Spreading Skepticism

WENDY GROSSMAN

ecently, the science writer John Horgan took skeptics consider probabilities. to task in Scientific American (http://blogs.scientifi- Some people are born to skep- R camerican.com/cross-check/dear-skeptics-bash-ho- ticism, some achieve it, and some have it thrust upon them. I think meopathy-and-bigfoot-less-mammograms-and-war- I was born this way. (“Everything more/) and at the Northeast Conference on Science and I say, there’s always an argument,” Skepticism for focusing too much on weak problems at the my mother used to say.) As a Cor- expense of strong ones. As examples of soft targets he listed nell student from 1971–1975, I ESP, heaven, homeopathy, Bigfoot, and disbelief in vaccines watched friends experiment with and climate change; among hard ones, multiverses, the transcendental meditation (TM) Singularity, overtreatment and overtesting for cancer (nota- and Erhard Seminars Training (est). I became a professional bly, mammograms), overmedication for mental illness, and folksinger and spent the rest of the deep-roots theory of war. He contended that tribalism is the 1970s encountering adher- served by our self-indulgence with “weak” targets. ents of “old knowledge”—witch- Horgan was quickly advised tic about skepticism.” In 2013, a craft, palmistry, and other beliefs how varied skepticism really is. Cochrane survey noted that the that would shortly be reframed as Outside the United States, wide- most reliable studies indicate that “New Age.” Particularly memo- spread in homeopathy mat- screening does not overall reduce rably, someone once told me he ters much more if governments breast cancer mortality but does investigated a reincarnation claim decide to include it in publicly cause much unnecessary treat- and found the true explanation funded, cash-strapped national ment (http://www.cochrane.org/ was genetic memory. Inwardly, health services at the expense of CD001877/BREASTCA_screen- I was like, “That’s absurd,” but more effective treatments. Here, ing-for-breast-cancer-with-mam- I didn’t want to have to sleep in Bigfoot can only wish for such mography). It’s not a good target my car. In January 1981, I called importance. But, as the late jour- for skeptics in general, however, a friend and said, “Let’s do some- nalist Simon Hoggart said, even because most of us are not med- thing new and different for my seemingly insignificant beliefs ical experts capable of mounting birthday.” “I can’t,” he said. “I create “a distracting background trials. have to go write up this lecture/ interference with the truth.” This goes to the heart of demonstration.” I said, “So I’ll As for mammograms . . . what, for me, skepticism is about: come to that.” The first time I heard a sci- things we can test. Probably ev- “That” was , entist question the value of eryone knows at least one woman showing psychic surgery and screening mammograms was in who knows that a mammogram metal bending, critiquing TM, Dublin in 1988, when Dr. Petr saved her life with early detec- and so on, and I thought he was Skrabanek outlined to me the tion. We can’t test this any more . . . amazing. Here was someone arguments he made in his 1985 than we can test whether the who could provide a reasoned letter to The Lancet. Skrabanek, heavy weight pressing on some- basis to all those “Seriously?” mo- whom I met a year and a half one’s chest in the middle of the ments. That Martin Gardner and after founding Britain’s The Skep- night was sleep paralysis, an alien Isaac Asimov, whose work I knew tic magazine, was my first “skep- visitor, or a . We can only from middle school, were Randi’s

Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2016 41 ODYSSEYS IN SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM: 40th Anniversary Celebration

cofounders made CSICOP an or- “foreigners” can maintain our In my technology writer ca- ganization worth following. distance from matters of faith in pacity, the Singularity is an un- In late 1986, the then execu- ways that the U.S. “mother ship” testable claim. Perhaps artificial tive director of CSICOP, Mark cannot. intelligence will outstrip human Plummer, was pushing people to In 1991, I turned to special- intelligence, continue to im- start local groups and suggested izing in what was then a barely prove exponentially, and solve all I start what became The Skeptic. born subject of interest: com- our intractable problems. Many The first responses were both ex- puters, freedom, and privacy or, start-ups (such as the U.K.’s hilarating and sad. Exhilarating as I often say, “the border wars DeepMind, acquired by Goo- because people really wanted the between cyberspace and real life.” gle in 2014) hope that’s true. To magazine—people such as later As the Internet increasingly be- date, experience has shown that editors Toby Howard and Chris came a political football, I began we can’t solve social problems French. Sad because so many to notice the distinct trend to- by throwing technology at them. wrote of their personal isolation. ward policy-based evidence The only available test is to wait I think Horgan’s complaints making, particularly in the areas and see.

Internationally, skepticism looks very different than in the United States, where the religious right has built huge controversies about evolution and reproductive rights, which are practically politically dead elsewhere.

would have been more accurate of copyright, cryptography, and However, the goal of the skep- then, when we all seemed to cycle surveillance, where dissenting ev- tical movement was never—or through a relatively narrow range idence is no more welcome than not for me—to debunk specific of common beliefs. In 1998, it is to an astrologer (“I know as- beliefs. Instead, it should be to when I began my second stint trology is true,” an acquaintance spread critical thinking on what- as editor (I had handed it off to said recently. “It’s mathematics.”) ever subject is shoved in front Toby Howard and Steve Don- The FBI’s recent effort to com- of us. For me, the most exciting nelly in 1989), Michael Shermer’s pel Apple to hack one of its own thing is to look around Britain work suggested it was essential to phones was a great example of and see all the skeptical activi- broaden our canvas to include technological magical thinking. ty—The Skeptic magazine under scientific controversies such as Dozens of mathematicians cited the editorship of Deborah Hyde, climate change, science fraud, the laws of mathematics; many more than 100 Skeptics in the and education. How many times politicians refuse to believe there’s Pub groups, the QED confer- can you debunk astrology and stay no “middle ground.” Over the ence, ASKE—and to know the interested? past five to ten years, what were magazine helped make that hap- pen. My greatest wish is that it Internationally, skepticism separate interests have converged, ■ looks very different than in the and in it’s common to will survive me. United States, where the religious see my technical friends speak- Wendy Grossman is the founder and right has built huge controversies ing at meets twice editor of the U.K. magazine about evolution and reproduc- and skeptical friends becoming The Skeptic. A technology writer liv- tive rights, which are practically computers, freedom, and privacy ing in London, she is a fellow of the politically dead elsewhere. We activists. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

42 Volume 40 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer