Arguments from ignorance fallaciously infer that since a hypothesis has not been disproved, it is reasonable to believe that hypothesis or regard it with an open mind. ... There is a difference between admitting that one may be wrong, which is to acknowledge one's fallibility, and treating that possibiltiy of error as a genuine reason to doubt. If one does treat fallibility as a genuine reason, one is arguing from ignorance. Our ignorance that we are certainly correct is taken as a reason to withdraw from belief.
Obviously, no one normally so reasons. I could possibly be mistaken that my
sister lives in Long Island[,but] it is not the slightest reason to lelieve
that she doesn't live there.
-- Jonathan Adler, 1998. Open Minds and the Argument from Ignorance.
Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
Oxygen therapy as discussed in this article refers to such practices as oral
ingestion (drinking) of hydrogen peroxide, administration of hydrogen peroxide
enemas, and inhalation of ozone without appropriate medical supervision. These
practices should not be confused with medically approved oxygen therapy which
involves administration of oxygen at elevated concentrations (hyperbaric
oxygen) and medically supervised administration of hydrogen peroxide and
ozone under carefully controlled clinical conditions, although even some of
these medical treatments remain controversial.
...
The fundamental flaw in the oxygen therapy approach is that it completely
ignores the need to exploit the substantial toxicity of free radical oxidants
selectively. In other words, an attempt must be made to limit, as much as
possible, exposure of normal, healthy cells to free radical oxidants. Oxygen
therapy proponents argue erroneously that "enzymes present in the body are
fully capable of protecting against any damage inflicted by free radical
oxidants to healthy cells" during oxygen therapy. This is untrue even with
regard to naturally occurring free radical oxidant concentration levels and
is certainly untrue when the body is deliberately swamped with free radical
oxidants during oxygen therapy. Oxygen therapy proponents claim that "disease
organisms are of primitive evolutional origin and thus require less oxygen
and can only survive in low oxygen environments". This is more
pseudoscientific nonsense.
-- John Allen, 2000. Pseudoscience of Oxygen Therapy. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
In December of each year, nearly a billion Christians around the world celebrate the birth of a Jewish charismatic leader whom they credit with, among other things, walking on water and turning it into wine, creating bread and fish out of nothing, and bringing dead people back to life. Furthermore, he himself was supposedly born from a virgin and came back to life three days after being executed. The sole evidence for any of these wondrous events is found in a single book, written decades after this leader's death by his followers, who were promoting him as divine. This same book also describes such things as a speaking bush, the miraculous parting of the Red Sea, and a person being turned into salt. Adherents of this faith are promised perpetual bliss after their savior returns to lead his angels in a titanic battle against the devil and his minions.
Such tales, unsupported by even a whisper of evidence other than the Bible,
might be entertaining in a Star Wars movie. Their claim to truth
should make any thinking person blanch. Yet hundreds of millions of people
celebrate these acts without a hint of skepticism. But because they have
been integrated into the dominant culture, most people do not view such
beliefs as superstition or magic. Yet they are no less silly than many New
Age ideas that get strong rebuttal from skeptics, including those writing
in this magazine. To a society that uncritically accepts the veracity of
such unreasonable stories, claims of alien abductions, channeling, or
astrology can seem quite modest.
...
On the face of it, evolution by natural selection provides a logical
explanation for the development of life on this planet. However, to account
for all of the enormous complexity in life forms by random genetic variation
requires an act of faith by most people. Myriad genetic changes must have
taken place over an immense span of time for such evolution to have occurred.
For a society in which many people don't understand events that occurred
even a decade ago, such profound depths of time are beyond the comprehension
of most people.
[An] even greater problem precludes acceptance of evolution: Almost everything it tells us we do not want to hear. Evolution says that we came out of some primordial slime, that our presence here is due to a series of genetic accidents, completely devoid of meaning and purpose. It even implies that the ultimate origin of many of the things we treasure most, things like beauty, justice, and honor, is really nothing more than mechanical competition between genes.
How many people can find such a view sustaining and adopt it as a major
guiding force in their lives? Is it any wonder that most people prefer the
reassurance of traditional religion or the more "modern" sounding ideas
of New Age spirituality?
...
Astrology is another example. In general terms, astrology is the belief that,
in some mysterious way, the state of the rest of the universe affects us.
This belief is not so different from the quantum mechanical notion that our
observation of an electron causes its wave function to collapse and therefore
forces the electron to be in one particular state. Instead of the rest of
the universe affecting us, our observations give reality to the universe.
-- Wayne Anderson, 1998. Why Would People Not Believe Weird Things?
Skeptical Inquirer. Sep.
It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine
a free ride. There cannot be two kids of medicine -- conventional and
alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and
medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not
work.
-- Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer, 1998. New England Journal of
Medicine, Sep.
According to Doleres Krieger, R.N., its leading proponent, "Therapeutic Touch
is a healing practice based on the conscious use of the hands to direct or
modulate, for therapeutic purposes, selected nonphysical human energies that
activate the physical body. ... through the pams of the hands held slightly
avove the body, the Therapeutic Touch practitioner can scan the body for every
deficit or illness. The evidence that one has deteted such "living currents of
energy flow" comes through sensations such as tingling, heat pressure, or
elasticity. Following assessment of the patient's energy field, the
practitioner, palms facing the patient and about two or three inches from
his body, "rebalances the patient's energies." The practitioner sends energy
from her hand chakras (energy centers) through the patient's energy field,
thereby inducing a health-promoting energy flow.
...
[An] extended experiment by Rosa, Rosa, and Sarner (1996) did involve
officially recognized practitioners trained in Therapeutic Touch. In this
case, however, a blindfolded practitioner had to identify the location of the
experimenter's hand, which was randomly placed over one or the other of the
practitioner's hands [presumably palm up]. A series of fifteen practitioners
were tested in the ability to make this series of discriminations. None
Exceeded the chance level of success.
-- Thomas Ball and Dean Alexander, 1998. Catching Up with Eighteenth Century
Science in the Evaluation of Therapeutic Touch. Skeptical Inquirer. Jul.
Medicine, Sep.
For many years, critics have been raising telling doubts about fringe medical practices, but the popularity of such nostrums seems undiminished. We must wonder why entrepreneurs' claims in this area should remain so refractory to contrary data. If an "alternative" or "complementary" therapy:
The answer, I believe, lies in a combination of vigorous marketing of unsubstantiated claims by "alternative" healers (Beyerstein and Sampson 1996), the poor level of scientific knowledge in the public at large (Kiernan 1995), and the "will to believe" so prevalent among seekers attracted to the New Age movement (Basil 1988; Gross and Levitt 1994). ... Why might terapists and their clients who rely on anecdotal evidence and uncontrolled observations erroneously conclude that inert therapies work? There are at least ten good reasons:
Raymond Moody (1975), an American physican, published his best-selling Life
After Life. He had talked with many people who had "come back from death",
and he put together an account of a typical [near-death experience] NDE. In
this idealized experience a dead person hears himself pronounced dead. Then
comes a load buzzing or ringing noise and a long, dark tunnel. He can see his
own body from a distance and watch what is happening. Soon he meets others and
a "being of light" who shows him a playback of events from his life and helps
him to evaluate it. At some point he gets to a barrier and knows that he has
to go back. Even though he feels joy, love, and peace there, he returns to his
body and life.
...
Kennesth Ring (1980), at the University of Connecticut, surveyed 102 people
who had come close to death and found almost 50 percent had had what he called
a "core experience". He broke this into five stages: peace, body separation,
entering the darkness ..., seeing the light, and enering the light. He found
that the later stages were reached by fewer people, which seems to imply that
there is an ordered set of experiences waiting to unfold.
One interesting question is whether NDEs are culture specific. What little research there is suggests that in other cultures NDEs have basically the same structure, although religious background seems to influence the way it is interpreted. ...
Perhaps more important is whether you have to be nearly dead to have an NDE.
The answer is clearly no .... Many very similar experiences are recorded of
people who have taken certain drugs, were extremely tire, or, occasionally,
were just carrying on their ordinary activities.
...
A survey of more than 50 different cultures showed that almost all of them
believe in a spirit or soul that could leave the body (sheils 1978). So both the
[out-of-body experience] OBE and the belief in another body are common, but
what does this mean? Is it just that we cannot bring ourselves to believe that
we are othing more than a mortal body and that death is the end? Or is there
really another body?
...
Tunnels do not only occur near death. They are also experienced in epilepsy
and migraine, when falling asleep, meditating, or just relaxing, weith
pressure on both eyeballs, and with certain drugs. ... It is as though the
whole world becomes a rushing, roating tunnel and you are flying along it
toward a bright light at the end.
...
Brain activity is normally kept stable by some cells inhibiting others.
Disinhibition (the reduction of this inhibitory activity) produces too much
activity in the brain. This can occur near death (because of lack of oxygen)
or with drugs like LSD, which interfere with inhibition.
... our senses tell us what is "out there" by constructing models of the world with ourselves in it. The whole of the world "out there" and our own bodies are really constructions of our minds. Yet we are sure, all the time, that this construction -- if you like, this "model of reality" -- is "real" while the other fleeting thoughts we have are unreal.
... we know something very interesting about memory models. Often they are constructed in bird's-eye view. That is, the events or scenes are seen as though from above. If you find this strange, try to remember the last time you went to a pub or the lasttime you walked along the seashore. Where are "you" looking from in this recalled scene? If you are looking from above you will see what I mean.
... my explanation of the OBE becomes clear. A memory model in bird's-eye view
has take over the the sensory model. It seems perfectly real because it is the
best model the system has got at he time. Indeed, it seems real for just the
same reason anything ever seems real.
...
The experience of seeing excerpts from your life flash before you is not
really as mysterious as it first seems. It has long been known that
stimulation of cells in the temporal lobe of the brain can produce instant
experiences that seem like the reliving of memories. ...
Imagine that the noise in the dying brain stimulates cells like this. The
memories will be aroused and, according to my hypothesis, if they are the most
stable model the system has at that time they will seem real. For the dying
person they may well be more stable than the confused and noisy sensory model.
-- Susan Blackmore, 1991. Near-Death Experiences.
Skeptic Inquirer, Fall.
The [alien abduction] experience begins most often when the person is at
home in bed and most
often at night, though sometimes abductions occur from a car or outdoors.
There is an intense blue or white light, a buzzing or humming sound, anxiety
or fear, and the scene of an unexplained presence. A craft with flashing
lights is seen and the person is transported or "floated" into it. Once inside
the craft, the person may be subjected to various medical procedures, often
involving the removal of eggs or sperm and the implantation of a small object
in the nose or elsewhere. Communication with the aliens is usually by
telepathy. The abductee feels helpless and is often restrained, or partially
or completely paralyzed. [I removed the references from this section.]
...
The aliens' purpose in abducting Earthlings varies from benign warnings of
immpending ecological catastrophe to a vast alien breeding program,
necessitating the removal of eggs and sperm from humans.
...
In a typical sleep-paralysis episode, a person wakes up paralyzed, senses a
presence in the room, feels fear or even terror, and may hear buzzing and
humming noises or see strange lights. A visible or invisible entity may even
sit on their chest, shaking, strangling, or prodding them. Attempts to fight
the paralysis are usually unsuccessful.
...
Sleep paralysis is thought to underlie common myths such as witch or hag
riding in England, the Old Has of Newfoundland, Kanashibari in Japan, Kokma in
St. Lucia, and the Popobawa in Zanzibar, among others. Perhaps aliem abduction
is our modern sleep paralysis myth.
-- Susan Blackmore, 1998. Abduction by Aliens or Sleep Paralysis.
Skeptic Inquirer, May.
As a general principle, people tend to grossly exaggerate the risk of any danger perceived to be beyond their control, while shrugging off risks they think they can manage. Thus, we go skiing and skydiving, but fear asbestos. We resent and fear the idea that anonymous chemical companies are putting additives into our food; yet the additives we load onto our own food -- salt, sugar, butter -- are millions of times more dangerous.
This is one reason that airline accidents seem so unacceptable -- because strapped into our seats in the cabin, what happens is completely beyond our control. In a poll taken soon after the TWA Flight 800 crash, an overwhelming majority of people said they'd be willing to pay up to fifty dollars more for a round-trip ticket if it increased airline safety. Yet the same people resist moves to improve automobile safety, for example, especially if it costs money.
People will risk a lot to prevent a loss, in other words, but risk very
little for possible gain. Running into a burning house to save a pet or
fighting back when a mugger asks for your wallet are both high-risk gambles
that people take repeatedly to hang on to something they care about. The same
people might not risk the hassle of, say, fastening a seat belt in a car
even though the potential gain might be much higher. The bird in the hand
always seems more attractive than the two in the bush. Even if holding on to
the one in your hand comes at a higher risk and the two in the bush are
goldplated.
-- K. Cole, 2000. Calculated Risks. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
We have probably all seen examples of the startling calculations that can be
used to bring this home. [Refering to "accelerating population growth spells
serious trouble.] For instance, the present population of Latin American is
around 300 million, and already many of them are under-nourished[, but] if the
population continued to increase at the present rate, it would take less than
500 years to reach the point where the people, packed in a standing position,
formed a solid humn carpet over the whole area of the continent.... It will
not really happen like that for some very good practical reasons. The names of
some of these reasons are famine, plague, and ware; or if we are lucky,
birth control. It is no use appealing to advances in agricultural science --
'green revolutions' and the like. Increases in food production may temporarily
alleviate the problem, but it is mathematically certain that they cannot be a
long-term solution; indeed, like the medical advances that have precipitated
the crisis, they may well make the problem, worse, by speeding up the rate of
the population expansion. It is a simple logical truth that ... uncontrolled
birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is hard to
believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders who forbid
their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They express a
preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation, and a natural
nethod is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation.
-- Richard Dawkins, 1976. Selfish Gene.
It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy,
but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine, and
performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis
is that it is a petrol engine. Telepathy and possession by the spirits of
the dead are not ruled out as a matter of principle. There is certainly
nothing impossible about abduction by aliens in UFOs. One day it may
happen[, but] on grounds of probability, it should be kept as an
explanation of last resort. It is unparsimonious, demanding more than
routinely weak evidence before we should believe it. If you hear hooves
clip-clopping down a London street, it could be a zebra or even a unicorn,
but, before we assume that it's anything other than a horse, we should demand
a certain minimal standard of evidence.
...
Let's not go back to a dark age of superstition and unreason, a world in
which every time you lose your keys you suspect poltergeists, demons, or
alien abduction.
...
The DNA alphabet arose at least thirty-five million centuries ago.
Since that time, it hasn't changed one jot. ... What changes is the long
programs that natural selection has written using those sixty-four basic
words. The messages that have come down to us are the ones that have
survived millions, in some cases hundreds of millions, of generations.
For every successful message that has reached the present, countless failures have fallen away like the chippings on a sculptor's floor. That's what Darwinian natural selection means. We are the descendants of a tiny elite of successful ancestors. Our DNA has proved itself successful, became it is here. Geological time has carved and sculpted our DNA to survive down to the present.
There are perhaps thirty million distinct species in the world today. So,
there are thirty million distinct ways of making a living, ways of working
to pass DNA on to the future. Some do it in the sea, some on land. Some up
trees, some underground. Some are plants, using solar panels -- we call them
leaves -- to trap energy. Some eat the plants. Some eat the herbivores. Some
are big carnivores that eat the small ones. Some live as parasites inside
other bodies. Some live in hot deserts.
-- Richard Dawkins, 1998. Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder.
Skeptical Inquirer. Mar.
Although the public, smitten by New Age fantasies and the pleasures of
mind-altering drugs, gobbled up Casteneda's books, mainstream anthropologists
were outraged. Careful investigations found his books riddled with
contradictions, outright errors, and rafts of material pilfered from other
authors. Don Juan existed only in Carlos's imagination. As sociologist
Marcello Truzzi was the first to sa, Castaneda's books were the greatest
science hoax since the Piltdown Man. [The Piltdown skull was a cleverly
assembled fake, combining part of a modern human skull with the jaw of an
orangutan.]
-- Martin Gardner, 1999. Carlos Castaneda and New Age Anthropology,
Skeptical Inquirer, Sep.
In fact, New Age thinking, largely a variety of paranormalism, represents a
substitute for traditional religion, and emerges where persons with a
religious background lose their faith and seek a plausible alternative.
-- Erich Goode, 2000. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan
Evolution is the foundation of modern biology; if creationists were correct
about the origin of life, biology would have to be scrapped and rewritten
from scratch.
-- Erich Goode, 2000. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
Today, many people, often with good reason, are apprehensive about modern scientific medicine. Although it is undoubtedly one of the most effective forms of health care ever seen on earth, there is little doubt that modern science has produced a system of care that can be frighteningly impersonal. Too often the patient is reduced almost to the level of a defective machine while being cared for by an overworked staff of specialists with little chance to provide the patient with personal attention or emotional support. Treatments tend to be invasive, frighteningly complex in theory and practice, and seem to function without any input from the patient. The sterile hospital walls, mysterious shots and capsules, and complex machinery seem far removed from how nature intended us to live. Occasionally we read of treatments that cause serious harm, and of cases where impersonal healthcare results in accidental, or sometimes even intentional, tragedies.
It was almost inevitable that many people would look for alternative forms of treatment, and that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) would be one of them. At first TCM seems to be Just what the doctor ordered." With its long history, many assume its techniques have been proved to work. Others are attracted by its emphasis on gentle remedies made from organic compounds. TCM emphasizes improving bodily harmony and focuses on the growth of Chi energy. Since TCM was a subject of Bill Moyers's recent television series, "The Mind and Healing," which surveyed much of the system's appeal in an interesting manner, I will occasionally cite examples from that show.
...
To the ancients it seemed natural to hypothesize that the energy of life was a single and quite special sort. This idea continues to flavor some of our popular notions when we speak of a "life force" or when we refer to a person who appears vibrant and energetic as being "full of life." The Chinese of ancient times felt, and many if not most Chinese today feel, that there is a special sort of life energy that flows through us and keeps us alive. This energy is called "Chi" or "Qi."(2) According to traditional Chinese thinking, the Chi flows through our body in a rhythmic manner, and most acupuncture and acupressure methods employ stimulation of points that lie along the acupuncture "meridians" through which Chi is said to flow. When one manipulates an acupuncture point, the traditional explanation for any effect that occurs is that it is caused by an alteration of the flow of Chi under that point.
In TCM, the notion of Chi and Chi-flow is probably the single most important concept. If a patient is feeling weak and lethargic, then a healer will embark on a course of action that he or she feels will increase the patient's flow of Chi. He will do this according to carefully taught ancient techniques. Treatment options might include changes in diet, a prescribed course of exercises, massage, herbal or other organic medicines, and perhaps techniques like acupuncture, although Westerners should keep in mind that these are only one small part of the overall system. There is also the more esoteric belief that through the manipulation of Chi one can ultimately learn to perform superhuman feats and display miraculous powers. Claims for these powers vary greatly, some of which make one immediately suspicious, such as telepathic effects, telekinetic effects, invulnerability to injury, and so forth.
...
Although the effects of acupuncture anesthesia are undoubtedly exaggerated, few doubt that it does in fact have an effect. Can science explain this without resorting to Chi theory? The scientific explanation lies in the "gate theory." According to this theory, the nerve is gently stimulated by insertion of a needle. This gentle stimulation prohibits the passage of stronger pain signals down the same nerve and produces an analgesic effect (Lu and Needham 1980).
...
A variety of exercises are designed to improve one's Chi, and therefore one's health. One common example is Tai Chi Chuan, best described as a sort of slow-motion kung fu. It does seem to have many positive health effects. A variety of exercises known collectively as "Chi gong" are somewhat similar. Still these effects can be described without invoking Chi theory. Since such exercises generally include a mixture of low-impact isometrics and stretching exercises, the physical health benefits should be obvious. As for mental and spiritual benefits, these can be explained in two ways. One is the simple fact that regular exercise is good for ones mind and promotes a feeling of physical well-being. More interesting perhaps is the proved effect that meditative-type mental-relaxation exercises can have on one's health. It has been proved that if one forces one's mind to relax, then one's blood pressure, respiratory rate, and so on, are reduced. Herbert Benson, a medical researcher, has termed this effect the "relaxation response," and meditation is said to be one of the most effective means of producing it.(4) Since Tai Chi Chuan and other Chinese exercises do involve systematic mental programs of mood and mind training, it is only natural that they should produce this relaxation response among practitioners.
It is a widespread belief that one who has trained extensively in Chi gong can produce effects that take place outside the body and often seem to defy the laws of science. Unfortunately for believers, these feats are rarely, if ever, performed under properly controlled conditions. To the best of my knowledge, these effects have not been proved to occur in such a way that they cannot be explained by our current understanding of science. In some cases, for instance, when martial artists break concrete or wood, they may believe that they are using Chi when in fact the feat is quite explainable within physics as we understand it.(5) Invoking Occam's razor, that the simplest solution consistent with the facts is more likely to be true, we are once again left without evidence of Chi.
...
Having surveyed the evidence so far, there seems to be little evidence of substance that supports the existence of Chi. Although some, including myself at times, find this quite disappointing, it is really not too surprising when we look at the extent of the claims and the way science works. Science and scientific theories and knowledge don't just happen arbitrarily. They are developed based on careful observation and testing over the course of many years, if not generations. Chi theory states that the function of the human body is based on a system of energy that circulates throughout all other existing systems and integrates with them all. There is no evidence that such a system exists. Similarly, if such a system does exist, but for whatever reason has managed to avoid detection by science, then it would seem logical that there would be large and sweeping gaps in our knowledge of human physiology every time we examined a system that the Chi interacted with. In other words, if Chi controls and influences the behavior of the human body, and we have not detected Chi, then the existence of Chi would be conspicuous by its absence.
-- Huston, Peter. 1995. China, Chi, and Chicanery: Examining Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chi Theory. Skeptical Inquirer, Sep.
When attempting to assess the accuracy of their beliefs, people focus more
heavily on the evidence that supports their beliefs than on the evidence
that fails to support their beliefs. Although this bias is more pronounced
when people want to protect their beliefs, it occurs even when people
attempt to be objective. Supportive evidence about the occurrence of an
expected outcome is attention-drawing and memorable. Unsupportive evidence
about the nonoccurence of an expected outcome is ignored or discounted as a
fluke. Consequently, people's beliefs tend to be remarkably resilient to
evidence, and erroneous beliefs about psychology, business, law, and
medicine persevere. For example, many people believe in ESP and subliminal
peruasion despite the lack of evidence for these phenomena.
-- Kardes, Frank R. and David M. Sanbonmatsu. 2003. Omission Neglect: the
importance of missing information. Skeptical Inquirer. Mar/Apr.
What would be required for ESP to exist?
... why shouldn't two minds be able to communicate across a room? After all,
thinking itself involves precisely the same processes as those that produce
electromagntic disturbances. Thoughts and actions are initiated by the firing
of neurons in our brains, which produce electrical currents, which in turn
travel to nerves and muscles elsewhere in our body. Electrical currents are
precisely what generate electromagnetic waves.
...
Why couldn't our thoughts generate weak fields that might be sensed by
individuals with just the right kind of antennas built into their brains?
...
If I think very hard -- whatever that means -- and try to produce a response
in your mind, that means I must induce some chemical or electric response in
the neurons in your brain[, but] unless you think your brain behaves
differently from any other sort of antenna in the universe, then the signal I
send to your brain should be detectable by radios or other tyes of
electromagnetic receivers in the vicinity.
There's no doubt that the most sensible carrier for telepathic messages would
be electromagnetic waves. There's no doubt that they are directly associated
with the operation of your thought processes. We have detected "brain waves"
and can even measure the external electomagnetic signal they produce[, but]
electromagnetic waves from the other end of the universe are detectable by
receivers here on Earth. Why should such receivers be less efficient at
receiving telepathic message than your brain is? The fact that no one has ever
detected electromagnetic waves associated with ESP is pretty damning, don't
you think?
-- Lawrence Krauss, 1998. May the Force Be With You. Skeptical Inquirer, Nov.
As is the case with an actor's popularity, an athlete's performances from time
to time are imperfectly correlated, resulting from a mixture of true talent,
situational factors, and random error. Thus, due to regression alonw, one can
expect an outstanding performance to be followed, on average, by a somewhat
less outstanding performance[, and] since athletes, like actors, tend to
appear on the covers of magazines when they are at a peak, an athlete's
superior performance in the weeks preceding a cover story is likely to be
followed by somewhat poorer performance in the weeks after. The supernatural
is invoked to explain what simple mathematics handles quite nicely.
...
It is no great leap to assume that patients who seek alternative therapies do
not do so arbitrarily, but when they have "hit rock bottom." Understandably
so: desperate times call for desperate measures[, but] the timing of such
desperate action is likely to contribute to erroneous beliefs about the
effectiveness of the remedies they try. Not unlike the baseball team that
fires its manager in the midst of a slump and subsequently experiences an
upswing in its performance, moments when one's medical condition flares up
(and one happens to appeal to an alternative therapy) are likely to be
followed by moments of relative relief. Thus, just as a change in a team's
management can appear to have done the trick, a bogus therapy can seem
effective, even when it is not.
-- Justin Kruger, Kenneth Savitsky, Thomas Gilovich, 1999. Superstition and
the Regression Effect.
Skeptical Inquirer, Mar.
Astrologers assert that astrology has a successful record stretching back 4000
years and that this record speaks for itself. Yet dozens of scientific tests
of astrological columns, charts, and horoscapes clearly contradict this claim.
...
What does science have to say about astrology? First, modern astronomy has
negated its key principle: that the earth is the center of our solar system.
We now knowthat the planets circle the sun, that our solar system is on the
outskirts of a galaxy, which itself on only a part of an expanding universe
that contains millions of galaxies. Moreover, new planets (Uranus, Neptume,
Pluto) have been discovered that were unknown to ancient astrologers It is
interesting that the presumed astrological influences of the planets did not
lead astrologers to discover them long before astonomers did.
Second, we now know that a person's personality and physical characteristics are determined by his or her genetic endowment inherited from both parents and by later environmental influences. Several decades of planetary exploration have confirmed that there is no appreciable physical influence on the earth from planetary bodies. Indeed, the obstetrician hovering over the infant during delivery exerts a much greater gravitational pull than the nearest planet. [The doctor exerts a pull 12 million times that of the moon, for example, and the planets are VERY MUCH farther away.]
Third, there have been exhaustive tests of astrological claims to see if they have any validity. Astrologers predict that individuals born under certain signs are more likely to be personality types that become politicians or scientists. Thus you would expect the birth rates of these two groups to cluster in those signs. ... the birth dates of 16634 scientists ... and 6475 politicians ... [were looked up and] the distributions of the signs were as random as for the public at large.
Are some signs relatively more compatible or incompatible with each other, as
astrologers maintain? ... the records of 2978 couples who married and 478
couple who divorced in Michigan in 1967 and 1968 ... [had] no correlation with
astrologers' preditions. Those born under "compatible" signs married -- and
divorced -- just as often as those born under "incompatible" signs.
-- Paul Kurtz and Andrew Fraknoi, 1985. Scientifics Tests of Astrology Do Not
Support Its Claims. Skeptical Inquirer, Spring.
The secret to firewalking and many similar heat-defying stunts lies in the
distinction between temperature and heat (or internal energy). This
distinction is not a part of out commonsense notions, although all of us are
actually familiar with it as part of our daily lives. For example, when we are
making a cake, the air in the oven, the cake, and the cake pan are all at
about the same temperature. None of us would think for a moment before putting
our hands into the hot oven air, but we kno that we cannot touch the cake pan
for more than an instant without being burned.
...
Firewalking and walking on hot rocks, as is done in Fiji, are based on this
same idea. The embers are light, fluffy carbon compounds. Although they may be
at a fairly high temperature (1000 to 1200 deg F), they do not contain as much
energy as we might expect from our commonsense notions of incandescent
objects. Thus, so long as we do not spend too much time on the embers our feet
will probably not get hot enough to burn. In fact, because of the capacity of
the embers is low and that of our feet relatively high, the embers cool off
when we step on them.
-- Bernard Leikind and William McCarthy, 1985. An Investigation of
Firewalking. Skeptical Inquirer, Fall.
Viewed simply as inert material, the human body, like its primary constituent,
water, is diamagnetic, i.e., weakly repelled by magnetic fields. In
response to an applied magnetic field, the electrons in water molecules make
slight adjustments in their motions, producing a net magnetic field in the
opposing direction about 100,000 times smaller than the applied field. With
the removal of the applied field, the electrons return to their original
orbits, and the water molecules once again become nonmagnetic.
... fields of magnetic-therapy devices can only produce diamagnetic forces
that are thousands of times smaller than gravity.
...
Some dubious literature suggests that magnetic fields attract blood, citing
all the iron it contains. However, iron in the bgloode is very different from
metallic iron, which is strongly magnetic because the individual atomic
magnets are strongly coupled together by the phenomenon we call
ferromagnetism. The markable properties of ferromagnetic materials are
a result of the cooperative behavior of many, many magnetic atoms acting in
unison. The iron in blood consists instead of isolated iron atoms within large
hemogloin molecules, located inside the red blood cells. Although each of the
iron atoms is magnetic, it is not near other iron atoms, and remains
magnetically independent.
-- James Livingston, 1998. Magnetic Therapy. Skeptical Inquirer, Jul.
I couldn't find a good description of how the concepts of quantum mechanics
are distorted by pseudoscience, so here is my attempt: Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle means you can't measure both the position and speed
of quantum-scale particles precisely. The act of measuring the state of
these particles, for example, an electron, modifies the electron. In New
Age thinking this is taken to mean human thoughts or intentions are
modifying the environment. Consider measuring the temperature of a liter
of water. A standard glass thermometer is small compared to the volume of
water and the temperature of the water is changed very little by the act of
measuring it. On the other hand, if the same thermometer is used to measure
the temperature of a milliliter of water, then the water temperature will
be modified by the act of measurement. To determine something about the
state of an electron, the electron is changed by the measurement, not by
the observer.
-- Brad
What we call a decade, a century, and a millennium represent only units on a
calendar to which we have assigned numbers for our own purposes. These periods
do not represent or correspond to any natural terrestrial, sidereal, or cosmic
phenomena. Such periods are simply artifacts of human invention and
convention. Thus, a millennium has no more cosmic significance than an
intercalary date, such as February 29.
-- Lee Loevinger, 1997. Significance of the Millennium. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
There is a wonderful cartoon that appeared recently in Parade
magazine.... and here's where we get to that cat. Picture this: Mother and
little Son are sitting at the kitchen table. Apparently Mom has just chided
Son for his excessive curiosity. The Son rises up and barks back: "Curiosity
killed what cat? What was it curious about? What color was it? Did it have a
name? How old was it?" I particularly like that last question. Maybe the cat was
very old, and died of old age, and curiosity had nothing to do with it at all.
-- Elizabeth Loftus, 1998. Who is the Cat That Curiosity Killed? Skeptical
Inquirer, Nov.
After walking across coals so hot they could be felt several feet from the
pit, the mind-over-matter explanation might well start to sound like a
reasonable possibility. ... This is despite the fact that the very idea that
brain activity could alter the physical properties of burning carbon compoinds
or the reactivity of skin cells to extreme heat contradicts volumes of
well-established scientific data. Why is it that even wildly implausible
claims liek this one are so psychologically compelling?
...
One factor that might account for some of the persuasiveness of arguments for
extraordinary phenomena is the inaccessibility of alternative explanations.,
If it is not mind-over-matter, just how is firewalking accomplished? If she is
not psychic, then how could she have known about my mother's illness? If it is
not a miracle, then how could a solid marble statue weep tears of blook in
front of hundreds of witnesses? The question "Can you think of anything else?"
is commonly used as an argument for the validity of a claim. If you can't
think of any other explanative, then, ipso fact, I must be right.
... in the firewalking example I stated with, care was taken to rule out some
of the more obvious alternatives to the mind-over-matter hypothesis, such as
the use of protective chemicals on the feet, or the fact that the coals
weren't really as hot as they looked. As a result, someone unaware of the
physics that governs firewalking is left with no other accessible explanation
except mind-over-matter.
-- John McDonald, 1998. 200% Probability and Beyond. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
A right to hold a belief does not entail a guarantee of its truth, and does not imply immulnity from critical examination. In fact, pursuit of truth requires the rational evalution of competing truth claims in a spirit of free inquiry. Some ideas are better than others, and skepticism is simply the methodology for assessing the merits of different truth claims.
... many paramornalists will simply say the equivalent of, "I believe what I
believe, and that's that." While they're entitled to hold beliefs
unsupported by science or logic, it seems fair to find them guilty of the
charges of closed mindedness they unjustifiably hurl at skeptics. Although
paranormalists often accuse skeptics of "explaining away" all the mysteries
if life, they themselves stubbornly grasp at tidy supernatural explanations
for any phenomena they do not understand.
-- Phil Mole, 2002. Are Skeptics Cynical? Popular Misunderstandings of
Skepticism. Skeptical Inquirer, Nov.
The human body does, in fact, give of certain radiations, including weak electromagnetic emanations (from the electrical activity of the nerves), chemical emissions..., sonic waves..., etc. Paranormalists sometimes equate these radiations with the aura, but they do not represent a single, unified phenomenon, nor have they been shown to have the mystical properties attributed to auras.
If psychics could actually see the purported energy fields, one wonders why...
their compostion "is the subject of conflicting opinions". She states: "No two
clairvoyants see exactly the same aura. Some say they see the entire aura,
divided into different layers or bodies, while other say they see only parts
of the aura". In fact, tests of psychics's abilities to see the alleged
radiant emanations have repeatedly met with failure. One test, for example,
involved placing eiter one or two persons in a completely dark room and asking
the alleged psychic to state how many auras she saw. Only chance results were
obtained. [In another test] the psychic challenger selected ten people she
maintained had clearly visible auras, and agreed that the auras would extend
above the screen behind which -- unseen by her -- the people were to stand.
Unfortunately, in choosing which scroons supposedly had people behind them,
the psychic got only four out of the ten correct guesses -- less than the
five that chance allowed.
-- Joe Nickell, 2000. Aura Photography. Skeptical Inquirer, May.
French epidemiologist/homeopathist Jacques Benveniste and several colleagues
... reported that an anitbody solution continued to evoke a biological
response even if it was diluted to 30X [1:10^30] -- far beyond the dilution
limit. Benveniste interpreted this as evidence that the water somehow
"remembered" the antibody.
...
Quite apart from the matter of how the water/alcohol mixture remembers, there
are obvious questions that cry out to be asked: 1) Why does the water/alcohol
mixture remember the healing owers of an active substance, but forget the side
effects? 2) What happens when the drop of solution evaporates, as it must,
from the lactose? 3) Does the water remember other substances as well?
Depending on its history, the water might have been in contact with a
staggering number of different substances.
If it is not a placebe effect, ... the "information" from the active substance
must be stored in some way in the water/alcohol solution, perhaps in the
structure of the liquid mixture. ... a water/alcohol mixture will of course
show regions of local order, but these are transient; they cannot persist
beyond the briefest of relaxation times depending on the temperature. That not
even local order can persist is the definition of a liquid. The problem, or
course, is entropy. The second law of thermodynamics is the most formly
established of all natural laws, but even if you could somehow repeal the
second law, you would still confront the question of how this stored
information can be communicated to the body.
-- Robert Park, 1997. Alternative Medicine and the Laws of Physics. Skeptical
Inquirer, Sep.
Airplane crashes often make headline news while car crashes often do not, in
part because airline crashes are relatively infrequent and tend to result in
a greater number of simultaneous deaths than do auto crashes. What is
newsworthy does not always make sense statistically.
-- Grant Rich, 2000. Review of "The Culture of Fear", Skeptical Inquirer, Jan
Many of us rely on the popular media (television, radio, newspapers, magazines,
the Internet, and so forth) for daily information to help navigate the hazard
in the world around us. These sources, however, do not provide us with a
representative sampling of events. For a variety of reasons -- including
fierce competition for our patronage within and across the various popluar
media outlets -- potential news items are rigorously screened for their ability
to captivate an audience. Stories featuring mundane, commonplace events don't
stand a chance of making it onto the six o'clock news. The stories that do
make it through this painstaking selection process are then crafted into
accounts emphasizing their concrete, personal, and emotional content. Each of
these aspects of a story promotes its vividness, which increase the likelihood
that we will attend to and remember the information.
...
Why, in a story on the effects of welfare reform on thousands of families
across a state, does nine-tenths of the report consist of an interview with
one affected individual? Why is the logic of "going beyond the satistics and
onto the streets" to examine an issue persuasive to viewers, listeners, or
readers? Producers are aware that a scientific analysis is not as emotionally
compelling as one (carefully chosen) individual's personal experiences.
-- John Ruscio, 2000. Risky Business, Skeptical Inquirer, Mar
My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings -- what we
sometimes call 'mind' -- are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and
nothing more. 'Mind' may be a consequence of the action of the components of
the brain severally or collectively. Some processes may be a function of the
brain as a whole.
-- Carl Sagan, 1977. Dragons of Eden.
Philosophy and religion cautioned that the gods (or God were far more powerful than we, jealous of their prerogatives and quick to mete out justice for insufferable arrogance. At the same time, these disciplines had not a clue that their own teaching of how the Universe is ordered was a conceit and a delusion.
Philosophy and religion presented mere opinion -- opinion that might be
overturned by observation and experiment -- as certainty. This worried
them not at all. That some of their deeply held beliefs might turn out to
be mistakes was a possibility hardly considered. Doctrinal humility was
to be practiced by others. Their own teachings were inerrant and infallible.
In truth, they had better reason to be humble than they knew. Beginning with
Copernicus in the middle sixteenth century, the issue was formally joined.
The picture of the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the Universe
was understood to be dangerous. Obligingly, many scholars were quick to
assure the religious hierarchy that this newfangled hypothesis represented
no serious challenge to conventional wisdom.
...
In a kind of split-brain compromise, the Sun-centered system was treated as
a mere computational convenience, not an astronomical reality -- that is,
the Earth was really at the center of the Universe, as everybody
knows; but if you wished to predict where Jupiter would be on the second
Tuesday of November the year after next, you were permitted to pretend that
the Sun was in the center.
-- Carl Sagan, 1994. Pale Blue Dot.
... if the Universe were intentionally created to allow for the
emergence of life or intelligence, other beings may exist on countless worlds.
-- Carl Sagan, 1994. Pale Blue Dot.
[refering to Pope John Paul 2's speech about Galileo, where Sagan quoted
the Pope saying, "the error of the theologians of the time, when they
maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding
of the physical world's structure was in some way imposed by the literal
sense of Sacred Scriptures.] ... although proponents of fundamentalist faiths
will be distressed to hear from the Pontiff that Sacred Scripture is not
always literally true.
-- Carl Sagan, 1994. Pale Blue Dot.
Pseudoscience speaks to powerful emotional needs that science often leaves
unfulfilled. It caters to fantasies about personal powers we lack and long
for (like those attributed to comic book superheroes today, and earlier, to
the gods).
-- Carl Sagan, 1996. Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark.
Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of
scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we
agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism
is bubbling up around us -- then, habits of thought familiar from ages past
reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness
gathers. The demons begin to stir.
-- Carl Sagan, 1996. Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark.
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue[, but] much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no
reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good
evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in
the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity
that life provides.
-- Carl Sagan, 1996, In the Valley of the Shadow, Parade magazine, 10 Mar.
Sagan died 20 Dec 1996 at the age of 62 from myelodisplasia, bone marrow
disease.
Nothing about the Goddess myth correlates with what we know of the ancient
civilizations which her devotees claim as their foremothers; everything,
however, has clearly identifiable roots in the modern subcurures which began
with Romanticism and the nineteenth-century occult revival. [In Romanticism,]
the supreme importance of feelings, and the purity of the primitive [were
emphasized].
-- Robert Sheaffer, 1999. From a review of "Goddess Unmasked" by Philip
Davis, 1998. Skeptical Inquirer, May
Anecdotes -- stories recounted in support of a claim -- do not make a
science. Without corroborative evidence from other sources, or physical
proof of some sort, ten anecdotes are no better than one, and a hundred
anecdotes are no better than ten. Anecdotes are told by fallible human
storytellers.
-- Michael Shermer, 1997. Why People Believe Weird Things.
Quantum mechanics, the centerpiece of modern physics, is misinterpreted as
implying that the human mind controls reality and that the unverse is one
connected whole that cannot be understood by the usual reduction to parts.
However, no complelling argument or evidence required that quantum mechanics
plays a central role in human consciousness or provides instananeous, holistic
connections across the universe. Modern physics, including quantum mechanics,
remains completely materialistic and reductionistic while being consistent with
all scientific observations.
-- Victor Stenger, 1997. Quantum Quackery. Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.
The therapeutic power of prayer is a recurring theme among many proponents of alternative medicine. One an imagine a natural explanation for the alleged benefits: a psychological boost from the belief that a supernatural power is on your side[, but] what if you are unaware that people are praying for you? Such intercessory prayers could only work through a supernatural agency.
...
[referring to a study in a coronary care unit...] there is no evidence that
intercessory prayer confers any benefit (or harm) in speed of recovery.
-- Irwin Tessman and Jack Tessman, 2000. Efficacy of Prayer. Skeptical
Inquirer, Mar.
Some believe that ... "messages" in the Hebrew Bible are not just coincidence
-- they were put there deliberately by God[, but] if someone finds a hidden
message in a book, a song played backwards, funny-looking Martian mesa, or
some other object or thing, does that prove someone else put the
missage there intentionally? Or might the message exist only in the
eyes of the beholder ...? Does perception of meaning prove the message was
deliberately created?
...
The promoters of hidden-message claims say, "How could such amazing
coincidences be the product of random chance?" I think the real question
should be, "ow could such coincidences not be the inevitable prodcut of
a huge sequence of trials on a large, essentially random database?"
-- David Thomas, 1997. Hidden Messages and the Bible Code. Skeptical
Inquirer, Nov.
Creationists often point out that the fossil record has gaps, and they seem to
think that those parts we do have are somehow invalidated because we don't
have the entire record. It's as if the books in the public library were
somehow made worthless because the library doesn't have every book ever
published.
...
Of course there are gaps in the fossil record, and always will be. For a
fossil to be found, a complicated series of steps must occur in sequence.
Animals that die on the plains or in the mountains are soon found by
scavengers, such as hyenas or ceratosaurs, and soon reduced to bone chips.
...
The second condition necessary for an animal to be fossilized is that it must
be buried in a depositional area: that is, more and more layers of mud or
gravel must be laid down over it.
...
The third step is that this depositional area must at sometime become an
erosional area, so wind and water wear it down and uncover the buried remains.
The fourth step necessary for the recovery of a fossil is that when the fossil
is uncovered, someone knowledgeable has to walk along that ridge, or study the
face of that cliff, and locate the fossil and recover it.
-- David Thomas, 1998. Gaps in the Fossil Record. Skeptical
Inquirer, Nov.
In a random selection of twenty-three persons there is a 50 percent chance
that at least two of them celebrate the same birthdate. ... reaching 90%
probability in a group of forty-one people. ... fifty-seven people produce a
99% probability of coincident birthdays.
-- Bruce Martin, 1998. Coincidences. Skeptical Inquirer, Sep.
The following problems, pitfalls, and fallacies are typical of the difficulties in graphology [handwriting analysis]. [These are not all the items listed in the article.]
"... most folks ... don't understand the basic workings of science well enough to appreciate how feeble the arguments against evolution really are. If they did they would realize that the scientific process is not about gathering data to prove a favored hypothesis but instead involves the testing of ideas against the totality of real-world observations. Creationists turned amateur scientists almost always fail to grasp this essential scientific precept ano so unwittingly launch from false premises all kinds of pseudoscientific arguments in support of special creation. In fact, if there's one reason creationist critiques are so consistently misguided its that adherents generally presuppose that special creation is true and then sift the evidence for clues to support that supposition -- a recipe for self-deception that stands in sterk contrast to the scientific method, which mandates that fre t hypotheses be derived from all available evidence.
...
Far from being the object of scientific debate, the evolution of species is
no more, and no less, than the collection of observed facts that these
hypotheses are meant to explain. Gene flow, frequency dependence, and
punctuated equilibrium are but three possible mechanisms put forward to
explain the nature of this overarching phenomenon."
-- Trumble, Dennis R. 2005. One longsome argument. Skeptical Inquirer.
Mar/Apr.
[Defining "Autistic Certainty":] I would not believe something that was not
true; I believe this is not true, therefore this must be untrue.
-- Donald Watson, 1993. Telicom 11(7):43.
I'd guess that if we were to see the hand of the designer anywhere, it would be in the fundamental principles, the final laws of nature, the book of rules that govern all natural phenomena. We don't know the final laws yet, but as far as we have been able to see, they are utterly impersonal and quite without any special role for life. There is no life force.
... With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people
can
do evil; but for good people to do evil -- that takes religion.
-- Weinberg, Steven. 2001. A Designer Universe? Skeptical Inquirer
Sep/Oct.
... we cannot accept the kind of wistful thinking that there must be a God because otherwise there would be no purpose to our existence, no fixed values, no universal code of morality. You cannot arbitrarily hypothesize, for example, a universal code of morality and then use the presumed existence of that code to "prove" that there must be a God.
In the Western world, a great many people nevertheless think that the Bible is the literal word of God. The myriad errors and inconsistencies in the Hebrew Bible and in the Gospels ought to deliver a death blow to that belief: at most, the Bible is the word of God as interpreted and distorted by generations of oral tradition and then by later redaction [editing].
... there is no purpose to our existence? one day there will be no more humans, no Earth, no universe as we know it. To me, however, there are plain physical facts with no moral or ethical content. The fact that we do not have immortal souls does not justify unethical behavior. We might like the world to be otherwise, but it is not.
... The ancients postulated a god or gods to explain the natural order. Today, however, we find the universe understandable in terms of physical laws and have no need to invoke supernatural powers. ... without a literal belief in a god who dictates moral codes or guides us along our paths through the universe, I propose the idea that we are grownups, on our own and responsible for ourselves, not children for whom someone else is responsible.
Finally, ... our lives have meaning, but it is meaning that we and our
communities give them, not meaning that is derived from a supernatural
source.
-- Young, Matt. 2001. Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe.
Skeptical Inquirer Sep/Oct.
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Last updated: Apr 2005