide. It atry adopted the intervention of frontal sociated with schizophrenia. According proposes that expert prescription priv- lobotomy for the profoundly mentally to Mad Science, “Delusional Disorder” ileges should be abolished and replaced ill, with the consequence that 50,000 is not a disease but identifies a “person by consumer reviews of psychoactive such barbaric operations were per- with incredible, scary beliefs” (p. 322). medications. Medicines might then be formed in America. But fifteen years Is a person’s refractory conviction that chosen without persons being stigma- later, representatives of the American a stranger has replaced his internal tized by the term, “psychiatric patient.” Psychiatric Association loudly pro- organs with another person’s entrails For this reviewer such a “libertarian” ap- tested politically motivated incarcer- without leaving a wound or scar merely proach is anarchic enough to make him n ation of dissidents as mental patients an odd fantasy? Their book includes an uneasy. during the Chinese cultural revolu- extensive review of the verdict of the tion of 1966–1976. In 2002, Califor- world’s finest medical historians about Peter Barglow, MD, is clinical professor of nia passed “Laura’s Law” (Assembly this question. Almost all of them impli- medicine and psychiatry at UC Davis and Bill 1421) mandating court-ordered cate the human brain. For example, the a psychiatrist member of the American sustained and intensive treatment by late Roy Porter concluded that mental Psychiatric Association. He wrote about a treatment team, housing, and per- disorders are “complex and distorted haps anti-psychotic agents. But it has reflections of dysfunctional brain sites deficiencies of the PTSD diagnosis in our been implemented by just two of the and states” (p. 63). May/June 2012 issue.

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 61 [INBOX

aerodynamic pressure on the body the book from Amazon when I exceeds the strength of the material noticed that it was also published (rock, in this case), and crushes it. by Harper Collins. While I doubt That process is run-away, that is, that it has any real bearing on the once it breaks into a few pieces the authorship of Dr. Offit’s own smaller pieces continue breaking up book, it does raise a question into still smaller pieces, in a simi- about the integrity of a publisher lar way that a smaller rock is eas- that won’t demand the highest ier to break with a hammer than standards from its editors. Think a bigger one. The half megaton of I’ll pass on any books published energy is just the kinetic energy of by Harper Collins until I see a the mass of the rock moving at 18 mea culpa. km/sec. Some of the energy turns Jim Phillips into the light and heat of the bo- Newcastle, Wyoming lide, some into the sonic boom and aerodynamic shock wave, and some into vaporizing the rock itself. May I suggest that the Different compositions re spond of Offit’s fine book be considered to atmospheric entry differently, independently of the publisher’s of course, and in fact that is one shortcomings on the Cheung book. way we can know the composition —Editor. of incoming bodies. If the Che- lyabinsk body had been iron, it would likely have made it to the I just read your article about The- ground in one or a few pieces, as resa Cheung in my recent issue happened with the Sikhote-Alin of S I and was impact in 1947. If it had been a motivated to send the attached soft and weak body, like a carbo- email to Harper Collins. Perhaps naceous chondrite, it would have if they receive an avalanche of exploded considerably higher than other emails expressing the same the 23 km altitude where it ac- sentiment they will be prompted to do something. The Chelyabinsk Meteor essentially a significant fraction of tually broke up. Since pieces of the body were recovered, and we Explosion the orbital velocities of planets (or Dear Sir or Madam, meteoroids) around the sun. The can measure their strength and density, this event becomes a use- I have just read the article by The photo on the cover of the Earth’s orbital velocity is 30 km/ Benjamin Radford in Skepti- ful “calibration” of our theoretical sec. The “average” speed of small cal Inquirer magazine (July/ July/August 2013 S I- models of atmospheric entry of such , and the accompanying asteroids or meteoroids relative to August 2013) that exposes bodies. the rampant plagiarism of article (“The Chelyabinsk Event the Earth (but before the Earth’s gravitational field alters the speed) this author in her book The of February 15, 2013”), are but Element Encyclopedia of Vam- is around 20 km/sec. The Chely- the cake. Please supply the icing! Plagiarism in Vampire pires: An A-Z of the Undead. I would love to read more about abinsk body was actually a rather “slow” one, with a velocity rela- Encyclopedia I am surprised that you the actual physics involved in a have not withdrawn this tive to the Earth of “only” 14 km/ “space rock” entering Earth’s at- I always look forward to the book from publication given sec before “falling” into the Earth’s the large amount of evidence mosphere: e.g., how gravity can book reviews in each issue of accelerate the object to such high gravity which sped it up only mod- provided by Mr. Radford. estly, to around 18 km/sec. S I and some- Do you have an inten- velocities; how friction can gen- The temperature rise is just a times buy books based on these tion of doing anything about erate the high temperature that thermodynamic process. As the ob- reviews. In the July/August issue, this or shall I draw this to leads to the half-megaton explo- ject rams into the air, a “stagna- I found Benjamin Radford’s ar- the attention of other more sion; what role the composition widely read/watched media tion layer” of atmosphere envelopes ticle about plagiarism in The El- of the “rock” plays in how the ement Encyclopedia of : that might cause HarperCol- the body. That air is heated as the lins greater embarrassment? object disintegrates; etc. streaming velocity, 18 km/sec, is An A–Z of the Undead by The- Graham Hodge John Wyman converted into random motions resa Cheung and published by East Aurora, New York Stoney Creek, Ontario (heat) of the molecules. Molecules Harper Collins most interesting. Later in the same issue, I read Canada of air with a mean velocity of 18 km/sec correspond to a temperature the book review by Harriet Hall For those who wish to add their of several thousand degrees Celsius. of Dr. Paul Offit’s book Do You voices, HarperCollins can be Coauthor Alan Harris replies: The explosion and half-megaton Believe in Magic? The Sense and reached at HarperCollins Publish- It’s not all the Earth’s gravity; cos- of energy is not due to the heating. Nonsense of ers, 10 East 53RD St., New York, mic velocities are just very large, The explosion is caused when the and was on the verge of ordering NY 10022—Editors.

62 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Conspiracy Beliefs Poll odds certainly favor it.” was not our poll, of course. I was if WKBD archived the tape. If The unreasonable (i.e., con- just reporting on it. I can’t change so, it would at least be good for I am often frustrated when en- spiracy-based magical think- the questions, some of which I dis- laugh; but I remain disgusted countering questions in articles ing) answer would be “no, God agreed with too. The question “Do with Geller and his defenders. wasted all that time, energy, discussing poll results that ap- you believe aliens exist?” was in- Gerald Martin material, effort, and creativity parently do not ask what the poll deed very poorly worded. A num- Canton, Michigan writer intended to ask. This has just for wonderful us, nobody ber of readers objected to it. But just occurred with question ten else, and we are the center and overall the poll did reveal some of the poll in “Do You Believe purpose of it all, the gem of all interesting specifics about “conspir- Good Questions! That? Poll Zeroes in on Con- creation”. acy” beliefs, and I think those were spiracy Beliefs” re ported on in Notice that the question worth reporting. —Editor The July/August S I- the July/August 2013 SI. This didn’t ask “Do you know aliens  contains many interest- question asks: “Do you believe exist?” or “Do you think aliens ing and insightful articles. I was aliens exist, or not?” Strictly in- exist among us?” but only whether Mind Over Metal? bemused by “British Business- terpreted, as in “Do you believe we believe aliens exist somewhere, man Sentenced in Bogus ‘Bomb aliens exist (somewhere in the and I honestly do, even though I When I read Joe Nickell’s “Mind Detector’ Scam,” which notes universe), or not?” my answer don’t have a shred of evidence for Over Metal” (July/August 2013), that the “fake bomb detectors would have to be “probably.” it, just my sense of the probabili- I paid particular attention to the [were] based on $20 golf ball I support the Planetary Society ties involved. Does that make me comments about . finders bought from the United and its SETI efforts, which pre- a conspiracy theorist? It appears Sometime in the mid-seven- States.” The report left unan- suppose a decent chance of a yes that the Public Policy Polling ties—I wish I could be more swered whether the devices could answer to that question. people think it does. I believe specific—Geller was a guest on find golf balls. I would be skepti- However, interpreted that they should rethink their inter- the Lou Gordon Program on cal. However, perhaps they could way, question ten has nothing to pretation. WKBD-TV in Detroit. Com- be added to the equipment used do with conspiracy beliefs, so I mercials for the show promised by UFOlogists to find evidence doubt that’s what the poll writer Richard S. Russell he would demonstrate his powers. of UFOs or used by ghost hunt- was really asking. My best guess Madison, Wisconsin At the beginning of the in- ers on the Queen Mary. Or per- would be the question they’re terview, Geller and Gordon were haps their use should be limited really asking is something like For skepticism to maintain its seated across from one another at to finding golf balls in the Queen “Do you believe aliens exist (and own credibility, care must be a desk. Gordon held up a large Mary recreational areas. are active on Earth, as depicted taken to avoid any whiff of agen- metal bolt and asked Geller to in the pages of, say, the National David W.E. Briggs das or political motivation. bend it using his mind. (I admit Enquirer), or not?” The answer is Marion, Massachusetts For example, the article “Do I burst out laughing.) Geller of course, completely different. you Believe That? Poll Zeroes in quickly demurred and produced If I ever respond to one of on Conspiracy Beliefs” should a small spoon and said he would these polls, I am going to be re- The Perpetual Question not be conflating in the same list bend it instead. ally torn on how to respond to a both fringe propositions (“Do Geller began to fidget and question like this. Two writers chided Mark Levy you believe a UFO crashed”), squirm as though he was sitting for lumping the Dean Drive in John Moore with perfectly plausible ones on a hotplate. Mindful of mis- with perpetual-motion pseudo- Arlington, Texas (“Do you believe the Bush ad- direction, I concentrated on his science (Letters, July/August ministration intentionally misled hands. As I watched, in fits and 2013). Strictly speaking, they’re the public about WMD?”) starts Geller began to maneuver right, but I think a machine that I was somewhat taken aback to To treat the latter as if it were the spoon toward the edge of violates conservation of momen- see, among fifteen questions in the “same category” as the for- the desk, all the time babbling at tum is not much different from where the “yes, I believe that” mer smacks of being a kind of Gordon. Suddenly, with his right response was typically associated hand he jerked the spoon over one that violates conservation “guilt by association” that would of energy. As I recall, the Dean with conspiracy theories, this make a fine piece of political the edge of the desk and pressed odd duck: “Q10: Do you be- down on the handle, bending it Drive “worked” by vibrating propaganda in its own right. The hard, which made it walk along lieve aliens exist, or not?” which thought that our government into a forty-five degree angle. He clocked in at 29 percent yes, 47 then held the spoon up in tri- the floor and threw off attempts institutions might sometimes to weigh it. Suspending it from percent no, and 24 percent not intentionally mislead the public umph before an astonished and approving Gordon. wires would have provided good sure. is not particularly bizarre. It is, Surely the reasonable an- I was aghast: not only was evidence one way or the other, if anything, more on the order swer—given a universe of 400 Geller a fraud, he wasn’t even a but this was never done. of a perfectly predictable modus billion galaxies, each with around good fraud. To verify what I had operandi. Philip M. Cohen 400 billion stars, most of them seen, I watched the rebroadcast a Cleveland, Ohio with several planets, and 14.5 bil- Tom Keske couple of days later. The decep- lion years in which intelligent life Randolph, Massachusetts tion was still blatant; but if there might possibly arise on at least was any fallout I never heard If Ken Moses really did make a one (other) of them—is “yes, the Thanks to all who wrote. This about it. I have always wondered working Dean Drive, he could

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 63 [LETTERS TO THE EDITOR have refined it (perhaps driven it sonal noncommercial activities, ists, chiropractors, and all forms want your ideas challenged, don’t faster) and made a mint. While somewhat applicable to a small of “alternative” medicine, and all send them to people who (re- it would not be perpetual mo- personal or family business, and the many preachers of quackery member), number four: “Don’t tion, it would break another inapplicable to a big business. As who cause society to lose massive claim things without proof unless fundamental law of physics, a liberal I do not believe that tax- amounts in money and health. it cannot be disputed” or number Newton’s Third Law, generating ation infringes personal liberty, Should this increase the role ten: “I was wrong.” force without reaction. I suspect so I judge tax issues based on of government, so be it. I like Robert Jedrzejewski Moses actually saw some minor other values. Fagin has presented to continue driving my car, but Tarentum, Pennsylvania side-effect of any jiggling unbal- his views; I just want to set the sometimes a government-in- anced machine, such as the same record straight about liberals’ stalled red light deprives me of stick-slip friction that “walks” a views. this right, but I accept it. A pri- Keith Taylor replies: washing machine across a laun- Dr. Richard Stallman mary role of government should Robert Jedrzejewski asked if I was dry. A simple test would be to Cambridge, Massachusetts be to protect citizens from harm, willing to admit I was wrong. hang it on wires, directing its especially from their own igno- Yep, at the age of eighty-three I’ve thrust sideways. A working Dean rance. been wrong very often. But while Drive would swing out and hang I found Barry Fagin’s article Marvin J. (Chic) Schissel a nitpicker might find me wrong at an angle. interesting but somewhat trou- Roslyn Heights, New York in my comment on Mr. District Hugh Young bling. I’ve never been able to get Attorney I’m not worried about it. Porirua, New Zealand a clear understanding about what The attorney and Voltaire agreed Libertarianism really is. Reduced Voltaire Veracities? and I agree with them. government, surely, but to what extent? Lowering restrictions on In discussing impossibility O, the irony! In the Skeptical In- individual rights, but how much (“Mathematical Explanations and quirer! Please tell Keith Taylor Dates on Certificates in the way of restriction is allow- Degrees of Impossibility,” July/ (Forum, “Grumble, Grumble,” able? August 2013) Massimo Pigliucci July/August) that Voltaire did Further to Ben Radford’s col- While the article made some emphatically states that “the U.S. not say “I disagree with what you umn and Mike Brown’s letter solid points, some statements Patent Office long ago stopped say but I’ll defend to your death (July/August 2013) on wrong were equivocal or led to unpleas- even considering applications for your right to say it.” Something dates, let me add a note. In ant implications. He referred to [perpetual motion] machines.” quite like that (“I disapprove of 1953, I acquired my first car (a the “evolutionary basis for gender Pardon, but the statement is what you say…”) appeared in Morris Minor) and a New York differences” and to “evolutionary “patently” false. Numerous such the Voltaire biography by Eve- State driving license. Some four psychology” regarding “gender apparatuses receive patents every lyn Beatrice Hall, but the words months later I was waved down year. What the USPTO attempts equality,” leaving me with the by a policeman (I forget why) implication that, because of these were not attributed to Voltaire to not allow is claims that in- soi-même. who asked to see my license. clude perpetual motion. Patent scientifically documented differ- He looked at it briefly, and then 8,397,496 of March 19, 2013, ences, he feels we should con- Sandy McCroskey burst out laughing, saying that I is a recent example of a perpetual sider women in a different light Brooklyn, New York was only four months old. Ap- motion device that was not only than men. But this smacks of parently the clerk in the license considered but issued as a patent. unacceptable bias. Evolutionary bureau had put the current date Mr. Taylor seems to have vio- differences may be useful in eval- in the spot where my birth date James E. White lated at least three of his own ten uating groups but not individu- belonged. Okemos, Michigan als. Group averages are irrelevant; rules on “veracity” of discourse. choosing someone for a job, or a When he erroneously states that Robert Stairs team, or a political office must be the radio program, Mr. District Peterborough, Ontario Questions on Political based on the individual, not the Attorney, appropriated Voltaire’s Values group. . . . “I disagree with what you say, He asks, “What are the rights but I’ll defend to the death your The New Atheists Barry Fagin misrepresents us of psychics and fortunetellers”? right to say it” for a “stirring liberals when he says that we Will “certain policy positions” lead-in” to the broadcast. The Ian Alterman, in his letter (July/ emphasize fairness and propor- violate these rights? And if the correct lead-in was: “And it shall August 2013), along with many tionality over the moral dimen- FDA regulates homeopathic be my duty as District Attorney others, feels that the “new athe- sion of liberty (“Valuing Science medicine “similar to other drugs” not only to prosecute to the limit ists” are much too strident in with Different Values,” May/ is this a good idea? If, as he sug- of the law all crimes perpetrated their writings. His opinion seems June 2013, and response to gest, we should base public policy within this County, but to de- to be that if these writings were Letters to Editor, July/August on sound science, I don’t think fend with equal vigor the rights just a little more humble, their 2013). Speaking as a liberal, and psychics and fortunetellers have and privileges of all its citizens.” message might influence a larger a campaigner for freedom in the any rights to pursue their activ- I may be a word or two off, but I audience. If their message was computing field, I value both— ities. What they do is rooted in still recollect the distinctive tim- more respectful of the opposing however, on any given issue, one fraud and deceit, and harms indi- bre of the “D.A.’s” voice. Mainly opinion they would influence or the other may apply more viduals and the society. The same I am curious as to whether or not more people. I have yet to un- strongly: the moral dimension goes for homeopaths, and their Mr. Taylor will admit to violat- derstand how I should respect of liberty is paramount in per- partners in crime: acupunctur- ing number one: “If you don’t Exodus 20: 20–21 which says,

64 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer “When a man strikes his slave, Immanuel Velikovsky The Null Hypothesis male or female, with a rod and [FEEDBACK the slave dies under his hand, he As for Velikovsky (Letters, July/ Paul G. Brown (“Bringing Bayes shall be punished. But if the slave August 2013), back in the early into Predictions,” July/August survives a day or two, he is not 1970s, had an 2013) misinterprets the meaning The letters column is a forum on mat- to be punished for the slave is his article in The Magazine of Fan- of p in his interesting review of ters raised in previous issues. Letters money.” (Emphasis mine.) This tasy and Science Fiction called The Signal and the Noise. should be no longer than 225 words. horrific statement is in Rev. Al- “Worlds in Confusion” in which The null hypothesis is al ways Due to the volume of letters we receive, terman’s holy book, and I would he clearly demonstrated that considered to be true. If two not all can be published. Send letters as email text (not attachments) to be disrespecting humanity if I did Velikovsky’s goal was to demon- groups in a research study are [email protected]. In the subject line, not speak out against such brutal strate that many in found to differ, and if the selected the Old Testament had a basis provide your surname and informative and outrageous commands. p value is <.05, then it is said identification, e.g.: “Smith Letter on Jones How I wish I would have in fact, including the “manna that the difference would occur evolution art icle.” In clude your name and had a book written by Dawkins, from heaven” dropping on the 5 times out of 100 or, as Mr. address at the end of the letter. You may Hitchens, Harris, or Stenger Hebrews in the desert, which Brown writes, 1 in 20. Period. also mail your letter to the editor to 944 Velikovsky attributed to pieces when I was struggling with the The null hypothesis is therefore Deer Dr. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122. of a comet falling down. As Asi- pressure put upon me by the rejected but not proven. That the mov noted, Velikovsky failed to conservative Christian commu- finding is considered unlikely is explain why the “manna” failed nity in which I was reared. It correct, but the notion “not by to fall anywhere else and why it took nearly ten years of pain as chance alone” is not to be applied would not come down on the I struggled with my changing be- to the obtained research out- Jewish Sabbath. Asimov observed come. Under the null hypothesis, liefs. Having an ally like Dawkins that Worlds In Collision came out chance is said to be operating 100 or Harris would have shortened around the time of the founding percent of the time. that struggle by assuring me that of Israel and the book sought to I was not alone in my thinking. justify historical claims on the Joseph S. Attanasio My hope is that they keep part of Jews to “the Holy Land.” Professor Emeritus writing in the future as they have I personally doubt that Ve- Dept. of Communication done in the past. Be confident likovsky took any of his absurd Sciences & Disorders that there is an audience that claims seriously; he had a larger Montclair State University needs the support. political agenda in mind. Montclair, New Jersey Garry L. Loucks Dennis Middlebrooks Tucson, Arizona Brooklyn, New York

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Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2013 65 [ THE LAST LAUGH BENJAMIN RADFORD, EDITOR

SKEPTICAL ANNIVERSARIES by

November 2, 1963: The American Medical Asso- ciation creates a Committee on Quackery, begin- ning a decades-long battle with that ended in Wilk v. AMA (1987). November 15, 2003: Gala grand opening was held for the Theater at CFI–West in Los Angeles. November 18, 1978: Jim Jones led his Peo- ple’s Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives. November 21, 1953: A detailed London Times article definitively exposes Piltdown Man as an “elaborate hoax.” November 22, 1963: The assassination of Presi- dent John F. Kennedy spawns many conspiracy theories that persist to this day. December 3, 1923: The long-standing “Frye standard” for admissibility of scientific evidence in U.S. courts is set in the polygraph case Frye v. U.S. December 15, 2003: A fictionalized docu-drama about the (since retracted) MMR study called Hear the Silence airs on En- gland’s Channel Five. December 31, 2003: Barbra Streisand’s lawsuit against an environmental group—origin of the term “The Streisand Effect”—was dismissed.

Tim Farley is a research fellow with the James Randi Educational Foundation and created the website whatstheharm.net.

66 Volume 37 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Scientific and Technical Consultants CENTERS FOR INQUIRY Gary Bauslaugh, John F. Fischer, Richard H. Lange, Daisie Radner, www.centerforinquiry.net/about/branches writer and editor, forensic analyst, Orlando, FL MD, Mohawk Valley Physician prof. of philosophy, SUNY Buffalo Victoria, B.C., Canada Eileen Gambrill, Health Plan, Schenectady, NY Robert H. Romer, TRANSNATIONAL Richard E. Berendzen, prof. of social welfare, Gerald A. Larue, prof. of physics, Amherst College 1310 Sweet Home Rd, Amherst, NY 14228 Univ. of California at Berkeley Tel.: (716) 636-4869 astronomer, Washington, DC prof. of biblical history and Karl Sabbagh, archaeology, Univ. of So. California AUSTIN Martin Bridgstock, Luis Alfonso Gámez, journalist, Richmond, Surrey, England science journalist, Bilbao, Spain PO Box 202164, Austin, TX 78720-2164 senior lecturer, School of Science, William M. London, Robert J. Samp, Griffith Univ., Brisbane, Australia California State Univ., Los Angeles Tel.: (512) 919-4115 Sylvio Garattini, assistant prof. of education and CHICAGO Richard Busch, director, Mario Negri Pharma cology Rebecca Long, medicine, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison [email protected] magician/mentalist, Pittsburgh, PA Institute, Milan, Italy nuclear engineer, president of Geor gia Steven D. Schafersman, INDIANAPOLIS Council Against Health Fraud, Atlanta, GA Shawn Carlson, Laurie Godfrey, asst. prof. of geology, Miami Univ., OH 350 Canal Walk, Suite A, Indianapolis, IN 46202 anthropologist, Univ. of Massachusetts Society for Amateur Scientists, Thomas R. McDonough, Chris Scott, Tel.: (317) 423-0710 East Greenwich, RI lecturer in , Caltech, and SETI Gerald Goldin, statistician, London, England LOS ANGELES mathematician, Rutgers Univ., NJ Coordinator of the Planetary Society Roger B. Culver, Stuart D. Scott Jr., 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90027 prof. of astronomy, Colorado State Univ. Donald Goldsmith, James E. McGaha, associate prof. of anthropology, Tel.: (323) 666-9797 astronomer, USAF pilot (ret.) Felix Ares de Blas, astronomer; president, Interstellar Media SUNY Buffalo MICHIGAN 3777 44th Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49512 prof. of computer science, , Chris Mooney, Erwin M. Segal, Univ. of Basque, San Sebastian, Spain astronomer, Southwest Institute for Space journalist, author, host of Point of Inquiry prof. of psychology, SUNY Buffalo Tel.: (616) 698-2342 Research, Alamogordo, NM NEW YORK CITY J. Dommanget, Joel A. Moskowitz, Carla Selby, astronomer, Royale Observatory, director of medical psychiatry, Calabasas PO Box 26241, Brooklyn, NY 11202 Clyde F. Herreid, anthropologist /archaeologist Tel.: (347) 699-0234 Brussels, Belgium prof. of biology, SUNY Buffalo Mental Health Services, Los Angeles Steven N. Shore, SAN FRANCISCO

Nahum J. Duker, Matthew C. Nisbet, prof. of astrophysics, Univ. of Pisa, Italy assistant prof. of pathology, Sharon Hill, assistant professor, School of email: [email protected] Temple Univ. geologist, writer, researcher, creator and Communication, American Univ. Waclaw Szybalski, TAMPA BAY editor of the Doubful News blog professor, McArdle Laboratory, Univ. 4011 S. Manhattan Ave. #139, Tampa, FL 33611-1277 , John W. Patterson, of Wisconsin–Madison Tel.: (813) 505-7013 Division of Science/Physics Michael Hutchinson, prof. of materials science and WASHINGTON, DC Truman State Univ. author; SKEPTICAL INQUIRER en gineering, Iowa State Univ. Sarah G. Thomason, representative, Europe prof. of linguistics, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA 921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20003 Barbara Eisenstadt, James R. Pomerantz, Tel.: (202) 543-0960 psychologist, educator, clinician, Philip A. Ianna, prof. of psychology, Rice Univ. Tim Trachet, ARGENTINA journalist and science writer, honorary East Greenbush, NY assoc. prof. of astronomy, Tim Printy, Univ. of Virginia chairman of SKEPP, Belgium Buenos Aires, Argentina William Evans, amateur astronomer, UFO skeptic, former Tel.: +54-11-4704-9437 prof. of communication, William Jarvis, Navy nuclear reactor operator/division chief, David Willey, www.cfiargentina.org Center for Creative Media prof. of health promotion and public health, Manchester, NH physics instructor, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA CANADA Loma Linda Univ., School of Public Health Bryan Farha, Gary P. Posner, 2 College Street, Suite 214 Toronto, Ontario, prof. of behavioral studies in I.W. Kelly, MD, Tampa, FL M5G 1K3, Canada education, City Univ. prof. of psychology, Univ. of Saskatch ewan, CHINA Canada China Research Institute for Science Popularization, NO. 86, Xueyuan Nanlu Haidian Dist., Beijing, 100081 China Affiliated Organizations | United States Tel.: +86-10-62170515 EGYPT ALABAMA D.C./MARYLAND MINNESOTA South Shore Skeptics (SSS) Cleveland 44 Gol Gamal St., Agouza, Giza, Egypt Alabama Skeptics, Alabama. Emory National Capital Area Skeptics NCAS, St. Kloud Extraordinary Claim Psychic and counties. Jim Kutz. Tel.: 440 942- FRANCE Kimbrough. Tel.: 205-759-2624. 3550 Maryland, D.C., Virginia. D.W. “Chip” Teaching Investigating Community 5543; Email: [email protected]. PO Dr. Henri Broch, Universite of Nice, Faculte des Water melon Road, Apt. 28A, Northport, Denman. Tel.: (240) 670-6227. Email: (SKEPTIC) St. Cloud, Minne sota. Jerry Box 5083, Cleveland, OH 44101 www. Sciences, Parc Valrose, 06108, Nice cedex 2, AL 35476 [email protected]. PO Box 8461, Silver Spring, Mertens. Tel.: 320-255-2138; Email: southshoreskeptics.org France Tel.: +33-492-07-63-12 MD 20907-8428 [email protected]. Jerry Mer- ARIZONA Association for Rational Thought (ART) GERMANY http://www.ncas.org tens, Psychology Department, 720 4th Tucson Skeptics Inc. Tucson, AZ. James Cincinnati. Roy Auerbach, president. Ave. S, St. Cloud State Univ., St. Cloud, Arheilger Weg 11, 64380 Rossdorf, Germany Mc Gaha. Email:[email protected]. FLORIDA Tel: (513)-731-2774, Email: raa@cinci. MN 56301 Tel.: +49-6154-695023 5100 N. Sabino Foot hills Dr., Tucson, Tampa Bay Skeptics (TBS) Tampa Bay, rr.com. PO Box 12896, INDIA Florida. Gary Posner, Executive Director. MISSOURI AZ 85715 Cin cinnati, OH 45212. www.cincinnati 46 Masi garh, New Friends Colony Tel.: 813-505-7013; Email: Skeptical Society of St. Louis (SSSL) Phoenix Area Skeptics Society (PASS) skeptics.org [email protected]. c/o O’Keefe, St. Louis, Missouri. Michael Blanford, New Delhi 110025 http://phoenixskeptics.org OREGON 4011 S. Manhattan Ave. #139, Tampa, President. Email: [email protected]. Tel.: 91-9868010950 Email: [email protected] Oregonians for Science and Reason FL 33611-1277. www.tampabayskept 2729 Ann Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104 LONDON (O4SR) Oregon. Jeanine DeNoma, Phoenix Skeptics, Phoenix, AZ. Michael ics.org www.skepticalstl.org Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Stack pole, P.O. Box 60333, Phoenix, president. Tel.: (541) 745-5026; Email: The James Randi Educational St. Joseph Skeptics London WC1R 4RL, England AZ 85082 [email protected]; 39105 Military Rd., Foun dation. James Randi, Director. Tel: P.O. Box 8908 Monmouth, OR 97361. www.04SR.org NEPAL CALIFORNIA (954)467-1112; Email [email protected]. St. Joseph MO, 64508-8908 Humanist Association of Nepal, PENNSYLVANIA Sacramento Organization for Rational 201 S.E. 12th St. (E. Davie Blvd.), Fort PO Box 5284, Kathmandu Nepal NEVADA Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (SORT) Sacramento, CA. Ray Tel.: +977-1-4413-345 Lauderdale, FL 33316-1815. www. Reno Skeptical Society, Inc., Spangenburg, co-founder. Tel.: 916-978- Think ing (PhACT), much of Pennsylvania. randi.org Brad Lutts, President. NEW ZEALAND 0321; Bob Glickman, Presi dent. Tel.: 215-885- ILLINOIS Tel.: (775) 335-5505; email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]. PO Box 2215, 2089; Email: [email protected]. Rational Examination Association Email: [email protected]. 18124 NIGERIA Carmichael, CA 95609-2215 http://home. By mail c/o Ray Haupt, 639 W. Ellet St., of Lincoln Land (REALL) Illinois. Bob Wedge Parkway #1052 Reno, Nevada PO Box 25269, Mapo, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria comcast.net/~kitray2/site/ Philadelphia PA 19119, phactpublicity@ Ladendorf, Chairman. Tel.: 217-546- 89511. www.RenoSkeptics.org aol.com Tel.: +234-2-2313699 Bay Area Skeptics (BAS) San Fran- 3475; Email: [email protected]. PO NEW MEXICO PERU cisco—Bay Area. Eugenie C. Scott, TENNESSEE Box 20302, Springfield, IL 62708 www. New Mexicans for Science and Reason D. Casanova 430, Lima 14, Peru President. 1218 Miluia St., Berkeley, CA Rationalists of East Tennessee, East reall.org (NMSR) New Mexico. David E. Thomas, email: [email protected] 94709. Email: [email protected]. www. Ten nessee. Carl Ledenbecker. Tel.: Chicago Skeptics Jennifer Newport, President. Tel.: 505-869-9250; Email: OLAND BASkeptics.org (865)-982-8687; Email: Aletall@aol. P contact person. Email: chicagoskeptics@ [email protected]. PO Box 1017, com. 2123 Stony brook Rd., Louis ville, Lokal Biurowy No. 8, 8 Sapiezynska Sr., Independent Investigations Group (IIG), gmail.com. www.chicagoskeptics.com Peralta, NM 87042. www.nmsr.org TN 37777 00-215, Warsaw, Poland Center for Inquiry– West, 4773 Hollywood LOUISIANA NEW YORK ROMA NIA Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel.: 323- TEXAS Baton Rouge Proponents of Rational New York City Skeptics Michael Feldman, Fundatia Centrul pentru Constiinta Critica 666-9797. www.iigwest.com North Texas Skeptics NTS Dallas/Ft Inquiry and Scientific Methods president. PO Box 5122 New York, NY Worth area, John Blanton, Secretary. Tel.: (40)-(O)744-67-67-94 Sacramento Skeptics Society, Sacra- (BR-PRISM) Louisiana. Marge Schroth. 10185. www.nycskeptics.org Tel.: (972)-306-3187; Email: skeptic@ email: [email protected] mento. Terry Sandbek, President. 4300 Tel.: 225-766-4747. 425 Carriage Way, ntskeptics.org. PO Box 111794, Carroll- RUSSIA Auburn Blvd. Suite 206, Sacramento CA Central New York Skeptics (CNY Skeptics) Baton Rouge, LA 70808 ton, TX 75011-1794. Dr. Valerii A. Kuvakin, 119899 Russia, Moscow, Vo- 95841. Tel.: 916 489-1774. Email: terry@ Syracuse. Lisa Goodlin, President. Tel: MICHIGAN www.ntskeptics.org sandbek.com (315) 636-6533; Email: info@cnyskeptics. robevy Gory, Moscow State Univ., Great Lakes Skeptics (GLS) SE Michi- org, cnyskeptics.org PO Box 417, Fayett- VIRGINIA Philosophy Department San Diego Asso ciation for Rational Inquiry gan. Lorna J. Simmons, Contact person. ville, NY 13066 Science & Reason, Hampton Rds., SENEGAL (SDARI) President: Paul Wenger. Tel.: 858- Tel.: 734-525-5731; Email: Skeptic31 Virginia. Lawrence Weinstein, Old PO Box 15376, Dakar – Fann, Senegal 292-5635. Program/general information @aol.com. 31710 Cowan Road, Apt. OHIO Dominion Univ.-Physics Dept., Norfolk, Tel.: +221-501-13-00 619-421-5844. www.sdari.org. 103, West land, MI 48185-2366 Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry VA 23529 Postal ad dress: PO Box 623, La Jolla, CA (CORI) Central Ohio. Charlie Hazlett, Tri-Cities Skeptics, Michi gan. Gary 92038-0623 President. Tel.: 614-878-2742; Email: WASHINGTON Barker. Tel.: 517-799-4502; Email: bark- [email protected]. PO Box 282069, Seattle Skeptics CONNECTICUT [email protected]. 3596 Butternut St., Columbus, OH 43228 www.seattleskeptics.com New England Skeptical Society (NESS) Saginaw, MI 48604 New England. Steven Novella M.D., Presi- Cleveland Skeptics Joshua Hunt, dent. Tel.: 203-281-6277; Email: board@ Co-Organizer, www.clevelandskeptics.org

theness.com. 64 Cobblestone Dr., Ham-

den, CT 06518 www.theness.com

C Y E The organizations listed above have aims similar to those of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry but are independent and autonomous. N I R T U E Q Representatives of these organizations cannot speak on behalf of CSI. Please send updates to Barry Karr, P.O. Box 703, Amherst NY 14226-0703. R F O R I N International affiliated organizations listed at www.csicop.org.

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