I’m not sure I get the point of the story of David and Goliath. And just for clarity, I’m talking about the biblical story, not the 1970s claymation creep-fest that used to give me morality-based fever dreams. (What the hell is this? It looks like Rudolf or Heat Miser but it’s all Jesus-y. And why is the dog talking?) In the Bible, more specifically in the book of Samuel, David (our hero) fights Goliath (not our hero) because Saul and the Israelites¹ are for some reason at odds with the Philistines. The Philistines send out Goliath, twice a day for forty days, to cream the living hummus out of any Israelite who even thinks about looking at him funny. Finally, some kid named David decides to go fight the significantly larger-than-himself Goliath, and by using a sling and some rocks slams the G-Man smack in the forehead, kills him, and wins. This is followed by three thousand years of abject peace in the Middle East.² Yay, Bible!

Okay ...

You could say this story is about being an underdog and beating a much larger foe. 

You could say this story is about fighting smart.

You could say this story is about showing that David is the true king of Israel.

You could also say this story proves that Trump couldn’t have groped those women.

But let me repeat: I’m not sure I get the point of the story of David and Goliath. 

The Israelites are getting pounded twice daily by Goliath. Goliath: an individual. Yeah, he’s huge, but there are thousands of Israelites, right? I know the number one rule of ninja warfare expressly prohibits more than one fighter out of a mob of fighters fighting at a time, but these are Jews in the desert. Chop, chop; bum rush the dude and get it over with. Now there’s a good lesson: work together and you can overcome any large obstacle, as opposed to sitting around and hoping for some lucky one-in-a-million shot to the forehead from a random pipsqueak’s “Dennis The Menace” home sling-kit. And as for the Philistines, why are you sending out your best and biggest dude out to fight—twice a day? Even WWE wrestlers get time off between multiple bouts. No wonder he gets beaten after a cheap shot from some surly brat. He’s exhausted. Here’s an idea: have your army of desert-based sand warriors fight their significantly smaller army of chosen troopers, then right after, everyone can go try and figure out how long a cubit is while having a refreshing schvitz. Easy peasy.³ 

Or how about this question: Is David cheating? I mean, he’s using a projectile weapon for hand-to-hand combat. Where’s the sport in that? Is that the moral? If the “Chi-KAH-go Way” to bring a gun to a knife fight, but maybe the “Valley-of-Elah Way” is to bring a wrist canon to a boxing match. If you can’t beat ’em, shoot ’em.⁴ Nice lesson.

And now to make this buffet even less kosher, while hunting around for details about this particular biblical story, I discovered that there’s apparently a bit of discordance as to whether or not Goliath was even killed by David. Wait … a Bible inconsistency? Whaaa? Anyway, David kills Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, but then some dude named Elhanan kills Goliath in 2 Samuel 21:19. There’s an absolute tzedakah-full of websites valiantly trying to explain away this discrepancy (mostly talmudic based) that are a twisty, pretzely joy to wade through and read. (Was “Goliath” a title? Was it his twin? Was it his brother? Are Elhanan and David the same person? Does The War Doctor count as a regeneration? Oy vey …) I had never heard of Elhanan before, so now I’m going to go check out all his early albums.⁵ 

Which returns me to the completely dull and by now pencil-nubbed point I’m trying to make. I realize that stories such as these are supposed to engender multiple interpretations that result in raised eyebrows and scrunched shoulders, and I know that I’m not having some massive Jerusalem Syndrome–based revelation here. It could mean this, it could mean that, and it’s all supposed to make you … think? I guess? Dunno. It’s just another incredible example of a Bronze Age story that has stuck around way past its explanation date. 

After some personal contemplation, a touch of ritualistic fasting, and a significant amount of semi-public Charlton Heston cosplay, I’ve decided that I’m going to go with the following as the moral of the story of David and Goliath. Ready? Here goes: “Eat fresh fruit often.”

Why not? Makes just as much sense as anything else and could actually affect your life. Or colon. Or both.

Here’s to hoping all the foes you fight are exactly the size you want them to be. And have a banana.

1. Their highest charting hit was “Why Do Fools Fall in Kreplach.”
2. This might not be fully accurate.
3. Or more accurately: oishy poishy.
4. I know launching a rock is not technically “shooting,” but 2nd Amendment.
5. “Eyerlekh on Main Street,” “Challah Need Is Love,” “Bat Out of Helzel”

Last year my wife and I bought our first home, in a Massachusetts town north of Boston. When we moved to the town, we had no friends in the area or family members. If we were going to navigate the complexities of buying a home in an ultracompetitive and unfamiliar housing market, I knew that I was going to have to lean on a reliable source of advice. I needed to find what researchers who study social influence call an opinion-leader. As numerous studies have explored, opinion-leaders rarely hold formal positions of authority and instead prove influential by way of their greater attention to the news or a specialized topic, the knowledge they acquire, their strength of personality, and their experience in serving as a central go-between for shared information among their large network of friends and acquaintances (Nisbet and Kotcher 2009).

Luckily, soon after we moved to town, I met a key local opinion-leader in the form of our financial advisor. A native of the area with a gregarious personality, over several decades he had built up a diverse network of contacts. As it turns out, his advice on choosing a real estate agent and local bank to work with proved critical to our home buying process.

As familiar as this process of community networking might sound, until only very recently science communication–related initiatives have ignored opinion-leaders. Instead of defining communication as a networked process, science communication has traditionally been conceptualized as a one-way process of translation from experts directly to the public via lectures, media appearances, or popular books and articles. If there were an intermediary, science journalists were the go-betweens. This model of communication has always been flawed, but in today’s polarized political culture and fragmented media system, such traditional approaches are likely to have limited reach and influence.

First, only about one in five Americans today are active consumers of science news, seeking out and using science news several times a week. With many alternative media options to choose from via TV, online, or their mobile devices, it is easy for those without an interest in science to avoid almost any news about the subject. Some people may incidentally bump into posts about science shared via Facebook or other social media platforms. But our social media feeds are also increasingly tailored by way of algorithms to our preferences and interests, making such incidental exposure less likely. Given recent debates over “fake news” and the spread of false information, most Americans now also say they distrust science posts they see via social media (Nisbet 2018; Pew 2017). Second, all of us tend to interpret debates over issues such as evolution, climate change, genetically modified food, or vaccination by way of our social, religious, and political identities. Our identities serve as powerful filters of scientific evidence. We selectively interpret arguments we encounter in the news to be consistent with our sense of what others who share our identity believe, following closely cues from trusted political leaders and media commentators (Nisbet 2016).

The tendency for Americans to rely on their social identity to make sense of complex issues limits the ability of scientists and their organizations to influence broader segments of the public. Surveys show that the scientific community—in comparison to the U.S. public at large—tends to be disproportionately white, male, liberal, and nonreligious (Pew 2015). Like most Americans, scientists tend to live, work, and socialize within social circles that mirror their background, social identity, and religious beliefs. Scientists are therefore likely to have fewer friends and acquaintances who are from lower socio-economic backgrounds, are black or Latino, have a conservative ideological outlook, or are churchgoers, much less evangelical or born-again Christians. Scientists and their organizations must therefore collaborate with trusted opinion-leaders who can build bridges to groups that are difficult for scientists to reach and who can lead discussions at the community level of complex science topics in a way that is persuasive and personally relevant.

New and Old Approaches

In designing new initiatives that connect scientists with community-based opinion-leaders, one example to learn from is the Science & Engineering Ambassadors program. Sponsored by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, since 2012 the program has trained and supported close to forty scientists and engineers in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area. The goal of the program is to help local community members become more conversant with science-related topics, gain knowledge and skills in explaining science-related information to others, and improve their ability to assess the validity of others’ claims and conclusions. To achieve this goal, scientists and engineers involved in the program specifically target in their outreach opinion-leaders living in the Pittsburgh area who can serve as valuable community-based go-betweens in spreading knowledge and information. These opinion-leaders span a variety of fields and sectors and include teachers, business leaders, attorneys, policymakers, neighborhood leaders, students, and media professionals. Drawing on principles from past research, the program seeks to engage those who “participate and have reach within the local community, as well as those who have a platform for disseminating knowledge and fostering community relationships” (National Academies 2012).

A second leading example is the “Science Booster Clubs” coordinated by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) (n.d). In 2016 as part of a pilot program, NCSE recruited volunteers from communities across Iowa, training them in how to persuasively discuss with fellow Iowans topics related to climate science and evolution. These volunteers attended and presented at local public libraries, farmers markets, county fairs, and festivals, striking up thousands of conversations and engaging an estimated 54,000 people across the state during the first year of the pilot program. Key to the program’s success was a partnership with the University of Iowa, which lent faculty and graduate student expertise to identifying and training volunteers and to evaluating and tracking the program’s success. Since the launch of the Science Booster program in 2016, the initiative has now spread across multiple states.

As the role of the University of Iowa suggests, state universities should be central hubs for initiatives seeking to engage opinion-leaders and their communities. For decades, by way of their cooperative extension offices and staff, these universities have provided expert advice to state-wide professionals and stakeholders on farming practices, energy conservation, public health, fisheries, coastal resilience, forestry, land and water conservation, and other topics. This process involves not only consulting a state’s residents about specific concerns, needs, and specialized knowledge, but also recruiting opinion-leaders and early adopters of best practices to influence their peers. In all, the diverse networks maintained by university-based cooperative extension offices offer tailor-made opportunities for scientists and their partners to engage in dialogue across diverse segments of the public about complex issues ranging from climate change to gene editing to science education (Prokopy et al. n.d.).

For readers who may be seeking a systematic way to identify and work with opinion leaders across groups, survey measures informed by several studies have been developed to reliably and validly identify individuals who hold opinion-leader traits. Shortened versions of these measures can be included in surveys of members of organizations or distributed among email lists and social media followers. Scores on these questions can then quickly identify those individuals who have strong opinion-leader–like traits (see Nisbet and Kotcher 2009). More informally, as part of their professional lives and community interactions, readers can identify those individuals who appear to be key influencers and go-betweens and start to build a relationship with them.

Lydia Kang, MD, and Nate Pedersen have written a delightful new book, Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything. Histories can sometimes be a bit dry and boring; this is anything but. It’s a page-turner. The authors ferreted out some of the most disgusting and ridiculous things people have subjected themselves to in the pursuit of health. They are fond of the yucky and the shocking. They have a great sense of humor, albeit rather morbid and decidedly irreverent. It’s easy to see that they had fun writing this book, and they want to share that fun with their readers. Readers will alternate laughing and exclaiming “Wow!”

They point out that quackery is a tribute to the incredible power of the human desire to live. “We are willing to ingest cadavers, subject ourselves to boiling oil, and endure experimental treatments involving way too many leeches, all in the name of survival.” And this same drive has led to incredible innovations such as anesthesia for surgery. The trick is to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Quackery lingers on, and there are surely more “worst ways to cure” still to come. The book deals with the history of quackery, but new quackeries arise every day.

I already knew quite a lot about quackery; and in these pages, I revisited many quacks I have written about on the Science-Based Medicine blog, including Dr. Batmanghelid and his water cure https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-water-cure-another-example-of-self-deception-and-the-lone-genius/ , Linda Hazzard, who starved her patients to death and robbed them https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/natural-medicine-starvation-and-murder-the-story-of-linda-hazzard/ , John R. Brinkley with his goat gland transplants https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/charlatan-quackery-then-and-now/ , and Walter Freeman with his ice-pick-through-the-eye lobotomies https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/frontal-lobotomy-zombies-created-by-one-of-medicines-greatest-mistakes/

The book includes one of my favorite stories about the only doctor to ever have a 300 percent surgical mortality. During a too-hasty amputation procedure on an unanesthetized patient, his scalpel took off several of his assistant’s fingers and slashed the coat of a bystander. The bystander died of fright, the assistant died of infection, and the surgical patient died of post-op complications.

In addition to colorfully describing quackeries I was already aware of, the book covered many that were new to me, and it provided obscure facts and tidbits about celebrities.

Tidbits about Celebrities

Hitler’s doctor prescribed a quack remedy (Dr. Koester’s Antigas Tablets), and Hitler took it

For nine years at the rate of eight to sixteen tablets a day. He was inadvertently consuming near-lethal doses of strychnine, which may have contributed to his erratic behavior at the end of WWII. He also used chamomile tea: not to drink but for enemas.

Einstein was lured into trying Wilhelm Reich’s orgone box but quickly lost patience with both the box and Reich’s theories. There are pictures on the Internet of Kurt Cobain sitting in an orgone box. William S. Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch, built his own orgone box and spent many hours sitting in it. Britain’s Maggie Thatcher took “electric baths” as part of an elaborate health and beauty routine, at a cost of £600 per treatment.

Novelist Upton Sinclair promoted Abrams’ “radionics,” calling it “the most revolutionary discovery of this or any other age … the great secret of the diagnosis and cure of all major diseases.” When finally opened, Abrams’ Oscilloclast machine was found to contain a useless jumble of electrical parts, “the kind of device a ten-year-old boy would build to fool an eight-year-old boy.” Radionics practitioners offered to diagnose from blood samples sent through the mail. The AMA sent the blood of a healthy male guinea pig, saying it was from “Miss Bell.” Miss Bell was diagnosed with cancer, an infection of her left frontal sinus, and a streptococcic infection of her left fallopian tube. The caption for a picture of Abrams and his Oscilloclast reads, “Albert Abrams looking like a doctor as he manipulates a totally bullshit machine.” Kang and Pedersen don’t mince words.

A Cornucopia of Quackeries

The grape cure for cancer: fast, use enemas, then eat seven meals of grapes every day for two weeks. Nose writing to improve eyesight: Aldous Huxley recommended imagining your nose is a pencil and then writing an imaginary signature in the air with your nose.

Roland Hunt wrote a book explaining cosmotherapy, claiming that blue tinted water called Ceruleo could cure dysentery, cholera, and the bubonic plague. In referring to his “readers,” Kang and Pedersen comment, “assuming there was more than one.”

In Mesmer’s heyday, before his “magnetic healing” was debunked by Benjamin Franklin and the French Academy of Sciences, he became a wealthy man. They say, “Like so many quacks before and after him, as Mesmer’s bank account grew, his moral commitment to advancing medicine shrank.” I can think of quite a few people that applies to today.

The caption for a picture of one quack reads, “Dr. Fouquier taking a break from poisoning patients.”

Breatharian Wiley Brooks claimed to eat only when there was no fresh air to breathe or when he couldn’t get enough sunshine. He said humans needed no other nourishment “except for a Twinkie, a Slurpee, and a hot dog from 7-Eleven, all of which were seen clutched in Brooks’s arms by an observer in 1983.”

Victorian doctors gave pelvic massages to female patients to produce “hysterical paroxysms” (a euphemism for orgasm). Then do-it-yourself vibrators were invented, becoming the fifth electrical appliance introduced into the modern home after the tea kettle, sewing machine, fan, and toaster.

Ground-up human mummies were used in a variety of medicines; it became such a big business that England levied a mummy import tax.

Pliny the Elder recommended putting the right foot of a hyena on a pregnant woman to help with the delivery. Not the left foot: that would cause death.

Tobacco is the deadliest plant known to mankind, responsible for more than 6 million deaths a year worldwide. But tobacco has been widely used as a medical treatment. Leaves were smoked to cure the common cold, and smoke was blown up a woman’s vagina to relieve the pain of labor. It was even said to cure cancer; pretty ironic considering that seventeen people will die from smoking-induced lung cancer in America in the next hour alone. It was even added to toothpaste. Tobacco toothpaste is still sold in Southeast Asia. But the title of worst toothpaste ever should probably go to the radium-based toothpaste sold in the 1920s. (Do your teeth glow in the dark?)

When leeches were popular, leeching chairs were available with a hole in the seat area to facilitate application of leeches to the anus. When a leech was re-used after treating a syphilitic patient, it transmitted syphilis to a child. One doctor applied a whopping 130 leeches to a man’s testicles to treat gonorrhea. He must have had large testicles to make room for them all.

Quackeries tend to persist. Did you think bloodletting was a Medieval practice? It’s still regularly used in Unani, a Persian-Arabic branch of medicine. And California had to ban bloodletting by acupuncturists in 2010.

Why do so many people believe the ridiculous claims of quacks? “… When scholar after scholar insists that ‘it works because I heard it works,’ then people believe it. Ah, the power of the anecdote!”

Sometimes crazy-sounding things do actually work. What about drinking the urine of an impregnated mare to relieve post-menopausal hot flashes? That may sound like quackery, but it’s the basis of the drug Premarin.

The book is divided into sections covering elements (mercury, arsenic, radium, etc.), plants and soil (including tobacco, strychnine, and cocaine), tools (bloodletting, cautery, enemas, etc.), animals (leeches, cannibalism, corpse medicine, etc.), and mysterious powers (electricity, animal magnetism, light, radionics). It also includes several “Halls of Shame” for antidotes, women’s health, weight loss, cancer cures, etc.

There are plenty of graphic illustrations (many in color) and interesting sidebars. In the section on quack surgeries to implant animal testes in humans, there is even a sidebar with the recipe for a Monkey Gland Cocktail (no actual monkey parts, just gin, orange juice, grenadine, and absinthe).

Conclusion: Fun and Informative

I highly recommend this book. It is an excellent, informative history of how people have used weird, sometimes repulsive, and often dangerous treatments that didn’t work; and it’s highly entertaining to boot. It will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about “the worst ways to cure everything.” Readers may gasp in horror and retch or lose their appetite, but they are more likely to roll on the floor in convulsions of laughter. If laughter is the best medicine, this book is good therapy. It’s a hoot. Maybe even a hoot and a half.

David Dominé is author of a series of three books (2017a; 2017b; 2017c) offering, in turn, “Ghosts”—and “Phantoms” and “Haunts”—“of Old Louisville.” Do they indeed present “True Stories of Hauntings” and even “the possibility of supernatural phenomena” (as the publisher suggests in book-jacket blurbs)? Dominé asks, “Do I believe human beings experience strange phenomena that cannot be explained away by science and coincidence?” He answers: “Most assuredly. I have experienced activities myself that—apart from sheer imagination or happenstance—could only be attributed to something beyond ordinary human understanding.”

Then again, in one of the most self-contradictory prefaces I have seen, he talks out of the other side of his mouth, stating that his “stories” are “for entertainment purposes only.” Indeed, “Don’t ask me to justify my accounts of hauntings in this book, and don’t tell me that you don’t believe in the supernatural, because—truth be told—I don’t care.” Yet again, he states, “I just want to present a story that defies explanation.” Yet he habitually treats the “unexplained” as evidence of the paranormal—a form of faulty logic called “an argument from ignorance” (Dominé 2017c, 6–10; Nickell 2012, 269).

But let us take a look at some of Dominé’s intentionally spine-tingling accounts—keeping in mind that he often changes the names of his informants and admittedly uses “artistic license” to improve the narratives (2017a, 7). One gets the impression he does not even want the tales to be examinable.

Specter of Light

In Dominé’s very first offering, a man left work at the historical society after an exhausting fourteen hours. He was so tired that he skipped his usual walk and got into his car parked in front of a church. Laying his head back on the seat rest, he soon “noticed a strange light” that he then perceived as “a beautiful woman.” He would later recall her outdated hair and clothing in remarkable detail. Although he sensed she was otherworldly, the vision seemed real. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, he was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness she projected, and then she vanished. He thought he might have imagined her but decided otherwise (Dominé 2017a, 17–31).

The ghostly vision is, in fact, a textbook example of a “waking dream”—known scientifically as a hypnagogic experience (Mavromatis 1987). It occurs in the state between being fully awake and asleep, and it has features of both. The subject’s extreme tiredness is telling, along with the strange imagery. A common aspect of hypnagogia is suggestibility, and the subject’s prior hours of immersion in history may have been a factor, as may have been an apparent local legend of “the Lady of the Stairs.” Invariably, those having a waking dream insist on the reality of their experience (Baker and Nickell 1992, 130, 226–227).

Demonry?

In the 1940s, a young World War II veteran had a series of bizarre experiences in his apartment in the old women’s infirmary on South Sixth Street. Nothing happened for the first three months he lived there, but then enough hell broke loose for him to summon a priest. The events began one night when he was tired and ready for bed. As he brushed his teeth, he heard music from the radio and, thinking he had misremembered turning it off, he checked—only to find it was turned off. He still heard music, even when he pulled the plug from the outlet, and he heard “the apparent hiss and crackle of static.” He also had an experience with a lamp that he could not turn off. Lying in bed he heard moaning and sobbing but, oddly, did not get up to investigate. Such experiences plagued him for weeks—always at night—and on occasion he saw both the radio and lamp levitate before him while a fog gathered. On one occasion, “Immobilized, he stared at the objects in the air before him and gulped for air, afraid he might suffocate. …” And then the spell subsided. The events continued even when the priest came to exorcise the demonry, though he was “apparently unperturbed” during the moaning and gathering fog. Finally, normalcy returned, and the man lived on there without incident for nearly two years (Dominé 2017a, 75–86).

The subject’s bizarre experiences have numerous features in common with hypnagogia: the tiredness, the elements of mist and luminosity together with auditory effects (including music and “crackling and snapping noises”) and visions (which can be of great variety and include the movement of inanimate objects); one notes also the onset of sleep paralysis (he was “immobilized” and felt he “might suffocate”), a corroborative factor. (The inability to move is due to the body being in the sleep mode.) Taken together, the effects indicate a series of hypnagogic experiences (Mavromatis 1987, 14–35, 81; Baker and Nickell 1992, 130, 226–27; Nickell 2012, 352–354). I suspect the priest (who reportedly shared one vision) humored the subject, as has been done in untold cases.

Disembodied Footsteps

One night early on, Dominé hightailed it out of his own abode, the historical Widmer House, when he encountered—well, what were those creaking sounds? They seemed to him like the footsteps of “an invisible visitor”—there on the old steps (“Someone is coming down the stairs!”), and then beside the bed where he lay with his two miniature schnauzers: at once “a loud groan from the floorboards,” then “a long moaning squeak that ended with a loud pop.” Soon—the tension mounted—the sound came from the other side of the bed, and, he says, “I literally flew out of bed.” Well, he doesn’t mean literally “literally,” but he and the two dogs—i.e., three scaredy cats—were out of there in a trice (Dominé 2017a, 34–47).

Dominé is at pains to convince us his place is haunted, even while maintaining he is “hopeful that something logical would explain the weird noises.” He reports asking his workmen if their recent sanding of the floors or the warmer weather might be responsible, but they were rather skeptical. In fact, old houses, especially, can creak and pop, due either to settling of the structure or to the fact that wood frame houses expand and contract when the temperature changes—becoming cooler for example during the night, just as he experienced (Holton 2014). Settling of the house might well be suggested by other phenomena there: occasional loud noises, plaster dropping from the ceiling, and pictures falling off the walls (Dominé 2017a, 37–38).

At a Séance

Dominé seems especially unprepared when an alleged spiritualist medium invites him to midnight séances at the old Spalding Mansion. Calling herself “Amber” but declining to give a surname, she seated Dominé and others at a large table in the dining room illuminated only by a flickering candle. After various blessings and an invocation to her “spirit guide,” she placed on the table a small vase into which was stuck a white feather somewhat taller than its container. As she asked questions of some alleged spirit, the feather rose, hovered, and fell to indicate yes, remaining motionless for no. Laboriously, by beginning with the letter A and proceeding letter by letter through the alphabet, the entity could also spell out words, including its name: once that of a possible house owner, another time the words, “MY NAME IS DARKNESS.” On one occasion the plume sailed up and out of the vase! Still, without mentioning the possibility of trickery, Dominé states he had “seen enough” and would simply chalk up the strange happenings to “the unknown.”

How convenient. In fact, séance tricks have been common throughout the history of spiritualism, especially wherever dark rooms were used. The mystic-feather feat is easily accomplished with the aid of what magicians call an invisible thread. Indeed, corroboratively, when the medium’s feather once leapt from the vase it “landed on the table in front of her” (not to the left or right or away from her), just as if it had been pulled in her direction (Dominé 2017b, 21–41). Using my magician’s background and extensive study of spiritualist methods (including sitting in many séances, often undercover), I have exposed fake “spirit precipitations” (images supposedly materialized on cloth), billet readings, and many other mediumistic phenomena (Nickell 2012, 94, 217–218, 219–221, 287–290).

Ghost Hunting

We are treated several times to the antics of so-called ghost hunters, who employ various gadgets on the supposition that they detect ghosts. That involves finding electromagnetic energy (supposedly somehow connected with ghosts), or taking photos (sometimes, for instance, showing “orbs”), or recording ghostly murmurings called “electronic voice phenomena” (or EVP), and so on. Some utilize “psychics,” who report their feelings or visions or who employ dowsing rods or other means to “communicate” with spirits (e.g., Dominé 2017a, 171, 179–182; 2017b, 110–111, 141–143; 2017c, 126–127, 144–145).

In fact, none of these methods has ever proven to have detected a single ghost. Sources for electromagnetic fields, for example, are as ubiquitous as faulty electrical wiring, radio waves, microwave emissions, solar activity, electrical thunderstorms, and many other influences, including the hapless seekers’ own electronic equipment! EVP “voices” typically represent the tendency to hear apparent words in random sounds, such as background noise, or perhaps unrecalled actual voices of the crew. (Other alleged phenomena, including “orbs,” are discussed in the next two sections.) Much “ghost” activity is attributable to pranks and—deliberately or inadvertently—to ghost hunters themselves (Nickell 2012, 146, 259–280, 309–312).

Mystic Motions

One of Dominé’s informants discovered that a ghost had twice made her bed for her! Oh, sure, she first thought it was her roommate, Sarah, but then the two consulted spirits via Ouija board. When they asked who made the bed, the pointer spelled “I D-I-D”—not S-A-R-A-H as expected (2017a, 100–101). Surely Sarah would not play pranks! Besides, a local “psychic” at another “haunted” abode was reportedly able to detect “spirit energy” using a pendulum. The psychic employed it, she said, “to measure the energy around us.” Dominé gushes, “Suddenly, the suspended object seemed to start swinging on its own, back and forth, and then around in long, lazy arcs.” “Oh yes,” said the psychic, “there’s a lot of good energy here” (2017b, 63–65). Some psychics use a pendulum to supposedly communicate with a ghost, using specified movements to answer “yes” or “no.”

Such mystical motions—when they are not deliberate—are known to be caused by the psychological phenomenon called the “ideomotor effect”: when one concentrates on an expected movement, unconsciously the muscular system carries out the action. This explains the movement of the Ouija planchette, the swinging of dowsing rods and pendulums, and the activity of the once-popular spirit phenomenon known as “table tipping.” The noted British physicist Michael Faraday explained the latter phenomenon in 1853 using simple experiments (Christopher 1970, 115–123). When knowledgeable investigators use proper safeguards to eliminate the ideomotor effect with the Ouija board, for example—say, when the operator is properly blindfolded—“only gibberish is produced” (Randi 1995, 169–170).

Fauxto Ghosts

Ever looking for “ghost” phenomena, Dominé thinks he may have seen—and in some instances made—photos of ghosts. In Ghosts of Old Louisville, he describes a photo with “what appeared to be the shadowy figures of a young child leaning forward on the window sill and an old woman in a nightgown standing behind.” His friends could see them too (2017a, 174–175), but what is really mysterious is that he does not print the picture for us to see. He does show four snapshots from a couple’s New Year’s Day parties containing strange bright, blurry shapes that impressed a “psychic” and two photo “experts” who could not explain them (2017a, 170–177). Again, he himself captured what are known in ghost-hunter parlance as “orbs”: “Many believe them to be actual ghosts or spirits in the spherical forms of light” (2017c, 144–145).

Actually, the “shadowy figures” described in the first photo are consistent with simulacra—the result of one’s ability to perceive images in random shapes (like seeing pictures in clouds or inkblots). Known as pareidolia, this is a neurological-psychological phenomenon by which the brain interprets vague images as specific ones—commonly as people (such as the “man in the moon”). The second phenomenon—the blurred, whitish shapes—result from the camera’s flash rebounding off some intruding object—commonly part of the photographer’s hand or, in these instances, the bunched camera strap (I can even make out the scalloped edge of the braiding). As to the “orbs,” they result from particulate matter in the air (dust, lint, water droplets) being close to the lens and bouncing back the flash (much as the camera strap did). I have made many of these in both still photos and videos, even creating and observing and photographing the effect in progress (Nickell 2012, 351, 128–129, 301–306).

Poltergeists

The poltergeist (German for “noisy spirit”) is alleged to cause various ghostly—if usually mischievous—disturbances. Just such a pranking specter—dubbed “Sally”—is said to haunt the old Ferguson Mansion (home to the Filson Historical Society.) The phenomena attributed to a resident poltergeist include books that unaccountably fall from shelves—usually singly and when someone walks by. However, a researcher reportedly saw a book that “hovered in the air” before falling, followed by another and another until the shelf was emptied. Again, “a huge letter S” was discovered, laid out on a rug in the center of a room with books “from the surrounding shelves.” And once, into a researcher’s unattended notebook, the presumed poltergeist’s autograph appeared: “In an elegant, flowing script, Dominé tells us, “a feminine hand had written the name SALLY.” (Dominé 2017c, 21–37). Do we need more proof than this?

We do. First of all, books fall from shelves due not to spirits but to gravity. If books are placed carelessly, or if an old building settles, or if someone depresses a floorboard walking by, a book may tumble—or books, considering the domino effect. (In the case of the “hovering” book, it was seen by an impressionable researcher who had often had “creepy” feelings there. (She had worked late and “felt a sensation of pressure” in her chest—indicating the possible onset of sleep paralysis.) However, the “S” of books and the penned spirit autograph do indicate deliberate pranking. Many famous poltergeists have turned out to be human mischief makers—children or immature adults—plaguing credulous adults. I have caught several of these (Nickell 2012, 294–295, 319–341). Indeed, the researcher’s response to the spirit autograph was “to wonder if someone hadn’t been pranking me.” As she reasoned, “Maybe one of the employees wanted to perpetuate the legends of the ghost named Sally on the premises” (Dominé 2017c, 35).

* * *

The foregoing examples show how Dominé’s books foster ignorance and superstition. Moreover, they pay only occasional lip service to science while at times promoting noxious pseudoscience—and even reveal an antiscience bias. Dominé appears not to understand why science dismisses the existence of ghosts, treating the matter as one of belief versus disbelief: “To my mind,” he says, “only arrogance and lack of faith in one’s own convictions could lead so-called rational beings to discount all phenomena outside their belief systems” (Dominé 2017c, 7). But it is Dominé who is arrogant. Only someone supremely ignorant of science could make such a statement.

And how could a press that represents all of the universities in the Commonwealth of Kentucky publish such nonsense—even in an age of fake news and fake science? I suspect the motive was money (at the expense of ethics and science) that led to republishing the author’s previously published books. (They were apparently not even read by an editor so as to remove errors like “lead” for led, “aide” for aid, “queue” for cue, and so on, including—ironically in reference to a container of holy water—“vile” for vial.)

As Dominé and his press should learn, science cannot substantiate the existence of a “life energy” that could survive death without dissipating or function at all without a brain. Besides, even if such an energy did exist, and perfectly retained the form of the person it inhabited (being sometimes reported as visible), why would inanimate objects such as clothes survive as well? If the imagined energy were such that “ghosts” could glide noiselessly through walls, then why do they at other times have such heavy footfalls? The answer is that ghosts behave in apparitional dramas just as they do in dreams, memories, and imaginings, because they too are mental creations. They are evidence—not of another world, but of this real and natural one.

• Baker, Robert A., and Joe Nickell. 1992. Missing Pieces: How to Investigate Ghosts, UFOs, Psychics, & Other Mysteries. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Christopher, Milbourne. 1970. ESP, Seers & Psychics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
• Dominé, David. 2017a. Ghosts of Old Louisville. Lexington: UP of KY.
• ———. 2017b. Phantoms of Old Louisville. Lexington: UP of KY.
• ———. 2017c. Haunts of Old Louisville. Lexington: UP of KY.
• Holton, Peter. 2014. What to do when your house makes cracking sounds. Boston Globe (June 29).
• Mavromatis, Andreas. 1987. Hypnagogia. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Nickell, Joe. 2012. The Science of Ghosts. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Randi, James. 1995. The Supernatural A-Z. London: Brockhampton Press.

It’s CSICon Sunday Paper time! One of best parts of our community is the short lectures told by people who generally aren’t known as main speakers. Many of these people are professors, researchers, scientists, or maybe just someone with a passion about a subject. You will usually find these kinds of lectures at SkeptiCamps all over the world, but for the past few years they have also been on Sunday morning at CSICon. I have written about past Sunday Papers as well as interviewed several of the presenters, and you can read about them here…

• https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/fifteen_minutes_of_skepticism_the_sunday_papers_an_interview_with_jay_diamo
• https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/from_tam_to_csicon_an_interview_with_ray_hall_and_katie_dyer
• https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/csicon_las_vegas

For CSICon 2017, I am going to talk about the five paper presentations as well as give you a link to videos I shot of each one, so you can watch them for yourselves. These papers are all organized and curated by Ray Hall several months in advance. Every person who wants to present has several steps they need to follow for Hall to choose them. Hall says that he not only looks for quality but timeliness and how it will fit with the other papers. It is a lot of work not only on Ray but also the people chosen. Slides are presented weeks in advance, and each presenter is on a tight schedule. You need to be well rehearsed.

First up is Charles Wynn, who is an emeritus professor of chemistry at Eastern Connecticut State University where he teaches a class on critical thinking. Wynn is also the author of Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction, which is on its second edition. I first met Wynn at the Eugene, Oregon, Skeptic’s Toolbox back in 2002. His paper this year was called “Deconstructing Pseudoscience.” He talks about how we can teach people to recognize pseudoscience and how to stop the spread of bad thinking. He said that we can teach people to “recognize the disconfirmation associated with their beliefs” and how to pay attention and see red flags. He did a survey in his college class at the beginning of the semester, asking them about their level of pseudoscience belief. The majority showed most held beliefs in the paranormal. Then he surveyed them again at the end of the class, asking the same questions. The post-survey showed improvements in all areas with the exception of two topics that showed no change—creationism and ghosts. Wynn thinks that if educators focus on real science vs. pseudoscience, teaching what red flags to look for, we will make stronger inroads teaching critical thinking skills. The most important piece of wisdom students need to leave the class with is knowing that when something seems too good to be true, they should question it. Here is a link to Wynn’s video.

Neurologist Fred Nour was the next speaker. He is the author of the book True Love: How to Use Science to Understand Love (coauthored with Loren Rolak). In this Sunday Paper called “Is Functional MRI the New Phrenology?” he first talks about the history of phrenology, which was the idea that the brain has regions or zones that correspond to emotions and specific functions. While science does tell us that this is true, phrenology left science and moved into pseudoscience; it was quite popular in the early 1800s. Functional MRI is a modern technique (it dates from 1990) that measures brain activity by measuring blood flow. They use brain scans and … well, to be honest with you, I tried to read the Wikipedia page, but it is quite complicated. According to Nour people who are practicing fMRI are reading too much into the statistics and making claims that are incorrect. He says that they are making the claim that networks are independent of each other; Nour says that is not true. Parkinson’s disease and depression networks are continuously interacting with each other. Scientists have discovered the love center in the brain, according to Nour, and stimulating or damaging it will not cause a change in love. In 2009, a doctor named Bennet duplicated the fMRI study of humans reacting to happy or angry faces. What Bennet did was the same study but instead of humans reacting, he used a dead salmon and got the same results. That must have been a wild study. In 2016, scientists reviewed data from fMRI supporters and found a 27 percent success rate. The magazine Nature insisted on seeing the data from fMRIs and not just the conclusions. Nour concludes that the modern fMRI is phrenology all over again. Video is here.

Our third presenter is a good friend of mine that I met for the first time at CSICon 2016, Craig Foster. Foster is a professor of psychology at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. There he teaches a critical thinking class, and he is also a very big sports fan. You can read all about his 2016 Sunday Paper presentation in this interview. Foster’s 2017 paper was called, “Does God Influence Sports? An Empirical Investigation.” Foster tells us that about 25 percent of U.S. residents believe that God influences sports, and athletes and fans commonly talk about God’s influence. So Foster wanted to see if this was something that can be tested. “Does God use sports to reward faithful athletes or to promote faith itself?” He explains that this is really difficult to even begin to test when you consider that some colleges are religious and that possibly a terminally ill child would have asked God to intercede on the outcome of a game. So how can you weigh whose prayer means more than another’s prayer? Foster looked at the past five years of men’s and women’s NCAA basketball championships, only the first round. I won’t go into the results here of what he found; you will need to watch the video to find out. But he came away with some really great questions and felt that the answers could be really important if we could be sure of the answers. Why would God support one faith over another? Why would God care about sports when there are more important social issues? In the end, Foster thought that a believer would just end up saying “God’s influence is subtle, unpredictable, or untestable.” Here is the link to Foster’s presentation.

Rodney Schmaltz is an associate professor of psychology at the MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta. His paper was called “The Need for Scientific Thinking: Teaching Students how to Detect Baloney.” He surveyed students at the beginning of the semester and asked on a scale of 1 to 5 what they thought their level of critical thinking was. Almost everyone said 4 or 5. He also discovered through the survey that most had a high level of belief in the paranormal. He postulated that this disconnect is because students are told they are learning critical thinking skills, but that term is so broad and ill-defined that they could be learning just about anything and told it was critical thinking. Schmaltz suggests that schools focus on scientific thinking.

Schmaltz and a psychology honors student, Nicole Wenckowski, have put together an hour-long lecture with three demos. These are very simple demonstrations focusing on astrology, a card trick, and a newspaper psychic prediction. Rodney and Nicole are magicians, but they took the advice of Wisconsin Assistant Professor Tony Barnhart who is also a magician when trying to decide on the demonstrations. One of the challenges Schmaltz found was getting permission to work with people under the age of eighteen. When trying to get approval from the IRB, they were questioned why in their survey asked about students’ belief in God, and then another question asked about the students’ belief in the Loch Ness monster. The IRB committee felt this line of questioning could be insulting to students, equating a god belief with cryptozoology. Schmaltz also discovered that there are for-profit groups writing and trying to sell critical thinking classroom instruction. You can view the paper presentation here.

The last presenter for the day was William London and his grad student Parul Chouhan. They are at Cal State University of Los Angeles. London is a professor of public health and someone I have known for years, meeting him first at the Eugene Skeptic’s Toolbox. Chouhan is a grad student who has an undergrad degree in dentistry. This was her very first presentation. Their paper was called “Aberrant Treatments Promoted on Websites of Licensed Naturopathic Doctors,” and it was a review of websites from Los Angeles County. In California, naturopaths can be licensed, and London and Chouhan located 127 licenses that they used to find twenty-eight websites. In California, Senate Bill 746 allows naturopaths to give school physicals for students wanting to play in sports. Senate Bill 796 gives an extension to naturopath licensing until January 1, 2022, at which time there will be a provision to remove licensing.

Chouhan and London reviewed the twenty-eight naturopath websites looking for aberrant pseudoscience claims. They found that 100 percent of the websites contained some nonscientific medical claim. Hormone replacement and herbal medicine were on 64 percent of the websites, and homeopathy and intravenous nutrient infusion on 50 percent. London and Chouhan’s conclusion was that aberrant health care by naturopaths in LA County is mainstream. Naturopathy is pseudomedicine and should not be licensed. For video of the presentation, see here.

I hope you all enjoy the CSICon Sunday Papers as much as I do. I know it’s difficult to get up and functioning after the Halloween party the night before, but you really need to try. I might not be there next year to film. If you would like to present, please read the other interviews I’ve done with past presenters, because they offer some great tips. Also, I have videos from past conferences located on my YouTube channel. Ray Hall is terrific at helping you through the process of making a great presentation, and even if you arrive at CSICon knowing no one, by the time Sunday arrives you will find a friendly and welcoming audience. All details on how to become a Sunday Paper presenter can be found on CSI’s conference website. I look forward to writing about you next year.

All photos taken by Karl Withakay

Robyn Blumner opens as our U.S. President.

You might have known things were going to be different when Center for Inquiry CEO Robyn Blumner in her opening remarks impersonated a certain president of the United States mocking the assembled skeptics for their “reality-based” view of the world and their love of facts, evidence, science, and reason. Good luck with that, said the confident U.S. leader, who in this case seems to know what he’s talking about.

That disquieting theme resonated for a time throughout the conference, but it quickly got on to science with another of physicist Lawrence Krauss’s “isn’t science mind-boggling?” talks. This time he chose mysteries of the sun as his starting point. He soon got to the 1939 discovery of fusion as the sun’s energy source, then went on to the neutrinos that whiz unnoticed through our bodies, our homes, indeed our entire planet by the trillions every second, and then to the discovery that they can change forms en route. And that took him to deep mysteries of the universe, cosmic inflation, and dark matter and energy. Then the discovery just two weeks earlier of gravitational waves from the collision of two orbiting neutron stars. It led astronomers to turn their telescopes to that point in space and observe gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves, visible light, and other stuff from this gargantuan collision. And out of that discovery, already, has come the realization (or confirmation) that vast amounts of gold (perhaps one Earth mass worth) are created in each such event. Our precious metals originate in the collisions of orbiting neutron stars. “Isn’t it amazing!” he exclaimed. We could only agree.

We were off to an exuberant start. “A festival of scientific skepticism” indeed, as I had predicted in my opening remarks following Blumner’s. CSICon Las Vegas 2017, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s annual conference dedicated to science and skeptical inquiry, was underway. It proved to be the biggest and arguably the most successful yet (the fourth in the CSICon series and the second straight in Las Vegas). Five hundred sixty participants crowded the conference rooms, and, as far as I could see, most of them attended every session over the three days. Comments heard and volunteered were overwhelmingly positive. Many vowed to return. Next year’s conference will be moved to a bigger venue in Las Vegas (see the back cover of this issue for details).

“The conference, by any measure, was a great success,” says Barry Karr, CSI executive director and CSICon organizer. “There were so many highlights, so many wonderful moments, speaker after amazing speaker, so many social events mixed in. Hundreds of your fellow skeptics on hand. Now I know what a young child feels like after visiting four theme parks at Disney World in three days!If you were there, you know what I mean.If you weren’t—well, there is always next year.”

The three-plus days covered virtually every imaginable topic of concern to scientific skeptics—from the rise of institutionally based medical quackery to naturopathy (three talks, one by a former naturopath), to opposition to vaccines and genetically modified foods, to climate change denial, to why people are so resistant to knowledge, to conspiracy theories, to surviving in the post-truth world, to a small experimental examination of the question of whether God influences sports, and to people’s weird dislike of “chemicals,” even though everything, and everyone, is made of them.

Physicist Taner Edis speaks on creationism, cranks, and conspiracy theories in the Islamic world, especially Turkey, before the large CSICon 2017 audience.

Woody Kaplan asks a question, as host and emcee George Hrab looks on.

The inimitable skeptic George Hrab served as conference emcee, keeping everything on track and entertaining us with his witty takes on, well, just about anything that occurred to him. (The Last Laugh essay in this issue is one; he read that before one session.) Another was a song he’d written (and was to record later that week). He sang and played it for us on the guitar. It was mocking how when disasters happen, the pious seem to think we should all be comforted by “thoughts and prayers.” I didn’t get all of the first verse, but it included, “Thoughts and Prayers, …. A way to put on airs. / Like rearranging the Titanic’s deck chairs. / Who cares if it does any good. / I’ve had enough of your Thoughts and Prayers.”

The conference was indeed full of memorable moments, but, for me, a few stood out:

Britt Marie Hermes

Britt Marie Hermes on “The Bloody Work of Naturopaths.” Yes, that was her title. She was a naturopath herself, for three years. She got a degree as a naturopath doctor from Bastyr University. She really thought she was in medical school and that it was a real degree. She called herself Dr. Britt. She thought she got a good education at the time; she had been brainwashed she says now. She calls it “My complete and utter delusional thinking.” Nothing was as had been portrayed to her.

“In reality, naturopathic schools teach pseudoscience.” She said there was some real science mixed in, “but the B.S. outweighed any real science.” What about the naturopathic medical board? “It exists to protect naturopathic doctors,” she said.

They had a plant to be administered for every disease. She saw ozone being injected into patients’ anuses and vaginas. A woman patient’s baby died after being given homeopathy in birth, and Bastyr taught “The Ancient Art of Bleeding,” in which they strike the skin repeatedly with a seven-star hammer until it bleeds. One treatment for herpes was to bleed the knees. “Naturopathic doctors can get away with anything,” she lamented. “There is no standard of care.”

“Bastyr has blood on its hands,” she proclaimed. They teach “a bogus system of medicine.” They think what they are doing is legitimate, but they are “legitimizing quackery.” She says practitioners should be stripped of the N.D. title (“An N.D. is not a doctor”), and the schools should “take the nonsense out of the forefront.”

“I did a lot of unacceptable things as a quack doctor,” she ended. “I’m lucky no one got hurt.”

Science Moms. That is the name of a group of women scientists who have organized to speak out for good science and against nonscientific thinking about vaccines, GMOs, and women’s health issues. It is also the title of a new documentary film about their efforts. They all came to CSICon’s “Science Mom’s” panel and brought the film with them. We were the first audience to see it. You can now download it on the Internet, and it is worth your time. They also have a Science Moms Facebook page. The Science Moms are Kavin Senapathy, Alison Bernstein, Layla Katiraee, and Jenny Splitter. Natalie Newell, the film’s producer and director, was also on the panel. The Science Moms are courageous and outspoken. They get a lot of flack from people exposed to all the misinformation out there, and they counter it with real science. They are my new heroes of scientific skepticism.

Moms are particularly vulnerable to pseudoscience that promotes fear and hype, and these women scientists are doing their best to counteract that. Marketers prey on the fact that being a parent is a bit scary, and they have found that promoting fear is an effective marketing ploy. Scaring parents works; they’ll spend big bucks trying to make sure their children are safe.

“We wanted to provide a voice for moms based on science and evidence,” as one of them said. That they have done.

The anti-GMO movement is one area where they are trying to provide better information. They point out that the vast majority of the foods we eat—with the exception of wild game, herbs, and mushrooms—have been genetically altered. There is a huge problem of vitamin A deficiency in the world, and genetic modifications can make rice enhanced in vitamin A. Yet anti-GMO ideology has tragically prevented vitamin A–enhanced rice from reaching the people who need it.

Another marketing ploy is to pretend that organic foods are healthier. But the evidence shows no real health benefits to organic foods. They are just more expensive.

The anti-vaccination movement is manipulated by similar strategies.

The anti-GMO, anti-vaccination movements have been effective at telling stories and creating scary narratives not based on science or evidence but with tremendous emotional power. The Science Moms panel challenged listeners to be part of a new narrative, based on evidence and reason. As the film’s subtitle says: “Facts, not Fear.”

Richard Dawkins and Richard Wiseman playfully spar in their on-stage interview.

The Richard Dawkins-Richard Wiseman on-stage conversation. What a delight! These two well-known scientists brought their dry British wit to the stage, and it was almost as much fun watching their reactions to each other as listening to what they said. Psychologist Wiseman would get a mischievous look on his face, lean forward, and then hit his friend Dawkins the evolutionary biologist with a wry question out of left field. The still-rosy-cheeked Dawkins would hesitate for a moment. Then his eyes would twinkle, a little smile would break out, and he’d hit back with an equally unexpected answer.

An hour of discussion is impossible to summarize, but here are a few highlights. This is Dawkins:

• The mistake early proponents of evolution made was thinking that natural selection focuses on the group rather than the gene. That’s why he wrote The Selfish Gene. It wasn’t a totally original idea. “Neo-Darwianians in the 1930s and 1940s did present that idea,” Dawkins says, “but not in such an outspoken way.” And he described it in “probably a more poetic way.”
• There is such a thing as “the evolution of evolvability.” Some groups—insects and mammals for instance—once they develop a body plan, that plan makes them more diverse and evolvable. There is a kind of “bursting forth of evolutionary adaptation.”
• “People who don’t believe in evolution generally don’t know anything about it.”
• “Godlessness is implicit in everything I’ve written.” His book The God Delusion (about three million in worldwide sales so far) has sold even more than The Selfish Gene. He takes pleasure having learned that that there is an online Arabic-language edition, pirated, that has been downloaded 13 million times. That tells him that in the Arabic-speaking world there is a hidden “groundswell of irreligion.”
• Wiseman asked Dawkins how he can change people’s minds. Again the wry smile broke out on Dawkins’s face as he replied, “I’m not famous for being good at that.”
• Wiseman playfully asked, “What is the least bad argument for God?” Dawkins and the audience laughed at that wording. “Fine-tuning,” he finally answered. He didn’t have to point out for this audience that in his books he has repeatedly and eloquently examined and rejected the fine-tuning argument.
• “Would a sufficiently advanced ET civilization be God?” Wiseman asked. The two of them exchanged smiles again at that thought. Dawkins’s answer was emphatic. “No. They would still be a result of some evolutionary process.”
• Dawkins’s next book—he’d written about five chapters at that point and in fact was working on it in free moments during the conference—is a version of The God Delusion for young people. He is struggling with the right tone and level for a younger audience. He has chapters on evolution versus design and now a chapter, “The Good Book,” that will, he says, “recount all the horrors in the Bible.”
• Wiseman invited a final comment. Dawkins’ reply was succinct: “There is such a thing as truth, and the truth is utterly wonderful!”

Steve Novella’s Excursion though Skepticism to the Post-Truth World. In a wide-ranging lunchtime talk, Steven Novella, who has become one of skepticism’s most prominent leaders, described what he sees as The Arc of Movement Skepticism. When the institutionalized skeptics’ movement started, back in the 1970s (that was the start of CSICOP, now CSI), skeptics basically focused on pseudoscience and other fringe elements. For the next twenty years, the main focus was on classic pseudoscience—astrology, psychics, UFOs, and the like. By the 1990s science denial had arisen to be a major problem, and skeptics’ focus shifted into issues more political. Attacks increased on science itself and on expertise and science institutions, and these attacks infiltrated medicine and led to the rise of “alternative medicine.”

“We’ve seen a well-funded campaign to infiltrate science,” he said. Major efforts suggesting there are alternatives to science strengthened, and proponents lobbied governments to license quacks, changing the rules to suit themselves. Billions of dollars are now at work in the promotion of pseudoscience.

“It is working,” Novella lamented. “Pseudoscience has been institutionalized, mainly in medicine.” This effort has “eroded the very basis of academia and expertise.” Skepticism expanded as well. “We grew tremendously, but our enemies grew even faster.”

Now things are even worse. We are in a post-truth world, Novella says, with institutionalized pseudoscience, attacks on expertise and standards, the rise of populism, changes in the rules of science, and the creation of social media echo chambers “where you don’t have to defend your facts.” The situation has gotten so bad that “we don’t have to worry about facts. We can tell any story we want.” We are in a mirror-mirror world, where up is now down. “We’re walking to stand still,” Novella says. “We couldn’t have planned for this.”

But the skeptical narrative can be powerful as well. Skeptics need to insist that truth and facts matter. Yet, they also have to understand that new psychological understandings of motivated reasoning teach us that countering false beliefs with facts alone doesn’t work. “You have to understand where people are coming from. You have to give them an alternative narrative.”

What can we do?

Novella urges us to “stay skeptical,” separate facts from opinion, don’t take attacks personally, continue to fight for science and reason, grow the institutions of skepticism, and defend the institutions of science, academia, and journalism. “Be nimble. Adapt. Nobody knows what’s coming. Lobby more, mobilize more.”

Eugenie Scott

Eugenie Scott on “Why Knowledge Resistance?” Eugenie Scott’s talk later in the conference complemented Novella’s in many ways. People are resistant to knowledge for a variety of reasons—but those reasons don’t include lack of intelligence or ignorance. If it were ignorance of scientific knowledge, we could fix it with education. Also, she doesn’t think it’s right to say Americans are increasingly anti-scientific. Polls still indicate that Americans are more likely to trust scientists than others. So there doesn’t appear to be a large anti-science tendency in America.

Nevertheless, we have science denialism. But it is nuanced, selective. What people seem to be saying is, “I don’t like this science—not all science.” Such people view factual information through a filter. That filter includes ideology, values, and group identity. That filtering can be either beneficial or harmful; “It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she says. Context matters. “What’s bad is when ideology prevents us from accepting new ideas.”

Research indicates that ideology, values, and group identity are so strong that when people are presented factual information that goes against those elements, they believe even more strongly. This is the so-called “Backfire Effect.” It puts evidence-based proponents in a bit of a bind.

But Scott notes the effect is not universal. “No one is saying don’t correct misinformation. No one is saying information doesn’t count.”

What to do?

Debates about opinions are healthy. But realize that our opinions are determined not only by facts but by values and ideology. Keep stressing that scientific facts are not opinion. Communications research tells us that to change minds we need not only the facts but better and more effective messages, repeated often. Have a strategy in our communications with others. Realize opponents aren’t stupid or ignorant. They are operating from a position of strongly held ideology, values, and group identity—as are we all.

“Talk to each other. Treat others respectfully. … We can change our minds sometimes,” she says. Do so and “there is a chance the science will be heard.”

And that’s all from me. We’ll next give you some of Paul Fidalgo’s “live” short personal takes on CSICon talks. More still can be found on CFI’s website. Trigger warning: If you don’t like irreverent humor, stop reading now!

Photos by Brian Engler

I have often written in the Skeptical Inquirer about how what we do is a communal activity. There is a dynamic interaction between our authors/investigators who prepare our articles, reports, critiques, and reviews and our intelligent and curious readers, supporters, and conference attendees who provide moral (and financial!) support, information, ideas, and informed feedback. This is one of the decidedly cool things about the skeptical community. Everyone can contribute in some way.

And what is it we all do? Well, to quote the short version of the mission statement of SI and our Committee for Skeptical Inquiry that appears in every SI: We promote “scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.” That’s all! Yes, that mission is rather broad. And that is exactly what we try to do. We bring all the tools of evidence-based critical inquiry to popular questions and urgent issues that fascinate, mystify, confuse, and befuddle people. We seek scientifically validated information about issues and assertions and then provide a clear evaluation of those claims.

We call this activity “scientific skepticism.” I often think of it as a field of intellectual and scientific inquiry that I call “Science & Skepticism.” It is highly interdisciplinary. It draws upon all scientific fields. It also draws upon everything we know about human behavior, individually and in groups. It draws upon everything we know about how we think and how our brains work. It draws upon the great traditions of philosophy, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophers who founded rationalism (a purely scientific inquiry into the nature of man and the universe), humanism, and the concept of the individual. And it also embraces history and the humanities.

Our quest seeks to understand not only the external world of nature out there but our own selves, what makes us human—wonderful and creative, flawed and exasperating. If we were an academic unit—say the [insert university of your choice] Institute of Science & Skepticism—we would have faculty from virtually every academic department including the schools of medicine, engineering, and law. But we aren’t just an academic enterprise. We incorporate nonacademic traditions such as magicians’ specialized knowledge of deception, investigative journalists’ tools for getting at the truth, science communicators’ skills in explaining complex scientific ideas, and skeptical investigators’ blending of all these skills. We do all this in the quest to find out what is true and not true about the real world—including ourselves. And then we present those insights to the public in an appealing, understandable way.

What could be more important? Especially at this troubled time in our political and cultural history

• when fact and fiction are being blended at the highest levels of government;
• where beliefs and opinions are accorded greater sway than facts and evidence;
• where important science-oriented federal agencies are now headed by people who are not only scientifically uninformed but are defunding and in some cases even dismantling key parts of their agencies’ scientific missions;
• where our political system is corrupted by “conspiracy theories and outright fabrication”;

  (Lest you think these remarks are partisan—our effort is decidedly nonpartisan—I point out that that last item is a quote from former Republican President George W. Bush’s remarkable speech in New York on October 19 about internal threats to American democracy.)

• where longtime, legitimate, responsible, independent, mainstream news organizations are labeled “fake” and where scurrilous online “news” operations that really are fake disseminate intentional disinformation that too often gets accepted as true;
• where Russian meddling in our elections and in our social media causes further confusion and damage to our democracies;
• where pseudoscientific medical concepts and techniques have made deep inroads into our medical schools and universities and to enable that to happen proponents undermine the very idea of science;
• where genetically modified foods and organisms that can alleviate terrible diseases and help feed malnourished people in poor parts of the world are opposed by well-funded groups and well-off celebrities who think “organic” and “natural” foods are somehow better and not the product of a giant marketing industry;
• where religiously motivated leaders in our states, communities, and school boards continually try to sneak pseudoscientific, creationist ideas into public school curricula and try to prevent teaching evolution or even the age of the Earth;
• where a new flock of predatory journals that don’t bother with the conventions of scientific integrity openly publish nonsensical and pseudoscientific papers in the guise of science; and
• where, overall, a kind of Orwellian, 1984, Bizarro parallel world in which up is down and in is out afflicts our senses and deeply troubles our psyches.

We need independent, evidence-based, science-based critical investigation and inquiry now perhaps more than at any other time in our history. And that’s what we do. That’s what all of us in the skeptical community do.

We all must support critical inquiry and evidence-based thinking. We must honor those who do it, often at considerable sacrifice to themselves. We must gain a better understanding of how to encourage science-based thinking in others. We must help create a better informed and more enlightened nation and world.

Not just for us, but for the younger generations who succeed us. Let’s leave this world better than it is now.

It is the challenge of our lifetime. Let’s get to it.

In the weeks since Mark Conditt died as police closed in on him, many on social media have been asking why he was not being referred to as a terrorist or his bombings labeled “terrorism.” (The same question often arises in other high-profile crimes as well, but here I focus on Conditt’s case specifically, as each incident has its own set of particulars which may weigh more strongly for or against a terrorism label.)

The issue is not terribly complicated, but it is nuanced and often counter-intuitive. Part of the confusion stems from which group you’re talking about. In other words, who’s the “they” in “Why aren’t they calling it terrorism?” Different “theys” have different answers, as we will see. One of the first things a critical thinker learns to do when hearing the phrase “They say...” is to ask: Who, exactly, is “They?” Attributing a position or statement to an anonymous, homogenous group is not only clouds the issue instead of clarifying it but often steers the conversation toward any number of fallacies (They say acupuncture has been used for thousands of years. They say that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and so on).

There’s also the problem of people using different definitions of “terrorism” interchangeably. Like many words, terrorism has a legal/technical definition used for specific purposes (such as indicting a suspect on certain criminal charges) and a looser, more informal definition that laypeople use in everyday conversation. Neither definition is incorrect; they’re both valid and useful in their specific contexts. There is of course nothing unique about this; laypeople use countless terms (energy, tension, heat, etc.) in ways that are different than a physicist would use them, for example. This problem often arises in the legal arena—one in which definitions of terrorism are important. For example the lay public may consider any killing to be murder (after all, someone died), but to a district attorney there are many different types of murder, with different definitions and penalties (first-degree murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide, and so on). Language is flexible, but that flexibility can contribute to ambiguity when people don’t clearly define terms, or apply their personal, informal definitions to other contexts.

So let’s distinguish between the formal and informal definitions by using Terrorism and terrorism, respectively.

The Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as an attempt to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” (Whether one thinks that this definition is too broad or too narrow is beside the point here; law enforcement follows the laws as written.)

As an NPR article explains, “there isn’t a federal charge of ‘domestic terrorism.’ The Patriot Act’s definition gives the Justice Department broad authority to investigate an individual or any group a suspect might be affiliated with. But the federal law doesn’t come with an actual criminal charge. To be charged with terrorism, a person has to be suspected of acting on behalf of one of nearly 60 groups that the State Department has declared a foreign terrorist organization. Some are well-known, including the Islamic State and al-Qaida, while others are far more obscure. Most, but not all, are Islamist. A person who carries out a mass attack and survives can face a range of charges, but unless the person is linked to one of the banned groups, a federal terrorism charge won’t be one of them.” This would be a formal, legal definition of Terrorism.

Of course, as the examples above illustrate, the American public rarely uses the legalistic definitions of common words such as terrorism. A friend of mine recently posted this widely-held sentiment on Facebook: “Despite it not being the legal definition, I’m completely fine with calling someone who makes an effort to scare, maim, and kill numbers of people a terrorist.” Let’s call this broader definition terrorism with a lowercase t.

With that in mind let’s break down and unpack the question: “Why aren’t they calling it terrorism?” In order to meaningfully answer that question you need to specify who you’re talking about, and which definition of terrorism you’re referring to.

Who’s They?

When people ask “Why aren’t they calling it terrorism?” there seems to be five main groups that they refers to:

1. Local police (in this case, of Austin Texas);
2. Non-law enforcement government officials (e.g., Texas governor, President Trump);
3. Journalists or “the media”;
4. Federal law enforcement authorities (such as the FBI); and
5. The public generally.

1. Local police. Whether a crime is Terrorism or not is not typically determined by local police (and city laws may not include Terrorism). There’s no reason Conditt would be called a Terrorist by the Austin police department absent a determination of such by federal agencies. There is presumably no law or regulation preventing them from doing so in their official capacity, but that determination would not normally be in the purview of city police.

   In this case Austin police chief Brian Manley did refer to Conditt’s actions as terrorism in a March 22 interview with television station KVUE, in which he said, “My opinion is that he created terror in our community by his actions and he stole lives from our community.”

2. Non-law enforcement government officials. As with the local police, whether a crime is Terrorism or not is not determined by a state governor or President Trump. There is presumably no law or regulation preventing them from doing so, but making that determination would not normally be under the purview of governors or presidents. There is some precedent for politicians referring to mass attacks as terrorism (for example in the case of Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter, several members of Congress described the attack as an act of terrorism), but it varies by person and incident.
3. Journalists and “the media.” Determination of whether a crime is officially/legally considered Terrorism is not made by reporters, so Conditt wouldn’t be referred to as a Terrorist until the FBI has made that determination. As The New York Times noted, “For the most part, journalists tend to follow the lead of law enforcement on whether to call a crime an act of terrorism. The New York Times called the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing an act of terror, but not the 2002 Washington-area sniper attacks.” The fact that Conditt is not widely being called a Terrorist is actually a sign of good reporting; if news reports referred to him that way and it turned out he wasn’t, they’d be criticized for getting it wrong.

   As I have previously explained, the idea of a homogeneous entity called “the media” is flawed, so the premise that “the media” are not calling Conditt a terrorist is false. Much of the news media have widely called Conditt a terrorist, including the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. There are many other examples as well.

   The extensive news articles and posts discussing whether Conditt should be considered a Terrorist helps cement the association between Conditt and terrorism in the public’s mind. This is a well-known principle and among skeptics called the Familiarity Backfire Effect, researched by Stephan Lewandowsky (“To debunk a myth, you often have to mention it—otherwise, how will people know what you’re talking about? However, this makes people more familiar with the myth and hence more likely to accept it as true.”) Thus it’s likely that someone reading a news article about Conditt associating him with the word (and concept of) terrorism will come away with the impression that he was in fact a terrorist, regardless of whether he formally fit the FBI’s official criterion for Terrorism.

4. Federal law enforcement authorities (such as the FBI). Unlike the other four groups listed here, the FBI and Department of Justice do have the authority to charge people and groups with Terrorism. As noted, the law defines terrorism as violent, criminal acts that are intended to intimidate or coerce civilians and governments for an ideological, political, or religious purpose.

   The key here is intention or motivation, which so far has not been established in the case of Mark Conditt. The targets could have been random, as was the case in the D.C. sniper case. Or there could have been some commonality; the police found Conditt’s list of potential targets that “have no common thread,” either geographically or demographically.

   In some cases there is disagreement within government about what constitutes Terrorism. For example when James Hodgkinson opened fire on a crowd of Republican congressmen in June 2017, the FBI did not formally call the act Terrorism, though Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan L. Porter did. (The question of whether the definitions of Terrorism should be changed is a legitimate one, and beyond the scope here. I’m explaining why “they” haven’t called Conditt a terrorist, not defending or criticizing the regulations informing that determination.)

5. The general public. I haven’t found any polls or surveys specifically asking the public whether they believe Mark Conditt was a terrorist, so this assertion is difficult to quantify. It’s not clear that most Americans aren’t calling him a terrorist—particularly in light of the widespread social and news media specifically suggesting he was, as described above.

   As to why specific members of the general public do or don’t think of Conditt as a terrorist, there are of course as many motivations as there are people. Some who don’t think of Conditt as a terrorist (much less a Terrorist) could be motivated by any number of factors, ranging from racism to the lack of a clear motive for the bombings. The public rarely reaches a consensus about anything, so it would not be surprising if many Americans didn’t consider him a terrorist.

The idea that racism and xenophobia influence public policy and laws is hardly novel; we see this in countless examples from drug sentencing laws to immigration policies. As noted, the way the law is currently written there isn’t a federal charge specifically of “domestic terrorism,” which means that most of those charged with Terrorism will, by definition, be foreign nationals. Research from Georgia State University also suggests that the news media give disproportionate coverage to terrorism committed by Muslims as compared to non-Muslims.

The role in the public’s perception of what constitutes terrorism is less clear. This is because public speculation about a terroristic motive in a massacre or bombing often precedes identification of a suspect (and therefore his race). People were talking about the Austin serial bomber possibly being a terrorist before Conditt was caught and identified, particularly after it became clear that the bombs were the work of one person or group. This is not because the (then-unknown) bomber was assumed to be a person of color, but because of the nature of the crime: what other motive could there be for a serial bomber? The same happened with mass shootings by Stephen Paddock, James Holmes, James Hodgkinson, and others: the nature of the act caused the public to assume the acts were terrorism.

Nor is it clear that a formal determination of whether a given attack is Terrorism or not holds great sway over the public’s perceptions; it’s not as if the general public are accepting of mass murders but not Terrorists. Regardless of what the FBI or President Trump call it, the fact is that Mark Conditt is widely considered a terrorist.

A fuller discussion of terrorism, its definitions and sociocultural aspects, is beyond the scope here. In the end, the seemingly simple question “Why aren’t they calling it terrorism?” contains a multitude of assertions and assumptions which must be unpacked and analyzed to be meaningful. Terrorism—both real and asserted—unfortunately plays a role in America today, from school shootings to massacres to bombings. The victims of terrorism (and Terrorism)—as well as all Americans—deserve a substantive discussion of the topic instead of glib and facile platitudes.

December 28, 2016

March 28, 2018
Screenshots of the USDA “Food-Away-from-Home” page on two different dates.

Recently, I was double-checking the footnotes for a book that is coming out this year. It is an updated version of a book I published ten years ago, and in the new version I wrote the sentence: “Furthermore, foods prepared outside the home tend to be higher in calories and fat and generally less nutritious than foods prepared at home” (Vyse 2018). I supported this statement with a footnote citing a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) website “Food-Away-from-Home,” which is maintained by the USDA’s Economic Research Service. I originally accessed the site on December 28, 2016, so just to make sure the information I needed was there, I clicked the link again. What I found was shocking. The screenshots below of the old and new versions of the page are too small to read, but you don’t need to read them to see what’s going on.

By consulting the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I was able to retrieve the December 28, 2016, version of the page I originally consulted. At that time, the page included a graph of food away from home as a share of total food expenditures over a forty-year period, a link to download the data from the graph in an Excel spreadsheet, summaries of research findings, and links to peer-reviewed articles and to USDA publications. The 2018 version eliminated all of the text of the main article except for two short paragraphs and four bullet points. Furthermore, in 2016 that introductory material included seven hyperlinks to additional sources, but there are no hyperlinks in the current version of the page. If you want to compare the two for yourself, this link goes to the archived 2016 version of the page, and here is the link to the current version of the page.

At the bottom of the “Food-Away-from-Home” page—both versions—there is an email link to a USDA scientist to contact “for more information,” so, identifying myself as a writer for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, I emailed the scientist and asked why the information had been removed from the page. To my surprise I heard back an hour later. The scientist forwarded my question to Carolyn Rogers, who is the Assistant Director for Communications for the USDA’s Food Economics Division. Rogers responded to the scientist and asked that he forward her response to me. Her email is presented below.

Email from Carolyn Rogers, Assistant Director for Communications for USDA’s Food Economics Division. (Received March 29, 2018.)

The timing Rogers gives—a year and a half ago—would place the overhaul in the waning months of the previous presidential administration, but, unfortunately, that date is not correct. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine scans and archives webpages periodically, and, as of this writing, the last scan of the page was done on January 3, 2018. At that time, the page still looked like it did in December 2016, and the bottom of the page indicated that the last update had been done in September 2017. So, contrary to Ms. Rogers’s statement, the evidence suggests the USDA’s “Food-Away-from-Home” page was stripped of most of its information sometime between January 3 and March 28 of this year, approximately a year into the current presidential administration. Among the missing bits of information on the page was the following passage, which I had used as support for my statement:

Meals and snacks based on food prepared away from home contained more calories per eating occasion than those based on at-home food. Away-from-home food was also higher in nutrients that Americans overconsume (such as fat and saturated fat) and lower in nutrients that Americans underconsume (calcium, fiber, and iron).

The page also cited and linked to several research studies examining the relationship between eating away from home and obesity. In addition, the original text pointed out that much of the food offered away from home is exempt from food labeling laws that apply to grocery store items. Finally, the page provided a brief summary of a peer-reviewed study showing that consumers with greater food knowledge ate less red meat (beef and pork) both at home and away from home.

Incidentally, one part of Ms. Rogers’s email is quite accurate. Most of what remains on the “Food-Away-from-Home” webpage describes the functions of the Economic Research Service. There is almost no information about food purchased or consumed away from home remaining on the page.

Obesity in the United States

As we all know, the United States has a serious problem with obesity. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March showed that, between 2007–2008 and 2015–2016 obesity among youth rose from 16.8 percent to 18.5 percent—a difference that was not statistically significant. (Good news!) However, during the same period, obesity among adults increased from 33.7 percent to 39.6 percent, a difference that was substantial and statistically significant. (Not good news.) The rate of severe obesity in adults also rose significantly over the period of study.

To put these findings in context, roughly 40 percent of American adults are not merely overweight but obese, which means they have body mass indexes (BMI) of 30 or greater. For an adult who is 5’10” a BMI of 30 is equivalent to a weigh of 209 lbs.

Obesity is a significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cardiovascular death (“Health Risks” 2016). Heart disease has multiple causes, but it remains the leading cause of death in the United States. Stroke is fifth on the list, and diabetes is seventh (Centers for Disease Control 2017a). The graph below—taken from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017b) report—shows that the percentage of the U.S. population diagnosed with diabetes has increased from less than 1 percent in 1958 to 7.4 percent in 2015, and the rate of increase has been particularly rapid over the last two decades.

The Politicization of Health Information

This sad tale of a single USDA webpage is undoubtedly not unique. I have not attempted a comprehensive survey of health information on the USDA website—nor of the many other government agency websites that provide health information—but it seems unlikely this is the only one that has been scrubbed. Although the recent removal of the phrase “climate change” from the website of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received considerable attention, the politicization of science information is not unique to the EPA, to this administration, or even to Republican administrations. For example, the food pyramid program, often used in nutrition lessons for school children, also fell under the auspices of the USDA, and it had a famously political history. The role of food industry lobbyists in the development of USDA nutritional guidelines has been documented at great length (e.g., Nestle 2007), and the sordid tale is far too involved to summarize here. But a quick look at the current program shows that lobbyists are still shaping the nutritional guidelines given to children and adults.

Current USDA Nutritional program diagram.

In 2011—during a Democratic administration—the food pyramid was eliminated in favor of a simple place setting pie diagram called MyPlate. In response to this USDA program, the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) put out their own alternative version of MyPlate called the Healthy Eating Plate. The Healthy Eating Plate website also includes a table comparing the guidelines in the USDA and Harvard versions. Some of the important differences include:

• HSPH removes dairy from its vaunted position in the upper right-hand corner and encourages people to drink water, tea, or coffee.
• Potatoes and French fries count as vegetables for the USDA (!), but not for HSPH.
• HSPH encourages the use of healthy oils (olive or canola) in cooking and limiting the use of butter.
• HSPH gives a clear recommendation that red meat should be limited and processed meats should be avoided altogether.

Harvard School of Public Health alternative to the USDA MyPlate guidelines.

The Challenge of Personal Responsibility

Obesity is a problem with a strong behavioral component. Of course, for individual people, genetics plays a role, too, but skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes cannot be explained by some kind of supercharged natural selection process. Nor am I convinced that there has been a wholesale moral collapse over recent decades. Rather much of the explanation for our growing girth can be found in our behavior and in an environment increasingly rich in inexpensive and highly caloric food. It is unlikely that the fast food restaurants and drive-thru windows are going to disappear any time soon, but with the right information and a little encouragement we can change our behavior. Unfortunately, we are not getting enough of that information from our government.

Pro-business lobbyists and industry groups have attempted to blame the obesity crisis on a lack personal responsibility and have advocated for increased consumer freedom¹. But what if you actually do want to take personal responsibility for avoiding obesity? If you are a consumer who wants to learn about healthy eating, you will find less and less of the information you need at the USDA. I have direct evidence that there are health scientists working at the USDA, and by all indications they are doing good and important work. But their findings are not being shared with the people who could benefit from them. This is particularly unfortunate because government agencies can speak with a unique kind of authority. In a democracy, we are led to believe that the government’s foremost concern is for the well-being of its citizens. We tend to trust the government’s health and science recommendations. Unfortunately, when it comes to getting science-based information about how to eat a healthy diet, the USDA is far less helpful than it could or should be.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2017a. “Leading Causes of Death. March 17. Accessed March 30, 2018. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2017b. “Long Term Trends in Diabetes,” April. Accessed on March 30, 2018. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/slides/long_term_trends.pdf
• “Health Risks.” 2016. Obesity Prevention Source. April 13. Accessed March 30, 2018. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-consequences/health-effects/.
• Nestle, M. 2007. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health. Revised edition. Berkley: University of California Press.
• Vyse, Stuart. 2018. Going Broke: Why Americans (Still) Can’t Hold on to Their Money. Updated edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

1. See, for example, the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit founded by the head of a Washington public relations firm. According to Sourcewatch.org the Center for Consumer Freedom is funded by Coca Cola, Wendy’s International, Tyson Foods, and Outback Steakhouse, among others.

Organized skepticism has a problem. Okay, maybe more than one, but I’m here to focus on something simple. So many people do so much great work researching, investigating, and compiling the best evidence for or against an unlikely claim—and yet it rarely reaches the people it really needs to.

It’s great that we have networks and regional groups and social media support systems to get that out to like-minded people, and to at least make it available to others who might happen upon it and are able to be influenced. But too often people already decide whether they want to hear you or not based on a label, and many will just tune a “skeptics” forum out, thinking skepticism automatically equates to debunking and ruining everyone else’s fun.

So sometimes, it’s important to keep the fun in there. And it can be even more important to stick some skepticism in places where no one’s expecting it, so it grabs people before they have the chance to deploy a label-based prejudice.

That’s why, since last July, I’ve chosen to focus my outreach efforts on geek culture website Adventures in Poor Taste! (a regrettable name we typically shorten to just AiPT! or AiPT! Comics these days). I’d written for them every now and then for a couple years at that point, and it usually took the form of your standard “science of superheroes” stuff you see all over, done most effectively by former CSI contributor Kyle Hill.

But then I used the just concluded NECSS conference to introduce a new, recurring feature on the site—“The Critical Angle,” which would use the definition of skepticism found in Sharon Hill’s Media Guide to apply those principles to questions of pop culture. What do sales numbers say about which comic publisher is doing better? Are superhero movies really “dumbing down” American cinema? With Stephen King’s It a huge hit at the box office, why do we find clowns so scary? That one required a guest post from the Bad Clowns expert himself, Benjamin Radford!

I looked for more contributors, serving more in an editorial role, trying to match people with topics to see what kind of noise we could make. And here’s the crazy thing—it’s been working. Film buff and New York City Skeptics member Michael Rosch wrote about the GMO fears inherent in the Netflix movie Okja. The day it was published, the article was the number two Google News result for “genetically modified organism,” and it was later republished by the Genetic Literacy Project website.

Dentist and Science-Based Medicine contributor Grant Ritchey used a throwaway panel in the big Marvel Comics crossover Secret Empire to talk about why fluoride isn’t typically harmful. That article was the number one Google News result for “fluoride,” and the number four result for Secret Empire, ensuring folks looking for dirt on the evil Hydra Captain America were also informed about proper tooth care.

In a more analytical example, when the Earth was stolen in the next big Avengers story, No Surrender, I used some geophysical clues to guess that it had been located somewhere that powerful tidal forces operated on it, like what happens to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The title of the article didn’t hint at its scientific nature, but even after people realized they’d been “tricked” into clicking, they still spent an average of seven minutes on the page, so at only 700 words, they were staying to read the whole thing. “Where did the Earth go in Avengers #675?” was a top trend of ours for days.

So clearly there’s fertile ground here. This stuff isn’t niche anymore; geek culture has become American culture. And the more voices the better. We’ve created a framework where all manners of intersections between science, skepticism, and pop culture now fit on AiPT! There’s a great opportunity for specialists and hobbyists alike to get their work in front of a different audience, outside the typical echo chamber. If you’re just starting out in activism, I have a journalism background and am thrilled to provide free editorial advice to help make connections with your audience. Elder statesmen of skepticism—need another media outlet to make consumers aware of your new product? We can help!

So contact me if you’re interested in contributing, or just learning more about what we do, at rdobler46@gmail.com. And follow the Twitter account @AiPTScience! I try to run at least two science or skeptically themed articles a week, but in February, to help celebrate Darwin Day, we leaned extra hard on skepticism, with fourteen articles of that tag alone, nine of which came from different individuals. Check it out for yourself, and I hope we can work together soon to keep that momentum going!

Young-Earth creationists claim that the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon and the Mesozoic sedimentary rocks of the Grand Staircase north of the canyon, in which Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks occur, were deposited during Noah’s worldwide flood about 4,500 years ago (Hill 2002; Hill and Moshier 2009). I realize that readers of Skeptical Inquirer accept modern scientific views on this subject, but this examination of the creationist claims might be useful when communicating with others less imbued with scientific thinking.

There are at least twenty-one scientific reasons a worldwide flood recounted in the Bible cannot have happened.

1. The stair-stepped appearance of erosion of sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon with sandstones and limestones forming cliffs and shales forming gentle slopes cannot happen if all these rocks were deposited in less than one year. If the Grand Canyon had been carved soon after these rocks were deposited by a worldwide flood, they would not have had time to harden into solid rock and would have been saturated with water. Therefore, the sandstones and limestones would have slumped during the carving of the canyon and would not have formed cliffs (Hill et al. 2016).
2. Salt and gypsum deposits, more than 200 feet thick, occur in the Paradox Formation in Utah just 200 miles north of the Grand Canyon, and these deposits are the same age as the Supai rocks in the Grand Canyon that were supposedly also deposited by Noah’s flood. Similar salt deposits, up to 3,000 feet thick, exist in various places on all continents and in layers of all geologic ages, and these deposits can only be produced by evaporation of sea water. Such evaporation could not have happened in repeated intervals in the midst of the forty days and forty nights of raining and during the supposed continuous deposition of sedimentary rocks by a worldwide flood and in which the only drying and evaporation is said to have occurred at the end of the flood (Collins 2006; 2009; 2012; Hill et al. 2016).
3. Sand dunes with giant cross bedding occur in the Mesozoic rocks in Zion National Park and are further evidence that desert conditions occurred at the time of the supposed flood (Senter 2011; Collins 2017).
4. Fossilized mud cracks occur in the Cambrian Tapeats Formation on top of the Precambrian Vishnu schist at the bottom of the canyon and indicate that drying conditions existed during the alleged worldwide Noah’s flood, and these drying conditions occurred at the very beginning of this supposed flood. Although mud cracks can also form in mud under water by compression that squeezes out water from the mud, such compression is not likely to occur during a flood. Moreover, fossilized mud cracks are found in other formations that were supposedly deposited during Noah’s flood, and these mud cracks occur in red shales that coexist with salt and gypsum layers. Therefore, these mud cracks were likely formed in deltaic mud flats that were exposed to the atmosphere where their iron-bearing minerals reacted with oxygen in the air to form red hematite (Collins 2006; Senter 2011; Hill et al. 2016).
5. Raindrop prints occur in many places around the world, which could not have been formed or preserved if the muds (now in shales) containing these prints were deposited under water during Noah’s flood (Senter 2011; Hill et al. 2016).
6. Nests of dinosaur eggs are found in several places around the world, and it is illogical that dinosaurs could have had enough time to create these nests and lay their eggs while they were fleeing from rising waters to reach higher ground (Senter 2011; Hill et al. 2016).
7. The White Cliffs of Dover on the eastern coast of England consist of chalk layers, up to 350 feet thick, that are composed of fossilized coccoliths (a kind of algae), and these layers are the same age as the sedimentary rocks that overlie giant cross-bedded sandstones in Zion National Park. Therefore, they were supposedly also deposited by Noah’s flood. But coccoliths are very tiny and have chloroplasts that require sunlight and must float close to the ocean surface to get energy from the sun. Because of this, all of them could not have been living at the same time to depths of 350 feet in the one year in which the flood is said to have occurred because that many organisms in the water at the same time would have blocked out the sun from organisms below the near-surface (Collins 2015a).
8. Up to 4,590-foot thicknesses of radiolarians occur on the Pacific Ocean floor. Radiolarians are tiny marine organisms with silica skeletons; they contain chloroplasts and must float near the ocean surface to obtain sunlight. The rate at which dead radiolarians settle to the bottom of the ocean is too slow for that thickness and number of radiolarians to accumulate in the 4,500 years since Noah’s flood. Although radiolarians are not found in the sedimentary rocks of the Grand Canyon, fossilized radiolarians are common in sedimentary layers in other parts of the world of the same geologic age, and each of these layers contains distinctly different radiolarian species that are among more than 4,000 different species that have been identified. Chaotic rushing waters of a tsunami in Noah’s flood would have been unable to sort out these different species in different geologic ages from those living early in the flood to those created late in the flood (Collins 2015a).
9. None of the sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon contains fossilized pollen grains that are produced by grasses, pines, and flowering trees and plants, whereas these same rocks in the canyon contain only spores of algae, ferns, moss, and fungi. A worldwide flood would be expected to mix these tiny structures if all were alive at the same time of Noah’s flood, and this mixing did not occur. How can a rush of water in a tsunami sort out and separate such tiny reproductive structures from each other? (Hill et al. 2016).
10. The Redwall limestone in the Grand Canyon contains billions and billions of jumbled sea lily (crinoid) fossils in multiple layers, and such marine animals would have had to grow on stalks on the ocean floor and cover the whole Earth at space intervals of one foot apart if all were alive at the same time during Noah’s flood. That distribution and abundance is extremely unlikely in less than one year’s time. Moreover, there would have been the need for already available, precipitated, calcium carbonate crystals somewhere to be carried into the Grand Canyon area to be deposited as limestone to host these fossils. This seems highly unlikely because the source of the calcium requires long periods (tens of thousands of years) of chemical weathering of calcium-bearing rocks, such as basalt lava flows, to produce such a large volume of limestone that extends, not only in the Grand Canyon, but also in the Redwall limestone across most of western and central United States in buried sedimentary layers (Collins 2015a; Hill et al. 2016).
11. If all limestones were deposited by Noah’s flood during a giant tsunami, then all limestone layers should show evidence of fossils being jumbled by rushing water. This is not the case. The presence of Silurian limestone layers that are older than the Redwall limestone occur with consistent sequences at constant thicknesses over hundreds of square miles in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and they lack any fossils in a jumbled array. These consistent thicknesses indicate that these limestone layers could not have been deposited by a tsunami, and these layers could only have been formed in quiet water by slow chemical precipitation of the calcium carbonate during tens of thousands of years. Thus, the limestones around the world, alleged to be deposited by Noah’s flood, were not deposited by a rush of flood water in a tsunami in less than one year. Many other examples occur in sedimentary rocks around the world where fossils of communities of many different marine animals are totally undisturbed (Senter 2011; Collins 2015a; 2017).
12. Abundant fusain (charcoal) is found in several different sedimentary rocks around the world that were supposedly deposited by Noah’s flood, which is good evidence that a worldwide flood never happened. Fires that burn forests are not likely to occur in the midst of forty days and nights of rain (Senter 2011).
13. River terraces exist on the sides of Colorado River canyon walls that give ages of deposition at the top of 350,000 years and at the bottom of 38,000 years, and these ages were determined by two entirely different methods and are much beyond the 4,500 years that young-Earth creationists claim is the age of the sedimentary rocks deposited during Noah’s flood (Collins 2015b; 2017).
14. Scientific observations and measurements show that the canyon of the Colorado River was eroded by rates of 80 to 458 meters per million years at different places along the canyon (Collins 2015b; 2017).
15. The coarsely crystalline Zoraster granite occurs in the Vishnu schist in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Experimental work shows that coarse crystals in granite are formed only at depths of five miles or more in the Earth’s crust and that at these depths, the rate of cooling of rock melts (magma) at temperatures of more than 800 degrees C require at least 5 million years before temperatures are low enough that crystals can start to form and slowly increase in size. Therefore, the age of the Earth must be more than 6,000 years and much older than when Noah’s flood supposedly occurred (Collins 2017).
16. The rate of erosion of the Zoraster granite in the floor of Colorado River in Grand Canyon, as measured by how fast the erosion occurs on a yearly basis from year to year, is about a thousandth of an inch per year. This means that the carving of the Grand Canyon took millions of years—not less than a year in a sudden rush of water draining from three lakes at the end of Noah’s flood (Collins 2017).
17. The average thickness of sedimentary rocks around the world in the continents that were supposedly deposited by Noah’s flood is about 1,800 meters (5,905 feet) (Nelson 2012). If just 1 percent of this thickness represents fossil remains of marine animals that were alive at the same time during Noah’s flood, then the whole world would have been covered with 590 feet of living marine animals, such as clams, snails, corals, trilobites, and sponges. That many animals living at the same time during that single year would have been impossible. The value of 1 percent is not unreasonable when some limestone layers are composed of nearly 100 percent fossils. Even if 0.1 percent of the sedimentary rock thickness contained all marine animals that were alive at the same time in the year of Noah’s flood, that means that the whole world would have been covered with fifty-nine feet of animals, and that still is too many animals. The impossible numbers of fossils of coccoliths (Reason 7), radiolarians (Reason 8), and sea lilies (Reason 10), are illustrative of this fact. Moreover, if only one out of 10,000 animals living on the land (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) are preserved as fossils in the sedimentary rocks deposited by Noah’s flood, then Noah would have had no space in which he, his family, and cattle could have existed with all these creatures living at the same time, particularly if tens of thousands of huge dinosaurs were alive when Noah lived prior to the flood.
18. An experiment done by Charles Munroe III shows that the submergence of an olive tree under water for more than three months kills the tree. On that basis, when a dove brought an olive twig with fresh leaves to Noah on the ark (Genesis 8:11), the whole world could not have been submerged under water during the flood. Otherwise, all olive trees would have been killed in six months of their submergence under the flood waters. Therefore, the flood must have been local in southern Mesopotamia with some land (say, 100 feet above water) present on which olive trees must have been growing and from which an olive tree with such a twig with fresh leaves could have been obtained by the dove (Collins 2017).
19. Wave action at high tide from a powerful category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of more than 156 mph can move an offshore barrier sandbar as much as 50 to 100 feet inland toward the continent, but such a major storm never moves sand for distances of thousands of miles across the United States, as creationists claim for the Tapeats, Coconino, and other sandstone deposits in the Grand Canyon or the calcite grains and fossils in the Redwall limestone. Therefore, producing such deposits by such winds and waves in Noah’s Flood has no scientific support. Noah’s ark could not have survived such wind power and large waves. Moreover, moving water cannot carry such large, suspended sediment loads for that distance (Collins 2015a; 2017).
20. The claim that the erosion surface that underlies the Cambrian Tapeats sandstone on top of the Precambrian basement rocks, which forms a major unconformity at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, was caused by a tsunami makes no scientific sense. A tsunami-created wave is caused by either a) a large earthquake following a sudden fault movement that shifts the position of the ocean floor; or b) a giant explosion of a volcano in an oceanic region, such as the explosion of Krakatoa—but never by flood waters of a large wave washing across the continent for thousands of miles. No such huge earthquake or explosion of a volcano is mentioned in the Bible, so postulating a tsunami to cause widespread rapid erosion across the world and at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at the beginning of Noah’s Flood is without biblical or scientific support (Collins 2017).
21. If the sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon were all deposited by Noah’s worldwide flood, then these rocks should all be deposited in less than one year under water and show continuous deposition from one formation to the next up the canyon walls without disruption. But that is not the case. For example, the Redwall limestone formation has ancient karst topography with caves and sinkholes, indicating that this formation was once lifted out of the water so that percolating rain water dissolved out cavities and tunnels in the limestone; erosion channels of the Temple Butte Formation, as much as 100 feet deep, cut the top of the Muav limestone, and networks of channels of the Surprise Canyon Formation, up to a half mile wide and 400 feet deep, cut the top of the Redwall limestone, indicating that these rocks were exposed at the Earth’s surface to river erosion (Hill et al. 2016). These structural land surface features would take much more than one year to be formed.

A Reasonable Possibility

Thomas H. Huxley (1825–1895) said the following: “The great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” Any one of the above twenty-one facts destroys the idea that Noah’s flood was a worldwide occurrence. Nevertheless, a local large flood in Mesopotamia in biblical times could have been possible (Collins 2009). Young-Earth creationists commonly point out that Jesus supported the existence of Noah’s flood (Luke 17:27; Matthew 24:38–39), but in the context of the time in which Jesus lived, the translation of the Hebrew word ertz would have been understood as “land” and not the whole world. In that sense, all the land that Noah could have normally seen would have been under water in that part of Mesopotamia and that would have been in effect his whole world. During large floods in Iraq (Mesopotamia), commonly abundant rain falling in the adjacent Zagros Mountains goes underground in solution tunnels in limestone beds and emerges as gushing water in springs in Iraq. These springs are likely the “fountains of the great deep” as described in Genesis 7:11 (Hill 2015).

• Collins, L.G. 2006. Time to accumulate chloride ions in the world’s oceans. Creationism’s young Earth not supported. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 26(5): 16–24. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/collins.pdf.
• ———. 2009. Yes, Noah’s flood may have happened but not over the whole earth. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 29(5): 38–41. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Collins2.pdf.
• ———. 2012. More geologic reasons Noah’s flood never happened. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 32(6): 1–11. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Collins3.pdf.
• ———. 2015a. Can flood geology and catastrophic plate tectonics explain sedimentary rocks? Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Collins5.pdf.
• ———. 2015b. When was Grand Canyon carved—millions of years ago or thousands of years ago? How do we know? Reports of the National Center for Science Education 35(4): 2.1–2.8. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/GrandCanyon.pdf.
• ———. 2017. When was the Grand Canyon formed? 4,360 years ago during Noah’s flood? Or during millions of years by natural geologic processes. Power point presentation available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/PwrPt1.pdf and http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/PwrPt2.pdf.
• Hill, C. 2002. The Noachian flood: Universal or local? Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith 54(3): 170–183. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Carol%201.pdf.
• ———. 2015. A world view Approach to Science and Scripture (unpublished book).
• Hill, C., G. Davidson, T. Helble, et al. (editors). 2016. The Grand Canyon—Monument to an Ancient Earth – Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon? Kregel Publications.
• Hill, C., and S. Moshier. 2009. Flood geology and the Grand Canyon: A critique. Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith 61(2): 99–115. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Carol%202.pdf.
• Nelson, S.A. 2012. Geology 212, petrology. Occurrence, Mineralogy, Texture, and Structures of Sedimentary Rocks. Available online at http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/eens212/sedrxintro.htm.
• Senter, P. 2011. The defeat of flood geology by flood geology. The ironic demonstration that there is no trace of the Genesis flood in the geologic record. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 31(3): 1–14. Available online at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Flood%20geology.pdf.

At the start of the twentieth century, over 40 percent of Americans did not know that the Earth orbits the sun in a year-long cycle (Otto 2016, 224). Another 52 percent did not know that dinosaurs died before the appearance of humans, and 45 percent were unaware that the world is older than 10,000 years. It is unnecessary to mention the equally alarming numbers of people who believe in ghosts, space aliens, paranormal monsters, devil possession, angels, demons, miracles, and so forth (Smith 2010, 22–23).

This mostly scientifically illiterate public seems to lack the necessary skills to distinguish between contending claims to knowledge or differentiate between fact and opinion. We now live in a scary and confusing “post-truth” era of disinformation, “fake news,” “counterknowledge,” “weaponized lies,” conspiracy theories, magical thinking, and irrationalism (see Andersen 2017; Levitin 2016).

Bogus and irrational ideas (beliefs that have been falsified or are unfalsifiable) are thriving and seem to be widely received and accepted. However, tolerating irrationalism and scientific illiteracy poses many dangers. It is dangerous to individual well-being. Numerous people have died because of their trust in sham alternative medical cures, and many others have lost their life savings by believing in psychics and miracle workers (see Bridgstock 2009, 1–3; Coyne 2015, 229–239; Gilovich 1993, 5–6; Hines 2003, 38–41; Schick and Vaughn 2014, 12–13). More than that, acquiescence to irrationalism threatens the well-being of our society (see Mooney and Kirshenbaum 2009; Sharlet 2010). As philosophers Theodor Schick and Lewis Vaughn (2014, 13) have put it:

A democratic society depends on the ability of its members to make rational choices. But rational choices must be based on rational beliefs. If we can’t tell the difference between reasonable and unreasonable claims, we become susceptible to the claims of charlatans, scoundrels, and mountebanks.

Purveyors of supernaturalism, anti-intellectual dogmas, medieval credulities, and “alternative forms of knowledge” that are daily an affront to our intelligence and sensibilities are swarming with bluster and hubris that science is now defunct and offer their own “truths” and “ways of knowing” as better substitutes. However, before we submit to the assertions of religious ideologues, miracle workers, and quacks and make their “truths” the basis of our worldview, we need to ask the following question: Are the assertions that science is defunct based on compelling evidence? To answer this question, let’s look at the circumstances that brought us here.

Explanations for the rise of anti-intellectualism and antiscience perspectives in this country would no doubt include many complex interconnected factors, such as globalization, demographic shifts, changes in the socioeconomic infrastructure, disparities in wealth and power, the disenchantment of the world by science and technology, and so forth. However, as the science writer Shawn Otto discusses in his recent book The War on Science: Who Is Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It (2016), the decades-long systematic academic assault on science and rationalism stands above many other factors. Paul Gross and Norman Levitt’s Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (1994) also provides an insightful account of the academic war on science. More specifically, philosopher and historian of science Noretta Koertge (1998) explores the direct influence this assault on science has had on scientific literacy in various fields of study in the United States. Embarrassingly, cultural anthropology, the discipline to which I belong, was instrumental in this untoward enterprise (see Otto 2016, 175–176).

From the late 1960s cultural anthropologists—in concert with their counterparts in departments of English, education, journalism, political science, cultural studies, science studies, and humanities—collectively engaged in a seemingly well-intentioned intellectual enterprise to “speak truth to power.” Their objective was to promote epistemological egalitarianism open to diverse viewpoints and create a more tolerant, multicultural society free of all the evils of modernity. They argued that modernity’s hegemonic power and authoritarianism had to be exposed, and these savants claimed to possess the intellectual tools to accomplish this task. In their discourse, science and scientific truths (deceptively misconstrued as “absolute truths”) were cast as the embodiment of that hegemonic power and its evils, such as racism, sexism, imperialism, colonialism, militarism, oppression, slavery, white supremacy, the atomic bomb, and the destruction of the biosphere.

This intellectual movement was known variously as social constructivism, deconstructionism, post-structuralism, and postmodernism. Here I shall use the label postmodernism (Sokal 2008, 269).The paragons of this movement consisted of a handful of French philosophers, including Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, and Bruno Latour (see Sidky 2004, 394–412). Although their works differed in various respects, they shared general features, such as a disdain for the rationalist tradition of the Enlightenment, a disregard for empirical data and logic, the idea of “the cultural construction of knowledge,” and subjective and intuitive approaches to knowledge. Moreover, although pontificating about science became their forte, none of these scholars were trained as professional scientists.

Irrationalist philosophers in the United States, such as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, also contributed to the postmodern antiscience program. In his highly acclaimed book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970), Kuhn asserted that scientific truths depend upon agreement among scientists operating under a guiding intellectual umbrella, or paradigm, built around a core of ideas based on irrational cultural and sociopolitical factors. A paradigm persists for a while until mounting anomalies it cannot address result in a “scientific revolution” and the establishment of a new paradigm built upon new conventions linked to a different set of sociopolitical factors. According to Kuhn, the solution to questions are relative to a paradigm rather than empirical evidence. For this reason, paradigms are incommensurable, and there is no real growth of scientific knowledge. If true, this would mean that our knowledge of the world and universe today has not increased beyond the state of knowledge four hundred years ago, a view that verges on the ludicrous and is a misrepresentation of the history of science. Solutions under previous paradigms do not become “un-solutions” after paradigm shifts (Kuznar 2008, 57; Stove 2001). Hence scientists still use Newton’s law of gravity to calculate the orbits of spacecraft (Stenger 2008, 114–115). As the philosopher David Stove (2001, 21–50) points out in his devastating critique, Kuhn’s irrationalist view of science appears plausible because he relies on evocation, ambiguity, false equivalencies, and clever inconsistencies. There are only a few instances of Kuhnian type revolutions in the history of science. For this reason, the Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg (1998) refers to Kuhn’s ideas as “the revolution that didn’t happen.”

Paul Feyerabend, the author of Against Method (1975), similarly advocated the idea of the cultural construction of knowledge, asserting that scientific research protocols and methodology are merely ornamentations that legitimize truths established through irrational means subject to sociopolitical and historical factors. Starting from a reasonable observation that “all methodologies have limitations,” Feyerabend (1975, 296) reached the erroneous conclusion, and a true non sequitur, that in the pursuit of knowledge “anything goes” both in the context of discovery and in the context of justification (Sokal 2008, 199). Therefore, there are no epistemological distinctions between science and religion or mythology. This is a gross misrepresentation of the scientific enterprise (Gross and Levitt 1994, 47).

Despite such epistemological problems, postmodernists were able to launch an all-encompassing disinformation campaign to delegitimize science and rationality. The distressing effects of this campaign were painfully brought to light for many after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The assault on science centered on the idea of epistemological relativism. This entails the premise that conditions of knowledge are such that the truth and falsity of assertions are context-dependent, situated, and always relative to cultural and social backgrounds, political position, class, gender, ethnicity, race, and religion. Thus, the idea that scientific knowledge depends upon objective empirical evidence is false. Excluding the empirical dimension of the scientific enterprise, these writers misrepresented science as merely a “story” or narrative like any other that relies on rhetorical ornamentation and language games to persuade people of its legitimacy and authority. Epistemological relativism dictates that no representations of reality or story can be privileged because there are multiple and equally valid realities and truths. Moreover, because all truths are relative, postmodernists asserted, whose truth prevails is a coefficient of power and coercion (Foucault 1984, 75). The West is dominant and hegemonic, and hence its “truths” (i.e., science) are privileged.

To expose the exact nature of power relations, postmodern thinkers believed, one had to look at the linguistic context of truth claims because nothing exists apart from the discourse that constitutes them. In other words, apprehension of a reality outside the linguistic webs that entangle us is not possible, which is an assertion that goes against anthropological evidence, science, common sense, and everyday epistemology. We survive and act successfully in the world during our day-to-day interactions by assuming that reality “out there” exists (Abel 1976, 33). Despite many factors that bias our perceptions in various ways, our senses do not systematically deceive us all the time. That is why we do not intentionally bump into walls, walk off cliffs, or step into traffic. Hence, we are not hopeless prisoners of language. We navigate the world using the same principles encapsulated in the scientific method by continuously making decisions about our perceptions according to the rules of inductive/deductive hypothesis testing and refutation (Fox 1997, 341). Science does this more systematically and with greater rigor. As the philosopher Karl Popper (1972) put it, science is enlightened common sense. Science is a human enterprise that generates approximate understandings in human terms of “something” (call it “reality,” the empirical world, or whatever) that seems to exist apart from our perceptual and cognitive apparatus rather than being generated by it (see Lett 1986; 1997). Postmodernists left that “something” out of their epistemological equation. For them, everything was about language and linguistic webs that form perceptual prisons from which there is no escape. However, these writers believed that they possessed the skills to reveal the occult codes of power by looking at seemingly inconsequential aspects of language, such as “tropes,” rhetorical strategies, and figurative devices that are invisible to conventional analysts and even the authors of those texts.

Ironically, given that this enterprise was about epistemological egalitarianism and human dignity, those who did not accept postmodern premises were labeled racists, sexists, right-wing oppressors, colonialists, and the instruments of a defunct materialist worldview (the terms of opprobrium were endless). In the halls of American academia, postmodernism acquired a frightening authoritarianism similar to religion, complete with self-styled messiahs, infatuated acolytes, sacred texts, secret mantras, taboo words, and moral injunctions.

The postmodern antiscience perspective had several inherent flaws that both ensured its ultimate failure and sadly rendered its proponents entirely irrelevant as a political force today. First, it confused the authority of science with that of the person conveying scientific knowledge. In science, the ultimate arbiter is the evidence; it is gravity—not the scientist asserting that an apple will plummet to the ground—that is the defining condition of knowledge in the end. Sadly, relativist antiscience writers remain befuddled about this issue (e.g., Herzfeld 2017). It is an epistemological blunder to confuse the assertions of facts (e.g., the words used to describe gravity) with the facts themselves (that apples fall from trees) as aspects of the external world that exist irrespective of how we know or which words we use to write about them. By taking this stance, postmodernists transformed the reasonable position that “facts do not speak for themselves” into the absurd conclusion that “there are no facts,” and that no knowledge of the empirical world is possible, which is a gross non sequitur (Spaulding 1988, 264).

Second, the postmodern perspective was self-contradictory because it claimed that all truths were relative to class, gender, ethnicity, and cultural background but excluded itself from the constraints of culture, history, and context (Sidky 2004, 399). As Schick and Vaughn (2014, 311–312) have put it:

To say that everything is relative is to say that no unrestricted universal generalizations are true (an unrestricted universal generalization is a statement to the effect that something holds for all individuals, societies, or conceptual schemes). But the statement that “No unrestricted universal generalizations are true” is itself an unrestricted universal generalization. So if relativism in any of its forms is true, it’s false.

Third, there were no specified rules for extracting the codes of power and encrypted significations from texts. Careful reading does not accomplish this task. So how does one proceed? Remarkably, the answer was through subjective means, using the postmodern scholars’ personal and often oversimplified moral categories of exploitation versus resistance, with truth conflated with “good” provided by and suited to the analyst’s moralistic sensibilities (Sahlins 1999). This enterprise was not about the discovery of new knowledge because the analyst herself or himself provided the “truth” (Salzman 2001, 136). These writers professed a self-righteous desire to “speak truth to evil” (Scheper-Hughes 1995), but it was their own “truth” arrived at using extraordinary capacities and hermeneutic ingenuities with which they credited themselves and denied everyone else (Sidky 2007, 68). However, their colossal blunder was to assume that the political and moral values they were promoting would be embraced by others in society at large along with their antiscience message.

Fourth, the postmodern discourse was characterized by strategic ambiguity. It was full of obscure literary
allusions, baroque rhetorical forms, and contrived scientific-sounding jargon, such as “non-Euclidian space,” “chaos theory” “reversal of cause and effect,” and “endorphin of culture” that sounded erudite but made for incomprehensible texts. Somehow being abstruse was equated with being profound (Carneiro 1995, 14). However, most of their brilliant insights about knowledge and science were pure nonsense. It turned out that even the leading icons of the movement did not understand much of what was said. The New York University physicist Alan Sokal brought this to light by submitting a parody article full of absurdities and blatant non sequiturs to Social Text, one of the prestigious postmodern journals. The paper, with the lovely title “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” was accepted and published in a special issue, called “Science Wars,” devoted to refuting the critics of postmodernism. When Sokal revealed the hoax, the embarrassed postmodern savants reacted with indignation, hostility, and the only weapons they had: special pleading, specious rationalizations, and ad hominin attacks (e.g., Robbins and Ross 2000). The hoax revealed the true obscurantist and nonsensical nature of postmodern discourse. In their book Fashionable Nonsense, Sokal and Bricmont (1998, 207) made the following observation concerning the effects of postmodernism: “The deliberately obscure discourses of postmodernism, and the intellectual dishonesty they engender, poison a part of intellectual life and strengthen the facile anti-intellectualism that is already too widespread in the general public.”

For forty years, the postmodern savants in universities across the country indoctrinated students with their antiscience message (Otto 2016, 198). The substitute they offered was epistemological relativism as the avenue to establish a genuinely just and tolerant society open to diverse viewpoints. At the time, few of these scholars considered the actual implications of their effort to disqualify objective empirical evidence as the basis for evaluating claims to knowledge and public policy. Science-minded scholars, however, were not so oblivious. As Sokal and Bricmont (1998, 209) pointed out: “If all discourses are merely ‘stories’ or ‘narrations,’ and none is more objective or truthful than another, then one must concede that the worst sexist or racist prejudices and the most reactionary socio-economic theories are ‘equally valid.’”

Many of those indoctrinated in postmodern antiscience went on to become conservative political and religious leaders, policymakers, journalists, journal editors, judges, lawyers, and members of city councils and school boards. Sadly, they forgot the lofty ideals of their teachers, except that science is bogus (Otto 2016, 199). Thus, vast cadres of people with little interest in the message of multiculturalism and epistemological egalitarianism coopted the central lesson of postmodernism that truth is what one wants it to be to assert the legitimacy of their authoritarian dogmas, irrationalism, and bunkum. Even some hardcore antiscience philosophers now acknowledge the unpleasant consequences of their imprudent intellectual enterprise. As the noted postmodern “sociologist of science” Bruno Latour (2004, 227) has put it:

... entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American kids are learning ... that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are always prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint, and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives.

Latour, to his credit, now goes even further in acknowledging the damage the science critique has caused. As noted in the March/April 2018 Skeptical Inquirer, Latour, in a recent interview for Science (de Vrieze 2017), said the science criticisms created the basis for antiscientific thinking and he now wants to help rebuild trust in science.

The effects of all this on today’s media and politics are startling. Gonzo journalism has become widespread, and few in the profession consider speaking truth to power or even objectivity in reporting as part of their responsibilities (Otto 2016, 23, 129, 200). In this intellectual climate, pretentious and utterly unqualified politicians are flagrantly flaunting opinions on issues ranging from vaccines, human reproduction, stem cell research, the origins of the Earth, and human evolution, to the state of the biosphere, that are contrary to overwhelming historical and scientific evidence. In these cultural circumstances, institutions of higher learning have become beleaguered citadels in a vast ocean of irrationality expressed with bravado and pride, a blowback effect partly the creation of postmodern academics themselves. Emboldened xenophobia, scapegoating of ethnic minorities for social ills, and outright racism and bigotry have replaced political correctness, civility, and cultural sensitivity. In the same context, the nonacademic counterparts of postmodernism—pseudoscience, fortunetelling, astrology, and paranormal religions—are flourishing (see Sokal 2008, 263–370).

There are also the climate change deniers, oxymoronic scientific creationists, intelligent design exponents, and hordes of emboldened and intolerant religious fundamentalists. These ideologues along with their white supremacist allies bent on making America white again have taken over the political arena with a vengeance and are seeking to establish the theocracy of Jesus (see Blaker 2003; Hedges 2006; Sharlet 2010; Stenger 2003, 10). Taking advantage of these circumstances, profit-hungry energy extraction and agrochemical industries, seeking to dodge environmental and safety regulations and undermine policymaking based on scientific evidence, have formed an “unholy alliance” with fundamentalist churches presenting a unified front against science and rationality (Sokal 2008, xv).

Thus, during the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is not the Enlightenment view based on rationality and science but supernaturalism, anti-intellectualism, and obscurantism that compose the most potent forces in the private and national life of the United States. These developments are astonishing in a country historically known for secularism, the separation of church and state, science-driven technological innovations, and the exulted ideal that public policy must look to scientific evidence instead of appealing to emotion, religious dogma, or authority. The latter was the view cherished and espoused by this nation’s founding figures such as Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.

The postmodern assault on science and its relativism has left us vulnerable to the absurdities of the defenders of supernaturalism, the deception of quacks, and the fanaticism of religious fascists and would-be dictators. History teaches that whenever and wherever irrationalism and relativism have acquired political force, human suffering, violence, oppression, and loss of life have inevitably followed. The example of Nazi Germany will suffice here. Welcome to the postmodern world(?).

Did the postmodern view of knowledge represent “the rearrangement of the very principles of intellectual perspective” (Herzfeld 2001, x, 2, 5, 9, 22), as one infatuated anthropologist put it? No. Was its case against science compelling and based on evidence? No. What the postmodern savants offered was disinformation and an intellectually dishonest enterprise that accomplished nothing aside from bewildering the American public about the role and function of science. Are we justified to abandon science in favor of the alternatives proposed by the purveyors of supernaturalism and other obscurantisms? No.

As Albert Einstein put it, science is one of the most precious things we have. It is valuable not because it guarantees absolute truths free of bias, error, and deception but because it is a unique self-correcting method for reducing bias, mistakes, and fraud to advance our understanding of the social and natural worlds and the universe. Science “is a language that all can use and share in and learn,” as anthropologist Robin Fox (1992, 49) noted, and “the wretched of the earth want science and the benefits of science. To deny them this is another kind of racism.” Among all the ways of knowing ever devised, only science strives to combat our confirmation biases by demanding that practitioners question their premises and to systematically expose their conclusions to the inspection of unsympathetic nonbelievers (Harris 1979, 27). The hallmark of science is the question “What is the evidence?” The hallmark of the alternative perspectives touted by our “home-grown ayatollahs” and obscurantist gurus is “I wish to believe” (Harris 1987, 14). Science remains our only path toward “thinking straight about the world,” which is something urgently needed at this critical historical juncture as irrationalism and fanaticism are “bubbling up around us” (Gilovich 1993, 6; Sagan 1996, 27).

I thank Dr. Lawrence Kuznar (Department of Anthropology, Indiana University–Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Indiana) and Dr. Raymond Scupin (Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Lindenwood University, St. Charles, Missouri) for reading this paper and for their many comments and suggestions. I alone assume responsibility for the views expressed in this essay.

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In February 2011, Mark Edward and I attended the first Fort Collins SkeptiCamp. In fact, that was the very first place I ever spoke about the project that would eventually become Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW). Mark was speaking at the SkeptiCamp and I wanted to as well, so I racked my brains to think of a topic and thought of how I had been editing Wikipedia and thought maybe I could tell the audience that we all should edit Wikipedia, for the greater good. That seems so far away; I had no idea that GSoW would become the power-house it is today. It was because of that one SkeptiCamp that forced me to put a name to the GSoW project. After eight years, Mark Edward and I returned to Colorado to speak once again at the Fort Collins SkeptiCamp.

Colorado had been one of those hubs of an active community: names, podcasts, projects, and ideas came out of that area. I don’t want to mention names as mostly they are long gone, for reasons that affect all communities: time and drama. It was a very sad era, but as they say, time heals all wounds and I was really curious to see what had happened to the community. Are the players from before still active? Have new people and projects taken their place? Please Colorado, give us some hope.

My first lecture was to the Secular Society in Denver. They gather nearly every day at a center they rent on Downing Street. A few steps away from the very last train stop on the L-line. According to Ev the event organizer, they have out-grown the space and are looking for a new place. And they are busy with events; when we were trying to pick a day for my lecture, we didn’t have a lot of open spaces on the event calendar to choose from. They have coffee socials, lectures, AA meetings, movie nights, “Newbie Night,” training workshops, and Sunday morning services. They are funded by memberships and donations; always a wonderful thing to see people relying on themselves to grow. According to their meetup page, they have 1,257 members. And the Denver Post did a really nice write-up on the group back in 2017. https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/16/secular-hub-denver-nontheistic-atheist-community-center/. A few more of these write-ups and they will be notable enough for their own Wikipedia page, but I digress.

I’m always wary when speaking in front of a group I know little about, especially one that is more secular than skeptic related. You get a mixed bag of attendees; people who want to hear about atheism and how we edit pages against religion but grow upset if I talk about editing pages on homeopathy, UFOs, and ghosts. When you speak to a skeptic group, you just assume that you are all on the same page and everyone knows who James Randi is, what the Skeptical Inquirer magazine is about, and who Uri Geller is. Not so with an atheist group. But after talking with Ev and looking over their meetup page and then later learning that one of their Board members is Chris Shelton (ex-scientologist—produces a podcast titled Sensibly Speaking, which I had been interviewed on, and also the author of the book Scientology: A to Xenu: An Insider’s Guide to What Scientology is All About), I knew I would be in a group of good critical thinkers, who maybe didn’t know all the names of the skeptic world but would be fine in the other areas. Give my Sensibly Speaking interview a listen.

I spoke to a room of about sixteen people; many said that this was their first time at the Secular Society, and I’ll take full credit for that happening. One attendee Robyn Baxendale attended with children who became very animated when I mentioned that Mark Edward had been on Adam Ruins Everything. Robyn manages the Durango Skeptics & Atheists group which is about a five-hour drive from Denver. A place I hope to speak to in the next year.

I did my “March for Science – Now What?” lecture, but added in a section about Stan Romanek, a Denver resident whose claim to fame was that he had been abducted by aliens from another planet; he made a video with a space alien face looking in his window that the Internet lovingly called “Boo.” Romanek’s claims were investigated, the video recreated, and it was shown that he had fabricated his stories. Anyway, GSoW wrote a Wikipedia page for him in 2012. It was rarely visited until Netflix did a documentary on his life, and the next thing we knew Stan Romanek’s Wikipedia page was getting 50K views in one day. Good thing there was a Wikipedia page for them to visit, otherwise they would only have random articles scattered around the Internet to read, or his own website, and the documentary to get the “facts” from. Not likely to get great info from that; a well-written Wikipedia page is much more usable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Romanek

The lecture at the Secular Society went really well, despite they didn’t really know who Stan was; someone did say he looked familiar. They asked great questions; some people came with questions already written down and several people were already Wikipedia editors. It was terrific, a great discussion, and a really great location. Give them a visit the next time you are in the Denver area; they have something going nearly every day. Tell them Susan sent you.

The next morning, Mark Edward and I rented a car and drove the hour and three minutes to Fort Collins, Colorado. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, this was where GSoW began as a “Susan Gerbic thing” back in 2011. They are on their eighth SkeptiCamp, and I love these mini-conferences. You really get to see the health of the group, and the diverse topics and research are always something I learn from. It’s a lot like CSICon’s Sunday Papers!

First up was one of my dear friends Linda Rosa, who is the indefatigable advocate for Empirically-Supported Therapies. She is also the mother of Emily Rosa from Therapeutic Touch fame. Linda’s presentation called “A Year of Skeptic Activism in Colorado” was excellent; I could barely keep up taking notes with all the things she has been active in. They have filed over fifty-six complaints against naturopaths in the state. Attachment disorder garnered her attention after she noticed that the Colorado Department of Health Services was cosponsoring a conference offing nurses Continuing Education Credits (CEC) for learning alt-med methodologies. She (and her team) managed (just hours before the conference) to get the American Psychological Association to pressure the Department of Health to cancel the CECs.

Linda Rosa is a retired nurse, which is why she so often goes head-to-head with the alt-med world. And when I say “she” I mean Linda AND her team, which can include people such as Craig Foster, Jane Mercer, and elected officials. One task is to get the state to only use the term Empirically-Supported Therapies, and that says a lot about their goals. She spoke to us about Parental Alienation Syndrome, which was the first time I had heard of it. Chronic Lyme Disease and about a woman named Olivia Goodreau that takes eighty-seven pills a day and is the “poster child” for CLD in Colorado. It’s a wonder that Goodreau does not see flying saucers too with all those meds interacting with each other.

Fluoridation, which was “invented” by a dentist in Colorado Springs, but Rosa told us that many sections of Colorado Springs remain unfluoridated because of “concerns.” Apparently, the Colorado skeptics were active with a March of GMOs (May 19, 2018, is next one). And yet, I later learned that they didn’t march for science in Fort Collins. A fact that I mentioned several times in my GSoW lecture. “Caring Science” was another threat that Linda talked about, and someone named Jean Watson RN who has a Theory of Human Caring group. Linda also announced that it is the twentieth anniversary of her daughter’s scientific research of therapeutic touch, which led Emily to have over thirty TV interviews and to be the youngest person every published in JAMA at the age of nine.

So many great quotes and information from Linda Rosa’s lecture; see it for yourself in the YouTube playlist included at the bottom of this article. One great response from Linda to the question asked during Q&A, “Do they believe this nonsense?” (meaning the people supporting alt-med) was, “Naturopathy has lots of money to be made, Lyme also … There is no standard of care with naturopathy, five colleges in the USA claim it’s ‘like medical school’”.

One important bit of business we did decide during Linda’s talk was that the skeptic community should start using the phrases A Quackery of Naturopaths and A Dilution of Homeopaths when talking about those groups in numbers.

Our next speaker was Doug Holland who had been at the first Fort Collins SkeptiCamp. Doug’s talk was called “When Normal People Believe in Crazy Things: why stating facts won't persuade them, and what does work to persuade.” Lots of great tips, a sort of primer to skeptical activism: “People don’t listen to facts … don’t tell them they are wrong, try to get them to realize it for themselves.” He said to stay calm, create dialogue, and ask questions when you are talking to someone with opposing opinions, “when people are angry they aren’t open for persuasion.” “The appeal to emotion” according to Doug is not what we are taught in debate but “in the real world, it works.” And lastly, “People don’t reason to find the facts … they seek something to prove their argument and disprove the other guy.” Check out Doug’s talk, link at the bottom of this article.

Caleb Hendrich’s talk was a complete surprise as I had no idea what a loot box was, I know more now, and found myself telling people back home all about this topic. They were engaged in learning more also. I took a lot of notes, and Caleb supplied a bibliography for further reading. Turns out I ran out of battery on the video camera I was using, so I only got part of the lecture. But please watch what I did get and check out the bibliography; it was a great topic.

“The Loot Box - A Case for Industry Regulation” was the title of Caleb’s talk, and once he started describing what a loot box was, and the gaming experience, it started making me remember some things I heard from my sons about the expense of gaming. In my day, we went to the store, purchased a game off a shelf, came home, and loaded floppy disks (later CDs) into the computer, and played the game. Everyone was equal. You owned the game and you played; later the Internet allowed us to look for discussions about the game and cheat codes (Myst and Riven were my games of choice). The industry caught onto the social aspects of DLC (Downloadable Content), and added for just a few dollars the ability to add things to the game to make it more enjoyable but not change the game-play. Items such as a more attractive horse, a cool weapon, healing items, or fun game skins. Gamers were upset, made a fuss, but kept playing, and eventually the business model shifted to “Tank the Outrage – Then Double Down” adding more and more fees to games, even AFTER the game was purchased. They include Season Passes for games not yet offered, tiered content prices, extra missions, extra prizes, gold editions, collectable cases, and game maps all for real cash.

We were given a lot of background and history of the gaming business, and then he explained what a loot box is. Remember playing with Magic: The Gathering cards or Pokémon cards? You wanted to get some really extra cool or powerful card, and they were sold in small packages with other cards; the odds of getting that special card were really rare, yet kids would purchase and purchase and purchase trying to get the card they really wanted. Loot boxes are like that, except they are usually virtual. No one is mailing you anything, no need to go to the store and wait in line. You purchase a chance to get what is inside the loot box; the odds on getting what you really want are high. The companies say that this is a “players choice to purchase – IT IS NOT GAMBLING!” But experts like with the Video game addiction treatment center say that it exploits people who do not have the cognitive abilities to understand that they really don’t need all these extras, but peer pressure forces these young people to purchase and purchase.

The industry says they need to continue charging these fees to pay for “development” and “better graphics.” But Caleb says that the publishers make billions of dollars of profit: “it’s just cream.” Tetris and Minecraft have horrible graphics yet are some of the best-selling games. Also, the industry does not release their budgets to prove that these extra fees are needed. And their claim that IT IS NOT GAMBLING! is starting to look pretty suspicious, like maybe it IS gambling. Parents are mostly unaware of what is going on, yet they can have control of the situation as you need a credit card in order to make these purchases; but kids are clever about getting money out of parents. Caleb argues that regulation and oversite needs to be discussed and possibly implemented. One really great quote from Caleb was “People don’t expect to find a casino inside their video game.”

After a quick break—we were at Mulligan’s Pub in Fort Collins, so we ate through the whole day, great service and food—it was my turn. “March for Science – Now What?” I used my Stan Romanek slide and a couple people remembered his photo. Then when I told the story about the Boo Video, a lot of people had aha moments. People were open and excited about GSoW; they asked great questions. And I had two people sign up for training, Jamie and Luke. Totally worth the trip to Colorado to gain two new quality people. 

Mark Edward was up next and did his usual terrific lecture, starting with mentalism to get the audience’s energy back up as it was at the end of the day. He talked about how to really upset a psychic performance: laugh. They can’t throw you out, and it makes other people laugh and it just ruins the whole mood of the performance (and it is a performance). Mark explains that he hears the statement all the time, “there is no way that psychic could have known,” so he showed the SkeptiCamp audience many ways a psychic can know all about you: cold-reading, body language, sitters misremembering even a nice discussion on hot-reading. Mark talked about various encounters with grief vampires and how frustrating it is that they are still in business even after educating people for years. He brought along a few copies of his book Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium, and they were snatched up by the attendees. Please see the link at the bottom of this article for the full video.

Our last speaker, Howard Landman, talked about attending a flat-Earth meeting in Fort Collins. He said that it was quite an experience and he tried to attend a second meeting, but his brain forced him to leave mid-way. There were about fifteen people, but some were not flat-earthers, an Italian reporter, and a few curious people also. “It’s really hard to describe the set of beliefs these people had, because there were a whole bunch of different ones,” Howard explains. “It was like a vin diagram where the overlap was flat earth.” Religious claims, UFO beliefs, lots of conspiracy theories, chemtrails, and even fluoridation were mentioned. Howard tried to explain that it is possible to actually test the claim that the Earth is flat, but they kept telling him, “no it’s too difficult and too expensive.” Even after Howard told them about eight and ten-year old sisters who sent up balloons in space to over 110 thousand feet, “how can you tell me this is too hard?” They responded, “No, it’s too hard.” They told Howard that the edge of the Earth is Antarctica; they can’t go there because the military won’t let anyone see the edge. At this point, Howard put his hands on his head in frustration. He said, “It became clear that these people do not want to test their beliefs; they know they are right, and they don’t NEED to test their beliefs.” See Howard’s full lecture in the link at the bottom of this article. 

About twenty-three different people attended the Camp, at least nineteen stayed the entire day from 1-7 p.m., and many stayed even later after Mark and I left to drive to the Denver airport to return the car and get ready for the flights home.

Back to the questions I had asked before: What about the health of these communities? Are they still vibrant? Can Colorado have that spark and give the rest of the skeptic community hope? Well, some of these people are the same as before in 2011; they, mostly with the exception of Linda Rosa, keep a lower profile. They enjoy their meetups, interactions with each other, and I’m told there is very little drama within their communities. Fort Collins seems very happy with the current state of being; one of the organizers, Brian Cottle, told me that they have had thirty attendees in the past, but he thinks twenty is a better number. It keeps people engaged, but there is less chance of conflict. In past SkeptiCamps, they had attendees that didn’t understand that they were scientific skeptics and not skeptics in the conspiracy theory way; that was quite awkward for everyone. Attendee Hans Masanetz said he has been to TAM8 and regularly attends the meetups; he said “that SkeptiCamp brings in new faces and new topics that spark conversations about different topics.”

The Denver Secular Society was unaware of the past dramas in Colorado (and I wasn’t going to tell them); there are mostly all new people to the community, energized and ready to put their money to work to build a new community focused on secularism.

In conclusion, frankly I’m not sure. It seems that the skeptic community was badly scarred. Divisive personalities fractured long friendships. People moved away, fell quiet, and moved on with their lives. The movers and shakers I knew back in the years I visited Colorado in 2009–2011 are mostly silent, not attending skeptic events even outside Colorado as far as I can tell. 2012–2015 was an ugly time in the skeptic community; it’s rebuilding, but slowly. A few that are still around told me that they paid little attention to the drama and stayed away.

I saw no signs of effort to actively recruit new people; just showing up, putting together a SkeptiCamp once a year and socializing. And what great talent; I’m so happy we visited and spent quality time with these people. I got to know a whole new group of thinkers. I’m very happy that I managed to sneak out these videos in order to share them with you all. Okay, they all gave me permission to film, but still it felt odd that I was the only person that seemed to realize that they are creating great content that people all over the world would love to view.

Here you go, Enjoy! Fort Collins SkeptiCamp lectures playlist

Thank you, Stuart Jones for helping with a quick read of this article. All photographs and videos are from me, Susan Gerbic.

The Venue

Photography lab dark room in the Oklahoma City area.

IIG On-Site Representatives

Director: Dr. Bryan Farha, EdD

Photo Lab Site Organizer: Jesse Miller, MFA

Camera Operators: Mark Zimmerman, MFA; Mark Scott, MEd

Time/Record-Keeper: Charla Leonard, MS

Coordinator

Matt Wolf

Consultant

A special thanks to Mike Skor, who lent advice on light meters and testing methodology.

The Applicant

The applicant has requested to remain anonymous, so he will be referred to here as “Subject.” He arrived exactly at the agreed time on the day of the demonstration.

Application History and Negotiations

The Subject first applied to the IIG $100,000 Challenge in November 2013, stating that he had a variety of paranormal powers, including telepathy, telekinesis, and the ability to influence the weather. As IIG did not have any affiliates or representatives near his then place of residence, discussions with him ended after a couple weeks. He contacted IIG again in February and March 2014 stating that he could do telepathy and pass Zener card ESP tests.

The application resulting in this demonstration was submitted on October 11, 2016. Subject was by this time living in Oklahoma. IIG therefore approached Dr. Farha about potentially administering a demonstration. He agreed, and so with a local director available, IIG proceeded with protocol negotiations. IIG conducted a preliminary trial run of the testing methodology at the monthly IIG meeting in Los Angeles on February 18, 2017.

The Claim

The Subject claimed to be able to change the luminosity (brightness) of a light bulb using only psychic ability.

In his application, he stated that he had “been meditating for some time now” and was able to “influence electricity with [his] mind.” He stated that he would hold a plugged-in light bulb in his hand and “focus on” it, which would cause the bulb to “suddenly” begin increasing and decreasing in brightness. He sent us two videos he had made of this. In one video, the bulb is held in the Subject’s hands. Most IIG members who viewed the video reported that they could not discern any visible change in brightness. Some members suggested that the camera used by the applicant might be automatically correcting for small fluctuations. In the second, longer video, a bulb that appears to have a stained-glass–like surface is resting on its side, with the applicant’s hand held directly above it. In this video, what subjectively appear to be momentary changes in brightness do occur.

Setup

The demonstration was conducted using a frosted-glass incandescent light bulb mounted on a tripod. A large white card was hung on the wall behind the bulb to serve as a bounce board for the light. A Sekonic L-758 light meter, also mounted on a tripod, was trained on the bounce board. The meter was set in spot meter mode and to give a reading of brightness in exposure value (EV) settings. Two cameras were set up: one recording the overall scene in the room and one recording the display of the meter.

Control Measures

An important control measure was the use of an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) to minimize electrical fluctuations not due to alleged psychic ability. Similarly, an incandescent bulb was used because fluorescent and LED bulbs contain electronic components that could hypothetically cause minor fluctuations in brightness. A frosted glass bulb and bounce board were used to “even out” the light emitted by the bulb.

Other control measures included Subject not having any metal devices, magnets, or reflective or “glow in the dark” clothing on his person that could influence the meter reading. Prior to the demonstration, he was asked to empty his pockets and remove his belt and was checked using a handheld metal detector.

Subject could not touch the bulb, light meter, bounce board, power source, or power cord; place any part of his body within less than one foot of the bulb; or place any part of his body between the bulb and the bounce board or between the bounce board and the meter. There was no indication that Subject intended to use any form of deception or cheating to influence the bulb’s brightness.

To minimize the chance of false readings, brand new products were used (UPS, light bulb, lamp base, metal detector, batteries, etc.).

Procedure

The applicant concentrating

The applicant really concentrating

All artificial light sources in the room other than the test bulb were turned off or covered during the demonstration. All windows, doorways, etc., were closed/covered to minimize intrusion of outside light.

The pre-demonstration began with a ten-minute control period to check the baseline level of variation in the meter’s output. The meter remained on a reading of 11.2 EV throughout the control period.

Before each trial, Subject had a maximum of two minutes to declare if he was going to increase or decrease the light bulb’s brightness. The trial would be counted as a success if the meter’s reading changed by at least 3 EV and remained that far from the baseline value for at least three seconds. Because EV is a base-2 logarithmic scale, this would mean an eightfold increase or decrease in brightness. This was explained to the applicant beforehand; he indicated in writing that he understood this and accepted it as the standard for success.

Subject would need to succeed on ten of fifteen trials to pass the demonstration. Each trial was two minutes long. If Subject passed the demonstration, he would become eligible for a full test for the $100,000 prize money.

Results

Each trial was executed smoothly, with Subject not complaining about anything. He seemed to be concentrating pretty hard. Recall the pre-demonstration “control” meter reading was 11.2. On each trial, the baseline reading was either 11.1 or 11.2 (or steadily fluctuating between the two). On the first six trials, the meter reading never changed from 11.1 or 11.2, ending the demonstration (since it became mathematically impossible to achieve ten successes with nine trials remaining). Subject did not achieve the ±3 needed on any trial.

Conclusion

Subject not only did not achieve the necessary ±3 change needed to succeed in the demonstration, but he also did not influence the luminosity of the light bulb in the slightest. Even if the standard had been ±1, Subject would not have succeeded. There is no evidence from this demonstration that Subject possesses psychic ability.

He seemed understandably disappointed that he would not be advancing to the full-scale test—giving him a chance at the $100,000 prize—but Subject said he would likely reapply after the required one-year waiting period.

After the end of the demonstration, Dr. Farha asked Subject if he has been able to successfully manipulate the brightness of a bulb at home. He replied:

“Whenever I’m just, like, driving around […] when there’s a light, like, flickering […] just focus on it, and it just happens.”

Here, he described essentially the same thing that has been referred to as the street light interference phenomenon: the claimed ability of certain individuals to manipulate the brightness of street lights or switch them on or off. IIG has received other applications to the Challenge from individuals claiming to have this ability and similar ones. It seems likely that the belief in such an ability often arises through confirmation bias: a person notices and recalls occasions when they were thinking about a light changing and it did change, but they do not notice or remember cases where the light did not change. They may thus come to believe that their thoughts caused the change.

A special thanks to Mike Skor who lent advice on light meters and testing methodology.

Known in proponent circles as “lotus birth,” umbilical nonseverance is a practice in which the umbilical cord is not cut post-birth, leaving the baby attached to the placenta until the cord dries and eventually detaches from the navel—usually a period of three to ten days. Little information has been published on the safety or medical benefit of this practice. Those engaging in lotus birth often keep the placenta in a pouch or a bowl to dry, with salt and optional dried herbs and essentials oils to aid in the drying process and to mask the odor of the decomposing placenta. These supplies are sold in kits from local sellers or through online shops like Etsy, though lotus birthers also share tips on how to prepare concoctions at home. Some proponents distinguish between “full” and “short term” lotus births, in which the cord is cut four to forty-eight hours following birth.

A typical lotus birth protocol reads as follows:

• When the baby is born, leave the umbilical cord intact. If the cord is around the baby's neck, simply lift it over.
• Wait for the natural delivery of the placenta. Do not use oxytocin - this forces too much too soon into the infant and compromises the placenta delivery.
• When the placenta delivers, place it into a receiving bowl beside the mother.
• Wait for full transfusion of the umbilical blood into the baby before handling the placenta.
• Gently wash the placenta with warm water and pat dry.
• Place the placenta into a sieve or colander for 24hrs to allow drainage.
• Wrap the placenta in absorbent material, a nappy or cloth and put in into a placenta bag. The covering is changed daily or more often if seepage occurs. Alternatively, the placenta may be laid on a bed of sea salt (which is changed daily) and liberally covered with salt.
• The baby is held and fed as the mother wishes.
• The baby is clothed loosely.
• The baby can be bathed as usual - keep the placenta with it.
• Keep movement to a minimum. (Taylor 2018)

Early History

Considered a recent alternative birth phenomenon, the roots of lotus birth as currently practiced can be traced just a few decades back. With a vague but unconfirmed notion that some non-human primates don’t sever the umbilical cord, a pregnant woman named Clair Lotus Day from California began to question routine cutting of the cord back in the 1970s. Australian doctor and lotus birth proponent Sarah Buckley writes that Day’s “searching led her to an obstetrician who was sympathetic to her wishes and her son Trimurti was born in hospital and taken home with his cord uncut” (Buckley 2009, 40). The practice has been growing since 1974, with the late yoga master and midwife Jeannine Parvati Baker credited with popularizing lotus birth in the United States and midwife Shivam Rachana, founder of the International College of Spiritual Midwifery and author of the book Lotus Birth (2000), spreading the practice in Australia.

The “prolonged contact” with the placenta that a lotus birth provides “can be seen as a time of transition, allowing the baby to slowly and gently release their attachment to the mother’s body,” writes Buckley.

Placenta rituals among Australian home birthing women have been described as use of the organ “in various rituals and ceremonies to spiritualize an aspect of birth that is usually overlooked,” including lotus birth, burial of the placenta beneath a specifically chosen plant, and consuming the placenta (placentophagy) (Burns 2014).

Prevalence Unclear

Prevalence of lotus birth around the world is unclear. Buckley writes that “since 1974, many babies have been born this way, including babies born at home and in hospital, on land and in water, and even by caesarean section” (Buckley 2009, 41). Lotus birth remains rare in hospital settings. The practice appears to be more common in out of hospital births, with discussions and advice-sharing on lotus birth in parenting forums on Facebook and WhatToExpect.com. A search of Facebook as of publication turns up a few active discussion groups, including “Lotus Birth/Umbilical Non-severance” with over 600 members, “Lotus Birthing” with over 400 members, and Italy-based forum “LOTUS BIRTH ITALIA” with over 2,000 members. Members of these forums share advice, anecdotes, and photos.

Related Practices and Unproven Claims

Mention of lotus birth in the medical literature is sparse, though case studies have been documented from the 1970s on. Proponents tend to hold the placenta in high regard, wishing to honor the organ, citing both abstract and specific benefits.

"We need to relearn what a birth can be like when it is not disturbed by the cultural milieu. We need a reference point from which we should try not to deviate too much. Lotus Birth is such a reference point,” writes Dr. Michel Odent, surgeon and proponent of lotus birth and other risky feats like water birth, dubbed the “French birthing guru,” in the foreword to the 2001 book Lotus Birth.

Some lotus birth advocates suggest that cutting the cord causes lifelong psychological trauma. Proponents have shared accounts of adults remembering the trauma upon encountering the concept of lotus birth (“Lotus Birth” 2017).

“I notice an integrity and self-possession with my lotus-born children, and I believe that lovingness, cohesion, attunement to Mother Nature, and trust and respect for the natural order have all been imprinted on our family by our honouring of the placenta, the Tree of Life” (Buckley 2009, 43).

Aside from spiritual benefits, lotus birthers and proponents also believe in medical benefits. Popular Australian parenting site BellyBelly shares a few purported benefits ("Lotus Birth: 7 Reasons" 2018), including optimal blood transfer:

“The placenta is placed at the same level with the baby to ensure the blood transfer. An extra 80-100mL of the oxygenated blood can contribute towards their brain development within the first year.” There is evidence in favor of delaying cord clamping, though there are gaps in the existing evidence regarding “the optimal time to clamp the cord and the interventions that should be performed before clamping in infants who fail to establish spontaneous respirations or are severely asphyxiated, as well as those who breathe spontaneously” (Niermeyer 2015).

Current management recommendations do not exist for lotus birth in the United States. However, there are management recommendations for the next most closely related newborn practice—delayed cord clamping—for which there is evidence of benefit to the newborn. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a committee opinion, endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Nurse–Midwives, with recommendations regarding the timing of umbilical cord clamping after birth:

• In term infants, delayed umbilical cord clamping increases hemoglobin levels at birth and improves iron stores in the first several months of life, which may have a favorable effect on developmental outcomes.
• Delayed umbilical cord clamping is associated with significant neonatal benefits in preterm infants, including improved transitional circulation, better establishment of red blood cell volume, decreased need for blood transfusion, and lower incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis and intraventricular hemorrhage.
• Given the benefits to most newborns and concordant with other professional organizations, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends a delay in umbilical cord clamping in vigorous term and preterm infants for at least 30–60 seconds after birth.
• There is a small increase in the incidence of jaundice that requires phototherapy in term infants undergoing delayed umbilical cord clamping. Consequently, obstetrician–gynecologists and other obstetric care providers adopting delayed umbilical cord clamping in term infants should ensure that mechanisms are in place to monitor and treat neonatal jaundice.
• Delayed umbilical cord clamping does not increase the risk of postpartum hemorrhage. (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 2017)

The Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists issued a statement acknowledging that “(RCOG) is aware that a small number of women are choosing umbilical non-severance, or “lotus birth,” and stressing that “the practice of lotus birth is new to the UK and there is a lack of research regarding its safety” (Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists 2008). In the statement, Dr Patrick O'Brien, RCOG spokesperson, said: “If left for a period of time after the birth, there is a risk of infection in the placenta which can consequently spread to the baby. The placenta is particularly prone to infection as it contains blood. Within a short time after birth, once the umbilical cord has stopped pulsating, the placenta has no circulation and is essentially dead tissue.” RCOG published a scientific impact paper reviewing the body of evidence suggesting that deferred rather than immediate clamping may have benefits at both term and preterm births (Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists 2015).

Risks and Outcomes

Though lotus birth is not well-documented as a practice in medical literature, negative health outcomes have been documented, including infection and idiopathic neonatal hepatitis (Tricarico et al. 2017). Lotus birthing also requires the primary caregiver—almost always the mother—to remain close to a bag of decomposing flesh, and it keeps her homebound as she cares for the newborn until the umbilical cord detaches.

Notable Commentary

Dubbing it “the wackiest childbirth practice ever,” Dr. Amy Tuteur, a vocal critic of the natural childbirth movement, describes lotus birth as “a bizarre practice with no medical benefit and considerable risk, particularly the risk of massive infection.” She explains the phenomenon: “What’s the real reason behind lotus birth? Homebirth and other fringe birth advocates are engaged in a battle of oneupsmanship, and the woman with the most bizarre (and often the most dangerous) birth practices wins” (Tuteur 2012).

Dr. Jennifer Gunter, Canadian-American gynecologist, obstetrician, vaginal health expert, and author, writes in her blog that lotus birth is “biologically unsound [and] untested,” adding that it is “the equivalent of diapering up a raw steak and attaching to your newborn for three to five days. It is not a magical, historical or cultural practice forcibly torn away from women by an uncaring patriarchy; it was something a woman dreamed up after hearing about chimpanzees. To brand this as a modern ritual is nothing but predatory marketing” (Gunter 2017).

Dr. Kristina Bryant, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, suspects that peer pressure to choose the most natural birth options plays a role in the proliferation of lotus birth. She writes that “many pediatricians, me included, are not well informed about these practices and don’t routinely ask expectant moms about their plans. I propose that we can advocate for our patients-to-be by learning about these practices so that we can engage in an honest, respectful discussion about potential risks and benefits. For me, for now, the risks outweigh the benefits” (Bryant 2017).

Conclusion

Lotus birth is poorly studied, and experts largely agree that this is for good reason—there is no need to legitimize a high-risk, no-benefit phenomenon that didn’t start until the 1970s. Nevertheless, awareness of lotus birth, the reasons proponents cite for doing it, and management of those who choose it, should be on the radars of medical practitioners. Along with refusal of other newborn nursery protocols, including refusal of intramuscular vitamin K, erythromycin eye ointment, newborn screening for congenital conditions, hepatitis B vaccination, discharge timing, and recommended sleep position, “providers need to be aware of alternative practices and know how to respond to them with patient-centered yet medically safe care” (Monroe et al. 2018).

• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. 2017. Delayed umbilical cord clamping after birth - ACOG. Available online at https://www.acog.org/Clinical-Guidance-and-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Obstetric-Practice/Delayed-Umbilical-Cord-Clamping-After-Birth.
• Bryant, Kristina A. 2017. Alternative birthing practices increase risk of infection. Pediatric News. Available online at https://www.mdedge.com/pediatricnews/article/144621/infectious-diseases/alternative-birthing-practices-increase-risk#.
• Buckley, Sarah J. 2009. Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts.
• Burns, Emily. 2014. More than clinical waste? Placenta rituals among Australian home-birthing women. The Journal of Perinatal Education 23(1): 41–49. doi:10.1891/1058-1243.23.1.41.
• Gunter, Jennifer. 2017. A lotus birth is leaving a newborn attached to a decomposing placenta. Dr. Jen Gunter. Available online at https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/a-lotus-birth-is-leaving-a-newborn-attached-to-a-decomposing-placenta/.
• Lotus birth. 2017. Sacred Birthing. Available online at http://sacredbirthing.com/blog/2017/05/14/lotus-birth/.
• Lotus birth: 7 reasons why parents-to-be have one. 2018. Available online at https://www.bellybelly.com.au/birth/lotus-birth-7-reasons-why-parents-to-be-have-one/.
• Monroe, Kimberly, Maria S. Skoczylas, and Heather L. Burrows. 2018. When parents say “no” to newborn nursery protocols. Contemporary Pediatrics. Available online at http://contemporarypediatrics.modernmedicine.com/contemporary-pediatrics/news/when-parents-say-no-newborn-nursery-protocols?page=0,3.
• Niermeyer, Susan. 2015. A physiologic approach to cord clamping: Clinical issues. Maternal Health, Neonatology and Perinatology 1(1). doi:10.1186/s40748-015-0022-5.
• Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. 2008. RCOG statement on umbilical non-severance or “lotus birth.” 2018. Available online at https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/news/rcog-statement-on-umbilical-non-severance-or-lotus-birth.
• ———. 2015. Clamping of the umbilical cord and placental transfusion. Available online at https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/scientific-impact-papers/sip-14.pdf.
• Taylor, Aaron. 2018. Lotus birth. Available online at http://www.womenofspirit.asn.au/index.php/lotus-birth.
• Tricarico, Antonella, Valentina Bianco, Anna Rita Di Biase, et al. 2017. Lotus birth associated with idiopathic neonatal hepatitis. Pediatrics & Neonatology 58(3): 281–282. doi:10.1016/j.pedneo.2015.11.010.
• Tuteur, Amy. 2012. Lotus birth: The wackiest childbirth practice ever. The Skeptical OB. Available online at http://www.skepticalob.com/2012/03/lotus-birth-wackiest-childbirth.html.

There seems to be many uses for the trains in Indonesia. Shown above, the over-crowded locomotive is taken on by "surfers". Courtesy of Wikipedia

I am constantly amazed by the ingenuity of humans in coming up with weird and funny treatments for real and imagined illnesses. One of my favorites is train track therapy. People in Indonesia lie down on the tracks with their head on one rail and their legs on another. When a train comes, they get up and move away; after it passes, they lie down again. While lying there, they claim to feel electricity flowing through their bodies, and they twitch when they feel an electric surge from an approaching train. There are pictures online of up to fifty people lying on a track at once, seeking a cure for ailments such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The authorities have put up warning signs and have imposed penalties (three-month jail sentences and fines of up to $1,800), but people keep coming. As of a 2011 article, no one had yet been arrested or had died.

Indonesia has a national health service, but patients are dissatisfied with the cost and the bureaucratic hurdles. Train therapy is free, and the people who use it are mostly poor and uneducated; their culture also encourages belief in a lot of other weird things. They rely on testimonials from people who claim it works. We shouldn’t make fun of them; educated people in the U.S. are regularly persuaded by similar testimonial “evidence” to try all sorts of ridiculous things from “detoxification” remedies to homeopathy to drinking their own urine.

There are testimonials galore for train track therapy. One woman told reporters that it provided more relief from her symptoms than any doctor had since she was diagnosed with diabetes thirteen years ago. Her symptoms? High blood pressure, sleeplessness, and high cholesterol. A seventy-two-year-old man said he had a fractured leg and after 2.5 months of track therapy, he can walk again. A fifty-two-year-old therapist said twelve days of lying on the tracks brought her relief from the pain caused by excess uric acid in her system. A thirty-two-year-old security guard sits on the tracks every afternoon to reduce the stresses of the working world; he thinks it will prolong his life and cure his rheumatism and fatigue.

How did the practice originate? It’s based on a story that has not been verified and is probably one of those urban legends. Supposedly an elderly Chinese man who was partially paralyzed by a stroke and was despondent over his disability went to the tracks intending to commit suicide by train. As he lay on the tracks, he felt better, decided he didn’t really want to die, and got up and went home. The story doesn’t mention whether his paralysis improved.

There are valid applications of electricity in medicine, but train track therapy is not one of them. Electricity has always impressed people. It is invisible and mysterious, and it seems to do all sorts of amazing things, from lightning to lighting our homes. In 1795, Elisha Perkins invented metal rods he called “Perkins’ Tractors.” He claimed that stroking the ailing body part with these rods for twenty minutes would “draw off the noxious electrical fluid that lay at the root of suffering.” George Washington bought a set.

The rails are not electrified. Electric trains have overhead wires that carry the electricity. Some people believe that when trains pass on adjacent lines, they produce electric shocks in the vacant rails. That doesn’t make sense to me. The rails are grounded and there should be no way to get a difference in voltage between the rails that patients could feel, much less that would be therapeutic. People believe electricity absorbed by the metal rails can help with all kinds of health problems including hypertension, diabetes, rheumatism, gout, obesity, and high cholesterol.

Train track therapy is an ideal alternative medicine. It is free, has no side effects, and is an impressive way to produce placebo effects. Maybe it doesn’t cure anything, but at least it gets patients out of bed and out of the house.

On the other hand, if they stayed put on the tracks, there would be a guaranteed permanent end to all their symptoms.

Train track therapy is my second favorite. My all-time favorite is still Braco the Gazer. Karen Stollznow wrote a great article about him in 2011. He has found a way to make big bucks by doing absolutely nothing. He stands on stage for ten minutes and simply looks out at the audience. He doesn’t even make any claims for himself. His supporters make the claims: they call him a healer. They claim that his gaze has cured everything from anxiety and asthma to cancer and paralysis. Gazees claim to see an aura and feel warmth and electricity. Perhaps it’s the same kind of electricity that those Indonesians feel on the train tracks.

DeWitt Historical District
Photo by Shane Vaughn

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, WikiMedia Commons must have the equivalent of a few zillion words on its website. Most people don’t understand that the images they see on Wikipedia pages are all uploaded and licensed by the owners of the photos, usually the photographers. You cannot just take an image (or audio or video) and plop it on a Wikipedia page. As a part of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) training, we highly encourage the use of images to improve the Wikipedia page, making it more enjoyable to read.

The very first editing assignment we give to brand new GSoW editors is adding a photo to a Wikipedia page. Sound easy? Well actually it is pretty simple, but there is a lot more going on behind the scenes to make this happen. I want to explain this to you, because frankly, we need your help.

GSoW training can take months to complete. There is a lot to learn, so we need to keep the assignments (especially at the beginning) simple and fast. We want to get people making edits right away because it is so satisfying to see content you have added read by others. Adding a photo to a page is a perfect assignment, except for one problem: How do you know where to find a page that needs an image, and how do you find the correctly licensed image to add? We can’t ask people to go out and photograph something in their town, upload it, and add it to a Wikipedia page. We would lose trainees on day one.

If you ask people, they usually will help as much as they can. So now I’m asking for your help. We need more photos. We need them uploaded correctly and placed on a spreadsheet for my new trainees to choose from and add to relevant Wikipedia pages. That’s it. It really isn’t that difficult; I can teach you how to upload that image (I even have a video that will walk you through the steps). I have the URL to that spreadsheet right here waiting for you to volunteer to help. We are very quickly running out of photos.

Photo by Shane Vaughn

A few years ago, my Facebook friend Shane Vaughn offered to help us out by traveling around his state of Arkansas and taking photos of historical sites (many of them obscure), uploading them for us, and adding to the spreadsheet. I’m looking at the list right now, and there are over ninety-three entries. A few of them are mine, but most are from Shane. He tells me that he really enjoys helping and it gives him an excuse to travel the backroads with his dog and visit obscure museums and forgotten graveyards and buildings. What he comes up with is terrific. My very favorite image he added for us was at the Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It’s of a giant snow plow. Why is this photo one of my favorites? Because Shane has his dog lying down next to the plow. I asked Shane about it, and he laughed and said he didn’t think anyone would notice, but he did it to show the scale of how big the snow plow actually is.

I asked Shane for his thoughts and tips on what he looks for and the process he goes through and he has kindly included a detailed run-down for anyone who wants to help out. It is a kind of John Steinbeck, Travels with Charlie narrative that I really enjoyed reading. It explains how relaxing it is to drive around, stop where you like, and talk to locals.

GSoW is an International group. We have editors from Bulgaria, Sir Lanka, and all over. It delights me to see a new person from Australia or Poland adding a photo from the Zachariah Ford House in Stone County, Arkansas. We teach that we are here to improve Wikipedia—not just the science and skepticism pages but everything. I want this lesson learned early on in training. Many of these Wikipedia pages contain maybe a half-paragraph of text and few citations, so a couple photos will really add a lot to the page.

Photo by Susan Gerbic

When I travel I look for forgotten museums and historical sites. I quickly look to see if there might be a Wikipedia page that photo can go on and snap away. Upload the image and then give it to a new person to add to the Wikipedia page. It is very rewarding. One day when we were running low on photographs, I took a look at the Salinas, California, Wikipedia page, followed a few links, and then took my bike out and took photos of the library, bus station, old town area, and the local college. Nothing fancy. I came home, uploaded them, and assigned them to someone to add them to a Wikipedia page. While writing this article, I looked through my personal photo albums from the past few months and unloaded some photos from the March for Our Lives event and a photo of a dandelion tree. That is diversity.

And when I say “nothing fancy,” that’s what I mean—just a nice shot of the front of the courthouse, the plaque on the statue, the downtown area of main street. Try to avoid people’s faces, licenses plates, and trash and make the image generic. Most camera phones are just fine for this task.

I have people waiting to assist you if you want to help us out on this project. You might already have a bunch of images sitting on your computer or phone right now. Just ask and we will teach you what to do. And let us know if you are interested in assisting us by uploading audio or video.

Thank you for your assistance and support. Together, we are educating the world and making Wikipedia a stronger tool against nonsense. Reach out to us at our website.

Nancy Grace, remember her? She is that headline news commentator that was on the air from 2005–2016. She provided nightly legal-enraged current affairs and celebrity news, mostly about police investigations and court cases. A quick read through her Wikipedia page and you can find scandal after scandal with her rush to judgment, lock them up attitude. Two people committed suicide after she interviewed them; several financial settlements against her show were won. She was on Larry King Live, CNN, Court TV, and more in her heyday. You remember her, don’t you? Southern accent, big blue eyes? Well maybe you will remember her from her reading with Tyler Henry, Hollywood medium, from the end of 2017? What, you missed that? Well good thing I’m here to tell you all about it.

Why should we care, she is just another celebrity known for hyping other celebrities right? Wrong. This woman is not the average entertainer; she is an attorney known for her brash style about evidence, how to evaluate it, what it means, and how to come to a conclusion. Many may argue that she overreacted, ignored, or embellished evidence and rarely admitted she was wrong. Just look at that Wikipedia page, what a lot of drama this woman has been involved in, although great for her ratings. But to some people she is a noted and respected member of justice. She has over 460 thousand Twitter followers and has tweeted 20.7 thousand times. Yes, she has been mocked for a lot of her tweets, but still it is obvious she has an audience.

What is more egregious is this woman has taken a firm stand on psychics. She had mentalist Mark Edward on her show at least three times to talk about the people who swindle millions out of others. I just finished rewatching one of her exchanges with Mark. This is a direct quote from Grace, “Supernatural swindles, psychics who con believers out of millions of dollars, tonight WE BLOW the LID OFF!” and then there is a floating graphic with one word, BUSTED!, on screen.

Check out this exchange:

Grace: “Mediums, psychics, fortune tellers, tarot card readers bilk the public out of millions of dollars a year … what are the most typical tricks … how do you trick the client?”

Edward: “Cold-reading—make bold statements as facts, wait for one to stick, then course correct and keep riding it out.”

Grace: “Once psychics get your name, psychics can go on your Facebook and see your family, your friends, your postings, what you did the day before; that gives them incredible leverage.”

So, this woman obviously understands; she had at least three interviews with Mark Edward over a couple years on this topic. She even appears to care about how people are being harmed by these grief vampires.

Another thing, Grace often talked about the murder of her fiancé Keith Griffin back in 1979. That was commonly known; she brought that bit of information out every chance she got on the show. And now reading her Wikipedia page (you really need to check this out), I can see that there was a lot of controversy between what she said happened and what actually happened. When challenged on that, she seems to be saying that she really didn’t want to think about those details and has forgotten a lot. Oh really? Let’s just see.

This brings us to the reading; my favorite part of this story. I haven’t watched it yet and am preparing to report my impressions as I do. It is available on Amazon for a couple dollars and includes Tyler Henry reading Kristen Doute, Stassi Schroeder, and Johnny Weir (Season 2: Episode 14).

Just in case you don’t know who Tyler Henry is, I’ve written about him many times; you will find all the articles on his Wikipedia page. He is a twenty-something grief vampire that is on season three of his reality show called Hollywood Medium on the E! Network. I’ve analyzed many of his readings over the last couple years, and have come to the conclusion that in the beginning of his career, his “accuracies” appear more likely to be cold-readings and clever editing. As time has progressed and he is interacting more with the Hollywood celebrities, I seem to think that he is relying on more hot-reading techniques. In other words, he has prior knowledge of the person he is reading that he relays back as if he is getting the information from the dead. OR he could be truly communicating with the dead.

Buckle up—let’s take a look at this reading. I bet he brings up her murdered fiancé and her twins. Keep in mind that this reading is probably close to an hour long, but it is carefully edited down to under ten minutes. You will only see the best bits. If there were better hits than what we see here, then they will be included in this show. If it was solid gold, top of the line hit after hit, then it would be reserved for its whole show. There would be no need to share with Donte, Weir, and Schroeder.

He starts out by stating “I’m in the Hollywood Hills today, and I have no idea who I’m about to read. I’m really excited. I have some information coming through that I think will apply to the client today and so I’m going to this reading even more confident as I know I have something to deliver.” How odd, I didn’t know that the dead know Henry’s schedule and where he is going to appear. I thought the dead were lingering around their living loved ones.

Knock, knock; he is at the door and who opens it is … surprise, it’s Nancy Grace! What happens if Henry recognizes her? Does he say “oh my, we can’t do this reading because I know all about your murdered fiancé?” Also keep in mind, Henry isn’t walking up to random doors in the Hollywood Hills, knocking, and asking if he can do a reading on them. These are organized far in advance, with legal paperwork signed, and a camera crew already waiting inside her home. So, when he says he has no idea who he is reading beforehand, everyone else does know. And we have to just trust that he is telling the truth, but then again, he is also telling us that he is communicating with dead people.

Well, he does know her; right off the bat he says “Nancy Grace, no way … this has made my life, you don’t know!” Apparently, Henry is a big fan of Grace and as I said before, on her show she was always bringing up the murder of her fiancé.

Grace speaks to the camera before Henry gets to her house and she states that she is pretty skeptical of psychics. Here is what she says: “Well for me if I were trying this case, I would never put a psychic in front of a jury … so for me to believe in almost anything; I look for proof. And that would be, him knowing something that is not already out there. Something only I would know. I want to believe, but I’m on the fence.”

They chat together on the couch for a bit; Henry says that he is such a fan of hers, and she says “likewise” then she says, “I’m really hopeful that you are real.” She tells us that she is really interested in “Tyler’s medium ability to speak to those who have passed on … I brought some items today to help him, if he is for real.”

She hands him a folded-up piece of white cloth, like a handkerchief. Henry reaches out for it and she continues to hold onto it and says, “I normally don’t let others touch it.” Henry takes it, starts to scribble on his notebook, and says to himself “two men, thank you.” The camera pans to Grace’s face, and we can see her eyes are already watering up. Henry says, “I have a man that insists on coming though and he connects very much so as a fatherly figure;” Grace nods in agreement. Henry says, “Who had the congestive heart failure?” She answers, “my father” and then tells Henry that the handkerchief belonged to her father, and she keeps it with her always next to her heart.

Henry tells her that there were two visits, or two places associated with the congestive heart failure, and wants to know if he went to one medical facility and then had to go to another place, or maybe was it suggested that he needed to go to another medical facility? She nods yes, and then Henry says that he is getting two causes of passing, like he was diagnosed with one thing but really it was something else that contributed to the death. She agrees and said that her father died of kidney failure because of the treatment he was getting from the heart treatment. Grace explains that she has always felt responsible for this because she urged him to get the kidney treatment. In this part it looked like he went immediately from the father to the heart failure, but it appears to be a cut in there. I would really like to see the whole reading to see what was taken out. Henry offers her a bunch of platitudes saying that her dad is not angry, it was his time (happy music playing), and he was never upset at her or anyone.

Then they cut to commercial, where a lot of the reading was probably cut out. And we are back; Henry is getting a “tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. I don’t know what this is, but it’s a feeling, a situation getting out of hand and not going as it was intended to originally go. It doesn’t look like ‘I was supposed to die that day’ the feeling is, I don’t necessarily get the strongest impression of someone seeking someone out and I’m going to take your life. There’s a feeling that something goes wrong. And I don’t know why that feeling of something going wrong, that wasn’t the original plan. It really comes through as a feeling I know this like for my money, it comes across more like a robbery that ends up being a homicide.” Grace says that she is sure he is referring to her fiancé who was murdered. We think as a mugging; not really sure why, we never knew. (Cue sad music.) She then tells Henry what happened. Keith was working construction during the summer, and a coworker who had been fired came back and shot Keith in the face many times. They didn’t really know each other, and no one understood why that happened.

Henry said that Keith “hated the way you found out … a phone call in one place, an individual, in a public place, he’s having me acknowledge a phone call.” Keith says that he is so proud of Grace. “He’s having me bring up finding handwriting after, going through some things (music escalates) he actually wrote you a letter or a note.” Grace says, “That is incredible.” “After he passed away he wanted you to be able to look at this, go back to this, to pull it out and be able to read this, because it has significance to him, a very loving context. Do you have any letters or notes saved of his?” She reaches over and picks up a folded piece of paper and says that she has many letters from him. She keeps them in a wooden box and rarely looks at them because they make her so sad. She said she removed the envelope, so Henry would not see the address on it, then she reads a bit and in it Keith tells her how much he loves her. Henry says, “It was interesting that it got referred to without even having to look at it.” What? Her fiancé wrote her a letter saying he loved her and that matches him saying that he wanted you to have a letter you could read over and over? That is so weak; of course he told he loved her, it was a love letter. I also don’t understand, was Keith writing her letters so that after he died she could read them and remember? Isn’t that what Henry is implying? Keith knew he would be dying soon?

Henry says that Keith has been appearing to her and other family members in dreams, saying “I am here.” Grace tells a story about having one specific dream years later with Keith telling her to “move on.” So the next day Grace calls her current boyfriend and tells him that they need to get married and have a family or she is going to move on. And two-days later her (now husband) showed up at the door with his bags packed, they got married. and she had the twins. This has been the happiest time of her life, and it is all because of that dream where Keith told her to “move on.” (Pretty peaceful piano music.)

Grace says to the camera after that “there were many things he said were impossible for him to have gleaned on the internet or even a computer search, speeches I’ve given, of things that have happened, I find it difficult to believe … I find many of the things he said to be absolutely amazing.”

And that was all. Yawn, I know huh.

Let’s look at what we got, keeping in mind that this was the best of the best of the reading. So, anything that is missing was probably not worth keeping in the show. A “father figure” turns up. “Someone” had congestive heart failure, that person had at least two visits to a hospital or medical facility or it was suggested that he go to a different place. There were complications to the death. She says that was her father. What is missing? Well pretty much everything. What was her dad’s name? Why didn’t he call Grace by her nickname? What about her mother? Didn’t he have something to say to his grandchildren? Grace wanted some kind of evidence, and if he didn’t know he was reading her, then coming up with his name while sitting on that couch would have been pretty awesome. He didn’t even say it was her father; it was his normal “father figure” statement that he gives to most people.

Next, he talks about a robbery and a murder and it being an accident. Well what Grace tells us later about how the ex-coworker walked in and shot Keith in the face over and over does not sound like a robbery. An ex-coworker accidently shows up to his old worksite with a gun and he walks up to Keith and accidently shoots him in the face over and over? That does not sound even sort of right. She doesn't care; she just makes it fit. We all already have heard this story many times, and Henry admitted to being a big fan, so of course he knew her fiancé was shot. Henry didn’t mention he was shot in the face; he didn’t mention it was a coworker; he didn’t mention any names either. Everything is missing that should be here.

Keith wrote a love letter to Grace? What are the odds of that! He even wrote that he loves her? WOW! Keith appears in a dream to her and family? Well yeah that is what happens. He didn’t like that she was told over the phone? That was odd. How did he want her told, by letter? A fax? By finding his body? If Keith is really communicating through Henry to his great love Grace, then I think he would have a lot more to say than “I’m glad I wrote you some letters, and sorry about someone telling you I was murdered over the phone.”

I know I sound callous; these are real emotions and memories of people who have died, and Grace is re-experiencing this grief over again. My heart goes out to her. But, just because Henry seems so sweet and helpful does not mean he is. He is not a counselor or have any training in grief; he has no business reliving these experiences with people. When people die, we have a few things they left but mostly memories. Our brains rewrite these memories each time we remember. So, when Henry tells you that he is speaking with that family person, he is suggesting new memories to you; it changes your memory of that person. I don’t care that he sums it all up with these platitudes and how proud they are of you. No, it is not right.

So, Grace, in the heat of the moment, with the camera crews still there and recording, sums up the reading as accurate; Henry told her things that he could never have known. In that stressful moment, when Grace does not have the ability to pause, rewind, and listen again, she missed all the word play and leading statements—like when Henry said that the love letter from Keith was a validation of what Henry said. And what’s up with the camera crew showing that love letter? Hit pause and you can read the letter; that is pretty sleazy and has no business being public. In that letter (yep I paused it), Keith calls her by a nickname, is apologizing for something he forgot to do, and explains why. You can look yourself if you are really curious, but for some reason Henry/”Keith” didn’t know any of that. All Henry mentioned was that Keith had written a letter or a note to Grace at some point.

I’m giving this reading a big fat zero as far as hits for Henry. Everyone knew about the murdered fiancé, but Henry only got the basics; no names mentioned, no memories, no nothing. Henry assumed that the (never named fiancé) was murdered in a robbery like the rest of her TV audience. That was clearly wrong. And a generic father figure, and heart failure which is the number one cause of death for males: Henry didn’t say it was her father, he said “father figure.” And Henry didn’t say her unnamed father died of heart disease, he asked who had died of it. There was something cut out before this exchange, so he could have been talking for ten minutes before he got to that statement, and it was just edited to appear he got it seconds after. What we really need is a full video of one of his readings; if someone has one I would LOVE to see it.

Let’s end this with the reminder that communication with the dead has never been proven. In fact, we can’t even imagine how that would work. It is more conceivable that humans could teleport from place to place or that we could flap our arms really fast and fly around the room. If that just sounds silly, well then why doesn’t communication with the dead? They are dead.

Communication with the dead is a giant claim, a major skyscraper of a claim. And just like teleportation claims if you are going to try and convince someone, then you need to offer up some pretty big evidence. The burden of proof is on the person making the outrageous claim, not on the skeptic to prove that it did not happen. This is crucial, I could have ended this article a couple sentences in, when I said that Tyler Henry claims to be speaking to the dead associated with Nancy Grace. Okay Tyler, prove it. And that would be the end of the article. But what would be the fun of that?

On the Nancy Grace show with Mark Edward, they showed the #psychicscam hashtag and also listed a phone number to call 1-877-626-2901 which appears to be a spam number. Grace said, “tonight we Blow the Lid Off” You were correct Grace. We blew the lid off your reading and there was nothing in the pot. BUSTED!

If you enjoyed this article, please let Grace know, send a tweet to @NancyGrace @hollywoodmedium using the #psychicscam hashtag. I’m at @SusanGerbic and CSI is @Skeptinquirer please keep us in the loop. If you care to learn more about the work I do, please visit our website. Thanks for reading and pass it along. Thank you Stuart Jones and Rick Thomas for proofreading.

Photo taken by Jon Wickes allegedly showing a ghostly black monk at Eynsford Castle, Kent. Photo copyright Mercury Press & Media.

Several British tabloids and paranormal-themed websites have reported that a ghostly black monk has appeared in a photograph taken by Jon Wickes during a visit to Eynsford Castle in Kent. Wickes had taken his twelve-year-old son to the castle because he was learning about medieval castles in school. The photo, taken from outside the ruined remains of the castle, shows a dark figure standing in the courtyard. The figure is positioned within an opening between a stone wall and the railing of a stairway leading up to the courtyard.

According to the Daily Record, “upon returning from the castle, Jon noticed an unexplained figure lurking in the background, shrouded in a black cloak.” This statement tells us Jon had apparently left the castle and was already back home before he looked at the photos and noticed the figure. He no longer has the opportunity to verify whether the figure was someone else that wandered into the frame. Notably, the figure is not “lurking” in the background but is simply standing there with its back facing the camera.

Jon is quoted in the article claiming, “I was certain that figure hadn’t been there when I took the picture.” This is a common claim made after the discovery of a seemingly odd anomaly well after the photo was taken. However, Jon gives us no indication he was actually paying any attention to this detail; therefore, his claim that “no one was there” is not particularly convincing. He also states “We only went to take a few pictures because he [his son] wanted to know how a castle was built.” The father and son pair did not go to the castle looking for ghosts or to investigate the location in a controlled environment. They went there as tourists, nothing more. I am curious as to the other photos he had taken that may offer a look at any other tourists.

It’s odd that when Jon finally does look at the image, he reportedly goes directly to a paranormal investigator for help (Rowney 2018). Another article states Jon “looked on the web. That’s when I read about a monk being seen in the area” (Joseph 2018) and then contacted the paranormal investigator. In both cases, the figure was associated with a paranormal experience, specifically the ghost of a monk, rather than just another tourist at the castle. That’s a big assumption from a photo taken at a location freely open to visitors.

Close up of figure. When enhanced, what appears to be a shoulder strap and satchel/purse stands out. Photo copyright Mercury Press & Media.

Paranormal investigator Alan Tigwell spent some time on the castle’s grounds and is quoted as saying “there is no explanation for the figure in the picture.” The article goes on to state that the investigator claims it is a “fantastic” image. On the contrary, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation: it could very well be another tourist standing there who Jon simply didn’t notice. The “ghost” is standing in the courtyard of the ruined castle, and from the distance Jon took the photo from, he could have easily missed the relatively small figure in the scene. He could have mistaken the person as being part of the structure or a discoloration of the wall, which is not uncommon when looking through a viewfinder or the small display of the camera. From the image we see that the weather was overcast, leaving the area shaded by clouds and therefore in darker lighting. These lighting conditions dull the details of smaller background objects. When looking at a close-up of the available image, we can see that the figure has a strap going from their left shoulder, down across their back, and ending at their right hip/thigh area. This is most likely a satchel or woman’s purse, slung over a black coat.

When I did a search on paranormal investigator Alan Tigwell, almost all of the returns pointed back to this story. I did find him mentioned on a website called Haunted Hostelries in the Authority of Dover, which listed him as the designated ghost specialist for Dover, Kent. I reached out to Tigwell for comment rather than relying solely on quotes in a tabloid. He explained that his use of the word fantastic was part of a conversation he had with Jon as part of a longer email trail. By “fantastic image” he meant that the picture would capture the imagination as to what the cause of the figure was; it was not necessarily an endorsement of the quality of the image as evidence for ghosts (Tigwell 2018)

Original Close up (left) and author’s recreation (right).

At the end of the Daily Record article, Tigwell is quoted stating: “The difficulty with looking at things retrospectively is that it’s impossible to say exactly what something is.” This is often true and also applies to Jon’s original claim that no one was in the scene when he took the photo. Jon looked at the photo after he had already left the castle and only then decided, retroactively, that no one had been there.

In my conversation with Tigwell I asked about the other photos. He replied “I haven’t been given any other pictures from Jon. When I’ve been involved in cases in the past, I find there does need to be a certain degree of faith in what I’m being told, ie, taking the person at their word. Jon was adamant although there were some other people at the castle, none were at this location when he was taking the picture.” Although we don’t have the other images to look at, we do know that other people were there, and that makes a stray tourist a more plausible explanation than a ghostly monk. The grounds are not very large or extensive, as seen by aerial views from Google. A handful of tourists could easily get into a photograph, especially when the photographer is outside the castle walls.

Tigwell did visit Eynsford Castle to look for possible causes. In an online paranormal group in which the photo was posted, there was much speculation that the ghost was actually an alcove or doorway. Tigwell freely shared his notes with me, and he did a pretty good job of figuring out where all the wall features lined up within the frame of the original photo. Even though he did not find a cause for the alleged ghost during his visit, he at least took the time to go on location and rule out the possibility of doors, alcoves, or any other features that may have caused the anomaly to show up.

I then asked him what his conclusion was based on what he found. He stated:

I wish there was a clear answer, but without being there at the time and observing the pictures being taken, its impossible to say when you retrospectively review a picture such as this. You and I both know there are a number of potential explanations, hence the reason I only confirmed whether anything in the castle itself could cause the figure/shape.

This is a fair answer. There are a few important details missing; therefore, we can’t conclude what the figure is with one hundred percent accuracy.

The conclusion Tigwell gave me presents a different impression than what many of the tabloid articles are giving us, such as “Jon Wickes said a paranormal investigator couldn’t explain the spooky figure” from News.com.au (Schneider 2018). This gives the impression that the “spooky figure” is probably a ghost since a paranormal investigator failed to explain it. The truth is, Tigwell ruled out what he could and didn’t speculate on what he could not.

After a few discussions with colleagues, the question was brought up whether tourists actually dress in a similar way the figure in the “ghost” picture does, i.e., a long black or dark colored coat and a satchel or purse. Since it was taken in January 2018, it was most likely during cooler weather (TimeAndDate.com). In fact, average temperatures in the London area the weekend prior to the story coming out were in the 30s Fahrenheit, and it happened to be overcast like we see in the photo. There were also scattered showers, which may also have been a factor determining whether a tourist had the hood of their coat up or not. A long coat would not be out of place. In addition, my wife graciously volunteered to put on her long, black coat and assist me in trying to recreate the figure. We drove over to Bryn Athyn cathedral where she stood near a stone wall, facing it with her back toward me. She held her forearms up in front of her, as a tourist would be holding a camera. She also had the hood up over her head, simulating a possible hood or the long dark hair of a woman. I set up about a hundred feet away and snapped a few photos. Our recreation is a good match for the ghostly black monk and shows that the tourist idea is plausible.

Comparison photograph by author.

In the end, I must apply Occam’s Razor. This alleged ghost is most likely a tourist wearing a satchel and admiring the large stone wall in front of them. From the close up image, it appears they are facing the large wall and their back is to the camera. Their arms are bent at the elbows, as when someone is holding a camera in front of them. This is the simplest explanation and makes the least number of assumptions without invoking any supernatural entities.

• Joseph, Anthony. 2018. Ghostly ‘black monk’ appears in picture father-of-two took in grounds of medieval castle which has baffled the experts. Daily Mail.com. Available online at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5307729/Ghostly-black-monk-appears-picture-castle.html.
• Rowney, Jo-Anne. 2018. Dad photographs ‘ghost of a monk’ at medieval castle as mysterious figure spotted in picture. Daily Record (January 2018). Available online at https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/dad-photographs-ghost-monk-medieval-11907283.
• Schneider, Kate. 2018. Tourist snaps mysterious sites at creepy UK castle. News.com.au. Available online at http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-ideas/weird-and-wacky/tourist-snaps-mysterious-site-at-creepy-uk-castle/news-story/3f31005ed0344e76d2f0359b9b571904.
• Tigwell, Alan. 2018. Facebook instant messages.
• TimeAndDate.com. Past weather in London, England, United Kingdom - Yesterday and last 2 weeks. Available online at https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/london/historic