The Church of Scientology is notorious for its aggressive outreach tactics, from bogus Hollywood seminars to free “movie tickets” for Dianetics: The Film. But none is so quintessentially Scientologist as the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA), or “personality test.”

The Church of Scientology claims that their personality assessment combines three elements—one’s IQ, personality, and aptitude—to give a unique perspective about a person’s strengths, weaknesses, and what they can do to improve their lives. The test is free and often marketed as quick (though my own test had me there for about three hours). Unfortunately, the test itself is about as scientific as an online quiz (e.g., “Are you a Monica or a Phoebe?”). The test itself has been barely examined by statisticians and social scientists, and with terrible results, but nothing drives this home more than going to the church and taking the test yourself.

Scientology building on Fountain in East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Photo by Matthew Field.

When I entered Scientology’s “L.A. Org,” I knew exactly what I was getting into, and that the OCA was at best a religious recruitment tool, though many are not so lucky. My co-host, Ross, and I had visited the building for our podcast, “Oh No, Ross and Carrie,” as part of our investigation of personality tests. Unbeknownst to us, setting foot in that building would spark an investigation of the Church itself, spanning nine episodes over four months. But on that day, we just wanted to see whether the OCA would give us any special insight that other personality tests, such as the famed Myers Briggs Type Indicator, didn’t offer. We were quick to find out that the test is free, but followed by a sell no softer than a time share meeting.

Once inside the building, Ross and I were quickly greeted by a young receptionist. As we explained that we were there to take the personality test, voluntarily, rather than being prompted on the street, her eyes grew wider.

“You just heard about us and wanted to take the test?” she asked, mystified.

Her response didn’t exactly surprise us. After all, in the wake of Going Clear and Troublemaker—two famous exposés with enormous cultural saturation—foot traffic into “Big Blue,” Scientology’s big Los Angeles facility (Scientology calls their churches “orgs”), wasn’t exactly active.

We were taken to a side room and sat down in cubicles with tall sides, keeping us from cheating by trying to sneak a peek at someone else’s personality. The 200 questions, all of which can be found at the OCA’s website, range from the typical: “When others are getting rattled, do you remain composed?” or “Do you normally let the other person start the conversation,” to the not-so-typical: “Do you consider the modern ‘prison without bars’ system doomed to failure?” and “Are you in favor of color bar and class distinction?”

Each question has options for yes, no, and maybe (or, in previous versions, “Don’t know”). A Sea Org member in a three-piece suit advised that I choose the thing that seems most true to me now and that I shouldn’t over-think any questions. Having just completed the Myers Briggs inventory, I was used to pegging my personality into tiny boxes. Are you the life of the party? AM I EVER! Are you scientific and rational in your thinking? YOU BET I AM!

Proud to have finished the 200-question beast, I plunked my pencil down on the table and raised my hand. The man returned to deliver the bad news he must give several times a day: the test is not one, but three. He set down another test, “Just a quick one to make sure we got that one right,” he said, and set an alarm clock for five minutes. When that one was finished, I was given one final quiz: an IQ test, also timed. By that point, I was sick of the bait-and-switch, and eager to have my fortunes read by Sea Org members.

A Swedish woman (who immediately told me she was Swedish and here on study) invited me to her desk to discuss my results. On my way there, I passed a young woman who appeared to be about nineteen, crying as she reviewed her results.

“I just don’t always know who I am or what I want,” she said, leaning over her checkered skirt and crying into her hands.

“Absolutely, and that’s reading here on your test,” replied her aid. I wanted to tell the young woman that not knowing who you are or what you want is exactly where you should be at nineteen, and that if everyone became the thing they wanted to be at nineteen, the world would be overrun with music producers and clever T-shirt companies.

As I sat down with the woman who would review my test, she glanced at the paperwork, then back at me, in my Mickie/Minnie sweater and (at the time) shock of pink hair.

“Oh!” she said, “You’re very intelligent.”

“Well, thank you,” I said, feeling better about this test that obviously had been very insightful.

Paulina, as I will call her, then reviewed the scores on all three of my tests. I had “very high” aptitude, as evidenced by my ability to do things like circle the verbs in a sentence, and an IQ of 136 (full disclosure: Ross beat me out by eleven points, at 147). But more importantly, the OCA was here to save me from myself by identifying the pieces of my personality that don’t serve me well, for example, impulsivity.

“You make impulsive decisions, yes?” Paulina asked me, pointing to a dot on the line graph on her printout.

“Um, hm, I don’t think I make bad impulsive decisions. But I do like to be spontaneous. Live in the moment, go do something you think of right then even if you didn’t plan on it. That sort of thing.”

“Well, this says you’re impulsive.”

“Oh.”

The session went on like this, with Paulina asking me if an adjective was true of me, then telling me what the results said. My results didn’t seem particularly extreme, but Paulina was digging deep to nail down exactly what to tell me I should change. Work? No, my work life was going fine. Personal self-esteem? No, I felt confident and self-assured more than I had at any other time in my life. Finally, she landed on romance.

“How are things with your boyfriend?” she asked, pleadingly.

“Wonderful!” I said, smiling and nodding with self-satisfaction.

“Well, it may start out that way, but over time, things can go bad,” she replied. “You should take a class on how to keep it wonderful.”

Then she led me across the room to a desk under a sign that said “REGISTRAR,” and introduced me to Howard (not his real name, either), who would give me the hard sell. Paulina explained to him that I needed a relationship course so that my so-far-so-good relationship wouldn’t fall apart over time. Howard dismissed Paulina and looked over my printout, nodding along to the ups and downs of my personality.

“I’m not sure this is the right course for you,” he said, pointing out that my relationships with others looked pretty strong, and that I had no major conflicts to report. But as the conversation wore on and he realized that none of the other Scientology classes would clearly benefit me, he agreed with Paulina’s assessment. A relationship class would keep my loving partnership from turning sour.

“Would you like to sign up for that, today?” he asked.

“No, I would like to sleep on it,” I said, trying to find any way to get out of there without giving them my credit card information. I explained that recent science has suggested that sleeping on big decisions actually helps us make better ones. Not to mention that I was keenly aware that he was using social pressure to make me sign up for a class I had never requested, but one can’t say such things out loud and make friends.

“Have you ever made a good decision quickly?” asked Howard.

“Yes, sure. But I’ve also made bad ones quickly, like anyone. And anyway, Paulina said I’m too impulsive.”

Beaten at his own game, Howard allowed me to put off my decision about the class until the next day, but sent me on my way with a booklet about relationships. I gave him its $5 cover price in sympathy, knowing that as a Sea Org member, he might be making as little as $50 a week. I tried to exit right away, but was sent through a parade of L. Ron Hubbard themed displays before I could fully exit. Unsurprisingly, I would hear from Scientology the next day, asking me to join their next class.

From my experience, it is clear that the OCA functions mostly as a way to get people in the door so the Scientology pitch can be made. But what about the science behind it?

The OCA clearly benefits from its deceptive name. It is in no way associated with the prestigious University of Oxford, despite one woman at the Org telling Ross that it was developed there. According to a research paper by Scientologist John H. Wolfe, published on the Social Science Research Network, the test was sloppily copied from the Johnson Temperament Analysis (JTA), “a psychological test of poorly documented validity.” Furthermore, he says, the OCA has none of the checks and balances that even the JTA has. Wolfe goes on to advise “establishing some degree of validity for the OCA would make the large database of OCA test results in the Church of Scientology case history archives relevant and useable for outcome research.” In a rare peek behind the curtain, we see a Scientologist and mathematician advise that the Church show a modicum of effort to make their test scientific.

The test itself appears to have no peer-reviewed research behind it, before or since its inception, and has been criticized widely by psychologists. In one UK government report titled “Enquiry into the Practice and Effects of Scientology” (or “The Foster Report” for short), Sir John Foster reveals that his researchers took the tests themselves, giving a variety of different answers, but that no matter how the test was taken, the results showed that the taker had personality traits that scored in the “unacceptable” field and needed to be fixed with Scientology classes.

In a similar but far more cheeky experiment, Dr. David Delvin took the same test but chose “Don’t know” as the answer to every single question. The Scientology representative administering the test not only did not notice, but returned with a printout with the same kinds of wild variations seen on all the others and recommended all sorts of classes specifically geared to his new pupil.

The Foster Report goes on that psychological professionals nearly universally reject or ignore the OCA, and that its lack of any scientific standing presents “an extremely strong case for assuming it to be a device of no worth.”¹

The OCA appears to be nothing but an attempt to get recruits in the door, and promise them success with the smell of science to back it up. But you’re far more likely to find satisfaction in that online quiz we mentioned before. Personally, I think I’m a Phoebe.

1 Dr. David Delvin in World Medicine, 1969. As reported in The Foster Report. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/audit/foster05.html#recruitment

Ian Harris is a Los Angeles–based comic who has performed at the Center for Inquiry–Los Angeles and at CSI conferences. Blending comedy and skepticism is nothing new—it’s been done on The Simpsons, South Park, and in Penn & Teller acts and TV shows for years—but a standup comic doing explicitly skeptical material on a regular basis as part of his act is unusual. Amid his busy schedule of touring, conference calls with Daily Show producers, training UFC fighters, and auditioning for a dwarf sidekick, Harris agreed to answer some questions.

Benjamin Radford: How did you get involved in doing standup comedy, and how long have you been doing it?

Ian Harris: I actually started doing impressions when I was five. I was a huge boxing and football fan and I would replay fights and games to my parents in the voices of Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali. I used to listen to Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Billy Crystal when I was a teenager and have just wanted to be a comedian since I can remember. Of course I had other things I wanted to do like play football and box, and I started out going to school to be an anthropologist. But I had tried to get on stage in San Francisco since I was seventeen and they would never let me. On my twenty-first birthday I went to the only place that had a legit open mic, a place called “The Holy City Zoo.” I signed up and then saw every comedian I idolized take the stage, including Robin Williams, and I chickened out. A few weeks later I moved to Los Angeles because I had written a screenplay and needed to give that a shot. I ended up auditioning to do a show at the Ice House in Pasadena (another iconic venue) and getting booked to close the show. I did fifteen minutes my first time on stage and it went amazing. Part of that was the fact that I was nervous and looked like I was fifteen, so there was a major like-ability factor going on. That was October 18, 1992. I did comedy for about thirteen straight years until I had my daughter in 2005 and took a few years off. I got back into it in 2011 because I missed being on stage and wanted to go back up to talk about things I was interested in. I no longer needed stand up to make a living so it became more about doing it for the love of it; it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Radford: How did you get involved in skepticism? What skeptical subjects are you most interested in?

Harris: I have pretty much always been a skeptic. I was a little less skeptical when I was younger as my mom is a New Ager, a self proclaimed psychic or “intuitive.” I grew up with the idea that ghosts and psychic abilities were just normal, however we never believed in gods in my house or anything like that and in fact thought of that stuff as silly, and we often mocked churchgoers and such, so I always tried to rationalize these ideas with scientific ideas. I would often explain things as scientifically as I could, but of course as I got older, learned more, and acquired more facts and knowledge, I began to realize that science did support those ideas and they were dropped. I remember thinking when I was about twelve, “Ghosts are real because everyone I know has seen them and my mom has tons of stories, but there is no such thing as a soul or afterlife, so they must be some sort of strange non-conscious energy that somehow gets left over and retains some sort of form.”

There was just this idea that there must be some logical explanation that people are overlooking, but in my world their existence was a fact, so I actually spent a lot of time trying to reconcile this in my brain. Then in my first year of college, I took a class that was called “Argumentation and Persuasion.” It was given by Dan Rothwell and was essentially a class in skepticism. The entire class was identifying logical fallacies and scams and looking at things like astrology, religion, etc. That was when I first realized that skepticism was a thing and began to identify as a skeptic. When I came back to comedy, it was with the idea that I was going to do comedy skepticism and make fun of much of the bullshit that people believe and give these things some public ridicule they deserve, and at the same time maybe make a few compelling arguments and make people think by making them laugh at the absurdity.

Radford: One of my favorite jokes of yours involves the homeopathic “cold preventer” Airborne, which, as you remind us, was “invented by a teacher who got tired of getting sick.” Can you take me through the genesis and process of developing that joke?

Harris: Funny, I wrote the germ of that joke years before I started doing comedy skepticism specifically. I never did it because I thought no one would think it was funny or that it would take too much explanation. Now I don’t care how much I have to spell it out to people. That being said, the first time I heard the commercial I thought “who gives a shit if a teacher came up with it? She was tired of getting sick? Aren’t we all? Is that all it takes? Two hundred years of medical research and all we needed was one chick who was mad as hell!” I love analogies. I used to love Dennis Miller (before he went [Bill] O’Reilly on us) because his analogies were so smart and clever. So I thought what other things could we do away with under that same formula? Cancer finally cured by a smoker who was tired of getting cancer. Then I tried to get even sillier, “perpetual motion finally invented by a hillbilly who had run out of gas.” Then I had a friend tell me that the joke was funny, but there is a cure for cancer and “Big Pharma” is keeping the cure down, so I had to address the absurdity of that and all those type of conspiracies. Now I have a five-minute bit that is one of my personal favorites.

Radford: You also had a stand-up TV special. How did that come to be?

Harris: When I came back to comedy I wanted to do a few things: give back to the community, perform a show designed for the skeptic community, and put something on film that I could show my daughter someday—just something to archive what I did and what I stood for. I originally just was going to do a charity show at CFI–West and tape it. Then the theater became unavailable so I had to move to a bigger theater. Then the idea came to tape it on December 21, 2012, and pitch it to SiriusXM as a live event; midnight if the world doesn’t end we go live to Ian Harris doing a new hour. It was originally called “Live from the Apocalypse.” It started growing. I had a distributor interested, etc., so I called a producer friend and it turned into a full hour special. CFI came in and sold drinks as a fundraiser. SiriusXM ended up backing out fairly last minute, but that was okay. By the time it got edited and released, we had moved away from the date and since I only really talk about the apocalypse at the beginning, I changed the name to one of my original ideas, “Critical & Thinking.”

I really love that play on words for what I do. It says comedy skepticism to me and sums up how I feel my persona is on stage. By the time it all came to fruition too, I was realizing that no one was or is doing what George Carlin was doing. Carlin was moving more and more toward comedy skepticism. His last special “It’s Bullshit and It’s Bad for You” was just that. I don’t see too many comedians, if any, doing that, so I certainly wanted to step up and be that guy. I really feel that if I had gotten wider distribution or had a bigger name, “Critical & Thinking” would have gotten a lot more attention. I have actually had comedians that I really respect tell me pretty much exactly that. I had a friend say that if I were famous, everyone would be talking about it. Not sure if that is remotely true, but that was my goal. Not that it can’t still, as I think the writing is solid. I tried to keep it smart, clever, original, and of course talk about subjects that are not talked about very much. I think I have one dick joke, no bathroom humor, no relationship stuff, nothing I would consider an easy subject in the entire special. I am certainly very proud of that regardless of whether or not it gets mainstream acclaim.

Radford: I’ve seen you perform live twice, once during your “Evolution of Comedy Tour” in Albuquerque and once when you were at a CSI conference in Tacoma. Your humor is unabashedly skeptical, filled with observations poking fun at the absurdity of the paranormal and pseudoscience. How has your act generally been received? Does it vary from state to state? Or do you find that it doesn’t matter because you have a sort of self-selecting audience, so hardcore religious folks won’t be there anyway?

Harris: I have different sets. They all include a lot skepticism and religious ridicule, but I know that my job is to entertain and make audiences laugh, so I always make sure I know my audience. If I am doing a self-produced show, I assume everyone who is there knows what they are coming to see. The more I get known, the more people come to see what I do. When I do comedy clubs, I still do what I do because I am not about compromising my ideas, but I will pick a set that is more universal and maybe change my set ups a bit to be more inclusive and less harsh. I just did a weekend in Seattle at a regular comedy club. I had quite a few people come to see me specifically, but I also had a ton of civilians just there for a comedy show. I had amazing shows! I am sure I pissed off a few religious people and in fact had an hour conversation with a nutty Christian lady who felt science and religion were compatible, but then misrepresented so much scientific theory and claimed studies proved prayer works, etc. It was an insane conversation.

But I feel no matter what a comedian does, someone will love you and someone will hate you. There is always someone who is looking to be offended. I can’t be responsible for their mental shortcomings. You cannot offend me because I choose not to be offended by ideas or words. If you do, that’s on you; maybe comedy is not your thing. If you never offend anyone, you probably aren’t saying much. I told a friend that every review I have seen of my special is either 1 star or 5 stars and he said “Great! That means you actually said something.” So I do my best to ride that line of doing my job as a comedian, saying something worth hearing, and doing comedy that doesn’t compromise my integrity.

Radford: Of course all comics get hecklers, but have you gotten the sense that your skeptical viewpoint and material has been unusually targeted by believers?

Harris: So far no one has heckled too much. I get people afterward wanting to debate or as I call it, “wanting to lose a debate.” If you do it while I am on stage you will always lose that battle. I have a mic and an audience behind me. You are a drunk asshole who is interrupting their good time and my job. I have had a few believers who have come out to see what I do, but so far they have been well behaved, polite, and most of them have told me they enjoyed the show and it even made them think. Though I tend to believe that if you are a believer coming to my show to see what I do, you might be doubting your beliefs to begin with.

Radford: Part of a comic’s job is to bring the audience along with you, but you’re not doing safe Jay Leno–type material, you’re doing edgier stuff that is likely to offend at least some people. If you just look at the demographics of belief, you find that between a third and half of Americans believe in ghosts or haunted houses and many believe in angels, miracles, psychics and so on. How do you tread the fine line between making your audience think critically and not making fun of them?

Harris: I think I don’t always succeed at this because I have been called mean spirited before. I think though that many people are not as adamant about some beliefs as they are about others. Religion is certainly tough, but when I talk about ghosts, miracles, psychics, or Bigfoot, I think even those who believe do so with some skepticism or at least a self-awareness that they are believing in magic or have suspended some logic for something that feels good. I think they will laugh usually, but sometimes they will try to rationalize their belief to me after. I get a lot of that “That Bigfoot stuff was funny, but seriously I have seen Bigfoot. You should check into such and such case...” that kind of thing. I also get people that love every joke except the one about the nonsense they ascribe to, but they laughed at the other jokes, meanwhile everyone else was laughing at the jokes that they didn’t like. They make the connection that maybe everything was equally ridiculous.

Radford: Do you feel any topics are or should be taboo, either in your comedy or in comedy in general?

Harris: I don’t think anything should ever be off limits. For me it is all about free speech. I personally wouldn’t do certain jokes for various reasons, but it comes down to: Is it funny, are you making a point, or are you just trying to shock people? Either way the shock comic should have the right to say what he/she says. If we don’t like what they say we can just not patronize them. This idea that using the word rape in a joke automatically perpetuates “rape culture” is insane. If I am ridiculing rapists, I am not supporting rape. People get upset over words. I don’t believe words can hurt. I think ideas or intentions can be hurtful, but either way it comes down to the person getting hurt. Why is it that I don’t get offended or hurt? And why is it anyone else’s responsibility to protect my feelings? Even if what I say is hurtful, so what? Something is hurtful or offensive to everyone. I can’t expect to know everyone in the room’s sensibilities and should not have to be responsible for them. Plus I think sometimes we need to be offended, we need to hear crazy, sick stuff; otherwise, we have nothing to compare it to. We have no spectrum of ideas to which we can compare. If we eliminated all bad ideas and words, it would not eliminate bad actions like rape and murder—and we would just make up new words to express those thoughts and ideas or vilify other words and ideas. We already do that. Every few years a new word that was common and not inherently offensive gets added to the “bad word” list. If we are really concerned about it I feel desensitizing is a better option, but even then, we’d still make up new “bad words.”

Radford: Who are some of your favorite comedians?

Harris: Richard Pryor, (early) Dennis Miller, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Johnny Steele, Robert Hawkins, Ron Morey, Doug Stanhope, Dave Attell—and surprisingly (because he is not a traditional stand up and did not start as a stand up) I really enjoyed Ricky Gervais’s journey into stand up. Being a guy who started as an impressionist, I like Billy Crystal back in the day and Dana Carvey.

Radford: I understand that your other interests include Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Three quick questions: Did you ever compete professionally? What was your stage nickname? And what happened to the last guy that threw down with you?

Harris: I train fighters in MMA. I have a team of about thirty-five pros and amateurs. I never fought MMA specifically. Back when I was at the age to do it, MMA was not what it is now. There were very little rules, no gloves, no weight classes, etc. I am not a big guy. I did not want to go in a no-rules fight with a 250-pound Olympic wrestler. By the time it got to where it is now, I was coming off a pretty major neck injury and pushing my late thirties. I have competed in all the various aspects my whole life though. I boxed, did karate, Muay Thai, wrestled in school, and still compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments. Plus I spar and train with my team and can hold my own. Funny enough though I started calling what I teach “Fight Science” back before the term Mixed Martial Arts was coined. I am very technical and I bring a very cerebral and scientific approach to my training and teaching. I have a reputation for that and I am often called “The Mad Scientist,” “The Fight Scientist,” and sometimes just “Scientist.” I never get in fights. I think I defuse things with humor and confidence. When a nerdy, average size guy laughs at your aggression and calmly discusses the situation, I think it is disarming and intimidating for most people. That being said, in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu being on your back is called your “guard.” I have a very good guard and specifically a triangle choke. I can pretty much catch anyone in my triangle choke.

Radford: What other projects are you working on?

Harris: I am working on three TV shows. They are all in development with different companies. One is a mock-reality show spoofing paranormal type shows like Ghost Hunters and Finding Bigfoot called Super Normal Activity. One is a reality show where I dress up in character Ali G.–style and infiltrate various religious establishments and interview zealots, etc., tentatively titled either Ian Goes Looking for God or Fighting Faith. The third one is a clip show like Talk Soup but instead of talk shows paranormal shows. I am calling it Talk Soupernatural. I am also touring with my good friend Ty Barnett (runner-up on Last Comic Standing) doing a show called Divided where we each tackle various topics like religion, race, politics, etc., from our different perspectives.

Dr. Kat Arney holds a degree in natural sciences and a PhD in developmental biology from Cambridge University, which she followed with a post-doc at Imperial College, London. For her day job Kat is a professional science communicator, media spokesperson, award-winning blogger, podcaster, and general scicomms for Cancer Research UK.

In her spare time, Kat is a freelance writer, broadcaster, and public speaker, appearing on the highly successful Naked Scientists for the past decade and producing and presenting the monthly Naked Genetics podcast, as well as copresenting the weekly national BBC Radio 5Live Science show. Her new book is called Herding Hemingway’s Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work, which takes a look at the history, influence, mysteries, and misconceptions about the field of genetics.

Dr. Kat Arney: I think I’ve always been quite fascinated by science. I was one of those children who had the books about space and plants and build your own inventions. I think I always maybe wanted to be a mad professor or an inventor. I used to invent a lot of stuff, and I had a chemistry set when I was little. My dad got me a chemistry set, and I really got the bug from that. But once I’d used up all the copper sulfate, we weren’t sure where to get anymore, so then I just had to do science at school.

I didn’t enjoy physics and math so much but loved biology and chemistry, and it’s just grown from then, and realizing that now genetics really is my passion. It’s what I did my PhD in; it’s part of what I really specialized in at university. Yeah, what makes us us? How do our cells work? How do you build a baby from DNA? That’s really what fascinates me.

Kylie Sturgess: That’s essentially what the beginning of your book, Herding Hemingway’s Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work, delves into. You got intrigued by Hemingway’s Cat, polydactyl pets, and this got you interested into genes and genetics?

Arney: Yes. So my background as a scientist is in genetics. I did my PhD in something called “developmental genetics,” which is basically how do you go from a single fertilized egg; it has one set of DNA. You get half from mom, half from dad, and that egg divides and divides and divides, and those cells specialize and make all the different bits of you, and how does that know to be you, a human? Then if that’s a cat, how does it know to be a cat? What makes that different from a fish? All these things really fascinated me.

I’ve been working as a science writer and a broadcaster for about ten, eleven years since I left the lab. I’m really clumsy, so I’m not really into being in the lab! I’m much better at just telling the stories about science. I go to a lot of conferences still. I talk to a lot of scientists, and I was sitting in this conference all about how genes get turned on and off.

There was a chap there, Bob Hill, from Edinburgh, talking about the Hemingway cats and they have extra thumbs. They’re almost like ... They have these kind of big mittens. They’re gorgeous animals, and so Ernest Hemingway was given one of these by an old sea captain, very popular up the east coast from the time of great seafaring on the east coast of America. It’s a single change that causes this, this extra thumb. You might think, “Well, you know, that’s a change in the thumb gene, I guess?” It’s not, because there’s no such thing as a finger gene or a thumb gene.

Ernest Hemingway and his cat.

It’s actually a change in a control switch that turns on a gene called Sonic Hedgehog—which is the real name of the gene—which is a gene that helps cells make decisions in development. Are you going to be a finger or not a finger? Because there’s this mistake in the control switch, the genes are not turned quite on and off at the right time in the right place as the cat is growing in the womb, or the same thing for some humans as well. You just kind of make extra fingers; they don’t know when to stop!

That really got me thinking, because we hear about genes all the time, don’t we? In the media, there are things that make your eyes blue, they’ll make your hair curl, they make you fat, they give you cancer, and so on. There’s genes for schizophrenia and alcoholism and all these of things—but do we know how they work? I would talk to my friends and say, “Do you know how genes work?” They’d go, “Oh, no. I’d be really interested in that.”

I thought, “Aha, there’s a book idea here,” so I went to talk to all my scientist friends and I said, “I want to write a book about how genes work,” and they all said, “Well, when you find out, let me know.” I thought, “I’m definitely onto something here.” Just trying to figure out where are we now in understanding how will genes actually work? How do you go from this DNA code that many of us are familiar with now. DNA is a symbol used everywhere to signify “biology”—but how does it work?

Sturgess: It seems like a particularly huge journey that you go on into your book, and I was very impressed that you managed to keep it under fifty chapters at the very least, let alone several volumes! One of the things that you mentioned was that researchers can be particularly tribal, favoring certain answers depending on their specialty. Was this an issue when you were doing the research?

Arney: Yes, and I have to be honest, I’m definitely part of one tribe! I’m not the sort of reporter that can just passionately step back and go, “Well, some people say this and some people say that. Do you feel like the bulk of the evidence does kind of fall down on one side?” I’m not a big fan of over-hyping things like the promise of epigenetics or saying that, “This is almost like some kind of genetic magic.” I’m very much on what does the data tell us? If we don’t actually have the data, I don’t think we should just make stuff up and speculate too much. I’m more interested in the amazing things that are real and we know to be true.

I mean, there are some kinds of very strange things that I look into. There’s a molecule called RNA, which is made when a gene is read. It’s kind of like a photocopy of the gene, a molecular photocopy. Recently it’s been discovered that there are a lot of circles of RNA. Normally it’s just like a straight string, and people have discovered that cells are packed with all these circles of RNA. No one knows what they’re doing. Some people say, “Oh, yeah. It’s important,” and some people say, “It’s just junk. I mean, this is just rubbish. It’s not there for a purpose at all.”

I look into some of those things and some of those slightly more weird phenomena that are kind of coming through around the fringes of genetics. Because I think we should look into these and talk about them, but we shouldn’t promise that they are magic or the solution. But I am very interested in the tribalism of scientists—and you have to remember that scientists are real people with real characters and real grumpiness!

Sturgess: Just look like everybody else out there!

Arney: Yeah, I drank a lot of coffee and in some cases a lot of wine with them.

Sturgess: Do you have any particular concerns about misinterpretation or the misuse of science when it comes to genetics? I see people making promises all the time, and I try to make myself skeptical. Sometimes it seems a bit difficult to wonder, “Okay, just how much of that is true?” since there’s so many new findings all the time.

Arney: Yes, and there are a lot of findings that come out in a lot of papers. I’m genuinely skeptical of quite a bit of the epigenetic stuff because that’s the field I used to work in. I worked in epigenetics before it was cool, and now lots of people are talking about epigenetics. This is more formally. It’s the answer to the challenge if every cell in your body has the same set of DNA and you need to respond to changes in your environment and all this kind of thing and make different sorts of cells. You’ve got liver cells and skin cells and brain cells, but they all have the same set of DNA. How do you do that? We’re not some big blob of unformed putty with every cell identical, so clearly you use different genes at different times.

The challenge of how do you switch those on, how do you switch those off? How does the skin cell remember it’s skin, and doesn’t just go, “Oh, I’m going be brain today.” That is proper epigenetics. There are marks on the DNA that help to do that. There are marks on the proteins that package that DNA, but there are lots and lots of other molecules called “transcription factors,” and there’s all these control switches, and that’s kind of how a lot of that is done. There’s been a very interesting scientific argument raging over the past month or so about an article that was written in The New York Times about epigenetics. It was written very much from one side of the view about epigenetics, that it’s almost a ... kind of biological magic, I think? Then the people that I’ve spoken to have all come out on the other side and said, “Hey, this is not right!”

It’s amazing because it’s one of the issues I really delved into in my book: What are these marks like? How much can we credit them for? What is really responsible for cells knowing what to do? Yeah, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of saying, “It’s all these switches do all of these kind of things, and it’s almost a kind of magic.” I really wanted to avoid falling into that error and that mistake.

Sturgess: In the book you discuss how you travel a lot for the research and writing and at one point, you’re in California in 2014—and it’s the time of the Ice Bucket Challenge; it’s all over social media. What’s your take on these kinds of trends? Do you think we should have more of these in order to essentially unpack and demystify some of the diseases that are caused by genetic problems?

Arney: Well, I am all for anything that encourages more money to go into funding science. I’ve just spent the best part of twelve years in the U.K. working for Cancer Research U.K., which is the U.K.’s biggest cancer chapter—I think, probably the world’s—and the biggest independent cancer research charity. We actually had a big thing called No Make-Up Selfie! Which is quite incredible. My face is worth ten million pounds as a result, funnily enough. Because we raised ten million pounds, we were able to fund at least ten new clinical trials that wouldn’t necessarily have been funded without that money.

Things like the Ice Bucket Challenge, that was for a disease called Autoimmune Disease or ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, it’s known as in the States. It raised a lot of money for that and that’s absolutely fantastic, because some of these diseases, they’re not as well-known as things like cancer. “Sexy” is kind of the wrong word, but if you can raise money for a disease like autoimmune disease, where not many people get it and hardly anyone knows about it, it’s incredible. I’ve had people in my family affected by it, so I feel very passionately that more money needs to go into research of this disease. Because, at the moment, there’s pretty much nothing at all you can do. Yeah, if it takes goat racing or buckets on heads or any of that thing, then more money for science has to be a good thing.

Sturgess: Your book, Herding Hemingway’s Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work is out. How’s the response been to it? Are you in the process of writing a new one?

Arney: It’s been absolutely amazing. Really, really incredible reviews. I’ve actually quit my fulltime job to go and promote the book, to work as a freelance writer now, which is terrifying but is very much fun. I’ve had really great reviews. I think my favorite one was in Nature. I had great reviews in the popular press and stuff like that, but I really wanted scientists to go, “Yeah, she gets it. This is a good summary of our field.” But it’s written in a way that pretty much anyone can pick up and enjoy. Because it’s just full of stories; it’s full of first-person interviews of me going around and chatting to scientists. I am starting to work on book two… but it’s all a bit of a secret at the moment!

My local newspaper is an unending source of amusement in the form of ads for questionable health products—ads that demonstrate clever marketing tactics aimed at scientifically illiterate and gullible readers. Perhaps it is a waste of time to critique them, but I like to think that consumers can be educated about the deceptive methods these marketers use and can learn to think more critically about all such claims.

The latest travesty was a half-page ad for Genius Java with the headline “Skyrocketing Demand Expected For New Memory Boosting Coffee.” There is an appealing picture of two happy, alert elders cuddling and drinking coffee with the message “Iowa engineer invents new K-cup coffee that restores up to 15 years of lost memory and brainpower.” Without reading further, an astute reader’s antennae will already be twitching. If there were really a new discovery that restores lost memory, we would not be likely to first learn about it through a paid advertisement. How likely is it that it would be an engineer who made such a discovery? And how could you measure “15 years of lost memory”? Reading on, it only gets worse.

What Is It?

It is basically coffee in those convenient one-serving K-cups with vitamin B12 added. But not just any B12. They warn that most B12 supplements are the wrong form, containing poisonous cyanide. Over time, they can lead to “brain suffocation” (whatever that is!) and other health issues. Genius Java contains a safe and effective form of B12.

Marketing Ploys Dissected

• The ad was made to look like a news report. They included the required disclaimer “Paid advertisement” but put it in small print and hoped readers wouldn’t notice. By the time they get to the sales offer, readers will be hooked, including some of those who would not have paid any attention to the piece if they had realized it was an ad.
• They used an appealing picture of attractive people so readers could imagine themselves as the people in the pictures.
• “People are lining up in droves.” Are they really? Unsupported claim, appeal to popularity. Join the crowd; don’t ask if the crowd might be wrong.
• “Readers-only discount, limited time offer, supplies could run out.” Buy now; don’t stop to think.
• “Risk free trial offer. If Genius Java doesn’t improve your memory, clarity, mood and energy levels, you won’t pay a penny (except for shipping and handling).” They can make enough off the S&H to more than compensate for the few customers who are not too embarrassed to admit they have been fooled and ask for (part of) their money back.
• “Find out how you can get your own K-Cup machine… absolutely free!” This is tempting. Everyone likes to get free stuff. But companies like to make money. I suspect this offer is contingent on signing up for a program and committing to buying enough coffee for the company to pay for the machines and still make a profit.
• Meaningless, unscientific language: “get a brain boost,” “tired brains wake up again,” etc.
• Scare tactics: “Have you struggled to remember where you left your car keys? Have you forgotten a grandchild’s birthday? Your brain could be at risk. Two-fifths of the U.S. population is lacking this important brain nutrient, and people over age 50 are especially vulnerable.”
• Instilling distrust of mainstream: suggesting that manufacturers use a dangerous form of B12 in their pills simply because it is cheaper.
• Miss-citing authorities: they provide a “partial list of documented benefits from the primary ingredient of Genius Java from the Mayo Clinic, the NIH, and WebMD: improve memory, may help prevent Alzheimer’s, improve mood, boost energy levels, reduce depression, and many more.” They hope you will think those benefits have been documented for their product; they haven’t. They hope you won’t notice that those benefits were claimed for the primary ingredient, which is coffee. Any coffee, not just their coffee.
• They claim that each serving delivers “the recommended amounts to restore your B12 levels in just one serving per day.” But they don’t specify how much that is. They don’t tell us how much of the B12 they put in the K-cup actually gets into the cup of coffee and how much is absorbed into the body, and they provide no evidence that their product has ever corrected anyone’s B12 deficiency with one daily cup or with any number of cups.

What about Evidence?

They cite “30,000 patient case studies showing the ingredients in Genius Java may help improve your foggy memory.” That’s not true. A search of PubMed for clinical studies on caffeine and memory and on B12 and memory yielded 214 and 91 hits, respectively, and most of those hits were irrelevant. For example, one was on hydration and cognition and only listed caffeine as a possible confounding factor contributing to dehydration and one was on lithium and just happened to mention an increase of lithium side effects with high caffeine consumption.

As often happens, there is a kernel of truth behind their claims. Caffeine can enhance performance in various ways. (I know I feel smarter after my first cup of coffee in the morning!) And vitamin B12 deficiency can have serious consequences. Even a mild deficiency of vitamin B12 can cause problems with memory and thinking processes. And B12 deficiency is more common in the elderly.

If people are B12 deficient, they would benefit from supplementation, but there are better ways to get it. FDA-approved B12 supplements are available in a pure form with precise dosage. Supplying it in coffee would be more inconsistent, with dosage depending on coffee intake. If people are not B12 deficient, there is no reason to think they would benefit from supplements. They might, and it would be simple to set up a double-blind test comparing Genius Java to unsupplemented coffee. No such trial has been done, so we have no way of knowing if the coffee would help consumers in any way.

I was surprised by the claim that there is cyanide in most B12 supplements, but there’s a kernel of truth there, too. The most widely used form is cyanocobalamin, and when that is metabolized it releases a cyanide ion. The amount of cyanide is minute, far below toxic levels and far less than the amount of cyanide we ingest every day from our food. Many foods contain cyanide, with higher levels in certain healthy foods such as almonds, lima beans, and spinach. Our bodies eliminate cyanide easily, and it poses no health risk in small amounts. Other forms of B12 are cyanide-free, notably methylcobalamin. Methylcobalamin is recommended by questionable “authorities” such as Mike Adams (the Health Ranger of Natural News) and Peter D’Adamo (of bogus blood-group diet fame), but mainstream scientists have not found any evidence that it is superior to cyanocobalamin.

Conclusion

If you need a B12 supplement, Genius Java is not the best way to get it. If you are not B12 deficient, there is no need for supplements in any form. Genius Java makes unsupported claims. It is driven by marketing, not science. It’s probably not harmful except to the pocketbook, but in the absence of any evidence of actual health benefits, there’s no reason to prefer it to regular coffee.

In one sense it might actually make you smarter: if you can understand why its claims are questionable and can apply those lessons to other marketing claims.

On the afternoon of Friday, February 28, 1890, a single pistol shot rang out in a corridor of the United States House of Representatives. Former eastern Kentucky congressman William Preston Taulbee (Figure 1) laid mortally wounded on the marble stairs leading up to the congressional Press Gallery. Standing over him holding a pistol was a Louisville Times correspondent, Charles E. Kincaid, who 
had just ended a simmering feud between the two prominent Kentuckians.

Being from the 1980s to present a “Historical Writer” for the Morgan County, Kentucky, newspaper, The Licking Valley Courier (published in my hometown of West Liberty), I was able to research and write about the murder of native-born Taulbee for the centennial of his death (Nickell 1990). This—written for the 125th anniversary—is an expanded version of that account, plus what I came to learn was “the rest of the story”: a tale of ineradicable bloodstains and the “Ghost of the Gallery Stairs.”

Figure 1. William Preston Taulbee as a young man, from a tintype in possession of his great-grandniece (copy photograph by Joe Nickell).

Taulbee

William Preston Taulbee was born in Morgan County on October 22, 1851, a son of state senator William Harrison Taulbee (1824–1905) and Mary Ann (Wilson) Taulbee (1832–1916).¹ Called “Will Press,” he was educated in the county one-room schools and later (1871–1877) was himself a schoolteacher. In the meantime he married Lou Emma Oney (1852–1903) with whom he eventually had four sons (three of whom became colonels in the U.S. Army).

Taulbee studied for the Methodist ministry from 1875 to 1878 and subsequently “itinerated” (i.e., was an itinerant preacher) for several years (“Taulbee, William Preston” 1893). He became clerk of the Magoffin County Court in 1878 and again in 1882. A year earlier, he was admitted to the Kentucky Bar. A Democrat, he was elected to the House of Representatives from what was then the Tenth District in 1884. He was re-elected in 1886 but declined to run for a third term, instead remaining in Washington engaged in real estate business (“Shooting” 1890).

According to The New York Times, Taulbee, then thirty-nine, was “of tall figure, with a frame sinewy and strong, but lean.” The paper continued: “He soon became known in the House as a ready talker, and was more frequently on his feet than any other young member. He had a very powerful voice, and in the tumult which sometimes occurred in the House it could be heard above the din.” His ability as a speaker earned him the appellation, “The Mountain Orator” (“A Murder” 2015).

A Feud

Taulbee’s attacker, Charles Euston Kincaid, was born in Boyle County, Kentucky, on May 18, 1855, a son of Capt. William Garrett and Elizabeth (Banford) Kincaid. He obtained an AB degree (1878) and a master’s degree (1881) from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and he was admitted to the bar in 1879. He became, in turn, a Louisville judge, member of the state railroad commission, an editor of the Courier-
Journal, and private secretary to Governor Knott. He was unmarried. As The New York Times said of him (“Shooting” 1890):

Kincaid is a slightly built, inoffensive-looking man. . . . [H]is family is one of the best known in Kentucky. He has a wide acquaintance in social circles here, and has spent considerable time in attending receptions, parties, and other society events. He has been in ill health for about two years, suffering from nervous and other ailments, following an attack of typhoid fever. He went to England last Summer for the benefit of his health, and returned somewhat improved.

Little was known about the strife between the two men except that, according to the Times, it “originated about a year and a half ago in the publication, by the correspondent, of a statement affecting the moral character of the Congressman” (“Shooting” 1890). Indeed, the frail Kincaid, described as not over five feet three inches (in contrast to Taulbee who was “considerably over 6 feet tall” [qtd. in Gilbride 1962]), “had written a story accusing Taulbee of misconduct with a woman in a government office”—what the Washington newspapers at the time had called “the patent office scandal” (Gilbride 1962).

According to Taulbee’s brother Dr. J.B. Taulbee, the feud between the two men actually began when congressman Taulbee objected to Kincaid’s having received a political appointment that he then sublet to another for half the pay; Taulbee sought a congressional resolution prohibiting such unethical acts. When Taulbee later refused to endorse Kincaid for a position, Kincaid, according to Dr. Taulbee, threatened to make the congressman sorry. Kincaid responded that those charges were baseless and that he had no ulterior motive in writing that Taulbee had allegedly been having an affair (“A Murder” 2015).

The two men had had an altercation earlier on the day of the shooting when the two met and Kincaid said something in an undertone. Taulbee, reported the Times, “who is large-framed and muscular,” was seen to “grab Kincaid by the lapel of the coat and with a strong grasp held him while he said: ‘Kincaid, come out into the corridor with me.’” To this, Kincaid responded, “I am in no condition for a physical contest with you. I am unarmed.” Taulbee replied that he was also unarmed, took Kincaid by the ear, and directed him to the door. The two were then “separated by some common friends.” At that, “Taulbee and Kincaid then went their way, the former into the House and the latter, it is supposed, after a pistol, for, as he stated, he had none at the time” (“Shooting” 1890; “A Murder” 2015).

The Shooting

The final incident occurred about 1:30 pm. Taulbee, having spent some time in the House, came out and began to descend the eastern marble stairs that led from the capitol’s main floor to its lower one. Samuel Donaldson, a former Doorkeeper of the House, would subsequently testify at the inquest. According to him, he and Taulbee were walking downstairs together talking when the latter stopped and turned to him. “At this moment on the landing just behind us, on my right and on Mr. Taulbee’s left, Mr. Kincaid appeared. Mr. Taulbee’s face was turned partly toward Mr. Kincaid when the latter said: ‘Mr. Taulbee you can see me now.’”

Donaldson continued:

The deceased turned his face further toward him, when Mr. Kincaid fired the pistol shot, the ball taking effect just at the outside of the left eye, the blood spurting out over my left hand. I turned to Mr. Kincaid and said, “Judge, for God’s sake, don’t shoot any more.” As the ball struck him, Mr. Taulbee cried out: “Oh!” and, staggering in a stooping position down the stairs, was assisted into a committee room. Someone then asked who fired the shot to which Mr. Kincaid replied, “I am the man who did it.”

As the Times concluded, “The remainder of the testimony was merely corroborative” (“Kincaid Held” 1890).

At first, doctors thought the shot was not fatal, but over the next few days at Providence Hospital his condition worsened; he died at 4:45 on the morning of Tuesday, March 11. An autopsy by Dr. D.S. Lamb revealed that the bullet had passed under the eye, in a downward trajectory. (More on this presently.) The projectile had fractured a part of the orbital plate (eye socket) and heading toward the brain, splintered an area (the petrous region) of the temporal bone (a bone on either side of the skull, at its base). The bullet was found imbedded in that bone and in dura mater (brain membrane). Dr. Lamb concluded that had the penetration been deeper, even perhaps a sixteenth of an inch farther, death would probably have been instantaneous (“Kincaid Held” 1890).In its report on the day following the shooting, The New York Times had offered: “Who was the aggressor at this last meeting, or what position either man occupied with reference to the other at the time the shot was fired it is impossible to state definitely” (“Shooting” 1890). Actually, though, Kincaid initiated the second, fatal encounter, and it seems likely that he had armed himself before that event. He approached Donaldson and Taulbee from behind. Congressman Carlisle saw Taulbee right after he had been shot and stated soon thereafter that Taulbee asked him who had shot him—“showing,” as the Times had concluded, “that he had not seen his assailant” (“Shooting” 1890).

Crime Reconstruction

Now, the descending trajectory of the bullet indicates that the much shorter Kincaid was elevated with respect to Taulbee. Indeed that is borne out by Donaldson, who testified that he and Taulbee “had passed across the first landing” and proceeded to the left “when he stopped on the second or third step” and turned to Donaldson, at which moment Kincaid appeared “on the landing just behind us” (“Kincaid Held” 1890). Thus elevated, he aimed downward to shoot Taulbee in the face. The pistol was no more than “the length of a man’s arm” away (“Shooting” 1890).

It is for a reason that I have reconstructed the elements of the scene: the shooter’s elevated position relative to the victim, the downward trajectory of the bullet, the statement of Samuel Donaldson that Kincaid had appeared on the landing behind and above them, that Taulbee had just turned to look back, and Congressman Carlisle’s statement that Taulbee had not known who had shot him. The reconstruction is necessary in order to counter Kincaid’s later claims as to what had happened.

Although the inquest jury had found that Taulbee died from the shot of a pistol that was “held in the hand of Charles E. Kincaid in the United States Capitol Building on Feb. 28, 1890” (“Kincaid Held” 1890), Kincaid would claim he shot Taulbee in self-defense.

In a statement, Kincaid claimed that Taulbee had been pursuing him aggressively for over a year. “I am almost ashamed to acknowledge it, but he has assaulted me six times.” On the morning of February 28, he said, he and Taulbee argued, and “Mr. Taulbee then gave me a violent push against the door and the doorkeepers separated us.” He made no mention of Taulbee claiming to have a gun or urging him to get one, as would eventually be alleged. “Later, about 1:30 p.m. I went to the House restaurant to get my lunch. Mr. Taulbee met me and advanced toward me in a threatening manner. I warned him off, but he drew back his arms as if to strike, when I fired and he fell” (“Settled” 1890).

Taulbee lingered for many days, eventually being kept on opiates for the pain. Some newspaper reporters, seemingly sympathetic to their colleague Kincaid, reported on his suffering as if he were the victim instead of the assailant. One account, for example, said of Kincaid:

He seemed oblivious to his surroundings. Momentarily his muscles would twitch convulsively and a groan would escape his lips. The awful strain under which he has been subjected since the shooting has told on him. He is a wreck of his former self. As the reporter was about to leave the prisoner broke out in sobs and called for his mother. The scene was touching in the extreme. (“A Murder” 2015)

The trial was held about a year after Taulbee’s death. Although there was never any evidence that Taulbee was armed, Kincaid claimed he had been terrorized by Taulbee and had shot him in self-defense. Disputing that claim was his initial statement made as he was taken into police custody, claiming that he shot Taulbee as a matter of honor: “When he pulled my ear today and I knew the boys on the [press] row had seen it, I was crazed” (“A Murder” 2015; “Charles E. Kincaid” 1906).

Gallery Stairs Ghost

After my centennial article on Taulbee’s assassination appeared (Nickell 1990), I learned of a follow-up claim: Taulbee’s unrequited ghost haunts the steps that are still marked with his blood. On a later visit to Washington, I was directed to the site by a capitol guard.

According to ghost raconteur John Alexander (1998, 69), capitol workers have claimed the supposed bloodstains are resistant to all cleaning agents. The motifs (or narrative elements)—“Revenant [ghost] as blood” and “Ineradicable bloodstain after bloody tragedy”—are common in legends and are well known to folklorists (being catalogued in a six-volume reference set [Thompson 1955, 2: 446]). I have encountered several such legends, which are invariably intended to suggest some supernatural agency. In one case amenable to forensic investigation, when a stain proved not to have been blood and its actual source identified, a particular claim was discredited (Nickell with Fischer 1988, 119–128).

Now, in the case of the stains on the capitol gallery steps, Alexander (1998, 69) reports that some (unspecified) persons deny the splotches are actually from Taulbee’s spilled blood. On the other hand, it would be quite a coincidence for the original bloodstains to have been cleaned away while other stains subsequently appeared on the steps—stains forensically consistent with blood having first dripped and pooled then blackened with age (Cf. Genge 2002, 98–102; Kirk 1974, 194–95). Blood could have seeped into the marble, which is highly porous.² Years of throngs shuffling over the stairs have not worn the stains away, and cleaning crews have long since resigned themselves to their presence (interview by Gilbride 1962).

I had hopes of finding an early reference to the blood that might provide a clue. Center for Inquiry Libraries Director Timothy Binga found for me several additional newspaper accounts, and therein was what I was looking for. It was from a lengthy article in The Chicago Tribune of March 1, 1890—only the day after Taulbee was shot:

No sooner had Taulbee been taken from the Capitol, than the janitors began to wash the blood off the staircase and the floor. It seemed as if the blood had gotten into the marble and granite, as much of it could not be gotten out. Some of the stains will remain there for all time. (“Settled” 1890)

As to the “Ghost of the Gallery Stairs” itself, “some say” they have witnessed the specter of the former congressman at that exact spot, but it appears their testimony, if any, is not even at third hand. Reportedly, “They believe that every time a reporter appears to stumble on those well-worn steps that, in fact, they have just been tripped by Taulbee’s ghost who loves to show his eternal contempt and distaste for journalists”—or so “some say,” according to Alexander (1998, 69), giving no sources for his assertions. (Later writers repeat the claim of tripping [Krepp 2012, 30], while Hauck [1996, 105] only says Taulbee’s ghost “haunts the stairs.”)

I strongly suspect that any claimed ghost appearances, at the “exact spot” of the bloodstains, are the result of the latter inspiring the former. The common motifs linking bloodstains to ghosts may well have inspired the tale of haunting—whether there were actual reports of sightings or not. It is likely there was also an impetus for such a story from the unsettling fact that Taulbee’s assailant got away with murder.

Acknowledgments

Early suggestions for my 1990 centennial article came from Roger Buchanan of Hazel Green, KY, and Earl Kinner, Jr., ed. of The Licking Valley Courier, W. Liberty, KY. The tintype of William P. Taulbee was generously provided for copying by Ella Mae Phipps, then Postmaster of Cottle, KY. (Lou Taulbee was her great, great aunt.) Recent research assistance was provided by CFI Libraries Director Timothy Binga, including online materials and acquisition of books.

Notes

1. Wikipedia (“William P. Taulbee” 2015) gives the birth year of Mary Ann Wilson Taulbee as 1831; however, I have used the date inscribed on her tombstone in the Taulbee Cemetery, Insko, Kentucky (Nickell et al. 1981, 108).
2. According to an authority (Grotz 1976, 129), marble “sucks in stains as fast as unfinished wood will.”

References

• Alexander, John. 1998. Ghosts: Washington Revisited: The Ghostlore of the Nation’s Capitol. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Co.
• A Murder in the Capitol. 2015. Online at http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/p/u/r/sandi-I-Purol-MI/BOOK-0001/0024-0001.html. Accessed August 25, 2015.
• Charles E. Kincaid. 1906. The New York Times (November 3).
• Genge, N.E. 2002. The Forensic Casebook: The Science of Crime Scene Investigation. New York: Ballantine Books.
• Gilbride, Neil. 1962. The Arizona Republic (February 25).
• Grotz, George. 1976. The Antique Restorer’s Handbook. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Hauck, Dennis William. 1996. Haunted Places: The National Directory. New York: Penguin Books.
• Kincaid held in jail. 1890. The New York Times (March 13).
• Kirk, Paul L. 1974. Crime Investigation, 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley.Krepp, Tim. 2012. Capitol Hill Haunts. Charleston, SC: Haunted America.
• Nickell, Joe. 1990. Historical sketches. Licking Valley Courier (February 22).
• Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1988. Secrets of the Supernatural: Investigating the World’s Occult Mysteries. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.
• Nickell, Joe, J. Wendell Nickell, and Ella T. Nickell, compilers. 1981. Morgan County, Ky., Cemetery Records. West Liberty, KY: privately printed.
• Settled a grudge. 1890. The Chicago Tribune (March 1).
• Shooting in the Capitol. 1890. The New York Times (March 1).
• Taulbee, William Preston. 1893. The National Cyclopædia of American Biography. Vol. 3. New York: James T. White & Co.
• Thompson, Stith. 1955. Motif-Index of Folk Literature, rev. ed., in the 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• William P. Taulbee. 2015. Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_P._Taulbee.

The seventh SkeptiCal was held Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the Oakland, CA, Asian Cultural Center. I’ve attended all seven, each is unique and I always leave feeling that I’ve had a great experience. This is billed as the Northern California Science and Skepticism Conference, and as usual for this specific event, is heavy on the science. The speakers are varied enough to keep the audience interested as you will soon see. The hosts are the Bay Area Skeptics led by Eugenie Scott and Sacramento Area Skeptics, Frank Mosher.

I attend as many skeptic conferences as I can, and each one has its own “flavor” and style. SkeptiCal differs from others by being a no-frills event, but without you noticing that those frills are missing. Many of the speakers are working scientists talking about their expertise, quite different from most skeptic conferences where the speakers seem to all have a new book out. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the difference is that the SkeptiCal speakers usually are not people you will hear on podcasts or at other conferences. In fact in a conversation with one of the Bay Area organizers, Greg Dorais, he explained that they try to choose speakers that are local and are not someone you will find at other skeptic conferences; they try not to repeat speakers if possible. Keeping the speakers local, keeps costs low so admission is extremely reasonable. Another quirk is that it runs right on schedule. Emcee Lauren Camp was tasked with keeping everything moving, and she sure was on it.

Having a no-nonsense approach with a short introduction of each speaker and all the presentation slides loaded on the same computer allows more time for the speaker, frequent breaks, and a nice long lunch. I had a very good friend fly in all the way from Chicago just for this conference. Mike Jarsulic has attended many skeptic conferences, and at the beginning of the lunch hour he said to me, “Is the quality of the lectures always this excellent?” At the end of the conference, I asked him again what he thought and how it compared to others. He said that he learned a lot, and throughout the conference he felt that the speakers were able to expand on their topic more than normal as they had a full fifty minutes. They mostly were able to take a question or two during that time as well. He also felt that these were not people he had seen before, and that was refreshing. Mike said he was glad he had come out for the conference and hopes that it expands to two days so more people will travel in.

This is the third year that it was held at this location, and the attendance has remained steady at about 225. The venue would not allow for many more than that, and if the conference were to grow by 20 percent in attendance, it will have to move to a new location. The conference is one of the most affordable I’ve seen other than a free SkeptiCamp event. Purchasing a ticket at the day of the event is the highest price at $45. A student purchasing in advance can get in for only $25. That is a crazy price, especially at a venue this nice.

SkeptiCal is not a conference trying to raise money for its host organizations; everything is quality even though it is run on a small budget. No need for food as there are restaurants a plenty in the area, and we were given a ninety-minute lunch to be able to linger with fellow attendees at one of the local Chinese restaurants or local brew pubs that seem to be on every corner. Obviously, a lot happens because of the volunteers. Tables for the local groups and organizations are inside the venue, and are free to the group/organization in an effort to encourage a spirit of grassroots and “ownership” as OUR “local” conference.

This year’s exhibitors were: The Atheist Community of San Jose, Bay Area Humanists, Bay Area Skeptics, Camp Quest West, Central Valley Alliance of Atheist & Skeptics (CVAAS), Einstellung Labs, Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW), Monterey County Skeptics, Sacramento Area Skeptics, Independent Investigations Group, Secular Coalition for California, Stanislaus Humanists, Sunday Assembly East Bay, Sunday Assembly Silicon Valley and Wonderfest, and the Bay Area Beacon of Science. This year, the organizers created a fun contest to get the attendees more involved in visiting the various tables. A secret quotation was agreed on and one word was distributed to each vendor. Attendees had to go to each table and ask them what their secret word was. Once they had gathered those all together, they had to form them into the correct sentence and turn in their card in time for the drawing. The prize was a beautiful framed quote from Carl Sagan and autographed by Carolyn Proco. I was very envious of the woman who won it.

Each exhibitor was given thirty seconds on stage to plug their organization. This was also great fun. The prior year we had many people who ran over their thirty seconds. But this year we were rehearsed and no one was pulled off stage. Camp Quest West’s David Diskin did a “repeat after me limerick” and others were humorous or just factual. As an exhibitor myself, I felt that the organizers cared and treated us like we were an integral part of the conference experience.

Steve Silberman—“Everything you Know about Autism History is Wrong”

Silberman is the author of “NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity.” He talked about how he got interested in the autism discussion back in the 1990s when he postulated that maybe genetics were responsible for autism and not vaccines, which were normally blamed at that time. Silberman noticed that many tech people had children that were autistic, and suggested “some of the genes for autism might even prove to be advantageous in the tech industry.” At the time he started writing about autism, he was reading in the press that everyone was puzzled why there was a rise in autism. This confused him as he thought it was something the scientific world should know, and that is when he started researching the history of autism research. Silberman recounted what he had learned. I’m not going to reiterate that here, you will just have to read his book. But I can tell you that I was fascinated, and not just when the Nazi’s entered the story.

Jeff Sheehy—“CRISPR and the Promise and Perils of Gene Editing”

Sheehy’s lecture centered on the downsides and dangers as well as the positives of gene editing. He covered stem cells, T-cells, SCID, and CRISPR. He stated that the FDA has been lagging on approving these therapies; in Europe it is much more welcoming.

Jerry Schwarz—“Experience Testing Claims of Psychic Powers”

San Francisco Independent Investigation Group (IIG) founder talked about his experiences with designing protocols for applicants hoping to test for the $100K paranormal challenge.

Carolyn Porco—“A Decade Exploring Saturn”

Amazing photos of Saturn though out this presentation, we were all engaged with the latest news and her past history with Saturn. Porco was the focus of the article I wrote for SI “Isabela.” I hope you find it inspiring. Available at http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/isabela.

Indre Viskontas—“Brain Myths: Lessons from Neuroscience”

Viskontas recounted several of the brain myths that are popular these days, and how understanding these myths explains what we do know about the brain. Her talk was quite humorous and even I was able to understand everything she was talking about, and that is quite an achievement.

Debra Berliner—“Vaccinating Every California Child: SB277 and Beyond”

This lecture started out by explaining herd immunity and how personal belief exceptions (PBE) are usually found in clusters. In 2013, only 2.3 percent of California school children were not vaccinated because of the exceptions. Berliner makes the point that this shows that a “very small percent are anti-vax, but they are really vocal, and they have a powerful voice.” She explained that overall, children in California are about 93 percent up-to-date on their vaccinations. Then she explained the history behind the campaign to stop PBE in California for nonmedical reasons, starting with the story of when Mickey got measles. She discovered that it is really easy to find a doctor that will give a parent a PBE so anti-vax parents have a way of getting around vaccination law. She suggested that parents treat getting vaccinations as a default position and to be proud and vocal about getting vaccinations, just as you would if you wore a “I voted” sticker to show others that you had just voted.

Frank Mosher—“Workshop for Producing Skeptical Children”

This was the third year for this workshop. This is a hands-on workshop where the adults can blow things up, make magnetic goo, and let out their inner child. Each year, Mosher teaches the room new science experiments. This year the audience exploded balloons filled with hydrogen by lighting them on fire. Anytime we get to use fire I’m a happy camper. We also used dry ice for many experiments and made silly-putty.

Henry Gilbert—“Homo erectus: An inconvenient Transitional Truth”

This lecture made it clear that it is really difficult to classify fossils; within the evolutionary biology community there are a lot of opinions. Homo erectus has become a kind of catchall; sometimes the phrase “in the broad sense” is used to qualify it. “The more stuff you find the more different morphologies you find.” Gilbert stated that one of the difficulties of classifying fossils is that it is very difficult to test the claim. He said, “It is hard to teach human origins as it all is pretty confused and it shouldn’t be… it actually is a simple story.” One thing that is clear, Gilbert stated, that you have to have a skeptical attitude; people have agendas that you have to watch out for.

Ryan Kane—“Magic: Please enjoy responsibly”

Kane brought the convention to a close with a great magic show. Kane has his own unique humor that shows he is enjoying performing as much as we enjoy watching the show.

Monterey County Skeptics had nine representatives in attendance; four had never been to a skeptic conference before, not even a SkeptiCamp. After the event at dinner, seven of us went through all the lectures, rehashing them, and remembering favorite parts. Also because of the breakouts, not everyone saw all the lectures so they were telling others what they missed. On our two hour drive home that night, we four were still talking about things we learned and the questions we would have liked to have asked. Everyone I talked to had a good time, were inspired to attend again next year, and felt more involved. And really that is what it’s all about isn’t it. Building a community through our love of science and skepticism, fueling the flames that keep us putting up with the BS we hear at work and around us. We need this one-on-one with friendly, knowledgeable, like-minded thinkers.

I encourage everyone to attend at least one skeptic conference every year. If you can’t make it to one that is out of your area and there isn’t one nearby, then consider gathering together some of your peeps and meeting at the local pub for a pint or a burger. If you can’t find a speaker, then at least choose a topic and discuss it. A Skeptic’s in the Pub event can be very informal: put out a notice on your social media and just pick a date and place and show up. Make it a venue you enjoy. Add a sign at your table, or tell the wait staff to send anyone asking about the “skeptic meetup” your way. If no one shows up, then you have had a bite or drink alone and try again next month. Repeat until you find your crew; they are out there, probably wondering if they are all alone in the community. We need to find each other and support good scientific skepticism. Trust me on this.

Lawrence Krauss is a renowned theoretical physicist at Arizona State University. He was one of the first to suggest that most of the energy of the universe resides in empty space, an idea that today is called dark energy. Krauss has authored more than 300 scientific publications and ten books for general audiences. He has participated in several discussions and debates to popularize science and has lectured around the world about his latest book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. As the title suggests, the book explains that our universe might have come from nothing. Krauss was recently named the 2015 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

Felipe Nogueira: You mentioned on several occasions that science is not a thing, rather it’s a process. What’s science all about?

Lawrence Krauss: Science is a method for distinguishing fact from fiction. It’s a method for asking questions systematically and for answering those questions in a way that it’s possible to test. Science is a method based on empirical evidence. So, one asks questions about the universe, one tests the universe with empirical questions and observations, and then one either confirms or falsifies something. An important thing about science is that you can’t really prove something to be true; you can generally prove something only to be false. But, like Sherlock Holmes, you get rid of all the false stuff and what’s left over is true.

Nogueira: Do you think there is a misconception that science is a matter of opinion and that we should hear all sides of the story?

Krauss: Yes. As I often like to say, a great thing about science is that one side is usually wrong. There are open questions where there is uncertainty and debate. However, the resolution of these debates is not rhetoric or volume but rather nature. So, if you have an idea that simply disagrees with observation, then you throw it out; there is no discussion. There is no need to debate the question of whether Earth is round or whether it’s flat. There are still people who claim Earth is flat, but they are just simply wrong. Similarly, there are some people who don’t think evolution happens, but they are wrong. And those people who argue against human-induced climate change are also simply wrong.

Nogueira: Another point you’ve made is that, in the process of science, we don’t learn how the universe works by logic. What do you mean?

Krauss: Classical logic is based on what seems reasonable, which, in turn, is based on our experience. But as we broaden our experience, what seems reasonable can change; quantum mechanics is the perfect example. It doesn’t seem reasonable for a particle to be in two places at once, but this happens in the quantum mechanical world. Based on observations, you can do careful reasoning and logical arguments. However, to presume in advance what is logical or to use classical logic, one has to be very cautious, because the world is not classical. In the very small and in the very large, the universe behaves in a way that seems paradoxical to us, because our intuition is based on a small segment of reality. Science teaches us that our myopic views don’t necessarily represent all of reality, and we have to be very careful to assume what we think as “sensible” is really the case.

Nogueira: What comments can you make about the misconception that science changes all the time?

Krauss: Science does change; it’s called progress. However, science changes in a very well defined way. This is another big misunderstanding of science: we don’t throw out what has been done before; what satisfies test and experiment will always survive. For example, Newton’s laws have been supplanted by general relativity and quantum mechanics, but Newton’s laws will always apply on its scale. So, for the motions of cannon balls and baseballs, Newton’s laws will always apply.

Nogueira: In several public appearances, you’ve made some comments about philosophy. What’s your opinion about it?

Krauss: Philosophy is useful to reflect on the knowledge generated by science. All the good philosophers I know use rigorous logic and reasoning to reflect on knowledge, interpret it, and ask new questions. So philosophy sometimes is useful for framing questions, but science is what is useful for coming up with answers and for generating that knowledge. I think any philosopher who argues otherwise is overstating the case. I have many friends who are philosophers and I think we all agree that’s what philosophy is good for. Let’s face it: philosophy used to be indistinguishable from physics back in the days of natural philosophy, but they diverged. Philosophy just isn’t the right way to generate knowledge about the world; it’s the way to reflect upon that knowledge.

Nogueira: You’ve said that knowledge that matters is empirical. Can you elaborate?

Krauss: I don’t understand when people say that they can get knowledge by revelation. That just simply leads to delusion. We all, in fact, delude ourselves on a daily basis. We need to be skeptical of ourselves, and we need to test things. Knowledge comes from observation, testing, and experiment. Anyone who claims to have knowledge otherwise cannot demonstrate it, and it’s likely to be wrong.

Nogueira: What is the role of science on morality?

Krauss: Science tells us the consequences of our actions. If we don’t know the consequences of our actions, we can’t even determine what is right and wrong. Then we use reason and empirical evidence to determine what’s appropriate. The laws of most nations are based on reason and empirical evidence, not on some religious doctrine. As Steven Pinker put it, you can ask: How does God know what is right or wrong? There are two possibilities. One is that he invented them arbitrarily; in this case, what’s the point of worrying about that? Or two: he bases what is right or wrong on what is reasonable; but if he does, we can just get rid of the middleman and go directly to the reason ourselves.

Nogueira: What do you mean when you say the universe came from nothing in A Universe From Nothing?

Krauss: Given everything we know and every measure we made about the universe, it’s plausible that the universe came from nothing: no space, no time, no particles, and no radiation. A universe that did come from nothing, by the known laws of physics and some reasonable extrapolations of them, would have the characteristics of our universe.

Nogueira: What are the three levels of nothing that you define in the book?

Krauss: People who don’t like what I say define nothing in a way that only God can create something. For many people nothing was the empty void of the Bible; the empty space is nothing. Of course, that is not nothing, since it can easily create something. The more dramatic version of nothing involves no particles, no radiation, and no space itself. However, space-time could come into existence by any reasonable theory of quantum gravity. Then, there is the final version of nothing: maybe even the laws that govern how things evolve in our universe are accidental and that’s the ultimate version—no laws, no space, no time, no matter, and no radiation.

Nogueira: What are the advantages of quantum computing?

Krauss: Quantum computers are a fascinating idea and would allow you to do certain algorithms that classically you cannot do, such as factoring large numbers into their prime numbers. Every number has a unique expression in terms of a product of primes. The primes that very large numbers are a product of cannot easily be determined. That algorithm is possible in quantum computers. Why should we care? Well, as it turns out, people use large numbers and their prime factors as keys for the security of credit cards and bank accounts. So, if you can factor them easily, then we have to find other ways to secure it. That’s the bad news. The good news, however, is quantum computers can also provide quantum encryption and in a sense allow you to see if someone has been eavesdropping on a message. So there are pros and cons for using quantum computers. However, it’s not clear whether we can practically do it. The quantum world is generally invisible to us, because the interactions of particles with the environment destroy quantum correlations, and it is precisely the quantum correlations you want to exploit to do quantum computing.

Nogueira: You wrote a piece saying that string theory is not a theory in the same way evolution is. Could you clarify?

Krauss: String theory doesn’t really make any predictions at this point because it’s still an evolving idea, and every time it makes predictions, they realize they were premature. The predictions it could make are probably beyond the realm of experiments, although smart theorists continue to think up ways we might be able to test these ideas, like the existence of extra dimensions. There is a very small possibility that we might be able to test extra dimensions in the Large Hadron Collider. And I am very pleased to say I convinced people such as Brian Greene, who is a friend of mine, that string theory is not a theory and it shouldn’t be called a theory.

On September 13 and 27, 2014, a group of advocates for skeptical inquiry met in Hollywood, California, to launch a grassroots skeptics group. Participants decided to name the group the Investigation Network and set as its mission: “to promote scientific skepticism to the public through education, investigation, community service and social activities in Southern California.” True to its mission, this is not a group that merely discusses skepticism; it’s a group focused on the intellectual stimulation and fun of skeptical activism in education and investigation.

The Haunted Red Line Tour

For their first activity, the group went on “The Haunted Red Line [Subway] Tour” provided by the Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles (GHOULA) in October. The 
president of GHOULA is Richard Carra­dine, who according to his blog site has investigated over 200 “haunted” locations all over the world, but locations in Los Angeles are his favorites.

The description of his approach reveals that while he isn’t interested in skeptical inquiry, he isn’t necessarily credulous about ghosts either. According to the GHOULA blog: “His approach to each case is academic. Proving or disproving the spiritual activity of a certain spot isn’t what motivates this ghost hunter. Instead, he is more interested in collecting the stories and eyewitness accounts, and archiving them, as a means of recording them for future studies into these unusual phenomena that clearly affect so many seemingly unconnected people.”

I’m not sure I could have had the patience to sit through a tour led by someone more interested in good stories and eyewitness accounts than in finding out (the typically mundane) explanations for alleged hauntings. Perhaps Carradine’s non-judgmental approach can be described as academic, but I think attempting to separate fact from fiction would be more illuminating and at least as much fun.

I give the participants from the Investigation Network credit for tolerating and even enjoying the tour. If they had found strong evidence of ghost activity, I think we would have heard an announcement by now. Nevertheless, they engaged in some potentially fruitful networking.

On November 25, the Investigation Network distributed educational flyers and free books on skepticism at its “Ask a Skeptic” table at the Pseudoscience Fair put on by the Skeptics Club at Santa Monica College. The Skeptics Club has put on a variety of interesting events, including talks by James Underdown of Center for Inquiry–Los Angeles, Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com, Mick West of contrailscience.com, and Barbara Drescher of ICBS Everywhere and http://www.skeptic.com/insight/.

Theresa Caputo

On November 6, members of the Investigation Network gathered outside the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills to promote critical thinking to those lined up for a performance by Theresa Caputo, who is best known from her title role in Long Island Medium, her TLC (un)reality TV series. They distributed free flyers about “Spotting a Genuine Psychic” and engaged Caputo’s customers in friendly, thought-provoking conversations. They pointed out that while Caputo might talk to dead relatives of people in her audiences, it doesn’t mean that the dead receive her messages or communicate back to her.

Not surprisingly, some of Caputo’s admirers thought the distribution of flyers was inappropriate despite the friendliness of the Investigation Network protesters. Emery Emery, who cohosts the Skeptically Yours and Ardent Atheists podcasts with Heather Henderson, came prepared with an ACLU information pamphlet that explains the rights of protesters. When a manager asked the group to leave the area and threatened to call the police, the Investigation Network knew they had the right to peacefully protest on public property outside the theater and stood their ground. A video summary of the protest is available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XnS5jn4VXA.

On April Fool’s Day 2012, the James Randi Educational Foundation’s media Pigasus Award, given annually to the media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous paranormal claim, was bestowed upon TLC for its “collection of shows that promote belief in paranormal folderol” such as Caputo’s show. Caputo was singled out for the performance Pigasus Award, which is given to the “psychic” performer who fools the greatest number of people with the least effort.

James Randi—who was a magician of international fame long before his skeptical work—noted: “Caputo does what’s known in my trade as ‘cold reading.’ The very best practitioners can pick up enough information in what seems like innocent, idle conversation to convince you that they know very specific things about you. The scientific phenomenon is called the Forer effect—giving credence to vague observations that seem personal.” How successful would Caputo be if people who want to receive communications from dead loved ones recognized how convincing cold readings can be when performed by skilled magicians?

John Edward

On January 3, members of the Investigation Network carried out an educational protest outside the Pasadena Convention Center before a performance by John Edward, another “psychic medium” who claims to be able to receive communications from the dead loved ones of audience members. Edward gained fame for his claimed abilities on his television shows Crossing Over with John Edward and John Edward Cross Country. Critics have observed that he uses common cold reading techniques. Joe Nickell, PhD, senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) noted that Edward may sometimes also perform “hot” readings, which amount to obtaining personal information through non-psychic means such as forms people fill out in advance of performances (Nickell 2010).

The ACLU information pamphlet came in handy during the John Edward protest. Emery Emery knew that the group was rightfully protesting in a public area rather than trespassing on private property. As shown in an entertaining short video available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh2FH
2hB9RA, the police showed up, but Emery was able to convince the officers that they were not in violation of the law.

Cold Reading Workshops

On January 3, the Investigation Network organized a training workshop for its members on cold reading techniques. Micah Cover, a magician, provided the training. If Caputo and Edward had received such training, maybe they wouldn’t make so many gaffes in their own fake psychic readings.

On February 7, the Investigation Network held a workshop at Santa Monica College on cold reading to be led by Mark Edward (not to be confused with John), author of Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium and an Investigation Network participant. Joe Nickell has cautioned against using cold reading techniques on people seeking contact with the dearly departed and then revealing the trickery to show people their vulnerability to deception. He wrote: “. . . to toy with their deepest emotions—however briefly and well intentioned—is to cross a line I prefer not to do. Besides, I believe it can be very counterproductive. It may not be the alleged medium but rather the debunker himself who is perceived as dishonest, and he may come across as arrogant, cynical, and manipulative—not heroic as he imagines” (Nickell 2001, 22).

Learning cold reading techniques in order to demonstrate to the desperate and vulnerable their susceptibility to trickery raises ethical questions. In contrast, learning cold reading techniques in order to become a better investigator of alleged psychic performances is clearly not ethically problematic.

Potential Impact

The activities of the Investigation Network and similar grassroots skeptics groups are important for several reasons. For example, they create enjoyable social activities related to skepticism, provide learning opportunities for serious skeptics and others interested in developing critical thinking skills, and generate publicity for skeptical activism and the importance of critical thinking.

I doubt that the Investigation Network had much impact on people in line to see the psychic mediums. It’s difficult to encourage people who have strongly held beliefs developed through wishful thinking to think carefully and critically. Most people who take “psychics” seriously are much more interested in seeking comfort rather than enlightenment. Isaac Asimov famously wrote: “Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!” (Asimov 1987, 65).

However, if the popularity of grassroots groups such as the Investigation Network can grow significantly over time, their activism may have a significant potential impact in shifting social norms toward the greater tolerance of uncertainty and insecurity that comes with embracing skeptical inquiry. I see participants in Investigation Network activities as trailblazers for ongoing skeptical activism.

[Disclosure: While I have not been involved in any of the educational activities of the Investigation Network I have discussed, I served as facilitator for the group’s September 13 planning meeting, wrote the first draft of its mission statement, and attended its September 27 planning meeting.

References

• Asimov, I. 1987. Past, Present, and Future. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Nickell, J. 2001. John Edward: Hustling the bereaved. Skeptical Inquirer 25(6). Online at http://www.csicop.org/si/show/john_edward_hustling_the_bereaved/.
• Nickell, J. 2010. John Edward: Spirit huckster. Skeptical Inquirer 34(2):17–18. Online at http://www.csicop.org/si/show/john_edward_spirit_huckster/.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced this week that “very hot beverages” had been added to their list of probable carcinogens. The evidence is not conclusive, but the agency finds the connection likely enough to suggest caution when drinking drinks above a certain temperature. But some have questioned whether the average coffee- or tea-drinker actually takes their drink that hot, and thus whether there’s any concern for American drinkers.

The WHO announcement came after a group of twenty-three expert scientists were convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the WHO’s cancer research wing, and the results were published in The Lancet Oncology.

“These results suggest that drinking very hot beverages [at or above 65 °C or 149°F] is one probable cause of oesophageal cancer, and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible,” says Dr. Christopher Wild, IARC Director.

The research ruled out coffee and tea themselves as the cause and was able to determine that it was the heat itself that increased cancer risk. In fact, according to the WHO, “the risk of oesophageal cancer increased with the temperature at which the beverage was drunk.”

If you’ve been following this column for a while, you’ll know it was literally once called “Hot Drinks.” That is how deep my personal love for a hot beverage runs. So you can imagine how I felt when I received the crushing news that hot drinks, while many times less risky than alcohol or cigarettes, were nonetheless now joining them on the list of potential and conclusive esophageal cancer triggers.¹

This announcement, of course, was like a gold-embossed invitation for Internet grouches to come out of the woodwork and prove just how pedantic they can be at 2 pm on a Wednesday.

Here’s this guy, who we’ll call “That Guy,” since that’s what he called himself. He’s probably very nice and maybe even has a bunch of rescued hamsters that he found abandoned in a cardboard box in front of a Michael’s Arts and Crafts. So I won’t pick on him. But he does seem to be awfully annoyed that I posted this Time article about the WHO’s announcement. But is That Guy right that “American/European-style hot drinks” are not hot enough to reach the temperature threshold deemed risky by the WHO?

Outlets such as USA Today seem to bolster his position. There, author Jessica Campisi writes that it’s “extremely hot” drinks that pose a threat, and that according to the president of the National Coffee Association, the average American drinks her coffee at about 140 degrees Fahrenheit, 10 degrees cooler than the 150 degree threshold set by the WHO. The National Coffee Association president even goes on to (somewhat obtusely) claim that, "This is very good news for coffee drinkers. Anyone in the coffee sector would be happy to see the business grow for the right reasons.”

Strange position but OK.

Vox writer Julia Belluz wrote, “There's one thing to keep in mind here: in the countries where the cancer association was discovered, people typically drink their hot teas or matés at temperatures that exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit, which many of us would consider to be scalding.”

Scalding? In the very next paragraph, Belluz goes on to write that “researchers have found the sweet spot for drinking is about 136 degrees Fahrenheit,” but that very study points out that it takes at least a 160 degree coffee to cause scald burns. So we’ve got a pretty significant variance here between what some consider scalding (or think sounds scalding, when they hear the numbers) and what actually burns the skin.

The question remains: If I get a coffee at my local takeout or make tea from my kettle is it typically hot enough to raise my cancer risk? Rather than argue about it in comments sections, I decided to find out myself by getting hot drinks at my local stops and taking their temperatures.

My first stop was my local Starbucks, where I ordered a soy cappuccino. Using a kitchen thermometer, I tested the temperature about forty-five seconds after it was handed my way. The cappuccino, ordered without any extra heat, came in at 149.6 degrees Fahrenheit, barely above the WHO threshold but qualifying as a “very hot drink” and thus a potential cancer trigger if drunk right away. However, maybe it would be too hot to drink, and I would have to wait for it to cool? No dice there. One swig and it was clear that it was drinkably warm but not even hot by my standards. Lest I be thought inhuman, I had my boyfriend try it. He confirmed that he, too, could drink it straight down. Maybe he and I are robots who have been programmed to withstand heat, but if we’re normal people (and I like to think we are), then the potentially dangerous drink temperature is not at all hard to gulp down.

So, Starbucks didn’t pass the “under 149 degrees” test, but the drink did cool down by almost ten degrees within minutes. Even so, the idea that 149 degrees is unbearably hot and that only Asian cultures drink fluid that hot clearly doesn’t hold water.

For the next week, I measured all of my hot drinks, and every single one was served to me at a temperature above the WHO threshold with one exception: the 7/11 coffee was a cool 138 degrees when I bought it at 11 pm. All six other drinks, including the homemade drink brewed in a Keurig coffee maker, were above the threshold, some by more than ten degrees and all of them easily drinkable.

The lesson here is not to avoid hot drinks, nor is it to guzzle them down defiantly, but to recognize that the threshold stated by the WHO is about the same temperature as you might get your coffee at your local coffee shop.

If this concerns you, wait a few minutes. Within five minutes, all of my drinks fell below the “safe” temperature. Or carry around a thermometer in your purse, like I did. I’m telling you, I’m normal.

Notes

1. Worth noting: Hot drinks are now classified as “probable” cancer triggers. Smoking and alcohol are not only “conclusive” cancer triggers but are many times more damaging. Also worth noting: at no point in this article did I use the pun “brew-haha.”

Artículo traducido por Alejandro Borgo, Director del CFI/Argentina.

El doctorado honorífico que recibí por parte de la Universidad Goldsmiths de Londres resulta muy significativo en este momento particular de mi vida.

Me da la oportunidad para hablar con ustedes acerca de mi trabajo sobre las ilusiones de la memoria -o los recuerdos que las personas a veces tienen de haber visto o hecho cosas que nunca vieron o hicieron.

Cuando comencé mi trabajo sobre las ilusiones de la memoria no me imaginaba que se iba a transformar en un tema tan relevante socialmente y tan políticamente explosivo. Por supuesto, las parejas y hermanos discuten interminablemente sobre quién tiene razón respecto de los recuerdos de hechos pasados -ese es un entretenido e irritante aspecto de la vida cotidiana de cualquier familia.

Pero ¿quién podía prever, a fines del siglo XX, la “terapia de recuerdos recuperados”? ¿O que la gente iba a creer fervientemente que recordaba haber sido secuestrada por alienígenas o cultos satánicos? ¿Quién podía saber que en la primera década del siglo XXI nos encontraríamos con cientos de individuos presos inocentes -su inocencia probada por análisis de ADN- y que la principal causa de las injustas condenas que habían recibido se debía a recuerdos defectuosos?

Así, mientras progresaba mi investigación sobre los recuerdos, los descubrimientos se usaban cada vez más para servir a la Justicia.

Para decirlo brevemente, en esa investigación mis colaboradores y yo demostramos que uno puede alterar los recuerdos que las personas tienen sobre crímenes, accidentes y otros hechos. Usted podría hacerle creer a alguien muy fácilmente que un auto iba más rápido de lo que realmente iba o que el malhechor tenía pelo enrulado y no lacio. Luego demostraríamos que usted puede implantar eventos enteros en las mentes de personas comunes y saludables, haciéndoles creer que tuvieron experiencias que nunca ocurrieron -incluso experiencias que podrían haber sido muy traumáticas si hubieran ocurrido de verdad.

This article was originally featured in Skeptical Inquirer in English.
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De manera que es posible advertir cómo estos descubrimientos podrían aplicarse para servir a la justicia. Nos ayudan a entender cómo un manejo inapropiado de los testimonios de testigos puede llevar a recuerdos falsos y a la condena de gente inocente. Nos ayudan a comprender cómo las terapias coercitivas o de sugestión pueden hacer que la gente desarrolle recuerdos de haber sido abusada en un culto satánico, acusaciones que pueden provocar una miseria indecible a personas inocentes y a sus familias.

Al mismo tiempo, esta investigación se transformó en una controversia emocional y en el foco de una tremenda hostilidad entre quienes no podían aceptar sus descubrimientos o implicaciones respecto del mundo real. En mi caso particular, personas muy disgustadas me escribieron incontables cartas amenazantes. Habían tratado de generar una campaña de cartas de lectores dirigidas al responsable de mi anterior departamento académico, el Presidente de la Universidad, e incluso al gobernador del Estado para que me expulsen. Amenazaron con tomar represalias violentas en los lugares donde había sido invitada a hablar, en varias ocasiones sugiriendo a las universidades que pusieran guardias armados para acompañarme durante los discursos. La gente divulgó insultos difamatorios en cartas individuales, en columnas de periódicos, y por supuesto, en Internet. Una persona llegó a denunciarme ante la justicia cuando publiqué un artículo que cuestionaba la veracidad de un estudio psiquiátrico sobre los recuerdos recuperados de abuso sexual maternal de una joven mujer. El litigio duró casi cinco años hasta que terminó.

A través de estas experiencias, aprendí de primera mano que la ciencia nunca es desapasionada, por lo menos si uno está estudiando algo que tenga implicaciones políticas, económicas, emocionales o financieras en la vida de la gente: testimonios de niños, sexo, falta de confiabilidad de tests proyectivos como el Rorschach, o en mi caso, ilusiones de la memoria. Podría haber elegido estudiar la memoria de una babosa marina -puesto que difícilmente alguien fuera experto en ello. Pero elegí estudiar la memoria humana, el testimonio de testigos, los falsos recuerdos, la confabulación en los adultos y niños, y los métodos terapéuticos dañinos. Y tuve grandes problemas.

Sin embargo estoy orgullosa del trabajo que logré hacer como psicóloga científica y de la gente que tuve la oportunidad de ayudar. He aprendido a aceptar las confusiones y el fastidio como el precio que todos los científicos pagan por hacer investigaciones que se ocupan o desafían creencias muy arraigadas.

Y todo esto me retrotrae a Goldsmiths: estoy especialmente agradecida por el doctorado honorífico que me otorgaron – donde un número de magníficos académicos están haciendo investigaciones que desafían las más profundas creencias, y también sobre lo que le preocupa a la gente. Es por ello que este honor tiene un significado más que especial, conmovedor y significativo para mí.

Artículo traducido por Alejandro Borgo, Director del CFI/Argentina.

Los científicos chiflados son muy proclives a trivializar y abusar de la ciencia -especialmente de la física- y particularmente de la física fundamental.

Por eso es crucial luchar contra la pseudociencia donde más le duele: en el nivel fundamental. Si bien hay muchas críticas hacia los promotores de la falsa ciencia y sus ideas son desacreditadas en los hechos, hay pocos análisis profundos disponibles sobre la forma falaz en que hacen mal uso de la ciencia fundamental. En este artículo, mi propósito es ayudar a corregir las cosas, llenando las lagunas existentes. Uno de los primeros en vulgarizar la física fundamental fue Deepak Chopra, cuyo uso indiscriminado de palabras tales como quantum, energía, campo y no-localidad los torna tan frívolos como un eructo luego de hacer un curso para aprender a cocinar pollo tandori. Por consiguiente, vale la pena examinar su “física” y desentrañar las indignantes burradas conceptuales que inventa innecesariamente, especialmente cuando éstas sirven como fundamento de las conclusiones que vende a sus lectores y seguidores como hechos científicos.

El libro

Chopra logró la celebridad cuando publicó La curación cuántica (Quantum Healing), libro vanguardista sobre la medicina mente/cuerpo en el cual engaña a sus lectores haciéndoles creer que la medicina india tradicional, Ayurdeva, tiene base científica. Desde entonces, su misión es vender el mensaje que dice que el universo es consciente, que la conciencia crea y gobierna la materia, y que la física moderna está en el corazón de este mensaje. La táctica perniciosa que usa para dicho propósito es decorar sus discursos y escritos con los nombres de físicos famosos como Einstein, Planck, Schrödinger y Heinsenberg, y atribuirles sus propias ideas sobre la mente y la materia. (1)

Dado que La curación cuántica inició la novedosa trivialización de uno de los logros científicos e intelectuales más grandes de la humanidad, resulta instructivo presentar al lego una rigurosa evaluación científica del contenido del libro. Pero primero tenemos que evaluar la integridad profesional del autor. Después de todo, la premisa principal de la ciencia es la honestidad. Stanley Pons y Martin Fleischmann eran científicos confiables antes de su apresurado anuncio del descubrimiento de la fusión en frío, en marzo de 1989, luego del cual cayeron en desgracia frente a la comunidad científica (Huizenga, 1992). ¿Puede La curación cuántica pasar el test de honestidad científica?

El título del libro proclama una idea revolucionaria que requiere del autor un nivel de integridad intelectual equivalente a la de otros científicos revolucionarios. La integridad se ve, en parte, por la forma en que los científicos usualmente reconocen a los individuos que han tenido un rol en la construcción de las ideas expresadas en el trabajo. Einstein, en su artículo sobre la revolucionaria teoría especial de la relatividad, reconoce a su desconocido amigo Michele Besso, quien trabajaba con él en la oficina de patentes de Berna (Einstein, 1952). En un apartado en el que relata cómo nació la relatividad especial, Einstein profundiza sobre las conversaciones que tenía con Besso y cómo esas conversaciones ayudaron a consolidar su idea de la relatividad del tiempo (Hassani 2010, 362). De forma similar, dos artículos fundamentales de Planck que dieron origen a la teoría cuántica contienen numerosas menciones de los físicos que lo ayudaron a moldear la idea del quantum. Su gratitud se manifiesta principalmente en la conferencia que dio cuando ganó el premio Nobel, donde atribuye su descubrimiento del cuanto electromagnético a Ludwig Boltzmann, creador de la mecánica estadística, declarando “...este problema me llevó automáticamente a una consideración de... las ideas de Boltzmann; hasta que luego de algunas semanas del trabajo más extenuante de mi vida, la oscuridad devino en luz, y una inimaginable perspectiva se abrió delante mío” (Planck, 1918).

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Semejantes reconocimientos de los descubridores de las ideas científicas no solo son un signo de honestidad sino también un recordatorio de que la ciencia es una emprendimiento colectivo que abarca no solo la invención de una sola persona sino la colaboración de una comunidad que llega a todo el globo y se extiende hacia el pasado y el futuro. Con el objetivo de contribuir con la ciencia, uno primero tiene que enterarse de las contribuciones relevantes hechas por otros científicos; uno puede ver más adelante solo “subiéndose a los hombros de los gigantes”, y cualquier “nuevo tipo de ciencia” que contradiga las ideas establecidas y empíricamente probadas sin presentar buena evidencia en contra solo puede ser el invento de un chiflado.

Chopra debería atenerse estrictamente al estándar de integridad como los científicos que a él tanto le gusta mencionar en sus discursos y escritos. Así es no solo porque está escribiendo sobre (su distorsionada versión de la) ciencia, sino también porque tiene millones de seguidores que literalmente lo consideran como un profeta. Sus palabras, empañadas por una terminología robada a la ciencia -una disciplina venerada y confiable, aunque incomprendida por la gente- son máximas poderosas y eslóganes para sus discípulos.

La estafa: la desaparición de Maharishi

El autor de un trabajo sobre hechos reales que tenga honestidad intelectual, solo publica una segunda edición cuando hay cambios sustanciales en el contenido del trabajo, generalmente años después de la edición original. Dichos cambios, y la razón y el propósito de ellos, se expresan claramente en el prefacio de la nueva edición, mientras que el prefacio de la edición anterior también se deja en el libro con el propósito de compararlos. La edición de tapa dura de La curación cuántica salió en 1989 y la edición en rústica en 1990. En la Introducción, Chopra relata sus encuentros con “uno de los más grandes sabios vivos”, que le impartió algunas técnicas antiguas que “restaurarían las habilidades para curar con la mente” (Chopra 1989, 2-4; también disponible online en http://skepticaleducator.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IntroToFirstEd.pdf). En uno de los encuentros, el sabio le dice a Chopra: He estado esperando largo tiempo para sacar a relucir algunas técnicas especiales. Creo que van a transformarse en la medicina del futuro. Se conocían en el pasado remoto pero se perdieron en la confusión del tiempo; ahora quiero que las aprendas, y al mismo tiempo quiero que expliques clara y científicamente cómo funcionan. (2).

Por lo que dice, uno tiene la inequívoca impresión de que si no fuera por sus contactos con este gran sabio, Chopra nunca se hubiera encontrado con el “descubrimiento” descrito en su libro. De hecho, se siente en deuda con el sabio al que le dedica el libro “con todo mi corazón y las más profundas gracias al Maharishi Mahesh Yogi” (Chopra, 1989; también disponible online en http://skepticaleducator.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Dedication.pdf). Como la influencia del Maharishi en el “descubrimiento” de Chopra es evidente a lo largo del libro, uno podría pensar que, al igual que un científico honesto, Chopra esta reconociendo las conversaciones que tuvo con el sabio y cómo esas conversaciones pueden haberle ayudado a moldear sus ideas. Sin embargo, ello sería pensar prematuramente porque el reconocimiento aparece solo hasta la décimo-cuarta edición del libro.

La décimo-sexta edición y las que le siguen (3) parecen ser la “segunda edición” porque contienen una sola página titulada “Prefacio a la Nueva Edición”. Sin embargo, la usual leyenda “Segunda Edición” ha desaparecido de la tapa. Más aún, al contrario que cualquier nueva edición, no tiene el prefacio de la primera edición. Así que... ¿Por qué escribir el prefacio para la “nueva edición”? Un cambio sospechoso en la nueva edición es que todas las citas del nombre del Maharishi fueron quitadas; los encuentros con él, que fueron el punto de partida de la curación cuántica, no se mencionan; las técnicas cruciales del “sonido primordial”, que eran “las terapias curativas más fuertes en Ayurveda” y se prescribían para enfermedades incurables como el cáncer, desaparecieron; no hay mención alguna de la revelación de “algún gran secreto” que haya tenido lugar luego del encuentro con el Maharishi; no se menciona cómo el Maharishi le enseñó a Chopra “cómo perforar la máscara de la materia”. Por lo tanto, el nuevo prefacio parece una pantalla de humo para que Chopra borre el nombre de la persona que le implantó la idea del libro en su mente.

Este borrado se manifiesta desvergonzadamente en las bibliografías de las dos “ediciones”. En la bibliografía de las impresiones anteriores del libro, Chopra escribe “Recomiendo enfáticamente los siguientes once libros, todos los cuales participaron en mi educación sobre estas fascinantes disciplinas” (Chopra, 1989; también disponible online en http://skepticaleducator.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Biblio1.pdf). Dos de estos once libros son del Maharishi. En la bibliografía de la décimo-sexta edición y posteriores, también recomienda once libros, pero ¡solo figuran nueve! (4). Ustedes pueden imaginarse cuáles dos faltan. Dicha acción, que debería avergonzar a Chopra y su editor, y en un frenético apuro que solo puede atribuirse a charlatanes y estafadores que quieren ocultar la evidencia, Chopra borró toda huella del nombre del Maharishi y la influencia del gurú en La curación cuántica, pero se olvidó de contar el nombre de libros que permanecieron en la bibliografía.

La “segunda edición” ¿tenía cambios sustanciales en el contenido del libro? Aunque Chopra menciona el cambio en sus visiones en el prefacio de la nueva edición, no dice cómo el cambio afectó su contenido. De hecho, si comparan las páginas de la primera y segunda ediciones, como yo hice, encontrarán que prácticamente no hay cambios en el contenido exceptuando el borrado de cualquier referencia al Maharishi. Lo que hace que todo sea sospechoso es que no hay explicación alguna para cualquiera de estos cambios en el libro.

La metida de pata: “Explicación” luego de la muerte del Maharishi

Como colaborador habitual de The Huffington Post, Chopra escribió apresuradamente un artículo el 13 de febrero de 2008 (disponible online en http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-maharishi-years-the-u_b_86412.html). Es importante examinar las partes más destacadas del artículo, como la narración de la turbulenta relación de Chopra con el Maharishi, especialmente porque el artículo está lleno de relatos de encuentros íntimos entre los dos, con extrañas afirmaciones que a menudo se parecen a milagros. Chopra comienza el artículo informando la publicación de su libro Perfect Health, en 1991, por lo menos seis años antes de conocer al Maharishi. No menciona su anterior libro, La curación cuántica, por lejos su libro más influyente, germen de la idea de lo que fue implantado en su mente luego de varios encuentros con el gurú. Ignora completamente que en 1985, inmediatamente después de sus reuniones con el Maharishi, renunció a su trabajo en en New England Memorial Hospital para fundar el Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center, en Boston (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra). No menciona el hecho de que fue en este Centro donde tomaron forma sus ideas para escribir La curación cuántica (Chopra, 1989). No explica por qué cambió el nombre del centro a Ayurveda Health Center en las últimas ediciones del libro.

Chopra continúa: “Cuando estaba en meditación tuve una visión del Maharishi acostado en una cama de hospital con sondas intravenosas en su cuerpo respirando con un respirador”. Inmediatamente tomó un avión desde Chicago hasta (Nueva) Delhi y encontró al Maharishi exactamente como lo vio en su visión. Debido al grave estado del Maharishi, se decidió que viajara a Londres. Chopra toma un vuelo a Londres y hace arreglos para que el Maharishi sea admitido en un hospital privado. Mientras estaba parado fuera del hospital, mirando la ambulancia entre el tránsito, uno de los médicos acompañantes fue con la noticia de que el Maharishi había muerto súbitamente. Chopra corre hacia la ambulancia “levantando el cuerpo del Maharishi y llevándolo en mis brazos entre el tránsito de Londres”. Sin embargo, luego de veinticuatro a treinta y seis horas el asistente les informó que el Maharishi se estaba recuperando milagrosamente.

Pero la recuperación fue un tanto lenta. “Llegó un punto en el que el médico nos informó que (el Maharishi) tenía una anemia severa y necesitaba una transfusión de sangre. Cuando chequearon el tipo de sangre del Maharishi, resultó ser que yo era el único dador compatible”. Luego del hospital, el Maharishi fue trasladado a una casa de campo en el sudeste de Inglaterra donde “pasé horas cuidándolo personalmente”. El Maharishi estuvo fuera de circulación durante casi un año; pocos miembros del movimiento de Meditación Trascendental sabían dónde estaba. Luego de recuperarse totalmnte, lo llevaron en helicóptero a la pequeña villa de Vlodrop, en Holanda.

No está claro quién decidió llevarse al Maharishi a un lugar donde no lo viera nadie. Lo que está claro es que el permaneció en Vlodrop mientras Chopra “fue enviado, como uno de sus principales emisarios, en un vuelo de rutina... Donde iba me respetaban como a mi gurú, con ceremonias que rayaban la veneración”. En julio de 1993, Chopra fue a ver al Maharishi en sus habitaciones privadas para darle “sus respetos”, y el Maharishi dijo, “La gente me está diciendo que estás compitiendo conmigo... Quiero que dejes de viajar y vivas aquí en el ashram conmigo”. También quería que Chopra pare de escribir libros. Luego las deliveraciones llegaron a un ultimátum, “Me dio veinticuatro horas para que me decida”.

El 13 de febrero de 2008, cuando el artículo apareció en el Huffington Post, habían pasado solo ocho días desde la muerte del Maharishi y más de catorce años luego de que Chopra cortara relaciones con él en el segundo semestre de 1993. Chopra debía haber tenido el artículo listo cuando el Maharishi estaba en su lecho de muerte. ¿Qué motivos puede tener uno para esperar catorce años para contar una historia con tanto autobombo y tan íntima sobre una relación entre una persona y otra, y luego publicar la historia inmediatamente después de la muerte de la última? ¿Podría haber alguna intención de manchar los hechos?

Cualquier lector inteligente que no se ha dejado deslumbrar por el encanto de Chopra puede ver en el artículo del Huffington Post el poder de la lucha entre un viejo gurú y un discípulo conspirador que está tratando de robarle la congregación al gurú para beneficiarse personalmente? El lector también puede detectar el indignante intento de retratarse a sí mismo como un ser sobrehumano con un poder de cura milagroso, alguien que puede ver hechos que suceden a miles de millas. Por el contrario, un seguidor, cree cada palabra de la historia y la divulga a otros potenciales seguidores. Este es el público para el que Chopra escribió el artículo. Y este es el público que debería estar alerta acerca de su deshonestidad profesional.

La eliminación por parte de Chopra de todas las referencias al Maharishi en las últimas ediciones de La curación cuántica -independientemente de cualquier conflicto personal que él pueda haber tenido con el gurú- revela su falta de integridad profesional, de acuerdo con su propia admisión en las ediciones anteriores, de que sus varios encuentros con el Maharishi fueron los que lo inspiraron a “explicar, clara y científicamente, cómo (las técnicas de Ayurveda) funcionaban”. Y su explicación del conflicto, publicadas apresuradamente en el Huffington Post inmediatamente después de la muerte del Maharishi, es un signo revelador de su hipocresía profesional.

Parafraseando una famosa cita del fallecido Carl Sagan, los títulos de libros extraordinarios requieren un profesionalismo extraordinario. Este artículo ha documentado suficiente evidencia que demuestra que el profesionalismo de Deepak Chopra al escribir La curación cuántica, es de tan baja calidad que raya en la charlatanería.

Notas

1. En la conferencia de apertura (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ijyqWzDrY&feature=kp) que Chopra dio en una reunión organizada por Salesforce en 2013, repetidamente menciona los nombres de varios científicos famosos, incluyendo a Newton, Einstein, Planck, etc., para convencer a la audiencia que la energía oscura y la materia oscura no solo son desconocidas sino también “incognoscibles” y que los científicos no deberían esconder la verdad. El videoclip en https://youtu.be/dA89wWI6ljo compara el mensaje de Chopra con otro poeta/profeta que también advertía sobre buscar la verdad y sirvió a los fines de pavimentar el camino hacia el Oscurantismo.
2. Parece que el sabio estaba equivocado. Una técnica que de alguna manera está relacionada a la ciencia viene después de que se haya obtenido el conocimiento científico como prerrequisito. Uno nunca empieza con una técnica y luego solicita (o exige) una explicación científica. Es como si el papa le pidiera a un científico católico que ¡encuentre una base científica para el Ave María!
3. No he visto la décimoquinta edición, así que no sé si el nombre del Maharishi está presente o no.
4. Debido a que la “segunda edición” de La curación cuántica es solo una farsa, las fechas que aparecen en la página del copyright se refieren a la primera “edición”, o sea la de 1989 en tapa dura y la de 1990 para la edición comercial. Por lo tanto es difícil referir la “segunda edición” -que presumiblemente apareció en 1993 o 1994 luego de que Chopra rompiera con el gurú- de manera apropiada. Solo mirando el número de edición en la página del copyright uno puede anticipar si el libro contiene o no el nombre del Maharishi. En la trigésimo-cuarta edición que compré en 2013, Chopra no corrigió la bibliografía: todavía recomienda once libros y ¡hace una lista de nueve! Esta bibliografía se puede encontrar online en http://skepticaleducator.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Chopras-bibliography.pdf.
5. La fecha del post ha cambiado al menos una vez desde que la descubrí por primera vez el 2 de julio de 2011. El 18 de marzo de 2015, la fecha se cambió al 31/12/1969, 7:00 pm EST y el post parece haber sido actualizado el ¡17/11/2011! Hay una copia disponible en http://skepticaleducator.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Deepak-Chopra-The-Maharishi-Years-The-Untold-Story-Recollections-of-a-Former-Disciple-.pdf) En mi opinión, 31/12/1969 7:00 pm EST es la época de algunas plataformas, y es el default al cual el sistema revierte cuando la fecha y hora de un archivo es ingresado incorrectamente.

Referencias

Chopra, D. 1989. Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. New York: Bantam Books.

Einstein, A. 1952. The Principle of Relativity. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Hassani, S. 2010. From Atoms to Galaxies. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Huizenga, J. 1992. Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.

Planck, M. 1918. Nobel lecture. Available at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1918/planck-lecture.html.

Glucosamine and chondroitin are widely used for osteoarthritis pain. My daughter even gives them to her elderly horse. Their popularity is puzzling, since the evidence from scientific studies indicates that they don’t work.

Wikipedia has a useful survey of the history, studies, criticisms, and systematic reviews (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trials_on_glucosamine_and_chondroitin). It includes a long list of references. I won’t repeat all that here, I’ll just say the evidence is inconsistent and the consensus is that there is little or no clinical benefit.

Claims of Effectiveness

Misleading claims of effectiveness are often based on the GAIT trial (https://nccih.nih.gov/news/2006/022206.htm). That was a large, well-designed study of patients with knee pain from osteoarthritis. It compared glucosamine (G), chondroitin (C), both (G/C), celecoxib (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or NSAID), and placebo. Only celecoxib outperformed placebo. Basically, the study showed that G, C, and G/C didn’t work; none of them were superior to placebo. But when they looked at subgroups, they found that the G/C combination appeared to work better than placebo for patients with moderate to severe pain: 79 percent had a 20 percent or greater pain reduction, compared to 54 percent for placebo. The study authors cautioned that it might be a statistical hiccup; the moderate-to-severe pain group was too small to draw any conclusions. The media reporting was mixed. Some newspaper headlines said, “New study shows that glucosamine and chondroitin don’t work.” Others trumpeted, “Glucosamine/chondroitin proven effective!” You would think they were reporting on two different studies!

That wasn’t the end of the GAIT study. The first phase had looked at pain levels. In the second phase, they looked at preventing joint damage in the knee over two years, and found G/C ineffective. Patients taking G/C had more joint space loss than those taking G or C alone, but the difference was not statistically significant. It was speculated that taking the two supplements together might limit their absorption (http://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/treatments/natural/supplements-herbs/glucosamine-chondroitin-osteoarthritis.php).

In the third phase lasting four years, the pain relief with G/C was no better than with placebo.

In 2013, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) issued a 1,200 page report evaluating the evidence for various treatments for knee osteoarthritis. They concluded, “We cannot recommend using glucosamine and chondroitin for patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee.” And they said their conclusion was based on “strong” evidence (http://www.aaos.org/research/guidelines/OAKSummaryofRecommendations.pdf).

A new study, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4717399/, the MOVES trial, was published in January 2016. It looked only at patients with moderate-to-severe knee pain from osteoarthritis, and found that G/C was as effective as celecoxib at six months. That might sound impressive until you examine the details: celecoxib worked better than G/C for the first four months, and there was no placebo comparison group.

Reasons to Be Skeptical

• Why would a treatment work for moderate-to-severe pain but not for lesser levels of pain? That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know of any other pain treatment that works that way. If it worked well for moderate-to-severe pain, shouldn’t it work even better for mild-to-moderate pain? Doesn’t aspirin work better for mild headaches than for severe ones?
• Synergistic effects are not unknown, but it is very rare for an effect to depend on combining two treatments.
• Both G and C are found naturally in the body. The amount in supplements is on the order of 1/1000th or 1/10,000th of the amount produced by the body itself. They are not essential nutrients like vitamins. How likely is it that such a small dose could produce a large effect?
• In a 2004 study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15478160) of patients who had reported relief from glucosamine, there was no difference between those who continued on glucosamine and those who were switched to a placebo substitute without their knowledge.
• When a treatment is truly effective, the evidence accumulates and becomes stronger over time. This has not happened with G/C.

So Why Do People Ignore the Evidence?

In a world of Vulcans like Mr. Spock, people would look at the evidence and conclude that G/C was probably not worth trying. But science and critical thinking don’t come naturally to humans. Evolution shaped us to prefer stories to studies, anecdotes to analyses, emotion to evidence. If you know someone who says G/C worked for them, that carries a disproportionate amount of weight. You can rationalize that the studies didn’t rule out the possibility that G/C was effective for some individuals. If you distrust authority, you may suspect that the evidence has been biased by doctors and scientists who are defending their turf (conventional mainstream medicine and the status quo). If you are a conspiracy buff, you might suspect that Big Pharma has been misleading patients for profit. If you are in pain, you would love to believe that there is something out there that will give you relief and that is safer and less expensive than prescription drugs. People want to believe in G/C, and they can easily find reasons to disregard the evidence. Hope springs eternal.

Alan Melikdjanian is the creator and star of the humorous Captain Disillusion web series, a superhero on a fictional children’s show. While the word debunker might seem like a negative word, in this case I can’t think of a better word for what Melikdjanian does. He takes viral videos showing floating cities, UFO’s, shadow people, and more, then produces high-quality videos explaining how the video was faked. In some cases, the viral video is not a hoax but a natural freaky occurrence. Viewers interpret the video as being paranormal, and Melikdjanian explains what visually is really going on.

Captain D’s catch phrase is “Love with your heart: use your brain for everything else.” I think it’s about time the community learned more about the man behind the makeup.

Susan Gerbic: Alan, I first became aware of you in 2008 when someone mentioned that you had attended the JREF Amazing Meeting as yourself, Alan Melikdjanian, and only revealed to a few people that you had this web series that debunked fake viral videos as a superhero that wears a yellow and black tracksuit. I was intrigued, looked up your videos, and realized you have amazing talent. And I loved your character Captain D. The person who mentioned you was surprised that you were keeping quiet about who you were, as even back then you were attracting attention. You don’t come across as shy; were you just checking out our community? Not quite sure you wanted to start getting involved?

Alan Melikdjanian: I was checking out the community, but that’s not the reason I kept to myself. I am in fact painfully shy. My videos may show an obnoxious, quick-witted super(ish) hero, but I’m very different in real life. I feel nervous even talking to you right now, which is crazy because we’re doing this in writing!

Gerbic: From what I have heard, you became aware of organized skepticism through Penn and Teller. What were your first impressions of this community at that time? And have you revised your views?

Melikdjanian: Yes, I liked P&T’s Bullshit series. Analyzing everyday things critically with irreverent humor felt refreshing and made me realize I thought the same way about… well, let’s say most things, without knowing the name for it. They regularly mentioned James Randi on the show. I watched some of his talks on YouTube and thought, “Hmm, cool dude.” Cut to a year or so later: James Randi calls ME on the phone, having seen my YouTube videos, and invites me to visit the JREF. I was led though a series of iron gates and airlocks to a radiation-proof chamber in which Randi, emitting a subtle amber glow as he spoke, showed me a couple of magic tricks and introduced me to the concept of skepticism and the skeptic movement. I wasn’t sure about being part of a community because I am a loner, a rebel. But TAM sounded extremely fun, so I went and it certainly was.

Gerbic: The Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project rewrote your Wikipedia page in 2012. It had twelve citations when we got involved, and now it is up to twenty-three and counting. The main photo is one I took when you came to TAM 9 as Captain Disillusion. Can you give readers an overview of your biography for those people who have yet to read your Wikipedia page?

Melikdjanian: First let me say thank you to GSoW for the great work you do. I’m not sure how I got on Wikipedia, but since I’m there, it’s reassuring to know I’m in good hands.

I was born and grew up in Soviet Union, which from a toddler’s perspective seemed like an ok place except for the relatively muted colors of all my toys. My parents were circus performers. I came to the U.S. in 1993, at the age of twelve and was interested in pursuing a career in animation. But I soon realized animation is an art that can be studied in solitude, through books and tutorials. Filmmaking, however, is a team effort and a special kind of discipline that you have to experience with other people and practice like a sport. So I went to film school and diligently studied every aspect of how to tell effective stories through the multifaceted language of cinema. Now I use that to make strangely elaborate YouTube videos.

Gerbic: Please tell us more about Captain D. Is he your alter ego?

Melikdjanian: Alter ego? He’s ALL ego. Captain Disillusion is a self-proclaimed superhero that appears to be hosting a children’s show from the corner of a barren red room, except there is no audience or cameras. He explains why and how various viral videos were faked, usually involving visual effects trickery. Frankly, the whole thing seems shady and we might want to inquire into this guy’s mental stability. He’s somewhat charming, though, in an awkward way. Eh, he’s probably fine.

And I, for one, don’t think we look anything alike.

Gerbic: YouTube is an amazing medium. You seem to have figured out how to grab a following—the last time I checked you had over 200,000 subscribers. Any advice you would give to someone just starting out?

Melikdjanian: Susan, let me tell you about my 3 Rs of YouTube success: 1) Regularize your posts, 2) Rally your subscribers, 3) Ride the social media wave. If you use my patented system, I GUARANTEE that you will become an instant YouTube success!

No, I’m actually a terrible case study for how to do well on YouTube because I’ve always actively avoided doing all of the above. Yes, I have just over 200k subscribers right now, but I’ve been on YouTube since 2007. And I’ve seen plenty of people join and leave me in the dust in terms of subscriber count within a couple of months. But I think the method by which you achieve popularity sticks with you. If you get a million subscribers because you’re really good at self-promotion and being edgy, then you’ll be known for just that. The only thing I want to be known for how good my videos are, so I focus 100 percent of my attention on making them good.

Gerbic: What do you think your web series brings to the table as far as scientific skepticism?

Melikdjanian: I think my videos are mostly aimed at people who are not aware of or interested in learning about science or skepticism at all. It’s 95 percent entertainment and 5 percent education, on a good month. But I hope some percentage of those viewers get subliminally inspired to check out the work of more substantive skeptics after watching my stuff and go on a journey toward thinking more critically from there. I’m a gateway drug.

Gerbic: I really want to ask you about “The Undebunkable” video that you uploaded July 11, 2016. I love your videos; every time I see a new one I just shake my head and say “that was awesome,” but this one is very different. It’s by far my favorite, and not just because I get a cameo for two seconds. It is a commentary on people taking skepticism too far, turning into cynics or conspiracy theorists. Do I have that right? Why do you think this message is needed now?

Melikdjanian: Thanks! Subscribers often send me suggestions of videos to analyze, which I like. But recently I’ve seen a spike in the number of videos people automatically assume are fake even though there’s no reason to think so. It’s as if the online community has flipped from being overly gullible to being overly suspicious. I’ve probably contributed to that attitude, so I thought this would be interesting to address. It also seemed like a good way to connect to the topic of conspiracy theories. Now, I know we hate framing skepticism as a spectrum from gullible to paranoid. That’s not the technical definition of the term and it’s not on-brand. But for the purposes of this video I treat it as a colloquial term, leaning on the idea that skepticism is only healthy when it relies on evidence. If you merely like hanging out in skeptic circles and talking about stuff in a skeptical-sounding way without an intellectual foundation under it, then you’re just one pet idea away from being a science denier or a conspiracy theorist.

Gerbic: I’m proud to say that I was one of your early supporters on Patreon. I’m just a small fry in the donation department, but apparently with enough of us it really helps. How do you think Patreon has changed how creators create?

Melikdjanian: Patreon is a phenomenal platform. It’s like a perpetual Kickstarter where people can support artists/craftspeople on a continuous basis, and it’s certainly changing my life. Before Patreon, making Captain Disillusion videos had to be relegated to a hobby. Now through your generous support (alongside a few hundred other patrons), I’m able to produce a video every month, and I’m getting very close to reaching my goal of working on the Captain D web series full time. All I can say is thank you!

Gerbic: What are your future plans?

Melikdjanian: Outside of YouTube, I’ve worked as a video editor, director, and visual effects artist for many years, so I would like to “level-up” in that arena and become a more established film and television director. I’m just waiting for Michael Bay to get accidentally crushed by a Transformer so that a spot opens up in the Director’s Guild. I think that’s how it works.… I’m not sure.

Gerbic: What area do you think someone new to participation in our community should focus on? Any great advice?

Melikdjanian: I think it’s best to focus on what you know—something you’re already an expert on outside of skepticism—and explore the ways in which it’s connected to skepticism. With Captain Disillusion I connected a random thing—visual effects—to skepticism in a way that people seem to find engaging. I’m sure that can be done with many other fields in different ways.

I recently had the opportunity to see The Witness, a remarkable documentary that reveals new information about the famous case of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, a young woman who was murdered on March 16, 1964, in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. After being covered by the New York Times, the Kitty Genovese case became a troubling symbol of bystander apathy in the United States. According to the Times report, thirty-seven people witnessed Genovese being stabbed to death in three separate attacks over a period of thirty minutes, and none of them called the police or attempted to intervene. A thirty-eighth witness called the police after Kitty was already dead. A. M. Rosenthal, the Times metropolitan editor, heard about the case over lunch with the New York City police commissioner and assigned Martin Gansberg (1964) to write the now famous story (Rasenberger 2004). Rosenthal later wrote a book about the incident, Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case.

The murder sparked outrage in readers and helped validate the popular idea that New York City was a cold and heartless place, but the story also had positive effects. The Kitty Genovese case led to the development of the 911 emergency call system and inspired a long line of research led by psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley (1970) into what circumstances lead bystanders to help someone in need. They discovered that, the more people available to help, the less likely any individual person would help—a phenomenon they called the “bystander effect.” If you are the only one around when an elderly person stumbles and falls, the responsibility to help is yours alone, but, with more people present, your obligation is less clear. Latané and Darley called this the “diffusion of responsibility.”

The Austin Street, Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, building where Kitty Genovese died as it appears today. The first attack occurred in the front of the building at the left side of this picture. After the first attack, Kitty made her way to the rear of the building where she was attacked again in a stairwell near the entrance to her apartment. (Photo from http://kewgardenshistory.com/ss-lefferts/lefferts-1100-NL.html.)

A Google Maps photo of Austin Street showing the sidewalk where the first attack took place (on the right) and the Mowbray Apartments directly across the street. The windows of the Mowbray Apartments suggest that there were many potential witnesses to the 3:00 a.m. attack across the street.

A More Accurate Account of the Kitty Genovese Murder

Although the Genovese story led to several positive outcomes, the standard presentation was not entirely true, and gradually various writers and researchers began to correct the record. At the trial of Winston Mosley, Genovese’s killer, witnesses testified that there had been two separate attacks—not three—and that few people had a view of the attacks. A nearby bar was open at the time, and several people assumed Genovese’s screams were part of a barroom fight or a lovers’ quarrel. The fatal last attack occurred at the bottom of an interior stairwell of Genovese’s apartment building where few people could see. Contrary to the Times report, a witness to the first attack shouted, “Leave that girl alone!” scaring Moseley off temporarily (Rasenberger 2004), and Kitty was still alive when the police arrived at the scene (Manning et al. 2007).

Director James Solomon’s documentary, The Witness, adds several new details to the story, though much remains unknown. The film follows Kitty’s younger brother, Bill Genovese, in his effort to learn what happened to his sister more than forty years after her death. Bill is a remarkably determined detective, and he was able to interview some of the surviving witnesses. The movie supports the contention that many witnesses could potentially have heard Kitty’s screams but not see the attacks. Some witnesses appear to have made deliberate choices to “not get involved,” but not all. Some claim to have called the police during the attack. In a dramatic sequence of the film, Bill Genovese interviews Sophie Farrar, who knew Kitty and said that she was alerted to the second attack by a phone call from a neighbor. Sophie immediately called the police and ran to Kitty, whom she found in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairwell. She was cradling Kitty in her arms when the police arrived, an account that is corroborated by the prosecuting attorney in the case against Winston Moseley (Takooshian et al. 2005, 76).

It is clear that the original story was sensationalized by the New York Times, and although decades later the Times corrected their original reports, by then the story had gathered enough momentum to become legend. In a 2007 article in the American Psychologist, researchers Rachel Manning, Mark Levine, and Alan Collins called the Kitty Genovese case a modern parable:

We suggest that, almost from its inception, the story of the 38 witnesses became a kind of modern parable—the antonym of the parable of the good Samaritan. Whereas the good Samaritan parable venerates the individual who helps while others walk by, the story of the 38 witnesses in psychology tells of the malign influence of others to overwhelm the will of the individual. (Manning et al. 2007, 555)

Manning, Levine, and Collins acknowledged that authors of psychology textbooks simplify things and sometimes engage in deliberate myth-making as a way of presenting the material to undergraduates in a more coherent and appealing form. Psychology texts tend to be filled with descriptions of experiments—highlighting the process of discovery, as much as the discoveries themselves—and parables, such as the Kitty Genovese case, are useful real-life illustrations of these research findings. But Manning, Levine, and Collins argue that this particular bad Samaritan parable has drawn attention to the inactivity of crowds and away from the opposite phenomenon. Under the right conditions, groups of people can become agitated and, in some cases, moved to overreaction and violence. Manning et al. suggest that the standard presentation of the Kitty Genovese story—and the bystander intervention research that followed it—inhibited the study of how crowds engage in collective action. The parable may also have overshadowed instances of individual heroic action in the presence of a crowd.

Interesting Facts about Kitty Genovese

• The photo of Kitty that has most often been used in textbooks—the same one in the movie poster above—is a mug shot. Kitty worked as a bartender and was arrested for passing bets from her customers to bookies in a gambling operation. A far more flattering picture is presented below. By all reports, she was a very popular young woman in school and beyond.
• Kitty was a lesbian, and on the night of the attack she was headed home to the Kew Gardens apartment she shared with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko. After Kitty’s death, the Genovese family shunned Zielonko (the early 1960s was a very different era than today), but she agreed to be interviewed by Bill Genovese for The Witness. Zeilonko’s comments make it clear that, over forty years later, she still harbored strong feelings for Kitty.

Press photo for The Witness.

As this case suggests, the challenge for the textbook author—or for anyone who writes about psychology for the general audience—is to try to make the material compelling without engaging in fabrication or gross oversimplification. In the case of Kitty Genovese, the original embellishments were made by the New York Times, but much of the information that might have been used to create a truer account was available as early as Moseley’s trial in June of the same year. In The Witness, Bill Genovese interviews Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes and New York broadcaster Bill Pressman, both of whom might have been in a position to correct the original account, but each said that in that era no one challenged the New York Times. Genovese also interviewed A. M. Rosenthal, who stood by his version of the story.

Researchers eventually did correct the story, but for several decades the original sensationalized version persisted. If there is a positive aspect of this episode, it might be that today news reporting is more competitive, and the New York Times is no longer unassailable. Today news stories develop quickly and outlets compete to be the first to uncover each new development. Furthermore, Times now has its own Public Editor, whose job it is to write independent assessments of the paper’s coverage.

Unfortunately, there is also a downside to the modern diversification of the media. For many media sources—and their consumers—the truth doesn’t matter. We live in a post-factual world where, for many people, climate change isn’t happening and the Earth is only six thousand years old.

Current Bystander Intervention Research

Meanwhile, research in bystander intervention has continued for all these many decades. Here are of some of the most interesting recent findings:

1. A 2011 review of all the research to date found that the typical bystander effect (i.e., more people present decreases the chances that any individual bystander will help) is a robust phenomenon but that it does not hold in dangerous emergencies. Somewhat surprisingly, when the situation involves clear danger, the presence of other bystanders does not result in a lower willingness to intervene (Fischer et al. 2011). This is a bit of good news.

   The authors speculated that in dangerous situations, a couple of other factors enter into the decision to help. First, dangerous situations increase the need. Someone must respond or else something bad will happen. In addition, the authors suggest that when the situation is dangerous, potential helpers may anticipate that other bystanders will also offer assistance. The sense of responsibility will not be diffused in the usual way.

   Interestingly this conclusion—based on a review of many studies—flies in the face of the Kitty Genovese case itself. The Genovese murder was definitely a dangerous emergency. Of course, we now know that—contrary to the standard view—some people did take action. In addition, it has been pointed out that those who witnessed the 3:00 a.m. murder may not have been aware that anyone else was seeing or hearing it. The onlookers in the apartment windows across the street may not have felt like a group in the usual sense of the word. As a result, if bystanders in dangerous situations expect that others will also help out, that expectation might be less clear under the circumstances of the Kitty Genovese murder.

2. Young children also show the bystander effect. Very few controlled studies have examined the bystander effect in very young children, but a recent study in Psychological Science shows that they do show a similar effect (Plötner et al. 2015). Five-year-olds were placed in a situation where an adult needed help wiping up a spill. When the children were alone, they were significantly more likely to help than when two other five-year-olds were present. Interestingly, in a third condition, the two bystander five-year-olds could hear and see the adult, but were unavailable to help because they were temporarily trapped behind a low partition that prevented them from moving toward the adult. Under this condition the non-trapped participant helped the adult just as much as in the alone condition. So children demonstrate the bystander effect, and it is pretty clear that they are less likely to help because they see that there are others available who could do the job.

3. In a study published earlier this year, a group of researchers (including CSI Fellow, Steven Pinker) demonstrated that bystander assistance is not just about the number of people on hand to help; it is also about who knows that help is needed (Thomas et al. 2016). For example, if everyone has equal knowledge of the need, the usual bystander effect is seen. More people present means a lower likelihood that any individual will help. But, if the individual believes that other helpers don’t know they know about the need, helping drops off regardless of how many people are present. For example, in one case the researchers used a scenario in which several people were informed by private messenger that help was needed, but the messenger indicated that he failed to mention to the others that he was also telling the research participant about the need for help. In this case, when the participant believed they had plausible deniability (my phrase, not the researcher’s), shirking was more likely—regardless of the size of the group.

It is clear that the helping behavior of bystanders continues to command the interest of many researchers, and there is much left to be understood. In addition, bystander intervention programs are now being widely promoted to prevent sexual assault on college campuses and to combat terrorism (e.g., “See Something, Say Something”). It is less clear what practical benefits have come from the focus on Kitty Genovese and the parable of the bad Samaritan. The original sensationalized story captured people’s attention and motivated research. The jury is still out on whether the research this case inspired has told us what we really need to know about the helpful intervention of people and groups.

The Witness is still making the rounds. It will be shown in San Francisco on July 29, Ottawa, Canada, on July 30, and Nevada City, California, on August 14. See the film’s website for other screenings.

References

• Fischer, Peter, Joachim I. Krueger, Tobias Greitemeyer, Claudia Vogrincic, Andreas Kastenmüller, Dieter Frey, Moritz Heene, Magdalena Wicher, and Martina Kainbacher. 2011. “The bystander-effect: a meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies.” Psychological Bulletin 137, no. 4: 517–537.
• Gansberg, Martin. 1964. “37 who saw murder didn’t call the police: Apathy at stabbing of Queens woman shocks inspector.” New York Times 1.
• Latané, Bibb, and John M. Darley. 1970. The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help?. Prentice Hall.
• Manning, Rachel, Mark Levine, and Alan Collins. 2007. “The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: the parable of the 38 witnesses.” American Psychologist 62, no. 6:555–562.
• Plötner, Maria, Harriet Over, Malinda Carpenter, and Michael Tomasello. 2015. “Young children show the bystander effect in helping situations.” Psychological Science, 499–506.
• Rasenberger, Jim. 2004. “Kitty, 40 years later.” New York Times 14, no. 1:9.
• Rosenthal, Abraham Michael. 2015. Thirty-eight witnesses: The Kitty Genovese case. Open Road Media. (Original work published in 1964.)
• Takooshian, Harold, Darren Bedrosian, John J. Cecero, Lynn Chancer, Andrew Karmen, Jim Rasenberger, A. M. Rosenthal, Curtis Silwa, Charles E. Skoller, and Joyce Stephen. 2005. “Remembering Catherine ‘Kitty’ Genovese 40 years later: A public forum.” Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless 14, no. 1–2:72–85.
• Thomas, Kyle A., Julian De Freitas, Peter DeScioli, and Steven Pinker. 2016. “Recursive mentalizing and common knowledge in the bystander effect.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 145, no. 5:621–629.

Harriet Hall, known to many in the skeptic community as the SkepDoc, is a formidable critic of alt medicine, as well as the author of Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon and a coauthor of the textbook Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions. Harriet blogs for Science Based Medicine and writes for Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer magazines. She is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a member of its Executive Council. She also will be speaking at CSICON.

Susan Gerbic: Harriet, you and I have known each other for many years. We were fellow attendees of the Skeptic’s Toolbox held in Eugene, Oregon. The story as I remember it was that Wally Sampson encouraged you to write an article on alt med for a journal, and then the next thing you knew you were in demand. This was all done after your retirement from the Air Force, right? Can you tell readers a little about how this all happened and some background on who you are?

Harriet Hall: I served twenty years in the Air Force as a family physician and flight surgeon, retiring as a Full Colonel. After I met Wally at the Toolbox, I emailed him to complain about a dietary supplement called “Vitamin O.” O stands for oxygen, and the product had been analyzed in a laboratory and shown not to contain any oxygen, so they tried to prove that it did contain oxygen after all by doing a clinical study. The study was the worst example of junk science I’d ever seen. They got results that were physiologically impossible, and I suspect they didn’t actually do the study; I think they just made up the data. Wally said, “You know, no one takes studies like that seriously enough to critique them. Why don’t you write up a formal critique and we’ll publish it in The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine.” I protested that I had never written anything for publication and wouldn’t know how to start, but he insisted. I wrote it up, and he published it. But you have to be all serious and formal when writing for a scientific journal, and I thought the whole Vitamin O thing was hilariously funny. So I wrote another, irreverent version of my findings and submitted it to the Skeptical Inquirer with the title “Oxygen is Good, Even When It’s Not There” (available online at https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/oxygen-is-good-even-when-its-not-there/). And my career as a writer took off.

Gerbic: You seem to be published all over the place these days, but I do remember you had a column for a short time in Oprah’s O Magazine. How did that go?

Hall: That was a fiasco. The editor who hired me was replaced by a less sympathetic one, and after a few months they essentially fired me without bothering to tell me I was fired. They restricted me to a measly 200 words and wanted to tell me exactly what to write about and what to say. I couldn’t even recognize the final edited version as my writing. Good riddance to O!

Gerbic: As I said before, we met at the Skeptic’s Toolbox. You were one of the attendees and now you are faculty. It looks like CSICON will be having a mini toolbox on Thursday October 27, at 3:30 pm. Founder of the Toolbox, Ray Hyman, as well as two others of the faculty, James Alcock and Lindsey Beyerstein, will also present at this workshop. Please tell us what attendees can expect?

Hall: It’s impossible to recreate the three-day Toolbox experience in two hours, and we won’t be presenting our usual lectures, but we are planning to divide the participants into teams and let them try their hand at analyzing a case and reporting on their findings. It should be fun! I’m hoping it will persuade people to want more and to sign up for the real Skeptic’s Toolbox in Eugene in August 2017.

Gerbic: You recently released a lecture series called “Fairy Tale Science and Other Pitfalls.” I learned a lot from watching, and every time I share the link on social media several people tell me how much they enjoyed it also. You cover many alt med topics including homeopathy. What has been the reaction to the videos outside our community?

Hall: I think you are confusing two things. “Fairy Tale Science” was a single lecture I gave in Berlin that is available on YouTube. My new lecture series is a free YouTube series of ten lectures commissioned by the JREF, titled “Science-Based Medicine” (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8MfjLNsf_miVcNu6eJMNigAMNwQkk_B9). The reaction has been very positive, and I’ve heard from people around the world who enjoyed it, learned from it, found its lessons helpful in explaining things to alt med proponents, and even wanted to translate the text into their native language for the benefit of others. I managed to distill the essence of what I have learned and what I want people to know about science-based medicine and alternative medicine, and I’m proud of it. We had fun doing it; I spoke from my home, and there is a signed Randi doll on my bookcase that we moved around and even hung upside down in one lecture to commemorate Randi’s straight-jacket escapes.

Gerbic: You will be speaking at CSICON on Friday, October 28, at 11:30 am. Can you give us an idea of what you will be talking about?

Hall: Functional medicine, which is really silly.

Gerbic: Harriet, I know you also blog regularly for the Science Based Medicine Blog, so you have been involved in many alt med topics. It seems from reading the news that the world is making great medical strides and improving quality of life overall. Yet there is a small percentage of people that are very vocal that seem to want a stop to vaccines and fully endorse complementary medicine. Am I right to assume that these people have always existed but just seem to be more influential because of social media?

Hall: Yes, there have been anti-vaccine protests as long as there have been vaccines. And there have been doctor-bashers as long as there have been doctors. Before we had science-based medicine, all we had was “alternative” medicine: folk medicine and superstition. It’s sad that people are encouraging each other to return to that pre-scientific world.

Gerbic: I’ve heard you say that the problem is the “Dr. Google Effect.” All studies I’ve read say that these people are very well educated. How can we reach these people when they already think they have all the answers?

Hall: When people “know” they have found the truth, there is little chance of reaching them. I write for the seekers, those who want to know more, the fence-sitters, the undecided. There’s a lot of false information on Dr. Google, and my aim is to get reliable information out there where Googlers can find it. My SkepDoc’s Rule is: before you accept a claim, try to find out who disagrees with it and why. Quite often there has been no criticism of a silly new claim, so Googlers have no way to tell which statements are false or misleading. I’m trying to correct that lack in my own small way, and I am seeing some hopeful signs that my efforts are not in vain. For instance, if you Google Dr. Amen, you will find my Quackwatch article “A Skeptical View of SPECT Scans and Dr. Daniel Amen.” And Wikipedia cites my articles as references. And I get thank-you emails from people who read what I wrote about a bogus treatment and decided to save their money.

Gerbic: People may not know that you have an incredible sense of humor, so let me assure them that you are quite fun. I remember that at the CFI Summit in 2013 you dressed up as a quack for the Halloween event, complete with a rubber duck. As there is a competition again this year, I’m sure you’re not going to tell me what you are planning, but you are planning on dressing up, right?

Hall: Please! I was supposed to be a Quack Buster, not a quack! I don’t have any plans for a costume this year; I may just go and enjoy everyone else’s costumes.

Gerbic: I can’t imagine you have any spare time left, but what’s next for Harriet Hall in 2017?

Hall: More of same. My SkepDoc column in Skeptic magazine continues; I continue to contribute to Skeptical Inquirer; and of course I continue to write an article every Tuesday on the Science-Based Medicine blog as I have done every Tuesday since the beginning of 2008. I’ve been invited to speak in Australia a month after CSICON and in Los Angeles on Friday the 13th in January. I also have a new monthly column “SkepDoc’s Corner” on the CSI website.

A todo el mundo le gustan los misterios. Resuelva uno en el campo científico y enseguida vendrán los elogios. No así en el reino de lo paranormal, donde la evidencia, la lógica y las teorías suelen quedar patas para arriba. Mientras que los científicos forenses, digamos, comienzan por la evidencia para llegar a la solución más probable de un misterio, los “paracientíficos” empiezan por la respuesta deseada y a partir de allí buscan la evidencia, empleando el sesgo de la confirmación: buscan aquello que parece confirmar sus creencias y desacreditar cualquier posición contraria, o a quien la sostenga.

Por ejemplo, en el campo paranormal de la criptozoología (término acuñado por Ivan T. Sanderson para describir el estudico de animales “ocultos” o sin verificar ), los defensores de la existencia del Bigfoot (Pie Grande) ofrecen una gran cantidad de evidencia. Lamentablemente, ésta es muy pobre: relatos de testigos, huellas de pisadas, muestras de pelo -justamente aquello que se puede atribuir a la percepción defectuosa o al engaño. Toda esa evidencia es cuestionable porque, más allá de los fraudes, no se dispone de ningún Pie Grande vivo, un esqueleto, ni siquiera de una muestra de ADN para someterlos a un estudio científico.

This article was originally featured in Skeptical Inquirer in English.
Click here to read it.

Ocurre lo mismo con otras afirmaciones: fenómenos parapsicológicos, fantasmas, poltergeists y demonios, platos voladores y extraterrestres, el monstruo del Lago Ness, la combustión humana espontánea, la curación por la fe y las estatuas que lloran, el Triángulo de las Bermudas, etc, etc, etc. La ciencia no ha verificado ninguno de estos objetos, entidades o hechos como fenómenos paranormales genuinos.

Debatir sobre los misterios

Los paracientíficos usualmente se desvían del camino. Para ellos la investigación no es una búsqueda para explicar un misterio (lo cual ridiculizan como “justificación”) sino seleccionar misterios acerca de cualquier hecho paranormal en el que crean, con lo cual esperan convencer a la gente de que “algo debe haber”. Para decirlo brevemente, no son detectives sino traficantes de misterios.

Para ellos, el misterio es esencialmente un punto de llegada más que de partida. Si no se explica rápidamente, no protestan por la falta de evidencia. En cambio, de alguna manera suponen que se ha determinado algo: “No sabemos qué hizo que apareciera aceite en una estatua; por lo tanto, debe ser un signo divino”. Pero este es un tipo de falacia lógica conocida como argumentum ad ignorantiam, un razonamiento que parte de la ignorancia -esto es- llegar a una conclusión a partir de la falta de conocimiento. Uno no puede decir “no sabemos” y luego afirmar que por lo tanto lo sabemos.

Y sin embargo, este razonamiento defectuoso se halla en la mayoría de las afirmaciones sobre lo paranormal: “No podemos explicar qué causó A, por lo tanto probablemente sea B”, donde A es el avistaje de un monstruo peludo o una luz suspendida en el aire o una curación médica inesperada y B es presumible y respectivamente un Pie Grande, un plato volador o un milagro. Realmente podría tratarse -otra vez respectivamente- de un oso, de Venus visto a través de las capas atmosféricas, o el resultado de un tratamiento médico previo.

La evidencia negativa

Como observara el psicólogo Ray Hyman (1996, 23) sobre una disciplina paranormal: “La historia de la parapsicología está repleta de experimentos “exitosos” que no pueden repetirse”. Señalando que las llamadas visión remota y otras supuestos tipos de PES (Percepción Extrasensorial) se definían negativamente -esto es, como un efecto remanente luego de que las explicaciones normales fueran supuestamente eliminadas- Hyman nota que un mero problema técnico en los datos experimentales puede ser tomado como evidencia de un fenómeno parapsicológico. “Lo que se necesita, por supuesto”, dice con razón Hyman, “es una teoría positiva del funcionamiento parapsicológico que nos permita decir cuándo psi está presente y cuándo ausente” (destacado en el original). Agrega: “Según mi opinión, cualquier otra disciplina que pretenda ser una ciencia trata con fenómenos cuya presencia o ausencia pueda ser claramente establecida”.

Este requisito -esta necesidad- de obtener evidencia positiva en lugar de negativa es ignorado o descartado por los traficantes de misterios. En los títulos de sus libros y documentales de televisión, ponen palabras como “no resuelto”, “inexplicado”, “desconocido” -presentando a los misterios no como algo que debe ser investigado y resuelto sino supuestamente como enigmas que prueban (usando el argumentum ad ignorantiam) la existencia de lo paranormal.

Consideremos, por ejemplo, las afirmaciones sobre curaciones milagrosas en Lourdes, Francia. Son afirmaciones que provienen de aquellos casos que se consideran “médicamente inexplicables” -argumento clásico que parte de la ignorancia. (En 2008, sin embargo, el Comité Médico Internacional de Lourdes anunció que el panel de médicos ya no debería estar en el asunto de los “milagros”: a partir de ahí, solo debería indicar si un caso era “extraordinario”. “No deberán inferir un milagro a partir de lo “médicamente inexplicable” ).

Respecto de los “milagros” y otras afirmaciones paranormales, apelar a la evidencia negativa es algo común. Por ejemplo: Grant Wilson, que conducía junto a Jason Hawes el programa de televisión Ghost Hunters, dijo que su enfoque respecto de la caza de fantasmas consistía en “solo terminar con aquellas cosas que no puedes justificar” (Hawes y Wilson, 2007, 6).

En el libro Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion Larry Arnold (1995, 463) dice descaradamente: “Soy el primero en admitir que la CHE (combustión humana espontánea) desafía al sentido común y suena misteriosa. No tengo todas las respuestas para ello; puede que no tenga ninguna respuesta. Y ciertamente, no tengo todas las piezas de este rompecabezas enigmático”. Sin embargo, concluye, “lo que puedo decir con seguridad es esto: la combustión humana espontánea es un hecho, aunque haya permanecido oculto”.

Aquellos que creen en los círculos de maíz (crop circles) han sugerido varias “teorías” para explicar los patrones supuestamente inexplicables en los campos de maíz en Inglaterra (a pesar de la abundante evidencia de fraude ). Ken Rogers, de la Sociedad de lo Inexplicado opina: “Los círculos son verdaderamente el resultado del aterrizaje de un OVNI para investigar los cultivos. No hay otra explicación...” (citado en Randles and Fuller, 1990, 16).

Objetos voladores no identificados

Quizá nunca se vio tanta evidencia negativa, y promovida tan ávidamente como en el caso de los ufólogos, cuyo principal objeto de estudio comienza con el término no-identificado (unidentified, por Unidentified Flying Objects, N. del T.). Charles Fort (1874-1932) se destacó entre los coleccionistas de evidencia negativa. Alguna vez considerado como el “primer” ufólogo (Clark 1998, I:420), Fort fue un proveedor de misterios de escritorio. Con una herencia que le permitió darse el gusto de tener un hobby, pasó sus últmos veintiseis años explorando viejos periódicos que contenìan casos inusuales -incluyendo fenómenos aéreos anómalos- provocando a los científicos “ortodoxos” para que los expliquen (Fort 1941). Su evidencia no solo era anecdótica y su enfoque acientífico, sino que su “documentación no era completamente rigurosa” (Gross 2001, 204).

Sin embargo, Fort es adorado por muchos ufólogos y otros aficionados a los fenómenos que supuestamente “desafían una explicación natural”, lo que ellos llaman “Fenómeno Forteano” o “Forteana” (Guiley 2001, 212-213; Gross 201, 203-205; Clark 1998, 420-425).

Uno de los ufólogos “top” de la historia fue el astrónomo J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986), consultor y autoproclamado “desmitificador” en la Fuerza Aérea de los Estados Unidos cuando investigaba el Proyecto Libro Azul. A Hynek (1977, 7-9, 17) le impresionó que, al principio, el 23 por ciento de los OVNIs que estudió permanecieron como “desconocidos” y -luego de fundar el Centro para el Estudio de los OVNIs (CUFOS)- adoptó la evidencia negativa:

La transformación de escéptico -no a no-creyente, porque ello tiene cierta connotación “teológica”- sino a un científico que sintió que estaba en la senda de un fenómeno interesante, fue gradual, pero a fines de los 60 ya era total. Hoy no perdería ni un minuto con los OVNIs si no pensara seriamente que el fenómeno OVNI es real y que los esfuerzos para investigarlo y comprenderlo, y eventualmente para resolverlo podrían tener un profundo efecto – siendo quizás el trampolín hacia una revolución respecto de cómo el hombre se ve a sí mismo y su lugar en el universo.

Sin embargo Hynek se volvió cauteloso acerca de la hipótesis extraterrestre, remarcando que “se enfrenta a una gran dificultad, a saber, que estamos viendo demasiados OVNIs. La Tierra es solo un grano de polvo en el universo. ¿Por qué tendríamos el honor de ser visitados tan frecuentemente?” En cambio dijo: “me siento más inclinado a pensar en términos de algo metaterrestre (sic), una suerte de realidad paralela”, planteando que “los OVNIs están relacionados a ciertos fenómenos parapsicológicos” (citado en Story 2001, 252). De esta manera, ¡trató de “explicar” un fenómeno desconocido invocando otro!

Hoy, los ufólogos, por ejemplo Peter B. Davenport, director del Centro Nacional de Informes sobre OVNIs (NUFORC), creen que el gran número de casos no identificados indican al menos que hay algo muy transcendente tras ellos. Debido a “la impresionante cantidad de datos principalmente provenientes de testigos”, dice Davenport, cuando se sabe que la mayoría de las descripciones de testigos son de muy pobre calidad, “muchos de los informes de avistajes de alta calidad implican ciertos aspectos objetivos, los cuales, para un espectador con mentalidad abierta, son bastante impactantes”. Agrega que “la firme evidencia sugiere que estamos tratando con un fenómeno causado por objetos sólidos, palpables, cuyas características no pertenecen al diseño humano, y cuyo comportamiento sugiere un control inteligente” (citado en Story 2001, 150). Por supuesto, está refiriéndose a extraterrestres -con evasivas- mientras los “objetos” permanecen como no-identificados.

Otro que cita la naturaleza inexplicada de los OVNIs es Richard Hall, un partidario de los OVNIs asociado con grupos tales como MUFON y CUFOS. Enfatiza: “entre los cientos de los llamados 'informes OVNI' que aparecen cada año, una fracción considerable de los que son claramente observados por testigos respetables permanecen inexplicados- y es muy difícil explicarlos en términos convencionales”. Hall cree que “colectivamente, estos casos constituyen un misterio científico genuino, que necesita imperiosamente una investigación sistemática y bien sustentada”. Otra vez, vuelve a decir: “La evidencia circunstancial -a veces física- indica que está ocurriendo algo real para lo cual no hay explicación satisfactoria”.

Hall cree que las observaciones incorrectas de objetos terrestres así como la “imaginación/fraude” deben ser rechazadas como explicaciones porque ambas son “inaplicables a los casos límite inexplicados”. En cambio, prefiere la posibilidad de los “llamados 'secretos' visitantes de otro lugar” (citado en Story 2001, 239).

Vacilando, el ufólgo/mitólogo Thomas E. Bullard (2010, 311) sugiere, al menos tentativamente:

Los investigadores de informes OVNI actuales e históricos han filtrado aquellos casos con suficiente evidencia creíble para que califiquen como defendibles. Estos casos sugieren que la naturaleza de las historias sobre OVNIs depende en parte de la naturaleza de los eventos OVNI, y dichos eventos deben su naturaleza a una fuente independiente de la mitología OVNI... Incluso aceptando la falibilidad humana y el autoengaño, parece que hay un misterio genuino.

Bullard está basándose claramente en el método de proceso de eliminación, que es la base de la evidencia negativa.

Luego está Stanton T. Friedman, que promueve la noción de visitas extraterrestres con jactancia, pantallas de humo y alharaca. Friedman racionaliza: “Aprendí rápido que la ausencia de evidencia no es lo mismo que evidencia de ausencia”. Aunque esto sea cierto, sigue aún con ausencia de evidencia. Este ufólogo, que una vez se autodefinió como “físico nuclear itinerante” fue engañado por los “documentos MJ-12” hechos por amateurs, que pretendían probar que el gobierno de los EE.UU. había rescatado un platillo volador con ocupantes humanoides que se había estrellado. Friedman cree, que una consipiración de alto nivel ocultó la evidencia positiva (Friedman 1996, 8, 13, 209-219; Nickell y Fischer 1992, 81-105)

Conclusión


El problema con semejante extrapolación de datos es que falta evidencia positiva. No ha sido capturado ningún piloto extraterrestre o plato volador- a pesar de los fraudes, cuentos folclóricos y teorías conspirativas. Solo hay informes de testigos, fotos, rastros en el suelo y otras cosas por estilo, todas sobre algo no identificado.

Pero todas estos no identificados ¿no valen para nada? Bueno, cantidad no es calidad. Como muestra la gran evidencia, los casos algunas veces promovidos como inexplicados eran solo eso; no eran inexplicables, y muchos de ellos, al ser estudiados, sucumbieron a la investigación. Ni uno solo probó que se tratara de otra cosa que un fenómeno natural o hecho por el hombre- ni los casos clásicos, por ejemplo, Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, Flatwoods, Kecksburg, Exeter, Phoeniz y Stepehville (Nickel y McGaha 2012; McGaha y Nickell 2011, 2015). Puede que algunos casos nunca sean explicados debido a errores de los testigos, evidencia falsificada, falta de información esencial y otras fallas. Por razones similares algunos asesinatos quedan sin explicación, y sin embargo no consideramos a esos casos evidencia de un homicidio cometido por un duende.

Nada de lo dicho hasta ahora significa que no debamos continuar investigando los fenómenos inexplicados, incluyendo los OVNIs. Después de todo, alguna vez el escepticismo sobre piedras que caían del cielo abrió el camino para probar la existencia de los meteoritos. La ciencia no tiene nada que temer acerca del examen de los informes sobre OVNIs, los cuales, hasta la fecha, no han sido inútiles después de todo: hemos aprendido mucho acerca de los engaños, percepciones erróneas y de la fantasía, acerca de los rasgos de personalidad, sobre fenómenos extraños tales como los relámpagos en bola, acerca de la propensión de personas inmaduras a cometer fraudes (¡escépticos incluidos!), y mucho más. Pero la investigación debe ir más allá de la recolección de evidencia negativa. Debe representar un intento real para resolver -esto es, explicar- un misterio.

Referencias

• Arnold, Larry E. 1995. Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion. New York: M. Evans and Co.
• Bullard, Thomas E. 2010. The Myth and Mystery of UFOs. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas.
• Clark, Jerome. 1998. The UFO Encyclopedia, 2da ed. (en dos volúmenes). Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics.
• Fort, Charles. 1941. The Complete Books of Charles Fort. Reimpreso New York: Dover, 1974.

• Friedman, Stanton T. 1996. Top Secret/Magic. New York: Marlowe & Co.
• Gross, Loren E. 2001. In Story 2001, 203–205.
• Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2001. Encyclopedia of the Strange, Mystical, & Unexplained. New York: Grammercy Books.
• Hawes, Jason, and Grant Wilson. 2007. Ghost Hunting. New York: Pocket Books.
• Heuvelmans, Bernard. 1968. In the Wake of the Sea Serpents; trad. Richard Garnett. New York: Hill and Wang.
• Hyman, Ray. 1996. Evaluation of the military’s twenty-year program on psychic spying. Skeptical Inquirer 20(2)(March/April): 21–26.
• Hynek, J. Allen. 1977. The UFO Report. Reimpreso, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1997.
• McGaha, James, and Joe Nickell. 2011. Exeter incident solved! Skeptical Inquirer 34(6)(November/December): 16–19.
• ———. 2015. Alien lights? At Phoenix, Stephenville, elsewhere: A postmortem. Skeptical Inquirer 39(2)(March/April): 50–53.
• Nickell, Joe. 2004. The Mystery Chronicles. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
• ———. 2013. The Science of Miracles. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
• Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1992. Mysterious Realms: Probing Paranormal, Historical, and Forensic Enigmas. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
• Nickell, Joe, and James McGaha. 2012. The Roswellian syndrome. Skeptical Inquirer 36(3)(May/June): 30–36.
• Randles, Jenny, and Paul Fuller. 1990. Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved. London: Robert Hale.
Story, Ronald. 2001. The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library.

George Hrab is a professional musician, author, and popular podcaster. The Geologic podcast is an intersection between music and scientific skepticism. George will also be our emcee at CSICon this year.

Susan Gerbic: For those who have not yet read your Wikipedia page, can you please bring people up to speed: who is this George Hrab person, and I’m not talking about your father who was also George Hrab?

George Hrab: Well… let’s see… I am an American citizen of Ukrainian descent that resides in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and makes a living playing drums in a nine-piece horn band called the Philadelphia Funk Authority. I produce a weekly Internet audio program called The Geologic Podcast. This program has no geology content whatsoever but is so named as a portmanteau of “George” and “logic.” This tends to confuse people. Quite rightly so. I seem to have a habit of regularly acting as emcee/host for science conventions like The Amazing Meeting, The Australian Skeptics Convention, QED, and now CSICon. Those are always super fun. When I am not performing with The Philadelphia Funk Authority or working on The Geologic podcast or emceeing science conferences, I like to write and record albums of original music. I have six so far, plus one live album and a DVD. When people find out that I am a songwriter, they ask me what my music sounds like. I usually tell them who my influences are, and that my songs are basically crappier versions of those influences. The main bands that I like are Yes, King Crimson, Talking Heads, and Frank Zappa—although Frank Zappa is not a band but an individual. I am also an individual…but nowhere near as cool as Frank Zappa.

Gerbic: You started The Geologic podcast in 2007 and have managed to keep it fresh. I assume because you still enjoy it. How do you manage to stay motivated? It’s a weekly podcast and you have just hit number 470. That is quite an accomplishment.

Hrab: When I started producing the show, I never-ever-ever imagined in my deepest of Emma Thompson–based fantasies that I would still be doing it almost ten years later. How I got here is still a bit of a mystery to me, and since most mysteries tend to get sexier as they remain unsolved I don’t want to think about it too much. I really enjoy the format of the show, and I especially enjoy the immediate communicative nature of podcasting. It used to be that when I’d have an idea—for a song, a story, a comedy sketch, or perhaps some prop-based mime—it would potentially take years for it to get in front of an audience. With the podcast, if something interesting happens to me on Monday, or I get a fun idea for something on Tuesday, by Wednesday evening of that same week a few thousand people get to hear it and immediately email me in great detail all the picayune mistakes I’ve made. AH THE INTERNET! Actually, my audience is quite incredible, generous, and attractive—and did I say incredible—and please keep listening; I was only kidding just then. To answer your question, yes it’s a challenge to stay motivated, but like clamping down after a really generous bowl of fiber cereal, well worth the effort.

Gerbic: Do you hear from people who were expecting it to be about geology?

Hrab: I have. Most understand very quickly that it’s not about geology and are cool with it, but my absolute favorite iTunes review of all time was from a person who sat through four hours of show and was vehemently disappointed that I never got to the geology part of the program. Yes indeed, it took four hours for this person to figure out that there was no discussion of the effect of subducting plates on igneous vs. sedimentary rocks coming up. It was so great. I have that screed now tattooed on my back.

Gerbic: I’m curious how you manage to mix music and skepticism. I wouldn’t have thought those topics would be such a good pair, but somehow it just works. What’s the secret?

Hrab: Song writing, like most endeavors worth doing, is really stupidly hard. (At least it is for me.) Finding topics to write about that both haven’t been covered to death and that foster interest can be a challenge as well. I love science and the process of critical thinking, so it just seemed natural for a large lyrical portion of my music to cover those themes. That being said, I desperately try to hide the subject matter or at least make it slightly subtle so that it’s not quite directly stepping on the listener’s face (I really dislike obvious “message” songs). I guess how well I do that can be decided by the audience, but I always figured there are enough love songs out there—why not have a few tunes about interesting animals or how everything in the universe will eventually end? Now that’s a song.

Gerbic: It seems that you keep reinventing yourself, drawing on your strongest skills. You were the emcee for several TAM’s and now CSICon. This wasn’t a role you had trained for, but just like the podcast, when we look back in retrospect it seems like an obvious fit.

Hrab: To me it’s all variations on a theme, but it basically comes down to entertainment and organization. I’m pretty good at both, especially in a live environment. I love the challenge of trying to keep a “preconceived entertainment chunk” moving and interesting, so whether it’s a concert with a nine-piece funk band, a podcast, an album, a science conference, or a sweatsock-based puppet show, I seem to have a moderately decent ability at keeping things chugging along and captivating. There’s also the fact that for some reason (which any therapists out there could elaborate on to be sure) I’m more comfortable on stage than in real life. I just really enjoy it all.

Gerbic: I’ve seen you come up with some terrific intros over the years. Let me think, you have done limericks, Haiku, silly songs, and questions such as “What was your first car?” and “What was the first music you purchased with your own money?” The answers you get are terrific. One year, you threatened to do interpretive dance which I think would have been amazing. Any chance you might use semaphore at CSICon this year?

Hrab: This year I think I’ll be using a combination of alpenhorn and Moroccan Schikhatt dance, in conjunction with Morse code performed on the shells of Galapogean tortoises. Just to have a “theme.”

Gerbic: One of the highlights of TAM was the Hrab sing-a-long on the last night of the convention. It’s informal and usually held in some quiet area of the event. I have many friends that will remain with you singing until the wee hours of the morning. Lots of videos are on YouTube for those like me who are dead on their feet by that last night. One of the highlights for me in 2015 was my friend Paula Serrano who came from Argentina who sang Chega de Saudade with you. Please tell everyone this tradition will continue with CSICon.

Hrab: If there is a corner where both hotel security and the Las Vegas police will not mind us singing standards for a few hours, I will absolutely do it again. Those times have genuinely been amongst my favorites at any convention, if not also my life. Seriously.

Gerbic: As an important part of the skeptic conference experience, what observations do you have to share with the organizers to improve them?

Hrab: I think there needs to be less hang-gliding and more fan-based motorized parasailing. Asking James Randi to land his glider on stage at last year’s TAM was a lot to demand of anyone, let alone an octogenarian hero of the skeptic movement. Powered parachutes are noisier, but much safer due to their inherent stability, limited response to control inputs, and stall resistance. I hope the organizers consider that. I think there also needs to be a chance for attendees to participate in an amateur Jai-Alai tournament. Just imagine the revenue that could be generated with xistera rentals! Finally, I hope that the “Pokémon Joe” app is ready in time so that we can all attempt to capture, battle, and train Mr. Nickell.

Gerbic: I feel that people come to conferences for the speakers, but return for the people. Do you think we need to keep conferences small in order to maintain that personal touch?

Hrab: Personal connections can happen regardless of the size of a conference, but there is a certain special feeling and vibe that happens when there are a smaller number of attendees. It’s all relative I guess. One gets quite a nice feeling thinking that you can communicate directly with a speaker if so inclined. In my experience, most folks love the interaction and look forward to the ability to socialize. I’ve always said that at conferences like these, since most everyone agrees on about 90 percent of things, you tend to get really interesting conversations based on that final 10 percent difference. It can get really detailed and wonk-tastic, but who doesn’t love getting detailed and wonk-tastic?

Gerbic: Besides CSICon and a weekly dose of The Geologic, what are you working on next?

Hrab: I’m off to Finland to perform a twenty-year retrospective piece I wrote for string quartet and voice called The Broad Street Score; I’m working on studio album number seven; there’s the continuing adventures of the Philadelphia Funk Authority; and I’m desperately trying to somehow quiet and numb the soul-crushing existential peril of modern existence through a steady stream of music, tears, exercise, Doctor Who episodes, and tacos. You?

Gerbic: Thank you for asking, George. Besides being at CSICon, I have been asked to speak at the New Zealand Skeptic Conference, December 1–2. I double checked and they actually want me to be in the same room as everyone so I guess either they are all coming to California or I will be going there. I am retiring after thirty-four years as a retail photographer on October 1st, so I suppose I’m going to have an extra forty hours a week to piss off grief vampires as well as expand the work we do with GSoW. Really looking forward to Moroccan Schikhatt dancing and I’ll brush up on my Morse code as will everyone reading this. I am a bit disappointed that you won’t be using semaphore, at least not this year. See you and everyone else at CSICon, Vegas Baby!

It would be nice to take a single pill and turn into a superhuman with a genius IQ and limitless memory. It would be so nice, in fact, that we’ve been fantasizing about it as a species for about as long as we’ve been writing stories about ourselves. In fact, when I told people I was experimenting with nootropics, which claim to turn your brain into a superhuman machine of perfect cognitive power, they inevitably referred to some piece of pop culture: “Oh, like Flowers for Algernon!” or “Hey, I saw that Bradley Cooper movie.”

Nootropics, by definition, certainly exist. Technically defined, nootropics are any drugs that have specific enhanced effects on cognitive function. Those could include caffeine, antidepressants, and a host of other drugs tested and accepted by the medical community. But when we talk about nootropics anecdotally, we often mean something else: drugs that exist on the fringe, not yet completely acknowledged by science, or outright sidelined by it. Still, I have known many skeptically minded people who have relied on them (including one person who ran a national Skeptics’ organization), and I have been offering myself up as a permanent guinea pig for fringe science and alternative medicine for the past five years, along with my podcast cohost, Ross Blocher. So for one month, we gave nootropics a go.

First, we tried L-Theanine, a synthesized green tea extract that is readily available online for a moderate price of around $30 for a month’s supply. The white powder is suspiciously cocaine-like in appearance, making my exchange with Ross, on a street corner in Hollywood, all the more awkward.

Just because a supplement is available over the counter doesn’t make it safe, so before taking any supplement, even for an experiment, it is important to check its safety information. L-Theanine, which has been widely consumed in green tea for centuries, has been thoroughly studied and found to have no observable adverse affects, even at the ludicrously high dose of 4,000 mg/kg of body weight.

According to L-Theanine pushers, the stuff is great for focusing attention, improving working memory, and even increasing intelligence. There’s some support for L-Theanine’s power, at least in concert with caffeine. However, a 2014 meta-analysis attributed most of the reported improvements to the caffeine usually taken alongside the nootropic.

Even so, some people swear that the powder increases their mental powers to superhuman levels. I, however, am not among them.

On the first day on L-Theanine, Ross and I both noticed nothing except increased heart rates and anxiety. Our scores on online IQ tests (which are notoriously unreliable, but presumably they are how some of these L-Theanine fans are testing their own IQs) were about the same as before we took the stuff, and my score on a working memory test actually dropped, perhaps because I was distracted by anxious thoughts. “Did I leave the oven on? DID I?!”

Over time, this effect decreased, and Ross and I experimented with adding and removing caffeine from the mix. We kept detailed logs of how we felt each day and compared our scores on those highly unscientific IQ tests, somewhat-scientific working memory tests, and our own notes about how we felt regarding our own mental focus. For the most part, neither of us felt any noticeable difference, and where the data was concerned, L-Theanine made no difference in any of my scores, and the small bump in Ross’s scores was within what might be expected from suggestion or chance.

A couple of weeks into our experiment, we decided to try a popular blend of several nootropics, called AlphaBrain. AlphaBrain is marketed as “clinically studied to help healthy individuals support memory, focus, and processing speed.” According to their promotional materials, the blend was actually inspired in part by comedian Joe Rogan, who has long enjoyed popularity with fringe thinkers. Rogan is a 9/11 Truther, doesn’t believe humans have landed on the moon, and believes in various other questionable theories, several of which have been outlined by Skeptoid’s Brian Dunning.

But just because nootropics sound a little too good to be true, or because they don’t have the best spokespeople, doesn’t alone make them pseudoscience. In fact, a double-blind study conducted at the Boston Center for Memory showed that people who took Alpha Brain for more than six weeks did show improvement on “long delay verbal recall” (remembering words after a long delay), while those given the placebo showed no improvement. There was also a slight improvement in “logical memory” scores, but those improvements disappeared after two weeks of taking the supplement as the body adjusted, suggesting that long-term use would not return an improvement in “logical memory” scores. It is also worth noting that the study was performed on only seventeen subjects.

So, Alpha Brain’s strongest claim is that it may improve verbal recall if you take it every day for more than six weeks. But that seems to counter some of its marketing, especially its “instant” formula, which, while absorbed quickly, wouldn’t necessarily give you much immediate benefit.

After a few weeks and even more experimenting with over-the-counter Neuro Drinks, which have many of the same ingredients and claims as our previous two nootropics, Ross and I were starting to lose hope that we were going to dramatically increase our IQs or improve our memories. We each found that most of the heavy lifting seemed to come from the caffeine recommended alongside the L-Theanine (when I took it without caffeine, my results were at or below my starting point), and neither of us wanted to get in the habit of maxing out on caffeine.

Still, there may be some long-term effect if a person takes certain nootropics for long periods of time (over six weeks), and other short-term effects (mostly in logical reasoning) that will come and go the first time you take the stuff on a clean system. Whether that benefit is worth it to you is another question. For me, I’ll stick with an occasional coffee. Not too hot, mind you.

I regularly scour the Internet for skeptically themed content to share with our community, and lately a particular name has emerged to become a trusted and delightful source of pseudoscience-busting news and information: Kavin Senapathy, one of the amazing speakers coming to CSICon Las Vegas and Women in Secularism 4.

She’s the co-Executive Director of international pro-science, pro-biotech organization March Against Myths, and a regular contributor to Forbes (where I first discovered her work) and Grounded Parents. She’s also a co-author of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House, a book discussing popular food misconceptions and why they proliferate in the face of mountains of evidence against them. Her writing as also appeared outlets such as Gawker, Slate, Genetic Literacy Project, and more.

She was kind enough to chat with me about her work and what it’s like to be a skeptical activist, a woman in secularism, and a mom.

Paul Fidalgo: I personally find your work incredibly useful and insightful, full of solid information that's actually fun to read, as opposed to being, say, too academic or alienating. What drew you to taking on a public role combatting pseudoscience and misinformation, and how did you arrive at your particular style?

Kavin Senapathy: Growing up in a family full of scientists and doctors, I have always been into science, especially biology. As a mom and contributor to evidence-based parenting site Grounded Parents, I realized that fear-based marketing is often targeted at parents, and I wanted to help demystify these issues. My style largely hinges on what I call “The Misinformation Hydra.” We can spend all day debunking and refuting lies from quacks, but the end-goal isn’t to vanquish them (though vanquishing the Food Babes, Deepak Chopras and Doctors-Oz is always a good thing). Each one is like a head on a hydra--cut one off and another grows back. When I write, I always remember that my overarching objective is to arm readers with a misinformation radar, to inoculate them against woo, so they can learn how to spot misleading information from a mile away. And I can’t resist a good joke or pun!

Fidalgo: My wife and I have two small kids ourselves, are we’re exposed to all manner of pseudoscientific parenting and health advice. It can be hard to discuss any of it from a pro-science perspective without seeming pedantic or condescending. How do you deal with that as a parent?

Senapathy: I try to remember that swaying people from unscientific stances, especially when it comes to parenting, is a marathon and not a sprint. These discussions, especially with friends and family, can take many conversations, sometimes spanning months or even years. Most parents have one thing in common-- we worry about the well being of our children. For better or worse, this tends to come from a place of emotion rather than reason, so fear needs to be addressed before facts.

As someone who communicates science from a parenting perspective, I constantly try to find a balance between conveying facts and addressing concerns. As skeptics and critical thinkers, we tend to lean on facts and citations, and technical or scientific explanations, though we know that it’s not always effective.

Fidalgo: So much of the paranoia around GMOs and “chemicals” in our food is focused on one corporation: Monsanto. Now, Monsanto is an incredibly large and powerful corporation, and they have a reputation for being litigious with farmers and for a willingness to throw their weight around. But when you’re defending the reality behind generically modified foods, one finds oneself in the unenviable position of being on the same side as the giant corporation, and skeptics can get accused of being “shills” for Monsanto, “Big Agriculture,” or whichever “Big Something” is in question. How do you navigate being pro-science without becoming a de facto spokesperson for a moneymaking business?

Senapathy: I was once jokingly called a “shill for tiny agro,” and that’s because I’m all about innovation and how technology and science can provide benefits to consumers, farmers, the needy, and to our environment, and I believe we need more competition from small and medium businesses and academia toward these objectives. All I can do is present the truth, and do my best not to take shill accusations to heart. Most people don’t realize that the anti-GMO lobby actually helps large corporations like Monsanto, which has come to symbolize and be a scapegoat for everything hated about our food system. But the current overly stringent, largely unscientific regulatory framework makes it prohibitively expensive and difficult for smaller players to get products from research to market (non-browning Arctic Apples and Innate Potatoes are exceptions).

Don’t get me wrong, I have friends who work for Monsanto and I believe that most of what’s hated about them is based in myths and misinformation perpetrated by parties with financial motives. But technology and innovation is so much bigger than Monsanto. It’s about agriculture, the earth, and social justice.

Fidalgo: You’ve described the campaign to get warning labels on all GMO food as a “ploy to grow the organic industry and eliminate genetically engineered foods.” Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment and ask: Is that a conspiracy theory? If Monsanto and pals aren’t conspiring to serve us all dangerous toxin-filled crypto-food, why should we believe that Whole Foods and Ben & Jerry’s want to take over the food industry?

Senapathy: The timing for this question is perfect, considering anti-GMO leaders’ reactions to President Obama signing S. 764, which will require companies to inform consumers whether ingredients were derived from genetic engineering, but allows QR codes or toll-free numbers instead of explicit labels, which I wrote about here. In the wake of Obama signing the bill, opponents have again admitted that labeling was no more than a tactic to eliminate GMOs from the market.

Other opponents leading the anti-GMO movement have explicitly said that the first step to eliminating these technologies is to label them. In a saturated market, with the safest, most abundant food supply in all of history, the only way for organics and other so-called “natural” food products to grow their industries is to differentiate themselves in trivial ways disguised as meaningful. We know that organic is no safer, healthier, or better for the environment, and we also know that the organic industry has intentionally misinformed the public to achieve growth, as this Academics Review report explains. Labeling is just another tactic in this game.

Fidalgo: Let me take off my tinfoil hat again. What issue most concerns you right now when it comes to pseudoscience and health? Is it the GMO debate, or is there something that worries you more?

Senapathy: It all worries me, especially anything that harms children. Take a peek at any “natural” or “organic” parenting groups and you’ll see everything from parents treating kids with strep throat and ear infections with breast milk, homeopathy or essential oils, to parents trying to cure their kids’ autism with harmful bleach enemas. These are immediate concerns.

Opposition to biotechnology can also impact children who are malnourished and who lack access to the food they need, so I guess the GMO debate always looms too. There are biotech solutions to problems of hunger, disease, drought, and even climate change. Gah! Once you get me talking about what worries me in the pseudoscience world, I may never stop!

Fidalgo: Okay, well let’s talk about the wider skeptic community, in which you’re quickly becoming very well known and respected, thus your coming appearance at CSICon 2016. But I’m happy to say you’ll first be coming to CFI’s other conference this year,Women in Secularism 4, in September. Obviously, we at CFI believe strongly that secularism and skepticism are two sides of the same coin, but it’s also no secret that not all skeptics consider themselves secular, and not all nonbelievers are skeptical about all pseudoscientific claims. So what for you is the connection between secularism and skepticism?

Senapathy: My connection may be unusual, in that I was raised atheist by a scientist dad, in a socially conservative household, with extended family who are mostly Hindu. (I now consider myself agnostic for lack of a better term.) Most of my non-religious peers were raised in religious households, and I was one of the only “out” atheist kids when I was growing up in the Midwest. That’s quickly changing, with so many of my kids’ peers being raised in non-religious homes.

My dad made it clear that religion and critical thinking cannot go hand-in-hand, and I went through the common angry “religion is a blight to humanity” phase so many atheists go through while I was a sullen teenager.

My stance on religion has since softened, which hasn’t always gone over well in the skeptics’ community. I believe that secularism is important, but I also believe that religion isn’t the root of all evil and that good scientists can be religious.

And yes, secularism isn’t the end-all or be-all of critical thinking. After all, so many anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, naturopathy-lovers and essential oil-slatherers aren’t religious! For me, it’s all about opposing injustice, and sometimes that requires targeting religion, and sometimes it requires fighting anti-science interests--they’re all forms of fundamentalism when you peel back a few layers. As long as we fight the use of taxpayer money to push religion, as long as we fight for civil rights and social justice and oppose religious justifications of systematic oppression, I don’t question what people choose to believe in their own minds and places of worship.

Fidalgo: Bonus question! Is there any particular non-GMO food that proudly proclaims its non-GMO credentials, but despite your activism, you can’t help but love? (For me it’s Ben & Jerry’s, when I can afford it.)

Senapathy: My kids loves Pretzel Crisps, so I’ll buy a “Non-GMO Project” emblazoned bag on occasion through gritted teeth. My kids also love Cliff Bars, but the company recently went too far in an incendiary attack on farmers (which I wrote about here) so though I used to hold my nose and buy them, I now refuse. Fortunately, there are some decent generic versions.

Last Fall, I noticed that “the MIRACLE of SCIENCE with SOUL” was the slogan consistently used in print and electronic advertisements for City of Hope, one of 45 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers. According to its home page, “At City of Hope, we treat you as an individual whose life will be made whole again. We combine science with soul to work miracles.”

Quite a promise! And it leads me to imagine Aretha Franklin joining health care professionals to provide oncology services of consistent astonishing effectiveness.

Wow!

While I recognize that City of Hope offers cutting-edge cancer treatments and is a leader in making significant multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary scientific research advances, to claim that it works miracles is disgraceful hype. In their consumer education efforts, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission associate miracle health claims with health fraud.

One might argue that City of Hope’s miracle mongering is mere puffery, which advertising professional Steve Cuno defined as “an exaggerated boast presumably understood not to be taken seriously,” and is therefore not deceptive. After all, many people refer to miracles loosely as wonderful events occurring against the odds. Not every fan of the 1969 Miracle Mets attributes the team’s World Series victory to a divine response to prayers, an event exceeding the productive power of nature, or a violation of the laws of nature.

But a problem with the puffery argument is that many prospective City of Hope patients are inclined to seek miracles consistent with their religious or spiritual attitudes. In the 2003 National Study of Youth and Religion, 60 percent of those surveyed responded “definitely” and 31 percent responded “maybe” when asked about their belief in the “possibility of divine miracles from God.” The Pew Forum’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey found that 79 percent of U.S. adults agreed that “Miracles still occur today as in ancient times” (as if miracles unquestionably occurred in ancient times). And according to a 2013 Harris Poll, 72 percent of U.S. adults believe in miracles.

Perhaps if you set the bar low enough for what constitutes a miracle, City of Hope can work miracles. That’s what the Pope did to give credit to Mother Teresa for healing miracles. But I don’t see any disclaimer in City of Hope’s advertising to suggest that City of Hope’s alleged miracles are second-rate.

One billboard ad with City of Hope’s miracle slogan featured a young woman and these words:

I AM A MIRACLE.

See how Kommah survived cancer: CityofHope.org.

Kommah was also featured in an ad in the Los Angeles Times (February 28, 2016) with the headline: “WHEN IT’S THE FIGHT OF YOUR LIFE, YOU NEED A MIRACLE IN YOUR CORNER.”

Mere puffery? Or is it more like the old snake oil peddlers exploiting desperate patients?

Kommah’s story is told in a brief YouTube video available on the City of Hope homepage. She explains that with the shielding of her reproductive organs from the radiation therapy she received at City of Hope, she survived her inflammatory breast cancer and went on to give birth to a baby. She had previously been told, apparently at another facility, that it would not be possible for her to give birth.

A heartwarming story? Yes!

An indicator of topnotch patient care? Although patients’ testimonials are often misleading, yes, I think it’s likely that City of Hope provided Kommah with topnotch care (and apparently without the mysticism-based treatments offered at some cancer centers).

But providing topnotch care isn’t miraculous!

Inflammatory breast cancer tends to be an especially difficult type of breast cancer to survive, but according to the National Cancer Institute: “…survival statistics are based on large numbers of patients and that an individual woman’s prognosis could be better or worse, depending on her tumor characteristics and medical history.” It’s not unknown for women with inflammatory breast cancer to give birth to healthy babies. For example, the story of a woman with inflammatory breast cancer who was treated with chemotherapy and gave birth to a healthy baby is told at the website of MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Another of City of Hope’s miracle-mongering ads appeared in the Los Angeles Times (April 24, 2016). Its headline was: “WE DON’T JUST TREAT CANCER. WE CURE IT.” The message is deceptive by omission of proper perspective. Cancer is a term for many different diseases. Many cases of some types of cancer are indeed curable—and not just at City of Hope. Some cancers are not curable at City of Hope or anywhere else.

Ads for City of Hope’s fourteen community practice sites in Southern California tout the availability of miracles beyond the main City of Hope campus in Duarte. Recent headlines in weekly suburban newspaper ads for City of Hope include: “MIRACLES ARE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK,” “A MIRACLE SHOULD NOT BE A MATTER OF DISTANCE,” and “WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER, MIRACLES ARE CLOSE TO HOME.”

Miracles, miracles everywhere!

Oy!

The headline, “SCIENCE IS MIRACULOUS,” in a City of Hope magazine ad is a glorification of science that obscures how science really operates. Yes, science makes progress in fighting cancer possible, but the progress has been disappointingly slow rather than miraculous.

Though fallible and challenging, science is exciting, wonderful, and awesome. But scientists tend to be far too humble and too honest to claim that what they do is miraculous.

Science is miraculous?

Irony #1: Many scientific investigations have confirmed naturalistic explanations of seemingly miraculous phenomena. The mundane is often mistaken for the miraculous. As stated by a character in Leigh Brackett’s story “The Sorcerer of Rhiannon” (1942), “Witchcraft to the ignorant, … Simple science to the learned.”

Irony #2: Beliefs in miracles arise from and are sustained by misguided human tendencies that are antithetical to scientific progress such as faith, revelation, indoctrination, superstition, misperception, leniency about evidence, various cognitive biases, and fallacious reasoning (e.g., the argument from ignorance).

Irony #3: Many believers in miracles as supernatural or paranormal events say that such events lie beyond the scope of scientific investigation. Some prominent scientists, science educators, and skepticism activists share this view. I don’t.

Science consists of the wide range of error-minimizing investigational activities that have enabled us to understand more and more about the cosmos, which Carl Sagan famously described as “all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Anything real is part of the cosmos. If what people describe as supernatural or paranormal occurrences are real, then they are part of the cosmos.

As Victor Stenger wrote in his book Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos, and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness, “Whether any of these proposed phenomena are of supernatural origin or not, they all involve physical observations and so can be empirically studied by normal scientific means” (p. 28).

According to Stephen Law: “While, as a philosopher, I am happy to acknowledge science has its limits, I see no reason to suppose that supernatural claims are in principle off-limits. They are not off-limits, and neither are many God claims....” (Ellipsis in original.)

As suggested by Ghent University philosophers Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke, and Johan Braeckman: “Supernatural claims do not fall beyond the reach of science; they have simply failed.”

Belief in miracle stories is prevalent and widely promoted. Social influences contribute to widespread credulity. Misleading accounts of miracles in mass media abound (e.g., Eben Alexander’s claimed journey into the afterlife, products endorsed by Dr. Oz, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, healings by “John of God,” hype for the power of prayer). Prominent individuals and organizations use media to pander to persistently prevalent delusions, exploit widespread fears, and welcome wishful thinking.

And so does City of Hope’s ad with the headline: “WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER, YOU WANT A MIRACLE.”

Reputable scientific and medical organizations such as City of Hope don’t belong in the mass media miracle mongering business. I suspect that many City of Hope clinicians and research scientists would agree. City of Hope should be able to advertise truthful, non-misleading messages of hope. Supporting the audacity of hope does not call for the audacity of hype. It should not take a miracle for City of Hope to replace its miracle campaign.