Science & | Randi’s Escape Part II | | Monster Catfish? | Trent UFO Photos

the Magazine for Science and Reason Vol. 39 No. 1 | January/February 2015

Why the ? Why Conspiracy Ideas?

Modern Geocentrism: in Astronomy

Flaw and Order: Criminal Profiling

Sylvia Browne’s Art and Science FBI File

More Witch Hunt Murders

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Published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry   C   I 

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

James E. Alcock*, psychol ogist, York Univ., Toron to David H. Gorski, cancer surgeon and researcher at Astronomy and director of the Hopkins Marcia Angell, MD, former ed itor-in-chief, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and chief Observatory, Williams College New England Journal of Med icine of breast surgery section, Wayne State University John Paulos, math ema ti cian, Temple Univ. School of Medicine. Kimball Atwood IV, MD, physician; author; Clifford A. Pickover, scientist, author, editor, Newton, MA Wendy M. Grossman, writer; founder and first editor, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Stephen Barrett, MD, psychi atrist; author; consum er The Skeptic magazine (UK) Massimo Pigliucci, professor of philosophy, advo cate, Allen town, PA Susan Haack, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and City Univ. of New York–Lehman College Willem Betz, MD, professor of medicine, Univ. of Scien ces, professor of philos ophy and professor Brussels of Law, Univ. of Miami Steven Pinker, cogni tive scien tist, Harvard Univ. Irving Bieder man, psychol ogist, Univ. of Harriet Hall*, MD, family physician; investigator, Philip Plait, astronomer; lecturer; writer Southern CA Puyallup, WA Massi mo Polid oro, science writer; author; exec utive Sandra Blakeslee, science writer; author; New York David J. Helfand, professor of astronomy, direct or of CICAP, It aly Times science correspondent Columbia Univ. Anthony R. Pratkanis, professor of psychology, , visit ing lectur er, Univ. of the West Terence M. Hines, prof. of psychology, Pace Univ., Univ. of CA, Santa Cruz Pleasantville, NY. of England, Bristol Benjamin Radford, investigator; research fellow, Mark Boslough, physicist, Sandia National Laborato- Douglas R. Hofstad ter, profes sor of human Committee for Skeptical Inquiry under stand ing and cogni tive science, Indi ana Univ. ries, Albuquerque, NM James “The Amazing” Randi, magician; CSICOP Henri Broch, phys icist, Univ. of Nice, France Gerald Holton, Mallinc krodt Profes sor of Physics and profes sor of histo ry of science, Harvard Univ. founding member; founder, Jan Harold Brunvand, folklor ist; profes sor emer itus Educational Foundation Ray Hyman*, psychol ogist, Univ. of Or egon of English, Univ. of Utah Milton Rosen berg, psychol ogist, Univ. of Chic ago Mario Bunge, philos opher, McGill Univ., Montreal Stuart D. Jordan, NASA astrophysicist emeritus; Walla ce Sampson, MD, clin ical profes sor of med icine, Robert T. Carroll, emeritus professor of philoso- science advisor to Office of Stanford Univ.; ed itor, Scien tif ic Review of phy, Sacramento City College; writer Public Policy, Washington, DC Alter na tive Med icine Sean B. Carroll, molecular geneticist; vice president Barry Karr, executive director, Committee for for science education, Howard Hughes Medical Skeptical Inquiry, Amherst, New York Amar deo Sarma* , chairman, GWUP, Germa ny Institute, Madison, WI Law rence M. Krauss, foundation professor, School Richard Saunders, president, Australian Thomas R. Casten, energy expert; founder and of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Dept.; Skeptics; educator; investigator; podcaster; chairman, Recycled Energy Development, director, Origins Initiative, Arizona State Univ. Sydney, Australia Harry Kroto, professor of chemistry and Westmont, IL Joe Schwarcz, director, McGill Office for Science biochemistry, State Univ.; Nobel laureate John R. Cole, anthro pol ogist; ed itor, Nation al and Society Center for Science Ed uca tion Edwin C. Krupp, astron omer; direct or, Euge nie C. Scott*, phys ical anthro pol ogist; exec u tive K.C. Cole, science writer; author; professor, Griffith Obser va to ry, Los Angeles, CA Univ. of Southern ’s Annenberg Lawrence Kusche, science writer direct or, Nation al Center for Science Ed uca tion School of Journalism Leon Leder man, emer itus direct or, Fermi lab; Robert Sheaffer, science writer Freder ick Crews, liter ary and cultur al critic; profes sor Nobel laure ate in physics Elie A. Shneour, bi ochem ist; author; president and emer itus of English, Univ. of CA, Berkeley Scott O. Lil ien feld*, psychol ogist, Emory Univ., research director, Bios ys tems Research Insti tute, Richard Dawkins, zool ogist, Oxford Univ. Atlanta, GA La Jolla, CA Geof frey Dean, techni cal ed itor, Perth, Austral ia Lin Zixin, former ed itor, Science and Seth Shostak, senior astronomer, SETI Institute, Cornel is de Jager , profes sor of astro phys ics, Technol ogy Daily (China) Mountain View, CA Univ. of Utrecht, the Nether lands Jere Lipps, Muse um of Pale on tol ogy, Univ. of CA, Simon Singh, science writer; broadcaster; UK Dan i el C. Den nett, Aus tin B. Fletch er Pro fes sor Berkeley Dick Smith, film pro duc er; pub lish er; Ter rey Hills, of Phi los o phy and di rect or of Cen ter for Cog nitive Eliz abeth Loftus*, profes sor of psychol ogy, N.S.W., Aus tral ia Stud ies, Tufts Uni v. Univ. of CA, Irvine Keith E. Stanovich, cognitive psychologist; Ann Druyan, writer and producer; CEO, David Marks, psychol ogist, City Univ., London Cosmos Studios, Ithaca, NY professor of human development and applied Mario Mendez-Acos ta, journal ist and science writer, psychology, Univ. of Toronto Sanal Edamaruku, president, Indian Rationalist Mex ico City Association and Rationalist International Karen Stollznow*, linguist; skeptical investigator; Kenneth R. Miller, professor of biology, writer; podcaster , professor, Complementary Medicine, Brown Univ. Jill Cor nell Tar ter, as tron o mer, SE TI In sti tute, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter Marvin Minsky, profes sor of media arts and scien - and Plymouth, Exeter, UK ces, M.I.T. Moun tain View, CA Kenneth Feder, profes sor of anthro pol ogy, David Morri son, space scien tist, NASA Ames Re- Car ol Tav ris, psy chol o gist and au thor, Los Ange les, CA Central Connec ti cut State Univ. search Center David E. Thomas*, phys icist and math ema ti cian, Barbara Forrest, professor of philosophy, Richard A. Muller, profes sor of physics, Univ. of CA, Socorro, NM SE Louisiana Univ. Berkeley Neil deGras se Tyson, astro phys icist and direct or, Andrew Fraknoi, astron omer, Foothill College, Joe Nickell, senior research fellow, CSI Hayden Plan etar ium, New York City Los Altos Hills, CA Jan Willem Nienhuys, mathematician, Waalre, Indre Viskontas, cognitive neuroscientist, tv and pod- Kend rick Fra zi er*, sci ence writer; ed i tor, The Netherlands cast host, and opera singer, San Francisco, CA S    I   Lee Nisbet, philos opher, Medaille College Christopher C. French, professor, Department Mari lyn vos Savant, Parade mag azine Steven Novella*, MD, assistant professor contrib ut ing ed itor of Psychology, and head of the Anomalistic of neurology, Yale Univ. School of Medicine Psychology Research Unit, Goldsmiths Steven Weinberg, profes sor of physics and astron - Bill Nye, sci ence ed u ca tor and tel e vi sion host, College, Univ. of London Nye Labs o my, Univ. of at Austin; Nobel laure ate Luigi Garlaschelli, chemist, Università di Pavia James E. Oberg, science writer E.O. Wilson, Univ. profes sor emer itus, organismic and (Italy); research fellow of CICAP, evolutionary biology, Harvard Univ. the Italian skeptics group Irm gard Oe pen, pro fes sor of med i cine (re tired), Richard Wis eman, psychol ogist, 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 of Hertford shire, England Murray Gell-Mann, profes sor of physics, Santa Fe Scien ces Univ. Benjamin Wolozin*, professor, Department of Insti tute; Nobel laure ate Robert L. Park, professor of physics, Univ. of Maryland Pharmacology, Boston Univ. School of Medicine Thomas Gilov ich, psychol ogist, Cornell Univ. Jay M. Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of 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 January/February 2015 | Vol. 39, No.1 COLUMNS FROM THE EDITOR 38 Why We Believe: New Research, Why Do People New Understanding ...... 4 Believe in Gods? And Ghosts, , Demons, Fairies, NEWS AND COM MENT Witch Hunts Lead to Murders in India Goblins, and Other Imagined Conspiracies? and Tanzania /Astronomer J. Domman- GARY M. BAKKER get of Belgian Comité PARA Dies at Age Ninety / Aboriginal Cancer Treatment Controversy in Canada/‘Ghost’ Caught 44 on New Mexico Police Video—Again Crazy Beliefs, Sane Believers /‘’ Scuffles with Toward a Cognitive Psychology U.K. Skeptics ...... 5 of Conspiracy Ideation PRESTON R. BOST MARTIN GARDNER CENTENNIAL The False Memory Syndrome 50 MARTIN GARDNER ...... 16 Modern Geocentrism INVES TI GA TIVE FILES A Case Study of Pseudoscience Monster Catfish: in Astronomy Investigating a Whopper JOE NICK ELL ...... 20 MATTHEW P. WIESNER

THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE 54 Science and Skepticism, Flaw and Order: The the Big Picture MAS SI MO PI GLI UC CI ...... 23 Science and Mythology of Criminal Profiling PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS LAURENCE MILLER The Trent UFO Photos—‘Best’ of All Time—Finally Busted? ROBERT SHEAFFER ...... 25 SPECIAL REPORT NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD 12 The Amazing Randi’s Most ’s FBI File Extraordinary Escape, Part 2 MASSIMO POLIDORO ...... 28 Examining Her Alleged Detective Work and a Federal SCIENCE WATCH Criminal Investigation Diet-Heart: A Hypothesis in Crisis? RYAN SHAFFER Part 1: From Proposal to Paradigm to Policy COMMENTARY KENNETH KRAUSE...... 31

36 SKEPTICAL INQUIREE In Defense of Useless Math: The Cockington Church Ghost Photo Why the New Common BENJAMIN RADFORD ...... 34 Core Isn’t As Liberating As It Seems NEW AND NOTABLE ...... 60 DALE DEBAKCSY LETTERS TO THE EDI TOR ...... 64

REVIEWS THE LAST LAUGH ...... 66 Historical Revisionism in Tim’s Vermeer Bigfoot or Big Fraud? EVE SIEBERT ...... 61 ROB BOSTON...... 59

Tim’s Vermeer Directed by Raymond Sasquatch for Sale: Death, DNA, Teller. Written by Penn and Teller. and Duplicity by Michael Greene [ 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 Why We Believe: New Research, New Understanding EDI TO RI AL BOARD James E. Al cock, Harriet Hall, Ray Hy man, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Elizabeth Loftus, Joe Nickell, Steven Novella, Am ar deo Sar ma, Eugenie C. Scott, Karen Stollznow, David E. Thomas, any of our articles and columns are investigative—scientific investiga- Leonard Tramiel tion into questionable claims being the core of what we do. But, as I CONSULT ING EDI TORS Sus an J. Black more, Ken neth L. Fed er, Barry Karr, E.C. Krupp, Mhave said before, an equally valuable approach is explanatory—drawing Jay M. Pasachoff, Rich ard Wis e man upon research to better understand and explain the reasons why the ideas that CONTRIB UT ING EDI TORS D.J. Grothe, Harriet Hall, we examine have such a strong hold on vast segments of the public. Without Kenneth W. Krause, David Morrison, James E. Oberg, Massimo Pigliucci, Rob ert Sheaf fer, David E. Thomas such insights, skeptics can become overwhelmed with bewilderment at what DEPUTY EDI TOR Ben ja min Rad ford they often misperceive as just ignorance or gullibility. MANA GING EDI TOR Julia Lavarnway To lead off this issue we offer two such explanatory articles. Both draw upon ART DIRECT OR Chri sto pher Fix copious recent scholarly research to help us understand the power of beliefs and PRODUC TION Paul E. Loynes the ingrained, and natural, human mental processes that lead to them. ASSISTANT EDITOR Mo Madden In “Why Do People Believe in Gods?…and Ghosts, Angels, Demons, WEBMASTER Matthew Licata Bar ry Karr Fairies, Goblins, and Other Imagined Conspiracies?,” clinical psychologist PUBLISH ER’S REPRE SENT A TIVE CORPO RATE COUNSEL Brenton N. VerPloeg, Gary M. Bakker first considers a number of psychological and evolution- Nicholas J. Little ary explanations for why intelligent people believe in supernatural concepts. BUSINESS MANA GER Pa tri cia Beau champ Most lack full explanatory power. He then describes recent psychological re- FISCAL OFFI CER Paul Pau lin search now converging on a “substantial explanation for belief in supernatural SUBSCRIPTION DATA MANAGER Jacalyn Mohr STAFF Melissa Braun, Roe Giambrone, agents”—a built-in human tendency to treat all objects and behaviors as exist- An tho ny San ta Lu cia, Diane Tobin, Vance Vi grass ing for a purpose. These profound teleological—or purpose-based—intuitions COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Paul Fidalgo are shared by all of us from a very early age, and even scientists and other INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUC TIONS Thom as Flynn trained people can lapse back into them. DIRECT OR OF LIBRAR IES Tim o thy S. Binga In “Crazy Beliefs, Sane Believers,” psychology professor Preston R. Bost ACTING DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Jason Gross

synthesizes an extraordinary amount of new research over the past five years The SKEP TI CAL IN QUIR ER is the of fi cial jour nal of the Com mit tee for Skeptical Inquiry, an in ter na tion al or gan- that helps explain the psychological underpinnings of conspiracy beliefs. i za tion. Again, because conspiracy beliefs are almost mainstream, it is important to The S    I   (ISSN 0194-6730) is pub- understand how they arise and gain such a strong hold. Suspicion is a valuable lished bi month ly by the Com mit tee for Skeptical Inquiry, 3965 Rensch Road, Amherst, NY 14228. human trait that helps us avoid being taken advantage of. When feelings of Printed in U.S.A. Peri od i cals postage paid at Buf- intentional agency, vulnerability, and lack of control loom large as intensifying falo, NY, and at addi tion al mailing offi ces. Sub- scrip tion pri ces: one year (six is sues), $35; two triggers, conspiracy ideation can be a natural consequence. Bost hopes his years, $60; three years, $84; single issue, $4.95. analysis may help shift the conversation slightly from “the image of foil-hat- Ca na di an and for eign or ders: Pay ment in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank must ac com pa ny or ders; please wearing, conspiracy-believing ‘other people’ to a more forgiving conception add US$10 per year for shipping. Cana di an and foreign custom ers are encour aged to use Visa or Master Card. of conspiracy ideation arising in normal people exposed to proper triggers.” Canada Pub lications Mail Agreement No. 41153509. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: IMEX, P.O. Box 4332, Station Rd., Toronto, ON M5W 3J4. * * * Inquir ies from the media and the public about the work In July 2002, evolutionary biologist and botanist Massimo Pigliucci came to of the Commit tee should be made to Barry Karr, Executive Director, CSI, P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY me with a proposal for a new regular column. It would be short (800 to 900 14226-0703. Tel.: 716-636-1425. Fax: 716-636-1733. words) and focus on issues of scientific methodology in research, both in skep- Email: [email protected]. ticism and more generally in science. He would “alternate between conceptual Manu scripts, letters, books for review, and edi to ri al in quir ies should be sent to Kend rick Fra zi er, Ed i tor, columns and some tied to actual examples of research in skepticism or science S   I , EMAIL: kendrickfrazier@com- cast.net. Mail: 944 Deer Drive NE, Albu querque, NM to illustrate what works and what doesn’t.” His “Thinking about Science” col- 87122. Be fore sub mit ting any man u script, please umn has graced our pages over the past twelve years in SI, illuminating many con sult our Guide for Au thors for styles, ref er en ce requirements, and submittal re quire ments. It is on of the central issues scientific skeptics cope with. Along the way Massimo got our website at www.csi cop.org/pub lications/guide. a third (!) doctorate, in philosophy, and is now the K.D. Irani Professor of Arti cles, reports, reviews, and letters published in the S   I  repre sent the views and work of Philosophy at the City University of New York. With these new duties, he is indi vid u al authors. Their publi ca tion does not neces sa- concluding his column, with an important final entry in this issue, “Science ri ly con sti tute an en dorse ment by CSI or its mem bers un less so stat ed. and Skepticism, the Big Picture.” We thank him for his insights and look Copy right ©2014 by the Commit tee for Skeptical forward to more SI writings from him in other formats. Inquiry. All rights reserved. —K F Sub scrip tions and chan ges of ad dress should be addressed to: S    I  , P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226-0703. Or call toll-free 1-800- 634-1610 (outside the U.S. call 716-636-1425). Old address as well as new are neces sa ry for change of subscrib er’s address, with six weeks advance no- Committee for Skeptical Inquiry tice. S    I   subscrib ers 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    of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.” I  , P.O. Box 703, Amherst, NY 14226-0703.

[ NEWS AND COMMENT

Witch Hunts Lead to Murders in India and Tanzania B R

While many people think of witch hunts as dusty relics of a bygone age, the persecution, torture, and execution of suspected witches continues to the present day in many places. For exam- ple, in July 2014, forty-five-year-old Saraswati Devi, a resident of a small Indian village near Nepal, was accused of being a witch after a local mystic identified her as having practiced black . Over a dozen villagers beat Devi to death as punishment while her two children tried to intervene. The problem is especially bad in India; according to a report in the February 23, 2014, issue of the Indian newspaper Mint, The National Crime Records Bureau says 2,097 murders were committed between 2000 and 2012 where witch hunting was the motive. . . . Once practiced only by tribal communi- Belief in witchcraft has led to hor- ties, witch hunting is now becoming rific murders and mutilations in re- common among Dalits and other cent years outside of India, including minority communities. The idea of a witch is common across all the Accusations of witchcraft in South America and East Africa. In affected [Indian] states. They are 2008, a mob of hundreds of young men thought to possess an evil eye or are a complex sociocul- killed eight women and three men in mouth, they eat humans, kill cattle, tural phenomenon and rural Kenya. The victims were accused destroy crops, and cause illness. But of witchcraft—having supposedly cast witch hunting is not just the result involve many factors. of such . Family disputes spells that lowered the intelligence of over property, land rights of women, Belief in magic is certainly the village’s children. In some cases the and village-level and gender conflicts body parts of albinos—those afflicted are some of the other reasons for an essential element, but with the skin pigmentation disorder— witch hunts in India, historians say. the persecution of witches are sought after for use in magic spells In many parts of the world belief in often involves issues of and rituals. (See “Body Parts Stolen witches is common, and black magic is from African Hospital for Magic Use,” considered a normal part of everyday gender, race, and class. SI, News and Comment, March/April life. A 2010 poll of eighteen countries 2014.) in sub-Saharan Africa found that over In October 2014 seven people in half of the population believes in magic. the East African country of Tanza- Witch doctors are consulted not only nia were killed following accusations for healing diseases but also for placing communities (such as witch doctors of witchcraft. According to the Mail or removing curses or bringing luck. and traditional healers) are often in- and Guardian, “‘They were attacked It is not unusual for people to consult volved in identifying and persecuting and burnt to death by a mob of vil- witch doctors seeking magical assis- innocent women as witches. Once mys- lagers who accused them of engaging tance when preparing for a job inter- tical methods are used to “verify” who in witchcraft,’ the police chief for the view, starting a business, or seeking a is a witch, the justice can be gruesome, western Kigoma region, which borders mate. Those who are seen as having including banishment, rape, disfigure- Burundi, Jafari Mohamed, told Agence positive roles in rural, non-Western ment, torture, and death. France-Presse. . . . Among those ar-

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 5 rested on suspicion of carrying out the religion. The Christian bible, for exam- places. Levack notes, killings was the local traditional healer, ple, explicitly calls for accused witches In New England the great major- or witchdoctor.” to be put to death per Exodus 22:18, ity of women accused of witch- The victims, most of whom were which states, “Thou shalt not suffer a craft before the Salem episode of elderly, were burned alive and in some witch to live” (KJV). 1692 were dependent members of cases hacked to death with machetes. Accusations of witchcraft are a com- the community who qualified for Nearly two dozen people were arrested, plex sociocultural phenomenon and in- poor relief. . . . In Norway, where large numbers of accused witches and the fact that a witch doctor was volve many factors. Belief in magic is were described in trial records as among them is not unusual. It’s not certainly an essential element, but the extremely poor, most of those who clear what sparked the attack, but often persecution of witches often involves is- were actually convicted were beg- witchcraft accusations follow some sues of gender, race, and class. Most of gars. There are a number of reasons unexplained misfortune such as an ac- the Indian women are poor and of low why the people who filled the lower cident, a sudden sickness, or a village caste. Brian Levack, professor of history ranks of society incurred accusations of witchcraft. Poor people, especially drinking well drying up. If there is no at the University of Texas at Austin poor women, were the weakest and obvious, immediate explanation, the and author of The Witch-Hunt in Early most vulnerable members of society. event may be blamed on a suspected Modern Europe (2006), notes that the witch—usually a women or an elderly targeting of women (and of lower-class Lawmakers in India, Tanzania, and person. Other times the witchcraft ac- women in particular) was prevalent in elsewhere have begun to address the cusations are used as a pretext to settle early European witch hunts: “we can problem, but the roots of these super- personal grudges or confiscate the vic- be fairly certain that the great major- stitions are centuries old and may never tim’s property. ity of those persecuted came from the be eliminated. The belief in and persecution of lower levels of society . . . the mere fact witches is universal and dates back that so many witches were unattached Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of the millennia. Often all that is needed is women of no apparent social distinc- S  I and author or co- a belief in magic, though sometimes tion points to this conclusion.” author of seven books on media literacy, witchcraft is prohibited by organized The same was true in many other skepticism, and critical thinking.

Astronomer Jean Dommanget of Belgian Comité PARA Dies at Age Ninety

Jean Dommanget died on October (“The Mars Effect” of Michel Gauquelin) . He made frequent interven- 1, 2014, at the age of ninety. He were investigated by the committee. tions in the media to denounce the false was an astronomer and head of the Dommanget was president of the claims of the paranormal. Département Astrométrie et Dynamique Comité PARA from 1980 to 2007. He Dommanget resigned the presidency des Corps Célestes at the Royal took care from then until 2009 of the of the Comité PARA at the end of 2007 Observatory of Belgium. He was an drafting of the Nouvelles Brèves, an an- and became vice president for three internationally acknowledged specialist nual publication of the committee. It was years. After his vice-presidential term in the domain of double stars and a through his initiative that a book titled he ceased his activities within the com- longtime scientific consultant to the La Science Face au Défi du Paranor- mittee to devote himself to research on Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. mal was edited to celebrate the fiftieth the orbits of double stars undertaken He joined the Comité PARA in 1960. birthday of the committee. The book, fifty years earlier at the Observatory. Comité PARA is the Belgian Commit- of which he wrote several chapters, Jean Dommanget was an affable, tee for the Scientific Investi gation of describes the history of the committee, competent, enterprising, and firm man Purported Paranormal Phenomena, the experiments it conducted, and the who devoted himself for more than founded in 1949. He immediately took paranormal beliefs it examined. He gave thirty years to defending reason and to a significant part in its activities, in par- many lectures about and other allowing the Comité PARA to achieve its ticular when the “Signal du Sourcier” subjects and participated in several TV mission. We will not forget him. (Prof. Yves Rocard) and “l’effet Mars” shows battling against supporters of the — Comité PARA

6 Volume 39 Issue 1 | [ NEWS AND COMMENT

Aboriginal Cancer Treatment Controversy in Canada

P B

For the second time in 2014, Canada’s who was also struck by acute lympho- kemia. In fact, without chemotherapy McMaster University Children’s Hos- blastic leukemia. The girl and her fam- (which cures about 90 percent of chil- pital found itself locked in a battle ily, members of the Mississaugas of New dren with this disease), the chance of with aboriginal parents who took their Credit First Nations, decided in May to survival is zero. respective daughters off chemotherapy cease chemotherapy and use unproven In the latest case, hospital officials and turned to alternative medicine and alternative medicine treatments at the have told the court they have no evi- traditional aboriginal healing. Hippocrates Healing Centre. Makayla dence of any child with leukemia ever In October the Hamilton, Ontar- was given an 80–85 percent chance of being saved by “traditional medicine.” io-based hospital took child welfare recovery with chemotherapy. Without “This child has a life-threatening ill- authorities to court for refusing to inter- proper treatment, she will die, doctors ness [and] without standard treatment vene in the latest case involving an elev- told the Hamilton Spectator, which is will not survive, so our sole focus is try- en-year-old from the Six Nations reserve covering the cases. “At the end of the ing to bring this child into treatment so diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leu- day, why should this child die?” said Dr. we have an opportunity to provide her kemia. The bone marrow cancer has a Peter Fitzgerald, the president of Mc- with a long, healthy life,” Dr. Peter Fitz- 90–95 percent chance of being cured, Master University Children’s Hospital. gerald told the CBC. The case continues said the hospital’s oncologists. Despite these warnings, the girl was before Judge Gethin Edward of the On- The hospital was forced into the taken off the treatment after voicing her tario Court of Justice. rare legal move after the Brant Family views in a YouTube video in which she and Children’s Services refused to in- said, “I have asked my mom and dad Paul Benedetti is an award-winning writer tervene in the case, reported the Octo- to take me off the treatment because I with a special interest in health fraud and ber 8 Globe and Mail newspaper. The don’t want to go this way anymore.” She alternative medicine. He is the coauthor hospital petitioned the agency to seize adds, “If I live or if I die, I’m not afraid.” of Spin Doctors: The Chiropractic Industry the girl—whose name is protected by In the Sault case, the hospital peti- Under Investigation (Dundurn Press). He a publication ban—and resume ther- tioned the Brant Family and Children’s is on faculty at the University of Western apy after efforts to convince the family Services, which investigated and de- Ontario, where he teaches in the masters failed. Originally, the girl’s family agreed cided not to act. “We’re going to close of arts in journalism program. to chemotherapy, but halfway through our file,” said executive director Andrew the month-long treatment they halted Koster. “We feel that Makayla is in a the effort in order to pursue “holistic loving, caring home and that they are healing that respects the family’s ances- carrying on with medicine that would QUOTE tral practices” in a private Florida clinic, be very appropriate for a First Nations reported the paper. Treatments at the family.” WORTHY Hippocrates Health Institute include In that case, the hospital dropped the colon hydrotherapy, acupuncture, hy- matter, but in the latest situation, Dr. Fear and Bad Science perbaric oxygen therapy, “aqua chi ionic Fitzgerald told the Globe and Mail the “The court is fully aware of the footbath,” and “living food” therapies. overriding concern is “saving the girl’s misconceptions, misinformation, In an interview with the Canadian life.” The cases revolve, in part, around bad science, and bad information Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) the the girls’ right to informed medical con- being spread from shore to shore in girl’s mother said: “Before I took her off sent. But the more contentious issue has our country with respect to Ebola. . . . chemo, I made sure that I had a compre- been the right of First Nations members The court is fully aware that people hensive health-care plan that I was very and their families to choose whatever are acting out of fear and that this confident that was going to achieve rid- medical care they want. Some aborig- fear is not entirely rational.” ding cancer of her body before I left the inal experts said the family has a right —Chief District Judge Charles C. hospital. This is not something I think to pursue traditional healing methods, LaVerdiere, in Maine, October 31, 2014, ordering that nurse Kaci Hickox, may work, this is something I know will though it is not clear what treatments with no Ebola symptoms, could not work.” offered at the Florida clinic are aborigi- be forcibly quarantined as demanded The hospital’s unusual decision to di- nal in origin. by Maine’s governor. rectly intervene comes on the heels of the Medical experts say there is no evi- case of eleven-year-old Makayla Sault dence that these methods will cure leu-

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 7 ‘Ghost’ Caught on New Mexico Police Video—Again

B R

A mysterious object caught on camera what it is,” and “detectives say the video would be about three inches in diame- outside a New Mexico police depart- defies logic,” according to Good Morn- ter. Because the object is out of focus, ment in September 2014 had many ing America). The fact that the video was its edges and exact dimensions can’t be people wondering if it might be a ghost. captured at a police station gave it instant measured, but it’s clearly a very small According to a September 26 report credibility, and the video soon went viral “ghost.” Despite the claim that the ob- on Good Morning America, “Police in with thousands of people viewing and ject is “human shaped,” it is in fact in- Espanola, New Mexico, are trying to commenting on the mystery. distinct but small and oval. The fact that figure out what human-shaped, blurry, Because of my background as an in- the object is out of focus is also reveal- translucent figure was captured on cam- vestigator—and the fact that I live in ing; the police surveillance camera is set era strolling across a locked area of their New Mexico—I was asked to research up to record objects in the yard, not on station Saturday night. The video shows this supposedly spectral visitor. Though its lens. Anything on the lens would ap- the figure walking through a chain link the police seemed baffled, after about an pear out of focus and translucent, exactly fence and slowly walking out again.” hour of research I determined that there like the ghost in the video.

All evidence suggests that Officer Romero’s first guess about the object’s identity was the correct one: it is actually a bug or insect on the camera, not a human ghost in the yard.

Because the outside lot is a secured was enough information contained in All evidence suggests that Officer area, it would be impossible for anyone the ghost video, news reports, and inde- Romero’s first guess about the object’s to open the gate without an alarm going pendent information about it to plausi- identity was the correct one: it is actu- off, and in any event the object appears to bly identify the mysterious entity. ally a bug or insect on the camera, not a move through objects in classic ghostly I began a video analysis, noting that human ghost in the yard. Another im- style. Police Officer Karl Romero said the ghostly blur doesn’t go through the portant clue to solving this mystery can that at first he assumed that the moving objects in the background (such as the be found in the way the object moves. As figure in the video was an insect, prob- fence) as was claimed but instead goes Officer Romero noted, the “ghost” does ably a fly or moth. But when he looked over them—a sign that the “ghost” is seem to have legs—six or eight of them, again he saw something that made him close to the camera (such as on the cam- not two. The movement of the glowing change his mind: “Then, I saw the legs era lens), not out in the secured police mystery fuzz is smooth and even, a sign . . . and it was a human,” he concluded. yard. Furthermore, I realized, the ob- that its weight is being carried and dis- Yet it could not be a real human because ject’s scale is all wrong: assuming—as tributed on four or more legs. In con- it appeared to move effortlessly through people often report and claim—that a trast, human movement on two legs cre- a high chain link fence. So it was “not “ghost” is human sized, what appears ates a distinct vertical bounce with each a real human,” he concluded: “No—a in the police video is far too small to step as our weight shifts from one leg to ghost.” He reported the strange sighting be human. At one point when it moves another moving forward. Based on the to his superiors, who apparently were over the silhouette of a metal fence post, “ghost’s” movement alone (and assum- equally puzzled (“officers cannot explain it appears about the same size—which ing it is a living creature), it’s much more

8 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer [ NEWS AND COMMENT likely to be an insect than a human. ‘Psychic’ Sally Morgan Scuffles There’s also something important miss- with U.K. Skeptics ing from the video that no one seems to have noticed suggesting its earthy origins: a shadow. The supposedly human-shaped T F ghost, which is relatively small but appears large and solid enough to be seen at a dis- In October 2014 popular British tance on a surveillance camera, does not medium Sally Morgan became cast a shadow on the ground despite flood- embroiled in a public dispute. It lights from above. Shadows of other objects, began when a skeptical activist such as the fence that the ghost is claimed named Mark Tilbrook appeared to move through, are clearly visible on the outside several of Morgan’s shows concrete, yet the ghost casts no shadow. An to distribute educational leaflets to insect on the camera lens, of course, would attendees. The handouts—which not cast a shadow in the parking lot because did not mention Morgan by name it’s not in the parking lot. or make any specific claims about In my research I discovered that, iron- her show—offered some rhetorical ically—in the very parking lot where the questions about psychic abilities that ghost appeared—insects were (acciden- might lead attendees to consider tally) captured by a local cameraman in alternate explanations for what they footage broadcast on Good Morning America were seeing in the show. Other skep- (the video can be viewed at http://abcnews. tics have distributed similar educa- leting campaign and expanded it to go.com/US/mexico-police-catch-ghostly- tional materials at psychic shows in include others who claim psychic intruder-camera/story?id=25771690; see the past. powers. They are calling it Psychic the bugs in the bottom left-hand corner of What triggered the controversy Awareness Month. the screen around 1:20). When filmed up was an incident in which Ms. Mor- On the Friday after the Guard- close, in focus, and in daylight the insect gan’s personal manager and tour ian story, video was released of one doesn’t look strange or mysterious at all, manager (who happened to be her such incident, shot from a lapel but it’s not hard to see why a blurry, un- husband, John Morgan, and her camera Tilbrook was wearing. It identifiable entity seen late at night would son-in-law, Daren Wiltshear) con- documented that it was indeed John appear spooky. I reported my results in an fronted Tilbrook outside an event Morgan and Wiltshear making the article on the DiscoveryNews website, pro- venue in April 2014. According to threats and further showed them viding the first (and only) in-depth skepti- Tilbrook’s October ac count in The making a series of rather shocking cal analysis. Guardian, they threatened him with homophobic remarks about Til- Espanola police are not the first to both legal action and physical vio- brook and other U.K. skeptics. This mistake an insect for a ghost; in fact it’s lence. The threats of violence in- resulted in a large reaction in the happened before. In 2007 an identical cluded claiming to know personal British press. Morgan released a “ghost” was captured on a police surveil- details about his life and saying statement within hours that she lance camera not far away in Santa Fe and that he was “asking to be knocked “does not condone” the behavior in became known as the Santa Fe Court- out” and that he would be “lifted” the video and was not aware of it. house Ghost. After I conducted extensive or made to “disappear.” There fol- But her statement also pretty clearly onsite investigation and field experiments, lowed a letter from Morgan’s attor- put some blame on Tilbrook him- I solved the case and revealed it as an in- ney claiming Tilbrook had libeled self—causing some to refer to it as a sect on the camera lens. For more on that Morgan and demanding compensa- “notpology.” investigation, see “Santa Fe ‘Courthouse tion and legal fees. Morgan has sparred with skep- Ghost’ Mystery Solved” in the Septem- Tilbrook reached out to the tics before. In 2011 she was accused ber/October 2007 S I, Good Thinking Society, a skepti- by attendees of one of her shows in and chapter 5 of my new book Mysterious cal educational nonprofit started by Ireland of using an earpiece to re- New Mexico: , Magic, and Mon- writer Simon Singh. Singh himself ceive cues during a show. (Some sters in the Land of Enchantment. As is successfully defended himself in noted the similarity of these ear- often the case, all that’s needed to raise a libel suit brought by the British piece allegations with James Randi’s the specter of a ghost is an ambiguous Chiropractors in response to his famous investigation of faith healer light along with some imagination and a published criticisms. His group is in 1986.) She denied lack of investigation. offering Tilbrook legal assistance the claims, claiming the earpiece and also adopted Tilbrook’s leaf- was used to stay in touch with her

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 9 Take action with us.

You can help promote science, reason, and secular values. Imagine a world where religion 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 Humanism.

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 secular movement 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 [ NEWS AND COMMENT stage manager. Simon Singh and oth- claiming that she has “no idea what is ers noted that she stopped using an going to happen to my marriage.” But earpiece in shows shortly thereafter. skeptics reported seeing John alongside QUOTE But when magician wrote Sally at a show venue in Brighton just WORTHY an opinion piece about the incident days later. in the , Morgan sued the Following this the Good Thinking God Not a Magician newspaper for libel. The dispute was Society released a letter from their law- settled out of court for £125,000 (about yer to Morgan’s organization demand- $200,000) with the newspaper apolo- ing a retraction of the allegations about “When we read about creation in gizing and removing the article. Tilbrook from her initial statement. Genesis, we run the risk of imag- In another 2014 incident, skep- Tilbrook reported via Twitter that he ining God was a magician, with a tic blogger Myles Power attended a had received a private letter of apology magic wand able to do everything. Morgan show and reported how the from the two men. Sally Morgan then But that is not so. He created medium made a completely incorrect announced that she would no longer human beings and let them develop reading, leading to laughter from the be signing autographs after any of her according to the internal laws that audience. This occurred because the shows until further notice. The two he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment. . . . God is audience member had misunderstood web statements from Morgan were re- not a demigod or a magician, but the instructions to bring a photo of a moved from her website before the end the creator who brought everything dead relative and had instead brought a of October. to life. . . . The Big Bang, which younger photo of herself. Morgan mis- Good Thinking Society contin- nowadays is posited as the origin takenly gave a detailed reading about ued their Psychic Awareness Month of the world, does not contradict the supposed dead relative, not picking throughout October 2014, providing the divine act of creating, but rather up that the person in the photo was leaflets for skeptics to distribute not only requires it. The evolution of nature right in front of her! at Morgan’s shows but at the shows of does not contrast with the notion of In the week after the release of the other U.K. such as Derek creation, as evolution presupposes video and Morgan’s statement, the Acorah and . They reported the creation of beings that evolve.” video received over 150,000 views on that the staff at the other two psychics’ YouTube. Continued discussion of it shows “behaved impeccably each time.” —Pope Francis, October 27, 2014, online and in the press prompted a sec- Mark Tilbrook appeared on several TV addressing the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the ond public statement from Morgan in programs to talk about the campaign, in n Vatican to discuss “Evolving Concepts which she “sacked” both her husband one case with Colin Fry. of Nature.” and son-in-law who will have “noth- ing more to do with Sally Morgan’s Tim Farley is a skeptical activist and the business.” She ended the statement by creator and curator of whatstheharm.net.

THE 16TH EUROPEAN SKEPTICS CONGRESS LONDON 2015 11th - 13th September

The 16th European Skeptics Congress will be held at Goldsmiths College, University of London, from September 11 to 13, 2015. The Congress is jointly organized by the Association for Skeptical Enquiry (ASKE) and Goldsmith College’s Research Unit (APRU). Events will include keynote addresses by distinguished speakers, formal presenta- tions, debates, and poster presentations, plus a pre-congress session and meetings in the evenings. A section of the Congress will cover research at APRU. Visit the Congress website below for up-to-date information concerning the www.euroscepticscon.org program, registration and accommodations.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 11 [SPECIAL REPORT

Sylvia Browne’s FBI File Examining Her Alleged Detective Work and a Federal Criminal Investigation RYAN SHAFFER

uring Sylvia Browne’s decades-long career offering now obtain the government files con- cerning Browne. Dpsychic readings and doing television appearances, I filed a Freedom of Information she made numerous claims about working with law Act request with the FBI asking for enforcement to solve crimes. In an age before the Internet, documents about Browne, using her fact-checking by television and newspapers was more date of birth under her previous legal last name of “Brown” and her later ad- labor intensive. It was difficult to find sources to support dition of “e” to the name. I asked for or deny many of her claims. While several articles in the all files as well as “any details about her S I have cast doubt on her psychic alleged psychic abilities, help on miss- abilities, Browne defended herself by citing her “work” on ing person cases, any investigations or information, and alleged help to Ted cases and giving the media endorsements from seemingly Gunderson.” Previously John Gree- respectable law enforcement members, such as for- newald’s The Black Vault, an online mer Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Ted collection of government documents, Gunderson. Recently obtained FBI files shatter her discussed obtaining Browne’s FBI files on a federal investigation and details insinuation that she had a relationship with federal law from the FBI memoranda (Gree- enforcement and show that the only interest the agency newald 2014). Greenewald’s website had in Browne was investigating her for fraud. did not make it clear whether it posted all the FBI’s files or exactly what was Records about a person in posses- Avila University) transcripts. The requested from the agency. Therefore, sion of an investigating government transcripts, according to Lancaster, I decided to request all the files about agency, such as the FBI, are avail- did show Browne’s ex-husband was Browne. I also asked for anything able with the person’s permission or incorrect about how long she attended about her alleged missing persons work if they are deceased. In all likelihood, college. Yet unfortunately for Browne, and any information about her and Browne would not have consented to that transcript also demonstrated that Gunderson. The FBI, after asking for the release of her FBI file given her she did not complete college and documentation that Browne was de- refusal to allow Robert Lancaster, of proved her often-made claim about ceased, sent me two electronic files on StopSylvia.com, to post a transcript having a higher education degree was a CD-ROM. The first file totals nine- online that her own office sent him in false. Given Browne’s reluctance to teen pages; the second had thirty-three 2007 (Lancaster 2007a). In her haste make records her office sent to a critic pages that relate to a criminal investi- to refute claims from an ex-husband publicly available, she probably would gation. A review of pages shows that about an alleged lack of higher educa- not have been willing to allow the re- Greenewald’s release of documents, tion credits, Browne’s office sent Lan- lease of her law enforcement records. totaling fifty-two pages, was the FBI’s caster her St. Teresa’s College (now Following her 2013 death, anyone can entire Browne collection.

12 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer There is no documenta- tion released by the FBI to support the claim that Browne conducted any psychic readings for the FBI, either directly or indirectly.

Psychic Detective Work Prior to her death, Browne repeatedly claimed to have worked with law enforcement to solve criminal cases. While there is no doubt Browne com- mented on criminal cases during her television appearances and directly to family members of the missing and deceased, her work with law enforcement is less frequent and more dubious. For example, in her November 2004 appearance on The Show, Browne said: “I remember when I was working on the Bundy case. . . .” Outside of this off-hand comment, there is no evi- One of the FBI’s documents on Sylvia Browne. dence to affirm that Browne worked on a “Bundy” case—much less the We spoke to Ted Gunderson, who’s son or the conditions under which he case of serial killer Ted Bundy, whose a retired senior special agent in worked with Browne, replied in part, capture was not connected to any charge of the FBI in Los Angeles. psychic. Nevertheless, Browne did He’s worked with Sylvia Browne, “He has to judge these things much work with local police on occasion. In and he says—he says he’s worked more carefully.” Gunderson, who died 1997, for example, Browne charged with her quite a bit. And he said in 2011, was indeed an FBI agent (As- this about her. He says, quote, “I’ve sociated Press 2011). Yet he earned the Thibodaux Police Department worked with numerous psychics most of his public fame during his re- $400 for a on a mur- in the past and very few are really der case, but when the murderer was on target, but Sylvia Browne is tirement by promoting numerous con- finally caught a decade later Browne’s probably one of the most accurate spiracy theories, including “child slave “work” did not contribute to solving psychics in the country.” (Cooper labor for underground alien-controlled 2007) or convicting the killer (Shaffer 2013). facilities” (Gunderson 2007; Lancaster In 2007, CNN’s Cooper then asked his guest James 2007b). However, there is no docu- investigated Browne in the aftermath Randi about Gunderson’s statement, mentation released by the FBI to sup- of her false prediction that Shawn “Now, that’s from a former senior FBI port the claim that Browne conducted Hornbeck was deceased. Cooper told official. Are you saying he’s wrong?” any psychic readings for the FBI, ei- his audience: Randi, who was not aware of Gunder- ther directly or indirectly. Moreover,

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 13 Gunderson’s name appears nowhere in FBI regarding the 1993 World Trade used the “loan proceeds to support an her FBI file, and the topics in the FBI Center attack.” The FBI response was: extravagant lifestyle.” The FBI also release do not discuss working with the “We conducted a search of the Cen- had Browne’s signatures on the docu- FBI. Thus, there is no evidence from tral Records System. We were unable ments examined to confirm it was her the records that Browne was involved to identify main file records responsive handwriting. In May 1991, the FBI, with the agency. Assuming Browne to the FOIA.” If the FBI did interview in a highly redacted document, stated: worked with Gunderson, it appears Browne about the terrorist attack, there “Investigation in this matter has de- to have occurred after he retired from is no record of it in the FBI’s central termined that [redacted] did prepare the FBI and when he was investigating database. If such an interview occurred fraudulent documents, enhancing the aliens, “Satanic” child abductions, and then, it happened the month she pled financial statements and tax returns numerous other conspiracies. to a securities crime in a California of SYLVIA BROWN and [redacted] court and after the FBI investigated her which documents were then utilized by for federal crimes. BROWN in obtaining loans from fed- erally insured institutions” (capitals in Criminal Charges and Investigations original; FBI Document 29-109854-4 Browne made a good living by conduct- 1991). Under a heading “bank fraud ing private readings, doing public lec- and embezzlement,” the FBI reported Critics dogged her career, tures, and selling books, which earned that the “Internal Revenue Service . . . pointing out false millions of dollars each year at its peak. also has investigated BROWN, in- predictions and even Critics dogged her career, pointing out cluding her tax exempt organization false predictions and even highlighting known as the Nirvana Foundation.” highlighting her March her March 8, 1993, no contest plea Ultimately, the U.S. Attorney declined 8, 1993, no contest plea against the State of California for “sell- to prosecute the FBI’s case due to “in- against the State of ing securities without a permit,” which sufficient evidence to indicate criminal earned her one year probation and intent on the part of BROWN” and the California for “selling an order to pay restitution (Romano FBI stopped investigating. securities without a 1993). What Browne’s FBI file lacks in Most of the remaining FBI files are permit,” which earned information about her psychic work it copies of Browne’s loan applications makes up for in details about criminal that include financial details and cor- her one year probation investigations. The newly obtained FBI respondence from Browne about the and an order to documents, which describe Browne as loans on Nirvana Foundation letter- pay restitution. “a self proclaimed psychic,” show that head. These documents reveal what the FBI closely investigated Browne she claimed was her income before her and her organization, the Nirvana bestselling books and weekly appear- Foundation for Psychic Research, in ances on the 1980s for “violations of federal during the 1990s. One Pacific Valley law in applying for loans from feder- Bank document Browne signed in 1984 ally insured financial institutions” in listed her total assets at $3,159,500; an- the amount of $1,253,933 and caused other document for California 1st Bank Browne also claimed to have given businesses “sustained losses” (FBI signed by her in 1986 listed $4,215,000. the FBI testimony in March 1993 Document 29-109854-1 1988). In terms of personal income, Browne about the terrorist attack a month ear- The documents show that the FBI signed a notarized document that her lier on the World Trade Center (Coo- examined Browne’s agreements with individual income tax return in 1983 per 2007). Like the previous assertion, several banks as well as her 1984, 1985, stated her net income was $93,474 and there is no FBI record to support this; and 1986 tax returns. In particular, the her individual income tax return in World Trade Center is never men- government was interested in Browne 1982 had her net income at $105,553. tioned in the files. To ensure that was and an unknown person using “fraud- One must keep in mind that Browne, the case, I filed another Freedom of ulent documents, including income as the FBI described her, in the 1980s Information Act (FOIA) request with tax returns and financial statements to obtained “a small amount of notoriety the FBI asking specifically “for any enhance her net worth in making these from her psychic claims.” It was after documents or video” the agency has loan applications” (FBI Document her 1993 no contest plea that she be- about Browne’s “interviews with the 29A-SF-10056 1989). Browne then came an international psychic star.

14 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer SPECIAL REPORT]

Sylvia Browne died in November be a psychic or medium. For those who ci_24600808/san-jose-celebrity-psychic- sylvia-browne-remembered-rising. 2013, but her organization continues will believe without objective evidence, Lancaster, Robert. 2007a. A Sylvia Browne to live on with adherent supporters. it won’t. Yet, for those who care about college transcript. StopSlyvia.com. Online at I Despite numerous media outlets citing details and facts, it will. http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/sylvia brownetranscript.shtml. her poor accuracy rate and mentioning References ———. 2007b. AC360: Sylvia Browne’s best that she inaccurately predicted the age evidence? StopSlyvia.com. Online at http:// at which she would die, her funeral saw Associated Press. 2011. Former Memphis www.stopsylvia.com/articles/ac360_brow- FBI chief Gunderson dies. U-T nesbestevidence.shtml. mourners who praised Browne. One (August 19). Online at http://www.utsand- “Psychic Readings.” 2014. SylviaBrowne.com. woman claimed she paid Browne $30 iego.com/news/2011/Aug/19/former-mem- Online at http://readings.sylviabrowne.com/. in 1974, who, in turn, described a house phis-fbi-chief-gunderson-dies/. Romano, Bill. 1993. Spiritualist, ex-husband Cooper, Anderson. 2007. Islam divided; psychic plead no contest in securities case. San Jose she would buy (Kurhie 2013). Even reality check; battle under the border. CNN Mercury News (March 9). without Browne, the business contin- (January 30). Online at http://transcripts. Shaffer, Ryan. 2013. The psychic defective ues promoting her books and selling .com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/30/acd.01. revisited: Years later, Sylvia Browne’s accu- html. memberships for her “Inner Circle.” racy remains dismal. S I Federal Bureau of Investigation Documents. 37(4) (September/October): 30–34. Online Chris Dufresne, her son, continues 1988–1991. “Sylvia Browne Files,” Federal at http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_psy- offering psychic services and using Syl- Bureau of Investigation. chic_defective_revisited_years_later_sylvia_ Greenewald, John. 2014. Sylvia Browne’s FBI brownes_accuracy_remains. viaBrowne.com to promote his psychic file highlights bank fraud and embezzle- readings by telling supporters to contact ment. OpEdNews.com (April 21). Online at the “Sylvia Browne Corporation” for http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sylvia- Ryan Shaffer is a writer Browne--s-FBI-File-by-John-Greenewald- and historian. He has reservations (“Psychic Readings” 2014). Fraud_Fraud_Psychic_Psychic-140421-543. When people see that Browne built a html. a PhD in history and is support base, earned millions of dollars, Gunderson, Ted. 2007. Biography. TedGun currently a postdoctoral derson.com. Online at https://web.archive. fellow at the Institute for and regularly appeared as a psychic on org/web/20070206113717/http://www.ted- television, the details of her numerous gunderson.com/Biography.htm. Global Studies at Stony failed predictions and various criminal Kurhie, Eric. 2013. Psychic Sylvia Browne’s Brook University in New funeral: Teary mourners, a lavender casket. York. investigations should encourage skepti- San Jose Mercury News (November 25). Online cism whenever someone else claims to at http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/

For in-depth interviews with the most fasci- nating minds in science, religion, and politics, join Point of Inquiry cohosts Lindsay Beyerstein and Josh Zepps at pointofinquiry.org.

JOSH ZEPPS LINDSAY BEYERSTEIN

Josh Zepps (cohost) is a new media Lindsay Beyerstein (cohost) is an pioneer; a journalist serving as a found- award-winning investigative journalist ing host and producer at the online talk and staff writer for In These Times. Her network HuffPost Live, following hosting work has appeared in places such as stints with such outlets as Bloomberg The New Republic, Reuters, Slate, Salon, TV, the Discovery Channel, and as an an- Ms. Magazine, and The New York Press. chor for CBS’s Peabody Award-winning Wait to see what stories she tells with Channel One News. her guests on Point of Inquiry.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 15 Martin Gardner Centennial

Martin Gardner was born one hundred years ago, on October 21, 1914. To commemorate the centennial of the birth of one of the greatest figures in modern scientific skepticism, we are republishing several of his classic SKEPTICAL INQUIRER “Notes of a Fringe-Watcher” columns. This column, from our Summer 1993 issue, was his SI tenth anniversary column. It chronicles the start of the False Memory Syndrome. In the late 1980s, a therapeutic fad began to emerge wherein therapists began putting people under or into a relaxed, trancelike state, to coax out repressed childhood memories of sexual traumas. In many instances families were torn apart as patients recalled vivid memories of abuse at the hands of parents, grandparents, and other various loved ones. Other patients recalled abuse by day care staff, satanic cults, or even extraterrestrials. Here is Martin’s column.

The False Memory Syndrome MARTIN GARDNER

n March 1992, a group of distinguished psychologists and psychiatrists, more the therapist believes she is re- including CSICOP’s Ray Hyman, banded together to form the False pressing painful memories. IMemory Syndrome (FMS) Foundation. The organization is headquartered in The patient may be hypnotized, or Philadelphia under the direction of educator Pamela Freyd. Its purpose: to combat given sodium amytal, or placed into a a fast-growing epidemic of dubious therapy that is ripping thousands of families relaxed, trancelike state. Convinced apart, scarring patients for life, and breaking the hearts of innocent parents and that a childhood trauma is at the root other relatives. It is, in fact, the mental-health crisis of the 1990s. of the patient’s ills, the therapist re- The tragic story begins with Freud. under hypnosis and subtly prodding peatedly urges the woman to try to Early in his career, when he made ex- them into recalling childhood sexual remember the trauma. If she is highly tensive use of hypnotism, Freud was traumas, memories of which presum- suggestible and eager to please the ther- amazed by the number of mesmerized ably have been totally obliterated for apist, she begins to respond to leading women who dredged up childhood decades. Decades Delayed Disclosure, questions and to less obvious signs of memories of being raped by their fa- or DDD, it has been called. Eighty per- the therapist’s expectations. thers. It was years before he became cent of the patients who are claimed to After months, or even years, images convinced that most of these women experience DDD are women from 25 begin to form in the patient’s mind. were fantasizing. Other analysts and to 45 years old. Sixty percent of their Shadowy figures threaten her sexually. psychiatrists agreed. For more than half parents are college graduates, 25 per- Under continual urging, these mem- a century the extent of incestuous child cent with advanced degrees. More than ories grow more vivid. She begins to abuse was minimized. Not until about 80 percent of their parents are married recognize the molester as her father, 1980 did the pendulum start to swing to their first spouse. or grandfather, or uncle. The more de- the other way as more solid evidence Here is a typical scenario. A woman tailed the visions, the more convinced of child sexual abuse began to surface. in her thirties seeks therapy for symp- both she and the therapist become There is now no longer any doubt that toms ranging from mild depression, that the terrible truth is finally being such incest is much more prevalent anxiety, headaches, or the inability to brought to consciousness. To bet- than the older Freud or the general lose weight, to more severe symptoms ter-trained psychiatrists, these details public realized. like anorexia. Her therapist, having suc- indicate just the opposite. Childhood Then in the latter 1980s a bizarre cumbed to the latest mental-health fad, memories are notoriously vague. Re- therapeutic fad began to emerge in decides almost at once that the symp- calling minute details is a strong sign the . Hundreds of poorly toms are caused by repressed memories of fantasizing. trained therapists, calling themselves of childhood abuse. Profoundly shocked As the false memories become more “traumatists,” began to practice the very by this suggestion, the woman vigor- convincing, the patient’s anger toward techniques Freud had discarded. All ously denies that such a thing could be a once-loved relative grows. The ther- over the land they are putting patients possible. The stronger her denial, the apist urges her to vent this rage, to

16 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer Martin Gardner’s The False Memory Syndrome

confront the perpetrator, even to sue demic. Pamela Freyd has likened the parental sexual abuse. Thousands of for psychic damage. Stunned by their traumatists to surgeons doing brain sur- victims are being induced by trauma- daughter’s accusations, the parents vig- gery with a knife and fork. Others see tists to recall childhood participation orously deny everything. Of course they the epidemic as similar in many ways to in satanic cults that murder babies, eat will deny it, says the therapist, perhaps the great witch-hunts of the past, when their flesh, and practice even more re- even suppress their own memories of disturbed women were made to believe volting rituals. Although there is wide- what happened. The family is devas- they were in Satan’s grip. The Devil has spread fascination with the , and tated. A loving daughter has inexpli- been replaced by the evil parent. an amusing upsurge in the number of cably been transformed into a bitter FMS takes many forms other than persons who fancy themselves benev- enemy. She may join an “incest survi- vor” group, where her beliefs are rein- forced by hearing similar tales. She may wear a sweatshirt saying, “I survived.” That traumas experienced as a child can be No one doubts that childhood sexual assaults occur, but in almost every case totally forgotten for decades is the great the event is never forgotten. Indeed, mental-health myth of our time—a myth that is it festers as a lifelong source of shame and anger. Studies show that among not only devastating innocent families but children who witnessed the murder of doing enormous damage to psychiatry. a parent, not a single one repressed the terrible memory. Not only do victims of child incest not repress such painful memories (to repress a memory means to completely forget the experience without any conscious effort to do so); they try unsuccessfully to forget them. That traumas experienced as a child can be totally forgotten for decades is the great mental-health myth of our time—a myth that is not only devastat- ing innocent families but doing enor- mous damage to psychiatry. In the past, when juries found a par- ent guilty of child incest, there has been corroborating evidence: photos, diaries, letters, testimony by others, a history of sexual misconduct, or even open admis- sion of guilt. Juries today are increas- ingly more often judging a parent guilty without any confirming evidence other than the therapy-induced memories of the “victim.” Patients as well as their families can be scarred for life. They are led to be- lieve that bringing suppressed memo- ries to light will banish their symptoms. On the contrary, the symptoms usually get worse because of traumatic breaks with loved ones. Moreover, this treat- ment can also cause a patient to refuse needed therapy from psychiatrists who have not fallen prey to the FMS epi-

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 17 Martin Gardner Centennial

olent witches or warlocks, police have survey of several hundred accused par- entertainers have boosted the FMS ep- yet to uncover any compelling evidence ents revealed that in almost every case idemic by openly discussing their trau- that satanic cults exist. Yet under hyp- their daughters had been strongly influ- mas on similar sensational talk shows. nosis and soporific drugs, memories of enced by Courage to Heal . Roseanne Barr recently learned for the witnessing such rituals can become as From the growing literature of first time, while in therapy, that she vivid as memories of sexual abuse. FMS cases I cite a few typical horrors. had been repeatedly molested by her Thousands of other patients, highly A 28-year-old woman accuses her fa- parents, starting when she was three suggestible while half asleep, are now ther of molesting her when she was six months old! Her story made the cover “remembering” how they were ab- months old. “I recall my father put his of People magazine. Barr’s parents and ducted, and sometimes sexually abused, penis near my face and rubbed it on sisters deny it and have threatened by aliens in spaceships from faraway my face and mouth.” There is not the legal action. A former Miss America, planets. Every year or so victims of this slightest evidence that a child of six Marilyn Van Derbur, has been in the form of FMS (assuming they are not months can acquire lasting memories news proclaiming her decades-delayed charlatans) will write persuasive books of any event. recollection of abuse by her father, now deceased. It is an alarming trend that a dozen states have revised their statute-of-lim- It is an alarming trend that a dozen states have itations laws and now permit legal ac- tion against parents within three years revised their statute-of-limitations laws and now of the time the abuse was remembered! permit legal action against parents within three In 1990 the first conviction based on years of the time the abuse was remembered! “repressed memory” occurred. George Franklin was given a life sentence for murdering an 8-year-old in 1969 al- most entirely on the basis of his daugh- ter’s memory, allegedly repressed for 20 years, of having witnessed his murder- about their adventures with extrater- Betsy Petersen, in Dancing with ing her friend. A year later a Pennsyl- restrials. The books will be heavily ad- Daddy (Bantam, 1991) tells of being vania man was convicted of murder on vertised and promoted on talk shows, convinced by her therapist that she had the basis of a man’s detailed account of and millions of dollars will flow into the been raped by her father when she was what he had seen when he was five, but pockets of the authors and the books’ three. “I don’t know if I made it up or had totally forgotten for 16 years. uncaring publishers. Still another pop- not,” she told the therapist. “It feels Although therapists usually deny ular form of FMS, sparked by the New like a story,” he replied, “because when asking leading questions, tapes of their Age with , is the something like that happens, everyone sessions often prove otherwise. If no recovering of memories of past lives. acts like it didn’t.” memories surface they will prod a pa- Pop-psychology books touting the In 1986 Patti Barton sued her father tient to make up a story. After many myth that memories of childhood mo- for sexually abusing her when she was repetitions and elaborations of the in- lestations can be suppressed for decades seven to fifteen months old. She did vented scenario, the patient starts to are becoming as plentiful as books not remember this until her thirty-sec- believe the story is true. One therapist, about reincarnation, satanic cults, and ond therapy session. She recalls trying who claims to have treated 1,500 in- flying saucers. Far and away the worst to tell her mother what happened by cest victims, explained her approach. offender is a best-seller titled Courage saying, “Ma, ma, ma, ma!” and “Da, She would say to a patient: “You know, to Heal (Harper & Row, 1988), by da, da, da!” in my experience, a lot of people who Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. Although Geraldo Rivera, in 1991, had three are struggling with many of the same neither author has had any training in trauma survivors on his “Geraldo” tele- problems you are have often had some psychiatry, the book has become a bible vision show. One woman insisted she kind of really painful things happen to for women convinced they are incest had murdered 40 children while she them as kids—maybe they were beaten survivors. Davis thinks she herself is a was in a satanic cult but had totally or molested. And I wonder if anything survivor, having recalled under therapy forgotten about it until her memories like that ever happened to you?” An- being attacked by her grandfather. A were aroused in therapy. Well-known other traumatist says: “You sound to

18 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer Martin Gardner’s The False Memory Syndrome

me like the sort of person who must to win admiration, even scratching her- phia, PA 19104. The phone number is have been sexually abused. Tell me self to prove there had been a struggle. 215-387-1865, Fax: 215-387-1917. what that bastard did to you.” Piaget had heard the story so often that The FMS Foundation is a nonprofit The FMS epidemic would not be so it seeped into his consciousness as a de- organization whose purpose is to seek bad if such therapists were frauds inter- tailed memory. reasons for the FMS epidemic, to work ested only in money, but the sad truth Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist at for the prevention of new cases, and to is that they are sincere. So were the Johns Hopkins University, in “Psychi- aid victims. By the end of 1992, only doctors who once tried to cure patients atric Misadventures” ( American Scholar, ten months after its founding, more by bleeding, and the churchmen who Fall 1992), writes about a woman who than two thousand distressed parents “cured” witches by torture, hanging, under therapy came to believe she had had contacted the Foundation for ad- and burning. been sexually assaulted by an uncle. vice on how to cope with sudden at- Better-trained, older psychiatrists do She recalled the exact date. Her disbe- tacks by angry daughters who had ac- not believe that childhood memories of lieving mother discovered that at that cused them of horrible crimes. traumas can be repressed for any length time her brother was in military service I trust that no one reading this col- of time, except in rare cases of actual in Korea. Did this alter the woman’s umn will get the impression that either brain damage. Nor is there any evidence belief? Not much. “I see, Mother,” she I or members of the FMS Foundation that hypnosis improves memory. It may said. “Yes. Well let me think. If your are not fully aware that many women increase certitude, but not accuracy. And dates are right, I suppose it must have are indeed sexually abused as children there is abundant evidence that totally been Dad.” and that their abusers should be pun- false memories are easily aroused in the Although the incest-recall industry ished. In its newsletter of January 8, mind of a suggestible patient. is likely to grow in coming years, as 1993, the Foundation responded to A two-part article by Lawrence it spreads around the world, there are criticism that somehow its efforts are a Wright, “Remembering Satan” ( New some hopeful signs. Here and there backlash against feminism. Their reply: Yorker, May 17 and 24, 1993), tells the women are beginning to discover how Is it not “harmful to feminism to por- tragic story of Paul Ingram, a respected cruelly they have been deceived and tray women as having minds closed to police officer in Olympia, Washing- are suing therapists for inducing false scientific information and as being sat- ton, who was accused by his two adult memories that caused them and their isfied with sloppy, inaccurate statistics? daughters of sexually abusing them as parents great suffering. They are known Could it be viewed as a profound insult children. Ingram’s family are devout as “recanters” or “retractors.” to women to give them slogans rather Pentecostals who believe that Satan can Another welcome trend is that dis- than accurate information about how wipe out all memories of such crimes. tinguished psychologists and psychia- memory works?” Ingram remembered nothing, but after trists are now writing papers about the The point is not to deny that hid- five months of intensive questioning, FMS epidemic. I particularly recom- eous sexual abuse of children occurs, but he came to believe himself guilty. Psy- mend the book Confabulations (Social that, when it does, it is not forgotten chologist Richard Ofshe, writing on Issues Research Series, Boca Raton, and only “remembered” decades later “Inadvertent Hypnosis During Inter- Fla., 1992) by Eleanor Goldstein, and under hypnosis. Something is radically rogation” ( International Journal of Clin- the following three articles: “Beware amiss when therapist E. Sue Blume, in ical and Experimental Hypnosis, 11:125- the Incest-Survivor Machine,” by psy- her book Secret Survivors , can maintain: 155, 1992), tells how he fabricated an chologist Carol Tavris, in the New York “Incest is easily the greatest underlying imaginary incident of Ingram’s sexual Times Book Review (January 3, 1993); reason why women seek therapy. . . . It abuse of a son and daughter. After re- “The Reality of Repressed Memories,” is my experience that fewer than half of peated suggestions that he try to “see” by Elizabeth Loftus (psychologist, Uni- the women who experience this trauma this happening, Ingram produced a versity of Washington), scheduled for later remember or identify it as abuse. written confession! publication in American Psychologist , Therefore it is not unreasonable that Jean Piaget, the Swiss psycholo- and “Making Monsters,” by Richard more than half of all women are survivors gist, tells of his vivid memory of an at- Ofshe and Ethan Watters, in Society of childhood sexual trauma.” tempted kidnapping when he was two. (March 1993). Most of this column As Carol Tavris, author of Mis- The thief had been foiled by Piaget’s is based on material in those articles. measure of Women, comments in her nurse, who bravely fought off the man. Copies can be obtained, along with article cited above: “Not one of these When Piaget was in his teens the nurse other literature, from the FMS Foun- assertions is supported by empirical ev- I confessed that she made up the story dation, 3401 Market Street, Philadel- idence.”

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 19 [ INVESTIGATIVE FILES JOE NICKELL Joe Nickell, PhD, is CSI’s senior research fellow. He has written scholarly texts on folklore, photo analysis, postcard history, artifact authentication, , and other topics of relevance to this article.

Monster Catfish: Investigating a Whopper

or its fourth season, the popu- probably with india ink, on the pho- lar television show Monster Fish, tographic negative, a common prac- Fon the cable channel National tice. (See examples in Nickell 2005, Geographic Wild, asked for my opin- 64, 125.) ion of an old photograph depicting a Immediately one notices that the humongous catfish—one estimated to photo’s ratio of width to height is like weigh between 500 and 800 pounds. that of a picture postcard rather than Was the photo authentic? I flew to a standard photograph. Common Chattanooga to give my opinion in the period indicated were what for a segment of the episode “Giant are known to deltiologists (postcard Catfish” that aired July 5, 2013. Here collectors) as “real photo” postcards: is a more detailed presentation. black-and-white photos that were not printed on a press but were actually A Fish Tale developed onto photographic card- stock having a preprinted postcard There are different versions—folklore 1 at work—regarding the origins of back. By 1902, Kodak was selling both the giant fish and the old photo. such prepared cards (Nicholson 1994, Some say the picture is genuine, while 178). Real photos were often made by others insist that it is not. local or itinerant photographers and For example, some accounts hold so were typically one-of-a-kind or that the fish was caught in the Ten- limited-edition prints (although some nessee River at the Cerro Gordo com- were commercially made and tended munity in Hardin County, Tennessee, to have typeface captions rather than Figure 1. Questioned photograph: real or fake? in 1914. Some say it was landed by handwritten ones). Real photos were the late Joe B. Pitts, the proprietor Photo Analysis especially common during the “golden of Harbour-Pitts Company’s general age” of picture postcards, 1898–1918 store, while others insist it was ac- A copy of the original photograph (Nickell 2003, 105–107; Nickell 2005, tually taken by Green Bailey, a local (Figure 1) bears (in the upper right 41–43, 56; Willoughby 1992, 68–77; fisherman who caught it on a trotline. corner) a handwritten notation, Nicholson 1994, 3, 13, 178). Another story holds that the giant fish “Cerro Gordo, Ta[ken?] by Green Looking at the photo image it- th was captured after it was trapped in Bailey / Apr 6 / 1914” and (in the self, it is quite typical of the post- shallow water during a dry spell; one lower left) the initials “E. F. P.,” pre- card genre known as “exaggerations” local historian thinks the picture may sumably those of the photographer. (Range 1980, 62–63)—a genre now date from the 1940s; and so on (Wil- That the script is white is consistent recognized in folklore scholarship as son 2003; Cagle 2010). with its having been directly penned, a form of American folk expression

20 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer representing a “visual twist on the tall tale” (Axelrod and Oster 2000, 184– 185). I have a collection of these: ex- amples include a man being attacked by a monster jackrabbit, a workman hauling a single huge bunch of grapes in a wheelbarrow, two great cabbages (or again two titanic oranges) filling a train’s flatcar, a tractor pulling one gar- gantuan potato, and so on and on. (See Figures 2 and 3.) But fish are perhaps the most com- mon, no doubt because, as one folklor- ist observes, “Verbal lore concerning fabulous catches represents a whole category of exaggerated narrative, highly formulaic and entertaining in Figure 2. “Real photo” postcard of “exaggeration” genre (made by photo montage technique), 1908. content, with skeptical reaction from (Author’s collection) the audience an expected part of the performance” (Brady 1996). To this verbal lore is added the pictorial variety: photos or artworks that often turn into jokelore—funny instances of the one that didn’t get away. Now, such photographs are typ- ically made by photomontage tech- niques. The term montage (French for “mounting”) loosely describes any means of making one picture from two or more—as by background projection, collage or “cut montage,” sandwiching (of negatives), and other techniques (Nickell 2005, 120–127). The figure of the man standing atop the wagon and staring at the giant catfish does have Figure 3. Another “real photo” card shows one that did not get away, 1910. (Author’s collection) a “different” look than other elements in the photo—it is a bit out of focus, for example—and could seem to indi- 85 lbs.—on it. Then my Uncle Frank graphic statuette” (a photo mounted on cate photomontaging. It could, that is, [Elisha Franklin Pitts (1890–1953)], a rigid base, such as cardboard or ply- if there were not additional evidence who was good at photography, cut out wood, and cut with an appropriate tool pointing to authenticity. a cardboard man that was being used in such as a mat knife or jigsaw [Fraprie a clothing advertisement and stuck it on and Woodbury 1896, 90–96])—was, Genuine Photo… the wagon, along with the fish. He took as mentioned, reportedly made from the picture” (qtd. in “Giant Catfish” As I told the star of Monster Fish, fish an advertisement. However, another biologist Zeb Hogan, the photograph 2007). Another source (Cagle 2010) source (Wilson 2003) cites hearsay ev- is actually genuine and unretouched. explains that “the wagon, perhaps a idence that the man in the picture was But that doesn’t mean the giant catfish quarter or less than the size of a stan- one Warren McConnell. It is possible is the real McCoy: the scene the genu- dard wagon, was a freight wagon used that photographer Frank Pitts posed ine photo depicts has been faked! to move goods in tight quarters, such him and took his photograph rather 2 Joe Brownlow Pitts of Savannah, as the basement of the Harbour-Pitts than using an advertising figure. But Tennessee, speaks with authority: Company Store and was pulled by what is important is that Jay Barker, “My daddy had a little wagon that workers, not horses.” president of Tennessee’s National Cat- looked like a log wagon. He put the The cutout figure—known to fish Derby, reportedly had “a copy of fish—which weighed, I recall, about cameramen of the period as a “photo- another photo of the same man and

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 21 Museum shop provided the excellent cutout picture of Zeb, much smaller than life size. As with the original Frank Pitts photo, the fact that one as- sumes the wagon and figure are of usual size creates an illusion in which the cat- fish appears to be huge indeed (Figure 4): larger than life—in fact much, much I larger.

Acknowledgments In addition to individuals cited in the text, I am grateful to National Geographic’s Drew Pulley and Bailey Frankel, and to CFI’s Li- braries Director Tim Binga and librarian Lisa Nolan, as well as to Tom Flynn, and to Ed Beck, my assistant at the time of this investigation.

Notes Figure 4. Re-creation of the process used for the photo in Figure 1. (Photo by Joe Nickell) 1. Although the image in Figure 1 is half- tone-screened, the half-toning extends even over damaged areas, showing that it results from copying at some later time (either by a photo- copier that screens or from a printed reproduc- tion of the card). 2. Frank Pitts may not have had the capabil- ity of making such a big enlargement. 3. I have some experience with trotlines, “Verbal lore concerning fabulous catches having often accompanied my late grandfather, represents a whole category of exaggerated Charlie Turner, as he removed catfish from his. narrative, highly formulaic and entertaining References Axelrod, Alan, and Harry Oster. 2000. The in content, with skeptical reaction from the Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore. New York: Penguin Reference. audience an expected part of the performance.” Brady, Erika. 1996. Fishing (sport), in Brunvand 1996, 274–275. Brunvand, Jan Harold, ed. 1996. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing. Cagle, David. 2010. Statement and copy of orig- Re-Creation inal photo from Hardin County, Tennessee, fish taken from a different angle”— Historical Society, August; provided by in which “the man is posed exactly The evidence fully explains the pic- National Geographic Television. the same as he is in the other photo” ture as I conclude, and so does photo Fraprie, Frank R., and Walter E. Woodbury. 1896. Photographic Amusements, 10th ed. (Wilson 2003). This would appear to expert Tom Flynn, a CFI photographer Boston: American Photographic Publishing corroborate the use of a “photographic and videographer I consulted, who Co., 1931. statuette” in staging the scene. has expertise in special effects. Tom Giant Catfish—Some of the World’s Biggest Catfish. 2007. Online at http://www.oodora. As to the catfish itself, it may well suggests the staged scene was pho- com/life-stories/funny-finds/giant-catfish. have been caught by Green Bailey “who tographed with a view camera, using html; accessed August 30, 2013. worked as a gin-man [cotton-gin oper- a wide aperture and slow-speed film. Nicholson, Susan Brown. 1994. The Encyclopedia of Antique Postcards. Radnor, PA: Wallace- ator] for Habour-Pitts Company.” He That the background, especially, is out Homestead. reportedly caught it on a trotline (which of focus is consistent with a small Nickell, Joe. 2003. Pen, Ink, and Evidence: A would not have been strong enough to object being photographed close up. Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the 3 Penman, Collector, and Document Detective. hold a 500–800 pound fish! ). Then he This effect is often seen when minia- New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press. “took his catch to the gin where it could ture objects are photographed with the ———. 2005. Camera Clues: A Handbook for be weighed on a cotton scale” (Cagle intention of making them look larger. Photographic Investigation. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2010). Sources say a former bookkeeper It remained to do a recreation, and Range, Thomas E. 1980. The Book of Postcard for the Pitts store, Rilla Callens, who ac- for that I flew to Chattanooga. A small Collecting. New York: Dutton. tually had passed the photo down to her wagon was found (on eBay, as I re- Willoughby, Martin. 1992. A History of Postcards. Secaucus, N.J.: The Wellfleet Press. son, agreed Bailey had caught the fish; so call), Zeb brought a sizeable catfish in Wilson, Taylor. 2003. Something’s fishy in did Green Bailey’s sister (Wilson 2003). a cooler, and the National Geographic Hardin County. ESPNOutdoors.com

22 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer [THINKING ABOUT SCIENCE MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI Massimo Pigliucci is K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and coeditor (with Maarten Boudry) most recently of Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. His essays can be found at ScientiaSalon.org.

Science and Skepticism, the Big Picture

have now written seventy-one col- pirical science, including, for instance, basics of science. If we want to be ef- umns for S I what counts as “evidence” for a claim, fective skeptics, i.e., well-informed de- Iexploring the general topic of “think- or what are the characteristics of a good bunkers of pseudoscience and defend- ing about science.” This one is going thought experiment. ers of critical thinking, we need both to be the last for now, so it probably A rather constant theme in our jour- science literacy and philosophy literacy. represents an excellent occasion to step ney has been that it is very much im- We are all familiar with Carl Sagan’s back and ponder our subject matter in portant that skeptics themselves do not famous dictum, “Extraordinary claims its broad contours. take science for granted, that they do require extraordinary evidence” (which To begin with, what is the point not think of it as a well established and is actually based on CSICOP co- for a skeptic to consider the nature of science? Although the answer by now should be obvious, at first glance it may seem a given that skeptics would be We have discovered that basic ideas about very familiar with the topic, focusing science that are often taken for granted within on deploying scientific methods and findings to fight the good fight against the skeptic community, such as Popper’s notion pseudoscience and its pernicious effects of , are no longer viable in philoso- on the general public. And yet, we have discovered that basic ideas about sci- phy of science and need to be discarded or at ence that are often taken for granted the very least seriously brought up to date. within the skeptic community, such as Popper’s notion of falsifiability, are no longer viable in philosophy of science essentially stable type of human epis- founder Marcello Truzzi’s nearly iden- and need to be discarded or at the very temic activity. The nature of science tical phrase, “An extraordinary claim least seriously brought up to date. has changed since Aristotle began con- requires extraordinary proof”). But we We have also seen that there is no ducting his biological observations on ought not to mindlessly repeat it like a such thing as the and the island of Lesbo, and it keeps chang- mantra without realizing that it is actu- that there are a number of “accounts” ing as we speak, for instance with some ally rooted in David Hume’s idea that (as philosophers often call them) of theoretical physicists beginning to talk “in our reasonings concerning matter how science works, ranging from the (misguidedly, I think) of a “post-empir- of fact, there are all imaginable degrees already mentioned Popperian one to ical” science. of assurance, from the highest certainty Thomas Kuhn’s paradigms and revo- Underlying this theme there has to the lowest species of moral evidence. lutions, to contemporary thinking of been, inevitably, another one: skeptics A wise man, therefore, proportions his science as a type of Bayesian activity. need to be just as conversant in the belief to the evidence,” dating back to Along the way we have taken a closer basics of philosophy—particularly phi- his Enquiry Concerning Human Under- look to fundamental concepts and losophy of science, epistemology, and standing, published in 1748. Hume was methods of both theoretical and em- logic—as they need to be about the the original skeptic in the modern sense

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 23 of the term, and acquaintance with his One might rejoice in this sort of ity whenever we say that climate scien- work clearly shows that science, philos- thing, since it seems to indicate a work- tists are best positioned to weigh in on ophy, and skepticism have always pro- ing knowledge of basic informal logic, the issue of global warming, or medical ceeded hand in hand (in hand). which is, after all, a branch of philoso- researchers on whether there is a con- And yet, it is precisely the (often phy. The problem is that a little knowl- nection between vaccines and autism. scornful) rejection of this partnership edge is often just enough to do more The whole thing is degenerating into a that we hear trumpeted by a number of damage than good. In the above cases, rhetorical battle rather than a confron- skeptics and even prominent scientists. notice that philosophers consider in- tation of carefully thought out ideas. The list is a long one, and there is no formal actually fallacious only Or take yet another superficial tru- point revisiting it (just do a quick Inter- once the background has been clearly ism that upon closer examination turns net search on “science vs. philosophy” taken into account, since there are in- out to be anything but. Skepticism, and you’ll see what I mean). It is worth stances where those not only are not which models itself after science, is noting, however, that the wholesale re- actually fallacies but represent pretty supposed to be about facts, not opin- ions or (wishful) beliefs. But if there is anything we have learned from the philosophy (and sociology) of science over the past few decades it is that there Skepticism, which models itself after science, is no such thing as “just the facts.” A well-known phenomenon termed the is supposed to be about facts, not opinions or underdetermination of theory by the (wishful) beliefs. But if there is anything we evidence means that at the least some of the time there will be more than one have learned from the philosophy (and sociol- reasonable explanation for a given set of ogy) of science over the past few decades it is facts. And “facts,” as Darwin famously recognized in a frustrated letter he sent that there is no such thing as “just the facts.” to a friend, are actually not independent of theories either (the so-called “theory- ladeness” of observations), because a random bit of information becomes a jection of an entire field of inquiry (in decent heuristics that are wise to deploy fact only once it is looked at within a this case, philosophy) by practitioners in order to navigate the world prag- particular theoretical framework. of a different field who are demonstra- matically. For instance, we all rely on What does that mean for the prac- bly ignorant of the first one amounts to one authority or the other to back up ticing skeptic? That it would be best to a form of anti-intellectualism—which our claims, because we don’t have the revise our view of knowledge in gen- is ironic, considering that we skeptics time or skills to verify them. It isn’t, eral (not just scientific knowledge) and consider ours to be very much an intel- therefore, a question of authority per think of it not as built on some kind lectual community. se, but of the quality and reliability of of rock-solid foundation (as in the fre- Indeed, the more we reflect on the such authority. And it is not at all a bad quently used metaphor of the “edifice” nature of the skeptic (and humanist and idea to consider the track record of an of knowledge), but rather as an intricate atheist) community, the more it seems individual or organization when evalu- and ever-changing web of beliefs, some like there is great potential to do good, ating their reliability: shouldn’t you be more substantiated and secure than but also quite a bit of confusion and at least a bit suspicious of a car being others but all open to revision—with misunderstanding on basic issues. For sold to you by a known fraudster? As the revisable threads of the web includ- instance, it is now a well-entrenched for the burden of proof, again, the con- ing even the very way in which we do habit among skeptics to “name the fal- text is everything, since it is a matter of science, logic, and math, if need be. lacy” committed by their opponents, elementary logic to show that any “posi- Needless to say, this is a concept devel- whatever that may be in any par- tive” statement can easily be turned into oped by yet another influential philoso- ticular case. Are you citing the Bible? a negative one (thus shifting the burden pher, W.V.O. Quine, and it is one that That’s an argument from authority! Are of proof?) by the simple addition of a ~ we would do well to seriously take on you trying to disqualify me from talking (the logical symbol for “not”). board if we aspire to become what we about evolution on the grounds that I’m This is not just pedantry; it has keep saying we wish to become: not just biased as an atheist? Genetic fallacy! practical consequences. You may have cynical naysayers, not just pompous and Are you making a positive claim and yet noticed that a number of purveyors of self-assured repositories of the Truth, refuse to provide the evidence to back it pseudoscience have become wise to the but rather honest critical thinkers who up? Invalid shift of the burden of proof! fallacy game, now accusing our side of work hard to make the world a better I And so on and so forth. engaging in an argument from author- place for everyone.

24 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer [ PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER Sheaffer’s “Psychic Vibrations” column has appeared in the S  I for nearly forty 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.

The Trent UFO Photos—‘Best’ of All Time—Finally Busted?

nce again, farmer Paul Trent’s Trents did not immediately tell anyone up with the presently accepted theory famous UFO photos from Mc- about the photos or rush them off to be about the origin of the Earth’s moon. OMinnville, Oregon, are a hot topic developed. Instead, the film containing This analysis attracted a lot of attention in . Kevin Randle discussed the invaluable flying saucer photos was from UFOlogists, particularly because the photos on his blog A Different left in the camera until Mother’s Day, of Hartmann’s conclusion that Perspective, and a torrent of comments so that a few unexposed frames would This is one of the few UFO reports from researchers followed. Not just not be wasted. More general informa- in which all factors investigated, geo- frothy opinion but highly detailed, tion on the photos is on my website at metric, psychological, and physical meticulous comments about the camera http://debunker.com/trent.html. appear to be consistent with the angle and position, the weight and size assertion that an extraordinary flying The famous (and to some, infamous) of the hypothetical model, the load on object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, Condon Report included the Trent the wires and a possible bend in them, tens of meters in diameter, and evi- photos in its section of Photographic dently artificial, flew within sight of etc. Ultimately this is important, but Case Studies as Case 46 (http://goo.gl/ two witnesses. It cannot be said that such matters are unlikely to give us a the evidence positively rules out a final answer. There is one thing about vaKe81). The principal investigator fabrication, although there are some this case that everyone can probably was William K. Hartmann—who, in- physical factors such as the accuracy agree on: as Randle says, “There are cidentally, was the first person to come of certain photometric measures of only two conclusions to be drawn about the pictures taken in McMinnville, Oregon. They either show a craft from another world, or they are a . I do not see a third possibility.” Partly in response to this, I wrote a long special report on the current status of the Trent photos on my BadUFOs blog. Space does not permit putting it in this column, so I include only the highlights here. You can read the long version, and see all the photos, at http://tinyurl.com/BadUFOsTrent. On May 11, 1950, farmer Paul Trent of McMinnville, Oregon, snapped two photos of an object that he claimed was a flying saucer (the term UFO hadn’t been invented yet). There are inconsistencies in Mrs. Trent’s ac- counts of where her husband was when the object was first spotted and who The first of Oregon farmer Paul Trent’s two photos of a supposed “flying saucer,” May 11, 1950. went inside to get the camera. The

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 25 the original negatives which argue shaded surface. Trent’s camera was surprisingly close against a fabrication. • The underside of an object suspended to the ground when the photos were Hartmann acknowledges, however, that several feet above the ground from taken. For some bizarre reason, Trent a fabrication is possible: the wires receives much more illumi- did not stand up to photograph his nation than that of a tank near the UFO, but instead crouched down. Car- The object appears beneath a pair of ground, next to a wall. (I would ex- penter explains, wires, as is seen in Plates 23 and 24. pect this to be true.) We may question, therefore, whether Instead of moving toward the object it could have been a model sus- There are very distinct shadows on and shooting the photos from eye pended from one of the wires. This level in the unobstructed front yard, the garage in both photos, although the he shot the two photos up, from a possibility is strengthened by the Trents claimed that the photos were observation that the object appears very low level, from the back yard. For reasons explained above, it seems beneath roughly the same point in taken around sunset. The problem is likely that he actually used the view- the two photos, in spite of their hav- that the wall faces east, and the sun is in that position (about 90 degrees az- finder on the body of the camera ing been taken from two positions. while kneeling. The overall geometry of the positions and the attributes of the camera suggest that he was attempting to frame a nearby object in such a way as to maximize the amount of sky around it and enhance its apparent altitude. Trent walked away from where the UFO was In other words, Trent walked away supposed to be and instead walked toward from where the UFO was supposed to be and instead walked toward where where the presumed model was hanging from the presumed model was hanging from the wires and crouched down close to the the wires and crouched down close to the ground to make his “UFO” appear ground to make his “UFO” appear distant. distant. Since the camera moved a signif- icant distance between Photo 1 and Photo 2, can the two Trent photos pos- sibly be viewed as a stereo pair, to reveal the object’s distance? In 2010 an anon- The sole factor suggesting that the imuth) at about 8:20  PDT. If the ymous researcher calling himself Blue object is distant is a measured anoma- photos were actually taken in the morn- Shift did so on Above Top Secret (http:// lous brightness on the underside of the ing, then the Trents were lying about goo.gl/OEsXCi). When you cross your object in Photo 1, compared with the the circumstances of the incident. I eyes to see the image in 3D, the “UFO” brightness of the shaded underside of found that, measuring the shadows, we is seen to be small and relatively close to the oil tank. The assumption is that, can greatly restrict the size of the ob- the camera compared with the distant in the case of a model, the two shaded ject casting the shadows. In fact, it is hills. Another way of demonstrating the regions ought to have about the same so small that it is almost certainly less same thing: a montage by David Slater brightness. Since the underside of the than one degree. This eliminates every demonstrates that when the two Trent object is brighter than the underside possible source of illumination except photos are overlaid so that the wires are of the tank, the assumption is that at- the sun. lined up, the images of the “UFOs” line mospheric scattering is the cause, and In 2004, researcher Joel Carpenter up as well (http://goo.gl/5JwJ6e). Both hence the object is at a significant dis- (1959–2014) created a website on the these demonstrations show that the tance from the camera. However, if any McMinnville photos, making a very “UFO” appears to be fixed with respect of the assumptions are incorrect, the good case that the object was directly to the overhead wires. photometry results are meaningless. beneath the overhead wires and close to In 2013 a group of French skep- Among the possible violations of those the camera. He suggests that the ob- tics (IPACO) did an in-depth inves- assumptions: ject was a mirror from an old truck. I tigation of the McMinnville photos have restored Joel Carpenter’s original (http://www.ipaco.fr/ReportMcMin- • The object is translucent, allowing McMinnville photos website (chang- nville.pdf). They began with the usual light from the sky to pass through. ing only the links), and placed it on the description of the line of sight to the • The object has a mirror surface at the at http://tinyurl.com/ object in each photo, presumed suspen- bottom, thus we are seeing a reflec- CarpenterTrent. sion methods, etc. They concluded that tion of the bright ground and not a One of Carpenter’s findings is that the object is a small model.

26 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer ROBERT SHEAFFER PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS]

More interesting is the second part http://archive.org/details/TrentHigh Walter suggests that the object in of the report, completed two months ResScans), he did his own photo en- question is an appliance motor shroud, after the first part: Evidence of a Sus- hancement using the venerable pro- approximately eight inches in diameter. pension Thread (page 29 of the IPACO gram ArtGem. He said that even using “I think Trent walked to the garage one report). They do not claim to detect the a 4.2ghz quad core 64bit processor with evening, tied a string to an appliance suspension thread directly but instead 8 gigs of system RAM, he was still get- motor shroud via an old bolt, tossed the statistically. They conclude, “For the ting “out of memory” errors. However, shroud over a wire and tied the other TRNT1 picture, the presence of a neg- he persevered and produced a series of end of the string to an anchor near the ative peak (thread darker than the sky) photos appearing to detect portions of ground, then took the two pictures. was clearly observed which matched ex- a suspension thread above the object Logical, practical, and so much less ef- actly to the supposed attachment point, in both photos. The purported string fort for him than other theories. People with a significant difference of 2,38 cannot be seen across its entire length, just do what they do and Trent wasn’t sigma, for a tilt angle equal to -11°. . . . which is consistent with the French going to go to too much effort just to Application of the same method to skeptics being able to detect it only fool his banker buddy.” the second picture TRNT2 provided statistically. It is significant that Wal- Do these new findings finally de- comparable results, with a tilt angle of ter and the French team were working bunk the Trent photos? They would, -10.29° and results of over 2.5 sigma.” with different scans. provided they can be independently Now, another researcher has weighed Another of Walter’s purported dis- confirmed by other researchers, using in. Jay J. Walter of Phoenix, Arizona, coveries is what he calls a “logo,” an ap- other high-resolution scans from the author of the suspense horror novel parently flat area with two holes, where first-generation prints or the original Blood Tree, did his own investigation. it appears a logo plate might be at- negatives. Until then, people will con- Working from high-resolution scans of tached or possibly even a handle. Is this tinue to argue about such matters as first-generation prints that I sent him real, or is it simply “pareidolia”—seeing the gauge of the wires and whether the (scans I have now posted on the Inter- a pattern where none exists? Confirma- model, if it was a model, would have to I net Archive for anyone to research at tion is needed. be five or six inches in diameter.

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Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 27 [NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD MASSIMO POLIDORO Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the paranormal, lecturer, and cofounder and head of CICAP, the Italian skeptics group. His website is at www.massimopolidoro.com.

The Amazing Randi’s Most Extraordinary Escape, Part 2

As announced in a previous column, I will be writing James Randi’s biography. We will window with a view to the outside. probably be starting a fundraising campaign this spring. If you want to support the proj- Precisely—and not incidentally—on ect or just receive news and updates you can send me an email here: massimopolidoro1@ the same side where the car was parked. gmail.com and I will keep you informed. Meanwhile, here is the second part of a sample “Of course, I manipulated things in chapter from the book that I hope you will enjoy. order to get that specific cell. ‘I need some light and ventilation,’ I said, so o, how did The Amazing Randi leyfield was small enough that its main one with a barred window was the escape not only from the cell occupants were petty criminals in for a best. Now, as with a magic show, the Sthat kept him a prisoner but also night’s stay or locals who might need to magician runs the show. They don’t from the building of the police station sober up for a few hours before being know what is going to happen. They’ve in Valleyfield Quebec, as described in sent home. never locked a magician up in jail be- Part 1 of this article? Here is the inge- “So, now, you gotta picture this,” fore. They have some ideas about how nious solution devised by Randi. explains Randi. “You had a big metal they’re going to do it, but I’m way 3 Just two days after the extraordinary door, with a very solid lock on it, that ahead of them.” escape, Randi wrote to his friend P. you had to enter in order to get to the Randi took off his clothes, but he Howard Lyons, editor of the Canadian block. It used a different key than the was not left in his underwear shorts, as conjuring magazine Ibidem, with all the one used to open the cell doors inside, he would later remember it, probably details still fresh in his memory. I guess, but it didn’t matter. What was because that’s what happened in many In it, Randi even drew a map of the important was that it opened inward, other jail escapes he performed. In a Valleyfield police station that helps to and you shall soon see why that was 1 surviving clipping from Le Progrès of clarify how things were actually accom- very nice for me.” October 14, two pictures show Randi plished: Randi and the chief entered the during the performance. In one he is The letter “C” indicates the main en- block, followed by the party of onlook- sitting on a wooden chair, his wrists trance door, where Randi first entered ers. locked in handcuffs that are linked along with Danny Dean (acting as his “I got as many people there as I together below the chair with other assistant) and where the police and the could possibly have. I wanted a lot of 2 handcuffs. His ankles are cuffed as well reporters greeted them. The main part people that they had to work around.” to the chair with leg irons. The article of the building is occupied by offices, a Randi wanted to get locked in the specifies that five cuffs were used: “Two 4 recreation room, and a washroom. On cell furthest away from the entrance for the feet and three for the hands.” the far left a solid, metal door, with a door to the corridor. This way he could In the photo Randi is wearing a small, barred window on top, led to the not be seen when they opened the main white shirt, socks, and his pants are jail block that housed only five cells. door to check if he was okay—and in rolled up below the knees in order to The cells were empty, as usual—Val- that cell there was also a small barred show the leg irons. With his goatee,

28 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer 6 heavy eyebrows, and dark hair combed the chief locked the door, and the party pouring coffee and so on.” Meanwhile, back, he looks fiercely at the camera- of people exited the block through the Randi was already halfway through his man. The tiny cell has only enough steel main door. At this moment the escape. space for him sitting and for the bunk outside mechanism locked all of the “It started the exact second that they nailed to the wall. In the second pic- cell doors with the additional metal turned their backs on me. As soon as ture, Randi is still sitting in the cell but bar, and it took about twenty seconds they started to leave, I worked my way now the barred iron door is closed, and to wind the pegs into place. The Chief out of the cuffs immediately, no prob- Chief Marleau, with his thin mous- then asked if they could close it up and lem there. So they were walking down tache and his official cap, looks half-se- the big solid door was shut. Randi was the corridor and there was a whole riously at the reporters while he turns left inside all alone, and the wait began. gaggle of them, eleven or twelve peo- the key and locks the door. On the cell “They are right outside that door, ple. It took them a while to get down wall, above Randi, is a barred window there’s no way I’m going to get by them. the hall and go through the door and of approximately two feet square. Before getting into the cell, then, Randi had removed his shoes, tie, belt, jacket, coat, and hat and put them in “It started the exact second that they turned their the cell at the far end of the corridor. backs on me. As soon as they started to leave, The cell doors, however, had a very interesting and difficult additional I worked my way out of the cuffs immediately.” locking mechanism that made it impos- sible to open them even with the key. —James Randi “All of those cells locked at the same time, with a bar on top of the cells that went all the way down the corridor and had little pegs at each cell, and that hooked into the top of the doors. It They’re all there, the press is lined up, finally shout: ‘Should we lock the door was a mechanism that could be oper- paper and pens in hand, cameras ready. now?’ And I said: ‘What?’ And they re- ated only from outside the cell block. The chief of police is having a wonder- peated: ‘Should we lock it now?’ And I ful time: ‘What do you think, Chief? pretended I’m hard of hearing because So, even if you had the individual key, 7 Is he gonna be able to do it?’ And the I needed more time.” you couldn’t open5 it because this little peg was in there.” Chief replies: ‘No one’s ever broken It took them a couple of minutes to Randi was handcuffed to the chair, out of this jail and no one will,’ they are get out, enough for Randi to slip off the

In a letter to his friend P. Howard Lyons, Randi drew a map explaining how he accomplished his escape.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 29 handcuffs, get free from the leg irons, Randi closed that cell door again had walked by. I went out and into the and open the door with the duplicate and quickly unscrewed all the light washroom. I exited from the window key that he had hidden under the mat- bulbs in the block. Finally, he waited in and reached the car into the parking tress of the bed. the dark at the opposite end of the cell lot. I switched places with Gerry, who “When I entered the police station I that had incarcerated him only a few got inside the trunk of the car, and I 11 had the duplicate key I made from my minutes earlier. continued on beep beep beeping.” impression two years earlier hidden in Ten minutes had passed. The voice Thirteen minutes had passed. Randi my shoe. When I undressed in the cell, from the opening in the door came had vanished from his cell, everybody and after I was searched, I got hold of again: “Monsieur Randi. Ça va bien?” the key again as I carefully folded and No answer. The beeping sound from was very excited, and nobody had a clue 8 stacked up my clothes.” the car outside got more insistent. about his whereabouts. Danny took “Now when they turned the bar at “Monsieur Randi? Je suis le chef de advantage of the chaos and locked the the far end, I had already pushed the police, vous êtes bien?” window in the washroom, erasing even door open a bit, which they couldn’t see Still no answer. The beeping con- that last possible hint to how Randi had because it was inset from the wall. They tinued. escaped. The awful noise coming from the outside was now unbearable. “Will someone stop this racket!” or- “They looked outside the barred windows dered the exasperated Chief of Police. and there I was, sitting in my car beeping His men started to head out to com- ply, when a constable suddenly shouted: the horn with a big smile.” “Look outside the window!” —James Randi “They looked outside the barred windows and there I was, sitting in my car beeping the horn with a big smile. couldn’t see that it had been swung Now everyone was concerned that The Chief came over to the door and open so when the bar went to deadlock, something had happened. They turned he literally took his hat off, and said: ‘I 9 the peg was not engaging the door.” the big wheel that pulled the bar back have to take my hat off to that! What When they finally went, Randi and a crashing noise was heard coming you did is just impossible!’ And of could already walk out the cell door, if from the jail. He must have fallen! course it was! We did a wonderful week 12 I he wanted, but there was still work to It was actually the chair in the cell at the theatre, I must say.” be done: “First I took all the handcuffs that had fallen as soon as the catch that and put them in a chain. I attached one kept the bar door open was released Notes to the bar door and the one at the other from the outside, allowing the door to 1. Interview with Penn Jillette and Kim end to the chair which I left tilted on an close and latch. Scheinberg, March 11, 2005. angle. This way, the chair was leaning The big metal door was opened and 2. Ibid. to pull the door shut as soon as they op- everybody rushed in, but it was pitch 3. Various interviews with Penn, Ibid, plus: erated the bar at the other end, which black. The policemen turned their Kim Scheinberg and Angus Johnston, February 28, 2010. they had to do outside before they even flashlights on, but everybody was mov- 4. “Evasion sensationelle à la station de police opened the other door. Then I went ing forward, toward Randi’s cell, and de Valleyfield,” Le progres de Valleyfield, Oct. 14, out to get my clothes, because my du- nobody could see Randi behind the 1954. plicate key could open all the locks in door. 5. Penn et al, ibid. 10 6. Ibid. the block. I got dressed and waited.” “The Police Chief ran down to the 7. Penn et al, plus interview with Massimo The first five minutes were up. From end and I remember his exact words: Polidoro, June 24, 2014. the small barred window on the metal ‘Oh merde!’ They all got down to the 8. Polidoro, ibid. door Chief Marleau made his call: far end. Notes! Photographs! ‘Chief, 9. Penn et al, ibid. “Halò, monsieur Randi. Ça va?” stand by the door!’ The Chief was 10. Polidoro, ibid. 11. Angus and Kim interview, plus Polidoro, “Oui, Ça va!” discombobulated, the horn was still ibid. Randi continued his preparation. sounding outside.” 12. When Penn Jillette heard this story for First he made a signal from the barred Now, how was that accomplished? the first time (conversation with Randi of March window in cell “D.” Gerry, an accom- “As soon as their backs were turned 11, 2005) his comment was:“That’s just beauti- plice who had been hiding in the car I just stepped out and started walking ful! The really great thinking is the horn honking ahead of time. Because you never think that that’s until that moment, saw the signal and down the corridor. I saw some cops the way you use a confederate. Why would you started to honk the horn. Beep! Beep! down the hall, jumped into cupboard have an assistant to honk a horn? Well, because it Beep! “B” and saw on the glass door that they messes up the timing! Just fabulous.”

30 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer [ 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].

Diet-Heart: A Hypothesis in Crisis? Part 1: From Proposal to Paradigm to Policy

n the January 4, 1985, issue of Science, searchers had provided not only “strong But most controversial was the pan- Gina Kolata covered the 47th con- evidence” of a “causal role” for low-den- el’s recommendation that all Americans Isensus panel report from the sity lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL-C, from the age of two should reduce their National Institutes of Health (NIH), in the pathogenesis of coronary heart consumption of SFA and cholesterol. published some three weeks earlier. disease (CHD), but good reason as Also interviewed by Kolata, Thomas Since 1961, the American Heart well to extend its findings to “other age Chalmers of the Mt. Sinai Medical Association had asked Americans to groups and women” along with “others School argued that the report “made reduce their intake of saturated fats with more modest elevations of serum an unconscionable exaggeration of the and cholesterol and recommended its cholesterol.” data,” emphasizing that “there is ab- “prudent diet” emphasizing fruits, veg- Others were less impressed. In an solutely no evidence that it’s safe for etables, and vegetable oils. interview with Kolata, University of children to be on a cholesterol-lower- The NIH had been hesitant to take Chicago and frequent NIH statistician, ing diet.” a firm position on the diet-heart hy- pothesis, according to Kolata, because the scientific literature focusing on the connection between dietary choles- The most regrettable result is unmistakable—the terol and saturated fatty acids (SFA) American public is bewildered and incredulous. on the one hand, and heart disease on the other, did “not show that lowering What kind of diet will help us not only lose weight cholesterol makes a difference” (Kolata 1985). but remain healthy and safe as well? But the NIH’s reticence was finally overcome by the results of a then-new study conducted by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) on Paul Meier, deemed the new study’s In a subsequent letter to Science, the effects of a cholesterol-reducing findings “weak,” referring to the disap- Daniel Steinberg, who had chaired the diet and drug, cholestyramine, on about pointing and statistically insignificant NIH consensus development confer- 4,000 middle-aged men with elevated distinction between the intervention ence, criticized Kolata for devoting the serum (blood) cholesterol levels (Lipid and control groups in terms of deaths lion’s share of her article to “no more Research Clinics Program 1984). On from all causes. And although inci- than a handful among some 600 con- average, the intervention group’s cho- dences of angina, bypass surgery, and ferees” (Steinberg 1985). “The panel’s lesterol had plunged by 13.4 percent abnormal exercise electrocardiograms recommendation,” he countered, “is since the investigation began in 1973, all dropped in the modified diet–drug sound when all of the evidence is taken or 8.5 percent better than the average group, Kolata judged that the new into account.” Such evidence also led decrease found among placebo-treated study had “failed, as every other trial quickly in 1985 to the National Cho- controls. did, to prove that lowering blood cho- lesterol Education Program, a new According to the NHLBI, its re- lesterol saves lives.” NIH administration created to instruct

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 31 physicians how to identify and treat The classic diet-heart hypothesis tionally ignored data from twenty-two “at-risk” patients. (D-Hh) posits simply that diets high other countries. And when researchers In fact, there was much agreement in SFA and cholesterol (and low in scrutinized this additional data, they among the conferees. But dissent in polyunsaturated fatty acids [PUFA]) found not only that the correlation 1984 was both loud and determined, raise serum total and LDL cholesterol was greatly diminished but that no as- as it remains at the dawn of 2015. The levels and lead to the accumulation of sociation whatsoever existed between differences between the debates then atheromatous plaques. These plaques dietary fats and death from all causes and now are as multifactorial as heart gradually narrow coronary arteries, re- (Yerushalmy and Hilleboe 1957). Nev- disease itself. While television con- duce blood flow to the heart, and can ertheless, according to James DiNicol- tinues to manipulate viewer emotions eventuate in myocardial infarction. antonio, a cardiovascular researcher at and bombard them with highly varied Early evidence linking heart disease St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, and always simplistic scientific inter- to foods rich in cholesterol (and SFA), Keys’s early data “seemingly led us down pretations and dietary advice, Internet including red meat, eggs, and shellfish, the wrong ‘dietary-road’ for decades to bloggers now flood every recess of the derived from animal experiments. In follow” (DiNicolantonio 2014). popular consciousness with harsh, often 1913, for example, a Russian patholo- Nevertheless, the most convincing tactically ruthless diatribes against their gist reported the ability to induce ath- early evidence for the D-Hh may have nutritional adversaries. erosclerotic-like lesions in rabbits by originated from Keys’s Seven Countries study of sixteen cohorts (12,763 rural males age forty to fifty-nine) in Greece, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, the Neth- Worst of all, Americans wonder whether erlands, Finland, the U.S., and . nutrition science has anything at all of By this time, Keys had refined his initial proposal to impugn primarily SFA and substance to offer them. animal products. Indeed, in this, the first multi-country epidemiological under- taking in history, coronary mortality and five-year incidence of CHD was posi- tively correlated only with SFA and not Journalists and popular authors feeding them copious amounts of cho- total fat or PUFA intake (Keys 1970). publish infuriated and one-sided texts lesterol (Anitschkow et al. 1913). The cross-cultural results were strik- alleging conspiracies between research- Others soon replicated these results, ing. Upon twenty-five-year follow-up, ers, Big Food corporations, and govern- mainly with other herbivorous animals. inter-population death rates from CHD ment agencies to intentionally mislead Many researchers objected, however, had differed dramatically. In East Fin- the public for profits. And while new that such creatures were naturally ill- land, for example, 268 per 1,000 lum- studies and reviews have lately called suited to metabolize cholesterol. And berjacks and farmers living on diets the very foundations of the diet-heart when similar experiments were carried high in meat and dairy had died. By hypothesis into question, some leading out on non-herbivorous (and more contrast, of the Greeks of Crete, who in scientists have entrenched themselves human-like) dogs, they added, the an- terms of dietary fats subsisted on olive as well, separating into mutually antag- imals appeared to tolerate the choles- oil and very little meat, only twenty-five onistic nutritional camps. terol much better. per 1,000 had perished. Perhaps most It might sound too melodramatic to But the D-Hh wasn’t formally ar- notably, however, SFA accounted for be true. But the most regrettable result ticulated until University of Minnesota 22 percent of the Finns’ yet only 8 per- is unmistakable—the American public is physiologist Ancel Keys presented the cent of the Cretans’ total calories. bewildered and incredulous. What kind concept in 1952 at Mt. Sinai in New But Keys was and continues to be of diet will help us not only lose weight York. Also published in a famous paper criticized for having cherry-picked his but remain healthy and safe as well? the following year, Keys employed a Seven Countries data. Some argue that Should we cast our lots with the low-fat simple yet powerful graph correlating in populations in countries like France, or low-carbohydrate paradigm? Do satu- precise curvilinear fashion total fat in- Switzerland, Germany, Norway, or rated fats really raise the risk of heart dis- take as a percentage of all calories with Sweden, for example, might have ease, and, if so, are the officially endorsed death rates from heart disease among challenged his hypothesis. Some, like replacements perhaps even more dan- men in six countries—Japan, Italy, En- journalist Nina Teicholz, go so far as gerous? Worst of all, Americans wonder gland and Wales, Australia, Canada, to charge that he deliberately selected whether nutrition science has anything at and the United States (Keys 1953). “only those nations. . .that seemed likely all of substance to offer them. Detractors claimed that Keys inten- to confirm it” (Teicholz 2014).

32 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer KENNETH KRAUSE SCIENCE WATCH]

Indeed, Keys’s data was not chosen At that point, only the Academy Open Heart 2014; 1:e000032.doi:10.1136/ openhrt-2013-000032. randomly. But Henry Blackburn, his and the American Medical Associ- Keys, A. 1953. Atherosclerosis: A problem in colleague in the Seven Countries study, ation stood in defiance of the U.S. newer public health. Journal of Mt. Sinai sees no reason why the populations government and at least eighteen dis- Hospital, New York 20(2): 118–139. should have been selected by chance. tinguished health organizations. Amer- ———. 1970. Coronary heart disease in seven countries. Circulation 41(Suppl. 1): 1–211. “Demonstrating a lack of understanding ica had officially become a low-fat, I Kolata, G. 1985. Heart panel’s conclusions ques- of how scientists approach new ques- low-cholesterol nation. tioned. Science 227: 40–41. tions,” he explains, the critics ignore the Lipid Research Clinics Program. 1984. The References Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary fact that “any savvy scientist at an early Prevention Trial. 1. Reduction in incidence Anitschkow, N., S. Chalatov, C. Muller, et phase of questioning knows to look first of coronary heart disease. Journal of the al. 1913. Uber experimentelle cholesterin- not randomly but across wide variations steatose: Ihre bedeutung fur die entehung American Medical Association 251(3): 351– of the cause under consideration, in this einiger pathogischer prozessen. Zentralblatt 364. Ravnskov, U. 1998. The questionable role of case diet” (Blackburn 2014). fur Allgemeine Pathologie und Pathologiche Anatomie 24: 1–9. saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids Others observed of Keys’s results that Blackburn, H. 2014. In defense of U research: in cardiovascular disease. Journal of Clinical CHD mortality varied widely within The Ancel Keys legacy. The Star Tribune Epidemiology 51(6): 443–460. Steinberg, D. 1985. Heart panel’s conclusions. certain countries. “Despite similar risk (July 17). Online at http://www.startribune. com/opinion/commentaries/267581481. Science 227: 582. factors and diet,” Danish independent html. Teicholz, N. 2014. The Big Fat Surprise: Why researcher Uffe Ravnskov found that “the Broad, W.J. 1980. Academy says curb on choles- Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy 5-year incidence of fatal CHD in Cre- terol not needed. Science 208: 1354–55. Diet. New York: Simon & Schuster. DiNicolantonio, J. 2014. The cardiometabolic Yerushalmy, J., and H. Hilleboe. 1957. Fat in valcore, Italy, was more than twice that consequences of replacing saturated fats with the diet and mortality from heart disease. A in Montegiorgio, while in Karelia it was carbohydrates or omega-6 polyunsaturated methodological note. New York State Journal five times higher than in West Finland; fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong? of Medicine 57: 2343–54. and on Corfu, 6-7 times higher than on Crete” (Ravnskov 1998). Thus, for these There’s much more available on our website! and other dissenters, the supposed cor- relation between diet and heart disease was little more than a well-staged illusion. Skep ti cal In quir er On May 28, 1980—only five years before the NIH’s consensus report on www.csicop.org. the same subject—the Food and Nu- trition Board of the National Academy Here’s just a sample of what you’ll find: of Sciences issued a far more controver- sial paper, “Toward Healthful Diets,” Modern Witch-Hunting and Superstitious Murder in India finding no clear evidence that reducing Ryan Shaffer examines modern witch hunts in India, which have led to the torture serum cholesterol through dietary inter- and murder of alleged witches; local governments and rationalist groups trying vention could prevent CHD. Therein, to address the problem face many obstacles. the fifteen-member Board reproved those “who seek to change the national In Celebration of Martin Gardner To commemorate the centennial of the birth of one of the greatest figures in modern scientific diet” for assuming a nominal risk in wide- skepticism, a selection of Martin Gardner’s “Notes of a Psi-Watcher” and “Notes of a spread dietary adjustment and for relying Fringe-Watcher” columns from SKEPTICAL INQUIRER are now available online. so heavily on epidemiological rather than experimental evidence. Critics of the Board accused its mem- bers of maintaining inappropriately cozy relationships with Big Food organiza- tions like the American Egg Board. In response to the report itself, Robert Levy, director of the NHLBI, offered the fol- lowing faint-hearted guidance: “Existing information indicates that Americans should hedge their bets and seek a diet lower in saturated fats and cholesterol, at least until more evidence is available” For more online columns, features, and special content, visit www.csicop.org. (Broad 1980).

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 33 [SKEPTICAL INQUIREE BENJAMIN RADFORD Benjamin Radford is a research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and author or coauthor of seven books, including Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment.

The Cockington Church Ghost Photo

While on holiday in England in August 2002 my family and I visited some historic buildings reputed to be haunted near the village of Torquay. At one point I photographed my wife and sister in the main doorway of Cockington Church. Later back home my wife looked at the photos and told me she saw a dragon in one image. When she showed it to me : I saw, directly to their left at about their height, two ghostly images: one of a bearded man’s face and a second one of a horse’s head (which she had seen as a dragon). The photograph was taken at approximately three o’clock on a Q Saturday afternoon. What do you make of it? —M. Ingleston

I’ve investigated many doz- As with all such photographs, my first ens of ghost photos, and I step in trying to unravel this mystery was always enjoy seeing new to establish, as closely as possible, the : ones. Not only does each circumstances behind this image. Since new case provide a chance the photograph was taken twelve years A to hone my analytical skills, earlier on another continent, traveling to but it also gives me addi- Cockington for the purpose of investigat- tional material for my archives of refer- ing this image was impractical. I replied ence “ghost” photographs. Though ghost to Mr. Ingleston asking for a much more photos come in many forms (orbs, haze, detailed description of the photo’s cir- double “extras,” etc.), in my ex- cumstances. I gave him a list of specific perience most of them, when thoroughly questions to answer, as best he could, investigated, can be credibly attributed about what else was going on at the time, to one or more of only a handful of sci- based loosely on the journalist basics of ence-based explanations. I keep hoping who, what, where, why, and how. that the next ghostly image I’m asked to While I waited for a response I examine is both clearer and less explicable searched the Internet for additional pho- than the last; I’d love to find some (appar- tographs of the church and its grounds. I ently) genuine, compelling photographic was especially interested to see what was or video evidence of ghosts. directly behind the photographer: for

Ingleston sent me the photo (see Fig- Figure 1. Photograph taken at England’s Cockington Church example was it a parking lot, where the ure 1) and also provided me with a sketch in 2002, featuring two extra ghostly faces. Photograph by sun might have been reflected off a wind- showing where he saw the faces (see Michael Ingleston, used by permission. shield and onto the church wall, creating Figure 2). I could kind of see the faces odd shapes? Finding such images was that Ingleston was referring to, and they the dictum named after him (“Hyman’s not as easy as it seems because, like most appeared to me as white or yellow forms Categorical Imperative”), before trying to tourist attractions, the typical point of in- cast against the side of the building (and explain a claim, we must make sure that terest is what’s in front of the camera, not not, for example, something floating in there is something to explain. That is, if behind it (we’ve all seen photographs of the air between the photographer and his the apparent ghostly face is not in fact a the Sphinx in Egypt or the White House relatives—who surely would have noticed ghost’s face at all, then we need not spend in Washington, D.C., but it’s much them at the time but did not). Before try- resources trying to describe or understand more difficult to find photos taken from ing to figure out who the ghostly bearded the ghost. The investigation should turn the Sphinx or the White House looking man might be (or what connection, if to trying to explain or construct a history forward). Nonetheless with a bit of per- any, this hypothetical church-going of the ghost only after it has been cred- sistence I was able to find several photo- ghost may have with a horse or dragon), ibly determined that a ghost is indeed graphs that showed a wider shot of the it is important to first determine whether the most likely explanation for the image church and specifically what faces visitors those questions need to be answered. As (and not something mundane), in order when they walk out those church doors.1 psychologist Ray Hyman points out in to avoid a wild goose chase. There was no parking lot with a hy-

34 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer pothetically reflective windshield, but the clouds in the sky. Not only is the sunlight brain is hard-wired to recognize faces; in results were interesting and fruitful. One being unevenly cast on the church wall fact, faces are the first things that babies image clearly shows a towering copse of through foliage, but the sunlight reach- learn to recognize, and parts of the brain trees directly opposite the church, reach- ing that foliage is constantly changing as are specialized for finding and recogniz- ing as high as or higher than the top of the clouds pass overhead. Thus a bright spot ing faces. And it’s not just human faces; building itself. Indeed, the entire grounds of sunlight on the wall might appear in virtually all animal faces—from dolphins are covered with grass, shrubs, and trees. one photo but not another taken only a to cats to horses—have the same effect This provides an important clue to un- few moments later—and this might ap- because faces contain so much informa- derstanding the curious patterns (includ- pear mysterious unless the meteorological tion about an animal’s state, expressing ing the ghostly image) seen in the pho- conditions are taken into account. contentment, fear, pain, and so on. It’s tograph. The sunlight is clearly coming no wonder that, evolutionarily speaking, from behind the photographer, and at a faces are the first things that humans fairly low angle (which corresponds with look for: Our ancestors, when meeting a Ingleston’s statement that the photo was taken in mid-to-late afternoon). stranger for the first time, didn’t look at The ghostly “faces” are created by the other person’s feet or elbows or chest shadows of leaves from trees and shrubs to determine if he or she was friend or behind and to the left of the photogra- foe; a smile or a scowl conveys enormous pher. In fact the specific branches that information instantly. likely cast the shadows that created the This does not, of course, definitively ghostly faces can be seen in a reference Figure 2. Faces as seen in the Cockington Church prove that ghosts don’t exist or that the photograph (Figure 3) directly below ghost photograph, showing a bearded man on the left image in Ingleston’s photograph cannot and a horse or dragon on the right. the characteristic three-paned windows. possibly be of something unknown or su- Further evidence of the tree leaves and pernatural. However, light patches iden- branches casting the shadows can be seen tical in origin and kind (albeit not in exact in the photograph itself: the reflections of shape) can be seen in at least a half-dozen high tree branches can be clearly seen in other places around the photograph. If the windows above the door. we accept that at least some of the amor- In this case we have at least three dif- phous, random patches are the result of ferent factors working together, any one of sunlight through trees (as is clearly the which could create the illusion of a ghostly case here), there’s no logical reason to face. The first is the uneven texture of the single one or two of them out as sugges- church’s exterior, which is not smooth but tive of supernatural or paranormal origin. instead mottled and rough. Like any other Figure 3. A photograph of the Cockington Church The philosophical principle of Occam’s rough surface such as stucco or twree bark, grounds showing the area directly in front of the doors razor requires that, all other things being natural, random variations in texture and where ghostly faces were captured in a photograph. equal, the simplest explanation (or the light can create intriguing patterns. Fur- one invoking the fewest factors) is likely thermore the church exterior is stained Seeing Ghostly Faces the best one. and weathered from rainwater, moss, and The fact that Ingleston, his wife, and oth- age. This is especially noticeable under the In this case it seems that the faces, ers they showed the photograph to found window ledge above the door, the white dragons, and horses were not in the faces in the image is significant. I have stains around the doors, and from the Cockington Church wall but instead in encountered many very similar ghost waist-high band of discoloration around the minds of those who viewed the im- faces in my investigations. People see the base of the church. Either one of ages. Like with subjective Rorschach these factors alone can—and indeed has faces in clouds, ink stains, reflections, tree blots, we each bring our own interpreta- on many occasions—create “mysterious” trunks, even in tortillas and other food. tion to bear on the world around us. In images of everything from Jesus to Mary The scientific word for the psychological this case the explanation is psychological, I to ghosts. process is pareidolia, and there is even a not supernatural. On top of that—and even more sig- state quarter that shows this: “The Old Note nificantly in this case—we have the Man of the Mountain” in New Hamp- 1. Ingleston’s photo was taken a dozen years interplay of light and shadows caused shire, a group of rocks that looks like a ago, and since several of the reference photographs I by sunlight filtered through essentially human face. found online of Cockington Church were undated, I had to use caution when interpreting the results. random patches of trees, branches, and But why faces, specifically? Peo- Of course over the years areas change: fields can shrubs. In fact, there’s yet another ran- ple almost never report seeing a ghost’s be turned into parking lots, parking lots razed for dom element to this mix, and once again elbow, or thigh, or foot. There are very buildings, and so on. But given the terrain and good psychological reasons for why we the historic nature of the grounds, it seemed a safe the reflection in the window provides assumption that the area immediately surrounding useful information. The sky was neither see faces in things, sometimes even when the church has remained relatively unchanged over cloudless nor overcast but had a mix of they do not actually exist. The human the past decade or so.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 35 [COMMENTARY

In Defense of Useless Math: Why the New Common Core Isn’t As Liberating As It Seems

DALE DEBAKCSY

re-evaluation of standards is in order.” level out of pure curiosity. Every teacher on the ground knows A this is the hungry viper at the heart of This was the war cry of an educational system which, having long “given up on improvement, decided to settle instead for a dolled-up stagnation: mathematics education—the overbear- Let’s just try and keep things from getting worse and rewrite the standards so that ing handicapping of inspiration and cu- inertia appears as success. Internally, that worked quite well—you tinker with the riosity. But that’s a complicated issue to Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to drop the arcane bits, chop six or so time-con- solve, involving how teachers are trained, suming topics out of AP Chemistry, and get the results that allow the whole how classroom environments are cre- shlumping mass to shlump on another year or two. ated, and how to convince the public out of their fascination with standard-based But then organizations sprung up punish educators into boosting student testing. It’s sloppy, and politicians can- with the wherewithal to test basic stan- performance and instituted an era of not abide sloppiness. So, when the Na- dards internationally, and the results standardized test fatigue that is breed- tional Governors Association flexed its have been a consistently profound em- ing a whole generation of students who considerable muscle to enact educational barrassment for American teaching. loathe learning math on a burning, pri- change, those weren’t the issues focused The 2012 Program for International mal level. on. Instead, the solution to standards Student Assessment results have the For the last decade, I’ve been a math exhaustion was to, get ready for it . . . United States at a solid thirtieth place teacher in high school and a private change the standards a bit! internationally for mathematics, in a tutor serving experimental, religious, Enter Common Core, the system of tight race with the Slovak Republic and boarding, and plain ol’ public schools educational guidelines that is being, or Lithuania. And, yes, there are validity throughout the San Francisco Bay will soon be, used to evaluate student problems with cross-comparing age area, and in that time I’ve been in the K–12 learning in forty-four states. groups from radically different cultures, trenches with the students as they’ve Now, there are some legitimately but there is a thrumming alarm deep in watched the educational system rad- great ideas whose time has long since those numbers that can’t be disregarded ically shift under their feet every two come in this sprawling set of bench- lightly. years or so. And they are exhausted— marks. There’s a very noble attempt to Politicians sensed gold in them thar they have long since given up caring get kids thinking about the structure of hills and made a political issue out of about standardized tests, and many of “informal arguments” in order to culti- a relatively banal pedagogical one, them make it a point of honor to put vate a seat-of-the-pants sense of what whipping the country into a fervor that as little effort into studying for them is likely to be a correct answer or law. American education is doomed and as possible, the only form of defiance Also, the new focus on explaining how that the answer lies in accountabil- allowed to them. They know that they answers are arrived at beyond “the algo- ity systems and a standardization of are being taught in order to take tests, rithm says to do it this way” is a won- expectations. No Child Left Behind, and the result has been an almost com- derfully important thing that I hope the Race to the Top, and other govern- plete extinguishing of any desire to pur- K–8 curriculum succeeds with. mental programs sought to cajole and sue math or science on a recreational Topic-wise, arcane algebra tricks are

36 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer downplayed in order to bring students any will to do so remains. ometry curriculum are overwhelmingly more in line with how professionals Is that elitist? Maybe, but it’s in devoted to transformational geome- solve problems of, say, equation in- investigating those absolutely useless try, or how rotations, reflections, and tersection. And I really like how they nooks and crannies of math that we translations move objects around the make students play with compound ex- math teachers tend to get the most plane. That makes perfect sense if your x pressions. Given say, f(x) = 20x + 5 e , excited, and I think an excited teacher idea of geometry is its money-making it’s good to have a visceral sense of trumps just about anything else in potential, since so much graphical ma- which components dominate for which terms of getting students engaged with nipulation is run off transformational values of x. That’s something I wish the material. More pragmatically, if the mathematics and its supporting matrix more of my calculus students had com- goal is to lure inspiring teachers into operations. It’s also a wonderful and ing into class, which Common Core is the public school system, the way to do productive approach in undergraduate seeking to inculcate from an early age. that is most definitely not by shackling courses for understanding the unities And yet. There’s a cold and calcu- them to an economics-word-prob- of geometry on a deeper level. But for lating spirit drifting through the heart lem-heavy curriculum and turning a high school class, to define two fig- of the Common Core standards that class time into a series of lectures on ures as congruent if “a series of rigid sends a chill through anybody who calculator use. motions exists which carries one object really and earnestly loves math. What onto the other” smacks of pedagogic becomes abundantly clear while surfing hubris. through the new standards is the titanic Common Core has taken Does American mathematical shift from “A Sampling of All Types of the most intellectually teaching need a rethink? Absolutely— Math” to “The Math That Will Make but once again, the educational-polit- You Money.” Common Core, and the exciting branch of human ical complex has placed all of its faith textbook company that provided sub- knowledge, mathematics, in curriculum tweaking to fundamen- stantial funding for its development, and turned it into a tally change the academic landscape, dresses this up as “providing depth while persistently ignoring larger is- instead of breadth,” but the upshot is series of trade skills. sues that make for less stirring talking that merely interesting math has been If the great challenge points. Common Core has taken the discreetly thrown off the pier to make is getting kids excited most intellectually exciting branch of room for profitable mathematics. human knowledge, mathematics, and What you get is a huge focus on enough about a subject turned it into a series of trade skills. If stats and modeling now, with every- to learn about it the great challenge is getting kids ex- thing else made to service those two independently of their cited enough about a subject to learn reigning monarchs. Faced with the about it independently of their class- eternal student question, “Why are classroom assignments, room assignments, then Common we bothering to learn this?” Common then Common Core Core doesn’t contribute much. There Core has decided to surrender every doesn’t contribute much. are some very clever and positive ad- topic that doesn’t lead to, “Because it’ll ditions to the standard curriculum, make you rich.” but I don’t see any of it leading to a It makes sense—there is a huge larger curiosity about the beautiful demand out there for mathematicians This practical subservience shows up uselessness of mathematics at its best skilled in information analysis to work everywhere, sometimes with baffling re- and most subtle. We shall have analysts in the biotechnology industry, and pre- sults. In the classic matrix-vector tug of aplenty and dreamers few, a rather dis- cious little for mathematicians who are war, the share of matrices is expanded mal future in which teachers are there super-interested in, say, Galois theory. because those are good at dealing with to show you how your calculator works For most people, then, the change in large systems of equations used in mod- and knowledge is something that gets focus will be for the good, but I can’t you through the next benchmark test. eling, while vectors are pared down to I help but feel quite sad for the few who the basics in spite of their importance All hail Common Core. might have cherished a love of pure for students taking physics or even- math for math’s sake, who were well tually multi-variable calculus. Worse served under a system that let them Dale DeBakcsy is a high school math still, geometry is now a closet of horrors teacher and private tutor in the San Fran- sample everything equally, and who constructed from shards of under-scru- under the new will experience three cisco Bay area. He is also the author of tinized good intentions. the twice-monthly “Women in Science” years of modeling before they get the The first standards in the new ge- chance to strike out on their own, if feature at MadArtLab.com.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 37 Rationalists have found the ubiquity and persistence of belief in the supernatural hard to satisfactorily explain. Recent psychological research uncovering a universal, innate, adaptive tendency toward purpose-based intuitions in explaining the world may have largely resolved the question.

GARY M. BAKKER Scientific and Philosophical Arguments Rarely Work uch of the literature and dis- Some will argue that the answer to the question “Why cussion among the skeptical, ag- do people believe in gods?” is a straightforward one. “It’s nostic, humanist, and rationalist due to the evidence,” they say. This answer is adequate communities is concerned with for questions such as “Why do people believe in the what people believe, the evidence Sun?” or “Why do people believe the Sun is powered by supporting or refuting these be- a fusion process?” because the relevant evidence has been liefs, and the consequences of assembled and a consensus of opinion/belief has formed. these positions. This is a peren- But it cannot explain the ubiquitous belief in gods across nial endeavor, and it will continue almost every culture on Earth because no consensus has as long as variety and change developed supporting belief in any of them even after occur in people’s beliefs. several thousand years of research and debate. However, an issue addressed al- This is starkly illustrated by the existence of a substan- most as much— why so many peo- tial, intelligent, educated atheist/agnostic community, and ple believe “weird” or unsubstanti- by the hundreds of mutually contradictory opinions about ated things—presents a different the gods believed in (i.e., religions). The evidence for any sort of question. It has an empiri- supernatural beings is clearly inadequate to explain the cal, scientific, psychological answer widespread and profound belief in so many particular ones. that, when substantially formulated, Scientific and philosophical argument has, it seems, con- should require no more than occasional tinkering or elab- vinced no one and changed very few minds on the matter. oration as research and knowledge on human cognitive function gradually progresses. Why People Believe Other Weird Things Numerous surveys have shown us that the most wide- Similar questions are asked about people believing in other spread, persistent category of such beliefs is in supernat- evidence-sparse phenomena such as alternative medicine, ural beings—in gods, ghosts, and suchlike. A sufficient diagnostic auras, flying saucers, Yeti, and so on. explanation for this phenomenon is critical for several A common denominator among these examples is a lack reasons. It is necessary to counter the “So many believe, of understanding of what constitutes real evidence. In the- therefore there must be something in it” argument. It can ory at least, if a believer were to be presented with sufficient guide us strategically in our quest to enable more people evidence one way or the other and had been educated to to hold beliefs that are evidence-based and are therefore understand what counts as real evidence and why, then they more likely to correspond to the realities that the En- could be persuaded not to bother with, let alone rely on, their lightenment and the scientific process have revealed to us. homeopathic cancer cure or the latest pyramid scheme. Most Many explanations for other weird beliefs, usually in explanations for the above beliefs involve cognitive errors such the form of cognitive errors, have been formulated. But as confirmation bias, pareidolia, frequency illusion, illusory continuing speculation over why intelligent, educated, correlation, availability heuristic, , and so on. The scientific method was largely developed to help us stable, happy people are drawn in overwhelming majori- counter these universal human tendencies toward making ties in most countries to unsubstantiated, arbitrary, par- errors in our thinking. adigm-shattering beliefs in supernatural agents indicates However, as has been described, when it comes to reli- that a further form of powerful, almost universal, cogni- gious beliefs, scientific and philosophical arguments rarely tive error remains to be identified. work. People do not stumble into a misguided belief in a Fortunately, recent psychological research un- god through deductive error. They seek out, assume, or covering a universal human tendency toward “pro- create de novo for themselves such a belief. It seems to be miscuous teleological intuitions”—strong purpose- Homo sapiens ’ default position. based intuitions (Kelemen et al. 2012)—has brought us The most similar nontheistic widespread beliefs would to the point of a substantial explanation for widespread be in the many conspiracy theories attracting the interest belief in supernatural agents despite a paucity of evidence of up to half of our population (Oliver and Wood 2012). for them, such that we may now be able to move on from These also involve an attraction to evidence-sparse as- speculation about multiple casual factors and intuitive sug- sumptions about powerful purposeful agents behind what gestions about subsequent tentative responses to assertive the rest of us assume is more likely to be the naive, messy policy development and coordinated social action. behaviors of very ordinary people.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 39 There Must Be a Cognitive Urge or Instinct Desire to Control People So it is not enough to propose to a god-believer or a goblin-be- Friedrich Nietzsche, though an atheist, approved of reli- liever, “You don’t have enough evidence, so you are probably gion as a means for the elite minority of humanity (the wrong.” They “just know” they are right; there is no clinching “supermen”) to control the gullible unimportant majority. evidence against their beliefs, and most other people share a Religions have clearly been used in this way throughout similar intuition. These features, they feel, place the onus on the history, both as a means of internal state social control and skeptic (no matter how unfair to William of Occam this may as rhetoric to justify and excuse wars actually instigated by seem) to explain how the intuitions of so many intelligent peo- motives of power, wealth, or land acquisition. ple can be so consistently wrong in roughly the same direction. But ruling elites would be unlikely to successfully delude If logic and evidence do not explain the near-universal belief the masses, and maintain the delusion for centuries, with a in some higher power, then it must be in the nature of human be- narrative that did not come naturally to the people. The peo- ings to want to believe in it. There must be some drive or urge or ple must, at root, want to see the emperor’s new clothes. The innate cognitive tendency toward such belief. Almost every cul- desire to control can explain the construction of religions but ture ever studied has included a—often dominant—metaphysical not their eager adoption. For example, Socrates proposed that element despite a lack of any substantial evidence. Hence, the the strata of society be justified by disseminating to its ordinary question “Why do people believe in gods?” is a psychological one citizens the “myth of the metals” in which it is contended that about drives, instincts, or cognitive tendencies, which can there- we are all born with gold, silver, bronze, or iron mixed in our fore be answered psychologically and scientifically. souls. Only the first of these can make us fit to rule. This “noble lie” did not take off anywhere near as well as the tale that some of us are God’s chosen and some are Past Psychological Explanations unworthy infidels. The “divine right”of kings to rule grew Several explanations for this psychological phenomenon from this—more popular—noble lie. What is the critical dif- have been proposed over the years. But the question still ference between these alternate narratives, explaining their arises and is addressed in books, articles, and at every skep- contrasting popularities? Could it be that bronze in your soul tical conference I have attended. Clearly, the explanations is only a cause of your mediocrity, whereas God’s allocation is tendered to date have not been comprehensive, explanatory, done to a purpose? I will revisit this critical difference. satisfying, or instructive enough for a working consensus to form on this issue, allowing us to thus move on using what Direct Religious Experience we now better understand. Some people have chosen to interpret their mystical experi- Listed below are a few of the many interesting, per- ences, drug-induced hallucinations, hyperventilation symp- haps useful—but incomplete—explanations for ubiquitous toms, psychotic episodes, hypoglycemic effects, near-death god-belief that have been hypothesized in the past. experiences, or dreams as direct evidence of a spiritual world and of a god. However, this path to faith is a minority route. The Fear of Death It does not explain god-belief ’s ubiquity. Many more people The price of consciousness is an awareness of one’s own inevi- believe in God than have seen him. table death. The emotion of fear has motivated the behavioral Nor is it an inevitable deduction from such phenomena. avoidance of death in all higher organisms. In humans, therefore, Neurological and psychological explanations have been devel- this fear is instinctive, and people have a massive incentive to oped for all these experiences. We must still explain why so self-delude and to assume (despite a dearth of evidence) that an many people prefer to blunt Occam’s razor by assuming that afterlife awaits. This carries the bonus of promising a reunion elaborate fantastical supernatural events are occurring—rather with deceased loved ones. than concerning but ultimately mundane ones. However, this explanation for ubiquitous beliefs in gods, angels, leprechauns, and suchlike is not sufficient. It does not An Evolutionary Advantage explain hundreds of common extraneous features beyond the Several theorists, such as psychologist Jesse Bering (2012) in promise of an afterlife that are found in religions around the The Belief Instinct, have claimed that a tendency to believe world, such as notions of angels and demons, sin and ritual, hell in a higher being that oversees and punishes us has the and sacrifice, goblins and ghouls, prayers for help, and rules to evolutionary advantage of making people more cooperative, live by in this life. It only explains why many people choose to conformist, patient, and restrained and that societies with assume some form of consciousness after death. A creator god such individuals and with a religious culture will more likely or a judgment day god or an interactive benevolent god is not thrive or at least survive. necessary for this. However, this hypothesis has been hotly debated. It bet- Further, religious people still seem to fear and mourn death ter describes the processes of cultural natural selection and just as much as atheists do. As a sop to this fear, the afterlife evolution among the memes of competing societies than the assumption does not really work very well, except perhaps to mo- processes of biological natural selection among the genes of tivate suicide bombers. So the fear of death explains only a tiny competing individuals. There are clearer examples of coop- fraction of people’s supernatural beliefs. erative societies flourishing than of submissive individuals

40 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer procreating profusely. Genghis Khan is a stark illustration ral phenomena. A child may be satisfied when asking “Why of a highly nonconformist, uncooperative, impatient, and should I behave?” to be told “Because I say so” or “Because unrestrained individual whose multitudinous progeny sub- it’s good” or “Because God says so.” But an adult may need sequently dominated an entire gene pool. a more sophisticated explanation in terms of effect on others Furthermore, we are not trying to understand a ubiqui- or on society’s cohesive functioning. In the same way a ref- tous belief in a certain god (a meme). We are trying to un- erence to Thor when explaining lightning is a simplistic and derstand a cognitive trait, skill, or tendency (influenced by stifling response. It stunts further inquiry but has satisfied a a gene). Having been uncertain to date what this tendency surprising number of otherwise intelligent people through- is, we cannot assume it is overall desirable and evolution- out history. arily advantageous. Is it gullibility, religiosity, suggestibility, So the apparent human desire for meaning or purpose conscientiousness or “consciencefulness,” superstitiousness, does in part explain the almost universal phenomenon of or submissiveness? Which of these confer survival advantage god-belief. But the question remains: Why are so many peo- for the individual and why? The evolutionary advantage hy- ple focused upon externally derived over internally derived pothesis for god-belief is as yet incomplete. purpose? Similarly, humans clearly thirst for knowledge and explanation. But why do so many leap to “because God made The Brain’s “God Spot” it so” explanations for natural phenomena? As Tim Minchin asked in his beat poem and short film Storm: A related line of explanation has arisen since the prolifer- ation of fairly precise functional brain-scan studies using Isn’t this enough? Just this world? fMRI, SPECT, PET, and other technologies. Claims have Just this beautiful, complex, been made (e.g., d’Mayberry 2014) that when people are Wonderful unfathomable experiencing “transcendence”—meditating or praying—that Natural world? certain regions of the average brain (people’s brain maps do How does it so fail to hold our attention That we have to diminish it with the invention vary) light up. Of cheap man-made myths and monsters? This very promising technology has unfortunately been taken, especially in the mass media, as a new source of expla- Promiscuous Teleological Intuition nation for a raft of familiar mental phenomena. For example, when alcoholics have a drink, certain brain regions react. The The work of psychologist Deborah Kelemen and her public and even some scientists have concluded from these research colleagues may enable us to now fill the explan- findings that problems such as alcoholism, obsessive-com- atory gaps I have described. Drawing on her own and pulsive disorder, or depression are somehow more “real” now others’ research programs, Kelemen, director of the Child that we have found a neurological site or correlate. Cognition Laboratory at Boston University, has found that The logic here is bizarre. Has any scientist ever asserted, children around the world “evidence a general bias to treat or even imagined, that there is no neurological substrate or objects and behaviors as existing for a purpose” (Kelemen correlate to all mental activity? And the fact that brain bit X 2004, 295). There is now overwhelming evidence that chil- fires up explains nothing. Nor does it, yet, tell us what to do dren are innately prone to “promiscuous teleological intu- about any of these problems beyond what we have discovered itions,” preferring teleological, purpose-based rather than to be useful at a psychological level fifty years ago (Satel and physical-causal explanations of living and nonliving natural Lilienfeld 2013). objects (Kelemen et al. 2013). So if there is a God spot, why is there a God spot and For example, young children do not see raining as merely what exactly does it do? what a cloud does but as what it is “made for.” If asked why prehistoric rocks are pointy, children will greatly prefer “so that animals could scratch on them when they got itchy” over A Need for Meaning “bits of stuff piled up for a long time.” The meaning of a person’s life is a cognitive concept. It only Early parenting or explaining makes little difference to exists if viewed or held by a conscious entity, just as purpose this strong tendency. It appears to be modifiable only from only exists if there is a “purposer.” around ten years of age. For example, the children of both The meaning or purpose in an individual’s life can be religious fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist parents, derived internally or externally. Common internally derived when asked why a certain animal exists, favor “God made it” sources of purpose (developed or appreciated by the person or “a person made it” over “it evolved” or “it appeared.” This him- or herself) include achievement, procreation, “happi- tendency declines only after eleven years of age and only in ness,” or contribution to mankind or to fellow travelers. the children of non-fundamentalist parents. But this source appears to be insufficient for many people. Much research supporting and developing this hypothesis Externally imposed purposes abound, such as God’s grand has been undertaken. From infancy, humans are excellent plan, avoiding Hell, pleasing God, fear of God, seeking “agency detectors,” sensitive to others’ mental states. Even sainthood, etc. These are relatively simplistic and immature twelve-month-olds will follow the gaze direction of symbolic motivations for doing good or striving hard, just as they pro- faces. Children’s complex imaginary companions, like super- vide simplistic, stifling, and immature explanations for natu- natural agents, occur cross-culturally (Taylor 1999).

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 41 Kelemen’s explanatory hypothesis is that this generalized logical explanations such as endorsement of “trees produce default view, that entities are intentionally caused by some- oxygen so that animals can breathe” (Kelemen et al. 2013). one for a purpose, is a side effect of a socially intelligent mind So promiscuous teleological explanation is almost univer- that privileges intentional explanations. sal among children but is also a developmentally persistent It is not difficult to posit the evolutionary advantages of cognitive default position. For example, the tendency returns such “attribution of agency” among infants and children. An in strength if a person develops Alzheimer’s disease later in infant’s entire world comprises an intentional agent—its par- life (Lombrozo et al. 2007). ent. The sooner and more thoroughly an infant can develop Kelemen et al. (2013) concluded that the teleological ten- a “theory of mind” and respond accordingly, the better for dency is robust, resilient, developmentally enduring, arises early, it. It must attach. The parent must bond. It must anticipate and becomes masked with cognitive maturity and education but and manipulate its world on the assumption of purposeful is not replaced. Hence religious belief is cognitively natural and agency occurring all around it. An absence of such is starkly culturally resilient. “Notions of purpose are central underpin- illustrated by the autistic child, to whom its parents are just nings of the world’s religions” (Kelemen et al. 2013, 1081). another set of shapes in its visual field. No attachment oc- The rise and persistence of the intelligent design argu- curs, and in less affluent, protected, aware times than we ment for God in the wake of the demolition of creationism’s have now, such children rarely survived. They could not simplistic claims is an illustration of this resilience (Kelemen control their (almost entirely interpersonal) environment and and Rosset 2009). Children naturally see lions, mountains, starved, ate poison, or just wandered away. and icebergs as “made for something” (Kelemen 1999b), ir- The tendency to attribution of agency extends beyond the respective of parental explanations (Kelemen et al. 2005) or world of man-made artifacts to the natural world. Children ambient cultural religiosity (Kelemen 2003). Later in life they will still tend to assume that “Mother Nature” or “Gaia” is a goal-directed, self-preserving organism (Kelemen and Rosset 2009)—another “attribution of agency.” “As evidenced by many religions, artifact design represents a Religious belief is cognitively natural powerful analogical base that children and adults use to and culturally resilient. “Notions of understand the natural world” (Kelemen et al. 2012, 440). “Promiscuous teleological intuition” and excessive purpose are central underpinnings “attribution of agency” do not explain all indiscriminate, of the world’s religions.” non-skeptical, or paranormal beliefs. Other cognitive er- rors, such as confirmation bias, must be invoked to un- derstand why so many think that acupuncture will cure migraine or that a plesiosaur lurks in Loch Ness. However, a tendency toward conspiracism may be ex- plained in exactly the same way as ubiquitous god-belief. intuitively identify people as the designing agent of artifacts The dictum “If it’s a choice between a conspiracy and a cock-up and God as the designing agent of nature (Kelemen 2004, . . .” contrasts purposeful, powerful, inferred, possibly malev- 299). “All known folk religions involve nonnatural agents olent agency with natural, caused-but-not-directed, “random” and intentional causation—the substrate of intuitive ” events controlled by only the laws of nature and mathematics. (Kelemen 2004, 297). Some people clearly have a strong cognitive trait tendency to Reasoning about all aspects of nature in non-teleological assume conscious purposeful agents are behind most events in physical-reductionist terms is a relatively recent development society. If not God or Satan, then powerful people. in the history of human thought (Kelemen 1999a), and con- If the similarity is meaningful, we would expect that peo- temporary adults are still surprisingly bad at it. For example, ple with a strong cognitive bias toward promiscuous teleo- evolution is generally misconstrued as a quasi-intentional logical intuition would also tend toward both god-belief and needs-responsive designing force (Kelemen 2004). But our conspiracism. This is exactly what we find. For example, Ol- brains did not evolve “to enable consciousness.” Our brains iver and Wood (2012) found that a supernatural belief scale evolved, and consciousness resulted. No purpose, just causes. strongly predicted support for conspiracism. Both correlated Aristotle distinguished “efficient” causes (the antecedent with a measure of . To illustrate, they found sources of objects and events) from “final” causes (the ends, an extremely high correlation between conspiracism and be- goals, functions, or purposes of objects or events). Unfortu- lief that “We are currently living in End Times as foretold nately, his focus was on the latter. He applied teleological by Biblical Prophecy.” explanations to all living and nonliving natural phenomena. The bizarre and surprising observation that, even in the For example, leaves exist on a plant to provide shade, and face of profound advances in the scientific physical-reduc- water exists on Earth to sustain life (Kelemen et al. 2013, tionist understanding of nature, most of humanity insists on 1074). Since the Renaissance, physical scientists have overtly clinging to evidence-sparse, redundant, arbitrary notions of rejected teleological explanation in search of physical-causal, gods, demons, goblins, nature spirits, or the recent vacuous “efficient” explanations. However, under psychological stress fallback “feeling” that “there just must be something there,” even physical scientists will tend to revert to default teleo- has not been adequately explained until now. This has left 42 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer psychologists unsatisfied, allowed theists to argue that the is not adaptive for the adolescent or adult leaving the human cross-cultural profusion of metaphysical belief is evidence environment of the family hut for the natural world of the that there must be something to it, and atheists and agnostics forest, where food does not present in the hands of inten- with some uncertainty as to how to correct this widespread tional beings but on the branches of naturally occurring trees. “dangerous delusion.” Similarly, humanity may now use its growing knowledge A recently developed, well-supported explanatory hy- and insight to escape its dependent teleological worldview in pothesis suggests that the ubiquity of human belief in su- favor of a more mature one. pernatural agents in the face of a paucity of evidence derives Ironically, the motto thus reinforced may be a biblically from an innate cognitive tendency to attribute agency to all sourced one: active entities in the world and to therefore assume purposive motivations within those entities, and indeed to the world “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave itself. This tendency is highly adaptive for infants and young I children and will therefore be favored in evolutionary terms. up childish ways.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) That it is innate is supported by its universality among children and its cross-cultural dominance among adults. References Kelemen (2004) has described a scientific education as Bakker, Gary M. 2013. God: A Psychological Assessment. Boca Raton, FL: suppressing rather than replacing teleological explanatory Universal-Publishers. tendencies, citing the finding that scientifically uneducated Bering, J. 2012. The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Romanian Gypsy adults have promiscuous teleological in- Casler, K., and D. Kelemen. 2008. Developmental continuity in teleo-func- tuitions much like scientifically naïve British and American tional explanation: Reasoning about nature among Romanian Romani elementary school children (Casler and Kelemen 2008). adults. Journal of Cognition and Development 9: 340–362. However, such findings do not imply a dramatically new d’Mayberry, D. 2014. The psychology of faith: The human quest for mean- ing. The Australian Atheist 43(1): 15–18. solution. We have long known that education can make peo- Kelemen, D. 1999a. Beliefs about purpose: On the origins of teleologi- ple less superstitious and less religious. Less educated and cal thought. In M. Corballis and S. Lea (Eds.), The Descent of Mind: politically knowledgeable people exhibit higher levels of con- Psychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution (pp. 278–294). Oxford, spiracism (Oliver and Wood 2012). Interestingly, Kelemen England: . ———. 1999b. The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children. et al.’s (2013) physical scientists (who became more teleolog- Cognition 70: 241–272. ical under pressure) performed no better than equivalently ———. 2003. British and American children’s preferences for teleo-func- schooled humanities scholars, and both held their line better tional explanations of the natural world. Cognition 88: 201–221. than undergraduates. So a specialized scientific training and ———. 2004. Are children “intuitive theists”? Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science 15(5): 295–301. knowledge base is not necessary. Any further education seems Kelemen, D., M. Callanan, K. Casler, et al. 2005. Why things happen: to help one outgrow teleological promiscuity. Teleological explanation in parent-child conversations. Developmental There is no perfect negative correlation between intelli- Psychology 41: 251–164. gence and teleological delusion. Great minds have applied Kelemen, D., and E. Rosset. 2009. The human function compunction: Teleological explanation in adults. Cognition 111: 138–143. themselves to the arbitrary theological intricacies of the gods’ Kelemen, D., J. Rottman, and R. Seston. 2013. Professional physical scien- purposes for us. The ability to see past or see through our un- tists display tenacious teleological tendencies: Purpose-based reasoning justified attributions of agency and purpose in the world may as a cognitive default. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142(4): have more to do with imagination (Bakker 2013) once an 1074–1083. Kelemen, D., R. Seston, and L. Saint Georges. 2012. The designing mind: alternative physical-causal worldview has been introduced, Children’s reasoning about intended function and artifact structure. by education, as a sufficient explanatory option. The ques- Journal of Cognition and Development 13(4): 439–453. tion “What if…?” has led to more insights than has brute Lombrozo, T., D. Kelemen, and D. Zaitchik. 2007. Inferring design: intellectual power. Evidence of a preference for teleological explanations in patients with The question “What if the world is really big and round Alzheimer’s disease. Psychological Science 18(11): 999–1006. Oliver, J.E., and T.J. Wood. 2012. Conspiracy theories, magical and there is no absolute ‘up’ and ‘down’?” overtook the flat- thinking, and the paranoid style(s) of mass opinion. University Earth theory. “What if the world is not 6,000 years old but of Chicago Department of Political Science Working Paper is billions of years old?” has nearly supplanted creationism. Series. Online at http://political-science.uchicago.edu/faculty- “What if I am my brain? How would it look to me?” has workingpapers/. Satel, S.L., and S.O. Lilienfeld. 2013. Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of dented the need for a soul or immaterial mind to explain Mindless Neuroscience. New York: Basic Civitas Books. consciousness (Bakker 2013). Taylor, M. 1999. Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them. So the best cures for teleological delusion are those we New York: Oxford University Press. already know of: A high level of education; encouragement to think independently, flexibly, and with insatiable curiosity; Gary M. Bakker is a practicing clinical psychol- and having an input as soon as people are capable of abstract ogist and clinical lecturer at the University of conceptual thought. Tasmania, Australia, who has published in both The major contribution of this new evidence-based con- clinical (Practical CBT) and skeptical (God: A ceptualization of the problem is that we now know more Psychological Assessment) fields. clearly what we are fighting. Promiscuous teleological intu- ition is powerful, innate, and adaptive for the young. But it

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 43 CRAZY BELIEFS, SANE BELIEVERS Toward a Cognitive Psychology of Conspiracy Ideation

Where do conspiracy beliefs come from? Recent behavioral research suggests that they do not reflect pathology or lazy thinking but may instead come from normal, rational minds.

PRESTON R. BOST

s part of its educational mission, the S I- 2012; Swami et al. 2011), especially New Age beliefs (Ne- A regularly publishes critical investigations into wheiser et al. 2011). And one well-known research finding conspiracy theories—claims that organizations of powerful, is that conspiracy theories, like other deeply held beliefs, self-serving entities manipulate world events for their own are strongly resistant to disconfirmation (McHoskey 1995; benefit behind the scenes, away from the prying eyes of the Nyhan and Reifler 2010; Sunstein and Vermeule 2009). public. Readers of this magazine are familiar with the com- One irony of this state of affairs is that the skeptical mon properties of conspiracy theories: their selective sifting community has engaged the discussion of conspiracies while of evidence (McHoskey 1995), their habit of growing more missing a significant arrow in its quiver: a scientific under- complicated and improbable over time to incorporate ad- standing of the psychological underpinnings of conspiracy ditional actors and events (Keeley 1999), their astonishing ideation. Until recently, there has been little behavioral re- tendency to assimilate disconfirming evidence as further ev- search into the structure of conspiracy ideation, the peo- idence in favor of the theory (Kramer and Gavrieli 2005), ple who adopt conspiratorial beliefs, and the circumstances and their poisonous influence on discourse about public under which they adopt them. This omission is puzzling institutions and policies (Swami 2012). It is of little won- because conspiracy theories exist not on the fringe but in the der that the skeptical community’s attempts at education mainstream, enough so to be regarded as cognitively normal. are leavened with hostility. Much of our language, often in As such they invite careful study of why they easily take root so many words, conveys the belief that conspiracy theories in the human mind (Bost and Prunier 2013; Drinkwater et are the product of anti-intellectual and even psychologically al. 2012; Swami and Coles 2010). Fortunately, the number disordered minds. of peer-reviewed empirical publications on the topic has in- This palpable frustration is an understandable reaction creased rapidly in only the last five years. As the literature to failing in the skeptical mission. And fail we have, at least has matured, our theoretical understanding of the origins of in educating the populace not to believe in conspiracy the- conspiracy ideation has begun to sharpen. ories. In the nearly four decades of this publication, belief Perhaps the most consistent finding is that people are in conspiracy theories (which I will term “conspiracy ide- relatively consistent in their conspiracy ideation; if they be- ation”) shows no signs of abating, let alone disappearing. lieve one conspiracy theory, they tend to have other conspir- Conspiracy theories remain a staple of American popular atorial beliefs (e.g. Swami et al. 2011). This pattern holds if culture (Kelley-Romano 2008) and are readily found in cul- the second belief is a real-life conspiracy theory (Swami and tures across the globe (Sunstein and Vermeule 2009; Swami Furnham 2012), a general belief that conspiracies regulate and Coles 2010). To compound skeptics’ frustration, they human events (Steiger et al. 2013), a fictitious conspiracy tend to coexist with paranormal beliefs (Drinkwater et al. story (Swami et al. 2011), or a view of oneself as a victim of

44 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer conspiracies in one’s own life (Butler those educated about documented race-based conspiracies, et al. 1995). Interestingly, conspir- such as the infamous Tuskeegee syphilis study, are more acy ideation also can bridge contra- likely to endorse race-based conspiracy theories in which dictory theories; Wood and col- the United States government is alleged to be targeting the , leagues (Wood et al. 2012) observed African-American population (Nelson et al. 2010). Fur- CRAZY BELIEFS that participants who endorsed the ther, conspiracy ideation is not correlated with “need for belief that Princess Diana had been cognition”—a reliable measure of the inclination to engage murdered also tended to endorse in complex critical thinking (Abakalina-Papp et al. 1999). the claim that she had faked her Neither is it associated with “need for cognitive closure,” a SANE BELIEVERS death. Researchers have taken these trait characterized by oversimplification of complex issues findings to confirm one of the first and biased assimilation of evidence (Leman and Cinnirella Toward a Cognitive Psychology of Conspiracy Ideation clearly articulated theories of con- 2013). spiracy ideation: Goertzel’s (1994) What about personality? An examination of the Big concept of a monological belief sys- Five dimensions (openness to experience, conscientious- tem, in which conspiracy ideation is ness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), which a world view—rather than a collection of discrete beliefs—in together capture the primary vectors of human personality, which multiple conspiracy theories reinforce each other. Al- has been only marginally revealing. Swami and colleagues though researchers have found that certain conspiracy theo- (Swami et al. 2010; Swami et al. 2011; Swami and Furn- ries are bound to a particular social/political context and not ham 2012) have observed that conspiracy ideation is associ- predictive of general conspiracy ideation (Swami 2012), the ated with lower levels of agreeableness (a trait that captures literature is converging on the conclusion that in the main, one’s ability to get along with others and accept them as conspiracy ideation reflects a generalized way of thinking good-faith actors), but this association has not always been about the world (Brotherton et al. 2013; Wood et al. 2012). replicated (Furnham 2013). Negative associations between The next question, therefore, is how this mode of conspiracy ideation and other dimensions, such as neuroti- thought arises. The research agenda so far has strongly em- cism and openness to experience, have been reported (Fur- phasized the pursuit of the “conspiracy theorist”—the per- nham 2013; Swami et al. 2013), but overall the correlations son with a constellation of traits that predisposes him or between conspiracy ideation and Big Five traits tend to be her to conspiracy ideation. To what extent can we draw a small and/or unstable (Brotherton et al. 2013). sharp distinction between the psychological profiles of the Demographic variables present a mixed bag. Conspira- conspiracy believer and the conspiracy skeptic? The research torial worldviews are not generally related to either age or on this question has been, to put it mildly, mixed. First, a sex (e.g., Parsons et al. 1999; Simmons and Parsons 2005). surprise: conspiracy ideation does not appear to reflect an Racial and political affiliation also are not associated with inability or disinclination to think critically. For instance, general conspiratorial ideation, but do appear to predict be- conspiracy ideation has not been linked to lower levels of lief in particular conspiracies to which one’s group may be education (Bogart and Thorburn 2006; Clark et al. 2008; vulnerable (e.g. Abakalina-Paap et al. 1999)—an important Parsons et al. 1999; Simmons and Parsons 2005). In fact, pattern to which we will return later. For example, African in certain cases education may enhance conspiracy ideation; Americans, much more so than whites, endorse conspiracy

Although researchers have found that certain conspiracy theories are bound to a particular social/political context and not predictive of general conspiracy ideation, the literature is converging on the conclusion that in the main, conspiracy ideation reflects a generalized way of thinking about the world.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 45 1999; Goertzel 1994) and even subclinical paranoia (Dar- win et al. 2011; Grzesiak-Feldman and Ejsmont 2008). Re- search also has probed whether conspiracy ideation is related to schizotypy, a personality disorder characterized in part by lower-grade, dispositional suspicion of the type found in some forms of schizophrenia. Using a scale called the O-LIFE (Mason et al. 1995), which measures four discrete dimensions of schizotypy, Swami and colleagues (Swami et al. 2013) observed that conspiracy ideation is associated with higher scores on the Unusual Experiences Scale, which measures suspicion as well as other perceptual and cognitive distortions. It appears therefore that conspiracy ideation is reliably related to suspicion. Because suspicion requires se- lective attention to another’s motive, these findings connect with the observation that acceptance of fictional conspiracy stories increases when the story highlights the potential mo- tive of the alleged conspirator, even when the documented evidence of a conspiracy is poor (Bost and Prunier 2013). Importantly, the connection between suspicion and conspir- acy ideation does not in itself imply that the suspicion is pathological. Numerous authors have argued that a degree of suspicion is an adaptive trait in humans, who rely on it to promote equity in the transactions inherent to social living (for one such argument, see Vohs et al. 2007). Attention to others’ motives, although characteristic of paranoia (Darwin et al. 2011), is therefore an ingredient in everyday social interaction (e.g., Cosmides and Tooby 1992). Seen in this light, conspiracy ideation represents not an irrational de- parture from reality but perhaps rather an intensified focus on information that all humans regularly rely on in social cognition. In other words, some conspiracy ideation may be grounded in the rules of human cognition, which employ a dose of suspicion Numerous authors have argued that a degree as a protective mechanism. of suspicion is an adaptive trait in humans, This notion is broadly con- sistent with Sunstein and who rely on it to promote equity in the Vermeule’s (2009, 208) sug- transactions inherent to social living. gestion that conspiracy theo- ries require that all events be seen as the product of some actor’s intention. The extent to which the theories in which African Americans are the targets—such suspicion of a conspiracy be- as the claim that the United States government created the liever is primary (that is, ingrained as its own personality HIV virus to exterminate the black population (e.g. Bogart trait) or instead derives from other cognitions or circum- and Thorburn 2003). stances is unclear. One of the earliest and most interesting Although numerous researchers have argued that psy- findings in the literature is that those who believe in conspir- chopathology is insufficient to account for the prevalence acies demonstrate higher levels of powerlessness and alien- of conspiracy theories (Kramer and Gavrieli 2005; Steiger ation from institutions (Goertzel 1994; Abakalina-Paap et et al. 2013; Swami and Coles 2010; Uscinski et al. 2011), al. 1999; Swami et al. 2010). These findings suggest that others have forcefully argued for a conceptual relation be- conspiracy theorists perceive themselves as vulnerable to ex- tween conspiratorial ideation and the distortions of reality ploitation—a circumstance that would call for heightened characteristic of paranoia (Zonis and Joseph 1994). Re- suspicion. Kramer and Gavrieli (2005) have argued that searchers have consistently found that conspiracy ideation threat perception—really, hypervigilance to threat—is cen- is associated with low levels of trust (Abakalina-Papp et al. tral to conspiracy ideation. If true, this notion may explain a 4646 VolumeVolume 39 37 Issue Issue 1 2 || Skeptical Skeptical Inquirer Inquirer pattern discussed earlier: that even those who are not pre- disposed to conspiracy ideation may nonetheless accept a conspiracy theory if the alleged target is their racial, social, or political affiliation. Again, this framework ascribes a type of rationality to the conspiratorial mindset, grounding it in the defensive posture of someone with a heightened sensitivity to potential threat. Recent findings confirm the basic idea that threat per- ception and/or perceived vulnerability contribute to con- spiracy ideation. In one particularly important study, Whit- son and Galinsky (2008) conducted a series of experiments manipulating the extent to which participants perceived control over their worlds—for instance, by having them re- call different types of autobiographical memories in which they were more or less in control of events, or by describing the stock market as either random (i.e., unpredictable or out of control) or stable, or by having them engage in a novel cognitive task in which the feedback to participants was either meaningful (suggesting that the participant had control over the outcome) or random. Across the experi- ments, participants whose sense of control had been un- dermined consistently tended to over-perceive patterns in subsequent stimuli by making illusory correlations, seeing visual images in random dots, and—notably—perceiving a greater likelihood of conspiracy behind a fictitious event. The authors argued that these false alarms reflect not oversimplification of the available data but a sophisticated exercise in pattern perception. These findings lend some empirical support to a proposal articulated by Michael Shermer: that conspiracy theories are a byproduct of an innate human tendency to seek patterns in the environment, preferring false alarms to misses (Shermer 2011; for elaboration on this point, see Kramer and Gavrieli 2005). Whitson and What types of perceived threats appear Galinsky (2008) refine this per- spective by defining some of the related to conspiracy beliefs, and where conditions in which enhanced do these perceptions come from? pattern-seeking may be in- voked—specifically the experi- ence of a threat to one’s sense of control over events in one’s life. What types of perceived threats appear related to con- tial: Bogart and Thorburn (2006) noted that African-Amer- spiracy beliefs, and where do these perceptions come from? ican men, who report more experiences with discrimination Grzesiak-Feldman (2007; 2013) has studied the relation- than African-American women, also report greater belief ships among dispositional anxiety (“trait”), anxiety in the in conspiracy theories related to the medical establishment, moment (“state” anxiety), and beliefs in specific conspiracies, which plays a prominent role in claims that the HIV virus yielding inconsistent findings. It appears that the arousal was created to eradicate the African-American population. of simple anxiousness is insufficient to evoke conspiratorial For still others, the threat may be political: Uscinski and ideation, and that the perceived threat must instead have a colleagues’ (2011) inventory of letters to particular flavor. In some cases the threat is more general found that conspiracy allegations tracked with the move- and dispositional. Newheiser et al. (2011) observed that ex- ment of political parties in and out of power, with minori- istential threat—anxiety related to one’s mortality—was a ty-party affiliates primarily responsible for propagating gov- predictor of belief in the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. For ernment-related conspiracy theories. Sometimes the threat others, the threat appears to be more specific and experien- emerges from a specific event. Rothschild et al. (2012)

SkepticalSkeptical Inquirer Inquirer | January/February | March/April 20132015 4747 A person without the capacity for suspicion is a target for exploitation, and the necessary kernel of suspicion that exists in all of us might well become turbocharged under the proper circumstances.

found that when participants read about environmental has harmful effects on both public discourse and personal destruction caused by unknown forces, they attributed the behavior (e.g., Jolly 2013) and is therefore worth fighting. blame to a scapegoat—an entity with the means and desire What hope does the recent surge in research offer? One to subvert others’ well-being for its own gain. Blaming the suggestion implicit in the literature is that we may have to scapegoat restored participants’ feelings of control. Impor- live with some level of conspiracy ideation as a byproduct tantly, participants given a chance to affirm their feelings of the cognitive architecture that comes with communal liv- of personal control were less likely to blame the scapegoat. ing. A person without the capacity for suspicion is a target Taken together with Whitson and Galinsky’s (2008) for exploitation, and the necessary kernel of suspicion that findings, this pattern of results suggests that a lack of con- exists in all of us might well become turbocharged under trol over one’s fate—a sense of being vulnerable to out- the proper circumstances. side forces—tends to heighten vigilance, increasing the And here is where the research has begun to make sig- tendency to look for patterns and for someone to blame; nificant strides: in shifting the conversation ever so slightly such is the raw material of conspiracy theories. Increasingly, from the image of foil-hat-wearing, conspiracy-believing therefore, those who study conspiracy ideation have been “other people” to a more forgiving conception of conspir- forgoing references to pathology, substituting instead the acy ideation arising in normal people exposed to the proper language of cognitive adaptation. There is a long tradition triggers—for example, circumstances that evoke feelings of in the cognitive sciences of seeing “errors” in reasoning as vulnerability. With research having failed so far to draw a reflections of the normal operation of our goal-oriented in- bright line between the forensic profiles of conspiracy be- formation processing systems, and perhaps we can think of lievers and nonbelievers, searching for additional triggers conspiracy theories this way as well. As Kramer and Gavri- may be a fruitful avenue for further investigation. Those eli (2005, 248) put it, “. . . Conspiracy theories can be con- of us in this young field should also push forward in re- strued as complex forms of social cognition that are the end fining the operational definition of “conspiracy ideation.” product of an intendedly adaptive sensemaking or coping Researchers have crafted many different surveys to measure process.” Given that humans possess the cognitive appa- conspiracy beliefs, most of them with uncertain psycho- ratus required to avoid exploitation (Cosmides and Tooby metric properties (Brotherton et al. 2013). Agreement on 1992), it seems reasonable—though not theoretically defin- properly validated measurements will ultimately help the itive at present—to consider that conspiracy ideation could research community determine which of the current find- be a natural byproduct of such a system, triggered by cues ings merit our confidence over the long term. In the mean- such as perceived vulnerability, or the perception that the time, the skeptical community may find reason to be less alleged conspirator has a motive to engage in subterfuge frustrated with conspiracy believers. The research findings I (Bost et al. 2010; Bost and Prunier 2013; Sunstein and Ver- so far have done much to humanize them. meule 2009). References This article began with the suggestion that we have had little success in beating back conspiracy theories in part Abakalina-Paap, Marina, Walter G. Stephan, Traci Craig, et al. 1999. Beliefs in conspiracies. Political Psychology 20(3): 637–647. because we have failed to study sufficiently the psycho- Bogart, Laura M., and Sheryl Thorburn. 2003. Exploring the relation- logical processes underpinning such beliefs. Though a full ship of conspiracy beliefs about HIV/AIDS to sexual behaviors and discussion of the topic is beyond the scope of this article, attitudes among African-American adults. Journal of the National Medical Association 95(11): 1057–1065. researchers continue to argue that conspiratorial ideation

48 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer ———. 2006. Relationship of African Americans’ sociodemograhic char- Shermer, Michael. 2011. The Believing Brain. New York: Times Books. acteristics to belief in conspiracies about HIV/AIDS and birth control. Simmons, William Paul, and Sharon Parsons. 2005. Beliefs in conspiracy Journal of the National Medical Association 98(7): 1144–1150. theories among African Americans: A comparison of elites and masses. Bost, Preston R., and Stephen G. Prunier. 2013. Rationality in conspiracy Social Science Quarterly 86(3): 582–598. beliefs: The role of perceived motive. Psychological Reports: Sociocultural Steiger, Stefan, Nora Gumhalter, Ulrich Tran, et al. 2013. Girl in the Issues in Psychology 113(1): 118–128. cellar: A repeated cross-sectional investigation of belief in conspiracy Bost, Preston R., Stephen G. Prunier, and Allen J. Piper. 2010. Relations of theories about the kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch. Frontiers in familiarity with reasoning strategies in conspiracy beliefs. Psychological Psychology 4: 297. Reports 107(2): 593–602. Sunstein, Cass R., and Adrian Vermeule. 2009. Conspiracy theories: Brotherton, Robert, Christopher C. French, and Alan D. Pickering. 2013. Causes and cures. The Journal of Political Philosophy 17(2): 202–227. Measuring belief in conspiracy theories: The generic conspiracist beliefs Swami, Viren. 2012. Social psychological origins of conspiracy theories: scale. Frontiers in Psychology 4: 279. The case of the Jewish conspiracy theory in Malaysia. Frontiers in Butler, Lisa D., Cheryl Koopman, and Philip G. Zimbardo. 1995. The Psychology 3: 280. psychological impact of viewing the film “JFK”: Emotions, beliefs, and Swami, Viren, Tomas Chamorro-Pemuzic, and Adrian Furnham. 2010. political behavioral intentions. Political Psychology 16(2): 237–257. Unanswered questions: A preliminary investigation of personality and Clark, April, Jennifer K. Mayben, Christine Hartman, et al. 2008. individual difference predictors of 9/11 conspiracist beliefs. Applied Conspiracy believers about HIV infection are common but not asso- Cognitive Psychology 24: 749–761. ciated with delayed diagnosis or adherence to care. AIDS Patient Care Swami, Viren, and Rebecca Coles. 2010. The truth is out there. The and STDs 22(9): 753–759. Psychologist 23(7): 560–563. Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. 1992. Cognitive adaptations for social Swami, Viren, Rebecca Coles, Stefan Steiger, et al. 2011. Conspiracist exchange. In The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the ideation in Britain and Austria: Evidence of a monological belief sys- Generation of Culture , edited by L. Cosmides and J. Tooby, 163–228. tem and associations between individual psychological differences and New York: Oxford University Press. real-world and fictitious conspiracy theories. British Journal of Psychology Darwin, Hannah, Nick Neave, and Joni Holmes. 2011. Belief in conspiracy 102: 443–463. theories: The role of paranormal beliefs, paranoid ideation and schizo- Swami, Viren, and Adrian Furnham. 2012. Examining conspiracist beliefs typy. Personality and Individual Differences 50: 1289–1293. about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The Journal of General Drinkwater, Ken, Neil Dagnall, and Andrew Parker. 2012. Reality testing, Psychology 139(4): 244–259. conspiracy theories, and paranormal beliefs. Journal of Swami, Viren, Jakob Pietschnig, Ulrich S. Tran, et al. 2013. Lunar Lies: 76(1): 57–77. The impact of informational framing and individual differences in Furnham, Adrian. 2013. Commercial conspiracy theories: A pilot study. shaping conspiracist beliefs about the moon landings. Applied Cognitive Frontiers in Psychology 4:379. Psychology 27: 71–80. Goertzel, Ted. 1994. Belief in conspiracy theories. Political Psychology Uscinski, Joseph, Joseph M. Parent, and Bethany Torres. 2011. Conspiracy 15(4): 731–742. theories are for losers. Paper presented at the 2011 American Political Grzesiak-Feldman, Monika. 2007. Conspiracy thinking and state-trait Science Association annual conference, Seattle, Washington. anxiety in young Polish adults. Psychological Reports 100(1): 199–202. Online at http://www.joeuscinski.com/uploads/Conspiracies ———. 2013. The effect of high-anxiety situations on conspiracy thinking. areforlosersAPSA.pdf. Current Psychology 32(1): 100–118. Vohs, Kathleen D., Roy F. Baumeister, and Jason Chin. 2007. Feeling Grzesiak-Feldman, Monika, and Anna Ejsmont. 2008. Paranoia and duped: Emotional, motivational, and cognitive aspects of being conspiracy thinking of Jews, Arabs, Germans and Russians in a Polish exploited by others. Review of General Psychology 11(2): 127–141. Sample. Psychological Reports 102(3): 884–886. Whitson, Jennifer A., and Adam D. Galinsky. 2008. Lacking control Jolly, Daniel. 2013. Are conspiracy theories just harmless fun? The increases illusory pattern perception. Science 322(3): 115–117. Psychologist 26(1): 60–62. Wood, Michael J., Karen M. Douglas, and Robbie M. Sutton. 2012. Keeley, Brian L. 1999. Of conspiracy theories. The Journal of Philosophy Dead and alive: Beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories. Social 96(3): 109–126. Psychological and Personality Science 3(6): 767–773. Kelley-Romano, Stephanie. 2008. Trust no one: The conspiracy genre on Zonis, Marvin, and Craig Joseph. 1994. Conspiracy thinking in the Middle American television. Southern Communication Journal 73(2): 105–121. East. Political Psychology 15(3): 443–459. Kramer, Roderick, and Dana Gavrieli. 2005. The perception of conspiracy: Leader paranoia as adaptive cognition. In The Psychology of Leadership , edited by D. Messick and R. Kramer, 251–261. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Preston R. Bost, PhD, is professor of psy- Erlbaum Associates. chology and the director of institutional re- Leman, Patrick J., and Marco Cinnirella. 2013. Beliefs in conspiracy the- search at Wabash College. ories and the need for cognitive closure. Frontiers in Psychology 4:378. Mason, Oliver, Gordon Claridge, and Mike Jackson. 1995. New scales for the assessment of schizotypy. Personality and Individual Differences 18: 7–13. McHoskey, John W. 1995. Case closed? On the John F. Kennedy assassi- nation: Biased assimilation of evidence and attitude polarization. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 17(3): 395–409. Nelson, Jessica C., Glenn Adams, Nyla R. Branscombe, et al. 2010. The role of historical knowledge in perception of race-based conspiracies. From Our Archives Race and Social Problems 2(2): 69–80. Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa, Miguel Farias, and Nicole Tausch. 2011. The This related SKEPTICAL INQUIRER functional nature of conspiracy beliefs: Examining the underpinnings article is available on our of belief in the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. Personality and Individual csicop.org website: Differences 51: 1007–1011. Nyhan, Brendan, and Jason Reifler. 2010. When corrections fail: The The Conspiracy Meme: Why persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior 32: 303–330. Conspiracy Theories Appeal Parsons, Sharon, William Simmons, Frankie Shinhoster, et al. 1999. A and Persist. By Ted Goertzel. test of the grapevine: An empirical examination of conspiracy theories among African Americans. Sociological Spectrum 19: 201–222. Vol. 35, No. 1, January/ Rothschild, Zachary K., Mark J. Landau, Daniel Sullivan, et al. 2012. A February 2011. dual-motive model of scapegoating: Displacing blame to reduce guilt or increase control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102(6): 1148–1163.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 49 Modern Geocentrism A Case Study of Pseudoscience in Astronomy A small group of pseudoscience practitioners called modern geocentrists still suggest that the Earth is in fact the center of the universe. An astronomer examines their ideas and uses them to suggest common properties of pseudoscience purveyors.

MATTHEW P. WIESNER

stronomy is both an ancient and a rapidly growing production group is currently attempt- ing to get this movie into major the- modern science, and there are many opportunities atres. Modern geocentrism obtained Awithin astronomy to advance human knowledge. But its fifteen minutes of fame when the notable people quoted or involved in astronomy is also a discipline that attracts practitioners of The Principle found out it was a movie pseudoscience who question and spread misinformation about pseudoscience. This included about the science. narrator (and Star Trek: Voyager actress) Kate Mulgrew and scientists Lawrence I present an analysis of one small a book about how the Krauss, Max Tegmark, George Ellis, group of astronomical pseudoscientists, was right to condemn Galileo called and Michio Kaku, who were quoted the modern geocentrists. This group Galileo Was Wrong, the Church Was in the film. purports to show that Copernicus, Gal- Right (Sungenis and Bennett 2014); Modern geocentrism is an idea ileo, Einstein, and many others were in this tome takes up 1,200 pages in developed by a small group of highly fact wrong in their conclusions and that two volumes and was developed from conservative Catholics. Religion is an the Earth is the center of the universe. Sungenis’s 700-page doctoral thesis important part of the argument of the While the impact of this group may be written on geocentrism at Calamus modern geocentrists (as may be noted small, it is a perfect specimen of astro- International University, an unaccred- in the title of the movement’s primary nomical pseudoscience. From quote ited distance learning institution in book). The modern geocentrists divide mining to math avoidance to the ev- the Republic of Vanuatu. There was their arguments into religious argu- er-present conspiracy theories, modern a conference on geocentrism held in ments and scientific arguments. The geocentrism shows us how pseudosci- South Bend, Indiana, in November religious arguments are, in general, that entists operate. By studying these and 2010; there were nine speakers and many passages of the Bible suggest the other groups and teaching about them, about one hundred attendees. Sungenis Sun goes around a stationary Earth and we can show students and the public recently followed up with a popu- many popes of the Catholic Church what not to do and how to recognize lar-science version of his book called stated that the Earth is in the center pseudoscience. Geocentrism 101 (Sungenis 2014). This of the universe. Considering that most year Sungenis, producer Rick Delano, astronomers (and thus most people) What Is Modern Geocentrism? and their group have finished a movie thought the Earth was the center of the universe until the seventeenth century, Modern geocentrism is the idea that on geocentrism titled The Principle, neither of these things is surprising. the heliocentric theory developed by about the Copernican principle, the Copernicus, Galileo, and many others idea that Earth is not in a special is in fact wrong and the Earth is the place in the universe. This is closely The Basic Scientific Premises of Modern center of the universe. It is spearheaded related to the cosmological principle, Geocentrism by a man named Robert Sungenis, the idea that the universe is about The basic scientific premise of modern who holds degrees in theology. The the same everywhere and there are geocentrism is that the cosmological major work on modern geocentrism is no special places in the universe. His principle is wrong and that there is

50 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer a preferred place in the universe, the that physics could allow this. Sungenis tromagnetic waves propagated, the lu- Earth. They suggest that if we throw begins his book Geocentrism 101 with mineferous aether. Since there was no out the cosmological principle, phys- the statement, “Unbeknownst to almost difference in travel time, there was no ics will still work, just with the Earth the entire human race is the fact that evidence of aether. Sungenis suggests forming the center of the universe. no one in all of human history has ever that this is evidence that the Earth is As part of throwing out this principle, proven the Earth moves in space” (Sun- not moving. He then spends time ex- though, they also end up throwing out genis 2014). plaining why Einstein was wrong about the vast majority of physics, includ- Sungenis then goes through the both the special and the general theo- ing the standard model of cosmology, many different pieces of evidence that ries of relativity. There is quite a bit of special and general relativity, quantum indicate the motion of the Earth and conspiracy theory in these chapters, mechanics, and more. Their position is attempts to find a reason he doesn’t accusing Einstein, scientists behind that Einstein and others were in fact have to believe the Earth is moving. the global positioning system (GPS), really smart, but they were blinded by Of course as philosopher of science and others with hiding the truth. Sun- their conviction that the Earth is not Karl Popper tells us, if you don’t want genis also rather blithely claims that the center of the universe. They pro- something to be true, you will find a lumineferous aether exists, without pose that these scientists were mate- way to interpret the facts to support giving much information on its nature. rialists who didn’t like the religious your belief (Popper 1963), which is ex- (In Galileo Was Wrong, he explains that implications of a geocentric universe. actly what the geocentrists do. For ex- aether causes gravity.) Sungenis doesn’t

The modern geocentrists propose that the reason the Sun rises and sets and the stars rise and set is that the entire universe revolves around Earth once a day.

Einstein and others failed to see the ample, the Foucault pendulum changes spend any time addressing the fact that right answer because of their innate its direction of oscillation continuously special relativity is critical to much of biases and therefore pretty much all of throughout the day due to the rotation modern technology, including most modern physics is wrong. of the Earth. Sungenis counters and high-energy physics experiments. The modern geocentrists propose says that he can achieve the same effect Chapter 8 of Geocentrism 101 begins that the reason the Sun rises and sets if the entire universe is rotating around with the statement, “Ten years after he and the stars rise and set is that the en- the Earth. invented the Special Theory of Rela- tire universe revolves around Earth once Sungenis spends a lot of time on tivity to answer the Michelson-Mor- a day. They indicate that this could the Michelson-Morley experiment, ley experiment, Einstein was forced to be possible if the entire universe were an experiment that showed no differ- invent a second theory to compensate distributed so that Earth is the center ence in light travel time whether light for what the first one lacked.” Using of mass of the universe, perfectly bal- was going parallel or perpendicular to words like invent implies that Einstein anced. They present no observational the motion of the Earth. This exper- was just making things up. This sen- evidence for this balance; they just try iment was looking for evidence of the tence also betrays a deep lack of under- to make the point that it is conceivable medium in which it was believed elec- standing of how the development of

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 51 scientific theories actually works. Sun- has no real conception of how science To support this, he shows several di- genis quotes Einstein to say, “The two works and so he suggests scientists agrams showing locations of galaxies. sentences: ‘the Sun is at rest and the make things up ad hoc and conspire to This is a classic example of the use of Earth moves,’ or ‘the Sun moves and hide evidence about the failings of their plots to misrepresent information. He the Earth is at rest’ would simply mean theories. At the end of this chapter, the shows plots of galaxy distributions two different conventions concerning first few verses of Genesis are quoted in in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the two different coordinate systems” large text. shows how Earth is in the center. Well, (Sungenis 2014). In other words, Ein- In Chapter 10, Sungenis discusses of course it is, that’s the point of ob- stein is saying the question of what is in the cosmic microwave background servation. He does the same thing with the center of the universe is not an in- (CMB; light from the big bang). He a plot of quasars by redshift, showing has already indicated that the big bang a void in the center where Earth is. theory is fake, so it is surprising that he Again, this is what you’d expect, since makes no explanation for the origin of quasars do not occur at low redshift. the CMB; he simply uses it to prove The book closes with a quote from the his arguments. Sungenis describes the New Testament, applying it to us sci- Like most pseudoscien- CMB experiment called the Cosmic entists as “. . . those who suppress the tists, Sungenis is Background Explorer (COBE): “. . . truth by their wickedness.” uncomfortable with COBE showed that not only was a significant portion of the universe’s The Properties of Pseudoscience as math and likes to claim radiation anisotropic and inhomoge- Shown by Modern Geocentrism neous, but also that it was distributed that math lies. The modern geocentrists will fre- in well organized pockets or poles that quently point to a controversy or created a specific geometry, all the way change in scientific theory as evidence from the rim of the known universe to of how astronomical science is failing. its hub in the center. Of course CO- They do not understand that contro- BE’s results did not appear on national versy and change is a sign of healthy news programs but it was very disturb- science, not an indication of failure. teresting one. Sungenis, however, uses ing news for the inner sanctum of the They also frequently ask for absolute this quote to suggest that a geocentric science community” (Sungenis 2014). “proof ” of scientific theories. What universe is possible. So here we can see demonstrations of this demonstrates is that they do not Chapter 9 of Geocentrism 101 is ti- highly nonscientific language (e.g., understand that science does not offer tled, “The Big Bang: Invented to Sup- “rim of the known universe,” “hub”), absolute truth, nor does it offer abso- press Geocentrism.” Sungenis presents implications of conspiracy theory, and lute proof, nor can it promise to be Einstein’s “greatest blunder,” the ad- the rare use of the phrase “inner sanc- unchanging. If science did not change dition of the cosmological constant to tum.” The implication that anistropy in response to new evidence, it would the Einstein equation. He then claims, (slight temperature differences) in the be very poor at its job. “In any case, adding an arbitrary com- cosmic microwave background made ponent to make Einstein’s equation scientists worried is wrongheaded; balance with the data demonstrates physicists were more concerned about Motivated by Religion how easy it was, and still is, to create the initially apparent absence of anis- A large portion of the geocentrists’ time mathematical equations that give an tropy in the CMB than about the dis- is spent presenting religious arguments of knowledge and certainty” (Sun- covery of its presence. Sungenis goes on for geocentrism. This is a common genis 2014). Like most pseudoscien- to spend a lot of time talking about the factor among many pseudoscientists; tists, Sungenis is uncomfortable with “Axis of Evil,” an apparent alignment they start with a religious idea and then math and likes to claim that math lies. in the CMB signal with the ecliptic. interpret science to be in accord with He claims next that, “If, as the statis- While he never clearly articulates what their preconceived idea. This is the tics show, 99.99% of the galaxies are exactly is aligned, he suggests that this issue with the young-Earth creation- redshifted from our observation point, clearly shows Earth is in the center of ism movement as well. Creationists Earth, it means the universe is geocen- the universe. start with the belief that the Genesis tric” (Sungenis 2014). This is quite a The book next looks at dark matter account of creation is literally true leap of logic, one that Sungenis does and dark energy, which are again pre- and then reject any science that might not illuminate with facts. He goes on sented as ad hoc inventions scientists contradict this. Ultimately, modern to briefly discuss the big bang, but only thought up to preserve their cherished geocentrists are just a special kind of in a very superficial way and in a way theories. In the next chapter, Sunge- creationist, and their motivations and that implies that scientists were sit- nis suggests that galaxies, quasars, and methods are very similar. In fact, there ting around with beers and said, “Hey, gamma ray bursts are all arranged in have been efforts to establish alliances why not a big bang?” Again, Sungenis concentric shells centered on the Earth. between creationists and geocentrists.

52 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer Quote Mining spiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are on the other hand prefer to avoid Modern geocentrists spend a large not only useful new garments for the math, typically because they lack any amount of effort quote mining—tak- emperor, they are also absolutely not significant training in mathematics. ing a quotation out of context to show demonstrable because they are secret Pseudoscientific tracts will often have that the writer believes something he and undocumented by definition. a distinct dearth of mathematical equa- or she does not in fact believe. Both of tions or discussions. In my interactions the geocentrist writings referenced in Singlehandedly Overthrowing with geocentrists, I have brought up this article are primarily lists of quota- the Scientific Paradigm the lack of math; their response was tions from famous scientists. Thus on The introduction to Geocentrism 101 that scientists are trying to hide the page 12 of Geocentrism 101, the author ends with these modest words: “The quotes Stephen Hawking as saying, truth behind all that math and that real evidence you are about to see is so “So which is real, the Ptolemaic or the physics can be understood without all shocking and so revolutionary that Copernican system? Although it is the obfuscation of mathematics. I will once you grasp its significance your not uncommon for people to say that let Galileo handle that one. whole view of life will be instantly Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, changed. Life itself, and the reason Conclusion that is not true. As in the case of our for our existence, will become crystal normal view versus that of the goldfish, clear” (Sungenis 2014). Typically when Pseudoscience remains popular in all one can use either picture as a model of scientists write a paper or a book, they areas of science, and there are many the universe, for our observations of the purport to increase the knowledge of people who believe in at least one type can be explained by assuming humanity by a little bit and to make a either the earth or the sun to be at of pseudoscience. I propose that ignor- small contribution to the advancement ing pseudoscience is ineffective and rest” (Sungenis 2014). Sungenis uses of understanding. Typically when pseu- only encourages it to spread. Instead, this quote to show a famous scientist doscientists write a paper or a book, scientists and science educators ought admitting that Earth could be at the they purport to completely change sci- to seize pseudoscience as an opportu- center of the universe. But that’s not ence as we know it. Thus an important what Hawking was saying at all; rather, way of telling science from pseudo- nity to teach about how science works he was making a point that there is no science is the level of modesty of the and about what is wrong with pseudo- “one true model” of the universe. authors. Are they trying to stand on science. Let’s not ignore pseudoscience the shoulders of giants that have come such as modern geocentrism; rather, Conspiracy Theory before as Newton did? Or are they try- let’s discuss it and use it to teach and At the first annual conference (it was ing to overthrow science or technology educate people about how to tell the the only annual conference) on geo- or medicine as we know it? difference between real science and I centrism in November of 2010, the . Allergic to Math first talk was titled: “Geocentrism: References They Know It But They’re Hiding It.” In one of his most famous quota- Finocchiaro, Maurice A., and Galileo Galilei. One of the major themes of modern tions, Galileo reminds us: “Philosophy geocentrism is that it is a conspiracy 2008. The Essential Galileo. Indianapolis: is written in this grand book, the uni- Hackett Publishing Company. of physicists to hide the truth from verse, which stands continually open to Popper, Karl. 1963. Science as falsification. humanity that the Earth is in the our gaze, but it cannot be understood Online at http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ center of the universe. One hears this unless one first learns to comprehend ctrl/popper falsification.html. claim a great deal from pseudoscien- Sungenis, Robert, and Robert Bennett. 2014. the language and interpret the char- Galileo Was Wrong, the Church Was Right, 10th tists around the world. It might be a acters in which it is written. It is writ- Edition. Catholic Apologetics International. free energy machine that utility com- ten in the language of mathematics, Sungenis, Robert. 2014. Geocentrism 101. panies don’t want known, or it might and its characters are triangles, circles, Catholic Apologetics International. be the dangers of vaccinations that and other geometrical figures, without Matthew P. Wiesner is a medical doctors and drug companies which it is humanly impossible to postdoctoral researcher want hidden, or it might be the “fabri- understand a single word of it; with- in astronomy at Purdue cation” of the Moon landings that the out these, one is wandering around University. His research government wants hidden. The reason in a dark labyrinth” (Finocchiaro and is in galaxy clusters and that conspiracy theory is so prevalent Galileo 2008). Thus another way to gravitational lensing. He in pseudoscience is there is always a tell good physical science from junk also has a strong interest pressing question: If this idea is so physical science is to see if there is a in science education and teaching and has good, why don’t physics professors, or mathematical basis for the science. To taught astronomy since 2009. He holds a BS medical doctors, or energy companies make sense of theories in astrophys- in physics and an MA in education from Mar- talk about it? The fig leaf used to cover ics, one must first receive some train- quette University as well as an MS and a PhD this hole in the pseudoscience is con- ing in mathematics. Pseudoscientists in physics from Northern Illinois University.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 53 Flaw and Order: The Science and Mythology of Criminal Profiling Somewhere between hard forensic science and -cop psychobabble, criminal profiling struggles to find a legitimate place in law enforcement’s investigative toolbox.

LAURENCE MILLER

ere’s a common television drama scenario: a body has the art and practice of criminal profil- ing into the fields of scientific psychol- been discovered in a neighborhood, and it seems to ogy and criminal justice. Hmatch a pattern of previous homicides. Criminal Profiling: What Is It? “Looks like a serial killer,” mutters one beat cop to an- All professionals who work with human other. “Better call in [your favorite TV detective’s name beings, whether medical doctors, psy- chologists, business managers, or police here].” Cue the somber yet wistfully hopeful music as the detectives, do some kind of profiling in experienced criminal profiler enters the frame and scopes their daily work. Understanding both out the crime scene, analyzes the evidence, interviews wit- the commonalities and differences in human behavior enables these pro- nesses, and ultimately develops a behavioral profile that fessionals to individually tailor their leads to the killer’s capture and conviction. Everybody has services to diverse types of people. Clinicians need to know how different seen stories like this, but what is their basis in reality? Is patients will respond to different med- criminal profiling a valid law enforcement tool or a fic- ical procedures or forms of psycho- tional forensic fad? therapy. Law enforcement officers need to know how different suspects will Information from books, TV shows, and Offender Profiling. behave under varying circumstances. movies, and the media’s general fas- However, a number of forensic skep- Although various terms and defi- cination with the dark side of human tics have expressed concern that the nitions have been proposed, the term behavior have all combined to produce popularity and enthusiastic application behavioral profiling is generally un- an explosion of interest in the field of of what variously has been termed be- derstood to refer to “a technique for criminal profiling over the past decade havioral profiling, psychological profiling, identifying the major personality and (Douglas and Olshaker 1998; Ressler offender profiling, or criminal profiling behavioral characteristics of an individ- and Schactman 1992). In academia, have far exceeded the evidence for its ual based upon an analysis of the crimes too, a growing number of masters and scientific validity (Dowden et al. 2007; he or she has committed” (Douglas and doctoral programs are allowing students Hicks and Sales 2006; Kocsis 2009; Burgess 1986, 405). Thus, the basic to do research and dissertations in this McCann 1992; Muller 2000; Palermo idea is that certain personality types ex- area (Dowden et al. 2007). Behavioral and Kocsis 2005; Snook et al. 2007). press themselves by the individualized profiling research is being accepted for This article provides a concise descrip- way they commit a crime, and that an- publication in many prominent psy- tion of the practice of criminal profil- alyzing the particular pattern can pro- chology and criminal justice journals, ing, addresses the questions of both its vide clues to the killer’s identity. and the field has spawned at least one theoretical validity and practical utility, While some form of profiling has periodical entirely devoted to this topic, and makes some recommendations for always been a part of criminal inves- the Journal of Investigative Psychology how to rationally and usefully integrate tigation, efforts by the Federal Bureau

54 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer of Investigation to develop and imple- ment a formal and systematic process for crime scene profiling began only as recently as 1978, with the formation of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, or BSU, which evolved into the Pro- filing and Behavioral Assessment Unit (Douglas and Burgess 1986; Geberth 1996; Homant and Kennedy 1998; Ressler et al. 1988). Initially, the pro- cess was developed specifically to deal with cases of serial homicide and serial rape. Although the official FBI term for this activity is criminal investigative analysis, the more colloquial term crim- inal profiling has become entrenched in both the academic and popular lit-

Despite the emphasis on psychology, however, profilers as a group have not articulated a uniform theory of human behavior that guides their investigations.

statements concerning the interper- initiates a log or timeline that accounts erature. With some slight differences sonal style and the underlying motives for all activities at the scene and the in approach, profiling has also become of the suspect. people and vehicles that have had ac- popular in Canada, Great Britain, and cess to the area. The on-scene officer the Netherlands (Dowden et al. 2007; Working the Case: then contacts the special investigator, Palermo and Kocsis 2005). How Profiles Are Developed Despite the emphasis on psychol- or “profiler.” ogy, however, profilers as a group have The FBI’s model of criminal profiling Initial procedures. The investigator not articulated a uniform theory of typically follows a sequence of stages first assesses the area as a whole to take human behavior that guides their inves- (Geberth 2006; Kocsis 2009). in the “big picture”—neighborhood, tigations, and it is often unclear as to Preliminary steps. The first officer roadways, pedestrian pathways—before whether they are trying to reconstruct who discovers the crime scene endeav- focusing on the crime scene itself. In an the personality of a given offender or ors to preserve the scene and, if possi- initial survey, or “walk-through,” of the merely generating a loosely connected ble, to hold any witnesses or suspects scene, the investigator takes notes, pho- series of psychologically descriptive for questioning. The on-scene officer tos, and videos for later processing and

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 55 and friends (recent romantic breakup or harassment by creepy neighbor or workmate?), and legal history (clean- cut preppie found in “druggie” neigh- borhood?). This information is combined to de- velop the victim profile, which in turn is supposed to yield clues to the offender’s modus operandi, or MO, that is, his or her particular and individualized meth- odology of committing crimes (this is distinguished from the signature, which reflects the offender’s deliberate manip- ulation of the crime scene). Developing the offender profile. When all this data has been collected, the FBI’s Crime Scene Analysis consists of six steps: (1) inputting the profiling data; (2) developing decision process models to discern patterns and commonalities; (3) reconstructing the crime scenario, i.e., exactly how the suspect killed the victim; (4) construction of a criminal ascertains whether there is any fragile to look like robberies, or sexual homi- profile that incorporates the motives, or perishable evidence that needs to be cides staged to shock or taunt police physical qualities, personality, and be- collected and preserved right away. and the media (Miller 2000; Miller havioral tendencies of the perpetrator; Describing the scene. The investiga- 2012). In such cases, the investigator (5) targeted investigation of a narrowed tor records a complete description of considers who would benefit from the pool of suspects who fit the profile and the victim and the surrounding area, scene being staged or what psycholog- use of the profile in interviewing and including: age, sex, body type, skin ical gratification might be obtained by interrogating likely suspects; and (6) and hair coloring, clothing or missing the perpetrator. apprehension of the offender. This pro- clothing, positioning and location of Forensic interviews. Any potential cess strives to be a cyclical and flexible the body, obvious or unusual weapons witnesses are interviewed at the scene one, so that the profile may be modified in the vicinity, obvious signs of violence to take advantage of their fresh observa- as new information comes in from the such as bullet holes, shell casings, blood tions and recollections. Some witnesses ensuing investigations. stains, bottles, or syringes, evidence of may be transported to the department Note that the overall rationale of the premortem injury or postmortem mu- for further questioning. Follow-up in- FBI’s criminal profiling approach is not tilation, and any other evidence that terviews may be scheduled at later dates to identify airtight, idiosyncratic mark- could yield clues as to cause of death. as more evidence comes in. ers that can zero in on a single specific At some point, physical evidence is col- Victimology. A thorough under- perpetrator but to develop a suite of lected from the crime scene, either by standing of who the victim is, where identifying characteristics that can be a special evidence collection team (in he or she lived and worked, his or her compared to other offenders already in larger police agencies) or by the inves- background, and social relationships the database. If the suspect is previously tigator him- or herself (in smaller de- are often viewed by profilers as a vital unknown to law enforcement, there partments). first step in ascertaining why he or she will be nothing to compare the profile An important aspect of on-scene was victimized, who the killer was, and with. The discernment homicide investigation is an analy- what may be his or her preferred type and apprehension of a previously un- sis of crime scene staging, in which the of victim (Joyce 2006; Napier and Ha- known suspect living down the street is offender manipulates the crime scene zelwood 2003). Types of victim infor- something that happens in Hollywood, in an attempt to confuse or misdirect mation include injuries sustained (me- not in real-life law enforcement. law enforcement investigators from the thodical execution or violently rageful true cause of death or motive for the attack?), location of the victim (what killing (Hazelwood and Napier 2004). was he or she doing away from work But Does It Work? Evidence for the Valid- Common scenarios include revenge ho- in the middle of the afternoon?), vic- ity and Usefulness of Criminal Profiling micides staged to look like suicides or tim’s occupation (what type of people Even within the limits described, there accidents, domestic homicides staged would he or she likely run into?), family are quite a number of cases where

56 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer criminal profiles have proven to be ing in profiling; (4) psychologists; and to describe unwarranted stigmatization inaccurate, unhelpful, or frankly mis- (5) university students. The expert and of certain demographic groups, and this leading in solving crimes (Muller 2000; trained profilers wrote longer and more attribution may be unfairly tainting the Rossmo 2009; Snook et al. 2007). detailed offender profiles, and their term in other contexts as well. This has led the pendulum of opinion profiles were ranked higher in overall Whatever the name, even if psychol- to swing in the other direction, with usefulness by an independent panel of ogists could overcome their skepticism, some critics asserting that behavioral detectives. However, the profiles of the might their unique training and knowl- profiling is little better than astrology expert and trained profilers were actu- edge about the human mind confer (Ainsworth 2001), while others take ally the least useful in predicting the some advantage in creating a profile? a more middle ground position in actual characteristics of the murderer, Richard Kocsis and colleagues (2000) the debate over whether behavioral although they did somewhat better directly compared the profiling skills of profiling is mainly a highly skilled art than the other groups in predicting the psychologists to that of police officers (Douglas and Burgess 1986; Turvey rapist’s characteristics. and found that the only significant dif- 1999) or should aspire to be a rep- ferences were that psychologists more licable, scientific technique (Canter accurately predicted the offender’s 2004; Kocsis 2009; Palermo and Kocsis physical features and offense behaviors. 2005)—in essence, the same debate In fairness, however, should psychol- that surrounds almost every area of ogists who don’t specialize in forensic applied psychology, including forensic I think the term profiling analysis be expected to have any special psychology (Miller 2006; Miller 2012). skills in that area based on their gen- One problem is that most research has accreted an eral knowledge of human behavior? For and writing on psychological profiling unfortunate burden of that matter, should police officers who has not been done by psychologists but prejudice, as it has been are not trained profilers be assumed to by law enforcement investigators, who used pejoratively to have such specialized abilities just by tend to take an intuitive case-study virtue of working in a law enforcement approach rather than a skeptical sci- describe unwarranted field? entific orientation toward their subject stigmatization of certain Craig Bennell and colleagues (2006) (Dowden et al. 2007). Over the past demographic groups, and mince no words in categorically reject- two decades, a number of forensic psy- this attribution may be ing the idea that psychologists have any chologists have attempted to examine special insight into the criminal mind or the empirical basis for criminal behav- unfairly tainting the term any special skills with regard to criminal ioral profiling. in other contexts as well. profiling. They point out that in other Law enforcement investigators and forensic contexts, such as psychological profiling. In an early study, Anthony evaluations for the courts, psychologists Pinizzotto (1984) surveyed local law typically show marked disagreement enforcement officers who had asked with one another and specialized train- the FBI’s BSU to develop a total of 196 ing seems to have no appreciable effect offender profiles to assist in their inves- on the accuracy or usefulness of their tigations. Most of the officers reported reports. that the profiles were of some use in fo- Psychologists and profiling. What This, however, may be generalizing cusing their investigation, but less than do psychologists think about psycho- from a few sensationalized “battles of half considered the profiles to be sig- logical profiling? Curt Bartol (1996) the experts” that receive glaring media nificantly helpful in solving their cases, found that 70 percent of a large sam- attention and that are dramatized on and in only 17 percent of cases did the ple of self-identified police psycholo- TV cop-and-lawyer shows. In my ex- profiles lead to the actual identification gists seriously questioned the validity perience as a forensic examiner, if pro- of a suspect. and usefulness of criminal profiling. vided with sufficient background data A subsequent study (Pinizzotto and However, in another study (Torres and a comprehensive clinical interview, Finkel 1990) presented a previously et al. 2006), simply changing the no- it is rare for truly honest and objective solved murder case and rape case, in menclature from criminal profiling to evaluators to come up with diametri- which the outcome was already known, criminal investigative analysis yielded cally opposed conclusions in forensic to five different groups: (1) “expert a sharp increase in perceived scientific evaluations. Examiners may disagree profilers” (i.e., instructors in the FBI’s validity among surveyed psychologists. on the precise diagnosis (schizophrenia BSU); (2) “trained profilers” (i.e., law Although the authors did not address vs. schizoaffective or bipolar disorder) enforcement investigators who had un- this, I think the term profiling has ac- or the exact relationship of the clinical dergone training from the BSU); (3) creted an unfortunate burden of prej- criteria to the legal standard (subject police detectives with no formal train- udice, as it has been used pejoratively was paranoid at the time of the offense

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 57 but was able to control his actions vs. regarded as one piece of the puzzle parative assessment. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 15: 311–331. subject was powerless to disobey com- that can occasionally yield useful in- McCann, J.T. 1992. Criminal personality pro- mand hallucinations). formation. Again, the tension between filing in the investigation of violent crime: However, most evaluations of the art and science in all fields of applied Recent advances and future directions. human behavior, especially in forensic Behavioral Sciences and the Law 10: 475–481. same subject will yield a rough con- Miller, L. 2000. The predator’s brain: Neuro- sensus because the examiners are using psychology, is one that must be dealt psychodynamics of serial killers. In L.B. well-validated principles of psycholog- with forthrightly if our professional Schlesinger Ed., Serial Offenders: Current ical investigation combined with their credibility is to be maintained (Miller Thought, Recent Findings, Unusual Syndromes. I Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp. 135–166. own knowledge and experience to pro- 2006; Miller 2012). ———. 2006. Practical Police Psychology: Stress duce a credible assessment. The same References Management and Crisis Intervention for Law probably applies to skilled criminal Enforcement. Springfield, IL: Charles C Ainsworth, P.B. 2001. Offender Profiling and Thomas. profilers: of course they’re not always Crime Analysis. Devon: Willan Publishing. ———. 2012. Criminal Psychology: Nature, right, and different profilers may dis- Bartol, C.R. 1996. Police psychology: Then, now, Nurture, Culture. Springfield, IL: Charles C agree on assorted details, but it would and beyond. Criminal Justice and Behavior 23: Thomas. 70–89. Muller, D.A. 2000. Criminal profiling: Real be surprising if, given the same data Bennell, C., N.J. Jones, P.J. Taylor, et al. 2006. science or just wishful thinking? Homicide and using the same methods, they Validities and abilities in criminal profiling: A Studies 4: 234–264. came up with widely diverging profiles, critique of the studies conducted by Richard Napier, M.R., and R.R. Hazelwood. 2003. Kocsis and his colleagues. International Homicide investigation: The significance of especially on a consistent basis. Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative victimology. National Academy Associate 5: Criminology 50: 344–360. 14–15, 21–22, 30–32. Criminal behavioral Canter, D.V. 2004. Offender profiling and inves- Palermo, G.B, and R.N. Kocsis. 2005. tigative psychology. Journal of Investigative Offender Profiling: An Introduction to the profiling will no doubt Psychology and Offender Profiling 1: 1–15. Sociopsychological Analysis of Violent Crime. Douglas, J.E., and A.W. Burgess. 1986. Criminal Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. ultimately be found to profiling: A viable investigative tool against Pinizzotto, A.J. 1984. Forensic psychology: occupy a middle ground violent crime. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Criminal personality profiling. Journal of 55: 9–13. Police Science and Administration 12: 32–40. somewhere between Douglas, J.E., and M. Olshaker. 1998. Pinizzotto, A.J., and N.J. Finkel. 1990. Criminal infallibility and Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime personality profiling: An outcome and pro- Unit. New York: Scribner. cess study. Law and Human Behavior 14: psychobabble. Dowden, C., C. Bennell, and S. Bloomfield. 215–233. 2007. Advances in offender profiling: A sys- Ressler, R.K., A.W. Burgess, and J.E. Douglas. tematic review of the profiling literature pub- 1988. Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives. lished over the past three decades. Journal of New York: Lexington Books. Criminal Profiling: Where Are We? Police and Criminal Psychology 22: 44–56. Ressler, R.K., and T. Schactman. 1992. Whoever Geberth, V.J. 1996. Practical Homicide Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking At present, the evidence for the overall Investigation. Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic rd Serial Killers for the FBI. New York: Simon validity of criminal profiles in solv- Techniques 3 ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC & Schuster. ing serial homicides and other crimes Press. Rossmo, D.K. 2009. Criminal Investigative ———. 2006. Preliminary death investigation. appears weaker than at first suggested Failures. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin September: Snook, B., J. Eastwood, P. Gendreau, et al. 2007. 131–140. by the initial flush of enthusiasm. Taking stock of criminal profiling: A narra- Godwin, G.M. 2001. Criminal Psychology and Probably, this represents expectable tive review and meta-analysis. Criminal Justice Forensic Technology: A Collaborative Approach and Behavior 34: 437–453. growing pains in the maturation of to Effective Profiling. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Torres, A.N., M.T. Boccanccini, and H. Miller. Press. any behavioral science, and criminal 2006. Perceptions of the validity and utility of Hazelwood, R.R., and M.R. Napier. 2004. Crime criminal profiling among forensic psycholo- behavioral profiling will no doubt ulti- scene staging and its detection. International mately be found to occupy a middle Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative gists and psychiatrists. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 37: 51–58. ground somewhere between infalli- Criminology 48: 744–759. Hicks, S.J., and B.D. Sales. 2006. Criminal Turvey, B.E. 1999. Criminal Profiling: An bility and psychobabble. In the mean- Profiling: Developing an Effective Science Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis. time, practitioners out in the real world and Practice. Washington, DC: American New York: Academic Press. must competently, ethically, and care- Psychological Association. Laurence Miller, PhD, is Homant, R.J., and D.B. Kennedy. 1998. fully use the available skills and tools, Psychological aspects of crime scene profiling. a clinical and forensic psychological and technological, to try Criminal Justice and Behavior 25: 319–343. psychologist and an to solve actual cases (Godwin 2001; Joyce, T. 2006. Victimology awareness. Law and adjunct professor at Order March: 48–54. Kocsis 2010). Kocsis, R.N. 2009. Applied Criminal Psychology: Florida Atlantic Univer- Certainly, in the investigation of A Guide to Forensic Behavioral Sciences. sity. He is the author, crimes of all types, psychological pro- Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. most recently, of Crimi- ———. 2010. Criminal profiling works and filing should never be relied on to the everyone agrees. Journal of Forensic Psychology nal Psychology: Nature, Nurture, Culture exclusion of traditional evidence col- Practice 10: 224–237. (Charles C Thomas). He can be reached at lection and analysis, and it should be Kocsis, R.N., H.J. Irwin, A.F. Hayes, et al. 2000. [email protected]. Expertise in psychological profiling: A com-

58 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer REVIEWS]

Bigfoot or Big Fraud? ROB BOSTON

he evidence for Bigfoot boils down to a few seconds of film Tshot nearly fifty years ago, large footprints that pop up here and there, Sasquatch for Sale: Death, DNA, and Duplicity. hair and DNA that always turn out to By Michael Greene. CreateSpace, 2014. be from known animals, and eyewit- ISBN: 978-1499734508. 390 pp. ness sightings. In short, the evidence Softcover, $14.48; ebook, $7.00. isn’t very good. Yet belief in Bigfoot persists. Why? In his new book, Sasquatch for Sale: Death, DNA, and Duplicity, Michael Greene provides a couple of answers useful to skeptics without at all mean- ing to: There’s a lot of deliberate hoax- ing going on, and some people are sim- Greene makes much of his video edly happened, and the weird sexual ply gullible. and compares it to the famous Pat- subtext—“I (almost) married Bigfoot” Greene lived in New Jersey most of terson-Gimlin film of 1967, which, —is fit for tabloids. More to the point, his life, but residing in that famously turnpiked state didn’t stop him from believers will tell you, shows a large a family of large creatures would not catching Sasquatch fever. His book is female Sasquatch loping through the have had enough food sources in the essentially a memoir of his experiences woods of northern California. This area where Ostman says they took him. hunting for the big hairy guy. Although clip remains the best evidence for the Nevertheless, Greene swallows the out- at times entertaining—Greene’s tale of creature to date. Say of the film what landish tale. his first Bigfoot hunt where he was ac- you will, but it does not depict a rock companied by a drug addict who had formation, a cut-out figure, or a con- no experience camping provides some ventional animal. The film shows either a Sasquatch or someone in a Sasquatch The Patterson-Gimlin chuckles—the volume is mostly a mad- film shows either dening affair. Time after time, episode suit. Greene’s candy bar-stealer, by after episode, Greene latches onto contrast, is yet another “blobsquatch.” a Sasquatch or someone someone who seems to be on the verge Such films proliferate on the Internet in a Sasquatch suit. of making the big score. Then the story these days. They aren’t helpful. falls apart, and no Bigfoot is delivered. There are some stories Bigfoot A steady diet of this would lead most boosters should stop telling, and Greene reasonable observers to conclude that tells a few of them here. A famous piece the sought-after man-ape of the woods of Bigfoot lore concerns Albert Ost- Similarly, he buys into a bizarre simply doesn’t exist. Not Greene. He man, a man who claimed that in 1924, story peddled by Justin Smeja, a Cali- just moves on to the next thing. he was abducted by a Sasquatch in fornia man who claims that he shot Part of the reason Greene wants British Columbia and held captive by a two Sasquatches, an adult and a juve- so badly to believe is that he claims to Bigfoot family for several days. Ostman nile, while hunting with a friend in the have seen Bigfoot himself. He suppos- got the feeling he was being sized up as Sierra Mountains in 2010. The young edly lured one to his campsite in North a husband for the Sasquatch daughter. Sasquatch didn’t weigh much, but Carolina with a Zagnut candy bar, of Several people have pointed out Smeja and his pal didn’t bother to bring all things, and captured its image with problems with the story. Ostman didn’t the body back to civilization. They just a thermal-imaging camera. tell it until thirty years after it suppos- tossed it in some brush.

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 59 [NEW AND NOTABLE Listing does not preclude future review.

AMERICAN CONSPIRACY THE- Remarkably, adults (some with known hominid.) ORIES. Joseph Uscinski and advanced degrees) accepted the If you are interested in getting Joseph Parent. This book— story and actually traveled to the kill insider dirt on some of the con- the first to systematically site with Smeja months later to see troversial personalities in the Big- evaluate over a century of if they could locate remains. They foot community, you may find specifically American conspir- acy theories—examines con- managed to find a piece of flesh and Sasquatch for Sale worth a read. spiracies from many angles. submitted it for DNA testing. It Greene is no fan of Matt Mon- Divided into seven chapters turned out to be from a bear. Some- eymaker, founder of the Bigfoot (such as “Where Our Facts Come From” and “Who one then got the bright idea to test Field Researchers Organization and Are the Conspiracy Theorists?”), the book is rife Smeja’s boots, which were said to be now a reality TV star. He and with charts, graphs, and figures illustrating how covered with Bigfoot blood. The re- Money maker were once friends, but and why conspiracies are formed and perpetu- in this book Greene speaks frankly ated. The authors, both at the University of Miami, sults indicated known animals. offer interesting and surprising insights into the Why would anyone believe this of his disappointment with the man. conspiracy phenomenon (offering evidence, fantastic yarn? Greene is impressed The gossip won’t be enough for example, that American conspiracy theories that Smeja passed a lie-detector test. to carry most readers through this peaked in the 1890s and the 1950s—not today Not much information is given about windy tome. There were times when as might be expected). A useful and important the test, but we do know one thing: I felt guilty that I had spent seven book on the psychology and sociology of Ameri- dollars on it. Sometimes, you can can conspiracies. Oxford University Press, 2014, Polygraphs are not admissible in only wince over the author’s credu- 221 pp., $29.95. court, and there is a reason for that. As Greene notes, the Bigfoot lity. I’ll admit I had to wonder if he MYSTERIES OF THE UNKNOWN: community has lately been plagued really believes this stuff or if he just Inside the World of the Strange with hoaxes. A few years ago, two enjoys spinning tales. and Unexplained. The editors Georgia men tossed a furry costume There are other problems with of Time-Life Books explore the and some chitterlings in a box and the book: For example, the author universe’s bizarre “mysteries” should have omitted his extreme in attractive, color-illustrated presto! It’s Bigfoot. Later, a stuffed Right-wing opinions from the text. format. They start with psy- Bigfoot body surfaced. It turned out chics and mediums, proceed to be a prop. This is a book about Bigfoot, not a to telekinesis and ESP, then on Despite these fakes, Bigfoot re- Tea Party manifesto. Also the book, to the litany of other subjects familiar to SI read- mains big business. These days you like many self-published works, ers. With lots of photos and most topics treated can hold yourself out as a Bigfoot could have benefited from an editor in two-page spreads, the book is appealing and hunter and be awarded with a reality and a proofreader. readable, but to the scientific skeptic ultimately Finally, Greene’s tendency to disappointing in that it could have been so much TV show. Fame and money follow. drone on about gear gets tiresome. better. The problem of course is the editors’ de- Or you can, as Smeja did, produce a termination to appeal to the widest possible audi- DVD to sell and land appearances at He’s a fan of high-tech gadgets and ence (they say the book “does not attempt to set- Bigfoot conventions. It beats work- seems to believe these devices will tle arguments or draw definitive conclusions”), ing a low-wage, nine-to-five job. help him prove the existence of Big- and that means downplaying the hundreds of Money motivates, and the cash foot—even though so far (other than critical examinations scientific skeptics have is out there. Greene writes about his video of a prancing white blob) carried out. You can find the skepticism in here, they have brought him zilch. in small portions, but not enough to turn naive an especially unskeptical million- readers off—or really well inform them. Time-Life aire who seems eager to lavish huge Perhaps it’s time for Greene and Books, 2014, 266 pp., $17.95. sums on Bigfoot hunters. He talks of his fellow Sasquatch enthusiasts to seeing boxes of fancy night scopes, leave behind the gadgets the next REALITY MINING: Using Big game cameras, thermal-imaging de- time they charge into the woods. Data to Engineer a Better Instead, they should pick up a low- vices, etc., all funded with this man’s World. Nathan Eagle and Kate tech item, one they desperately need: largesse. Reading about it made me Greene. A well-considered an- We call it Occam’s razor. n tidote to knee-jerk concerns kind of sad. The money this fellow over Big Brother and the perils has blown on futile monster hunts of modern surveillance so- could have helped a lot of people. Rob Boston is the editor of Church & ciety, Reality Mining argues (Greene himself has spent quite a State magazine, published by Ameri- that the threat of Big Data to lot of cash on this quest. He is for- cans United for Separation of Church our privacy and happiness has been overstated. and State in Washington, D.C. He can While there are legitimate concerns about vast ever buying a boat or a fancy piece of equipment to help land the un- be reached at [email protected].

60 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer amounts of personal data in the wrong hands, the authors argue that the data collection and Historical Revisionism analysis can be used for a variety of beneficial purposes, including public health, environmen- in Tim’s Vermeer talism, and a better world. The book is a bit stilted and clearly shows its origins as a fleshed-out the- EVE SIEBERT sis outline, but it offers an interesting look at the issues we will face in the future as more and more data is collected. The MIT Press, 2014, 208 pp., $24.95.

Tim’s Vermeer. Dir. Raymond Teller. Prod. Penn Jil- A STORM OF WITCHCRAFT: The lette. Written by Penn and Teller. Featuring Tim Jeni- Salem Trials and the Amer- son, Penn Jillette, Martin Mull, David Hockney, Philip ican Experience. Emerson Steadman, and Colin Blakemore. Sony Pictures Clas- Baker. There is no shortage of books—excellent, bad, and sics, in association with High Delft Pictures, 2013. in between—about the Salem Witch Trials; it is one of the most-studied and best-docu- mented episodes in American history. The breadth of ma- terial can be daunting, and Baker, a professor of history at Salem State University, provides a enn and Teller’s film Tim’s curate effects of lighting and color, welcome and comprehensive overview of the tri- Vermeer follows inventor and even if he didn’t have extensive als, including oft-neglected discussions of their Pnon-painter Tim Jenison as training as a painter. To test his the- aftermath and context. With extensive notes, an he attempts to recreate Johannes ory, Jenison decided to recreate The exhaustive index, and appendices listing those Vermeer’s classic seventeenth-cen- Music Lesson using an optical device, accused of witchcraft in court records from tury painting The Music Lesson by natural light, and only materials 1692–1693, this book is a welcome addition to the literature about this dark era. Oxford Univer- using an ingenious optical device. that would have been available to sity Press, 2014, 416 pp., $29.95. Jenison’s project was years in the Vermeer. In order to do so, he had making, even before he placed the to mix his own paints, prepare his UNDERSTANDING BELIEFS. first brushstroke on his canvas. own lenses, and recreate the room in Nils J. Nilsson. The latest in Jenison was inspired by the works which Vermeer worked. It took him a series of concise, pock- of artist David Hockney and Philip 213 working days just to prepare the et-sized books on topics of Steadman, emeritus professor of room and its fittings. current interest, this one is a thoughtful, scholarly (but urban studies and built form stud- The film is beautiful and fasci- very readable) discussion of ies at University College London. nating. As director, Teller manages how we form our beliefs about In his 2001 book Secret Knowledge: to make even the grinding tedium of beliefs. In nine chapters, the Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the painstaking painting process in- author (a Stanford professor the Old Masters, Hockney argued teresting. Like Jenison’s version of The of engineering, emeritus) clearly discusses: Be- that, beginning in the late Middle Music Lesson, Penn and Teller’s film is liefs, Knowledge, and Models; What Do Beliefs Do Ages and the Renaissance, artists a remarkable achievement. The audi- for Us? Where Do Beliefs Come From? Evaluating Beliefs; In All Probability; Reality and Truth; The began using optical devices such ence becomes caught up in Jenison’s Scientific Method; Robot Beliefs; and Belief Traps. as the camera obscura to achieve journey: we want him to succeed. In the author’s view, the chapters on evaluating realistic effects. In the same year, The film also makes a rhetori- beliefs and on the scientific method offer “the Steadman published Vermeer’s cally and emotionally compelling most helpful way to evaluate beliefs of all kinds.” Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind argument that Vermeer may have MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series, 2014, 151 the Masterpieces. In it he presented used a device similar to Jenison’s. pp., $12.95. a detailed argument that Vermeer That claim, however, is problem- — and Benjamin Radford had used a camera obscura in his atic because much of the reasoning paintings. presented in the film resembles that Building on both Hockney’s and of proponents of pseudoscientific Steadman’s theories, Jenison pos- fringe theories. tulated that Vermeer could have The film emphasizes Vermeer’s used a mirror along with the camera uniqueness. In his narration, Jillette obscura to achieve impressively ac- says “When you look at a Vermeer,

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 61 it seems like more than paint on can- The film uses an even more mislead- artists used optical devices, it’s clear vas. It seems to glow like an image on a ing comparison to bolster Hockney’s that the evolution of artistic technique movie screen. That magical quality has argument that, by Vermeer’s time, rad- was much more gradual than the film’s mystified the world for 350 years. How ical advances in painting had occurred risible visual comparison suggests. did Vermeer do it?” While Vermeer’s that cannot easily be explained without Not only does the film suggest that depiction of light is certainly impressive attributing them to technology. Jil- Vermeer was unique and incompre- and has provoked interest and debate lette says, “Hockney wrote that when hensibly gifted, it implies that he may from art historians, Jillette’s statement paintings started to look less like this not have had any significant training to comes perilously close to assertions and more like this, that was because account for his gifts. Jillette notes that, such as “experts are baffled” that often artists had found new tools to help while “Dutch artists typically learned by accompany fringe claims. them.” The second “this” refers to Ver- apprenticeship, and they kept written Later in the film, Jillette says, “. . . meer’s The Milkmaid, painted c. 1658. records to prove their training,” there you don’t need a trained eye to see that The first “this” is a calendar miniature is no record of Vermeer ever having Vermeer’s [paintings] look different from a psalter. Illustrating the labors of been apprenticed to an artist. The im-

The suggestion that Vermeer may have been untrained because there is no record of his apprenticeship is an argument from ignorance.

from his contemporaries’.” Two paint- December, the miniature shows a man plication is that Vermeer received no ings are used to illustrate this point: slaughtering a pig in the upper half of training. Jenison says something sim- Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance (c. the page and singeing off its bristles in ilar: “It’s possible Vermeer was using 1665) and Pieter de Hooch’s Woman the lower half (The Hague, National technology to make these beautiful Weighing Gold (c. 1664). Superficially, Library of the Netherlands, KB 76, F paintings. If he did that . . . it’s possible the two paintings look quite different: 13, fol. 12). The psalter was painted he could paint some pretty remarkable de Hooch’s is much darker, largely be- c. 1180, roughly 500 years before Ver- pictures without a lot of training.” The cause the background wall is a dark yel- meer’s painting. Of course great ad- suggestion that Vermeer may have been low-gold. However, in other ways, the vances in artistic technique occurred untrained because there is no record of two paintings are very similar. They in the intervening half millennium. his apprenticeship is an argument from both depict the same domestic scene. Even by eleventh-century standards, ignorance. It resembles arguments In both, a woman facing a window the psalter’s illustrations are not par- made by those who believe Shakespeare holds a scale in her right hand. Many of ticularly sophisticated. In between the did not write the works attributed to de Hooch’s other paintings, such as A psalter and Vermeer come the fantas- him: no school records survive, and he Boy Bringing Bread (c. 1663) or Woman tic miniatures by the Limbourg broth- didn’t mention his plays or any books Peeling Apples (c. 1663) are brighter and ers in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de in his will; therefore, he was an illiterate more closely resemble Vermeer’s style. Berry (1412–1416), not to mention who never attended school and owned The film’s comparison is misleading Giotto, Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da no books. It’s possible that Vermeer and suggests that there is a greater gulf Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and never entered into a formal apprentice- between Vermeer and his contemporar- Rembrandt. While it may be true, as ship, but we can’t assume that based ies than actually exists. Hockney claims, that some of these on missing documents from 350 years

62 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer REVIEWS]

ago. Even if there was no formal ap- neither is an art historian specializing them optically, or you can set them up prenticeship, Vermeer’s father became in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. geometrically. If you set them up geo- an art dealer before Vermeer was born. As an artist, Hockney has an interest- metrically, you’re using the standard Vermeer took over the business when ing perspective on the artistic process, methods: it’s a machine; it’s an algo- his father died. He would have been but he is not a historian. Steadman rithm; you apply the rules. Why is that in contact with painters all his life and specializes in modern architecture and not cheating?” If he’s correct that it is an could easily have received training from urban planning. In fact both Hockney either/or situation, he runs into a prob- one or more of his father’s clients. and Steadman seem to hold art histo- lem because The Music Lesson, The Girl The film evinces quite a different rians in contempt. Steadman says they with a Pearl Earring, and many of Ver- attitude toward missing evidence when reacted to his book with “a lot of upset” meer’s other works have visible pinpricks that lack does not support its argument: and “really deep anguish” at the “intru- in the canvas marking the vanishing there is no direct evidence that Vermeer sion of amateurs and crass rationalists point, suggesting that he used geometry. used optics. Jenison himself candidly into the preserves of art history” and Tim’s Vermeer is a film about Tim acknowledges this several times and at the perceived notion that Vermeer Jenison and his fantastic, insane, and ul- expresses a wish that such documentary was somehow cheating by using optics. timately successful quest to create a rea- evidence might be found. Hockney, Hockney agrees that art historians dis- sonable facsimile of The Music Lesson. It however, vigorously asserts that such miss optics as “cheating” and calls the is not meant to be a debate. However, lack of evidence is to be expected: “. . . reaction “childish, absolutely childish.” both explicitly and implicitly it makes you’ll never find a letter like that. They To a lesser extent, Jenison also joins in the argument that Vermeer very likely never wrote down . . . van Eyck would the strawman argument built against did use a device similar to the one Jen- not write down the formulas for the art historians, characterizing their atti- ison devised. Emotionally, rhetorically, paint for the simple reason that some- tude by saying: “So the only legitimate and visually that argument is brilliantly one might read them. And there were way to make a painting is to just walk compelling, but the actual reasoning is other people that wouldn’t write ’em up to the canvas and alla prima paint it.” weak. In an onscreen interview, Jillette down. People were sworn to secrecy, For good measure, he adds an argument says, “Philip Steadman, David Hockney, oaths that they took very seriously. You from incredulity: “I can’t comprehend to my mind, to the mind of the skeptic, won’t, you never . . . it’s naïve to think that someone could paint that from their prove that Vermeer used some sort of you’ll find something.” This is not imagination.” device,” and the film suggests that Jeni- just special pleading. It is conspiricist According to Tim’s Vermeer, art son’s experiment has documented what thinking: there’s no evidence because historians who specialize in seven- that device was and how it worked. But it’s all a huge secret. teenth-century Dutch painting are over- while we may admire Jenison’s work and Unfortunately for Hockney, there is emotional, childish, and have no rational the film’s narrative, we should not accept some documentary evidence that sug- response to Hockney’s and Steadman’s its argument at face value. As skeptics, gests that Vermeer did not routinely use arguments. Essentially, they are accusing we should always question and look for optics. A detailed inventory of Vermeer’s the experts of being narrow-minded rep- other perspectives. n estate compiled after his death lists ea- resentatives of “Big Vermeer.” It’s not References sels and palettes but no lenses or other even true that the reaction to Hockney’s optic devices. Furthermore, Vermeer’s and Steadman’s hypotheses has been en- Liedke, W.A., M.C. Plomp, and A. Rüger. 2001. Vermeer and the Delft School. New The Art of Painting shows an artist paint- tirely negative. Most art historians agree York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Online ing a young woman who is standing by a that Vermeer was at least inspired by the at http://www.metmuseum.org/research/ window. The location appears to be the camera obscura, and some believe he ac- metpublications/Vermeer_and_the_Delft_ School. same room depicted in The Music Lesson tively used it in his painting. Vermeer: Master of Light. 2001. Dir. Joe Krakora. and many other Vermeer paintings. The One argument against Vermeer’s ha- Narr. Meryl Streep. National Gallery of artist portrayed may very well be Ver- bitual use of optics is implicit in Stead- Art. Online at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DEior-0inxU&feature=kp. meer himself. The painter is sitting in man’s statement that Vermeer used front of an easel with no camera obscura, either optics or geometry. Steadman Eve Siebert wrote about creationist inter- lens, or mirror in sight. himself presents this as a dichotomy. pretations of Beowulf in the January/Feb- Another problem with the film is His point is to show how foolish it is to ruary 2013 S  I. that it features “experts” who are not argue that optics are cheating because, experts in relevant fields. Although by the same token, geometry should also Hockney and Steadman are the most be cheating: “. . . these are very accurate prominent proponents of the theory that measured perspectives. So there are two some artists used the camera obscura, ways you can do them: you can produce

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 63 [LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

1970 piece in the New York Times the way it was. The case horrified An addendum to Michael Fumen- warned: “That plump red apple parents and helped usher in an era to’s article “Runaway Hysteria.” that Junior gets from a kindly old in which carefree costumed trick-or- Nowhere in the article does woman down the block . . . may treating has given way to X-rayed Mr. Fumento provide refer- have a razor blade hidden inside.” candy bags and tightly controlled ences to the discoveries by the My research found newspaper re- Halloween parties and festivals.” NASA scientists presented at ports of contaminated treats every It continues, “The decades-old the CALCE (Center for Ad vanced year dating back to 1962; the first idea that depraved strangers are Life Cycle Engineer ing) confer- death attributed to Halloween targeting children with tainted ence. In 2009 on the campus of sadism was in 1970 (the case was Halloween candy, however, is more my university my 2007 Subaru Tri- heavily publicized, although later fiction than fact,” quoting none beca (mileage 7,000) jumped into investigation concluded that the other than Dr. Joel Best! The article a mode of unintended acceleration. heroin that poisoned the child did continues that Best “said he has yet I floored the brake—to no avail. I not come from a Halloween treat). to find a case in which a stranger had been sold a computer-driven Cosmos Problematic? In all likelihood, it was the wide- deliberately poisoned trick-or-treat- car without mechanical linkages. It spread knowledge of these stories ers.” This allegedly was such a case stopped only when I turned off the Ann Druyan may be right that that led Ronald O’Bryan to believe and the article was correct in saying engine. I survived and so did the the new Cosmos was criticized by he could get away with poisoning it changed trick-or-treating forever. students who scattered. The dealer only a “tiny and feeble minority” his son. That’s why it qualified for my side- showed no surprise when I reported of “voices that reject science” The second example states that bar. the incident. The 2007 Subaru car- (“Ann Druyan on the Wonder of Adam Walsh’s 1981 murder “set Likewise, of course people have ried the Toyota electronics. He of- Cosmos,” Interview, September/ off the missing children scare.” always feared stranger kidnappings fered to take back the car. Unwill- October 2014); but it is probably of their children. But it was the be cause, in a world of hundreds of Again, concern about missing chil- ing to let the dealer resell the car to TV channels, it had nothing like dren had been mounting for several Adam Walsh case that suddenly had someone else, I donated the car to the cultural impact of Carl Sagan’s years. The disappearance of Etan covers of news magazines proclaim- our local high school’s automotive inimitable original. Patz—another heavily publicized ing 50,000 children were victims of technology program. Nor did it deserve to. Neil case—occurred in 1979. Stephen such kidnappings each year when the In 2010 I was one of the per- DeGrasse Tyson’s bland narration Stayner—held by his kidnapper for actual figure was around 100, and sons invited to testify before the could not match Sagan’s passion seven years, escaped in 1980. There the individual most responsible for National Academy of Sciences and eloquence, any more than its had been an organized campaign— spreading that horrific figure was committee tackling the problem cartoons could equal the original’s including several Congressional the father of Adam Walsh. of sudden unintended acceleration. live-action re-creations. The con- hearings—to address various issues All of these incidents had their In 2011 investigations by tent was also problematic. Was it related to missing children begin- origin in fears that go way back, NASA scientists confirmed even to the extent of being primor- wise, for example, to spend an hour ning in the early 1970s. predications by the scientists at dial—as with anything involving on a tendentious account of leaded I am less qualified to assess the the CALCE center at the Uni- children. Toyota was Son of Audi gasoline? remaining four items, but the point versity of Maryland that tin whis- should be clear. Claims about “sin- 5000, but sudden unintended ac- kers on the acceleration position Taras Wolansky gle-spark mass hysterias” also de- celeration was an idea pushed by sensor (the mechanism under Kerhonkson, New York serve skeptical inquiry. self-styled automobile safety groups your foot sending wireless in- before Audi. Cars are a bit magical formation to the brake: a crucial Joel Best to a lot of people. During the Toyota part of the engine control system) Runaway Toyota Professor of Sociology & hysteria, I remember seeing a com- could cause intermittent failure—a Hysterias Criminal Justice ment from a woman who obviously significant safety hazard (http:// University of Delaware believed that the throttle is what www.calce.umd.edu/symposiums/ I have long admired Michael Fu- propels the car, no engine necessary. ISTW2011.htm). A photo of a mento’s work, and I was delighted Michael Fumento replies to Best: Something always has to plant that defective sensor was published by to start reading “Runaway Hyste- seed that germinates, or pour out the Any admiration Dr. Best may have electrical engineers In EE Times ria.” However, the sidebar on p. 43 fuel that explodes. Often we have no is mutual. And I stand corrected on (eetimes.com?document asp?doc_ (“Single-Spark U.S. Mass Hyste- idea why something suddenly be- the location of the Halloween ho- id=1264373). Also avail able on rias of Our Generation”) contains comes a mass hysteria, whether in a micide in question. But with all of the Internet is a 2011 article by a number of errors. school or nationwide. But sometimes these examples, you can always find CALCE scientists B. Sood, M. The first example in the side- there is something very specific, as bar begins: “On Halloween night some sort of precedent or precursor. Osterman, and M. Pecht, Circuit Depending on your neighborhood, with the Lexus accident near San 1974, an Illinois man [killed his son World Vol 37 no. 3 2011 p. 4–9, I’m sure there was always some level Diego, which was not only horrible with poisoned] Pixy Stix. . . . Trick “Tin Whisker Analysis of Toyota’s of angst if the kids went out alone. but captured on a 911 call, to which or treating was forever changed Electronic Throttle Controls” with But as an article in the Houston we can specifically point. And yet in the U.S.” The poisoned Pixy figures from the acceleration mech- Chronicle (http://www.chron. even that probably would have gone Stix case occurred in Texas, not com/news/houston-texas/article/ nowhere but for those two fast-and- anism of a Camry. More recently, Illinois. But concern about Hal- Man-Who-Killed-Halloween-still- loose Pulitzer-hungry reporters at in April 2014 , Toyota’s response loween sadism was already well-es- haunts-holiday-1971811.php) put the . It takes was covered in the St. Louis Post tablished by 1974. For example, a it, “Halloween has lived on. But not what’s been called “a perfect storm.” Dispatch by Todd C. Frankel, on-

64 Volume 39 Issue 1 | Skeptical Inquirer line at http://stltoday.com/news/ of water, think of the fact that, at be greater than the site’s available magnitude, which is what Sheaffer local/metro/ a-carbondale –profes- one time or another, every drop power, a fact that the conspiracy meant and which he exemplified in sor-runaway-toyotas. of water in the world has passed conveniently ignores. the second part of his statement. The best source of information through animals’ stomachs and out John L. Heckscher Gealt is correct that the energy on automotive electronic failure is their back ends.” Wayland, Massachusetts of a magnitude 6 quake is greater CALCE: the Center for Advanced Ian McLaurin than that of a magnitude 5 quake Life Cycle Engineering at the Uni- Port Perry, Ontario, Canada by more than the factor of ten versity of Maryland. Its website ‘Miracles’ Questions mentioned by Sheaffer: the energy provides a window on continuing (and potential destructiveness) is concerns of professional automo- HAARP Conspiracy Joe Nickell’s discussion of the approximately thirty-two times tive engineers regarding electronic Theories “miracles” of Father Baker (July/ greater. The factor of ten refers to failures. August 2014) failed to address sev- the shaking amplitude of the earth- As the Air Force manager re- eral of my long-standing questions. Eugenie V. Mielczarek quake, not the energy. (See http:// Emeritus Professor of Physics sponsible for creating the HAARP First, the Catholic Church al- Environmental Im pact Statement ready has a huge pantheon of saints en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_ George Mason University magnitude_scale.) Fairfax, Virginia (EIS) in 1993, I offer the following officially recognized and certified facts to augment Benjamin Rad- to deliver repeated miracles. Why Bob Zarnke ford’s description of the HAARP then do church members in des- Waterloo, Ontario, S  I’s editor conspiracy (“HAARP Con- perate straits deliver prayers not to Canada seems quite impressed by “noted spiracy Theory ‘Weather Super- these fully qualified saints but to a author, attorney, and investi- Weapon’ Program Shuts Down,” more recently deceased member of gator” Michael Fumento who News and Comment, September/ the church in the hope that they “debunks” the recent “run- October 2014). are qualified to ultimately achieve CO Correction away Toyota hysteria.” No 2 1. Senator Stevens (R-AK) pro- sainthood. Surely a risky gamble scientist himself, Fumento has vided funds to a DARPA/AF/Navy when the candidate for sainthood In the article “Some Popular made a very good living “debunk- management team through add- may have had some personal failing Global Warming Factoids” ing” scientific orthodoxies, bashing ons to Senate Appropriation Bills. (November/December 2014) government, and de fending corpo- or peccadillo that could disqualify 2. The Air Force declined to author John Eades accidentally rate interests. him or her. add the program to its budget. left out a few key words in a Is it a coincidence that nearly all Second, if large numbers of the 3. The prime contractor, paragraph on page 53 under the of his voluminous work supports devout pray to the candidate for ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Oil “Exhaled CO ….” subheading. the interests of corporate giants sainthood without receiving a pos- 2 Company) Power Technolo - Consequently the phrase a) “… while scoffing at government reg- itive result, should this not weaken gies, Inc. (APTI), held patent the additional 346 litres is just ulation and the concerns of public the claim for sainthood? #4,686,605 issued to Dr. Bernard what we absorbed from …” interest groups? And who is paying Third and last: Why are the Eastlund, a former APTI employee, should really have been: b) “… for his work? There’s an old say- miracles so limited in scope? For which superficially resembled the the additional 346 litres is just ing, “Whose bread I eat, his song example, if a saint’s intercession design vetted by the EIS but, in what we regenerate from the I sing.” can heal a damaged eye, why can’t fact, called for orders of magnitude carbon we absorbed from ….” I think I’ll get a second opinion the repair of tissue go a little further higher power supposed to produce and regrow a lost one? The implication of a) is that on the Toyota issue. drastic, nonlinear changes in the we absorb CO2 directly from Jack Miller ionosphere and atmosphere. Stephen Bright plant material, while in reality Bellingham, Washington 4. An outspoken opponent of North Avoca we absorb carbon from it. (The HAARP, Dr. Nick Begich, son of NSW, Australia “closed loop” conclusion is not SI Editor Kendrick Frazier replies: Congressman Nick Begich (D-AK) affected of course.) who disappeared in a plane crash in This was a well-reported and heav- 1972, self-published Angels Don’t Measuring Earthquakes ily documented investigative article. Play This HAARP, which has be- In his letter in the September/ [FEEDBACK In evaluating submissions we try come the “bible” of the conspiracy. our best to base our judgments on the October issue, Dan Gealt says The technical crux of the con- The letters column is a forum on mat- merits of the work, not other factors. that Robert Sheaffer committed a ters raised in previous issues. Letters spiracy view rests on distinguishing “blatant science error” in his article should be no longer than 225 words. between “effective radiated power” on Earthquake Lights. I think this Due to the volume of letters we receive, not all can be published. Send letters (ERP) and actual radiated power. should be regarded more leniently, The HAARP antenna array design as email text (not attachments) to as somewhat lax phraseology or [email protected]. In the subject line, One thing that I have always told concentrates the site’s available over-abbreviation. It’s true that the provide your surname and informative homeopathy supporters (“An In- power into a narrow, steerable earthquake magnitude scale is loga- identification, e.g.: “Smith Letter on troduction to Home opathy,” Sep- beam. Within the beam the power rithmic; this means, more precisely, Jones evolution art icle.” In clude your tember/October 2014) is: “If you appears as if it were radiated by a that the magnitude is a (simple) name and ad dress at the end of the let- ter. You may also mail your letter to the believe that water carries with it the much more powerful source—the logarithmic function of the earth- editor to 944 Deer Dr. NE, Albuquerque, essence of what it was in contact ERP. The total power radiated to quake energy. But then the energy NM 87122. with, the next time you take a drink the ionosphere, however, cannot is an exponential function of the

Skeptical Inquirer | January/February 2015 65 [ THE LAST LAUGH BENJAMIN RADFORD, EDITOR

SKEPTICAL ANNIVERSARIES by Tim Farley

January 2, 1860: Urbain Le Verrier announced observational confirmation of his mathematical prediction of a planet he called Vulcan that was closer to the Sun than Mercury. He was incorrect; Einstein’s theories later explained why. January 2–3, 1925: After fraudulent spirit medium Mina “Margery” Crandon refused to appear with him on stage to be tested, demonstrated her tricks on stage at Boston Symphony Hall. January 5, 2005: Blogger Mike Masnick coined the term “Streisand Effect” to describe situations where attempts to shut down criticism can actually draw more attention. Skeptic activists regularly depend on this in the Internet era. January 10, 1955: Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized version of the Scopes “monkey trial” was first performed on stage in Dallas, Texas. January 30, 2010: The first 10:23 mass homeopathic overdose demonstration was held by many skeptic groups around the world. February 2, 1870: Both the Cardiff Giant and P. T. Barnum’s replica of it were declared to be fraudulent in court. February 2, 2010: Medical journal The Lancet retracted ’s flawed 1998 study that started a dangerous public scare that the MMR vaccine causes autism. February 13, 1995: Federal marshals and church lawyers raided former Scientologist Dennis Erlich’s home in an attempt to quell the online release of confidential church materials. This was part of a years-long battle colloquially known as “Scientology versus the Internet.” February 20, 1905: The Supreme Court of the U.S. upheld the states’ rights to pass compulsory vaccination laws in the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. February 25, 1820: An attempt by Felix Walker to “speak for Buncombe” (a county in North Carolina) was shouted down in Congress. This is the origin of the word bunkum to refer to nonsense, as Walker’s speeches were often nonsensical.

Tim Farley is the creator of the website whatstheharm.net and blogs at skeptools.com. He is a past fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

66 Volume 39 Issue 1 | 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 3965 Rensch Road, 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 engineering, 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, Alan Hale, 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 J. Dommanget, Research, Alamogordo, NM Joel A. Moskowitz, NEW YORK CITY Carla Selby, 33-29 28th St. Astoria, NY 11106 astronomer, Royale Observatory, Clyde F. Herreid, director of medical psychiatry, Calabasas anthropologist /archaeologist SAN FRANCISCO Brussels, Belgium prof. of biology, SUNY Buffalo Mental Health Services, Los Angeles Steven N. Shore, email: [email protected]

Nahum J. Duker, Matthew C. Nisbet, prof. of astrophysics, Univ. of Pisa, Italy assistant prof. of pathology, Sharon Hill, assistant professor, School of TAMPA BAY Temple Univ. geologist, writer, researcher, creator and Communication, American Univ. Waclaw Szybalski, 4011 S. Manhattan Ave. #139, Tampa, FL 33611-1277 editor of the Doubful News blog professor, McArdle Laboratory, Univ. Tel.: (813) 505-7013 Taner Edis, John W. Patterson, of Wisconsin–Madison WASHINGTON, DC Division of Science/Physics Michael Hutchinson, prof. of materials science and 1020 19th Street., NW, Suite 425 Truman State Univ. author; SKEPTICAL INQUIRER en gineering, Iowa State Univ. Sarah G. Thomason, representative, Europe prof. of linguistics, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA Washington, DC 20036 Barbara Eisenstadt, James R. Pomerantz, tel.: (202) 629-2403 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, 55 Eglinton Ave. East, Suite 307 prof. of behavioral studies in I.W. Kelly, MD, Tampa, FL Toronto, Ontario, M4P 1G8, Canada education, Oklahoma 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 CONNECTICUT MINNESOTA South Shore Skeptics (SSS) Cleveland 44 Gol Gamal St., Agouza, Giza, Egypt Alabama Skeptics, Alabama. Emory New England Skeptical Society (NESS) St. Kloud Extraordinary Claim Psychic and counties. Jim Kutz. Tel.: 440 942- FRANCE Kimbrough. Tel.: 205-759-2624. 3550 New England. Steven Novella M.D., Presi- Teaching Investigating Community 5543; Email: [email protected]. PO Dr. Henri Broch, Universite of Nice, Faculte des Water melon Road, Apt. 28A, Northport, dent. Tel.: 203-281-6277; Email: board@ (SKEPTIC) St. Cloud, Minne sota. Jerry Box 5083, Cleveland, OH 44101 www. Sciences, Parc Valrose, 06108, Nice cedex 2, AL 35476 theness.com. 64 Cobblestone Dr., Ham- Mertens. Tel.: 320-255-2138; Email: southshoreskeptics.org France Tel.: +33-492-07-63-12 den, CT 06518 www.theness.com [email protected]. Jerry Mer- ARIZONA Association for Rational Thought (ART) GERMANY tens, Psychology Department, 720 4th Tucson Skeptics Inc. Tucson, AZ. James D.C./MARYLAND Cincinnati. Roy Auerbach, president. Ave. S, St. Cloud State Univ., St. Cloud, Arheilger Weg 11, 64380 Rossdorf, Germany Mc Gaha. Email:[email protected]. National Capital Area Skeptics NCAS, Tel: (513)-731-2774, Email: raa@cinci. MN 56301 Tel.: +49-6154-695023 5100 N. Sabino Foot hills Dr., Tucson, Maryland, D.C., Virginia. D.W. “Chip” rr.com. PO Box 12896, INDIA Denman. Tel.: (240) 670-6227. Email: AZ 85715 Cin cinnati, OH 45212. www.cincinnati 46 Masi garh, New Friends Colony [email protected]. PO Box 8461, Silver Spring, Skeptical Society of St. Louis (SSSL) Phoenix Area Skeptics Society (PASS) skeptics.org MD 20907-8428 St. Louis, Missouri. Michael Blanford, New Delhi 110025 http://phoenixskeptics.org OREGON http://www.ncas.org President. Email: [email protected]. Tel.: 91-9868010950 Email: [email protected] Oregonians for Science and Reason 2729 Ann Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104 LONDON FLORIDA (O4SR) Oregon. Jeanine DeNoma, Phoenix Skeptics, Phoenix, AZ. Michael www.skepticalstl.org Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Tampa Bay Skeptics (TBS) Tampa Bay, Stack pole, P.O. Box 60333, Phoenix, president. Tel.: (541) 745-5026; Email: Florida. Gary Posner, Executive Director. St. Joseph Skeptics London WC1R 4RL, England AZ 85082 [email protected]; 39105 Military Rd., Tel.: 813-505-7013; Email: P.O. Box 8908 Monmouth, OR 97361. www.04SR.org NEPAL CALIFORNIA [email protected]. c/o O’Keefe, St. Joseph MO, 64508-8908 Humanist Association of Nepal, Sacramento Organization for Rational 4011 S. Manhattan Ave. #139, Tampa, PO Box 5284, Kathmandu Nepal NEVADA Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (SORT) Sacramento, CA. Ray Tel.: +977-1-4413-345 FL 33611-1277. www.tampabayskept Reno Skeptical Society, Inc., Spangenburg, co-founder. Tel.: 916-978- Think ing (PhACT), much of Pennsylvania. ics.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–Los Angeles, 4773 LOUISIANA NEW YORK ROMANIA Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027. TEXAS Baton Rouge Proponents of Rational New York City Skeptics Michael Feldman, Fundatia Centrul pentru Constiinta Critica Tel.: 323-666-9797. www.iighq.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 The James Randi Educational (BR-PRISM) Louisiana. Marge Schroth. 10185. www.nycskeptics.org Tel.: (972)-306-3187; Email: skeptic@ email: [email protected] Foun dation. James Randi, Director. Tel: Tel.: 225-766-4747. 425 Carriage Way, ntskeptics.org. PO Box 111794, Carroll- RUSSIA (213)293-3092; Email [email protected]. Central New York Skeptics (CNY Skeptics) Baton Rouge, LA 70808 ton, TX 75011-1794. Dr. Valerii A. Kuvakin, 119899 Russia, Moscow, Vo- 7095 Hollywood Blvd. No.1170, Los Syracuse. Lisa Goodlin, President. Tel: MICHIGAN www.ntskeptics.org Angeles, CA 90028. www.randi.org (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 Sacramento Skeptics Society, Sacra- gan. Lorna J. Simmons, Contact person. ville, NY 13066 Science & Reason, Hampton Rds., SENEGAL mento. Terry Sandbek, President. 4300 Tel.: 734-525-5731; Email: Skeptic31 Virginia. Lawrence Weinstein, Old PO Box 15376, Dakar – Fann, Senegal Auburn Blvd. Suite 206, Sacramento CA @aol.com. 31710 Cowan Road, Apt. OHIO Dominion Univ.-Physics Dept., Norfolk, Tel.: +221-501-13-00 95841. Tel.: 916 489-1774. Email: terry@ 103, West land, MI 48185-2366 Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry VA 23529 sandbek.com (CORI) Central Ohio. Charlie Hazlett, Tri-Cities Skeptics, Michi gan. Gary President. Tel.: 614-878-2742; Email: WASHINGTON San Diego Asso ciation for Rational Inquiry Barker. Tel.: 517-799-4502; Email: bark- [email protected]. PO Box 282069, Seattle Skeptics (SDARI) President: Tom Pickett. Email: [email protected]. 3596 Butternut St., Columbus, OH 43228 www.seattleskeptics.com [email protected]. Program/ Saginaw, MI 48604 general information 619-421-5844. Cleveland Skeptics Joshua Hunt, www.sdari.org. Postal ad dress: PO Box 623, Co-Organizer, www.clevelandskeptics.org

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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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