Mount Rainier isn’t just where seminal UFO figure Kenneth Arnold saw “flying saucers” in 1947; the majestic mountain actually plays a more direct role in saucerology.

Majestic Mount Rainier in Washington’s Cascade Mountains seems to attract—even help produce—flying saucers. During a few days in October 2013, one of us (Nickell) was able to twice fly over and even walk upon and explore the rarified slopes (at over 5,500 feet) of the still active volcano. Here we put our heads together to look at Mount Rainier’s continuing role in the history of UFOlogy.

Mirage Saucers

As students of saucerology know, private pilot Kenneth Arnold famously saw nine “flying saucers” in an echelon pattern over the Cascade Mountains in the vicinity of Mount Rainier on June 24, 1947.

Arnold’s UFOs have been variously interpreted: airplanes flying in formation, a flock of American white pelicans, balloons, even droplets of water on his airplane’s windshield. However, one of us (McGaha, in Nickell 2007, 15–16) has hypothesized that it is more likely the several culprits were optical phenomena called “mountain-top mirages.”¹

This phenomenon, as shown in photographs (e.g., Menzel 1953, 212), gives the appearance of hovering, saucer-shaped craft. Due to the conditions that produce a mirage, it is the mountain tops themselves that appear in artificial suspension above the landscape.

Given the clear skies and smooth air in which Arnold saw the flying saucers, together with the angle of the sun (50.4 degrees above the horizon), all that was needed was a temperature inversion to complete the formula. Normally, air becomes colder with the increase in altitude. Sometimes, however, the situation gets reversed. For example, the ground cooling rapidly at night can cool the air directly over it, and since the layer above that is naturally warmer, the result is a temperature inversion. This causes light rays that pass through the air to bend, with images thus becoming distorted and, in the case of mountain-top mirages, also appearing displaced (Sachs 1980, 321).

Arnold’s own statements about his sighting help to bolster the case for just such mirages being responsible. He said the objects appeared to reflect sunlight and that they even seemed like “reflections” (as from his plane window, which he checked and ruled out). Indeed, “the flashing they made in the sun reminded me of the reflection of a great mirror,” he said, and they “looked like they were rocking” (Bequette 1947). The entire effect would have been enhanced by the position of the sun, its light reflecting off the upper surface of the mirages. He stated that, in addition the “saucer-like” objects were “flying very close to the mountain tops,” seemingly “swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks,” and, he came to conclude, were a formation “in the neighborhood of five miles long”—a large squadron indeed! He saw them—he calculated from “two definite points,” Mount Adams and Mount Rainier—as being 100 miles away, and he got as close to them as twenty-three miles (quoted in Bequette 1947; Clark 1998, I: 139–43).

Mount Rainier was not directly part of the mirage, which was caused by other mountains in the Washington Cascade range, but Arnold did describe the “saucers” as flying approximately south from Mount Baker in the direction of Mount Rainier (Clark 1998, I: 139). Therefore, we characterize the latter as, metaphorically, a “magnet” for UFOs.

Holy Mount?

On the anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, states one UFO writer, “ufologists make the trek to Rainier to commemorate the birth of saucerology.” He might have replaced “trek” with “pilgrimage,” since he seems to elevate the mountain to the status of an Olympus or a Sinai. He lists Rainier as one of several UFO “hotspots,” that is, “Areas of concentrated UFO activity that can be treated by UFOlogists as ‘UFO laboratories’” (Glenday 1999, 120, 123).

Yet apart from the Arnold sighting, he lists for the Rainier area only “the infamous ‘Maury Island’ incident, in which a dog was killed and a boy injured by debris discharged by one of six UFOs” (Glenday 1999, 123). Arnold was involved in that 1947 case as well, but as a supposed investigator. He was out of his depth, and it fell to Air Force investigators to expose the case as a hoax, confirmed by confessions of the perpetrators (Clark 1998, 2: 612–14).

Now, Mount Rainier actually plays a more direct role in saucerology, helping indeed to generate what Hendry (1979, 65) calls “saucer-like apparitions”—a striking phenomenon whose secrets we take up next.

Rainier as a Saucer Creator

Mountains like Mount Rainier actually help to form clouds into the shapes of flying saucers! Called lenticular (“lens-shaped”) clouds, these smooth, symmetrical formations may take the simple form of a double-convex lens, or they may be much more elaborate, piled into a stack of two or more, as if with a spaceship’s undercarriage below. Such clouds may appear singly, or in groups resembling a squadron of flying saucers (Sachs 1980, 66).

These cloud saucers are seen in and around mountainous areas. They are formed when stable moist air flows over hills or mountains, causing large standing waves to form on the prominence’s downwind side. Should the temperature at the crest of a wave drop to the dew point (the temperature at which vapor condenses) a lenticular cloud may be formed. (Rarely, lenticular clouds may form where no mountain exists, when a front causes shear winds.) Lenticular clouds typically remain stationary and have long durations (Hendry 1979, 65; “Lenticular Cloud” 2013).

A beautiful array of layered clouds was photographed for instance over Sao Paulo, Brazil, with a mountain range in the distance (Sachs 1980, 66). More relevant to the present discussion, another source points out that on some days Seattle, Washington, “is treated to an unusual sky show when lenticular clouds form near Mt. Rainier,” which looms less than one hundred kilometers to the southeast (“Astronomy” 2009).

Lenticular clouds over Mount Rainier

Lenticular clouds can actually be reported as UFOs. Investigator Allan Hendry (1979, 65) cites a case involving confusion over these saucer lookalikes, “in which five to six lenticular clouds hung stationary over Peavine Mountain for half an hour in Reno, Nevada,” then “descended into a conventional cloud layer.” Moreover, like airplanes, weather balloons, planets, “shooting stars,” and other aerial phenomena, these cloud formations are subject to atmospheric distortion—caused, for example, by intervening fog, ice crystals, whirlpools of air, and the like. The resulting distorted image may appear especially saucerlike (Sachs 1980, 201). It is possible that among the UFO cases that remain unsolved a few could involve lenticular clouds, possibly viewed under unusual conditions.

One of us (Nickell) spotted a single lenticular cloud hovering right over the top of Mount Rainier. He was riding in a shuttle to the Seattle airport with physicist and CFI board member Leonard Tramiel (the day after the CFI Summit, a conference in Tacoma, Octo­ber 24–27, 2013). Some fellow passengers at first thought it was just the mountain’s snowcap, but Leonard confirmed it was indeed a lenticular cloud. Mount Rainer was then obscured by trees and buildings for the next few minutes and, when it next came into view the cloud was gone. Or, as Leonard happily quipped, “It flew away!”

Airship Visit of 1896

We turn now to a mysterious UFO sighting at Mount Rainier that occurred half a century before Arnold’s saucers heralded the wave of modern UFOs. It was reported by a couple who described a strange light in the night sky near the summit of the famous mountain. Their account is related in books like Weird Washington (Davis and Eufrasio 2008, 73), but, as one might imagine, there is more to the story.

The original account appeared in the Tacoma Daily Ledger, November 27, 1896, p. 4, under the heading, “What was it? Wonderful apparition seen over Tacoma.” It informs that on the previous Tuesday (November 24) at about twelve o’clock at night, druggist George St. John and his wife were lying abed and saw from their Tacoma Avenue window a strange light “east of Mount Tacoma” (now Rainier). “Mr. St. John,” the newspaper reports, “describes it as having the appearance of a brilliant electric light and looked to be nearly the size of an arc electric light. It flashed often and each time sent forth various colored rays of light, shooting out from the center in every direction, like spokes from the hub of a wheel.” The couple watched the light as it moved slowly from one window to another. The account continued, “It seemed to have a wavering motion and swayed back and forth in its course through the heavens like a vessel at sea in a storm.”

It is important to note that this report came amidst the great wave of “airship fever” that occurred in the United States between November 17, 1896, and the middle of May 1897. Fueled by science fiction interest in the possibility of heavier-than-air flight, the rash of sightings began when something resembling an “electric arc lamp” passed over Sacramento, California, in the early evening of November 17, 1896. Significantly, this was during the annual Leonid meteor shower (its peak in 1896 was on November 14), suggesting it was a large, bright meteor known as a fireball. Newspapers hyped the story, prompting people to look to the skies, and soon almost anything seen in the heavens was thought to be another “airship” sighting (Nickell 1995, 190–192; Bartholomew and Howard 1998, 21–79).

What caused the Rainier light display? We considered a number of possibilities, from the remote to the plausible. We were doubtful of its having been a copycat hoax (the witnesses were aware of the Sacramento event but were considered reputable) (“Seen at Tacoma” 1896). For a variety of reasons, we doubted the possibility of a shared hypnagogic (“waking dream”) experience, although such hallucinations between wakefulness and sleep often involve bright lights and visions (Mavromatis 1987, 14–52). We thought of ball lightning, other unusual forms of lightning, and electrical discharges such as St. Elmo’s Fire (Corliss 1995, 17–55), but they are rare and seem inconsistent with the apparent weather conditions in Tacoma at the time. A scintillating (“twinkling”) star could have produced some of the effects (a planet can scintillate too), but it would have taken a very long time to have moved from one window to another (see Nickell 2012; Hendry 1979, 26).

Because the St. Johns’ experience occurred during the Alpha Monocerotids meteor shower (which peaked on November 21), we considered that the “flashes” the couple reported were possibly meteors, the arc light effect a very large meteor called a fireball, and the radiating colors possibly caused by a bolide, “a bright shooting meteor (fireball), especially one which explodes when it is near the end of its path in the atmosphere” (Mandel 1969, 61). However, this scenario, too, seemed an ill fit with portions of the witnesses’ description. Again, what was the “airship”?

Analysis

The San Francisco Call of November 28 had more information. The couple “watched the heavenly stranger over half an hour.” Reported the newspaper: “Mr. St. John says that the varicolored lights were shot forth in all directions. They were emitted from each end and both sides” of the supposed airship. “Some of the lights were white, others red, blue and green. . . . When all the lights were shining the aerial monster seemed encased in a brilliant glow. . . .”

Significantly, the newspaper noted, “The moonlight was not strong enough to permit a distinct view of Mount Tacoma [Rainier], but the airship was seen to approach the neighborhood of the mountain at what seemed to be its exact height, and dart hither and thither as if an exploration was in progress.” At length, the couple tired of watching the scene—suggesting it may have been less dramatic than we might otherwise have imagined—“and went to sleep” (“Seen at Tacoma” 1896).

The radiating colored lights scarcely seem consistent with an imagined airship, or even, for that matter, an extraterrestrial craft. Rather, it seems like something that had an oblong shape (with ends and sides) was hovering, glowing with a bright white light while occasionally rocking in place and causing diffraction of the light, thus producing iridescent colors.

We think this something near the summit of Mount Rainier was most likely a lenticular cloud—forming and reforming itself in place (as such clouds do) and consisting largely of ice crystals. These crystals served to diffuse the light from the moon (which at that date and time would have been above and behind the cloud,² at an angular distance of 35 degrees), causing it to glow. As it shimmered in place, it sometimes flashed and sometimes emitted colored rays. It is also quite possible that there were multiple lenticular clouds. (We should mention that the St. Johns’ nineteenth-century windows would have consisted of a wavy glass that, covered lightly in frost, could itself have produced some of the effects.) (For a discussion of all these light phenomena, see Minnaert 1974, 232–45.)

According to an authoritative source (Dunlop 2003, 94–95, 108–109), iridescence is among the most common yet most overlooked of optical phenomena. That produced by moonlight, while often more visible, is largely ignored. Iridescence appears “as bands of color around the edges of thin clouds,” including altocumulus, altostratus, and cirrocumulus lenticularis. It is often strongest when the light source is an angular distance of 30–35 degrees. Significantly, the moon on the date and time of the St. Johns’ experience was at 35 degrees and was 78 percent illuminated.

Conclusions

As we trust this discussion illustrates, mysteries dart about Mount Rainier and the other mountains of the Cascade range. But mysteries are meant to be solved, and the scientific approach—which seeks to explain rather than hype or dismiss—is the best means to that end.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to CFI librarian Lisa Nolan for much helpful research, and SI typesetter Paul Loynes for patience during many revisions.

Notes

1. Menzel (1953, 205–24) provides detailed explanations of the physics and optics of mirages. See also his appendix, “Theory of Mirages,” 300–10.

2. From the St. Johns’ viewpoint, the summit of Mount Rainier was at less than 4 degrees from the horizontal, while the moon on the date given was at 35 degrees. It was 78 percent illuminated.

References

Astronomy Picture of the Day. 2009. Online at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090203.html; accessed November 1, 2013.

Bartholomew, Robert E., and George S. Howard. 1998. UFOs & Alien Contact. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Bequette, Bill. 1947. Boise Flyer Maintains He Saw ’Em (June 26) and Arnold Insists Tale of Flying Objects OK (June 27), East Oregonian (Pendleton, OR).

Clark, Jerome. 1998. The UFO Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., in 2 volumes. Detroit, Michigan: Omnigraphics.

Corliss, William R. 1995. Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena. New York: Grammercy Books.

Davis, Jeff, and Al Eufrasio. 2008. Weird Washington. New York: Sterling.

Dunlop, Storm. 2003. The Weather Identification Handbook. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.

Glenday, Craig. 1999. The UFO Investigator’s Handbook. Philadelphia: Running Press.

Hendry, Allan. 1979. The UFO Handbook. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Lenticular Cloud. 2013. Online at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lenticular_Cloud; accessed November 1, 2013.

Mandel, Siegfried. 1969. Dictionary of Science. New York: Dell.

Mavromatis, Andreas. 1987. Hypnagogia: The Unique State of Consciousness Between Wakefulness and Sleep. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Menzel, Donald H. 1953. Flying Saucers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Minnaert, Marcell. 1974. Light and Color in the Outdoors. Reprinted New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993.

Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

———. 2007. Mysterious entities of the Pacific Northwest, part II. Skeptical Inquirer 31(2) (March/April): 14–17.

———. 2012. States of mind: Some perceived ET encounters. Skeptical Inquirer 36(6) (November/December): 12–15.

Sachs, Margaret. 1980. The UFO Encyclopedia. New York: Perigee Books.

Seen at Tacoma. 1896. San Francisco Call 80: 181 (November 28); text from California Digital Newspaper Collection.

What was it? Wonderful apparition seen over Tacoma. 1896. The Tacoma Daily Ledger, Nov­ember 27. Online at http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/unsettling/unsettled.asp?load=Tacoma+UFOs&f=ghosts.etc%5Cufos.tac; accessed October 30.

In continuing our discussion on “mystery” paintings from the past: a special place is held by paintings that are said to hold hidden meanings—especially when they do.

Hidden Symbols

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger (1533) is a highly symbolic painting. The two diplomats depicted, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, are portrayed with one in secular clothes and the other in clerical robes. The objects on the table (both celestial and terrestrial globes) as well as the oriental carpet allude to the exploratory nature of the professions of the two subjects. However, there are also various measuring instruments for scientific and technical symbols of materialism, along with books and symbols of religious knowledge. Therefore, it could be a symbolic representation of the union between capitalism and the church. The lute with the broken string, however, represents discord. The Lutheran hymnbook might suggest a conflict between academics and clergy.

Without a doubt, though, the most mysterious symbol within the frame is the strange figure stretched on the floor. When one looks at the picture from the right side and a few feet away, the deformation disappears, and the picture appears for what it is in reality: a human skull. The technique used is known as “anamorphosis,” already described by Leonardo, and the meaning of the skull may be the classic memento mori (literally: “remember that you must die”). However, it remains to be seen why Holbein gave so much space to it in his painting. Perhaps the artwork was hanging along a staircase, in order to surprise those ascending the stairs who suddenly saw the skull, or maybe it meant that everything (the good clothes, tools, the luxury of the room), in spite of their beauty, is destined to dust. The only possible salvation is to be found in the crucifix, almost hidden in the top left of the canvas. Or, of course, perhaps Holbein simply wished to demonstrate his technical skills in order to assure further commissions.

A Trio of Delicious Puzzles

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

Among the paintings whose symbolic interpretation is genuinely difficult and debated is the triptych known as The Garden of Earthly Delights painted by Hieronymus Bosch between 1480 and 1490. The large picture (220 cm by 389 cm), divided into three parts, is considered the first true surrealist painting of history. It is thought that it depicts, from left to right, the creation of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Earthly Delights, and, ultimately, hell.

Scholars have often interpreted the complex acts depicted therein as a warning to men about the dangers of the temptations of life. Over the centuries, however, the meaning of individual themes and fantastic figures, and the connection between them, has been widely debated. In particular, the central panel divides critics. There are those who believe that it contains a moral lesson for man about the deleterious consequences of the pleasures of the senses and the transience of life, and then there are those who consider it a view of paradise lost. Others, however, assuming that Bosch was a member of the Christian sect of the Adamites, view the panel as an ideal representation of free love, where sexuality is not intended as sin but as pure joy and ecstasy. None of these hypotheses, however, is totally convincing. Bosch himself—about whose life little is known—remains an unsolved riddle.

Alchemical Paintings

Among the most bizarre and extravagant artists in history is Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who produced complicated puzzles in which compositions of fruits, vegetables, flowers, birds, fishes, and other objects end up turning into original shapes and human faces. One of the most famous examples is the Vegetable Gardener, a bowl containing several vegetables that, once inverted, shows the placid and fat face of the titular Gardener.

For his work, Arcimboldo recovers Leonardo’s physiognomic surveys in order to create paintings that seem simply grotesque and playful caricatures. But, just as the pictures he paints change their meanings by the assumption of a different point of view, so the true meaning of such paintings is deeper than it appears on the surface. Close to the magic-cabalistic culture of the sixteenth century, Arcimboldo, who worked for a long time as a painter at the Habsburg court in Prague, a city believed to be the European capital of esotericism at the time, was trying to revive in his paintings the ancient philosophy of “solve et coagula,” decompose and recompose, typical of alchemy. The choice of individual objects used, such as the vegetables of the Gardener, hints to a hidden meaning related to the theories of the elements, the humors, and the five senses.

Contemporary Fantasies

To see the ancient paintings as puzzle games in which one can search for ambiguous messages and double or hidden meanings, however, is a very modern trend, which inevitably leads to interpretations so outlandish as to be often unfounded. It’s the case, for example, of The Shepherds of Arcadia by Nicolas Poussin, painted in 1640, and mentioned in relation to the “treasure” of Rennes-le-Château. The group of idealized shepherds in classical antiquity, grouped around an austere tomb on which is written the phrase “Et in Arcadia ego” (literally: “I too was in Arcadia,” an ancient form of memento mori), was originally inspired by a similar picture painted by Guercino. However, since the 1980s the work has been reinterpreted by pseudohistorians who imagined the painting loaded with clues about the alleged descendants of Christ, very similarly to what happened to Leonardo’s Last Supper.

In particular, the words “Et in Arcadia ego,” duly rearranged (and with the addition of a few letters here and there) were transformed into “I Tego Arcana Dei,” meaning: “Go away! I hide the mysteries of God.” As if to say that that could even be the tomb of Jesus after he had escaped the Crucifixion and retired with his family on the hills of France to die an old man. Poussin, in short, would have been the member of an esoteric society that intended to leave a hidden trace of this secret in order to hand it down to posterity. Despite the fact that hiding clues in paintings is often invoked in legends relating to hidden treasures, it appears that there are no examples of a similar practice anywhere. Still, the idea of the “encrypted painting” persists and thrives.

The Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist. The luminous cloud in the background (enlarged, inset) has religious symbolic meaning but has nothing to do with a starship as some UFOlogists contend.

A UFO in the Picture?

If a modern observer can find just about anything in a painting dating to five or six centuries ago, why not look for a flying saucer? That’s precisely what happened with several Renaissance paintings. One of the most famous is the Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist attributed to Sebastiano Mainardi. The picture is dated to the end of the fifteenth century and is today at the Museum of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. At the top of the painting, behind the shoulders of the Madonna, stands a strange oval shape suspended in the sky. According to some UFOlogists this is “an object plane, lead-gray, tilted to the left and has a ‘dome’ or ‘turret,’ apparently identifiable as an oval-shaped steering wheel in motion.”

To understand what this or any other ancient paintings depict in reality, though, it is essential to understand how painters worked in the past. And, usually, no one who sees UFOs in paintings bothers to inquire about the possible symbolic meanings of these strange elements in the art of that period. The flying object in Mainardi’s painting and others similar to it, in fact, is nothing more than a “luminous cloud.” At the time, in the case of worship paintings, there often was in the sky a bright cloud, or an angel, as narrated in some apocryphal Gospels. Even the man on the right of the painting, who covers his eyes looking into the sky, is a characteristic feature of this type of picture. It seems, however, that rather than looking at the cloud the man directs his stare toward the Star of the Nativity and the three small stars (top left in the picture), symbols of the threefold virginity of Mary: not surprisingly, these as well have been interpreted by some as “starships.”

Food safety is an important and emotionally charged issue. We all want our food to be safe. For most of us, however, the safety of our food is largely out of our hands. Other people grow, pick, clean, inspect, transport, and sell us our food. If you eat at a restaurant, others also prepare the food. It’s understandable that there would be a certain amount of anxiety about what we are eating. Evaluating the safety, healthfulness, and nutritional value of everything we eat is hard work.

While reading food product labels is helpful, sometimes it is easier to substitute buzzwords, reassuring notions that promise wholesomeness such as “all natural,” “organic,” or “gluten-free.” At the same time, the desire for simplicity can motivate some to demonize certain foods or food ingredients. There are those who want to demonize genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and are even pushing for labeling so that the so-called “frankenfoods” can be easily stigmatized.

There is some legitimate controversy over the optimal regulation of GMOs, the environmental effects and best practices involving specific GMO crops, and GMOs’ potential for the future. Like many public controversies, the debate can be better informed by scientific evidence; however, there is no legitimate scientific controversy over the safety of GMOs.

There is a solid scientific consensus that currently approved GMO crops are safe for human consumption. Despite this consensus, a recent Gallup poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/6424/nutrition-food.aspx) asked the following question: “From what you know or have heard, do you believe that foods that have been produced using biotechnology pose a serious health hazard to consumers, or not?” Of the respondents, 48 percent said yes, and 36 percent said no.

An ABC News poll (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97567&page=1) reported that 52 percent of those surveyed believe GMO foods are unsafe, 93 percent favor mandatory labeling, and 57 percent said they would use such labeling to avoid GMO food (although California recently rejected a ballot to require such labeling). It is not uncommon for there to be a disconnect between public opinion and scientific evidence. It is particularly easy to stoke fears—and very difficult to quell those fears with abstract scientific evidence, which presents a serious challenge to scientists, science communicators, and those involved in public policy.

GMO Fears

A mother holds a sign saying “Ban GMOs now!” at an anti-GMO/Monsanto rally in Pack Square in Asheville, North Carolina, USA, on May 25, 2013.

Public fear of GMOs is largely based on false premises and misinformation as well as on the highly popular but invalid naturalistic fallacy: the notion that things that are “natural” (a concept that is often poorly defined) are automatically more wholesome and safe than anything synthetic or artificial. GMOs are often thought of as mutants, unnatural, even abnormal. Defenders of GMOs are quick to point out that almost all food consumed by humans has been significantly changed over hundreds or thousands of years through breeding and cultivation. What we eat today bears little resemblance to its naturally evolved ancestors.

GM technology involves various techniques, and we should not conflate them or treat all GMOs as one single entity. Each GMO should be evaluated on its own merits. Some GMOs are created by turning off a normally expressed gene, so there isn’t even the introduction of a new gene. Others, called “cisgenic,” involve introducing genes from closely related species, ones that could be achieved through hybridization and breeding. Still others, called “transgenic,” involve genes from distant species, even crossing to other kingdoms of life (such as taking a gene from a bacterium and inserting it into a plant).

Transgenic genetic modification in particular can create the feeling of contamination. This is largely based on a lack of appreciation for evolution, however. First, all living organisms are the products of mutations. We are all mutants. Genes are changing things, no matter what method is used to bring those changes about. Farmers waiting for generations for plants to fortuitously display a favorable mutation—and then cultivating those plants in order to create a new variety—is just a slower method of causing genetic change.

GMO critics argue that taking genes from distant species is inherently risky because of gene regulation and unforeseen consequences. There is no evidence to support this contention, however. Sometimes genes from distant species find their way into genomes through horizontal transfer. This happens in nature with regularity. Further, people generally underestimate the similarity in genetic information across the tree of life.

The “fish-tomato” is the perfect example of this misunderstanding of evolution. Rumors were spread by anti- GMO critics of a GMO tomato that contained a fish gene. This was meant to shock the public. The Union of Concerned Scientists (a group, in my opinion, with clear ideological leanings) expressed concern (Mother Earth News Editors 2000). “But Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned Scientists says otherwise: ‘The fact is, it has been done . . . DNAP [DNA Plant Technology of Oakland, California] was the company—that put the fish gene in a tomato.’ Rissler acknowledges that the experiment was halted before any products were brought to market, but, she insists, ‘that is because of the uproar. Believe me, they would be doing it if people were not objecting to it.’”

The real question here is not whether there is a GMO tomato with a fish gene, but who cares? It’s not as if eating fish genes is inherently risky—people eat actual fish. Furthermore, by some estimates people share about 70 percent of their genes with fish (Kettle­borough 2013). You have fish genes, and every plant you have ever eaten has fish genes; get over it.

Some fears are based upon consumption of “mutant” genes themselves. This is unfounded, partly because, as I stated above, all genes are mutants. Also, we regularly consume genetic material in our food. Our bodies handle it quite well without risk. Further, there is at least an order of magnitude more bacterial cells in your body expressing over 300 times as many genes as human genes (Kelvin 2012). You are awash in genetic material from other organisms, and you would not notice an extra “fish” gene in your tomato.

The point of the fish-mato, however, is to provoke a disgusted emotional response, not to elucidate a genuine risk. Perhaps the most legitimate concern about introducing new organisms into the human food chain is the potential for allergies. Some people have food allergies, and new proteins could potentially trigger previously unknown allergies. GMOs, however, do not represent a particular allergenic risk. Testing and monitoring are sufficient to evaluate potential allergies, and so far this potential risk has not manifested.

Evidence for Safety

So, what does the scientific evidence say with regard to the safety of current GMOs? A 2012 statement by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) concluded: “. . . Contrary to popular misconceptions, GM crops are the most extensively tested crops ever added to our food supply. There are occasional claims that feeding GM foods to animals causes aberrations ranging from digestive disorders, to sterility, tumors and premature death. Although such claims are often sensationalized and receive a great deal of media attention, none have stood up to rigorous scientific scrutiny. Indeed, a recent review of a dozen well-designed long-term animal feeding studies comparing GM and non-GM potatoes, soy, rice, corn and triticale found that the GM and their non-GM counterparts are nutritionally equivalent” (http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2012/media/AAAS_GM_statement.pdf).

The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council agrees (NRC 2004): “To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.” The World Health Organization also agrees (WHO 2005): “GM foods currently traded on the international market have passed risk assessments in several countries and are not likely, nor have been shown, to present risks for human health.” As referred to by the AAAS, reviews of animal feed studies have concluded (EFSA 2008): “Results obtained from testing GM food and feed in rodents indicate that large (at least 100-fold) ‘safety’ margins exist between animal exposure levels without observed adverse effects and estimated human daily intake. Results of feeding studies with feed derived from GM plants with improved agronomic properties, carried out in a wide range of livestock species, are discussed. The studies did not show any biologically relevant differences in the parameters tested between control and test animals.”

Even the European Union, which is politically not favorable to GMOs, had to acknowledge in its review of the research (European Commission 2010): “The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.”

Not only is there extensive independent research and evidence for the safety of GMOs generally and specific GMOs, but this evidence is greater than for any other food crop.

The Precautionary Principle

For anti-GMO activists, apparently, no amount of evidence is sufficient. The precautionary principle, that we should err on the side of caution, especially with new technologies, is perfectly reasonable but can be taken too far. There is no such thing as zero risk or absolute proof of the absence of any risk or negative effect. This is true of everything we do, everything we consume, every medical intervention, and every technology.

However, it is easy to seem reasonable by invoking the precautionary principle, to simply ask for reassurance of safety and more testing. This plays well with the public; everyone wants to be safe. The real question is, however, where are our thresholds for safety? How much evidence do we need? Those who are ideologically anti-vaccine play this game well, always calling for more research, insisting on zero risk, and asking specifically for the kind of research they know will never be done (such as for ethical reasons). Anti-GMO activists are playing the same game. Despite the overwhelming evidence for the safety of GMOs, more than for any other food, it’s never enough. They want decades-long prospective studies looking at every possible negative outcome—but just for GMOs, not other foods. Like the anti-vaccinationists, they set the bar as high as necessary so that, if followed, GM would effectively be killed. They don’t want safe GMOs; they want no GMOs.

Conclusion

Genetic modification is easy to portray as a new and scary technology, but fearmongering is largely based on misinformation, a misunderstanding of evolution and our place in the natural world, and vague fears of contamination. In reality, GMO safety testing is extensive and has not uncovered any safety concerns for current GMOs. There are other issues with GMOs that are worth discussing, but fears of adverse health effects are not legitimate.

References

EFSA GMO Panel Working Group on Animal Feeding Trials. 2008. Safety and nutritional assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed: The role of animal feeding trials. Food and Chemical Toxicology March; 46 Suppl 1:S2–70. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2008.02.008. Epub February 13, 2008.

European Commission. 2010. A Decade of EU-Funded GMO Research. Online at http://ec.europa.eu/research/biosociety/pdf/a_decade_of_eu-funded_gmo_research.pdf.

Mother Earth News Editors. 2000. The Monsanto GMO story: Adding a fish gene into tomatoes. Mother Earth News April/May. Online at http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/adding-a-fish-gene-into-tomatoes-zmaz00amzgoe.aspx#axzz2zdVVXwu9.

National Research Council. 2004. Safety of genetically engineered foods: Approaches to assessing unintended health effects. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Kelvin Li, Monika Bihan, Shibu Yooseph, et al. 2012. Analyses of the microbial diversity across the human microbiome. PLOS One June 13, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032118.

Kettleborough, R.N., E.M. Busch-Nentwich, S.A. Harvey, et al. 2013. A systematic genome-wide analysis of zebrafish protein-coding gene function. Nature 496(7446): 494–97.

World Health Organization Food Safety De­part­ment. 2005. Modern food biotechnology, human health and development: An evidence-based study.

The late Western New York priest, the revered Father Nelson Baker (1841–1936), devoted himself to Catholic works, including replacing a fire-damaged church with an impressive basilica and creating a hospital, a boys’ orphanage, a boys’ protectory, and other institutions. My collection of Father Baker memorabilia (Figure 1) includes a set of old newspapers that range over a several-day period in 1936 with full-page spreads telling of his death (July 29), the viewing of his body, and his funeral and burial. Crowds swelled, and the faithful vied to touch the dead monsignor’s ring or to press against it “holy relics” they brought (Thousands 1936). As one news article explained, “This, in the tradition of the Church, is tantamount to a blessing bestowed by a living divine” (Father Baker 1936). An honor guard around the open coffin, which lay in state in the basilica, kept a watchful eye as some attempted to snip a lock of his hair or cut a piece of his vestment for a “relic” of the envisioned future saint (Anderson 2002, 113).

Since then, parishioners of the city of Lackawanna, New York, where Baker’s Our Lady of Victory Basilica stands, have advanced the “cause” of elevating him to sainthood, and formal efforts began in 1987. To facilitate this possibility, in 1999 Baker’s body was disinterred from the Holy Cross Cemetery near the basilica and transferred to a crypt inside the basilica itself. In 2011, the Church officially elevated Baker to “venerable” status, the first of three steps to sainthood. Now, two miracles are needed to complete the process—leading first to beatification, then to canonization (Tokasz 2013). Here we look at a few of the unusual incidents that some have called “miraculous,” although none has been accepted as such by the Catholic Church.

The Eyes of Beholders

Science has never authenticated a single miracle. Miracle claims, in fact, are invariably based on a logical fallacy called “arguing from ignorance”—that is, drawing a conclusion from a lack of knowledge. Take “miraculous” healings for example. Insisting that a given case is medically inexplicable does not constitute proof that a miracle occurred. Some illnesses are known to exhibit spontaneous remission, while other reputed cures may be due to misdiagnosis, psychosomatic conditions, the body’s own natural healing ability, and other factors, including the delayed benefits of previous medical treatment (Nickell 2013, 183–184).

Among the numerous supposedly miraculous healings attributed to Baker are several that involve eye conditions. In a case reported in 1948, for example, a malfunctioning machine caused a piece of metal to lodge in a worker’s eye. While one specialist reportedly recommended the eye’s removal, the victim and his wife chose instead to chance surgery, and this was a success in that the patient regained some sight (Koerner 2005, 44–45). But this can hardly be called a miracle, even a partial one, and is instead a lesson about assessing risk and getting a second opinion.

In 1950, a Kansas man received an injury to both eyes, and, we are told, “The doctors gave no hope for the eye or the sight in the other eye either.” Now, such no-hope-from-doctors claims are almost obligatory in miracle tales, but we usually hear this at second hand, not from the doctors themselves. In any case, doctors may be mistaken. So when we learn the man did not lose his eye and regained all but 10 percent of his sight, do we really have a miracle—the man’s wife linking the success to her having invoked Baker (Koerner 2005, 45)—or is this simply another case (such as the previous one) in which someone credits a superstitious practice rather than skilled medical performance?

In still another case, in 1953 a Wisconsin boy’s homemade bomb exploded, seriously damaging his eye. At first, the doctors held out little hope and asked permission to remove the eye. However, during another examination prior to surgery, the boy reported some sight, and his vision then steadily improved. Because the boy’s mother had prayed to the Virgin Mary and Father Baker, she credited them with a miracle (Koerner 2005, 45–46), rather than acknowledging that her son’s condition was not as bad as it had appeared and that his body’s own natural healing mechanisms were activated.

Such reports betray the claimants’ eagerness to believe that science is trumped by the supernatural, no matter the actual facts. Their spin that Baker was somehow involved in their cases—say as an unaware intercessor—is ironic in light of his own situation. For Nelson Baker—having had some trauma in his own right eye—suffered for approximately his last decade with just half his vision, indeed having a glass eye (Koerner 2005, 47). The old proverb (recalled in Luke 4:23) comes to mind: “Physician, heal thyself.”

The Still-Liquid Blood

When Baker’s coffin was unearthed in 1999 for reinterment in the basilica (where it would be more accessible for people to venerate the priest and so further the canonization campaign), something remarkable occurred. Discovered in a small vault resting on the coffin were three vials of his blood that had been obtained at the time his body was embalmed. The purpose behind this is unknown, but, as it turned out, the blood was surprisingly still liquid. Was this a miracle, as some were quick to claim? (In Catholicism, evidence of “incorruptibility” of bodies was touted over the centuries, but modern investigations have revealed proof of corpses’ embalming, repair, faces covered with wax masks, and other explanations [Nickell 2013, 169–172]).

A small portion of the author’s collection of Father Baker memorabilia: an old postcard of Our Lady of Victory Basilica, a statuette, and a bottle of holy water from the basilica. (Photo by Joe Nickell)

The opinions of several pathologists were sought, and I followed the issue with interest—visiting the old grave site and the new crypt in the basilica (which now has a museum to Baker in its basement), talking with various persons, including one of the consulted pathologists, and doing additional research, even conducting experiments in my paranormal lab at the Center for Inquiry. I wrote a letter, cosigned by Paul Kurtz (CSI founder) and Barry Karr (executive director), to the then Bishop of Buffalo, Henry J. Mansell, asking for information on tests of the blood. Mansell (2000) replied that “The tests, affidavits, and testimony in the cause of Father Baker are all confidential as the case goes forward, so I am not at liberty to share the documentation with you.” It was the kind of noncooperation in such matters with Catholic authorities (e.g., the Shroud of Turin) that I was used to.

In my forensic and related inquiries, I learned that it is not without precedent for what has been removed from a body to be buried with it. It happens at autopsy, for example (Loghmanee 2007). However, the Baker blood vials seem different in their selectivity and special presentation.¹ There are a number of hypotheses to explain how blood might remain liquid for over sixty years. “If the vial is sealed,” reported Dr. Ken Blumenthal (2003), who chairs the Department of Biochemistry at the State University of New York at Buffalo’s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, “there’s no reason to expect it to have evaporated.” And if the vial “was sterile to begin with, and was filled with no air left inside, the sample could very well remain intact indefinitely.”

Dr. John Wright (2003), a professor of pathology and anatomical sciences at the same university, offered a similar opinion and added: “I presume Father Baker was not anti-coagulated pre-mortem but he could have died with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) syndrome (a common mode of death), and used up all of the coagulants that would normally make blood clot. There are probably a host of other possible explanations, however.”

Among other possibilities is that some preservative may have been added to the blood, which, after all, had obviously been intended to be preserved. In one discussion, the suggestion was made that the blood, if taken from that forced out of the body by the embalming fluid, might have contained some of the latter. However, most embalming fluid contains some formaldehyde, which—as my own experiments show—has the effect of thickening or even solidifying the blood rather than keeping it liquid.² Still, there are various solutions that can both preserve and prevent the coagulation of whole blood, if the blood were removed so that formaldehyde-containing embalming fluid was not present (Bloodindex 2013).

Whatever the actual facts, however, the church has not accepted that the blood’s having remained liquid is evidence a miracle occurred. As a rule of thumb in such matters, I try never to be less skeptical than the Catholic Church.

Miraculous Awakening?

At 6:54 am, December 29, 1995, the roof of a burning house collapsed on Buffalo fireman Donald J. Herbert. Before being rescued, he had been starved of oxygen for some six minutes, resulting in brain damage. For almost the next decade, he was in a minimally responsive state, unable to communicate effectively.

Then, suddenly, on April 30, 2005, while sitting in his wheelchair in Father Baker Manor, a nursing home in Orchard Park, New York, Herbert began calling aloud for his wife, Linda, and four sons. He was soon talking and recognizing family, friends, and fellow firefighters. The change in his condition was remarkable (Lakamp 2013).

Many called it a miracle. One of his physicians at Father Baker Manor thought so, saying at a press conference, “I can’t explain it any other way. It’s phenomenal.” Indeed, some thought it was just the case they were looking for to spark the canonization of the priest the rest home was named for. They believed the Herbert case could well be one of the two requisite miracles needed to declare Baker a saint. Soon, however, such hopes were all but dashed. Herbert’s “recovery”—already limited—was uneven, and it suffered a decline after a nighttime fall from bed sent him to a hospital emergency room for stiches to his head. He died February 22, 2006, eight months after his awakening (Koerner 2009, 44–47; Lakamp 2013).

Herbert’s unusual case did not seem to meet the requirements for canonization. The Vatican requires such a miracle not only to be medically inexplicable but also complete and permanent—Herbert’s was neither—and for the candidate for sainthood to have interceded. The latter act could not be effectively established, since Linda Herbert had prayed not only to Father Baker but also “to every saint and holy figure on record” (Blake 2007, 235). So to whom should the supposed intercession be attributed?

In fact, Donald Herbert’s wonderful improvement—limited and temporary though it proved to be—was apparently due to science. About three months before, Herbert’s physician, Dr. Jamil Ahmed of the University at Buffalo, had prescribed a “cocktail” of medications for Herbert. The drugs targeted chemicals in the brain such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine to treat problems of attention, cognition, and so on. (See Hitti 2005).

Monsignor Robert Wurtz, a pastor involved in the crusade to canonize Father Baker, reportedly credited Herbert’s improvement to the drug cocktail rather than to Baker’s intercession. This effectively eliminated the Herbert case from consideration as a miracle (Blake 2007, 243; Koerner 2009, 47).

It should be emphasized that the Herbert case is unlike another high-profile one—that of Terry Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state and so had her life ended by the removal of her feeding tube. Herbert’s situation was such that he was severely disabled but apparently minimally conscious—not vegetative (Hitti 2005).

* * *

As these several examples make clear, claims of miracles attributed to Father Nelson Baker seem endless but are, at best, only examples of the logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance. As I stated in a letter to The Buffalo News (Nickell 2011) “. . . Not only is such an argument unscientific in its implication. It’s obviously meant to keep science in a position subservient to the supernatural, when in fact there is no credible evidence for other than a real, natural world. If the Church wishes to honor Baker for his public service, it should by all means do so. But let there be an end to the miracles game.”

Acknowledgments

Many people assisted with this article. In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am grateful to the CFI Libraries Director Tim Binga and former librarian Lisa Nolan.

Notes

1. The jars were “enclosed in a leather case and then placed in a conolite box on top of Baker’s steel coffin” (Koerner 2005, 66).

2. I used formalin (diluted formaldehyde) and the anti-liquid effect was still profound.

References

Anderson, Floyd. 2002. Father Nelson Baker: Apostle of Charity. N.p. [Lackawanna, NY]: Our Lady of Victory Homes of Charity.

Blake, Rich. 2007. The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up: A True Story. New York: Harmony Books.

Bloodindex. 2013. Online at http://www.bloodindex.org/blood_anticoagulation_preservation.php; accessed July 25, 2013.

Blumenthal, Dr. Ken. 2003. Cited in Koerner 2005, 67.

Father Baker. 1936. The Buffalo News (July 31): sports section, 31.

Hitti, Miranda. 2005. Firefighter’s miracle recovery rare in long-term coma cases. Fox News (May 6). Online at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155608,00.html; accessed June 17, 2013.

Koerner, John. 2005. The Mysteries of Father Baker. Buffalo, NY: Western New York Wares.

———. 2009. The Father Baker Code. Buffalo, NY: Western New York Wares

Lakamp, Patrick. 2013. The fight behind the miracle. The Buffalo News (June 16).

Loghmanee, Dr. Fazlollah. 2007. Interview by Joe Nickell, December 25.

Mansell, Rev. Henry J. 2000. Letter of reply to Paul Kurtz, Joe Nickell, and Barry Karr, December 4.

Nickell, Joe. 2011. A so-called miracle has never been proved. Letter to The Buffalo News (February 26).

———. 2013. The Science of Miracles: Investigating the Incredible. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Thousands Bid Farewell. . . . 1936. The Buffalo Times (August 2): 6–A (photo caption).

Tokasz, Jay. 2013. Parish seeks aid funding Father Baker sainthood. The Buffalo News (July 24): A1–2.

Wright, Dr. John. 2003. Cited in Koerner 2005, 67–68.

The promotion of science and reason is not without its challenges. The British Humanist Association (BHA) and Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network (WHRIN) are being sued by the wealthy evangelical preacher and “witch hunter” Helen Ukpabio who has dubbed herself a “Lady Apostle.” Mrs. Ukpabio claims to have expertise in identifying children and adults who are possessed with witchcraft spirits and in how they can be “delivered” from those spirits.

The BHA has called for Ukpabio and others like her to be banned from coming to the UK on the grounds that they are a threat to child welfare and their practices are not conducive to the public good. For this interview, I spoke to Pavan Dhaliwal.

Pavan Dhaliwal: I’m Pavan Dhaliwal, and I’m the head of public affairs at the British Humanist Association, and the vice president of the European Humanist Federation.

Kylie: What kind of work does the British Humanists Association do?

Pavan: There are three strands to our work. We operate for those people who reject superstition and want to live their lives based on reason and humanity. That’s about 50 percent of the population here in the UK.

We have our policy and lobbying arm, which is what I run. We lobby in Westminster, and the European Parliament, and the United Nations. We have an education department, which is more about the promotion of humanism and a humanist life stance. Then we also conduct humanist ceremonies, so weddings, namings, funerals.

Kylie: What’s the current situation that the British Humanists are facing?

Pavan: It’s quite an unusual situation, not one that I thought that we would find ourselves in. We’re currently being threatened with litigation by a Nigerian witch-hunter, Helen Ukpabio. She is threatening to sue the British Humanist Association for £500 million.

She’s trying to do it on two counts, on both human rights and defamation. She’s quite notorious, she is quite well known. She claims to be a former witch herself, and she claims that she is able to exorcise children and adults of demonic possession.

Kylie: What’s the claim that she has got against the British Humanists?

Pavan: The claim is, in 2009 we published an article, along with our partners in Nigeria, the Nigerian Humanists, quoting from a book of hers. In the book she was basically saying something along the lines of, “If your child wakes up in the night crying, and showing these particular symptoms,” we had said that the quote said that the child is possessed by Satan.

What the book actually says is, “If your child wakes up at night and is displaying these behaviors, the child is possessed by vampires.” The difference is between Satan and vampires.

Kylie: What are the difficulties defending human rights when it comes to paranormal and pseudo-scientific beliefs? Obviously, people like Ukpabio have many followers…

Pavan: With her, it’s quite a simple case. This is something, which poses child safeguarding issues. The reason that this has come to light now, because like I said, the original article was published in 2009, so it’s outside of the scope of defamation laws here in the UK now. They were changed after the Simon Singh case. That only has an 18-month period in which you can claim defamation. Obviously from 2009, that’s now up.

She came to the UK a few months ago, and we wrote to the Home Secretary saying that her being here is not conducive to the public good, and it does pose child safeguarding issues. She was advertising that if your children are possessed by witches, gnomes, mermaids, vampires, that she can exorcise them. It becomes an issue of children’s rights there.

Obviously, everyone has the right to freedom of religion or belief. No one’s disputing that, but when those rights then begin to impinge upon other rights, and also pose child safeguarding issues, that’s when it becomes a problem. That’s when we called upon the Home Secretary to revoke her visa, and from her holding ministries here in the UK.

Kylie: Do you come across cases like this often?

Pavan: Not so much here in the UK. Our partners in Nigeria are working on this sort of stuff every single day. It’s their bread-and-butter work, trying to go into villages in mainly rural areas to try and counter these sorts of superstitious beliefs.

I’m not entirely sure whether I could say it was a growing community here, but certainly there is a demand for these sorts of ministries here. Otherwise, people like Ukpabio, because there are others like her, wouldn’t have a need to come to the UK to hold ministries here.

It is, of course, worrying. It’s something that now, I think, more and more is being brought to the attention of the authorities. Because there’s been a few high-profile cases here in the UK, in the past, of child abuse, which have actually been quite clearly linked to these types of witchcraft practices.

Kylie: What are the British Humanists doing next about the Ukpabio case?

Pavan: We’re trying to put pressure on the government to make a statement that people like her would not be allowed entry into the UK if their intention was to hold these type of ministries.

We’re generally trying to raise awareness that these things are going on, and for people to support organizations like the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network, the Nigerian Humanists. People who are part of very grass-roots organizations are doing good work on the ground to raise awareness.

The reason that she came to the £500 million mark is that the article that we wrote got some publicity in Nigeria. She’s saying that this harmed her reputation. Obviously, if we can do more of that, then that’s actually quite good.

She’s a very litigious woman. What she normally does is file these claims against very small grass-roots organizations working on the ground, so the effect will be, effectively, to chill free speech, and to silence her critics. It’s obviously worked in the past, but of course we’re not going to fall foul of those threats, which is why I decided that we should publish what she was doing against us.

Kylie: How can people help out?

Pavan: People can help out by going onto the British Humanist Association website, humanism.org.uk, and looking into the work that we’re doing, but also by supporting these grass-roots organizations, who are the actually the people on the ground going into villages, going into communities to try and dispel these myths.

It’s about awareness-raising, knowing that these things are going on, and not being afraid to actually talk about them.

The British Humanist’s site can be found at https://humanism.org.uk.

If religious believers had a better understanding of scientific methodology and nonbelievers had a better understanding of its parallels with religion, they could have more meaningful discussions with each other.

A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitute a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them. The scientific community shares a paradigm according to which its hypotheses about the realities of the universe are derived ultimately from the data of observations and experiments and from the manipulation and analysis of these data according to logical procedures (Wynn and Wiggins 2001, 1–47).

Paralleling the observations upon which scientific hypotheses are based, religious “observations” are mainly revelations believed to be conveyed from God through prophets such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, who speak from divine inspiration or as the interpreter through which God expresses his will. Separate beings known as angels are also believed to act as messengers. One such angel is Gabriel, who acts as the messenger of God in the Bible and the Qur’an (in which he is called Jibra’il). In the Bible, Gabriel is said to have appeared to Daniel (twice) (Daniel 8:15–26, 9:21–27)¹, to Zacharias (Luke 1:11–20), and to the Virgin Mary in the annunciation to her of Jesus’s birth (Luke 1:26–38). In Islam, he is said to have revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad (Surah An-Najm 53:5)². Personal revelation to individuals through prayer is also believed to be possible.

The messenger angel Gabriel appears in both the Bible and the Qur’an.

Revelations are believed to testify to the existence of an invisible, immaterial, and thus unobservable being called “God.” If God is unobservable, what sort of “observation” can be made to support belief in God’s existence? The answer: observation of the effects of such a being.

One such effect is said by religious believers to be the universe itself. They affirm that the universe must have been “caused” into existence by the first or uncaused cause: God the creator. According to them, the existence of a universe requires a preexisting supernatural intelligence. They present this cosmological argument as a conclusion deduced from two premises: Everything that had a beginning had a cause; the universe (cosmos) had a beginning; therefore, the universe had a cause.

A problem with this reasoning is that both premises are based on assumptions that there had to be a beginning; that the universe itself is not eternal (an eternal, self-sufficient universe would not require a preexisting supernatural intelligence). This makes them both probabilistic, which means that the conclusion is also probabilistic and the reasoning process inductive rather than deductive. In addition, the argument assumes that God is an uncaused cause: nothing began God. A similar argument could assume that the universe itself is an uncaused cause.

Furthermore, the argument assumes that the universe could not have emerged by naturalistic means, i.e., self-created ex nihilo (“out of nothing”). One such naturalistic scenario describes the sudden appearance of matter composed equally of positive and negative energy: positive energy in the instance of material objects and negative energy in the generation of accompanying gravitational fields (Hawking 1988, 129). Evidence for antigravitational swelling that allegedly began a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the cosmic clock started ticking has just been discovered by a team led by John M. Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. When combined mathematically, both forms of energy precisely cancel out each other, resulting in a “zero state.”

Another argument for the reality of God is the teleological argument. Teleology is the study of design or purpose in nature. According to this argument, the reality of our structured universe suggests that its structural constraints had to have been deliberately imposed or designed by a designer, namely, God; that the basic physical constants of our universe were “fine-tuned” to allow us to exist and to observe the universe (the anthropic principle). The problem with this argument is that although the universe happens to be arranged in a certain way (happens to have an apparent design), this does not ipso facto require that this particular arrangement be the fulfillment of the intentions or actions of a designer. Like beauty, perception of design is created in the minds of beholders, i.e., it is subjective rather than objective. In addition, the particular arrangement of the universe can arguably be the result of purely naturalistic processes.

Religious Induction and Hypotheses

Science uses selected observations as premises to support a hypothesis, an attempted explanation of a set of observations made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences. The inductive reasoning involved in the formulation of a hypothesis uses those premises to support, but not to guarantee, the truth of the hypothesis. When the explanatory power of a scientific hypothesis is incomplete, i.e., when it does not adequately explain a set of observations, the assumption of science is that an adequate, superior naturalistic explanation will be forthcoming. Science chooses not to invoke supernatural explanations to fill gaps in naturalistic explanations. This of course does not rule out the possibility of supernatural intervention. Operational science takes no position about the existence or nonexistence of an omnipotent god.

Among the reasons that science restricts itself to materialistic explanations is its need to hold some variables constant in order to be able to test the role of others. If God is an omnipotent force that can choose when and how to intervene in the natural world, it would be impossible to hold such actions constant.

In the field of science, beliefs about reality are subjected to a rule of thumb known as Occam’s razor. This maxim requires that a preferred scientific hypothesis be the one having the fewest assumptions that is consistent with the observations: complexity should not be proposed without necessity.

Nonbelievers argue that Occam’s razor should also be applied to religious beliefs. They feel that including God in explanations of the universe adds an unnecessary element of complexity and that the universe can be explained entirely in naturalistic terms. While compelling, this argument in favor of simplicity cannot rule out complexity; a rule of thumb is not a rule of logic. On the other hand, religious fundamentalism applies Occam’s razor when it concludes that the simplest explanation is God and that introducing scientific theories adds unnecessary elements of complexity.

The inductive reasoning used in deriving scientific hypotheses involves drawing inferences from what are taken to be facts or patterns of behavior in natural phenomena. In the area of religion, induction is employed when religious ideologies are derived from what believers assert is reliable information about the god revealed in holy scriptures. These include Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism; Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, and Baptist Christianity; and Shia, Sunni, and Sufi Islam. Wars continue to be fought over which of these is the one true religion.

Religious Deduction, Prediction, and Experimentation

Determining whether the predictions deduced from hypotheses are borne out by experimentation is the ultimate test of hypotheses. Each time a valid prediction is borne out, the hypothesis gains credibility. Each time a prediction is not borne out, the hypothesis loses credibility and must either be modified accordingly and retested or rejected entirely and replaced by a better one.

Testing religious hypotheses (beliefs) about God requires a description of the qualities or power to be tested. For example, an omnipotent god should be able to answer prayers asking for something a person wishes to be done. In this sense, God’s “yes” response to such petitions would be a miracle: a phenomenon in nature that transcends the capacity of natural causes and therefore must be attributed to the direct intervention of God.

Prayers are often made on behalf of people whose health is severely compromised. Many studies have been designed to evaluate whether or not such prayers result in measurable improvement in health. One such type of study focuses on the efficacy of “intercessory” or “distant” prayer, which involves people trying to heal others through prayers offered without the intended benefactors knowing it. Patients do not know whether anyone is praying on their behalf, so they are not subject to placebo effects in which belief in the efficacy of prayer influences the outcome of the experiment.

Most of these studies report no measurable difference in the improvement of the health of people who have been prayed for, versus those who have not been prayed for (Masters et al. 2006). Reports of studies indicating improvement in health through prayer are counterbalanced by reports that the health of people who had been prayed for actually worsened (Byrd 1998; Benson 2006)! In any event, the validity of such studies is doomed from the start because it can also be argued that God the Omnipotent responds to all prayer requests: When a request is granted, the answer is “Yes”; when it is not granted, God says “No” to the petitioner, i.e., denies the request.

Religious believers often cite fulfillment of biblical and Qur’anic prophecy as evidence for the validity of their scriptures. The sources of prophecy are people who are believed to have received revelations from God and subsequently recorded them in relevant writings. A well-known example of predictive prophecy is Isaiah 7:14, written between 701 and 681 bce and said to have accurately foreshadowed the virgin birth of Jesus. In Isaiah 7:14, the prophet Isaiah addresses the “house of David,” meaning the family and descendants of King David, and speaks of a virgin being pregnant with a child and giving birth to the child. Isaiah says this in the context of it being a sign from God. He also says that the child would be referred to as “Immanuel,” which means, “God with us.”

These believers assert that the New Testament books of Matthew and Luke offer evidence of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prediction. Matthew and Luke do record details involving the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–38), who was born about 700 years after the time of Isaiah, saying that he was born of the Virgin Mary and is the son of God; because he is the son of God, Jesus literally can be referred to as “God with us.” These citations, however, beg the question of whether Matthew and Luke’s assertions about a virgin birth are themselves valid.

Absent reliable evidence, religious beliefs are faith-based beliefs: firm belief in something for which evidence is not required. The challenge of persuading people to give up beliefs they hold dear when solid evidence clearly indicates that they should is far more difficult than the problem of presenting this evidence clearly and understandably. No one is immune from at least some reluctance to be wrong, to change one’s mind, to admit mistakes, and accept unwelcome findings. This reluctance is, naturally enough, all the more poignant when the stakes are possible loss of ultimate meaning or even eternal damnation. Thus, the subject should be approached with great care and sensitivity, understanding, and patience.

Notes

1. The Holy Bible, King James Version. New York: Oxford Edition: 1769.

2. The Noble Qur’an. Translated by Khan, M.M., and M.T. Al-Hilali. London: Dar-us-Salam Publications: 1999.

References

Benson, H. 2006. Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. American Heart Journal 151(4): 934–42.

Byrd, R.C. 1998. Positive therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer in a coronary care unit population. Southern Medical Journal 81: 826–29.

Hawking, S. 1988. A Brief History of Time. Toronto: Bantam.

Masters, K., J. Spielmans, and J. Goodson. 2006. Are there demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer? A meta-analytic review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine 32(1): 21–26.

Wynn, C.M., and A.W. Wiggins. 2001. Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends and Pseudoscience Begins. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry

Martin Gardner was born one hundred years ago, on October 21, 1914. To commemorate the centennial of the birth of one of the greatest figures in modern scientific skepticism, we have decided to republish a selection of his “Notes of a Psi-Watcher” and “Notes of a Fringe-Watcher” columns from the Skeptical Inquirer on our website.

The articles selected were chosen to not only highlight the wide range of topics that came under the scrutiny of Martin’s wit and curiosity but also to showcase the varying writing styles Martin used to combat pseudoscience. On one hand, he could cut like a surgeon and be dry and acerbic, while on the other he could be lithe and deft at turning a humorous phrase.

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Lessons of a Landmark PK Hoax

“Lessons of a Landmark PK Hoax” was a supportive commentary on James Randi’s elaborate Project Alpha, which Randi reported on in an article in the same issue. Randi had arranged for two young conjurors to visit the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research at Washington University, St. Louis. After two years of experiments with them, the head of the lab, physicist Peter Phillips, became convinced that the two teenage magicians, Steven Shaw and Mark Edwards, could bend metal objects, cause light streaks on film, turn a motor under a glass dome, make fuses blow, and similar wonders, all with the power of their minds. Randi’s intention was to demonstrate that parapsychology-minded scientists would resist accepting expert conjuring assistance in designing proper controls and therefore be easily fooled by magic tricks. When revealed as a hoax, the revelations garnered worldwide media coverage and greatly embarrassed the lab. It closed in 1985. In 1986 Randi was given a MacArthur Foundation award to continue his work in debunking fraudulent claims.

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The False Memory Syndrome

In the late 1980s a therapeutic fad began to emerge wherein therapists began putting people under hypnosis or into a relaxed, trancelike state, to coax out repressed childhood memories of sexual traumas. In many instances families were torn apart as patients recalled vivid memories of abuse at the hands of parents, grandparents, and other various loved ones. Other patients recalled abuse by day care staff, satanic cults, or even extraterrestrials.

In this column Martin writes, “That traumas experienced as a child can be totally forgotten for decades is the great mental health myth of our time—a myth that is not only devastating innocent families but doing enormous damage to psychiatry,” and chronicles the beginnings of the “False Memory Syndrome.”

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Water With Memory? The Dilution Affair

Can water remember? This question was at the heart of a major scientific debate launched by Nature Magazine when it published a paper by French biochemist Jacques Benveniste titled:

“Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE.”

As Gardner explains in his article: “What were these claims? In essence the French researchers were convinced that, after all the molecules of a certain antibody were removed from distilled water, the water somehow ‘remembered’ the antibody's chemical properties. Although such a claim violates fundamental laws of physics, it lies at the very heart of homeopathy…”

The results were so unbelievable that Nature itself published an editorial called “When to believe the unbelievable” and cautioned that “An article in this week’s issue describes observations for which there is no present physical basis. There are good and particular reasons why prudent people should, for the time being, suspend judgment.” And as a precondition of publication Benveniste had to allow a team of investigators into his lab to witness a replication of his experiments. The team included the editor of Nature, John Maddox, Walter Stewart, an organic chemist at the National Institutes of Health, and James Randi.

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The Great Stone Face and Other Nonmysteries

Oh, who doesn’t love a good case of pareidolia? Whether it is the Virgin Mary spotted on a turtle shell, or the face of Jesus on a tortilla shell, (banana, tree stump, etc.) we love to, indeed we are programmed to, look for patterns and familiar shapes in random stimuli or chaotic data. In this article, “The Great Stone Face and Other Nonmysteries,” Martin takes on tour of various cases of pareidolia with particular emphasis on the alleged “Face on Mars” that has nearly become a popular culture icon. So read this article, and then go outside and take a look up at the clouds. Have yourself a little fun and try and see who might be looking down at you.

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Facilitated Communication: A Cruel Farce

Martin says it best: “My topic is a much more pervasive, more cruel myth—the belief that hiding inside the head of every child with autism, no matter how severe, is a normal child whose intelligent thoughts can emerge through a curious technique called facilitated communication (FC).”

An autistic child is seated at a typewriter or computer keyboard, accompanied by a “facilitator.” The child is asked a question and the facilitator holds the child’s hand or arm while the child types. As Martin states, “A wondrous miracle now seems to take place. Although the child has been thought to be mentally retarded, unable to read, write, or speak coherently, he types out lucid, sophisticated messages that could only come from a normal, intelligent child.”

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A Mind at Play: An Interview with Martin Gardner
Kendrick Frazier

At eighty-three, Martin Gardner reigns supreme as the leading light of the modern skeptical movement. More than four and a half decades ago, in 1952, he wrote the first classic book on modern pseudoscientists and their views, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, and today it remains in print and widely available as a Dover paperback and is as relevant as ever. It has influenced and inspired generations of scientists, scholars, and nonscientists. He followed that up in 1981 with Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus. In an essay in the New York Review of Books entitled “Quack Detector,” Stephen Jay Gould welcomed the book and said Martin Gardner “has become a priceless national resource,” a writer “who can combine wit, penetrating analysis, sharp prose, and sweet reason into an expansive view that expunges nonsense without stifling innovation, and that presents the excitement and humanity of science in a positive way.”

Skeptical Inquirer editor, Kendrick Frazier interviewed Martin for the 1998 feature.

Jean Dommanget died on October 1, 2014 at the age of 90. He was an astronomer and head of the Département “Astrométrie et Dynamique des corps célestes” at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. He was an internationally acknowledged specialist in the domain of double stars. Jean Dommanget joined the Comité PARA in 1960. He immediately took a significant part in its activities, in particular when the “Signal du Sourcier (Prof. Yves Rocard)” and “l’effet Mars (Michel Gauquelin)” were investigated by the committee. Jean Dommanget had been President of the Comité PARA from 1980 to 2007. He took care from then until 2009 of the drafting of the “Nouvelles Brèves”, an annual publication of the committee. It was at his initiative that a book entitled “La Science face au défi du paranormal” has been edited to celebrate the 50^th birthday of the committee. In this book, of which he wrote several chapters, are in particular pointed out the history of the committee, the experiments it realized and the beliefs in paranormal to which it is interested. He gave plenty of lectures about astrology and others subjects and participated in several TV shows battling against supporters of the paranormal. He made frequent interventions in the media to denounce the false claims of the paranormal.

Jean Dommanget resigned the presidency at the end of 2007 and became Vice President for 3 years. After this term he ceased his activities within the committee to devote himself to the concretization of research on the orbits of double stars undertaken fifty years earlier at the Observatory.

Jean Dommanget was an affable, competent, enterprising and firm man who devoted himself for more than thirty years to defend reason and to allow the Comité PARA to achieve its mission. We will not forget him.

In March of this year, the UK charity Good Thinking was contacted by Mark Tilbrook. Mark is a skeptical activist who had been planning to hand out leaflets to people on their way to attend a range of psychic shows.

Both during and after the events, Mark had to deal with the threat of undue legal action and verbal/physical intimidation. In response, Good Thinking has organized Psychic Awareness Month.

Throughout the month of October, Good Thinking will be supporting Mark and working with skeptical groups around the country to have Mark’s leaflet handed out at psychic shows as he intended—including shows by Sally Morgan, Colin Fry, and Derek Acorah. The right to offer fair criticism and comment is a hard-fought freedom, and one they feel should be exercised.

For this interview, I spoke to Michael Marshall.

Michael Marshall: The Good Thinking Society is a charity that was set up by Simon Singh, who I’m sure your listeners are very familiar with. I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I work full‑time for this charity, seeing what we can do in the skeptical world.

Really, one of the first things that came to us when I joined the Good Thinking Society back in March was there was a chap called Mark Tilbrook who had created this leaflet that was very reasonably, very calmly explaining the kinds of things that some people could do if they wanted to appear psychic.

His idea was to go along to psychic shows and to just very politely hand those to the audience. Really, not to try and force his views on them but just to say, “This psychic is going to tell you that they’re talking to the dead. Here’s the other view—which says that some people who say they’re talking to the dead may be using these techniques. If you spot some of these techniques, maybe you’ll have cause to question, but it’s best to just have all the information.”

That was his plan—he went to Sally Morgan’s show first in Manchester, because he’s from Manchester and Sally Morgan is the biggest psychic in the UK and she does far, far more shows than anyone else.

When he was there, Sally Morgan’s husband, who’s her manager, came out and got pretty aggressive with him. He was saying some quite strong, quite stern stuff. He was making physical threats. He was even getting as close to be almost pushing him around, and Mark was quite intimidated by this.

But he felt that, just because he was there, very politely asking questions, that he had a right to free speech. His right to free speech shouldn’t be attempted to be silenced by using those kinds of tactics, he decided to go to more shows.

In fact, he went to one in London and had, again, an even more intimidating experience. He came to us with this idea that he’d been having, and we’d been chatting to him about how best to do that in a way that, first of all, he was even personally safe—because he was genuinely worried that he’d be hurt.

The threat of violence, saying that, “One day you’ll be lifted and you’ll just disappear, and you’re going to be knocked out, and thrown under a train,” and all sorts of things have been said to him in the times that he’s been leafleting. That was back in March, and we were about to really help Mark tell his story back then, and that’s when the legal letters arrived from Sally’s lawyers.

They were saying that she was about to start suing him for libel, even though, as far as we could tell, the leaflets seemed very reasonable. They didn’t mention Sally by name. It wasn’t making any allegations about anyone, how it was libelous was curious to us, and to the lawyers that we had helping us out.

But they were also saying that he was harassing Sally by turning up to three of her shows in the space of a month, that he’d caused untold emotional distress to her and her family. Of course, we knew that he hadn’t spoken to her, and the only times he spoke to her family is when her family came out to threaten him.

We’ve helped him steer through that legally choppy waters, and it really led us to a point where, in October, we felt the way that Mark has had to very determinedly and very admirably defend his free speech over the last six months, is something that’s concerning.

You shouldn’t be able to use tactics, as far as we could see, that would have the effect of silencing someone who’s criticizing you. Mark’s determination through all of this, his willingness to stand by his beliefs and stand by the point he was making, we feel quite fairly, has been really admirable.

We thought the best thing would be to show that there is a network of skeptical communities out there; there are many people who feel very strongly about free speech and the right to offer fair comment, so that we’d have Mark’s leaflets handed out at every single psychic show we could get to, from the biggest psychics in the country, all throughout October.

We’re aiming for about 20‑30 shows that we should have lined up. I think we’ve already done seven by this point. This is what our Psychic Awareness Week is. Really, what we’re trying to do is make audiences aware of the things that some people could do if they wanted to appear psychic, and really nothing more than that.

If it shows the biggest psychics out there that there is this vibrant and active skeptical community, who are watching and really assessing as to whether something appears to be psychic or whether there’s something else going on there, then, that’s also very useful. But really, I think this is a free speech issue. You can’t use legal means to silence someone who’s just saying stuff you don’t like.

Kylie Sturgess: What’s been the response to the month? Are people signing on to help hand out flyers?

Michael: Yeah, the response has been very positive, really! Before we started the month, we were very careful that the event that we wanted to find people for, we found people first. Because what I didn’t want this to be is a picket, because that’s the last thing that we’d want.

This isn’t about having fifty skeptics turning up, standing outside of a psychic show with placards. This isn’t the kind of thing that you see outside of abortion clinics, that kind of thing. The idea really was for just two or three people. Just enough to hand out leaflets to the audience, and just very, very politely, very genuinely, put our side of that controversy across.

We already have everyone that we want for the majority of our shows, and if not we’re now really starting to fill those, we’re not really looking for people to pile in and make it something of a free‑for‑all.

But the response in terms of the support and sharing Mark’s story and sharing words of support has been really encouraging, because over the last six months even I personally, peripherally involved in helping Mark, have had some worrying times.

I thought, “This might not go the way of free speech here. This seems like it could go quite badly, just for standing up for what you believe.” For Mark himself, I think the bravery and the determination he’s shown when he probably has had chances to capitulate and back down and apologize and pay the damages that Sally was demanding, and he stood up against that.

I think that the messages of support he’s been getting really are making him see that that was the right decision, and it’s really helping him through what’s been a difficult six months.

The response we’ve had from people attending the shows has actually been the most interesting, because it would be very easy to think that we’re lecturing people and we’re treating them as too daft to be able to make up their own minds, and that’s not what we’re doing in the slightest.

The people who have been going to the shows have been really interested, because our leaflet is saying, “Here are some ways of spotting a genuine psychic. If someone is genuinely psychic, here are some things that they probably wouldn’t do, and if someone is doing these things maybe you need to ask questions about whether they’re genuine.”

There are a lot of people who just haven’t had access to that information. They’re asking us about the stuff that’s on the leaflets. They’re talking about it, they’re taking it, they’re really spending time reading it.

We’ve even had people, after the show, emailing us to say, “Your leaflet was really useful, because I could see these questions I haven’t thought of and when I saw the show through the lens of your questions, I had my own doubts, and I may not have had those doubts.”

The responses we have had from audiences have been really interesting, and everyone who’s come along to the audiences who have taken our leaflets, they’ve been very nice. We’ve had nice conversations. There are some people who don’t want to read our leaflets, and they’ve given it back to us, and that’s all ended very politely, too.

It is really just all about polite, reasonable engagement with people who we don’t necessarily agree with, or haven’t quite made up their minds, just to give them all access to the opportunity to see what information is out there, really.

Kylie: That sounds like good news all round really, doesn’t it?

Michael: I think so! Like I said, the response has been really, I’d say overwhelmingly positive, from audiences, from fellow skeptics, from skeptics in the pub groups in the UK who’ve really helped us put this together, as well.

I can’t be all round the country! Mark is spending a lot of time traveling this country, but he can’t be everywhere. But there are grass‑roots skeptical groups really interested in taking part in this and helping be there for the Colin Fry show here and the Derek Acorah show over there and the Sally Morgan show here and there, too.

The fact that we are an active, consistent network is a really encouraging sign from this I think.

Kylie: Of course, there’s many different ways that skeptics can question psychic claimants. You mentioned one method that people have tried, which is picketing. What are some important things that you think people should keep in mind?

Michael: I think first of all, the most important thing to bear in mind is that the people attending these shows want to be there.

They’re either there, because they think it’s a bit of fun—and if they go in there thinking it’s a bit of fun, fine. I’ve been to psychic shows for entertainment purposes.

I frequently go to psychic shows, and I’m very happy that I make the decision to go, and if there are people like that, that’s absolutely fine.

There are other people who are going there, because they’re vulnerable. They may have lost someone, they may be grieving, they may be upset. If you go to a psychic show—and I’m sure you’ve been, yourself—you do really see people. This isn’t just entertainment to a lot of people. They really do get very upset. These are messages from their loved ones, and if they’re not true, that’s really problematic for me.

But I think the main thing to bear in mind as a skeptic who’s going to do something like this is, be polite to the audience. Be considerate and respectful to the audience.

They’re not idiots. They’re not gullible. They’re not fools who’re being duped and conned. They’re human beings, and they’re there for a reason, and I think you have to really bear the plethora of their reasons and the range of their reasons in mind, and treat them with the respect that you would want to get back.

The other thing to bear in mind is, while we can question whether there are people who are talking to the dead, we can highlight the methods that could be used to appear to be talking to the dead, we can’t know what somebody’s thinking. We aren’t psychic.

No one’s psychic, going around saying that this person’s a fraud or this person’s a con man or a cheat, that’s too far, because you don’t know that they don’t believe what they’re doing.

It’s very, very easy and very, very possible for someone to be accidentally applying techniques like cold reading that they don’t even realize they’ve learnt. It’s very possible for people to just be wrong, to be self‑deluded, to be mistaken, to be getting lucky on some stuff.

Kylie: There have been some famous skeptics [Ray Hyman] who even started off that way, thinking that what they had was a genuine power and then they started testing themselves and realized that there was an alternative explanation.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely, and I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who purport to have psychic abilities who really do believe it.

In fact, I’ve interviewed many people like that on my podcast, Be Reasonable—you do have to bear in mind that you can never know what the person who says they’re psychic’s thinking. Also, in a way, that’s not important. What is important is spreading the information that’s out there.

Whether the psychic really believes it, whether they’re deluded, whether they’re a fraud, really that’s a secondary point. It’s not a point that you can really get into ‑ from a legal standpoint, but also, from a moral and ethical standpoint.

Unless you can prove somebody knew they’re cheating, you can’t show that they’re a cheat. You can only show that they’re wrong. I think highlighting that they’re wrong is often enough. I think that’s something to be really careful, and it’s an important distinction to make as skeptic, that we don’t go wading in there, making accusations that we can’t back up, because we’re all about evidence.

Kylie: What resources are on offer?

Michael: The leaflet is up on our website. If you go to goodthinkingsociety.org you can find the leaflet that we prepared there. We’ve also got the original leaflet that Mark was handing out, back in April.

We’ve just taken that and put our branding on it so that it’s very clear that this is now a Good Thinking initiative—as much as anything, to give Mark the shoulder and the umbrella of a charity organization who’s got the resources to help make this happen, as anything else. There’s nothing wrong with Mark’s leaflet, but we just feel ours is a little nicer to hand out, now, we’ve had a designer take a look at it.

That leaflet’s all there, and there’s more information about what happened to Mark, and there’ll be more information on that hopefully coming out soon, too.

Kylie: How can people help and support this campaign?

Michael: I think spreading information is the biggest thing, and spreading it in the right sense, too.

I think if you want to take the leaflet to psychic shows? That’s great, but it’s not enough to just take the leaflet and hand it out and thrust it out.

It has to come with the right pitch, the right way it’s presented, that as much as anything this is about demonstrating to audiences of psychic show that skeptics aren’t the big, nasty, evil people who are just naysayers and doubting and all that kind of stuff.

Kylie: Or just plain rude. That’s one of the things I get annoyed about when people protest, if they’re shoving leaflets in people’s faces in any circumstance—you’ve got to be considerate.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the biggest way that people can help, is if they want to be involved, to do it with the spirit of what we’re doing, which is that we really want to demonstrate that we are just here to ask questions of stuff.

We’re not here to make personal pronouncements on people who believe in things or who buy tickets to things. This is just about access to information, and that should be done in the most polite and gentle and respectful way possible, I think.

Resources and more information about Psychic Awareness Month is available at http://goodthinkingsociety.org/projects/psychic-awareness-month/

The modern practice of witch hunting in India includes violence and beliefs that have led to the torture and murder of alleged witches. State governments and rationalist groups are trying to address the problem but face big obstacles.

When Americans think of burning witches, they often consider it a metaphor or historical event from hundreds of years ago. Yet in many parts of the world, elderly widows live in fear of being killed as “witches” when a neighbor becomes ill or livestock die unexpectedly. India represents a modern-day paradox. On the one hand, it is the largest democracy in the world and has a rapidly growing economy. On the other, most of the population remains poor, and Indians, both educated and not, often turn to superstition to cure illness, find love, and rationalize bad events. This modern superstition has deadly consequences reminiscent of the witchcraft craze in America. In India, a person accused of being a “dayan” or witch can be tortured, raped, hacked to death, or burned alive. Victims are often single older women, usually widows, but they can also be males or children.

A 2002 Skeptical Briefs report (Vijayam 2002) detailed a team of medical doctors, magicians, and social workers who conducted educational outreach in rural Indian villages to prevent violence spawned by belief in witchcraft. Despite such efforts, superstitious belief in witchcraft continues to plague parts of India, resulting in injury or death. The Indian government’s most recent data shows that 119 people were killed with witchcraft being the “motivation” in 2012. According to the Times of India, a National Crime Records Bureau report revealed that more than 1,700 women were murdered for witchcraft between 1991 and 2010. The numbers are undoubtedly actually higher, as many cases go unreported or authorities refuse to register the cases.

Allegations of witchcraft that result in communal murder have long been a part of rural India’s history. Scholar Ajay Skaria, for instance, explored the torture and murder of women who were accused of being witches in British India. This practice has continued, though with irregularity, into the present. A 2013 Al Jazeera documentary explored the lives of women who were accused of practicing witchcraft. For those who are lucky enough to live after the accusations, they often are forced to move to a new area without resources to start their lives over. Many of the accusations have roots in property disputes, local politics, and disease, which then develop into allegations of witchcraft and then to violence. In recent years, there has been a concentrated effort to help women who fled their villages because of persecution. But according to Al Jazeera, there are only three Indian states that have legislation to address accusations of witchcraft.

Dimbeswari Bhattarai, a witch doctor, or ojha, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Uttarkuchi village in India’s northeastern state of Assam, September 7, 2006. Police say that around 300 people have been killed in the state in the past five years for allegedly practicing witchcraft.

One state government that passed legislation is Jharkhand, a state in Eastern India that is ranked twenty-five out of twenty-eight in literacy. The state is famous for an indigenous religion called Sarna, derived from oral tradition, which does not treat women equally to men. Compounded with women being second-class citizens, single women, especially widows, are the targets of witchcraft accusations. In 2001, the Jharkhand government passed the Dayan Pratha (Prevention of Witch Practices) Act to protect women from inhumane treatment and give victims legal recourse to abuse. Some people have described witch hunting as a “common” phenomenon in the state, and the law has not eliminated the practice.

In the last two years, there have been several notable murders involving allegations of witchcraft. In 2012, four people were murdered in about a month’s span in Jharkhand. If the suspects are convicted of breaking the Dayan Pratha law, they will face a longer prison sentence than if they just committed murder. Bimla Pradhan, Jharkhand’s social welfare minister, said the government has funded an awareness campaign to end the superstition that “has led to atrocities against women” (“Withcraft Claims Lives” 2012). Nevertheless, in November 2013, a mother and daughter in Jharkhand were pulled out of their home by villagers who took them to a nearby forest and slit their throats. After the mother’s husband died years before, rumors began that the women were witches, and villagers blamed the women for several children becoming ill. Regarding the murders, police said: “All I can say is the women seem to have been killed for witchcraft” (Mishra 2013).

Rajasthan is a unique state in India because it is not only the largest but also shares a border with Pakistan. In the last few years, the government passed the Rajasthan Women (Prevention and Protection from Atrocities) Bill that makes it illegal to call a woman a “dayan” or accuse a woman of performing witchcraft that leads to harm. A guilty person can be sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison. If a woman is driven to commit suicide because of witchcraft accusations, the accuser can receive a fine and ten years in prison. The law came in response to decades of assaults, including branding the faces of women accused of witchcraft. According to The New York Times, “The mixing of old superstitions with modern material desires has proved deadly for these women, as many brandings are now done to disinherit them from family property” (Sharma 2012).

Witchcraft and murder is not isolated to these regions of India. A group of villagers in rural Odisha, a state on the East Coast, assaulted and forced three people, including two women, to walk naked through the village. In November 2013, a boy was killed in the same state and police arrested two people accused of the murder for killing him “for the purpose of human sacrifice” (“Boy Killed for Witchcraft” 2013). In 2005, Chhattisgarh, a state in central India, passed the Witchcraft Atrocities Prevention Act to stop the violence and murder. Most recently, in rural Chhattisgarh, two women in their fifties were killed by three boys. According to police, the father of one boy was ill and the other two boys’ fathers were dead. Believing the women were to blame, they “questioned those women about their involvement in witchcraft practices, but they refused to speak. This infuriated the boys who first strangled them and later slit their throats” (Drolia 2013). In 2011, a mother and daughter were accused of being witches in Assam, but police later discovered the accusations were used as a pretext for their rape. According to the Assam government, between 2006 to 2012 there were 105 “witch-hunting” cases with the government planning legislation to curb the violence (Pandey 2013).

With communal violence, a witness to the abuse or murder does not stop the act from taking place. In many instances, groups of villagers are involved in attacking “witches.” Neither the laws nor the presence of journalists have been able to prevent witch hunting. In 2008, a woman was hired by a man to use magic to improve his ill wife’s health. When his wife’s condition worsened he began beating the woman, and five other locals joined in the abuse. She was tied to a tree, and she was slapped repeatedly and had her hair cut as a journalist filmed the events. The cameraperson decided not to attempt to stop the act and filmed it before calling police.

Women are not the only victims in witch hunts. In July 2012, an elderly man and his wife were forced to ingest human urine and excrement in Jharkhand. The two were accused of practicing witchcraft, which supposedly resulted in the death of local livestock. One month later in another village in the state, a man was pulled from his house and buried alive for allegedly practicing witchcraft. In 2013, an elderly man was forced to eat human excrement in Meghalaya, a state in northern India. He was accused of practicing witchcraft when four girls became sick and started having dreams about snakes. The villagers gathered together and decided on his punishment. The assistant village chief defended the action, saying after the event the girls’ health improved.

There is no easy solution to stopping these witch hunts. Groups from all walks of life have attempted to stop the violence. A group of self-proclaimed witches planned to protect women by boarding a boat in Mumbai (Bombay) to send “positive energy” on October 31, 2013. However, Indian rationalists and women’s rights activists have pushed for more concrete efforts. Though they have sought stricter laws to punish violence stemming from witchcraft allegations, several groups want to change perceptions toward women and supernatural belief. Indeed, legislation is not a cure for superstition; improving critical thinking is the key.

Changing attitudes includes exposing fraud and teaching critical thinking about superstition, which sometimes runs counter to long-held indigenous beliefs. Outside intervention in rural communities is frowned upon, and rationalists face difficultly in winning support from people with heavily ingrained beliefs. The Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK) has been fighting for voting rights, education, and ending bonded labor throughout India. Recently, it has taken an interest in stopping witch hunts through literacy programs in which women directly voiced their complaints to judges and state officials in attendance. The Indian Rationalist Association, which has more than 100,000 members, engages in rural outreach that teaches critical thinking and exposes superstition. While it is difficult or impossible to rid the world of magical thinking and superstition, there are many underfunded groups trying to end modern witch hunts that continue to plague remote parts of India.

References

A curse in the family: Can survivors of witch hunts in India change traditional beliefs to stop the brutal practice? 2013. Al Jazeera (March 6). Online at http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2013/01/2013121101834161718.html.

Anti-superstition drive in Tripura soon. 2013. Times of India (November 7). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-11-07/guwahati/43772857_1_jitendra-choudhury-tripura-agartala.

Black magic and witchcraft has killed 1,791 women. 2012. Times of India (December 24). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-12-24/raipur/35992079_1_black-magic-witchcraft-health-awareness.

Boy killed for witchcraft in Odish. 2013. Zee News (November 25). Online at http://zeenews.india.com/news/odisha/boy-killed-for-witchcraft-in-odisha_892397.html.

Crime in India 2012 Statistics. 2012. National Crime Records Bureau. Online at http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-CII2012/Statistics2012.pdf.

Drolia, Rashmi. 2013. Two branded witches, lynched to death. Times of India (August 15). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-15/raipur/41413057_1_three-youths-witchcraft-dr-dinesh-mishra.

Dutta, Amrita Nayak. 2013. Wiccan witches in Mumbai set to cast spell for women’s safety on October 31. DNA (October 25). Online at http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-wiccan-witches-in-mumbai-set-to-cast-spell-for-women-s-safety-on-october-31-1908429.

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Pandey, Alok. 2013. In Assam, a rising trend of murders on allegations of witchcraft. All India (September 4). Online at http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/in-assam-a-rising-trend-of-murders-on-allegations-of-witchcraft-414016.

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Skaria, Ajay. 1997. Women, witchcraft and gratuitous violence in colonial western India. Past & Present 155 (May): 109–141.

Special clause in state bill against defaming women. 2013. Times of India (January 15). Online at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-15/jaipur/36352591_1_dayan-witch-rajasthan-women.

Vijayam, G. 2002. Investigating witchcraft and sorcery in Rangareddi District, India. Skeptical Briefs 12(2) (June). Online at http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/investigating_witchcraft_and_sorcery_in_rangareddi_district_india/.

Witchcraft claims lives of four women in Jharkhand. 2012. Times of India (May 12). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-12/india/31679439_1_witchcraft-jhibi-oraon-west-singhbhum.

Witchcraft practitioner forced to eat excreta. 2013. Times of India (July 23). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-23/guwahati/40748330_1_excreta-village-council-four-girls.

Witchcraft: 3 arrested. 2013. Times of India (February 13). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-13/bhubaneswar/37078284_1_villagers-witchcraft-sundargarh.

Woman burnt alive for allegedly practising witchcraft. 2012. Times of India (February 10). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-10/mad-mad-world/31045501_1witchcraft-woman-massive-hunt.

Woman suspected of witchcraft hacked to death in Vizianagram. 2012. TNN (July 21). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-07-21/hyderabad/32775984_1_witchcraft-black-magic-vizianagram.

Witchcraft claims lives of four women in Jharkhand. 2012. Times of India (May 12). Online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-12/india/31679439_1_witchcraft-jhibi-oraon-west-singhbhum.

James Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Formerly a professional stage magician, he began to use his considerable experience in illusions and deceptions when studying the techniques, strategies, and tricks used by charlatans who pretend to have real supernatural powers.

An eighty-six year old secular humanist, atheist, and skeptic, James Randi has investigated paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims for much of his career, including on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

In 2012, documentary filmmakers Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom began work on An Honest Liar, a profile of the life of “The Amazing” Randi, as he embarks on a series of public crusades to expose America’s beloved psychics, mentalists, preachers, and faith healers with religious fervor. Along the way, the film shows how easily our perceptions can be fooled by magicians and con artists—and even documentaries.

The film is touring Australia with Think Inc. in December, with James Randi doing a Q&A. Details are available at http://thinkinc.org.au/JamesRandi.

Kylie Sturgess: You’ve led a very fascinating life—one that has resulted in a new documentary, called An Honest Liar. For those unfamiliar with your career, when did you first start as a magician?

James Randi: I started as a liar as a very, very tiny child, I can tell you that! It’s hard to say...it’s hard to say. I was one of those child prodigy things, and I didn’t go to much of what we call in this country, “grade school,” the lower grades of school, because I was falling asleep all the time.

I was ahead of the class, and there’s no great distinction. It’s just that the educational system in Toronto, Canada—where I was born and almost raised—didn’t have any limitations on whether or not I really had to go to school, because they figured I was getting a better education going to the museums and libraries that I inhabited as a small child.

I have a peculiar character. I’m different from most folks, and I rather treasure that fact, as well. Being a skeptic yourself, I guess you’re looked upon that way by your peers as well?

Kylie Sturgess: Well, we get all sorts of fascinating people in skepticism! What led you to start an entire foundation for skeptics?

James Randi: I am a magician, you see, that’s my profession. I have made my living up until a few years ago as a magician and did very well at it and got a bit of a reputation. I traveled to Australia even, if you can imagine that! I found that I was being asked questions by my audiences after a show; I would hope they would be more or less impressed with what I did as an entertainer! But they would come to me with questions like, “This gentleman was on television the other day, and he did this, that, and the other thing. But he said that that it was real, what he did.”

It showed me that people were actually falling for fakers out there; people who were lying to them and telling them that they had supernatural powers. They were giving a lot of money to these people. That does happen of course—as you know, all over the world people were giving lots of money to people who’d say that they have psychic or magical or prophetic or whatever powers. They can tell the future, or they can heal the sick by just looking at them or touching them, or whatever.

I found that there was a major racket going on there, a swindle. I determined that when I retired—and I did retire at the age of sixty—I decided that it would be time for me to go into the business of … not debunking; I don’t go do it as a debunker because I don’t like that term. If I were a debunker that would mean that I’d go into an investigation, that I would be putting it into an investigation with the idea “this is not true and I’m going to prove that it’s not true.”

I can’t always prove that it’s not true, but I challenge them and offer a $1 million prize as well, to any of them who can prove that they are the real thing. You’d be surprised though. I’m looking out of my window here in Plantation, Florida, in the USA, and the street is right out there. I don’t see any line up of people who are trying to collect the $1 million prize.

Wouldn’t you think that’s strange, because there are thousands of them all across the world who say they have these mystical powers. Where are they? They should be lined up outside with a number in their hand, like a lottery of some kind, just waiting to get in and show me what they’ve got! But there’s no lineup outside!

Kylie Sturgess: What have been some highlights of your career?

James Randi: Every day! My life is all highlights, I think!

One of the most recent delights is the film, An Honest Liar, which you mentioned that is to be shown in Australia along with my appearances. It’s being met with critical and popular acclaim all across the world. I am very, very pleased to know that and to witness it, and have people come to me saying, “Maybe it has changed my mind.” That’s always a good point when you see somebody saying, “Maybe I have changed my mind.”

It doesn’t happen every time, not by any means. But there are enough people out there who’d say that what I’ve shown them has changed their mind in some way or made them think a little more about some aspect of their lives and how they run it. Maybe it saves them a lot of money in the long run, too.

Kylie Sturgess: That’s always a good thing! What was your response when you were first approached by the producers, Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein, to do the documentary?

James Randi: First of all, I said I might be interested. I’d have to know more. They came to visit me here in Plantation, Florida. They sat down and they made a very good case for their bona fides. After all, both had produced films that were very highly successful documentary films.

When I saw the product that they had turned out, I thought to myself, “These are the guys. These are the guys that I think I can trust with my life story,” and I said, “So, let’s go.” That was like three years ago, and we’ve done very well.

Kylie Sturgess: It’s a fascinating movie with lots of footage from the past. Were you surprised even by your own history and what was uncovered for the film?

James Randi: In some cases yes, but for a long time now I’ve had a small collection of some stuff that was made. There were some 8mm black and white films made of me when I was only eighteen years of age, doing silly things in the streets of Toronto as a magician. Oh yes, that film comes back to haunt you eventually!

As a matter of fact, with a thing like YouTube, YouTube is in some cases pretty scary, because I don’t think I really do anything in my life that it doesn’t appear on YouTube within twenty minutes and circulated around the world.

If you go to my site, that’s the James Randi Educational Foundation site on YouTube, you’ll find all kinds of wonderful old films that I could hardly believe that somebody still had. My history is there. If you live long enough, your history will be there too, Kylie!

Kylie Sturgess: Me and my cat on YouTube! I’m not sure if that’s as historically important as you performing on fantastic TV shows and helping people understand what’s going on in the world of skepticism. It’s a bit different…!

The documentary delves into your personal life, and of course there’s many challenges that anyone would face if their own personal life was investigated. Did it make it challenging to go on with the documentary at times?

James Randi: Yeah, there was a moment there when the security of my partner Devi (José Alvarez) was in some question or such, and you’ll see a confrontation there with the producers of the film. But that didn’t last more than a day.

I had to just sleep on it, and the next day I called him and said, “Go right ahead, warts and all.” You know the expression, “warts and all?” Oliver Cromwell, I believe, was supposed to have said that. I didn’t know. I’m not that old!

Kylie Sturgess: Finally, there’s been lots of changes and developments and conflict in atheism and skepticism over the years. What do you hope for the future of organized skepticism?

James Randi: I would hope that it’s going to continue to go the way that it has. The movement is very active within Australia, as I’m sure you know, and around the world. As I say, I’ve been to China and Japan and various other places like that. I find that it’s really active all the way around the world. The mail I get every day—I think I mentioned via Skype and other means of course—is always very encouraging.

It’s very encouraging that skepticism has found its place in the world, and it’s having a very active effect, I think, on most people. Particularly young people; it’s very important to get people—as we all know, and always have known—get them while they’re young, and if you can talk some sense into them at that point and get them scared correctly, then they will start to think skeptically. They will think rationally, and they will be happier off for it, I believe.

Kylie Sturgess: What do you think is an important overall message that you hope people will get from the documentary An Honest Liar?

James Randi: Before you accept it, if it sounds as if it’s too good ... remember that saying, “Maybe it’s too good to be true.” Think about it carefully, and look up research. You’ve got the Internet in front of you, what a wonderful weapon to have. I mean, this is something you can flourish anywhere at all that you can find an electric plug to fire up your computer with.

You can find information about things that at one time was very difficult to lay your hands on easily unless you went to a huge library and spent a lot of time clambering up and down ladders in the book stacks. Now it’s so easily available to you—but you’ve got to be careful—at the same time some of that information is not information that you should be using, or that you could use, usefully.

It can be incorrect; there are people out there who are trying to take advantage of your ignorance and your lack of perception. Be very, very careful of that; you’re living in a jungle. There are no tigers around that I know of, but Australia used to have Tasmanian Tigers, but you got rid of those somewhere along the line!

Kylie Sturgess: Do you think even skepticism and skeptics themselves should be questioned?

James Randi: Oh, yes, of course. We need to know their bona fides as well. You have to check on them... but, when you’ve got people like Dick Smith and Phil Adams as good friends in another country or around the other side of the world, you could be very, very proud that you know these folks. When I was asked if I would go to Australia to cross the country and drag that film along with me, I accepted with great enthusiasm.

Kylie Sturgess: For your own future, after this fantastic travel across Australia, what do you hope to do next?

James Randi: Oh, I’ve got an awful lot ahead of me. I’m just finishing up my eleventh book. It’s going to turn into two volumes, because it would probably be my swan song, as they say. But at the same time, I’ve got another one that’s hanging on my consciousness here that I may do, as well. But I’ll let you know.

Kylie Sturgess: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much for talking to me, James Randi.

James Randi: A great pleasure. Thank you very much, Kylie.

An Honest Liar with James Randi is touring Australia in December. December 3, Perth; December 4, Brisbane; December 5, Melbourne; and December 7, Sydney.

Visit http://thinkinc.org.au/JamesRandi for further details.

Dr. Paul Offit is a lifesaver in the literal sense. His work in vaccinology and immunology, notably the invention of the rotavirus vaccine, has saved innumerable lives. But it is for a literary endeavor, perhaps no less valuable than his scientific work, that he is the 2013 recipient of the Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking.

Offit is the author of Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine, an indispensable book that boldly takes on the torrent of fantastical claims made by the alternative medicine industry—claims that rake in $34 billion a year for its promoters and put countless lives at risk. Do You Believe in Magic? examines, remedy by remedy, claim by claim, the real, provable effects and harms of a slew of alternative treatments and does so in a way that is entertaining, deeply informative, and emotionally compelling.

“Offit writes in a lucid and flowing style, and grounds a wealth of information within forceful and vivid narratives,” writes Dr. Jerome Groopman, reviewing the book for The New Republic. “This makes his argument—that we should be guided by science—accessible to a wide audience.” Dr. Harriet Hall, herself an invaluable skeptical activist and writer, raved in the pages of the Skeptical Inquirer that Offit “is a wonderful storyteller who makes his message come alive.” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Evi Heilbrunn wrote, “All who care about their health should read this book.” We agree.

In his book, Offit is merciless in his application of scientific scrutiny to those who peddle false hope, yet never condescending to those who seek out these alternatives. Do You Believe in Magic?, as it disarms and deflates the alt-med industry’s wild claims, most importantly empowers its readers with the information and critical perspective they’ll need to make better decisions about their health and the health of their families.

As we said, Offit is a literal lifesaver. It is quite fitting, then, that the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry award the 2013 Robert P. Balles Prize to Offit for his book, which, as it educates the public about the dangers of alternative medicine, may save many, many more.

The Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking is a $2,500 award given to the author of the published work that best exemplifies healthy skepticism, logical analysis, or empirical science. Each year, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer, selects the paper, article, book, or other publication that has the greatest potential to create positive reader awareness of important scientific issues.

This prize has been established through the generosity of Robert P. Balles, an associate member of CSI and a practicing Christian, along with the Robert P. Balles Endowed Memorial Fund, a permanent endowment fund for the benefit of CSI. CSI’s established criteria for the prize includes use of the most parsimonious theory to fit data or to explain apparently preternatural phenomena.

This is the ninth year the Robert P. Balles Prize has been presented. Previous winners of this award are:

• 2012: Steven Salzberg, for his “Fighting Pseudoscience” column in Forbes; and Joe Nickell, for his book The Science of Ghosts—Searching for Spirits of the Dead

• 2011: Richard Wiseman, psychologist and entertainer, for his book Paranormality: Why We See What Isn’t There

• 2010: Steven Novella for his tre­mendous body of work, including the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, Science-Based Medicine, Neurologica, Skeptical Inquirer column “The Science of Medicine,” and his tireless travel and lecture schedule on behalf of skepticism

• 2009: Michael Specter, New Yorker staff writer and former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, for his book Denialism: How Irra­tional Thinking Hinders Scientific Pro­gress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives

• 2008: Leonard Mlodinow, physicist, author, and professor at Caltech, for his book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

• 2007: Natalie Angier, New York Times science writer and author of the book The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

• 2006: Ben Goldacre for his weekly column, “Bad Science,” published in The Guardian newspaper (U.K.)

• 2005: Shared by Andrew Skolnick, Ray Hyman, and Joe Nickell for their series of articles in the Skeptical Inquirer on “Testing ‘The Girl with X-Ray Eyes’”

Call for Nominations: There’s amazing work being produced in 2014, with much more on the way. If you’d like to vouch for the author you think deserves the 2014 Balles Prize, contact Barry Karr at bkarr@centerforinquiry.net.

The medical ethics principle of autonomy justifies letting competent adults reject lifesaving medical care for themselves because of their religious beliefs, but it does not extend to rejecting medical care for children.

We have written a lot about people who reject science-based medicine and turn to complementary/alternative medicine (CAM), but what about people who reject the very idea of medical treatment?

Faith healing is widely practiced by Christian Scientists, Pentecostalists, members of the Church of the First Born, the Followers of Christ, and myriad smaller sects. Many of these believers reject all medical treatment in favor of prayer, anointing with oils, and sometimes exorcisms. Some even deny the reality of illness. When they reject medical treatment for their children, they may be guilty of negligence and homicide. Until recently, religious shield laws have protected them from prosecution, but the laws are changing, as are public attitudes. Freedom of religion has come into conflict with the duty of society to protect children.

The right to believe does not extend to the right to endanger the lives of children. A new book by Cameron Stauth (2013), In the Name of God: The True Story of the Fight to Save Children from Faith-Healing Homicide, provides the chilling details of the struggle. He is a master storyteller; the book grabs the reader’s attention like a fictional thriller and is hard to put down. He is sympathetic to both the perpetrators and the prosecutors of religion-motivated child abuse, and he makes their personalities and their struggles come alive.

Rita Swan: From Christian Scientist to Crusader

Rita and Doug Swan were Christian Scientists who firmly believed that disease was an illusion and that “the most dangerous thing they could do was to show lack of faith in God by relying on medical treatment” (Stauth 2013). (One wonders just how strong their belief was, since when an ovarian cyst caused intractable pain, Rita had surgery to remove it.) When their baby Matthew developed a fever, they paid a Christian Science practitioner to come to their home and pray over him. She told them fever was just fear, and indeed, Matthew recovered.

At the age of sixteen months, Matthew developed a fever again and this time he didn’t improve with the practitioner’s prayers. Rita and Doug were worried but unwilling to reject the lifelong beliefs that made sense of their lives. Rather than taking Matthew to a doctor, they compromised by calling in a second Christian Science practitioner. The practitioner accused Rita of sabotaging her work with fear, and both parents believed that “defects in their own thoughts” were responsible for Matthew’s illness. Eventually they called in a Christian Science “nurse” (trained in metaphysics, not medicine). She did nothing except talk to Rita. Shortly after she left, Matthew began having convulsions. The desperate parents found an escape strategy: they would take Matthew to a doctor with the complaint of a broken bone (something the Church allowed to be treated by a doctor), and would not mention the fever. He was quickly diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and a brain abscess. They had waited too long. Despite intravenous antibiotics and surgery to relieve pressure on the brain, Matthew died.

That happened in 1977. The Swans promptly resigned from the church. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit, but the case was dismissed. Ever since then, Rita Swan has devoted her life to preventing the deaths of other children from faith healing. She founded the Matthew Project, which developed into a foundation called CHILD (Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty). She exposed case after case of child abuse that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and reported outbreaks of polio and measles in Christian Science schools and camps. She documented preventable deaths of Christian Science children from meningitis, diabetes, diphtheria, measles, kidney infection, septicemia, cancer, and appendicitis. The Church fought her at every step, but the surrounding publicity only contributed to the ongoing decline in Church membership (they don’t announce membership numbers, but the number of U.S. churches has fallen from 1,800 to 900, and by one estimate they have fewer than 50,000 members in the entire world).

As time passed, Rita Swan turned her attention to similar abuses in other religious sects. A one-woman tornado, she cut a swath across America. She headed a child advocacy organization, published a quarterly newsletter, wrote articles, became a media presence, spoke at conferences on child abuse, lobbied and testified in states where proposed bills would help or hinder her cause, and even moved to Oregon for a time during the campaign to pass effective legislation there. She was eventually instrumental in getting religious shield laws changed in several states.

An Indiana Case

One of the first deaths Rita discovered that was not related to Christian Science was in Indiana. As Stauth tells the story:

4-year-old Natali Joy Mudd was found dead by detectives in her own home, with a tumor in her eye that was almost as big as the rest of her head. At the horrific scene, a police sergeant found horizontal trails of blood along the walls of the house. The trails matched the height of the girl’s head. Natali had apparently been leaning against the wall as she dragged herself from room to room, blinded, trying to find a way to freedom, before the tumor killed her. (Stauth 2013)

Natali’s parents belonged to the Faith Assembly Church, a Pentecostal offshoot. They didn’t believe in medical care, and they were not prosecuted because Indiana had strict religious shield laws. Two years later, Natali’s five-year-old sister died from an untreated tumor in her stomach the size of a basketball.

The Faith Assembly Church was responsible for as many as 100 childhood deaths and for a maternal childbirth mortality rate that was 870 times the usual rate. The most common cause of death was infant mortality in home births; something that is now rare in Christian Science because it now supports prenatal care and hospital births attended by doctors.

Holding hands, Catherine and Herbert Schaible leave the Criminal Justice Center after a probation hearing May 6, 2013, in Philadelphia. The very religious couple, who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of their two-year-old son because they denied him medical care, were in court because their eight-month-old son Brandon died recently under similar circumstances. (Clem Murray/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT)

The Faith Tabernacle Church

The Faith Tabernacle Church is a sect that has been responsible for deaths from exorcisms in several countries. One believer strangled her five-year-old son to death and kept his body for several days hoping for his resurrection. One couple in Pennsylvania lost six children, all under the age of two, to untreated illnesses. A measles epidemic involving 491 people resulted in the deaths of six children. One couple was prosecuted for letting their sixteen-year-old daughter die of untreated diabetes, but their sentence was only two years’ probation and community service at a hospital (and the hospital didn’t want them).

The Pediatrics Article

In 1998, pediatrician Seth Asser and Rita Swan published an article in the medical journal Pediatrics titled “Child Fatalities from Religion-motivated Medical Neglect” (Asser and Swan 1998). They documented 172 faith-healing deaths over a twenty-year period, involving twenty-three different sects in thirty-four states. The true numbers were undoubtedly much higher, since these cases were collected informally rather than systematically and some deaths are never reported. In most of these cases the prognosis would have been excellent with medical care. Asser later characterized some of the cases as babies literally being tortured to death. In one case, a mother died in childbirth after the infant’s head had been at the vaginal opening for more than sixteen hours. The infant’s corpse was so foul smelling that it was inconceivable that anyone attending the delivery could have not noticed.

In 1988, the American Academy of Pediatrics had called for elimination of religious exemption laws, and in 1983 the federal government had removed religious exemptions from federal mandate; but at the time of the study there were only five states that had no religious exemptions either to civil abuse and neglect charges or criminal charges.

The Followers of Christ in Oregon

In 1997, twenty years after Matthew Swan’s death, a six-year-old boy in Oregon died from a necrotic bowel due to a hernia that could easily have been treated. The pathologist’s first reaction was “Not again!” He and his associate had compiled evidence of eighteen children who had died over the last ten years from curable diseases in a Followers of Christ congregation of 1,200 people. That worked out to twenty-six times the usual infant mortality rate. And it wasn’t just children: followers’ wives were dying in childbirth at 900 times the usual rate. One died of a type of infection that hadn’t killed anyone in America since 1910.

Nothing could be done about it, because Oregon had one of the strongest religious shield laws in the country. It protected parents from allegations of religious intolerance and gave them the right to withhold medical care for their children. In fact, the shield had just been beefed up: a new law to increase the punishment for murder by spousal or child abuse specifically prohibited prosecution for manslaughter if the person responsible was acting on religious beliefs.

A TV reporter named Mark Hass was told that there had been a cluster of preventable deaths among the Followers of Christ in Oregon City. He looked into it, but there were no criminal complaints, no police investigations, and the county DA was uninterested. When his investigation seemed to have reached a dead end, someone suggested he visit the local cemetery. He counted the graves of seventy-eight children, far more than expected for a community that size. He launched America’s first major series of TV reports on faith-healing abuse on KATU in Portland.

The Psychology of Believers

Even Rita and Doug Swan found it hard to break away from the seductive premise that the power of belief itself could heal, a create-your-own-reality idea that is echoed by Rhonda Byrne in The Secret and by a host of other New Age gurus.

The faith-healing sects truly believe they are doing the right thing when they let their children die; they accept it as God’s will. Some believers even refuse to wear seat belts. Their inconsistent behavior shows that they tend not to have thought things through very carefully. They hypocritically accept care from eye doctors and dentists. Adults often clandestinely seek medical care for both major and minor medical problems while children don’t have that option. In some cases parents saw a doctor for hangnails or mole removal for themselves yet refused to take their child to a doctor for a fatal illness.

Their beliefs come from groupthink and social consensus rather than from reasoned theology or the Bible. Many of them have not read the Bible; when a whistle blower did, he was surprised to learn how much it differed from what he had been taught. They have a supportive, close-knit community and face overwhelming peer pressure. If they resort to medical care, they are shunned by everyone they know and may never see anyone in their family again.

There has never actually been a single extraordinary healing among the Followers, only ordinary recoveries from common illnesses; however, that’s enough to convince them prayer works—if only their belief is strong enough. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and when a child dies the death is considered unavoidable and is attributed to God’s will. An insider said he thought that if a few Followers were punished, the rest would rationalize that going to doctors was okay after all and would come up with a new doctrine. He thought most of them would be happy to change if everybody else did. When courts have ordered blood transfusions for the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they have sometimes seemed more concerned about what their co-religionists would think than about the religious implications of the transfusion itself.

Progress in Legislation

The first state to repeal a religious shield law was South Dakota. Then CHILD won a federal lawsuit in Minnesota, arguing that taxpayers should not be required to subsidize Medicare and Medicaid payments for Christian Science nursing. Unfortunately, Senator Orrin Hatch negated their win by getting a new law passed that provided for Medicare payment for “religious non-medical health care.” CHILD sued again but this time they lost. In 1999, a compromise bill was passed in Oregon eliminating religious shields for murder by abuse, murder by neglect, first- and second-degree manslaughter, and criminal mistreatment. After this, no followers died of medical neglect for the next five years, and there were major modifications in the shield laws in several other states.

Examples of Prosecutions

Josef Smith, eight years old, was beaten to death during an exorcism in Tennessee. His parents, members of the Remnant Fellowship, were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years.

A mother who beat and smothered her child was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder. She gladly accepted her punishment as part of God’s plan.

The people who starved a sixteen-month-old to death for failing to say “Amen” and then absconded with his corpse in a suitcase were sentenced to fifty years each for second-degree murder.

A test case was needed in Oregon, but DAs were reluctant to prosecute, and even church members who no longer approved of their own churches were too frightened to provide inside information. Finally Patrick Robbins turned whistle blower after the death of his newborn baby led him to doubt the teachings of the Church. His assistance led to several prosecutions.

Eighteen-month-old Alayna Wyland nearly went blind from an untreated enlarging hemangioma that obstructed her left eye. She was rescued just in time for pediatric ophthalmologists to save her eyesight, and her parents were tried for first-degree criminal mistreatment of their child. They got ninety days in jail and three years’ probation.

In 2008, fifteen-month-old Ava Worthington died from a softball-sized lump on her neck that obstructed her breathing and caused pneumonia. Investigation of the case was difficult, because witnesses denied having observed any signs that the child was in distress. Her parents were the first to be tried under the revised 1999 law. The jury was sympathetic to the parents. The father was convicted of misdemeanor criminal mistreatment but not of manslaughter; he spent two months in jail. The mother was found not guilty.

The Beagleys were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of their sixteen-year-old son Neal for complications of a congenital urinary tract anomaly that could have easily been repaired. They each served sixteen months (consecutively, so one of them was always home to care for their other children).

Eighteen-month-old Alayna Wyland nearly went blind from an untreated enlarging hemangioma that obstructed her left eye. She was rescued just in time for pediatric ophthalmologists to save her eyesight, and her parents were tried for first-degree criminal mistreatment of their child. They got ninety days in jail and three years’ probation.

These are tragic cases. No one likes to see children taken away from their parents, and these parents loved their children and truly believed they were doing the right thing. They were victims too.

Oregon’s 2011 Law

The Oregon 1999 compromise bill was not enough; it had repealed five of the nine religious shield exemptions but left four others in place. After five years without a death, three more Followers’ children died in 2008 and 2009. In 2011, after extensive lobbying by Rita Swan and others, Oregon passed a new law to eliminate religious beliefs entirely as a legal defense and allow prosecutors to seek murder charges against parents who deny their children medical care for religious reasons. There are only five other states with no religious exemptions for sick and injured children: Hawaii, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Maryland, and North Carolina.

But Oregon law still allows religious exemptions for caregivers of dependent adults, and it still allows religious exemptions for immunizations, metabolic screening (for conditions like PKU), newborn hearing screening, vitamin K and prophylactic eye drops for newborns, and bicycle helmets. Ashland, Oregon, has the highest school vaccine exemption rate of any U.S. city; in one school in Eugene, 76 percent of students had rejected one or more vaccines for religious reasons. The religious exemption for bicycle helmets is particularly puzzling: where in the Bible does it say “Thou shalt not wear bicycle helmets” or even “Thou shalt take no precautions against injury”? The reasoning seems to be that if God wants a child to die from a head injury, we shouldn’t get in his way.

The Oregon law is being enforced. Later in the very year the law was passed, 2011, Dale and Shannon Hickman were found guilty of second degree manslaughter in the death of their infant son, prematurely born at home with only unqualified midwives in attendance. They were sentenced to six years and three months in jail, followed by three years supervised probation.

The Tide Turns

A few months later, when Oregon members of the Church of the First Born were accused of negligent homicide for the death of their son from a treatable condition, they didn’t even try to fight but pled guilty. They agreed to provide medical care for their other children and were sentenced to probation with close monitoring.

Some members of the Followers of Christ sect were starting to accept medical treatment and even wondering what all the fuss had been about.

In Philadelphia, Herbert and Catherine Schaible were put on ten years’ probation after their two-year-old died of untreated bacterial pneumonia. The terms of their probation required them to purchase medical insurance and put their other children under the care of a pediatrician. They callously disregarded the terms of probation and their eight-month-old son died of untreated bacterial pneumonia when they failed to seek medical care for him. They were charged with third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, and endangerment. They were jailed and denied bail because the judge feared their co-religionists might hide them in other parts of the country. They pled “no contest.” Their pastor said the father “…knows he has to obey God rather than man.” He said the children died because of the parents’ “spiritual lack.”

Following the Followers to Idaho

Investigative reporter Dan Tilkin of KATU News covered the Oregon court cases, and he has recently reported on ten more dead children of the Followers of Christ in Idaho, where religious shield laws are still in place. Of the marked graves in the Peaceful Valley Cemetery, more than 25 percent are children. Sadly, his report ends by saying, “No significant move to change the laws is underway” (Tilkin and Lane 2013).

Conclusion

The medical ethics principle of autonomy justifies letting competent adults reject lifesaving medical care for themselves because of their religious beliefs, but it does not extend to rejecting medical care for children. Society has a duty to override parents’ wishes when necessary to protect children from harm. It is not uncommon for the courts to order life-saving blood transfusions for the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses or cancer treatment against parents’ wishes. But thirty states still have religious shield laws, and every state but Mississippi and West Virginia allows religious and/or philosophical exemptions for school vaccination requirements. Those laws should be repealed. The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) requires insurance companies to cover “nonmedical” health care such as prayers by Christian Science practitioners. That provision should be removed.

It has been argued that most of the increase in human lifespan is due to advances in hygiene rather than to advances in medicine. The estimates of a twenty-six-fold increase in infant mortality and a 900-fold increase in maternal mortality among the untreated Followers of Christ demonstrate just how valuable modern medical care really is.

Another valuable source is available free online: the newsletter archives of CHILD (Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, http://childrenshealthcare.org). It describes many more tragic cases of children who have been harmed or have died from religion-motivated child abuse and neglect.

References

Asser, Seth M., and Rita Swan. 1998. Child fatalities from religion-motivated medical neglect. Pediatrics 101(4): 625–29.

Stauth, Cameron. 2013. In the Name of God: The True Story of the Fight to Save Children from Faith-Healing Genocide. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Tilkin, Dan, and Dusty Lane. 2013. Fallen followers: Investigation finds 10 more dead children of faith healers. KATU News (November 7). Online at http://www.katu.com/news/investigators/Fallen-followers-Investigation-finds-10-more-dead-children-of-faith-healers-231050911.html.

The widespread assertion that the world would be better off without religion is a reasonable hypothesis. Yet data suggest that skeptics should attach no more than a modest level of probability to it.

If you Googled the question constituting the title of this article—or minor variants of it—as the first author of this article did on Christmas Day of 2013, you’d end up with more than 650,000 hits. This high number attests to the keen public interest generated by this age-old question. Indeed, few topics have generated more impassioned discussion among religious believers and skeptics alike. For example, in 2007, the British organization Intelligence-Squared hosted a lively debate on the proposition that “We’d be better off without religion,” with proponents of the motion—Richard Dawkins, A.C. Grayling, and Christopher Hitchens—squaring off against the opponents Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton, and Nigel Spivey. Over the past decade, a seemingly never-ending parade of books and articles have tackled “the question,” as we dub it, from various angles; entering the phrase “better off without religion” into an Amazon.com book search yields over 130 results.

Arguably, what is most striking about responses to the question by many prominent partisans on both sides is their extremely high level of confidence in the answer. For example, in a 2011 interview with Slate magazine, author and political commentator Dinesh D’Souza opined that “For a truly secular society, we should look to Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China. But that’s the tip of the iceberg … The result [of these societies] has inevitably been repression, totalitarianism, persecution of the churches, and just a miserable society” (Weingarten 2011). Turning to the opposing side, in an interview with journalist Laura Sheahen (2007), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins embraced the unequivocal position that the world would be a far better place without belief in God, contending that religion increases the chances of war and political discord. Sheahen asked him, “If you had to make a case for religion—one positive, if minor, thing religion has done, what would it be?” Dawkins responded, “It’s true that some kind, nice, sympathetic people are also religious, and they might say that their kindness is motivated by religion. But equally kind people are often not religious. I really don’t think I can think of anything; I really can’t.” (emphasis added; http://salmonriver.com/environment/dawkinsinterview.html). Later, in a 2013 interview with CNN, Dawkins maintained, “The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible” (Prager 2013).

In this article, we address the overarching question of whether high levels of certitude are warranted among partisans of either position. In the interest of full disclosure, both authors of this article are atheists. At the same time, we have become concerned by what appears to be unjustified dogmatism by both religious skeptics and believers in discussions concerning an exceedingly complex and multifaceted question. Therefore, we attempt to demonstrate that (a) scientific data bearing indirectly on the question have routinely been neglected by many individuals on both sides of the debate; (b) such data, although informative, do not permit anything approaching conclusive answers to the question of whether religion makes the world a better or worse place. At the same time, such data cast serious doubt on broad-brush contentions (e.g., Dawkins 2006) that religion is usually or always associated with a heightened risk of immoral behavior, including violence. Hence, we view our article as a modest call for greater epistemic humility on the part of ardent defenders of both positions.

Is the Question Even Answerable?

In practice, the question posed here is probably not answerable with certainty because a genuine experimental test of the question is impossible. For both pragmatic and ethical reasons, we could never randomly assign individuals to a condition in which they were raised in a religious environment and randomly assign others to be raised in a nonreligious environment, all the while ensuring that all participants in this fanciful Gedanken experiment experienced little or no contact with the contrasting worldview. Putting it differently, we will almost certainly never know the hypothetical counterfactual (Dawes 1994) to the question posed at the article’s outset; by “hypothetical counterfactual,” we mean the outcome that would have resulted had the world, or a large chunk of it, never been exposed to religion. That is not to say, however, that circumstantial scientific data cannot inform the question or adjust a rational individual’s assignment of probability to its answer.

Moreover, the question as commonly phrased (“Would the world be better off without religion?”) is probably not strictly answerable with scientific data because the word better necessarily entails a series of value judgments. Reasonable people will surely disagree on what would make the world a better place. Would the world be “better” with more political conservatism, invasive animal research, modern art, McDonald’s hamburgers, or Justin Biebers? The answers to these queries are matters of personal preference and lie outside the boundaries of science (although we would dispute the rationality of readers who reply “yes” to the last option). Nevertheless, when scholars have pondered whether the world would be better off without religion, the lion’s share have almost always referred, either implicitly or explicitly, to a world that is more humane—one in which people treat each other kindly. For provisional research purposes, we can operationalize this propensity roughly in terms of lower rates of aggression and higher rates of altruism. In this article, we therefore address the more tangible question of whether a world devoid of religion would witness (a) lower levels of criminal and antisocial behavior¹, including violence, and (b) higher levels of prosocial (altruistic) behavior than a world with religion.

It should perhaps go without saying that the question of whether the world would be better off without religion has no logical bearing on the ontological question of God’s existence. It is entirely possible to maintain that (a) God does not exist, but belief in God makes the world a more humane place on balance, or (b) God does exist, but belief in God makes the world a less humane place on balance. Indeed, a group of scholars who are sometimes encompassed under the rubric of Atheism 3.0 have recently lobbied for (a). They maintain that although there is no God, belief in God makes the world a kinder and gentler place (e.g., Sheiman 2009).

In any case, it should be beyond dispute that the question of God’s existence is logically and factually independent of the question of whether belief in God’s existence is beneficial for the human species. Nevertheless, it is all too easy to conflate these two questions, and we suspect that many partisans on both sides of the debate have done so, at least implicitly. If one concludes that belief in God is rational, one may be tempted to assume that belief in God would make the world a better place; conversely, if one concludes that belief in God is irrational, one may be tempted to assume that belief in God would make the world a worse place. At the risk of adding yet another logical fallacy to lengthy lists of such fallacies (e.g., Bennett 2012), we term this the argument from existence/nonexistence fallacy.² In essence, this fallacy is the inverse of the familiar “argument from adverse consequences fallacy” (see Sagan 1995), in which one erroneously reasons backward from the adverse effects of a belief to gauge this belief’s veracity (e.g., “Lack of belief in God has negative consequences, so therefore God exists”). In contrast, the individual committing the argument from the existence/nonexistence fallacy incorrectly presumes that accurate beliefs regarding the existence of an entity (e.g., God) will always or usually lead to more salutary real-world outcomes. Yet, as the psychological literature on positive illusions suggests (Taylor and Brown 1988; but see Colvin and Block 1994, for a dissenting view), inaccurate beliefs may in some cases be tied to more adaptive outcomes, including higher levels of well-being and more satisfying interpersonal relationships.

The Neglect of Research Evidence

Surprisingly, the extensive body of social science data bearing on the links between religion and both moral and immoral behavior have typically gone unmentioned in public discussions regarding the merits or demerits of religion. Two high-profile examples from religious skeptics are especially striking. In his 447-page book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, philosopher and prominent atheist Daniel Dennett (2006) devotes at most two pages (pp. 279–280) to the question of whether religion helps to makes people more moral, dismissing it peremptorily:

I have uncovered no evidence to support the claim that people, religious or not, who don’t [emphasis in original] believe in reward or heaven and/or punishment in hell are more likely to kill, rape, rob or break their promises than people who do. The prison population in the United States shows Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others—including those with no religious affiliation —are represented about as they are in the general population. (p. 279)

Later, Dennett quips that

. . . Nothing approaching a settled consensus among researchers has been achieved, but one thing we can be sure of is that if [emphasis in original] there is a significant positive relationship between moral behavior and religious affiliation, practice, or belief, it will soon be discovered, since so many religious organizations are eager to confirm their demonstration underlines the suspicion that it just isn’t so. (p. 280)

For unclear reasons, Dennett neglects to review several dozen studies and at least two large-scale reviews bearing directly on this question (Baier and Wright 2001; Ellis 1985), including substantial bodies of data on the relation between religious belief and criminal behavior, which we examine in the following section.

Similarly, in his 405-page book, The God Delusion, Dawkins (2006) devotes approximately two pages (pp. 229–230) to this question. Dawkins approvingly cites Dennett’s aforementioned conclusions and refers only in passing to correlational data on the relation between religion and morality. Without citing any references to the substantial psychological and sociological literature on the topic, Dawkins maintains that “such research evidence as there is certainly doesn’t support the common view that religion is positively correlated with morality” (p. 229). Instead, on the same page, Dawkins cites only one observation, from neuroscientist Sam Harris (2006), that U.S. states that tend to be more socially conservative (and that are also characterized by higher levels of religiosity) are marked by higher levels of violent crime. We agree with Dawkins and Harris that such data may inform the debate. Nonetheless, these findings are difficult to interpret in view of the “ecological fallacy,” the error of drawing inferences regarding individual-level associations (in this case, the relation between religion and violence) from population-level data. It is well-established that this fallacy often (Piantadosi et al. 1988), although by no means always (Schwartz 1994), results in erroneous conclusions regarding the relation between two variables. ³ Because more informative data derive from examinations of the associations between religion and criminal behavior at the individual level, we examine such data next.

Correlational Data

Does religion make good people behave badly? When approaching this question, it is all too easy to “cherry-pick” historical instances in which religion, or the lack thereof, is tied to violent, even horrific, acts. Unquestionably, some of the world’s greatest atrocities have been perpetrated in the name of religion. In the opening pages of The God Delusion, Dawkins (2006) recites a plethora of examples:

Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as “Christ-killers,” no Northern Ireland “troubles”… Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it. (pp. 1–2)

The difficulty with this line of reasoning becomes evident, however, when considering an at least equally lengthy list of historical counterexamples. Even setting aside the contentious question of whether Hitler was inspired by religious doctrine, a topic that falls outside of our expertise to evaluate (see Dawkins 2006 and Evans 2007 for discussions), one can just as readily invoke scores of cases of heinous nonreligious violence on a grand scale. For example, radio–talk show host and political columnist Dennis Prager (2011) contends that “. . . far more people have been murdered—not to mention enslaved and tortured—by secular anti-religious regimes than by all God-based groups in history.” In support of this contention, he cites Mao Tse-tung’s murder of between forty and seventy million people, Stalin’s murder of at least twenty million of his own citizens, Pol Pot’s murder of approximately one in four Cambodians, the North Korean regime’s slaughter of millions of its citizens, among numerous other examples. It is safe to say that extremism of many kinds, religious or not, can predispose to large-scale violence, especially when conjoined with the deeply entrenched belief that one’s enemies are not merely mistaken but deeply evil (Lilienfeld et al. 2009). Whether religious belief makes such hate-fueled aggression more or less likely on average is far from clear.

Indeed, the question of whether religion increases or decreases the risk of genocidal and other large-scale violence may never be answered to our satisfaction. Nevertheless, the more circumscribed question of whether belief in God specifically, and religiosity more generally, are correlated—statistically associated—with criminal and antisocial behavior, including violence, has been investigated in dozens of studies.

The results of a few early investigations suggested little or no relation between religiosity and crime (e.g., Hirschi and Stark 1969). In contrast, more recent studies, as well as meta-analyses (quantitative syntheses) of the literature, have converged on a consistent conclusion: belief in God bears a statistically significant, albeit relatively weak, association with lower levels of criminal and antisocial behavior, including physical aggression toward others (a statistically significant finding is one that would be extremely unlikely to be observed if the null hypothesis of a zero correlation between the variables were true). For example, in a meta-analysis of sixty studies that yielded seventy-nine correlations, Baier and Wright (2001) found a statistically significant, but weak, negative correlation (r=-.12) between religiosity and crime (correlations range from -1.0 to +1.0, and a correlation with an absolute value of .1 is typically regarded as weak in magnitude). Notably, all seventy-nine correlations were negative, although most fell in the range of -.05 to -.20. These findings run counter to Dennett’s (2006) claim, seconded by Dawkins (2006), that there is no statistical association between religiosity and criminality.

Still, this link appears to be qualified by other variables. The results of several studies suggest that the correlation between religiosity and crime is moderated by attendance at churches or other places of worship, with more frequent attenders being at especially low risk for crime (Ellis 1985; Good and Willoughby 2006). In addition, the diminished risk for aggression and antisocial behavior appears to be more closely associated with intrinsic religiosity, in which individuals view religion as personally important for its own sake (e.g., “I try hard to live all of my life according to my religious beliefs”) than with extrinsic religiosity, in which individuals view religion as a means to a personal end (e.g., “The primary purpose of prayer is to gain relief and protection”) (Bouchard et al. 1999).

More generally, religiosity is moderately and positively associated with self-control, a trait closely tied to impulse control; again, this association is especially pronounced for people with high levels of intrinsic religiosity (McCullough and Willoughby 2009). In work from our laboratory recently submitted for publication (Lilienfeld et al. 2014), we even found a slight but statistically significant tendency for religious nonbelievers (including professed atheists and agnostics) to report higher levels of certain traits relevant to psychopathic personality (psychopathy), especially weak impulse control and lack of empathy, relative to religious believers. Needless to say, however, the weak magnitude of these associations in no way implies that most atheists are psychopathic, let alone psychopaths.

Other correlational data point to a consistent association between religion and prosocial behavior. For example, in a meta-analysis of forty studies of adolescents, religiosity was moderately and positively associated with prosocial behaviors, such as volunteer work, altruistic acts, and empathic concern toward others (Cheung and Yeung 2011). Broadly mirroring other findings on the intrinsic-extrinsic religiosity distinction, the relation between religiosity and prosocial behavior was most marked for participants with high levels of private (rather than public) religious participation, such as individuals who pray when alone.

In a study of high-school students, Furrow and colleagues (2004) similarly found a strong association between religiosity and prosocial interests, including empathy and a sense of responsibility toward others. Most, although not all, investigators (e.g., Kohlberg 1981) have also reported positive correlations between individuals’ religiosity and their level of moral reasoning (Ellis and Peterson 1996), meaning that more religious individuals tend to reason in slightly more sophisticated ways about moral problems compared with nonreligious individuals (although moral reasoning and moral behavior tend to be only moderately correlated; e.g., Stams et al. 2006). Still other investigators have found that unconsciously priming participants by asking them to unscramble sentences containing words relevant to religion (e.g., God, sacred) makes them more financially generous to other subjects compared with unprimed participants (Shariff and Norenzayan 2007). The extent to which these laboratory findings can be generalized to real-world altruism remains to be seen, however.

Scholars have proposed numerous causal explanations for the link between religion and moral behavior (see Baier and Wright 2001 for a review). Among these hypotheses are that (a) fear of God’s wrath in the afterlife makes believers refrain from unethical actions (the so-called “hellfire hypothesis”); (b) consistent with the generally accepted etymology of the word religion as reflecting “tying together,” religious beliefs bind individuals more closely to communities, families, and others (social control theory); and (c) religious beliefs foster shame and guilt regarding unethical actions, thereby deterring people from engaging in them (rational choice theory). At the risk of oversimplifying an exceedingly large and complex body of literature, we can conclude that there is no definitive or even especially compelling evidence for any of these explanations, although none has been falsified. For example, in a study of 2,616 twins, Kendler and colleagues (2003) reported that a set of items reflecting belief in God as a punitive judge of one’s actions was significantly and negatively associated with risk for drinking and drug problems but was not significantly associated with risk for disorders associated with antisocial behavior, thereby offering inconsistent support for the hellfire hypothesis. The authors did find, however, a negative association between general religiosity and antisocial behavior disorders, corroborating the other correlational findings reviewed here.

Caveats

Although extant correlational data are broadly consistent in demonstrating a statistical association between religious belief and (a) decreased levels of antisocial and criminal behavior and (b) heightened levels of prosocial behavior, such findings do not and cannot demonstrate causality (Galen 2012). As statisticians remind us, correlation does not by itself imply causation. Hence, the aforementioned hypotheses regarding the causal effect of religion on moral behavior may be explanations in search of a phenomenon. Authors who interpret these correlational data as demonstrating “the effect of religion on crime” (e.g., Baier and Wright 2001, 3) are therefore going well beyond the available evidence. Moreover, these findings leave us with the at least equally complex question of whether we can generalize from individual-level correlations between religion and crime to the broader implications of religion for society as a whole.

Although the correlational data are consistent with a potential causal influence of religion on moral behavior, many other explanations are possible. For example, what statisticians term the causal arrow could be reversed: higher levels of moral behavior might contribute to higher levels of religiosity. Longitudinal studies, which track participants over time, may eventually help to adjudicate between these competing hypotheses. The quite limited longitudinal data available thus far are mixed, with some studies finding that changes in people’s religiosity predict a lower risk of future delinquency and vice-versa (thereby suggesting a bidirectional relation), but with others finding no association in either direction (Eisenberg et al. 2011). In addition, much of the prosocial behavior exhibited by religious individuals is directed toward other religious individuals, so this behavior could partly reflect what psychologists call “in-group bias (Galen 2012).

Alternatively, one or more “third variables,” such as personality traits, could be responsible for the statistical association. For example, religiosity tends to be moderately associated with high levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness (Lodi-Smith and Roberts 2007; McCullough and Willoughby 2009). The literature already reviewed linking religiosity with self-control is consistent with this possibility, as conscientiousness is strongly associated with self-control. Therefore, religiosity per se may not contribute directly to higher levels of moral behavior; instead, religiosity may merely be a proxy for personality traits that are themselves related to morality. Indeed, twin data indicate that at least some of the association between religiosity and altruism is in part genetically mediated, meaning that some of the same genes that predispose to religiosity predispose to prosocial behavior (Koenig et al. 2007). These genes may contribute to personality traits that boost the chances of both religiosity and prosocial behavior, although this hypothesis awaits future research.

Another hypothesis is that devout and steadfast adherence to any meaningful worldview, rather than a religious worldview per se, is the genuine causal factor. As noted earlier, research points to a robust negative correlation between attendance at religious services and risk for crime. For example, it is possible that one would observe a comparably high correlation among atheists who are regular attendees at meetings of secular humanists. This intriguing hypothesis similarly warrants systematic investigation.

Moreover, even setting aside the crucial issue of causality, the reported correlations are almost always weak or at most moderate in magnitude. Hence, if there is a causal relation between religion and morality, it is most likely either (a) modest in size or (b) large in size but suppressed statistically (masked) by undetermined variables. The middling correlations also tell us that many religious individuals engage in high levels of immoral behavior, and that many nonreligious individuals engage in high levels of moral behavior, a point acknowledged by political and religious commentator Dennis Prager (2013): “None of this [the assertion that God informs morality] means that only believers in God can be good or that atheists cannot be good. There are bad believers and there are good atheists.” Furthermore, we are unaware of any data indicating that the relation between religiosity and morality takes the form of a threshold effect, whereby a “critical” level of religiosity is needed to be moral. Hence, we can safely answer a different—and widely asked—question with a high level of certainty: “Does one need religion to be moral?” The correlational data permit as close to a definitive answer as one can probably achieve in social science: No. Many nonreligious people clearly exhibit high levels of moral behavior and thinking.

Religion as a Protective Factor against Immoral Behavior

Arguably, somewhat more compelling evidence for a potential causal role for religion in moral behavior derives from studies on the potential protective effects of religion on antisocial behavior. In these designs, investigators typically examine individuals at elevated risk for immoral actions, such as those who possess high levels of personality traits (such as impulsivity) that increase risk for such actions, or those reared in high-crime areas. The hypothesis tested in such studies is what researchers term a statistical interaction, which mathematically is a multiplicative rather than additive effect. In more concrete terms, investigators are testing the hypothesis that religion is especially likely to attenuate the risk of antisocial behavior among individuals who are most predisposed to it. This hypothesis carries a certain surface plausibility. Most individuals may not need religion to behave morally, but certain individuals—namely, those with potent dispositional or sociocultural pre­dispositions—may need religion as a buffer of “line of last defense” against their antisocial propensities. These may be the very people for whom a moral compass offered by religion is necessary, or at least helpful.

Regrettably, this important hypothesis has been examined in only a handful of studies. Still, the admittedly limited findings are reasonably, although not entirely (Desmond et al. 2013), consistent. In many cases, religious belief appears to play a protective role against antisocial behavior among high-risk individuals. For example, in a study of young adolescents (average age of thirteen), Laird and colleagues (2011) found that the importance of religion to participants was related to a lower risk of rule-breaking behavior, including physical aggression. Notably, this decreased risk was highest among adolescents with low levels of impulse control. Similarly, in a large-sample study of adolescents, investigators found that high levels of religiosity exerted a buffering effect on the risk of alcohol and illicit drug use following negative life events (Wills et al. 2003; see also Bodford and Hussong 2013). In still another study of adolescents and young adults involved in gangs in El Salvador, Salas-Wright and colleagues (2013) reported that both religious coping and spirituality (especially the latter) were tied to lower rates of certain delinquent behaviors, including carrying a weapon, vandalism, and theft. Still, because the authors did not directly test a statistical interaction between risk-status (such as weak versus strong impulse control) and religiosity, the existence of a protective effect in this study can only be inferred indirectly.

Caveats

The results of protective studies are sparse but provocative, and they raise the possibility that religious belief buffers high-risk individuals, such as those who are especially impulsive, against antisocial behavior. Still, as in the case of correlational studies, we cannot be certain that the findings reflect a genuine causal effect of religiosity on diminished risk for antisocial behavior. The apparent protective effect of religion on high-risk individuals could again reflect the indirect effect of unmeasured third variables, such as conscientiousness or devotion to a broader worldview, that are themselves correlated with religiosity. In future research, investigators should incorporate measures of such variables to test rival hypotheses for the buffering effect.

Conclusions

The widely advanced hypothesis that the world would be “better”—more humane—without religion is entirely reasonable, and it should continue to be debated by thoughtful scholars. Contrary to the forceful assertions of some prominent atheist authors (e.g., Dawkins 2006; Dennett 2006), however, the data consistently point to a negative association between religiosity and criminal behavior and a positive association between religiosity and prosocial behavior. Both relations are modest in magnitude and ambiguous with respect to causation. At the same time, they cannot be ignored by partisans on either side of the discussion.

Our bottom-line conclusion is straightforward: any individuals who attach an extremely high level of probability to the answer to the question we have posed are placing opinions over evidence. Blanket assertions by advocates of either position can most charitably be described as scientifically premature. As in all scientific debates, humility in the face of equivocal data should be the watchword.

Moreover, we urge caution in “arguing by example,” as many influential scholars have done when addressing this question. One can readily generate compelling historical evidence that seemingly supports the hypothesis that religion makes the world more dangerous (e.g., Dawkins 2006), as well as equally compelling historical evidence that seemingly refutes it (e.g., Prager 2013). One might well suspect that there is some truth to both positions, and that religion may sometimes be a force for good and sometimes a force for evil, depending on the specific religious beliefs, specific individuals, and specific historical contexts involved.

In evaluating many of the debates concerning this question in the popular media, it is difficult not to be struck by the frequent neglect of the substantial scientific data bearing on it. Neither side has been immune from this tendency. For example, in a piece on the Huffington Post blog posted in December of 2013, pastor Rick Henderson wrote, “There is no morally good atheist, because [according to the atheist world view] there really is no objective morality” (Henderson 2013). Yet this assertion is contradicted by the correlational data we have reviewed, which demonstrate that many nonbelievers engage in high levels of moral behavior.

On the flip side of the coin, take Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg’s 1999 assertion, endorsed by Dawkins (2006, p. 249), that “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion” (see Lindner 2005). This proposition runs counter to an enormous body of social psychological data demonstrating that many, if not most, good people can be led to perform unethical acts with no religious coercion. For example, in the classic obedience studies of Stanley Milgram (1963; see Burger 2009 for a more recent replication), large proportions of participants were induced by an “experimenter” in a white lab coat (who was actually a confederate of Milgram’s) to deliver what they believed to be powerful and potentially deadly electric shocks to another innocent “participant” (who was another confederate of Milgram’s). In this study, nary a hint of religious influence was invoked. The purported experimenter carried the banner of the authority of science, not of religion. Interestingly, in the lone study to our knowledge to examine religiosity in the context of the Milgram paradigm, Bock and Warren (1972)⁴ found that both extreme religious nonbelievers and extreme religious believers were the least likely to comply with the experimenter’s demands to administer shocks; for reasons that are unclear, moderate believers were the most likely. Still, even the small number of nonbelievers delivered more than their share of shocks.

The Bock and Warren study, although limited in size (thirty participants in total), reminds us of how complicated the association between religiosity and moral (and immoral) behavior is likely to be. This link stubbornly resists reduction to simple formulas, probably because it is contingent on a host of still undiscovered factors. In addition, if the results of Bock and Warren’s investigation are replicable, they would imply that the relation between religiosity and moral behavior may be sometimes curvilinear or “dose-dependent,” further confounding facile efforts to equate religiosity in general with either prosocial or antisocial behavior (Galen 2012).

Some nonbelievers may react to this debate by staking out an alternative position: as scientific thinkers and skeptics, we should be seeking the truth, the consequences be damned. From this perspective, if God does not exist, we should be discouraging uncritical acceptance of religious tenets regardless of whether they exert beneficial or detrimental long-term effects on society. Knowledge, Sir Francis Bacon asserted, is power. In our view, this position is both intellectually consistent and intellectually honest, and we see merit in it. At the same time, advocates of this position need to be forthright in acknowledging that it may entail unknown risks that need to be weighed in public discussions of the value of religion to society.

Other thoughtful readers may object to our article on the grounds that the very question as we and others have framed it is woefully simplistic. According to one frequently cited estimate, there are approximately 4,200 religions in the world (Dekker 2009), with countless subtle differences within many of these belief systems. And surely, individuals apprehend and apply the religious tenets of their chosen faiths in a seemingly endless variety of ways. Making matters more complicated, cultures differ with regard to what behaviors they regard as moral or immoral. For example, although virtually all individuals in all cultures agree that theft and murder should be prohibited, there are sizeable differences of opinion when it comes to certain other activities, such as homosexuality, abortion, and open government protests (Wilson and Herrnstein 1985). Hence, the objection continues, attempting to answer the question of whether “religion in general” makes society “better in general” is a fool’s errand.

The point is well taken, and indeed, to the extent that the aforementioned caveats are legitimate, and we suspect that they are, they are all the more reason to insist on humility and circumspection in our claims. Most scientific assertions, especially those in the “softer” sciences of psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology, possess boundary conditions (Meehl 1978), and it seems implausible that the presence or absence of all religious beliefs would yield similar effects on all societies across all historical periods.

In the meantime, as the debate continues, we exhort readers to emulate the epistemic modesty of our Emory University colleague, primatologist Frans de Waal (2013), who addressed this question with the thoughtful uncertainty that it richly deserves:

I’m struggling with whether we need religion. . . . Personally I think we can be moral without religion because we probably had morality long before the current religions came along . . . so I am optimistic that religion is not strictly needed. But I cannot be a hundred percent sure because we’ve never really tried—there is no human society where religion is totally absent so we really have never tried this experiment.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Frans de Waal, Lori Marino, Susan Himes, and Bill Hendrick for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this manuscript.

Notes

1. The term antisocial, which means “against society,” should not be confused with asocial, which means “apart” from society. The antisocial person engages in behaviors that harm others, such as criminal acts, whereas the asocial person prefers to have little to do with others.

2. In some cases, this fallacy may stem from a “representativeness heuristic,” the tendency to presume that “like goes with like” (Kahneman 2011; see also Gilovich and Savitsky’s 1996 article in Skeptical Inquirer). Individuals who perceive that a belief, such as belief in God, reflects a rational judgment may assume that this belief goes along with other positive things, such as more humane treatment of others, and vice versa for people who perceive a belief to be irrational.

3. One widely cited example of the ecological fallacy derives from the work of Robinson (1950), who identified a high correlation between being foreign-born (versus being U.S.-born) and literacy across the then-forty-eight U.S. states. Yet, when Robinson examined this association at the individual level, the actual correlation was not only much weaker but in the opposite direction: people born in the U.S. had higher levels of literacy. The reason for the fallacious ecological correlation was migration: recent immigrants to the U.S. tended to move to states with higher levels of literacy. That said, an ecological study of crime rates across thirteen nations yielded only mixed support for the Harris/Dawkins hypothesis: countries with higher levels of religiosity tended to exhibit lower levels of property (but not violent) crime (Ellis and Peterson 1996).

4. In an interesting bit of trivia, the study’s second author, Neil Clark Warren, later went on to found the religiously inspired online dating site, eHarmony.com.

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Gilovich, T., and K. Savitsky. 1996. Like goes with like: The role of representativeness in erroneous and pseudoscientific beliefs. Skeptical Inquirer 20(2): 34–40.

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I am tremendously proud to be an Australian Skeptic, because if you ask anyone you will most likely be told that as Australians we like to get things done. And we have had some successes, especially regarding the anti-vaccination and chiropractic crowds. However, I also believe that we can do more.
This was the topic of my talk at the Australian Skeptics National Convention in November 2013.

I felt privileged to present to people that I respect and admire—especially about a topic that I am very passionate about: Guerilla Skepticism and how we can all be activists. My mission was simple: to promote skeptical activism and inspire others to get involved. We are a wonderful community, but we tend to stay within the Skeptics in the Pub, the skeptical conferences, and our own Internet forums. There is nothing wrong with this, but we have a tremendous opportunity to use our skills, knowledge, and contacts to make a difference nationally and globally.

And we are not doing enough. We need to become more of a movement so we can connect internationally and truly kick up some skeptical dust. We also need to provide information to decision makers, connect with government departments, and start campaigns through government channels, the legal system, and the public. The “woo” crowd—the psychics, the charlatans, the “healers” and others—are out there in the public; they are writing the books, setting up conferences, and getting themselves extensive media coverage. We need to match their exposure with our own and be there to give the counterpoints.

Campaigns


As part of being a Guerilla Skeptic, as organized by Susan Gerbic, we can organize a campaign to create change. Some campaigns may be short and have a specific time frame while others are more long term—for example the ongoing campaign to stop anti-vaccination groups from spreading misinformation. Every campaign should have a goal, objectives, target audience, and tactics.

The anti-vaccination groups are an excellent example of this. Australian Skeptics as well as the Stop the Anti-Vaccination Network had the goal of educating the public on one fact: as the slogan says, “Vacci­nation Saves Lives.” The campaign was not to personally malign any individual but to counter the harmful propaganda that anti-vaccination groups throw out into the community.

Organized skeptical activism becomes more effective with the involvement of many people with diverse skills and contacts in the community. There is a broad range of tactics available, and it is vital to ensure the most appropriate tactic is implemented for the issue being addressed. This can be by attracting media attention but also through good old fashioned email/letter writing campaigns or using the Internet.

Using the Media


The media are an extremely powerful tool in the skeptical toolbox. By developing relationships with various media outlets, it becomes easier to get your message out to the community. A few tips for expanding your reach:

• Make it personal; media isn’t just about the information you’re trying to convey, it is a way to attract attention. It is important to inform as well as engage so your story can resonate; bringing up a specific case study can make it personal and form an emotional connection to the audience. 


• Make it a real story—a good story has a simple, straightforward narrative that conveys your message and key points. You need to make sure your message is clear and easy to remember.

The focus of my presentation was the skeptic’s tools that can be utilized from your own home in order to be a skeptical activist. My inspirations were the awesome Tim Farley, Susan Gerbic, and Mark Edward, and now I want to keep the word out there. The skeptic action group was founded by the lovely Susan Gerbic, who you can follow on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Once you join, a task will be posted each day with a request to go to the link provided and rate, comment, and review as you deem appropriate. The tools used are mainly WOT (Web of Trust), Rbutr, and Fishbarrel (some discussed below). We are strong, but we need more, and we need people from all over the world to join. 
It is important to reiterate the following:


• You do not have to vote if you are not comfortable


• Please take the time to read the website you are presented


• You are not obligated to vote in every category


• We do not tell you how to vote

Do Not Link!


Skeptics need to be mindful about linking to the bad information that we want to act on. Links are used by search engines to measure the importance of content, so by linking to the site, you inadvertently will be making the site more visible. If you are going to link to websites on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms, it is almost a necessity to get into the habit of utilizing this tool. Donotlink.com uses three different ways to block search engines from crawling a link, so you are able to post it on forums, message boards, reddit, and other public places without giving the websites any undeserved credibility.

Web of Trust


Web of Trust (WOT) is one of the most important tools for skeptical activism. It is simple to use, and once you sign up and obtain a username, you will have the ability to rate any website that you visit. Nearly 100 million people have downloaded it. The person this is aimed for is the person who isn’t knowledgeable about what the skeptical community is knowledgeable about, those who Google and look up subjects on search engines without understanding how truthful or trustworthy webpages can be. The WOT provides a color-code system: green means it is a trustworthy site, and red means it isn’t. So when a layperson looks up these sites, they will see the ratings and the comments that are left. When the red dots come up, a warning will show.

Rbutr


Rbutr is an excellent tool embraced by the skeptic activism community. Once you download the plug-in on Chrome or Firefox, you will have it on your browser and it will automatically show the counterpoint to any websites you look up. Rbutr is an excellent tool to post the rebuttals to websites. We use facts and links for podcasts to give facts along with the crap that we see. When you select the Rbutr link, a popup will appear showing the pages that counter the website. And it will show you pages that counterpoint this page. These pages are worth reading and have a tremendous value to those who would not normally see this information. Some of the pages that are excellent to use include the Wikipedia page or some of the skeptical podcasts out there. Once you sign up to Rbutr pages can be added within minutes. Fishbarrel is a plug in that can be used for a website that is making medical claims. It will create a screen shot of the page and send it to the FDA who is supposed to act on it and help get the claims off the Internet.

Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia


Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) is the brainchild of Susan Gerbic and was started as a mission to improve the skeptical content on Wikipedia by im­proving the pages of noteworthy skeptics, providing correct citations and removing un­sourced claims from paranormal and pseudoscientific pages. Con­trary to the current controversies, this is not about vandalism or furthering a “skeptic” agenda.

Wikipedia has increasingly become the “go to” source of information for the general public, and it is often at the top of the search engine results. It is for this reason that it has become more important than ever to ensure the content is correct, fair, and balanced. The GSoW team is dedicated to following the rules of Wikipedia and to correcting the content and sources to feature science in places of unproven woo. They can find notable skeptics that have published in secondary sources about the subject of the page to provide expert opinion that can be used to improve the Wikipedia page. They also take well-written pages in one language and try to get them translated into other languages.

One might be a “skeptic” for the value it adds to the community, the opportunity for self-improvement, or as a source of academic interest. However, we can also be a movement. We can use our skills, knowledge base, and contacts to not only expose those who commit scams, fraud, or misinformation—but to help people. This is your call to action. We need to be active and participate, and we need to work together because once we do, we can make a difference.

During an investigative tour of Germany in 2002 (Nickell 2003), I explored along the beautiful Rhine Valley guided by my Center for Inquiry–Germany colleague Martin Mahner. There, we tracked a headless ghost (Nickell 2012, 33–34) and viewed the lair of the beautiful, enchanting Lorelei (associated with a massive rock 430 feet high, near St. Goar [Zieman 2000]). And therein lies a tale—or rather, conflicting tales. Lorelei is described variously as a “sorceress” (Stories 1870, 67), “siren” (Encyclopedia Britannica 1960), “water nymph” (Leach 1984, 645), “mermaid,” and even, in the plural, “mermaids” (Conway 2002, 164). In any case, at least she represents a romantic legend of the Rhine—or does she?

Introducing Lorelei

My notes on Lorelei remained in my files gathering dust for a decade until I came across a tattered old booklet, Stories and Legends of the Rhine between Worms and Cologne (1870), in an antique shop. It was in English and I bought it at once, discovering therein that “Lorelay” [sic] was in­cluded. The entry consisted mostly of two poems, a ballad by Clemens Brentano (1772–1842) and a shorter poem by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856). I give the latter, in my own translation, in the accompanying panel.

The Lorelei

By Heinrich Heine
(Translated by Joe Nickell)

I know not what it means,
This sadness that I find;
But an olden tale, it seems,
Has overcome my mind.
The air is cool at sunset,
And quietly flows the Rhine;
In the fading evening light,
The mountain summits shine.

The fairest maiden dwells
In marvelous radiance there;
Arrayed in gleaming jewels,
She combs her golden hair.
Combing with a golden comb,
All the while sings she,
A song with a wondersome,
Overpowering melody.

The boatman in his little craft—
Captivated by its might—
Sees not the looming reef,
Stares only at the height.
I think the waves are devouring
Both boat and boatman gone;
And all this with her singing
The Lorelei has done.

Folklore or Fakelore?

Now the Rhine has long been a source for romantic tales, and the German epic poem The Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200) associates it with a dragon, a treasure of gold, a cloak of invisibility, and other fabulous elements (Benét’s 1987, 692; Leach 1984, 791).

Yet the Lorelei narrative is, in fact—in folkloristic terms—“neither myth nor local legend” but is rather a “fabrication” by the previously mentioned Clemens Brentano (Leach 1984, 645). Genuine folklore consists of traditions (tales, customs, rituals, songs, etc.) accumulated through folk transmission. It includes not only the simple folktale but also the legend (a localized narrative that is more historicized than the folktale) and the myth (which presents preternatural topics as explanations or metaphors of cosmic or natural forces or the like; folklorists do not use the term to mean “a false belief”) (Brunvand 1996; Benét’s 1987). But whereas folklore is the product of tradition, fakelore—a spurious form named by great folklorist Richard M. Dorson (1950)—is deliberately created, as by writers. For instance, many of the tall tales about American herculean logger Paul Bunyan “were literary embellishments of a small amount of oral tradition” produced by William B. Laughead, a lumber company advertising executive (Walls 1996). (Sadly, such distinctions are often confused, as by one pop skeptic who declared that a certain story was “a legend” that he then branded as complete “fiction” by a certain author!) In his Lorelei fakelore—represented by a ballad (a narrative in verse form) inserted in his novel Godwi (written 1800–1801)—Clemens Brentano became “the first to associate the [Lorelei] rock with a woman of the same name.” However, “The poem is so convincingly folklike in style that Bren­tano’s invention came to be regarded as a genuine folk legend” (Benét’s 1987, 581).

Heine’s Siren

Indeed, Heinrich Heine may well have regarded Brentano’s ballad as presenting a legend, referring to the Lorelei story as Ein Märchen aus Uralten (i.e., “an ancient folktale”). Or perhaps he was simply following Brentano’s lead in presenting a newly written tale as a handed-down one in order to provide what writers call “verisimilitude” (from the Latin verisimilis; verus, true, and similis, like), that is, a semblance of being true or real. In any event, whereas Brentano’s “Lore­ley” was a Zauberin (“sorceress”), it re­mained for Heine (ca. 1823) to create the concept of Lorelei as a siren whose singing lured boatmen to their destruction (Benét’s 1987, 581). Of course, Heine did not invent sirens. As far back as the ninth century bce, the Greek poet Homer in his epic poem Odyssey presented sirens: half-woman, half-bird creatures whose singing so enticed sailors that they died by forgetting to eat. To escape their irresistible attraction, Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) filled his men’s ears with wax and had himself lashed to his ship’s mast (Benét’s 1987, 904). Sirens are not to be confused with another woman/bird hybrid, the Har­pies. Those were hideous, vulturelike monsters that seized the food of victims and otherwise tormented them (Nickell 2011, 201–202). Only in some later traditions were sirens depicted as mermaids (Nickell 2011, 201–202). In his great poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot (1915) plays on this tradition when “Prufrock” laments his inconsequentialness:

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.

Neither bird-woman nor mermaid, Hein­rich Heine’s “The Lorelei” was no hybrid but simply a water nymph or beautiful Rhine maiden such as is now represented at the Lorelei/Loreley rock: on the rock itself is a stone sculpture depicting her, and at the base another, in bronze (which appears on picture postcards) (Zieman 2000).

* * *

Ironically, it was by way of Heine’s poem that the pseudolegend of Lorelei finally did become something more than fakelore. The poem attracted English readers, and—especially when set to music by Friedrich Silcher (adapting a folk song [Encyclopedia Britan­nica 1960])—became to tourists “a local legend of sorts.” Also because the rock is attended by a peculiar echo, “the romantic literary fiction has had an excuse for passing to a degree into tradition” (Leach 1984, 645).

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Lisa Nolan, former CFI Librarian, for her research assistance.

References

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Encyclopedia Britannica. 1960. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Leach, Maria, ed. 1984. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Nickell, Joe. 2003. Germany: Monsters, myths, and mysteries. Skeptical Inquirer 27:2 (March/April), 24–28.

———. 2011. Tracking the Man-Beasts. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

———. 2012. The Science of Ghosts. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Stories and Legends of the Rhine between Worms and Cologne. 1870. Heidelberg: Charles Groos.

Walls, Robert E. 1996. “Paul Bunyan,” in Brunvand 1996, 105–07.

Zieman, Johanna M., ed. 2000. Der Scharze Führer: Deutschland (i.e., The Black Guides: Germany). Freiburg: Eulen Verlag.

The Untold Story of Champ: A Social History of America’s Loch Ness Monster. Robert E. Bartholomew. Excelsior Editions, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4384-4484-0. XIV + 253 pp. Softcover, $24.95.

When I was a boy growing up in northern New Hampshire in the 1950s, everyone knew about the Loch Ness monster. But Champ, the monster in Lake Champlain, was only vaguely on the radar. Over the years I’ve heard and read bits and pieces about Champ but until this excellent book the whole story of this intriguing lake monster hasn’t been brought together in one place. The history of Champ, to my considerable surprise, predates that of Nessie by about sixty years. As Loxton and Prothero (Abominable Science, Columbia University Press, 2013) have pointed out, the first real Nessie reports date only from 1933. Champ, on the other hand, puts in its first appearance in the early 1870s. But it was overshadowed by Nessie later in the twentieth century.

The first three chapters of this six-chapter book recount the history of Champ sightings up and down Lake Champlain and even a few in neighboring lakes in the area. There have been hundreds of sightings over the years. One might think that three chapters of, “On such and such a day at such and such a place so and so said he saw a strange object that looked like a snake” would be boring. But Bartholomew tells the history with wit, insight, and an eye to local color that makes these chapters both informative and a pleasure to read.

One event in the chronology of Champ eyewitness reports beautifully shows the influence of expectations on perceptions. In the summer of 1970, an eyewitness reported seeing a monster whose head looked very much like a horse’s head. Bartholomew notes that previous to the horse head report, “not one reported Champ sighting de­scribed the creature’s head as horse-shaped” (82). But after that report was widely publicized, “suddenly, it seemed as though everyone was seeing a horse-shaped head on the creature” (83).

The next two chapters cover some of the major personalities and controversies in modern “Champology.” Bartholomew discusses the activities and disputes of several major Champ proponents. Philip Reines is a media professor at a college near the south end of the Lake. Joseph Zarzynski is a local Champ “expert.” Dennis Jay Hall, an eccentric investigator who claimed to have had multiple close encounters with the monster, simply vanished for several years. Finally, Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, a “scientist” with only an undergraduate degree in psychology, has claimed to find evidence of the use of echolocation by unknown animals in the lake. The activities of these four make for interesting reading. I could have done with less detail on the dispute between Reines and Zarzynski, although I realize that it’s important to have these details on the record.

These chapters also discuss in detail the best known photo of Champ, taken by Sandra Mansi in the summer of 1977, allegedly on the Vermont shore of the lake somewhere north of St. Albans. It shows a vaguely serpent-like object in the water between some vegetation in the foreground and a far bank in the background. In the absence (as is typical with cryptozoological entities) of any physical evidence like bodies or body parts, this photograph is seen as the best evidence for the reality of Champ. Every­thing about the picture is, well, fishy. Mansi reported that the object shown was visible for several minutes, but she took only one shot. She threw away the negative after taking the picture. She did not reveal its existence until 1981. Worse, Mansi has been unable (or unwilling) to say exactly where the photo was taken and, in spite of several visits to the area, showed little interest in searching for it. Other searches have failed to find any place on that part of the lake that corresponds to what is shown in the photograph. Bartholo­mew outlines the many other problems with the photo as evidence. Suffice it to say that the photo can’t be seriously taken as evidence of anything. (For an in-depth analysis of the Mansi photo, see “The Measure of a Monster: Investi­gating the Champ Photo” in the July/August 2003 Skep­tical Inquirer).

So, without photographic or anatomical evidence, one is left with the eyewitness ac­counts. What is to be made of these? Bartholo­mew points out what should be well known to skeptics and psychologists: that human perception is extremely unreliable, especially when the object of one’s interest is far away or viewing conditions are poor. However, Champ is especially interesting because of the number of things in the lake that could easily be mistaken for some sort of lake monster. Even local residents might not be familiar with several of these.

It is widely believed that the first monster report was by Samuel de Champlain, the discoverer of the lake, in 1609. This claim was widely publicized by an article in the popular local magazine Vermont Life in 1970. In fact, Champlain reported seeing something that was the size of his thigh and had a head the size of two fists. But his report wasn’t even from Lake Champlain but from a river that flows into the St. Lawrence. Champlain obviously saw something—what was it? Many believe that Champ is some sort of prehistoric dinosaur that survived in the lake. But this is impossible because the lake is not prehistoric; it’s only about 12,000 years old. But Champlain’s detailed description is fully consistent with a fish called a gar or gap pike. These can get quite large—the record catch in Vermont is eighteen pounds.

The region of northwest Vermont and northeast New York does not lack for other large freshwater fish. Bartholomew points to the sturgeon as a very likely source of many Champ reports. The freshwater variety reaches a length of six feet and a weight of 200 pounds. They were once fairly common but are now threatened and rare. The Atlantic Sturgeon, which can make its way into Lake Champlain, can be much larger—fifteen feet and 800 pounds. Seeing one of these rare giants could easily scare the hell out of a witness and result in a monster report.

While Bartholomew does not mention the carp as a source of Champ reports, it seems to me a good candidate. Originally from Europe, the carp was introduced into New York in 1831 according to the New York State Department of Conservation. The largest carp taken in Vermont was forty-two pounds, in New York forty-eight pounds. Several Champ sightings include reports of thrashing tails and roiling water. I don’t think it is a coincidence that when they spawn carp congregate in shallow waters and thrash about to distribute their eggs. I’ve seen just this sort of behavior in a swamp in Michigan. It was extremely impressive, and if I hadn’t known what was happening and had seen it from a different angle it would have been easy to mistake the activity for something caused by one huge “monster.” Especially if I believed such a monster was known in the area.

Other large fish in the lake include the northern pike (thirty pounds), channel catfish (thirty-five pounds) and the eel (six pounds). Seals have also been known to find their way into the lake. There are also otters, beavers, and deer swimming in the lake. And, of course, there is human activity. Bartholomew records several instances where human activity has led to monster reports.

In the final chapter the author discusses issues of misperception and the role Champ plays in the local economy and folklore. It is a nice summing up.

As good as the book is, it is not without some flaws that could have been easily corrected. Most obvious is the lack of any maps of Lake Champlain and the surrounding area. In a book that includes so much discussion of specific towns’ geographical areas this is inexcusable. Nor are there pictures of the most likely and impressive prime suspects, the gap pike and the sturgeon. I simply can’t understand how one could omit pictures of these fish that are obviously so important to the story.

Other problems are due to sloppy editing. The chapters have names but no numbers in the table of contents and the text. But in the notes, which are extensive and very valuable, the chapters are denoted only by number! In several places “stationery” is spelled with an “a.” On page 175, Vermont and New York have switched places, with New York being on the east side of Lake Champlain.

Next to Loxton and Prothero’s (2013) Abominable Science, this is the best book on a cryptozoological topic I have read.

A core function of skepticism is the analysis of concepts. It works alongside traditional scientific skepticism, which investigates claims in a direct, hands-on way. One advantage that analysis has over investigation is that it can be done purely in the mind, and thus avoids limits on travel, time, or investment of physical resources.

Consider the notion that taking a photograph of a person “steals his or her soul.” For most of us in developed countries, this idea seems like a pre-technological fear born of simple ignorance of photography. It’s an easy concept to dismiss, as it seems so simplistic and overtly fallacious. But I claim there is value in actually considering this notion more carefully, because it functions to exercise our critical thinking skills, and it demonstrates that there is often a great deal going on with an extraordinary claim if we simply think about it carefully.

First off, I’m going to take the claim at face value and assume that it’s not been articulated in a precise way by a theologian. At the very least, it can be differentiated from beliefs about photography by groups such as the Amish. For them, photographs of members of the community may be considered “graven images” and as such violate the Bible’s second commandment. For some Amish, the issue of consent becomes a factor, as active participation in their own photography is considered prideful, and thus sinful.¹

The religious and spiritual beliefs of some cultures are not detailed in written records. Anthropologist and photography librarian Carolyn J. Marr² notes that some Native Americans stated they did not want to be photographed based on the belief the photograph would steal their souls. Never­theless, this was not a belief held by all Native Americans, as many examples of carefully staged and posed Native American portraits exist.³ The ill-defined nature of the fear of soul theft even makes an appearance in pop culture humor. In the Futurama episode “The Thief of Baghead,” the characters debate whether their souls or their “life force” was sucked out of their bodies by a photographic print.⁴ Even as a comedic device, the Futurama segment illustrates the very concept of the “soul” is fuzzy, to say nothing of its empirical foundations.

Assuming that some people at some times have genuinely believed that photography can steal their souls, how do we begin to analyze this claim? It’s safe to assume that the soul is made of light, for why else would there be a concern that a machine that captures light is capturing the soul? If the soul were something besides light, then we might worry it could be captured by a vacuum cleaner, a fishing line, or a Ziploc bag.

During the act of soul theft, we must ask when this occurs, as the process of photography is not instantaneous and neither is the movement of light. Does it happen when the shutter first opens or before, when the light first enters the lens? Maybe it happens when the light hits the negative or the electronic sensor. Perhaps it waits until the image is actually printed, or maybe electronically shared.

Consider that light can be captured without lenses, such as with a pinhole camera. By thought alone, we can eliminate the lens as a necessary condition of soul theft. Is the negative or sensor a necessary condition? What about the use of a camera obscura? What if the person’s light is not captured automatically, either chemically or electronically, but rather applied by a human hand? An artist can certainly draw or paint a very realistic image of a person onto paper or canvas using a camera obscura or camera lucida.⁵

Is the soul one thing, or is it divisible? If each human has only one soul, then what happens if I take two photographs of a person? Is their soul stolen twice? If the soul is one thing, like the Statue of Liberty, can it be in two places at one time? If it’s argued that the soul is incorporeal, and thus could be omnipresent, then why are we worried about cameras at all? If we accept that the soul is light and can be stolen by cameras, then what about black and white photo­graphs? Do color photos have more soul than the souls Diane Arbus might have stolen? There seems to be a tacit assumption in all this that we’re talking about visible light. Yet humans most certainly give off invisible light in the form of infrared (IR) radiation. If I point an infrared thermometer at you, I gather your infrared light. Do I still steal your soul? The IR thermometer forces us to consider whether our souls exist only in range of frequencies visible to other humans. The metaphor of the IR thermometer offers another conundrum as well, as many consumer-grade IR thermometers simply give a digital numeric readout of the temperature of whatever is being measured. In this case, the result can be thought of as the “brightness” of one color of whatever it is that is being measured. Essentially, it’s the numeric readout representing a single color. In conventional photography this is known as a histogram, which is a chart representing the multiple color values of a photograph. This raises yet another issue: Assuming for the sake of argument that a soul is captured on a digital sensor, what then if we are only provided a numeric or graphic readout of its electronic values? Odd as it may seem, this is essentially what’s happening when we point an IR thermometer at a surface. If we concede that we are not stealing a soul simply by remotely measuring a person’s temperature, why is this so? Is it because seeing a non-abstract, non-numeric representation of the person is a necessary condition?

There is also the tacit assumption that our souls are only the light reflecting off our skin, which is an organ that only makes up a fraction of our bodies. Consider an en­doscopy. Can a gastroenterologist accidentally steal your soul if he snaps a picture of your large intestine? Your colon is no less a part of you than your skin.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that a necessary condition for soul theft is capturing the light that comes off a person’s skin. With this stipulation, we completely eliminate images such as medical X-rays. But what about so-called “millimeter wave scanners” now commonly found in Amer­ican airports? In this case, reasonably detailed images of a person’s skin can be seen beneath clothing. In such a case, would a person’s soul be stolen even if they were totally covered, as in a burka? Setting aside the esoteric technology of millimeter wave scanners, another question is raised. Con­sider that most people are wearing at least some clothing when photographed. Since most people’s visual identity is strongly associated with their faces, perhaps the face being visible is a necessary condition of soul theft. What if we wear a mask? From there it’s a bit of a slippery slope, as one could continue covering or hiding one’s self further and further until completely occluded. Is there a point along the continuum from being completely naked to being completely covered that soul theft could or could not occur?

As with matters of law, intention plays a huge role. For a theft to occur we need a thief. Perhaps the presence of the photographer is a necessary condition. But now we have another problem, as we need to account for self-portraits. Can a person steal their own soul with a selfie? Is it even a meaningful concept to steal something from yourself? All the other conditions we suppose might be necessary are there: a machine for capturing light, a photographer, a person being photographed, and a non-abstract representation of the person. But perhaps our thinking is too limited here; perhaps something entirely else besides theft happens. Perhaps the soul discorporates and leaves the body during the selfie, yet returns when the image is posted on Facebook.

Perhaps our thinking that the soul is “one thing” is too narrow. What happens when the camera is digital and the soul falls on the sensor? Is each pixel a mere part of the soul? In such a case we could consider that the soul might be holographic and that each pixel somehow contains the information needed to reassemble the whole soul.

Our thinking on this issue is also constrained in supposing there is only one camera functioning. What if we used two cameras to capture a stereoscopic image? This is not a fanciful concern, as stereoscopic photo pairs were quite the rage in Victorian times.⁶ A stereoscopic image is fundamentally different than any 2D image, as the 3D image is perceived in the brain of the viewer. But what does this mean for the soul? Perhaps the soul contains spatial information or more technically “Cartesian metadata” that was first perceived by Victorian thrill seekers.

What about distance from the camera to the subject? What if the subject is in the frame of the camera, but is too far away to be seen? If so, then souls were stolen en masse when the famous “Earthrise” photo of planet earth was taken during Apollo 8 in 1968. Is NASA the biggest soul thief of them all?

Troubling, too, is the subject of death. Are photos of deceased humans taboo too? Most conceptions of the soul describe it as leaving the body after death. Yet if a soul is light from a person’s skin, then there is still light reflected from his or her skin when he or she dies.

This exercise is intended to demonstrate that many extraordinary claims are poorly framed from the get-go. Even an assertion that sounds ridiculously simple on the surface can contain paradoxes, uncertainties, and multiple tacit assumptions. This is understandable in the study of fringe subjects, as many extraordinary claims exist outside the realm of conventional science, which places a huge emphasis on very precise definitions of concepts. The very subject matter of skepticism, analysis of extraordinary claims, offers the skeptic a fertile set of ideas that analysis alone may reveal as containing these paradoxes, uncertainties, and tacit assumptions. Before the hard leg work of scientific skepticism starts, time spent simply analyzing the initial claim is often very productive.

Notes

1. http://www.padutchcountry.com/towns-and-heritage/amish-country/amish-and-photographs.asp.

2. http://content.lib.washington.edu/aipnw/marr.html#author.

3. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/pacific/thinking3.html.

4. http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/The_Thief_of_Baghead.

5. http://neolucida.com/history/.

6. http://www.brianmay.com/brian/magsandpress/SWvol33no5_08/LondonStereoReborn.html.

Each August at the University of Oregon, Eugene, you will find a devoted group of conference attendees learning a critical thinking skill to bring back for use in their everyday lives. The Skeptic’s Toolbox began in 1992, the brainchild of then-psychology professor Ray Hyman. His goal, both then and now, was to give skeptics the tools to become better critical thinkers. His approach is different than a traditional conference; he uses hands-on participation, splitting the attendees into teams that are able to spend quality time discussing the readings and lectures. This year’s topic was “Case Based Skepticism—Using Model Cases to Deal with Dubious Claims.”

Assigned to the attendees this year were several journal articles on various topics: blood pressure changes using chiropractic, acupuncture and asthma, homeopathy, Rhine’s investigation of a mind-reading horse, and other readings pertaining to the ideomotor effect, which included table-turning, Ouija boards, and pendulums. Plus one of my favorite investigations, Clever Hans.

Each year participants are divided into groups and are assigned specific papers to present on during the last day of the conference. Throughout the Thursday–Sunday conference the faculty lectures on their expertize concerning case-based learning. Breakouts are scheduled in between lectures for teams to discuss and work on their presentations. The faculty sits in on these discussions to act as resources.

The presentations on Sunday show that the audience received much more than they would from a typical “sit and listen” conference. It was obvious that they understood the readings and were able to present their knowledge back to the attendees often in a comical, creative way. A byproduct of their interaction was that participants bonded with each other; even first time attendees felt like old friends by the end of the event.

The Toolbox faculty centers their lectures around the conference theme...

Ray Hyman—The last holder of Stanford University’s “spook chair” has investigated many parapsychology “events.” He is probably best known for his research into the Ganzfeld experiment, University of Arizona’s Professor Gary Schwartz and the Stanford Research Institute’s interest in Uri Geller. At this year’s Toolbox, Hyman used Oskar Pfungst’s Investigation of Clever Hans to show attendees how detailed and exhaustive some investigators are in studying claims.

Harriet Hall—Retired family physician from the U.S. Air Force, Hall writes about medical quackery on the Science Based Medicine blog, Skeptical Inquirer, and Skeptic magazines as the SkepDoc.

Jim Alcock—Professor of psychology at York University (Canada) and a member of the Editorial Board for the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, to which he frequently contributes. Alcock has investigated several parapsychology cases, including Robert Jahn and the Bem experiments.

Lindsay Beyerstein—attended the Skeptic’s Toolbox when she was fourteen because her father Barry Beyerstein was on the Toolbox faculty from 1992 until his death in 2007. Lindsay is a writer and a host of CFI’s Point of Inquiry podcast.

This year’s keynote address was from Loren Pankratz whose lecture “Going Back to the Ancient Greek Oracles for Lessons on Coping with Dubious Claims” set the theme of case based skeptical investigations. Pankratz has been involved in many investigations, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and patient deception, related to his work as a psychologist at the Portland, Oregon, VA Medical Hospital. He is also an expert on Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Guest lectures were presented by Richard Wackrow and Jerry Schwarz, and a “How to Fake UFO Photos” lecture was presented by CFI–LA Executive Director James Underdown.

This year’s In the Trenches Award was given to Jerry Schwarz for his work with the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Investigative Group (IIG). The IIG offers a $100K prize to anyone proving under test conditions evidence of paranormal ability. Schwarz is a lead investigator working with applicants to write a testable protocol. Schwarz is also a longtime Toolbox attendee and has been active in the S.F. Bay area skeptical movement for many years.

Each year the Oregonians for Science and Reason organizes the Master’s Challenge (named for Herb Masters who is a long-time attendee) and offer scholarships. This year four students were able to attend because of the scholarships, one of whom works as a “explainer” at the San Francisco Exploratorium.

Readers who have been following my work as a skeptical activist using social media and crowd-sourcing may not understand why I consider attending conferences an act of activism, and strongly advocate attending your local skeptic’s in the pub or SkeptiCamp events. Over and over people tell me they originally went to the conference to listen and learn from the lectures. By the end of the conference they tell me that they will return because of the people they met. It’s like a “rationality vacation.”

We need these face-to-face gatherings to reignite the flame, kick the embers a bit and get us thinking and networking with other people. Meeting like-minded people oftentimes is the first step to activism. Some days it might appear that critical thinkers are outnumbered in the real world, but we know our best asset is our people. And armed with current technology and sharpened critical thinking skills, if we focus we can educate and enlighten.

Visit the Toolbox page for downloadable readings—videos and photos available here at Lanyrd.

Q: I wrote a letter to CSI asking them to investigate crop circles to determine if they are a hoax. I looked up crop circles on the web and they state that humans made all crop circles. However, based on the book Crop Circles: Signs, Wonders, and Mysteries I am convinced they were made by aliens; the information on pages 177–179 convinced me of this. Can you help me with an analysis?

—G. Hannye

A: Investigators and research­ers at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry typically can’t accept investigation assignments from the public; we don’t have the staff to fully respond to all the inquiries we get, much less to launch investigations that could take days, weeks, or months.

This crop circle design containing a humanoid face appeared near the Chilbolton Radio Telescope, England, in August 2001.

However, I was intrigued by this claim and agreed to tackle it in the context of a “Skeptical Inquiree” column if I could. I contacted Mr. Hannye and asked for clarification on a few points, including what specifically he found so compelling about these two particular designs. He replied,

First of all what interested me was that there were no indications outside of the crop circles of equipment used to make the crop circles. The two crop circles on page 177 indicate that a reply was made to a binary code sent out in 1974. The crop circle was in the same format as the one we sent out. The second was the crop circle on page 178. That one was a message in binary code and was very complex. . . . The book indicates that crop circles are created in hours and usually between sunset and sunrise.

I began by researching the cases in my library and online. According to the Crop Circles Research Foundation,

The Crop Circle which occurred in wheat crop at Chilbolton, reported on August 19, 2001 was perhaps the most important Genuine Crop Circle which has ever been discovered. The Chilbolton Crop Circle clearly demonstrates that the Sagan/Drake message from humanity which was transmitted into space from the Arecibo radiotelescope in 1974 was intercepted by an ET civilization which then sent to us their reply via the Chilbolton Crop Circle in 2001—27 years later! This occurred despite the fact that it should have required 25,000 years for the Arecibo message to reach the star system at which it was aimed! Clearly, someone “out there” intercepted the message and replied, and the means employed to present this message of reply to us can only be described as nothing less than miraculous. (Crop Circles Research Foundation 2012)

“The most important genuine crop circle . . . ever discovered” that is “nothing less than miraculous”? Intriguing. Though I have a significant skeptical library, including many books on crop circles, the particular title he referenced was not among them. Mr. Hannye kindly offered to send me a copy of the book, and when I got it I turned to the pages that turned him from skeptic to believer. The text reads,

The late summer of 2001 gave us two of the most unusual and controversial crop circles yet. In a field beside the Chilbolton Radio Telescope in Hampshire, two crop formations appeared. . . . The first occurred on 14 August. It was a face inscribed into the crop circle using a dot-matrix methodology. . . . The second formation appeared six days later. It was even more bizarre—an oblong area containing a series of patterns and boxes. It was not long before it was recognized as a representation of the binary code first beamed into space from the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974; however there were a few modifications. The “message” apparently indicated that its creators were silicon-based and smaller than ourselves; they also indicated that they inhabited a binary star system. What are we to make of this and exactly whose is the enigmatic face? (Alexander 2006, 177)

The second crop circle referenced appeared in August 2002 in Hampshire, England. The accompanying text reads,

This astonishing aliens face and disc arrived in a Hampshire field, next to an array of radio masts in a mirroring—of sorts—of the Chilbolton formations ... The disc was found to contain a form of binary code. It was a short message [allegedly reading, “Beware the bearers of false gifts and their broken promises. Much pain but still time. Believe there is good out there. We oppose deception.”] that alluded to the hatred of deception and offered hope for mankind. . . . (Alexander and Alexander 2006, 178)

Crop Circle Theories

Unlike other mysterious phenomena such as psychic powers, ghosts, or Bigfoot, there is no doubt that crop circles are real. The evidence that they exist is clear and overwhelming. The real question is what creates them. Crop circle enthusiasts have come up with many theories about what creates the patterns, ranging from the plausible to the absurd. Many who favor an extraterrestrial explanation claim that aliens physically make the patterns themselves from spaceships. Others suggest that they do it using invisible energy beams from space, saving them the trip down here.

This crop circle design, containing a stereotypical alien head profile and a coded message, appeared in August 2002 in Hampshire, England.

While there are countless theories, the only known and proven cause of crop circles is humans. Most crop circle researchers admit that the vast majority of crop circles are created by hoaxers. But, they claim, there’s a remaining tiny percentage that they can’t explain. The real problem is that (despite unproven claims by a few researchers that stalks found inside “real” crop circles show unusual characteristics), there is no reliable scientific way to distinguish real crop circles from man-made ones. Using the principle of Occam’s Razor and common sense, the default explanation for crop circles is that they are made by humans—unless good evidence is presented indicating otherwise.

We can look at both internal and external evidence to evaluate these crop circles. Internal information includes the content and meaning of the designs (is there anything that indicates that the information contained in the “messages” is of extraterrestrial origin?), and external information including the physical construction of the crop designs themselves (is there anything that indicates that the designs were created by anything other than humans?).

External Evidence

The external evidence surrounding the Chilbolton and Sparsholt designs is pretty straightforward. Hannye asked about the equipment used to make the designs, and the fact that the circles are made overnight. Of course without identifying the creators and asking them it’s impossible to know for certain what they used, but the most common way is with homemade “stalk stompers” (wooden boards attached to rope) to lay the stalks in one direction. The process is actually pretty straightforward and not nearly as complicated as many people assume. In fact I have personally created crop circle designs, including with Joe Nickell and former colleague Kevin Christopher (see Figure 1); the triple-circle crop pattern I designed and helped create was about 120 feet long by forty feet wide, and took only a few hours from start to finish (see Nickell 2004; Christopher 2002).

Figure 1: CSI team Kevin Christopher, Benjamin Radford, and Joe Nickell with their crop circle making equip- ment inside their handiwork. Photo by the author.

Both crop designs exhibit many of the classic signs of hoaxing, including having been created under cover of darkness along tram lines and near public roadways (see Radford 2010). Many crop circle designs show amazing beauty and artistry, and this particular pair is no more or less impressive than hundreds of others. There is nothing in the literature suggesting that the physical construction of the Chilbolton and Sparsholt designs could not have been made by humans or that they are otherwise unexplainable in any way. So, let’s turn to the internal evidence.

Internal Evidence

Is there anything in the designs that suggests nonhuman creation? In fact, the evidence points directly and unmistakably to human creators. The first thing to note about these two particular crop formations is that they both involve human-based faces. The Chilbolton formation resembles something like a close-up portrait of a human, cropped at the top and bottom and thus not showing hair or a neck (nor, for that matter, does it seem to have ears).

The prominence and primacy of the human face is a distinctly human psychological feature. People see faces in clouds, ink stains, reflections, tree trunks, even in tortillas and other food. In fact the human brain is so hardwired to value faces that the facial pattern (two eyes, a nose, and a mouth) is among the first that infants recognize, and there’s even a specific brain disorder called “prosopagnosia” in which people are unable to recognize faces.

There is no reason to think that the psychology of extraterrestrials—who of course may not look anything like us (especially if they are silicon-based, as one of the messages claims)—would give any particular value or significance to the human face. In other words, this supposed alien communication bears all the marks of a distinctly human creator, from its human face to its bordered photograph style, which is aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. The “dot matrix” style (actually a simple grid technique) is also less than convincing since artists such as Chuck Close have worked for years in a similar style. The fact that the Sparsholt image looks exactly like the stereotypical large-headed alien seen in countless movies and television shows (in dramatic half-lit profile no less!) is strong evidence for a human pop-culture influence.

Hannye finds it mysterious that “a reply was made to a binary code sent out in 1974. The crop circle was in the same format as the one we sent out.” Yet this mystery is easily explained if, as all evidence suggests, the crop message was created by humans. Creating a short binary code message doesn’t take a scientist or an extraterrestrial intelligence. If a handful of hoaxers is going to create a crop circle message near a radio telescope that might believably come from aliens, they’re very likely to use the same “language” that was famously used to send a message into space years earlier. Of course in theory any extraterrestrials trying to contact us could have used any Earth language or dialect, from English to Esperanto to Welsh. But using a binary code—and conspicuously in the same form we sent out—was an obvious choice, being both scientific and conforming to crop circle believers’ expectations.

Many crop circle believers and skeptics have dismissed these two designs as preposterous. Bill Hamilton, executive director of Skywatch International, Inc., noted that “The fact that the Chilbolton radio telescope is nearby is an indication that someone in that area was knowledgable about the Arecibo signal and could have contributed information to the (human) circle makers to construct this elaborate hoax to entertain us. . . . If this is an elaborate hoax, think of how humans will go to such incredible lengths to fool other humans” (Hamilton 2001).

But by far the most damning internal evidence against this crop circle’s authenticity is the pseudo-biblical “alien” message itself: “Beware the bearers of false gifts and their broken promises. . . .” Of all the information that an extraterrestrial intelligence might choose to provide to humanity—ranging from how to contact them to engineering secrets of faster-than-light travel—these aliens chose to impart intentionally cryptic messages about false gifts, broken promises, believing in good, and hope for mankind. These ambiguous, faintly reassuring notes are classic examples of messages from pop culture alien “space brothers” that have allegedly contacted humans for decades (for more on this see Lewis 2000 and Bullard 2010).

In sum, all the information about these crop circles indicates a clear human origin. If aliens did indeed create these crop designs, they seem to have done everything in their power to make their work indistinguishable from human hoaxing.

References

Alexander, Steve, and Karen Alexander. 2006. Crop Circles: Signs, Wonders, and Mysteries. Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books.

Bullard, Thomas. 2010. The Myth and Mystery of UFOs. Lawrence, Kansas: The University Press of Kansas.

Christopher, Kevin. 2002. CSICOP Field Investigations: 2002 crop circle experiments. Skeptical Briefs (September): 3–5.

Crop Circles Research Foundation. 2012. Communication with extraterrestrials has occurred: The Arecibo message and the Chilbolton reply. December 8. Online at http://cropcirclesresearchfoundation.org/communication-with-extraterrestrials-has-occurred-the-arecibo-message-and-the-chilbolton-reply.

Hamilton, Bill. 2001. Answer to ‘Arecibo’ crop circle: A clever hoax? Online at http://www.rense.com/general13/arc.htm.

Lewis, James. 2000. UFOs and Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Myth. Oxford, England: ABC-CLIO.

Nickell, Joe. 2004. Crop circle capers. Skeptical Briefs (March): 9–10.

Radford, Benjamin. 2010. Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. Corrales, New Mexico: Rhombus Publishing.