The “stone tape theory” (STT) is frequently used as a sciencey-sounding quasi-explanation to explain hauntings. Amateur paranormal investigators use the idea to account for appearances of images, sounds, and apparitions that do not interact directly with people. Instead, they play out like a movie or recording. This is most commonly labeled a “residual haunting” to suggest something was left behind in the past to account for the current effects perceived. The premise of the stone tape concept is that bedrock or building stone of the location “captured” emotional energy from a traumatic event. The preferred rock type is said to be quartz, but limestone is mentioned nearly as frequently. The sound and visual representations of an event are “recorded” into the rock media in a process analogous to a magnetic tape recording data. At a much later date, a person sensitive to this energy can receive the “playback,” or the playback can be initiated by certain conditions. The recording/playback sequence has been used as an explanation for noninteractive apparition sightings and haunted places.

As with many cultural products, inspirations and influence for a widely known idea originate from a variety of places and in alternative forms. It’s unpredictable what bits and pieces will glom on to the original idea or which paths will be taken that result in propelling an idea (good or bad) into mainstream popularity. Then, the popular idea takes on a life of its own. Many people who later adopt it don’t know of its long history. This convoluted evolution of an idea applies to the “stone tape theory.”

Before moving forward, a clarification must be made regarding the word theory, which is sometimes invoked in the name. A theory in science is not a guess or a supposition. It is a well-tested model of the way something in nature works. Therefore, the stone tape isn’t a theory; it’s speculation. The following questions remain unanswered resulting in a hollow idea:

How do things get recorded?

What gets recorded and what doesn’t?

How is it preserved?

How can it be played back?

Initially, the stone tape idea requires an assumption that there is a real phenomenon where people experience a “playback” related to a certain location. The individual may perceive this event as a ghost encounter or haunting, a place-memory, a particular reaction to or sense about the location, or a feeling of time travel. Those who have assumed this location-specific phenomenon occurs invoked an explanation for it.

Modern paranormal media frequently state the stone tape idea originated in the 1970s. The proper name did but not the concept, which goes back over a century before. Ideas of events or information imprinting on the environment for later retrieval have a long history. In fact, the concept that apparitions were created in or by the human mind was part of early scientific thinking about the subject.

Building the Theory Block by Block

The Stone Tape was the title of a 1972 BBC drama by Nigel Kneale directed by Peter Sasdy. In the movie, a team from an electronics company move into an old house to work on a new project. Renovations that include busting up the paneling reveal a very old stone stairway and strange phenomena occur in the room. Not everyone can hear the screams or see the apparition of a young woman on the stairs. The physical equipment does not record it. The playback is dependent upon another human who has the ability to perceive it in their own brain. The story centers on the only woman on the team, Jill, who has this ability. The success of the movie popularized the idea that old stone blocks can store sounds and images that possibly could be the mechanism for hauntings.

With the popularity of the concept, the stone tape label was retroactively imposed on the ideas of Thomas Charles Lethbridge, a controversial and colorful archaeologist who left academia for paranormal research. Lethbridge’s 1961 book, Ghost and Ghoul, is frequently cited by amateur paranormal investigators as the origin of the stone tape concept. Lethbridge, however, never referenced the term stone tape in this or subsequent books. He died in 1971 before the movie aired. So, it is incorrect to say he coined the term stone tape. In his book, though, Lethbridge hints that some memories may be connected with inanimate objects via “a sort of surrounding ether.” He also stated that all cells resonate, and he uses examples related to psychometry (the ability to read psychic impressions from objects) to speculate that shared vibration frequency could explain memory transferences. His often-repeated story about experiencing an apparition near a stream is repeated in his later book, Ghost and Divining Rod (1963). For this book, he develops this idea more thoroughly. Lethbridge does not contend that ghosts are supernatural but argues they are attributable to invisible fields that recorded an image of a person. He states these various fields of energy—around forests, mountains, and streams and even from the earth—are “scientific fact.” They aren’t, but Lethbridge was characteristically arrogant in his presentation of parapsychological speculation, assuming that if he said they were solid that would make them so. Lethbridge’s ideas were around during the time that Kneale was working. It’s almost certain that they influenced the plot device in The Stone Tape, but I haven’t found any direct connection.

A confounding factor in the history of the concept is that plenty of other people had similar ideas, and it’s difficult to trace whether they borrowed from each other or came to such thinking independently. Lethbridge cited the work of H.H. Price on place-memories. Price was a professor of logic at the University of Oxford and a former president of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). In his presidential address for the SPR in 1939 titled “Haunting and the ‘Psychic Ether’ Hypothesis,” Price asserts that objects carry memory traces. If a suitably sensitive person comes to the place or handles the object, these memory traces will cause him to have a retrospective experience. In this loose set of ideas, Price contends that “psychic ether” is an intermediate medium between spirit and physical matter where images and memory traces are held. Crediting Raynor C. Johnson, Price connects these to hauntings saying ghosts (as people describe them) are not supernatural but that they are “traces . . . [a] result of the emotions or other experiences of some person who formerly inhabited the room, much as finger-prints result automatically from our handling of a wine-glass or a poker.” They were like photographic negatives that would be “developed” by those who were endowed with the ability to perceive them. Jill, from the movie, was so (un)lucky.

The traces and the “psychic ether” are not independently observable, though, making them unmeasurable, a serious drawback for scientific acceptance. Price remarked that if these traces were real, “they must consist in some more or less permanent mode of arrangement of the molecules or atoms or infra-atomic particles, of which the walls, furniture, etc., are composed. And in that case, it ought to be possible to verify their existence by the ordinary methods of physical Science—by physical or chemical tests of some sort or other. But so far as we know, this cannot be done.”

This “residua of past experiences” was also explained by Price as a form of “deferred telepathy” as the impulse was stored (in some unknown way by an unknown method) until a person could experience the anima loci or place memory. Lethbridge’s idea for this recording/playback was different. He rejected Price’s “psychic ether” mechanism for his own special “fields.” Lethbridge instead thought that the potential of these natural “fields” was high, and persons who had low personal “psyche-fields” of their own would receive the existing imprints on the field because higher potential flowed naturally to a lower potential. This would explain why some could experience the imprints (those with this “sixth sense”) and others could not.

The concept of the environment or fields recording impressions from humans was elucidated even earlier by mathematician Charles Babbage in 1838. He believed that words made permanent impressions on the world and that “the air itself is a vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.” In The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (1838) he stated:

The pulsations of the air, once set in motion by the human voice, cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. Strong and audible as they may be in the immediate neighbourhood of the speaker, and at the immediate moment of utterance, their quickly attenuated force soon becomes inaudible to human ears. The motions they have impressed on the particles of one portion of our atmosphere, are communicated to constantly increasing numbers, but the total quantity of motion measured in the same direction receives no addition.

“Place-memory” was considered in the early days of the SPR as a hypothesis to account for apparitions that seemed distinctly associated with a location. Eleanor Sidgwick suggested in 1888 that there was “something in the actual building itself” to account for the experiences reported. Edmund Gurney, a few years later, also iterated that survival of an image, generated by the mind of a person, was later perceptible by certain other sensitive minds (also open to other anomalous mental communication). Frederic Myers and Oliver Lodge also expressed similar ideas (See Heath 2005).

Proposed Mechanisms

The crucial problem with the stone tape concept is that there has never been demonstrated a way to record, preserve, or play events in natural environmental substances as proposed. The mechanisms for the recording of these psychic imprints are diverse—relating to invisible “fields,” molecular architecture of crystalline quartz, energy fields from dead organisms that make up limestone, resonant frequencies, encoded of iron oxide crystals, inductive electromagnetism, and quantum entanglement.

Unlike fossils, in which a physical record is preserved as an impression in sediment, or sea-floor spreading ridges that freeze crystals in molten rock to reflect the prevailing magnetic declination of the earth, the stone tape idea relies on emotional “energy,” which is nonmaterial. Emotion is not physically recordable outside of the body because nothing related to emotion leaves the body. Emotional “energy” is a term specific to human experience of feelings. There is nothing to record. However, paranormalists invoke a handy trope to get around this problem—“quantum.” Paranormalists are quite fond of using Einstein’s view of “spooky action at a distance,” which he used to describe quantum entanglement. They also assert (from laws of thermodynamics) that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. But the concept is grossly misapplied. There is no evidence that this concept is relatable to human events in the past being replayed in the present. Go ask your resident quantum physicist if he or she has explained ghosts.

The idea of memories captured in rock is older than the concepts of quanta and the invention of magnetic tape. Former geologist William Denton (1863) was enamored with the promise of psychometry, believing that the sciences of geology and archaeology would be revolutionized by psychically “reading” the impressions and memories of the objects. Psychometry is the kernel of the idea of stone tape.

Lethbridge assumed that special fields that capture the memory were recharged by ions in the air and enhanced by additional imprints by a person’s own field (psyche-field). Lethbridge thought some places would accumulate these thoughts in sort of a snowball effect. Bad thoughts produced more bad thoughts, which were then imprinted onto the field. After a while, “thought forms” would be produced at these notorious spots. Humid conditions enhanced conductance of the fields because of the benefit of conductance of water molecules. Because the imprint was on the “field” not on the individual molecules, the memories would remain at a place, even those around a flowing stream. Modern ghost hunters sometimes invoke a “water tape” idea where the water molecules are thought to retain the memory (they sometimes link this to unsupported ideas related to homeopathy). But this is absurd since the water molecules in a stream flow away to be replaced by other molecules (presumably with their own memories). Rocks and building stones can remain for hundreds, even thousands of years, but they do weather and erode. How deep would a memory be encoded into the rock? What happens to the old memories of the rock, such as its origin story often told in psychometry readings?

In Secret Language of Stone (1988) by Don Robins, a solid-state chemist, we find one of the most technical-sounding attempts to explain the capture and storage of memories in stone. Robins supposes that defects in the crystal lattice of minerals (the array of atoms that make up a mineral that is shaped by electrical forces) allow for reservoirs of energy. The crystal architecture creates a “vortex of energy at the heart of the crystal” where memory traces could be stored (he mainly focused on sound). These traces could be accessed directly by the human brain later by producing a resonating sound wave or physical pressure such as walking on the ground. Robins also does not use the term stone tape but calls the energy network of stone a “macrochip” and associates this network with sacred places where paranormal events are said to occur.

Heath (2005) updated Price’s place-memory with a modern tech attitude by putting forth that passive place-memories were stored in the electron cloud or molecular structures. She did not cite Lethbridge even though she remarked on the importance of memories associated with water and even mentioned his early favored concept of resonance—vibration at the same frequency. However, “quantum” was applied. She stated when resonant frequencies are equivalent, then the objects can maximally absorb energy. Heath connected resonance to ESP (a commonly made connection). And, like in The Stone Tape movie, the traces can be erased, disrupted by heat or magnetic fields, or otherwise overwritten.

Persinger and Koren (2001) take the “field” ideas in a different direction by considering the Earth as a photographic exposure plate. Matched inductance between geomagnetic activity and the local static field, they say, creates a representation recorded in the crystalline structure of the rock—a geologic hologram to be replayed directly to the brain when conditions are just right.

In the most extreme and metaphysical explanation for hauntings, a few parapsychologists or speculative paranormalists say that we create our own reality. Based on Roy Frieden’s (1998) invocation of the concept of “observer participancy,” information can be imparted by just observing. That information can flow from one object to another.

The amateur paranormal investigator commonly cites the “recording” onto local materials such as quartz, limestone rock, building materials, or rust on metal objects, such as nails, screws, wires, and structural components. It sounds superficially plausible that high emotion events, such as violent death, can release emotional “energy” (akin to electricity) that gets recorded onto these mineral crystals or coatings as sound or images are recorded onto magnetic tape in a tape recorder. (The idea of recording onto a magnetic wire [via Smith and Poulsen’s work in 1888–89] only became a usable technology with magnetic tape recorders around 1930.) This concept, like all the others, is flawed. There are specific technical components of these systems (like magnetic heads on recorders) that do not have a natural analog. The Earth’s magnetic field may be strong enough to align the polarity of newly produced rock from mid-ocean ridges, but it is not strong enough or precise enough to imprint a distinct sound or image into random existing crystals in surrounding materials. Emotion is not an energy like electricity (a stream of charged particles we can measure). Also, humans do not have a sophisticated response to magnetic fields (regardless of what alternative health gurus tell you); So, how are we to “read” such tapes? Can we perceive the content of recording tape by running our fingers over it? Nope.

Popularity of the Theory

This concept of environmental recording of human feelings, sounds, and images that can be stored and retrieved is useful in different contexts. Yet, there is no current reasonable mechanism to accomplish it. All the “theories” are imaginative speculation or suppositions. They have not been tested or confirmed to any degree. And those that have some basis in scientific theory have not been shown to be applicable to real-world situations or the claims of hauntings reported. But because the concepts sound sciencey and plausible to those without scientific backgrounds, they have become popular and carried through the decades by paranormal advocates.

I contacted Alan Murdie of the SPR, expert ghost historian, to ask him about the history and popularity of the stone tape. He confirmed that the “tape” recording idea came far later, spurred by the movie, but the general ideas predated the invention of magnetic tape. He confirmed Lethbridge was critical to reinforcing and popularizing the notion, but his ideas “have got rather muddled in being recycled over the last forty-five years through various authors.” Curiously, Murdie opines that Lethbridge might have been forgotten after his death, strange ideas and all, if not for popular paranormal writer Colin Wilson. Wilson reinjected Lethbridge’s ideas into popular discussion, particularly in his book Mysteries (1978) “where he linked dowsing with then fashionable ideas about ley lines supposedly flowing through prehistoric and haunted sites.” (Lethbridge invoked his special “fields” for all things paranormal.) Wilson’s books were immensely popular with paranormal enthusiasts from the 1970s to the 2000s. Thus, Lethbridge’s poorly formed speculation about location-specific fields as an explanation for hauntings was discovered by a new generation who were not going to dig through the SPR archives to find the historical precursors to it.

Psychology professor Terence Hines messaged me with a personal story of his own regarding the pop culture influence of the stone recording idea. From 1955 to 1957, a half-hour syndicated TV show called Science Fiction Theatre aired. Hines recalled specifically an episode titled “The Frozen Sound” (aired July 30, 1955). The plot concerned something called “sonic saturation” used by devious Communist spies to steal our research secrets. A slow-hardening synthetic crystal recorded surrounding voices making for an elusive spying system. The story also included the discovery of an ancient piece of lava rock from Vesuvius that had recorded human voices when it hardened thousands of years previously. The opening sequence included a demonstration of the piezoelectrical properties of quartz and the emphasis on research into crystals. Thus, the idea for recording in stone and crystals was around decades before it was incorporated as a plot device in The Stone Tape.

Conclusion

The explosion of amateur ghost hunting groups around 2000 and the continuing popularity of contemporary hauntings has placed the stone tape theory squarely into the paranormal patois. It’s frequently noted on paranormal investigation websites as a “scientific” theory that has some evidentiary support. As I’ve documented here, it doesn’t have empirical support. Professional parapsychologists and the SPR (still considered to be the foremost investigation body of paranormal claims) do not rely on it and hardly even mention the term in their professional literature. In Investigating the Paranormal (2002), Tony Cornell reiterated that the STT still is unconfirmed with no plausible mechanism and the theory has not been developed any further. Murdie (2017) declared it was “a hypothesis yet to be tested.” Even though we have been talking about this general concept for over a century, we are no closer to having it make sense, and it remains an unsupported, but appealing and convenient, notion to apply in paranormal discussions with the public.

The stone tape does not make sense in whichever context it is implemented. Not only do we still not have a reasonable mechanism to record, store, and retrieve traces, but there remain many vexing questions about the idea: Why is just one event recorded and not a jumble of events? Why does the “recording” last for decades or centuries instead of getting overwritten? Why do only certain places have place-memories? It’s disingenuous of paranormal researchers to utilize STT as an explanation—or even to suggest it because it sounds sciencey. It’s easy to find several people speaking authoritatively about the properties of bedrock (they have assumed exists under a location) that triggers hauntings. There are those who expound to ghost tourists that the quartz in the “granite” at Gettysburg, the world-famous Civil War battlefield, is responsible for preserving the ghostly phenomena that people constantly report there. Ironically, the rock at Gettysburg is not granite. It is diabase, a different type of intrusive rock, which is quartz-poor. The mudstone/siltstone rocks among the famous diabase dike ridges (Seminary and Cemetery) and exposed boulders (Devil’s Den and Little Round Top) have no special properties either, with many other minerals making up the bedrock that lacks any abundance of quartz (and no limestone at all). But the place recording/stone tape idea is so enticing to use as an explanation for the spooky legends there that the scientific facts don’t matter and aren’t even checked.

There you have it on the Stone Tape theory: it’s not a theory, it doesn’t make physical sense, and there is no known mechanism for how it works at all. It was simply a good fictional movie.

• Babbage, C. 1838. The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. London: John Murray.
• Callis, N. 2012. Stone tapes. The Bent Spoon No. 7.
• Cornell, T. 2002. Investigating the Paranormal. New York: Parapsychology Foundation Inc.
• Denton, W. 1863. The Soul of Things. Boston: Walker, Wise and Company.
• Fleeger, G. 2008. Geology of the Gettysburg Mesozoic Basin and Military Geology of the Gettysburg Campaign. Guidebook for the 73rd Field Confer­ence of Pennsylvania Geologists.
• Frieden, R. 1998. Physics from Fisher Information: A Unification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Heath, P.R. 2005. A new theory on place memory. Australian Journal of Parapsychology 5(1): 40–58.
• Hines, Terrance. 2017. Personal Communication (May).
• Kneale, N. 1972. The Stone Tape [movie]. BBC.
• Lethbridge, T.C. 1961. Ghost and Ghoul. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• ———. 1963. Ghost and Divining Rod. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Murdie, Alan. 2017. Personal Communication (April).
• Persinger, M., and S. Koren. 2001. Predicting the characteristics of haunt phenomena from geomagnetic factors and brain sensitivity: Evidence from field and experimental studies. In Houran and Lange’s Hauntings and Poltergeists: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Books.
• Price, H.H. 1938–1939. Haunting and the ‘psychic ether’ hypothesis; with some preliminary reflections on the present condition and possible future of psychical research.” Proceedings of the SPR Vol. 45.
• Robins, D. 1988. Secret Language of Stone. London: Century Hutchinson.
• Ventola, A. 2010. Anomalous experiences primer: Theories and perspectives on apparitions. Available online at http://publicparapsychology.blogspot.com/2010/01/anomalous-experiences-primer-
  theories.html.
• Yohe, T. 2015. Limestone and Its Paranormal Proper­ties: A Comprehensive Approach to the Possibilities. CreateSpace.

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

Estimados amigos escépticos,

Posiblemente sepáis que Britt Hermes, una activista escéptica internacional sobre la naturopatía, ha sido demandada por difamación.

Britt era naturópata, pero ahora dedica mucho tiempo y esfuerzo a exponer las prácticas de los naturópatas en su blog ‘Naturopathic Diaries’, entre otros sitios.

La naturópata estadounidense ’doctora' Colleen Huber la ha llevado ante los tribunales en Alemania, alegando que Britt la ha difamado en su blog. Huber es una crítica de la quimioterapia y la radioterapia para el tratamiento del cáncer. Ella usa terapias ‘naturales’ que incluyen infusiones intravenosas de vitamina C y bicarbonato de sodio.

This article was originally available in English.
Click here to read it.

La comunidad escéptica internacional teme que el caso contra Britt pueda tener el efecto de silenciar a una importante activista contra las prácticas ‘médicas' no comprobadas y rechazadas, mediante la imposición de considerables costos legales.

Por esta razón, los escépticos australianos han organizado una campaña de recaudación de fondos para ayudar a Britt a cubrir los gastos legales.

Si desea contribuir al fondo o quiere más información, visite www.skeptics.com.au/BrittHermes.

Atentamente,
Claire Klingenberg

Si desea más información sobre la historia de Britt Hermes y sus experiencias con la naturopatía, aquí tiene su presentación de la CSICon de Las Vegas de 2017:

William James in 1903.¹

Why did one of the great figures in the history of psychological science, a Harvard University professor who supervised the earliest United States doctoral degrees in psychology, spend many years attending séances and ultimately come to support the honesty and integrity of a famous Boston medium? Even in those early days of psychology, most of William James’s colleagues derided mediumship and felt psychics were not worthy of serious study, yet James did extensive research on psychics throughout his career in the hope of finding evidence of an afterlife. A number of biographers have suggested the explanation was personal: James and his wife Alice were drawn to psychics in 1885, following the death of their young son, Herman (Blum 2007; Simon 1999). A new book on James’s psychical research suggests that, whatever effect the Herman’s death might have had, it was far less important than James’s longstanding interest in the possibility of the soul’s immortality. The seeds of James’s fascination were planted in his boyhood and nurtured by many cultural and philosophical forces throughout his life.

Philosopher and psychologist, William James (1842–1910), who taught at Harvard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was one of the most important early figures in the history of psychological science. Official credit for the founding of psychology goes to a German, Wilhelm Wundt, who opened the first psychological laboratory at the University of Liebzig in 1879. The first American laboratory was founded at Johns Hopkins University by G. Stanley Hall, who had briefly worked in Wundt’s laboratory in Liebzig. Hall also earned the first American PhD in psychology, studying under James at Harvard, started the American Journal of Psychology, and became the first president of the American Psychological Association.

The photograph on cover of Knapp’s book shows William James sitting with a medium (Mrs. Walden) in séance.

James understood the importance of laboratory work, but because he was not personally drawn to it, he hired Hugo Münsterburg, a student of Wundt’s, to run the psychology laboratory at Harvard (Benjamin 2008). Nonetheless, James wrote an important early textbook, Principles of Psychology (James [1890] 1981) that drew many students to the field, and he helped educate several of the early leaders of psychological science, including Hall and Mary Whiton Calkins, who would go on to build a laboratory at Wellesley College and become the first woman president of the American Psychological Association.

Historian Krister Dylan Knapp’s 2017 book William James: Psychical Research and the Challenge of Modernity provides a very detailed account of how William James became involved in psychical research, and among other things, Knapp demonstrates that James’s work in this area was far from a sidelight or a passing fancy. For obvious reasons, most historians of psychology make at most passing reference to James’s involvement with spiritualists and mediums, but Knapp’s thorough research reveals the many influences that led to a lifelong preoccupation.

James’s Boyhood

James grew up in a privileged and stimulating environment. His father, Henry James Sr., was independently wealthy and had the freedom to satisfy his intellectual curiosities. He was particularly drawn to the “non-normal” and tended to drift from one cause or idea to another. At various points Henry Sr. was occupied with Swedenborgianism², abolitionism, women’s suffrage, free love, and, of course, spiritualism. The family home on West Fourteenth Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues in New York City was frequently filled with local intellectuals and literary figures, and rather than being sent away, the children were required to participate in adult conversations. As a result, James, his younger brother Henry Jr. (who would become the famous novelist), and the other children were exposed to a diverse set of ideas. Spiritualism was very popular in the mid-nineteenth century, and Knapp suggests that James would have had at least indirect exposure to the Fox sisters.

The Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York were mediums who became quite famous in the mid-nineteeth century. Margaret (Maggie) and Kate purported to communicate with a “Mr. Splitfoot,” who made rapping sounds in response to yes/no questions. Their older sister Leah acted as manager for the other two, and the trio traveled widely and became a major force in the growing popularity of mediumship and spiritualism. The success of spiritualism was also bolstered by its close association with the social reform movements of the nineteenth century. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sojourner Truth, and Mary Todd Lincoln (who held séances in the White House) were all spiritualist, and perhaps because many of the mediums of that period were women, spiritualism was particularly bound to the movement for women’s rights.

The Fox Sisters, undated. From left to right, Kate, Margaret, and Leah. (Source: Wikimedia.)

New York Tribune editor, Horace Greeley, was a member of Henry James Sr.’s circle, and in 1850, Greeley and several of other members of their group decided to investigate the Fox sister phenomenon. They arranged a séance with the Fox sisters in New York City, following which the group came away with a split decision. Some observers were convinced of the sisters’ powers and others were skeptical. Greeley went on to have a series of additional readings with the Fox sisters and eventually fell somewhere between these poles of belief, perhaps leaning towards belief. At one point he wrote that, through the Fox sisters, he had a conversation with a man who reported on the whereabouts of Edgar Allan Poe in the afterlife.

Knapp suggests that the young William James—who would have been eight years old at the time of these séances—would probably have participated in discussions of the Fox sisters. Furthermore, Knapp points out that the Fox sisters were enormously popular in the summer of 1850, when they spent two months in the financial district of New York. William and Henry Jr. were very familiar with street life in the city and all the popular entertainments of the time. As a result, Knapp suggests it was quite possible the boys came into direct contact with the Fox sisters, as well.

James’s Early Academic Career

In the years just before he began teaching at Harvard, James published a review of a book on spiritualism and attended a séance. In this case, he quickly discovered the medium to be a fraud—obviously fraud was common—moving a piano, not by psychic power but with the aid of what he described as a “wonderfully strong and skillful knee” (Knapp 2017, 58). James’s writings about spiritualism at that time reflected a degree of skepticism, but he maintained the view that spiritualism was worthy of serious investigation.

In 1874 when James began to teach at Harvard, Boston was a hotbed of spiritualism. A weekly spiritualist newspaper, The Banner of Light, advertised the services of various mediums and published articles on spiritualist topics. Séances were a popular form of evening entertainment. James was committed to conducting psychical research, but in the early years of his tenure at Harvard, he was busy building a family. However, in 1882 while visiting his brother Henry Jr. in England, James was introduced to a group of people who were interested in psychical research. In the same year, the group founded the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which survives to this day. In 1884, James both joined the SPR and helped start the United States branch, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). Also in 1884, the SPR launched the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which is still in publication today. All of this happened before the death of James’s son, Herman.

The Case of Leonora Piper

In James’s time, SPR and the ASPR included members who varied in their degree of skepticism and belief. Both societies published articles that exposed fraudulent mediums, but many members clearly believed that some kind of afterlife existed and that communication with the souls therein was possible. James found little value in his investigations of physical mediums—people who, like the Fox sisters, purported to communicate with the dead through rapping sounds, table tipping, or the movement of objects through the air. Most seemed to be engaged in deliberate trickery. But James was more hopeful about trance mediums who appeared to go into a different state of consciousness and communicate by voice—sometimes in foreign languages—or automatic writing.

The most famous and convincing of these psychics was Leonora Piper, whom William and Alice James visited shortly after the death of their son. Piper was a trance medium who reported the messages of a “Dr. Phinuit,” although she would later develop other characters as “controls,” including James’s psychical research colleague and friend Richard Hodgson after his death. James would go on to attend séances with Piper for thirteen years, and conclude that she offered the “dramatic possibility” that her mediumship was real.

Leonora Piper, undated. (Source: Wikimedia.)

As with many of the cases he examined, James’s evaluation of Piper seemed to rest on his assessment of her personality. She was a quiet housewife who did not advertise her mediumship services in The Banner of Light and did not seek fame, but she was willing to be investigated and to receive payments for her sittings. Trance mediumship allowed for stenographers to record what the medium said during the séance, making it possible to study the content of the séance after the event, but James’s approach to psychical research was not particularly scientific by today’s standards. For example, the Jameses attended so many sittings with Piper that she essentially became a friend of the family, and in the fall of 1889, the family hosted Mrs. Piper for a week at their summer home in New Hampshire. This kind loss of objectivity was not uncommon. Years earlier Horace Greeley, before coming to his credulous assessment of the Fox sisters, had invited them to stay at his home for a week while conducting séances, and Kate Fox accepted the invitation. James attempted to maintain an objective assessment of Piper, but in the end, seemed to become a believer, as suggested by the following passage:

My own conviction is not evidence, but it seems fitting to record it. I am persuaded of the medium’s honesty, and of the genuineness of her trance; and although at first disposed to think that the ‘hits’ she made were either lucky coincidences, or the result of knowledge on her part of who the sitter was and of his or her family affairs, I now believe her to be in possession of a power as yet unexplained. (Cited in Knapp 2017, 189)

James’s Third Way

William James was a modern man, influenced by the rise of Darwinism, the greater use of statistics and quantification, and recent advances of empirical methods. His goal was not to support or defend any particular religion, but he held on to the possibility that there was a God and that there was some kind of afterlife of the soul. With respect to his psychical research, Knapp suggests he was neither a believer nor a skeptic/debunker. Instead, James supported a tertium quid—third way—approach that was somewhere between the two poles. In his famous essay Pragmatism (James [1907] 1995) identified two distinct temperaments in the philosophers of the day: the tender-minded and the tough-minded. He used the following adjectives to describe each:

In James’s world, the spiritualist believers were tender-minded and the skeptical nonbelievers were tough-minded. The tough-minded temperament was also common among many of his psychological contemporaries, including G. Stanley Hall, James McKeen Cattell, and Hugo Münsterburg, all of whom thought psychical research was a waste of time.

James hoped to reconcile these two competing attitudes with his third way. He was an empiricist who valued facts when facts could be found, but in those cases that are “yet unexplained” he supported a kind of agnosticism, maintaining the possibility of belief. This view is also seen in his famous essay “The Will to Believe” (James 1897).

Portrait of William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) by John Collier. (Source Wikimedia.)

“The Will to Believe” was written in response to another famous essay, “The Ethics of Belief,” by British mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford (Clifford 1886). Clifford was an extremely tough-minded skeptic who famously wrote: “It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence.” For reasons that by now should be obvious, James found this kind of stance overly restrictive and argued that it was justifiable to hold certain beliefs based on insufficient evidence, particularly if they might have value to the believer. In “The Will to Believe,” James supported a version of Pascal’s Wager. French mathematician Blaise Pascal famously offered a cost-benefit analysis, suggesting it is best to live a Christian life, despite very small odds that heaven is real, because the inconvenience of Christian life is small in relation to the possible reward of a life in the hereafter. James argued that an idea that is still a “living hypothesis,” one that has not been directly refuted by facts, can be maintained if believing has possible benefits. One such case would be when believing in God now is required to gain salvation later.

“The Will to Believe” is most often interpreted as a defense of religious belief, but Knapp’s book shows that James was undoubtedly also thinking about his psychical research. “The Will to Believe” was first presented as a lecture in 1896. James would go on to be involved in and write about psychical research almost until his death in 1910.

James Is Not the Only One

James was perhaps the first eminent psychological scientist to be a supporter of psychical research, but he is far from the last. I have previously written in this column about Cornell University psychologist Daryl Bem, who has published a number of papers—now largely discredited—claiming to demonstrate psi phenomenon. Perhaps even more interesting is the case of Gary Schwartz, who has carried on in James’s tradition, attempting to prove valid communication with the dead. Schwartz codirected the Behavioral Medicine Clinic at Yale University before moving to the University of Arizona, where most of his mediumship research was conducted. (Schwartz’s research has been critiqued a number of times in the pages of Skeptical Inquirer.)

In an interesting twist on the story of William James and the psychics, Schwartz (2010) published an article reporting two “proof of concept” experiments supporting the idea that William James may be continuing his psychical research—“from the other side.” I will leave it to interested readers to decide how lively they find that hypothesis to be.

• Benjamin, Ludy T. 2009 A history of psychology Original sources and contemporary research. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
• Blum, Deborah. 2007. Ghost hunters: William James and the search for scientific proof of life after death. Penguin.
• Clifford, William K. 1886. Lectures and Essays, ed. Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock London: Macmillan and Co.
• James, William. (1907) 1995. Pragmatism. New York: Dover.
• ———. (1890) 1981. Principles of psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• ———. 1897. The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1–31.
• Knapp, Krister Dylan. 2017. William James: Psychical Research and the Challenge of Modernity. UNC Press Books.
• Parry, Manon. 2006. “G. Stanley Hall: Psychologist and early gerontologist.” American journal of public health 96, no. 7: 1161–1161.
• Simon, Linda. 1999. Genuine reality: A life of William James. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Schwartz, Gary E. 2010. “William James and the Search for Scientific Evidence of Life After Death.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 17 no. 11–12: 121–152.

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• ¹ Photo by Notman Studios. (Credit: MS Am 1092 (1185), Houghton Library, Harvard University)
• ² Based on the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and mystic. He had a very well-developed theory of the afterlife that appealed to many nineteenth century spiritualists

Alison Bernstein is a professor of translational science and molecular medicine and was recently featured in the movie "Science Moms".

Jonathan Jarry from the McGill Office for Science and Society conducted mini-interviews with many of the speakers of CSICon 2017, a conference dedicated to science and skepticism.

Want to see more from CSICon? Check out all the speakers at Reasonable Talk!

In Tallahassee’s Old City Cemetery stands an imposing monument that—many people insist—denotes the grave of a witch. Curious symbols atop the marker and a cryptic verse, together with other factors—notably the monument’s facing west rather than the traditional east—are cited as evidence in the identification. But was “BESSIE,” as her name is boldly incised, truly a witch, or can we unlock the secrets of this mysterious grave? (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The so-called “Witch’s Grave” in Tallahassee’s Old City Cemetery. (Sketch by author.)

Gravesite

Old City Cemetery, established in 1829, is the oldest public graveyard in Tallahassee. Once scandalously overrun by hogs and cattle, it was acquired by the city in 1840. It was laid out in lots the following year when an epidemic of yellow fever swept the area, mandating sanitation regulations to protect the public. Originally burials were segregated, with the graves of whites restricted to the eastern section, while both slaves and free persons of color were interred in the western half. Today the cemetery is considered “one of Tallahassee’s most distinctive historic sites” (“Walking Tour” n.d.).

The grave markers reflect the evolving attitudes about death in popular culture. While the earliest—wooden head- and footboards—have deteriorated, later marble tombstones of simple shape bear inscriptions expressing loss or hope. Later Victorian monuments reveal that era’s emphasis on classical art forms, as well as on death and mourning.

In the southeast quadrant (bordering Martin Luther King Boulevard) is “The Witch’s Grave,” as it is now known far and wide, marked by a towering obelisk of elaborate Victorian design, its gray French granite estimated to weigh more than fifteen tons. The grave is that of Elizabeth Budd Graham (1866–1889), and the inscription also provides her nickname, “Bessie”; her husband’s and parents’ names; a verse; and other information. The most-sought grave in the cemetery, it often bears coins or other mementoes left by visitors.¹

Claims Refuted

Some of the “witch” claims are set forth in Haunted Places: The National Directory (Hauck 1996, 129), as well as some online sources. As we shall see, they are based on whimsy, superstition, ignorance, and misinformation. Let’s look at the main claims.

1. “To begin with” (says “Weird U.S.” 2016), “Bessie was born in October, the month of Halloween.”

   However, unless we are to accuse everyone born in one of twelve months of witchcraft, perhaps we can move on.

2. Bessie’s “is the only grave in the cemetery facing west” (Hauck 1996, 129), a statement endorsed by others; “Weird U.S.” (2016) adds, “which some say is contrary to Christian burial customs.”

   In fact, according to the Historic Tallahassee Preservation Board (“Walking Tour” N.d.), it was once a custom to orient a monument facing west, and “there are many examples of this custom in Old City Cemetery.”

3. Next there is what Hauck (1996, 129) calls the monument’s “enigmatic epitaph.” He cites only a portion, selected lines out of the following excerpt:

   Ah! Broken is the golden bowl!

   The Spirit flown forever!

   Let the bell toll!—A saintly soul

   Floats on the Stygian River. . . .

   Come, let the burial rite be read,

   The Funeral song be sung;

   An Anthem for the queenliest dead

   That ever died so young,

   A dirge for her, the doubly dead—

   In that she died so young.

   Hauck apparently fails to recognize the lines from Edgar Allan Poe’s Lenore. They were obviously chosen to urge proper funeral rituals for one who died at such an early age (twenty-three).

4. According to some, “queenliest dead” suggests Queen of the Dead, which they interpret as meaning a witch (Mohan 2016).

   Actually, Poe’s poem goes on to say the deceased has passed “to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven,” the very opposite of a witch!

5. Then there is the motif near the top of the monument, a cross inside a crown. Some of the “witch” hunters ignore this, while others seem ambivalent about it, conceding Bessie may have been a “white witch.”

   However, “white witch” is not a Christian concept but one of a form of “good” witchcraft popularized by the New Age movement—with its self-styled mediums, psychics, astrologers, folk healers, “druids,” and others engaged in mystical play-acting. The cross and crown motif, on the other hand, combines traditional Christian symbols—the cross representing suffering and death (e.g., Luke 14:27) and the crown eternal reward (James 1:12) (“Cross and Crown” 2006). (More on this later.)

6. Finally, the very expense of the grave is cited as evidence. Bessie supposedly “bewitched a wealthy man into marrying her and wanted to commemorate her with the most elaborate stone in the cemetery” (“Weird U.S.” 2016).

   This stands her husband’s actual motive on its head. He obviously simply intended—in the showy Victorian fashion of the day—to mourn the loss (as he had the stone read) of “A dutiful daughter, a devoted mother and a loving and faithful wife.”

The Real Bessie

A newspaper obituary for Bessie Graham noted that, the mother of an infant, she was “the lovely young wife of Mr. John A. Graham,” who “loved and adored his wife with all the affection possessed by human nature.” She herself exhibited “rare personal beauty and excellent traits of character” (“Obituary” 1889).

Her husband was a lumber magnate, a cattleman, and leading real estate developer of southern Florida. In 1894, he remarried and still later, despite his age, volunteered to serve in World War I, earning the rank of major (Moore 1922, 248, 387). Meanwhile he raised his and Bessie’s son, John A. Jr.

Other information about Bessie is scant, although her monument—properly read—tells more. As an obelisk, its form “was meant to represent rebirth and the spiritual connections between Heaven and Earth, life and afterlife” (Lorentz 2014). Near the top, the cross and crown not only express Christian belief, but the motif is also used in Freemasonry (and indeed, not surprisingly, her husband was a Mason). The verse’s invocation of the tolling (church) bell, “saintly soul,” and singing of “funeral song” all evoke traditional Christian worship, which, in Bessie’s time and place, were antithetical to witchcraft. Although graves traditionally faced east for the rising sun (a symbol of resurrection), the westward orientation would be consistent with Victorian emphasis on dying, sadly evoking the setting sun.

Conclusions

Still, slanders and errors about Bessie continue. One source, a YouTube video, is so egregious I am embarrassed for its amateur raconteur (Mohan 2016). Without offering any evidence, he claims that Bessie was rumored to have been poisoned and suffered “a long, painful death” (although she actually died of heart trouble after a brief illness [“Obituary” 1889]). He says the ghost of a young woman is seen sobbing at the grave (but this too appears suspiciously to lack any source). He insists actual witches perform nighttime rituals at the grave during the full moon (but these are unknown to the cemetery’s management), and he states that anyone visiting the grave will have Bessie appear in his or her dream “that very night” (yet I can attest that that never happened to me).

Everything we know of Bessie Graham speaks of the tragically brief life of a very good woman. Nothing whatsoever has come to light to warrant insinuations about her having been a witch—no document or even folklore from her time. There is nothing but nonsense, and most of that is apparent fakelore and social-media talklore. All of it is born of ignorance or mischief—leading to the careless defamation of her name, the wanton misappropriation of her legacy, and—in a very real sense—the shameful desecration of her grave.

1. People have long left mementoes at gravesites for various purposes: small stones on a Jewish grave (supposedly originally to keep the soul down), flowers, coins, or other items by people of various beliefs to show remembrance, or a coin left in making a wish, etc. (“Adventures” 2013).

• Adventures in Cemetery Hopping. 2013. Available online at https://adventuresincemeteryhopping.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/weird-things-left-on-graves/; accessed May 13, 2016.
• Cross and Crown. 2006. Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols. Available online at https://cemeteries.wordpress.com/2006/09/01cross-and-crown/; accessed May 10, 2016.
• Elizabeth Budd Wilson Graham. 2016. Available online at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&Grid=10150340; accessed May 12, 2016.
• Hauck, Dennis William. 1996. Haunted Places: The National Directory. New York: Penguin Books.
• Lorentz, Lisa. 2014. Grave Concerns. Available online at http://historicindianapolis.com/friday-favorites-grave-concerns/; accessed May 12, 2016.
• Mohan, Praveen. 2016. Haunted Grave of Bessie the Witch. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmB13oj-A68; accessed May 20, 2016.
• Moore, David Decatur. 1922. Men of the South. New Orleans, LA: Southern Biographical Association.
• Obituary: A Sad Death. 1889. Given in “Elizabeth” 2016.
• Walking Tour of Old City Cemetery. N.D. Brochure of Historic Tallahassee Preservation Board and City of Tallahassee. Copy obtained October 17, 2011.
• Weird U.S. 2016. Available online at http://www.weirdus.com/states/florida/local_legends/tallahassee_witch_grave/; accessed May 5, 2016.

In my column of August 2, 2016, I criticized advertisements offering miracles to cancer patients by City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. With the permission of Skeptical Inquirer, my column was republished a month later at HealthNewsReview.org, a website that offers skeptical analyses of journalism, advertising, marketing, public relations, and other messages that may influence consumers about health care.

HealthNewsReview.org includes “miracle” on its list of seven words that should never be used in medical news stories. On December 27, 2016, it published a review of a City of Hope news release dated December 20, 2016, with the headline “‘Miracle Patient’ Finds New Hope with Breast Cancer Vaccine.” The reviewers gave the news release a one-star rating out of a possible five stars based on scoring “Not Satisfactory” on eight of ten criteria used by HealthNewsReview.org. The reviewers wrote:

Highlighting a single person’s preliminary reaction—she had not yet even completed the treatment—to an experimental drug combination and calling it a miracle creates a false and biased narrative of the true effectiveness of this treatment.

The release noted that in previous patients with different types of cancer, no clinical benefit was seen with the drug combination and in this single case study, researchers weren’t sure what caused the patient’s improvement.

I’m glad to see that the “Miracle Patient” news release does not currently appear in City of Hope’s news release archive.

During 2017, I noticed that City of Hope refrained from miracle mongering in its newspaper advertisements (although it has continued to present its slogan “the MIRACLE of SCIENCE with SOUL” with the City of Hope logo in its advertising).

In 2016, miracle-mongering headlines in City of Hope newspaper advertisements included:

• WHEN IT’S THE FIGHT OF YOUR LIFE, YOU NEED A MIRACLE IN YOUR CORNER
• MIRACLES ARE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
• A MIRACLE SHOULD NOT BE A MATTER OF DISTANCE
• WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER, MIRACLES ARE CLOSE TO HOME
• SCIENCE IS MIRACULOUS
• WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER, YOU WANT A MIRACLE

Throughout 2017, I clipped advertisements from City of Hope in the Los Angeles Times and in my weekly community newspaper. I found no mention of miracles in any of the headlines:

• CANCER IS UNPREDICTABLE. YOU NEED A CANCER CENTER THAT’S SEVERAL STEPS AHEAD
• WE DON’T BELIEVE THE FUTURE CAN WAIT FOR THE FUTURE
• IF YOU HAVE CANCER, WORLD-CLASS CANCER CARE IS A SHORT RIDE AWAY
• WORLD CLASS CANCER CARE RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
• HE TRAINS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM TO SEEK AND DESTROY BRAIN TUMORS
• SHE SEES BREAST CANCER OTHERS CAN’T
• HE PROTECTS THE BRAIN AGAINST THE SPREAD OF CANCER
• A LEADING CANCER TREATMENT CENTER IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
• WE STARTED A BIOTECH REVOLUTION THAT SAVES MILLIONS OF LIFE [sic] A YEAR

In late December 2017, I called the Media Relations department at City of Hope and asked if my column had anything to do with the change I noticed in the newspaper advertising. My call was forwarded to Suzanne in Marketing. I left a message on her voicemail. She didn’t return my call.

In 2016, I noted that City of Hope’s home page indicated:

At City of Hope, we treat you as an individual whose life will be made whole again. We combine science with soul to work miracles.

That last sentence is still part of a recorded voice greeting to callers of the main City of Hope phone number. It also appears on a current link to a YouTube video promotion for City of Hope called “A Place of Miracles.”

The current home page also includes this hype: “We deliver scientific miracles that make lives whole again.”

As I explained in my first column about City of Hope, scientific research and medical advances do not deliver miracles.

On January 19, I sent this message to City of Hope’s Media Relations via email:

I have tried repeatedly to reach you over the phone for weeks, but each time I get an automated greeting. I left at least two messages, but no one has returned my calls. 

I am writing a follow-up to a column I wrote in 2016 about your advertising. The column was reprinted by Health News Review. The reprint notes that I reached out to you for comment, but I got no response.

I would like to include your answers to these questions in my follow-up:

1. I notice that your newspaper advertisements in 2017 did not include the kind of miracle mongering I described in your 2016 newspaper advertisements beyond the inclusion of your slogan, “The Miracle of Science with Soul.” To what extent did my column influence the decision to change the way the advertisements were written?
2. The City of Hope home page includes a link to a video. The link says “WE COMBINE SCIENCE WITH SOUL TO CREATE MIRACLES.” The title of that video on YouTube is: “A Place of Miracles | City of Hope.” Why was there a noticeable omission of such miracle language in newspaper advertisements but not from your online media?
3. Health News Review published a critical review of your press release of December 20, 2016. I can’t find your release anywhere in your archives. Did the critical review lead your office to remove the release from the archives?

Please forward this inquiry to the most appropriate person to answer each question.

Thank you.

I received no response by the morning of January 23,so I called Media Relations again during its normal business hours. Part of the voice greeting mentioned that staff could be paged after normal business hours by pressing O to be connected to the main telephone number for City of Hope. I explained to the operator my lack of success reaching Media Relations and that I was connected to her to page the staff. She explained to me that Media Relations doesn’t have pagers.

I wonder whether Media Relations is still operating at City of Hope. Its last press release as of January 23, 2018, was on December 17, 2018.

Bottom Line

City of Hope seems to have refrained from miracle mongering in its newspaper ads during 2017. I’d like to think that my previous writing had something to do with the change, but I was unable to get confirmation. I also don’t know why City of Hope’s miracle mongering press release of December 20, 2016, doesn’t appear in its archives. But I do know that City of Hope has continued to promote itself as a place of miracles.

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Welcome to a new year! And like most things you get for Christmas, it’s a book—or at least a book list of reading suggestions of works that you hoped were out there or seeking out during the final holiday sales.

2018 is now underway, and if you’re still struggling with the unscientifically supported notion that you’ll be better at expanding your reading habits because you promised you would on the first day of the year, the following are exactly the kind of things that an administration might frown upon if they’re worried about improving critical thinking and encouraging debate (which makes them even more appealing).

If you’re interested in reading further, there will be monthly discussion notes on the Token Skeptic blog. Here’s my recommendations to start off:

FEBRUARY – How To Be Reasonable: By Someone Who Tried Everything Else by Rebecca Fox.

A gentle start to a new month with a short book but a great one; a graphic novel that explores the basics of reasonable thinking. Rebecca Fox decided to investigate what is involved with being a more skepticallyminded person, and with a background in literature and skills in illustration and graphic design, she delved into her own experiences in philosophical reasoning to self-produce this guide.

It’s since been picked up by Hypatia Press for a new edition (allowing for wider distribution), with even more footnotes and suggestions for the not-wanting-to-be-so-irrational out there. Which is pretty much everybody. How To Be Reasonable: By Someone Who Tried Everything Else is an excellent start for a book club or a gift to younger readers, and it actively encourages other artists to bring together the powers of science, critical thinking, and design with its example.

MARCH - The Woman Who Fooled the World - Belle Gibson's Cancer Con by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano.

This came out at the end of 2017 and is beginning to be published (and noticed) beyond Australian shores. A mesmerizing read even if you’re not familiar with the story of the polished, convincing beauty that was Belle Gibson on social media, during the time she convinced everyone she was a “wellness warrior” who cured her own terminal brain cancer with lifestyle choices that were conveniently published and turned into a best-selling app.

At the age of 23, Gibson claimed many strange things about healthy living during her rise to fame, and Donelly and Toscano take a sympathetic but no-stone-unturned approach to not only the strategies she adopted to convince the world of her situation but also the history of what happened to the wellness industry since its humble beginnings. This is also great as a gift to anyone who might need a thought-provoking prod toward questioning the likes of Goop and all of those alluring supplements and lifestyle gurus who appear on social media.

APRIL – Sex, Lies and Statistics by Dr Brooke Magnanti.

This is one for anybody who has wondered if there is any skeptical take on relationships, sex myths, and the intersection of the body and politics—finally, there is! If you’re interested in issues involving sex and the media, popular culture and erotica, the legalisation of sex work, or even just secretly curious and want to get your hands on the facts rather than the scare quotes, this is an excellent addition to your library.

The original print was published as The Sex Myth, but this updated edition includes even more details, with a strong helping of statistical evidence and a witty, conversational style. With the reprint, it’s available through even more distributors and should be cited by anyone interested in challenging some of the more puritanical political efforts in the mainstream.

MAY – How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life by Massimo Pigliucci.

Perhaps it’s the hedonist in me, but I initially hesitated before seeking this book out and was very pleasantly surprised by the end. Stoicism comes from an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium, where its followers see virtue based on knowledge and hold an indifference to pleasure and pain. While the world is unpredictable and life is short, self-control and focusing on logic and overcoming emotional turmoil allows one to live with restraint, humility, and compassion. Pigliucci’s book is a journey with one of the famous Stoics, Epictetus; a conversation on the disciplines of desire, action, and assent; and works through the virtues with use of both Ancient Greek and modern accounts of how the philosophical attitudes are relevant and useful.

It’s a lively investigation, unpacking the early philosophers’ ideas and in many ways reminded me of the psychological locus of control notion of self-monitoring and awareness, rather than allowing oneself to be manipulated and distressed. The conclusion of the book involves exercises to help you master the Stoic virtues — Speak without Judging and Remind Yourself of the Impermanence of Things, for example.

JUNE – All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Editor of science fiction, fantasy, tech, and geek culture blog IO9, Charlie Jane Anders will be releasing a new book soon, so I recommend checking out this earlier work, All the Birds in the Sky.

Bringing together science and magic, the adventures of Patricia and Laurence are surprisingly poignant in parts, as they discover their respective skills in witchcraft and time travel. With the looming threat of a global catastrophe, they work together to save the world. It’s occasionally bizarre (particularly the assassins), it’s occasionally tense, and altogether a quirky and enjoyable read.

JULY - Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds by Cordelia Fine

As broadcaster and particle physicist Brian Cox says, science books are “more valuable than ever in today’s so-called post-factual world.” This was the Royal Society’s Science Book of 2017, and if you’ve ever been infuriated with people who cite the “men are from Mars …” claims, this is the book to throw at them.

You can see the thread that leads from Fine’s earlier works, A Mind of Its Own and Delusions of Gender that has led to this new work, and while investigating claims of culture and science, builds a cracking challenge to the fashion of thinking that it’s all about the hormones. The influence that gender perspectives has on public debate and stereotyping needs a shake up and Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds is an excellent work to review and enjoy, and as the conclusion suggests—even take action over.

This article is the first of five chronicling the adventures of my month long European About Time Tour. This tour was funded by individual skeptical organizations and by private donations. This first leg of the journey was through Scandinavia; along with me was psychic expert and mentalist Mark Edward. We had very limited time in the area, only five days. We also had jet lag from California to deal with.

About Time Tour – Lecture One – Oslo, Norway

Norway is commonly known as being a very secular country, but what you might not realize is that the government supports churches financially by taxing everyone, and you can’t opt out. The government sets a budget each year, determining how much money the public churches need. This money is given out to the churches based on their membership numbers. There is a secular option: a humanist group called Human-etisk Forbund (The Norwegian Humanist Association), which I’m told has the largest membership in the world, with over 90,000 members. The Norwegian government gives the Humanists the same amount per person that they give each church. Recently this amounted to about 1,000 NOK, which is equivalent to $126 per person. I asked and was surprised to hear that there isn’t a rivalry between churches and the humanists. I would think that there would be an attempt to compete to gain membership because of the money involved. But I guess I’m thinking like an American.

There has been an effort to get Pastafarianism (The Flying Spaghetti Monster) recognized as a church, but that was not successful. The Humanist Association was founded in the 1960s and was originally called the Human Ethical Society. Its goal focused on ethics and critical thinking. Culturally, when a child reaches fifteen years old, they are Confirmed. Many of these ceremonies still happen in the traditional churches, but a growing movement is looking for secular alternatives. About 30 percent of teenagers are being confirmed via the Humanist Society. I asked why in a society that is becoming less and less religious, such as Norway, would a teenager care to be confirmed at all. I was told that there is pressure from the older generations, plus the parties are a lot of fun and the teen receives presents and money.

Here is a brief history of the Norwegian skeptic organization Skepsis. The Norwegian skeptics formed in about 1989 as a way of both academically and informally releasing news about topics concerning skepticism. It was associated with CSICOP at the beginning. There seems to have been a wave of motivation in the group with activities dying out in the early to mid-1990s with just one person, Asbjørn Dyrendal, continuing the forum website and writing articles. I’m told he is prolific and the backbone of the organization, keeping it from disappearing during this time.

In October 2009, The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) organized an Amaz!ng Meeting in London. About twenty Norwegian skeptics attended TAM London and left energized and inspired. The energy continued as a group of Norwegians attended TAM in Las Vegas in 2011 (TAM 9 From Outer Space).

As a result of this renewed interest in organized Norwegian skepticism, two conferences, Kritisk Mass (Critical Mass) were held. The first was in October 2010 and had about 200 attendees. It included English lectures by Simon Singh (“Trick or Treatment?”) and Rebecca Watson (“Why Chicks Matter”), and appearances by more than fourteen other speakers. A second conference was held in February 2012 with over nineteen speakers, including an English lecture by Richard Wiseman. About 130 attended this event.

Also, during the years following TAM London, in 2011 an online campaign was released called Ingen liker å bli lurt (“No One Likes to Be Fooled”), organized by the Norwegian Humanist Association. James Randi visited three Norwegian cities to kick it off, and the campaign led to a lot of debate in the media. They still exist as a website and Facebook group with over 22,000 likes. Around this time, the Norwegian public broadcasting channel also commissioned a TV show called Folkeopplysningen (“Public Enlightenment”) with a clear skeptical bent, which also gave skeptical issues a lot of traction and attention.

In 2010 the Saltklypa podcast (A Grain of Salt) was launched and continues today, biweekly, with about 3,000 downloads per episode. Mark Edward and I were interviewed on Episode #150. The members of Saltklypa are Bendik Simonsen, Kristin Charlotte Carlsson, Jørgen Tinglum Bøckman, Leisha Camden, and Marit Simonsen. Two of the original members have left to pursue other projects, Andreas Wahl as a TV presenter for Folkeopplysningen, and Gunnar Tjomlid to write two books, write a blog, and debate in the media.

By 2014 the organizers of the organization were overwhelmed; the fire had died down and they realized that they were trying to grow too quickly and do too much. In other words, they were burned out. They did continue with meetups, articles, and social media posts, and in 2016 it was announced that Skepsis had elected a new board of four people to try and “assemble the pieces”; that seems to be where they are now. After this, the organization has had a larger focus on a social media presence and are again gaining visibility.

Mark and I presented at a Skeptics in the Pub event on September 15, 2017. It was our first stop on this tour, and we were not sure what to expect. Would our message of activism be something the group wanted to hear? Would there be a language barrier? Would people come out to listen? Mark started off warming the audience up with mentalism then briefly explained his work exposing the psychic trade. In 2015 Mark had been hired to shoot a skeptical show that is extremely popular in Norway called Public Information, which is now in Season 4. Mark had done a cold-reading segment for the show with a reveal to the audience at the end. The segment on psychics was in response to the Princess of Norway’s public support of psychics and supposed communications with angels.

After Mark’s mentalism and mini-lecture, I gave my pitch for editors to train for the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project. We had thirty-three people attend and zero problem with communication; everyone spoke wonderful English. I had one person join GSoW to train as a Norwegian editor (thank you, Carina). I still found it a rewarding experience as I was able to sit and talk with some of the skeptics and learn what they think about their community and the problems faced by Norway concerning scientific skepticism.

American psychic Lisa Williams was very popular a few years ago because of the Norwegian princess’s support; one skeptic told me that people normally give the Princess a pass because she is “really nice and pretty” and it’s “just angels.”

One active member of Skepsis told me that one of the challenges of the group was to keep people interested and grow the group. I talked to another man who was attending the Skeptic in the Pub event who told me that this was his first time attending a skeptic talk; he had “stumbled across the lecture” and had only recently discovered the skeptic community after watching James Randi’s documentary An Honest Liar. Since discovering the community, he finds that listening to podcasts, which he calls the “new radio,” is how he continues learning. His favorite skeptic podcast is Skeptoid.

Marit Simonsen interviewed Mark and me for the Saltklypa podcast and told us that she was first involved in the Humanist Association in the youth division. She said that Randi came to Norway for a three-city tour that filled up immediately. One thousand seats were filled at each venue with a line around the block; they had to turn people away. She said that in general Norway isn’t fighting against anything specifically; alternative medicine is at the top of the list of problems because average people use it as if it is normal. It’s difficult to outrage people in the skeptic community, Marit told me, because “everything is pretty good.” Government and health care aren’t things people worry about.

Stockholm and Malmö, Sweden – Lectures Two and Four – VoF

The second and fourth lectures Mark Edward and I did for the About Time Tour were for the Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning group, better known as VoF. The headquarters is in Stockholm, Sweden, which is where we spoke on September 17, and then we traveled to the Southern branch in Malmö on September 19.

VoF was founded in 1982 with a connection to CSICOP; the current chair is Peter Olausson, and it has eleven other board members. Board member Adrian Lozano was our host and tour guide while we were in Stockholm, and European Skeptic podcaster and board member Pontus Böckman was our host in Malmö. VoF publishes a quarterly journal called Folkvett and maintains a website with many articles of interest to Swedish skeptics. In 2013, VoF hosted the 15th European Skeptic Congress in Stockholm. Generally, VoF organizes monthly lectures and does community outreach with the media. The VoF Facebook page has over 31K followers.

One way they have found to interest the media is through two awards they give out each year, Enlightener of the Year and Misleader of the Year. The most famous VoF member, astronaut Christer Fuglesang, drew five big newspapers to cover the 10:23 homeopathy overdose campaign he participated in. While aboard the International Space Station he wore a VoF t-shirt on camera.

Religion is uncommon in Sweden; it is generally assumed that people you meet are atheists. I’m told that the churches in town are historical and are mainly used for weddings and funerals; some have services, but they have small attendances. In fact, one morning I stopped at a store and was chatting with the employees and asked if there was a good breakfast restaurant nearby, someplace where the church crowd gathered at before or after services. The two employees looked at each other puzzled, then I realized what I had said. That was such an American thing to assume that people attend church and socialize before or after. We all laughed when I realized my mistake.

Mark and I noticed that like Norway, Sweden does not seem to have the obvious pseudoscience businesses we would see in America. We would later discover this was true in Denmark as well. We did find one acupuncturist but nothing else—no psychics or healers that we noticed. However, I was told that on TV there are a lot of commercials that push new age topics and psychics. As religion is leaving people’s social and work lives, new age beliefs are taking over. Pontus Böckman told me that he has seen a rise in the alternative medicine popularity. Anti-vaccine and colloidal silver is becoming popular.

Mark and I did our lectures in Stockholm and Malmö. One thing I did discover in Sweden with the skeptic community is that they love to put anything on pizza. Anything and everything as a pizza topping is common.

Copenhagen, Denmark – Lecture Three

Things I learned in Denmark: 80 percent of the population are members of the Lutheran State Church, but only 2 percent attend church; most people are atheists. In a country where discussion of nearly everything is appropriate, it would be entirely inappropriate for a politician to mention a god belief. Less than 1 percent of taxes go to the church, yet there are a lot of churches, most built in the thirteenth century. We found two Scientology buildings, both in very excellent locations, yet only a few people were inside.

The Danish skeptics call themselves “The Network of Independent Danish Skeptics,” which started in the 1980s. They produce articles and maintain a website but are very inactive outside of that. Their website has over 700 articles on various topics, which are often used by journalists when they need to know more about the paranormal.

Our guide and host was Claus Larson, who along with Steen Svanholm maintains a website devoted to conspiracy theories. They have completed over 100 investigations and attend lectures, network around the world, and give community lectures. Claus is also the editor of the Skeptic Report project. This is an English website with hundreds of articles on many different pseudoscience topics.

Mark and I were taken on a whirl-wind tour of Copenhagen over two days; Claus made sure we hit all the highlights. We toured the Rundetaarn (The Round Tower), which contains a planetarium built in 1697; Ørstedsparken park, which was named after three men all with the last name Ørsted, one of whom was physicist Hans Christian Ørsted. We also visited Rosenborg Castle, which was built in 1606 by Christian IV. We visited several special skeptic-related places, including the church where James Randi’s grandfather was baptized in 1876, as well as the building his great-grandfather lived in.

Our lecture was held in a beer tavern and about twenty people attended. I gained one new editor, Johan. Mark and I did have some great conversations with Claus about activism. His recommendation is that we should organize in small groups, tackling a specific problem with clear goals, deadlines, and a plan. This seems like common sense, but in the greater skeptic community I’ve seen little planning and execution. Groups form with a “we should do something” attitude, but the goals are usually too broad and unfocused to be attained. Volunteers become frustrated, leaders burn out, and it results in a wasted effort. 

In conclusion

After four lectures and many hours of quality time with the local skeptics, and as an outsider, these are my observations and recommendations. As Mark and I walked the streets in Scandinavia, we didn’t see the normal pseudoscience we would expect to find in America. No psychic shops, detox centers, oxygen bars, or posters advertising a chemtrail summit. I’m sure a support of the paranormal and quackery exists; it just wasn’t obvious.

All three skeptic groups participated in the April 2017 March for Science event. It is not clear what Oslo’s attendance numbers were; Tromsø, Norway, with a population of 65,000 people, reported about 200 for the march. Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, which is located in the Arctic Circle, had forty scientists pose in front of a statue of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. Stockholm had 2,500; Gothenburg, Sweden, had 315. Copenhagen had 5,000.

The Scandinavian skeptics are doing things the right way by keeping up the social aspects and monthly lectures and by publishing academic-level works. Websites are regularly updated. They aren’t an activist lot, probably because they don’t seem to have a strong adversary. The attitude is more of a “live and let live” one with no one really caring about other people’s beliefs. Of concern is what I heard from most people that they were seeing new age and alt-med starting to creep into the society with anti-vax and conspiracy theories being the most common.

My sense with the Scandinavian skeptic community is that they will be fine; I met many talented and scientifically passionate people on this visit. Their organizations are growing in memberships.

My hope is that the Scandinavian skeptic community will organize a regional conference yearly, moving from place to place like the New Zealand and Australian skeptics do. They would build a community between the different Scandinavian organizations by sharing lecturers and strategies. Maybe Iceland and Finland could be included as well. I think this would help to grow the skeptic community faster and bring attention to their local talent.

Also, the countries are close enough together that with some organization they can have a shared speaker from outside Scandinavia who is traveling near the area and maybe pull in someone who will be speaking at a European conference who would be happy to detour to Scandinavia for a few days. What I’m suggesting is an organized speaker circuit with planned hotel and lecture locations. A committee of people, one from each organization, could manage it with some initial work at the beginning; eventually, with a routine, it would be easier to manage.

My next article will be all about the 17th European Skeptics Congress held in Wrocław, Poland.

I recently watched a livestream video of a panel discussion entitled “What Happened to the Public Intellectual?”. Although the panelists were all very smart, I came away thinking this was another vapid topic such as those referred to in the Simon and Garfunkel song “The Dangling Conversation,” Paul Simon’s portrait of a faded marriage.

Yes, we speak of things that matter

With words that must be said

“Can analysis be worthwhile?”

“Is the theater really dead?”

The panel discussion might have been more interesting and timely if it had not chosen such a narrow and celebrity-oriented topic—a mistake not made by Tom Nichols, author of the recent book The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters (Nichols 2017b).¹

The problem isn’t merely that public intellectuals are disappearing. We could (and can) live with that. Much more worrying is the growing view that expert knowledge in general is of little value and has no role in our democracy. If you need evidence that expertise is falling out of favor, consider the following examples:

• Voters recently elected a real estate developer with no prior government experience as president of the United States. He campaigned against “elites” and repeatedly claimed “Only I can fix it” (Jackson 2016).

• The new president went on to appoint a number of people to high positions in the administration who had little or no experience relevant their posts. The Secretary of State is the former CEO of a large oil corporation, and the highest science position in the Department of Agriculture was awarded to a former conservative radio talk-show host with no science degrees—unless you count a BA in political science (Nichols 2017a).

• Many parents, often from affluent areas, reject the Centers for Disease Control recommendations for child immunizations. In 2016, 26 percent of school children were not vaccinated in Ashland, Oregon, because their parents claimed a non-medical exemption (“Ashland Oregon Vaccine Statistics” 2017), and this past summer, Minnesota experienced the “worst measles outbreak in decades” (Sun 2017).

• Since the 1990s, faith in many established institutions has been very low. According to Gallup, faith in the medical system, which 74 percent of Americans rated “great deal/quite a lot” in 1977, has hovered between 35 and 40 percent in recent years. Similarly, faith in television news, which was in the mid-30 percent level through the 1990s and the early 2000s, has dropped to the low 20s, briefly hitting 18 percent in 2014 (Gallup N.d.).

• Scientists in particular get little respect these days. A 2015 Pew Research Center poll of U.S. adults and of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) found wide gaps in the opinions of these two groups. For example, there was a jaw-dropping 51 percent difference in the views of American adults and AAAS members on the safety of genetically modified foods (GMOs), with 89 percent of AAAS members indicating that GMOs were safe. Similarly, the Pew study found that 87 percent of scientists agreed with the statement, “Climate change is mostly due to human activity,” compared with only 50 percent of U.S. adults (Funk and Rainie 2015). Another Pew poll released in October 2016 found that only 15 percent of conservative Republicans and 39 percent of Americans overall believed climate scientists could be trusted “a lot” to give accurate information about the causes of climate change (Funk and Kennedy 2016).

Critical thinking involves questioning authority, but when it comes to many important decisions, do we really want to go it alone? I don’t know about you, but I like knowing that my gastroenterologist has advanced degrees and lots of experience. I’d rather not have to ask my neighbor to perform my colonoscopy. In addition, although it is clearly out of fashion with many Americans, I’d prefer that the people in my government have expertise in their fields.

How did this fervor of anti-intellectualism come about? In his clearly written and well-reasoned book, Nichols points to three primary culprits: higher education, the Internet, and journalism.

Nichol’s critique of higher education hits some familiar notes: the popularity of safe spaces—he believes college should not be a safe space when it comes to ideas and speech—the prevailing attitude that feelings are more important than thought, and the paradox of students turning the tables on their professors, often schooling their elders. An example of this last phenomenon occurred in 2016 when a group of students at Yale petitioned the English Department to eliminate its Major English Poets class because it involved too many white European males. Nichols takes the story from here:

“We have spoken,” they said in the petition. “We are speaking. Pay attention.” As a professor in an elite school once said to me, “Some days, I feel less like a teacher and more like a clerk at an expensive boutique.” (Nichols 2017b, 82)

But Nichols also cites some problems that have been given less attention lately, including grade inflation and the view that everyone is entitled to and capable of a college education. At the root of many of these problems is a commodification of higher education, with colleges engaged in expensive marketing campaigns to compete for the government-guaranteed loan money that fuels the whole machine. “Each spring and summer, the highways fill with children and their parents on road trips to visit schools not to which they have been accepted but to which they are considering applying” (Nichols 2017b, 79). In order to keep the clients happy, schools are focused on protecting students’ feelings and making college a good experience at the expense of rigor and critical thinking.

In his attack on the Internet, Nichols cites Sturgeon’s Law, introduced by science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, who was stung by literary critics who said most of the sci-fi they encountered was of poor quality. Sturgeon replied, “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”

Sturgeon’s Law certainly applies to the Internet. Indeed, Nichols suggests 90 percent may be lowballing the level of crap. The Internet offers tremendous convenience, but the sheer volume of data makes it much harder for non-experts to find the non-crap. Professionals who are well trained in their fields benefit from the convenience of not having to schlep to the library to do research, but average users—your everyday Googlers—are generally unable to judge the quality of the information they uncover. So the Internet gives the appearance of being a great democratizing force, and people who fall under its sway soon think they are experts because they found a great article on Wikipedia. Worse yet, Nichols suggests there’s a special strain of Internet Dunning-Kruger effect, in which “the least competent people surfing the web are the least likely to realize that they are learning nothing” (119). The illusion of Internet-derived knowledge is no substitution for information literacy and the hard-fought credentials of scholars and scientists.

Nichols also points out that the Internet has made us meaner. The lack of social connection combined with instantaneous communication leads people to dig in and defend their preconceived notions rather than listen to different viewpoints. Email and social media posts—to say nothing of the comments—are not the best media for increasing understanding.

Finally, Nichols turns to journalism for a particularly harsh indictment. Many people praise the explosion of news sources we have at our disposal today. More is better, right? Unfortunately, no. Once again, Sturgeon’s Law applies. In particular, the development of a huge market for news-as-entertainment has created a decades-long attack on established knowledge. Nichols begins his account with the early expansion of AM talk radio and in particular the success of Rush Limbaugh in the 1980s. Limbaugh provided a rougher alternative to the eggheads on the Sunday morning television political shows, and by taking callers, adding lots of humor, and staying on the air for three hours a day he was able to build an enormous following. Throughout his career Limbaugh has slammed established knowledge, and in 2011 he called the government, academia, science, and the media the “four corners of deceit” (Nichols 2017b, 148).

As one might expect, Nichols also faults twenty-four–hour cable news. With many hours of airtime to fill, CNN and the networks that followed it resorted to filling the time with editorial programing and pundit debates. He credits Roger Ailes of Fox News with taking news-as-entertainment concept to its logical conclusion, but CNN and MSNBC engage in the same kind of political sporting contests. Nichols points out that all three of these networks have fine news operations, but they frequently blur the line between hard news and opinion. Furthermore, when partisan commentary is presented on a news station, it has the effect of diluting the information value and authority of the network. Every news story—left or right—can be challenged on the basis that it comes from a source with an agenda. Entertainment news brings in ratings and advertising dollars, but it substantially diminishes the authority of the source and does nothing to increase public understanding.

Near the end of The Death of Expertise, Nichols deals with the problem of experts who make mistakes. It happens. The introduction of “New Coke” is a classic case of misjudging public opinion, and more recently the poling oracle Nate Silver failed to predict Donald Trump’s success in the 2016 election. But expert opinion is still better than the alternative. So how do we improve the relationship between experts and the public?

This is where Nichols gets to the crux of the matter and where I wish he had more to say. Nichols readily admits he is rather pessimistic about the prospects of restoring experts to a more appropriate level of respect and authority, but he points to two things that would help. First, experts need to continue to speak out. Echoing the conclusions drawn in the panel discussion on public intellectuals I watched, he argues that experts must continue to translate their work for the general public. It is not good enough to leave the job to journalists who have various agendas and may or may not provide a good translation of the experts’ findings. Many academics and other experts are uncomfortable being in front of the public and are likely to be attacked by their peers of being mere “popularizers.” But Nichols urges academics and other experts to present their material to the general public whenever possible. Second, Nichols places much of the responsibility for improvement on the public. He seems to be hoping for a kind of attitude adjustment in which the citizenry finds the sweet spot between healthy skepticism and reverential respect. It is not entirely clear how we can bring this adjustment about, but it is likely such a change would help.

The Final Word

I strongly recommend The Death of Expertise. One of the best things about the book is its apolitical stance. Nichols describes himself as a conservative, and I describe myself as a liberal. Nonetheless, I found very little to quibble with in this book. We are both largely on the same page. Nichols is probably harder on higher education than I would be. I detect a little distain for those who did not attend high-status name-brand universities (disclosure: he did, and I didn’t), and he is not as supportive of free or reasonably priced college as I am. But I think he is absolutely correct about the pernicious effect of high-cost education and student loans on the commodification of college.

As the list of examples above suggests, rationality and established knowledge are on the decline in the American political and social landscape. We can hope, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicted in February of 2017, that the pendulum will swing back in the other direction (Phillips 2017). But in the meantime, there is much work to be done by educators, experts, and all of us who value a society based in science, reason, and incremental knowledge, and the stakes are very high. The forces of unreason are gaining power, and their ability to damage us all has increased. Let us hope that we can avoid the worst consequences of the glorification of ignorance before the pendulum turns back toward reason.

• Disclosure: Nichols’s book and two of mine were produced by the same publisher.

• Ashland Oregon Vaccine Statistics. 2017. AshlandChild. Available online at http://www.ashlandchild.org/vaccine-info/ashland-stats/.
• Funk, Cary, and Brian Kennedy. 2016. The politics of climate. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech (October 4). Available online at http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/.
• Funk, C., and L. Rainie. 2015. Public and scientists’ views on science and society. Pew Research Center (January 29). Available online at http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/.
• Gallup, Inc. N.d. Confidence in institutions. Gallup.com. Available online at http://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx.
• Jackson, D. 2016. Donald Trump accepts GOP nomination, says ‘I alone can fix’ system. USA Today (July 22). Available online at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/07/21/donald-trump-republican-convention-acceptance-speech/87385658/.
• Nichols, T. 2017a. How we killed expertise. Politico Magazine (September/October). Available online at http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/how-we-killed-expertise-215531.
• ———. 2017b. The Death of Expertise. The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Phillips, Kristine. 2017. Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Trump’s presidency: ‘We are not experiencing the best of times.’ The Washington Post (February 24). Available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/24/ruth-bader-ginsburg-on-trumps-presidency-we-are-not-experiencing-the-best-of-times/?utm_term=.4745c606845c.
• Sun, Lena H. 2017. Despite measles outbreak, anti-vaccine activists in Minnesota refuse to back down. The Washington Post (August 21). Available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/despite-measles-outbreak-anti-vaccine-activists-in-minnesota-refuse-to-back-down/2017/08/21/886cca3e-820a-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html.

To be elected into a group that includes (or has included) such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Francis Crick, Jill Tarter, Eugenie Scott, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan, and Carl Sagan is no small accomplishment, and six new scientists, scholars, and communicators have been elected to do just that. Six new fellows have been elected to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a program of the Center for Inquiry.

CSI fellows are elected for their distinguished service to science and skepticism, serving as advisors to CSI and its magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, and are invited to share their expertise and advice on the program’s issues and projects. Fellows are nominated and elected by CSI’s twelve-member Executive Council, and elections take place every several years.

This latest class of Fellows, elected at the end of 2017, are ready to be announced, and they include a mentalist, an expert on mass delusions, a “guerilla skeptic,” a GMO scientist, the editor of a UK skeptics’ magazine, and one of the world’s most respected climate scientists:

• Banachek (aka Steve Shaw), a professional magician and mentalist who has collaborated with James Randi, Criss Angel, and Penn and Teller, has performed on over 225 TV episodes and over 300 radio programs. He directed the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Million Dollar Challenge, has been the International Magicians Society Mentalist of the year and twice been APCA College Entertainer of the year.
• Robert Bartholomew, introduced to Cause & Effect readers in December, is a sociologist and investigative journalist, currently teaching history at Botany College in Auckland, New Zealand. He has earned the respect of the skeptic community through his sociological studies on mass hysteria, moral panics, social delusions, folklore, and the paranormal. He is the author of many books, including American Hauntings: True Stories Behind Hollywood’s Scariest Movies (2015, with CSI’s Joe Nickell), Mass Hysteria in Schools: A Worldwide History Since 1566 (2014), The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes (2012, with CSI’s Benjamin Radford), and the forthcoming American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants (2018), among many others.
• Kevin Folta is professor and chairman of the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida, is a leading voice for the evidence-based risks and benefits of genetic engineering in crops and medicine, and a defender against misinformation in food, farming, and other areas of science. He led the project to sequence the strawberry genome; trains scientists, students, farmers, and others in science communication; and hosts the evidence-based podcast Talking Biotech.
• Susan Gerbic is founder and leader of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project (as well as the most comprehensive interviewer of CSICon speakers). The GSoW project has made a major contribution to the skeptic movement by ensuring that skepticism-related Wikipedia articles on topics, claims, and individual scientists/skeptics are accurate, thorough, and well cited. She has recruited and trained a large international group of Wikipedia editors knowledgeable about scientific skepticism and skeptical topics. She is also cofounder of Monterey County Skeptics and a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer.
• Deborah Hyde is a folklorist, cultural anthropologist, and editor in chief of the UK-based magazine The Skeptic. She writes and lectures extensively about superstition, cryptozoology, religion, and belief in the paranormal with special regard to the folklore, psychology, and sociology behind these phenomena. She introduced the Ockham Awards to reward successful skeptical activism and recently added the “Rusty Razor” award for the worst bit of pseudoscience of the year (won by Goop, of course). These awards have become a standard part of the QED annual conference in Manchester, U.K., and attract a great deal of media attention.
• Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Earth Systems Sciences Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He is likely best known for introducing the visual conceptualization of the progress of climate change with the famous “hockey stick” chart, for which he has become a prime target of science deniers. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, as well as author of three books: The Madhouse Effect (2016, with cartoonist Tom Toles), The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (2012), and Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming (2008). He has been a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments of climate science. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Congratulations and welcome to our new fellows! The full list of CSI fellows can be found on the inside cover of each issue of Skeptical Inquirer and on the CSI website.

Copper bracelets

Copper bracelets have been used for centuries in folk medicine. They allegedly reduce the joint pain and stiffness associated with arthritis, and wearing copper on the wrist supposedly benefits all joints in the body. There are claims that copper has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The copper from the bracelets is said to be absorbed through the skin through a process called transdermal micronutrition.

Science doesn’t support those claims. There is no evidence that copper can be absorbed through the skin in more than trace amounts. If it were well absorbed, it might cause copper poisoning. There is no good evidence that copper bracelets reduce pain or inflammation; in fact, there is fairly good evidence that they have no clinical effects. Any perceived improvement is due to the placebo effect, not the copper.

Some copper bracelets are also magnetic; apparently two placebos are better than one! Prices range from around $10 to over $500. Several websites recommend them because even though they’re not evidence based, they are harmless and might help patients through suggestion.

Other health considerations

We can’t live without copper. It is an essential trace nutrient. It is found in a respiratory enzyme complex common to all plants and animals. It is a component of human liver, muscle, and bone. People normally get the trace amounts of copper they need from their food. Foods that are high in copper include liver, shellfish, whole grains, beans, nuts, potatoes, leafy greens, dried fruits, cocoa, black pepper, and yeast. Some water supplies have high levels of copper that can add up to 45 percent more copper than is obtained through diet. There is copper in tobacco smoke; it is absorbed into the body but doesn’t appear to cause any adverse health effects.

Medical News Today reported that a preliminary study indicated that a new copper molecule showed promise in halting cancer spread and that another study showed that copper surfaces destroy norovirus. But yet another study suggested that copper in the diet was linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Copper deficiency is rare, usually related to gastrointestinal surgery such as gastric bypass. Acute copper toxicity can cause symptoms such as vomiting and jaundice; long-term exposure can cause liver or kidney damage. There is a hereditary condition, Wilson’s disease, where the body retains copper. Patients can develop liver disease and neuropsychiatric symptoms, and they often have a characteristic brown ring around the cornea known as a Kaiser-Fleischer ring.

So copper is good for most people most of the time. But alarmist warnings about copper have been circulating recently in the media, centered around Moscow Mules, a popular drink made with ginger beer, vodka, and lime juice and traditionally served in a copper mug.

Moscow mules

Copper has long been used in cookware. It is generally safe, although there are warnings about not cooking or storing highly acidic foods in copper vessels for long periods. Since there is acidic lime juice in Moscow mules, they have come under suspicion. Fox news warns, “The iconic Moscow mule copper mug may be poisoning drinkers.” They report that the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division says it could result in food poisoning or copper poisoning, which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and jaundice. They recommend only using copper mugs that are lined with another metal such as stainless steel or nickel. The Hill repeated the same warnings. CBS News also repeated the same warnings. Even the LA Times chimed in, with the headline “Moscow mule warning: Copper mugs might be toxic.”

These concerns are nothing new. Since 1997, the FDA code has prohibited food or drink with pH levels of below 6 coming in contact with copper at licensed premises such as bars or restaurants. Exposure to either copper containers or copper plumbing could conceivably cause problems.

Snopes evaluated the media warnings and consulted experts at the CDC and rated the claim as “a mixture” of true and false. They pointed out that the rate at which copper leaches into drinks of various acidity is undetermined. It’s far from clear how long a cocktail would have to sit in a copper mug or how many Moscow mules a person would have to drink to experience problems. They quoted one expert who said, “Long before you reach the highest levels [of copper in a beverage], the drink gets a metallic taste, so this is really a warning that there’s too much copper in the drink.

Not to Worry

Finally, HuffPost chimed in with an article titled “Chemist Debunks That Nasty Rumor About Moscow Mule Mugs Being Poisonous.”

Trisha Andrew, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, characterized the press warnings as “chemophobic fear-mongering.” Copper does leach from the container into the drink, but based on what we know about dissolution rates, you would have to let the copper mug sit in straight lime juice for a few hours before you can even start to begin to worry about copper poisoning. Even drinking a liter of Moscow mules from pure copper mugs would not come close to the 30 mg per liter concentration that has been noticed to cause nausea in a small population of test subjects. She concludes, “Now, go ahead and enjoy yourself another round of Moscow mules. You deserve it after all this copper poisoning anxiety.”

Take-Home Lessons

• The poison is in the dose. Our bodies can handle small amounts of most poisons.
• Copper is good for you in small amounts but bad for you in large amounts. (Which is true of a great many things, even water.)
• Beware of chemophobia.
• You can’t believe everything you read in the news. (You already knew that.)
• Remember my SkepDoc’s Rule: before you believe a claim, try to find out who disagrees with it and why.

Grant Ritchey is a skeptical dentist. It doesn’t mean he’s skeptical of dentistry; but he will push back against tooth-fairy pseudoscience!

Jonathan Jarry from the McGill Office for Science and Society conducted mini-interviews with many of the speakers of CSICon 2017, a conference dedicated to science and skepticism.

Want to see more from CSICon? Check out all the speakers at Reasonable Talk!

This article is the second of five articles, chronicling the adventures of my month long European About Time Tour. This tour was funded by the individual skeptical organizations and by private donations. This second leg of the journey was in Prague, the Czech Republic, and Wrocław, Poland; along with me was psychic expert and mentalist Mark Edward. We had very limited time in the area; only five days.

Mark Edward and I arrived in Prague at 8 a.m.;, we were exhausted. What a beautiful city with a rich history that we saw only a fragment of; I’m going to have to go back. Sleep won out, plus I had booked a hotel room with a washing machine, another necessity of travel. Our host, Claire Klingenberg from the Czech skeptics, Sisyfos (Český klub skeptiků Sisyfos), arranged for the attendees to attend a Skeptics in the Pub event at the oldest restaurant in Prague, Restaurace U Fleku, founded in 1466. There we met new friends and reunited with old friends such as Australian Skeptics President Eran Segev, U.K. Skeptic magazine editor Deborah Hyde, Massimo Polidoro, and of course The Amaz!ng Randi, who as always is the treat of every event.

Thursday morning, we brought our luggage and ourselves to the Club Sisyfos “Skepticism for Breakfast” event. There we met with more conference speakers: Diego Fontanive, Jakub Kroulik, András Gábor Pintér, Amardeo Sarma, Petr Jan Vinš, and Gerald Ostdiek as well as conference attendees. About thirty of us boarded a bus that took us through the beautiful countryside of the Czech Republic into our destination in Wrocław, Poland.

The goal was to attend the seventeenth European Skeptics Congress (ESC) organized by Klub Sceptyków Polskich (Polish Skeptics Club) and Český klub skeptiků Sisyfos (Czech Skeptic’s Club). The ESC has been held every two years since 1989, each time hosted by a different member of the European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO). CSICOP was actively involved in the formation of the ECSO in 1994. The president of ECSO at the beginning of this conference was Hungarian Skeptic Society President Gábor Hraskó.

Klub Sceptyków Polskich (KSP) was founded in 2010 and has engaged in many activities including the 2011 10:23 Homeopathy overdose campaign. In 2012, KSP organized a four-day protest against the ink blot Rorschact test that is used in the Polish court system; the campaign was called “Psychology is science, not witchcraft.” The Board of Directors are Tomasz Witkowski, Andrzej Gregosiewicz, Wojciech Pisula, Maciej Zatoński and Adam Wierzbicki.

The Český klub skeptiků (Sisyfos) was founded in 1994 with its headquarters in Prague. They publish the Sisyfos newspaper online, organize lectures called Věda kontra iracionalita (Science vs Irrationality) as well as publish skeptical book collections. They award the Bludný balvan (Erratic Boulder) award to individuals or societies that mislead the “Czech public and the development of a muddy way of thinking.” Their newsletter, Neperiodický zpravodaj občanského sdružení Sisyfos (Non-periodical Report of the Sisyfos Organization) is published free of charge a few times a year and is available on their website.

The conference was held in the very beautiful area of Old Town Wrocław, Poland. I think most of the attendees who did not live in Poland had not heard of Wrocław before; I sure hadn’t. There was a lot of interest in how to actually pronounce the city; European Skeptic Podcaster, Pontus Böckman recorded people struggling to pronounce it. The Old Town area had pubs, shops, and art everywhere you looked. The city’s theme are dwarfs. Small bronze figurines can be found all over the area; some are quite humorous. Tomasz Witkowski gave me a small figurine holding a flower, and it sits on my desk now as I type this; such great memories.

The organizers had a brilliant idea to do workshops for the public, for free, and in Polish. These workshops ran the same time as the skeptic congress in a different area, so I don’t know how well attended they were; I do hope they were recorded for later release. I was told that these workshops were aimed at adults as well as kids, and many were Skepticism 101. Some of the titles were “Quantum Mechanics vs Common Sense,” “What can we infer from children’s drawings,” “Mission to Mars,” and “Straight answers to question, how not to get shafted?”. I include a link here for anyone interested. I also want to mention that there was a team of volunteers led by Urszula Zadorożna that made sure everything ran smoothly.

Also in the building where the main lectures were happening, the whole downstairs floor had hands-on science exhibits open for anyone to explore that were also free. I was very impressed with all the outreach done by KSP and Sisyfos. One Polish video channel Racjonalista.TV (Rationalist TV) interviewed most of the speakers before the Congress to improve attendance. I had a lovely conversation with Kaja Bryx a month before the conference and later met her and her partner Jacek Tabisz at the conference.

The way the Congress lectures were organized differently than I’ve seen at other skeptic conferences where there is rarely a theme. They had four lectures followed by a panel with those speakers discussing the theme. In some cases they added panel members who had not been lecturers. It was quite interesting, and discussions were terrific. The themes and speakers were as follows:

Friday morning – Science & Religion – Lecturers were Konrad Talmont-Kamiński, Gerald Ostdiek, Petr Jan Vinš, and Leo Igwe. The panel was chaired by Hraskó Gábor.

Friday afternoon – Exorcisms – Mariusz Błochowiak, Konrad Szołajski, Jakub Kroulík. Chris French joined the panel which was chaired by Amardeo Sarma.

Saturday morning – Science, Pseudoscience & Media – András Gábor Pintér, Ovidiu Covaciu, Diego Fontanive, Sofie Vanthournout, Eran Segev, and Susan Gerbic. The panel was chaired by Pintér.

Saturday afternoon – GMO – Mark Lynas, Marcin Rotkiewicz, and Tomáš Moravec.

Saturday evening – Skeptical Psychology – Susan Blackmore, Scott Lilienfeld, Zbyněk Vybíral. Tomasz Witkowski joined the panel which was chaired by Michael Heap.

Sunday morning – Paranormal Investigation – Deborah Hyde, Holm Gero Hümmler, and an interview with James “The Amaz!ng” Randi by Massimo Polidoro.

This was not a typical skeptic conference, at least nothing that I had ever been to before. Petr Jan Vinš is a Catholic Priest and talked about bringing more critical thinking to Catholicism, which during the panel discussion, Leo Igwe was sternly polite with his comments about not talking down to Catholics and embracing science. The exchanges and energy from that panel were something to behold. I hope the videos do it justice.

Also following with the theme of religion, we moved into exorcisms. I had no idea that this was still a “thing” in 2017; most people I talked to agreed with me. Apparently, it is a very big deal in Poland, and our first speaker on the subject was Marcin Rotkiewicz the editor of a magazine (he brought an issue for everyone) called Egzorcysta (Exorcism). This is a monthly well-produced magazine with great photography, articles, and profiles of Priests. If my money converter is correct, it costs $3.28 an issue. Rotkiewicz’s lecture was called “Rational justification for the existence of the devil and the exorcism.” I and everyone I talked to thought it was a parody or a skeptical talk. But partway through the lecture we realized that he was completely serious. This is before we saw the magazine. Looking at my notes from his lecture, I see that I wrote, “The Devil is an angel, who does not obey physics, he has free will (as do humans) and he chooses to be evil and harm humans. The Devil is possible because some scientists believe in the multi-verse theory … we cannot research the Devil because he can change and fool us.” Rotkiewicz knew ahead of time what kind of conference this was; he was polite and patient answering question after question in the panel and afterwards. He was very open to discussion, and in fact his last slide from his lecture said, “Let’s continue this over a beer.” Some people in the audience made snarky statements but mostly the questions were curious and polite. At one point in the day, there was a problem with a computer issue on stage, so organizers took an opportunity to bring Rotkiewicz back to answer more questions. I have most of that exchange here. Eran Segev recorded an interview with Rotkiewicz for the Skeptic Zone.

Filmmaker Konrad Szołajski showed the audience a Polish documentary he produced called “The Battle with Satan” that was captioned in English. I’m not sure if it has been released yet. It followed several people who believed that their life problems could be cured by exorcisms. It was excruciating to watch, and I and others had many problems and comments about what we were witnessing. The discussion after that was again very energetic. After the conference, I asked attendees what were the lectures that stood out, that they were surprised at or learned something from, and over and over the response was the Exorcism lectures.

Within the skeptic community, there has been a lot of discussion to leave lectures about religion out of the conference. Only when the discussion turns away from beliefs to actual claims should we “go there.” All I know was that this was a very popular segment and really got hearts beating and discussion going. It was fascinating to watch audience members interact with Rotkiewicz, who stayed for the whole conference and asked questions like a normal attendee. I completely enjoyed it. And it was terrific to learn about something that I had no idea was still an issue.

Turning to my project, Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) and the ESC, we had a lot of influence. Over the past three years, GSoW editor Leon Korteweg has led the team in writing the Wikipedia page for the main organization European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO), not only in English, but in Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, Hungarian, German, Polish, and Portuguese. Then GSoW (again led by Leon) went through and created Wikipedia pages for many of the European skeptic groups associated with ECSO and made sure they were written in multiple languages. And if that wasn’t enough, GSoW wrote Wikipedia pages for the president of ECSO Gábor Hraskó and other leaders in the groups. In total GSoW is responsible for thirty-five Wikipedia pages associated with ECSO related topics. And those thirty-five pages have received 165,548 pageviews as of this writing.

I gave my March for Science – What Next lecture. Because of computer problems, my PowerPoint notes did not exist, and the slides were out of order from what I practiced. So, I had to “wing it.” Turns out it was my best lecture ever with many people in the audience tearing up, including myself when I talked about my team and the importance of having our scientist’s backs. I did coin the phrase “Pseudoscience Placebo Hickey” for Cupping Therapy.

Let’s push this relationship of GSoW’s involvement in the conference a bit further. Editor Adam Kumiszcza wrote and translated multiple Wikipedia pages for speakers at the conference. All of those received pages in Polish, which makes sense considering we were speaking in Poland. The amount of work my editors do behind the scenes, without fanfare, without pay, simply because it needs to be done, amazes me. I’m so proud of my team; you can’t imagine how much so. I had many GSoW editors attend the conference, leaving inspired by the speakers. We had four new people join GSoW after hearing my lecture; Hungarian, Finish, and two Polish editors. 

On Saturday night, attendees took a river cruise with dinner, mentalism by Mark Edward and music by Jan Smigmator and Band. It was great fun and great conversations. The view of the Polish buildings along the river were spectacular. Kaja Bryx and Jacek Tabisz were very kind and explained what all the buildings were as well as some of the history of the location to me. As I said, I’m going to have to go back and visit Wrocław again. At one point in the cruise, Mark Edward, James Randi, and I were squished in a corner for an hour while waiting for the cruise to end. What a spot I was in; I turned my video camera on and recorded these two old friends talking magic, story after story. We were joined by more people, and Kirill Verona showed us a trick he has been working on. I was able to just sit back and watch this talent; I had no reason to say a thing. If you like random unplanned videos from the conference you will find them here on my channel.

Claire Klingenberg told us at the conclusion of the congress that this had the biggest attendance of any of the prior sixteen events, with over 250 people attending. The ECSO met at the end of the conference and new leadership was elected. Claire Klingenberg took over as president from Gábor Hraskó. Vice-president is Tim Trachet. Amardeo Sarma is treasurer; Paola De Gobbi and Pontus Böckman are members. Catherine de Jong, Leon Korteweg, Michael Heap, and András Gábor Pintér are associate members. In an interview with Eran Segev for the Skeptic Zone podcast, Klingenberg said that the conference “went great … quite productive and stimulating.” When Segev congratulated her on her new role as president of ECSO, he asked her what her top priority for ESCO was. Her answer was, “make ECSO important … it has to be more relevant, more influential … and seen as a partner not just with European skeptics, but with organizations all over the world.”

For more information about the conference, speakers, and impressions there are many places to explore; subscribe to the ESO YouTube channel so you don’t miss the lectures as they are uploaded. The European Skeptic podcast has done many interviews with speakers and attendees. Eran Segev also has many interviews on the Skeptic Zone podcast. I already mentioned the videos from my YouTube channel as well as the video interviews with speakers from Racjonalista.TV. But here is one more: an interview with GSoW editor Adam Kumiszcza for Racjonalista.TV all in Polish.

My next article on this About Time tour is about our car ride through Germany and Switzerland and the lectures and people we met along the way.

The Flavian Amphitheater, better known as the “Colosseum,” is the largest and most majestic amphitheater of ancient times. It is the second most visited monument in the world (after the Great Wall of China), and in 2007 was included among the new seven wonders of the modern world.

However, as much as it is known and is considered one of the symbols of Western civilization, there still are myths and legends that surround it, along with some little-known facts that shed interesting lights on its history.

By the Numbers

The Colosseum was built by Emperor Vespasian. The work started in 71 AD and nine years later, it was inaugurated by his son, Tito, with 100 days of games, where 2,000 gladiators fought and 9,000 animals were killed. The work was completed by Tito’s brother Domitian in 96 AD.

It has an elliptical shape, with a perimeter of 1,728 feet. It’s 170 feet tall (not counting the twenty feet underground), 616 feet long, and 511 feet wide. At the far end of the main axis was the Triumphalis Gate (west), where gladiators and musicians entered, and the Libitian Gate (east), from where the dead fighters were taken away. On the minor axis there was the entrance of the emperor (south) and that of the authorities (north).

It could hold 50,000 seated people and up to 73,000 if those on the highest stairs stood, though it took just three minutes to empty completely. The arrangement provided the best seats at the bottom, closer to the arena. It was the Ima cavea, where the emperor, the senators, and their families and the vestals sat. Going upward was the Maenianum primum, reserved for the exponents of the equestrian order; the Maenianum secundum imum and the secundum summum, reserved for the plebeians; and finally, the Maenianum summum in ligneis, wooden steps reserved for foreigners, slaves, and women.

The last fights between gladiators took place in 435 AD, the last fights between animals in 523 AD. The Colosseum remained in operation for a total of 443 years. And now, here are ten myths and secrets about the Colosseum.

1. Is There a Reason the Colosseum Was Built Where It Was?

   Yes: that’s the exact spot where Nero built a pond for his Domus Aurea. He had taken possession of the area after a fire destroyed part of Rome in 64 AD. When Nero died, Vespasian chose to build the amphitheater right there, as a political move to show that he was giving back to the people what Nero had taken. However, there was also a practical reason: choosing that basin meant saving more than half of the work needed to dig the foundations of the building. It meant carrying a fifth of the land that should have to be excavated on a level surface. It was a smart way to save on work, money, and bureaucracy.

2. Was the Architect Who Built It a Christian Who Ended Up Killed in the Arena?

   No, that’s a legend. It was the guides of the 1960s who stated that the Colosseum’s architect was a man named Gaudenzio, a noble Roman convert to Christianity, who ended up martyred in the arena he had built. In reality, the architect’s name is lost to time. This should not be surprising, since the names of those who built most of the Roman monuments are unknown. At that time, what counted was only the emperor of the moment, and the architect was treated as a worker whose name could never obscure that of his client. However, it is unquestionable that the construction of the Colosseum required an intelligence and originality that springs from every detail—a talent that has to be seen as a testimony to one of the greatest unknown geniuses of antiquity.

3. Were There Ever Women Gladiators?

   There is little historical evidence in favor of the presence of women gladiators in the arena, but some exists and confirms that fighting women were a reality. Tacitus states with disdain that “many high ranking women and many senators have fallen for the arena.” Gladiators were, in fact, not slaves or poor citizens forced to grab arms in order to earn something. It was often a free choice that women chose in order to emulate men—a choice dictated by the desire for glory or, as Giovenale’s malice insinuated, by the possibility of being alongside with so many studs. There is an art relief found in Halicarnassus, in today’s Turkey, now kept at the British Museum in London, that shows two fighters who face themselves: that they are two women is guessed only by their art names, Achillia and Amazon.

4. Did the Gladiators Always Say Before a Fight: “Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant,” Meaning They Expected to Die?

   Svetonio tells that during the reign of Claudio, in 52 AD, in order to celebrate the completion of the canal of Lake Fucino, a naumachia (a battleship) was organized, the largest ever documented. Nineteen thousand rowers and soldiers would clash on triremes and squares, divided between a fleet that would have played the role of Rhodes and one playing that of Sicily. At which point, before the battle began, the fighters greeted Claudio with the phrase: “Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant,” meaning “Hi Caesar, those who are going to die salute you.” Every emperor was called Caesar, as this was a title of honor after Julius Caesar. Claudio’s response unleashed the confusion. It seems that he said: “Avete, vos!” meaning: “Hi to you,” which in Latin, however, can also mean: “You are saved.” And the fighters, believing that in those words the emperor meant to say that they were no longer condemned and wanted to save them, they refused to fight. Claudio was forced to threaten, promise rewards, and finally plead for the fighters to start the battle. Eventually, they did and, after a lot of bloodshed, Claudio freed the criminals who survived. However, that episode is the only known time, throughout the history of Rome, where the fighters turned to the Emperor presenting themselves as morituri.

5. Could the Basement Be Filled with Water in Order to Represent Ships Battling?

   This probably happened only during the inauguration, for very soon the basin of the arena was filled with rooms and corridors for all the people needed in order to put on the show. This was the real backstage, where technicians and workers operated, the scenes were hidden, the animals caged, and all the maneuvering facilities and apparatus was maneuvered in order to create spectacular effects. Here the gladiators waited for their turn to get on stage and those condemned to death spent their last few minutes before meeting their fate. Today, the Colosseum’s undergrounds are open and visible, but they do not differ greatly from how they appeared when the Roman Empire fell, since they had been buried until their rediscovery in the late 1800s.

6. Is It True That the Colosseum Was Free?

   Those who organized the games usually distributed official invitations to public figures, senators, priests, and their families, then reserved some places for themselves and influential friends and instructed locals to sell the rest. The vast majority of tickets, therefore, were distributed through the “clientele” system. The aristocrats, that is, had a large number of tickets available to their friends and clients. It was a system that, in addition to enhancing customer relations, distributed the streams of spectators in the various sectors of the Amphitheater, avoiding crowding some of them. In the end, only the foreigners were left to pay for the ticket, since they came to town only to watch the games and, living elsewhere, they could not prove politically useful to the game organizer. Such incomes did not nearly cover the huge costs, but they at least reduced the inevitable losses.

7. Does “Thumbs Up” Mean Life and “Thumbs Down” Death?

   In Latin texts, the gesture made by the emperor to demand death is a thumb or pollicem vertere, thumb down. But the meaning is controversial. A thumb protruding from a hand could be symbolic of a swaddled sword and, therefore, thought to symbolize death. It is true, in fact, that the pollicem premere indication, where the thumb is held inside the fist, like a refined sword, means that the defeated was spared. The idea that the thumb upward corresponds to a grace and a thumb down to a condemnation was born in the nineteenth century, through the paintings recalling the fights in the Colosseum.

8. Is It True That the Colosseum Was the Place of Christian Martyrdom?

   There is no evidence of this, as the narratives of martyrs all date to the fifth century AD, by which time the Colosseum had fallen into disuse. Christianity had already become the religion of state and the Acta Martyrum, the records of proceedings and deaths of martyrs, were essentially novels with educational purposes and made references to conflicts between Christians and authorities that occurred centuries earlier. In the sixteenth century, the Acta started to be treated as historical sources and the idea of the Colosseum as a place of martyrdom was born. Today the Church, as well as Catholic historians, is reluctant to argue that some well-known martyrs had indeed found death in the Colosseum. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have happened, although it seems unlikely, since it is well-known that, compared to other provinces and especially Africa, Rome never saw the worst excesses of persecutions. Furthermore, in Rome, Christians were usually executed in the public place of execution, which was on the Esquiline hill and not at the Colosseum.

9. Was the Colosseum Doomed to Become a Silk Factory and then a Basilica?

   At the end of the sixteenth century, Pope Sisto V intended to transform the Colosseum into a silk factory and home for the workers employed in it, and so he commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to work on the project. The Church started collecting the huge financial resources needed, but the work never started because in 1590, the pope died. In 1671, Pope Clement X commissioned another great architect, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, to transform the amphitheater into a temple devoted to the martyrs, to preserve it as a sacred place. A shortage of funds, again, ended the project.

10. Why Does the Colosseum Have Its Present Shape?

    What gave the Colosseum its asymmetric shape, known worldwide, was sixteen centuries of misadventures. Numerous earthquakes caused the fall of parts of the monument, especially on the southern side (the one now devoid of the two outer rings and the two upper arches) that rises on the alluvial sediments of an ancient tributary of the Tiber, which at that point formed swamps, unlike the northern side, built on more solid volcanic rocks. The rubble was reclaimed and reused to build other buildings, and from the ninth century onward, the Colosseum became a quarry of materials for the new palaces of papal Rome. In 1744, Benedetto XIV declared the Colosseum “sacred soil,” and only then the spoliation ended. The two sloping clay spurs were built in the 1800s to give stability to the ruin and prevent further collapses.

Stuart Vyse’s (2017) article about Daryl Bem and p-hacking was disturbing. The most serious implication is that Daryl Bem, a famous and well-respected psychologist, has been guilty of “an unethical manipulation of data in search of statistical significance” to support claims of the paranormal. Such manipulation is especially serious in this field for three reasons.

1. If evidence for the paranormal were found, the implications for the rest of science would be profound.
2. There is very little evidence for the paranormal—and Bem’s claims are frequently cited as providing it.
3. Many people believe in the paranormal and look for evidence to back up their belief. If a researcher as respected as Bem claims there is reliable evidence, many people will be convinced, with serious consequences for the public understanding of science.

I have further reasons for worrying about Bem’s claims, in addition to those reported by Vyse.

In 1979, the Society for Psychical Research gave me a small grant to visit Carl Sargent’s laboratory in Cambridge. His research was providing dramatically positive results for ESP in the Ganzfeld and mine was not, so the idea was for me to learn from his methods in the hope of achieving similarly good results. The story of that visit is terribly depressing, as I described in an article and book (Blackmore 1987; 1996). After watching several trials and studying the procedures carefully, I concluded that Sargent’s experimental protocols were so well designed that the spectacular results I saw must either be evidence for ESP or for fraud. I then took various simple precautions and observed further trials during which it became clear that Sargent had deliberately violated his own protocols and in one trial had almost certainly cheated. I waited several years for him to respond to my claims and eventually they were published along with his denial (Harley and Matthews 1987; Sargent 1987).

By then, the “Great Ganzfeld Debate” was under way, in which skeptic and psychologist Ray Hyman carried out a meta-analysis of the forty-two published Ganzfeld experiments (Hyman 1985). Meta-analysis allows one to compare the results of many experiments, to find an overall effect size, to detect common patterns, and (of most relevance here) to test whether the overall effect can be attributed to flaws in the experiments. Hyman argued that many of the studies were flawed, and that the better the quality of the study, the smaller the apparent psi effect. Nine of the studies were Sargent’s.

Chuck Honorton (1985), originator of the Ganzfeld-psi experiments, then did his own analysis, using just twenty-eight of the forty-two studies (those that reported the number of direct hits). He concluded that there was a reliable effect that did not depend on any one experimenter and was not related to the quality of the study. This seemed to be good evidence for the reality of psi in the Ganzfeld and to show that Hyman was wrong.

What worried me was that Honorton had classified all of Sargent’s nine studies as “adequate for randomization” (one of several possible flaws considered). But seven of these nine studies had used the method I observed in Cambridge. So I repeated Honorton’s calculation counting these seven as flawed for randomization. I found a significant correlation (r= -.32, t=1.73, p<.05, 1-tailed) between randomization and z-score, therefore agreeing with Hyman. I submitted a brief comment on this to the Journal of Parapsychology in January 1987. In February, the editor accepted it for publication, but in May the following year, he wrote to say that they were behind schedule and unable to publish it after all.

Meanwhile, the debate led Honorton to design the “autoganzfeld” experiments, using a completely automated procedure (Honorton et al. 1990). The methods appeared to be rigorous and the results from several labs were significant, with the effect not depending on any one experimenter or lab. Later criticisms followed, including suggestions that sensory leakage might have occurred with this method (Wiseman et al. 1996), and the Ganzfeld debate continued (Milton and Wiseman 1999; Storm and Ertel 2001).

All this assumed greater significance when Honorton began working with Daryl Bem on a review of the Ganzfeld literature. This was published in 1994 in the prestigious psychology journal Psychological Bulletin, where it was presumably read by psychologists ignorant of the past history of the subject. They presented the same meta-analysis and the same autoganzfeld data and concluded that “the psi ganzfeld effect is large enough to be of both theoretical interest and potential practical importance” (Bem and Honorton 1994, 8).

They also admitted that “One laboratory contributed nine of the studies. Honorton’s own laboratory contributed five. ... Thus, half of the studies were conducted by only two laboratories” (Bem and Honorton 1994, 6). But they did not say which laboratory contributed those nine studies. Even worse they did not mention Sargent, giving no references to his papers and none to mine. No one reading their review would have a clue that serious doubt had been cast on more than a quarter of the studies involved.

I have since met Bem more than once, most recently at one of the Tucson consciousness conferences where we were able to have a leisurely breakfast together and discuss the evidence for the paranormal. I told Bem how shocked I was that he had included the Sargent data without saying where it came from and without referencing either Sargent’s own papers or the debate that followed my discoveries. He simply said it did not matter.

In his article, Vyse gives a quote from an interview in Slate magazine in which Bem describes his experiments as “rhetorical devices” and says he didn’t worry about replication: “I gathered data to show how my point would be made. I used data as a point of persuasion.” This, chillingly, reminded me of Carl Sargent telling me that it wouldn’t matter if some experiments were unreliable because, after all, we know that psi exists.

But it does matter. It matters that Sargent’s experiments were seriously flawed. It matters that Bem included these data in his meta-analysis without referencing the doubt cast on them. It matters because Bem’s continued claims mislead a willing public into believing that there is reputable scientific evidence for ESP in the Ganzfeld when there is not.

• Bem, D.J. and C. Honorton. 1994. Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin 115: 4–18.
• Blackmore, S.J. 1987. A report of a visit to Carl Sargent’s laboratory. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 186–198.
• ———. 1996 In Search of the Light: The Adventures of a Parapsychologist. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
• Harley, T., and G. Matthews. 1987. Cheating, psi, and the appliance of science: A reply to Blackmore. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 199–207.
• Honorton, C. 1985. Meta-analysis of psi Ganzfeld research: A response to Hyman. Journal of Parapsychology 49(1): 51.
• Honorton, C., R.E. Berger, M.P. Varvoglis, et al. 1990. Psi communication in the Ganzfeld: Experiments with an automated testing system and a comparison with a meta-analysis of earlier studies. Journal of Parapsychology 54(2): 99.
• Hyman, R. 1985. The Ganzfeld psi experiment: A critical appraisal. Journal of Parapsychology 49: 3–49.
• Milton, J., and R. Wiseman. 1999. Does psi exist? Lack of replication of an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin 125: 387–391.
• Sargent, C. 1987. Sceptical fairytales from Bristol. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 208–218.
• Storm, L., and S. Ertel. 2001. Does psi exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman’s (1999) meta-analysis of Ganzfeld research. Psychological Bulletin 127(1): 424–43.
• Wiseman, R., M. Smith, and D. Kornbrot. 1996. Exploring possible sender-to-experimenter acoustic leakage in the PRL autoganzfeld experiments. Journal of Parapsychology 60(2): 97.
• Vyse, S. 2017. P-hacker confessions: Daryl Bem and me. Skeptical Inquirer 41(5): 25–27.

Paranormal investigator and professional raconteur Joe Nickell recounts a maddeningly puzzling forensic case he investigated: the Case of the Shrinking Bullet.

Jonathan Jarry from the McGill Office for Science and Society conducted mini-interviews with many of the speakers of CSICon 2017, a conference dedicated to science and skepticism.

Want to see more from CSICon? Check out all the speakers at Reasonable Talk!

The first time Jennifer Eberhardt presented her research at a law enforcement conference, she braced for a cold shoulder. How much would streetwise cops care what a social psychology professor had to say about the hidden reaches of racial bias?

Instead, she heard gasps, the loudest after she described an experiment that showed how quickly people link black faces with crime or danger at a subconscious level. In the experiment, students looking at a screen were exposed to a subliminal flurry of black or white faces. The subjects were then asked to identify blurry images as they came into focus frame by frame.

The makeup of the facial prompts had little effect on how quickly people recognized mundane items like staplers or books. But with images of weapons, the difference was stark—subjects who had unknowingly seen black faces needed far fewer frames to identify a gun or a knife than those who had been shown white faces. For a profession dealing in split-second decisions, the implications were powerful.

Lorie Fridell, then head of research for a law enforcement policy group in Washington, D.C., says Eberhardt’s research helped her resolve a nagging paradox. She sensed that law enforcement had a problem with racial profiling. Yet she was certain the vast majority of officers would sincerely recoil at the idea of policing with prejudice.

The answer, Eberhardt’s work suggested, was largely in the subconscious. Intentions hardly mattered. “It totally changed my perspective,” Fridell says.

More than a decade later, Eberhardt is no longer the anonymous academic she was then. A “genius award” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2014 served as perhaps the broadest notice yet that Eberhardt is someone with something vital to say. Yet her signature remains the same: unsettling research revealing the long, pernicious reach of unconscious racial bias, and an unrelenting commitment to share her findings with the outside world.

“This is not someone who is just doing work in the ivory tower of a university,” says Chris Magnus, chief of police in Richmond, California, a Bay Area city where a quarter of the population is black. “This is someone who is really out in the trenches working with police departments and the criminal justice system.”

Eberhardt’s message is not an easy one to hear, particularly for the many Americans who think racial discrimination is largely a thing of the past, or that they themselves would never treat someone differently because of race, or that racism is somewhere else.

In one study capturing how high the stakes are, Eberhardt and her colleagues analyzed two decades’ worth of capital murder cases in Philadelphia involving white victims and black defendants—forty-four cases in all. The defendants’ photographs were independently rated according to how stereotypically black they appeared.

The results of the research were startling. The half of defendants rated as the most stereotypically black were more than twice as likely to have received a death sentence as those in the other half. “No matter what we controlled for, the black defendants appeared to be punished in proportion to the blackness of their features,” she said.

In another study in 2012, commuters at a Bay Area train station were shown informational slides about the California prison system and then asked if they’d sign a petition in support of a proposed (and ultimately successful) amendment to lessen the severity of the state’s Three Strikes law, which gives mandatory life sentences to certain repeat offenders.

In one experiment, subjects were subliminally shown black or white faces, then asked to identify a blurry image as it came into focus over forty-one frames. On average, participants primed with black faces could identify a weapon nine frames sooner (middle-left) than those primed with white faces could (middle-right).

Approximately 25 percent of the state prison population at the time was black. But 45 percent of prisoners serving a life sentence under the Three Strikes law then were black. Commuters who saw a presentation in which 25 percent of the inmates depicted were black were almost twice as likely to sign the petition as were those shown a presentation in which 45 percent of the inmates were black.

The conclusion seemed perverse: Someone seeking to mitigate racial disparities in sentencing might be best served by not pointing them out. It’s not that the respondents were necessarily bigots or even bad people, Eberhardt says. But the reach of implicit bias, arising from America’s tortured racial history, from culture, and from still pervasive inequities, is powerful, enduring and underrecognized, especially in the context of criminal justice.

Much of Eberhardt’s work has focused on revealing the wide-ranging consequences of those biases. Her research has shown that police—black and white officers alike—are more likely to mistakenly identify black faces as criminal than white faces; that people show greater support for life sentences for juveniles when they read about a case involving a black defendant than when the case involves a white defendant; and that words associated with crime can cause people to instinctively focus on black faces. A picture of post-racial America it is not.

“She is saying things that make people uncomfortable, but she has the evidence to back up the reality of what’s she’s describing,” says Susan Fiske, a Princeton social psychologist who calls Eberhardt’s work simultaneously original, provocative, and rigorous. “I think she has changed the way we all think about the American dilemma of race.”

Social psychology has a long history of studying stereotypes—it’s been core to the field’s interest for generations, says Hazel Markus, a professor in the Stanford social psychology department and a close colleague of Eberhardt’s. But Eberhardt has helped move the field’s focus from the people with biased attitudes to the people targeted by those biases, and she has found ingeniously simple but powerful ways to make the problems with stereotyping apparent.

“She was looking for a way to show elegantly the real consequences for people, (and) to show it in a way that would wake people up to the fact that, when you’re the target of these stereotypes, it can be harmful, if not life-threatening,” Markus says.

* * *

Eberhardt’s acadademic study of race began more than two decades ago during graduate school at Harvard, where she initially focused on cognitive psychology, a discipline pertaining to how people acquire, process, and store information. It wasn’t the right fit, and Eberhardt was looking for a new direction when she was struck by an experience she had as a teaching fellow for a social psychology class.

Jennifer Eberhardt

She was giving the class a demonstration of the “fundamental attribution error,” a well-documented tendency people have to explain the outcome of a situation by assigning undue credit to personality traits rather than external factors that may be at play. For example, a stranger snaps at you for bumping into him at a supermarket—the initial reaction may be to label him a jerk, when in fact his response may be the result of poor sleep, a recent death of a loved one, or severe stress at work.

Eberhardt asked a pair of students to play quizmasters. Each had to come up with 10 questions designed to stump two fellow classmates, who played the role of contestants. As intended, neither respondent knew more than a handful of the answers.

Afterward, Eberhardt asked the class to rate the sides for their level of general knowledge. Despite the obviously slanted playing field, observers of such scenarios—consistent with the fundamental attribution error—regularly rate the quizmasters, who know all the answers, higher than the contestants who struggle with them.

But that didn’t happen this day. When Eberhardt asked the students to discuss the unexpected result, silence fell over the normally chatty class. Nobody wanted to mention what appeared to Eberhardt to be an obvious factor: As the result of drawing lots, the contestants had been white men, the quizmasters black women.

After ending the awkward discussion, she turned to the reading of the week on unconscious racism, which reignited discussion, with students decrying such behavior. “But no one connected these studies to what had happened at the beginning of the class period,” Eberhardt later wrote in her dissertation. “No one wanted to personalize what was so easy to condemn in the abstract.”

The experience inspired her dissertation, which examined the effects of bias on the fundamental attribution error, and foreshadowed the dominant theme of her career—the hidden ways in which race shapes outcomes, even in people who deny it influences them.

Looking back, Eberhardt says the subject of race first fascinated her when she was growing up as the youngest of five children in a predominantly African-American, working-class area of Cleveland called Lee-Harvard. Even as a small child, she instinctively zeroed in on the fact that race mattered, a realization that only amplified after her family moved to the mostly white suburb of Beachwood.

Her new home was a bike ride and a world away from her old neighborhood, a move enabled by her father, a mailman with an eighth-grade education who ran a successful side business in antiques and Tiffany glass.

Eberhardt guesses she might never have even gone to college if they’d stayed in Lee-Harvard. Her husband, Stanford law professor Rick Banks—who went to the same elementary school but was in the gifted class, which got far more attention—says the doggedness that defines her work probably has roots in those days, when little was expected of her. (He would go off to a private school for middle and high school; the two later remet at Harvard.)

At Beachwood, by comparison, college seemed inevitable. There were better facilities, better teachers, and real expectations. Book smarts were no longer something to hide, she says; they were social currency. “People would choose their friends based on how smart they were,” she says. “Stuff like that just didn’t happen in my old neighborhood.”

But it was also an early experience in feeling like a “race out of place,” when she observed fundamental differences in how she and her classmates experienced the world. The disparities were blatant—her father and brothers were frequently pulled over by police—and subtle. When Eberhardt was in seventh grade, for example, soon after the move, her teacher asked the class to share their families’ immigration stories.

As student after student told stories of their families leaving European countries, including tales of fleeing the Holocaust, Eberhardt’s mind raced. Her own family’s escape had been from the Jim Crow South. But Alabama and Georgia were clearly not countries. Neither was Africa, the other response that was twirling in her head.

In the end, she stood in front of the class and chose the answer she knew more about, Alabama and Georgia, to the laughter of her classmates. The other kids seemed to think she was joking.

“Because the worlds were so different, I just thought about race a lot and I thought about inequality a lot,” she says. “I could suddenly see the place I had come from and sort of put it in a larger context.”

* * *

From the beginning of her career at Stanford in 1998 (which she began as a non-tenure-track professor), the now-tenured Eberhardt has coupled scholarship with a drive to bring her research into the world, typically through novel collaborations with officials in the criminal justice system.

In 2004, with her reputation yet to be widely established, she organized an unprecedented conference at Stanford on racial bias in policing, bringing together scores of academics from across the country with law enforcement officials from thirty-four agencies in thirteen states.

“Somehow she got us all together, and she got these major city chiefs and sheriffs to show up with an open mind,” says Jack Glaser, a social psychologist at UC-Berkeley. “She … made this opportunity, which just didn’t exist before. I really don’t know how she pulled it off.”

Eberhardt’s feat required not just bridging camps with little history of dialogue, but also disregarding the pressures of a profession not set up to reward hand-in-hand work with real-world practitioners. Her persistence, though, has borne fruit for her and others who have followed.

“There was not a field of social psychology and criminal justice, and then there was Jennifer Eberhardt, and then there was a field,” says UCLA professor Phillip Goff, a former student of Eberhardt’s and a collaborator on some of her most noted studies. “She made it possible for other folks to come after her.”

He includes himself in that group. His work as cofounder and president of the Center for Policing Equity at UCLA, which fosters collaboration between police and social scientists, is riding the momentum Eberhardt created at the 2004 conference and again at a 2007 conference held at Stanford.

“She made it possible for those of us who cared about black lives to do work that was relevant to policy, but that social psychologists could recognize as their own,” Goff says. “I can’t even express to you how nontrivial that accomplishment is.”

While other scientists have also made major advances in implicit bias research, it is Eberhardt who brought the science to police, says Fridell, who now heads her own business, which has trained law enforcement officers across the United States and Canada to recognize and mitigate their biases. “I wouldn’t be doing this but for Jennifer Eberhardt.”

Key to the training’s appeal, Fridell says, is that it treats bias as a common human condition to be recognized and managed, rather than as a deeply offensive personal sin, an approach that makes cops less defensive. “They understand that it is a real issue with which they need to deal, but not because the profession is made up of ill-intentioned individuals with explicit biases (e.g., racists), but because the profession is comprised of humans,” she said in an email.

Still, that very same message—the ubiquity of implicit bias—can lend an added grimness to Eberhardt’s work. Racial bias against African-Americans isn’t confined to the past or the South or police or even whites. It seeps into everything, a point Eberhardt sometimes uses personal anecdote to reinforce.

Eight years ago or so, she was flying back to California from Harvard, where her husband was teaching winter term, when the middle of their three sons pointed out a man he said looked like his dad.

Eberhardt was bemused. The stranger was probably the only black male on the plane, but he was crowned with long dreadlocks, not exactly a ringer for her decidedly bald husband. But before she could quiz him for the connection, the five-year-old added, “I hope he doesn’t rob the plane.”

Even with her vast knowledge of the insidiousness of bias, Eberhardt was floored. Her son grew up in one of the most educated areas in the country, watched little TV, and hardly seemed to notice race. And yet he had connected blackness and crime and his father, the parent he was probably closer to at the time.

“He didn’t know why he said it. And he didn’t know why he thought it,” she says. “But at five, you already have what you need to come to that conclusion.”

Eberhardt’s radiant smile and easy laugh can make it seem she somehow rides above the implications of her findings. And indeed for a long time, Eberhardt would shrug off questions about how she deals with the bleaker aspects of her research.

But after she had given a lecture at San Quentin State Prison, an inmate serving a life sentence made her reevaluate. “He said, ‘I am really happy you do the work you do, but I don’t know how you do it—it’s so depressing,’” she recalls. “Hearing it from that guy felt different. This is a guy who has a life sentence.”

She began to realize she was feeling a toll, particularly after research for a 2008 paper she published with Goff and two others revealed persistent connections in people’s minds between black people and apes. One part of the six-part study showed that in the same way that subjects identified images of guns more quickly when unconsciously primed with black faces, so could they pick out apes much sooner. The old racist trope had seemingly died out, a small sign of progress, but the experiments suggested the connection was still robust.

That realization led her to shift more of her energies from delineating the problem to finding solutions. “People need to have hope,” she says.

Eberhardt has been heavily involved with the Oakland Police Department—to the point that she’s almost embedded, says Assistant Police Chief Paul Figueroa. She attends staff meetings, gives feedback, tracks data, and provides training.

Her work raising awareness at the department about implicit bias has contributed to changes that include a new policy for foot pursuits. Rather than follow a suspect into a backyard, Figueroa says, officers are now supposed to wait for backup, reducing the chances of a high-adrenaline confrontation in which biases can surface unchecked.

“If we slow down and take our time and go in very slowly and methodically, we put everyone in a safer position,” he says.

Figueroa is eager for the results of one of Eberhardt’s most ambitious projects. She and her colleagues are analyzing footage of thousands of encounters recorded with officers’ body cameras in an attempt to parse the behaviors that lead to positive outcomes from those that spiral into problems. Such scrutiny can be uncomfortable, Figueroa says, but it’s worth the investment in the future.

“For the first time in history, we’ll be able to see firsthand how police officers make contact with the public and how those interactions unfold in real time,” Eberhardt says. “And we’ll soon be in a position to design interventions that can directly affect the course of those interactions.”

She is also working with Oakland and Stockton police and California Attorney General Kamala Harris to develop statewide training on implicit bias that can be measured for efficacy over time. And President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing issued a report that quotes her testimony in its call for implicit bias training at all levels of law enforcement.

“I think we’re going to find in the next few years that the standard will become that officers start learning about implicit bias when they are recruits,” says Magnus, the Richmond police chief. He credits Eberhardt for pushing for the change. “She has really helped advance the discussions and put it in the framework of science, which takes a lot of the emotion out of it.”

Not everyone buys the idea of racial bias being an unconscious problem, Magnus says; some believe it should be viewed as a more deliberate form of discrimination. And some community members have questioned whether implicit bias isn’t just convenient cover for racist behavior.

Scientists like Goff say that’s not the case. “You will never hear me say, ‘It’s implicit so it’s not your fault,’” he says. “You are still in control of your behavior.”

Still, Eberhardt says focusing only on individual instances of racism, on getting rid of the “bad people,” won’t solve the problem. There needs to be an emphasis on reforming cultural and institutional environments that promote bias—for example, by fixing policies that create racial discrepancies in hiring or incarceration. “Bias can grow organically out of that,” she says.

During a lecture at Stanford in April 2015, while standing under an image of Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old who was shot and killed by police in her hometown of Cleveland, Eberhardt made explicit the connection between her research and the events roiling the nation. The recent protests and tumult in response to police killings, she said, are part of the cost of not seeing—the price of our blindness to bias.

“All over this country, black people are still finding themselves in situations where they feel the state does not fully protect them, where they feel the state does not fully register their pain,” she said.

But she does see signs of progress, from new policies to new training to a greater attention and openness to the problem. Less often there’s denial. That awareness enables incremental change.

“I always knew I wasn’t going to be the person who made a difference because I had the loudest voice. … I wasn’t going to make a difference from litigation or from protesting,” she says. “I felt like through the research I could make a difference.”

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

Las pulseras de cobre se usaron durante siglos en la medicina folcórica. Supuestamente reducen el dolor de las articulaciones y la rigidez asociada a la artritis, y usando cobre en la muñeca presuntamente beneficia a todas las articulaciones en el cuerpo. Existen afirmaciones que el cobre tiene propiedades anti-inflamatorias y anti-oxidantes. Se dice que las pulseras de cobre se absorben a través de la piel debido a un proceso de absorción llamado micronutrición transdérmica.

La ciencia no avala estas afirmaciones. No hay evidencia de que el cobre pueda ser absorbido por la piel. Si así fuera, causaría un envenenamiento a causa del cobre. No hay suficiente evidencia de que las pulseras de cobre reduzcan el dolor o la inflamación; de hecho, hay evidencia de que no tienen efectos clínicos. Cualquier mejoría se puede atribuir al efecto placebo, no al cobre.

Algunas de las pulseras de cobre también son magnéticas; ¡aparentemente dos placebos son mejores que uno! Los precios van desde 10 a más de 500 dólares. Algunos sitios web los recomendaron porque aunque no disponen de evidencia alguna, son inofensivos y pueden ayudar al paciente por medio de la sugestión.

Otras consideraciones referentes a la salud

No podemos vivir sin el cobre. Es un nutriente esencial. Se encuentra en una compleja enzima respiratoria común a todas las plantas y animales. Es un componente del hígado, los músculos y los huesos humanos. La gente normalmente recibe la cantidad de cobre que necesita por la comida. Los alimentos que tienen altas cantidades de cobre son el hígado, los moluscos, alimentos integrales, legumbres, nueces, papas, frutas secas, cacao, pimienta negra y levadura. Algunas aguas tienen altos niveles de cobre y pueden contener un 45 por ciento más de cobre que la que se obtiene con una dieta. Hay cobre en el humo del tabaco; es absorbido por el cuerpo pero no tiene ningún efecto adverso para la salud.

Medical News Today informó que un estudio preliminar indicó que una nueva molécula de cobre prometía la detención del cáncer y que otro estudio había mostrado que el cobre destruía a los norovirus. Sin embargo otro estudio sugería que el cobre, en la dieta, estaba ligado a la enfermedad de Alzheimer.

La deficiencia de cobre es rara, usualmente relacionada con la cirugía gastrointestinal, por ejemplo en un bypass gástrico. La toxicidad aguda de cobre puede causar síntomas como el vómito y la ictericia; la exposición duradera puede causar daños en el hígado y los riñones. Hay una condición hereditaria, la enfermedad de Wilson, donde el cuerpo retiene el cobre. Los pacientes pueden sufrir enfermedades hepáticas y síntomas neuropsiquiátricos, y a menudo tienen una marca marrón alrededor de la córnea conocida como una tiña conocida como Kaiser-Fleischer.

De manera que el cobre es, para la mayoría de la gente, bueno. Pero las advertencias alarmistas sobre el cobre han circulado recientemente en los medios, que se centran en el llamado Moscow Mules, una bebida hecha con cerveza de jengibre, vodka, y jugo de lima, tradicionalmente servida en una taza de cobre.

This article was originally available in English.
Click here to read it.

Moscow mules (ver Nota del Traductor al final de la nota)

El cobre se ha usado en los utensilios de cocina. Generalmente es seguro, aunque hay advertencias para no cocinar o almacenar comidas altamente ácidas en recipientes de cobre durante largo tiempo. Ya que hay jugo de lima ácido en los Moscow mules, hay sospechas sobre ellos. “La iconica taza de Moscow mule puede estar envenenando a los que las toman”. Informan que la División de Bebidas Alcohólicas de Iowa dice que puede resultar en un envenenamiento, sea de comidas o de cobre, lo cual puede causar diarrea, vómitos e ictericia. Recomiendan que solo se usen tazas de acero inoxidable o níquel. The Hill repetía las mismas advertencias, el noticiero de la CBS también lo hacía. Incluso el LA Times lo avisaba con el titular “Advertencia sobre el Moscow mule: “Las tazas de cobre pueden ser tóxicas”.

Estas preocupaciones no son nada nuevo. Desde 1997, el protocolo de la FDA prohibió comidas o bebidas con un nivel de PH por debajo de 6, respecto del cobre, en bares y restaurantes. La exposición a los contenedores de cobre o las cañerías de cobre podrían causar problemas.

Snopes evaluó las advertencias de los medios y consultó expertos en los centros de control y prevención (CDC) y calificó las afirmaciones como “una mezcla de verdad y falsedad”. Señalaron que la tasa en que el cobre se infiltra en la bebidas de varios grados de acidez es indeterminada. Está lejos de determinarse cuánto puede permanecer un cóctel en una taza de cobre o cuántos Moscow mules puede beber una persona sin tener problemas. Citaron a un experto que dijo: “mucho antes de que llegues a los más altos niveles (de cobre en una bebida), el trago obtiene un gusto metálico, así que esto es realmente una advertencia de que hay demasiado cobre en la bebida”.

No es para preocuparse

Finalmente, HuffPost se vino con un artículo titulado “Los químicos desmitifican ese desagradable rumor acerca de que las tazas de Moscow mule sean venenosas”.

Thrisa Andrew, profesora asistente de química e ingeniería química en Umass Amherst, caracterizó a las advertencias de la prensa como “miedo fóbico que difama a la química”. El cobre no se filtra del contenedor a la bebida, pero basados en lo que sabemos sobre tasas de disolución, deberías tener tu taza de cobre con jugo de lima por unas cuantas horas antes de comenzar a preocuparte por el envenenamiento por cobre. Hasta tomando un litro de Moscow mules en tazas de puro cobre, no llegaría a los 30 mg por litro, lo cual no causa náuseas, al menos en los experimentos que se hicieron. Concluye Andrew: “ahora, sigue adelante y disfruta de otra ronda de Moscow Mules. Lo mereces luego de toda esta ansiedad provocada por el envenenamiento por cobre.

Algunas lecciones para el hogar

El veneno es la dosis. Nuestros cuerpos pueden lidiar con bajas cantidades de la mayoría de los venenos. El cobre es bueno para usted en pequeñas cantidades pero malo en grandes. (Lo cual es cierto, incluyendo al agua).

Cuidado con la fobia a la química.

Usted puede creer en cualquier noticia que lea. (Ya lo sabía). Recuerde mi regla de SkepDoc’s: antes de creer una información, trate de averiguar quién no está de acuerdo con ella y por qué.

Nota del traductor: El Moscoe mule es un cóctel preparado con vodka, cerveza de jengibre y jugo de lima. Tradicionalmente se sirve en una taza de cobre. Los funcionarios de la Salud Pública recomiendan que las tazas estén reforzadas con una lámina de níquel o de acero inoxidable.

This article is the third of five articles chronicling the adventures of my month long European About Time Tour. This tour was funded by individual skeptical organizations and by private donations. This third leg of the journey was through Germany, Switzerland, and into Northern Italy; along with me was psychic expert and mentalist Mark Edward, European Skeptic Podcaster (ESP) András Gábor Pintér, and Bulgarian science conference organizer Liubomir Baburov. 

András Gábor Pintér lives in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, which we eventually visited, and I will talk about in an upcoming article. There he had rented a car and drove to Prague, then to Wrocław. Mark Edward, Liubomir Baburov, and me piled into the car to start the next part of the tour. This part of the journey was paid for mostly by donations we had raised from a funding site. Aubrey Ayash, Catherine de Jong, and others had generously donated to help us with gas, food, tolls, and housing. The various skeptic groups we visited also helped with expenses when we arrived. By the way, if you are traveling to Germany you will discover that they don’t accept most credit cards; they have some kind of local debit card, or Euros, but we could use our Visa card only at hotels and larger restaurants. I had no idea.

We left the ECSO conference right after the new board elections, and I should add that András was elected to be an associate member for ECSO. András is also a professional tour guide, so he was terrific keeping us moving and planning everything out for us. We left Wrocław in the late afternoon and drove to Dresden, Germany, where we stayed in a rented apartment. We were up early the next morning and drove to Göttingen, Germany, for our first talk. Our host, Rüdiger Ludwig, Evolutionäre Humanisten Göttingen e.V., and March for Science Göttingen were our sponsors. Dresden is another lovely city that I wish I had more time in. About twenty people attended to hear our panel, and after we went with attendees to a nearby pub and had some great conversations.

The next morning we drove on to Frankfurt, Germany, where we met up with two of my German GSoW editors, Annika and Scotty. We visited the Frankfurt Natural History museum and then had an early dinner with nuclear physicist and member of the German skeptic group GWUP, Holm Gero Hümmler. There we had a great conversation about the March for Science and activism. Hümmler said they had about 2,500 people show up for the march, which inspired him and the other organizers to hopefully do more science related activities. We had a nice discussion about that, including my skepticism of the march as activism. We were joined by a woman who works in a pharmacy who told us of her frustration with homeopathy. She has let her boss and her coworkers know that if people ask about homeopathy she will tell them that it does not work. This has angered her boss, because they make a big profit on homeopathy, so she isn’t allowed to discourage them from purchasing it. She is supposed to allow someone else to answer questions. I guess I hadn’t understood what a big deal homeopathy is in Germany, which is pretty silly of me considering that Samuel Hahnemann created it in 1796 in Germany. Hümmler explained the GSoW project to a few of the GWUP members and one of them, Jan, joined our training.

The following morning, we had another nice surprise. Liubomir needed to meet with someone at the European Space Agency Mission Control (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Liubomir managed to get us all on the base and we had tea and coffee in their lunch room while he tried to arrange future speakers from ESOC for his science conferences in Bulgaria. Once they had talked for a while they offered to show us the Mission Control building. I thought András was going to break his ankles as he jumped up and down. András absolutely loves astronomy. Visiting the control center was really fun. They let us take selfies with the room in the background, and they were doing a simulation at the time.

Then we got back into the car, and we drove to the headquarters of Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften, better known as the Society for the Scientific Investigation of Parasciences (GWUP). This was in Roßdorf, Germany, and we were introduced to the only full-time paid skeptic in Germany, Martin Mahner. Mark and I were in heaven when we saw shelves and shelves full of books on pseudoscience and skepticism. The office is more of a knowledge center. They store magazines, books, and flyers for research. They even have a very rare collection of Indian Skeptic magazines. Martin explained that he handles about 320 queries about the paranormal from the media each year.

GWUP was founded in 1987 and is affiliated with CSI. The chairperson is CSI Fellow Amardeo Sarma who was the president of ESCO from 2000 to 2013. The organization tests paranormal claims, which they find very time-consuming, but they work with other experts when writing the protocol. They also publish the skeptic magazine Skeptiker. I brought home several issues for my library. GWUP has also written a vaccine brochure aimed at new parents, which they offer for free at doctors’ offices. They have membership fees that are about 90 euros per year, which includes a subscription to the magazine. On top of all these activities GWUP hosts a conference called SkepKon. In 2017 it was held in Berlin and the theme was “Fakten Sind Sexy!” (Facts Are Sexy!). The next SkepKon is May 10–12, 2018, in Cologne. If they are looking for someone who would love to tell them about the GSoW project, I would be happy to attend. Just putting that out there!

Next stop, Heidelberg Castle. I had no idea what we were getting into. This was day sixteen on the road for me, so I was lucky to still be standing. We arrived at the castle and I could not stop taking photos; everywhere it was so beautiful. András had arranged for ex-homeopath Dr. Natalie Grams to meet us at the castle and give us a tour of the pharmacy museum inside. We met for lunch first and she explained to us her transition from knowing that homeopathy worked to writing a book exposing its inefficiencies. Now she is an outspoken critic of alternative medicine. She has a new book on called Gesundheit!: Ein Buch nicht ohne Nebenwirkungen, which translates to Health!: A Book Not without Side Effects. The museum is a very interesting place, and it holds some of Hahnemann’s personal homeopathy.

The last stop on this part of the tour was to Zürich, Switzerland. We did a panel discussion for the Skeptiker Schweiz group. Our host was Marko Kovic. Stupid traveler that I am, I thought there was a Swiss language. Apparently there isn’t; they speak German, Italian, French, and English. Also, they don’t use the same electrical outlet that most European countries do—but they do take the Visa card! We didn’t have a very good turnout for our panel discussion. We were told that normally they attract a lot of attendees—only the day before, seventy people had turned up for a lecture. We had an audience of seven, but one man, Jean-Marc Neuhaus, took a ninety-minute train ride in order to come to our event. We really enjoyed meeting the people we did, and we had some really terrific discussions. Skeptiker Schweiz maintains a blog and website, and they have a popular German speaking podcast called SkeptisCH. GSoW received no new editors from this event. I should also mention that Skeptiker Schweiz puts on a conference each year, Denkfest, usually in early November in Zürich. 

Liubomir had to go back home to Sofia, Bulgaira, after the Skeptiker Schweiz talk. We would meet up with him again. In the meantime, Mark, András and I drove to our next stop, Cesena, Italy, for CICAP Fest.

A counter-protester gives a white supremacist the middle finger. The white supremacist responds with a Nazi salute. Charlottesville, August 12, 2017.
Photo by: Evan Nesterak

One of the defining characteristics of a pseudoscience is nonfalsifiability. Although racist beliefs can certainly be made nonfalsifiable, most are simply wrong. Nor do they, usually, involve esoteric and mystical mechanisms. No one (as far as I know) argues something like “Blacks are inferior because they lack the karmic vibratory structure of the quantum consciousness that Aryans have.” Thus, it is more accurate to think of racism as junk science—if it’s science at all (most racists don’t even bother with the junk science theories of the Nazis).

But the cognitive processes that maintain racist beliefs are quite similar to those maintaining many pseudoscientific and paranormal belief systems. The major one is confirmation bias. The racist who sees a minority individual doing something bad will be more likely to remember that than if they see that same person doing something positive. Racist beliefs share another feature with paranormal ones: stereotyping. There is little difference, cognitively, between holding that African Americans have natural criminal tendencies and saying that people born under a particular astrological configuration are more aggressive.

That said, there is a big difference between the run-of-the-mill pseudoscientific belief and racist beliefs. Racists tend to be much more aggressive in asserting their beliefs, at least following the election of President Donald Trump. I doubt one would ever see a group of believers in astrology brandishing clubs and guns to attack a group of skeptics. This tendency toward more virulent and violent defense of their beliefs will make it more difficult to alter racist attitudes. The standard social psychology textbook answer to the issue of reducing stereotyping and prejudice is to have prejudiced individuals work together with members of the disliked group and so discover they’re just regular people. I doubt that approach will work in the present political climate.

What might work? Certainly being violent back won’t help—it will just egg the racists on and allow them to play the “I was a victim” card. Nor will denying them their free speech rights. They could claim, correctly, that they were being discriminated against based upon their beliefs. However, making fun of them might work. I recently saw a video of a group of Nazis demonstrating in Germany. The local citizens followed them around playing tubas and other instruments, turning the hateful parade into a sort of party and opportunity to mock the Nazis without violent confrontation.

Thinking about it, this is sort of like the anti-homeopathy events where people swallow hundreds of homeopathic sleeping pills and then … don’t die. A bit of creative energy spent coming up with different ways to mock the KKK and Nazi types could be both fun and effective.