“My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?”

These words of Galileo, written in a letter to his friend Johannes Kepler, expressed his frustration related to the fact that evidence clearly supportive of heliocentrism was not respected and was in fact rejected as being heretical, in direct opposition to biblical scripture. Galileo was hopeful that if people who believed in the ancient theory of geocentrism would, to paraphrase him, “just look through the lens” of his telescope, they would see evidence to support the theory of heliocentrism (in which the Earth and its planets revolve around the Sun), first contemplated in Hellenistic times and then later supported by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’s work On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs, published in 1543.

Aristotle’s work in physics and astronomy was largely respected among astronomers at the time Copernicus’s book was published, and they had difficulty accepting Copernicus’s work. In addition, biblical views were prevalent among the population. Galileo was well aware of this fact but stated that “the Bible is written in the language of the common person who is not an expert in astronomy.” He argued that “Scripture teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go” (Van Helden 1995). His discoveries, published in 1632 in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, and those of Kepler further supported the scientific foundation of Copernicus’s work, ensuring that most serious astronomers subsequently were Copernicans.

Galileo’s book, however, was incendiary by espousing a worldview that contradicted one long accepted. There are striking similarities of Galileo’s world with ours today in the twenty-first century. Since his time, however, scientific research has furthered our understanding of the world and led to advances that have transformed the lives of billions of global citizens.

Why, then, have partisan politics permeated the discussions and decisions related to science-based issues such as climate change, evolution, vaccination, GMO technology, stem cell research, and other topics not only here in the United States but globally? Is a lack of understanding, disinterest, or ignorance of scientific facts to blame? Is scientific literacy and research not prioritized in our nation? What threats to people’s lives are posed by accepting—or at least considering—scientific evidence? If citizens would “just look through” (Galileo’s) telescope rather than the proverbial looking glass, would they understand the importance of science for themselves and be more accepting of the findings of scientific experts?

It is illuminating to step back in history again and consider the important role that philosophy played in the ancient world. Philosophy, the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, is regarded as a distinct academic subject today. Philosophy in the ancient world, however, represented the discipline of studying the natural world in a rational way, as a variety of scientific disciplines do today. Science and philosophy, considered to be such distinctly different disciplines today, were in effect one branch of knowledge in the ancient world.

Consider the poem that Lucretius wrote in 50 BCE, “On the Nature of Things.” In The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt (2011) tells a fascinating story about a papal secretary who, in the Middle Ages, traipsed across Europe in search of a copy of this reportedly lost poem. The story of the adventures of this secretary is in itself intriguing, but the actual poem was earthshaking in its time and, interestingly, still is today!

Lucretius’s poem portrayed religions as cruel and superstitious, fueled by ignorance and fear. In his poem, he proposed a scientific world vision in which all things, animate and inanimate, are composed of invisible particles, moving randomly and continuously in a void. There is no creator; living things have come into existence over eternity by random collisions of the particles and have evolved by a process of trial and error. Their purpose is only to survive, reproduce, and participate in a life of pleasure. Humans are not at the top privileged level of existence, and by understanding their own insignificance and the fact that there is no afterlife they will appreciate the wonder of life and be filled with pleasure (Greenblatt 2011, 185–201). The poem, which addressed Lucretius’s natural (“scientific”) worldview, was regarded as subversive and heretical, and those who openly supported it risked their lives. In fact, in 1600, the Roman Catholic Church Inquisition questioned Giordano Bruno, a defrocked Dominican monk, Italian philosopher, and scientist, and then burned him at the stake for openly supporting the views expressed by Lucretius in “On the Nature of Things.”

The fusion of science and philosophy was also a cultural feature of pre–Revolutionary Era America, reflecting the values of The Enlightenment in Europe. In Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter describes the fact that the early American Puritans, although criticized for serious, cruel actions, “came as close to being … a class of intellectuals intimately associated with a ruling power … as America has ever had” (Hofstadter 1962, 59).

A respect for science continued into the Revolutionary Era as the American Founding Fathers demonstrated their support of science and reason. Although Christianity was an important cultural feature of U.S. history, they embraced the secular values of Christianity in preference to its dogma. There is a plethora of quotations to support this fact. In Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin stated that “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” Thomas Paine wrote, “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead” (Paine 1778). (Interestingly, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson were citizen scientists who found, to quote Thomas Jefferson, “supreme delight” in pursuing scientific topics by conducting their own experiments.)

In a broader sense, the Founding Fathers understood the synergistic relationship of science and democracy. They transported the scientific method of testing of hypotheses and ideas, peer review, and free speech without fear of retaliation into a governmental context. John Adams referred to the “science of government” and applied the relationship of the scientific principle of equilibrium to the system of checks and balances, a critical component of democracy. The Founding Fathers also recognized the potential of scientific knowledge to solve problems and improve the lives of Americans in the future (Union of Concerned Scientists 2017).

The years following the Revolutionary Era in our country, however, marked an abrupt departure from the rational, secular orientation of the Founders. A current of anti-intellectualism, described in Richard Hofstadter’s brilliant book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (Hofstadter 1962), grew progressively stronger during the early nineteenth century, changing the public’s attitudes toward science and other scholarly subjects. Hofstadter describes the early nineteenth century westward migration of the U.S. population away from the cultural centers in coastal New England as a critical factor in the development of anti-intellectualism. An upsurge of revivalistic religious sentiment accompanied this migration too, with a demand for preachers who could deliver emotional appeals to the uneducated lay people in the frontier regions. Dwight L. Moody, a prominent evangelist of the period, scorned reading books and described learning as “an encumbrance to the man of spirit.” His scorn for science was widely shared among the public, amplified when he stated that students were taught that man was the “offspring of a monkey” (Hofstadter 1962).

As science became more complex and differentiated, the common man began to feel dependent upon “experts,” many of whom were located in coastal eastern urban areas. Individuals’ treasured feelings of self-sufficiency and independence were compromised, leading to resentment. Americans respected intelligence but not intellectuals, and they complained that the value of an idea was governed by its utility—it had no value in itself. This belief pervaded the business world as well, creating Americans’ strong admiration for a self-made man, one whose path led to economic and social success without much education, often in spite of it.

So what has happened in our country? How have issues with scientific implications become politicized and analyzed through partisan rather than objective lenses? How can political candidates gain public support by professing views that contradict objective scientific evidence?

It is a paradox that in a nation that has been in the forefront of scientific developments, climate change was mentioned as an important issue by only one candidate, Bernie Sanders, in the 2016 presidential campaign. No questions related to climate change were posed by moderators in the televised debates. It is also remarkable that in the current 115th Congress, there are 222 members with law degrees while there are fourteen physicians. There is only one PhD scientist, Representative Bill Foster, who has a PhD in physics. Eighteen members of the House have no degree beyond their high school diploma (Manning 2017).

The War on Science by Shawn Otto is an authoritative new source of information concerning the questions raised in this article. He makes the point that “knowledge is power, and power is political” (Otto 2016). In view of its dynamic, ever-changing knowledge base, science may threaten vested interests and conflict with fixed worldviews, including those based on superstition and religion.

Another interesting paradox that Otto points out, however, is that the scientific method is inherently democratic since one’s hypotheses and results are subject to evaluation and testing by other independent sources; nevertheless, the public often regards scientists as authoritarian, arrogant elitists (Otto 2016). Scientists in our country admittedly have often retreated to the laboratories and haven’t actively engaged with the public, with the exception of a few stellar individuals such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, E.O. Wilson, Rachel Carson, and Carl Sagan. These scientists have performed an excellent service by making complex scientific issues understandable and interesting to the public. Unfortunately, their work is often undermined by the public’s feelings of envy and alienation.

Anti-science views have been amplified by the political wave of populism that is sweeping not only America but also Europe. Key elements of populism are anti-elitism and nativism, which can translate into anti-immigrant views (Toker 2016). The role of globalization in the creation of not only economic but also knowledge inequality has amplified these feelings of resentment.

A critical driver of the politicization of science is the perception of threat to religious beliefs, and the school choice issue brings this into sharp focus. For example, many evangelicals feel that tax-supported vouchers should be used to promote anti-science religious dogmas such as creationism. Indeed, the recently appointed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stated several years ago that one of the goals of our schools should be “to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom” (Rizga 2017). Evangelicals feel threatened by evolution, now universally accepted by the scientific community. Interestingly, 81 percent of self-identified white, born-again evangelicals voted for the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, while only 16 percent voted for the Democrat Hillary Clinton (Smith and Martinez 2016).

In addition to posing a threat to one’s religious beliefs, some individuals perceive scientific research as a threat to their business interests. This is especially true if the research results in governmental regulatory policies that are perceived to harm profits. Climate change is an obvious example of this dynamic. Shawn Otto points to the example of Exxon, which in the 1970s promoted climate science only to take the opposite stance as a climate denier in recent times (Otto 2016). The Republican Party, traditionally the party representing business interests, formulated a platform in the 2016 presidential election that supported cuts to scientific research, halting of funding for the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, cancellation of the Clean Power Plan, and other deregulatory actions. The Trump Administration appointment to Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency is an individual who has sued that very agency many times to weaken its environmental regulations and would like to see its power severely reduced.

Another facet of the politicization of science in our country is the effect of the postmodernism movement, which occurred in the latter part of the twentieth century. This movement represents a distrust of the Enlightenment principle of rationality. Although the term postmodernism has traditionally been applied to the humanities, it has broad implications for attitudes toward science, promoting the idea that truth is contextual, depending on one’s culture, education, and life experiences. This attitude is misplaced when dealing with scientific facts such as evolution. Otto further describes the role of journalists in promoting the “other side” of disagreements regarding scientific issues, even when the weight of evidence overwhelmingly supports one conclusion. This mistakenly gives opinion the same weight as fact (Otto 2016).

One of the unfortunate results of postmodernism is that individuals see scientific issues in ways that fit their preconceptions and make them comfortable. As individuals mature, they may gravitate toward the political party whose views they share on other nonscientific issues and then proceed to adopt unquestionably, almost in a tribal fashion, the views of that party on scientific issues. The public’s gravitation to biased television reporting, social media, and Internet resources that fit their worldview as sources of information on scientific issues further calcifies their opinions.

Unfortunately, the public’s respect for scientific developments can be modulated by fear. Progressive Democrats have traditionally been strong supporters of scientific research and have endorsed the validity of evolution and climate change; nevertheless, some regard GM foods, vaccination, fluoridation of drinking water, and a variety of chemicals as threatening developments. Even many scientifically literate progressives are skeptical about the safety of GM foods and are concerned that the food industry’s vested interests may outweigh safety issues. Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, may or may not personally approve of GM foods, and business interests could override their safety concerns (Funk and Kennedy 2016).

The issue of vaccination is complex, involving strange bedfellows. This debate arose in recent times as a result of a Lancet medical journal article that contained fraudulent information indicating that autism could result from vaccination (General Medical Council 2010). Some progressive Democrats, usually supportive of regulations that they see as contributing to public welfare, object to vaccination on the (faulty) grounds that it may result in autism. Some conservatives, mainly Republicans, object to it because they feel that their personal freedom is threatened by school requirements for vaccination.

Another issue with strange bedfellows is food supplements. In his illuminating book Do You Believe in Magic?, Paul A. Offit outlines the steps by which Congressional members from both the Democrat and Republican parties enacted legislation in 1976 that effectively freed the entire supplement industry from the FDA requirement that products had to be shown to be both safe and effective. Later attempts to pass legislation requiring supplements to meet FDA requirements were made primarily by Democratic legislators but were defeated by Republicans who had political constituencies or personal financial investments in the industry (Offit 2013).

In The War on Science, Shawn Otto describes the “marriages” between different segments of our society, which by sharing common agendas became the two major modern political parties in our country. These marriages are as follows:

1. The anti-regulatory, pro-corporate business interests and the anti–reproductive-control religious interests found their representation in the Republican Party.
2. The pro-environment, pro-choice, anti-corporate elements of scientists and environmentalists found their interests best represented in the Democratic Party.

These marriages have catalyzed the extreme polarization regarding scientific issues that we witness today. In the current parlance, this is “identity politics” (Otto 2016).

It is beyond the scope of this article to propose potential solutions to this situation. Shawn Otto, however, has articulated a comprehensive strategy in his book to raise the awareness of the importance of science in our democracy. Scientists, teachers, and businessmen can engage in public outreach, and candidates running for public office must demonstrate their knowledge of and commitment to science in public debates. Otto lists ways in which concerned citizens can become effective activists and offers an exhaustive list of organizations that are engaged in this effort (Otto 2016). The hundreds of thousands of citizens in the United States and across the globe who participated in the March for Science on April 22, 2017, sent a strong, clear message to world leaders and to other citizens that science plays a vital role in our lives and is ignored only at our peril. After all, it’s difficult to name any issue that isn’t either directly or indirectly related to science!

An increasing number of businesses are endorsing policies and positions that are fact-based. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, for example, stated recently, “We believe climate change is real and the science is well accepted. We hope that the United States continues to play a constructive role in furthering solutions to these challenges” (Wall Street Journal Business section, March 30, 2017).

As one of many nations that are intensely focused on the welfare of children and grandchildren, an emphasis on personal, corporate, and governmental responsibility could be powerful and universally appealing. Although a rational approach to scientific issues is essential, emotional appeals regarding specific issues incorporating the message “for the children’s sake” might incentivize people with differing views and orientations to work together on controversial issues. Imagine the power of this approach with regard to environmental preservation, for example. A video could be produced showing a child enjoying a bird’s song today in 2017 but not in 2050 because of environmental destruction. Or consider the alternative, a video of the child looking and listening to the same bird in 2050 as a result of environmentally responsible actions! This child-centered approach has been woefully underutilized.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that a threat to our democracy exists when there is scientific illiteracy, complacency, or extreme polarization regarding scientific issues among the general public. This is fertile ground for powerful vested interests to use baseless “information” (i.e., “fake news”) to lobby for their positions on issues that threaten or support their views. This constitutes a form of authoritarianism that can be used to impede scientific progress and, in the long run, cause a government to fail. We have only to look at examples where that has occurred (e.g., China during the Cultural Revolution, Nazi Germany, and the Ottoman and Roman Empires) to see the catastrophic results. We must “look through Galileo’s lens” rather than through an imaginary looking glass and respect the power of science to preserve our democracy in the United States and globally.

• Funk, Cary, and Brian Kennedy. 2016. The new food fights: U.S. public divides over food science. Pew Research Center (December). Available online at http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/01/the-new-food-fights/.
• General Medical Council. 2010. Andrew Wakefield: Determination of serious professional misconduct. Available online at http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.
• Greenblatt, Stephen. 2011. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company.
• Hofstadter, Richard. 1962. Anti-intellectualism in American Life. New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House.
• Manning, Jennifer E. 2017. Membership of the 115th Congress: A Profile. Congressional Research Service 7-5700. Available online at www.crs.gov.
• Offit, Paul A. 2013. Do You Believe in Magic? New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
• Otto, Shawn. 2016. The War on Science. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.
• Paine, Thomas. 1778. The American Crisis: Lancaster, March 21, 1778. The Crisis.
• Rizga, Kristina. 2017. Betsy DeVos wants to use America’s schools to build “God’s kingdom.” Mother Jones (March/April). Available online at www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary.
• Smith, Gregory A., and Jessica Martinez. 2016. How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis. Pew Research Center (November 9). Available online at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/.
• Toker, Daniel. 2016. Is populism a threat to science? The Humanist (August). Available online at https://thehumanist.com/news/science/populism-threat-science.
• Union of Concerned Scientists. 2017. Science and Democracy in the United States: A Rich History. Available online at http://www.ucsusa.org/center-for-science-and-democracy/science-and-democracy-in-the-US-history-html#.WJjE37GZOuU.
• Van Helden, Al. 1995. Copernican system. The Galileo Project. Available online at http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/theories/copernican_system.html.

In 2012, journalist John Bohannon of the respected journal Science submitted a fictitious research paper to 304 open-access journals, of which 157 accepted his paper for publication. Bohannon used a fake name (Ocorrafoo Cobange) and a fake affiliation (Wassee Institute of Medicine); created a database of cancer cells, molecules, and lichens; and generated hundreds of unique papers using a computer program. The scientific content of each paper was identical and contained so many “grave errors that a competent peer reviewer should easily identify it as flawed and unpublishable” (Bohannon 2013).

In March 2017, another respected journal, Nature, carried out its own sting operation. It submitted a fake application for an editor position, a person woefully unqualified, to 360 journals, a mix of legitimate journals and suspected predatory journals. Forty-eight of the latter accepted her for the job, many on condition of paying a fee or donation first (Sorokowski et al. 2017).

Predatory journals can be defined as “publications [that take] large fees without providing robust editorial or publishing services.” They usually “recruit articles through aggressive marketing and spam emails, promising quick review and open access publication for a price. There is little if any quality control and virtually no transparency about processes and fees. Their motive is financial gain, and they are corrupting the communication of science. Their main victims are institutions and researchers in low and middle income countries...” (Clark and Smith 2015).

Unfortunately, fake journals have increased aggressively and succeeded in establishing their positions in the world of academic writing, which may lead, if they remain unquestioned, to what Frank Truth calls “academic racketeering” (Truth 2012).

In 2010, a librarian at the University of Colorado, Jeffrey Beall, developed a list of “predatory open-access journals” (Beall 2012; 2017). At the beginning, there were only twenty journals on his blacklist, but by 2013 the number exceeded 300 (Kolata 2013). One on Beall’s list of “questionable, scholarly open-access publishers” (Beall 2017) is the journal of choice among many of my undergraduate colleagues and even professors who used to be very happy when they received the acceptance letter and request to pay not more than $50. It seemed to me like charity, and I wanted to be one of those lucky international researchers publishing via this “Research Publish Journals” organization (http://www.researchpublish.com/).

Day #1: A Well-Organized Website and a Prestigious Editorial Board

The first marketing bubble I found at researchpublish.com was this question “Why choose us?” I was very suspicious when I read one of their answers: “Presence of large numbers of if’s and buts in paper submission process of other Journals require lots of effort of authors unnecessarily.” I stopped reading and said to myself: “What a wonderful beginning!” As any English beginner would notice, there are many grammar and writing mistakes in addition to the poor writing quality. I was not shocked because I expected that.

I continued reading, ignoring more and more terrible mistakes that should alert any serious researcher that he or she is probably going to waste their efforts and time by submitting a paper to such a journal. In scientifically sound and reputable journals there must be “ifs” and “buts.” A paper cannot be accepted for review until it passes many phases of checks and evaluations of its readiness to be peer-reviewed. However, predatory journals (such as Research Publish Journals) do not require good English, real affiliations, or even ethical clearance. They primarily “do not reject any paper!,” and to be considered, papers should only meet their easy “Research Publish Journals format.” So, what did I do?

I used real data of mine and modified them to show clearly observable fatal mistakes in simple mathematics and English grammar. I also purposely kept many epidemiological facts without citations and declared that I do not have any ethical clearance. These clearly distinguishable flaws were generated to test a hypothesis that Research Publish Journals’ editorial board does not exist—or if it exists, it does not spend a second evaluating the submitted papers.

The Same Day: I Will Be Rejected for Sure!

I submitted my fake article to the International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research (IJSSHR) using a fake name (Ahmed Mousa) and fake institution and waited. I expected that my paper would be considered and accepted/rejected after “five to ten days.”

My paper contained seriously fatal scientific flaws such as sampling errors, mathematically incorrect tables, uncited important data, and poor English. For example, in the abstract section the total sample was “700 undergraduate students” and the prevalence of X disease was “55.8%,” but in the methods and result sections, the total sample was “800” and “500,” and the prevalence of X disease was “25.8%.” As another example, in the ethical consideration section, I wrote: “Ethical clearance has not been obtained from the X University Ethical Committee.” In addition, I made simple grammatical mistakes such as “it are” and “they was,” which cannot be discovered by merely looking at the manuscript. Not to mention the other academic mistakes such as not citing references of the used scales, not reporting significant associations, and using scales of very poor internal consistencies (i.e., Cronbach alpha = 0.12).

Day #2: Congratulations!

Surprisingly, despite all of those flaws, my paper was accepted the next day. I was shocked this time. My inbox contained an unread mail from Research Publish Journals <editor@researchpublish.org> with the subject line “Acceptance Letter.” Was I hallucinating?

What kind of journal writes “Greetings!!!!!!” like that? Is it an automatic message? I had published a research article before. I received a message that had more informative content, such as: Dear (my name), Your manuscript titled (the study title) has been accepted… Attached is the final draft of your article. With regards.

I did not receive any final draft of my article, so I sent them the following message:

And they replied that they will send it to me before the publication. When? Apparently after they receive their $50 ASAP.

My Message to You

“Most people don’t know the journal universe. They will not know from a journal’s title if it is for real or not.”—Dr. Steven Goodman, a dean and professor of medicine at Stanford and the editor of the journal Clinical Trials

Science is a great way to understand the world around us, to understand ourselves, and to understand others. Scientific papers are the language of science. Internet databases have a lot of good (and bad) published papers. There are papers designed to solve difficult problems in medicine, physics, and numerous other fields, and there are papers that are written just to be published somewhere without any real contribution to the growing scientific literature.

If you are an author, please try to avoid journals that treat you like prey and do not respect your hard and time-consuming work. It is not paramount to get published as soon as possible. A good study must be reviewed by unbiased reviewers whose only goal is to tell you whether your paper is publishable or not. Getting published in a predatory journal may add some points to your CV, but it will affect your future career as an academic researcher and put you among fake researchers who contribute to the problem. So please try to publish in a real and reputable journal, even at the expense of your time and money.

If you are a reader, you might not be aware of a lot of fake journals that look like real ones in everything, including the website design, language style, paper format, and “PhD” editors and contributors. Not every PDF file that has a large reference list is a scientific paper, so always be a suspicious reader. Well-regarded journals will be indexed in well-known libraries like PLoS and PubMed (Kolata 2013).

I do not have commercial or any conflicts of interest with Research Publish Journals. One may wonder why I chose this journal among thousands of questionable publications on Beall’s list or other lists. The reason I reported my experience with this particular journal is that I knew that many of my colleagues and medical students in my country submit their well-written papers to them, just to pay less and get published in a short time.

• Beall, J. 2012. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature 489: 179 (September 13). doi:10.1038/489179a.
• ———. 2017. Bealls’s List of Predatory Journals and Publishers. Available online at http://beallslist.weebly.com; accessed June 16, 2017.
• Bohannon, J. 2013. Who’ s afraid of peer review? Science 342 (October 4): 60–65.
• Clark, J, and R. Smith. 2015. Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ 350: h210 (January). doi: 10.1136/bmj.h210.
• Kolata G. 2013. Scientific articles accepted (personal checks, too). New York Times (April 7): 6–9.
• Sorokowski, P., E. Kulczycki, A. Sorokowska, et al. 2017. Predatory journals recruit fake editor. Nature 543 (March 23): 481–482. doi:10.1038/543481a.
• Truth, F. 2012. Pay big to publish fast: Academic journal rackets. Journal of Critical Educational Studies 10 (Stratford): 54–105.

Mark Boslough: At the time I interviewed you for CSICon 2016, Hillary Clinton was a pretty solid favorite to be our next president. Barely a week after the conference ended, we were all shocked by the result of the election. How has this changed your life over the course of the last year?

Michael Mann: Like many of us, I was shocked by the result of the election. The irony is that the Trump presidency made our book “The Madhouse Effect,” which was published months before the election, seem unusually prescient. Just as we thought we had found the exit door from the Madhouse of climate change denialism, it got firmly shut in our face. Climate change denialism has now infected our entire body politic, and the message of our book—that we must fight harder than ever to defend the science and to promote objective, science-based climate policy—is more important than ever.

Boslough: The Trump transition team didn't take long to start making antiscience policy statements and announcing hostile candidates for critical administration positions such as DOE secretary and EPA administrator. A month after the election, I saw you speak in San Francisco at a Rally for Science that was held in conjunction with the annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. Do you think that the scientific community as a whole has become sufficiently engaged in pro-science activism, or is there still a lot of apathy?

Mann: I think reality is somewhere between those two end-members. The scientific community is certainly far more engaged in pro-science activism than at any other time during my adult life. We saw this not just in the AGU rally a year ago but in the subsequent science marches and climate marches the following spring in DC and around the country. On the other hand, at a time when science, fact, and objective reality are under attack by a demagogue and his cynical enablers, scientists must be more outspoken than ever. To quote from an op-ed I wrote for the New York Times in January 2014 entitled “If You See Something, Say Something”:

If scientists choose not to engage in the public debate, we leave a vacuum that will be filled by those whose agenda is one of short-term self-interest. There is a great cost to society if scientists fail to participate in the larger conversation — if we do not do all we can to ensure that the policy debate is informed by an honest assessment of the risks. In fact, it would be an abrogation of our responsibility to society if we remained quiet in the face of such a grave threat.

These words feel oddly prophetic today.

Boslough: Your words echo those of the great Carl Sagan as well!  It is great to encourage scientists at an individual level, but what about institutions? Are professional societies, universities, national labs, research institutes, and publishers sufficiently engaged?  What about those whose primary function is science communication? Do you think that the science media, bloggers, podcasters, documentary producers, and museums stepping up adequately?

Mann: Thanks Mark. I often do my best to channel Sagan, a true hero of mine. I think institutions—including universities and scientific societies and organizations, publishers, etc.—are too often risk averse when it comes to defending and communicating science that is perceived as threatening by powerful interests (tobacco, fossil fuels, chemical industry, etc.).

There are various reasons for this, one of which is simply the intrinsically conservative nature of large institutions that must serve broad constituencies with diverse views. But I think a large part of it is the way that special interests have “worked the refs” and cowed scientific institutions into silence and “both-siderism” on issues such as climate change by infiltrating advisory boards and funding infrastructure and by using their wealth and influence to levy political pressure. That having been said, I also see a lot of brave journalists, bloggers, documentary producers, and science institutions that are out there on the front lines defending science from the current onslaught of attacks. That gives me some optimism.

Boslough: As important as it is for scientists to defend science, should it be seen as a requirement for them to be involved? For example, should young climate scientists be judged negatively if they choose to stay out of the press and away from microphones so they can spend more time in the field, lab, office, or classroom?  Not everyone is good at everything.

Mann: This is a topic that was brought to the fore by the 2009 book Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, which seemed to take the position that this should be part of all scientists standard training. I reviewed the book positively for RealClimate (see: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/unscientific-america-a-review/), but did weigh in with a caveat similar to that you express above:

To some, the authors could potentially come across as a bit overly prescriptive here. One might interpret them as arguing that science needs to be taught in a fundamentally different way, with the new generation of science students fully immersed in the social sciences as part of an entirely rethought curriculum. Were the authors arguing this, one might indeed expect quite a bit of push-back from the scientific community. After all, the course work required to prepare today’s science students for careers of advanced research in cosmology or genetics (or climate modeling for that matter) is extensive, and slapping a whole bunch of additional course requirements in, say, communication and sociology, on top of their current requirements would be onerous to say the least. But this is not what the authors are saying (I can say this with confidence, having confirmed this in my discussions with them). To allow science to continue to flourish, it will of course be necessary to allow those scientists with neither the interest nor inherent aptitude for communication to continue to do science in the old fashioned way. It would be an unwise use of our resources and theirs to push these reluctant individuals towards outreach.

Boslough: Even so, it seems like scientists who do it should get credit and that such activities would be “cv-worthy.” I think scientists should get a feather in their cap every time they are attacked by a prominent denier or antiscience blogger. We all advertise our “h-index” which is a measure of our publication impact. What do you think about creating a “dd index” that quantifies our effectiveness at debunking denier misinformation? It could be based on the number of times we’ve been disparaged in print by the Heartland Institute or Anthony Watts, for example.

Mann: Hah—I love that idea. And I do think that we have to find a way to better reward those scientists who do put much time and effort into outreach, communication, and the defense of science against politically motivated attacks. Most universities recognize “outreach” as one of the three pillars of an academic’s job responsibilities (teaching, research, outreach). Well, these activities should be viewed as “outreach” in the same way that service to the university or academic profession is viewed as “outreach.”

Boslough: Earlier this year you were the recipient of the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication. Last month you received the James H. Shea Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers for your “exceptional contribution in writing or editing Earth science materials for the general public or teachers of Earth science.” Congratulations for these honors!  It must feel good to be recognized this way.

Mann: Thanks Mark. Sure, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t nice to be recognized in this way. But it isn’t the reason I do what I do. Like others of us who are on the front lines of the battle to communicate the science and its implications, I’m in it because it just feels like the right thing to be doing. When I double-majored in applied math and physics at UC Berkeley, went off to study physics at Yale University, I hardly imagined that my career path would eventually take me to the center of the most contentious societal debate of all time. While it’s hardly what I signed up for, I consider myself deeply fortunate to be in a position to inform the larger discussion about what may well be the greatest challenge we have faced as a civilization.

Boslough: Returning to the election, part of the result was a very well-organized campaign of misinformation. The Mueller investigation will soon tell us the degree to which it was orchestrated by Russians. It almost seems that the climate misinformation campaign has been leading toward a near-complete breakdown in trust of subject-matter experts by Americans. As I recall, even the British Climate Research Unit email theft that led to the “Climategate” conspiracy theory had a Russian connection. Do you think there is a link between these antiscience and anti-democracy activities?

Mann: I’ve often said that those of us on the front lines of the climate battle were dealing with “fake news” and “alternative facts” years ago, before they became fashionable. And I do think that there are some remarkable commonalities between the fake “Climategate” scandal of 2009/2010 and the REAL Russigate scandal of 2016. Stolen emails, Russia, and “wikileaks” played a role in both cases. And an agenda of climate action and continued exploitation of fossil fuels played a central role in each as well. The fake “Climategate” scandal was intended to sabotage the December 2009 Copenhagen climate change summit, while Russiagate, many have argued, was really about insuring that Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil, and Russia could proceed in a joint venture to tap one of the largest remaining (Russian) oil reserves on the planet, a half-trillion dollar deal (something that was prevented under the Obama administration by U.S. trade sanctions against Russia resulting from their activities in the Ukraine). We still haven’t learned everything there is to know about either of these affairs, and I expect we will learn quite a bit more in the years ahead.

Boslough: I just learned that you have now collaborated on another book, called The Tantrum that Saved the World. Can you say something about it?

Mann: Yes, I’m very excited about this particular project. It is a collaboration with a children’s book author and illustrator, Megan Herbert. It tells the story of a little girl who comes face to face with an enormous challenge, feels all kinds of frustration as she tries to overcome it, and then channels those strong emotions into action, rallying all those around her to do the same. Following this engaging, relatable tale, comes the explanation of the science of climate change in language that children can understand, telling the stories of the climate refugees that appear in the story and how all their lives are interconnected. An Action Plan then outlines simple and positive steps every person can take to make a real difference and to become the heroes of their own stories. There are three parts to this book, each having appeal to a slightly different age group, which extends its lifespan for its intended audience. The story book part is written with four to eight year olds in mind. The science part of the book can be read to a child of any age, but its concepts and world-view perspective are better suited to children six years or older. The action plan poster is for everyone, including adults. Every member of the family can get something useful from this book.

Boslough: Thanks for your time. Anything else you want to say in closing?

Mann: Just this: Thanks for your own efforts Mark to inform the public discourse over climate change and to push back on the efforts by climate change deniers to distort the public understanding of science. It is a group effort and you have contributed vitally to it. I look forward to continuing to see you there alongside me on the front lines of this worthy battle, my friend. :-)

The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy. By Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles. Columbia University Press, New York, 2016. ISBN: 9780231177863. 186 pp. Hardcover, $24.95.

President Trump—who has called climate change a “hoax” and has pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord—gives more urgency to reading Prof. Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles’s excellent book, The Madhouse Effect, a short primer on climate change and its denial.

In a brilliant collaboration between a climate scientist known for the “hockey stick curve” that shows unprecedented global warming and a Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist at the Washington Post, Mann and Toles complement each other’s work in chapters ranging from climate warming science explanations to the stages of its denial to making action plans for the future.

The chapter on the war on climate science is particularly enlightening, briefly tracing the history of the climate science doubters, many of whom, including scientists, were paid lavishly by fossil fuel advocates. Mann, the Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, isn’t above being a bit snarky at times in his writing and includes this quote from writer Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Mann, who spoke at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s CSICon skeptics’ conference in Las Vegas last October and is scheduled to do so again this year, also relates his own involvement in controversies over climate change studies, including Virginia’s former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s ill-fated lawsuit against the University of Virginia over government-funded research on climate change by Mann. A lower court ruled that Cuccinelli provided no evidence of wrongdoing. One of Toles’s cartoons drawn at that time on that issue is included in the book.

Toles’s cartoons indeed provide fresh text breaks that illustrate what Mann writes about. There are just enough of them to provide occasional chuckles while reading about the serious science, history, and future of climate change.

Early in the book Mann explains how the word skepticism has been misused by climate change deniers and briefly explains scientific skepticism. He points out that the exploited weakness in science is the public understanding of it. “Deliberate confusion can be sown under a false pretext of ‘skepticism,’” Mann writes. “And the scientific process is continually under assault by bad-faith doubt mongers.”

In another chapter, they skewer most of the proposed geoengineering ideas to combat global warming, arguing that the costs are exorbitant, the technological challenges difficult, and the adverse regional climate effects real. Mann convincingly argues that geoengineering schemes will prove the law of unintended consequences.

The book lacks a glossary, which would have been helpful in briefly explaining scientific terms, identifying numerous organizations that are hard to keep straight as being for or against climate change science, and individuals. But Mann does include brief explanations within the text, so this omission is minor.

The authors remain hopeful about the ability of humans to adapt and help avoid the destruction of our planet, encouraging carbon pricing and promoting environmental sustainability in general. But Mann does say there’s an urgency. “Dreams of slowly adapting to climate change,” he writes, “will have to be replaced with the hard reality of an ever-escalating pace of disruption and unpredictability.”

By the time the reader reaches that last chapter explaining “The Path Forward,” the subtitle of the book will make perfect sense: “How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy.” If a reader has time for just one book explaining climate change science and denial, The Madhouse Effect is the one to read.

I trust that I need not persuade readers of Skeptical Inquirer that in today’s world of post-truth, alternative facts, and rampant pseudoscience, critical thinking—reasoning that helps to compensate for our biases—is needed now more than ever. Concerted efforts to dispel erroneous beliefs, as exemplified by the articles in each issue of this magazine, are essential to this mission. To effectively disseminate critical thinking to the broader populace, though, we may need to start earlier in our educational efforts than we have commonly assumed, perhaps as early as childhood.

Critical thinking and its close cousin, scientific thinking, do not come naturally to the human species (McCauley 2011). Hence, it is no surprise that many people, even those with high levels of education and intelligence, are not adept at evaluating claims with a skeptical mindset, one that requires us to maintain an open mind to novel claims while demanding persuasive evidence. In principle, there could even be a sensitive period for teaching critical thinking in childhood; once this window closes, critical thinking may be even more difficult to acquire. Still, developmental and educational psychologists know remarkably little about whether this is the case and if so, when we should begin to teach the rudiments of skepticism to children (see Scott O. Lilienfeld, “How Can Skepticism Do Better?,” Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2016). As a consequence, we do not know whether laudable efforts to expose young children to critical thinking skills (such as the Junior Skeptic feature in Skeptic magazine) are worthwhile. Perhaps we need to wait until children’s cognitive capacities, such as their ability to think abstractly, are better developed. After all, as the great Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget noted, children are not merely “tiny adults.” They often think about the world in qualitatively different (that is, different in kind rather than degree) ways from grown-ups.

More optimistically, some developmental psychologists contend that infants and young children are “scientists” in their approach to evaluating evidence (Gopnik et al. 2000). There is some truth to this view. Children form hypotheses about how the world works, conduct miniature “experiments” on the world, and draw inferences from them. At the same time, we should be careful not to take these findings too far. The assertion that science comes naturally to humans early in development is difficult to square with the late emergence of science in the history of the human species (Wolpert 1998).

With respect to the effectiveness of educating children in critical thinking, the glass is either half-full or half-empty depending on one’s perspective. On the one hand, there are ample grounds for pessimism when it comes to teaching critical thinking to children. As Paul Bloom and Deena Weisberg (2007) observed in an important review, children display distinctive biases in thinking that may impede efforts to teach them science. For example, children are, in the words of Deborah Kelemen (1999), “promiscuously teleological”: they see purpose even in its absence. When asked why clouds exist, for instance, many four-year-olds respond, “to give us rain.” As Michael Shermer (2009) noted, this propensity appears to live on in many adults in the form of agenticity—a proclivity to believe that natural phenomena are generated by intentional agents. Children are also natural-born essentialists. For example, they tend to perceive animal species as possessing unalterable essences, a belief that may in some cases hamper their ability to grasp the essentials of evolution by natural selection (Emmons and Kelemen 2015).

On the other hand, recent data raise the possibility that children may indeed be able to acquire basic critical thinking skills. For example, despite the tendency of young children to conceive of the world in essentialist terms, evidence suggests that they can be taught to grasp the tenets of natural selection. Using a story-book method that consisted of engaging pictures and narratives, Kelemen and colleagues (2014) found that five- to eight-year-old children could acquire the fundamental principles of Darwinian evolution (such as differential survival and reproduction and the resulting changes in the population frequency of characteristics), and that their newfound understanding persisted for at least several months. More broadly, a recent meta-analysis revealed that critical thinking instruction yielded small to moderate gains on standard critical thinking measures among elementary and middle school children (Abrami et al. 2015).

A new study provides still more reasons for cautious optimism (Nsangi et al. 2017). In an impressive investigation of over 10,000 pupils in Uganda aged ten to twelve, the authors examined the effectiveness of a teaching program designed to teach schoolchildren to distinguish well-supported from poorly supported health claims. By using a textbook that contained entertaining comic-book stories—supplemented by group exercises, singing, and other teaching tools—instructors taught students twelve key concepts relevant to evaluating assertions regarding medical treatments. These concepts included the idea that anecdotal evidence of improvement is fallible, that to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment one must compare it with a control condition, and that participants should ideally be blinded to their condition assignment. Sixty schools received the intervention, and sixty served as a no-intervention control group. The intervention produced large effects on children’s ability to understand core concepts regarding the evaluation of medical claims, with the effects being especially pronounced among those with high levels of reading ability.

The study, although promising, has its limitations. The intervention was compared against a no-intervention control condition rather than an alternative teaching method, so some of the effects may have stemmed from nonspecific effects, such as attention or the generalized effects of any intensive teaching method. In addition, the items on the post-test were similar in content to those delivered during instruction, so some of the positive results could have reflected “teaching to the test.” Further, it is unknown how well the effects will endure over the long term.

Moreover, the generalizability of these encouraging findings to other domains in which critical thinking is essential—such as bogus political and paranormal claims—remains to be seen. But against the backdrop of the rising prevalence of many pseudoscientific and otherwise unsupported beliefs in Western society, there is at last some good news: we may be able to begin to teach the tools of skeptical thinking at an earlier age than many scholars had believed. Schools would be wise to take notice.

• Abrami, Paul C., et al. 2015. Strategies for teaching students to think critically: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research 85: 275–314.
• Bloom, Paul, and Deena S. Weisberg. 2007. Childhood origins of adult resistance to science. Science 316: 996–997.
• Emmons, Natalie A., and Deborah A. Kelemen. 2015. Young children’s acceptance of within-species variation: Implications for essentialism and teaching evolution. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 139: 148–160.
• Gopnik, Alison, Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl. 2000. The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us about the Mind. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks.
• Kelemen, Deborah. 1999. The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children. Cognition 70: 241–272.
• Kelemen, Deborah, Natalie A. Emmons, Rebecca Seston Schillaci, et al. 2014. Young children can be taught basic natural selection using a picture-storybook intervention. Psychological Science 25: 893–902.
• McCauley, Robert. N. 2011. Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Nsangi, Allen, et al. 2017. Effects of the Informed Health Choices primary school intervention on the ability of children in Uganda to assess the reliability of claims about treatment effects: A cluster-randomised controlled trial. The Lancet. Available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673617312266.
• Shermer, Michael. 2009. Agenticity. Scientific American 300(6): 36.
• Wolpert, Lewis. 1998. The Unnatural Nature of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

For most of human history, people have assumed that some kind of vitalistic essence had to be added to matter to produce life. The belief in an immaterial soul was pervasive. At one point, scientists even tried to weigh the soul by weighing a body right before and after death, expecting to find a decrease when the soul departed. For most people, it is almost inconceivable that a purely material brain could produce consciousness. It is all too easy and appealing to imagine that consciousness is an immaterial essence that can survive death, or to resort to the cop-out that “God did it.” And we are appalled by the idea that a materialistic account of consciousness might abolish free will and moral responsibility for human actions.

Philosopher Daniel Dennett’s new book From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds goes a long way toward illuminating these conundrums with facts and arguments from evolution and neuroscience.

Insights from Evolution

We are beginning to understand how “a process with no Intelligent Designer [evolution] can create intelligent designers who can then design things that permit us to understand how a process with no Intelligent Designer can create intelligent designers who then design things.”

Biology is reverse engineering. We must ask “what has happened” rather than asking “why” a feature evolved because no intentional purpose was involved.

Organisms have developed spectacular competences without any need for comprehension. Some animals (for instance, crows) demonstrate a degree of intelligence and problem-solving that is more powerful than simple trial and error, but this can be accomplished by unconscious processes. If unconscious processes can accomplish so much, what is consciousness for? Why do we need conscious comprehension? How could it have come about, and how has it benefited the human species?

Dennett says, “Brains are more like termite colonies than intelligently designed corporations or armies.” Evolution “designed” the brain through a bottom-up process rather than a top-down intentional design. Animals can do things for reasons without having any comprehension of those reasons. Humans can articulate reasons for what they do; they may be self-deceptive reasons, but we “own” them.

Language and Other Memes

Memes are “an element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means.” They have their own reproductive fitness. Words are memes that can be pronounced. Like genes, words are informational structures that determine ways of doing things. They are not necessarily discrete and may not be faithfully transmitted. Just as there are typos in printing, there are transmission errors in memes. In computer jargon, a “thinko” is like a typo, a clear mistake or bug in programming. There are standards that allow for correction. Like genes, memes can mutate; transmission errors can lead to extinction of the meme or can serendipitously result in a better meme. Like viruses, memes can spread without being noticed or consciously approved. There is no way to predict how genes or memes will evolve.

Language may have originated as inefficient behavioral patterns. As it progressed, it may have been driven more by its benefits to memes than by its benefits to speakers. Today it has evolved into a remarkable tool that enhances human communication and productivity far beyond anything other animals have achieved. Other social animals might make spectacular use of language if they had it. “Somehow our languageless ancestors stumbled onto a rare path to this treasure and myopically followed it, getting some advantage along the way, or at least not losing ground, until they hit the jackpot.” Why humans and not animals? It must have been preceded by prelinguistic cultural transmissions of some sort (cooperation and imitation boosted survival fitness), but the rest can be ascribed to chance. Words are the best memes, but they were not the first memes. There are many hypotheses about why humans were more likely than other social animals to develop culture and language, including bipedality, manual dexterity for toolmaking, and the theory of mind.

Competition may have been a more powerful driver than cooperation. Confirmation bias (highlighting positive evidence for our beliefs and ignoring negative evidence) suggests that certain patterns of errors in human reasoning were honed for persuading others in debate, not necessarily for getting things right.

The development of language enabled cumulative cultural evolution. It was the launching pad of human cognition and thinking, and it has allowed us to transform the environment we live in. Writing, preserving a record outside the brain, was critical to the development of “the extended mind.”

Consciousness Is an Illusion

Consciousness and free will are real, but they are not what people think they are. Just as dollars are real, but the actual dollar bill is only a token to represent an idea that everyone has agreed on. Credit card transactions deal in dollars without actual dollar bills.

Consciousness is not a nonphysical phenomenon. It is an evolved user-illusion, “a system of virtual machines that evolved, genetically and memetically, to play very special roles in the ‘cognitive niche’ our ancestors have constructed over the millennia.” There can be competence without comprehension, and comprehension is expensive, so Nature uses the Need to Know principle. Most animals don’t need to know. Are there degrees of consciousness? Where might we draw a line? We draw a line for moral reasons and try to prevent animals from suffering, but what is suffering? We euthanize dogs when we think they are conscious of suffering, but do fish suffer? Do mosquitos suffer? We are willing to exterminate rats but not squirrels; why? Dennett warns that in trying to understand consciousness, “We mustn’t let our moral intuitions distort our empirical investigation from the outset.”

It’s hard to understand how uncomprehending neurons could give rise to comprehension, but they do. We can think about reasons and let these reasons influence our behavior, something no other animals can do. “We can perform many quite adroit and retrospectively justifiable actions with only a vague conception of what we are up to, a conception often swiftly sharpened in hindsight by the self-attribution of reasons.”

“Our thinking is enabled by the installation of a virtual machine made of virtual machines made of virtual machines.” We are only aware of the user interface, not of the intricate underlying details. The advantage of the user interface is that it allows us to make our competences somewhat accessible to other people, and then we get to use them ourselves as “guests in our own brains.” We can explain ourselves to others and to ourselves.

Dennett quotes ethologist and roboticist David McFarland: “Communication is the only behavior that requires an organism to self-monitor its own control system.” Self-monitoring allows an organism to avoid revealing too much about its current state to competitors. Communication may be more grounded in deception and manipulation than in cooperation.

We have the illusion of a “self,” but this self has limited access to what is happening in the brain. Consciousness simplifies things for our benefit; an awareness of all the underlying operations would hopelessly clutter our minds and would only handicap us. We only have access to the results of underlying brain processes, and we confabulate a model to explain what we think has happened. Our first-person reports could be wrong, and there are ways to examine consciousness from a second-person viewpoint. A more objective approach may show you features of your own experience that you were not aware of.

We have an inborn propensity to see causation; we attribute our perceptions to external causes, but some perceptual representations are internal, for instance optical illusions.

Descartes was a dualist who believed an immaterial soul animated the brain. He didn’t know what we know today about neurophysiology. He could only imagine a mechanical model of the brain with wires, pulleys, or hoses, so he jumped to the conclusion that thinking must involve something additional that was immaterial. He relied on introspection without realizing how unreliable it was.

“Human consciousness is unlike all other varieties of animal consciousness in that it is a product in large part of cultural evolution, which installs a bounty of words and many other thinking tools in our brains, creating thereby a cognitive architecture unlike the ‘bottom-up’ minds of animals.” It is a user illusion that gives us limited access to the workings of our brains and thereby empowers us to be intelligent designers of artifacts and of our own lives.

Dennett says that the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness research, explaining the “qualia” of subjective experience, vanishes when you realize that it is “nothing but an artifact of the failure to recognize that evolution has given us a gift that sacrifices literal truth for utility.”

Free Will Is an Illusion

Free will is not a phenomenon isolated from causation. It is an illusion. We feel that we chose freely, but our choice was determined by unconscious processes before we were aware of choosing. Dennett quotes Wegner: “The experience of will, then, is the way our minds portray their operations to us, not their actual operations.”

Free will is not an illusion we would want to get rid of; “it’s where we live, and we couldn’t live the way we do without it.” Dennett thinks our systems of morality and justice should “punish when punishment is called for, but with a profoundly different framing or attitude.”  As a thought experiment, he asks us to consider: If you believe no one is ever responsible for what they do, would you abolish all the penalty rules in sports?

Distributed Comprehension and the Future

Some people think consciousness is one of those mysteries we can never hope to solve rather than a scientific problem to be solved. Dennett argues that we may eventually be able to solve it because of all the tools that multiply our cognitive powers and because of the possibility of “distributed comprehension.” In science and technology today, individuals comprehend only a part of the whole; but as a group, humans can understand things too complex for any individual to master. We understand how to drive our cars, but most of us don’t understand how to fix them if they break; and few understand the functioning of all the related systems that make driving cars possible, including auto manufacturers, oil refineries, highway construction, insurance companies, the government, etc. “This distribution of partial comprehension is not optional. The edifices of social construction that shape our lives in so many regards depend on our myopic confidence that their structure is sound and heeds no attention from us.” He says, “We have bootstrapped ourselves into the heady altitudes of modern civilization, and our natural emotions and other instinctual responses do not always serve our new circumstances.”

With computers, we can create things we only partially understand, things that in turn may create things we don’t understand at all. Dennett imagines a future textbook on consciousness encompassing neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and other fields; where no reader could claim to have mastered all the levels of explanation.

A Book Worth Reading

Dennett is always worth reading, and this latest book distills his current thinking and all he has learned over the years. It’s not a book you would take to the beach for light summer reading; it challenges the reader to think seriously about a variety of subjects. But it’s well written and accessible to the general reader, and it’s a great way to get a better understanding of how consciousness works and how it came about.

For most American college students, their first serious encounter with the theory of evolution may come as part of an introductory biology course. As surprising as this might sound, the unfortunate reality is that in many high schools across the country evolution is often avoided or covered superficially as part of a crammed science curriculum, taught by teachers who are underqualified and poorly supported (Friedrichsen et al. 2016).

The lack of prior familiarity with evolution presents a particular challenge to religious students who are likely to have questions about how to reconcile what they are learning in the college classroom with their own faith. Surveys indicate that more than half of all students enrolled in introductory biology courses believe in God and consider themselves religious. If their questions about science and faith go unaddressed as part of their coursework, research suggests that learning is likely to be inhibited. Even though a religious student may successfully complete exams and assignments that test their knowledge of evolutionary science, their scores may not reflect a deeper acceptance of what they learned. These students may leave a course still doubting whether evolution is the best (and only) scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth (Barnes and Brownwell 2016).

Because of their experience in introductory biology courses, many religious students may also be turned off from pursuing a career in science. Studies indicate that students are more likely to choose a science career if they feel a sense of belonging as part of their coursework. Yet for many religious students, prevailing cultural cues tell them that science and religion are in conflict and that religious people lack competence or ability in science. Research shows that these false stereotypes, which are sometimes voiced by their instructors and peers, can harm the performance of religious students on science exams, further eroding their interest in science (Rios et al. 2015).

Much of student uncertainty about evolution may be caused by a lack of awareness of church teaching or doctrine on the matter. Most major religious traditions, including the Roman Catholic church, the Mormon church, and mainline Protestant churches, have either a neutral or explicitly affirmative stance on evolution, acknowledging the consistency with church doctrine (National Academy of Sciences 2008). In other religious traditions such as evangelicalism, high-profile scientists such as Francis Collins (2006) have broken ranks with church doctrine to discuss openly how they reconcile science with their evangelical faith. For conservative Christian students, research indicates that having such a role model is a key contributor to their acceptance of evolution (Manwaring et al. 2015).

Unfortunately, most faculty members in the life sciences are not prepared to adequately address the questions that religious students hold about the connections between science and faith. Surveys show that the great majority of life science faculty are nonreligious, and that many equate religious belief with fundamentalism, assuming that faith by definition is in conflict with science. Moreover, when asked, most do not see religion as a topic appropriate for a science course. Even those instructors who want to facilitate more thoughtful classroom conversations about science and religion often lack the confidence and training to do so effectively, and they therefore avoid the topic (Barnes and Brownwell 2016).

For these reasons, in recent years, researchers have begun to test approaches embedded in introductory biology courses for facilitating more constructive conversations about science and religion that promote student acceptance of evolution. The findings point to promising models for instructors to adopt and offer insight on strategies for encouraging more constructive public dialogue about science and religion more generally.

Getting Beyond Conflict

In a study conducted at Arizona State University, instructors led ninety-five students enrolled in an introductory biology course through a two-week module focused on science, evolution, and religion. In addition to chapters from their textbook on natural selection and speciation, students were also required to read Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a booklet published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2008).

The National Academy booklet was intended for use by scientists, teachers, parents, and school board members who wanted to engage in more constructive conversations with others who remain uncertain about evolution and its place in the public school curriculum. To guide their efforts, the National Academy commissioned focus groups and a national survey to gauge the public’s understanding of the processes, nature, and limits of science. The authoring committee also wanted to test various frames of reference that explained why alternatives to evolution were inappropriate for science class (Labov and Pope 2008; Nisbet and Scheufele 2009).

The committee had expected that a convincing storyline for the public would be a traditional emphasis on past legal decisions and the doctrine of church-state separation. Yet the data revealed that audiences were not persuaded by this framing of the issue. Instead, somewhat surprisingly, the research pointed to the effectiveness of defining evolutionary science in terms of social progress, explaining its role as a building block for advances in medicine and agriculture. The research also underscored the effectiveness of reassuring the public that evolution and religious faith can be fully compatible.

In light of this feedback, the National Academy committee decided to structure the final version of the report around these main points of emphasis. “The evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith,” states the report. “Science and religion are different ways of understanding the world. Needlessly placing them in opposition reduces the potential of each to contribute to a better future.”

In the Arizona State experiment, drawing on themes from the booklet, instructors emphasized that “scientists study natural causes within the natural world, whereas religious ideas address questions of morality, purpose, and the existence of a higher power.” If religious beliefs were limited to questions of purpose, ethics, and the existence of God, then they were not in conflict with evolution.

To evaluate the impact of the module, surveys were administered to the class before and after the module was completed. In contrast to the more than 50 percent of students at the start of the module who said they perceived religion and evolution as in conflict, only 26 percent said the same at the end, indicating that the module had reduced by nearly half the number of students holding a “conflict” outlook. More specifically, eleven out of the thirty-two students who said they perceived conflict at the start of the course shifted their outlook. Among those who were unsure at the start, eight out of fifteen indicated that evolution and religion were compatible after completing the module. Interestingly, there was no observable change in student scores on measures of religiosity (Barnes et al. 2017).

In a second study conducted at Brigham Young University, researchers focused specifically on how Mormon students—if informed of the Mormon church’s official neutral position on evolution—may be more likely to subsequently accept evolutionary theory. In this case, the Mormon Church maintains strict belief in God as the creator, but in its statements it does not confirm or deny the potential for theistic evolution, leaving room for Mormons to adopt a scientific interpretation. The experiment involved more than 1,500 nonmajors enrolled in introductory biology courses. In the test condition, as part of the semester, students participated in at least one lecture and discussion of a “BYU Evolution Packet” that discussed the official Mormon church stance on human origins. After reading the packet, during the class discussion, students were encouraged to ask questions and make comments. The control condition had access to the BYU Evolution Packet, but no time was spent as part of the course in discussing the packet (Manwaring et al. 2015).

For both the experimental and control conditions, overall student acceptance of evolution increased across the semester, and this greater level of acceptance remained five to seven months after completion of the course. But in the experimental condition that included the lecture on official Mormon teachings, gains in acceptance of evolution were significantly higher than in the control condition. As the researchers note, at the outset of the course, those students who held more misconceptions about the Mormon church’s stance on evolution were some of the least likely to accept the theory of evolution. Their analysis indicates that the booklet and single lecture on the topic corrected many of these misconceptions among the participating students, which in turn led to the higher gains in student acceptance of evolution in comparison to the control condition (Manwaring et al. 2015).

Conclusion

For most college students, the introductory courses they take during their first few college years may be the only thoughtful discussions of science and religion that they can draw on for the rest of their adult lives. If these students leave a science course lacking a strong motivation for further information on the topic, they can easily avoid the many available popular science books, articles, and films. When they do incidentally come across coverage in the news media, evolution is most likely to be framed in terms of controversy and irreconcilable conflict with religion (Mooney and Nisbet 2005).

We tend to think about general science education at the college level as a vehicle for imparting knowledge about the physical world, particularly in terms of basic science literacy. But general education science courses should also serve a core civic purpose, imparting critical understanding of the complex relationship between science and society, modeling for students’ thoughtful ways to negotiate differences. The first few studies formally evaluating approaches to discussing evolution and religion are models to build on. More research is needed to expand the evidence-base specific to evolution and to evaluate approaches for effectively discussing other challenging topics such as climate change or gene editing.

• Barnes, M.E., and S.E. Brownell. 2016. Practices and perspectives of college instructors on addressing religious beliefs when teaching evolution. CBE-Life Sciences Education 15(2).
• Barnes, M.E., J. Elser, and S.E. Brownell. 2017. Two-week evolution module reduces perceived conflict between evolution and religion for religious and non-religious students. American Biology Teacher 79(2): 104–111.
• Collins, F.S. 2006. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Friedrichsen, P.J., N. Linke, and E. Barnett. 2016. Biology teachers’ professional development needs for teaching evolution. Science Educator 25(1).
• Labov, J.B., and B.K. Pope. 2008. Understanding our audiences: The design and evolution of science, evolution, and creationism. CBE-Life Sciences Education 7(1): 20–24.
• Manwaring, K.F., J.L. Jensen, R.A. Gill, et al. 2015. Influencing highly religious undergraduate perceptions of evolution: Mormons as a case study. Evolution: Education and Outreach 8(1): 23.
• Mooney, C., and M.C. Nisbet. 2005. Undoing Darwin. Columbia Journalism Review 44(3): 30–39.
• National Academy of Sciences. 2008. Science, Evolution, and Creationism. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Available online at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11876/science-evolution-and-creationism.
• Nisbet, M.C., and D.A. Scheufele. 2009. What’s next for science communication? Promising directions and lingering distractions. American Journal of Botany 96(10): 1767–1778.
• Rios, K., Z.H. Cheng, R.R. Totton, et al. 2015. Negative stereotypes cause Christians to underperform in and disidentify with science. Social Psychological and Personality Science 6(8): 959–967.

I’ve often been asked to participate as an advisor in court cases or investigations where I might be useful due to my experience as a conjuror, but I have always refused when required to accept evidence obtained via the polygraph, or lie detector as it’s commonly known. However, if I were to be called upon to deny that this silly device is effective or dependable, I’d have no hesitation in doing so. The evidence is just so much against this technology, it’s difficult to believe how long it has existed as a supposedly valid notion.

Look at the history of so-called “lie detection.” The device itself is a nightmare of tubes, wires, electrodes, and moving styluses, something right out of a Bugs Bunny production. By measuring and displaying changes in the subject’s respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductivity, and other variables of the human body, a complex series of graph lines is generated, and a technician is—theoretically—able to decide whether the answers to a set of questions were honestly given or not. We need not get into more involved aspects of the procedure such as who comes up with the questions to be asked—though that is a matter of primary importance, of course. Let’s examine opinions of the “professionals” who should know.

On November 5, 2002, on his Pentagon letterhead as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence, this memorandum was sent by John P. Stenbit to the directors and administrators of all major military offices of the Department of Defense:

SUBJECT: Continued Use of Polygraph Techniques
I have recently reviewed the report of the National Research Council on the existing scientific evidence on the validity of the polygraph technique. While the report contained many findings that may ultimately lead to improved methods for the detection of deception, I think it is important to emphasize that the National Research Council found that none of the potential new technologies for the detection of deception showed any promise of supplanting the polygraph technique for screening purposes in the near term.

I believe this could have included Tarot cards and Ouija boards as well and made just as much sense. Note that it doesn’t say that the polygraph works at all! The truth is that it’s a useless high-tech assemblage that has consistently failed double-blind tests of its efficacy, but the way the above paragraph was composed, there is a strong suggestion that the flummery actually has performed as claimed. This next paragraph is even worse, repeating the same inane claim and further implying that the polygraph really works:

As the Department continues to research alternative technologies in this critical area, I believe it is important to remember that the National Research Council Report determined that the polygraph technique is the best tool currently available to detect deception.

“The best tool”? No, I’d vote for a pair of dice. Next, all in one paragraph, Secretary Stenbit referred to the polygraph as “an important tool”—twice!—when it is virtually useless, according to that same report by the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (as we shall see). This is simply a blatant denial of fact to bolster an erroneous—though official—opinion:

In the coming months, our country will face many unique challenges to our national security. The polygraph technique remains an important tool to detect deception in selected national security and law enforcement matters. Where appropriate and authorized, I recommend that we continue to use the polygraph technique as an important tool in our total decision-making process.

Late in 2002, as if in reaction to Stenbit’s comments, the U.S. National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, issued their official report on the use of the polygraph. Secretary Stenbit completely ignored this report’s key finding that the use of the device was unjustified—and thus even dangerous to national security, nor did the report characterize polygraphy as “the best tool currently available to detect deception,” as Stenbit had written. In their summary, the Council actually concluded: “Overall, the evidence [for polygraph validity] is scanty and scientifically weak… and some potential alternatives to the polygraph show promise, but none has yet been shown to outperform it.”

Since the polygraph works about as well as the Oracle at Delphi—another shaky premise, though much older—this is not at all supportive. Regarding polygraphy technology in general, the NAS/NRC stated that “…there is essentially no evidence on the incremental validity of polygraph testing, that is, its ability to add predictive value to that which can be achieved by other methods.”

Let’s examine the realities, folks. A CBS News account of a suicide bombing at a CIA base in Afghanistan stated, regarding the careless acceptance of a spy on the base: “The double agent was brought onto the base without first being given a polygraph test, one of the basic tools in establishing a spy’s trustworthiness.” This is nonsense; the polygraph simply does not work.

Aldrich Ames

The history of this farce is long and involved, with uninformed “experts” raving about success and law enforcement agencies smugly accepting results as if they were valid. In addition to the Afghanistan case above, some very strong examples of this error stand out: In 1985, use of the polygraph did not expose the fact that Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a Chinese language translator working for the CIA in a critical capacity, was selling crucial information to China and had done so for thirty-three years, despite having been regularly subjected during that time to polygraph tests. In 1994, Aldrich Ames, a high-ranking CIA analyst, routinely passed all his polygraph exams, though for years he was a master Soviet spy who passed information on to his real employers. (Aldrich Ames even confirmed this directly to the Skeptical Inquirer. After Sandia National Laboratories Senior Scientist Alan P. Zelicoff published a denunciation of polygraph testing in SI in 2001, Ames wrote to SI from prison agreeing with the article and calling polygraphs “junk science” and “a superstition.” SI published his letter [vol. 25, No. 6, 2001]; see also Morton Tavel, MD’s, January/February 2016 SI cover article “The Lie Detector Test Revisited.”) In 2001, Robert Hanssen of the FBI went similarly undetected despite the regular periodic “screening” of FBI employees using polygraphs. His treachery was described by a review of FBI Security Programs as “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history.”

The fact is that not a single spy has ever been caught by a polygraph screening exam. In 2003, the National Academy of Sciences issued its final report titled The Polygraph and Lie Detection that found the majority of polygraph research to be, in their words, “unreliable, unscientific, and biased” and that in national security matters and for law enforcement use, the level of accuracy drops to such a level that “its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies.”

The NAS also found the high rate of false positives obtained with the device to be unacceptable. Physicist and CSI Fellow Bob Parks, with his usual degree of wry humor, reported on this situation: “I have argued, however, that the small number of true positives is the real problem. I propose replacing the polygraph with a coin toss. That would identify 50 percent of the double agents compared to zero with the polygraph. The unfortunate increase in false positives constitutes collateral damage, which is inevitable in war.”

The media, too, are delighted with this electronic Bozo, which adds flashing lights, buzzing noises, and mystery to so many of their stories. In the beginning of 2010, a prospective adoptive-couple—named by the FBI as “persons of interest” in the disappearance of an eight-month-old baby in Arizona—appealed on television to be administered a polygraph test to determine whether they were telling the truth. The test was duly administered, and the following day the polygraph examiners announced the result: inconclusive. Still, the general public perception is that the polygraph is a scientific device that works. The media rarely if ever mention the strong, well-founded scientific objections to the validity of the thing. In fact, as wag Bob Park—again—comments: “The polygraph looks for spikes in blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and perspiration. In other words, you can’t tell a lie from the sex act.”

Said Stephen E. Fienberg, chairman of the statistics department at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who led the panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the worth of polygraphy: “It’s everywhere—every three- and four-letter agency you can imagine, including the US Postal Service.”

That panel’s report concluded that almost a century of research may have produced a pseudoscience good for tricking naive people into blurting out the truth, but not much else. Thus, Chairman Fienberg was rather surprised to find his panel’s report cited in favor of potentially raising the number of lie detector tests the Department of Defense (DOD) is allowed to administer annually.

In a report it filed with Congress in January, the DOD stated it had administered more than 11,500 of these tests in fiscal year 2002. That’s more than twenty a working day! Of that total, 4,219 were “counterintelligence-scope polygraph,” or CSP, exams, subject to a 5,000-exams-per-year limit under 1991 Public Law 100-180. In its own report, the DOD put Congress on notice that it might ask for authorization to conduct more than that number, and cited the NAS report in support, according to Steven Aftergood, who monitors polygraph policy for the Federation of American Scientists. That DOD report stated: “It is important to note that the NRC [National Research Council] Report also concluded that the polygraph technique is the best tool currently available to detect deception and assess credibility…. The Department will continue to use the polygraph technique as it has in the past, until improved technologies or methodologies are developed as a result of scientific research.”

Folks, anything would be an “improved technology” over this high-tech toy, the “best tool currently available”! Fortune cookies outperform it! Chairman Fienberg charitably called the DOD’s reference to the NAS report “disingenuous.” A DOD spokesman said it was drawn directly from the NAS panel’s conclusion that, while more promising technologies are on the horizon, none yet has supplanted polygraphy. He could have added that the Tooth Fairy has also not yet supplanted other means of providing funds to children. When asked, Don White, a spokesman for the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health and Human Services, would not discuss whether lie detector tests were part of their investigative procedure, but the DOD spokesman did name OIG as one of the government bodies that uses polygraphs.

To close this denunciation of this particular pseudoscience, I will first note that in the March/April 2013 Skeptical Inquirer, Dr. L.G. Wade Jr. commented on an article about phrenology, the “art” of reading bumps on the human head to determine character and talents. This was once actually used by employers, the military, and even in court proceedings to examine individuals, particularly in France, and was considered a real science, much as polygraphy still is today. Dr. Wade wrote:

I was first alerted to the fraud of the “lie-detector” by two cases: A county assistant treasurer who was falsely accused of embezzlement, and a distraught widower who was falsely accused of murdering his wife. Both of these accused “failed” a polygraph exam (whatever that means) and were immediately convicted in the newspapers, with their reputations destroyed. They were both subsequently exonerated. The polygraph measures indicators of stress, and honest people who are falsely accused of heinous crimes are likely to “fail” the exam. On the other hand, hardened criminals show little stress when they are asked about their crimes.

Unlike phrenology, polygraph tests are still used and accepted by law-enforcement and the government. They are still used and absolutely required for a wide range of employment with the FBI, CIA, and police agencies.

What should you do if required to take a polygraph test? If you agree to take one, you may be placing your reputation in the hands of an unwitting charlatan who can proclaim you to be guilty or innocent. If you refuse, you are assumed to be guilty. I would like to see CSI do a careful study and expose the use of this polygraph flummery. Our government should be pressured to abandon such pseudoscience.

Other involvements in court cases where my personal expertise has been sought were either very minor or very similar to those I’ve stated here. Most of them involved gypsy-style swindles, which are the sort most often encountered, I believe, because they take advantage of strong religious and/or specific ethnic superstitions. Again, religion is behind so many of our species’ problems of accepting reality.

Nothing new in that statement.

The hairy man-beast known as the “Sasquatch” or “Bigfoot” is now ever present in North American culture. Supposedly a throwback to our evolutionary past, it is an “ape-man” version of us just as the little-bodied, big-headed, humanoid extraterrestrial is a futuristic one. Together they represent powerful mythologies for our shrinking planet—Bigfoot as the very symbol of the endangered species and ET as the promise that we are not alone in the universe.

(1) Reporting ‘Wild Men of the Woods’

In early North American accounts, the antecedent of today’s Bigfoot was typically called a “wild man of the woods”—a European term from as early as the sixteenth century (Nickell 2011, 44). From 1818, when the earliest known newspaper account (in the Exeter, New Hampshire, Watchman) referred to an animal “resembling the Wild Man of the Woods,” accounts over the next century used that term or variants, such as wild man, wild child, wild boys, or the like (Bord and Bord 2006, 3–24).

Typically the terminology described actual humans—including genetic oddities covered with hair and long-haired hermits and deranged people—but also the orangutan or other apes (thought perhaps escaped from traveling menageries) and real or imagined mystery woodland creatures. One creature, reported in Kansas in 1869 and referred to as a “wild man or animal,” had “a stooping gait” and “very long arms with immense hands or claws”—“generally” walking “on its hind legs but sometimes on all fours” (Bord and Bord 2006, 10). It was likely a bear, since bears often stand on their hind legs and even walk when in their “alert” mode (Nickell 2013). As cryptozoologist Jeff Meldrum (2006, 204) concedes, “In behavior and appearance, no other animal is more subject to anthropomorphism than is the bear.”

In the late 1830s, a “wild child” was reported swimming in an Indiana lake. In the 1860s, a Nevada creature was spotted carrying a rabbit and a club. A few others were similarly armed, including a six-foot bearded “wild man.” Another “wild man” had “long matted hair and a beard,” and so on. Such cases were reported well into the twentieth century (Bord and Bord 2006, 218–229). A few were allegedly captured—notably “Jacko,” a hairy “half man, half beast” who stood only four feet seven inches tall. It was supposedly apprehended in 1884 by railway men and kept in an area jail (as reported in a Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, paper), but the story appears to have been a reporter’s hoax (Nickell 2011, 57).

In 1924, some prospectors in Washington State had their cabin pelted with rocks by “mountain devils” (rumored to have been pranksters), and in the same year a man named Albert Ostman claimed he was kidnapped and held by a family of wild creatures (although he did not tell his tale until 1957) (Daegling 2004, 67–70).

Much earlier, in 1871, The New York Times had seen a trend: “As most of our readers are probably aware, there is at present roaming over the United States, and for aught we know, making occasional excursions into British America [Canada] and Mexico, a singular creature known as the ‘Wild Man.’” The entity was characterized by seeming to be almost everywhere and having the “peculiar power of eluding capture” (qtd. in Arment 2006, 29).

(2) Retrofitting Native American Monsters

It is common to suggest that Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest told stories and made images of hairy man-beasts similar to the modern Bigfoot. According to major proponents of this notion (Hunter with Dahinden 1993, 15), “The earliest-known ‘recorded’ references to the Sasquatch are found on the carved totem poles and masks of the coast Indians of British Columbia, particularly on those of the Kwakiutls.” Proponents cite such mythical creatures as the Dsonoqua and the Buk’wus.

Native American carved wood mask of "wild woman of the woods".

Actually, the Kwakiutls’ Dsonoqua were giant, man-sized cannibals who lived in houses deep in the forests. They had black bodies with hairy hands, and their eyes were deeply set. They were usually represented as females who abducted children for their tender flesh, collecting them in a basket they carried. Thus, she was a type of bogeyman—or bogeywoman. She was depicted with lips pursed so as to give her fearsome cry, “Hu! Hu!” (Alley 2003, 151–152; The Spirit World 1992, 47; Taylor 1994, 90–91). Similar tales were told by the Salish Indians of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia (Hunter with Dahinden 1993, 15).

As to the Buk’wus, another creature of Kwakiutl folklore, he was man-sized or smaller but hairy and having many supernatural features. For example, he was ice cold and could move in an instant to a location far away (Alley 2003, 151–153). The Buk’wus—and a very similar Pu’gwis of the Tsimshian people—were actually spirits having the facial features of a human corpse, such as stretched skin and lips curled away from the teeth (Taylor 1994, 90). Clearly neither was a Bigfoot.

Still, there were other supposed candidates. The Tlingits of southeast Alaska believed in a man-sized hairy creature called “Kushtakaas” or “land-otter man.” Essentially such beings were men, but they had become mad—either by being lost or nearly drowning—and, growing hair over their bodies, went to live among others similarly afflicted. They sometimes walked on all fours in keeping with their otter-like transformation. Traditionally, they were feared for their ability to capture a person’s soul, and thus are more analogous to zombies than Bigfoot (Alley 2003, 137–138).

The list goes on. However, whenever believers have attempted to equate Bigfoot with Native American folkloric entities, they have engaged in retrofitting (after-the-fact matching) and, indeed, an obvious “exercise in confirmation bias” (Loxton and Prothero 2013, 33). Nevertheless, this process remains essential to Bigfoot mythmaking. (For more on the Native American images and traditions, see Halpin 1983.)

(3) Creating ‘Sasquatch’

Although the name Sasquatch is often said to be Native American, it was actually coined in the 1920s by a British Columbia teacher and Indian agent, J.W. Burns. Some say Burns “Anglicized” a Native American term, but really his Native Coast Salish informants had several different names for various folkloric entities, and he wanted to invent a single term for all the alleged creatures. He harmonized some of the names—including Sokqueatl or Soss-q’tal—into “Sasquatch” (Coleman and Clark 1999, 215).

Burns himself quoted stories from elderly Indians who had encountered wild men. For example, one informant from the Chehalis Reserve saw what he took “at first sight to be a huge bear crouched upon a boulder,” but when it stood up he saw it was a “man—a giant, no less than six and one-half feet in height, and covered with hair” (Burns 1929).

Another Native American, from the Skwah Reserve had seen several such wild people. He shot what he, too, first “took for a bear,” coming out of a hole in a great cedar, but then he saw it actually looked like a nude “white boy.” Thus provoked, a “wild woman” also came out. “Her face was almost negro black and her long straight hair fell to her waist. She was the height of a tall man, about six feet, but much broader,” he said. She spoke to him in a dialect he understood, ending with, “you’ll never kill another bear.” So was it a bear and cub—in part, or all, a fantasy tale—or was it as Burns opines, one of “the Sasquatch people” with a white boy, stolen or found?

As Burns’s new term began to catch on, it helped turn various folkloric concepts into an increasingly uniform one. It became the “Indian” name for anything that could be construed as a man-beast. The “wild man of the woods” was becoming a rather bearlike Sasquatch.

(4) Discovering Big Footprints

The earliest North American record of potential man-beast footprints is from 1811 (reported by trader/explorer David Thompson, who thought it likely “the track of a large old grizzled bear” as quoted in Hunter with Dahinden 1993, 17). Not only is a bear’s hindfoot “remarkably human-like,” but the hind- and forefoot may superimpose to look like the huge track of a bipedal creature (Napier 1973, 150–151). There were few reports of alleged Sasquatch footprints until 1930, when berrypickers near Mount St. Helens discovered huge humanlike tracks that encircled them. But more than half a century later, a retired logger named Rant Mullens confessed he had donned carved nine-by-seventeen-inch feet to make the tracks. Meanwhile, in 1951, in the Himalayas, a footprint of a Yeti, or “Abominable Snowman,” was photographed by explorer Eric Shipton and widely circulated in the United States (later explained as a probable animal track, altered and enlarged by the melting snow) (Nickell 2011, 59, 68). The stage was now set for another watershed moment.

In 1958, a Sasquatch seemingly made several visits to a road construction site at Northern California’s Bluff Creek. Its tracks were discovered by a bulldozer operator, Gerald “Jerry” Crew, a photo of whom—holding up a cast of a giant footprint—was spread by a wire service across the country. Consequently, the name “Bigfoot” (which first appeared in the Humboldt Times on October 5, 1958) began to become widespread.

The family of Bluff Creek road contractor Ray Wallace informed the press—after Wallace’s death in 2002—that he had faked the 1958 tracks. They even produced pairs of carved feet that matched the Bluff Creek tracks (Daegling 2004, 29, 73; Coleman and Clark 1999, 39). However, the man-beast myth was now already entrenched, and, meanwhile, the 1958 Bluff Creek hoax had resulted in the pseudo-Indian term Sasquatch largely being replaced by the descriptive term Bigfoot.

Jerry Crew with a "Bigfoot" track cast.

Having previously been scarce, after 1958 reports of Bigfoot tracks began to proliferate. Tracks were reported with two to six toes and ranging in length from eleven and three quarters to twenty-one inches. Over the years the feet began to become rather standardized, usually having five toes and commonly measuring in the sixteen-to-eighteen–inch range (see Bord and Bord 2006, 215–310). And, in what seems likely to have been one-upmanship on the part of Bigfoot hoaxers, some of the tracks began to become more sophisticated.

During the 1960s, Bigfoot tracks tended to be rather rectangular in shape: the big toe was only a bit larger than the others and all five were “arranged almost in a straight line across the front of the rectangular foot pattern,” according to skeptic Michael Dennett. Dennett (1996, 120, 122) noted that fake footprints subsequently improved in design so that the rectangular form was rarely seen anymore. Further sophisticated elements began to appear.

For example, more than a thousand tracks were left in 1969/1970 at Bossburg, Washington, by Bigfoot—or “Clubfoot” or “Cripplefoot” as the creature has been dubbed. They were ostensibly made by a creature with a congenitally deformed right foot. A Bigfoot-believing anthropology professor, the late Grover Krantz, asserted with hubris, “This requires an expert anatomist with a very inventive mind, more so than me, and I seriously doubt that any such person exists” (Krantz 1992, 83). However, anthropologist David J. Daegling observes that templates for Bigfoot tracks, both normal and deformed, were available in dozens of textbooks. “All a hoaxer had to do was have the wherewithal to scale them up, and he or she did not need to know one iota of anatomy to do so” (Daegling 2004, 87).

Again, in 1982, oversized footprints were discovered in Oregon with dermal ridges (those that on the hands produce fingerprints). Although the fact impressed many (Meldrum 2006, 249–259), it seems odd that previous creatures did not exhibit such features. The effect was that hoaxers were using more and more clever means to convince others that Bigfoot was real. A wildlife biologist and a professional tracker subsequently reported evidence of hoaxing, and Michael Dennett produced similar impressions (Dennett 1989).

(5) Witnessing ‘Bigsuit’

One series of Bigfoot tracks assumes special importance because of being found during “one of the most momentous events in the annals of Bigfoot hunting” (Bord and Bord 2006, 90). It began on October 20, 1967, when longtime Bigfoot enthusiast Roger Patterson—known as a “repeater” because of his frequent “discovery” of Bigfoot tracks—was riding horseback with friend Bob Gimlin at Bluff Creek (the area where Ray Wallace’s hoaxed tracks had been made). Patterson had a 16mm movie camera and had announced his intention of filming the elusive creature.

It appeared, seemingly on cue, and Patterson filmed it briefly as it strode away with a seemingly exaggerated stride, as if, wrote one critic, “a bad actor were trying to simulate a monster’s walk” (Cohen 1982, 17). (See Figure 1.) Patterson’s creature, dubbed “Patty,” had hairy, pendulous breasts—a feature so convincing, some thought, that it argued against the film being a hoax. However, Patterson had published in his book the year before a drawing of just such a female of the supposed species (Patterson 1966, 111).

The Smithsonian Institution’s John Napier analyzed the film frame by frame and concluded that the figure’s walk was consistent with that of a man striding in exaggerated fashion. “The upper half of the body bears some resemblance to an ape and the lower half is typically human,” wrote Napier (1973, 90–91). “It is almost impossible to conceive that such structural hybrids could exist in nature. One half of the animal must be artificial. In view of the walk, it can only be the upper half.” Napier summed up, “I could not see the zipper” (1973, 91, 95).

As it happened, early in this century, a Patterson acquaintance named Bob Heironimus confessed it was he who had worn the ape-man suit, and others corroborated Heironimus’s having had such a costume at the time. Also, magician-turned-costume-seller Philip Morris (whom I know and have talked with about the case on several occasions) reports that he sold a six-piece gorilla suit to Patterson, along with extra fake fur he had asked to be included. This was obviously used to transform a gorilla suit into “Bigfoot”—or rather “Bigsuit” (Long 2004; Nickell 2011, 58–72).

Figure 1. Analysis of a frame from the 1967 Patterson "Bigfoot" film shows evidence of fakery (drawing by the author). Later a Patterson acquaintance named Bob Heironimus confessed it was he who had worn the ape-man suit.

Nevertheless, the Patterson film became, for True Believers, long-sought-after supposed proof of Bigfoot’s existence. They were supported by Grover Krantz, who believed Patterson’s Bigfoot was a surviving Gigantopithecus, a “Giant Ape” of South Asia that went extinct some 150,000 years ago (Krantz 1992; 1999).

Other Bigfoot hoaxes followed, including one near Mission, British Columbia, on May 1, 1977. A few months earlier some Cashton, Wisconsin, youths admitted to a similar stunt, one dressing up as a Bigfoot-type creature with large wooden feet affixed to his shoes. Another such hoax took place in 1986 when a Pennsylvania man wore fake fur and a “wolfman” mask and alarmed nighttime drivers by appearing suddenly in their car headlights. I investigated and exposed a Bigsuit case in Western New York in 2006 (Nickell 2011, 72, 77).

A more elaborate hoax involved—as was advertised on carnival midways—a “Sasquatch Safely Frozen in Ice.” It proved to be a fake made by a top Disneyland model maker. I viewed the exhibit in 1973 on the midway of the Canadian National Exhibition (where in 1969 I had worked as a magic pitchman). The freezer unit was out of order, the lid up, and the ice had melted somewhat exposing part of the figure. It was dark and decidedly rubbery. This brilliant hoax was crudely imitated in 2008 by filling a Bigfoot costume with animal parts (later replaced with inorganic materials), and freezing it. It reputedly sold on eBay for a quarter of a million dollars (Nickell 2011, 87–90).

(6) Connecting with Extraterrestrials

After “flying saucers” were reported in 1947 and the UFO/alien craze subsequently developed into a myth paralleling that of Bigfoot, by the 1960s the two shared the “phenomenological landscape,” according to UFO historian Jerome Clark (1998, I: 469). Noting that the “hairy bipeds” seemed “like some weird marriage of apparition and animal,” Clark says, some began to wonder if Bigfoot and UFOs might be related. Maybe they were “a variety of UFO occupant, possibly a lower form of life used as a sort of test animal.”

During the 1970s, a number of UFOlogists—such as Coral Lorenzen, Dr. Leo Sprinkle, and Leonard Stringfield (the latter having promoted reports of crashed saucers and the secret retrieval of their humanoid occupants)—were “getting into the Bigfoot business too,” say Janet and Colin Bord. They add: “There is no doubt a body of work that has Bigfoot-like creatures directly connected to UFO sightings” compiled by such UFOlogists. And authors such as Brad Steiger “were also producing paperback books full of new stories of UFOs and apemen” (Bord and Bord 2006, xi).

Some believers wonder if Bigfoot and UFOs might be related.

For example, consider some reports from a single year. Near Sykesville, Maryland, on May 29, 1973, a man claimed to see a UFO drop some object into a reservoir and then saw a luminous-eyed Bigfoot (Bord and Bord 2006, 270). Again, in October 1973 near Galveston, Indiana, one “Jeff Martin” or “Jim Mays” (the same story is told with different names) was fishing at night when he twice saw a sandy-colored Bigfoot. When it ran off, “Almost instantaneously a glowing bronze light rose from the woods and shot away into the sky.”

Yet again, on October 25, 1973, near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, a man and twin boys were in a field observing a red-glowing sphere when they spotted a pair of Bigfoot creatures—first thought to have been bears—walking along a fencerow (Bord and Bord 2006, 132, 274; Huyghe 1996, 70–71). Other Bigfoot/UFO links were reported over subsequent years.

There are even more far-out connections. Among alleged alien “contactees,” some claim to connect with Bigfoot (Lapseritis 2014). For instance, one woman told a psychologist, “The Star People would have me read the newspaper and they would read through my eyes. They would see property that had Sasquatch on it that they would want me to buy” (qtd. in Clark 1998, I: 473). A writer for Fate magazine asserts that “the Sasquatch are actually extraterrestrials”—descendants of evolved “nature people” who migrated to Earth millions of years ago (Lapseritis 2014).

(7) Entering Mystical Dimensions

Among the silly pretensions of “clairvoyant” Lorraine Warren (widow of Ed Warren, the notorious “demonologist” and supernatural huckster [Nickell 2012, 283–286]) is her story about telepathically communicating with Bigfoot. It happened “one spring,” she says, “when we were lecturing in Tennessee and a reporter . . . told us about some hill people who kept insisting that something was threatening their children. . . . ” Warren was in the fearsome bogeyman region when, standing beside a tree, she had a psychic vision of a shaggy-haired intelligent creature who had the “ability to project images telepathically into Lorraine’s mind.” Bigfoot told her he had injured his foot, which would keep him from the “secret cave” where his mate and children waited. Fortunately, she was able to send the creature healing images (Warren and Warren with Chase 1989, 35–43).

Warren (who exhibits several traits in common with a fantasy-prone personality [Nickell 2012, 347–348]) is not alone in believing Bigfoot has such abilities. “Let me tell you something,” insists Bigfooter Ron Patillo. “These creatures are psychic. If you go in there with guns with the intent to shoot one to prove that they exist, you’ll never see one. They’ll pick up on you before you even get there. If you want to see them, you need someone like me to help you, who also has psychic ability” (qtd. in Burnette and Riggs 2014, 151–152).

Some “researchers” claim that Bigfoot are not merely psychic but perhaps entirely supernatural—a situation that has caused Bigfoot believers to split into supernatural and “flesh-and-blood” camps. Indeed, the supernaturalists express a variety of opinions, from believing the creatures are phantoms to considering them as “demon shapeshifters or interdimensional travelers” (Burnette and Riggs 2014, 167).

Although such ideas embarrass the flesh-and-blooders, some mystics think they can explain why Bigfoot is so “peculiarly elusive”: They simply opine that the supposed creature has the power of invisibility (Burnette and Riggs 2014, 164–167)! Only time will tell what other notions will surface.

* * *

As the foregoing shows, during its history, the hairy man-beast has evolved through at least seven mythical embodiments: Wild Man, Indian Spirit, “Sasquatch,” Bigfoot, Bigsuit, UFOlogical Entity, and Mystical Being—all perhaps summed up in one: Imaginary Creature (though based in part on the upright-standing bear).

• Alley, J. Robert. 2003. Raincoast Sasquatch. Surrey, BC: Hancock House.
• Arment, Chad. 2006. The Historical Bigfoot. Landisville, PA: Coachwhip.
• Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. 2006. Bigfoot Casebook Updated: Sightings and Encounters from 1818 to 2004. Enumclaw, Washington: Pine Winds Press.
• Burnette, Tom, and Rob Riggs. 2014. Bigfoot. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn.
• Burns, J.W. 1929. Introducing B.C.’s hairy giants. MacLean’s Magazine (April 1).
• Clark, Jerome. 1998. The UFO Encyclopedia. In 2 vols. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics.
• Cohen, Daniel. 1982. The Encyclopedia of Monsters. New York: Dodd, Mead.
• Coleman, Loren, and Jerome Clark. 1999. Cryptozoology A-Z. New York: Fireside.
• Daegling, David J. 2004. Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America’s Enduring Legend. New York: Altamira Press.
• Dennett, Michael. 1989. Evidence for Bigfoot? An investigation of the Mill Creek “Sasquatch prints.” Skeptical Inquirer 13(3) (Spring): 264–272.
• ———. 1996. Bigfoot. In Stein 1996, 117–125.
• Halpin, Marjorie M. 1983. Totem Poles: An Illustrated Guide. Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press.
• Hunter, Don, with Rene Dahinden. 1993. Sasquatch/Bigfoot: The Search for North America’s Incredible Creature. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
• Huyghe, Patrick. 1996. The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials. New York: Avon Books.
• Krantz, Grover. 1992. Big Footprints. Boulder, CO: Johnson Books.
• ———. 1999. Bigfoot/Sasquatch Evidence. Surrey, BC: Hancock House.
• Lapseritis, Kewaunee. 2014. Sasquatch: A terrestrial-extraterrestrial? Fate 726: 8–14.
• Long, Greg. 2004. The Making of Bigfoot. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Loxton, Daniel, and Donald R. Prothero. 2013. Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Meldrum, Jeff. 2006. Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. New York: Tom Doherty Associates.
• Napier, John. 1973. Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality. New York: E.P. Dutton.
• Nickell, Joe. 2011. Tracking the Man-Beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies, and More. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• ———. 2012. The Science of Ghosts. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• ———. 2013. Bigfoot lookalikes: Tracking hairy man-beasts. Skeptical Inquirer 37(5) (September/October): 12–15.
• Patterson, Roger. 1966. Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist? Yakima, WA: Franklin Press.
• The Spirit World. 1992. The American Indians series; Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books.
• Stein, Gordon, ed. 1996. The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Taylor, Colin F., ed. 1994. Native American Myths and Legends. New York: Smithmark.
• Warren, Ed, and Lorraine Warren (with Robert David Chase). 1989. Ghost Hunters. New York: St. Martin’s Paperbacks.

At a conference this past weekend, I met a PhD student with whom I share some academic interests. His work seemed worthwhile, but one thing he said struck a nerve. When I first asked him the topic of his dissertation, he said “fake news.”

As I quickly learned, his topic wasn’t fake news. It was native advertising—articles that read like news but are paid for like advertisements and often end up confusing readers.

It’s not the first time I’ve noticed this phenomenon. Ever since “fake news” became an inescapable phrase in late 2016, journalism professionals familiar with misinformation have made a point of defining the term carefully. But some academics and journalists seem confused. When I attended a session on “fake news” at an earlier conference, here are some of the information types that speakers lumped in:

• Public relations segments, aired in full by a station as “news”
• “Value-added” news: When an advertiser demands that reporters cover their pet topic or interview their “experts”
• Government misinformation, reported by the news media without verification
• Plagiarism

All of these represent real ethical lapses by journalism professionals (though the last one is very rare). They are problems that our industry needs to grow up and address—but they do not represent “fake news.”

In fact, fake news isn’t created by journalists at all. It’s content created without an iota of professionalism or integrity and with no benefit for society. That’s why the distinction is so crucial.

Redrawing the Boundaries

I’ll readily admit there is no one, official definition for “fake news,” though Dictionary.com’s offering is pretty good: “False news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared online for the purpose of generating ad revenue via web traffic or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc.”

Snopes cofounder David Mikkelson, who has been helping Internet users to identify misinformation since 1994, has a slightly different definition: “Completely fabricated information that has little or no intersection with real-world events.”

Claire Wardle, who leads the verification training organization First Draft News, says it’s best to avoid the dreaded term altogether. Instead, she describes misinformation as falling into the following seven buckets (see chart below).

Credit: Claire Wardle, First Draft News https://medium.com/1st-draft/fake-news-its-complicated-d0f773766c79

These definitions might not agree on every detail, but they do agree on one point: There’s something fundamentally different about deliberately manufactured falsehoods, setting them apart from journalistic errors.

According to Wardle, there’s a pretty strong correlation between the types of bad information we see out in the world, and the motivations of the content’s creators (as seen in the chart below). Fabricated content is typically created for profit, to propagandize or spread political influence, to provoke or to parody. Poor journalism, on the other hand, doesn’t create wholly fabricated content. Instead, its end results include headlines or visuals that tell a different story than the article text and facts placed in false or misleading contexts.

Credit: Claire Wardle, First Draft News https://medium.com/1st-draft/fake-news-its-complicated-d0f773766c79

Any of us can test whether Wardle is right about this distinction. Just see how many New York Times, CNN, or Wall Street Journal articles you can find that are made up: Not containing inaccuracies, not fundamentally unsound because the journalist didn’t understand the subject matter or placed too much trust in her sources, but made up out of whole cloth. “Trump strips NFL of non-profit status”? “Hillary caught on tape laughing at hurricane victims”? These didn’t come from the mainstream media.

What Journalism Gets Right

This distinction is fundamental for the future of our democracy. The label “fake news,” as it has come to be used, is a wooden mallet. It’s blunt. It can only smash, not carve, pluck, or hold up for inspection. The more we use it, the more dulled we all seem to its effects.

The smasher-in-chief is, of course, our president. Trump has effectively brought the news literacy crisis to a head by trampling on and obliterating the already blurred lines between types of content. Only by choosing our terms carefully can we start to redraw those boundaries.

To start, let’s acknowledge that most professional journalists aren’t mendacious, manipulative partisans, creating hoaxes and spreading lies to get their favored candidates into office. Most abide by the principles and practices they learned in school and on the beat, such as striving to report all details accurately.

By and large, journalists choose their career because they are passionate about providing the public with up-to-date information to help them make decisions everywhere from the voting booth to the doctor’s office. It’s certainly not for the money or job security, because there’s little of either.

And the work is crucial. In all the hand-wringing about fake news, one news literacy lesson getting severely underplayed in the public sphere is why we value journalism in the first place. It’s because of people like Ida B. Wells, who documented lynching in the American South; Nellie Bly, who investigated mistreatment of prisoners, the mentally ill, and sweatshop workers; and Woodward and Bernstein, who uncovered corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Ida B. Wells, a pioneering American journalist.

Credit: Mary Garrity, restored by Adam Cuerden - Based on image originally from NAEMVZELXQV2iw at Google Cultural Institute

Today’s journalists carry on this watchdog role, even if their names aren’t as well known. This year’s Pulitzer Prizes recognized Sarah Ryley, who found that hundreds of people in New York City were unfairly evicted from their homes due to overzealous police actions, and more than 300 reporters who collaborated to report on the Panama Papers. That roster included Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist who died in a car bomb attack on October 16, 2017. While the motives behind her murder are unconfirmed, over 1,200 journalists have been killed because of their work since 1992. Most knew the risks. They did the job anyway, because the job is that important.

If we lose sight of this, or fail to pass it on to our children, we’ll seriously imperil our future.

What Journalism Gets Wrong

At the same time, journalists’ and news executives’ response to the misinformation crisis has too often been to deny all culpability. There are many reasons people are frustrated with or disgusted by the news media, and much of this is beyond reporters’ control. But then there are errors and arrogance. The news media has too often been unaccountable to its readers and failed to take responsibility for its mistakes. Some of the deeply ingrained problems are:

Poor verification: In the rush to earn clicks and beat the competition, news outlets too frequently cut corners or accept the word of secondary sources.

Poor corrections policies: Most corrections are difficult to find online, and the original, mistaken article often remains unchanged.

Emphasis on conflict and negative news: Too often journalists wave this complaint away with the excuse, “No one wants to read about the 5,000 planes that didn’t crash today”—thus conflating “positive” with “ordinary.” In reality, journalism that covers potential solutions holds great appeal for readers.

Lack of context: When negative events are covered as isolated, random, instances rather than as symptomatic of larger problems, it can be even harder to imagine solutions. A similar outcome occurs with protest coverage, when far more words are devoted to the spectacle, arrests, and violent outliers than to the grievances motivating participants.

Dull coverage / failure to connect: Similarly, too many hard news stories are presented in an “eat your vegetables” manner. News reporters assume their job is just to report the facts rather than to explain the situation and how the facts affect readers.

Perpetuating stereotypes: Instinctive, unconscious choices about what stories to cover, or how to frame them, often perpetuate stereotypes about racial minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

Poor health reporting: Reporters often breathlessly report on the latest studies without presenting information on the quality of the research or placing the study in the context of the existing literature.

Invasion of privacy: Grieving individuals sometimes welcome a chance to talk about their loved ones. But reporters who pressure or hound them are acting unethically.

Misleading and annoying ads: Digital journalism is extremely difficult to sustain, and news outlets are desperate for advertising dollars. But one of the major solutions to emerge over the past few years - those “around the web” ads that pair outrageous pictures with hyperventilating headlines - actually undermines the mission of journalism. If we’re in this business to inform, how can we excuse ads that so often deceive? It’s not right and it’s further diminishing trust.

Many smart, concerned people recognize these ongoing problems. You’ll find many of these people in university journalism and communications departments, analyzing coverage, developing theories and testing hypotheses. Unfortunately, far too few concerned individuals actually work in the news media, where decisions are often made on the basis of “this is how it’s always been done”—even while publishers fret about the twin existential crises of falling revenue and declining trust.

Credit: Janekpfeifer

Refining the Toolkit

Writing about journalism’s failings is a double-edged sword. I hesitated to write the section above, knowing that those seeking to undermine the mainstream media seize upon every misstep it makes to further lower trust levels, making people even more susceptible to misinformation. I also don’t want to focus unduly on journalism’s missteps when the onslaught of false and grossly distorted information is a much larger threat to public knowledge.

Yet journalists simply must issue a mea culpa. It’s no use shrugging your shoulders, saying, “I don’t know why these people refuse to trust or believe us, no matter how hard we work!” Yes, individual journalists work hard—but some of the profession’s practices are ill-suited to a modern news ecosystem or were broken to begin with. Saying, “I know we need to improve” is a necessary first step to earning back reader trust. (The next step, of course, is to make actual improvements.)

What’s more, if journalists send the message, “The problem isn’t us, it’s all the stuff written by other people,” then they’re simply not representing the problem accurately, and people know it. Seeing that distortion, is the public’s response going to be forgiveness? Or is it going to be, “Yet another lie from the lying media. They’re just as bad as all the hoaxers”?

Acknowledging the full range of misinformation, from fakery to deadline-induced sloppiness and everything in between, allows us to teach news literacy lessons that empower people’s news forensics skills. Instead of the “fake news” mallet, they’ll wield chisels, magnifying glasses, and brushes to sweep away dirt.

We want people to recognize that an article can get a detail wrong and still get the fundamental facts right. That doesn’t mean that misspelling names is OK. That doesn’t mean we can’t advocate for news media to minimize mistakes. It just means acknowledging that all content resides on a spectrum between total truth and total falsehood, and we will value the sources that are most reliable—because the alternative is believing nothing at all.

•••One paragraph was left out of this column when it was first published. This has now been corrected.

As a professional skeptic (I know; that phrase sounds weird to me too—even after all these years—but you know what I mean) I deal with all manner of believer. Some are respectful, some are not, but the one constant is that the believer and I are approaching the topic from different viewpoints, including different standards of evidence and different ideas about what constitutes good evidence in the first place (the canard “the plural of anecdote is not evidence” often comes up). Since the general public, like the casual skeptic, doesn’t often engage in these run-of-the-mill interactions, it is useful to review them, as they provide insight into the differing worldviews.

I thought about this recently when I received the following e-mail from a woman named Julia (verbatim throughout):

“After watching a documentary about psychics, I really must comment on the fact that your skepticism is not only naive, but also arrogant, and actually quite rude, when clearly there is evidence for this phenomenon. Not all science has the answers; this has been proved in history, when science thought they knew everything; even calling Edison a lunatic when he invented the lightbulb. This is just one example. Please educate yourself, and come out of your little insular box, so that we can move forward. I have experienced Clairaudient, and can honestly tell you that I know more than you do. I am of normal mind, but I am not naive, arrogant, know all, or ignorant to the possiblity that just because we cannot see, smell, hear, touch something, that it does not exist. We have a physical body, and etheric body, spiritual body. If you, or any other orthodox sceptic refuse to understand this, then it is sad- for you at least. More and more scientists, psychologists- to name a few:  Robert Lanza, Raymond Moody, Stuart Hameroff, have been studying this for many years, and have very interesting facts.  Orthodox science will be proved wrong, even if they do not like it.  The world is changing; there will be a shift in consciousness, and mindsets like yours will be left behind.  I hope that you see this message, because you need to know that you do not have the answers to this Universe.  Have a nice day.”

• • •

I couldn’t tell if the closing pleasantry was sincere, sarcastic, or merely a polite formality, but in any event, I felt compelled to reply:

“Hello Julia, and thanks for reaching out to me, good to hear from you. You don’t state which documentary you recently saw about psychics, or whether I was featured in it, so I can’t know exactly what information you’re referring to.

“In any event I’m not sure why you consider my skepticism about psychic powers to be ‘arrogant’ or ‘rude.’ I would never suggest that you (or anyone else) is arrogant or rude merely because you believe something different than I do. I celebrate the beautiful diversity of opinions and do not feel that others must believe the same things I do (or share my opinions on) science, religion, life, or anything else. We may disagree about whether there is evidence for a given proposition or claim, but I don’t feel that you are ‘naive, arrogant, and rude’ for not sharing my beliefs. I find such intolerance disappointing but of course I respect your opinion.

“I quite agree that science does not have all the answers; indeed that’s a hallmark of science! Scientists keep trying to learn about our world and use scientific methods to experiment and test hypotheses. But I’m puzzled by the example you give: ‘even calling Edison a lunatic when he invented the lightbulb.’ I was not aware that scientists called Edison a lunatic for inventing the lightbulb; from my understanding scientists such as Humphry Davy had been developing incandescent lights since the late 1700s, and the idea of an electric lightbulb was widely accepted by scientists throughout the world in the 1800s, including by many of Edison’s contemporaries. Edison’s problem was not that scientists thought he was crazy for using electric current to light homes, but instead that the existing filaments burned out too quickly to be useful. Of course I may be mistaken, and as you have asked me to ‘please educate yourself,’ I would appreciate any correction or clarification you can offer about the example you gave.

“The same goes for evidence for psychics; you claim to hear voices and while that may be true it is of course not something that I can research. When you ask me to educate myself, what specifically would you suggest I educate myself about? Are there certain scientific studies you believe prove that psychic powers exist?

“I’m familiar with claims made by Moody (I’ve read several of his books, including Life After Life, about near-death experience and reincarnation), but I’m not aware of any research or published works by him about psychic abilities. I’m less familiar with Robert Lanza, but a quick internet search reveals no experiments or research testing or proving the existence of psychic powers. However I am more familiar with Stuart Hameroff, who appeared in the widely-discredited New Age film What the Bleep Do We Know, along with several other scientists who stated that their comments were taken [out] of context. Like Lanza, Hameroff has not offered, and has never claimed to offer, evidence of psychic powers that I can find.

“So when you write ‘please educate yourself, and come out of your little insular box,’ I am willing to do so, but I need to know what it is you believe I should educate myself about. You cited three people, none of whom are (or even claim to be) experts on the validity of psychic powers. I can’t educate myself about your personal experience or beliefs/opinions (everyone’s are different, subjective, and equally valid), so I’ll need to know what education you have that I don’t, that would clarify the issue.

“I’m also curious why you believe that my desire for scientific evidence for psychics is preventing progress; you wrote ‘Please educate yourself... so that we can move forward.’ “How is my lack of belief in psychic powers preventing people (or society) from moving forward? Does psychic power require universal belief in its efficacy, or the assent of skeptics? I don’t understand what you mean, so if you could clarify that would be helpful.

“It’s always struck me as odd (and a bit sad and cynical) that when someone disagrees with me about a topic I’ve researched and written about, I’m often accused of being ignorant, arrogant, and (often willfully) misinformed. In contrast, I don’t assume that about other people when I’m exposed to new ideas or different opinions. I don’t assume that the other person is stupid, ignorant, or intentionally spreading misinformation.

“Instead I believe that perhaps we simply have different information, or spoke to different people, or had different experiences. No one can know everything about everything, and inevitably some people are better informed about some topics than others. Experts are one example, but writers and researchers, as well, tend to be better informed about the topic on which they’re writing than laypersons, if for no other reason [than] that they’ve spent considerable time (certainly hours, but often days or weeks) specifically looking into it, seeing the various claims, contacting experts on both sides, etc.

“Instead of taking such a hostile, ‘us versus them’ position, I believe people can have an honest difference of opinion without one or the other necessarily being stupid or arrogant. But that’s just my approach.”

• • •

Julia wrote back a day or two later:

“Hello Ben- thank you for your insightful message, and apologies for the name calling.  Not something I make a habit of.  Please do not take it personally.  I just hope that more and more people become enlightened, and a shift in consciousness will take place- as has been predicted.  Those who have experienced something spiritual; who have a faith (not talking about religion), and like me, who have had a profuound, tangible experience- which, by the way, I do actually question still, purely because we(experiencers) also tend to try and rationalise everything, but cannot because our experience was so real- both visually, and audibly, are the ones with the truth, I feel.  Surely those who have really seen, heard something beyond our five senses, are the ones who know the truth.  Scientists studying consciousness/life after death, have now ben able to prove that consciousness does in fact continue for 3 minutes after the brain has shut down: LIFE after death has been ‘confirmed’ by scientists who have discovered consciousness continues even once a person has died. 

“We all have Auras- including animals.  We all have a soul.  The outer layers beyond the physical body.  Intuition, a knowing.  Prayers being answered time and time again.  Coincidence is one thing, but what I am taliking about it something different.  It can be difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced anything, and I do respect your opinion, and what you say, but all I am saying is that those who have experienced something beyond the physical senses is proof surely. 

“Animals (cats and dogs for sure) are definately in tune with something beyond the physical.  If someone is highly sensitive/empathetic they tend to be on a higher vibration meaning that they are more likely to experience something spiritual.  The consistancy in NDE's, and other phenomena is interesting also. I do not believe everything I hear from others, so I guess I do have some scepticism, or to put in better words, I am not gullible, because there are alot of crazy people out there, but one can normally distinguish between what sounds realistic or not.  I do look for consistancy in peoples experiences, and prohecies etc about afterlife, and it is nice when there is a consistant explanation as with NDE's.  Anyway, I hope I make some sense, and even though I may not have answered all your questions, hopefully I've covered some of it.  Take care.”

• • •

I appreciated the apology but noted that she ignored most of what I’d asked and discussed with her. She made a claim about Thomas Edison, and when I politely asked her for evidence or to explain what she meant, she chose not to (I assume because she realized she was wrong and had misunderstood or misapplied the Edison anecdote). I was neither offended nor surprised, but it seemed to demonstrate a tacit disregard for the truth, or at least an unwillingness to admit error. There was also no engagement with my ready admission that science doesn’t have all the answers and other points. I was engaging with her respectfully and on her own terms.

In replying to her request to educate myself, I asked her—quite sincerely—what specifically I should educate myself about, what topics or research or experts I should consult in order to understand her position or be better informed, since the ones she mentioned had little or nothing to do with the topic. Once again, I got no response; instead of directing me to a book, journal article, or other resources that had apparently informed her opinion, she referred vaguely to auras, prayers, personal experience, and so on.

In sum, I had politely asked a firm believer—who’d specifically requested that I educate myself—for information and sources upon which to do so and was ignored. Sensing that the fruitfulness of the dialogue had reached the point of diminishing returns, I replied:

• • •

“Hello Julia,

“Yes, I’m aware that a new age of global enlightenment has been predicted and promised for decades (most prominently in the 1970s and 1980s) and earlier (with Edgar Cayce and even the Spiritualists, if I’m not mistaken). It’s a common belief, that the Truth will be revealed just around the corner. I’ve seen it written by UFO experts in magazines from the 1950s and 1960s, who say that any day now our space brothers will come down from the stars and usher in an age of peace (or that the global UFO government coverup is about to end). I’ve heard it from apocalyptic and Biblical End Times authors who for decades have assured their followers (and anyone else who will listen) that Judgment Day is imminent. I’ve seen it in psi researchers, Bigfoot believers, and in countless other paranormal, occult, or ‘unexplained’ subjects, that there’s so much clear evidence that surely any day now the general public will just understand what they understand and we’ll all be on the same page. You (and they) may be right, but so far they’ve all been wrong.

“You wrote that ‘LIFE after death has been “confirmed” by scientists who have discovered consciousness continues even once a person has died,’ and you asked me to do some research and educate myself. I would respectfully suggest to you that I have educated myself on the topic: I’ve read several books on the topic (pro and con, skeptic and believer), and spoken with or interviewed several people who have researched it including Gary Schwartz. I’ve read books by Kenneth Ring, Raymond Moody, Ian Stevenson, Chris Carter, etc. on their claims for reincarnation and life after death. To get a balanced view I’ve also read books by G.M. Woerlee, Susan Blackmore, and Paul Edwards on their analyses/criticisms of NDE and reincarnation claims and research. My skepticism is borne not of ignorance about the subject, but knowledge of it.

“Let me ask you this: Have you educated yourself about the topic? Have you read any books that critically examine or analyze the claims, or have you limited your research to only one side of the story? Critical thinking (and determining what’s true about the world) often requires that we be open minded and engage in ideas, evidence, and opinions that are contrary to ours. We don’t have to, of course, but a willingness and tolerance for different ideas is important, I believe.

“We clearly have different approaches to evidence and different opinions on these topics. I’m certainly not going to talk you out of your beliefs, and would not even try. However I can tell you with certainty that there is a whole world of open-minded, legitimate, and evidence-based analysis of auras, life after death, NDEs, ghosts, psychic powers, and so on. Whether you choose to seek them out or engage with them with an open mind and open heart is another matter, but the material is available. If you’d like more information there’s an excellent free resource online called the Skeptics Dictionary; you can find it at http://www.skepdic.com/. It has short, readable entries and a good bibliography for further reading or research. If you have specific areas you’re interested in, let me know and I’d be happy to select a few of the most credible sources of information.”

That’s all I could do.

Cover Photo Credit: Wesley Nitsckie

Mark Plummer y Wendy Grossman (a la derecha), con algunos de los fundadores del movimiento escéptico español. Foto: Gabriel Naranjo.

El movimiento escéptico español nació de un grupo de ufólogos. Es posible que algunos hoy se ofendan, pero así fue. Si volvemos la vista atrás a principios de los años 80, encontramos el germen de un colectivo que hoy reúne a más de 500 personas distribuidas en dos organizaciones en un pequeño grupo de interesados en el fenómeno ovni del País Vasco. Lo sé porque yo era uno de ellos. Como por fortuna guardo la correspondencia que intercambié con mis compañeros (sus cartas y copias de las mías), puedo documentar con una precisión cronológica aceptable lo que pasó./

Información sobre la creación del primer grupo escéptico español en febrero de 1985.

Mi interés por los ovnis se remonta a la segunda mitad de los años 70. Entonces adolescente, devoraba con avidez todo lo que caía en mis manos sobre la exploración del espacio, la existencia de extraterrestres y sus posibles visitas. En mi ingenuidad, creía que aquello que se decía en los medios de comunicación y en los libros tenía que ser verdad. Si no todo, casi todo. ¡Cómo iba a arriesgarse alguien a mentir y que pudieran cazarle! Por suerte, compré el libro Ovnis: el fenómeno aterrizaje, de Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, nada más publicarse. Corría el año 1978 y mi biblioteca ufológica no tenía más de media docena de títulos. Al final de su obra, Ballester Olmos invitaba a quien quisiera a escribirle para colaborar en el estudio de los avistamientos de ovnis ocurridos en su región, dentro de un proyecto sistemático de revisión de casos para separar la paja (aquéllos con explicación convencional) del grano (los no explicados). Lo hice.

Con aquella carta pasé de ser un interesado en los ovnis a ser un ufólogo activo. Pero la segunda consecuencia, mucho más importante, fue que otros aficionados vizcaínos le escribieron también a Ballester Olmos y éste les puso en contacto conmigo. Así conocí entre 1983 y 1984 a Gabriel Naranjo, Luis Miguel Ortega, Francisco Javier Pereda y José Antonio Sánchez. Y se unieron al grupo Juan Marcos Gascón, un valenciano amigo de Ballester Olmos destinado laboralmente al País Vasco, y Ángel Rodríguez, un veterano que formaba parte de una asociación ufológica vizcaína que prácticamente había abandonado la actividad. Además de investigar casos con los resultados previsibles –el extraterrestre era un motorista, una chica se había inventado un encuentro nocturno con un ovni para justificar llegar tarde a casa, el platillo volante eran estrellas…–, los siete nos hicimos amigos. Y de vez en cuando nos reuníamos con un precursor del escepticismo español, el publicista jubilado Luis Hernández Franch (1908-1986). Gracias a él supimos de la existencia del Comité para la Investigación Científica de las Afirmaciones de lo Paranormal (CSICOP), de Philip Klass, de James Oberg…

Con apoyo del CSICOP

Portada de la primera publicación escéptica española.

En otoño de 1984, a Ángel Rodríguez y a mí nos dieron 15 minutos semanales en un programa nocturno de Radio Popular de Bilbao para hablar de ovnis y extraterrestres en la Antigüedad desde el punto de vista escéptico. Fue toda una experiencia y una osadía por nuestra parte. Un día se nos ocurrió que podíamos entrevistar a un, a pesar de su juventud, histórico de la ufología española, Félix Ares. Yo estaba investigando con él un caso ocurrido en Bilbao en el que una familia aseguraba haber grabado el sonido de un ovni (al final, resultó ser el canto de un sapo partero y el misterioso objeto, el reflejo de un alto horno). Así que montamos una excursión un sábado a San Sebastián, donde vivía Ares, y grabamos la entrevista. Nosotros volvimos a casa encantados, y Ares comprobó que él y su amigo Jesús Martínez Villaro –con quien compartía la aproximación escéptica al fenómeno– no estaban solos.  Ares llevaba en la ufología desde su época universitaria, a finales de los años 60. Había vivido la edad de oro del fenómeno en España y, al estudiarlo desde una perspectiva estadística, había concluido que no había que buscar su origen fuera, sino dentro del ser humano, en la psicología, la sociología y la historia. A principios de los 80, estaba prácticamente retirado de la ufología, convencido de que los ovnis eran un mito de la era espacial, nacido a rebufo de la ciencia ficción pulp y las bombas atómicas de Hiroshima y Nagasaki, y desanimado por el rumbo que había tomado la comunidad ovni española.

El 17 febrero de 1985, celebramos todos –nueve, más las esposas de Ares y Martínez Villaro– una comida en Vitoria. A los postres, decidimos fundar un grupo para estudiar “sin apriorismos y con espíritu abierto” el fenómeno ovni y enviamos esa misma tarde un primer comunicado a los medios. Todavía no teníamos ni nombre, así que nos presentábamos como “el colectivo de investigadores ovni del País Vasco”. En los días siguientes, Ares me mandó una carta en la que proponía una denominación para el grupo: “¿Qué te parece el nombre de ARIFO? Alternativa Racional para la Investigación del Fenómeno Ovni”. A todos nos pareció bien, y empecé a preparar los estatutos para su inscripción como asociación, pero antes sacamos un humilde y muy beligerante boletín ese mismo verano. El primer número llevaba en la portada un platillo volante del contactado suizo Billy Meier tachado con un aspa. El segundo no salió hasta diciembre, ya bajo la cabecera de La Alternativa Racional, y no fue hasta el quinto número (enero de 1987) que nos presentamos en el fanzine como Alternativa Racional a las Pseudociencias (ARP). ¿Qué había pasado?

A finales de septiembre de 1985, yo había recibido una carta de Paul Kurtz, entonces presidente del CSICOP. Me decía en ella que le habían dado mi nombre los Escépticos del Área de la Bahia de San Francisco, a cuyo boletín yo estaba suscrito. Kurtz me enviaba una lista de los suscriptores españoles de The Skeptical Inquirer, revista que yo había conocido a través de Ares, con la idea de que igual podían ser la base de un grupo escéptico. Nos dirigimos a ellos, todavía como ARIFO, y así conocimos al ingeniero madrileño Álvaro Fernández, que a partir de ese momento fue nuestra cabeza de puente en Madrid. ARIFO se rebautizó como Alternativa Racional a las Pseudociencias (ARP) tras la aprobación de un borrador de estatutos durante otra comida en Vitoria. Durante un paseo, Ares y yo decidimos animar a nuestros compañeros a no limitarnos al tema ovni. El nuevo nombre se me había ocurrido revisando en The Skeptical Inquirer la lista de asociaciones escépticas con las que colaboraba el CSICOP –que incluía la Organización de Colorado para una Alternativa Racional a la Pseudociencia (CO-RAP)– y se lo había propuesto a Ares meses antes. Y con ese nombre se inscribió el 12 de marzo de 1987 la primera organización escéptica española. Contamos desde el principio con el apoyo del CSICOP y, en particular, con los de Kurtz y Barry Karr, a los que todavía hoy estoy profundamente agradecido por su confianza y amistad.

Fueron años muy bonitos. Investigábamos casos de observaciones de ovnis –y los explicábamos–, escribíamos cartas a los medios, participábamos en debates de radio y televisión, dábamos nuestras primeras charlas y hacíamos la revista, al principio con máquina de escribir y luego con ordenador. Los editoriales los solíamos escribir Ares, Martínez Villaro y yo siempre después de una buena comida o cena. Y todos celebrábamos como un gran avance cada pequeño paso. Pero, sobre todo, nos lo pasábamos bien, muy bien. Aún recuerdo los viajes por las carreteras vascas con Luis Miguel Ortega, Francisco Javier Pereda, José Antonio Sánchez y Gabriel Naranjo al volante de un utilitario que a duras penas podía con los cinco; las largas noches de conversación con Félix Ares en su casa de San Sebastián, que a veces se prolongaban hasta el amanecer; el estudio de casos con Juan Marcos Gascón, cuya meticulosidad siempre admiré; las horas de radio con Ángel Rodríguez hablando de historia de la ufología; y también el primer encuentro con colegas de otros países cuando Mark Plummer, recién nombrado director ejecutivo del CSICOP, nos visitó a mediados de 1987 acompañado de Wendy Grossman, entonces directora de The British & Irish Skeptic, y nos enseñó vídeos de James Randi en la televisión estadounidense, incluidos los desenmascaramientos de Uri Geller y Peter Popoff.

Más de tres décadas después, aunque me he interesado desde entonces por muchas creencias pseudocientíficas –desde la sábana santa hasta el espiritismo, desde la telepatía hasta las hadas, desde los monstruos hasta las medicinas alternativas–, el fenómeno ovni me sigue apasionando. Gracias a él he aprendido –y sigo aprendiendo– muchas cosas y, lo que es mejor, hice amigos que conservo y con los que me encuentro al menos una vez al mes. Ahora en España los escépticos somos más, bastantes más, pero muchos ignoran cómo nació todo y los nombres de quienes con un trabajo muchas veces no reconocido –y me refiero a quienes se encargaron durante años de labores burocráticas y contables, como Luis Miguel Ortega y Gabriel Naranjo– hicieron posible que un grupo de ufólogos catalizara el nacimiento del movimiento escéptico español.

Guy P. Harrison is an American author. He is known for his written works on skepticism and atheism. Harrison has degrees in history and anthropology at the University of South Florida. From 1992 to 2010 Harrison wrote for Cayman Free Press in the Cayman Islands as a journalist, editor and photographer. As a journalist he has interviewed people such as Jane Goodall, Chuck Yeager, Edward Teller, Paul Tibbets and Armin Lehmann. From 2014–2015 he did medical writing for Kaiser Permanente. He has a blog at Psychology Today named About Thinking. Starting with 50 reasons people give for believing in a god in 2008, Harrison has written five books on skeptical and philosophical issues. The books are well known in skeptical circles and he has been widely interviewed in relation to his books by many different podcasts and websites. His books have received positive feedback from prominent scientists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth Shostak, and Donald Johanson. Harrison was a recipient of the World Health Organization Award for Health Reporting in 1997 and the Commonwealth Media Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1994. (Source: Wikipedia)

Alejandro Borgo: Do you think that freedom is important? If so, in what sense?

Guy Harrison: Freedom is the great goal. Physical and mental freedom is life. Humankind is in a constant state of struggle to be freer. We are chained and held back in many ways by our evolutionary past. Our minds and bodies carry the legacy of millions of years. We cannot fully break free from the limitations of perception, cognition, and imagination because we are still, in many ways, prehistoric animals better suited for life in the African wilderness rather than the modern urban environment. I am confident that we will continue to move toward greater political and legal freedoms, but with many ups and downs along the way. However, we may find that total freedom or something close to it is a difficult challenge, too. Winning freedom of thought and action is one thing, deciding what to do with it will be quite another.

Borgo:The investigation about the brain ... Why it is so important?

Harrison: The brain is you. The brain is at the center of every human life. Heart, lungs, bones—that’s all just parts and plumbing. The brain is everything. Sadly, very few people throughout human existence have understood much if anything about how the brain evolved, how it is structured, and how it functions. One does not have to be a neuroscientist to know the brain. I write about much of the practical and easy-to-understand aspects of the human brain in my book Good Thinking. The brain is staggeringly complex, powerful, and beautiful. The brain’s output determines the quality of our lives. So why would anyone go through life without learning everything possible about it? We all should be informed about what current science says regarding thinking, subconscious activity, as well as the nutritional requirements and physical activity necessary to keep our brains sharp and healthy.

Borgo:Do you agree with the approach of Richard Dawkins and other hard atheists?

Harrison: Yes, but it’s not my way. I tend to be more gentle and respectful because that’s just my personality and I find it is effective in my interactions with irrational believers. But Dawkins and those who often mock believers and use harsh language are effective too. I believe it takes multiple approaches to reach and move large groups because people are different. Some will respond to ridicule and rudeness, others respond better to polite words and gentle nudging. Both ways work because people are diverse.

Borgo:What can you tell about the proper form to deal with skepticism? I feel that some skeptics are so rude. 

Harrison: Humility is the key. If you are an arrogant, condescending skeptic then you are doing it wrong. Science and critical thinking rest upon a premise that says anyone can be wrong about anything. A good thinker is humble. We also must be mindful of the fact that very intelligent people can hold very dumb beliefs. It’s a human condition. Irrational believers are not inferior people; they simply made a misstep somewhere along the way in their thinking.

Borgo:What is your opinion about Bertrand Russell?

Harrison: I don’t know much about him. I’ve heard him promote some unsupported claims in interviews and that's not good, but he does seem to be trying. He’s thinking and asking questions, which is more than I can say for most people.

Borgo:Who was, or is, the best scientist of all times? And why?

Harrison: Isaac Newton would be the easy answer. But I’ll go with the first hominin, probably two million years or so ago, who confronted fire like a scientist. He or she observed the flames, thought about it, formulated an hypothesis, experimented perhaps, and then came up with a theory of fire. That person, so long ago, was doing science. That person approached fire, a dangerous phenomenon, and dared to control it. That was science in action. And it changed us forever. With fire in our minds and torches in our hands, we were no longer prey, no longer lost in the darkness of every night. If we one day spread our intelligence throughout the universe, it will all trace back to that hominin and that moment.

Borgo:Tell me about your opinion: Which is the best way of making a better world to live?

Harrison: Good thinking and science are the fundamental prerequisites to building a better world for ourselves and the life we share it with. So much that harms us, so much of our pain is self-inflicted and unnecessary, the result of irrational fears and misperceptions. Most people on Earth right now do not know who we are, how we got here, how we depend on countless lifeforms all around us, how the universe works, and so on. All of our wars, racism, hate, fear, destruction and neglect are exactly what one would expect from an intelligent species with no self-awareness. We must find a way to teach our children, all children, the fundamental knowledge of who we are and what the universe is. Only then, can we finally wake up, grow up, and be our best.

The more I study the activities of chiropractors, the more I find myself comparing them to striptease dancing as depicted in my favorite humorous musical number from the 1962 movie “Gypsy.”

The scene is a dressing room in a burlesque theater in Wichita, Kansas. Louise Hovick (who eventually becomes striptease star Gypsy Rose Lee) is a young woman with a booking at the theater to sing and dance—but not strip. She encounters three seasoned strippers. She explains to them that she doesn’t have any talent for stripping.

One of the strippers, Miss Mazeppa, assures her: “To be a stripper, all you need to have is no talent.”

Another stripper, Tessie Tura, counters: “Pardon me! But to have no talent is not enough. What you need to have is an idea that makes you strip special!”

And so begins a performance of “You Gotta Have a Gimmick.”

Miss Mazeppa’s gimmick is to do it with a horn, which she proceeds to blow. Tessie Tura’s gimmick is to do it with ballet dancing. Miss Electra’s gimmick is to do it with a costume lit up like a Christmas tree.

Chiropractic Gimmickry

Chiropractors also have gimmicks. I see their gimmicks as much more seductive than the gimmicks of strippers in “Gypsy.”

Chiropractic’s identity as a profession depends on a gimmick: promoting the implausible notion that chiropractors have special expertise to detect and adjust supposedly health compromising spinal dysfunctions that they call chiropractic subluxations or vertebral subluxation complexes. In January 2005, the World Federation of Chiropractic’s Task Force on Identity released a report of a survey of more than 3600 chiropractors in which 65 percent of respondents indicated that the phrase “management of vertebral subluxation and its impact on general health” fits chiropractic “perfectly” or almost perfectly. [See slide #30 here.]

Common chiropractic gimmicks include various technique systems based on various “philosophies” of chiropractic care and/or the use of supposedly special devices. Many chiropractors do it with Activator Methods. Many do it with Applied Kinesiology. Some do it with Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique (B.E.S.T.)—or other gimmicks of gobbledygook to unsuspecting and naive consumers.

Chiropractic pediatrics, for example, is a marketing gimmick masquerading as a health care specialty. Its evidence base is poor and many of its practitioners offer parents vaccination denialism propaganda.

Some chiropractors focus on marketing stem cell treatments. I recently attended a luncheon seminar about stem cell treatments for joint problems and was not surprised to discover that the speaker who identified himself as a “doctor” (which he said correctly but misleadingly means teacher) is a chiropractor. I’ll save that story for another column.

In states that give chiropractors broad scopes of practice, dietary supplement hucksterism is a gimmick. Many chiropractors focus on “chiropractic nutrition.” 

Practice building courses that teach sales gimmicks for success are commonly promoted to recent graduates of chiropractic colleges and other success-seeking chiropractors including those interested in treating newborns and other children and those interested in treating specific diseases or organ defects.

Another common type of gimmick is to offer a supposedly revolutionary approach to treating a specific health problem. For example, some chiropractors claim to heal allergies by relieving "energy blockages." In recent years, some chiropractors have invested in expensive advertising with pitches offering free booklets and/or free dinner seminars to recruit patients who have diseases such as peripheral neuropathy (a common consequence of diabetes) and osteoarthritis.

Type 2 Diabetes Gimmicks

Some chiropractors have marketed themselves as type 2 diabetes treatment experts and have made unfounded, audacious promotional claims that could lead people with diabetes away from life-saving care and toward substandard care. In 2014, Robert Puleo, executive officer of California’s Board of Chiropractic, was quoted by Los Angeles Times consumer affairs columnist David Lazarus about newspaper ads making bold claims for breakthrough treatments for diabetes and other chronic illnesses: “It reeks of snake oil. There are some chiropractors out there who want to make a buck any way they can.”

Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is a disease characterized by insulin resistance, which means the body does not respond properly to the action of pancreatic hormone insulin to move the sugar glucose from the blood into bodily cells to provide energy. Blood levels of glucose become abnormally high, leading eventually to nerve, eye, kidney, dental, and cardiovascular system damage.

Markers of elevated risk for developing type 2 diabetes include overweight, obesity, physical inactivity, a family history of diabetes, age forty-five or older, high blood pressure, high levels of triglycerides in the blood, having polycystic ovary syndrome, and having acanthosis nigricans. Some ethnic/racial groups are at elevated risk. Heredity plays an important role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

Some people with type 2 diabetes can manage their disease by improving their diets and increasing their physical activity. Some require drug treatments to overcome insulin resistance and keep blood glucose at healthy levels. Those whose bodies cannot make enough insulin to overcome insulin resistance may need insulin as medication.

Jeffrey Murray Hockings

In 2011, Lazarus wrote about a free “Diabetes Breakthrough” dinner seminar at Los Angeles International Airport that attracted attendees with a newspaper ad promising “you will discover the hidden secrets about how to reverse your diabetes, reduce and eliminate your need and dependence on drugs, lose weight without exercise, explode your energy levels and the potential to become non-diabetic.” The main speaker was Jeff Hockings, a chiropractor who reportedly criticized doctors and drug companies for prospering by treating diabetes without curing it. Hocking claimed that diabetes can be “reversed” at an 85 percent success rate through three weeks of “cleansing,” dietary changes, “high-potency” herbs, and supplements provided exclusively by Hocking’s own company. The seminar recruited patients for an initial consultation for a cost of $87. The treatment program was said to cost from $1,000 to $15,000.

According to the website of California’s Board of Chiropractic Examiners, the chiropractic license status of Jeffrey Murray Hockings is “canceled” as of this writing. Hockings was cited twice in 2014 for his advertising, and he paid his citations in full in 2015.

Last year, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced that Hockings and another chiropractor, Dean Draluck, would have to cease marketing their Help Your Diabetes (HYD) program sales seminars in Iowa after Hockings refused to grant two older Iowans cancellations and refunds of $4,000 a piece.

Candice Alain Hall (McCowin)

In October 2013, California’s Board of Chiropractic Examiners received a complaint about an advertisement by Candice McCowin, DC (whose current name is Candice Alain Hall). The advertisement claimed: “… encouraging study on type 2 diabetes shows the disease can be reversed in as little as 1 week.” The ad offered:

A free guide has just been made available to type 2 diabetics detailing an approach more powerful than any drug known to modern science. The free diabetic guide explains in plain English how many diabetics have been able to reduce and eliminate their drugs and insulin injections, lose weight without exercise, reduce and eliminate the risk for diabetic complications, restore pancreatic function, and even become non-diabetic. The free guide also reveals rarely used diagnostic testing that is helping doctors understand potential causes of diabetes beyond weight gain, genetics and lack of exercise.

An expert reviewer for the Board concluded that the ad and guide violated California Code of Regulation section 311 (misleading advertising) and assessed a penalty of only $500 in 2014. According to the Board, Hall was cited again for her advertising in 2015.

Hall is currently in practice at Next Advanced Medicine with Neil K. Hersh, MD, whose licensure listing at the Medical Board of California indicates “none” for his board certification. His biographical summary at his practice’s website says he “embraces a ‘holistic approach’ to wellness, which includes nutritional support, dietary supplements, regular and varied exercise, and numerous forms of ‘alternative and complimentary’[sic] healthcare modalities.”

Since May 2016, I’ve had email exchanges and one conversation over the phone with a mostly satisfied patient of Next Advanced Medicine who contacted me after she read a previous article I wrote that mentioned the Hall’s 2014 penalty. She said she had previously been under the care of an endocrinologist for her hypothyroidism and had been taking the thyroid drug Synthroid for many years. Although she had not been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, she said she had a high body mass index and an elevated fasting blood sugar level. She said that, considering her risk characteristics for type 2 diabetes, her endocrinologist had prescribed for her the oral diabetes drug metformin as an ongoing preventive measure. Along with her husband, who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, she enrolled in the Next Advanced Medicine diabetes program.

She shared these comments about her experience with the program:

• At the seminar Hall offered to recruit prospective patients, she “felt oversold.”
• She “felt [Next Advanced Medicine] was more of a business than a medical practice.”
• She paid $8,000 out of pocket for six months of weekly visits with half of that amount reimbursed later by insurance.
• She rated as negatives the cost and feeling as part of a herd at time in a “very busy, over scheduled office.”
• She was told she is gluten intolerant on the basis of blood, stool, and saliva tests (even though no specific biomarker detectable in saliva, blood, or stools has been identified for non-celiac gluten sensitivity).
• She thought that the nutrition counseling was the highlight of the program. She was placed on a gluten-free, dairy-free, grain-free, soy-free diet along with recommended dietary supplements (included with weekly visits).
• She said she’s a great cook and creates wonderful replacement dishes for foods she no longer eats.
• She lost fifty pounds as of January 2017, maintained her weight loss through July, no longer requires use of a continuous positive air pressure machine to treat her sleep apnea, and claims her fibromyalgia is gone.
• She was taken off twelve of her previous fourteen medications (for asthma, prediabetes, and high blood pressure) prescribed by her regular doctors.
• She believes she avoided knee replacement, as her pains are “virtually GONE.”
• She continues to get probiotics from Next Advanced Medicine, but gets her medical care now from her endocrinologist, cardiologist, and family doctor.
• In July, she was found to have a kidney stone and was diagnosed with pancreatitis after passing out and crashing her car.
• Her husband, who was diagnosed with diabetes, has not been as strict with his eating and gained back some of the weight he had lost.

Testimonials, even when sincerely offered, are problematic as clinical evidence, especially regarding the value of any particular component of a multidimensional program. Nevertheless, losing dozens of pounds tends to be helpful for overweight people whether they are type 2 diabetics or not. It isn’t extraordinary to lose significant weight on a restrictive diet, especially for people with problematic diets to begin with. Investing large amounts of money in a lifestyle program, regardless of the value of any particular program component, can motivate lifestyle changes, but significant lifestyle change is notoriously difficult and tends to be the exception rather than the rule. Keeping lost weight off for the long term is essential, but it’s a difficult challenge.

James Joseph Martin

On August 4, 2016, California’s Board of Chiropractic Examiners announced that James Joseph Martin, who had been previously cited for his advertising, had been arrested for grand theft and practicing medicine without a license in conjunction with his misleading business activities promoting himself as a Doctor of Pastoral Science (D.PSc), “Thyroid and Diabetic Specialist,” practitioner of “Functional Neurology and Metabolic Medicine,” and “Head Physician,” and was ordered by a judge on July 22, 2016, not to practice chiropractic. However, on August 10, a Superior Court Judge in Sacramento ordered that, as a condition of Martin’s bail release, he could practice as a chiropractor limited to patient consultations, review of x-rays, and chiropractic adjustments under the supervision of another chiropractor. As of this writing, the Board of Chiropractors indicates his license status is valid.

Brandon Lee Babcock

As reported in December 2013 in The Salt Lake Tribune, Brandon Lee Babcock, DC. was sentenced to six months in jail, ordered to serve three years probation, and repay $3,804 in restitution after being convicted of six third-degree felony counts of exploiting a vulnerable adult. Babcock had promoted a nutritional type 2 diabetes reversal scheme that bilked older adults of thousands of dollars. He continued to do so even after April 2012, when Utah’s Division of Occupational Licensing suspended his chiropractic license by emergency order, and after August 2012, when, according to the Tribune article, West Jordan City revoked Babcock’s business license.

The Tribune article describes how his scheme worked. To recruit patients, he offered free gourmet dinners where attendees were shown video testimonials and given information about Babcock’s supposed “diabetes breakthrough.” He tricked patients into signing papers that established lines of credit with Chase Health Advance and he maxed out the $6,000 limit when patients tried to withdraw from his services. Some patients testified that Dr. Babcock and his staff misled them into signing up for credit without their knowledge or consent. Others said Babcock refused to provide refunds despite a thirty-day opt-out guarantee and a promise of 100 percent satisfaction.

Brandon and Heather Credeur

Colorado-based chiropractors Brandon Credeur, DC, (who was a classmate of Brandon Lee Babcock’s at Parker College of Chiropractic) and his wife Heather Credeur, DC, operate Functional Medicine Masters, a business that teaches chiropractors to build high-volume practices for treating chronic diseases with services offered on a cash, no-insurance basis. They claim that they had built a single-office practice of over $7.5 million in cash with 5,000 patients and that they can teach chiropractors to build multi-million dollar practices.

In a skeptical examination of “functional medicine” in practice, David Gorski, MD, PhD, wrote that “functional medicine”:

… combines the worst aspects of conventional medicine and alternative medicine. Specifically, it combines massive overtesting with a lack of science and a “make it up as you go along” ethic, all purportedly in the service of the "biochemical individuality" of each patient.

The Credeurs used newspaper advertising to attract diabetics to seminars following free gourmet dinners to promote their “functional endocrinology” treatments to diabetics and people with symptoms of low thyroid function. In April 2011, the ABC News-affiliated 7News Denver television station aired a critical CALL7 investigative report by Theresa Marchetta about how patients were misled by the Credeurs' advertising.

On August 30, 2011, NCMIC Insurance Company cancelled the Malpractice Insurance Claims Made policies for both Brandon D. Credeur, DC, and Heather A. Credeur, DC. The reason given in each case was “Does not meet underwriting standards.”

A September 2011 complaint from Colorado’s Board of Chiropractic Examiners against Brandon Credeur charged him with violations of the Board’s rules regarding scope of practice; misleading, deceptive, false, or unethical advertising; untrue, deceptive or misleading practices regarding unproven and/or unnecessary services; and record keeping requirements.

In October 2011, 7News Denver reported that:

• A woman had sued Brandon Credeur but died before the lawsuit was settled.
• A lawsuit by thirteen other patients accused Brandon Credeur of deceptive trade practices, professional negligence, misrepresentation (pretending to be an endocrinologist when he’s a chiropractor), and breach of contract; the lawsuit named both Credeurs, their Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado, every incarnation of Brandon Credeur’s business name, and every chiropractor in Brandon’s office.

In November 2011, 7News Denver reported that the Credeurs continued to operate Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado, but nearly all of the chiropractors left the practice. The report also noted that CALL7 investigators had received more than 200 calls and emails from patients who said the Credeurs’ claims were misleading.

In February 2012, 7News Denver reported that an osteopathic physician in Ohio who was not licensed to practice in Colorado wrote prescriptions for patients at the Credeurs’ Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado.

Instead of losing their chiropractic licenses, as some of their former patients had expected, in September 2012, both Brandon Credeur and Heather Credeur admitted to nothing and agreed with the State Board of Chiropractic Examiners to keep better records. A “Stipulation and Final Agency Order” for Brandon and one for Heather are posted on the DORA website. Each order indicates that it shall constitute a “Letter of Admonition” regarding documentation of patient interactions in certain records. Brandon’s letter included this paragraph and Heather’s had the same paragraph with the exceptions of “her” instead of “his” and “she” instead of “he”:

The Board affirms that the scope of chiropractic practice includes diagnoses and treatment of human ailments, including those affecting the endocrine system. Respondent and the Board expressly agree that it is appropriate for Respondent to use the term “functional endocrinology” in his practice name and to describe his services provided that he continues to disclose his credential “D.C.” when referring to himself as “doctor” to make clear that he is a chiropractor and that his services are provided pursuant to his chiropractic credentials.

On June 19, 2013, the Colorado Medical Board sent an order to Brandon and Heather Credeur to cease and desist practicing medicine without a license. That same day, they declared bankruptcy to the dismay of former patients who had sued them to get their money back. On August 28, 2015, the Colorado Medical Board Licensing Panel vacated the cease and desist order without prejudice.

Jann Bellamy provided insightful commentary about the Credeurs and Brandon Lee Babcock at the Science-Based Medicine website.

Yaniv Farbenbloom

I noticed in the May 6, 2017 issue of the Los Angeles Times an ad that reminded me of the aforementioned chiropractors. The ad had this text (with all the odd capitalizations as in the original):

AMAZING DIABETES STUDY

Encouraging Study on TYPE II DIABETES Shows the disease CAN BE REVERSED in as little as 1 WEEK!

A free guide has just been made available to Type II Diabetics detailing an approach that appears to be more powerful than any drug known to modern science. The free diabetic guide explains in plain English how many diabetics have been able to reduce and eliminate their drugs and insulin injections, lose weight without exercise, reduce and eliminate the risk for diabetic complications, restore pancreatic function and even become non-diabetic. The free guide also reveals rarely used diagnostic testing that is helping doctors understand potential causes of diabetes beyond weight gain, genetics and lack of exercise.

To receive your free report (available while supplies last) call toll free 1-800-747-5828 or go to www.DiabetesLosAngeles.com

The bottom of the ad has a picture of a caduceus followed by the words:

Integrative Health Center

…transforming your health

I don’t object when chiropractors use the caduceus in their advertising, but I do discourage responsible medical doctors from using it to promote their practices.

Keith Blayney (2005) described the caduceus:

Many "medical" organisations use a symbol of a short rod entwined by two snakes and topped by a pair of wings, which is actually the caduceus or magic wand of the Greek god Hermes (Roman Mercury), messenger of the gods, inventor of (magical) incantations, conductor of the dead and protector of merchants and thieves.

Below the caduceus in the ad it says: “Dr. Yaniv Farbenbloom, DC”

I’m always bemused when I see chiropractors redundantly use “Dr.” before their names and “DC” (Doctor of Chiropractic) after their names. I take it to mean that they’re either trying a bit too hard to appear credible or they’re revealing that they realize that DC isn’t the most redoubtable of clinical doctorates even though more than 120 years have elapsed since chiropractic was dreamed up.

I called to request my free report and all nineteen pages of it arrived two days later with a page inserted providing ten testimonials (given without last names) praising Dr. Farbenbloom along with a two-page form letter offering a “Complimentary TYPE II DIABETES QUALIFICATION EVALUATION” date-stamped to indicate that the offer “EXPIRES May 15, 2017” and that the consultation normally costs $345. (When quoting from the documents, I use the capitalization, bolding, underlining, and italicization as in the original.)

The title of the report was:

“DIABETIC IGNORANCE: How Drug Companies, the Food Industry, and Some Doctors SET YOU UP for Failure”

Yes, it’s a typical hyped sales pitch used in promoting bizarro health care. It emphasizes cynical, sensationalist, medicine-bashing to undermine confidence in standard care while suggesting that a “risk-free” non-mainstream approach must be better. It’s a pitch that doesn’t require coherence and isn’t based on biological plausibility or rigorous clinical research.

Dr. Farbenbloom claims without providing evidence “… many diabetics are pushed into a one-drug-after-another system that often promotes the very disease it attempts to treat.” To the contrary, standard treatment of type 2 diabetes relies on medication only when the patients won’t or can’t manage their disease with healthy eating and exercise.

To Dr. Farbenbloom, “your weight does not have much to do with your diabetes.” But actually, overweight or obesity strongly predict type 2 diabetes among women and men.

Dr. Farbenbloom writes:

I don’t really concern myself about ‘curing’ type II diabetes … I don’t really care about the diagnosis of type II diabetes … This type of thinking and philosophy has gotten us where we are today with respect to health in this country (which is pretty much at the bottom of the barrel). [p. 5]

To the contrary, improving diagnosis, in general, and for type 2 diabetes is needed to improve U.S. population health. And Dr. Farbenbloom should consider other factors including wasteful health-related spending on health disadvantages in the U.S. relative to other wealthy countries. 

Although Dr. Farbenbloom doesn’t claim to cure diabetes, he insists:

Type II Diabetes Can ABSOLUTELY Be Reversed

He claims to address the root causes of diabetes unlike most doctors and says he sees type 2 diabetics in health care everyday:

• Walk away from prescription drugs and insulin
• Lose weight without exercise
• Increase their energy levels
• Improve their quality of life
• Make it to a point where they are Non-Diabetic [p. 9]

A reasonable reader might interpret that last bullet point as suggesting the equivalent of a cure. The American Diabetes Association does not see diabetes as curable. At best, it appears that some people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who sustain significant weight loss can have long periods of remission in terms of normalized blood sugar levels. Dr. Farbenbloom is willing to take credit for weight loss even though he also claims your weight doesn’t have much to do with diabetes.

He claims:

… your doctor is likely not intentionally holding back information, it’s more likely that he or she does not have the information I have. [p. 13]

He writes:

When you run ALL of the necessary tests to determine why a person can no longer regulate their blood sugar you find that each person has a different mechanism for their diabetes. [p. 14]

He asks (apparently falling for the popular misconception that more testing means better health care):

Has your doctor run every blood test that is important to your health? Or does your doctor just run what the insurance companies and the “standard of care” allow? [sic, p. 13]

He also suggests that males should be evaluated for “Andropause” and mentions as tests your doctor probably doesn’t order (without noting that routinely ordering such tests has not been shown to be a basis for selecting treatments leading to better health outcomes):

• adrenal stress index
• comprehensive digestive stool analysis
• complete thyroid panel

Andropause is a term used for age-related functional androgen (male sex hormones, most notably, testosterone) deficiency and is often represented as the male version of menopause. But age-related declines of testosterone production are not necessarily pathological. A 2013 paper noted dramatic increases in off-label prescribing of testosterone in thirty-seven countries from 2000 to 2011 in the absence of high-quality clinical evidence of safety and efficacy.

A Google search on “adrenal stress index” reveals that it is promoted by numerous “alternative” medicine practitioners. Dr. Farbenbloom doesn’t make clear how using this testing is in the best interests of his patients. In 2015, the Medical Board of California sent a public letter of reprimand to Diana Lynn Schwarzbein, MD, of Santa Barbara for diagnosing “adrenal burnout” by interpreting an adrenal stress index which indicated a simple departure from the standard of care.

Comprehensive digestive stool analysis and complete thyroid panel are types of test batteries commonly ordered by promoters of so-called functional medicine (FM) who, like Dr. Farbenbloom, claim to address biochemical individuality. David Gorski, MD, PhD, noted:

This search for “biochemical individuality” leads FM [functional medicine] practitioners to order incredible numbers of labs, as you will see, many of which, as Kimball Atwood pointed out a long time ago, are bogus and of no use, and many of which are routine lab tests that regular doctors order but often end up massively misinterpreted and abused. In particular, FM practitioners appear to like to order lab tests related to endocrinology.

According to Dr. Farbenbloom:

When you run ALL of the necessary tests to determine why a person can no longer regulate their blood sugar you find that each person has a different mechanism for their diabetes.

You need a treatment plan that is customized for you as an individual….

The point is this…You are not a diagnosis? [sic] Yet the medical establishment often designs treatment based upon a diagnosis. [p. 14-15]

Dr. Farbenbloom did not acknowledge that individualized diabetes management is mainstream medical practice. His prospective patients should recognize that, in addition to not being a diagnosis, they are also not the battery of “rarely used diagnostic testing” as mentioned in Dr. Farbenbloom’s ad.

His report doesn’t discuss the supposedly “amazing diabetes study” hyped in his newspaper ad. No evidence is provided that his testing-intensive approach to customizing care is advantageous for people with type 2 diabetes.

The last page of the report instructs readers to call for a free, no-obligation consultation by a stamped date (in my case May 29, 2017, which didn’t match the date stamped on the cover letter). The report ends with this message in a smaller font than used elsewhere in the report including his bashing of drug treatment, especially insulin, and his bashing of the pharmaceutical industry on pages 7 to 8:

Disclaimer: This guide is for informational purposes only. It is not designed to substitute for professional and individualized health advice. Please do not stop or start taking any prescription medication without the advice of your prescribing doctor, as this can be very dangerous to your health. You should always consult with your prescribing doctor regarding prescription drugs. [p. 19]

I didn’t reply to Dr. Farbenbloom’s invitation for a free consultation. Within a few days, I received a large postcard indicating “Time is Running Out: Only 5 Days Left!” And I soon received another envelope in the mail from him. It included the same report from the first mailing (although the stamped expiration date this time was May 22, 2017) along with the testimonials plus a three-page letter titled “Second Notice!” indicating the letter was about the “Free $345 gift. The letter includes these statements:

Frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t heard from you yet.

Whatever the reason – I’m giving you a second chance.

I didn’t the take the chance, but a few days later I received a two page letter headed with the words “Final Notice!” followed by:

“You Only Have Until May 29, 2017 [date-stamped] To See If You Qualify For My Type II Diabetes Reversal Program … FOR FREE!”

The final notice was accompanied by a page with the heading:

They Say … ”The PROOF Is In The Pudding.”

The page summarizes some lab results before and after treatment for one patient followed by four pages of the patients’ lab reports.

Along the way, I received that postcard again for a total of five mailings from Dr. Farbenbloom. I never made any of his deadlines to claim the consultation.

In June, the ad ran again in the Los Angeles Times. I’ve come expect limited time sales offers to be not as limited as advertised.

While Dr. Farbenbloom has a valid chiropractic license status as of this writing, California’s Board of Chiropractic Examiners reported that an accusation was filed against him in May 2015 and, on November 4, 2016, a disciplinary action of “Revoked, stayed, five-yr probation, thirty-day suspension” was taken. His alleged violation was described (p. 10) as:

Act involving moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption committed in the course of the individual’s activities as a license holder, or otherwise; participation in any act of fraud or misrepresentation; knowingly making or signing a document related to the practice of chiropractic, which falsely represents the facts; participation in fraud/misrepresentation; unprofessional conduct/gross negligence.

I hope the Board will exercise due diligence in evaluating Dr. Farbenbloom’s promotional activities during his probationary period. I spotted an ad by Dr. Farbenbloom in the main section of the Sepember 17, 2017 Los Angeles Times for a “Free Diabetic Dinner Event” with a free gourmet meal for “Type II Diabetic Adults Only” at a “Convenient Sherman Oaks Location.” The ad stated:

You will discover how Type II Diabetics [sic] have been able to reverse their disease, reduce & eliminate drugs (including insulin), lose weight without exercise, explode their energy levels & become non-diabetic.

A similar ad by Dr. Farbenbloom also appeared in the next two Sunday editions of the Los Angeles Times.

Hoon Lim

I found an advertisement for a gourmet-meal dinner-workshop about diabetes on the website of Hoon Lim, DC, of Escondido, California along with two embedded videos, each featuring a patient’s testimonial. Dr. Lim’s ad makes claims similar to claims in Dr. Farbenbloom’s newspaper ad and free report. For example:

Stunning Research now suggests Type II Diabetes can begin to be REVERSED in As Little As 1 WEEK!

Don’t overlook the “begin to be” qualifier, which should lower a careful reader’s expectations for one-week progress.

Also the dinner event is described as offering benefits similar to what Dr. Farbenbloom advertises such as:

• How YOU can restore YOUR pancreatic function reverse YOUR diabetes and even become non-diabetic

And Dr. Lim includes the typical blaming of “Big Pharma” and “Big Food” along with doctor bashing:

“DIABETIC IGNORANCE: How Drug Companies, The Food Industry, and Some Doctors SET YOU UP for Failure”

I’m not surprised by the kind of expertise he claims:

• “Postgraduate Education in Functional Medicine and Clinical Nutrition to reverse Type II Diabetes”

As of this writing, California’s Board of Chiropractic Examiners have taken no disciplinary actions against Dr. Lim.

Bottom Line

A friend of mine notified me that in September he spotted a chiropractor’s “AMAZING DIABETES STUDY” ad in the Chicago Tribune. It was similar to Dr. Farbenbloom’s May ad in the Los Angeles Times. By searching with Google on “AMAZING DIABETES STUDY,” I found other similar ads placed by chiropractors in Arizona, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

I conclude that chiropractors throughout the United States have taken practice-building courses focused on “diabetes reversal” gimmickry. The promotion of advertising for “diabetes reversal” treatment by chiropractors should be viewed as interstate commerce and therefore, under the regulatory authority of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Considering the inadequacy of state licensing boards in regulating chiropractors who advertise “diabetes reversal” services, the need is urgent for the FTC to investigate and take appropriate actions to protect consumers.

How do we know whether a treatment is effective? It is only natural to assume a treatment works if:

• There is a good rationale as to why it should work
• Lots of patients got better with the treatment

But assumptions can be wrong. Remember the old saying that assumptions make an ASS out of U and ME. The late Barry Beyerstein wrote a classic article in Skeptical Inquirer explaining some of the many reasons a bogus therapy can seem to work, including natural fluctuations in the course of a disease, spontaneous remissions, suggestion, the placebo effect, psychological distortion of reality, and other psychological factors.

There is only one way to know for sure whether a treatment works: testing it against an appropriate control in rigorous scientific studies. Every new drug must be tested that way before it can be marketed. But new surgical operations don’t undergo that kind of testing; they are adopted based on a lesser standard of evidence, and sometimes after thousands of patients have undergone the operation, it turns out that it did more harm than good.

Acupuncture has been dubbed “a theatrical placebo,” and when it comes to theatrics, what could be more theatrical than surgery? The discussion with a doctor, the anxiety, the decision to operate, the pre-op laboratory and imaging studies, scheduling hospital admission, lots of paperwork, the consultation with the anesthesiologist, doffing one’s clothes and donning hospital garments, having several people ask you the same questions (“When did you last eat?”), having monitors and IVs attached, being rolled into the OR on a gurney, losing consciousness, waking up in the recovery room to beeping machines, attentive nurses, solicitous aftercare and follow-up, etc. etc. It’s quite a production! And it can’t help but have an influence on the patient’s perception of improvement following surgery.

So the best way to evaluate an operation is to do a sham surgery trial, where patients are randomized and half of them get the operation while the other half only get anesthesia and a skin incision. The surgeon doesn’t know which it will be until he enters the OR and opens an envelope. The patient is not told which group he or she was in, and the people providing his or her care during recovery don’t know either. The randomization and blinding procedures go as far as is humanly possible to neutralize any possible confounding factors. Here are some examples of sham surgery trials that have been carried out over the last half century.

Internal Mammary Artery Ligation

Perhaps the most famous example of a sham surgery trial was Dr. Leonard Cobb’s study of internal mammary artery ligation. The internal mammary arteries run down the inside of the front chest wall. In 1939 an Italian surgeon named Fieschi hypothesized that if he tied off those arteries in patients with heart disease, it would redirect the mammary artery blood flow to the heart, thereby improving circulation in the heart, relieving the pain of angina, and reducing the risk of heart failure, disability, and death. He tried it and got spectacular results. Three quarters of his patients improved, and a third appeared to be cured. The operation was adopted all over the world.

In the late 1950s, after the operation had been widely used for two decades, Dr. Cobb thought to question it. He did a sham surgery trial: the sham surgery control group only got the skin incisions. The results for the sham surgery patients were the same as the results for the actual surgery patients! The operation is no longer being done.

Transplantation of Dopamine Cells for Parkinson’s Disease

In the first sham surgery trial in the field of neurosurgery, fetal dopamine cells were transplanted into the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease. The sham surgery control group had burr holes drilled in their skull but the dura (the membrane over the brain) was not penetrated and nothing was injected.

The results favored dopamine cell transplantation but were less than spectacular. They found that dopamine cell transplantation was superior to sham surgery for younger patients but not for older patients, and the symptoms recurred in 15 percent of those who improved.

Several other neurosurgical sham trials followed, with varying results and no consensus. Advocates of the procedure think the negative trials were due to methodological flaws. Dopamine cell transplantation is not currently on the list of available treatment options.

Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Patients with osteoarthritis of the knee reported symptomatic improvement after an arthroscopic operation to either wash out the knee joint (lavage) or to remove damaged bits of cartilage (debridement).  When both of those interventions were tested against a sham operation (incision without insertion of the arthroscope), the outcomes were identical for all three groups. Note: This does not mean that arthroscopic surgeries don’t work for problems other than osteoarthritis.

Vertebroplasty for Painful Osteoporotic Vertebral Fractures

In vertebroplasty, polymethylmethacrylate (a sort of glue) is injected into the body of the fractured vertebra. Patients report an immediate and sustained reduction in pain. An elaborate sham surgery procedure was devised. Instead of a sharp stylet that penetrated the bone, a blunt stylet was used to tap the vertebral body. X-rays were taken as if to confirm proper positioning. The glue packet was opened in the OR so the odor permeated the room. It was a meticulously done study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. There was no difference in outcome between the real surgery and sham surgery groups over six months of follow-up. 

The number of vertebroplasties has decreased, but they are still being done. I read a report of one patient who was told he had had the sham surgery, but he still believes “that surgery cured me.”

Coronary Angioplasty and Stenting

The ORBITA study was a double blind, randomized controlled trial comparing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to a sham procedure. In PCI, a catheter is threaded up a major blood vessel from the groin into the heart and then into a coronary artery where there are blockages. The catheter has a deflated balloon that is then inflated to open up the blockages, and in some cases a stent is inserted to keep the blood vessel open. In patients having an acute heart attack, the procedure can be lifesaving. The ORBITA study involved patients with stable angina and disease in only one coronary artery (single vessel disease). It showed “no benefits for PCI compared with medical therapy for stable angina, even when angina is refractory to medical therapy.”

David Gorski recently wrote an extensive article about that study on the Science-Based Medicine blog, and he concluded, “Based on the results of this trial, one can easily argue that PCI should rarely—if ever—be performed in patients with single vessel disease and stable angina.” He reported that there was a backlash from cardiologists who found excuses to reject the findings.

Ethical Concerns

The information that can be obtained from sham surgery trials is invaluable, but it doesn’t always change clinical practices, and many have questioned the ethics of subjecting sham surgery patients to the risks of sham surgery knowing there is no possible benefit to their health. Anesthesia itself is risky, and any time you breach the skin there is a risk of infection. Subjects who volunteer for these trials know they may get sham surgery. They may enroll because they want free surgery and hope they will be in the real surgery group, or they may enroll for unselfish reasons, sacrificing themselves to advance medical knowledge. I might consider enrolling in a study where I might get a useless groin incision, but I don’t know if I would enroll in one where I might get useless holes drilled in my skull. I applaud the bravery of those who volunteer.

Sham surgery trials raise ethical concerns, but one might just as well argue that not doing a sham surgery trial is more unethical, since it means that far greater numbers of patients will be harmed in the long run. They will continue to be misled and subjected to an ineffective invasive operation with all its attendant risks. Whether the information to be learned justifies the risks is a question I will leave for medical ethicists to thrash out. Every trial must be approved by an Institutional Review Board whose role is to protect the welfare of human subjects. I think they will have some hard decisions to make.

In the Summer 2016 issue of Skeptical Briefs, this column featured an interview with theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, who briefly mentioned his new popular-science book. The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far was published by Atria Books in the beginning of March. It’s about the greatest intellectual journey ever taken by humans (so far) from Plato to the discovery of the Higgs’s boson.

Krauss begins by reminding us of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. As the allegory goes, people live imprisoned inside a cave only seeing its blank wall. The only thing those inside the cave see from the outside world is that wall, which is illuminated by a fire behind them, allowing moving shadows to appear. According to Plato, the prisoners of the cave consider the shadows part of the real world to the point of giving names to them.

This Allegory of the Cave brilliantly introduces the book. As Krauss uncovers through the book, a lot of what we learn about the universe, or the greatest story ever told so far, came from humans’ investigation about the nature of light.

Newton’s curiosity about light, Krauss argues, might have been motivated because it was a gift from God. This is not a mischaracterization, since Newton devoted much more time to writing about the “occult, alchemy, and searching for hidden meanings and codes in the Bible—focusing in particular on the Book of Revelation and mysteries associated with the ancient Temple of Solomon—than he did to writing about physics.” So, Krauss thinks it’s also reasonable to conclude that Newton’s primary interest was in theology.

Regarding light, Newton thought that it was made of individual particles he called “corpuscles.” Other natural philosophers, such as Descartes and Robert Hooke, did not share his view, considering that light was a wave. In their support, when passed through a prism, white light splits into the several different colors of rainbow.

Even against it, some of Newtown’s discoveries about light made more sense with the “wave theory of light.” He discovered, for example, that each color of light has a distinct angle at which it bends when passing through a prism. He also showed that colored light does not change its color, regardless of how many times it passes through a prism. All of this could be explained if white light is indeed a collection of different colors, but not if light is made of different-colored particles (as Newton thought).

The debate persisted for many years involving discoveries that seem unconnected to the nature of light, such as the connection between electricity and magnetism. As Krauss points out, “These two forces seem quite different, yet have odd similarities. Electric charges can attract or repel. So can magnets. Yet magnets always seem to have two poles, north and south, which cannot be isolated, while electric charges can individually be positive or negative.” To connect these forces required the work of Michael Faraday, the greatest experimental physicist of the nineteenth century. Faraday worked for years trying to see if magnetism could induce electricity, which he showed in 1831, allowing us to use electricity the way we do today, changing the world forever:

It is hard to imagine any discovery that is more deeply ingrained in the workings of modern society. But more deeply, what makes his contribution to our story so remarkable is that he discovered a missing piece of the puzzle that changed the way we think about virtually everything in the physical world today, starting with light itself. If Newton was the last of the magicians, Faraday was the last of the modern scientists to live in the dark, regarding light.

The mystery of the connection between electricity and magnetism continued until 1865, when Maxwell published his complete set of equations, connecting these two apparently unconnected phenomena together in a formal theory. He also showed that oscillating charges produce an electromagnetic wave. Then, critically, Maxwell calculated the speed of the electromagnetic wave and he found out what was almost identical to the already known speed of light. Light is an electromagnetic wave.

There was a problem, however. Maxwell’s results concerning electromagnetic waves contradicted the properties of motion already established by Galileo many years before. If a ball is thrown with a speed of 10 mph inside a car moving at 15 mph, someone outside the car would measure the speed of the ball to be 25 mph (10 mph plus 15 mph). But what if instead of a ball inside the car, we have an oscillating charge? Maxwell calculated the speed of electromagnetic waves produced by oscillated charges measuring the strength of electricity and magnetism. Then, would someone outside the car measure the speed of electromagnetic waves from the oscillating charge to be different than what someone inside the car observes? If that’s the case, the observers would measure the strength of electricity and magnetism to be different from the other’s, allowing us to tell who is moving and who is not. But Galileo had shown this is impossible; there is no experiment anyone could perform that could tell if one is at rest or moving at a constant speed. Even though it’s a profound implication, Einstein was the one who realized it. The inconsistency is not just a thought experiment or between simple suppositions; both Galileo’s and Maxwell’s results have been verified by experiment. As Krauss remind us all, “rules that have been established on the bases of experiment cannot easily be tossed aside.” That’s why we needed Einstein’s genius to reconcile those notions.

Einstein’s great solution was that, as Krauss explains, “the two different observers must both measure distances and/or times differently from each other in just such a way that light, at least, would traverse that same measured distance in the same measured time for both observers.” In Einstein’s theory of relativity, space and time measurements are observer dependent.

Motion, electricity, magnetism, and relativity are all connected. That is just the beginning. The book continues to detail those hidden realities of our world, connecting in interesting ways many other physical phenomena, from the double-slit experiment and the rise of quantum mechanics (which uncovered the individual particles that light is made of) to unification of electromagnetism and weak force to superconductivity and the Higgs’s boson.

Were it not for the progress of science—reason and experiment, instead of Plato’s pure thought—we would not uncover many parts of the hidden realties; we would still be inside of a Plato’s cave. And the job of scientists, as Krauss argues, is to see what is behind the shadows, separating illusion from reality.

As the title suggests, the story is not finished: “Every day that we discover something new and surprising, the story gets even better,” says Krauss. Every page of the book you turn, it gets better. Krauss certainly has made a great contribution by describing the hidden realities in his fascinating book.

On July 8, 1947, a New Mexico newspaper, The Roswell Daily Record, issued a stunning story about the Roswell Army Air Field: “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region,” read the headlines (“RAAF” 1947). The story came from a press release issued that same day by an eager, but relatively inexperienced, public information officer at the airfield. The next day’s paper told how rancher “Mac” Brazel had described an area of the wreckage that consisted of (in the reporter’s words) “rubber strips,” “tinfoil,” “a rather tough paper” (with “eyelets”), “sticks,” and “tape” (“Harassed Rancher” 1947).

Figure 1. Map of Roswell and vicinity showing features relating to the crashed-saucer “incident” of 1947, as well as subsequent claims and revelations. (Illustration by Joe Nickell.)

If that doesn’t sound like an extraterrestrial craft, it wasn’t. It was soon identified as a weather balloon, although, in fact, as we now know, it was actually a balloon array with dangling box-kite–like radar reflectors (made of balsa sticks and foiled paper), that had gone missing in flight from a secret Project Mogul launch. Mogul was an attempt to use balloon-borne instruments to monitor sonic emissions from Soviet atomic tests. The late Charles B. Moore, former Mogul scientist, confirmed for me his identification of the Roswell wreckage as consistent with a lost Flight 4 Mogul array (Moore 1997; Saler et al. 1997; see also Thomas 1995; McAndrew 1997). Nevertheless, mysteries remain, including persistent claims that the debris was not of terrestrial origin after all.

Roswellian Syndrome

With the flying saucer revealed as only a “weather balloon,” the Roswell story ended abruptly—or at least its public aspect did. But in the lingering and recreative memories of some of those involved, the mythmaking process began, and rumor and speculation developed in the Rowell area until conspiracy-bent UFOlogists arrived, asking leading questions and ultimately spinning a tale of government deception and cover-up. This was introduced in the book The Roswell Incident (Berlitz and Moore 1980). In time, two additional crash sites were “identified,” with claims that there were alien bodies (McAndrew 1997, 11). (See Figure 1, compiled from various sources.¹)

I call this process “The Roswellian Syndrome,” and it is found in such subsequent UFO-cases-turned-conspiracies as those at Flatwoods, West Virginia, in 1952; Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, in 1965; and Rendlesham Forest, England, in 1980 (Nickell and McGaha 2012). In each case, it seems, the mythmaking continues, as mystery mongers and conspiracy hucksters mine the burgeoning accounts for more details to hype. With The Roswell Incident, some of these details concern the nature of the debris at the crash site.

Major Jesse Marcel, USAF retired, was a leading claimant. He had helped retrieve the wreckage, but in time began to make self-contradictory and inflated assertions about the amount of debris and its properties. He said that while the sticks resembled balsa, “they were not wood at all” and had “some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher.” (Actually, those were only little floral designs on the tape.) And of the metal, he said it was “like tinfoil, except that it wasn’t tinfoil” (Berlitz and Moore 1980, 65). Unfortunately for his credibility, Marcel also made false claims about himself—that he had a college degree, had been a pilot in World War II who had received five air medals for shooting down enemy aircraft, and other falsehoods (Fitzgerald 2001, 511; Korff 1997, 27). However, his comments about the tinfoil-like material deserved further study.

Otherworldly Metal?

Major Marcel stated, over three decades later in 1979, that the metal was exceedingly thin. “It was possible to flex this stuff back and forth, even to wrinkle it, but you could not put a crease in it that would stay, nor could you dent it at all”—not even with a sledgehammer.² “I would almost have to describe it as a metal with plastic properties” (Marcel 1979).

“Mac” Brazel, who actually found the wreckage, had a son Bill who echoed Major Marcel’s description. According to Bill Brazel, over the years he would pick up little pieces of the strange metal in the vicinity of the original debris. He described this as:

. . . several bits of a metal-like substance, something on the order of tinfoil except that this stuff wouldn’t tear and was actually a bit darker in color than tinfoil—more like lead foil, except very thin and extremely lightweight. The odd thing about this foil was that you could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. It was quite pliable, yet you couldn’t crease or bend it like ordinary metal. It was almost more like a plastic of some sort, except that it was definitely metallic in nature. (Brazel 1979, 79)

Note that Major Marcel and Brazel’s son Bill used similar phrasing to describe the foil-like material—Marcell referring to “a metal with plastic properties” while Bill Brazel said it was “Like a plastic of some sort, except that it was definitely metallic in nature.” Unfortunately, pieces of the original material from the crash site were not kept either by Marcell or the Brazel families, both having turned in all the debris they found (Berlitz and Moore 1980, 71–72, 83–84). So, what was the metal?

Identified!

I strongly suspect that the pieces Bill Brazel and others later picked up were circulated, in a sort of show-and-tell fashion, in the region in the years following The Roswell Incident. As it happens, there was considerable new debris being scattered in the area from perhaps as early as 1948 (McAndrew 1997, 42), certainly by the mid-1950s and continuing into the 1980s, that had the characteristics of the debris described by Roswell proponents. That debris came from balloons used as targets for radar-guided missiles as well as for various research projects. They were launched from Alamogordo Army Airfield (later Holloman Air Force Base) and vicinity and sent over White Sands Proving Ground. The balloons could naturally drift far afield, and bits and pieces could be scattered widely by the wind. The “strange” material attributed to the original Roswell debris allegedly came from areas northeast of White Sands (McAndrew 1997, 40–42). (Again, see Figure 1.)

These balloons were made of polyethylene—Mylar being a trademark—that had been “aluminized,” that is, coated with aluminum. The use of such material for high-altitude balloon construction was an outgrowth of research conducted by Charles B. Moore for Project Mogul (McAndrew 1997, 40). A piece of the silvery material would have been a novelty in the years following The Roswell Incident, because—while looking like aluminum foil—when crumpled it had the eye-catching ability of returning to its original shape. And it indeed had both metallic and plastic properties as described by Major Marcel and Bill Brazel.

I spoke with Charles B. Moore (1997) about this very issue. He noted that the silver-colored (aluminized) polyethylene was not available before the 1950s. (However, neither was there any record of anyone describing the Roswell metal as having uncrumpling properties before that time.) Moore believed the most likely scenario was that, sometime about 1954 or later, someone had circulated some of the aluminized Mylar they had discovered that was confused with the Roswell tinfoil.

Conclusions

In brief, the foil originally found among the “crashed saucer” debris by “Mac” Brazel was the same as that on the radar reflectors of Project Mogul’s flight 4 balloon array, as shown by much corroborative evidence. This includes Brazel’s own description, the photographs of the debris (McAndrew 1997, 7, 8), and the expert opinion of Charles B. Moore of Project Mogul.

In contrast, the unusual, supposedly extraterrestrial material—described as looking like metal but having plastic-like properties—fits the characteristics of aluminized Mylar, small pieces of which were subsequently found in the desert. As I have shown in simple experiments in my lab (see “The Real ‘X-Files’?” 2015), such material is exceedingly lightweight, resembles the described Roswellian material (being in fact metalized plastic), is exceedingly tough (resisting tearing and withstanding hammer blows), and—most significantly—after being crumpled resumes its original shape.

The evidence is overwhelming that the supposed “flying saucer” material was—although a novelty at the time—purely of terrestrial origin.

1. In addition to a modern atlas, I relied on McAndrew 1997, 11; Berlitz and Moore 1980, frontispiece and 97.
2. Exaggeration is inherent in the descriptions of the metal as indestructible—that it could not be torn or even cut (Berlitz and Moore, 180, 66). The fact that the described metal was always in pieces gives the lie to such claims.

• Berlitz, Charles, and William L. Moore. 1980. The Roswell Incident. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
• Brazel, Bill. 1979. Interview by William Moore in Berlitz and Moore 1980, 74–83.
• Fitzgerald, Randall. 2001. “The Roswell UFO Crash” in Ronald D. Story, Ed., The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library.
• Harassed rancher who located “saucer” sorry he told about it. 1947. Roswell Daily Record (July 9).
• Korff, Kal K. 1997. The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You to Know. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Marcel, Major Jesse. 1979. Interview in Berlitz and Moore 1980, 62–70.
• McAndrew, James. 1997. The Roswell Report: Case Closed, USAF. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
• Moore, Charles B. 1997. Interview by Joe Nickell (October 31).
• Nickell, Joe, and James McGaha. 2012. The Roswellian syndrome: How some UFO myths develop. Skeptical Inquirer 36(3) (May/June): 30–36.
• RAAF captures flying saucer on ranch in Roswell region. 1947. The Roswell Daily Record (July 8).
• “The real ‘X-Files’?” 2015. Vice video, available online at www.vice.com/video/the-real-x-files; accessed February 16, 2016.
• Saler, Benson, Charles A. Ziegler, and Charles B. Moore. 1997. UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern Myth. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky.
• Thomas, Dave. 1995. The Roswell Incident and Project Mogul: Scientist participant supports direct links. Skeptical Inquirer 19(4) (July/August): 15–18.

I was recently sent a review copy of a new book titled The Man Who Could Fly: St. Joseph of Copertino and the Mystery of Levitation. The accompanying press release included the following summary:

St. Joseph of Copertino (1603–1663) began having mystical visions at the age of seven, but it was not until he began practicing his faith as a Franciscan priest that he realized the full potential of his mind’s power over his body—he was able to levitate. Throughout his priesthood St. Joseph became famous for frequent levitations that were observed on hundreds of occasions and by thousands of witnesses, including many skeptics. Michael Grosso delves into the biography of the saint to explore the many strange phenomena that surrounded his life and develops potential physical explanations for some of the most astounding manifestations of his religious ecstasy. Grosso draws upon contemporary explorations into cognition, the relationship between the human mind and body, and the scientifically recorded effects of meditation and other transcendent practices to reveal the implications of St. Joseph’s experiences and abilities.

This was followed by a few questions and answers, some of which are reproduced here verbatim:

Why did you choose to chronicle St. Joseph of Copertino?

St. Joseph of Copertino was known as a great mystic with an array of supernormal powers. His case is well documented and I chose him because his story is a challenge to the dominant materialist worldview, which I think isn’t just false but pernicious, the foundation of all that is problematic today.

Can you explain his levitations scientifically?

I can describe the psychological and psychosocial background of Joseph’s levitations, which have some explanatory power. But the physics of levitation is a great mystery. However, modern physics may hold the answer. By pondering the mystery of levitation, science is forced to acknowledge the central role of mind in nature. This would imply breaking the paradigm that prevails in modern technological society.

What lessons are you hoping the reader will take away from the book?

First of all, to remind the reader of all the challenges to the mainstream reductive worldview. So there’s a critical leitmotif that runs throughout the book. On the positive side, I hope that readers gain a more vivid sense of the range and wonder of their own inner potential. Science keeps opening us to the wonders of physical nature; it should be equally open to the wonders of our internal environment: the infinite spaces of vision and imagination, and the various powers, mental and physical, latent in us all. Joseph is a striking example of how by regulating one’s internal environment, and simplifying one’s life style, it’s possible to experience the higher forms of conscious life.

* * *

I have investigated levitation claims only in passing—and typically in the context of other “miraculous” and Fortean phenomena—but have read several interesting books trying to make the case for miracles from many decades or centuries ago, including that of stigmatic Padre Pio, holy man and fraud Sai Baba, magician Uri Geller, and others.

In the book, Grosso acknowledges:

Anyone inclined to suspend judgment on the factual basis of the levitation claims would be justified on two grounds. The first is that the events described occurred in the seventeenth century and exaggerations, distortions, and outright fabrication cannot in general be entirely ruled out. The second is that no matter how compelling the accounts may appear, the utter rareness and elusiveness of such phenomena today may for many serve as grounds for suspending or refusing belief. (p. 69)

However, this refreshingly skeptical preface is immediately followed by “Nevertheless there is a large quantity of eyewitness documentation of Joseph’s reported phenomena. . . . If even a fraction of such accounts are well founded, there is a great deal to think about with respect to the nature of the mind.”

My skeptical mind automatically focused on the phrase “large quantity of eyewitness documentation,” with an emphasis on large quantity (as in, “the plural of anecdote is not evidence”) and eyewitness. I was immediately reminded of a well-worn (and precisely identical) argument made for the existence of Bigfoot. Indeed, there is a vast quantity of evidence for Bigfoot: thousands of eyewitness accounts, hundreds of blurry and dubious photos and videos, hundreds of alleged tracks, and so on. I will be the first to admit that there is an enormous amount of evidence, including “a large quantity of eyewitness documentation,” for Bigfoot.

The problem is that in science, quality of evidence is what’s important, not quantity of evidence. Just as you cannot combine ten cups of weak coffee into one cup of strong coffee, you can’t just point to stacks of dubious reports as if their sheer number is evidentially meaningful or scientifically convincing. In science, one anecdote is as good as the next, and a dozen rigorous studies are more valuable than a hundred flawed ones.

Grosso’s claim that “if even a fraction of such accounts are well founded, there is a great deal to think about with respect to the nature of the mind” is quite true: If—after careful, thorough, science-based analysis—some of the accounts of any paranormal phenomena (ghosts, alien abductions, miracles, etc.) are real, then of course that means the whole phenomena is real. This is why it takes only one unequivocal Bigfoot body to prove that the creatures exist; one demonstrably extraterrestrial spacecraft to reveal the presence of interstellar space-traveling aliens; one proven, documented miracle to prove they exist; and so on. This is why it’s so important to carefully examine all the claims and hold the evidence to a high standard—to not merely lump them all together but judge each on its own evidentiary value.

I skimmed the back of the book and was given pause when I saw a blurb from Larry Dossey, the author of many New Age books. Though not as explicitly a red flag of pseudoscience as an endorsement by Deepak Chopra or Sylvia Browne, Dossey’s name is certain to put most skeptics’ guards up, especially when you read his endorsement:

The Man Who Could Fly is a thrilling examination of our evolving understanding of consciousness and human abilities. Michael Grosso inverts the conventional dogma that matter makes mind by showing that mind shapes matter. Beautifully written and tightly reasoned, this book is a potent antidote to the suffocating, deadening effects of the materialist ideology of our time. The Man Who Could Fly is one of the most important explorations of consciousness thus far in the twenty-first century.

A tightly reasoned examination of how human consciousness can affect matter? I figured it was worth a look and perhaps a brief interview with the author. I arranged to interview Grosso about his claims about levitation and his view of the paranormal. As I looked over Grosso’s book, I was reminded of another book about similar seemingly miraculous events attested to by hundreds of seemingly sober and sincere eyewitnesses centuries ago: The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History by Peter Lamont (2004, Abacus Books). It’s an excellent historical examination of a world-famous illusion sworn as true by generations. Lamont explains that the idea (seemingly endorsed by Grosso in his book) that eyewitnesses to these miracles must be either telling the truth or lying is a false choice fallacy. Lamont explains in convincing detail how sincere people could and did see these seemingly impossible miracles occur. The books have much in common, including the levitation claims of medium D.D. Home.

Though Grosso’s book is indexed and contains hundreds of references, skeptics are conspicuously absent, a predictable but unfortunate omission that might have better grounded his discussion of levitation. The book is also undermined by its endorsement of a hodgepodge of dubious and discredited phenomena ranging from Ted Serios (ably debunked decades ago by James Randi and others) to inedia (claims that people can live without eating through meditation and focus) to reincarnation. Though Grosso avoids the common New Age trap of throwing everything in but the kitchen sink, he comes close, with discussions of near-death experiences, ghosts, demonic possession, out of body experiences, astral travel, ESP, consciousness, and so on, most of which have only the most tenuous connection to levitation.

In fact, only the first hundred pages or so deal with levitation specifically; the remaining 150 or so are spent speculating on what forces might account for (or be somehow related to) it. To me this was a clear violation of the skeptical principle that before trying to explain why something happened, be sure it did happen in the first place. In other words, I felt that Grosso should have spent more time exploring and ruling out alternative explanations for the phenomenon (if at all possible) before assuming that the extant documentation and evidence was adequate to proceed with the assumption that levitation is real.

It reminded me of many Bigfoot books I’d read that filled pages of detailed speculation about the animals’ diet, hygiene, social order, and so on—neglecting to inquire too deeply into the question of whether they actually exist or not. What the authors should be trying to prove is simply assumed (without sufficient evidence, skeptics would argue), which is akin to pseudoscholarly disagreements by learned men regarding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

In truth, the levitation claims about Copertino are largely an excuse for Grosso to hold forth an attack on scientific materialism. That’s fine, but by choosing such an objectively unproven phenomenon as levitation, Grosso somewhat undermines his larger goal. Grosso’s frequent references to Jung and Freud—along with their largely unfalsifiable if not wholly rejected theories—don’t help his case. The usual sympathetic suspects are quoted, including Dossey, Jeffrey Kripal, Ian Stevenson, Vallee, and others, with nary a Shermer, Randi, Radford, French, Alcock, or Wiseman among them.

Reviewing the press release and the book itself, I was struck by several things that jumped out to me as a skeptic. For example, Grosso places great confidence in eyewitness testimony—and centuries-old eyewitness testimony at that. I asked him about the possibility that the eyewitnesses could be wrong in their reports of Copertino’s levitation, and he replied: “A hundred and fifty people, all deluded, all deceived, all making up stories? No, I don’t believe it. And moreover, I’m quite certain that far more than 150 people witnessed this. . . .”

I pressed him on his seemingly credulous acceptance of eyewitness accounts.

Radford: For example, as you know—and just to draw a parallel—there was also testimony in the Salem witch trials, people who claimed to be witnesses to witchcraft and Satanic activity. Do you think those were true and valid?

Grosso: Do I accept all the claims of witchcraft? Certainly not. . . . But as to the objective reports of levitation, it’s possible in some instances there were misinterpretations, delusions, all kinds of possibilities. I’m not claiming that every report should be taken as valid. But I’m very discriminating in what I count as evidence. In the case of Joseph, to me, the evidence is overwhelming.

Radford: Regarding the question of whether consciousness can exist outside the brain, you say, “I would agree with William James, who wrote an essay on this subject back in 1898 pointing out that since we cannot explain consciousness in terms of the brain it’s quite reasonable to assume that consciousness pre-exists the brain, and the brain, rather than produce consciousness is a vehicle through which consciousness is revealed and experienced. Now, that idea is not mainstream, but it’s logically consistent with the facts.”

I was slightly surprised that you were reaching back to a philosophical treatise from 120 years ago, instead of from modern physicists, to bolster your point. But there is a bigger issue: Doesn’t that violate Occam’s Razor?

Grosso: Why? Why does it violate Occam’s Razor? In what sense does it violate Occam’s Razor?

Radford: Well, if consciousness can be explained in principle as brain activity, then why do you?

Grosso: But that’s the point. What I’m arguing is that it cannot; no one has come up with a viable theory. I have quotes in my book from materialists who admit this, but they don’t want to push the point as far as I am prepared to push because they’re not open to the reality of these paranormal phenomenon. I don’t see that there’s any violation of Occam’s Razor. I don’t agree with you that it applies in this case.

Radford: This seems to me to be an “argument from ignorance” fallacy, albeit one I’ve seen often in discussions of psychic powers. It’s basically saying that a lack of knowledge about something is evidence for another claim. Because we don’t understand everything about the mind and brain, psychic powers can be explained by what we don’t know. Yet this is not a scientific or valid principle; whether psychic powers (or levitation) exist or not is completely independent of whether or not the brain (or consciousness) is perfectly and completely understood.

Grosso: I’m enjoying your questioning all of this; I really prefer this kind of discussion, thank you for your thoughts.

I also was enjoying the conversation. I was asking pointed but sincere and diplomatic questions and getting the same tone in return. It was the sort of exchange between two knowledgeable people that is so often missing from discussions. Grosso, author of a half-dozen books dating back to 1985, is an erudite man who has clearly done a lot of research. Though we had fundamental disagreements on key points, I could respect his work.

I took issue with his seeming reliance on eyewitness testimony about levitations, and he replied, “If you know anything about the history of mediumship, it’s not all frauds, and some of it is quite carefully studied and analyzed. There are lots of reports of partial levitations, of objects for example, table-tipping experiences. . . . They’re not all as dramatic as Joseph’s full-body levitations.”

I replied, “To be fair, in many of the early mediumship events that were investigated by Harry Houdini, Harry Price, and others, they were under far from controlled conditions. These were done in the dark, in the medium’s studio, so these were not exactly double-blind studies, as I’m sure you know.”

Grosso: I agree, I completely agree with you about that, but what I am saying is that there are cases where there were careful controls. I cite some of them in my book. I agree with you about the fraudulent cases, but they’re not all fraudulent.

Indeed, Grosso mentions several experiments by William Crookes in the 1870s—with, for example, mediums such as Eusapia Palladino and D.D. Home, both of whom are widely acknowledged to have faked phenomena, including levitations. (For information on the hoaxed levitations of Home, see Milbourne Christopher’s 1970 book ESP, Seers & Psychics, whose complete absence from Grosso’s book is inexcusable if he’s going to cite those events as evidence. I assume that our differing evaluations about the validity of those early mediumship “miracles” are proportional to our familiarity with the skeptical take on those events.)

I moved on to Grosso’s section on quantum physics. I’m not a physicist, but I’ve read the work of many people who are, and I was having difficulty reconciling Grosso’s depiction of quantum physics as a plausible mechanism for levitation with what I’d read. For example, in his Skeptical Inquirer article “Stop Heisenberg Abuse: Three Outrageous Misappropriations of Quantum Physics” (May/June 2014, pp.40–43), physicist and mathematics teacher Dale DeBakcsy explains that “Simply put, quantum effects stop being observable when the particles involved rise above a certain size. . . . When it comes to day-to-day existence, we’re really talking only about particles around the mass of an electron exhibiting anything like the finickiness toward measurement that we come to expect from quantum mechanics.” Humans, of course, do not operate or experience on the scale of electrons. It’s an excellent article, and I recommend reading it to get an accessible understanding of the conditions under which quantum effects are measurable; see also the late Victor Stenger’s article “Quantum Quackery” in the January/February 1997 issue of the same magazine.

So, I asked Grosso: “In chapter 8, you discuss quantum physics. I’ve seen quantum physics invoked in various ways to explain paranormal phenomena. If you actually look at quantum physics, it only operates on the quantum scale. Do you have some reason to think that quantum physics applies on a human scale?”

Grosso: Well yes, the quantum physicists themselves. It’s a very controversial subject, as I’m sure you know. It might very well serve to explain the phenomenon. So I don’t think that this point you make is agreed upon by all physicists. I got an email from Hal Puthoff, another very serious physicist, who said, “You’re on the right track with all this speculation, even though they are still speculation, it’s certainly worth talking about.”

I agreed that the subject was worth talking about (though that’s a rather low bar—pretty much anything in the world is worth talking about) but trying to anchor the phenomenon in established facts seemed like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.

I moved on to the practicalities of levitation: “From my understanding of basic physics, if a person is truly levitating, they should move horizontally because of course the Earth is rotating under the person. But I didn’t see any reference to that in your descriptions. Did you find that?”

Grosso: No. No, I didn’t see anything like that. I’m not even sure what you mean by that. But the levitations took many forms, sometimes when (Joseph) was saying mass, he would levitate a few inches, other times he’d go thirty feet into the air and moved around like a bird. So, it’s a quite variously expressed phenomenon.

I pressed him to explain why levitation, if it exists and is a function of human psychology (for example ecstasy or mental powers) and/or natural, known processes (for example quantum physics), is so vanishingly rare: “On page 58 and elsewhere you talk about how levitation is undoubtedly rare. My question is, why would that be? We have so many people attempting higher states of consciousness, particularly with New Age and religious activity elsewhere. If there truly is a connection between the ecstatic state and levitation, why wouldn’t it be much more common, especially over the past 350 years?”

He responded, “Well, that’s a perfectly good question, and I don’t know the answer to it. Ecstasy in no way is a guarantee of levitation. It’s only certain cases, and it may be a matter of belief. . . . At this point it is a mystery, and you’re right. On the other hand, the type of ecstasy that seems to be related to these more unusual phenomena is something much more extreme; it’s physical as well as a passing excited state. That’s not what’s going on with individuals such as Joseph of Copertino. Their ecstasy is much more radical, and it’s much more physical, based on fainting and doing things to the body. That’s why I’m convinced there’s a physical aspect to the levitation, or a physiology to levitation that we simply have not studied because there’s a ban so to speak on studying these subjects scientifically.”

I wasn’t convinced that there was really any sort of informal ban on studying paranormal phenomenon, despite having heard that claim for years (see, for example, my January 15, 2013, article on the Seeker network titled “Do Scientists Fear the Paranormal?”). If a person began levitating in a park or supermarket, and was witnessed doing so, I can’t imagine that scientists (or anyone else) would be in any way reluctant to investigate it because of any sort of fear of ridicule or other pressure. Instead, assuming that the phenomenon could be proven and not attributable to some known force—a gust of localized wind, for example—scientists around the world would be eager to research and study this previously unknown physical force.

In fact, why hadn’t that happened? I asked Grosso: “In today’s society where everyone has a cell phone camera and there are surveillance cameras all over the place—particularly in Britain, on street corners for example—would you expect that within the next few years or maybe decades there would be good quality video footage of someone levitating?”

Grosso: I hope so. I’ve seen few things on the Internet. . . . It’s not something I’m constantly on the alert for, but yes, I would hope so.

Radford: Are there any more recent reports of this happening? I mean, we’re basically talking 380 years ago for Joseph.

Grosso: These things have continued into modern times . . . the reports are there, they’re hard to find. . . . We are dealing with a rare phenomenon that takes a variety of shapes and forms. . . . On one hand the rare manifestation throws us for a loop, but if you look at it as part of a large pattern of mind-body interactions, it becomes a little less shocking to one’s intellectual sensibility, at least that’s how I view it.

* * *

I’m not sure that human levitation exists—much less that it’s attributable to a mind-body connection (or quantum physics)—but overall I enjoyed speaking with Grosso and reviewing his book. He clearly put a lot of time and effort into his research, but I can’t help wishing it was more grounded in science and evidence. But perhaps that’s too much to ask from a book on levitation. •

In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a powerful rivalry. After World War II, both countries began stockpiling increasingly destructive nuclear weapons, and in 1957 the U.S.S.R. shocked the world by launching Sputnik I into Earth orbit, demonstrating that it had sufficient rocket power to deliver a nuclear weapon to Europe or North America. The Sputnik launch galvanized the United States, increasing the demand for scientists and putting much greater emphasis on the teaching of science and mathematics. Each new NASA launch was a national media event, and in 1962 President John F. Kennedy made his famous “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech, setting the goal of sending an astronaut to the moon and back before the end of the 1960s.

I am a product of that Cold War era. In the late 1950s, I was a young boy living in a suburb of Chicago. At school I practiced civil defense duck-and-cover drills in preparation for a nuclear attack, and at home I learned to use a soldering iron so that I could assemble a Heathkit shortwave radio. I taped newspaper clippings about satellites and rockets to the wall above my bed, and my parents bought me a home planetarium that projected the constellations onto the ceiling of my room.

I also became a devoted fan of a DePaul University physics professor, Dan Q. Posin. Perched in front of our tiny black-and-white television, I watched this elfin mustachioed man prance around a barren television studio, telling fascinating stories about atoms, comets, galaxies, and space travel. Long before the era of computer graphics, Posin used his considerable skills as a sketch artist to illustrate his programs, and he made effective use of props and posters. His daughter Kathryn accurately described his manner as a cross between Groucho Marx and Albert Einstein, and he was frequently accompanied on set by his cat Minerva, named after the Roman goddess of wisdom. Posin was the writer and star of several educational television series, including Out of This World, The Universe Around Us, and Dr. Posin’s Giants, and his shows aired both nationally on the CBS television network and locally on WTTW, the Chicago public television affiliate. He wrote popular books to accompany his television shows, and I owned several of them. I still do.

Long before Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Brian Cox, Dan Q. Posin was a very energetic popularizer of science who saw the power of television for education and inspiration. He played an important role in developing my interest in science, and he was a beloved figure for many other people my age. Back then, Watch Mr. Wizard was also on the air, and I have some memories of that show. But it was Posin’s programs and books that fueled my curiosity about space and science.

Sadly, Posin’s story is largely lost to history, and it was not until many years later, when I began to research his life, that I discovered Posin was much more than the happy science teacher I saw on the screen.

Difficult Beginnings

Daniel Posin was born in 1909 in Russian Turkestan on the Caspian Sea, and in 1914 his parents fled in advance of the Russian Revolution. Unlike other areas of the Russian Empire, Jews of western Turkestan were allowed to own property and live relatively comfortably, but with the coming of the revolution, the future must have looked uncertain. As a result, the Posin family undertook a harrowing three-year trip across Asia, finally arriving in San Francisco in the bottom of a cattle ship. Having a knack for languages, Daniel quickly learned English and began to excel in school. He won a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and went on to get a PhD in physics in 1935. By then, his father, who worked as a janitor, had died of tuberculosis, and Posin had stolen the heart of Frances “Patsy” Schweitzer, a graduate student in English who was dating a friend at the time. Daniel and Patsy’s marriage would last sixty-eight years until her death in 2002.

After graduation, Posin worked as a teaching assistant at Berkeley for two years, and then—after teaching himself Spanish in just two weeks—he accepted a position at the University of Panama, where he taught physics and wrote textbooks in Spanish.¹ From there he had short teaching assignments at Montana State University and the Montana School of Mining. By then it was 1944 and World War II was well underway. As a result, Daniel, Patsy, and their two children went off to Massachusetts where Posin took a research position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology doing research on radar systems.

North Dakota: A Beginning and an Ending

After MIT, Posin took his first substantial teaching position at North Dakota Agricultural College (NDAC) (now North Dakota State University), where he would stay for nine years. While he was at NDAC, two important events happened: he started his television career, and he got fired.

Posin’s broadcast debut came on June 1, 1953, when he appeared as Fargo, North Dakota’s, first television weather forecaster, “Dr. Dan the Weather Man.” The studio of WDAY-TV was built in a converted two-car garage, and when mice got into the transmitter, the station manager got a cat. In a move he would repeat on subsequent television shows, Posin tucked the cat under his coat so the two could appear together during the weather segment. His live broadcasts were done in front of a chalkboard weather map, and WDAY-TV colleagues remembered the popular weatherman’s humorous and dramatic on-camera style.

At NDAC, Posin was professor and chair of the physics department, and, for many years, all was well. But in 1954, the president of the college, Fredric Hultz, unilaterally eliminated the geology department, setting off a chain of events that would become the state’s biggest news story. Posin was one of four professors who criticized President Hultz’s actions, arguing that the president had violated tenure and that the termination had come too late in the academic year for the dismissed geology professors to obtain other employment. In response, Hultz turned on the four outspoken professors, criticizing some of the articles they had published, which the professors pointed out was a violation of their academic freedom. The conflict grew, and at a particularly emotional meeting, Hultz rose and read a long prepared statement—later referred to as the “The Blast”—which stunned the assembled faculty members. When the president had finished speaking, Posin rose and said, “Did you call me vicious?” To which Hultz replied, “You got ears.”

The controversy came to the attention of the State Board of Higher Education in late 1954, and early the next year the Board requested the immediate resignation of the four professors. Posin and the others refused to resign, and, soon after, President Hultz declared the four had “engaged in a course of conduct deliberately intended to interfere with, undermine, frustrate, and render ineffective the administration of the Agricultural College.” The professors were dismissed, subject to public hearings conducted in May of 1955. In the end, the State Board of Higher Education voted five-to-two to fire the professors. The four appealed to the State Supreme Court, but the court did not take up the case.

I found no evidence that Posin ever spoke publicly about the NDAC controversy, but it must have been a very difficult experience. This episode occurred during a tense Cold War period, just after the peak of McCarthyism. A year earlier, thirty-six days of the Army-McCarthy hearings had been broadcast live on national television with an estimated eighty million people watching. During those hearings, Senator Joseph McCarthy made the following statement:

The thing the American people can do is to be vigilant day and night to make sure they don’t have communists teaching the sons and daughters of America. Now, I realize that the minute anyone tries to get a communist out of a college, out of a university, there will be raised the phony cry that you’re interfering with academic freedom. I would like to emphasize that there is no academic freedom where a communist is concerned.

President Hultz took advantage of the nation’s anti-
communist fervor in his attacks on the four dissenting professors. He pointed out that two of the men were Canadians who had not applied for U.S. citizenship, and he singled out Posin in particular, suggesting he was a subversive due to his Russian heritage. The president insinuated that the professors were anti-American, and an anonymous telephone campaign spread the message to “Get rid of the four communist professors at NDAC.”

I Have Been to the Village

Daniel Posin was not a communist, but, as the episode in North Dakota suggests, he was a humanitarian and a man who was not afraid to speak up when he witnessed injustice. In August of 1945, while Posin was working as a researcher at MIT, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and like many nuclear physicists of his era, Posin felt a special sense of responsibility about the uses of atomic power. During the following summer, Albert Einstein wrote an appeal to scientists in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Posin was particularly struck by this passage:

Our representatives in New York, in Paris, or in Moscow depend ultimately on decisions made in the village square.

To the village square we must carry the facts of atomic energy. From the village square must come America’s voice.²

Einstein felt an especially strong moral obligation with respect to the bomb. His scientific work many years earlier had foreshadowed the prospect of enormous atomic power, and his actions led directly to America’s construction of an atomic bomb. In August of 1939, Einstein wrote a letter warning President Franklin Roosevelt that recent scientific advances had raised the possibility of using uranium to create a new, devastatingly powerful weapon. Knowing that Nazi Germany was engaged in uranium research, Einstein urged Roosevelt to support an expanded atomic research program in the United States. Roosevelt was moved by the letter, which ultimately led to the Manhattan Project and the creation of an atomic weapon. Later, when it became clear that the German program had failed, Einstein felt a sense of regret about writing to Roosevelt—regret that was greatly amplified when the United States dropped two nuclear devices on Japan. He was a life-long pacifist, and he felt his only justification for writing Roosevelt had been the fear that Germany would be successful in building an atomic weapon. As a result, following the war, Einstein helped form the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists (ECAS), whose goal was the containment of nuclear power through a system of world government.

By the time he read the passage above, Posin had arrived at North Dakota Agricultural College, and he realized there was an important role he could play. He was in complete agreement with Einstein and the goals of the ECAS, and as a talented science communicator, he was in an excellent position to take the message of peace to the village square.

Starting in October of 1946, Posin went out on the road. He developed a speech on the two uses of atomic energy: peaceful and destructive. The life of Marie Curie, whose discoveries led to the development of life-saving medical treatments, was an important part of the peaceful side of the story, but he also covered the destructive power of the atom bomb and the dangers of radiation poisoning. Like Einstein, Posin argued that a system of world government (“a supra-national political organization”) was necessary to contain nuclear weapons and ensure peace. He ended his talks with an appeal for donations to the ECAS.

Between 1946 and 1948, Posin gave his “atomic talk” two hundred times throughout the country. He spoke in community halls, at parent teacher association meetings, and in public parks. After hearing him speak, people of very modest means contributed money, which Posin sent off to the ECAS. His audiences encouraged him to give the talk as often as possible, and people volunteered to organize repeat performances. Posin described his experiences in his 1948 book, I Have Been to the Village, for which Einstein wrote an introduction:

Dr. D. Q. Posin’s book bears eloquent witness to the sincere and self-sacrificing way in which the best among the scientists try to fulfill their duty towards the community. This sense of duty is simply due to the fact that, as a result of their profession, scientists are acutely conscious of the perilous position in which all of mankind has been placed by the new means of mass-destruction.

In his attack on the dissenting professors, NDAC president Fredric Hultz urged Posin to stop giving his talks, suggesting that they were anti-American. Once again, Posin ignored Hultz. Ultimately, Posin would give his atomic energy talk over three thousand times between 1946 and 1995. He spoke to groups throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, and France.

Success in Chicago

After his dismissal in North Dakota, Posin was hired as a professor of physics at DePaul University in Chicago, a post he would hold for eleven years. It was in Chicago that he achieved his greatest success as a public intellectual and educator.

The Posin family arrived in Chicago in 1956, and by February of 1958, he was a local celebrity with a profile in Newsweek magazine and his face plastered on the sides of Chicago Transit Authority buses. An April 1958 article in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper identified Posin’s show The Universe Around Us as an important ingredient in the financial success of WTTW, the local public television station. One of the many fan letters he received was from a ten-year-old girl who had saved a dollar from her quarter-a-week allowance to send to Posin: “I hope this will help keep your program on the air.” While in Chicago, Posin would win six Emmy awards for educational programming.

In addition to teaching at DePaul and starring on television, Posin ran a lecture series for high school and junior high school students at Chicago’s popular Museum of Science and Industry and held training sessions for teachers of high school science. He wrote articles for local and national newspapers and magazines, and he pioneered distance education by teaching an early televised course at DePaul. Also, during the Chicago years, Posin wrote several of his best-known science books, including Dr. Posin’s Giants and Life Beyond Our Planet. It is hard to imagine how he did all this and still held down a job and maintained his family life, but somehow he did.

Back to California

By 1967, both Posin’s son, Dan Q. Posin Jr., and his daughter, Kathryn, were grown, and he took a position in the physics department at San Francisco State University. For Posin this was a return to his beginnings as a young boy in San Francisco and a college student at UC Berkeley. It was also the place where he and Patsy met.

In 1968, Posin worked with KQED television making a series of half-hour television programs called Science in the Age of Space that were designed to augment the sixth-grade science program in the California schools. In 1970, he achieved a breakthrough when he produced a series of five programs broadcast for the first time in color over the National Educational Television network. The topic of the programs was the possibility of life in other solar systems, and they featured performances by his daughter, Kathryn, who was by then a professional modern dancer. Kathryn’s role on the show was described as “illustrating space events and findings.”

In California, Posin’s life would once again bump up against the tide of history, as he returned to humanitarian causes. By coincidence, Posin arrived in San Francisco during the Summer of Love. It was the height of sixties counterculture revolution, and pictures of the physics professor from that era show a man—still sporting his trademark mustache—but now framed by a longer salt-and-pepper pageboy cut. He continued to give his talks on atomic energy for another thirty years, and in March of 1969 he organized a “Day of Concern” at San Francisco State University (SFSU) to express “care over national policy of using scientific knowledge in weaponry and space projects.” In 1973, as the Vietnam War dragged on, Posin founded “Professors for Peace,” a group aimed at ending the war in southeast Asia and war in general. “If there is definitely injustice, wars are sometimes necessary,” he said in a newspaper interview. “But we still have to work towards building non-violent alternatives.”

Finally, he brought his two primary causes together in a popular course at SFSU called “Science and Human Values.” In 1974, the class organized an effort to send 250 boxes of food and clothing to the victims of a hurricane in Honduras. I found this online comment from a former student:

Dr. Posin was one of my professors at San Francisco State University. I still read his books, 30 years later, and have very vivid images of him lecturing. As a graduate student I got to build some of the RF and electronic devices that were utilized by other students performing research under Dr. Posin in many diverse areas, from plant biology to magnetocardiography. Then it all came together in his class “Science and Human Values.” What an amazing man! I feel fortunate to have known him.

Posin would not retire from teaching until 1996, at which point he was eighty-seven. While at SFSU, he won the James T. Grady Award of the American Chemical Society for “interpreting chemistry for the public” and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize six times.

After Posin retired from SFSU, he and Patsy moved to a house next door to their son and his family in New Orleans. By that time, Dan Jr. was a law professor at Tulane University and the father of three. In a profile of Dan Sr. that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune he said, “We’re here because it’s about time we got to know our grandchildren.”

Patsy was raised as a Methodist, but as an adult she adopted the Bahá’í faith. Posin had always been resolutely nonreligious. Kathryn remembered having no religious background at all and going to a synagogue for the first time when a friend dragged her to one when she was a teenager in Chicago. At the end of his life, Posin began to show the signs of a late-onset dementia, and Kathryn said her father became more open to his wife’s faith saying, “I want to go where she’s going.”

Patsy would die in 2002, and Daniel Q. Posin died less than a year later at the age of ninety-three.

Meeting Einstein

When I began to research Posin’s life, I looked for his children and learned that Dan Q. Posin Jr. had died in 2006 but that Kathryn Posin was still alive and still dancing. Kathryn is a choreographer and director of Kathryn Posin Dance, a well-known company in New York. She also teaches dance and choreography at New York University. A few years ago, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon in her NoHo studio, which is in the same building where the artist Chuck Close has his studio.

Dan Q. Posin's daughter, Kathryn

Kathryn was effusive about her father. She referred to him as “Papa,” and she was obviously pleased that I was taking interest in his career. She kept his Emmy awards on display and had held on to old tapes of his programs and other memorabilia. She said he was a wonderful parent—as was her mother—and he had been very proud of her as a dancer. She had many fond memories of appearing on his television programs.

Kathryn told me a story about the Posin family driving from Fargo, North Dakota, to Princeton, New Jersey, to meet Albert Einstein. Over the years, Einstein and Posin would become friends, united by their work for peace and against nuclear war, but this was their first face-to-face meeting. The eminent scientist had written an introduction to Posin’s book, and the Posins traveled east to thank him in person. When they finally arrived, Einstein was sailing with his daughter, and the Posins waited outside for him to return. Kathryn was just six years old, and this was the first time she had ever seen her father nervous.

Recently Kathryn had been practicing dance in the basement of the Posin’s home in Fargo, where her father stored a number of extra copies of his book on the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, the inventor of the periodic table of elements. A picture of the rather hairy-looking Mendeleev appeared on the cover of the book, and when the bushy-headed Einstein finally appeared, Kathryn ran toward him with arms outstretched shouting, “Mendeleev! Mendeleev!”

Kathryn remembered that Einstein laughed graciously at her mistake, but somehow she became aware that she had embarrassed her father, prompting her to run away and hide under a nearby car. She still remembered the smell of gasoline. Eventually the group recovered from this dramatic start, and they had a very pleasant visit.

I would love to know what the two men talked about on that day. They were both scientists but with very different talents. Two immigrants to the United States from different parts of the world, both with lives that were touched by history. But two men who, nonetheless, shared very similar goals. As much as Posin might have been in awe of Einstein, I like to think that Einstein, in his own way, might have been equally admiring of Posin.

1. Posin donated the royalties from his Spanish textbooks to a scholarship program at the University of Panama.
2. This article was evidently reprinted in a pamphlet that was sent out to many scientists. Posin reported reading this passage in the pamphlet rather than the New York Times article.

CSICon 2017 is all over, I will be writing about it in more depth soon, so stay tuned. CSICon might be over, but so much inspiration was gained and follow-up on opportunities remains to be done. I want to share this one thing with everyone.

A tribute to James Randi.

A little history first, in 2011 when I was still a member of the Independent Investigation Group (IIG) in Los Angeles, I had the idea of our group selling fake white beards as a tribute to James Randi at the Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM 9 From Outer Space). The group loved the idea and we researched and ordered hundreds of beards from China. Paula Lauterbach drew the cartoon face of Randi that we would use for the beard insert. We sold the beards for $5 each and Randi spent the rest of the conference autographing inserts as asked. We also arranged a group photo.

Pulling anything like this together with a group this big in a conference room that is trying to get the stage set up for the next speaker is quite a chore. The first photo in 2011 barely happened. Randi had to be located; he entered the photo a couple minutes before it was taken, and whisked off minutes after to do interviews, magic or whatever The Amaz!ng One had scheduled next.

Photo Credit: Paula Lauterbach

I took this photo while standing on a table on the stage, which is why we have such a great angle. Podcaster (http://ohnopodcast.com/), and photoshop guru Ross Blocher, took this photograph and turned it into the final product you can find here. Also used on James Randi related Wikipedia pages.

Six years later, 2017, the IIG found a few leftover Randi beards and was selling them at CSICon for $1 each. James Underdown suggested people meet in the conference area for a quick photo we would send to Randi. (Randi had been unable to attend CSICon due to health reasons). Our emcee George Hrab announced the day, time and location and suggested if you didn’t have a beard to use something that might look like a beard, a white washcloth or white napkin.

Déjà vu all over again. I stood on a table on top of the stage and directed people into position for another group shot. Thankfully I thought to arrange for the 2011 photo to be displayed on the screen adjacent to the stage; you will see in the bottom of the 2017 photo. The Emcee, George Hrab, was standing on the stage next to me saying “Hurry up Susan, take the photo we need to move on”. And I was yelling at people to position themselves so I could see them clearly. At the last moment I added an empty chair (for Randi), and someone (wearing orange) held the insert, that Paula had drawn, on the empty chair.

This year, I shot with a new camera that did not have a wide-angle lens. Photographer Brian Engler left me his camera before he jumped into the picture and I took a few photos with each camera. What you are looking at now is a composite photo. The people on the sides were from Brian’s camera and the main photo is from my camera. The photoshop skills of the talented Ross Blocher makes it look terrific.

I’ve been having a lot of fun zooming in and looking at the detail of the audience. There are some very clever people in the photo which shows that skeptics are resourceful and fun. Kenny Biddle in the front with a “We Love You” message for Randi on his phone. Lots of napkins, washcloths, paper substitutes for the beard. One woman is holding her beige sweater as a beard, and two women use their own hair as a beard. One does a Cthulhu beard (front right). Mitchell Lampert (wearing orange almost in the back) has a picture of a beard on his phone and held the phone to his chin. Ross I see has “snuck” in the photo on the right (a perk of being the person doing the photoshopping).

The whole photo is just so clever and loving, all done to show Randi that he was missed. I wrote to Randi as soon as Ross sent me the finished photo. I told him that we saved him a chair and expect him to be at CSICon next year, front and center.

Here is the email I received a couple hours later from Randi…

I’m always very touched by any such expression. This is certainly no exception. You have my sincere gratitude. I suspect, however that a couple of those beards were fake. But I’m in a forgiving mood at the moment. I’m frankly very touched. I’ll see you at the next CSICon. Thank you all. -James Randi.

Here is the latest video from Randi talking about his heath and thanking people for their well wishes. Released November 24, 2017

As a photographer I must say that I love both photos; I feel happiness, sentiment and affection for everyone in this photo. I love zooming in and looking at each of these faces, capturing a moment in time. A moment when we all squished together to salute Randi to let him know he is loved and missed. I haven’t been in either of the photos, and don’t plan on being in the future ones. I do hope there are future photos. Meet me at CSICon 2018, Las Vegas Westgate Casino, October 18-21 and don’t forget to pack your Randi beard, or come up with a clever substitute. Hopefully I’ll be there, standing on a table on top of the stage; you won’t miss me, I’ll be the one with the camera.

Thank you all for making this photo possible. And thank you to Stuart Jones for proofreading and comma insertion for this article.

Susan