If you’ve been around social media lately, you’ll have come across a friend who suddenly is posting about makeup, diet shakes, essential oils, shampoo, or even insurance. Their personality seems somehow different. And they want to “catch up for a coffee”—with an agenda.

More and more people are being lured into the glittering promises that are multi-level marketing (MLM) companies. Social media provide rich hunting grounds. MLMs are proliferating. They are aggressive recruiters, with trained workforces using influence techniques to reel in new members. Once signed up, they exploit their members ruthlessly. This isn’t an issue we can afford to ignore—we’re not safe.

What Is an MLM?

The structure of these companies defines them as multi-level marketing. They also may call themselves network marketing, party plan, or direct sales companies.¹

Distributors in such companies earn money and advance by selling products or services to end customers but also from commissions on the sales of the people who have signed up underneath them, continuing down in multiple levels (hence multi-level). The ultimate aim of the people at the top is to earn massive passive incomes off their teams.

All of these MLMs sell some product or service. They each have their own version of “MLM opportunity” where you can sign up as an independent distributor of these things—and of course it costs to sign up.

You sign up under someone—usually a persuasive friend or relative—who becomes your upline sponsor. You can then purchase the products or services from the company at varying wholesale discounts and either use them yourself or sell them to others at the retail price.

But the real push is to get more people to sign up under you for the “MLM opportunity.” You then become their upline sponsor. These people are called your downline. And when they place a wholesale order with the company, you earn a commission based on the amount they spend. And when they sign up people underneath them, you might earn commissions on those people’s orders as well. This is how the big bucks are made at the top of MLMs—from downline commissions, not product sales. Studies show that only 1 percent of people at the top of an MLM typically make a very large income. The 99 percent remaining make minimal income, nothing, or lose money (Taylor 2011).

MLMs love to tell their new members that they are now “small business owners”—I’m sure you’ve seen the #girlboss, #bossbabe, and #mompreneur tags on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. But legally, recruits are “independent distributors” and operate within very strict rules imposed by the company (MLM Intel 2018). They are not running their own business. They cannot sell the products however they wish. They are victims.

Who Are These Companies?

There are hundreds of MLMs—some are mainstream to the point of seeming “harmless,” such as Avon and Tupperware. Others are becoming more visible, such as dōTERRA, LuLaRoe, Isagenix, Younique, and Primerica. Some “brick and mortar” businesses, such as The Body Shop and Swarovski, have MLM arms.

These MLMs operate in a legal gray area. Are they legitimate business opportunities? Are they pyramid schemes? These are questions that keep lawyers and regulators arguing and are beyond the scope of this article. MLMs often claim they’re not pyramid schemes because they sell products or services—but product-based pyramid schemes are a thing.

Some warning signs are:

• recruiting participants is unlimited, in an endless chain;
• advancement through the hierarchy is based on recruitment achievements;
• ongoing purchases from the company are required to advance and/or earn commissions;
• the company pays commissions to more than five levels of distributors;
• more profit is earned from commissions than from the sale of the actual product²; and
• the use of complex points systems instead of accounting with actual money.

Basically, these companies have a few people at the very top exploiting a massive number of people below them. They can cause real harm to their members financially, socially, and emotionally.

Cult specialist and counselor Steve Hassan defines “any group that uses unethical mind control to pursue its ends—whether religious, political, or commercial—as a destructive cult” (Hassan 2016, 39). On this basis, my view tallies with his—MLMs are cults.

But, whatever their classification, these companies use undue influence methods to catch and (attempt to) keep their recruits.

Who Are the Victims?

Some MLMs prey on college students—great way to cover your tuition fees, right? Military wives are targeted—they often have to make new friends when moving. Chronically ill people are also targets—make an income when you’re too unwell to have a regular job. Young mothers at home are especially targeted, playing on their desire to be with their children and contribute to the household income. But all of us can fall victim to these companies. Don’t be complacent.

Ex-members are often too damaged or embarrassed by their experiences to speak out—or too scared—so their stories remain unheard and the public remains unaware.

Because cults are not well understood, it makes us all easy prey. Our biggest weakness is not grasping how these groups operate. One of the ways that we are vulnerable is we are sure that we’re not vulnerable. We like to think that those “brainwashing tricks” wouldn’t work on us and that only “stupid, weak people” join MLMs and cults.

We believe that we are in control of our own minds and no group could unduly influence us without our assent. However, our brains are changing all the time, even if we don’t like to acknowledge it. Our unconscious minds can get overloaded and make bad decisions. Just think of how well you operate and make decisions after a week of insomnia. Listening to droning, repetitive speeches when drowsy is dangerous—the critical mind is not paying attention, and “undue influence” can slip in under your usual radar.

Who is more at risk? It’s true that some people are more vulnerable to cult influence than others because of their personalities (not their level of intelligence). As neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor explains, creative people who are open to new ideas, think intuitively and flexibly, and are tolerant of “outgroups” seem to have increased suggestibility and susceptibility to influence attempts. People pleasers and people who aren’t great at critical thinking are also more vulnerable (Taylor 2017, 214–215).

Certain stresses make you more susceptible to influence, too, breaking down your usual defenses. MLMs rely on the effects of stress on your brain. A death in the family, loss of a job, a relationship breakup, a serious illness, and so on—at these times, you’re especially vulnerable to approaches from a friend offering you a way out, some “sure-fire” income, a sympathetic ear.

MLM approaches can appear from many quarters. It might be a friend or family member who is already in an MLM. You might find yourself at an MLM-sponsored event or caught up at an MLM booth at a craft fair. Increasingly Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, websites, and blogs are awash with MLMs.

Trained recruiters. MLM members are trained on how to get new recruits and “build their downline.” Often the members being coached don’t realize that they’re being manipulated into manipulating others! They are taught tactics such as always be smiling and positive. Don’t say anything negative. Make plenty of time to connect with your prospect. Become good friends with them.

Members are taught to tailor their message to their prospect. Are you interested in earning lots of money? They will talk about the huge earning potential. Do you want to stay home with your kids? They will focus on how flexible your work hours can be.

They have script books on how to respond to common objections. If you say: “I already have a full-time job,” their response will be something like: “Brilliant! You’ve got heaps of contacts for booking parties and finding your first downline at work. A lot of women sell [MLM product] part-time for extra income.”

This quote is from a book on network marketing, explaining how to deal with a prospect who says no because they have no interest:

Thank them for their time! Add them to your newsletter list and Facebook for monthly follow-ups so they become a part of your “audience”, watching what you do over time. Again, ask for referrals. If you replace every “no” with a referral, your contact list will never run dry! Follow-up with them from time to time, letting them know what’s new and exciting in your company and to see if the time is right to revisit. The fortune is in the follow-up! (Robbins 2013, 74)

They don’t take no for an answer—it’s only “no for now.” These people are trained, prepared, and insistent. You need to be aware that they are influencing you.

The Impact of Influence

Sometimes, when we are sufficiently motivated, we stop and think about the influences we experience. When we do not we are open to exploitation. (Taylor 2017, 76)

Our world is constantly influencing us.³ Whether it’s a counselor helping us to overcome anxiety, a company wanting us to buy their cereal, a political party wanting us to vote for them, or a deceptive group trying to get you to join, influence is everywhere. Many forms of influence are benign or helpful, such as education and psychotherapy. But there are darker motives around.

We have ways of automatically responding to certain situations (for example when someone gives us an unexpected gift) with automatic responses (we feel an extremely pressing need to reciprocate). There are many such innate responses that we’re not consciously aware of. Automatic responses are critical for our survival—we can’t pay close attention to absolutely everything around us constantly, so they’re not a bad thing. But they can be misused.

MLMs use these influence methods regularly. For example, people react strongly to scarcity, which causes a drive to get whatever is rare. An MLM only needs to say a popular item is out of stock (which may not be the case). Their distributors get stressed about the “out of stock situation.” Then suddenly there’s more stock available but only in “limited quantities.”

This announcement triggers panic buying by the distributors, who often order more than they actually need—or can sell—of the “scarce” product. The company gets a burst of orders, makes a heap of money, and the hapless distributors end up with too much of that product, probably have trouble on-selling to their customers, and end up with piles of the stuff in closets, not to mention mounting debt.

How MLMs Operate

Recruitment and losses. People generally don’t join cults; cults actively recruit them. MLMs especially always need fresh blood. The drop-out rate from the “base of the pyramid” is massive—estimates put it at 50–90 percent per year (FitzPatrick 2017). To maintain the level of passive income the top 1 percent enjoy, they need to constantly replace these membership losses. They pressure their downlines to continue signing up new members. MLM training and conferences focus heavily on training their members in how to recruit—how to overcome objections, how to overcome shyness, how to build a team, and so on. Many people make a career out of training MLM members how to recruit and build teams. Most books on network marketing, direct sales, and MLMs are about recruiting and team building.

Mind control. Mind control is also called “thought control, brainwashing, and undue influence.” It is the process of controlling people through intentionally and deviously changing their normal beliefs and thought processes. It’s not forced indoctrination, as seen in military settings, but persuasion through subtle influence techniques. Someone who has successfully been subjected to undue influence typically isn’t aware of it. They will tell you that they’re thinking clearly and freely for themselves.

There are several mind control models out there. The one I’m describing here is cult specialist and counselor Steve Hassan’s BITE model. BITE stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotions. MLMs somewhat affect these things with prospects but more so with recruits once they’ve signed up.

Behavior Control. This is control of a person’s environment—their clothing, diet, rituals, sleep, and activities. While not as extreme as some religious cults, MLMs do work to control their recruits by setting specific achievement goals (monthly tasks, team targets, etc). Most have a dress code, maybe a particular shade of blue is required to be worn at all company training and events. Some require their female members to wear skirts with pantyhose, not trousers. “Running your business from your smart phone” means that there is great restriction of free time—and in fact, recruits are generally glued to their phones, posting on social media, messaging prospects and customers, and neglecting their families.

Information Control. It is easy to be controlled if you don’t have accurate information. MLMs are often caught lying or withholding or distorting information. The super keen members don’t read much except for MLM-related material. And the material these companies put out can be really dodgy, especially if they’re making health or science claims, as many do.⁴ Members are not allowed to criticize the leaders, products, or organization—not even in their private Facebook distributor groups. They are specifically told not to share any doubts or criticisms with their downlines.

Distributors are encouraged to report each other’s misdemeanors (such as disclosing income or selling products on eBay) against the company’s official policies to their MLM’s Compliance Department. This encourages spying on each other and creates an atmosphere of fear.

Thought Control. These groups have internalized doctrine and language. They advocate thought-stopping practices. They block out information critical of the group and disbelieve criticisms. The Secret and Law of Attraction materials are promoted within MLMs. Members are also often told to avoid contact with ex-members and critics—those “haters” and “negative Nancies” who are just “bitter because they didn’t try hard enough and failed.” Questioning or critical comments are usually treated with “delete and block.” When presented with facts about MLMs, they cannot hear it. “Because of thought control, factual information that challenges the cult worldview does not register properly” (Hassan 2016, 121).

Emotion Control. Deceptive groups can take advantage of identity guilt. Young moms at home who feel guilty that they’re not contributing to the family income are an easy target for MLMs. Love bombing is used to influence and entice recruits, and the level of emotional control ramps up once you sign up. Happiness is redefined as having lots of recruits and money. If things go badly, members blame themselves rather than the company, business structure, or leaders.

Any criticisms of the products, revered founder, or the company are quickly quashed. Negative comments are deleted, angry or upset distributors are silenced, and “mean girl” behavior abounds.

The distributors are desperately trying to fit in with their new group of “MLM friends,” doing what they’re told. They’re sold the lie that if they do this or that they will succeed and earn heaps of money, the car, the “free” vacations.

Anti-MLM campaigner Bot Watch sums it up nicely:

The recruiters act as though they really care about you. They might call you and other people in their teams “hun” and litter their social media with heart emojis and positive, uplifting messages aimed at raising your confidence and feeling part of a new “family”… [However] MLM people advocate unfriending and cutting out people from their lives if they question the new MLM family. A Them vs Us feeling is created. For each real-life person cut off, the MLM bond is strengthened. (BotWatch 2017)

In a Nutshell

What it boils down to is this: we’re all at risk. Just being smart isn’t enough protection. MLMs are everywhere, infiltrating your social groups and communities, both online and off. New MLMs are popping up all the time. It’s crucial to learn about how these deceptive groups ensnare and exploit people. Know the names of these companies. Be suspicious of vague “business opportunities.” Educate yourself about cults and influence. Research online thoroughly before you join a group, attend a “life-changing lecture,” or sign up for “your own business.” Caution your loved ones who are considering signing up.

Stop and think. This is the way to resist persuasion. Be careful out there.

1. Some direct sales companies are benign, as they focus on sales, without recruitment—but some recruitment MLMs call themselves direct sales companies, muddying the already muddy waters.
2. Summarized from The 5 Red Flags: Five Causal and Defining Characteristics of Product-Based Pyramid Schemes, or Recruiting MLMs (2006) by Jon M. Taylor, www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2006/07/522418-12585.pdf.
3. The primary ways people are influenced are: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking and making friends, authority, scarcity, and instant influence. To learn more about influence, read Cialdini’s seminal book Influence: Science and Practice.
4. See “Crimes against Science,” BotWatch Blog, February 17, 2018, botwatch.blog/2018/02/17/crimes-against-science/.

• BotWatch. 2017. Why do people join MLMs? BotWatch Blog. Available online at botwatch.blog/2017/09/16/why-do-people-join-mlms/.
• FitzPatrick, Robert L. 2017. Hidden, Obscured and Denied … 10 Big Truths about Multi-Level Marketing.
• Hassan, Steve. 2016. Combatting Cult Mind Control. 3rd edition. Newton MA: Freedom of Mind Press.
• MLM Intel. 2018. Employment status loophole. MLM Intel Blog. Available online at mlmintel.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/part-4-employment-status-loophole/.
• Robbins, Sarah. 2013. Rock Your Network Marketing Business: How to Become a Network Marketing ROCK STAR. Canton MI: Rockin’ Robbins Publishing.
• Taylor, Jon M. 2011. Chapter 7: MLM’s abysmal numbers. In The Case (for and) against Multi-level Marketing. Consumer Awareness Institute. Available online at https://www.mlmwatch.org/01General/taylor.pdf.
• Taylor, Kathleen. 2017. Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford Landmark Science.

A local Italian newspaper, La Nuova Provincia di Biella, published an article titled “Mother and Daughter of Zubiena Communicate Through the Power of Thought.” It reported a telepathic link that seems to exist between Carmela Paola and her daughter Amalia Maruca, both of Zubiena, a small town in the province of Biella. It’s a link that was allegedly proven through the use of Zener cards. According to the newspaper, the two women have an accuracy that varies between 90 percent and 100 percent. Each one almost always guesses the symbol (circle, cross, waves, square, or star) the other is thinking of—an experience that, if confirmed, would represent the first case in the world of documentable telepathy. It would be an exceptional discovery, as well as the opportunity to bring home numerous prizes offered around the world to those who could first demonstrate any skill of this kind.

‘This Case Has Really Struck Me’

The case, of course, attracted the attention of CICAP, the Italian skeptics committee. I got in touch with Alberto Serena of the Biella association NuovaMente (NewMind). It is he, in fact, who discovered the talent of the two women by subjecting them to tests with a deck of Zener cards (cards that appear to be those that were attached to one of my first books: Are You Psychic?, published in 1997!).

When he talks about Carmela and Amalia, Serena cannot hide his enthusiasm. “We have done all the necessary checks to avoid fraudulent tricks [sic] or similar things, also involving the experts of those associations born specifically to refute such facts,” he says in the interview for the La Nuova Provincia di Biella. “And we could not find any anomaly: mother and daughter can communicate with the force of the mind with such extraordinary results. Personally I have been following these phenomena for about 30 years and I am not easily impressed but I have to say that this case has really struck me.” Serena was happy to let us meet the two women and have them show us their skills.

An Almost Perfect Success!

On September 22, 2016, my colleague Luigi Garlaschelli and I went to Biella, where we met the two women at NuovaMente. We were immediately struck by their desire not to seek publicity. They agreed to meet us because Serena had insisted, but after newspapers had talked about them they refused several invitations to appear on national television programs.

We asked the two women to give us a demonstration of what they can do and left them free to prepare and conduct the experiment themselves, as they usually do, without any interference from us. Carmela and Amalia took their seats on opposite sides of a table. One of them looked and tried to “transmit” the symbols of a previously mixed Zener deck one card at a time. On the other side sat the one who must try to receive the symbol thought by the other. A small screen about thirty inches high separated the two women, covering the cards from sight but allowing the two women to look at each other.

During the procedure, the one who transmits the thought-of card marks on a sheet of paper the symbol transmitted; immediately afterward, the one who receives it marks the symbol received on a similar sheet. The first test under these conditions led to an almost perfect result: twenty-four cards (out of twenty-five) correctly guessed very quickly.

A Screen—and Disappearing Results

To eliminate the possibility of signals, even involuntary ones, we suggested the use of a higher screen, which prevents the two women from looking at each other. It is something that they had already done and that they agreed to repeat, while explaining that under these conditions their possibility of “coming into contact” diminishes, and, as a consequence, they warned us that their successes will probably also drop.

Indeed, this time only seven out of twenty-five cards were guessed right. It was a little above a chance result, but there are also those, such as magician Simone Ravenda, who have noticed in the past that under these conditions some sounds are frequently heard, such as the squeaking of the chair, movements, breaths, coughs, etc.

A pen writing on the surface of paper (when the transmitter writes down the symbol to be sent) produces different—and easily distinguishable—noises for each symbol drawn. The symbol of a circle produces a single sound, the cross two sounds, the wavy lines three, the square four, and the star five. It is clear that if you hear three or more sounds being drawn you will not draw a circle, even if it is the target that came to mind first.

“Sound reading,” as this technique is called, is a classic trick of mentalists who wish to simulate telepathy phenomena. To eliminate this possibility, therefore, we gave the woman who transmits a tablet upon which with a finger she could silently draw the symbol. Under these conditions the result was five cards guessed out of twenty-five—exactly what one would expect by chance.

Non-Zener, Non-Transmission

The two women then explained that not being seen prevents them from communicating effectively. We agreed to again use the low screen, but this time we suggested the use of a different deck of cards, on which the five Zener symbols are no longer present; instead, some famous optical illusions are reproduced.

We chose twenty-five at random. After ten attempts, however, the women asked us to stop because they said they could not transmit anything. The drawings made by the receiver, in fact, did not resemble those transmitted, not even when they tried to find arbitrary correspondences in some details. So we tried with a normal deck of fifty-two playing cards, selecting twenty-five at random. This time the cards were correctly guessed twice, and there were also nine occasions in which the suit was guessed but not the number, and two in which the number was guessed correctly but not the suit.

At this point we stopped because, after more than two and a half hours of testing, Carmela and Amalia were understandably tired. However, there did not seem to be any possibility for future verification because the women told us, after our meeting, that they would no longer be interested in giving other demonstrations to anyone. A week later, however, they were again in public at the Università Popolare di Biella, where Serena introduced them before a new demonstration of their “telepathic” ability was given, also mentioning the presence of CICAP during the previous days.

The (Involuntary) Signals

One conclusion that we drew from these exploratory tests is that if telepathy is at play, then it must be very weak, since it only works with Zener cards, while it is absent when using other types of images or cards. Moreover, the real nature of this skill is strongly questioned by the fact that it disappears when the two women cannot look at each other. It is something that they themselves admit: “This kind of understanding is so natural to us,” they said in an interview with La Stampa on August 10, “all this attention to us is also very surprising. There are no tricks, but surely we understand each other with looks. It always happens.”

During the tests in which mother and daughter could be observed, occasions were continuously noticed and photographed in which one or the other produced different types of body and facial movements, small or large; movements of the hands, of the shoulders, of the head, of the eyes, contracting the lips, serious expressions, smiles, movements of the nose, of the eyebrows, of the chin, and so on. They were not much different from what is usually done by those who play cards in pairs and try to silently signal to the partner the cards that one has in his hand. It is possible that these movements are involuntary, but the fact remains that when they are hidden from view (and other communication possibilities, such as sound, are prevented) the results drop to pure chance.

Agreement Yes, Telepathy No

Our conclusion is that Carmela and Amalia undoubtedly have a strong bond and—as they often say—manage to understand each other immediately with a glance, just as we have observed. However, it is possible that their close familiarity will, during the tests, lead them to make facial expressions that, in the past, they had seen work well during “transmission” of a very limited number of images.

Not surprisingly, when the experiment with a deck of cards that presented symbols different from those of the Zener cards was attempted, either no results of any kind were obtained (as with the cards of optical illusions that were unknown to the two women) or when using normal poker cards, occasional positive results were obtained using only the four suits of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds. If telepathy was really at play, it should be possible to transmit other information in addition to the five Zener symbols. In our opinion Carmela and Amalia certainly possess a talent for making the other person understand the figure each is thinking about, but that’s not telepathy.

The Secret History of the Jersey Devil. By Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2018, 147 pp. Hardcover, $24.95; Kindle edition, $23.70.

In cryptozoological terms, the Jersey Devil doesn’t have the cachet of the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, or even the chupacabra. The Devil is said to live in the New Jersey pine barrens, an isolated and wild area of southern New Jersey covering over one million acres. Despite its remote environment, the Devil does have its own local following, to the extent that the New Jersey professional hockey team was named, in 1982, the New Jersey Devils. The Devil has a much older history than the more famous and worldly cryptozoological creatures. In The Secret History of the Jersey Devil, historians Brian Regal and Frank Esposito trace the origins of the Jersey Devil from an eighteenth-century New Jersey settler named Daniel Leeds to the present day.

Leeds came over from England in 1676 as a Quaker, but he left the Friends and became an Anglican. This led to acrimonious relationships between him and his former Quaker brethren. This was especially so when he began publishing an almanac that contained material the Quakers found offensive. As was the style of the time, the opponents on each side called each other “devils” and, when printing techniques were advanced enough, illustrated their screeds with wood block cuts of sort of devil-looking creatures. In Boston in 1638, Anne Hutchinson gave birth to “a disturbing mass that bore little resemblance to a child” (p. 15). Her child was transformed in legend into a monster. In the 1730s in New Jersey, another legend sprang up concerning a witch named “Mother Leeds” who—you guessed it—gave birth to a “hideous beast” that a few years later killed “both parents and head[ed] off into the woods” (p. 5). Perhaps coincidentally, in 1730 Benjamin Franklin published a satirical story titled “A Witch Trial at Mt. Holly” lampooning witch hunting that was set in New Jersey. Regal and Esposito speculate that this story, along with the case of Anne Hutchinson, formed the basis of the Jersey Devil legend.

After Daniel Leeds died, his son Titian took over the almanac business and came into conflict with Benjamin Franklin, a much more famous almanac publisher. In the course of that dispute, Franklin satirically contended that Titian had died and his (Franklin’s) verbal jousting partner was the spirit of Titian. This could have reinforced the connection between the Leeds name and something occult. If that was all there was, I wouldn’t be writing this review and you wouldn’t be reading it. After the end of the eighteenth century, mention of the Jersey Devil pretty much disappeared. The legend cropped up here and there every now and then but had largely faded from public consciousness.

The legend reappeared in the late nineteenth century. It gained new life from eyewitness reports. In an especially dramatic example, a train engineer reported in 1893 that his train had been attacked by a strange flying creature with a monkey-like face. When it was suggested that the witness had misperceived an owl, he of course denied it. But that is certainly a plausible explanation. Regal and Esposito do not mention it, but the misperception of an owl has led to at least one other legend of a monstrous creature, the Mothman (see Joe Nickell’s column, Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2002). In any event, this report was followed by others—not frequently but often enough to generate interest and awareness on the part of the New Jersey public. Then in the winter of 1908–1909 mysterious footprints began to appear in New Jersey. They were said to be those of some unidentified beast.

It was these sorts of reports in the press of the day that, in late 1908, reached the eyes of Norman Jeffries, a promoter who worked for Charles A. Bradenburgh who just happened to own the not-then-doing-so-well “Dime Museum” at Ninth and Arch Streets in Philadelphia. Since in reality there was no Jersey Devil, Bradenburgh, following in the footsteps of P.T. Barnum, simply created one. A live kangaroo played the part. A taxidermist named Hope “painted stripes on the kangaroo and attached a pair of homemade wings to the poor creature.” Then “Jeffries hired a Ringling Brothers Circus clown named George Hartzell and some of his friends to act as monster hunters and go out on an ‘expedition’ to catch the fiendish beast” (p. 78), which, of course, they did, after much commotion involving guns firing and the hunters screaming. The “monster” was displayed at Bradenburgh’s museum and attracted large crowds. It didn’t last long, and the kangaroo hoax was soon revealed, but the money had been made. Hoax or not, the Devil was back in the public consciousness, where it has remained to this day. As is the case for various other cryptozoological creatures, the only evidence for the Devil’s existence is eyewitness reports. At present there are frequent monster hunting expeditions into the Jersey pine barrens in search of the monster. It will not come as any surprise to the readers of this journal that these expeditions produce eyewitness reports of the Devil.

The Secret History is more than a historical account of the development of the devil legend. The authors integrate the devil legend with two different historical trends. In the last two chapters, they note that seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century tracts often included images of monsters that bore a resemblance to what the Devil is supposed to look like—bipedal creatures with wings and grotesque animal-like heads, often with horns. There is then a discussion of nineteenth-century reports of sea monsters and how these relate to the Devil. Most originally, there is also a discussion of the long-lasting fascination with true medical “monsters”—deformed children and adults—and how these may have informed beliefs about the Devil.

The book is well referenced with citations to works from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries as well as citations to relevant newspaper articles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the devil legend took on its modern form. If anything disappointed me, it was the discussion of the mysterious footprints in the snow that were sighted throughout New Jersey in the winter of 1908–1909. I’d heard the story of these footprints and hoped that the book would shed some light on what was actually going on: Were they hoaxes, misperceptions of animal tracks, or what? The authors do make reference to the tracks as an important component of the devil legend but go no further. It would have been interesting to read a more detailed account of the original reports of this phenomenon. This said, the book is certainly not credulous when it comes to the Devil. The authors are fully aware of the problems with the type of evidence that cryptozoologists take as proof for nonexistent creatures.

While the Jersey Devil is older than any of its cryptozoological cousins mentioned at the start of this review, it shares many of the same characteristics—belief reinforced by misidentification, hoaxes, and, most recently, commercial firms offering monster hunting tours. It differs in that it has an early history steeped in real events involving real people—one a famous American Founding Father. Regal and Esposito have done an excellent job of telling the story of this creature.

A group of Brazilian scientists will launch in November the Instituto Questão de Ciência, the first in the country focused on the defense of the use of scientific evidence in public policies.

Among the initial priorities, the founders cite the fight against the adoption of pseudo-scientific therapies at SUS (acronym in Portuguese for the Brazilian Unified Health System), such as homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, hand laying, geotherapy, aromatherapy and floral. This year, the number of alternative practices, without the necessary scientific rigor, offered in the public system reached 29.

"The use of these treatments at SUS is both a waste of public money and a disrespect for the citizen, who becomes a victim of ineffective procedures," says USP biologist Natalia Pasternak Taschner, who will be the first president of the Instituto Questão de Ciência. "Unfortunately, there is a lot to fight against, like the anti-vaccination movement that comes to Brazil or the lack of solid information about genetically modified foods."

Other examples of areas of activity of the institute will be the legislative process, in subjects such as biodiversity, genetic heritage and food labeling, and the fight against scientific misinformation in advertising and in the media.

The launch of the institute will be held on November 22 at a large event at the Sheraton Sao Paulo WTC Hotel which will feature a lecture by the physician and former British homeopath Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor at the University of Exeter, whose critical works on homeopathy were crucial for elimination of this practice of public health networks in England and Australia - for that, Ernst even picked up a fight with the British royal family, ardent defender of the practice.

"The Brazilian scientific community did little to defend rational thinking and the use of evidence in episodes such as the phosphoethanolamine affair,which promised a miracle cure against cancer, or the invasion of the Royal Institute, where animal rights activists destroyed a major research in the interior of São Paulo. Let's occupy this space, "says physicist Marcelo Yamashita, scientific director of the new entity and the Institute of Theoretical Physics (IFT) of Unesp. "We must also speak up when pseudosciences are taught in universities because this means giving them scientific status."

The Institute draws inspiration from two analogous associations currently operating in the UK (Sense about Science) and America (Center for Inquiry). Its lines of action goes as follows:

1) Institutional activism, through direct contact with decision makers (such as members of parliament, public policy management, magistrates, rectors) and by demonstrating in forums such as public hearings, parliamentary committees and lawsuits, charging respect for scientific evidence in all public processes;

2) Production of studies, reports, scientific opinions and critical investigations on the adequacy of the norms and public policies to scientific facts, with occasional pro-science lobby in the appropriate instances;

3) Creation of a Pseudoscience Observatory, a scientific fact-checking service that will analyze the statements of authorities, celebrities and other public figures on science, as well as advertisements and journalistic content;

4) Publication and dissemination of journalistic, educational and scientific literacy content, as well as events and actions to disseminate the scientific method in schools, universities, newsrooms and other environments.

In addition to Pasternak and Yamashita, the first board of directors of the institute will be composed by the scientific journalist Carlos Orsi and psychologist Paulo Almeida. The institute has the support of USP, UNESP and Unicamp deans of research, respectively physicists Sylvio Canuto, Carlos Graeff and Munir Skaf, as well as doctor Drauzio Varella and Luiz Vicente Rizzo, from the Israelite Institute of Education and Albert Einstein Research, in addition to these scientists:

- Alicia Kowaltowski, professor at the Institute of Chemistry of USP;
- Alfredo Nastari, publisher of Scientific American Brazil;
- Beny Spira, professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of USP;
- Carlos Menck, professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of USP;
- Francisco Nóbrega, retired professor of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of USP;
- George Matsas, professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Unesp;
- Hamilton Varela, deputy director of the Institute of Chemistry of USP of São Carlos;
- Jacyr Pasternak, Head of Research Integrity Committee, Albert Einstein Hospital
- José Eduardo Krieger, professor at the Faculty of Medicine of USP;
- Jézio Hernani Bomfim Gutierre - Chief Executive Officer of the Publishing Foundation of UNESP
- Luis Carlos Ferreira, director of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of USP
- Luiz Carlos Dias, professor of the Chemistry Institute of Unicamp;
- Marcelo Knobel, dean of Unicamp
- Marcos Buckeridge, president of the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo;
- Nathan Jacob Berkovits, professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at UNESP and Director of ICTP-SAIFR (International Center for Theoretical Physics - South American Institute for Fundamental Research).
- Otaviano Helene, professor at the Institute of Physics at USP and former president of Inep;
- Paulo Saldiva, director of the Institute of Advanced Studies of USP;
- Rogério Rosenfeld, professor of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of Unesp and Vice-President of the Brazilian Society of Physics;
- Ronaldo Marin, professor at Unicamp
- Walter Colli, professor at the Chemistry Institute of USP, former president of CTNBio.

Media contacts:

FSB Comunicação

11 3165-9596

Gabriela Scheinber - 11 98111-9294 - gabriela.scheinberg@fsb.com.br

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Ricardo Mioto - 11 97635-0118 - ricardo.mioto@fsb.com.br

With the recent news of a third series of Serial, arguably the biggest influence in the "golden era" of podcasting, it’s likely you’re one of the millions of people worldwide waiting for the next episode. And if you know anyone who loves podcasts, you’ll know they’re always keen to recommend what the next big thing will be—which bodes well when it comes to spreading the word about what can improve critical thinking and support science communication.

Here’s a few podcasts that you might have missed or might like to check out as they find their feet in 2018. From scientific adventures in gardens to philosophy for children, there’s something for everyone’s ears.

1. Ologies – Billing itself as “science-adjacent,” Ologies is energetic and clever. Alie Ward is one of those rare interviewers unafraid to have fun with the format of unpacking science knowledge while discussing professional ologists’ obsessions. And there’s a lot of “ologies” out there! Particular highlights in its first twelve months of broadcasting include the study of sharks, eggs, diseases, and even beauty standards.

While it’s a longer listen than most science shows (with the average episode pushing slightly over an hour), Alie Ward’s background in comedy helps keep the content moving; even though the show claims to be asking “dumb” questions, it’s the shared interest in a range of topics that makes it a must-listen. Hopefully Ologies will continue while host Alie Ward begins a new TV show, Did I Mention Invention?, with more fascinating stories on the topic of everyday innovators.

2. Science Vs – After a successful first season on Australia’s ABC national radio podcasting stable in 2015, Science Vs was picked up by Gimlet Media and is now an international phenomenon. Much of its appeal comes from its sharp, snappy format with highly produced segments that make even the most controversial topics—from plastics to circumcision, fracking to hypnosis—fun as well as interesting. With Lars Trembly replacing Wendy Zukerman as host for the rest of 2018, it’ll be interesting to see how a new voice influences Science Vs content.

3. Invisibilia (NPR)  – Combining narrative storytelling and scientific research, Lulu Miller and Alix Spiegel explore the invisible forces that control human behavior—such as thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. It features three seasons of hour-long investigations and short bonus episodes, and as you might expect for an NPR show, it’s a crisp and well-structured listening experience, taking an exploratory look at the inner world of the mind.

With investigations into what is reality, whether culture is a part of ourselves or is just external forces and even social media callouts, it’s unafraid to tackle big topics. The team even takes to the stage for a few live touring shows. Invisibilia has only recently begun to return to regularly scheduled programming after their 2018 live recordings, which gives you some time to check out the back catalogue.

4. Branch Out – Hailing from the beautiful shores of Sydney, Australia, and focusing on the vast range of plants at the Botanic Gardens, Branch Out investigates botanical science and its relevance to society. It’s a short first season for 2018, but science communicator Vanessa Fuchs has an enthusiastic approach to interviews and excursions to a variety of labs and gardens, it’s hard not to feel intrigued by the contribution that flora plays to health, environmental sustainability, and even our evolutionary past.

5. STEMPunk– A part of the Australian Educators Online Network and takes a panel-show approach with their podcasting. Hosted by Tom Gordon, Christie McMonigal, and Shane Hengst, STEMPunk draws links between how the general public understand the interdisciplinary approach to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and the practitioners at work, including interviews with Dr. Katie Mack, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki, Dr. Margaret Wertheim, and Nobel Prize winner Professor Brian Schmidt.

This podcast is a little over a year old, having started in August 2017, but it’s already celebrated a number of live events (including quiz and trivia events, with one coming up soon at the Australian Science Communicators Tenth National Conference) and an impressive range of interviews with experts on what STEM is, who does it, and why. Of particular interest is the critical approach STEMPunk takes to the hurdles that scientists face when communicating their work.

6. Short & Curly (ABC)  – A fast-paced fun-filled ethics podcast for kids and their parents. It asks questions that get you thinking about big philosophical conundrums: Is it ok to fight back against a bully? Can a robot be your friend? Do you have to love your sibling?

Short & Curly hosts Carl Smith and Molly Daniels are joined on the show by resident ethicist Matt Beard, and it features a range of skits, reconstructions, and even thinking-time to allow discussions. This is what makes Short & Curly particularly innovative: it knows that a vital part of learning is the chance to discuss ideas with peers and parents, rather than just be lectured or told the answers. After seven seasons on Australia’s ABC podcasting site, it’s launching a book in October 2018—one to look out for.

7. Mostly Science– With the goal of demystifying evidence-based science, MostlyScience has been working on their website since 2013 and has very recently moved into the podcasting and webcasting realm.

Host Wes Wilson is a Canadian cancer researcher working at the University of Western Australia, and his upbeat interviews have featured in his previous shows TumourTalkat LifeOmic, InsideScienceTV and Minute MedCast. As this show finds its feet in 2018, it already features a quirky range of topics, from space to snails, politics to Nobel Prizes.

8. The Signal (ABC)– Mini-podcasts are just as valuable as extended hour-long chat sessions, which is why The Signal is a quick-but-sharp skeptical addition to your podcatcher. With a team of five journalists contributing short but insightful summaries of news and trends, the show started at the beginning of 2018 and has an impressive track record already, with part-news, part-current affairs approach, sometimes unpacking ideas in quick detail or covering a range of breaking issues.

The Signal is particularly useful listening for those who might feel overwhelmed by the churn of “fake news” and pop culture, which makes it a good program to share with teenagers who might be wondering what is worth paying attention to.

9. Rescue– A partnership between Landcare Australia and the University of New South Wales, Rescue forms part of a research project into the power of citizen storytelling in environmental communication. For those interested in contributing to the project, Rescue encourages the general public to add their voices to a storytelling collection on Australian wildlife and experiences, with award-winning ex-ABC documentary maker Gretchen Miller selecting a number of contributions to be turned into a podcast series.

While the official podcast will be launching after the story deadline of January 2019, there’s already a range of accounts reflecting the personal power of taking action to benefit habitat, animals and the humans who get involved—an impressive crowd-sourcing incentive for other to-be podcasters to reflect upon.

More Harm Than Good? The Moral Maze of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. By Edzard Ernst and Kevin Smith. New York: Springer Publishing, 2018. ISBN 978-3-319-69940-0. 223 pp. Softcover, $22.99.

Edzard Ernst is arguably the world’s foremost expert on the claims and the evidence (or lack thereof) for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Now he has teamed up with a medical ethicist, Kevin Smith, to coauthor a new book, More Harm Than Good? The Moral Maze of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Much has been written on CAM, but this book takes a new approach. It asks if CAM is ethical and answers with a resounding “No.”

In all areas of health care, patients are entitled to expect certain basic precepts to be satisfied: “Practitioners should be competent. Treatments should be based on valid knowledge. Educational and licensing programs should ensure that only qualified practitioners can practice. Autonomy: patients should be free to choose or reject treatments based on full informed consent. Honesty. Absence of exploitation.”

“These basic ethical requirements are frequently neglected, ignored or willfully violated in CAM,” the authors say. They address these precepts one by one in great detail, showing how CAM fails to measure up. They support their argument with plentiful examples from the clinical practice of CAM practitioners.

The book begins with a primer on medical ethics. They discuss the frameworks of nonconsequentialism and consequentialism and show how the framework of principlism attempts to factor in both of those approaches, resulting in four core principles: respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice.

There is an excellent chapter on research fundamentals (what good research should look like). It covers pitfalls in research, p-values, placebo controls, double blinding, systematic analyses, prior probability, and other crucial topics.

The following chapter covers the problems with much of CAM research, focusing on these issues: insufficient numbers of participants, lack of a control group, inappropriate control group, control group present but otherwise flawed, use of surrogate endpoints, misuse of statistics, “too good to be true” results, and fraudulent research.

The authors provide numerous examples of each and speculate about possible reasons for poor research design (perhaps the CAM researchers realize that a properly controlled study would show that their treatment doesn’t work). Any study with the design “A + B versus B” will guarantee a positive result, even if A is ineffective. Doing such studies is not only useless but unethical, because it fails to answer a meaningful question and wastes resources.

They explain why anecdotal evidence is woefully inadequate: “Indeed, findings that accrue from this approach are liable to grossly misinform clinical practice; in this way, anecdotal evidence can often be worse than no evidence at all.” Much of CAM research is no better than an assemblage of anecdotal cases.

They explain the attraction of CAM, with a quote from Peter Medawar: “If a person is A) poorly, B) receives treatment intended to make him better, and C) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health.”

They argue that certain unavoidable features of CAM education render it an almost intrinsically invalid enterprise. It often resembles a religious cult, and it expropriates and corrupts core concepts from mainstream medicine. Students who enroll are not provided with accurate and sufficient information and can’t really give informed consent for their education. Chiropractic schools that teach “subluxation” have to teach a corrupted version of evidence-based medicine, because there is no evidence that subluxation is a valid concept, and there is evidence that chiropractic manipulations can lead to serious injury. Naturopaths, chiropractors, and homeopaths are poorly educated about vaccination; this has an impact on public health.

Informed consent requires the patient to understand the indication for the treatment, the nature of the procedure, the potential benefits and risks, and other treatment options.

A patient with asthma who is treated with spinal manipulation by a chiropractor is not likely to have given informed consent, which would require informing them that there is no evidence that spinal manipulation, and thus chiropractors, have any effect on asthma, that delaying proper conventional treatment is dangerous, that there are risks to spinal manipulation, and that other (proven) treatment options are available. “The notion that CAM tackles the root causes of disease is a myth and an unethical distraction from the truth. … We cannot name a single alternative treatment for which there is compelling evidence proving that it can produce more than symptom-relief.”

Unreliable diagnostic techniques, such as iridology, can generate both false-positive and false-negative results; sometimes false results can cost lives. “In this way invalid diagnostic tests are akin to bogus bomb-detectors.”

Genuine informed consent is unattainable for most CAM modalities.

CAM practitioners may peddle untruths for reasons ranging from honest error to deliberate fraud; the consequences to the patient are the same. Falsehoods are always ethically unacceptable. Who should act to fulfill the duty of preventing falsehood-related harm? Individuals, agencies, and the government all share that responsibility.

When confronted with evidence that their CAM modality is not as effective or safe as they claim, CAM practitioners respond predictably, and Ernst and Smith predict these responses to their book:

1. They will state that there is evidence to the contrary.
2. They will suggest that the existing evidence has been misquoted.
3. They will say that medical research is generally so flawed that it cannot be trusted.
4. They will claim that scientific evidence is overruled by centuries of experience.
5. They will reverse the burden of proof.
6. They will say that a new scientific paradigm is required to explain how CAM works.
7. They will claim that scientific evidence and reasoning are not applicable in CAM.
8. They will point out how safe or inexpensive CAM is compared to conventional medicine.
9. They will suggest that the critic is paid by big pharma to defame CAM.
10. They will launch personal attacks on their critics.

To nip this in the bud, the authors have provided rebuttals to each of these arguments. And then they address the argument that even if CAM is only placebo, its use is justifiable.

Finally, they discuss the ways in which CAM exploits patients, including physical damage, mental distress, financial loss, and harm to third parties.

Ernst and Smith make a strong case that CAM is unethical and that it does more harm than good. Ethicists should be convinced. CAM practitioners and patients will not be, because their belief systems preclude an unbiased, rational scientific assessment. They will object as Ernst and Smith have predicted, but their objections have already been handily refuted. This book is well organized and well thought out. It was written to inform, not to entertain. It is not an easy or “fun” read, but it’s an important one.

We are pleased to introduce here a new regular column by Skeptical Inquirer contributing editor and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Fellow Harriet Hall, MD, well known and respected for her incisive writings on pseudoscience and pseudomedicine. She has titled her column “Reality Is the Best Medicine.” —Editors

The status of women in our society continues to improve. As the cigarette commercial says, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Indeed, it seems we now have Equal Opportunity Quackery.

Sex sells. It’s always been a popular target for quackery, but the quackery used to be directed mainly at men. In the early twentieth century, Dr. John Brinkley made a lot of money promising to rejuvenate men by surgically implanting goat testicles into their scrotums. In addition to restoring their sexual potency, he claimed his treatments worked wonders on twenty-seven different ailments from emphysema to flatulence with a 95 percent success rate. His story is told in the entertaining book Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock.

More recently, we have seen our inboxes spammed with offers to enlarge penises and to cure erectile dysfunction with natural remedies without prescription drugs. Some of those remedies work … but only because they are illegally adulterated with prescription drugs! There were occasional offers aimed at women; for instance, claiming to enlarge their breasts with massage, exercise, and herbal supplements. Breasts are pretty obvious, so they were a natural target. Vaginas were a less obvious target: hidden from sight and not as socially acceptable as a topic of conversation. But lately it seems that vaginal quackery abounds.

The Vagina Is Self-Cleansing

There is no need for douching or other procedures to cleanse the vagina. It cleanses itself. (Just as the colon cleanses itself with no need for “detoxification” regimens. The idea that its walls are coated with years-old hamburger residue is preposterous.) Douching is not only unnecessary, but it can change the normal pH of the vagina and lead to infections and other problems.

Gwyneth Paltrow advocates steaming the vagina. She says, “You sit on what is essentially a mini-throne, and a combination of infrared and mugwort steam cleanses your uterus, et al. It is an energetic release—not just a steam douche—that balances female hormone levels.” Experts have spoken out against it: there are no health benefits and a real possibility of harm.

Some women use Yoni oil to promote freshness, moisturize, and support vaginal health. There’s even Ayurvedic yoni oil. It’s said to treat infections, allergic reactions, hormone imbalance, herpes, dryness, and roughness. It also supposedly tightens the vagina and even treats ovarian cysts. There’s even adaptogenic Holy Yoni Oil.

Admittedly, sometimes the vagina does require a bit of help. One of my most vivid memories of medical practice was when a woman came in complaining of a foul-smelling vaginal discharge. I removed a putrid, rotting tampon that she had forgotten to remove after her last period. I can’t remember ever smelling a worse odor; that exam room was out of commission for hours afterward. But I didn’t have to do anything but remove the tampon; her vagina took care of the rest. It cleansed itself and was soon back to normal.

Menstrual Superstitions

The vagina has been seen as “unclean” for centuries. The Roman author Pliny wrote: “Contact with the monthly flux of women turns new wine sour, makes crops wither, kills grafts, dries seeds in gardens, causes the fruit of trees to fall off, dims the bright surface of mirrors, dulls the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory, kills bees, rusts iron and bronze, and causes a horrible smell to fill the air.”

In many societies, menstruating women were isolated in a special menstrual hut. In Nepal, the tradition of chhaupadi required them to stay in a cattle shed or makeshift hut, avoid any contact with men, and avoid eating certain foods. Women have died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning in poorly ventilated huts, as well as from snakebite, rape, and wild animal attacks. The practice was banned by the Supreme Court of Nepal in 2005 but continues, and in 2017 Nepal passed a law imposing a fine and jail sentence on anyone who forces menstruating women into exile.

Orthodox Jewish women must take a ritual bath in a mikveh seven days after menstruation to restore them to a state of spiritual purity where they are ready to procreate. The restrictions mean they have no sex for half the month. To determine when menstruation has ceased, they insert a white niddah cloth into the vagina.

Things that Don’t Belong in the Vagina

It’s amazing what women will put into their vaginas. For vaginitis, they insert yogurt or yogurt-dipped tampons. For a yeast infection, they insert a whole or cut garlic clove. Proponents admit that this will irritate and burn normal tissue, but they claim it will cure an infection where the tissue is already irritated. There is a case report of a woman who put wood sticks in her vagina to terminate a pregnancy; the sticks migrated through the vaginal wall and resulted in hip pain.

Doctors have had to remove all kinds of foreign bodies from vaginas. In one published case, doctors removed an unidentified plastic foreign body with an aluminum rim, hexagonal in shape. The patient denied having put it there or knowing anything about it. In one woman they found a forgotten pessary; she couldn’t remember ever having used a pessary. In another case, they found part of a flashlight that had apparently been inserted by the woman’s rapist a year earlier. In another case, a pathologist examining a uterus specimen after a hysterectomy found a dead cricket in the uterine cavity. Really. It’s in a published report in a medical journal, and there’s a picture of it online. Searching for “dead cricket in uterus” will bring it right up on Google.

Women have put things in the vagina for health reasons, for sexual pleasure, to hide illegal drugs, or because of psychiatric disorders. In the 1700s, Mary Toft inserted live rabbits into her vagina to fool physicians into thinking she was giving birth to rabbits. Children insert objects in the course of exploring their bodies; they may not admit what they have done. Such things as pen caps, toys, and toilet paper have been found. I heard of one case where a toy train had been there so long, granulation tissue had grown in and out through the windows of the train. It was so embedded they had to remove the little girl’s uterus to get it out.

Some misguided naturopaths have been using corrosive escharotics such as bloodroot salve in the vagina to treat precancerous lesions. They burn both normal and abnormal tissue and form a scab. Believe me, this is a terrible idea.

There were reports that college girls were inserting vodka-soaked tampons in an attempt to get drunk, but Snopes says that’s just an urban legend. Women who put things in their vaginas would be well advised to remember the cautionary tale of toxic shock syndrome, where highly absorbent tampons led to serious strep and staph infections. They were eventually taken off the market after several women had died.

Jade Eggs and Other Quackery

There are herbal detox pearls, marijuana-infused vaginal pills, Japanese vagina-tightening sticks, and ground-up oak galls (abnormal growths that form when wasps lay larvae in branches). There are numerous brands of vaginal tightening gels, creams, pills, and sprays that promise to “make a woman a virgin again.” One online columnist likened these practices to treating vaginas as “walls at which to throw medicinal spaghetti.” There’s not a scrap of evidence that they do anything good, and they’re quite likely to do something bad, such as drying out the vaginal mucosa and causing an infection.

One of the most notorious vaginal quackeries is Gwyneth Paltrow’s jade eggs. Yes, she wants you to stick a $66 rock up there. You can even “breathe passion” into your jade egg practice with Yoni Breathing to increase your life force energy. She says jade eggs are an ancient guarded secret of Chinese concubines. She says it will detox, improve your sex life, balance your menstrual cycle, and intensify feminine energy. No, it won’t. And the porous rock might harbor bacteria. Gynecologist Jen Gunther has published an open letter to Paltrow explaining why her vaginal jade eggs are a bad idea.

Paltrow also warns against toxins in tampons. There are no toxins in tampons. One quack alternative to tampons is sanitary napkins embedded with anion strips. The enhanced embedded anion-chip and far infrared ray function inhibits bacteria, increases the growth of bioenzyme, and regulates acidic secretions in the vagina. It emits biological magnetic waves and activates water molecules in the cells. This is just meaningless pseudoscientific blather, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it twa(t)ddle.

Invasive Quackery

Nuvell Clinics offer an O-Shot Orgasm Shot, injecting your own platelet-rich plasma (PRP) into the upper vagina and into an area near the clitoris, to allegedly give you better orgasms. And then there’s elective vaginal reconstruction or rejuvenation surgery to create the “designer vagina.” American, Australian, and Canadian professional organizations of gynecologists have spoken out against this risky operation.

The Bottom Line

Vaginas needn’t be fed with garlic or yogurt or jade eggs or anything else. They don’t need cleansing with douches or anything else. Any advice to the contrary is quackery until proven otherwise.

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen shocked the world in 1895 when he produced the first radiograph of the human body: an X-ray of his wife’s hand. Whether intentional or not, the fact that he chose her hand for this epic experiment was fitting because the hand has, through the ages, been an important cultural symbol. In this case, the radiograph of Anna Roentgen’s hand signaled a landmark scientific achievement that was rapidly adopted in many countries.

Roentgen’s discovery occurred during the Victorian Era, a time when other scientific discoveries such as the telegraph, photography, the electric light bulb, the telephone, and radio were made, to name just a few. The Victorian Era, extending from 1837 to 1901, was characterized at the beginning by the strong, pervasive religion of the Church of England. The tension between religion and science was minimal in the early years. As Aileen Fyfe noted, “… religious faith and the sciences were generally seen to be in beautiful accordance … mediated by some form of theology of nature” (Fyfe 2012). This era was one of increasingly robust scientific activity, however, and as the twentieth century approached, the tension between science and religion intensified. Some scientists began to express their opposition to the dogma of Christianity while simultaneously a culture of scientific romanticism thrived. The fact that the general public often didn’t understand the scientific bases for the discoveries contributed to suspicion and paranormal explanations.

Interestingly, Roentgen’s discovery of radiography provided one of the focal areas of convergence of the scientific discipline of physics with this psychic, romantic, paranormal, pseudoscientific movement. Keith Williams, in the article “Ghosts from the Machine: Technologisation of the Uncanny in H. G. Wells” describes the ambivalent feelings of Victorians (the anxieties in addition to the optimism) as scientific discoveries were made. Knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum enabled the understanding of visible light and color; however, the fact that some of the waves on the spectrum were invisible and could penetrate solid substances (e.g., X-rays) kindled a combination of fascination, fear, and “otherworldly” images. Williams refers to H.G. Wells’s 1898 book The Invisible Man and his other writings as examples of a “strange liaison between spiritualism and science.” In fact, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), founded in 1882, whose membership consisted of scientists and philosophers, was an example of this type of liaison (Williams 2010).

Bettyann Holtzman Kevles states in Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century that “it is a historical irony that the discovery of rays that could penetrate clothing and skin and leave an image of living bones appeared in the most inhibited period in Western history, an era whose name Victorian has become synonymous with extreme sexual repression and bodily shame … the discovery of X-rays was one of the nails in the coffin of Victorian prudery” (Kevles 1998).

That historical account is intriguing, but it is also relevant to public opinion concerning various types of radiation that play central roles in our lives today. Radio, TV, mobile phones, microwave ovens, smoke detectors, and X-rays represent scientific applications of the electromagnetic spectrum that have transformed our lives. Although these technologies are widely used, nevertheless the public has expressed concern from time to time about the safety of cell phones and electromagnetic field radiation.

Briefly, electromagnetic radiation can be described as photons or massless particles traveling in a wave pattern at the speed of light. A range or spectrum of electromagnetic energy levels progressively extends from relatively low energy radio waves to microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray radiation at the high energy end.

The simple word radiation applies to the spreading out or transmission of energy, but to many individuals it refers to the more specific term ionizing radiation. X-rays and gamma rays (and alpha and beta particles), at the high energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum, are capable of ejecting electrons from their orbit around atoms or molecules, thereby creating ions. The radiation produced by X-ray machines is differentially absorbed in human tissues and in different materials, when used for industrial purposes, thereby generating images (NASA 2013).

Without delving into a detailed discussion of the specific units used to measure radiation absorption in humans, suffice it to say that the sievert (Sv) is a basic unit that is indicative of the relative biological effectiveness (RBE), the sensitivity of tissues to radiation exposure averaged over the body (Gregersen 1998). The sievert is roughly equivalent in biological effectiveness to a radiation absorbed dose of one gray (100 rads) of gamma radiation. The average American receives about 6.2 millisievert (mSv) per year (U.S.NRC 2017).

Half of the radiation dose (3 mSv) that the average American receives each year is natural background radiation, originating mostly from radon but also from cosmic rays and even our food and water. An airplane coast-to-coast trip can contribute 0.03 mSv to our exposure, and living in high plateaus of New Mexico or Colorado can contribute 1.5 mSv more radiation annually than would be the case if one lived near sea level (Radiology Info 2017).

Not surprisingly, public perceptions of the risks and benefits of ionizing radiation have been influenced by many factors. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were monumental events, of course, and the destructive capability of the atom was forever etched in the public mindset. The emotional overlay of the events dominated rational analysis. For example, although the average dose to the exposed individuals was approximately 200 mSv (Hendee and O’Connor 2012), there was limited public recognition of the fact that this large dose occurred at one time, not in smaller doses distributed over a longer period of time.

More recent nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima have reinforced the public’s concerns regarding medical diagnostic imaging studies, nuclear power, and even food irradiation. Individuals inappropriately extrapolate the risks of being subjected to high levels of radiation from a nuclear disaster to the risks of submitting to a low dose X-ray imaging study. Undergoing an imaging study can lead to an unsuspected diagnosis and detection of disease at a curable stage, but it can also lead to an unsuspected diagnosis or detection of disease at a curable stage.

In spite of these concerns, the value of plain X-rays, computed tomography (CT), and other imaging studies that use ionizing radiation is largely recognized by the American public. In the United States, 800 million radiologic exams are performed annually (Ip 2017). Medical and dental X-ray procedures account for approximately 90 percent of the population dose from artificial sources of radiation (Phenomenon Called Radiation 1979). In 2006 the yearly per capita average radiation dose in the United States was 6.2 mSv, compared to a dose of 3.6 mSv in the early 1980s, with medical radiation being responsible for this increase (Hendee and O’Connor 2012).

Of interest are the approximate radiation doses from imaging studies and the approximate length of time that would be necessary for one to receive the comparable dose from natural background radiation (see Figure 1) (Radiology Info 2017).

In an excellent review article published in 2012 in Radiology titled “Radiation Risks of Medical Imaging: Separating Fact from Fantasy,” William Hendee and Michael O’Connor describe a series of scientific studies that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences commissioned over the past six decades, the BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation) reports. These studies focused mainly on the Japanese atomic bomb survivors, but persons working in nuclear industries, those exposed to medical radiation, and those exposed during the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl events were also studied. The authors examine the LNT (linear no-threshold) mathematical risk model, which has been in use since the 1920s to predict radiation effects. Briefly, the LNT model proposes a dose-response relationship between radiation dose and carcinogenesis in tissues. The implication is that even the tiniest dose of radiation has carcinogenic potential.

In 1946, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Hermann Muller, who had studied radiation’s effects on mutations (structural alteration of genes) in fruit flies. However, even at that time the LNT model’s validity was questionable because there appeared to be a threshold below which mutations did not occur; therefore, the underlying premise of the LNT model was compromised. Muller persuaded the BEIR Committee to adopt the LNT model, even in the face of doubts about its validity. The authors describe the inappropriateness of extrapolating the dose response curve from the large dose that Japanese bomb survivors received in one event downward to low doses delivered over time to individuals via medical imaging procedures, and they point out resultant irrational fears and anxieties that are spread in the general public by hyperbolical media publications (Hendee and O’Connor 2012).

In a separate Radiology review of the LNT model, Maurice Tubiana and others state that scientific advances in the understanding of radiation biology and carcinogenesis have rendered the LNT model obsolete. They have reviewed studies demonstrating that laboratory markers of DNA damage from ionizing radiation in use today are nonspecific and also that at low doses there are especially strong cellular defenses against the carcinogenic effects of radiation. They have concluded that in humans “there is no evidence of a carcinogenic effect for acute irradiation at doses less than 100 mSv and for protracted irradiation at doses less than 500 mSv.” Although the subject remains controversial, they totally reject the LNT model (Tubiana et al. 2009).

The Health Physics Society and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) have promoted a risk/benefit approach to diagnostic imaging. The AAPM discourages making predictions of hypothetical cancer incidence and deaths from low dose radiation by using epidemiological, population-based data derived from large populations that have received a single large dose of radiation. Their opinion is that the “risks of medical imaging at patient doses below 50 mSv for single procedures or 100 mSv for multiple procedures over short time periods are too low to be detectable and may be nonexistent” (Hendee and O’Connor 2012). Additional organizations that share this view include the International Organization of Medical Physicists, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (Calabrese and O’Connor 2014).

Even in view of the above, however, there is legitimate concern about keeping radiation doses as low as possible for medical imaging procedures, and this has led to development of enforceable safety guidelines. The potential impacts of ionizing radiation for children are also carefully considered. Organizations representing radiologists in the United States such as the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and the American College of Radiology (ACR) promote the responsible use of ionizing radiation in medical imaging procedures, and various state and federal governmental agencies have roles in checking safety and quality assurance.

Superstition and fear concerning radiation can be harmful to individuals, but on a global scale it can be potentially catastrophic. In an excellent historical review titled “Fear of Radiation Is Killing People and Endangering the Planet Too,” Theodore Rockwell, a nuclear energy pioneer who had worked on the Manhattan Project and was instrumental in the development of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, not only focused on potential harmful effects on individuals by avoiding diagnostic imaging studies but also on larger population-based hazards. Rockwell’s global perspective of the impacts of irrational fears of radiation, issued in 1998, was prescient. He was discouraged by the fact that coal-fired power plants continued to pollute the air with harmful particulate matter, contributing to tens of thousands of American deaths from respiratory problems when nuclear facilities could have provided clean, safe energy. The contributions of coal-fired plants to global warming, smog, acid rain, and other effluents distressed him. He was also appalled by the number of Americans sickened and killed by contaminated food, which could have been freed of pathogens by food irradiation. Rockwell is also dismissive of the LNT model, pointing out that we “live in a sea of natural radioactivity” and that the DNA damage that occurs normally as a result of free radicals in metabolic processes, for example, greatly exceeds (by ten million fold!) that from natural radiation (Rockwell 1998).

In 1999, Paul Kurtz, the founder of the Center for Inquiry, published a special report titled “Fears of the Apocalypse: The Escape from Reason.” This article focused on fears, superstitions, and hysteria surrounding the coming of the millennial year 2000. He clearly described prevalent forecasts of unprecedented optimism regarding prosperity and technological triumphs, but he also addressed the gloom-and-doom secular and religious millennial prophecies. Regarding the former, he stated: “Overhanging all of this is the sword of Damocles—nuclear energy ... . Anything related to radiation was considered diabolical” (Kurtz 1999).

In his book The Rise of Nuclear Fear, Spencer Weart describes imagery in the public mind dating back to biblical times of a powerful source of energy with huge beneficial potential on one hand or destructive potential on the other hand (i.e., “hideous death or miraculous life”) (Weart 2012).

David Ropeik has contributed a fascinating history of this schizophrenic view of nuclear energy among the American public. He attributes the public’s great expectations of radiation’s potential at the beginning of the twentieth century to recognition of the progress that had characterized the scientific and industrial revolutions. A story about a small quantity of uranium’s potential to “propel a steamship across the ocean” was typical, and most media coverage shaping the public’s views was supportive of radiation. Simultaneously, however, a few magical stories erupted concerning some of the dark aspects of radiation. Then Hiroshima and Nagaski shocked the world, instantly (“in a flash”) creating an image of the apocalypse, strongly reinforcing the public’s fears of radiation. These events actually signaled, or at least paralleled the beginning of public erosion of “faith in science and modern technology.” Although later studies revealed that lifetime cancer mortality rate increased less than one percent among the Japanese bomb survivors and that no biological effects appear to have occurred in those individuals who received less than 110 mSv, the fearsome images of the bombs would always be a potent reminder of the destructive potential of the atom (Ropeik 2012).

Multiple challenges to the development of nuclear energy were faced in the years following World War II. Despite President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program, an attempt to develop nuclear energy, the environmental movement had concerns about radioactive fallout, and the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) mishandled public doubts, contributing to the opposition to nuclear power development. Legal barriers were erected too. Ropeik also describes antinuclear rallies led by respected intellectuals such as Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell who focused on banning nuclear weapons but had the effect of decreasing support for nuclear energy plants. In Ropeik’s opinion, the next iconic nuclear event, Three Mile Island, which happened in 1979, was responsible for essentially ending support for nuclear plant development in the United States (Ropeik 2012).

The Fukushima disaster in 2011 represented a confluence of unfortunate circumstances and was a focus of intense, even hysterical, reporting.In “Radiation Superstition,” Robert Hargraves referred to a UN scientific committee’s findings that none of the workers at the plant who died had been killed by radiation poisoning (Hargraves 2013). Although no deaths or cases of radiation sickness could be documented, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes and there were more than 1,000 deaths associated with the evacuation. Suicide rates were higher than normal. This is tragic since experts have estimated that there were acceptably low levels of radiation in some areas that were evacuated and that overall the expected lifetime exposure that people living near Fukushima received from the event was less than 10 mSv, compared to their 170 mSv expected lifetime dose from natural background radiation (World Nuclear Association 2017).

The extreme measures that have been taken in Japan have had economic consequences in addition to contributing to the public’s fears and superstitions concerning radiation. Money has been wasted by preventing its citizens from returning to their homes. In addition, Japan is building dozens of new coal-fired plants to replace nuclear power, and liquefied natural gas is being imported in greater quantities, affecting Japan’s balance of trade negatively (Puko 2018).

Ann Stouffer Bisconti has studied factors affecting public attitudes toward nuclear energy, and she considers the following to be critically important: (1) imagery associated with nuclear energy, (2) accidents, (3) energy needs, (4) proximity of an accident or of a proposed plant, (5) perception of control, (6) political affiliation, and (7) understanding of nuclear energy principles. Many people don’t understand the physical principles of nuclear energy and therefore feel intimidated by it. One could make the point that many don’t fully understand basic principles of computers or even automobiles either and yet they don’t fear them. The obvious difference, of course, is our “hands-on” experiences with computers and cars. They are “up close and personal” to us, and we regard them as generally safe, essential elements of our lives.

So where do we stand now regarding nuclear energy? Over the past three decades, public opinion has steadily grown more favorable. According to Bisconti, 49 percent of the public favored nuclear energy in 1983, and in 2016, 65 percent favored it. She found that favorable opinions are based on perception of energy needs, environmental benefits of nuclear radiation, and low cost (once a plant is functioning). Negative opinions were predominantly based on safety concerns (accidents and radiation leaks). In addition, a focus on the renewable energy sources of solar and wind and a drop in gasoline prices have led many to exclude nuclear energy. Although many people expressed their support for nuclear energy, they did not support nuclear plant development in their own communities (Bisconti 2017), the “not in my backyard” philosophy.

Why do radiation fears and superstitions matter in the big picture—the global picture? They matter because they contribute to a global existential threat, climate change. With the advent of alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind, and other new technologies on the horizon, there is some promise that our carbon dioxide levels, the highest in over 800,000 years, can be addressed (PBS.org 2018.) Before this can occur, however, the pernicious narrative of fear and superstition surrounding radiation must be revealed, understood, and disentangled from the realm of pseudoscience.

• Bisconti, Ann Stouffer. 2017. Changing public attitudes toward nuclear energy. Progress in Nuclear Energy 102(1):103–113.
• Calabrese, Edward, and Michael O’Connor. 2014. Estimating risk of low radiation doses—a critical review of the BEIR VII Report and its use of the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis. Radiation Research 182(5):463–474.
• Fyfe, Aileen. 2012. Victorian Science & Religion. The Victorian Web (January 17). Available online at http://www.victorianweb.org/science/science&religion.html.
• Gregersen, Erik. 1998. Sievert. Encyclopedia Britannica (July 20). Available online at https://www.britannica.com/technology/sievert.
• Hargraves, Robert. 2013. Radiation superstition (podcast entry). Atomic Insights (March 13) Available online at https://atomicinsights.com/radiationsuperstition/.
• Hendee, William, and Michael O’Connor. 2012. Radiation risks of medical imaging: Separating fact from fantasy. Radiology 264(2): 312–321.
• Ip, G. 2017. How robots may make radiologists’ jobs easier, not redundant. Wall Street Journal (November 22). Available online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-robots-may-make-radiologists-jobs-easier-not-redundant-1511368729.
• Kevles, Bettyann Holtzmann. 1998. Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
• Kurtz, Paul. 1999. Fears of the apocalypse: The escape from reason. Skeptical Inquirer 23(1) (January/February): 20–24. Available online at https://www.csicop.org/si/show/fears_of_the_apocalypse_the_escape_from_reason.
• NASA. 2013. The Electromagnetic Spectrum. Available online at https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html.
• PBS.org 2018. Decoding the climate machine (April 18).
• The phenomenon called radiation. 1979. The Washington Post (April 9). Available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/phenomenon.htm?noredirect=on.
• Puko, Timothy. 2018. U.S. coal exports get a boost from Japan. Wall Street Journal (January 17). Available online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/cloud-peak-in-deal-to-supply-coal-to-japan-1516137301.
• Radiology Info. 2017. Radiation dose in x-ray and CT exams. Available online at https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/pdf/safety-xray.pdf.
• Rockwell, Theodore 1998. Fear of radiation is killing people and endangering the planet too. IAEA/INIS 32:1; reference number 32000260.
• Ropeik, David. 2012. The rise of nuclear fear—how we learned to fear the radiation. Scientific American (June 15). Available online at https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-rise-of-nuclear-fear-how-we-learned-to-fear-the-bomb/.
• Tubiana, Maurice, L.E. Feinendegen, C. Yang, et al. 2009. The linear no-threshold relationship is inconsistent with radiation biologic and experimental data. Radiology 251 (1): 13-22.
• U.S.NRC (United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission). 2017. Radiation All Around Us: Doses in Our Daily Lives. Available online at https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/doses-daily-lives.html.
• Weart, Spencer R. 2012. The Rise of Nuclear Fear. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Williams, Keith. 2010. Ghosts from the machine: Technologisation of the uncanny in H. G. Wells. The Wellsian: The Journal of the H. G. Wells Society. Available online at community.dur.ac.uk/time.machine/OJS/index.php/Wellsian/article/view/20.
• World Nuclear Association. 2017. Fukushima Accident. Available online at http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx.

Atop a small hill south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, just far enough east of Interstate 25 not to be obvious from the highway, rises a large multistory structure. Its adobe-like earth tones and setback style remind you of the great Southwest pueblos. But something far more modern is going on there. This is Santa Fe Studios, built in 2011 and home to a variety of movie and television productions, all part of New Mexico’s burgeoning filmmaking industry.

We visited there one day recently to see Ann Druyan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and colleagues filming the second season of their television science series Cosmos. The first Druyan-Tyson Cosmos (Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey) aired in 2014 to much acclaim. (In addition to its other honors, our Committee for Skeptical Inquiry gave it CSI’s Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking.) That series was of course a fresh incarnation of Carl Sagan’s original blockbuster Cosmos series and book of 1980. Sagan and Druyan were husband and wife, and they worked together on that original series. So in a way, the new thirteen-episode Cosmos: Possible Worlds, to premier on multiple Fox and National Geographic Channels in the United States and at least 171 other countries in Spring 2019, is the third incarnation of the Cosmos brand, all with Sagan-esque origins and style.

With all this luminous history in mind, we somewhat nervously step inside the vast studio building. Vanessa Goodwin, Druyan’s assistant, shows us around. First stop is the Art Department. There in a large open room artists work at desks and computers surrounded by walls filled top to bottom with photoboards of what is to be filmed. Hundreds of oversize images of everything from ancient Mesopotamian cities to today’s Amsterdam to future interstellar spacecraft adorn the walls. Tyson appears in the middle of some of them, but he’s CGI’d in. The filming hasn’t been done yet. The sites in Europe and elsewhere haven’t been visited. Virtually every scene of all thirteen episodes is pictured, or at least plausibly envisioned, on these walls. This is essential in planning something so complex, Goodwin points out.

Down one hall is a long, well-lit costume room, where we see ready-made costumes for all manner of characters to appear in the series. I see outfits for Neanderthals, for historical figures such as Galileo, Darwin, and Christopher Huygens … and some more modern characters that they hope may surprise you.

In a ground-floor warehouse-size room we visit sets for the series already built or being constructed, Paleolithic caves and ancient buildings of Persia and Egypt among them. They offer a sense of impending importance.

Then comes time to enter the soundstage area. I’m not quite prepared. All we can see at first, right in the middle, is a huge green curtain, three stories high, arranged in a circle. Just outside it, sitting in a director’s chair in front of dual video monitors is—well, it turns out to be Ann Druyan. She smiles, rises, and greets my wife, Ruth, and me with big hugs, warmly and generously. She’s smaller and slighter than I remember, but that may be only because today she has some laryngitis. Her voice is small, but her energy level seems high. We all first met in 1994 at a little gathering in Seattle that CSICOP founder Paul Kurtz arranged for Sagan and members of the CSICOP Executive Council to meet and talk over lunch. That was during CSICOP’s Seattle conference, at which Sagan gave the keynote address. It was his second and last for our organization.

In the years since Sagan’s untimely death in 1996, Druyan has written several times for the Skeptical Inquirer, including her wonderful personal cover article “Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe … and Carl Sagan” (November/December 2003) and her passionate, moving epilogue (“The Great Turning Away”) to a July/August 2005 cover article printing the rediscovered transcript of Sagan’s answers to questions at that 1994 Seattle conference. In 2014 she answered our questions about the new Cosmos and appeared on our cover with Tyson (“Ann Druyan on the Wonder of Cosmos,” September/October 2014).

She is a longtime fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), as was, of course, Sagan—as also is Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos’s on-camera host. Speaking of whom, to my surprise (I didn’t expect he’d be there), Druyan points out he is talking to some people just a few feet away from us. He’s between stints filming on the soundstage. She takes us over to greet him. He is the vintage Tyson, nattily dressed in dark suit and dark shirt (no vest or science tie like he often wears on TV). He comes over and gives us a friendly greeting and asks about SI. It turns out we have arrived at a short break in the filming of his on-camera narrations for episode 11.

Little of the filming is done in sequence. Portions of episode 11 may be filmed today, episode 9 the next, episode 3 the next. There is a detailed master plan for all this. There has to be, with a crew of two hundred busily working and a twelve-hour-day shooting schedule. “There are a lot of moving parts,” Druyan notes.

She has us sit in two vacant director chairs behind her and next to Cosmos science advisor Andre Bormanis, a congenial companion during our several hours there. We also meet the show’s director, Brannon Braga. He moves about a lot but sometimes sits in front of the second monitor next to Druyan.

Druyan turns back to us and expresses great worry about the state of science today in our current social and political milieu. With all the antiscience rhetoric and actions from political figures and other leaders, “It’s as bad as I’ve seen in my lifetime,” she says.

She hopes Cosmos can help correct that. She says her cocreators and crew relish taking part in something they find so crucially important. “I think they find it rewarding to be working on something meaningful in this desperate moment in our lives.” She emphasizes one of the series’ key points: “That truth matters.”

I ask if the script is completed. I’d heard that the 2014 season was being filmed while some of the script was still being written. “It’s all complete,” she says, with an air of pride and relief. “I learned my lesson.”

How might the 2019 Cosmos differ from the 2014 series? “It’s much more ambitious,” she says. “It is a much bigger production.” She adds, “I think it will be way more inspiring. I hope so.” She says she expects it to be “more emotional”—not the science, she quickly reassures us, but the human stories will be “more heart-based” with a strong emphasis on “a hopeful future.” She worries, as do I, that young people today lack inspiration and hope about the future, and she wants to restore those things.

Over the previous two years back home in Ithaca, New York, she wrote the script and with Braga hammered out the detailed plans for filming. Having devoted that much time to the process, the production is now expected to proceed without serious setbacks.

This time, I was excited to learn, there will also be a companion book, and she is its author. It is very much in progress. “I am getting up in the mornings at 4 am to write the book for three hours. Then I come here.” The book, she points out, has to stand on its own as a book with a cohesive voice: hers. It all sounds exhausting. It probably is but is probably exhilarating too.

Tyson gets the call, and up he goes onto the circular stage behind the green curtains. I take a quick peek in. The floor is divided into concentric rings that can be elevated to different levels. For these next shots, the center core has descended so that the camera can peer up at him from well below. Later I find it way up in the air.

This stage, with its vast green-screen curtains and later-applied CGI magic—which a video editor off to the side kindly demonstrated to me using the video-editing software on his computer—will be transformed into Cosmos’s “ship of the imagination” scenes.

Then come the commands “Quiet!” and “Action,” and Tyson begins delivering some of Druyan’s poetic passages in his own inimitable style and with that rich voice that we’ve come to know from his television and radio appearances, including the 2014 Cosmos. This passage seems to be about living some time in the future on Neptune’s moon Triton. He finishes. Then does a second take, then a third. Druyan is directing him, approving or sometimes asking for just a little different emphasis here or there. Then that part is done, and he returns to a chair off to our right.

Over the next few hours the whole process gets repeated multiple times, using different parts of the script.

From time to time he comes over to talk with us. This filming at Santa Fe Studios began two weeks earlier and will continue for five more weeks, he tells us. There’ll also be some on-location shoots in scenic parts of New Mexico, including on tribal lands. Before coming to New Mexico, they filmed at JPL, control center for so many epic spacecraft planetary explorations. After they’re done here, they’ll return to California briefly, then go to the Pacific Northwest, and then are off to Europe and Asia for an extended series of on-location visits. Then back to California for three months of post-production.

As we head to the exit, Druyan walks with us. In addition to her creative production people, she extolls another key person crucial to bringing the new Cosmos to fruition: the multitalented actor/entertainer/creator Seth MacFarlane (executive producer), who had the contacts at Fox and even helped with funding.

Cosmos: Possible Worlds will debut in the spring of 2019.

What’s it going to be like? I can’t say for sure. We saw only brief disconnected glimpses. But I trust the vision of Ann Druyan and all the other creative people she has surrounded herself with. More than likely I think you can expect that next year millions of us worldwide will be watching evocative stories of human discovery, past and present, some much-needed celebrations of science and reason, and an altogether new and inspiring glimpse of our cosmos.

Image by: Max Pixel

Christians who call themselves creationists believe that a creator formed the universe, Earth, and its life, but beliefs about creation and evolution exist along a considerable spectrum.¹ Among the landscape of modern evangelical Christianity, many contemporary young-Earth creationists (YECs) have a narrow view of what constitutes “biblical” creationism.

Using well-established biological concepts and observations of living animals as well as in fossils of both plants and animals in the geologic column of sedimentary rocks, I will address concerns with this narrow view. I demonstrate that this view is misguided, that a worldwide Noah’s flood never happened about 4,350 years ago, and that Earth is much older than 6,000 years. This approach complements my earlier Skeptical Inquirer article, “Twenty-One Reasons Noah’s Worldwide Flood Never Happened” (March/April 2018), which focused on geological evidence.

Most young-Earth creationists believe that the sediments deposited by this flood were deposited over Earth’s globe and constitute a large portion of the geologic record beginning in the Cambrian Period in the Paleozoic Era to at least the end of the Cretaceous Period in the Mesozoic Era. They believe that all sedimentary rocks younger than this time from the Paleocene to the present (Holocene at the top of the time scale) were deposited after the flood (Hill et al. 2016). In the time scale shown in Figure 1, 6,000 years would hardly be the thickness of a sharp pencil line at the very top of the image. Therefore, the YECs condense the extent of animal and plant generations to an extremely tiny fraction of the length of this image. As I demonstrate, such a belief requires abandoning large portions of scientific consensus and common sense, but a recent Gallup poll² of the adult population in the United States indicates that nearly half of the people in this country (46 percent) believe what young-Earth creationists claim is the literal biblical time frame. (A more recent Gallup poll³ indicates that 38 percent of the adult population believes that humans were created by God in their present form but that a very young age for the origin of Earth is roughly 10,000 years.) However, in this article it is assumed that the very long ages indicated in Figure 1 are valid.

Much has been written about geological failings of so-called flood geology (Hill et al. 2016). Here I will focus instead on some observations of organic life and how their characteristics, ecology, and distribution raise far from trivial problems for the YEC understanding of a global flood.

Animals on Noah’s Ark

Regarding the origins and maintenance of biological diversity, young-Earth creationists also believe that the animals that are seen today were brought to Noah’s ark in pairs (or in septets for clean animals, per Genesis 7:2–3) and the pairs eventually evolved to form different species. That is, not all of today’s species (more than five million and perhaps as many as fifty million) were placed on the ark but only representatives of kinds or baramins.⁴ (A baramin is a badly coined word combining the Hebrew words bara [created] and min [kind]; minbaru is closer to the Hebrew.) Baramins (when referring to animals) are approximately equivalent to the taxonomic category of families of animals. For example, a pair of cats in the cat family was put on the ark from which lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, pumas, caracals, jaguarondis, servals, ocelots,⁵ and other species of cats evolved to make the thirty to forty known cat species in the world today, including domesticated cats. In the same way, a pair of canines, a pair of horses, and pairs of other kinds of animals were also brought onto the ark, and each pair produced the different species of each kind, or baramin, that are observed today. The effect of this is that the number of animals that Noah had to preserve on the ark is minimized, presumably allowing enough space to care for and feed them.

Conventional geology and paleontology recognizes that there are as many as fifty million Linnean species living today,⁶ including thirty million modern insect species for which 73,000 have been described.⁷ Furthermore, it also must be recognized that much greater numbers of animal species once lived on ancient Earth. According to YECs, these were supposedly buried in sedimentary rocks deposited by Noah’s Flood. So what is seen today is only a tiny part of the vast majority of life that once lived on Earth. Within the context of an ancient Earth and our understanding of the geologic column, the number of buried and extinct species in the fossil record could perhaps have been more than five billion different species or organisms.

Cetaceans and Sea Reptiles—Numerical Relationships

To illustrate the vastness of the fossil record, consider the cetaceans and the extinct sea reptiles. There are eighty-eight living species of cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins, porpoises, and other related species. Some of the more than 150 extinct species of cetaceans in the fossil record are as old as the Eocene Epoch. Therefore, these are found only in the very top of the fossil record.⁸ But note that before the Paleocene, just sixty-six million years ago, not a single whale fossil has been identified in the fossil record. Instead, what is observed in the fossil record is a diversity of sea reptile fossils. The Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods of the Mesozoic Era are known as the Age of the Dinosaurs, but these periods also should be known as the Age of Sea Reptiles. (See geologic time scale, Figure 1.) All these sea reptiles filled the same ecological niches that the cetaceans now fill—deep water, mid-level water, and shallow water. Some had the same shapes as whales, dolphins, and porpoises, except that they had sharp teeth, whereas most cetaceans lacked teeth. There are more than 500 different species of sea reptiles currently recognized in the fossil record.

If it were true that Earth is 6,000 years old, as the YECs claim, and if every kind of animal were created during the Genesis Week (including whales, “the great sea monsters,” as reported in Genesis 1:21), wouldn’t it be remarkable that somehow all sea-living cetaceans survived the flood but not a single sea reptile did? Even then, only a particular set of eighty-eight cetaceans survived that are living today. Of the 550 extinct sea reptiles, there are 200 species of ichthyosaurs, 250 species of plesiosaurs, and 100 species of mosasaurs. One species of mosasaur was sixty feet long. The mosasaurs lived only in the Cretaceous Period, so not all extinct sea reptiles lived at the same time. Other sea reptiles appeared at different times in the Mesozoic Era and then became extinct. Moreover, not all cetaceans lived at the same time, and some became extinct at different times. This distribution of fossils begs for an explanation.

It should be apparent why the young-Earth creationists have been unable to explain why no one has ever found a whale fossil bone in Noah’s Flood deposits, as explained above, when whales must have been living during Noah’s Flood, having been created well before Noah. How could Noah’s Flood separate out free-swimming cetaceans from free-swimming sea reptiles, so that the cetaceans still remained alive after the flood whereas the sea reptiles became extinct and preserved as fossils, particularly when both animal groups had to be living at the same time? Moreover, if they both were living at the same time, how would these creatures have been able to compete in the same environments for food? Both groups appear to be adapted to similar environments. Within the context of an ancient Earth, these patterns are easy to explain. Sea reptiles lived and died well before mammals adapted to living in the sea and became the many species of cetaceans that are alive today. These two groups never lived together and, therefore, never competed for the same resources.

Bird Species

There are 9,000 to 10,000 species of birds on Earth today, of which there are 1,500 species of passerines. Passerines are birds that have feet adapted for perching, such as songbirds. Examples are sparrows, cardinals, gold finches, tanagers, snow buntings, finches, warblers, and blue birds. But perhaps 10,000 extinct species of birds have been found in sedimentary rocks, most of which were supposedly deposited after Noah’s Flood, 4,350 years ago. Jean Lightner⁹ suggested that there were 196 pairs of bird kinds on the ark, including ducks, owls, hawks, shore birds, woodpeckers, etc., that supposedly evolved to produce the 10,000 species of living bird types today. To produce 10,000 species of birds from 196 pairs of birds in just 4,350 years is amazing in itself, but even more incredible, these initial birds also must have given rise to an additional 10,000 species of extinct birds in less than 4,350 years because their fossils are found in what most YECs believe are post-flood rock deposits. This great number of birds would require super-speed or ultra-fast evolution that modern studies of rates of genetic changes in the DNA code do not support.

Elephant Species

Five species of elephants have lived in the modern or near-modern era (three different elephant species, mastodons, and woolly mammoths). But there are more than 150 species of elephants, more broadly known as the proboscideans, that are extinct, including the mastodons and woolly mammoths. Presumably, an ancestral pair to all these elephant species was brought onto the ark. One of these extinct elephants was Deinotherium (see Figure 2), which was a much larger animal than the modern elephant.¹⁰ It had downward projecting tusks instead of curved upward-sweeping tusks. Some elephant species had four tusks.

Thousands and thousands of fossils of Deinotherium elephants have been found in a hundred different locations—Africa, Asia, and even Jordan, Arabia, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) where Hebrew tribes once lived before and after the supposed Noah’s Flood.¹¹ Thousands and thousands of fossils of each of the other 150-plus species of elephants have also been found. Therefore, millions of individuals of these many different elephant species must have lived at one time because only a few of these animals could be expected to be preserved as fossils.

A point that young-Earth creationists must consider is that if Deinotherium were living before and after the flood, why did people living in either time not draw any pictures of them or describe them in the Bible, particularly because Deinotheria are found as abundant fossils in the areas where early Hebrew tribes were living? However, a Google search for cave images of mammoths shows that many such images are found. Moreover, if all these elephant kinds evolved from just a pair of a generic elephant kind, then evolution would have been at a super-speed or ultra-fast to create over 100 species of elephants, including the mammoth.

As many as ten million mammoth fossils are believed to be preserved in the permafrost in the tundra in Siberia, including a complete frozen carcass of a young mammoth with buttercups still found in its stomach.¹² Why are so many mammoth fossils found? These animals must have been living, perhaps near the end of the Ice Age, when a tongue of ice from a glacier flowed across a valley to block the flow of water in the valley. The ice dam created by this blockage then caused a large lake to backup in the valley behind the dam, and the water in the lake must have increased in depth as water continued to flow down the valley from higher elevations. Eventually, the level of the water rose behind the ice dam sufficiently to cause the ice to float. When that happened, suddenly the water, with great depth and under high pressure, rushed out underneath the ice to cause a huge flood, called a jökulhlaup (an Icelandic term), which is a high wall of water that rushes down the valley. If a large herd of mammoths were grazing in a flood plain down-valley, they could suddenly be overwhelmed by this flood and become buried and eventually frozen in the flood debris. Many such jökulhlaups could have happened repeatedly through hundreds of years, so that many herds of mastodons could have been buried to produce the millions of mammoth fossils. Therefore, because millions of fossils of mammoths have been found in Siberia, there also must have been super-speed growth-rates for all these mammoths to be reproduced in less than 4,350 years.

Consider also the rate of population growth of large herbivores. It is generally known today how fast elephants reproduce to create offspring—it takes many years. Some do not begin to reproduce until they are twenty years old and then only have offspring every five to six years.¹³ Therefore, to produce several huge herds of millions of mammoths that YECs require in a short time frame would require idealistic population growth including no death before bearing young, maximum birth rates, and always being able to find a mate to name a few. Thus, more time would have been required than creationists allow for in their chronology of Earth. Moreover, there must have been other large herds of mammoths that were not caught in sudden floods and buried. Therefore, it is even more evident that such a growth-rate cannot occur to produce this many mammoths in less than 4,350 years.

Further Considerations

As I have indicated, there are thirty to forty living cat species, including domesticated cats, all of which biblical literalists believe evolved from a pair of cats on Noah’s ark. But there are 150 species of extinct cats, including the saber-toothed tiger. Presumably, a male and female of one of these extinct cats were put on the ark to evolve to the thirty to forty living species. There are five species of rhinos living today and more than 100 extinct species. There are five to forty species of canines and more than 200 extinct species. There are seven species of living horses and 150 extinct species. There are eight species of living bears and sixty-three extinct species. There are seventeen species of living penguins and more than fifty extinct species.¹⁴ Whatever family of animals is selected, there are many, many more extinct species. Of course, one could say God could produce his creation instantaneously, but if God used his natural laws, then it seems illogical that he would be producing instant creations over and over again throughout the geologic column of sedimentary rocks or during biblical times. On that basis, one is forced to come to the conclusion that if God created billions of creatures, he needed much more time than 4,350 years so that these creatures could evolve into the different kinds of animals. He could not have crammed all these creatures into such a short period of time, obey his natural laws, and leave enough time for them to reproduce and evolve to form different species. This realization of a time limitation also means that logically all of the above observations indicate that a worldwide Noah’s Flood never happened and that Earth must be more than 6,000 years old, particularly because no cetacean fossils have ever been found with sea reptile fossils.

Plant Species

The diversity of animals through time has been well described, but plants tell us a similar story. In China, plant fossils have been found in an ash layer about a meter thick between two coal layers. This ash layer has been excavated over a large area and carefully mapped to locate where different plants, insects (such as dragon flies), salamanders, and frog fossils were found.¹⁵ Artist images of this ancient forest can be seen in a 2012 paper by Jun Wang and colleagues (Wang et al. 2012).

During some ancient time (for a period of perhaps a week) a nearby volcano exploded in a catastrophic event and sent out hot ash that killed all plant and animal life in this area containing a former forest community. Because this happened and has been examined carefully, a snapshot of what life was like in Permian time, 300 million years ago, has been obtained. An ecosystem of plants, insects, and animals for this particular area in China is revealed. But what is present here is not just a local ecosystem that did not exist any place else, because these same fossils are found in other parts of the world in ash and other rocks of the same age.

Volcanic ash is particularly good at preserving plant fossils without any disturbance of how these plants once grew relative to their neighbors. The image of leaf fossils in Figure 3 demonstrates how very delicate leaves can be exquisitely preserved when surrounded and covered by falling ash. In contrast, if these leaves had been deposited in sediments that were transported in rushing water of a tsunami generated during Noah’s worldwide flood, they would have become broken and mixed together as unrelated fragments of different plants. Among the plant fossils in China are tree ferns, lycopods (scale trees, Lepidodendron, now extinct), cycads, and horsetails. Some former, fully grown, but fallen scale trees that were buried flat in the ash give evidence that these trees sometimes were as much as 100 feet tall. Likely, in this same environment, leaves falling off the scale trees and cycads in this ancient forest settled into swamp water, and the low oxygen content of this water prevented bacterial decay of the leaves so that the leaves accumulated to several feet of thickness. Eventually, this carbon-rich plant material became compressed after deep burial under other sedimentary rocks, and at higher temperatures and pressures was converted into coal.

Note that the accumulation of leaves that eventually became compressed to form coal is typically a slow process that could not have been expected to occur quickly during the one-year Noah’s Flood. Moreover, in the leaf fossil-bearing site in China, there are two separately formed coal beds so that there had to have been a long period of time for the regrowth of a new forest community on top of an older forest community that was killed by the falling hot ash. The time for regrowth must necessarily have been more than a year because to grow 100-foot Lepidodendron trees to supply the leaves that later became coal would have taken this greater length of time. Furthermore, in Illinois, there are as many as fifteen different coal seams of Pennsylvania age that are separated from each other by layers of flood-plain muds and river-channel sands, where ancient rivers once eroded through these coal seams in many places.¹⁶ Meandering river channels cannot have been produced by a tsunami created by Noah’s supposed worldwide flood. Moreover, the growth of fifteen different Lepidodendron forest communities in the Illinois area (Dimichele and Phillips 1985), which are on top of each other, would have each required more than a year to grow the tall trees—again to supply the leaves that later became coal. On that basis, the Pennsylvanian rocks in Illinois, like the Permian rocks in China, cannot have been deposited by Noah’s flood that lasted one year, and the flood could not have been worldwide because neither place shows tsunami-like debris.

Furthermore, in the Permian rocks that contain the two coal seams in China, there are no fossils of birds, mammals, dinosaurs, flowering plants, or conifers. It is an exotic and a specific type of forest community. Conifers (gymnosperms) did not appear until the late Permian to the early part of the Mesozoic Era (Triassic), and flowering plants (angiosperms) did not appear until late in the Mesozoic Era, in the Cretaceous Period.¹⁷ So, pollen from the conifer and flowering plants are not found in the volcanic ash of early Permian age, which preserved this ancient forest. If these rocks were deposited during Noah’s Flood, the conifers and flowering plants should also have been alive at the same time because young-Earth creationists claim that Mesozoic rocks were deposited during this flood, and the winds that blew the ash should also have carried tiny, wafted, pollen grains from living conifers and flowering plants to the site that contains the lycopods and cycads, and that did not happen.

At any rate, volcanic ash is an excellent medium for preserving plant fossils, and because of the preservation of the forest plants in ash in China and in many other places around the world, this worldwide distribution of plant fossils give evidence of a quiet setting that clearly shows that a worldwide Noah’s flood never happened. Even though young-Earth creationists believe that the Permian Kaibab limestone formation in the Grand Canyon was deposited by Noah’s worldwide flood (Hill et al. 2016), the Permian ash beds in China, containing wonderfully preserved, unbroken, plant-leaf fossils, clearly shows that all the Permian rocks in the world cannot have been deposited by a worldwide flood.

Summary and Conclusions

The following nine observations of biological relationships provide strong evidence that the young-Earth creationists’ worldwide flood 4,350 years ago is unsupported and that Earth is far more ancient than they claim if God’s natural laws are obeyed.

1. Numbers of species in the geologic record are so large that not enough time could exist for God to create them by evolutionary changes in the DNA coding and for the animals to reproduce to form millions and millions of living creatures in less than 6,000 years and for huge numbers of species to evolve from only pairs of kinds or baramins on Noah’s ark in the time following 4,350 years ago to the present.

2. No cetacean fossils (bones of whales, dolphins, and porpoises) in Mesozoic rocks coexist with fossils of sea reptiles, and both animal types must have been living at the same time when Noah’s Flood supposedly occurred if the YEC model were correct.¹⁸

3. Extinct species of animal families far outnumber those living today. This makes it very difficult to have all these species created on Earth in 6,000 years and for many species to have been created after a supposed worldwide Noah’s Flood occurred about 4,350 years ago.

4. Too many bird species exist (9,000 to 10,000) for them to have evolved from 169 pairs of birds on Noah’s ark or for as many as 10,000 additional extinct species to have evolved from a single pair of birds prior to Noah’s Flood in 6,000 years.¹⁹

5. Too many elephant species (150-plus) exist for them to reproduce and increase to herds of millions and millions of animals in 4,350 years after Noah’s Flood and particularly for tens of millions of mammoths to have been created in that short time.

6. Ecosystems of plant, insect, and animal species of Permian age preserved in volcanic ash in China and in other volcanic ash and rocks of the same age in other places around the world (the ecosystem in China is totally undisturbed) indicate that such plant and animal communities could not have been buried in sediment transported by a tsunami generated by a worldwide Noah’s Flood.

7. Pollen is not found in the ash in the preserved forest ecosystem in China when wind that blew this ash should have also blown pollen wafted from conifers and flowering plants that must have been alive at the same time, according to the model of the YECs.

8. The growth of a new forest community in China to produce a second, meter-thick, coal seam cannot have been produced in one year after a former forest community was killed by ash, and, therefore, these Permian rocks cannot have been buried during the supposed worldwide Noah’s Flood.

9. The occurrence of fifteen different coal seams in Pennsylvanian rocks in Illinois, which are in sequential layers on top of each other and the time (far more than one year) that it would take for Lepidodendron trees to grow to 100-feet to produce the leaves that later convert to coal for each of the fifteen coal seams means that these Pennsylvanian rocks cannot have been deposited in the one year in which Noah’s worldwide flood is supposed to have occurred.

Because contemporary young-Earth creationists have said that the Bible must be literally interpreted, they have made all the wrong interpretations listed in the above nine conclusions about animals and plants that were buried in sediments deposited during the supposed worldwide Noah’s Flood.

Biological Reasons Consistent with Physical Geologic Reasons

All biological reasons a worldwide Noah’s Flood never happened described in this article are consistent with physical geological reasons a worldwide flood never happened, published in my earlier Skeptical Inquirer article (Collins 2018). (See also my follow-up “Response to Ken Ham and YouTube Comments by Andrew Snelling,” SI, July/August 2018, pp. 56–58.) They all give the same conclusion: that a worldwide flood never happened and, on the basis of erosion rates in rocks in the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Earth cannot be 6,000 years old (Collins 2018). Nevertheless, a local large flood in biblical times could have happened (Collins 2009). Not included in this article are supporting studies that also indicate that Earth cannot be 6,000 years old.²⁰

I thank Glenn Branch from the National Center for Science Education for many helpful editorial suggestions, Joel Duff from the University of Akron for many useful editorial changes, and Forrest Hopson for several critical comments.

1. The Creation/Evolution Continuum, National Center for Science Education https://ncse.com/library-resource/creationevolution-continuum.
2. Tony Ortega, How many Americans actually believe the earth is only 6,000 years old? https://www.rawstory.com/2013/11/how-many-americans-actually-believe-the-earth-is-only-6000-years-old/.
3. In U.S., belief in creationist view of humans at new low. May 3–7, 2017. http://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx.
4. Baraminology, Answers in Genesis. https://answersingenesis.org/creation-science/baraminology/.
5. Cat species not commonly known include the caracal (a Chinese desert cat), the jaguarondi (found in southern North America and South America), the serval (a native of Africa in sub-Saharan countries), and the ocelot (found in South America), all of which tend to hunt at night.
6. Number of Living Species in Australia and the World, second edition. Australian Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/2ee3f4a1-f130-465b-9c7a-79373680a067/files/nlsaw-2nd-complete.pdf.
7. Numbers of insects (species and individuals), Smithsonian. https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos.
8. Evolution of cetaceans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans.
9. Jean Lightner, An Initial Estimate of Avian Ark Kinds, Answers in Genesis, https://answersingenesis.org/creation-science/baraminology/an-initial-estima.
10. Deinotherium, New Dinosaurs. https://www.newdinosaurs.com/deinotherium/.
11. Robert Joel Duff, one-hour YouTube programs titled: Part II Scientific Apologetics, Historical Science and the Fossil Record. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/cha\nnel/UCKFGXH_YUdWE-n9kSV5sg3Q.
12. Tia Ghose, Fresh mammoth carcass from Siberia holds many secrets. Scientists will examine the mammoth to learn whether it will yield enough undamaged DNA to make cloning the extinct creature a reality, LiveScience, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fresh-mammoth-carcass-from-siberia-holds-many-secrets.
13. Maina Waruru, Slow-to-breed elephant hurtles towards extinction, https://www.newscientist.com/article/2103783-slow-to-breed-elephant-hurtles-towards-extinction/.
14. Robert Joel Duff, one-hour YouTube programs titled: Part II Scientific Apologetics, Historical Science and the Fossil Record. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/cha\nnel/UCKFGXH_YUdWE-n9kSV5sg3Q.
15. A “Permian Pompeii” Chinese Fossil Site Preserves Ancient Permian Ecosystem, Everything Dinosaur, https://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2012/02/22/a-permian-pompeii.html.
16. Coal geology of Illinois, Keystone Coal Industry Manual, https://www.isgs.illinois.edu/sites/isgs/files/files/coal-maps/Illinois-coalgeology.pdf.
17. Evolution of forests and trees—Understanding how Earth’s first forests developed, ThoughtCo., https://www.thoughtco.com/evolution-of-forests-and-trees-1342664.
18. Understanding Evolution—The evolution of whales. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03.
19. Understanding Evolution—The origin of birds. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06.
20. Robert Joel Duff, one-hour YouTube programs titled: Scientific Apologetics, Origin vs. Operational Science that discusses the erosion of boulders in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/cha\nnel/UCKFGXH_YUdWE-n9kSV5sg3Q.

• Collins, Lorence G. 2009. Yes, Noah’s flood may have happened but not over the whole earth. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 29: 38–41.
• ———. 2018. Twenty-one reasons Noah’s worldwide flood never happened. Skeptical Inquirer 42(2) (March/April): 50–53.
• Dimichele, William A., and Tom L. Phillips. 1985. Arborescent lycopods reproduction and paleoecology in a coal-swamp environment of late Middle Pennsylvanian age (herrin coal, Illinois, U.S.A.). Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 44(1–2): 1–26. Available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0034666785900260.
• Hill, Carol, Gregg Davidson, Tim Helble, et al. (eds). 2016. The Grand Canyon—Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon? Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
• Wang, Jun, Hermann W. Pfefferkorn, Yi Zhang, et al. 2012. Permian vegetational Pompeii from Inner Mongolia and its implications for landscape paleoecology and paleobiogeography of Cathaysia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(13): 4927–4932. Available online at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/14/1115076109. For artist drawings, see http://www.pnas.org/content/109/13/4927.figures-only.

Whatever its form, religion is powerful and pervasive and, for billions of people, obviously important. Yet, while major religions such as Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism have endured since ancient times, others, despite having enjoyed great appeal for centuries, have disappeared into the history books. No longer does anyone worship Zeus, the supreme god of the ancient Greeks; Marduk, the Babylonian god of creation; Bast, the Egyptian goddess of protection; Jupiter, the supreme god of the Romans; the Incan Apocatequil; or the Aztec Huehueteotl. Those bygone gods were central figures in highly developed theocracies and were as real to their devotees as are today’s deities to contemporary worshippers.

The continuing power of religious belief in all its many contradictory forms suggests that it serves important functions. Indeed, some researchers consider religion to have become culturally important because fear of the deity promoted social solidarity, cooperation, trust, and self-sacrifice. Important behaviors were either mandated or declared taboo by religion, and believers had little choice but to accept that a powerful supernatural being had deemed them so. This social control in turn increased the likelihood of the survival and reproduction of individuals as well as the long-term survival of the group itself. As religion became deeply established within a group, the religious beliefs and rituals taught to young people contributed an important part of their social identities, and their corresponding roles and duties further contributed to the functioning and cohesiveness of the group.

However, the prevailing view in modern psychology is that religious belief developed not because of those functions but rather as the automatic byproduct of brain systems that evolved for everyday cognition. That is, belief in the supernatural is a natural consequence of the way our brains work, a product of a metaphorical “God Engine” that endows it both with significant power over the lives of people and the groups to which they belong and with strong resistance to change. In other words, a number of automatic processes and cognitive biases combine to make supernatural belief the automatic default.

Components of the God Engine

A number of elements of this “God Engine” are particularly important in the development of religious belief:

We are born magical thinkers. Magical thinking—assuming some magical causation between an assumed cause and its effect—plays such a significant role in religion that some researchers consider it to be the very foundation of religious belief. Suppose that the sky darkens with the approach of a frightening thunderstorm. Someone importunes Zeus to send the storm away, and, by coincidence, the storm abates. Fear is reduced, the action of praying has been reinforced, and Zeus is credited with having quieted the storm.

We are born agency detectors. From a very early age, we look for reasons and intentions, for agency, behind threatening or awe-inspiring events. Failure to identify a cause can lead to the conclusion that the agent is present but invisible, resulting in increased belief in undetectable agencies. And because people everywhere have similar experiences, beliefs in supernatural beings—gods, ghosts, angels, and demons—have developed in every culture and society. Interpreting events as divine interventions, messages, warnings, or punishments serves as further confirmation of the existence of the divine being. Indeed, in every society that anthropologists have examined, uncontrollable tragedies have been viewed by many people as having been deliberately caused by some supernatural agent. An unexpected and violent storm may be interpreted as an expression of God’s wrath in response to some transgression. The epidemic of HIV/AIDS was taken by some fundamentalist Christians in the United States to be God’s punishment for homosexuality.

There are only a limited number of attributes that can be reasonably associated with a hypothetical supernatural agent, and therefore it is not surprising that many similarities are apparent among the supernatural beings envisioned by peoples around the planet. For example, we might attribute to a supernatural being counterintuitive physical properties such as being a ghost, counterintuitive biological properties such as never aging or dying, or counterintuitive psychological properties such as prescience or extraordinary perception. However, not all possible combinations of such abilities are likely to persist in the belief system or be passed on to subsequent generations. The representations of supernatural beings that persist are recognizable, easily remembered, easily communicated, and useful in dealing with problems. Examination of a wide variety of mythologies, anecdotes, cartoons, religious writings, and science fiction bears testament to this.

We develop theory of mind. Infants become able to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects by five months of age. This is followed by the development of theory of mind sometime before the third year as children come to understand that humans and animals have internal mental processes similar to their own. This leads directly to dualism, the notion that mind is separate from matter, which in turn paves the way for belief in disembodied spirits and intelligent deities whose minds function in a similar manner to our own. As a result, it should not be surprising that about half of all four-year-olds have an imaginary friend. Some cleverly designed experiments have shown that children’s concepts of gods are not simply extensions of their concepts of what people are like. Being godlike involves powers that go beyond human capability.

We develop promiscuous teleological intuition. As they reason about the world around them, children appear innately prone to consider objects and events as serving an intentional purpose, and this teleological bias to perceive that things happen for a reason operates promiscuously (in that it is applied to just about everything). Of course, such reasoning eventually leads to contemplation about some sort of extraordinary intelligence that guides the world and belief in supernatural creation (Kelemen 2004).

Reality testing. Children have to learn to distinguish fantasy from reality. They learn that nightmares are not real, that the tooth fairy and Easter bunny are fictions, and that Santa Claus does not exist. Yet, where religious beliefs are concerned, religious parents not only do not teach their children to reality test, they typically teach them not to reality test. They are taught that religious beliefs are justified by faith alone and are not to be subjected to reason. In the more fundamentalist religions, children are further taught that it is not only inappropriate but sinful to question religious teachings, and the resultant guilt aroused by any doubts about their religion is a powerful deterrent to future intellectual challenges. In consequence, these beliefs may remain forever insulated from reality testing and therefore may be very unlikely to change.

Compare belief in Santa Claus with belief in a deity (see figure below). Both beliefs are communicated to children at a time when their ability to reason is undeveloped. Both beliefs involve physically impossible feats and make no logical sense. Both beliefs are typically shared by the child’s peers, but while all adults look askance at any twelve-year-old who still believes in Santa Claus, religious parents look askance at the twelve-year-old who no longer believes in the deity.

As children strive to make distinctions between reality and fantasy, making wishes comes easily to them. Note that praying and making a wish are very similar, for each involves a mental process intended to bring about some desired outcome without any physical effort on one’s own part. While praying is part of a system of institutionalized magical beliefs (religion) taught by adults and shared with family, wish-making is something that one does independently of others; it is non-institutionalized. When family and cultural influences support and encourage religious beliefs while discouraging and disparaging other magical beliefs, children, at some time between ages four and eight years, come to view praying and wish-making quite differently. They typically show both increasing belief in the power of prayer and decreasing confidence in the effectiveness of personal idiosyncratic magical beliefs, including wishing (Woolley 2000).

We are taught religion. Children do not become Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, or Jews on their own. They learn religion, which is intertwined with a group’s history and culture. The development of language ability not only gives the growing child a powerful tool for the symbolic analysis of events, it also makes possible the acquisition of massive amounts of information from others. Children learn much about the world through their own experiences, but when it comes to things they cannot observe directly—for example, their internal organs, the shape of the Earth, or the revolution of the Earth around the Sun—they uncritically accept the teachings of adults. It is therefore not surprising that they uncritically accept religious teaching about invisible entities that they cannot observe directly.

We are more likely to remember “ontological” violations. Children develop an intuitive ontology—an understanding about what exists, about what is real—early in life. An ontological violation is something that it is considered impossible in the normal world, such as waving one’s arms in order to fly. Of course, many religious beliefs involve ontological violations—such as an omniscient deity who can hear people’s prayers wherever they may be in the world.

Violations of ontological expectations are better remembered than beliefs that intuitively make sense. For example, “a man who walked through a wall” is an ontological violation, while “a man with six fingers,” although unusual, does not violate our beliefs about what is possible and what is not. Research has found that reference to a man who walked through a wall is recalled more readily over a period of months than reference to a six-fingered man. This effect has been found not only in the West but also in Tibet and with the Fang people, a Bantu tribe in Gabon (Boyer 2001).

Religious beliefs involving violations of our intuitive (ontological) understanding of the world are both attention-grabbing and memorable. Because they are more memorable, they are also more likely to be communicated to others. The advantage that a memorable idea has in terms of being transmitted from generation to generation may be small, but over many generations its influence is amplified as it becomes an inherent part of the culture. Psychologist Pascal Boyer points out that although individuals and groups can be credulous at times, there are limits to what people will believe in the name of religion, and so only certain religious beliefs, those that provide solace or offer explanations for strange events, are likely to be transmitted over extended periods of time. While something too counterintuitive (e.g., a species of super-intelligent beetles that control television networks) may not take hold, the notion of a god who possesses some human qualities but also has omniscience and prescience may be just counterintuitive enough but not too much. Boyer also points out that it does not take much effort to maintain religious beliefs, and that people do not have to work very hard to persuade themselves that these beliefs are true.

Persistence of Religious Belief

While supernatural belief is a natural byproduct of normal cognitive development, such belief is supported through experiences that seem to offer verification:

To sleep, perhaps to dream. There is considerable evidence, both cross-cultural and historical, that dreams provide people with what seems to be verification of their beliefs in supernatural beings and life after death and contribute to the development of religious rituals, beliefs, and concepts of the divine.

Emotional experience. While each religion has its own set of beliefs and practices, and while the major religions are guided by holy texts supposedly divinely dictated or inspired eons ago, religion is much more than a set of dictates and beliefs, for strong emotional experience is often involved. It is one thing to debate the appeal of various religious beliefs and it is quite another to “experience” the divine. Many religious people have reported having felt the power of a divine presence, often during prayer. Some religions deliberately encourage such experiences, and the resurgence of charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity, sometimes involving speaking in tongues and laying on of hands, attests to the appeal of a mixture of emotion and spirituality.

Religion answers existential questions. Why are we here, and what happens when we die? Where did the world come from, and when did it begin? Religion provides answers to many questions that otherwise would go unanswered. Consider these creation stories:

Creation story #1 (King James Bible, Book of Genesis):

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Creation story #2: (Native North American, Achomawi):

In the beginning, all was water. Then a cloud formed in the clear sky, became lumpy and turned into Coyote. Then a fog developed and became lumpy and Silver Fox was formed, and then Coyote and Silver Fox both became people. And they began to think. And they thought a canoe, and it became real and they floated in it for many years. One time while Coyote was sleeping, Silver Fox combed his hair and then took the combings, flattened them and spread them out on the water until they covered the surface of the water. Then he thought, “There should be a tree,” and now there was a tree. And then he did the same with shrubs and rocks and people and birds and fish.

Creation story #3: (The big bang, modern science)

About 13.8 billion years ago, a singularity, an infinitesimally small point of infinite density, suddenly exploded and began to expand rapidly to form the universe as we now know it, with a diameter at present of some 93 billion light-years and still expanding. (That is, light emanating from one edge of the universe would take 93 billion years to reach the other edge.) The universe is estimated to contain between 100 and 200 billion galaxies, with each galaxy comprising hundreds of billions of stars.

All three stories may seem fantastical in their own way, and all three are held on trust by those who believe them. While the first involves trust in the validity of the Book of Genesis and the second in the oral traditions of North American First Nations peoples, the third requires trust in the conclusions of modern science. While scientists understand the logic and the data that support the big bang explanation, it is beyond the layperson’s ability to do so.

Such explanations provide a feeling of understanding to people puzzled about how the world began, even though they leave other mysteries in their wake. Those who attribute the origins of the universe to their god or gods conveniently ignore the question about where their god or gods came from. On the other hand, the big bang explanation also leads to another mystery: the origin of that singularity.

Reinforcement of religious belief. Religious beliefs are reinforced in a number of ways. As mentioned above, many religious people believe that they have experienced a divine presence, often during prayer. In addition, no matter to which god one prays, subsequent events that would have occurred whether one prayed or not can often be interpreted as the desired answers to one’s prayers. After all, even without divine intervention, people sometimes unexpectedly recover from severe illness; rains do come to end droughts; lost loved ones are found safe; and people do get promotions at work. However, when preceded by prayer, these events may appear to be miraculous. And the gods cannot lose, for any apparent failure of prayer is generally explained away: “Sometimes, God says no.”

Second, religion provides a bulwark against existential anxiety and fear of annihilation. It offers comfort in times of threat and can help one to deal with the loss of loved ones, especially if one believes that our personalities survive death. Religious belief and prayer also offer an important shift in focus when faced with anxiety and uncertainty. When under stress, people with strong religious conviction show less reactivity in the part of the brain associated with anxiety. The framework that religion provides can help an individual to remain calm and to deal with difficult circumstances. Of course, an emotionally balanced atheist with a good sense of purpose might react similarly.

Third, religion can provide an increased sense of control. Religion not only serves to reduce anxiety, for belief in a benevolent god who watches over the world and answers prayers provides a sense of control when all around us is chaos and calamity. “God is in His heaven—All’s right with the world.” As a result, belief in God typically increases when people are under extreme levels of stress. Reflecting this, researchers have found that both in Western and non-Western contexts, pronounced government instability is associated with increased religious belief.

Fourth, religion can provide companionship that goes beyond being a member of a congregation. Many religious people form strong emotional attachments to their deity. Such attachment may either mirror strong feelings of childhood closeness to parents or compensate for unsatisfactory relationships with parents. Further, if one believes in a god who listens and watches over us, this belief provides a sense of never being alone. This is very important in a world where loneliness is a significant problem for many.

Fifth, religion is often a source of significant self-enhancement. “God sees the little sparrow fall ... I know he loves me too.” Perhaps you feel unimportant or ignored or rejected, but if you know that your God loves you, this gives you a reason to feel good about yourself.

Sixth, religion contributes to group identity. Religion does not occur in a social vacuum. Religious beliefs and practices are shared and reinforced by family, friends, and neighbors and provide an important basis for social identification. Adherents feel themselves to be part of a moral community with its sacred values, norms, and ethical expectations. Religious identity provides something that no other social identity can offer: a sense of eternal belonging and a set of sacred beliefs that provide certainty about the world and one’s place in it. These unique characteristics, combined with powerful emotional experiences and strong bonds with other members, imbue it with more importance to many people than any other form of social identity.

In conclusion, belief in the supernatural is a natural consequence of normal cognitive development, and so it should be no surprise that religion is both pervasive and enduring. While for some, childhood religious belief ultimately succumbs to critical thinking, for many others it is excluded from critical analysis and is instead accepted on faith as being uncorrupted truth. And then no matter which presumed deity is worshipped—a god with the head of an elephant, a god who throws thunderbolts from the sky, or a god who comes to Earth in human form—many events and personal experiences will serve up apparent confirmation that the deity is real.

Detailed citations are provided in the original book chapter.

Boyer, P. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Carl Sagan, Father of the "Baloney Detection Kit"

Science is persuasive, and it should be; science is the great reality detector. What appears to be a scientific claim often isn't. Promoters of pseudoscience (claims disguised as science that have little scientific value) are aware of the strong value placed on science. Attach the term science, or make it sound like science, and the value of a claim, product, or service is instantly enhanced. This can also be problematic because attaching the word science to a claim doesn't make it science.

Pseudoscience is a major roadblock to rationality. Pseudoscientific beliefs are more costly than people think. Time and money spent on pseudoscience is time and money that could have been spent on beneficial activities. We live in an interconnected society, so the pseudoscientific beliefs of a few people may influence outcomes for many people. As an example, the false belief that autism is caused or associated with early vaccination has led to decreased immunization rates, more children being hospitalized, and in some cases death (Stanovich et al. 2016). As another example, consider the strange activity of Steve Jobs, who "ignored his doctors after being told of his pancreatic cancer and delayed surgery for nine months while he pursued unproven fruit diets, consulted a psychic, and received bogus hydrotherapy" (Stanovich et al. 2016,192).

The Nonsense Detection Kit

The impetus for writing the Nonsense Detection Kit was previous suggestions made by Sagan (1996), Lilienfeld et al. (2012) and Shermer (2001). The Nonsense Detection Kit is referring to nonsense in terms of “scientific nonsense.” Nonsense as it is used here is synonymous with pseudoscience. There is no single criterion for distinguishing science from pseudoscience, but it is possible to identify indicators, or warning signs. The more warnings signs that appear, the more likely the claim is nonsense.

Nonsense Indicator: Claims Haven’t Been Verified by an Independent Source

Promoters of nonsense often claim special knowledge, specific discoveries that only they know about. These findings are often reflected in phrases such as “revolutionary breakthrough,” “what scientists don’t want you to know,” “what only a limited few have discovered,” and so on. These findings are not subject to criticism or replication. When conducting studies, it is imperative that researchers operationalize (provide operational definition-precise observable operation used to manipulate or measure a variable) variables, so the specifics can be criticized and replicated. Non-scientists are not concerned with others being able to replicate their findings. If a finding cannot be replicated this is a big problem, and it is unreasonable to consider a single finding as evidence. It is also problematic when only those making the original finding have replicated it successfully. 

Nonsense Indicator: Claimant Has Only Searched for Confirmatory Evidence

Confirmation bias is a cognitive error (cognitive bias) defined as a tendency to seek out confirmatory evidence while rejecting or ignoring non-confirming evidence (Gilovich 1991). Most people have a tendency to look for supporting evidence while ignoring (or not looking very hard for) disconfirmatory evidence. An important characteristic of the scientific thinker is the tendency to search for disconfirming evidence. Those promoting nonsense may not even be aware of disconfirmatory evidence, as they have no interest in that type of information. Science is structured to minimize confirmation bias. The late Richard Feynman (Nobel laureate, physics) suggested that science is a set of processes that detect self-deception (Feynman 1999). Science helps ensure we don’t fool ourselves.

Nonsense Indicator: Personal Beliefs and Biases Drive the Conclusions 

Nonsense claims are often heavily influenced by personal biases and beliefs. Scientists recognize their biases and personal beliefs and use scientific processes to minimize the effects. Scientists, much like non-scientists, often find themselves looking for confirmatory evidence.“At some point usually during the peer-review system (either informally, when one finds colleagues to read a manuscript before publication submission, or formally when the manuscript is read and critiqued by colleagues, or publicly after publication), such biases and beliefs are rooted out, or the paper or book is rejected for publication,” noted Michael Shermer (2001, 22). Perpetuators of nonsense fail to recognize their biases (consciously or unconsciously) and thus make little effort to prevent this from influencing their claims.

Nonsense Indicator: Excessive Reliance on Authorities

Much of what we learn comes from authority figures (including teachers, authors, parents, journalists, etc.), and such authorities are sometimes wrong. The merit of the claim, independent of who is making it needs to be considered. Authority may provide a hint to what’s right, but authorities are fallible. Authorities often assert different beliefs. Which authority is right? Even top-level authorities are susceptible to a range of conscious and unconscious biases; they make mistakes and often have vested interests, just like non-experts. Carl Sagan wrote that “Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else. This independence of science, its occasional unwillingness to accept conventional wisdom, makes it dangerous to doctrines less self-critical, or with pretensions to certitude” (Sagan 1996, 28). Feynman (1999, 104) adds, “Authority may be a hint as to what the truth is, but is not the source of information. As long as it’s possible, we should disregard authority whenever the observations disagree with it.”

The most important authority in science is evidence.

Nonsense Indicator: Overreliance on Anecdotes

Anecdotes (short personal stories of an event) are rarely enough to conclude that a claim is true. Anecdotes are difficult to verify, are often unrepresentative, have been generated for almost every phenomena that can be imagined, and are often constructed to sound meaningful when in fact they are not. Anecdotes may be useful as hypothesis forming statements and might eventually be considered evidence, but they shouldn't be overused in scientific discussions. I inform students on the first day of class that scientific discussion requires referral to scientific data. Personal experiences and opinions generally carry little to no weight in discussions on science, especially when they can't be reasonably inferred from the scientific literature.

Nonsense Indicator: Use of Excessive 'Science Sounding' Words or Concepts

In an attempt to accurately distinguish among similar concepts, scientists make use of a specialized vernacular. Sometimes this practice is “abused, especially when the terminology provides unsupported techniques with a cachet of unearned scientific respectability” (Lilienfeld et al. 2012, 27). Promoters of pseudoscience often use technical words, so they sound smart or highly knowledgeable, even when the word usage is incorrect. In contrast to scientific language, this language frequently lacks meaning, precision, or both (Lilienfeld and Landfield 2008). Using scientific sounding words is a powerful rhetorical device. Scientific sounding does not necessarily imply scientific.

In conclusion, I offer a big thanks to Sagan, Shermer, and Lilienfeld for their efforts to battle pseudoscience.

• Feynman, R. 1999. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out the Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.
• Gilovich, T. 1991. How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. New York, NY: The Free Press.
• Lilienfeld, S., R. Ammirati, and M. David. 2012. Distinguishing science from pseudoscience in school psychology: Science and scientific thinking as safeguards against human error. Journal of School Psychology 50: 7–36.
• Lilienfeld, S., and K. Landfield. 2008. Science and pseudoscience in law enforcement: A user friendly primer. Criminal Justice and Behavior 35: 1215–1230.
• Sagan, C. 1996. The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
• Shermer, M. 1997. Why People Believe Weird Things. New York, NY: Owl Books.
• ———. 2001. The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense. Oxford University Press.
• Stanovich, K., R. West, and M. Toplak. 2016. The Rationality Quotient: Toward A Test of Rational Thinking. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

“There’s an app for that” has become a household phrase since smartphones basically became handheld laptop computers. Apps, short for applications, cover a wide range of tasks from managing your finances and editing photos to keeping track of your calorie intake and getting you a ride home. There is an app for just about everything, including adding ghosts to your photographs. These are known collectively as ghost-cam apps.

Ghost cam apps are smartphone applications that place fabricated images of ghosts, aliens, and monsters into any photograph in your phone’s gallery. There have been many cases in which a ghost hunting group or individual investigator attempted to pass off a ghost-cam app “ghost” as the real deal. Some of these apps have used famous movie ghosts (such as the creepy, crawling girl from The Ring film) and extremely well-known “ghosts” (e.g., The Madonna of Bachelor’s Grove) to pull off their hoax (Biddle 2014).

I’ve spent the last decade analyzing alleged ghost photographs/videos and offering logical explanations based on details in the image, what the witness tells me, and my own knowledge and experience. I’ve seen (more than) my fair share of ghost-cam app photos over the years. When they first appeared, these fabricated images were showing up everywhere; graveyards, restaurants, bars, hospitals, private homes, and so on. This craze eventually reached a point where I was seeing new app-generated “ghosts” just about every day.

As the number of these apps increased dramatically, the novelty eventually hit a plateau and began to wear off. The companies producing them lacked creativity; they were recycling the same “ghosts” over with each new app repackaged with a different “skin” (look of the app). Like many skeptical investigators, ghost hunters themselves had become sick of seeing these images promoted as proof over and over again.

Although their use has diminished significantly over the last few years, there are still people who attempt to pass off ghost-cam app ghosts as the real deal. Most of these attempts fall into two groups. First, they are used to support a claim that a location is haunted in order to profit from the claim. Second, they are used to pull a prank on a friend or parent—usually a parent—and occasionally the joke goes too far. 

The first group are usually seeking fame and/or fortune, often coming from the owner of a hotel, pub, or business that is looking for a boost in bookings. The idea is that presenting such a photograph will generate increased interest from ghost hunting groups who are willing to spend hundreds of dollars for the chance to investigate such a place. Ghost hunting is a cash cow and once a location gains a reputation for being haunted, their weekends are often booked up quickly with investigation teams paying anywhere from $40 to $100 (or more) per person just to spend a few hours looking for ghosts.

An example of a location trying to benefit from a ghost app came from a friend of mine, Bob Christopher. He is part of a paranormal group that produces a TV series in my local area. He had just wrapped up filming at the Kitty Knight House in Maryland (Christopher 2016) and contacted me for help. One of the owners (at the time of filming) sent Christopher a photo she had taken which, according to her, was proof the hotel was haunted. Christopher reached out to me, asking if I would take a closer look at the image.

The scene in the photograph was of a partial staircase inside the hotel and showed little detail of anything else. It was an uninteresting image, aside from a spooky detail you would quickly notice at the top of the stairs; a transparent image of a woman. She was very faint, but one could see she was facing directly toward the camera, as if posing for the photograph. She also had a melodramatic and cinematic look to her.

Original photograph provided by previous owner of the Kitty Knight House.

The author’s recreation using the same ghost.

I searched a few databases online, such as “There’s a Ghost App For That” (Sangster 2012), and quickly located the “ghost” in question. The ghost appears in several apps: "Ghost Camera" by Pixoplay It Services Private Limited, "Ghost Camera" by Anoynomous, and others; as I mentioned, companies have become lazy by including the same ghosts in multiple versions of their apps; this ghost was no different. I sent Christopher several images of myself posing with the alleged ghost, which left no doubt in his mind that he was being duped.

In this case, the fabricated photograph was used to bolstering the claim of the hotel being haunted. This deception, in addition to a paranormal television show filming at the location, was no doubt expected to increase bookings of ghost hunters willing to pay-to-play. Unfortunately, the owners didn’t anticipate the ghost hunting film crew to consult a skeptical investigator with a background in photography. When the owner was confronted with evidence of the deception, she became irate and hostile. The deception was made public and any hope of tapping into paranormal-related money became a lost hope. The Kitty Knight House eventually closed on September 11, 2016 (Owens 2016) but reopened under new management on July 5, 2018 (Rodgers 2018).

There’s a second group of people that use these ghost apps to play a prank on family and friends. An example of this came to me via Robyn Blumner, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. She forwarded the following email to me (Blumner 2018):

“Robyn,

My son took this picture of an abandon building; if you look in the mirror you can see an image of a lady wearing a hood to the left. There’s some history of this person.

Mike.”

The photograph, taken near Ann Lee pond in Albany, New York, shows an overgrown area surrounding a dilapidated building with boards over some of the windows. The image was captured by the driver of a vehicle; we can see the door frame of the driver’s window as well as the side-view mirror. When looking at the reflected view in the side-view mirror, we see a wooded area and what appears to be a transparent white figure.

Image allegedly showing a ghost appearing in the side-view mirror.

Close-up of the ghost, showing better detail.

At first I thought there was a smudge on the mirror or perhaps the remnants of bird droppings. On closer examination, I realized it had the familiar characteristics of the popular ghost-cam ghosts I’ve seen over the years; full figure, horror movie look, clear-cut lines, and facing directly toward the camera.

I went straight to the App Store on my Android phone and began browsing the most common ghost apps. It didn’t take long to find one; Ghost Camera Radar Joke by iAppsAndiGames featured this very same “ghost” on their app front page. I quickly put together a side-by-side comparison image with both ghosts; they match up perfectly.

The front page advertisement for Ghost Camera Radar Joke showing the “ghost.”

Photo taken outside author’s home with the same ghost.

It is not unusual for kids to prank their parents. In fact, I’ve received dozens of emails such as the one sent to Robyn, usually claiming the son or daughter took a photo and captured a “ghost” in their house. When first suggested that it was a ghost app, parents are often quick to respond with “My kid would never lie to me!” When they are then confronted with the evidence, the conversation usually ceases immediately. Occasionally I receive a response apologizing for being duped by a joke.

In a follow-up email from Mike, he had spoken to his son concerning the ghost photograph. The details of the account changed slightly; it seems it was not his son that took the photo but a friend of the son (one he hasn’t seen in a while). The son reached out to the original person who took the photograph, a man named Kristopher (no last name provided). Along the way, the explanation that a ghost-cam app was used got a little mixed up; the father and son related the explanation to the original owner as “photoshopped” (this has become a general blanket term anytime a digital image is manipulated via software, even if Adobe Photoshop was not the editing software used).

I contacted Mike directly and clarified the explanation I gave was a ghost app, not Photoshop. In addition, I provided several images, so he could see how easily I was able to create the same “ghost” in my own photos.

The bottom line is that ghost-cam apps continue to be used as proof of a haunted location or as attention-seeking devices for those that enjoy making others appear foolish; often for both reasons. Whenever an alleged ghost photograph comes to your attention, be on the lookout for the little details that may expose it as a ghost-cam app:

• • The ghost is facing the camera, directly looking into the lens.
• • The ghost is usually a full figure, often fading toward the feet.
• • Many, but not all, have a distinctly horror movie look to them. For example long, flowing white gown/dress and jet-black hair.
• • Parts of the ghost seem to be cut off, usually sections of a flowing gown or dress.
• • Occasionally the empty space between legs or the arm and body was never erased from the original image that was used for the ghost. These areas will contain a different background than the rest of the photograph.
• • The photograph was taken by a phone and the owner refuses to show or share the original image.

These are just a few of the things to look for when dealing with a potential ghost-cam app ghost photo. Although their use has decreased dramatically over the last few years, they certainly have not gone extinct. So, keep this in mind whenever you are presented with a ghost photo from a parent or “haunted” location owner: always take a closer look.

References

• Biddle, Kenny. 2014. Instant paranormal: The ubiquitous use of camera apps. Available at https://web.randi.org/swift/instant-paranormal-the-ubiquitous-use-of-camera-apps.
• Blumner, Robyn E. 2018. Personal email
• Christopher, Bob. 2016. NEPA Paranormal’s Ghsot Detectives. Available at http://www.ghostdetectives.tv/ .
• Owens, Jacob. 2012. Kitty Knight House Closed, Put Up For Sale. Available at https://www.cecildaily.com/business/kitty-knight-house-closed-put-up-for-sale/article_c885ee3e-f394-5940-861d-b36968b05508.html.
• Sangster, Angela. 2012. There’s a Ghost App For That. Available at https://www.facebook.com/groups/463476777004091/.
• Rodgers, Jack. 2018. Kitty Knight House to re-open July 5 with outdoor deck, bar. Available at https://www.myeasternshoremd.com/kent_county_news/real_estate/kitty-knight-house-to-re-open-july-with-outdoor-deck/article_270b3388-ec70-5657-9c5c-6cf33c7f18b3.html.

Just as it was for many other skeptics I’ve met, finding The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe (SGU) podcast was my gateway to discovering the skeptical movement. Before stumbling upon this podcast, I was clueless that there even was such a thing. Finding the SGU directly resulted in me finding and joining the Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia (GSoW) project and becoming a skeptical activist myself.

Partly due to being a member of GSoW and partly due to attending CSICon in 2017 (which featured the entire SGU cast), I became at least somewhat known to all the rogues. Why am I mentioning this here? Well, a few months after the conference, I submitted a sound clip for the SGU’s weekly “Who’s That Noisy?” segment, and it got played. During the introduction of the clip, to my astonishment, Jay Novella gave me an unexpected shout-out, where he bestowed upon me the inexplicable description of “a well-known skeptic.” This became quite a joke with some friends: “What the hell! How are you well-known?” When I got asked to write for the CSI website several months later, it didn’t take me long to decide that this phrase just had to be my column’s name.

So, how could I not interview the man responsible for this? Jay generously talked with me for well over two hours, and we spoke about a wide range of topics covering over thirteen years of SGU history, so be warned: this will be a multi-part article.

Rob Palmer: Jay, thanks for Skyping with me today to do this interview. The first thing I just have to ask you is: Do you remember calling me a “well-known skeptic” back in January on “Who’s That Noisy?” I ran with that phrase, tongue-in-cheek, as my column name!Do you remember why you described me that way, without any sarcasm—at least that I could detect?

Jay Novella: I remember. Yeah, absolutely. I look at you and you're an activist. You're not just attending conferences; you're doing really important work. I guess from my perspective, in that moment, I was thinking you’re making corrections to data on Wikipedia and creating articles for people that need to be on there. There's like a line of fire in front of you that you're whacking back with a sword, and I feel a kinship to anybody that's on that line. Because I'm on that line; a mile to the right, I'm doing something else. But it's the same line. So, I think in part, I said that to give you some gravitas, because if people didn't know about you, I wanted them to think they should know about you.

I have a lot of respect for people who do the real work. There are a lot of people who want to get some type of notoriety, get some type of fame or whatever. And then there are people who just want to do the work. And we did the work for years. It wasn't an overnight success at all. And I like people that are just doing the work regardless of all the noise in the background, and I really appreciate what you guys [the Guerrilla Skeptics] do. There are a lot of hard man-hours that go into it. And battles … you guys are in constant warfare.

Palmer: Well thanks, Jay! I’m a huge science enthusiast, and I actually discovered the SGU by searching for astronomy podcasts. Have you heard this same story from others?

Novella: Yes! A lot of people listen to our podcast because of the science, and they get pulled in. Then they find out about the skeptical movement. We have changed our editorial policy a little bit. We're not focusing on skepticism as much as teaching people, because we already went through all that. You can go back to earlier episodes and hear us talk a lot more about skepticism. But like you and like many other people, they're listening to us [to hear] about science news items, so we essentially deconstruct the news. We talk about what’s good in a news item or what's bad. A lot of times, we're reporting just interesting things. And if anything feels a little off, we'll bring it up. Sometimes we’ll say “this news item sucks. The author didn't do a good job and here's why.” And I think people, especially new people, are a little less offended … you don't want to come out [challenging their beliefs]. And we slip a lot of good scientific thinking into people's minds that normally wouldn't even be looking for it. And that's part of the reason why I think the podcast works. And we have a good group of people who care about each other and enjoy each other. And that's in the forefront. The thing that makes the SGU above the waterline, and a podcast that you can listen to every week, is that there's friendship happening there. And I think that's important.

Palmer: So, let’s talk about the very first Skeptics’ Guide book. As I understand it, you all helped Steve [Novella] with research and wrote rough drafts for him to complete. And also, you each wrote one entire chapter from your own perspectives. What can you tell me about all that? [Note: The book was released shortly after I interviewed Jay, and I am now reading it to do an official book review.]

Novella: We did an amazing amount of work, just figuring out what the chapters were going to be in the book. The process for us was, first, to nail down what we wanted the book to be about. Of course, we wanted to write the skeptics’ guide. We wanted it to be a guide that teaches people about critical thinking, and we wanted it to have something for everyone. We wanted it to be readable for someone who's never read anything about critical thinking before. And we also wanted it to be something that people like you could read and still get a lot of great information. I think we're stitching together a lot more in the book than we could do on the podcast, because the book could be a deep dive in a way that the podcast can’t be.

Each of us did research behind the scenes. We all wrote multiple chapters, and then Steve had to rewrite everything in his voice. So, we did all the research and came up with all the references. Then Steve went in and put everything into his voice, and then he “Steve-ized” everything.

Palmer: Okay, let’s hear about your own chapter.

Novella: So, my personal chapter is about Loose Change. I watched it when it came out and it blew my mind. I thought “there's way too many points of data here.” Even if just half of that … even if a quarter of what they said was true … For a couple of days, I was like, Is something going on? Now, to my credit, I didn't run out and start a website and a Facebook group. And I mean, I talked to them, I said: “Guys, what do you think about Loose Change?” Of course, Perry [DeAngelis] was like “Oh, Jason!” (He liked to call me Jason for some reason.) And Steve was like: “Oh, boy! Really?” Steve took the time to deconstruct it with me, and I was learning from him as well, because he knew about Loose Change, but he didn't have it all in his head yet. So, we kind of did it together … we deconstructed the whole thing. Even though Perry was laughing at me—and he deserved to—Steve handled it correctly and took me seriously and said, “Let's figure it out together.” And I think that was a good humbling moment for me: “What is it like to be that other person?”

My chapter is essentially about the humility thing—which I talk about all the time: neuro-psychological humility. Steve coined that phrase, you know! It's easy for the average person to get roped in with these things. Loose Change very quickly roped me in a little bit. Now, I did the thing that a lot of people don't do: I did the research. And I also had access to great thinkers that I could discuss it with. But the point is new information is dangerous if you don't know when you need skeptical red flags to go up. And we teach people those red flags. Now, I did have red flags … my red flag was “What is going on here? I need answers to these questions.” And when I found them, I found out how amazingly clever Loose Change was. It was after I debunked everything that was in it that I realized just how epically clever the whole thing was. It was like a Gish Gallop. It's very easy to throw in all the information. It's ten times harder to debunk it.

So, everybody has a chapter. It's either their entry into critical thinking or something interesting that happened to them, and I happen to like that story because it is a good lesson for people. Like, “Hey man, even if you are a critical thinker, it doesn't matter. You’re susceptible.”

Palmer: In the recent “Science or Fiction” segment where Steve took all the questions from material in the book, if I recall it properly, you all did miserably and were swept by Steve. Didn’t you all read the whole book?

Novella: So, I read the book many times. Well, first of all don't forget, Steve subtly changes things, so he's very smart about that … but there's so much information in the book. I can't retain all the information that was in the book. How much of it can I possibly remember? I don't have a fantastic memory. I have emotional memory. I remember things that surround emotion very easily. I don't have the idyllic kind of memory that Steve has. He remembers moments, and who said what, and in what order, and I remember who was happy or sad. It's weird. So that's my excuse. But we all talked about it afterward. And we were laughing! We were like, “it's our own goddamn book!” You know what I mean? We edited the book; we all read it multiple times. It doesn't matter. There's too much information to know. And that’s part of the reason having the book is great, because it's a good reference. You can quickly read a chapter if you’re going to talk about this or that with friends. It's good for me too.

Palmer: Let’s go back to the very beginning, so to speak, and talk about the origins of TheSkeptics’ Guide podcast. What are your recollections about that?

Novella: The NESS [New England Skeptical Society] was already doing monthly library conferences where maybe 30 to 80 people would show up, and we would give lectures and it was like a mini, mini conference. And as soon as we found out about podcasting, Steve had a vision. Steve just went “we need to do this.” It wasn't clairvoyance, but I would definitely say it was Steve's science intuition, or his skeptical intuition, that kicked in. We were all playing City of Heroes, I don't remember—but it was every Tuesday or Wednesday night—we were having an amazing time. Then a friend of ours that was playing with us said we should start a political podcast. And we literally said, “What's a podcast?” I never heard the word before.

That was because we loved talking politics behind the scenes, because we have different political views. Now I think we see things definitely a little bit more like-minded. But still, there are different views.

But then Steve was like, “Yup, I want to start a podcast, but it's going to have nothing to do with politics. We're going to start a skeptical podcast.” And then immediately we tried to come up with a name. Perry sent this awesome list of a bunch of different names and “TheSkeptics’ Guide to the Universe” was on there, and it just seemed like the perfect name.

And then Steve wrote the outline for the show that is basically very similar to the format that we have today. And before you know it, we were recording episode number one. We didn't know anything about the gear. We didn't know how to do post production. Evan [Bernstein] and I both have an audio background; I was in a band for twenty-one years, so I knew a lot about audio gear. I was also building the first websites and all that stuff. And then it just turned into the grind: we're doing this and we're doing it every week. And we made some good marketing decisions early on—that we were going to put out an episode each week no matter what happened. So, we got our sea legs over the first six months, and then after the first six months we were off to the races.

Palmer: Where did the show’s great tagline “Your escape to reality” come from?

Novella: I don't remember who came up with that. But that was yet another thing that was heavily discussed, like should we even have one. We felt like we wanted to have that second line give a little bit more description about what the show is. We've had so many people over the years tell us “your show literally is an escape to reality.” I feel like we had a lot of luck. We luckily came up with some good names and the good tagline. There's skill involved, but there was some luck because we hadn't really produced a radio show before—we didn't know what we were doing. But I think the real thing that makes the show work is our chemistry with each other—and that’s always been at the forefront.

My interview with Jay Novella will be continued in Part 2, coming soon.

Look, none of is perfect. We jaywalk, mark ourselves “Interested” for our friends’ events (even though we know damn well we’re not going), and when no one’s around, we drink milk straight out of the carton.

And sometimes, in certain situations, it’s hard to practice what we preach. As skeptics, we know the logical fallacies and flaws in thinking that lead to superstitious belief, and we decry those faults when we see them in others.

But who among us is guilt free? Despite all the mental discipline and critical thinking training, don’t we all have at least one superstition that we still believe—at least a little bit? I put that question to some prominent members of the skeptical community to see if the best of us still have feet of clay, so maybe we can all sleep a little easier (on the right side of the bed).

Richard Saunders (CSI fellow, host of the Skeptic Zone podcast): “I fly a lot. Mostly Australia to the USA, internally within the USA, and then back to Australia. Over the years, for some reason, I have gotten into the habit of when I enter an aircraft, having half of my foot on the bridge, the connector, and the other half on the aircraft itself, so my foot straddles the threshold for the time it takes to make one step, so a quarter of a second. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it's like having one part of the foot on the ground and one part in the air. However, I seem to find myself doing it every time I enter an aircraft.”

Kenny Biddle (skeptical investigator specializing in ghost photography): “My favorite superstition is ‘things always happen in threes,’ especially when it comes to celebrity deaths. Whether it's on social media or people I'm hanging out with, this superstition seems to be the most popular. I find it fascinating to hear people cherry-pick celebrities they know of and say, ‘Well, so-and-so died yesterday ... should be another one soon. Ya know, they always go in threes!’ I get a kick out of bringing up other celebrities they didn't know passed or were never aware of (usually because they weren't a fan), which throws off their ‘groups of threes.’ The response often changes to, ‘Oh ... well then we can expect another one!’ (or two, whichever makes it to three).

“For me, there's only one superstition I hold onto, primarily through force of habit. When buying a product off a store shelf, I sometimes take the box that sits two or three behind the one in front. I don't do this all the time, usually whenever I find the slightest (or obvious) damage to the box. Whether the corner has been crushed or the plastic wrap has a small slice in it—I go for a box that's in the best condition. The superstition is that the damaged box, no matter how insignificant, will contain a damaged product or missing parts. In contrast, the "perfect" box should be in perfect condition with all the pieces. Does it always work out? Absolutely not. But I still tend to do it. It makes no sense, just one of my little quirks.”

Michael Marshall (journalist, project director of the UK’s Good Thinking Society):“Perhaps the closest is the idea that talking about something before it happens could ‘jinx it’—that speculating on what could go wrong, or (worse) remarking how perfectly everything is going, might then be tempting fate and something bad will happen. I know it won’t; I know that’s not going to have any bearing on events or outcomes, but a part of my brain still chirps up to say, ‘Don’t say that, you’ll jinx it!’”

Susan Gerbic (CSI fellow, founder of Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia): “I have a difficult time stepping on cracks when I’m out for a walk and paying attention to the ground. I don't think it's because of any idea that I'm going to break my mother's back, but maybe some kind of OCD feeling of stepping inside the squares. I really don't know why I do it, but I do. My personal number is eight, but for no other reason other than I was born on 8-8. It has just always been my number that I use whenever someone asks for a number. No reason why I couldn't pick number six or three or one, but I gravitate toward eight. I don't know if that is superstitious or just weird me.”

Benjamin Radford (deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer, author of numerous books on the paranormal): “The kind of superstitions I tend to believe would be things that I doubt work, but I do them anyway ‘just to be sure.’ One example is pushing ‘Walk’ buttons on crosswalks. I doubt they're connected to anything or make the light change faster—and I've never bothered to test it or seek evidence for it, though I surely could—but I do it anyway. Because it gives me the illusion of control!”

Leighann Lord (comedian, emcee of the annual NECSS conference): “My family has a belief of not ‘talking something up.’ It doesn’t work for positive things. You can’t ‘talk up’ $1 million or anything remotely pleasant or comfortable. But you can ‘talk up’ bad circumstances: rain, losing money, or getting fired.”

Daniel Loxton (CSI fellow, editor of Junior Skeptic): “I’m terrified of flying—a phobia I deal with, when I absolutely must, partly through medication and partly through ritual. I wear certain kinds of clothes. I buy the latest issues of two specific magazines I don’t usually buy. I bring one candy in particular (peanut M&Ms) … . Those rituals are about comfort or self-soothing rather than magic. I also do occasionally knock on wood, but only as a sort of conversational performance ritual.”

Kavin Senapathy (journalist, cohost of the Point of Inquiry podcast): “I actually have OCD, which often manifests in superstitious thinking! So I've worked on eliminating any superstitions for my own mental health. But before that, oh boy I had so many. For example, when my daughter was a baby, I thought that thinking good thoughts about her future (e.g., picturing her graduating, or getting married) would doom her to terminal illness or other disaster. To alleviate that ‘bad luck thought’ I would knock five times on wood or certain kinds of upholstery.”

Clay Jones (pediatrician, contributor to the Science-Based Medicine blog): “I feel uncomfortable with the number thirteen. This comes up every morning when I am eating breakfast before getting ready for work. I am an early riser and don’t want to wake my kids, so I can’t turn the TV volume up too high. Twelve on the volume dial is a bit too low and fourteen is a bit loud. But I just can’t put it on thirteen. So I put it on twelve and am currently still trying to learn how to read lips.”

Mick West (operator of metabunk.org, author of the conspiracy-debunking book Escaping the Rabbit Hole): “I don’t really believe any superstition, but one thing that I enjoy is a personal version of ‘synchronicity,’ where the TV show Jeopardy is sending messages to me and my wife. We keep having the strangest of coincidences where topics we discussed came up as clues. For example, I asked my wife one day what the Spanish was for ‘chicken with rice,’ then thirty minutes later on Jeopardy, the exact same question came up. There’s a Jeopardy ‘coincidence’ almost daily. I can totally see how people can slip into the idea that it means something or even into full-on delusions of reference. Of course, it’s just that with sixty-one questions every day, there’s a Birthday Paradox effect. One of those sixty-one questions will intersect reality, especially if you are primed to look for it.”

***

Hmm, two flying superstitions and an emphasis on OCD behavior! As for me? Yes, I never get up on the “wrong” side of the bed (i.e., not the side you got into bed from), and I still wonder who’s talking about me when my ears ring—left side for bad stuff, right side for good. It’s surely a metaphysical gossip indicator and not from all the loud music.

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake. By Steven Novella with Bob Novella, Jay Novella, Cara Santa Maria, and Evan Bernstein. New York, Grand Central Publishing, 2018. ISBN-13: 978-1538760536. 512 pp. Hardcover, $19.49.

Full disclosure: After my recent interview with Jay Novella for CSI online, I took the assignment to review this book with some trepidation. I am a long-time fan of the podcast, know all the rogues, and had extremely high expectations. I want this book to be successful, so if I was disappointed by it, and felt the need to be harsh, it would have been difficult to be honest in my evaluation. In that case, I think I would have passed the review task to someone else. Happily, that did not have to happen, as I was not disappointed at all.

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” 

—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Science is formalized reality testing.”

—The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe

The book is organized into five sections. The first section is “Core Concepts Every Skeptic Should Know,” which begins with a discussion of the meaning of scientific skepticism itself. This introduction will be especially helpful to readers unfamiliar with this concept. “Core Concepts” is a large topic, covering almost half the book, and thus it is divided into subsections, each with a number of chapters. The subsections are:

• Neuropsychological Humility (pareidolia, hypnagogia, the ideomotor effect, etc.) These are some of the most important skeptical concepts discussed.

• Metacognition (biases, logical fallacies, anomaly hunting, appeal to nature, etc.) That last one discusses the abomination that is the organic food movement. Don’t miss it.

• Science and Pseudoscience (postmodernism, conspiracy theories, p-hacking, etc.) I generally get a glazed look in my eyes when p-hacking comes up on the podcast, but this chapter’s description of the issue was extremely helpful to understanding the basics of this complex topic.

• Iconic Cautionary Tales from History (Clever Hans, cold reading, quantum woo, N-rays, etc.) Ever hear of N-rays? They were “discovered” by science right after X-rays, but they do not actually exist. The full scope of the mistakes made at the time by scientists insufficiently applying skepticism is both appalling and instructive. Three hundred scientific papers were published by one hundred experimenters over three years, all declaring this imaginary phenomenon to be real.

The next section is “Adventures in Skepticism,” which includes six personal accounts regarding skepticism. Each of these chapters—one each from the five current podcast cohosts, plus Perry DeAngelis, an original SGU founder and cohost who died in 2007. Unlike the rest of the book, this section is written in voices other than Steve’s. My favorite chapter was Jay’s, where you will learn why Perry voted to remove him from the podcast.

Section three covers “Skepticism and the Media,” which has chapters on topics including false balance, fake news, and the problems with bad science journalism.

Section four is “Death by Pseudoscience,” which reveals some worst-case scenarios resulting from science ignorance or denialism. Topics include naturopathy and exorcism. Many disturbing cases are provided. 

The final section, “Changing Yourself and the World,” provides a nice summary of Steve’s philosophy on skepticism and includes his suggestions regarding applying skepticism in your life.

Each of the book’s five sections begins with an introduction preceding the first chapter. Don’t skip over the first section! The details of the “great airship hoax” from the turn of the twentieth century (where numerous airplane sightings were reported prior to the first flight just due to public anticipation of flying machines being created) was something I had not heard of before. This tale will be helpful in future arguments with my alien spacecraft–believing friends. (They must be real if so many people report seeing them!)

Also, many chapters begin with a short description of the subject, followed by a very pertinent quote. It's sort of like the quote-of-the-week at the end of every SGU podcast, but these quotes apply more directly to that chapter’s specific content. The sporadic use of segment names from the podcast will resonate with SGU fans. Examples include the use of the phrase “Name That Logical Fallacy,” and a “What's the Word?” sidebar is used to explore the meaning of “begging the question.” (“What's the Word?” is Cara Santa Maria’s segment on the podcast where she explores interesting words or phrases involving science or skepticism.)

The book is well referenced and has an extensive index, making it easy to find any detail one may wish to locate. By the way, my single favorite line from the book—besides learning that Perry wanted to throw Jay off the podcast—comes at the end of Chapter 33, the chapter on quantum woo. Regarding Deepak Chopra, Steve says “I think he is the mayor of Quantum Woo Land. Someone give him a sash.”

I actually “read” this book using an audio download. Being a long-time podcast fan, having Steve voice the book made sense to me—with one exception. Jay told me that the cohosts all contributed rough drafts of different sections of the book and then Steve put it all into his own voice (he “Steve-ized” it). But the chapters in “Adventures in Skepticism” were the exception. As Jay explained, the original authors’ voices were all maintained there. Unfortunately, this was not literally the case in the audiobook, and having Steve voice the chapters for his four cohosts seemed odd to me.

So, why didn’t I just actually read the print version?Well, perhaps it was just too big to lug around with me. To again quote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the inspiration for the name of The Skeptics’ Guide podcast and book:

“The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component [substitute “audio download” in this case] is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in.”

Seriously, this book is massive. I simply didn’t have the time to read it and meet the CSI online publishing deadline. However, I did have enough commuting time to listen to its sixteen hours. Barely.

Does all that mean I think the book is too long? Absolutely not. For the two weeks I was listening to it during my daily commute, I couldn’t wait to get back in the car every weekday to pick up where I left off. I am definitely looking forward to seeing (or hearing) what the SGU rogues come up with next.

You know it’s the Halloween season when the local news stations spend time on fluff pieces of suddenly haunted stores. Such is the case when KGW8 in Oregon City reported on a spooky video from a local marijuana shop, Five Zero Trees. When this story first popped up on my social media feed, I must admit that I giggled; I mean, come on … it’s a marijuana shop, and they’re claiming weird stuff was happening. Never fear, my inner child soon calmed down and I clicked on the link in my newsfeed to take a closer look.

According to the story, “Andy Gomez was working at the counter of the marijuana store by himself when surveillance video shows a glass tip jar slowly slide off the edge of a level counter” (Cook 2018). Even before watching the video, we learn that the events featured in this video took place two months ago on August 28. That’s a long time to wait to mention it, unless you’re trying to coincide with a major spooky-themed holiday (the news loves these type of fluff stories). The issue here is that the alleged paranormal activity doesn’t seem to have been addressed immediately after the “strange” events occurred. It is crucial to be able to investigate such claims as soon as possible. Conditions can easily change in that amount of time; furniture could be rearranged, replaced, or modified; the particular tip jar could have been replaced. Timing is always critical.

After reading the article, I clicked on the video and watched the event unfold. We see Gomez (the employee) moving a digital scale, a cup filled with pens, and tip jar from the cashier’s counter to the counter top of a display case beside it so he can clean the first counter. As soon as he puts the tip jar down, the video is sped up and the reporter’s voice over tells us “watch the glass tip jar on the counter, slowly it starts to move.” This is true, it slowly starts to move—really slowly; even though it only takes us about eight seconds to view the footage, the counter at the top of the screen tells us that an entire seven minutes has passed (11:42:12 to 11:49:12). The footage is sped up significantly, so the movement of the jar is more easily noticed (and dramatic, and to fit the whole clip in the short time segment). As you can see from the image below, the countertop was not much wider than the jar itself, which I’m estimating to be no more than a foot wide.

Gomez first places the tip jar on the display case counter top.

Gomez tells the reporter “As it happened, I kind of felt like someone was standing next to me like somebody was right here” as he waves his hand over the area in front of the display case, the side where a customer would stand. The issue I have with his statement is that in the surveillance video when the tip jar falls over the edge, Gomez is not actually next to the area indicated and even more importantly, he’s not even paying any attention to it. He can be seen holding onto both sides of a digital scale on the cashier’s counter, preoccupied with staring at the display/buttons. He only reacts (looks up) after the jar falls over the edge. He doesn’t act like someone who felt like an unseen presence was standing next to him; he was acting like a normal person trying to figure out how a gadget (the scale) worked.

So, what could have caused the jar to slide across the countertop and fall over? We can see from the video that there wasn’t any strong force behind the movement. The jar didn’t shoot off the display case and across the room; it didn’t vomit pea soup or emit a spooky hellfire. It just tipped over the edge and landed on the cover about few inches below, rocking softly on its side and coming to a stop. The most likely cause is a combination of vibration and a slanted countertop.

We can see that this particular display case has several lights inside of it, possibly three or more. There’s also an outlet on the lower rear corner of the case with several cords plugged into it to it, although we can’t see what the power cords go to. These display cases can often create vibrations from the interior lights (the ones with that low buzzing sound), fans, motors, or other devices that may be on the lower shelves. Of course, without being able to check the display case myself (it’s about 2,800 miles from me), I can’t say with any certainty what could be causing it.

Looking at the various images provided by the news crew and surveillance video, the narrow counter top on the display case appears to be slanted, rather than “the level surface” the reporter describes. I took a screenshot of the video as the news camera was positioned parallel to this counter top. When compared to the other counter in the background, this display case top is slanted toward the front—exactly where the tip jar headed during its seven-minute journey to the floor (and into internet infamy).

View of the back of the cabinet, showing an electrical box with four outlets and various power cords. We can also see the interior is illuminated from inside.

Gomez pointing to where he believes he felt someone standing next to him. We can also see the slant of the counter top he is leaning on.

As the video continues, we see two more short clips, recorded eleven hours after the initial event, in which a few pens and a pair of scissors kind of jump inside of a cup (there are a bunch of pens in the cup). The first clip honestly looks like they were in the cup but not completely settled, and a little vibration made them settle down. The second clip appears a bit more staged; three pens jump from one side to the other. When I played the video over and over several times (because that’s what I like to do), I believe there is a small light reflection off a line attached to one of the pens. It appears higher than the height of the pens and is only there for a fraction of a second. These video clips are already cropped down, causing a decrease in image quality. Screenshots were not suitable to point out anything clearly. Is this proof of a hoax? Certainly not, but it does makes me suspicious.

The reporter continues, “If you think the video has been doctored, as a cannabis shop, that would be against the law.” I’m happy that they at least addressed one angle, since comments like “they probably used CGI” are bound to come up. Rest assured, one doesn’t have to “doctor” the video to create these effects. Many practical effects with thin string or fishing line attached to a pen of scissors, would be enough to cause the “spooky” effects seen in the video. We’ve seen similar effects with a viral “haunted hotel room” video I wrote about last year (Biddle 2017). Such practical effects would not be tampering (doctoring) with the video itself.

The reporter then interviews Rocky Smith, a local historian and paranormal investigator (Smith 2016) who happens to work down the street from Five Zero Trees. Smith claimed, “The activity that happens in downtown is because of all the rebuilding over the top of old buildings.” This, honestly makes no sense whatsoever. If that were the case, there would be a hell of a lot more haunted buildings in every city and town across the globe. Rebuilding over top of older buildings is called progress not paranormal.

When we take a closer look at the video, without any thoughts of Halloween, we don’t see much more than a jar (very) slowly sliding off a slanted counter top. Vibrations from the display case, or even the street outside (trucks rumbling by) probably helped it along. The pens and scissors in a cup probably just settling, or they might have had some help. Whatever the actual reason, we need to keep in mind that this news coverage did nothing to investigate the claim; they simply promoted a fluff piece for the coming holiday. It would be nice if one day, a reporter of one of these stories spent a few minutes to investigate and maybe—just maybe—solve a mystery.

References

• Biddle, Kenny. 2017. The “Haunted Hotel Room” Hoax. Available online at https://anomaliesresearchsociety.wordpress.com/2017/08/05/the-haunted-hotel-room-hoax/.
• Cook, Katherine. 2018. Is an Oregon marijuana shop haunted? Watch surveillance video. Available online at https://www.kgw.com/article/life/is-an-oregon-marijuana-shop-haunted-watch-surveillance-video/283-608226136?fbclid=IwAR3zOnTmHcRh4apTIV-pjhB078swJwG0bHmCggRC17w1CZ6H_WrytwLJALc; accessed on October 26, 2018.
• Smith, Rocky. 2016. Your guide into Oregon City's Haunted History. Available online at http://www.nwghosttours.com/.

In part 1 of this article, which can be read here, stalwart skeptic Jay Novella and I discussed The Skeptics’ Guide book and the origins of the podcast that spawned the book. Part 2 continues our wide-ranging conversation.

Rob Palmer: I was one of those people who, after discovering the podcast in more recent times, went back and listened to the entire catalog from the very beginning. I listened to about ten years’ worth in about a year. That made me feel like I knew all of you personally, and the unexpected death of Perry DeAngelis in 2007 hit me hard. I even sent a condolence letter to you all—many, many years too late. What is your most memorable recollection of Perry and his contribution to the skeptical movement and to the podcast?

Jay Novella: We still get letters about Perry. Losing Perry was devastating for us because this isn’t just someone that I do a show with. Perry’s been a friend of mine for a very long time and he was also Steve’s best friend. He had such a unique personality. He was totally brazen and irreverent, and it was mixed with such incredible humor—ironic humor—and intensity. And Perry could sell anything. His false conviction when he would joke about something was amazing; there was something precious about his honesty. I gotta tell you: he was so funny. When you know someone intimately, and you see the real person, and you get to know them on such a deep level… No one will ever replace that spot in my life. I feel very lucky that I had him as a friend. It’s still kind of hard because all the time we go to conferences and we snag a great interview or something really fun happens or whatever. Somebody always says, “Man, I wish Perry were here.” It’s still there; it still haunts us. And there are other people who we’ve lost as well … and we try to honor them at NECSS, people that have been involved with the skeptical movement that we knew. Any one of us can go tomorrow, but the movement must go on.

Palmer: On behalf of Perry, I need to ask you: monkeys or birds?

Novella: I’ve always been riding the fence on this one because Perry came up with this just to [pick on] Steve [because he’s a birder]. Alright, so let me give you the very quick breakdown: there have been finds where very large raptors have literally pierced the skull of monkeys and picked them up and ate them!

Palmer: I read about that, and I think they weren’t sure that the monkeys weren’t already dead. That damage may have been done by scavenger birds eating dead monkeys.

Novella: Possible, possible! But still the talons went through a skull. So that’s on that side. But on the other side: the monkeys have the mammalian brain, and intelligence, and tools, and so eventually monkeys win. Because we’re the monkeys! There’s my answer.

Palmer: So tell me about the decision to not “replace” Perry. Especially because later, when Rebecca Watson left, you replaced her with Cara Santa Maria.

Novella: You can’t replace Perry; we just decided to leave that slot unfilled. We really just thought it was better if we didn’t add another person. The number five is a good number. It’s not too many people—more than most podcasts, but it works. And sometimes when we have more people on the show it gets a little complicated. So, I think we should not go above five permanent hosts.

Palmer: One thing missing from the old days are the “5x5” podcasts. What happened there? Is that gone for good?

Novella: Well, they ran their course. Our job for that [short-form] podcast was to produce a single-topic, short as we could make it, treatment on something that we felt that people would want to use for education purposes. So it was intended for the classroom, and we gave people the rights to just use it any way they wanted to. We went through a lot of topics, and we felt if we kept going, we were just going to try to fill the air that doesn’t need to be filled. It was a lot of work to do, and there’s no reason to bring back the single topic podcast in that format. There has been zero talk of bringing it back. If we were to do a single topic thing again, what Steve and I are planning on is doing a talking-head type of video podcast, where we would put it on YouTube. And Steve would just hit one topic with visuals. We could whip one of those out a week, we think.

Palmer: SGU segments have come and gone… Any past favorites you’d like to bring back? Or maybe new ones to add?

Novella: I would always be interested in new ones. Cara started “What’s the Word?” and I think that people have been getting some enjoyment out of that. I really enjoy it because nine times out of ten I’ve kind of heard the word before, but I didn’t have the clarity of what it meant. I’ll give you a little behind the scenes thing: her original segment idea was called “Un-F’ing the Planet.” And we loved it, but I think Cara decided against it after she pitched it. It was going to be a lot of work. Here’s an obvious example: global warming. We F’d-up the planet. How do we un-F-up the planet? But the amount of research we felt that it would take wasn’t worth doing because the podcast by itself is a lot of work. We wanted Cara to be able to have a segment that wasn’t going to drown her with days of research.

Palmer: And maybe it would have been too depressing of a segment?

Novella: And that’s the other thing too! Steve actually brought that up… it was a dark segment. But that was one of many ideas. It just happens to be the one that I remember. I can’t remember any other segments that haven’t been done in a while. Do you have any examples?

[Using the Wikipedia article for the SGU, I read Jay the items in the Defunct Segments list. “Swindler’s List” was among them.]

Novella: Yeah, “Swindler’s List” was mine. I would talk about Scientology, or I would talk about the guy that came up with that bomb detector thing [based on dowsing and which got people killed]. So, I liked “Swindler’s List” a lot. But when you start producing a segment, you get a sense of how much time it takes, and [ask] is it worth it? Largely, I was using news items as the flick of the marble to talk about something: “Look: Scientology’s in the news again. Let me do a ‘Swindler’s List’ on Scientology.” So, I didn’t feel like it was novel enough to make it a regular, recurring thing.

Palmer: The segment list in Wikipedia also mentions “Skeptical Puzzle.”

Novella: Evan [Bernstein]did the “Skeptical Puzzle.” That was fun, and people really liked it. He would present a verbal puzzle and ask people to come up with the answer. Listeners put their time in trying to figure it out. This segment kind of faded as well because Evan got to the point where he did so many puzzles that he was having a hard time finding new material. We’ll never get through all the quotes that exist, but puzzles just start to kind of repeat.

Palmer: It seems like you absolutely love “Who’s That Noisy? ”Why does that resonate so much with you?

Novella: I ask people to send into “Who’s That Noisy?” every week because it is actually very hard to find [material]. Crowdsourcing “Noisy” has been the best thing I came up with. I love it. I remember when Steve asked me and Evan to switch [Evan was originally doing “Who’s That Noisy?”]. But I didn’t want to switch because I liked the quotes, but I made “Who’s That Noisy?” mine. Evan made the quotes his, meaning it just kind of becomes derivative of your personality. But when I took ownership of “Noisy” and I started to get the feel for it—like what is a good Noisy and what’s provocative about it—I found that I’m kind of, well, I don’t think this is the right term, but I’m an audiophile for interesting sounds. I love it. I’ve said this on the show many times: you could fry bacon, record it, play it to someone, and tell them that it’s rain falling. And to their mind, it’s rain falling.

Palmer: Jeff Gehlbach from the Guerrilla Skeptics team wanted me to ask you to expound on audio pareidolia if it came up— and there it is!

Novella: That’s it. And I think one of the reasons why I love it is there’s a few different classifications that the noises fall into, and that’s my favorite one! I love the audio pareidolia. I love when you think: “I’ve heard that before.” It rings a bell. And even though you’re wrong, it’s bacon frying and it’s not rain… You know how your brain compares everything that you hear against the library of sounds stored in your head? This blows my mind. When we talk, your brain is sifting through lots of different words and phrases and things to figure out what the other person is saying. And then it decides unconsciously, this is what they’re saying. And then you get that feeling of “I understand what they’re saying.”

But there are times when you don’t really know what the person is saying. They might mispronounce a word a little bit and it sounds a little bit like another word. But for the most part, we completely, unconsciously, fully understand what people are saying to us. And that is as close to magic as something can be. I mean, that is this massive super-deluxe computer doing massive amounts of processing, so our experience is seamless. “Who’s That Noisy?” has made me become aware of a lot of this processing that’s going on. I think about it, and I pick noises sometimes because they are similar to other things.

Palmer: Can you tell me about the reaction to my snow-crunching Noisy [episode #653]? It had widely varying reactions. You said you loved it, but the other rogues chastised you for playing it.

Novella: Yeah. But that’s interesting, too. Because, like that Noisy, some can be super irritating [to some people]. So, I get emails every week. “Oh, I wish you didn’t play that. It reminded me of blah, blah.” I get that too. But I mean, sometimes “Who’s That Noisy?” is hysterical. Every year, one or two noises come across my plate that I fall in love with. Like the La-La dog. Evan, Cara, and I all loved the La-La dog. They put music to it, and I laugh just thinking about it. “Who’s That Noisy?” has an intellectual side for me, and it has a five-year-old side for me… I really do love that segment a lot.

Palmer: And speaking of a five-year-old, the name came from Steve’s daughter, right?

Novella: Yes. I’m pretty sure it was Autumn, his younger daughter. When she heard something, she turned her head and said, “Who’s that noisy?” And I think Evan was over at Steve’s house when that happened. They were like, “that’s what we’re going to call the segment!” It’s great. It’s cute. I think when you’re a frequent listener of the show, you’re buying into our shared verbiage.

Palmer: As a sci-fi fan myself, and a huge Star Trek fan from way back, I have to ask you about your science fiction review show. Tell my readers who may be unfamiliar with the show, what it is.

Novella: We started a different show called Alpha Quadrant 6. It’s owned by SGU productions, but it’s not the SGU. It is a science fiction review show, and it’s about our absolute love for science fiction. It’s very Star Trek heavy but we talk about anything related to science fiction. Mostly we have deep discussions on what we’re passionate about in science fiction. We like talking about the little details and nuances that make science fiction great. It’s about recapturing childhood feelings and about us having a lot more fun.

Palmer: How different is this than doing the SGU?

Novella: We prepare quite a bit for the AQ6 show, but this takes a considerably less amount of preparation than an SGU recording does. It exists in a totally different space in my mind. It’s more spontaneous. We watch an episode of Star Trek: Discovery… and then immediately review it on a live stream. You get an immediate response to each episode. I didn’t have to sit there and do three hours of research. It really was something that we wanted to do for a long time. Now that we have a completely functioning streaming studio, we had no more excuses to not do it. We love doing the SGU, but we really wanted to scratch an itch that wasn’t being scratched. I always knew this show was going to happen, one way or the other. Whether it started five years ago, or five years from now, we were going to eventually do this.

Palmer: Where did the AQ6 name come from?

Novella: We kicked around a lot of names, and we all liked Alpha Quadrant. But we felt like it needed something; it needed a third beat. So, we decided that because Discovery was the sixth Star Trek production, we would call the show Alpha Quadrant 6. [Note for Trek pedants out there: that’s not counting the animated series.] AQ6 just has a ring to it. And I also like “SGU.” So, it is “AQ6.” I like things that have a three-beat feel to them.

Palmer: Are you happy with the viewership?

Novella: We have a few thousand people who are watching… I’m okay with it. But I’m going to grow the brand, just like I have been growing the SGU. We’re going to keep doing it. I think the show started off much more polished than the SGU did just because we’re starting with a mountain of experience. I love live streaming every week. I look forward to it. Every frickin’ week I look forward to it. So, we’re going to start with Star Trek: Discovery again when season two comes out.

Palmer: Do the science inaccuracies in Trek bother any of you?

Novella: I’m a fan. When you’re a fan, some things go out the window. Like my critical thinking goes a little out the window because I just love the brand. Just like Star Wars. I really hate to say it, but it is fanboyish, because, we could be hypercritical and mad, but I also love every second of it. We’re science enthusiasts. We are dissecting the hard science aspect of everything we review. Most of the time we know the history of these shows, so when a brand goes against its own universe by making a weird plot decision… we get a little prickly about it because, well, why do I know the universe better than the people who are getting paid to write inside that universe? So, yeah, we talk about the good and the bad, but it’s all fun! We love being mad. The bottom line is we love science fiction. It was our gateway to science. We were into science fiction before we were into science!

The interview with Jay will be continued in part 3 of this article, coming soon.

While scrolling my social media newsfeed recently, I came across an article shared by my colleague Ben Radford. The headline of a FoxNews.com story proclaimed “Psychic, Ghost Hunters Helped Long Island Man Find Dad’s Remains in 57-year-old Mystery” (Gearty 2018). This piqued my interest since I make it a hobby (almost a full-time career) of investigating such claims. So I clicked on the link to take a closer look.

According to the story, “bones found in a Long Island basement were discovered after a family consulted a psychic and paranormal investigators, according to reports.”Mike Carroll, the owner of the house (which was his family home since 1955), is convinced the bones are those of his father, George Carroll. George disappeared without a trace in 1961, leaving a wife and four children behind. Carroll’s mother, Dorothy, never gave the children a “straight answer” on what had happened, only saying “he went out and just never came back.” Dorothy passed away in 1998, taking any information about their missing father with her (absent a Ouija board revelation). A missing persons report was apparently never filed, though authorities are now checking on that detail.

If one only reads the headline, the reader would get the impression that a psychic and several ghost hunters teamed up and discovered the remains of Carroll’s father. However, as Radford points out in his Facebook post: “If you read past the headlines you find that a) the remains haven't been identified, so the bones may or may not be of that man; b) he *was last seen* in that basement; and c) he was widely rumored to have been buried in that basement” (Radford 2018). Radford is correct; as of this writing, it is only speculated that the remains belong to George Carroll. The Suffolk county medical examiner will be performing DNA testing on the bones. According to Suffolk Chief of Detectives Gerard Gigante, it could take months before they can determine who the bones belong to.

After reading through the Fox News story, the reader would get two distinct impressions; first, ghost hunters detected an “energy” in the house, giving the reader the idea there was a spirit inhabiting the house. Second, a psychic pinpointed the burial spot without any help or hints—despite Carroll explicitly telling WABC-TV there was a family rumor that his father was buried in the basement. When one follows the links provided to other sources used to write the (FoxNews) article, we find that the psychic and ghost hunters are barely mentioned in relation to locating the remains. “The bones were discovered Halloween eve Tuesday in a spot in the basement that had been flagged by a psychic, the New York Post reports.”

I checked the New York Post article that was referenced and found that Carroll is quoted stating “there was a guy who came to my basement, and he went to the right spot and said, “The energy is here.” Despite this prediction, the family continued to dig elsewhere first, before eventually making it back to the spot that was “flagged.” (Sheehan 2018). The “guy” said to have flagged the spot is not identified, nor is he referred to as a psychic in the New York Post article. I pondered whether, in the course of so many reporters trying to cover the story, the previous attempts to ask a psychic somehow got mixed up with the guy Carroll hired to run the ground-penetrating radar.

In a previous FoxNews article reporting on the same story, but posted the day before (November 1), there is no mention whatsoever of a psychic or ghost hunters being involved. In fact the story clearly states, “Based on the rumor that his father might be buried in the home, his son Michael Carroll, 57, hired a company with ground-penetrating radar to examine the basement” (Suarez Sang 2018). It was based on these results that Mike Carroll’s sons began digging months before they eventually found the remains on the Tuesday night before Halloween.

A Newsweek article, referenced by both FoxNews stories, mentions “Steven Carroll, 61, and his brother Michael Carroll, 57, said they have tried everything — including ground-penetrating radar, psychics and paranormal investigators — to find out what happened to their father” (O’Keeffe 2018). Further along in this article, Carroll is quoted saying, “a psychic and ‘a person close to the situation’ told the family their father’s remains were somewhere in the basement of the house,” but doesn’t mention a psychic flagging a specific location. Carroll also fails to credit (in this version of events) any psychic or paranormal investigators with the discovery of the remains; his sons are, “who spent several months excavating the basement in an attempt to solve a half-century-old family mystery.”

We also learn in this version of the story that Carroll “began digging in the basement a few years ago in an attempt to find his father’s remains but stopped because he feared he would cause structural damage to the home. He resumed the hunt for his father after an associate used ground-penetrating radar in the basement, which indicated a place where there was a disturbance in the soil — a rock or a body — 5 or 6 feet below the surface.” (O’Keeffe 2018).

Kristin Thorne, reporting for Eyewitness News ABC7 from the house, states Carroll started digging three years ago (Thorne 2018). Thorne also reports that the ground-penetrating radar pointed to a “possible spot in the basement” (and thus no psychic mentioned in locating the spot). In the interview with Caroll and his brother, Steven, neither mention a psychic connection with the discovery.

In the original FoxNews article and the New York Post article, the headline credits a psychic with finding the remains. I can’t help but doubt the validity of this claim, since Carroll had hired a ground-penetrating radar crew and had been excavating the basement for at least three years! After so much digging, there was most likely not many more undisturbed areas left to dig up. In addition, it was a well-known family legend that their father was buried in the basement; this was the reason Carroll began excavating the basement in the first place, not due to any psychic or psychic impressions.

In fact, in yet another article, the second I found from Newsday, Carroll related “Over the years, the family had searched the internet for clues of their father's fate, the son said. When they bumped into people who could help, including psychics, he'd ask, ‘Do you know where my father is?’” (Yan 2018). Despite this plea, there was no mention of a psychic being the one that eventually locates the remains in this article.

The details of this story seem to change with each version; an unidentified psychic pointed to the exact location, an (unidentified) psychic and a person (also unidentified) told them the remains were “somewhere” in the basement some time ago, and finally we have ground-penetrating radar—rather than a psychic—locating a disturbance. If I didn’t know any better, I would think the story evolved to include a more supernatural feel. But why?

In the Newsday article, “Remains found in Lake Grove Home Believed to be Missing Father, Brothers Say,” Steven Carroll, Mike’s brother, made a comment after we learn that their sister arranged for a team of ghost hunters to investigate the house. The comment that stood out and caused me to pause was this: “Mike’s been watching too much Haunting of Hill House … he is kind of sensitive to certain things and maybe he has more sensitivity to energy in the house” (O’Keeffe 2018). The Haunting of Hill House is a current Netflix series loosely based on the 1959 novel of the same name, written by Shirley Jackson. The plot surrounds the Crain family as they attempt to renovate and flip a mansion, which is haunted. The story jumps back and forth through time; we see both the younger version of the family dealing with the paranormal activity as renovations continue, and the older version of the family (twenty-six years later) coming together to confront the effects of the house again. One of the main characters, Steven Crain, becomes a famous (and wealthy) author after writing about his family’s dark past and paranormal experiences, i.e., their story.

Toward the end of the New York Post article, it implies that Michael Carroll “continues to guard many more dark family secrets” (Sheeham 2018). After that sentence, Carroll is quoted several times referring to the murder as a story; “the murder is a story,” “when you put all five of us together (siblings), it is an amazing story,” “No family is perfect, [but] we have an interesting story,” “This story is not your average story,” and so on. These statements echoed some of the family drama played out in The Haunting of Hill House series. I could not help but feel Carroll was strongly suggesting the idea that his family’s story, and the other alleged “dark family secrets” would make a successful (and profitable) series, just like The Haunting of Hill House.

I have no idea if the psychic aspect was a mistake on the part of the reporting (misidentifying the ground-penetrating radar guy as a psychic) or if Carroll is looking to profit from the family’s murder mystery (there is a basement that requires repairs after all the digging). If it’s the latter, to be frank, it’s none of my business. There have been plenty of people that have sold the rights to their personal stories and made a nice profit; as is their right. What I am concerned with is the (seemingly inspired) inclusion of supernatural powers being credited (depending on which version you read) with an important discovery; one that breaks the decades-old mystery and overshadows the science, technology, and widely known rumor—all of which actually led to the discovery.

Murder/missing person cases in which psychics have claimed to have solved, after being thoroughly investigated, have failed to show the claim was valid. Investigators such as Joe Nickell, Ben Radford, Michael Dennett, Gary Posner, and many others, have tackled case after case (Nickell 1994; Radford 2010) and found psychic claims falling short of being any help to these cases whatsoever. They most often just waste time and resources, distracting detectives from genuine investigative work.

In the end, when the results of the tests come back, I sincerely hope that the Carroll family finally obtains the closure they have wanted for these past fifty-seven years. Knowing that one’s father (or any family member) was murdered is painful enough, but I think it is far worse not having an idea what became of a loved one. I hope the test results indeed confirm the remains belonged to their father, and they can give him the proper burial he was denied so long ago.

References

• Gearty, Robert. 2018. Psychic, ghost hunters helped Long Island man find dad’s remains in 57-year-old mystery. November 2. Accessed on November 7, 2018. Available https://www.foxnews.com/us/psychic-ghost-hunters-helped-long-island-man-find-dads-remains-in-57-year-old-mystery?fbclid=IwAR1lFIa6qgctfphlnQ4NlbjetriVYpDx_aKaAU1GOtBKOQZ7O45kjyWE7gE.
• Nickell, Joe. 1994. Psychic Sleuths: ESP And Sensational Cases. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY.
• O’Keeffe, Michael. 2018. Remains found in Lake Grove home believed to be missing father, brothers say. November 1. Accessed on Nov. 8, 2018. Available https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/bones-found-lake-grove-basement-1.22728551.
• Radford, Benjamin. 2018. Facebook post. November 5.
• Radford, Benjamin. 2010. Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. Rhombu Publishing Company. Pg. 163.
• Sheehan, Kevin. 2018. Psychic helped me find my missing father’s remains. November 1. Accessed on November 8, 2018. Available https://nypost.com/2018/11/01/psychic-helped-me-find-my-missing-fathers-remains/.
• Suarez Sang, Lucia. 2018. New York family hopes human remains found in basement will lead to answers about missing father. November 1. Accessed on November 8, 2018. Available https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-family-hopes-human-remains-found-in-basement-will-lead-to-answers-of-missing-father.
• Thorne, Kristin. 2018. Skeleton found in Long Island basement decades after owner went missing. ABC7 Eyewitness News. Accessed on November 8, 2018. Available https://abc7ny.com/skeleton-found-in-li-basement-decades-after-owner-went-missing/4592413/.
• Yan, Ellen. 2018. Human bones found in basement of Lake Grove home, Suffolk police say. November 1. Accessed on November 8, 2018. Available https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/human-bones-lake-grove-basement-1.22702735#user=5acf3974fbd29770ea7407f0&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning-Update.

Janyce Boynton is a Maine collage artist who sells her work through her website and at local shows, but she is also a tireless advocate for science. She would never have predicted that science and skepticism would become such an important part of her life, but something happened to her over twenty years ago that set her on this path.

My first contact with Janyce was probably about ten years ago. I was a psychology professor at a liberal arts college when I got a message from Janyce identifying herself as the “facilitator in the W______¹ case” and offering to speak to my class. She must have known that I would understand what that meant, and although I did not follow up with her at the time, it is clear to me now that she was well into her personal mission at that point. It has been a long and, at times, difficult journey.

Janyce Boynton with one of her collages.

In the early 1990s, Janyce was a speech therapist working in Maine. One of the students she worked with was a non-speaking high school girl with autism whom I will call Wendy. An educational technician who also worked with Wendy introduced her to a new communication technique called facilitated communication (FC). The technician had been trained in the method and was using it with Wendy with great success.

As readers of this column will recall, FC is based on the theory that many people with profound language deficits suffer from a physical problem—an inability to produce the sounds for speech or the movements required for writing or typing—but are not cognitively impaired. According to this theory, these individuals can’t get their ideas out of their broken bodies. FC supporters claim this problem can be solved by having another person—a facilitator—hold the student’s hand or arm and guiding it over a keyboard. If the facilitator could just steady the non-speaking person’s hand, the intelligence hidden within could emerge. Facilitated communication spread rapidly, and with the help of their facilitators, many previously non-speaking people began writing poetry and performing at grade level in school.

A facilitator and student demonstrating FC on a tablet. (YouTube screenshot)

Some of Wendy’s teachers were skeptical of the technique, but after getting some training from the educational technician, Janyce gave it a try. The results were remarkable. This student who had never spoken a word was now typing out intelligible sentences and carrying on conversations. Janyce had some initial doubts about her technique and whether she was influencing what Wendy said, but she dealt with that uncertainty by getting formal training in FC at a workshop offered at a local university. She came back from the training feeling more confident that she was doing it right and that the words typed on the keyboard were coming from Wendy.

All of this was fine until one day Janyce was working with Wendy in her office, and Wendy typed out some messages that suggested she had been sexually abused. Janyce found this quite concerning and reported it to Wendy’s special education teacher, who set in motion the school system’s standard protocol for cases of reported sexual abuse. Wendy was interviewed by a police officer and a Department of Human Services (DHS) counselor, with Janyce serving as her facilitator, and in response to more specific questions from the DHS counselor, Wendy typed out very graphic descriptions of sexual abuse.

After this interview, Wendy and her brother were removed from their parents’ home, and an attorney was assigned as guardian ad litem for Wendy. The guardian focused in on the central question: Who is doing the typing? Are the words coming from Janyce or Wendy? The question was relevant because the two were always in physical contact: Janyce was guiding Wendy’s hand. Janyce believed that the words were all coming from Wendy and that she was just there to steady Wendy’s hand, but now that there were accusations of abuse, it was important to be certain.

To answer this question, the guardian brought in Howard Shane, director of the Center for Communication Enhancement and the Autism Language Program at Boston Children's Hospital. With Janyce serving as facilitator, Shane performed a battery of now-familiar double-blind tests used to evaluate FC. In one situation, Wendy was asked to identify pictures of familiar objects. On some trials both Janyce and Wendy saw the same picture, but on other trials, they were shown different pictures. In each case, the answers typed matched the pictures Janyce saw, not what Wendy had seen. In another part of the test, Shane asked Wendy several very simple questions about her everyday life—but questions whose answers were unknown to Janyce (e.g., “What color is your family’s car?”). None of these questions were answered correctly.

Howard Shane demonstrating the double-blind method used to test the validity of communications obtained through facilitated communication. A screenshot from the PBS Frontline program “Prisoners of Silence” (Palfreman 1993; YouTube.com).

The results could not have been clearer. Whenever Janyce did not know the correct answer, the answer given was wrong. Simple double-blind testing showed that Janyce was doing the typing, not Wendy, and as a result, Wendy and her brother were reunited with their parents. Furthermore, the results were so overwhelming that Janyce was also convinced. And so began a very challenging period for her.

Three Difficult Questions

Janyce needed to come to grips with three questions: First, was FC real? Second, if not, then how could she have been so completely fooled? And, finally, why sexual abuse? To her credit, she answered the first question very quickly. Janyce was a trained speech and language therapist, and when she saw the results of the testing, she recognized what it meant. FC was a fraud. In addition, the testing had been a very stressful experience for her. She had never facilitated in a situation like that before, and when she didn’t know the answer to a question Shane was posing, she found herself mentally searching for an answer she thought Wendy might give. She realized there was something wrong with this, and as a result, even before she saw the data, the testing process raised doubts in her mind. After the findings of Shane’s testing were revealed, Janyce stopped using FC and went on to convince the school administration to implement a system-wide prohibition on its use. The administration had not taken a stand on whether FC was valid or not, but at Janyce’s insistence and out of an abundance of caution, they banned the use of facilitated communication in the school system until more was known.

The next two problems took more time to sort out. The sexual abuse aspect was very embarrassing, but in hindsight Janyce had an idea about where it might have come from. In the days prior to the sexual abuse report, Wendy exhibited an increase in violent hitting and scratching. Janyce had never been hit by Wendy or any other student before, but on one occasion Wendy hit her quite hard in the face. She also scratched Janyce, sometimes drawing blood. When a student shows a sudden change in behavior, it is not uncommon for special education staff to hypothesize that something at home is upsetting the child. Of course, in any given case, there are many possible reasons for the change in behavior, but when other explanations don’t come to mind, teaching staff sometimes imagine that circumstances at home are the cause of the problem.

Janyce did not recall consciously thinking about the possibility of sexual abuse in Wendy’s family before the words came out on the letter board, but once the dust had cleared, she realized this might have been the source of the idea. Unconsciously, Janyce had provided an explanation for the change in Wendy’s behavior. Ironically, given further thought, Janyce realized that Wendy’s aggressive behavior was much more likely a sign of resistance to FC. Wendy was telling her that she did not like having her hand held or having Janyce sit so close to her.

The most difficult question was how she could have been fooled by FC. How could she have come to believe that Wendy was the one controlling the typing? After the episode with Wendy was over, Janyce kept in touch with Howard Shane, who gave her copies of published research studies on FC, all of which showed it to be bogus. It was at this point that Janyce recognized an important mistake she made back at the beginning of her FC experience. When she had doubts about FC, rather than look widely for information about it, Janyce had consulted FC advocates and the pro-FC literature. Outside the cult of FC, opinion was very different, but she had not looked for dissenting views. Shane helped her widen her understanding, but there was still the question of how she had been so completely fooled. As another facilitator once said to her, “You mean all this time, I’ve been talking to myself?”

Wendy’s case, as well as other FC-related cases of false sexual abuse allegations, were described in a 1993 PBS Frontline documentary “Prisoners of Silence” (Palfreman 1993). In addition, the film showed a similar double-blind test of FC conducted at the O.D. Heck Developmental Center in Schenectady, New York. The staff of the center had come under the sway of FC and were using it extensively throughout the institution. As in Janyce’s case, double-blind tests showed that not a single correct response was typed when the facilitator did not know the answer. Furthermore, there were interviews with experienced staff members who, like Janyce, were completely fooled into believing their students were doing the typing. They reported being “devastated” by the results of the test—the same word Howard Shane recently used to describe Janyce’s initial reaction to the testing with Wendy.

So, after seeing the film, Janyce knew she was not alone in her confusion, and she went on to read a number of research articles that showed it was quite easy to create credulous facilitators in a laboratory setting. For example, in a study by Burgess and colleagues (1998) college students were told that FC worked, and they received a little training in the technique. Despite this minimal level of exposure, the great majority of students willingly took on the role of facilitator. Eighty percent of them produced correct responses to questions whose answers they knew but that the disabled person they were working with—who, in fact, was a non-disabled actor—did not know. And, yet, these new facilitators expressed the belief that they were not typing the words.

Although it helped to learn about how easily people can be fooled, Janyce continued to feel uneasy about the entire episode with Wendy and her family.

A Personal Journey

Janyce stayed on as a speech pathologist in the same school district for another six years, after which she left to pursue a master’s degree in education. She had originally intended to return to teaching, but by the time she completed her master’s, she wanted to pursue her art. Over the years, she kept in touch with Howard Shane, who provided her with articles about FC and checked in to see how she was doing. In the meantime, reporters called her on occasion, and although she was reluctant to speak to them, she was often persuaded to do so, knowing that they were likely to write about her whether she spoke to them or not. It seemed better to take the opportunity to describe things in her own words. But this also meant that it was difficult to let her FC experience fade into the past. So, over the years, Janyce began to take a number of active measures to both make amends and do what she could to lessen the harm of FC.

First, she made a sincere and very public apology to Wendy’s parents. With the consent of all parties, the apology was filmed for an episode of ABC TV’s 20/20, and although many families might not have been so generous, Wendy’s parents graciously accepted her apology.

Quite a few years later, Shane learned that the journal Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention had scheduled a special issue on the topic of facilitated communication. Knowing that Janyce was still troubled by her experiences with FC, he suggested she write an account of what had happened to her. Writing the article turned out to be a very positive experience. It helped her sort out her thoughts about what had happened from the vantage point of several years of separation, and as part of the peer-review process, she received helpful criticism from professional reviewers. The result was a remarkably frank description of her case that stands as a unique and very valuable contribution to the literature on FC (Boynton 2012).

Finally, in recent years she has gone on to become a leading activist in the effort to end the use of FC. Despite overwhelming evidence discrediting FC that eventually led to at least nineteen professional, governmental, and advocacy groups throughout the world issuing policy statements against its use (Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan 2018), the supporters of FC have come roaring back to defend it. In addition, they have introduced new forms of FC that are just as pseudoscientific but packaged differently, the most prominent of which is called rapid prompting method (Vyse 2016). Like many of those who have followed the FC saga, Janyce was frustrated by its continued—and even growing—popularity. In response, she helped organize a small band of activists and has become their unofficial leader. She maintains a clearinghouse of professional articles and media coverage about FC, as well as a variety of other resources, and she keeps her eye open for opportunities to expose the bogus nature of FC and prevent the many harms it can cause. 

Janyce’s efforts have already borne fruit. As outlined in a previous column, earlier this year the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) sponsored a “Midwest Summer Institute: Inclusion and Communication,” which included instruction in FC. The university also offered college credit for some of the institute’s workshops. In collaboration with her crew of advocates, Janyce drafted a letter objecting to the promotion of a discredited and potentially dangerous technique.The letter was signed by thirty academics and professionals and sent to the administration of the university. In addition, the controversy was covered by the local Cedar Rapids newspaper. Eventually, the UNI Provost responded by saying that he would assemble a committee to evaluate their summer workshops (Vyse 2018). In October, the Provost announced that the committee had reached its conclusion and that the university would “no longer be hosting the facilitated communication conference.”

Science victory: Responding to criticism, the Provost of the University of Northern Iowa announces that UNI will no longer host the Midwest Summer Institute, which featured training in the discredited autism therapy facilitated communication. pic.twitter.com/DnZWvEHySt

— Stuart Vyse (@stuartvyse) October 24, 2018

By removing the University of Northern Iowa’s stamp of approval from an FC workshop, a substantial blow was struck against pseudoscience and in favor of reason. But this is just the beginning. There are a number of other universities and governmental organizations that tacitly or explicitly endorse FC and/or its related techniques, and Janyce and her allies have their eyes on a number of these future targets.

Janyce Boynton, who, along with Wendy’s family, was a victim of FC pseudoscience over twenty years ago, has come full circle from believer to skeptic and from a user of FC to a dedicated advocate for abolishing it. Her perspective is completely unique. No one else has taken her unusual journey. But she has emerged as an important figure in the cause for science and reason in the field of autism treatment.

Howard Shane has known Janyce since those early days when they were brought together by Wendy’s case. Asked to comment on her career, he wrote:

It is truly courageous, if not inspirational, that Janyce was able to immediately recognize and accept that she had been seduced into the role of facilitator, but has worked tirelessly for decades to make amends for that unconscious, involuntary misstep. As a result, she has quietly assumed a leadership role of a small army of academics and advocates in their unremitting struggle to mitigate the negative effects of FC. —Howard Shane, PhD, Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School

I can think of no one who has had a more unusual path to science advocacy than Janyce Boynton, but the nature of her journey is part of what makes her voice so powerful. This collage artist from Maine speaks with a kind of authority that none of her academic and professional colleagues can match, and what she has chosen to do with her voice is, indeed, courageous and inspirational.

“Orange Blooms” (2018) by Janyce Boynton.

• Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan. 2018. Resolutions and Statements by Scientific, Professional, Medical, Governmental, and Support Organizations Against the Use of Facilitated Communication. Available online at http://www.baam.emich.edu/baam-fc-resolutions-compilation.html.
• Boynton, Janyce. 2012. Facilitated communication—what harm it can do: Confessions of a former facilitator. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention 6(1): 3–13. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17489539.2012.674680.
• Burgess, Cheryl A., Irving Kirsch, Howard Shane, et al. 1998. Facilitated communication as an ideomotor response. Psychological Science 9(1): 71–74. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00013.
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¹ I have not used the actual names of the student and her family.