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, the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER plans to republish several of his classic SI “Notes of a Psi- Watcher” columns over the next several issues. We later changed the column’s title to “Notes of a Fringe-Watcher.” We begin with his very first column, from our Summer 1983 issue. “Lessons of a Landmark PK Hoax” was “a few general comments” on James Randi’s elaborate Project Alpha, which Randi described in an article in the same issue. Randi had arranged for two young conjurors to visit the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research at Washington University, St. Louis. During two years of experiments with them, the head of the lab, physicist Peter Phillips, became convinced that the two teenaged magicians, Steven Shaw and Mark Edwards, could bend metal objects, cause light streaks on film, turn a motor under a glass dome, make fuses blow, and perform other similar wonders all with the power of their minds. Randi’s intention was to demonstrate that parapsychology-minded scientists would resist accepting expert conjuring assistance in designing proper controls and therefore be easily fooled by magic tricks. When revealed as a hoax, the revelations garnered worldwide media coverage and greatly embarrassed the lab. It closed in 1985. In 1986, Randi was given a MacArthur Foundation award to continue his work in debunking fraudulent claims. Here is Gardner’s column. Lessons of a Landmark PK Hoax MARTIN GARDNER as Randi’s Project Alpha un- concerning extrasensory perception. ethical? I think not, but before By 1905, when only French scientists Wexplaining why let’s consider a remained in the N-ray camp, the argument began to acquire a some- few past instances in which deception what chauvinistic aspect. Some pro- was used to demonstrate the incompe- ponents of N-rays maintained that tence of researchers. only the Latin races possessed the Early this century René Blondlot, a sensitivities (intellectual as well as respected French physicist, announced sensory) necessary to detect manifes- his discovery of a new type of radia- tations of the rays. It was alleged that Anglo-Saxon powers of perception tion, which he called N-rays, after the were dulled by continual exposure University of Nancy where he worked. to fog and Teutonic ones blunted by Dozens of papers on N-rays were soon constant ingestion of beer. being published in France, but Amer- When N-rays became a huge em- ican physicists were dubious. One barrassment to French science, the skeptic, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, Robert W. Wood, enjoyed journal Revue Scientifique proposed playing practical jokes, especially jokes a definitive test that would settle the on spirit mediums. His humorous book tinued to be reported by the Nancy matter. “Permit me to decline totally,” How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers scientists. Wood told his hosts nothing Blondlot responded, “. to cooperate is still in print. Perhaps you have seen about either prank. Instead, he went in this simplistic experiment. The phe- on TV a little pinheaded, bald creature home and wrote a devastating account nomena are much too delicate for that. with a huge flexible mouth that is pro- of his visit for the British magazine Na- Let each one form his own personal duced by painting eyes and a nose on ture . It was a knockout blow to N-rays opinion about N-rays, either from his someone’s chin, then viewing the chin everywhere except at Nancy. own experiments or from those of oth- upside down. It was Wood who in- The reaction of the Nancy group to ers in whom he has confidence.” Like vented this whimsical illusion. Wood’s disclosures was well summed Percival Lowell, the American astron- In 1904 Wood made a trip to Nancy up by Irving Klotz in his fine article omer who drew elaborate maps of Mar- to observe N-ray research firsthand. In “The N-ray Affair,” Scientific American , tian canals, Blondlot could not prevent one experiment he secretly removed May 1980: his strong desires from strongly bias- from the apparatus an essential prism. According to Blondlot and his dis- ing his observations. He lived another This had no effect on what the ex- ciples, then, it was the sensitivity of quarter-century. If he had any doubts perimenters said they were observing. the observer rather than the validity about N-rays, so far as I know he never In another test Wood surreptitiously of the phenomena that was called expressed them. into question by criticisms such as substituted a piece of wood for a steel Wood’s, a point of view that will Move ahead to 1974. J. B. Rhine file that was supposed to be giving off not be unfamiliar to those who have had appointed Walter J. Levy, 26, his N-rays. The imagined radiation con- followed more recent controversies successor as director of his laboratory. 14 Volume 38 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Martin Gardner’s First SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Column Levy was already famous in psi circles that no one ever sees metal bend—Tay- the courage to say ( Washington Post, for his “carefully controlled” investi- lor called it the “shyness effect”—they March 1, 1983), “I should have taken gations of animal-psi. (One of them put some spoon-bending youngsters in Randi’s advice.” It is to the credit of suggested that embryos in chicken a room, then filmed them through a Stanley Krippner, a true believer in eggs had psychokinetic [PK] powers.) one-way mirror. The purpose was not PK if ever there was one, that he called Three older members of Rhine’s staff to embarrass the children, but to record Randi’s project “a much-needed” ex- were suspicious of Levy’s string of suc- the shyness effect. To their amazement, periment. It remained for former CSI- cesses. What did they do? They set a they saw the children cheating. Taylor COP member and sociologist Truzzi to cruel trap. While Levy was testing the soon became disenchanted, but such start the hue and cry about entrapment. PK ability of rats to alter a randomizer, revelations had no effect on Hasted’s Truzzi had known about Randi’s trap they watched through a peephole and mind-set. Some spoon benders cheat, almost from the beginning, but had saw Levy repeatedly beef up the scores so what? Not in his laboratory. You can carefully kept his own trap shut. “Randi by pulling a plug. Better yet, they in- read all about his naive experiments in is hurting the field with his gross ex- stalled another set of instruments, his recently published book, The Metal aggeration,” Truzzi told the New York without Levy’s knowledge, that kept an Benders . Times (February 15, 1983). “In no way accurate score. The untampered record Hasted and Phillips typify psychic will his project teach psychic research- showed no evidence of PK. Levy con- research at its shabbiest. In spite of ers a lesson and make them more likely fessed, and vanished from the psi scene. many letters from Randi telling him to trust to magicians’ advice. Quite the To me the saddest aspect of this that his two young subjects were frauds, contrary. This outside policeman thing scandal was not Levy’s deserved disgrace Phillips made no effort to check on sets up magicians as the enemy.” but the fact that it had never occurred their backgrounds. Not until the very On this point Truzzi may be right. to Rhine to check on Levy’s honesty. end, after Randi had severely criticized I, too, would be surprised if psychic Rhine himself was deeply shaken by his videotapes, did he start to tighten researchers suddenly decided to study the revelations. If the trap had not been controls. Of course the wonders ceased. conjuring or to seek the active help of set, Levy’s papers would still be cited as On many occasions when controls were knowledgeable magicians. Conjurors strong evidence for animal-psi. unbelievably lax, the two “psychics” are indeed the enemy. Their bad vibes There are two reasons why traps to suspected a trap. It was never sprung. alone are enough to kill any PK powers detect fraud are more essential in PK They overestimated the acumen of just by being there as observers; perhaps research than anywhere else. First, the their monitors. (as has actually been suggested by the claims are far more extraordinary and Think what the results might have sociologists at Bath) even their reading therefore require much stronger evi- been had the boys decided to become about the experiments afterwards influ- dence. Second, the field has always been professional psychics. They would have soaked with fraud. In the days when left Phillips’s lab complaining that ex- ences the outcome by backward causal- eminent physicists were convinced of cessive controls were inhibiting their ity! But perhaps Randi’s scam will have the reality of floating tables and glow- powers. Soon they would be appearing a salutary effect on funding. After all, ing ectoplasm, an enormous service to on TV documentaries as wonder work- the half-million bucks the McDonnell science was performed by Houdini and ers whose powers had been validated by Foundation gave to Washington Uni- others who were willing and capable of respected scientists. Uri Geller never versity could have gone to worthwhile setting traps for the mediums. tires of talking about how the Stanford research instead of down the drain to a This brings us to the main moral Research Institute (now SRI Interna- group unqualified to investigate metal of Randi’s hilarious hoax.