From CAM to Scam EDITORIAL BOARD James E

uirer THE MAGAZINE FOR SCIINCE AND MASON EDITOR Kendrick Frazier From CAM to Scam EDITORIAL BOARD James E. Alcock Barry Beyerstein " /Complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) has become a fancy Thomas Casten V^/institutionalized term for a mixture of at best marginally respectable Martin Gardner professed remedies and outright hooey. "Untested medical remedies" would be Ray Hyman Lawrence Jones a better and more honest moniker. But the language comes from the propo Philip J. Klass nents, not scientific critics. And that's typical. In this issue, Kimball Atwood Paul Kurtz Joe Nickell IV, M.D., painstakingly documents how politics and proponents continue to Lee Nisbet distort the science carried out by the National Center for Complementary and Amardeo Sarma Beta Scheiber Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), die taxpayer-funded research institute that Eugenie Scott was born out of the political influence of a few elected officials who had CONSULTING EDITORS become enamored of various untested remedies. Whatever they professed, they Robert A. Baker Susan J. Blackmore cared little about whether it carried out good science. The NCCAM advisory John R. Cole board has always been dominated by proponents of the treatments it suppos Kenneth L. Feder C. E. M. Hansel edly was to investigate. Skeptics need not apply. And the result has been a con E. C. Krupp tinuation of questionable science about questionable remedies and treatments. Scott O. Lilienfeld David F. Marks And that is a prescription for waste of taxpayers' money and bad or possibly James E. Oberg even fraudulent science. Robert Sheaffer David E. Thomas Richard Wiseman MANAGING EDITOR Benjamin Radford How does educational level affect one's credulity toward pseudoscience? The ART DIRECTOR answer isn't simple. In fact, the situation has been fairly confusing. In this Lisa A. Hutter PRODUCTION issue, Susan Carol Losh, assistant professor of educational psychology at Paul Loynes Florida State University, and her colleagues attempt to untangle some of the Christopher Fix CARTOONIST conundrums. They examine twenty-three years of national survey data from Rob Pudim the National Science Foundation's Surveys of Public Understanding of Science, WEB PAGE DESIGN 1979—2001. Collectively, says Losh, these surveys include more material about Patrick Fitzgerald, Designer Amanda Chesworth pseudoscience belief than any other national survey. Furthermore, they contain Kevin Christopher a wealth of detail about educational level, including not just level but major Rob Beeston field and exposure to science courses. The researchers found, as did previous PUBLISHER'S REPRESENTATIVE studies, that as degree level rises so too does pseudoscience rejection. But the Barry Karr CORPORATE COUNSEL more detailed data shows that the net effect of degree level drops by half or Brenton N. VerPloeg three-quarters when refinements to educational level are made. Other factors BUSINESS MANAGER generally are at work. Exposure to science courses as a predictor of rejection of Sandra Lesniak FISCAL OFFICER pseudoscience did stand up to all the controls for age, time, gender, religiosity, Paul Paulin and so on—except for one question about UFOs. DEVELOPMENT OFFICERS Richard Hull James Kimberly CHIEF DATA OFFICER Michael Cione James Underdown of our new Center for Inquiry—West writes about his and STAFF his colleagues first-hand investigation visiting the shows of television "medi Darlene Banks Patricia Beauchamp ums" John Edwards and James van Praagh. The surprise was that there were no Matthew Cravatta surprises. Gimmicks and technology weren't needed to explain what's going Jennifer Miller on. Just old-fashioned cold-reading, a highly conditioned and compliant audi Heidi Shively Anthony Santa Lucia ence, and judicious editing of videotape are all that's required to give an John Sullivan impression to those so inclined that something mediumistic might have hap Vance Vigrass PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR pened. The editing can all be justified as purely normal cleaning up and con Kevin Christopher densation, but amazingly what gets left out arc many of the wrong answers and EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR unsuccessful "fishing" types of questions. The few "hits" of course remain. Amanda Chesworth INQUIRY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS Thomas Flynn DIRECTOR OF UBRAWES Timothy S. Binga The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER is the official journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, an international organization. 4 September/October 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER .

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