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CALTECHPUBLIC EVENTS-2009-2010
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1. BECKMA AUDITORIUM:
the distinctive round building on the north-west side of campus.

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~
VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2,2009 CONTENTS

News

I
The SkepDoc
Chiropractic: A little Physical Therapy; a Lot of Nonsense

6 8 72

By Harriet Hall, M.D.

'Twas Brillig...
A Magician in the Laboratory
By James Randi

Authorsand Contributors

II m1::fm IijI1 ~'i'lm ~!!'! ~

2012 and Counting
A NASAScientist Answers theTop 20 QuestionsAbout
By David Morrison

~~I:"

II

47
2012

Will Physicists Destroy the Wortd? 54

The Large Hadron Collider and the Threats of Catastrophe
By Lloyd B. Lueptoui

Physicists Will Not Destroy the World!

WhyWe Need Not Worry About the Large Hadron Collider
By Lawrence Krauss

60

Cover art: by Daniel Loxton

The Coriolis Effect

Does water drain in different directions in the northern and southern hemispheres?
By William D. Stansfield

21

Vaccines and Autism 26

A Deadly Manufactroversy
By Harriet Hall, M.D., The Skepdoc.

1:~tf!i~I-~
Atheism Rising
By James Allan Cheyne

33

Intelligence, Science, and the Decline of Belief

Why Religions Turn Oppressive

By Robert Kurzban and Peter DeScioli

38

A Perspective from Evolutionary Psychology

It's Time to Teach the Controversy

By Christopher Baum

42

Since Creationism Isn't Going Away, Let's Use it in the Classroom to Teach the Difference between Science and Pseudoscience

MAGAZINE

SKEPTIC.

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WHAT IS A SKEPTIC?
hat does it mean to be a skeptic? Some people believe that skepticism is rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse "skeptic" with "cynic" and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideasno sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are "skeptical," we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe. Skeptics are from Missouri-the "show me" state. When we hear a fantastic claim we say, "that's nice, prove it." Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece when Socrates observed: "All I know is that I know nothing." But this pure position is sterile and unproductive and held by virtually no one. If you are skeptical about everything, you would have to be skeptical of your own skepticism. Like the decaying subatomic particle, pure skepticism uncoils and spins off the viewing screen of our intellectual cloud chamber. Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, that involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement. But all facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions. Some claims, such as water dowsing, ESP, and creationism, have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude that they are not valid. Other claims, such as hypnosis or the origins of language, have been tested but results are inconclusive so we must continue formulating and testing hypotheses and theories until we can reach a provisional conclusion. The key to skepticism is to continuously and vigorously apply the methods of science to navigate the treacherous straits between "know nothing" skepticism and "anything goes" credulity. Over three centuries ago the French philosopher and skeptic, Rene Descartes, after one of the most thorough skeptical purges in intellectual history, concluded that he knew one thing for certain: Cogito ergo sum-I think therefore I am. But evolution may have designed us in the other direction. Humans evolved to be pattern-seeking, cause-inferring animals, shaped by nature to find meaningful relationships in the world. Those who were best at doing this left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants. In other words, to be human is to think. To paraphrase Descartes: Sum Ergo Cogito-l Am Therefore 1Think.

BOARD
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David Alexander
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Arthur Benjamin
Professor of Mathematics, Harvey ;\tudd College, Magician

Roger Bingham
Sctcncc Author & Television Essayist

Napoleon Chagnon
Professor of Anthropology. u.c. Santa Barbara

K.C. Cole
Professor University of Journalism. of Southern California

Richard Dawkins
Oxford Unlveralry

Jared Diamond
Professor of Physiology, UCLA Medical School

Clayton J. Drees
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Experimental Resuscitation Researcher

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Professor California of Cognitive and Behavioral Institute of Technology Biology

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Gerald Larue
Professor Emeritus of Biblical Histor-y and Archaeology, use

William McComas
Parks Family Professor of Science at the lJniversit}' of Arkansas Education

Richard Olson
Professor of History of ~ludd College, Claremont

.
Science, Harvey
Graduate School

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Professor of Geology; Occidental College

ADVERTISING Skeptic accepts display advertising. For a current rate card with prices and dimensions contact our office at 626/794-3119 or by email: mshermer@skeptic.com GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS TO SKEPTIC MAGAZINE SKEPTIC publishes research articles, essays, commentaries, letters, and reviews of books, films, and television shows on a wide variety of claims including but not limited to: evolution and creationism; alternative and complementary medicine; conspiracy theories; altered states of consciousness; mass hysterias and urban legends; science and pseudoscience; the paranormal; skepticism; cultural influences on science and scientific influences on culture; frauds and hoaxes; any other scientific controversy that is news and newsworthy. Major articles are either invited or submitted and refereed by the editor, members of the editorial advisory board, or an appropriate expert in the field. Length is variable from 500 to 5,000 words. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically in an attached word document to mshermer@skeptic.com, and should include a one-paragraph abstract summary as well as a one-paragraph author bio and full contact information. See the complete Writer's Guidelines at www.skeptic.com.

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Eugenie Scott
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Professor of Psychology, CSU. Fullerton

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Julia Sweeney
\\'ritc:r, Actor. Comedian

Carol Tavris
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Stuart Vyse
Professor of Psychology, Connecttcut College

~~~_S_li_T._~~Doc
Chiropractic
A Little Physical Therapy, a Lot of Nonsense
tem had already been established, and CHIROPRACTIC MEANS DIFFERENT nothing was going to change their things to different people. For some, it is minds. They just changed their definia practical way to get quick relief from tion: instead of an actual subluxation, mechanical back pain. For others, it is a they were treating a "vertebral subluxacult-like belief system based on demontion complex": "A complex of functional strably false ideas and a magnet for every kind of quackery that endangers and/or structural and or pathological articular changes that compromise neural our public health and sometimes even integrity and may influence organ system kills patients. and general health." Translated: "We A science like chemistry develops gradually over many decades with input " are going to call anything we want to manipulate a subluxation." from many different scientists. A pseudoscience like chiropractic can be invented Chiropractic theory is based on three principles: instantaneously by one person. D.D. Palmer, a grocer and magnetic healer, (1) bony displacement causes all disease; invented chiropractic on September 18, (2) displacement interferes with nerve 1895. He did something to a deaf man's function; back. The man said he could hear again. (3) removing the interference allows This is particularly ironic, because the Innate (a vitalistic force) to heal the nerves to the ear don't go anywhere body. near the spine, and no chiropractor All three of these principles are false. today claims to be able to cure deafuess. (1) Chiropractic subluxations have never Palmer immediately deduced that all disbeen demonstrated; ease was caused by out of place bones (2) 0 impairment of nerve function has (95% in the spine and 5% in other been documented; bones), but he never tried to test his (3) No such vitalistic force has been hypothesis in any way; he just forged detected. ahead and treated thousands of patients. Ironically, 1895 was also the year that Palmer was under the misconception Louis Pasteur died. Most rational people that all bodily functions are controlled by accept the germ theory of disease, but the nerves. He didn't know about horchiropractic theory rejects it, and many mones. He didn't know we would learn chiropractors today continue to believe to transplant organs that would function that germs can't hurt you if your spine is in the new body with no nerve connecin alignment. And 1895 was the year tions at all. He reasoned in a prescientific Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays, manner, and his attitude was more that D. D.Pahner thought he could feel bones of a religious believer than a rationalist; out of place in the spine; he called them he spoke of a God-given calling and subluxations (partial dislocations). There seriously considered making chiropractic are such things as true medical subluxaa religion. D.o. Palmer's son BJ. was tions that show up clearly on x-rays. unscrupulous and a marketing genius. When they got around to documenting The success of chiropractic is largely due chiropractic "subluxations" with x-rays, to his early efforts. Spinal manipulation was nothing nothing showed up. But d1at didn't matter to the chiropractors. Their belief sysnew. Others offered it, particularly
NUMBER 2

osteopaths (they thought it restored blood flow rather than nerve function). During the course of the 20th century, osteopaths accepted scientific medicine. Today, American osteopaths take the same specialty training residencies and pass the same licensing exams as MDs. Chiropractic chose to remain in its own limbo. 0 school of chiropractic has ever been associated with a university, unless you count the University of Bridgeport, an institution closely associated with the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. What does the evidence show? Spinal manipulation therapy (SMI) is as effective as other t:reatments for certain types of low back pain, and may offer superior early relief, but the long-term outcome is no better. That's it. There is no good evidence that anything else about chiropractic is effective. It certainly is not effective for asthma, ear infections and other somatovisceral conditions that some chiropractors claim to benefit. So the one thing chiropractors do that works is something that is not uniquely chiropractic but is also used by physical therapists, physical medicine specialists, and osteopaths. Chiropractors have accumulated over 200 different treatment methods. Instead of comparing two methods to see which works better and rejecting the other, they just keep adding new methods. I have only found one thing that chiropractic as a whole has ever given up as ineffective: a nerve-tracing method invented by BJ. Palmer, who convinced himself he could feel nerves through the skin, nerves unknown to anatomists.
The Risk of Stroke

There is a very small but very real risk of stroke with neck manipulation. Because of the anatomy of the neck, a bonetethered kink in the vertebral artery is stressed with high velocity neck manipulations and the lining of the artery can tear, causing immediate bleeding or sending delayed clots to the brain. Chiropractors try to deny this and say those patients probably went to the chiropractor because they had neck pain and were already starting to have a stroke. But we have plenty of "smoking gun" cases where healthy young people with no neck pain or stroke symptoms and no risk factors for stroke collapsed
2009

on the chiropractor's table and were found to have tears in their vertebral arteries. In one study, patients under the age of 45 with a vertebral artery stroke were 5 times as likely as controls to have seen a chiropractor in the previous week. Risks should be weighed against benefits, but there don't seem to be any dear benefits of neck manipulation. A recent database surrunary of medical research --the Cochrane review--showed that gentle mobilization worked just as well as high-velocity manipulation, but both had to be used in conjunction with exercise to be effective. The real tragedy is that chiropractors are manipulating necks for "health maintenance," low back pain and other conditions where there is no evidence of benefit and no plausible rationale, but very real risks. For example, 20-year-old laurie Jean Matthiason saw her chiropractor for low back pain; she had 186 neck manipulations over a six month period and the last one killed her. Sandra Nette had a neck manipulation only because she thought it would help maintain her already good health; she suffered a severe stroke and has filed a dass action suit asking the govemment of Canada for 525 million dollars for failure to regulate a dangerous practice.
Other Risks

the child died. 3. A chiropractor diagnosed allergies by having a patient hold a sealed vial of allergen in one hand while he judged the muscle strength in the patient's other arm. He suspected one patient was allergic to something at work, and since he didn't have a vial of ''Boeing,'' he had the patient just think about ''Boeing'' and that worked just as well. 4. A chiropractor informed me that if germs caused disease we'd all be dead and insisted that you can't become ill if your spine is properly aligned. 5. A chiropractor daims to be able to tell if you have a good brain or a bad brain based on a paper and pencil measurement of the normal blind spots in your eyes, and then offers to correct it by manipulation. 6. Several chiropractors offer $5000 series of spinal decompression treatments with a computerized machine that has not been shown to offer any benefit.
How to Choose a Safe Chiropractor

THE BIBLICAL COSMOS versus MODERN COSMOLOGY Why the Bible Is Not the Word of God
MODERN COSMOLOGY

David Presutta

The cosmos that is revealed in the pages of the Bible is an integral part of the narrative that unfolds in the Bible-so much so that the credibility of the Bible is dependent upon the validity of its cosmology. This book provides an extensive examination of a large number of Bible verses that shed light on the structure and physical characteristics of the biblical cosmos. In so doing, it provides the basis for answering the question: Is the Bible the word of God? It all comes down to this: if the Bible cannot be believed conceming what it says about the natural order of things, why should it be believed concerning what it says about the supematural order of things?

Half of all chiropractic patients report mild to moderate side effects, from local discomfort to headache. Manipulations have caused broken bones and herniated discs. Chiropractors expose patients to radiation from unnecessary x-rays. Some discourage patients from taking medications or having needed surgery; some want to serve as the initial point of contact for all health care. Chiropractors are notorious for adopting all kinds of quackery from applied kinesiology to colonic irrigation. My biggest concern is that over half of chiropractors don't support immunizations, thereby endangering public health. Just a few examples of chiropractic insanity from my local community: 1. A chiropractor claims a baby's neck is stretched 25 times normal length by childbirth (an anatomical impossibility) and should have neck adjustments starting in the delivery room. 2. A chiropractor treated his own son's meningitis with manipulations only;

Some chiropractors are skilled at SMr and at treating low back pain. You can look for one who rejects the subluxation myth and limits his practice to short-term treatment of mechanical back pain and doesn't use any quack treatments. But then you're not getting chiropractic treatment, you're getting physical therapy from a chiropractor. Edzard Ernst, the world's first professor of complementary and alternative medicine, reviewed the scientific evidence for chiropractic and conduded "Chiropractors ... might compete with physiotherapists in terms of treating some back problems, but all their other daims are beyond belief and can carry a range of significant risks." A friend of mine had a narrow escape. He had back pain that just wouldn't quit, and decided to try a chiropractor. He called on a Friday to make an appointment for the following Monday. Over the weekend, his pain stopped and it never came back. If he had seen the chiropractor on Friday, he would have been convinced the chiropractor had cured him, and probably would have spent the rest of his life faithfully getting useless maintenance adjustments. T
For further reading: The best book on chiropractic is Inside Chiropractic by Samuel Homola, D.C. The best website is hup://www.chirobase.orgl

354 pp. Available at amazon.com and other outlets.

THE LATERAL TRUTH

AN APoSTATE'S BIBLE STORIES
Was Moses a liberator? Was Samson a thug? Fifteen iconoclastic stories from Rebecca Bradley, author of the Gil Trilogy, follow selected biblical themes to their illogical conclusions.

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Author's blog and interview at www.scrollpress.com/bradley

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SHAMELESSLY, I HERE OFFER readers an excerpt from the opening chapter of my next book, A Magician in the Laboratory. It's shaping up--slowly-and I invite you to a preview of what The Amazing Curmudgeon will release to the bookstores within the next year or so .... Enormous harm has been done to science by emphasizing quantity over quality, and at the extremes, fraud and fakery over honesty and intellectual hard work. However, science has' self-correcting mechanisms built in so that mistakes, and the occasional bit of fakery, are soon automatically eliminated. Left to itself, science has created and shaped much of the world in which we live, but constant vigilance can never be relaxed, or the woo-woos can and will move in. Malignant science-a variety of which was dubbed "pathological science" by physicist Irving Langmuir to describe the "N-Rays" fiasco back in 1903, and the sort of phenomenon which we will encounter in these pages-results from carelessness, incompetence, overemphasis on authority rather than expertise, plain stupidity, the tantalizing obel-prizeon-the-horizon-syndrome and, often, just avarice. All but one of these are elements not unheard of in everyday life, and the layman can easily relate to them. I've never failed to hold an audience-a lay group or a conference of academics-with detailed accounts of these investigations, which sound much like developing detective stories. The gathering of clues, the recourse to past experiences, forensic techniques, the chase and capture, all demonstrate the narrow-spectrum specialty in which I'm involved. Some

of these inquiries have taken their places in history already, and are referred to in textbooks and scientific journals, but an in-detail account has never before been published; therein can be found the fascinating angles and facets of this difficult pursuit. As an experienced conjuror and observer, I've been called in to advise on many claims of psychic powers, crackpot science and just plain swindles. I have extensive photos and documents on all these adventures, and I'll supply references to those items as I go along. Philosophically, I'm a skeptic, but just who and what are we skeptics? Skepticism means having good reasons for holding any belief. Skeptics are folks who are cautious about drawing their conclusions but always willing to change their minds upon the presentation of new or better information. Don't equate us with cynics, who believe that people are basically bad, and that our world is an evil place. We believe-always with good reason-that most people tend to too-easily accept supernatural, paranormal, or irrational explanations of quite ordinary events and claims that can be explained otherwise by careful investigation. We skeptics come from all walks of life and may have very differing views about the world, but we share a commitment to careful and respectful discussion, and to respectfully examining the fads, claims, and assertions about supposedly supernatural events or processes. We recognize that an opinion does not always represent a fact, and we make judgments and draw logical conclusions, though on occasion-for sufficient reason-we will withhold that judgment pending

the arrival of more data. keptical thinking goes back in history to the ancient Greeks and Romans and was validated when the scientific method fully emerged into general use in the 18th century. Many skeptics are scientists, since science encourages and nurtures the skeptical way of thinking. Determining the completeness and accuracy of information is an integral part of the scientific process. We skeptics are often involved in examining extraordinary claims, and this has given us the reputation of "believing in nothing," while in reality, we believe only the things that we've carefully considered for ourselves by rational examination, We use techniques of critical thinking, and encourage others to do so, as well. No subjects, ideas, or philosophies are unsuitable for the consideration and investigation of the true skeptic, and we look at religion in the same way we look at any system of belief, requiring evidence upon which to establish those claims, as well. When someone proclaims their ability to prove their beliefs, we skeptics apply the "evidence" test. In his remarkable book of 1843,

Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds, author

Charles Mackay described in detail a variety of strange ideas and obsessions that had seized the people of his time. He began:
In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fIX their minds upon one

NUMBER

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object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first, We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple, and neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity.

For generations, Mackay's readers have chortled at the naivete of those who chose to accept so many bizarre notions, and who in many cases were very willing to invest money and trust in them-much to their subsequent sorrow. My book deals with somewhat similar subjects-claims, ideas, notions, reports, news items, and downright scams. Those who laughed at the dupes of long gone generations described by Mackay, will see here how a very modem populace can fall as easily and as hard for this sort of misinformation, even though we now have the Internet and other technical advantages that should keep us from falling headlong into irrational convictions. There are swindlers out there who have a variety of reasons for wanting to deceive us. Some want to sell us spurious products or services. Others literally want to steal from us, by one means or another, and some want to gain access to our private lives. However, a great deal of misinformation is created and disseminated by pranksters, those who want to create some excitement so that they can stand back and be amused at those of us who should've been a little more alert in checking out sources. Today, more than ever, we find perpetual motion machines, "free energy" schemes, and strange little devices that we're told to place at strategic spots around internal-com-

bustion engines in order to obtain better performance and economy, sold via mail order and even through in-person public lectures. Sometimes we even get to see videos that appear to establish the validity of these claimed inventions, though YOU'd think we should be a bit smarter than to accept "special effects" that any teenager can now create on a computer screen by means of easily-available software programs. Apparendy, we aren't, as I'll show you. At our ]REF office headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we can show you a huge library that long ago overflowed its shelves and continued on into the hall outside. At least 800;6of this collection represents sheer nonsense. Every sort of crackpot idea, every possible conspiracy theory, all sorts of "scientific" theories, are represented here. We maintain this library for reference purposes of students, researchers, the media, and just-curious people who want to have a better view of how easily we can be deceived-and how easily we deceive ourselves. Publishers adore what we call "woo-woo" books, because they know they can sell several printings of them, public taste being what it is. As soon as a wouldbe author shows up in an editor's doorway and oudines a ridiculous, impossible, or illogical idea, you Can almost hear the trees begin to fall in nearby forests in preparation for the paper that will be wasted-againon yet another silly book. In this office, at least, we know the contents of our library and we warn readers well in advance that they should be very careful about accepting what they find on our shelves as true. I recall that many years ago, during the time that I did my late-night radio show out of ew York City, I was invited to attend the openingon Broadway-of the "Believe It Or Not" museum containing many of the original artifacts that belonged to that cartoonist -turned-columnist, Robert Ripley, and upon which he based

THE AMAZ!NG ADVENTURE S

Cruise the Caribbean in the company of like-minded skeptics to the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. Depart ftom Ft. Lauderdale, in sunny Florida.
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many of his highly-popular illustrated articles describing various wonders of nature and of humanity. Now, some of these were obviously spurious, and I suppose that we were expected to filter those out as amusements rather than actual discoveries. As with many of those who began with good intentions, Ripley tended, in his later articles, to rather over-exaggerate. This might have been due to a shortage of material, I can't say. In any case, I was willing to tour the facility and form an opinion. I did. As I exited, I was met by a crowd of media people who were doubtless anxious to hear what the Super Skeptic might have to say. "So what did you think of the 'Believe It Or Not exhibit,' Mr. Randi?" asked a chap who stuck a microphone in my face. I put my hand to my chin in a contemplative mode, paused for a few seconds, and gave him a short quotation that evidently delighted him: "Not!" There is always a place in our lives for fantasy, and no one enjoys that luxury more than 1. After all, for half a century I made my living traveling the world as a professional magician, and a magician deals in that commodity every moment that he's on stage. The art, of course, lies in recognizing reality and carefully separating it from fiction. Professionals, certainly, know how that's done. Years ago, I toured the USA and several foreign markets as part of the Alice Cooper rock showmy job was to chop his head off with a guillotine every night without actually doing him any harm. It worked for three months, and during that period of time I had the opportunity of seeing a rather unique phenomenon. Alice and I were always the last to leave the dressing room to begin the show, because I had to equip . him with two hand-held mechanisms that enabled him to throw long flames from his fingertips. These were semi-dangerous devices that he'd only rake into his hands at the very last moment. When the stage

manager would poke his head in the door and announce, "Two minutes!" I could watch Vincent FournierCoop's original narne=-rapidly and magically change from a reasonably normal young man into the showbiz monster that his audience expected him to be. He adopted the character by simply putting it on like a pullover. His walk, his facial expression, his entire demeanor, changedand a moment later as he would totter Frankenstein-Monster-like into the spotlight, Vincent would become Alice. Two hours later, when he retired from the stage dressed in white satin tails and top hat, he became Vincent as soon as he hit the lights of the dressing room. I always admired that in him, his ability to step into fantasy and then shed it so easily. It's a talent we might all try to acquire. We raptly watch Star Wars but we don't really believe we're seeing space-warriors firing ray-guns at one another. Gone With the Wind charms us, but we know we're still in the 21st century and we didn't watch Atlanta burning. Engrossed in Mob)! Dick, we can empathize with Ahab's obsession, but we're still aware that we're reading fiction. Why, then, do so many of us suspend our judgment so that we can be scammed by people who would sell us felt insoles with embedded magnets, merchandisers who will prescribe a gel-stick with no active ingredients in it that we rub on our foreheads because we're told that headaches can be thus relieved, or a guru who says that if we rake his course, we'll be able to fly just by thinking deeply about it? It's time to come under the lights of the dressing room and return to the real world. In summary: enjoy the fantasy, the fun, the stories--but make sure that there's a clear, sharp, line drawn on the floor so that you can step back behind that mark and reembrace reality. To do otherwise is to embrace madness ...

NUMBER

2009

The Problem of Bias, Even in Biology

DAVID ZEIGLER RECENTLYI PURCHASED AN UNUSUAL ITEM FOR MY office wall-an "inverted" world map with Antarctica at the top and the Arctic at the bottom. It also happens to be centered on the 0 meridian running through Greenwich. All countries, states, oceans, ete. are labeled correctly, and the map is as correct as the traditional Mercator projection with which we are all familiar. I understand that inverted maps are quite popular with Australians and ew Zealanders, as you might suspect. I also found that you can buy other world map perspectives, ones mat are either Asia-centered or Pacific-centered. These too take one aback at first glance. This led me to think about biases in my profession-biology. One continuing bias in biology involves size. Most biologists still get their training in plant or animal biology. Microbiology is currently blossoming as never before, but Mycology (the study of Fungi) is still a specialty with few takers-most fungi are not macroscopic mushrooms. Many universities continue to graduate biology majors who know next to nothing about two of me wee Domains (me Bacteria and Archea) and likewise little about two of the four eukaryotic Kingdoms (the Fungi and Protoctista)-all groups that are still neglected in large part because of the small size of their denizens. Everyone knows about the giant redwoods of California, but very few people (including biologists) know about Prochlorococcus and Synechoccus, two recently discovered genera of marine cyanobacteria whose species may collectively account for nearly 50% of marine photosynthetic primary productivity. In short, these microbes are vastly more important to the biosphere than me California redwoods. There is also bias for the individual. We humans think in terms of individuals more than we think in teffi1Sof populations. But biological communities function mainly on the level of interacting populations of predators, pollinators, primary consumers, decomposers, ete. There is little if any individuality in populations of worker ants, herring, bacteria, earthworms, and most of rest of me natural world (although individuals are admittedly of some consequence in the social life of a wolf pack or a chimpanzee troop). Though natural selection occurs at several levels, including the individual, the resulting biological evolution is a population-level phenomenon. It is often suggested that me difficulty many have in grasping natural selection and evolution is their inability to move conceptually from a focus on individuals to a focus on populations. A similar problem in the biological sciences is bias of the organism. In the sanle way mat many map-reading people prefer the traditional Americas-centered world map (because they live in me Americas), so to do many biologists prefer me organism-centered view of life (because we are organisms) rather than the gene-centered view, which has gained traction since Richards Dawkins published his ground-breaking 1975

work, The Selfish Gene. Those who rage against this view have not convinoed me with arguments as persuasive as those of Dawkins, and I believe mat many who oppose this new view are biased toward thinking mat organisms simply must be what life is all about. We have a hard time giving up our supposed centrality in me scheme of things, much like me ancients who were shaken by me revolution set in motion by Copernicus and Galileo when they removed humans and the earth from center stage. One of the broade t biases in biology dates back to me ancient Greeks when Protagoras suggested mat man is the measure of all things. Wimout really trying, science has done a wonderful job of removing almost all support for this bias, yet most of humanity goes merrily along either ignorant of the vast and indifferent universe science has revealed, or vigorously ignoring any information that suggests mat we are not me focus and goal of me world and the cosmos. Surprisingly, even some accomplished scientists like Simon Conway Morris (Life's Solution 2003) and Christian de Duve (Vital Dust 1995) have argued that humans or something of similar intelligence was destined to arise through me evolutionary process-a position certainly founded on bias ramer man on any empirical evidence (a point I argued in SKEPTIC Vol. 14, o. 2, 2008). This human-centered world view works against my efforts to make students to see the awesome wonder in an amoeba, a diatom, a liver fluke, or a lungfish. If we actually knew all me animal species on me planet, only around one percent of them would be vertebrates, yet vertebrates hold me bulk of interest for students who claim to "love animals." The human-centric worldview is an ever-changing yet ancient mix of ideas from mythology, religion, commerce, politics, human history, and other human-centered activities. This view of course could not possibly be me real story of me world and universe in which we now find ourselves for this brief span of history. The real story is exceedingly more vast and awesome man me human-centered worldview, as most scientists and rational thinkers well know. Biases typically give comfort to those who hold them-e-a way to understand and direct some part of their lives. I find some threads of analogy in me now classic science fiction film The Matrix, in which me hero Neo is given a choice to see me real nature of his existence, or continue in the virtual reality he had experienced previously. eo of course chooses to see what is real and discovers a much harsher reality mat is actually against humanity. At least me reality science has revealed is only indifferent to humanity, but in some ways mat is even more threatening because we find mat "we" are not the center or focus of any larger plan or interest. A bias is actually a prejudice mat shapes our thinking. While not all biases are unfounded, a great many are, with those in biology being especially subtle and pervasive. I believe that rationally we should all strive to identify and remove unfounded biases from our thinking, because they can blind us to truth. Just as importantly-----they can make me world seem much less rich and interesting man it actually is."

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Darwin in Texas
What Teachers of Evolution Believe
RAYMOND A EVE
AND

CHAWKI

BELHADI

TEXTBOOK WARS HAVE A LONG AND agonizing history in Texas, closely watched by the rest of the country because the state purchases so many textbooks that publishers feel the need to cater to the wishes of that state's eductional board.
The Beginning

One of the first volleys was fired back in the 1960s when Mel Gabler and his wife Norma of Educational Research Analysts, located in northeast Texas, mounted a moral crusade to expunge K-12 textbooks of secular humanism. For decades the Gablers spearheaded a movement to eliminate liberal ideas and evolution from textbooks. Mel Gabler summed up his own view of pedagogy: Allowing a student to come to his own conclusions about abstract concepts creates frustration.Ideas, situation ethics, anti-God humanism-that's what the schools are teaching. And concepts. Well, a concept never will do anyone as much good as a fact.' Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, and Intelligent Design Creationists have all taken their shotssome more successfully than others-at reforming the Texas educational curriculum in the hope that "as goes Texas so goes the nation." Every few years the SBOE of Texas convenes to set guidelines for what will be taught in K-12 public school dassrooms.s This, of course, includes the science guidelines. Ever since the days of the Gablers, one has been able to count on each SBOE meeting to generate vigorous culture war rhetoric as each side attempts to control the means of cultural reproduction through contesting knowledge industries.>
"The Scientists Believe ... "

Throughout the decades of strife it was commonplace to hear each side tell the public ''what scientists believe .... " In particular, the creationist/intelligent

design proponents were fond of claiming that there were "plenty of' scientists who would support their argument that evolution was full of ''weaknesses''-if only the experts were not afraid of being "expelled" from academia for speaking up against evolution (as depicted in Ben Stein's rum Expelledsee www.expelledexposed.com for a thorough debunking of its claims). Based on this claim we decided to let the faculty in Texas who teach evolution speak for themselves. We were fortunate to secure funding for a survey of relevant faculty members through the auspices of the Texas Freedom Network of Austin, whose tagline is "A mainstream voice to counter the religious right" (a full copy of our research report is available at www.tfu.org4). We used college catalogs, internet homepages of colleges and universities, and faculty cross-referrals to try to identify all faculty members in Texas who have taught human evolution, either now or in the recent past. (Note that this included not only biologists, but quite a high proportion of physical anthropologists who often teach the human evolution course for biology programs). Subsequently, we sent out surveys by mail, and then by Internet, to 1,019 faculty member respondents. Responses were ultimately obtained from faculty at all Texas public universities (with the sole exception of Sul Ross University), as well as the 15 largest private institutions of higher education in Texas. The result was a total of 464 completed surveys, yielding a response rate of 45%. This is a very high response rate for a mailed survey, especially since it was long and took over a half-hour to complete. (We surveyed a lot of demographics and attitudes of respondents intending to see which variables correlated with lack of support for evolution, but the lack of such support was so rare we could have skipped those questions.) We found no evidence that creationist/ID supporters were particularly likely to not send back their surveys. The results of asking the Texas
15 NUMBER 2

teachers if they were willing to "teach the controversy" was essentially a collective reply of "What controversy!?" When asked their view on the validity of the contemporary mainstream consensus regarding evolutionary processes, fewer than 2.5% chose a response that represented any serious reservations about the basics of the contemporary scientific perspective.> A full 98010 specifically rejected the validity of Young Earth Creationism (YEC), 95% said they would "prefer to teach just evolution," 5% replied they would like to teach both creationism and evolution (but some of these wanted to teach it in order to debunk creationist claims), and none said they would prefer to teach "just creationism." When asked if '''Weaknesses advanced by proponents of creationism or intelligent design represent valid scientific objections to evolution," only 4% replied ''Yes.'' Other data included in the survey supports the above numbers in a manner that makes it seem safe to conclude that 4% or less of the respondents gave any serious consideration to creationism or intelligent design as a defensible explanation for human origins. Perhaps more tellingly, subgroup analyses of those who did support one of these latter two positions revealed that no such respondent had ever taught the subject to graduate students. Indeed, most had never taught the topic of origins at all but had somehow slipped into the total sample. Those who were pro-creationism or ID appeared to be marginal or part time faculty who at best taught undergradu.ates. No distinguished senior faculty, recipient of a Nobel prize (of which Texas has quite a few), large grant recipient, ete. doubted evolution in any way. In summary, there is little support in our data for any assertion claiming that there are plenty of highly qualified skeptics of evolution who are being silenced by fear of being "expelled from the academy." Rather, it appears that the best summation of our data would be "Teach what controversy???"
Who IS the SBOE, anyway?

One would have thought this mass outpouring of expertise by the most qualifled Texas scientists would have mollilled

VOLUME

2009

the State Board of Education (SBOE). This was not the case. Texas Governor Rick Peny has obviously been studying the chapter in the Karl Rove playbook that deals with the political uses of wedge issues.s One manifestation of this is Perry's deliberate choice of Don McElroy to chair the SBOE over the past several years. The appointment was clearly made with the intent to challenge evolution in the schools and to cuny political favor with creationists. McElroy is a dentist from Bryan, Texas, which apparently qualifies him (at least in his mind) to pronounce during the last round of SBOE hearings: "I disagree with all these experts. Somebody has to stand up to these experts." In a telling admission, in a 2005 talk on evolution to the Grace Bible Church, McElroy encouraged the membership to "keep chipping away at the objective evidence," stressing the need to undermine the evidence behind evolution as a "first step" to being able to better push creationism or ill into the science classroom. McElroy has in his comer a "pro-creationist" block of elected members of the SBOE (leaving the board nearly evenly divided). The "core group" numbers an additional six members, all of whom have been outspoken opponents of evolution. These additional anti-evolution members, all Republicans, are Barbara Cargill, Ken Mercer, Terri Leo, David Bradley, Gail Lowe, and Cynthia oland Dunbar. As an example of how extreme their views can be, consider the following. David Bradley, while making the case for new reading standards, panned critical thinking and equated it to "gobbledygook." He has also opposed the adoption of an algebra textbook on the basis of the ease with which the binding could be torn! (According to one account, the book contained what Bradley and other members evidently felt were objectionable references to political and environmental causes. The 1995 Texas Legislature prohibited the rejection of textbooks for reasons other than poor binding, the failure to meet curriculum standards, or the presence of factual errors, so Bradley was apparently forced to choose the "poor binding" defense as the book he found objectionable couldn't qualify for any other standard of rejection). Other members, like Gail Lowe,

have been on record as claiming that the National Academy of Sciences had yet to consider evolution a fact, thereby "making the case" in her mind that it ought not to be taught as valid. Suffice to say that not only was the dalm false, but the NAS holds the position that evolution is both a fact and a valid scientific theory.
A Hodgepodge of Outcomes

version. The language that did make it into the final standards calls for "examining all sides of the scientific evidence." However, the board added or amended numerous standards in a manner that is fertile for creationist claims about the adequacy of the fossil record, the complexity of the cell, and the age of the universe. So, on balance things seem worse now for the evolutionists.
Serendipity

Both sides declared victory at the end of the recent series of SBOE hearings. The press in general gave the decision to evolutionists, but the true outcome was mixed. Indeed, while it is true evolution supporters were able to remove the requirement that students analyze the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution, literally in the dark of night and without consulting fellow board members, new language was slipped into the guidelines that required students to "analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations in all fields of science." Additionally, several amendments require students to analyze and critique specific ideas, such as "explanations concerning the complexity of the cell." Interestingly, in our survey of Texas teachers, nearly all faculty recognized the ''teach the strengths and weaknesses" as coded language for backdoor creationism: 94% indicated that "weaknesses" are not valid scientific objections to evolution, and 67% said the SBOE should specifically amend the language to exclude discussion of such weaknesses. In contrast, when asked if "the S.BOE should explicitly encourage coverage in high school science classes of areas of genuine uncertainty and active research within the scientific community regarding evolution" nearly 85% agreed, and another 5% said "unsure." So we see that Texas faculty are willing to discuss legitimate issues about evolution raised in peer-reviewed journals, but are quick to recognize the "strengths and weaknesses" language as a proxy for creationism. So much for the closed-mindedness of those elitist scientists. So "strengths and weaknesses" is now out. Of course, this did not stop the creationists from trying a plethora of synonyms (e.g. "sufficiency or insufficiency" and "supportive and not supportive"). Fortunately, for now most of these catch phrases are also excluded from the final WWW.SKEPTIC.COM

All this political skullduggery, however, may have been good news for evolutionists. There are now at least 15 legislative bills in Texas to strip or curtail the SBOE's authority. In the words of state Senator Kel Seliger, "The fact is there is nothing that makes the board particularly qualified to choose Cun1CUlum materials and textbooks." The Wall StreetJournal 7 tidily summed things up this way: "The most far-reaching proposals would strip the Texas board of its authority to set curricula and approve textbooks. Depending on the bill, that power would be transferred to the State Education Agency, a legislative board, or the commissioner of education. Other bills would transform the board to an appointed rather than elected body, require Webcasting of meetings, and take away the board's control of a vast pot of school funding." The SBOE may be about to become a fine illustration of the old adage, "Beware of what you ask for-you may get it." T
References 1. Parker, Barbara. 1979. "Your Schools May Be the Next Battlefield in the Crusade against 'Improper' Textbooks." American School Board JoumaI166.6: 2126. 2. Cuniculum rewrites generally happen not more than once a decade. The last one was in 1997. Textbooks are adopted on a rolling seven year cycle, but even that is not consistent. When the legislature does not appro. priate funds----such as last session-there is no adoption, and the schedule is bumped back a year. 3. Eve, Raymond A and Harrold, Francis B. 1993. "The Influence of Group Processes on Pseudoscientific Belief: 'Knowt~ Industries' and the Legitimation of Threatened Wor1dviews."In Advarces in Group Process, \bl. 10., Ealted by E. J. Lawler, B. Markovsksy, J. O'BIien, and K. Heimer. JAI Press, pp. 107-137. 4. Note that the authors, recognizing that some might coosider TFN to be an "~organization," told those kind enough to fund the study that TFN would need to be willing to "let the chips fall where they may" in terms of the findings of the study in order to assure scientific integrity of the findings. They found this fully acceptable. The full report can be seen at: http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=2008BiologyReport 5. It's not lost on many political strategists that one's stance on creationism is more highly correlated with issues like gay rights and school prayer than with measures of respondents' science literacy level. 6. April 18th, 2009.

A Governor's Prayer for Rain

An Empirical Analysisof a Supe
GAR Y

laim

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TBERGER change in the amount of rainfall from the pre-prayer to the post-prayer period (lOO(B-A)/A). imilar calculations were made for "control days," which were defined as day within about the last ten years on which Mr. Perdue had not delivered an official public prayer at the capitol for rain to come to the Atlanta area. These control days were the 3,631 days from October 17, 1997 through September 25, 200 . Thus, for each of these days, the amounts of rainfall during the 48 days before (X) and 48 days after the control day (Y) were calculated by summing the daily totals for the respective time periods. For each of the control days, two change scores were then calculated: (1) the amount of rain in the 48-day post-control period minus the amount of rain in the 48-day precontrol period cY-X), and (2) the percent change in the amount of rainfall from the pre-control to the post-control period (lOO(Y-X)!X). Two special samples of control days were examined. One was the sample of all control days occurrir1g m the months of November from 1997 through 2006. Another was the sample of all control days with 48-day pre-control periods having low rainfall. These particular "low rainfall" pre-control periods had rainfall at the same level as, or at a lower level than, the actual 48-day pre-prayer period.
Results

a TUESDAY,1 OVEMBER 13, 2007, Sonny Perdue, the Governor of Georgia, led a group of approximately 250 persons, including many state officials, in a prayer for rain on the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta.! Georgia had been suffering an extreme drought, and the level of Lake Lanier, an important water reservoir near Atlanta, had been decreasing dramatically over several months. Governor Perdue believed that a divine intervention was necessary and so he boldly asked God to bring rain. Fully expecting his prayer to be effective, Perdue said "Hopefully we will be better conservators of the blessings God's given us as he gives us more [rain]."! At the time and place when the state's highest ranking officer pleaded to the Almighty, it was doudy, but it did not ram. However, sure enough, the next day there was light ram in Atlanta and much ram came to the area over the next couple of months. Many Georgians considered Perdue a hero and thought that his prayer had influenced God to increase rainfall to the drought stricken vicinity of Atlanta. But did it? Although there may have been constitutional problems with the Governor's prayer? the purpose of this investigation is to determille whether the prayer was correlated with an increase in rain, and if so, how likely it was to have caused the increase.
Methodology

When asked by reporters what outcome he expected from his prayer, Governor Perdue replied "God can make it rain tomorrow, he can make it rain next week or next month."! Although this is rather vague, I decided to give Perdue some leeway and use his own words to help define a time period to be assessed. The Governor presented his prayer on November 13, 2007, so "next month" was December 2007. It seemed reasonable to examine the amount of rainfall during the 48

days after the day of prayer, from ovember 14 through December 31, 2007, which I shall call the "post-prayer period." For comparison, a "pre-prayer period" was defined as the 48 days from September 26 through 1 ovember 12, 2007. The day of prayer itself was not included in either of these pre- and post-periods since part of that day fell before the prayer and part of it fell after the prayer, and only daily rainfall totals, not hourly totals, were selected for use in this study. Because the Governor presented his prayer on the steps of the capitol in Atlanta and he was especially concerned with that city and the surrounding area, I decided to use rainfall data from one site-the Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport. Rain is collected and measured at numerous sites in and around Atlanta, but I thought that the data from the airport site would be as good or better than the data from the other sites since accurate weather information is essential to the safety of airline traffic. I obtained daily rainfall totals from a well-respected website, The Weather Source f for a time period of a little more than ten years from August 30, 1997 through January 27, 2008. There were no missing data points for this time period. The daily rain totals from the website are reported to the nearest hundredth of an inch, and for some days a "T' is recorded to indicate a "trace amount." In order to ensure that every day had a numerical value, each "T' was converted to ".005" inches. The total amount of ram during any 48-day period was calculated by simply summing the daily totals for the time period. Thus, the amounts of rainfall during the 48-day pre-prayer period (A) and during the 48-day post-prayer period (B) were determirled. From these two numbers, two change scores were then calculated: (1) the amount of rain in the post-prayer period minus the amount of rain in the pre-prayer period (B-A), and (2) the percent
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The intuitions of many Atlanta residents were correct. There was an increase in rainfall from the 48-day pre-prayer period to the 48-day postprayer period. The amount of ram in me former period was 2.485 inches and me amount in the latter was 5.765 inches, an increase of 132%! So, the Governor's prayer was correlated with an irlcrease in rain, an apparently large one. Although upon first reflection, this 132% increase in rainfall seems

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impressive, it seems less so after comparing it to changes in rainfall for the non-prayer or control days. For the 3,631 control days, the change in rainfall from pre-control period to postcontrol period was a decrease for 49.8% of the control days, no change for .2% of the days, and an increase for 50010 of those days. Thus, if any nonprayer (control) day were selected at random, we could expect this day to be followed half of the time by an increase in rain from the pre- to postperiod. So, any increase in rain after a prayer cannot be considered extraordinary at all. For the 3,631 control days, there was an increase in rainfall of 132% or more from pre- to post-period in 10.8% of the cases. So, although increases of 132% in rainfall are somewhat infrequent, they are not rare. Any increase in rainfall after a nonprayer day is likely to be as great or greater than the increase after the Perdue prayer day 21.6% of the time. Stated another way, the amount of rainfall increase following the Governor's prayer is similar to what we would find about a fifth of the time for increases following days of no prayer from Georgia's highest official. To control for time of the year or season and its role in the frequency of increases in rainfall, I examined a subset of all control days, i.e., the set of nonprayer days occurring only in the month of ovember from 1997 through 2006. Of the 300 days which fell in this November subset, 17% were associated with increases in rainfall of 132% or greater from pre- to post-control periods. So, time of the year or season did play some role. Compared to all nonprayer days, it was about 1.5 times more likely for an increase in rainfall of at least 132% to occur after November nonprayer days (17% vs. 10.8%). To control for the tendency for the amount of change in rainfall after a control day to be related to the amount of rainfall in the pre-control period, I noted that the total rainfall in the 48-day pre-prayer period was only 2.485 inches. Of the 3,631 nonprayer or control days, only 297 (8.2%) had pre-control periods with 2.485 inches

of rain or less. Thus, the 48-day preprayer period could be considered even by a layman to be one of "drought." So how likely was a large increase in rain-an increase of at least 132%-to occur following a nonprayer day preceded by a 48-day period of low rainfall, in which 2.485 inches of rain or less fell? Such large increases in rainfall followed 48-day periods of low rainfall in 49.8% of the relevant control days! For purposes of comparison, the 297 of the 3,631 control days (8.2%) with the highest rainfall in the pre-control periods were also examined. Of these, not a single one was followed by an increase in rainfall of 132% or more! Thus, a rather large increase in rainfall (>=132%) is likely to follow a low rain period about half the time, and to follow a high rain period none of the time when a governor's prayer is not involved.
Discussion

The results of this study show that Governor Perdue's official public prayer for rain on November 13, 2007 was followed by a 132% increase in rainfall from the 48-day period prior to his day of prayer to the 48-day period after his day of prayer. However, no evidence was found for a causal relationship between the prayer and the increase in rain. The Governor did not produce the increase, despite the claims of many that he did! This is clear from comparing the outcome of his day of prayer to the outcomes of nonprayer days. onprayer days were likely to be followed by rainfall increases equal to or greater than what followed the Governor's prayer day approximately 11% of the time for all nonprayer days, 17% of the time for nonprayer days in ovember, and 50010 of the time for nonprayer days preceded by periods of low rainfall. Any belief that the Governor produced an increase in rain by his prayer on ovember 13, 2007 can be considered to be wishful thinking. What would it take to reject the null hypothesis that prayer does not cause rain (and therefore conclude that it does)? If the rainfall increase after the prayer had been greater than any
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increase seen after any nonprayer day in the previous ten years, would that evidence have been sufficient to reject the null hypothesis? An increase of more than 1400% would have been required since this increase actually occurred from pre- to post-control periods for the date of September 13, 2002. This is an increase more than ten times greater than the increase occurring after Perdue's prayer. But even then, just because a record would have been broken, would that have necessarily meant that the prayer was the cause of the rainfall increa e? Suppose that the increase in rainfall after the prayer day had been twice the greatest increase ever observed after a nonprayer day in the last ten years, i.e., an increase of 2800%? Would we consider that evidence enough to reject the null hypothesis? It is hard to say. Extraordinary claims regarding the magnitude of changes which occur naturallyare quite different from extraordinary claims regarding events which have base rates of zero (e.g., a resurrection, virgin birth, a man passing through a wall, etc.). Perhaps a single blockbuster recordbreaking increase in rain after a prayer will never be enough, nor should be enough, to justify the inference that the prayer caused the increase. Perhaps replication is needed. If Governor Perdue were asked to deliver several prayers for rain, not on a schedule of his own choosing, but on a random schedule, and each time his prayer was followed by a record-breaking increase in rain, then we might have the extraordinary evidence required to believe this extraordinary claim, Until then, we should remain skeptical. T
References

1. Salzer, James and Jim Galloway. 2007. "Perdue Asks Crowd to 'Pray Up a Storm': Drought is Message from God to Conserve Better, Governor Says."
Atlanta Journal and Constitution,

November 13. Available at http://www. ajc.com/metro/contentjmetro/stories /2007/11/13/rainprayer_1114.html 2. Youthment, Steve. 2007. "AFS Protests Governor Perdue's Prayer Meeting." Atlanta Freethought News, 13(12): 3. 3. The Weather Source. 2008. Available at http://weather-source.com/

luck of the draw than by any predictable struggle for existence." Ross and Rana try to connect natural occurrences with the "inevitability" of human intelligence. But just "wanting it" does not make it so.
-Or. Homeopathlc Lake Water Michael M. Rosenblatt, San Jose, CA Rosey1@prodlgy.net

Regarding Dr. Harriet Hall's article in Vol. 15, o. 1, "Homeopathy: Still Crazy After All These Years": If like cures like, especially when diluted, then if I place a drop of caffeine into a lake, the lake water will make me sleepy. This means that if I then place a drop of that lakewater into a different lake, the second lake's water will have the same effect on me as pure caffeine.
-verett Young, vertie@earthlink.net

Telling Lies About JFK

Human Inevitability?

Gary ]. Whittenberger (Vol. 15, No. 1). genially recounts the debate between Christian apologists Drs. Hugh Ross and Fazale Rana of "Reasons to Believe" (in god) and Dr. Michael Shermer, who countered with the non-theist view. Ross and Fana suggested a "predictable occurrence of human intelligence," based upon the "happy" confluence of a group of universal numerical constants. According to the late distinguished biologist, Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, the "inevitability" of human intelligence on Earth was a crap shoot. Gould made a lifetime study of the Cambrian Explosion, the event considered by many to be the "genesis" of possibility for intelligent human life on Earth. Gould states, in a beautifully written article for Scientific American, October 1994: "Homo sapiens did not appear on the Earth, just a geologic second ago, because evolutionary theory predicts such an outcome based on themes of progress and increasing neural complexity. Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, anyone of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness." Further, it is Gould's opinion that "next time" it might not work that way at all, if there ever is a next time: "and that each surviving lineage, including our own phylum of vertebrates, inhabits the Earth today more by the

In response to David Mantik's letter (Vol. 15, o. 1) about my book review (Vol. 14, o. 4) of Vincent Bugliosi's book on the ]FK assassination (Reclaiming History), Mantik ignores the mountain of indisputable evidence in Bugliosi's book (only a tiny fraction of which could be cited in my review). This is a classic example of the way the assassination conspiracy industry invents cherrypicked "facts". His claim to be a "scientist with hundreds of first-hand data points" on which he has "performed appropriate control experiments" sounds very impressive. But, Bugliosi has in fact thoroughly demolished every one of those so-called "facts." As to his bizarre claim that I am "obsessed by" Oliver Stone's fiJm]FK, I was of course simply doing a reviewer's job by summarizing for readers the 100-page chapter in which Bugliosi proves conclusively that this influential fiJm is a lie from beginning to end. As to his charge that I am "hopelessly, and astonishingly, mired in the remote past," as a professional historian I have never heard anyone describe 1963 as "the remote past." I suppose that means that my books on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis should be catalogued under ancient history.
-Or. Sheldon M. Stem, Newton, MA Preaching to Ourselves

though there's a big star hanging directly over the house. When they finally find the house, they "rejoice exceedingly with great joy" and fall down and worship Jesus who, in order to fulfill a Biblical prophesy, is supposed to be named Emmanuel. But Mary names him Jesus anyway. The logic of this Bible narrative escapes me, but it brings up a larger and perhaps more serious question: Why do we continue to poke holes in this, or any other, religious myth when we know it's just that-a myth? We certainly don't waste our time deriding the biology of Plato's Symposium or the impossibilities of Herodotus' account of Egyptian pyramid building. Is it because we know there are people who believe that the King James' version of the Bible is the literal word of God? Does anyone reading SKEPTIC really think that a true believer will read a skeptical article about his belief, realize the error of his ways, and give up his religion to follow the path of enlightenment? Are we just preaching to ourselves?
~obert Stem, stemrobert2004@yahoo.com

Aliens v. Bigfoot

I just finished reading and enjoying Tim Callahan's "Greatest Story Ever Garbled" (Vol. 15, No.1), and like Mr. Callahan was puzzled by Matthew's account of the WISe Men. If the Magi were in the East and saw Jesus' star in the East, how did they manage to make their way to Jerusalem, nearly 900 kilometers to the west? In order to keep their eyes on Jesus' star in the east they would have had to walk backward for nearly 900 kilometers! When the Magi get an audience with King Herod, they have to ask him where the newborn King is, even
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Three points about Scott Calvin's "Crazy Ideas WI": 1. The dishonesty/craziness axes are a brilliant, clarifying, formulation. I suggest a 3rd axis: the importance of getting it right. To a philosopher, this may have nothing to do with truth. In the real world, it should have an effect on what we do. For example, if there actually is a Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster, it will be a curiosity. But, except for a few zoologists, nobody's daily life would be affected. Covering Loch Ness with the latest sensors and cameras would be an expensive effort for a very small chance of finding something not all that important. On the other hand, cold fusion is sort of a secular Pascal's Wager. If it exists, the rewards would be spectacular. It is worth the effort of attacking the problem until we are as sure as we can be that the chance of winning is zero. 2. Assuming Pons and Fleishman were wrong, the way they were treated is still shameful. They did nothing dishonest. A goof in a subtle measurement should not be a career-ending error. 3. I would rank alien visitors as less crazy than Bigfoot. Possible answers to
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Fermi's Paradox (if Ef is out there they should have been here by now, so where are they?) fall into two groups: (a) There are no star-traveling civilizations

"near enough," or (b) We can't see them. However, we still have no evidence one way or the other. On the other hand, we have strong evidence against Bigfoot and

the Loch Ness monster: the lack of unambiguous evidence when we should have some by now.
-Richard Brandshaft, Vancouver, WA

Historical Jesus Forum

The Non-Historical Jesus

We were extremely disappointed by Tim Callahan's review of Peter Joseph's Internet film Zeitgeist, in which Callahan contends that there is strong evidence for a historical Jesus. The only do~bter he mentions is Peter Joseph himself, and since Callahan criticizes him for not getting his facts straight, unwary readers are left to believe that only careless filmmakers doubt the existence of a historical Jesus. There are, in fact, many respected writers, researchers and scholars who doubt that a historical Jesus existed. Prominent among this group are Earl Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle), George Wells (Did Jesus Exist? The Jesus Myth, et al.), and Daniel Barker (Godless). As these and other authors have pointed out, the only real evidence for the existence of Jesus comes from the New Testament itself, a work rife with contradictions (in whose reign, for example, was Jesus born?) and propaganda-one clearly not to be taken as an objective historical account. Apart from the Bible and early church documents, other so-called evidence ranges from simple references to early Christians (nobody doubts they existed!) to what are almost certainly outright forgeries. Wells, Doherty, and Barker provide excellent, well-researched critiques of all the so-called extra-Biblical evidence for a historical Jesus. For example, among the "meager" scraps of evidence Callahan adduces to "prove" Jesus existed, is a well-known reference in the late-first-century work The Antiquities of the Jews by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. According to Wells, Doherty, and others, this passage, and another longer passage about Jesus, are almost certainly later Christian interpolations--if for no other reason than the fact that Josephus was a devout Jew who would hardly have described Jesus as a "wise man" who did ''wonderful works" and "won over many Jews." Callahan also invokes the second-

century Roman historian Tacitus, who makes an unflattering reference to Christians in his Annals of Imperial Rome. Callahan states that Tacitus would have gotten his information from either imperial records or from Christians themselves. Though Callahan doesn't mention it, it seems unlikely that Tacitus consulted official documents for this passage since, as Wells notes in The Jesus of the Early Christians, the historian uses the wrong title for Pilate (procurator instead of prefect). Callahan assumes that Tacitus got this story from Christians themselves and notes that according to the so-called "criterion of embarrassment" Christians would be unlikely to make up something bad about themselves or their founder, such as the fact that he was executed as a criminal. Therefore, according to Callahan, Jesus was real. Leaving aside for a moment the issue of whether anyone would make up something like this, the key point that Callahan overlooks is that Tacitus does not mention anyone named Jesus at all; he simply refers to the founder of the Christians as Christus. He does not, as Callahan states, "claim that Jesus [sic] was executed by Pontius Pilate." Since "Christ" was a title, and not Jesus' last name (apologies to Homer Simpson), historical references to "Christ" do not automatically signify Jesus. And even if Tacitus did refer to Jesus by name, it would still prove nothing more than that he may have heard it from a group of Christians. Finally, as to Callahan's claim that Christians wouldn't invent an "embarrassing" story about Jesus being executed as a criminal, what exactly is embarrassing about the story to Christians? They certainly don't believe that Jesus was a criminal. The fact that, according to their narrative, he was unjustly crucified is central to the concept of someone having to suffer and die for the sins of others in order to redeem them. In this story, at least as related in the ew
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Testament, it is Pontius Pilate and his supporters who should be embarrassed-not Jesus and the Christians.
-Gary and Lisa Giblin, Aurora, Indiana

Tim Callahan replies

I believe I actually said there was evidence for a historical Jesus--not necessarily strong evidence--but enough. Though I do mention Tacitus, my main source is Josephus. Let me stress that I am not referring to the so called "Testimonial" which was obviously added much later. The reference in Josephus I refer to is made in passing. Josephus tells of the execution of James, whom he refers to as the brother of 'Jesus who was called the Christ." Of course accepting Jesus as historical doesn't necessitate accepting that he healed lepers, raised the dead, walked on water, or that he himself rose from the dead. WIth the possible exception of the Crucifixion (and even the Passion has been heavily mythologized) the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus are mythical, not literal. My main criticism of Joseph's thesis is his assumption that everything in the life of Jesus refers to astrotheological worship. A specific example of this is his interpretation of the Matthean ativity story as astrological in its mythology and symbolism, making the magi represent stars called the "three kings." Actually, Matthew never mentions the number of magi. Having Jesus hailed as King of the Jews by Zoroastrian magi implied support from the Parthians, arch-enemies of the Romans. The three gifts brought by the magi-gold, frankincense and myrrhreflect the gifts brought to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, particularly since frankincense and myrrh come from the southern straits of the Red Sea. So the Matthean 1 ativity is myth, but myth based on politics and the Jewish scriptures. There's nothing astrotheological about it. ...

Randi on the Double-Blind Experiment: A Response to a Critic

In the Forum section of Vol. 15. No.1, Douglas M. Stokes takes me to task for having poorly designed a double-blind protocol for testing a dowser's claims. He writes: "Unfortunately, Randi's procedure is not blind at all," and he provides his reasons for this opinion. First: Theperson who selected and prepared the target location for hiding a gold nugget then left the experimental room. Umm, yes, that's true. linda Shallenberger, my office manager, randomly selected a numbered ball from an opaque cloth bag, showed the selected number to the video camera that recorded the entire procedure, replaced the counter in the bag, and went to the indicated cup. She placed the nugget into that cup, recapped it, reoriented it slightly, and similarly repositioned each of the remaining cups. Mr. Stokes continued: After she lift, she called out to indicate that they should begin the trial. That is also correct. Before leaving the room by an exit that was opposite the area where the dowser and I were waiting, linda called out the single word "Ready" and promptly left the area. So far, I cannot see where Mr. Stokes might have any problem with the protocol being secure and properly double-blind. He continued: As this person had knowledge of the target location, she could have (subconsciously or consciously) varied the nature of this call depending on the target location, thus providing sensory cues that the dowser could use to identify (or misidentify) the target location. I admit being quite mind-boggled by this statement from Mr. Stokes, who has a certain reputation of expertise in scientific procedures, particularly in regard to paranormal claims. Yes, linda knew in exactly which cup the target had been placed. How she could possibly have conveyed to the would-be dowser-by special intonation of this single word-which of the ten cups had been selected, I cannot imagine. In any case, linda would have had no such goal; we were doing a direct, proper, secure, double-blind test of a simple claim. Stokes continued: Further cues might be provided by the manner in which the cup nugget was sealed. My mind-boggle index has just risen a notch or two. As described, the dowser -who was given no opportunity to examine, handle or mark the items we used-would have had to memorize in extreme detail each essentially-invisible variable of the plain, white, Styrofoam cups, along with the plain, opaque lids, and associate these with the number assigned to each cup. Get real! Stokes again: Most (but alas not all) parapsychologists would avoid such a procedure for these reasons. Yes, alas. My next book will cover just how poorly some parapsychologists-and other less-involved academics-actually understand the proper application of double-blind precautions. Mr. Stokes closed with the caveat that "Randi ... may not be so lucky next time." Mr. Stokes, "luck" had nothing to do with it, nor does it enter into any protocol we use. We designed and carried out a proper double-blind protocol for testing the simple claim that Mr. Mike Guska had made. The results were exactly what would be expected by chance alone-no surprise to us, at all. Mr. Guska has declined to be tested again unless I personally go to him, at my expense, and agree to his conditions. That will not happen. He has made his decision. I know how to design a doubleblind protocol, Mr. Stokes. T
-James Randi, James Randi Educational Foundation, www.randLorg

Positive Thinking Forum

Optimism is Good for Your Brain A Response to Steve Salerno By Mark Robert Waldman MD

and Andrew

Newberg,

As skeptical researchers with a penchant for thorough and accurate assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of positive thinking and optimism, we are dismayed by Salerno's apparent lack of comprehension (and exclusion of references to back up his claims) when it comes to the hundreds of studies relating to this important psychological and neurological topic. A brief analysis of the 97 abstracts that are cited if you enter "positive thinking" (let alone the 3553 references to its

companion term, optimism) as a key word in the databases of the National library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health (www.pubmed.gov) will demonstrate that Salemo has not done his homework. Hope, optimism, and the belief in a positive future (i.e., faith) are essential for human psychological and neurological functioning, a concept that was first addressed in the 1950s by the psychiatrist Vicktor Frankl, who was imprisoned in a azi death camp until the end of World War II. In his famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, he said that the single most important thing that
1

kept a survivor alive was faith. If a prisoner lost faith in the future, he was doomed, because the will to live seldom returned. For Frankl, faith was essential for dealing with all aspects of life: "A weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them."} Now, faith in an optimistic future may be a placebo, but it's important to remember that placebos can cure, on the average, 30% of the majority of physical and emotional diseases. Even an irrational belief in a cure that has been proven not to work can significantly boost the body's immune system 2 0 0 9

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when dealing with a deadly disease.? But what about unrealistic faith or optimism? Recently, a team of National Institutes of Health researchers concluded that "a moderate optimistic illusion" appears to be neurologically essential for maintaining motivation and good mental health.3 They also found that highly optimistic people had greater activation in the same parts of the anterior cingulate, a part of the brain that plays a crucial role in controlling anxiety, depression, and rage, as well as fostering social awareness and compassion.' Even the medical researchers at the Mayo Clinic stress the importance of optimistic thinking for maintaining optimal health. They found that positive thinking decreases stress, helps you resist catching the common cold, reduces your risk of coronary artery disease, eases breathing if you have certain respiratory diseases, and improves your coping skills during hardships.> An optimistic attitude specifically reduces the stress-eliciting cortisol levels in your body.f Many other studies have demonstrated how optimism improves behavioral coping in a variety of physical illnesses.? In a forty year follow-up conducted at Duke University, optimists had increased longevity when compared to pessimistic individualsf As reported in the November 2007 issue of Nature, if the human brain did not have a bias toward optimism, we would be prone to increased anxiety and depression.? However, anxious individuals have a more difficult time suppressing negative thoughrs,'? and often get caught up in the repetitive process of rumination. This, unfortunately, strengthens the neural circuits that are generating anxiety and embedding the information into long- term memory banks. Optimism is also related to the neurological mechanism known as the placebo effect. If you strongly believe in something-in other words, if you have enough faith in yourself-you will stimulate both your immune system and your motivational system into action.u Skeptics might argue that maintaining an illusory optimism is problematic, but the evidence points in the opposite direction. Researchers at the University of California found that people who

have self-enhancing illusions exhibit lower cardiovascular responses to stress, more rapid cardiovascular recovery, and lower baseline cortisol levels. 12In fact, an unrealistically optimistic belief about the future appears to be health protective, even when dealing with a disease as serious as AIDS.13And in an article just published in the March, 2009 issue of Behavioral Cognitive Psychotherapy, 14 researchers expected to find qualities of unrealistic optimism in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. Instead they found the opposite, and thus the lack of positive thinking contributed to their overestimation of perceived threats in the world. In another study, optimism added months, and even years to patients suffering from diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sderosis.i> It will even increase your resistance to common colds and flu viruses, but it can also bias you toward underestimating the severity of your symptoms.w Other studies, however, have pointed out that unrealistic optimism adds a decreased perception of risk.l? Optimism does cause people to underestimate their risk of getting divorced and to overestimate their prospects for success in the marketplace. These are important implications to consider, especially when it comes to health-related concerns. For example, optimistic smokers underestimate their chances of getting ill.18So the question we must face is this: Are we using our optimistic . beliefs to maintain a destructive behavior or belief? If so, then a healthy dollop of reality-testing should be added to your recipe for health. Optimism is also associated with a less realistic view of the world.i? But then again, so is pessimism.s? Pessimism, however, has few benefits, and it leaves the person more at risk to depression, anxiety, sleeping problems, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and impaired social functioning." In a thirty-year longitudinal study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, pessimism was significantly associated with a shorter lifespan and poorer mental functioning.22 Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Waldman are at the Center for Spirituality and the Mind, University of
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Pennsylvania, and are the authors of How God Changes Your Brain, Why We Believe What We Believe, and Born to Believe. Tbeir research has been published in dozens of peer-reviewed journals and academic texts. References
1. Frankl V., 1959. Man's Search for Meaning. WaShington Square Press. 2. See Newberg and Waldman, "Born to Believe, for an Indepth Look at the Placebo Effect and the Power that Beliefs Have on Physiological Health." 3. Sharot T., Riccardi A.M., Raio C.M., Phelps EA, 2007. "Neural Mechanisms Mediating Optimism Bias." Nature. Nov 1;450 (7166): 102-5. 4. Newberg and Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain. Ballantine, 2009. 5. http://www.mayoclinic.comjhealth/positive-thinking /SROOOO9, Kung S., Rummans T.A., Colligan R.C., Clark M.M., Sloan JA, Novotny PJ., Huntington J.L., "Association of Optimism-pessimism With Quality of Life in Patients With Head and Neck and Thyroid Cancers". Mayo Clin Proc. 2006 Dec; 81(12): 1545-52. 6. Evans P., Forte D., Jacobs C., Fredhoi C., Aitchison E., Hucklebridge F., Clow A., 2007. "Cortisol Secretory Activity in Older People in Relation to Positive and Negative WeU.lJeing: Psychoneuroendocrinology. SepNov;32(8-10):92230; Schlotz W., Schulz P., Hellhammer J., stone A.A., Hellhammer D.H., 2006. "Trait Anxiety Moderates the Impact of Performance Pressure on Salivary Cortisol in Everyday Life~ Psychoneuroendocrinology. May; 31(4):45972; Lai J.C., Evans p.o., Ng S.H., Chong AM., Siu O.T., Chan C.L., Ho S.M., Ho R.T., Chan P., Chan C.C., 2005. "Optimism, Positive Affectivity, and Salivary Cortisol". Br J Health Psychol. Nov; 10(pt 4):467-84. 7. Trehame GJ., Lyons AC., Booth D.A., Kitas GoO., "Psychological Welf.being across 1 Year with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Coping Resources as Buffers of Perceived Stress". Br J Health Psychol. 2007 Sep;12(pt 3):32345; steptoe A, Marmo M., Wardle J., 2007. "Positive Affect and Psychosocial Processes Related to Health". Br J Psychol. Jun 27; MartinezCorrea A, Reyes del Paso GA, Garci&le6n A., Gonzalez-Jareiio M.I., 2006. "Relationship Between Dispositional Optimism/pessimism and Stress Coping Strategies." Psicothema. Feb;18(1):66-72; Nes L.S., Segerstrom S.C., 2006. "Dispositional Optimism and Coping: A MetaAnalytic Review." Pers Soc Psychol Rev.; 10(3): 235-51; Schou I., Ekeberg 0., Ruland C.M., "The Mediating Role of Appraisal and Coping in the Relationship Between Optimism-pessimism and Quality of Life". Psychooncology. 2005 Sep; 14(9):718-27. 8. Brummett B.H., Helms MJ., Dahlstrom w.G., Siegler I.C., "Prediction of Allcause Mortatity by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personelity Inventory Optimisrn-Pessimism Scale Scores: study of a College Sample During a 4Q.year FoIIQW{JpPeriod. Mayo Clin Proc. 2006 Dee; 81(12): 15414. 9. Sharot T., Riccardi AM., Raio C.M., Phelps EA, "Neural Mechanisms Mediating Optimism Bias". Nature. 2007 Nov 1;450(7166):102-5. 10. Gillath 0., Bu~ SA, Shaver P.R., Wendelken C., Mikulincer M.," Attachment-style Differences in the AbiliJ to Suppress Negative Thoughts: Exploring the Neural Correlates". Neuroimage. 2005 Dec;28(4):83547. 11. Furukawa T.A., Watanabe N., Omori I.M., Churchill R., "Can Pill Placebo Augment Cognitive-behavior Therapy for Panic Disorder?" BMC Psychiatry. 2007 Dee 20;7:73. See also: Harrington, A., (Ed.) The Placebo Effect. Harvard UniversiJ Press, 1999. 12. Taylor S.E., Lemer J.S., Sherman D.K., Sage R.M., McDowell N.K., "Are Setf-enhancing Cognitions Associated with Healthy or Unhealthy Biological Profiles?" J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003 Oct;85(4):605-15 13. Taylor S.E., Kemeny M.E., Reed G.M., Bower J.E.,

Gruenewald T.L., "Psychological Resources, Positive Illusions, and Health". Am Psycho!. 2000 Jan;55(1):99-109. 14. "Inversion of the 'Unrealistic Optimism' Bias Contributes to Overestimation of Threat in ObsessiveCompulsive Disorder." Moritz S., Jelinek L., Behav Cogn Psychother. 2009 Mar; 37(2): 179-93. 15. Foumier M., De Ridder D., Bensing J., "Optimism and Adaptation to Chronic Disease: The Role of Optimism in Relation to Self-care Options of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis." Br J Health Psycho!. 2002 Nov;7(Part 4):409-432. 16. Cohen S., Alper C.M., Doyle W.J., Treanor J.J., Tumer R.B., "Positive Emotional Style Predicts Resistance to Illness after Experimental Exposure to Rhinovirus or Influenza a Virus". Psychosom Med. 2006 NovDec;68(6):S09-15. 17. Weinstein N.D., "Unrealistic Optimism about Susceptibility to Health Problems. J Behav Med. 1982 Dec;5(4):441-60. is. Dillard A.J., McCaul K.D., Klein W.M., "Unrealistic Optimism in Smokers: Implications for Smoking Myth Endorsement and Self-protective Motivation". J Health Gommun. 2006;11 Suppl1:93-102. 19. Groot W., van den Brink H.M., "Optimism, Pessimism and the Compensating Income Variation of Cardiovascular Disease: a Twotiered Quality of ute Stochastic Frontier Model". Sac Sci Med. 2007 Dct;65(7):147g.sg. 20. Weber H., Vollmann M., Renner B., "The Spirited, the Observant, and the Disheartened: Social Concepts of Optimism, Realism, and Pessimism". J Pets. 2007 Feb;75 (1): 169-97. 21. van der Velden P.G., Kleber R.J., Foumier M., Grievink L., DrogendUk A., Gersons B.P., 2007. "The Association Between Dispositional Optimism and Mental Health Problems Among DisasterVictims and a Comparison Group: A Prospective Study. J Affect Disord. Sep; 102(1-3): 3545; Pinquart M., Frohlich C., Silbereisen R.K., 2007. "Optimism, Pessimism, and Change of Psychological.Welf.being in Cancer Patients." Psycho! Health Med. Aug; 12(4): 421-32. 22. Maruta T., Colligan R.C., Malinchoc M., Offord K.P., Optimists vs Pessimists: Survival Rate among Medical Patients Over a 3Q.year Period. 2000. Mayo Glin Proc. Feb;75(2): 140-3. Erratum in: Mayo Glin Proc 2000 Mar;75 (3): 31S; Maruta T., Colligan R.C., Malinchoc M., Offord K.P., 2002. "OptimismPessimism Assessed in the 1960s and Self-Reported Health Status 30 Years Later." Mayo Glin Proc. Aug;77(S):74&53.

Salemo Responds

Sometimes when I receive criticism I'm left wondering: did they actually read the piece? This is such a case. For the record, I have never argued that optimism has no legitimate role in life. I argue that the frenzied overselling of optimism as a blanket prescription for all that ails us is one of the more subtly destructive forces in American culture. Just as scholastic selfesteem gurus were dead wrong when they led us to believe that so-called "bolt-on" self-esteem automatically yields academic excellence, there's no question that today's gurus of optimism have led the nation down the primrose path in declaring that an upbeat attitude is its own foolproof reward. My real quibble, then, is with undue optimism about optimism-"the notion that the riddle of success is more easily solved

by attitude than aptitude, "as I wrote near the top of the story. I was primarily indicting the commodification of optimism, and I stand by that assessment. (The gurus are right about one thing, however. Optimism does produce a great deal of wealth: their own.) Authors Waldman and Newberg, meanwhile, offer us an object lesson in how a few scraps of "emerging science," as it's called in those smarmy 1V ads for dubious new health-care products, become conventional wisdom. They write, for example, that "medical researchers at the Mayo Clinic stress the importance of optimistic thinking for maintaining optimal health. They found that positive thinking decreases stress, helps you resist catching the common cold, reduces your risk of coronary artery disease, eases breathing if you have certain respiratory diseases, and improves your coping skills during hardships." That's one seriously overstated mouthful, because the Mayo researchers "found" no such thing; if you go to the Mayo site, you'll see that they speculate that positive thinking may pay these dividends ...and even those tentative declarations are made based on "some" (cherrypicked?) studies. Not coincidentally, this is the same strategy elevated to an art form by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in touting its pet nostrums. The authors also rely on the common ploy of argument-by-poetry, framing philosophy as truth. This is most clear in the several quotes from Victor Frankl. Much like the transcendent line, "All men are created equal," the Frankl quotes sound terrific but enjoy no scientific standing. AB for the charge that I haven't done my homework: Although my piece may not be annotated in strict academic style, I wonder how the authors overlooked the references to the work of Roy Baumeister, Charles Elliott, Charles Sykes, Jean Twenge, ete.-people who clearly have done their homework. But that's not even the main point. Cleverly, the authors have embraced another staple ew Age tactic by inverting the scientific method: telling me it's my job to prove that optimism is ineffective, when in fact it's their job, as members of the movement making all these claims, to conclu1

sively demonstrate the efficacy of optimism, hope, PMA, ete. We still have no way of knowing whether optimistic people actually do better at life or whether they just feel better about the same old crappy life (and therefore are less motivated to change anything). Do they end up like those American students, steeped in self-esteem, who got the worst grades in international testing but had the highest subjective self-assessments? To paraphrase the famous line from the movie, "Show us the money." Overall, the authors represent a blended (and, as I see it, disingenuous) "compromise" between science and spirituality that, on closer inspection, necessarily calls for throwing science out the window. Waldman and Newberg are authors of a new book, How God Changes Your Brain, whose very premise and central conceptGod--cannot, by their own admission, be proved. In their book, Waldman and Newberg write, "Having an accurate perception of reality is not one of the brain's strong points." And: "The human brain seems to have difficulty separating fantasies from facts." Fair enough ...but is that where a true scientist should leave things? Do we then embrace the fantasies? Isn't it the scientist's job to weed out the real from the unreal; to wean people off the unreal; and to encourage people to work within the realm of the real, even if reality is less comfortable than fantasy? Otherwise what is the purpose of skepticism to begin with? One final point. What I find amusing about the so-called "studies" of the role of mental oudook in health care is this: If a positive attitude is so decisive in health-care outcomes, then why not do a real controlled study wherein the control group tries to heal itself through PMA alone? Say, let's have two groups of grievously ill heart patients, both with 95% blockage of the coronary arteries. Group 1 undergoes heart bypass plus blood thinners, ete. Group 2 forgoes all medical intervention and tries to get better just by visualizing the unclogging of their arteries. (If you like, we can even compose Group 1 from a bunch of pessimistic curmudgeons.) Report back and tell me how it goes. T

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The Coriolis Effect

Does water drain in different directions in the northern and southern hemispheres?
WILLIAM ON THE EQUATOR, NEAR THE TOWN OF anyuki, Kenya, a local man named Peter McLeary makes a living by showing tourists the so-called "Coriolis force":
He takes them to a line drawn on the ground (the putative location of the equator) and drains a pan of water on either side of it. The water flows clockwise when the pan is north of the line, and counterclockwise when the pan is south of the line. Mcleary explains that this is due to Earth's rotation, and then collects tips from the tourists.!

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Northem Hemisphere rotation: counterclockwise

SFIELD

In reality, the Coriolis phenomenon is not detectable for many miles on either side of the equator. When it is detectable, moving objects tend to be deflected counterclockwise in the orthern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The Coriolis effect is named for the French engineer/mathematician Gaspard Gustav de Coriolis (1792-1843) who first described it in 1835. There really is no such thing as a Coriolis "force". The Coriolis "effect" or "phenomenon" results from the fact that the observer on the ground is spinning along with the rotating Earth. A rotating observer will think there is a mysterious "force" apparently deflecting moving objects. Why? The surface of the Earth moves from west to east. Looking south from space along the Earth's rotational axis in the Northern Hemisphere, the ground is rotating counterclockwise. Looking north from space along the Earth's axis in the Southern Hemisphere, the ground is rotating clockwise.s While the angular speed is identical at each point on the Earth (they all make a 360 rotation in 24 hours), the linear speed decreases from the equator with increasing latitude (i.e., approaching the poles). The Earth's surface rotational speed
0

Looking south over the North Pole, the

ground
rotates counterclockwise.

Looking

north
over the South Pole, the ground rotates clockwise.

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(eastward linear velocity) around its axis is greatest on the equator (approximately 0.46 km/sec), diminishing at successively higher latitudes (e.g., 0.33 km/sec at latitude 45 ). The Earth's rotation does tend to divert moving objects in opposite directions in the two hemispheres, but its effects are most obvious on moving objects high above the Earth that are not greatly affected by the forces of terrestrial friction (such as airplanes, rockets, artillery hells), or on large air masses developed over extended time periods and over long distances such as storms or major oceanic currents. Stationary objects on the Earth's surface have an angular momentum due to the rotation of the Earth, but they are not affected by the Coriolis force. The Cariolis force is directed eastward to the direction of a moving object at any instant over the curvature of the Earth's surface, as seen from a fixed point in space. In the orthern Hemisphere, the Coriolis effect tends to deflect a mass moving north or south to the light of its path; in the Southern Hemisphere it tends to deflect a mass moving north or south to the left of its path. Slowly moving objects tend to be deflected less than rapidly moving ones, while a moving mass closer to the poles would be deflected more than a mass of the same speed closer to the equator> The Coriolis effect is far too weak in small bodies of water to be detectable by the kind of demonstrations that McLeary performs, especially at or near the equator where the Cariolis force is zero. Thus, Mr. McCleary's demonstration of the Coriolis effect on or near the equator is bogus. However, under carefully controlled conditions, it is claimed that scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have demonstrated the Coriolis effect in the Northern Hemisphere by using a perfectly symmetrical vessel with a small drain hole exactly in the middle of the bottom, and by allowing the water to become as still as possible over several days prior to the tests. After the plug is pulled, the water in the bowl moves toward the drain hole and is deflected slightly to the right (to the west) on all sides before it reaches the drain, thus establishing a counterclockwise vortex. It is also claimed that workers in Australia were able to show the expected Coriolis phenomenon (clockwise vortex) in the Southern Hemisphere? (readers should note that this reference does not cite the authors or publications in which these astonishing results allegedly appear). It should be noted, however, that these experiements, if real (Boston -43 ; or, since the Australian city is not named, let us take Sydney for an example, -33 S latitude), were conducted over a thousand miles from the equator where the Coriolis force is much larger than near the equator.
Foucault's Pendulum and the Coriolis Effect

In 1851, French physidst]ean Bernard Leon Foucault (1819-1868) demonstrated in an unusual way that the Earth rotates on its axis at a regular rate with a pendulum experiment. He used a 25 kg bob suspended by a 67-meter wire from the dome of the Pantheon in Paris. The pendulum was free to osdllate in any vertical plane.' A Foucault pendulum actually osdllates in a single plane, but the plane appears to change direction, due to the Coriolis effect, as the Earth rotates beneath it by an amount dependent upon the latitude at which the pendulum is located. On tl1e equator, where the Coriolis effect is zero, a Foucault pendulum does not change its apparent direction during one sidereal day (the time it takes for the Earth to complete one rotation relative to the stars)' In the orthern Hemisphere, the apparent deflection of the pendulum's plane of oscillation is to the right (clockwise); in the Southern Hemisphere it is to the left (counterclockwise). At the poles, the pendulum would make one complete rotation in one sidereal day. Foucault pendulums are sometimes seen today in planetariums, observatories, and science museums, A circle is painted on the floor centered directly under the plumb line of the pendulum, with the radius a little less than the end of the pendulum'S swing. Small pegs are set at regular intervals (e.g., every 10) around the circle like dominoes, so that each one will be knocked over by the pendulum as the Earth rotates counterclockwise around the plumb line in the Northern Hemisphere (clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere). If the total number of blocks on the circle and the time between any two successive knockdowns are observed, it should be possible to estimate the time it would take for all the blocks to be knocked down (one complete revolution of the pendulum). The latitude of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, for example, is 37 46.2' north. The Foucault pendulum mere makes one complete rotation in 39.18 hours.'

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Ballistics and the Coriolis Effect

The magnitude of the Cariolis acceleration ("force") depends on the velocity of the moving mass, the speed of the Earth's rotation, and the latitude where the mass resides at any given moment. To a person on the surface of the Earth in the Northern Hemisphere, the Coriolis force is to the right of the path of a moving object, causing the object to appear to curve to the right of its actual path (a straight line as seen from space) when facing the direction in which the mass is

tile shot westward might miss its target to the left of (or possibly even hit) the target.
Wind Systems, Hurricanes and the Coriolis Effect

moving.s
Because a bullet fired from a handgun does not travel very far over the curvature of the Earth, its trajectory is negligibly affected by the Coriolis force. However, artillery shells from big naval guns can travel 20 miles or more and are affected by the Coriolis phenomenon. likewise, rockets that can travel hundreds of miles over the curvature of the Earth are noticeably influenced by the Earth's rotation, and that deflection must be factored into the projectile's aim if it is to hit a small target far away. Consider a rocket at mid-latitude in the Northern Hemisphere being fired at a target several hundred miles due north. By the time the rocket reaches its target, the Coriolis force would seem to have pushed the rocket to the right (eastward) of the north-south longitudinal meridian that was its original aim. This is because initially, and throughout its flight path, the rocket has an eastward motion that is faster than the eastward motion of its target farther north. If the rocket at mid-northern latitude had been aimed due south, it would have been deflected to the tight (westward) of its intended path because initially, and throughout its flight path, the rocket had an eastward motion that is slower than the eastward motion of its target further south. Since the Earth is rotating clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, a projectile tends to miss its target to the left if its aim is not corrected for the Coriolis force. If a projectile is fired due east or due west in the lorthem Hemisphere, it will tend to be deflected southward (toward the equator) because of the curvature of the Earth's surface (Coriolis effect). However, the complexity of forces acting upon a high speed projectile heading west against the eastward rotation of the Earth (especially the velocity of the projectile and its latitude) may result in the projectile veering to the right (north). At lower speeds, such a projec-

The Sun warms the air and ocean surface near the Earth's equator more than it does nearer the poles. The uneven heating of the atmosphere is the cause of wind. A region of relatively low atmospheric pressure is called a cyclone. Cyclones are characterized by cloudiness and high humidity. Air from regions of higher pressure surrounding the cyclone moves inward from all directions toward the center (core) of lowest pressure. This pressure gradient, plus the Coriolis effect (acting at tight angles to the inward flow of air), causes a cyclone to rotate counterclockwise around its core in the orthern Hemisphere; clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Anticyclones are regions of relatively high atmospheric pressure. Air tends to flow outward in all directions from the core of an anticyclone toward the surrounding regions of lower pressure. This pressure gradient, plus the Coriolis effect (acting at right angles to the outward flow of air), causes an anticyclone to rotate clockwise around its core in the orthem Hemisphere; counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Anticyclones tend to have weather characteristics opposite to those of cyclones. Cyclones that develop in mid latitudes (30 to 60 north or south of the equator) commonly move from west to east along with the prevailing westerly winds in the upper atmo phere. There are no prevailing winds within about 700 miles north or south of the equator (a region called the "doldrums"). Tropical cyclones that develop over oceans nearer the equator (10 to 30 north or south of the equator) move from east to west with the flow of the trade winds there. \Vmd velocity depends upon the magnitude and direction of the atmospheric pressure gradient between high and low pressure areas. The Cariolis force cannot change the velocity of a wind system, but it can change its direction. The effects of the Coriolis force on weather systems and major oceanic currents may also be combined in complex ways with other factors such as wind direction/speed, friction, and geographicaVtopological features. Hurricanes are large vortexes of air rapidly moving around an area of very low atmospheric pressure. The core of the hurricane, called

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the "eye," has little, if any, wind. Hurricanes tend to develop from storms in the tropical regions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. They may become hundreds of miles in diameter, with winds minimally 73 miles per hour (sometimes called "typhoons" in the orth Pacific Ocean). Hurricanes are not observed at the equator, but they have been seen at five degrees away from the equator where the Coriolis effect starts to become a significant factor? Near the equator in the North Atlantic Ocean, a tropical cyclone (rotating counterclockwise) initially moves westward from the coast of Africa under the influence of the westerly blowing trade winds. Then, as it gathers rotational speed, it tends to curve to the right (northward) and clockwise around the rim of an area of higher pressure, largely due to the Coriolis effect. The vortex of a hurricane might be the best model with which to compare the bucket experiment because they both have the same rotational direction (reversed in each hemisphere) around a well-defined center (hurricane eye vs. bucket drain hole).
The Coriolis Effect in Pop Culture

Mulder: "The water!" Scully: "What's wrong with it?" Mulder: "It's going down the drain counterclockwise. The Coriolis force in the Northern Hemi-sphere dictates that it should go down clockwise." Scully: "That isn't possible." Mulder: "Something is here Scully ... Something is making these things possible."

One episode (6th season, 16th episode) of the 1V show The Simpsons has bad boy Bart arguing with his brainy sister Lisa about how water drains from a sink. Lisa tells Bart that sinks in the Northern Hemisphere drain counterclockwise, but drain clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Coriolis effect. Bart tests the theory by running water down the sink and flushing the toilet. They both drain counterclockwise. He then phones an Australian who checks several sinks and toilets and reports they all drain clockwise. The viewer is left believing that Lisa was right. The truth is that water can drain from a toilet in ether direction in either hemisphere depending on initial conditions such as the shape of the bowl, direction of the water entering the bowl, the size and position of the drain hole relative to that of the container, and the speed of the flush. The January 27, 1995 episode of TV's The X-Files has FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigating a ritual murder in a small New Hampshire town whose residents feel that supernatural forces are at workf Mulder turns on a water fountain, watches the water drain away, and then exclaims:

Scully is supposed to be a physician with an undergraduate degree in physics. Even so she gets it wrong! Unfortunately, even real science teachers and even worse, science textbooks do not always present the correct facts about the Coriolis effect. For example, a physics textbook for scientists and engineers used at ottingham University in the U.K says "on a smaller scale, the Coriolis effect causes water draining out of a bathtub to rotate counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere." The physics textbook I used as a graduate student didn't get the story wrong, but perhaps this was only because it didn't even mention the Coriolis phenomenon or Foucault's pendulum. Even 1V shows that attempt to be scientific rather than entertainment can get it wrong. On a BBC special seen on PB~From Pole to Polethat they proudly called "the biggest series the BBC's Natural History Unit has ever done" host Michael Palin fell for Kenyan Peter McLeary's coriolis fakery?
McLeary: "This is the Northern Hemisphere (gesturing to his left), and this is the Southern Hemisphere (gesturing to his right). If you drain a sink when you're on the northern side of the equator, and you watch the water as it drains, you will see that the water always rotates clockwise." This scene shows a pan with water draining clockwise; floating match sticks are used to make the motion easier to see. "This phenomenon is caused by the rotation of the Earth. The effect becomes stronger according to how far you move to the north or south and becomes weaker according to how close you go towards the line [the equator]. So that's why we have to give some distance from the equator so that the rotation can be noticeable. " Palin: "This is known as the Coriolis effect and Peter McLeary has given this same lecture every day for the last six years. It's delivered in the burnt out shell of an old hotel. The equator used to run

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Left: Figures holding a pan of water make two turns to start their water rotating under the guise of moving back away from the equator. Right: A square pan makes it easier to control rotation direction. through the middle of the bar. I bet they were always floating match sticks in the middle of the beer."

Mcleary carries his pan and water about ten meters to the south of the spot marking the equator, and turns to face the audience.
McLeary: "So, this changes to counterclockwise, indicating that now we are on [sze) the Southern Hemisphere. "

A shot is shown of the water in the pan draining counterdockwise. The camera transitions to a scene where Mcleary is placing a water-filled pan directly on the equatorial marker.
McLeary: "So, now we are right on the equator, and as we drain the water, you'll see there will be no rotation. It just drains straight down. And that's how we prove that we are right on the equator." ow we see water draining with no apparent rotation. Palin: "It does, work."
How Is the Fakery Done?

Here is how the trick can be done.? On the equator, the performer fills the pan and leaves it undisturbed for as long as possible to damp most water References
1. Silber, K. 2OO2."Astronomy and the Kitchen Sink." Skeptical Inquirer; 26(4)56. Book review of Plait, P. 2002. Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax." New York: John Wiley & Sons. 2. http://www.gi.alaska.edu /ScienceForum/ ASF5/ 523.html 3. http://ww2010.atmos. uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/ mtr/fw/crls.rxml 4. www.abc.net.au/surf/

movement induced by the filling process. A deeper pan works better. If the hole in the bottom of the pan is small it takes longer before any rotation is detected. The trickster can move the pan before such motion can be easily seen. If the pan is circular, it is difficult to unobtrusively make the water start rotating, but if it is square, this is easier to do. When the performer is going to go north from the equator (or any place he wants to call the equator) he stands in front of the pan and faces south. He then picks it up, turns around by turning to his left (thus starting the water turning), walks north and turns around by again turning to his left, and faces his audience. He adds a tracer (such as matches or pepper) to the surface of the water, removes the stopper from the bottom of the pan, and lets the water drain out. He make the claim that it is the rotation of the Earth that causes the water to spiral as it does. He then goes back to the equator, but this time he stands in front of the pan and faces north. After filling the pan, he picks it up and turns to his right, walks south, again turns around by turning to his right, and faces his audience. He then armounces that the water rotates opposite to the previous experiment because of the rotation of the Earth. T
pendulum/defaulthtm 5. http://www.calacaderny .org/products/pendulum/ page 14.htm 6. Eagleman, J.R. 1980. Meteorology: The Atmosphere in Action. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. 7. http://www.loc.gov/rr/scite ch/rnysteries/coriolis.htmt 8. Emery, C. E., Jr. 1995. "XFiles Coriolis Error Leaves Viewers Wondering." Skeptical Inquirer; 19(3)5. 9. http://www.ems.psu. edu/ -fraser /Bad/ BadCoriolis.html

Vaccines and Autism

A Deadly Manufactroversy
HARRIET HAL L , M D , THE SKEPDOC "Falsehoodflies, and the truth comes limping after." -Jonathan Swift DURING A QUESTIO AND ANSWER SESSIO after a talk I recently gave, I was asked for my opinion about the vaccine/autism controversy. That was easy: my opinion is that there is no controversy. The evidence is in. The scientific community has reached a dear consensus that vaccines don't cause autism. There is no controversy. There is, however, a manufactroversy-a manufactured controversy-created by junk science, dishonest researchers, professional misconduct, outright fraud, lies, misrepresentations, irresponsible reporting, unfortunate media publicity, poor judgment, celebrities who think they are wiser than the whole of medical science, and a few maverick doctors who ought to know better. Thousands of parents have been frightened into rejecting or delaying immunizations for their children. The immunization rate has dropped, resulting in the return of endemic measles in the U'K. and various outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S. Children have died. Herd immunity has been lost. The public health consequences are serious and are likely to get worse before they get better-a load of unscientific nonsense has put us all at risk. The story is appalling. It involves high drama, charismatic personalities, conspiracy theories, accusations, intimidation, and even death threats. It would make a good movie. It does make a good book: Dr. Paul Offit has explained what happened in Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. 1 I can't tell the whole story

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here, but I'll try to cover the highlights as I understand them. I'll include some new revelations that were not available to Offit when his book went to press. As I see it, there were three main stages to this fiasco: (1) the MMR scare, (2) the mercury/thimerosal scare, and (3) the vaccines-in-general scare.
The MMR Scare

In 1998 a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published an atticle in the respected medical journal The Lancet? He did intestinal biopsies via colonoscopy on 12 children with intestinal symptoms and developmental disorders, 10 of whom were autistic, and found a pattern of intestinal inflammation. The parents of 8 of the autistic children thought they had developed their autistic symptoms right after they got the MMR vaccine. The published paper stated clearly: ''We did not . prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue." Despite this disclaimer, Wakefield immediately held a press conference to say the MMR vaccine probably caused autism and recommended not stopping MMR injections, but giving the 3 individual components separately at intervals of a year or more. The media exploded with warnings like "Ban Three-in-One Jab, Urge Doctors." 111e components were not available as individual vaccines, so people simply stopped immunizing. The immunization rate in the UK. dropped from 93% to 75% (and to 50% in the London area). Confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales rose from 56 in 1998 to 1348 in 2008; two children died. In one small hospital in Ireland, 100 children were admitted for pneumonia and brain swelling caused by measles and three of them died. So, 14 years after mea Ie had been declared under control in the U.K. it was declared endemic again in 2008. Wakefield's data was later discredited (more about that later) but even if had been right, it wouldn't have been good science. To show that intestinal inflammation is linked to autism, you would have to compare the rate in autistic children to the rate in non-auti tic children. Wakefield used no controls. To implicate the MMR vaccine, you would have to show that the rate of autism was greater in children who got the vaccine and verify that autism developed after the shot. Wakefield made no attempt to do that.

His thinking was fanciful and full of assumptions. He hypothesized that the measles virus damaged the intestinal wall, that the bowel then leaked some unidentified protein, and that said protein went to the brain and somehow caused autism. There was no good rationale for separating and delaying the vaccines, because if the measles component was the culprit, wouldn't one expect it to cause the same harm when given individually? As one of his critics pointed out: "Single vaccines, spaced a year apart, clearly expose children to greater risk of infection, as well as additional distress and expense, and no evidence had been produced upon which to adopt such a policy." Wakefield had been involved in questionable research before. He published a study in 1993 where he allegedly found measles RNA in intestinal biopsies from patients with Crohn's disease (an inflammatory bowel disease).3 He claimed that natural measles infections and measles vaccines were the cause of that disease. Others tried to replicate his findings and couldn't. 0 one else could find measles RNA in Crohn' patients; they determined that Crohn's patients were no more likely to have had measles than other patients, and people who had had MMR vaccines were no more likely to develop Crohn's. Wakefield had to admit he was wrong, and in 1998 he published another pa per entitled "Measles RNA Is Not Detected in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.f In a related incident, at a national meeting he stated that Crohn's patients had higher levels of measles antibody in their blood. An audience member said that was not true-he knew because he was the one who had personally done the blood tests Wakefield was referring to. Wakefield was forced to back down. In 2002, Wakefield published another paper showing that measles RNA had been detected in intestinal biopsies of patients with bowel disease and developmental disorders.' The tests were done at the Unigenetics lab. Actually, Wakefield's own lab had looked for measles RNA in the patients in the 1998 study. His research assistant, icholas Chadwick, later testified that he had been present in the operating room when intestinal biopsies and spinal fluid samples were obtained and had personally tested all the amples for RNA with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. The results were all negative, and he testified that Wakefield knew the results were negative when he submitted his

W\'qW.SKEPTIC.

here, but I'll try to cover the highlights as I understand them. I'll include some new revelations that were not available to Offit when his book went to press. As I see it, there were three main stages to this fiasco: (1) the MMR scare, (2) the mercury/thimerosal scare, and (3) the vaccines-in-general scare.
The MMR Scare

In 1998 a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published an atticle in the respected medical journal The Lancet? He did intestinal biopsies via colonoscopy on 12 children with intestinal symptoms and developmental disorders, 10 of whom were autistic, and found a pattern of intestinal inflammation. The parents of 8 of the autistic children thought they had developed their autistic symptoms right after they got the MMR vaccine. The published paper stated clearly: ''We did not . prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue." Despite this disclaimer, Wakefield immediately held a press conference to say the MMR vaccine probably caused autism and recommended not stopping MMR injections, but giving the 3 individual components separately at intervals of a year or more. The media exploded with warnings like "Ban Three-in-One Jab, Urge Doctors." 111e components were not available as individual vaccines, so people simply stopped immunizing. The immunization rate in the UK. dropped from 93% to 75% (and to 50% in the London area). Confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales rose from 56 in 1998 to 1348 in 2008; two children died. In one small hospital in Ireland, 100 children were admitted for pneumonia and brain swelling caused by measles and three of them died. So, 14 years after mea Ie had been declared under control in the U.K. it was declared endemic again in 2008. Wakefield's data was later discredited (more about that later) but even if had been right, it wouldn't have been good science. To show that intestinal inflammation is linked to autism, you would have to compare the rate in autistic children to the rate in non-auti tic children. Wakefield used no controls. To implicate the MMR vaccine, you would have to show that the rate of autism was greater in children who got the vaccine and verify that autism developed after the shot. Wakefield made no attempt to do that.

His thinking was fanciful and full of assumptions. He hypothesized that the measles virus damaged the intestinal wall, that the bowel then leaked some unidentified protein, and that said protein went to the brain and somehow caused autism. There was no good rationale for separating and delaying the vaccines, because if the measles component was the culprit, wouldn't one expect it to cause the same harm when given individually? As one of his critics pointed out: "Single vaccines, spaced a year apart, clearly expose children to greater risk of infection, as well as additional distress and expense, and no evidence had been produced upon which to adopt such a policy." Wakefield had been involved in questionable research before. He published a study in 1993 where he allegedly found measles RNA in intestinal biopsies from patients with Crohn's disease (an inflammatory bowel disease).3 He claimed that natural measles infections and measles vaccines were the cause of that disease. Others tried to replicate his findings and couldn't. 0 one else could find measles RNA in Crohn' patients; they determined that Crohn's patients were no more likely to have had measles than other patients, and people who had had MMR vaccines were no more likely to develop Crohn's. Wakefield had to admit he was wrong, and in 1998 he published another pa per entitled "Measles RNA Is Not Detected in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.f In a related incident, at a national meeting he stated that Crohn's patients had higher levels of measles antibody in their blood. An audience member said that was not true-he knew because he was the one who had personally done the blood tests Wakefield was referring to. Wakefield was forced to back down. In 2002, Wakefield published another paper showing that measles RNA had been detected in intestinal biopsies of patients with bowel disease and developmental disorders.' The tests were done at the Unigenetics lab. Actually, Wakefield's own lab had looked for measles RNA in the patients in the 1998 study. His research assistant, icholas Chadwick, later testified that he had been present in the operating room when intestinal biopsies and spinal fluid samples were obtained and had personally tested all the amples for RNA with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. The results were all negative, and he testified that Wakefield knew the results were negative when he submitted his

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paper to The Lancet. Chadwick had asked that his name be taken off the paper. So the statement in the paper that "virologic studies were underway" was misleading. VIrologic studies had already been done in Wakefield's own lab and were negative. Wakefield was dissatisfied with those results and went to Unigenetics hoping for a different answer. Soon Wakefield's credibility started to dissolve. The Lancet retracted his paper. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, described the original paper as "fatally flawed" and apologized for publishing it. Of Wakefield's 12 co-authors, 10 issued a retraction: We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between (the) vaccine and autism, as the data were insufficient.However the possibilityof such a link was raised, and consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view. of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper, according to precedent. All attempts to replicate Wakefield's study failed. Other studies showed that the detection of measles virus was no greater in autistics, that the rate of intestinal disease was no greater in autistics, that there was no correlation between MMR and autism onset, and that there was no correlation between MMR and autism, period. In 2001 the Royal Free Hospital asked Wakefield to resign. In 2003, journalist Brian Deer began an extensive investigations leading to an expose in the The Sunday Times and on British television. In 2005 the General Medical Council (the British equivalent of state medical licensing boards in the U.S.) charged Wakefield with several counts of professional misconduct. One disturbing revelation followed another. It was discovered that two years before his study was published, Wakefield had been approached by a lawyer representing several families with autistic children. The lawyer specifically hired Wakefield to do research to find justification for a class action suit against MMR manufacturers. The children of the lawyer's clients were referred to Wakefield for the study, and 11 of his 12 subjects were eventually litigants. Wakefield failed to disclose this conflict of interest. He also failed to disclose how the subjects were recruited for his study. Wakefield was paid a total of nearly half a million pounds plus expenses by the lawyer. The payments were billed through a company

of Wakefield's wife. He never declared his source of funding until it was revealed by Brian Deer. Originally he had denied being paid at all. Even after he admitted it, he lied about the amount he was paid. Before the study was published, Wakefield had filed patents for his own separate measles vaccine, as well as other autism-related products. He also failed to disclose this additional significant conflict of interest. Human research must be approved by the hospital's ethics committee. Wakefield's study was not approved. When confronted, Wakefield first claimed that it was approved, then claimed he didn't need approval. Wakefield bought blood samples for his research from children (as young as 4) attending his son's birthday party. He callously joked in public about them crying, fainting and vomiting. He paid the kids 5 each. The General Medical Council accused him of ordering invasive and potentially harmful studies (colonoscopies and spinal raps) without proper approval and contrary to the children's clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children's symptoms or medical history. One child suffered multiple bowel perforations during the colonoscopy. Several had problems with the anesthetic. Children were subjected to sedation for other non-indicated tests like MRIs. Brian Deer was able to access the medical records of Wakefield's subjects. He found that several of them had evidence of autistic symptoms documented in their medical records before they got the MMR vaccine. The intestinal biopsies were originally reported as normal by hospital pathologists. They were reviewed, re-interpreted, and reported as abnormal in Wakefield's paper. All the reports of measles RNA in intestinal biopsies came from one lab, Unigenetics. Other labs tried to replicate their results and failed. An investigation revealed that: Unigenetics found measles RNAwith a test that should only detect DNA. They failed to use proper controls. The lab was contaminated with DNA from an adjoining Plasmid Room. Duplicate samples that disagreed were reported as positive. Positive controls were occasionally negative and negative ones positive. The lab was never accredited. It refused to take part in a quality control program. When tested by an outside investigator,it failed

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to identify which coded samples contained measles virus. The investigator said "I do not believe that there is any measles virus in any of the cases they have looked at" The lab is no longer in business.

ly contaminated with methylmercury showed subtle neurologic abnormalities (not autism), but a causal connection was not dear because the fish there were also contaminated with PCBs. The World Health Organization conduded: The theoretical risk from exposure to thimerosal has to be balanced against the known high risk of having no preservative in vaccines. Therefore, WHO, UNICEF, the European Agency for Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA), and other key agencies continue to recommend the use of vaccines containing this preservative because of the proven benefit of vaccines in preventing death and disease and the lack of data indicating harm. In 1999 the U.S. removed thimerosal from vaccines. Why? The decision was not based on evidence but on one person's opinion. Neal Halsey railroaded the committee and threatened to hold his own press conference if they didn't do what he wanted. He meant well. His passion convinced the other conunittee members to invoke the precautionary principle--essentially bending over backwards to prevent any possible harm from a high total body burden of mercury from a combination of diet, environmental and vaccine sources. He didn't even consider autism: he was only concerned about possible subtle neurologic damage. They announced their decision in words guaranteed to confuse the public and create suspicion: "current levels of thimerosal will not hurt children, but reducing those levels will make safe vaccines even safer." A 2007 editorials in The New England Journal of Medicine stated:
Although the precautionary principle assumes that there is no harm in exercising caution, the alarm caused by the removal of thimerosal from vaccines has been quite harmful. For instance, after the July 1999 announcement by the CDC and AAP, about 10 percent of hospitals suspended use of the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, regardless of their level of risk. [Because a thimerosal-free hepatitis B vaccine was not available.] One 3-month-old child born to a Michigan mother infected with hepatitis B virus died of overwhelming infection.

So both Wakefield and his study have been completely discredited. He moved to the U.S. and is now working in an autism clinic. He has many followers who still believe he was right.
The Mercury/Thimerosal Scare

In 1998, U.S. legislation mandated measuring mercury in foods and drugs. The data came in slowly, and by 1999 the FDA had learned that infants could get as much as 187.5 mcg of mercury from the thimerosal in all their vaccines. They were concemed because mercury is toxic. Mercury poisoning caused the Minamata disaster in Japan; however, that was methylmercury and the mercury in vaccines was ethylmercury. The amount of mercury in vaccines was within recommended guidelines. EPA guidelines for permissible mercury exposure were based on methylmercury and were conservative-they were keyed to protect the most vulnerable patients, fetuses. There were no EPA guidelines for ethylmercury, but it was considered to be far less dangerous because it is eliminated more rapidly from the body. Two mothers of autistic children published their own "research" saying that the symptoms of autism were identical to those of mercury poisoning? I don't agree. You can look up the descriptions of mercury poisoning and autism and draw your own condusions. I don't see how anyone could confuse the two-their presentations are entirely different, with only a few symptoms that could be interpreted as similar. Thimerosal is a preservative that allows vaccines to be sold in multi-dose vials. It contains ethylmercury. It was tested and found to be safe before it was added to vaccines. Animal studies showed no adverse effects. In 1929 in Indiana it was tested as a treatment in a meningitis outbreak-adults injected with 2 million mcg 00,000 times the total amount in all children's vaccines) didn't develop symptoms of mercury poisoning. A study from the Seychelles Islands showed that children getting high doses of methylmercury from fish did not develop neurologic symptoms. A study of children in the Faroes Islands who were exposed in utero to whale meat high-

It went on to point out:

The notion that thimerosal caused autism has given rise to a cottage industry of charlatans offering false hope, partly in the form of mercury-chelating agents. In August 2005, a 5-year-old autistic boy in

suburban Pittsburgh died from an arrhythmia caused by the injection of the chelating agent EDTA. Although the notion that thimerosal causes autism has now been disproved by several excellent epidemiologic studies, about 10,000autistic children in the United States receive rnercury-chelating agents every year. A further insanity has been perpetrated by the father-and-son team of Mark and David Geier. They claimed that autistics have premature puberty and high testosterone levels (there is no evidence that this is true). They hypothesized that testosterone forms sheet-like complexes with mercury in the brain (there is no evidence that this is true), preventing mercury's removal by chelation. Their solution? They administered the drug Lupron to lower testosterone levels to supposedly facilitate mercury excretion. The treatment amounts to chemical castration. Lupron is sometimes ordered by the courts to chemically castrate sex offenders, and it is used to treat precocious puberty and certain other medical conditions. It is not a benign drug. It can interfere with normal development and puberty and can put children's heart and bones and their future fertility at risk. The treatment involves painful daily injections and costs $5000 to $6000 a month. The Geiers use 10 times the recommended dose. The company that makes Lupron does not support its use for this purpose. Like Wakefield, the Geiers have been accused of professional misconduct. They built their own lab in their basement and formed their own institute to conduct Lupron studies. Then they formed their own Institutional Review Board (IRE) to approve studies. IREs are required by law and must follow strict guidelines to ensure that studies are ethical and to protect the rights of subjects. The IRB they formed was illegal. They packed the board with friends and relatives: every single member of this IRE was either one of the Geiers, an anti-thimerosal activist, a Geier associate, or a lawyer suing on behalf of ''vaccine-injured'' clients. One was the mother of a child who was a subject in the research. Even worse, they let the principal investigator sit as the chair of the IRE overseeing his own research protocols. Oh, and the IRB wasn't even registered until 2 years after the research was done. Mark Geier has made a career of testifying as an expert witness in autism cases. He has not impressed the judges. Here are a few of the judges' comments:

"Seriouslyintellectuallydishonest" "... not reliable or grounded in scientificmethodology and procedure ... his testimony is subjective belief and unsupported speculation." "I cannot give his opinion any credence." "... a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience." When thimerosal was removed from vaccines there were no studies showing that it was harmful. After its removal, study after study showed that it was not harmful. But activist groups didn't let the new evidence interfere with their beliefs. Anti-vaccine groups have viciously attacked medical doctors and researchers for simply stating what the current scientific evidence shows. They accuse them of being shills for "Big Pharma" or covering up for government agencies, and they call them offensive names; but they don't stop there. They threaten people who write about the scientific evidence, and they threaten their children. Dr. Offit, the author of Autism's False Prophets, received a direct death threat that got the FBI involved. He had to use a bodyguard and cancel a book tour. One threatening phone call ominously demonstrated that the caller knew Offit's children's names, ages, and where they went to school. Another scientist who received threats was so afraid for her children's safety that she vowed never to write anything about autism again. One anti-vaccine activist had the bad grace to accuse science blogger Orac of lying when he said he was mourning his mother-in-law's death from cancer. She refused to believe he could be sorry his motherin-law died because he's not sorry about supporting vaccines that kill children. There was no thimerosal in any vaccine except the flu vaccine after 2002. The "mercury militia" expected autism rates to drop, thereby proving the mercury connection. Autism rates rose. Instead of relinquishing their belief, they made implausible attempts to implicate new sources of atmospheric mercury, from cremations of bodies with mercury amalgam fillings or from pollution wafted across the Pacific from China.
The Vaccines-ln-General Scare

If the MMR scare can be attributed to Andrew Wakefield and the mercury scare to Neal Halsey, the next stage of hysteria is epitomized by Jenny McCarthy, actress and anti-vaccine activist extraordinaire. Jenny's son Evan is autistic. At first she

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subscribed to the fanciful notion that she was an Indigo mother and Evan was a Crystal child. Indigos are "difficult" children who are alleged to possess special traits or abilities such as telepathy, empathy, and creativity, and are said to represent the next stage in human evolution. Many of them fit the diagnosis of attention-deficit! hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Crystal children represent an even more advanced evolutionary step. They are "so sensitive, so vulnerable to the world around them, that they go inward, disconnect as best they can from even humans and do their best to survive in a world where they really don't yet fit." They are often diagnosed as autistic. 9 After a while McCarthy gave up on that fantasy and accepted that Evan was autistic. She became convinced that vaccines had caused his autism. She treated him with unproven dietary restrictions, anti-yeast treatments, and supplements, and claims to have cured him. She thinks her "Mommy instincts" are more valid than science. She says "My science is Evan, and he's at home. That's my science." She realizes that withholding vaccines will lead to the deaths of children. As quoted by Time magazine: I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f_ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's S_. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism. She and her partner Jim Carrey have spoken out at every opportunity on talk shows, on the Internet, and through books and public appearances. When someone questions Jenny's beliefs her usual tactic is to try to shout them down. She is supported by maverick doctor Jay Gordon, who values listening to parents over science and who supports a delayed vaccine schedule not because of any evidence but just because he thinks it's a good idea. On one talk show, a pregnant mother with several autistic children tried to tell Gordon that her child who had the worst autism was the one who had not been vaccinated. He not only refused to listen to what she was saying but tried to drown her out, loudly insisting she mustn't vaccinate the new baby. A member of Quackwatch's "Healthfraud" online discussion list reported sitting next to Evan's paternal grandmother at a dinner. Grandma said Evan's symptoms of autism were evident before he was vaccinated, and he is not

doing as well as Jenny says. Grandma is writing her own book-I look forward to its revelations. Jenny and her cohorts claim they are not antivaccine, but they are certainly a good facsimile thereof. The goalposts keep moving. First it was the MIvlRvaccine, then it was thimerosal, then it was mercury from all sources, then it was other vaccine ingredients, then it was too many vaccines, then it was giving vaccines too early. They will not be satisfied until science can offer a 1000/0safe and a 100% effective vaccine proven to have no side effects of any kind even in a rare susceptible individual. That's not going to happen in this universe. The other vaccine ingredients that have been questioned include formaldehyde, aluminum, ether, anti-freeze, and human aborted fetal tissue. Scientists have explained over and over that these ingredients are either not present in vaccines or are harmless, but activists ignore the facts and keep making the same false claims. Formaldehyde is harmless in small amounts and is even produced naturally in the human body. Alwninum is an adjuvant used to increase the efficacy of vaccines, and is not harmful. Ether might be used in the manufacturing process but is not present in the vaccines. There is no ethylene glycol or even diethylene glycol in vaccines. (Anti-freeze is ethylene glycol.) And to obtain enough virus to make a vaccine, the virus must be grown in tissue cultures that were originally derived from monkey, chicken, or sometimes human fetal cells; but there is no human or animal tissue of any kind present in the vaccine itself. Apple trees grow in soil, but there is no soil in applesauce. Some anti-vaccine websites perpetuate the myth that infectious diseases were already disappearing and that the vaccines had nothing to do with it. Those myths are easily dispelled by historical data. Vaccine critics ignore the large body of evidence from incidents around the world where as the vaccination rate dropped, the rate of disease rose; and when the vaccination rate rose again, the disease rate dropped. No one can seriously deny the effectiveness of vaccines. They are the most impressive accomplishment of modem medicine. Giving up the known benefits of vaccines because of a vague hypothetical possibility of risk is a poor trade-off. We were able to eradicate smallpox, and we ought to be able to eradicate all the diseases that are spread solely by humanto-human contact. Once enough people have

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I
been vaccinated to eradicate the disease, no one will ever have to be vaccinated for that disease again. Smallpox is long gone; polio and measles are next on the list. Polio had been reduced to only 3 countries a few years ago. Then Nigeria stopped vaccinating due to rumors that the vaccines were an American plot to sterilize their children or give them AIDS. The polio rate soared and the disease broke out to several other countries, as far away as Malaysia. When the rate of immunization reaches a certain level, the population is protected by what we call herd immunity. It means there are not enough susceptible people for the disease to keep spreading through a community. In many places the herd immunity has already been lost. It is only a matter of time before diseases break out again. One traveler from a country with polio could reintroduce the disease into the U.S. Lowered vaccination rates endanger even those who have been 'vaccinated, because the protection is not 100010. People who are immunosuppressed, chronically ill, or too young to have been vaccinated are also put at risk. Parents who choose to delay vaccination are prolonging their children's period of risk. And they are endangering everyone else's public health. Scientists had been urged to "listen to the parents." They did listen to the parents and then conducted research to test the parents' hypotheses. There were various kinds of studies in different countries by different research groups. The results were consistent: 10 studies showed MMR doesn't cause autism; 6 studies showed thimerosal doesn't cause autism; 3 studies showed thimerosal doesn't cause subtle neurological problems. References
1. Offit, Paul. 2008. Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Columbia University Press. 2. Wakefield A.J., et al. 1998. "IIeai-Lyrnphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children: Lancet 351: 637:41. 3. Wakefield A.J., et al. 1993. "Evidence of Persistent Measles Virus Infection in Crohn's Disease." Journal of Medical Virology, 39: 34&53. 4. Chadwick N., et al. 1998. "Measles Virus RNA is Not Detected in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Using Hybrid Capture and Reverse Transcription Followed by the Polymerase Chain Reaction: J Med Viral., 55(4):305-11. 5. Uhlmann V., et al. 2002.

Now it's the parents who won't listen to the scientists. Autistic children and their parents are being misled and victimized with useless, untested, disproven, expensive, time-consurning, and even dangerous treatments. Despite the evidence that mercury doesn't cause autism, children are still being treated with IV chelation to remove mercury-at least one child has died as a result. Along with Lupron injections for chemical castration, children are being treated with secretin, restricted diets, supplements of all kinds, intravenous hydrogen peroxide, DAN (Defeat Autism Now) protocols, cranial manipulation, facilitated communication, and other nonsense. One family was strongly urged to take out a second mortgage on their home so they could buy a home hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The real tragedy is that all this hoopla is diverting attention from research into effective treatments (usually behavioral) and into the real causes of autism (almost certainly genetic, with environmental triggers not ruled out). An anti-anti-vaccine backlash is now afoot. Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are being reported. Scientists are speaking out. BIogs like Respectful Insolence and Science-Based Medicine have covered the subject in depth. The Chicago Tribune published an expose of the Geiers.t? Even Reader's Digest has contradicted Jenny. They said that vaccines save lives and do not cause autism and they stressed that the science is not on Jenny's side. Let us hope that sanity will prevail before too many more children die from vaccine-preventable diseases. They are dying now. The Jenny McCarthy Body Count webpage is keeping track of the numbers at http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com!Jenny _McCarthy_Body _CountIHome.htrnl T
"Potential Viral Pathogenic Mechanism for New Variant Inflammatory Bowel Disease." Mol Pathol, 55(2):84-90. 6. Details can be found on Brian Deer's website: http://briandeer.com/wak efield-deer.htm 7. Bemard S., et al. 2001. "Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning." Med Hypotheses, 56:462-71. 8. Offit, Paul. 2007. "Thimerosal and Vaccines: A Cautionary Tale." NEJM, 357:1278-9, Sept. 27. 9. "The Attributes of a Chrystal Child," by Sharyl Jackson, http://www.byreglon.net/artlcles-heaters/ Crystal_Chiidren.htmI10 Tsouderos, Trine. 2009. '''Miracle Drug' Called Junk Science." The Chicaco Tribune, May 21. Available online at http://www.chicago tribune.corn/health/chiautisrn-lupron-may21,0 ,24 2705.story?page=1

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Atheism Rising
The Connection Between Intelligence, Science, and the Decline of Belief
A M E S OVER THE COURSE OF the past century there have been three curious phenomena in the social sciences that are both significant and related: (1) the rise in IQ scores in developed countries, (2) the decline in religious belief and commitment in these same countries, and (3) the negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief. The connections among these three will seem obvious to some from the outset: people are getting smarter, smart people tend to reject irrational beliefs, hence with increasing intelligence more people become nonbelievers. Synoptically, I think this is about right. A closer examination of the data for each of the three phenomena and their historical trends, however, leads to a more complex and, I think, much more interesting understanding of intelligence, religious belief, and their relation.
The Flynn Effect

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esis for the effect that eliminates this absurd deduction. I will argue that this new hypothesis is also capable of explaining the negative correlation between intelligence and belief, as well as at least part of the decline of religious belief and the growth of atheism over the same historical period.
Declining Religious Commitment

and the Rise of Atheism

The rise in IQ scores in the developed nations over the 20th century has been dubbed the Flynn effect, after the social scientist J. R. Flynn who first recognized it. The Flynn effect has now been observed in over 30 nations and appears to be consistent across age and levels of intelligence. The effect is remarkably strong, amounting to an average increase of approximately a third of a point of IQ per year, or about three points every decade.' The Flynn effect is so strong that accepting it at face value leads to the apparent absurdity that our great grandparents were so intellectually challenged that they were barely capable of independent living. Flynn has, however, recently offered a hypoth-

Although surveys on religion are fraught with methodological complications, findings documenting the collapse of religious belief and commitment in the developed world in the 20th century have been remarkably consistent. 2 Religious belief, commitment, involvement, and influence waned substantially over the past hundred years. The results are often startlingly dramatic. In England, for example, church attendance dropped to less than one-third of prior levels.> Atheism is no longer rare." According to the sociologist P. Zuckerman, based on estimates from a number of irltemational studies, "we can deduce that there are approximately 58 times as many atheists as there are Mormons, 41 times as many atheists as there are Jews, 35 times as many atheists as there are Sikhs, and twice as many atheists as there are Buddhists."> He also cites data suggesting that nonbelievers as a group have become the fourth largest belief group, world-wide, after Christianity, Islam, and Hirlduism. (The growth of religious skepticism may be even greater because it turns out that although by definition atheism and unbelief are the same, people seem much more reluctant to self-describe as atheist. In a number of national surveys, roughly twice as many people state that they do not believe in God as describe themselves as atheists.) Perhaps most

revealing is the loss of commitment to specific religions. Those who are not abandoning religion altogether are switching religious affiliation with a frequency bordering on the downright fickle.v
IQ and Religion

Correlations between measures of intelligence and reported religious belief are remarkably consistent. Approximately 9(1lA> of all the studies ever conducted have reported a negative correlation. That is, as intelligence goes up, religious belief goes down. Moreover, not only does belief decrease from childhood to adolescence-suggesting a negative association between intelligence (or, strictly speaking, mental age) and religiosity-but the negative correlation also increases with age.?
The Disease of the Learned

Atheism has, since the early years of the Enlightenment, been considered a "disease of the learned's and has been on the rise among the most learned and intelligent segments of the population. In a classic series of studies early in the 20th Century, the psychologist James Leuba reported that scientists tended to be particularly irreligious. In the late 20th century Edward Larson and Larry Witham replicated Leuba's study and found the trend reported by Leuba had continued to the point where the function appears to have effectively reached its asymptote at around 7% believers among elite scientists (members of the National Academy of Science).9 Thus, one can conclude that theism has all but disappeared-or at least been reduced to marginality-in this highly intelligent group. Not only are NAS members intelligent, but I will argue they have developed their intelligence in very particular ways that explain the negative correlation between measured intelligence and religious belief.
Kinds of Minds

A clue to the resolution of the absurdity of retard-

ed ancestors implied by a simple-minded interpretation of the Flynn effect lies in another rather odd observation, itself somewhat paradoxical at first glance. One test that most consistently and strongly reveals the 1Q score increase is the Raven's Matrices Test, which was designed specifically to be "culture-free." But the increase in 1Q scores over the course of a single century must be a cultural effect. How can this be? Another test that shows strong 1Q gains over time is the

Similarities Test from the Wechsler Intelligence tests for adults and for children CWAIS/WISC;e.g., how are dogs and rabbits alike?). On the other hand, other subtests measuring factual knowledge and computational skills, such as Information (What is the Capital of Canada?), Vocabulary, and Arithmetic do not show very big gains. Thus, the Flynn effect does not appear to rest simply on better developed basic knowledge or improved computational and language skills. What is it about the Raven's and the Similarities tests that leads to these differences? Well, they require the ability to deal with abstract categories and to think hypothetically, rather than simply displaying previously acquired knowledge and skills.i? Indeed, with regard to the Raven's test, in the attempt to create a "culture-free" test by eliminating all culturally specific content, an extremely abstract set of questions involving geometric forms was created. Ironically, as I will argue, this biases the test in favor of those who possess some very culturally specific intellectual abilities. Flynn's hypothesis is that succeeding generations in the developed world acquired increasing expertise in a particular kind of intelligence over the last century. He begins by considering the following classic study. In the early days of the Russian revolution, two Soviet psychologists, Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, attempted to assess the impact of the introduction of different levels of education on the thinking of peasants. To do this Luria visited several remote and previously largely illiterate villages of Uzbekistan and neighboring areas. Formal education at several levels was being introduced at that time in some of the "liberated" portions of the then new Soviet Union, providing an opportunity for a "natural experiment." Luria subsequently provided detailed verbatim accounts of the reactions of the peasants (particularly those who had not been exposed to any of the new forms of education) to his questions. In a typical exchange the questioner asks: "In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North and there is always snow there. What color are the bears there?" One peasant answers: "I don't know. I've seen a black bear, I've never seen any others .... We don't talk about what we haven't seen."ll Exchanges of this sort could be repeated at length. In essence, the peasants refused, or were unable, to reason hypothetically. Similarly,

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when asked about similarities between objects, they tended to group them by similar or related use rather than by abstract categories. For them, a saw and a hatchet go together because they are both needed to make firewood, not because they are both tools (and, moreover, a log needs to be included in the group for utilitarian completeness). The people tested had adequate vocabularies and detailed knowledge about their world. The exchanges with the testers revealed that they were often quick-witted, clear thinkers. They were, however, not comfortable with abstract or hypothetical thinking and found such thinking to be alien. In their world, abstract categories and hypothetical thinking were, frankly, not perceived to be very useful, and even faintly preposterous. Sometimes their answers implicitly said as much. Even if such habits of thought had been potentially useful, no one was disadvantaged because no one else in the community thought in such ways either. ot having such habits of thought, they did not develop expertise in dealing with problems involving abstract categorical and hypothetical (ACH) thinking assessed by the Raven's and Wechsler Similarities tests. Historically, neither peasants, nor laborers, nor tradespeople nor, indeed, practically anyone anywhere had much use for such skills prior to the 20th century, except philosophers, scientists, and perhaps a few others. Over the course of the 20th century, however, the widespread need for ACH thinking in developed countries increased steadily-as steadily, indeed, as the increase in measured intelligence.l- The only way one can develop expertise in this sort of intelligence is through a particular kind of formal education. The public schools, despite their limitations, are likely responsible for the Flynn effect. As Flynn notes, our great-grandparents were, of course, not intellectually challenged and were, on average, about as good at tasks requiring practical intelligence as their great grand-children are now. Their ACH thinking was not, however, as well developed. To the extent that they did receive formal science education it was certainly less than succeeding generations and was almost certainly of poorer quality generally. More importantly it was different in kind, Emphasis was placed on developing concrete intelligence (e.g., the three-Rs). To the extent that our great-grandparents did get some training in ACH thinking, most of them did not need it for their daily lives.

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HOW SCIENCE ELIMINATES THEISM
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They knew it and their teachers knew it; but as the 20th century wore on, more and more of us needed it. Fewer and fewer among us could get along simply with reading, writing, and arithmetic. The nature of work changed in ways that required that we take ACH habits of thought seriously and continue to employ them in at least limited ways beyond the classroom and into the workplace. The new workplaces provided contexts for exercising the new habits of thought acquired in schools.
Science's Most Dangerous Idea

fication. There is nothing quite so bracing as the thought that what one is about to do might actually prove one wrong. like the prospect of hanging, it focuses the mind wonderfully. This challenge is seldom acknowledged directly, except occasionally among professional scientists. Yet it is implicit in hypothetical thinking.
The Age of Reason and the History of its Cultivation

It is important to stress that when we describe the Flynn effect as rising from a change in our habits of thought we are not arguing for a relativistic equation for all forms of thinking. If developing greater ability for ACH thinking helps meet cognitive challenges then it is a real gain in intelligence. In the modem world, ACH reasoning is superior-and nations that have developed this are called the developed nations, and those that are now beginning to provide it are called the developing nations, and those that fail to provide it are and will continue to be considered failed nations. The major area in education where students receive training in this form of thinking is science training. Admittedly, science training is hardly exemplary throughout the developed world. Yet poor as it may often be, it does generally encourage students to develop basic ACH thinking skills. Science, perhaps most fundamentally, rests on abstract, categorical and, most especially, hypothetical thinking. Science training has, moreover, increasingly emphasized going beyond mere hypothetical reasoning to conducting empirical tests of propositions: If we do X then we find Y, but not Z. This last move is momentous. It opens the potentially gut-wrenching possibility that we may be wrong and that we may be found to be wrong. This is, I suggest, the route to true skepticism; not the dismissive rejection of somebody else's beliefs on purely rationalistic grounds, but facing the possibility that you or, honible to contemplate, even I might be empirically, factually, wrong. This is what the scientific experiment is all about. This is not to say that science requires us to be motivated to challenge our presuppositions. Most scientists are likely motivated by the prospect of corroborating their favored hypotheses. But the logic of the experiment inevitably raises the possibility of falsi-

Recall the finding mentioned earlier that the negative correlation between IQ and religious belief reaches adult levels around 15-18 years of age. This is the age range within which what the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget called formal thinking arises. Formal reasoning as Piaget discussed it is nothing more nor less that ACH thinking, and Piaget's illustrations of formal thinking tended to be essentially experimental science demonstrations. We have now learned, contrary to Piaget's initial intuitions, that such thinking requires a particular educational environment, one that was developed gradually over the course of the 20th century. Now, there was little in the way of a science curriculum before 1900 and such explicit science training as existed was limited to a relatively small elite.13 Moreover, when the early science curricula were developed they initially emphasized "rote learning of facts and principles and were seen as concrete exercises for the hands, eyes, and senses."14 Gradually, however, science education began to emphasize hypothesis formulation and experimental testing of those hypotheses. This trend increased over time, in part, because of the substantial influence of Dewey, then Piaget, and later Vygotsky, on the development of science curricula, most notably in the direction of increasing emphasis of ACH thinking.t> Perhaps most important, these developments occurred as the age of graduating from school was increasing, ensuring that more students remained in school throughout the ages (adolescence) most receptive to the new training in ACH thinking.
Extending the Reach of Science

Also over the past century, scientific hypothetical thinking using abstract categories has been applied to broader and more varied domains, most significantly (for present purposes) by the social sciences when applied to solving cultural, environmental, and even interpersonal problems. Scientific thinking became less and less the

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exclusive domain of traditional physical science. This broadening of the application of ACH thinking provided opportunities for the new habits of thought to be carried over into virtually all aspects of life. The new habits of thought enabled us to understand and solve problems that were previously beyond us-problems that would have never even occured to us without ACH thinking. As noted, scientists are famously, or notoriously, religious skeptics and, consistent with the present thesis, those who apply scientific thinking to social, cultural, and psychological problems even more so.16
ACH Thinking and Religious Belief

forms of belief that were equally irrational and equally vulnerable to the same doubts. This led to the irlstability of religious commitment observed earlier. ACH thinking therefore tends to have a leveling effect on religious hegemonies. This, I suggest, is behind the recent Pew survey report that people are changing religious affiliations at an unprecedented rate. Moreover, even those who remain within particular religious communities seem less irlclined to accept, for example, blanket authoritarian pronouncements on moral and social problems.
Future of ACH Thinking

ACH thinking is a habit of thought that is inimical to accepting received knowledge of all sorts. I propose that, to the extent science teaching encourages the development of hypothetical thinking, we become true skeptics; not mere scoffers of the foibles of others, but those who truly know that we may all have something new to learn from the next new discovery. Entertaining doubts about the correctness of our own beliefs will not, by itself guarantee that we will reject only false beliefs. Rather all forms of understanding become vulnerable. This applies to scientific claims as well. Science itself was being critiqued in scientific style (if not substance) by post-modem arguments by the latter part of the 20th century. onetheless, science does have an advantage over other forms of understanding when questioned in this manner as it is itself based on ACH thinking, in especial contrast to religious modes of thought. Science thrives in a cognitive environment of ACH thinking. By contrast mairlstream religions lost much ground over the 20th century, often replaced by References
1. Rynn, J. R. 2007. WJat is Intelligence? Beyond the Rynn Effect. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2. Bruce, S. 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. 3. Giddens, A. 1997. Sociology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. 4.Zuckerman,~2007. "Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns." In M. Martin (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 5. Ibid. 55. 6. The Pew Forum. 2008. "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic,' February. 7. Lynn, R., Harvey, J., and Nyborg, H. 2009. "Average Intelligence Predicts Atheism Rates Across 137 Nations."

There are some indications that the Flynn effect (increasing IQ) has reached its limit in the developed world, but may continue in the developing world, leading to the prediction that religion in the developing world may decline over the next few decades-at least among those nations for which ACH thinking is cultivated and also applied beyond the physical sciences. What the limits of ACH thinking are in this respect remains to be seen. Such limits will depend, in part, on just how deeply theistic thinking is grounded in human nature, as well as upon numerous practical and political events. The daim is sometimes made that there is a certain inevitability to religious and superstitious belief at a basic, intuitive level and that the intuitions of religion can be overcome only through explicit rational work and that we are therefore always in danger of lapsing into superstitious modes of cognition. That may well be, but I do think thata figure of only 7% theistic belief in any group, such as that of eminent scientists, should give pause to those who think that the religious perspective is inevitably predetermined by human nature. T
Intelligence. 37, 11-15. 8. Buchan. J. 2003. Crowded with Genius. New York: HarperCollins. 9. Beit-Hallahmi, B. 2007. "Atheists: A Psychological Profile." In M. Martin (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University press. 10. Rynn op. cit. 11. Luria, A. R. 1976. Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 108-109. 12. Rynn, op. cit. Appendix I. 13. Tumer, S. and Tumer, T. 2000. "Science Teaching in an Era of Change." In Kent, A. (Ed.) School Subject Teaching: The History and Future of the Curriculum. London: Kogan Page. 14. Ibid. 56. 15. Adey, P. & Shayer, M. 1981. Towards a Science of Science Teaching. London, UK: Heinemann. 16. Beit-Hallahmi, op. cit.

Why Religions Turn Oppressive

A Perspective from Evolutionary Psychology
ROBERT KURZBA
A D

PET

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DESCIOLI

REliGION HAS PRESENTED A complex array of puzzles for scientists from many different disciplines. Recently, work by sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists has been supplemented by researchers who have tried to explain aspects of religion by taking an evolutionary approach,' and this has presented numerous mysteries, including why people engage in ritual.? why people entertain supernatural beliefs.> how such beliefs spread+why religion is frequently at the center of intergroup conflicts.> why morality and religion are so closely intertwinedf why religious groups' members are frequently willing to sacrifice for one another." and so on. Here, we ask if the evolutionary approach might be useful in understanding why the world's major organized religions can be so oppressive.
Religious Organizations and Oppression

In Alexandria in 415 AD, a Christian mob attacked a woman, stripped her naked, and dragged her through the streets. She was taken to a church where she was torn apart and set ablaze. The woman, Hypatia, was an accomplished mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. She was murdered because some of her ideas differed from the beliefs of her Christian attackers. The man who orchestrated Hypatia's murder, "Saint" Cyril of Alexandria, ceaselessly persecuted pagans, Jews, and heretics for their dissenting beliefsf In Rome in 1600, a group of Christians led by Cardinal Bellarmine conderrmed a man for violations against the Church. The violator was taken to a market square where he was gagged, stripped naked, tied to a stake, and burned alive. The man, Giordano Bruno, was a renowned philosopher and scientist who held beliefs deemed morally wrong by his killers. Among BfUflO'Soffending beliefs, he thought it possible that the Earth was not the only planet with life,

that the universe might be infinite, and that bread and wine are not really transformed into the body and blood of jesus.? Religious organizations do not simply offer ideas about the origins of the universe, the meaning of life, and the inclinations of makebelieve otherworldly beings. Religions are very concerned with people'S thoughts and behavior, seeking to impose control not only on their own members but also on non-members. The long, gruesome history of persecutions for heresy and blasphemy attests to this concern. Countless vietirns have been tortured, burned, mutilated, and beheaded for trivial differences in beliefs, including differences between two sets of equally false supernatural beliefs. Beyond people's individual thoughts and actions, religions also seek to control many spheres of public life from art and science to sexuality and reproduction. Only a few decades ago, the Catholic Church's "Legion of Decency" asked members to protest movies that the Legion deemed immoral and to boycott theatres offering the films, Religions seek to control how people use their sexual organs. and with whom they use them. They seek to control people'S choices about their own family and reproduction; some advocate forcing women to bear the children of men who rape them. They seek to control what scientific information is transmitted to children, diluting scientific knowledge with creation myths. They seek to control the use of such medical technologies as stem cells, artificial fertilization, embryo cryopreservation, contraceptives, gene therapy, and cloning. Why do organized religions seek so much control? Why have religions meted out some of history's most brutal torments to force compliance with their idiosyncratic rules? Religious doctrines and their authoritarian agendas are the product of human brains, so it is there that the answer to these mysteries will be found.

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Evolutionary

Psychology

and Social

Minds

Evolutionary psychology begins with the fact that humans like other animals are the product of evolution by natural selection. Living things consist of devices, or adaptations, that allow them to solve problems such as avoiding predators, catching prey, and finding mates. The particular problems members of different species face depend on their life history, giving rise to species-specific adaptations. By the process of natural selection, organisms come to be engineered to cause the replication of the genetic material which, in concert with the environment, constructed the organism. Therefore, the bodies of organisms-induding their brains-can be thought of as machines that lead to the further production of similar machines. This is why organisms tend not to be designed to benefit others, whether of their own or another species. Instead, they are designed to benefit themselves or, more precisely, to benefit the genes that give rise to them.l'' There appear to be numerous adaptations for social behavior. Humans are exquisitely well adapted to life in the social world, equipped with computational programs-strategies and counter-strategies-for handling the intricate problems that arise in interactions with other humans, both competitively and cooperatively. This model nicely explains competition, but why do people cooperate? The answer to this lies in the fact that while other people represent potential threats, they also represent potential opportunities, and human minds are designed to reap these benefits. Because of the way that evolution operates, genes can be selected because they cause their bearers to endure costs to help their dose genetic relatives.l- This process, known as kin selection, has resulted in adaptations that cause individuals to deliver benefits to genetically related others. It is unsurprising that much of human social life is tied up with dose family. But humans also engage in the mutually profitable exchange of goods and services with non-kin, and humans have complex adaptations designed to reap gains from such exchanges as well.12 Thus, humans are not "basically," "fundamentally," or "naturally' either selfish or altruistic-such daims are misplaced because they underestimate the complexity of the human mind and the many strategies people have for dealing with the social world. People are designed to help some, harm others, and, very often, remain inclifferent. Not always, however. One aspect of human psychology involves intervening even when one's own interests are unaffected: morality.
Morality

In a recent artide,13 we suggested that there are two different phenomena that functional accounts of morality can focus on: (1) conscience, the psychological system that produces decisions about one's own (morally relevant) acts; (2) condemnation, the psychological system that judges others' acts along a moral dimension of right versus wrong, and desires punishment for people who commit wrongs. Explaining why conscience evolved in a world of moral condemnation is straightforward. Conscience defends against moral accusation by guiding one away from behaviors that will draw A popular image of the Catholic CounterReformation featured Jesuit founder punishment, Many organisms avoid acts that will lead to costs Ignatius Loyola symbolically treading rival Protestantism underfoot The inscription reads Ad Majoriem Dei Gloriam-"For the Greater Glory of God: being imposed on them; deference to high status individuals when

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one is in a subordinate position in a status hierarchy is one example.l+ We suggest that human conscience similarly functions as a defense system. Explaining condemnation, however, is much more difficult. First, it is important to recognize how zoologically remarkable moral condemnation is. Most organisms are indifferent to other organisms' acts that do not affect them. Indeed, this is unsurprising from a functional viewpoint. If an organism's acts represent neither a fitness threat nor a fitness opportunity, intervention serves no function. So why are humans so concerned about others' acts, especially those that do no harm? One answer is that condemnation is related to cooperation in groups, in which people punish others because it improves the aggregate welfare of the group to which one belongs.t> Models of this variety predict that people will condemn acts that lead to fitness losses summed across the group, but not acts that do not have this effect.16 This prediction sits poorly with the vast literature showing that people condemn harmless acts or even welfare-improving acts.l? Why should so many want to punish so much for so little?
Religious Organizations and Moralistic Punishment

The acts that the major organized religions condemn are sturming in their scope and include dietary choices, sexual acts, art, dance, economic transactions, clothing, word choice, performance of ritual, leisure activities, work activities, and so on. Some rules do seem like sensible ways to help organize groups of people, such as prohibitions against unjustified harm, taking of property, and violation of contracts.is However, many condemned acts harm no one, so prohibiting them helps no one. One explanation was proffered by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his experiments demonstrating that people are often unable to articulate the reasons that they believe certain acts are immoral, such as incest between consenting siblings who used birth control and enjoyed the experience.l? Evidence suggests people reach a moral judgment and then, after the judgment has been reached, generate a justification for it. This justification might not logically support the moral claim, but is offered with enthusiasm nonetheless.e' Indeed, reasons people give to justify a moral rule frequently cannot possibly be its basis. Consider abortion. Most anti-abortion advocates

are demonstrably not driven by the moral principle of protecting "life." If they were, they would oppose exceptions for rape and incest-which they do not, by a large margin.s' Clearly, a person's right not to be killed is not diminished by the manner of their conception or the relationship of their parents. People who are anti-abortion but in favor of exceptions cannot, therefore, hold their position as a result of a belief in the rights of an embryo. Another explanation has to do with the control of other people'S sexual activities and choices.V This is easily comprehensible within an evolutionary framework. Many organisms manipulate others' reproduction for their own benefit.23 Dominant female meerkats, for example, can render subordinates infertile for periods of time, improving the chances of survival of their own offspring as a result> Weeden argued that conflicts among individuals pursuing different sexual strategies-short-term versus long-term--explain abortion attitudes. Briefly, when abortion is prohibited, causal sex becomes more costly, which is to the advantage of individuals who are in longterm monogamous relanonships.o Even if some attempts to constrain others' behavior have a relatively straightforward evolutionary interpretation, other moralistic rules pertain to doing things that work against people's own fitness interests, such as homosexuality. The existence of such rules seem to indicate that the function of moral intuitions in the context of religion cannot be straightforwardly understood as a simple extension of fitness interests. Why, then, is religion frequently in the business of oppression? Again, our claim is not that only religions oppress, or that all religions do. However, we think it important to ask why, historically and in the present day, leaders and members of organized religions will oppress people for behavior that is harmless, or even beneficial. One possibility is that religions are like bullies. One feature of bullying is that attacks are often made for no reason aside from the ease of attacking the target.26 Such attacks can be used to establish dominance, or, at least a reputation as someone to be feared and obeyed; indeed many bullies enjoy favorable reputations among their peers.P By forcing obedience in trivial matterseven harmless ones=religious leaders establish a reputation for punishment that allows dominance in more meaningful aspects of life. In this view,

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the content of rules is relatively arbitrary. What is important is that there be a lot of rules so that there are many opportunities to dominate. TIlls might in part explain the wide diversity of rules. The fact that religions oppress non-members with moral rules is an interesting clue. Perhaps the attention paid to suppressing the freedoms of non-members is a way to signal the will and capacity to use force. Religions can condemn outsiders to remind followers about the social and physical consequences of disobedience while avoiding provoking skirmishes within the group. This might explain why moral bullying often focuses on relatively powerless minorities-such as teenage girls or homosexuals. The ability of marginalized groups to retaliate is limited, so targeting these groups is a relatively cheap way to build a reputation for domination. TIlls fits well with the way that bullies single out the most helpless when they abuse others-physical weakness is a key predictor of peer victirnization.28 A related idea is that enforcers of moral rules, such as religious leaders, have an incentive to generate rules that can be selectively used against enemies. Individuals who have the power to use instruments of a corporate entity to attack others serve their interests by generating rules that can be applied to whomever they designate whenever they want, the costs defrayed by using the instruments of the corporate entity. What type of rules are useful for this
Referellces 1. Atran, S. 2002. In Gods LW Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape oj Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Boyer, P. 2001. Religion Explained' The Evolutionmy Origins oj Religious Thought, New York: Basic Books; Kirkpatrick, L. 2005. Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology oj Religion, New York: Guilford Press, Steadman, LB. and Palmer, C.T. 2008. The Supernatural and Natural Selection: Religion and Eoolutionary Success. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. 2. Sosis, R and Bressler, E. 2003. "Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion." CrassCultural Research 37: 211-39. 3. Dawkins, R 2006. The God Delusion. New York: Bantam Books, Dennett, D. 2006. Breaking the Spelk Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking Penguin. 4. Boyer, P. and Bergstrom, B. 2008. "Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion." Annual Review oj Anthropology 37: 111-30. 5. Rubin, P.H. 2002. Danoinian. Politics: The Euolunonary Origin oj Freedom. Piscataway, N]: Rutgers Press. 6. Johnson, D.D.P. 2005. "God's Punishment and Public Goods: A Test of the Supernatural Punishment Hypothesis in 186 World Cultures." Human Nature 16: 410.46. 7. Wilson, 0.5. 2002. Danoin's Cathedral- Boolution, Religion, and the Nature oj Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 8. Levy, L W. 1993. Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rusbdie. New York: Knopf. 9. Rowland, I. D. 2008. Giordano Bruno: Pbilosopber/Heretic. New York, NY: Farrar; Straus. and Giroux. 10. Dawkins, R 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 11. Hamilton, W.O. 1964. "The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior, Pans I and Il." Journal cfTheoreticai BiOlogy 7: 1-52. 12. Cosmides, L and Tooby, J. 1992. "Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange," in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby (eds) The Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 19-136, Trivers, R 1971. "The Evolution of Redprocal Altruism," Quarterly Reoieu: oj Biology 46: 35-57. 13. DeScioli, P. and R. Kurzban. (2009). "Mysteries of Morality." Cognition 112, 281-299. 14. Rohwer S. 1982. "The Evolution of Reliable and Unreliable Badges of Fighting Ability." American Zoologist 22(3): 531-46.

kind of selective enforcement? First, rules about the minutiae of life, which people might violate frequendy. Second, rules about beliefs, which are difficult to deny. lhird, rules about violence surrounding the supernatural for which innocence is impossible to demonstrate, such as consorting with the devil. TIlls argument might make some sense of the wide variety of moral rules, particularly rules against harmless activities.
Conclusion

Humans are very social, with adaptations designed to deploy strategies for both competing with others and cooperating with them. The complexity of the social world ensures that there is an array of such computational mechanisms. Advances in theory and research in the social sciences have allowed great steps forward in understanding these psychological systems. In contrast, the psychology that underpins morality remains a subject of debate. Humans condemn others, and when they do so in coordinated fashion, they can use punishment or the threat of punishment to constrain others' behavior. TIlls occurs, interestingly, even in so-called liberal societies. Many moral rules limit people's freedom of action, and some moral rules do so disc:riminately, reducing the freedoms of some but not others. A great deal more work will be needed to understand the complex relationship between morality and religion. T
15. Boyd, R and P. J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 16. __ .1992. "Punishment Allows the Evolution of Cooperation (Or Anything Else) in Sizable Groups," Elbologyand Sociobiology 13: 171-95. 17. Hauser, M.D. 2006. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Unioersal Sense oj Right and Wrong. New York: Ecco/HarperCo1lins Publishers. 18. Boehm, C. 1999. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Eoolution oj EgalitaJian Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. 19. Haidt, J. 2001. 'TIle Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment." Psycbclogicai Review 108: 814-34, see also Cushman, F., Young, L., and Hauser, M. 2006. "The Role of Conscious Reasoning and Intuition in Moral Judgment Testing Three Principles of Harm." Psychological Science 17(12): 1082-9. 20. Greene, J.D. 2007. "The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul, , in W. SinnottArmstrong (ed.) Moral Psychology. Vol. 3: The Neuroscience oj Morality Emotion, Disease, and Development. Cambridge, MA MIT Press, 35-80. 21. Dworkin, R 1993. Life's Dominion: An AI8l1meni About Abortion, Euthanasia. and Individual Freedom. Jew York: Vintage Books. 22. Weeden, J. 2003. "Genetic Interests, Life Histories, and Attitudes Towards Abortion." Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 23. Smith, T. E., C. G. Faulkes, and D. H. Abbott. 1997. "Combined Olfactory Conran with the Parent Colony and Direct Contact with Non-Breeding Animals does not Maintain Suppression of Ovulation in Female Naked Mole-Rats." HormonesandBehavior31: 277-$. 24. Young, A.J., Carlson, A. ., Monfort, S.L., Russell, A.F., Bennett, N.C., and Chitton-Brock, T. 2006. "Stress and the Suppression of Subordinate Reproduction in Cooperatively Breeding Meerkats." Proceedings oj the National Academy oj Sciences 103: 12005-10 25. Weeden, 2003, op cit. 26. Card, NA. and E.Y.E. Hodges. 2008. "Peer Victimization Among Schoolchildren: Correlations, Causes, Consequences, and Considerations in Assessment and Intervention." School Psychology Quartedy 23C4): 451-61. 27. Vaillancourt, T., S. Hymel, and P. McDougall. 2003. "Bullying is Power: Implications for School-Based Intervention Strategies," Journal oj Applied School Psychology 19: 157-76. 28. Card and Hodges, op cit.

the content of rules is relatively arbitrary. What is important is that there be a lot of rules so that there are many opportunities to dominate. TIlls might in part explain the wide diversity of rules. The fact that religions oppress non-members with moral rules is an interesting clue. Perhaps the attention paid to suppressing the freedoms of non-members is a way to signal the will and capacity to use force. Religions can condemn outsiders to remind followers about the social and physical consequences of disobedience while avoiding provoking skirmishes within the group. This might explain why moral bullying often focuses on relatively powerless minorities-such as teenage girls or homosexuals. The ability of marginalized groups to retaliate is limited, so targeting these groups is a relatively cheap way to build a reputation for domination. TIlls fits well with the way that bullies single out the most helpless when they abuse others-physical weakness is a key predictor of peer victirnization.28 A related idea is that enforcers of moral rules, such as religious leaders, have an incentive to generate rules that can be selectively used against enemies. Individuals who have the power to use instruments of a corporate entity to attack others serve their interests by generating rules that can be applied to whomever they designate whenever they want, the costs defrayed by using the instruments of the corporate entity. What type of rules are useful for this
Referellces 1. Atran, S. 2002. In Gods LW Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape oj Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Boyer, P. 2001. Religion Explained' The Evolutionmy Origins oj Religious Thought, New York: Basic Books; Kirkpatrick, L. 2005. Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology oj Religion, New York: Guilford Press, Steadman, LB. and Palmer, C.T. 2008. The Supernatural and Natural Selection: Religion and Eoolutionary Success. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. 2. Sosis, R and Bressler, E. 2003. "Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion." CrassCultural Research 37: 211-39. 3. Dawkins, R 2006. The God Delusion. New York: Bantam Books, Dennett, D. 2006. Breaking the Spelk Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking Penguin. 4. Boyer, P. and Bergstrom, B. 2008. "Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion." Annual Review oj Anthropology 37: 111-30. 5. Rubin, P.H. 2002. Danoinian. Politics: The Euolunonary Origin oj Freedom. Piscataway, N]: Rutgers Press. 6. Johnson, D.D.P. 2005. "God's Punishment and Public Goods: A Test of the Supernatural Punishment Hypothesis in 186 World Cultures." Human Nature 16: 410.46. 7. Wilson, 0.5. 2002. Danoin's Cathedral- Boolution, Religion, and the Nature oj Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 8. Levy, L W. 1993. Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rusbdie. New York: Knopf. 9. Rowland, I. D. 2008. Giordano Bruno: Pbilosopber/Heretic. New York, NY: Farrar; Straus. and Giroux. 10. Dawkins, R 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 11. Hamilton, W.O. 1964. "The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior, Pans I and Il." Journal cfTheoreticai BiOlogy 7: 1-52. 12. Cosmides, L and Tooby, J. 1992. "Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange," in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby (eds) The Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 19-136, Trivers, R 1971. "The Evolution of Redprocal Altruism," Quarterly Reoieu: oj Biology 46: 35-57. 13. DeScioli, P. and R. Kurzban. (2009). "Mysteries of Morality." Cognition 112, 281-299. 14. Rohwer S. 1982. "The Evolution of Reliable and Unreliable Badges of Fighting Ability." American Zoologist 22(3): 531-46.

kind of selective enforcement? First, rules about the minutiae of life, which people might violate frequendy. Second, rules about beliefs, which are difficult to deny. lhird, rules about violence surrounding the supernatural for which innocence is impossible to demonstrate, such as consorting with the devil. TIlls argument might make some sense of the wide variety of moral rules, particularly rules against harmless activities.
Conclusion

Humans are very social, with adaptations designed to deploy strategies for both competing with others and cooperating with them. The complexity of the social world ensures that there is an array of such computational mechanisms. Advances in theory and research in the social sciences have allowed great steps forward in understanding these psychological systems. In contrast, the psychology that underpins morality remains a subject of debate. Humans condemn others, and when they do so in coordinated fashion, they can use punishment or the threat of punishment to constrain others' behavior. TIlls occurs, interestingly, even in so-called liberal societies. Many moral rules limit people's freedom of action, and some moral rules do so disc:riminately, reducing the freedoms of some but not others. A great deal more work will be needed to understand the complex relationship between morality and religion. T
15. Boyd, R and P. J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 16. __ .1992. "Punishment Allows the Evolution of Cooperation (Or Anything Else) in Sizable Groups," Elbologyand Sociobiology 13: 171-95. 17. Hauser, M.D. 2006. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Unioersal Sense oj Right and Wrong. New York: Ecco/HarperCo1lins Publishers. 18. Boehm, C. 1999. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Eoolution oj EgalitaJian Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. 19. Haidt, J. 2001. 'TIle Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment." Psycbclogicai Review 108: 814-34, see also Cushman, F., Young, L., and Hauser, M. 2006. "The Role of Conscious Reasoning and Intuition in Moral Judgment Testing Three Principles of Harm." Psychological Science 17(12): 1082-9. 20. Greene, J.D. 2007. "The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul, , in W. SinnottArmstrong (ed.) Moral Psychology. Vol. 3: The Neuroscience oj Morality Emotion, Disease, and Development. Cambridge, MA MIT Press, 35-80. 21. Dworkin, R 1993. Life's Dominion: An AI8l1meni About Abortion, Euthanasia. and Individual Freedom. Jew York: Vintage Books. 22. Weeden, J. 2003. "Genetic Interests, Life Histories, and Attitudes Towards Abortion." Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 23. Smith, T. E., C. G. Faulkes, and D. H. Abbott. 1997. "Combined Olfactory Conran with the Parent Colony and Direct Contact with Non-Breeding Animals does not Maintain Suppression of Ovulation in Female Naked Mole-Rats." HormonesandBehavior31: 277-$. 24. Young, A.J., Carlson, A. ., Monfort, S.L., Russell, A.F., Bennett, N.C., and Chitton-Brock, T. 2006. "Stress and the Suppression of Subordinate Reproduction in Cooperatively Breeding Meerkats." Proceedings oj the National Academy oj Sciences 103: 12005-10 25. Weeden, 2003, op cit. 26. Card, NA. and E.Y.E. Hodges. 2008. "Peer Victimization Among Schoolchildren: Correlations, Causes, Consequences, and Considerations in Assessment and Intervention." School Psychology Quartedy 23C4): 451-61. 27. Vaillancourt, T., S. Hymel, and P. McDougall. 2003. "Bullying is Power: Implications for School-Based Intervention Strategies," Journal oj Applied School Psychology 19: 157-76. 28. Card and Hodges, op cit.

It's Time to Teach the Controversy

Since Creationism Isn't Going Away, Let's Use it in the Classroom to Teach the Difference between Science and Pseudoscience
CHRISTOPHER "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again. " -JRR. Tolkien,The Lord of the Rings I AM REMINDED OF TOLKIEN'S WORDS WHENEVER I consider the history of creationism in the United States. The pattern is by now very familiar: the creationists mount an attack on the teaching of evolution; this attackis defeated in the courts; the creationists reframe their objectives, modify their tactics and try again. They began, of course, by attempting to ban evolution outright. When the Supreme Court eventually put a stop to this, the creationists altered their goal from eradicating evolution to undermining it. At first they sought to mandate equal classroom time for "creation science," essentially an attempt to make a scientific case for the literal truth of the creation account in the book of Genesis. Not swprisingly, the Supreme Court took a dim view of this as well (though not quite dim enough, as we shall see), and so again the creationists went back to the drawing board. This time they jettisoned explicit biblical references and reformulated their core principles, in less overt (though no less transparent) religious terms, as "intelligent design." They also gave up on the idea of winning equal classroom time for their ideas. Instead, they tried to compel biology programs to adopt a disclaimer stating that evolution is "only a theory, not a fact," and that some scientists preferred other theories-such as intelligent design. This effort met its end in a U.S. District courtroom in 2005, in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. But the respite has been brief, and again the "Shadow" has sprung up in a new guise. Having failed to keep evolution out of the classroom altogether, and having failed to get their own ideas added to the curriculum alongside it, the creationists are now trying to persuade certain states' legislatures to enact "academic freedom statutes." The stated purpose of these statutes, which are derived from model legislation proposed by the creationist Discovery Institute, is to "protect" the teaching of "alternaB A U M tive views" on the origin and development of life, and of the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory. This emphasis on "alternative views" and "strengths and weaknesses" is nothing new, of course. Undermining evolutionary theory by pointing out its alleged flaws and limitations has been a favorite rhetorical strategy of creationists from the very beginning. Indeed, little (if any) of the coded language of the academic freedom statutes is new; their very name derives from a well-worn creationist catch phrase. As long ago as 1981, the Louisiana state legislature could assert that its purpose in passing the Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act was to "protect academic freedom." The U.S. Supreme Court eventually declared that Act unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard. But this "shadow" too has risen again in a new form. In June 2008, Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act--that state's version of the model academic freedom statute proposed by the Discovery Institute. The protean resilience of the creationist movement is certainly disheartening. But this regenerative power would seem to come at a price, since each new incarnation is less forceful and ambitious than any of its predecessors. Consider the vast difference between the 1981 and 2008 versions of "academic freedom." In its earlier form, this "freedom" meant forcing teachers to present creation science alongside evolution, as if they were two equally valid, competing scientfic theories. Today's version, on the other hand, seeks only to permit, not to mandate, and addresses itself not to creationism per se, but rather to "critiques" of evolution. Having failed to force their way into the classroom, let alone force evolution out, the creationists must now be content with trying to sneak their ideas in through the back door. This is clear evidence of diminution and retreat. The more sanguine among us may believe that this process will continue indefinitely, until eventually

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creationism is whittled away to nothing, as least as far as public policy is concerned. But I see litde evidence to support such optimism. The creationists have been compelled to repeatedly alter their approach and rein in their ambitions, but they do not seem in danger of fading away anytime soon. In fact, we may find that in retreating they have consolidated and indeed greatly strengthened their position. The day may soon come, if it has not already, when creationists will hit upon a legislative formula that can withstand the inevitable barrage of courtroom challenges, even at the highest level. Should that day come, the consequences for science education may be very grave indeed. Despite the valiant and tireless efforts of organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), creationists have already succeeded in doing serious damage to scientific literacy in this countryso much so that one routinely hears of public opinion surveys indicating that more than 50% of Americans are skeptical of evolution, or do not accept it at all. How much worse will the situation be if the creationists' teachings are endorsed by the courts and they are free to influence public education from within the system, instead of throwing stones from outside? Such an outcome may not be as unlikely as we would hope. There is already reason to fear that the highest court in the land might look favorably on the academic freedom statutes. The developers of the model academic freedom statute could well have taken their cue from Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in Edwards u. Aguillard, the 1987 Supreme Court decision that

struck down Louisiana's creation science act. In his dissent, which was joined by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Scalia argued that "the people of Louisiana ... are quite entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution presented in their schools, just as Mr. Scopes [John T Scopes, of the famous 1925 "monkey trial"] was entitled to present whatever scientific evidence there was for it." Scalia took "academic freedom" to mean "freedom from indoctrination"-specifically, in this case, the freedom of students "to decide for themselves how life began, based upon a fair and balanced presentation of the scientific evidence.'? Scalia also cast doubt in this opinion, as he has repeatedly since, on the legitimacy of the so-called "Lemon test," the standard applied by the Court to determine whether legislation touching on religious matters violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. According to this three-pronged test, to avoid violating the First Amendment, a law must have a secular legislative purpose, must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion. In his Edwards dissent, Scalia objected to the first prong of this test, expressing doubts that legislation could, or should, be invalidated "on the basis of its motivation alone." This is cause for concern because the academic freedom statutes are less self-evidently religious in nature than the creationists' previous legislative efforts. Creation science and intelligent design can readily be shown to be religious and not scientific ideas, since their fundamental claim is that the universe as we know it can only be

explained in terms of the actions and influence of a supernatural entity. Thus it is a relatively simple matter to invalidate any law requiring that these ideas be taught in public schools: since its primary effect is plainly to advance a religious idea, the law fails the second prong of the Lemon test and is therefore unconstitutional. But there is nothing inherendy religious about the idea that teachers should be allowed to present "alternative views" about the origin and development of life, and there is certainly nothing at all religious about the idea of discussing the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory. Of course, knowing the creationists as we do, we understand perfecdy well which "alternative view" they have in mind, and what they really mean by "strengths and weaknesses." That is to say, we can infer the motivation behind these seemingly benign objectives. But if that motivation is held to be irrelevant in determining whether a law is unconstitutional, what then becomes of our case against the academic freedom statutes? If the Supreme Court were called upon today to decide the constitutionality of these statutes, it seems almost certain that Justice Scalia would hold that they do not violate the establishment clause, and therefore are not unconstitutional. If just four other justices were to agree with him, the creationists would win the day. Given the Court's conservative makeup and leanings in recent years, is that so remote a possibility? (Considering their political and religious views and their judicial voting records, it seems at least plausible that Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts might side with Scalia in this matter. Of the remaining justices, the most likely to join them [if anyone did] would be the court's "swing vote," Anthony Kennedy.) I believe our course of action is clear. We cannot wait, nor should we, for the courts to decide on the constitutionality of the academic freedom statutes. We have to act now. Today, most public-school biology textbooks say little, if anything, about creationism. At most, they may mention in passing that there are other (and, one is left to infer, less scientific) points of view about the origin and development of life. This reticence is understandable; after all, science books should be about science, not pseudo- or anti-science. While organizations like the NC5E ensure that teachers and school boards have

easy access to a wide variety of resources for dealing with creationist challenges when they arise, the goal of most high school biology programs seems to be to keep creationism out of the discussion altogether if possible. Again, this is perfecdy reasonable. Creationism is derived from religious dogma and owes little, if anything, to genuine scientific inquiry; at best its claims are junk science, and at worst they cannot be called science at all. Why then should we expect any science teacher to devote precious classroom time to the study of these ideas? Yet I submit that is precisely what we must do. The surest way to prevent creationism being presented in our classrooms as a serious and respectable alternative to evolution is to present it, instead, as what it actually is. The time has come to incorporate a thorough exarninationand, I need scarcely add, refutation-of the central tenets of creationism into the standard publicschool biology curriculum. It is time, indeed it is well past time, to confront this pernicious nonsense head-on, in the classroom, and to demonstrate why it righdy has no business there. It's time, in other words, to teach the contra~not the (nonexistent) scientific controversy over the truth of evolution that creationists have in mind whenever they trot out this slogan, but rather the very real controversy that they themselves have created. This means discussing and evaluating-from a rational, scientific, intellectually honest point of view---the key assertions made by creationists, including both their criticisms of evolutionary theory and their own claims about the origin and development of life. Perhaps you find this idea repellent. If so, I imagine you are in good company. Intellectually, creationism is no better than Holocaust denial: both doctrines reject overwhelming evidence in order to put forward baseless but ideologically attractive assertions dressed up to look like "respectable" science and scholarship. We would not dream of requiring history teachers to waste valuable class time debunking the hateful delusion of Holocaust denial; why, then, should we expect science teachers to deal similarly with creationism? Permit me to answer this question with a question. If fully half the population of the United States believed that the Holocaust was a fiction, wouldn't history teachers feel obligated to confront this dangerous lie head-on in the

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classroom? So long as fringe ideas remain on the fringe, they may safely be kept out of our school curricula. But, sad to say, creationism is not a fringe idea in this country. On the contrary, recent polls indicate that in the U.S. today, creationists may actually outnumber people who accept evolution.? Make no mistake-this is a serious problem, one that requires direct and immediate attention. Under the circumstances it is vital that our biology curriculum be modified to include some discussion of creationism, and some response to common creationist objections to evolution. This discussion should address common questions about the evidence for evolution, and the mechanisms by which it occurs. Such questions are, of course, much beloved by creationists, who use them to try to "stump" advocates of evolution. But they may also occur honestly to unbiased students. By presenting clear answers to these questions, then, we may hope not only to preempt some of the creationists' arguments, but also to reinforce key conoepts about evolution. Among these critical concepts are:
the reasons there are gaps in the fossil record; the overwhelming fossil evidence we have for evolution, despite those gaps-including (contrary to creationist assertions) quite a few transitional forms; the difference between a common ancestor (such as Pieaia) or transitional form (Tiktaalik) and the kind of modem-species hybrid C'fishfrog") that creationists derisively envision as a "missing link"; the many other lines of evidence, apart from fossils, that converge to demonstrate the reality of evolution; the true role of chance in evolution (i.e., the fact that mutation is random but natural seJection is not); and the difference between scientific disagreements about specific evolutionary mechanisms (of which there are many) and disputes over whether evolution really happened at all (of which there are very few, if any).

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Of course, many of the biology textbooks in use today already address at least some of these questions. But that is generally where they stop. We must go further by considering the philosophical issues at the heart of the conflict between creationism and evolution,

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'This phase of the discussion should cover: the meaning of the word theory in its scientific sense; the failure of creationism, in any form induding "intelligentdesign," to satisfy this definition; the reasons why, according to this defmition, the oft-repeated statement that "evolution is a theory, not a fact' is nonsense; the difference between missing or incomplete evidence and evidence that actually contradicts a hypothesis; the fallacy that sdence is a zero-sum game, and thus that any evidence which contradicts any part of evolutionary theory is automatically a confirmation of creationism; the hostilityto sdentific inquiry implicit in the notion of "irreducible complexity",which daims not only that we cannot currently explain a given phenomenon, but that no one will ever be
able to explain it;

the tendency of creationists to keep moving the goal posts in order to maintain the illusion of irredudble complexity (so that if one structure is shown not to be irredudbly complex, some other, less well-understood structure can be held up in its place); a sampling of the many animal traits (such as non-functioning eyes, vestigialappendages or even the human appendix) that make no sense at all if the animals were designed as they are today, but can readily be explained as results of a gradual process of evolution; and, above all, a discussion of why it is unacceptable for any supposedly sdentific theory to simply postulate, without evidence, the existence of a supernatural agent as a means of explanation. eeclless to say, this is a lot of material, and the obvious challenge is how to do justice to it all in a relatively short period of time. The brief outline given here could easily be fleshed out into a full-length book, or a semester-long seminar. But the same is true of evolution itself, and yet we manage to teach the core concepts of evolutionary theory in classes that cover a great deal of other material as well. Even so, and even if a teacher agrees in principle that it is better to evaluate creationism scientifically than to continue saying little or nothing about it in the classroom, he or she may still object that there is simply no time for this discussion. Why should we jettison legitimate scientific

content, much of which already gets short shrift due to time constraints, in order to make room for an examination of religiously motivated antiscience? I'll again try to answer with a question. In the end, what is the purpose of science education at a pre-college level? Is it to train the next generation of scientists? Yes, in part. But the number of students in any junior high or high school science class that will actually go on to become scientists is in most cases probably very small: perhaps two or three at most. I believe, rather, that the fundamental purpose of science classes at this level is not to generate new scientists, but to cultivate scientific literacy-that is, to give all students, not just prospective scientists, a fundamental understanding of what science is (and what it is not), how it works, and why it matters so much to all of us, now more than ever, no matter what career we may choose to follow. An objective, rational examination of creationism can shed important light on all these matters-more so, I would argue, than any examination of specific organisms or phenomena that might have to make way for it in a biology teacher's lesson plan. The highest aims of any science class are surely to spark the students' curiosity about the natural world and to impart to them an appreciation of the need for intellectual integrity in tackling the mysteries of the universe. Creationism is by far the most serious modern-day threat to these ideals, but it also presents us with a valuable opportunity to amplify our students' understanding of science by showing them a timely, real-world example of anti-science. I can think of no better way both to neutralize the threat and seize the opportunity than to make a rigorous scientific discussion of creationism one of the core elements of our standard biology curriculum. So yes, by all means, let's teach the controversy ... References
1. The full text of Scalia's dissent may be found at http://www.lfIW.comell.edu/supctjhtml/historics/USSC _CR_0482_0578_ZD.html. 2. A Gallup poll conducted in September 2005 indicated that 53"10 of Americans believe that "God created human beings in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it." The results of this and other recent polls concerning evolution and creationism can be found at http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/EvolutionCreationism-lntelligent-Design.aspx.

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and Counting
A NASA Scientist Answers the Top 20 Questions About 2012
D A V I D PUBUC CONCERN xsorrr DOOMSDAY IN December 2012 has blossomed into a major new presence on the Internet. This fear has begun to invade cable 'IV and Hollywood., and it is rapidly spreading internationally. The hoax originally concerned a rerum of the fictitious planet ibiru in 2012, but it received a big boost when conspiracy theory websites began to link it to the end of the Mayan calendar long count at the winter solstice (December 21) of 2012. Over the past year, many umelated groups have joined the doomsday chorus, including ostradamus advoMORRISON cates, a wide variety of eschatological Christian, Native American, and spiritualist sects, and those who fear comet and asteroid impacts or violent solar storms. At the time of this writing there are more than 175 books listed on Amazon.com dealing with the 2012 doomsday. The most popular topics are the Mayan calendar and spiritual predictions that the disaster in 2012 will usher in a new age of happiness and spiritual growth. Quite a few authors are cashing in with manuals on how to survive 2012. As this hoax spreads, many more doomsday

at

WWW.SKEPTIC

scenarios are being suggested, mostly unrelated to Nibiru. These include a reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, severe solar storms associated with the ll-year solar cycle (which may peak in 2012), a reversal of Earth's rotation axis, a 90degree flip of the rotation axis, bombardment by large comets or asteroids, bombardment by gamma rays, or various unspecified lethal rays coming from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy or the "dark rift" seen in a nearby galactic spiral arm. A major theme has become celestial alignments: supposedly the Sun will align with the galactic center (or maybe with the Milky Way Dark Rift) on December 21, 2012, subjecting us to mysterious and potentially deadly forces. Unlike most pseudoscience stories, there seems to be no factual core on which the Nibiru2012 hoax has been constructed. This is different from, for example, the claims of aliens and a crashed UFO at Roswell, ew Mexico. The alien

stories are a fabrication, but the core fact is that an instrumented balloon did crash in Roswell on July 7, 1947. There is no similar factual core to Nibiru-just dubious "predictions" from psychics, or the Mayans, or Nostradamus. The rest is pure fiction. I answer questions from the public submitted on-line to a ASA website (astrobiology.nasa.gov), and over the past two years the ibiru-2012 doomsday has become the dominant topic people ask about. Many are curious about things they have seen on the Internet or TV, but many are also angry about supposed government cover-ups. As one wrote "Why are you lying about Nibiru? Everyone knows it is coming." Others are genuinely frightened that the world will end just three years from now. My frustration in answering questions piecemeal motivates this "Twenty Questions" format to organize the facts and shine a skeptical light on this accumulation of myths and hoaxes.

1. What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in December 2012? The story started with claims that ibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. Zecharia Sitchin, who writes fiction about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books (e.g., The Twelfth Planet, published in 1976) that he has found and translated Sumerian documents that identify the planet Nibiru, orbiting the Sun every 3600 years. These Sumerian fables include stories of "ancient astronauts" visiting Earth from a civilization of aliens called the Anunnaki. Then ancy Lieder, a self-declared psychic who claims she is channeling aliens, wrote on her website Zetatalk that the inhabitants of a fictional planet around the star Zeta Reticuli warned her that the Earth was in danger from Planet X or ibiru. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was recalculated (a standard procedure for doomsdayers) and moved forward to December 2012. Only recently have these two fables been linked to the end of the Mayan long-count at the winter solstice in 2012-hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

2. The Surnerians were the first great civilization, and they made many accurate astronomical predictions, including the existence of the planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. So why should we not believe their predictions about Nibiru? ibiru is a name from Babylonian astrology sometimes associated with the god Marduk. Nibiru appears as a minor character in the Babylonian creation poem Enuma Blish as recorded in the library of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria (668-627 BCE). Sumer flourished much earlier, from about the 23rd century to the 17th century BCE. The claims that Nibiru is a planet and was known to the Sumerians are contradicted by scholars who (unlike Zecharia Sitchin) study and translate the written records of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumer was indeed a great civilization, important for the development of agriculture, water management, urban life, and especially writing. However, they left few astronomical records and they most certainly did not know about Uranus, Neptune or Pluto. They also had no understanding that the planets orbited the Sun, an idea that first developed in ancient Greece two millennia after the end of Sumer. Claims that Sumerians had a sophisticated astronomy, or that they even had a god named Nibiru, are the product of Sitchin's imagination.

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3. How can you deny the existence c!fNibiru when N4SA discovered it in 1983 and the story appeared in leading newspapers? At that time )OU called it Planet X, and later it was named Xena or Eris. IRAS (the ASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite, which carried out a sky survey for 10 months in 1983) discovered many infrared sources, but none of them was Nibiru or Planet X or any other objects in the outer solar system (see spider .ipac.caltech.edulst:aflJtchester/iras/no_tenth_planet _yet.html). Briefly, IRAS cataloged 350,000 infrared sources, and initially many of these sources were unidentified (which was the point, of course, of making such a survey). All of these observations have been followed up by subsequent studies with more powerful instruments both on the ground and in space. The rumor about a "tenth planet" erupted in 1984 after a scientific paper was published in Astrophysical journal1etters titled "Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey," which discussed several infrared sources with "no counterparts." But these "mystery objects" were subsequently found to be distant galaxies (except one, which was a wisp of "infrared cirrus"), as published in 1987. o IRAS source has ever turned out to be a planet. A good discussion of this whole issue is to be found on Phil Plait's website (www.bad astronomy.comlbad/misc/planetxlscience.html#ir as). The bottom line is that ibiru is a myth, with no basis in fact. To an astronomer, persistent claims about a planet that is "nearby" but "invisible" are just plain silly.
4. Maybe we should be asking about Planet X or Em, not Nibiru. Why does NASA keep secret the orbit of Em? "Planet X" is an oxymoron when applied to a real object. The generic term has been used by astronomers over the past century for a possible or suspected object. Once the object is found, it is given a real name, as was done with Pluto and Eris, both of which were once referred to as Planet X. If a new object turns out to be not real, or not a planet, then you won't hear about it again. If it is real, it is no longer called Planet X. Eris is one of several dwarf planets recently found by astronomers in the outer solar system, all of them on normal orbits that will never bring them near Earth. like Pluto, Eris is smaller than our Moon. It is very far away, and its orbit never brings it clos-

er than about 4 billion miles. There is no secret about Eris or its orbit, as you can easily verify by googling it or looking it up in Wikipedia. 5. Do you deny that NASA built a South Pole Telescope (SPT) to track Nibiru? Why else would they build a telescope at the South Pole? There is a telescope at the South Pole, but it was not built by NASA and it is not used to study Nibiru. The South Pole Telescope is supported by the National Science Foundation, and it is a radio telescope, not an optical instrument. It cannot take visible light images or photos. You can look it up on WIkipedia. The Antarctic is a great place for astronomical infrared and short-wave-radio observations, and it also has the advantage that objects can be observed continuously without the interference of the day-night cycle. I should add that it is impossible to imagine a way in which an object can be seen only from the South Pole. Even if it were due south of the Earth, it could be seen from the entire southern hemisphere. 6. There are many photos and videos of Nibiru on the Internet. Isn't that proof that it exists? The great majority of the photos and videos on the Internet are of some feature near the Sun (apparently supporting the claim that Nibiru has been hiding behind the Sun for the past several years). These are actually false images of the Sun caused by internal reflections in the lens, often called lens flare. You can identify them easily by the fact that they appear diametrically opposite the real solar image, as if reflected across the center of the image. This is especially obvious in videos, where as the camera moves, the false image dances about always exactly opposite the real image. Similar-lens flare is a source of many UFO photos taken at night with strong light sources such as streetlights in the frame. I am surprised that more people don't recognize this common photo artifact. I am also amazed that these photos showing something nearly as large and bright as the Sun (a "second sun") are accepted together with claims made on some of the same websites that ibiru is too faint to be seen or photographed except with large telescopes. One widely reported telescopic photo (www.greatdreams.comlnibiru-possible.jpg) shows two views of an expanding gas cloud far beyond the solar system, which is not moving; you can see this from the fact that the stars are the same in

both pictures. A sharp-eyed reader on my website identified these photos as a gas shell around the star V838 Mon. Wtkipedia has a nice write-up and a beautiful photo of it from the Hubble. Another high school student was initially impressed by posted images of a red blob that were said to be of Nibiru. Then he worked out in his Photoshop class how to make just such pictures starting from scratch. One video posted in summer 2008 on YouTube Cwww.youtube.comiwatch?v=qDKtk WIxOOA)shows a guy standing in his kitchen claiming that one of the objects discovered by NASA's x-ray telescope is Nibiru. What is his evidence? That since this false-color x-ray image released by NASA is blue, this must really be a nearby planet, with an ocean. This would be hilarious if it were not used to frighten people. 7. Can you explain the fact that the area at (5h 53m 27s, - 610' 58',) has been blackened out in Coogle Sky and Microsoft Telescope?People suggest that these have been blackened out because those are the co-ordinates where Nibinc is located atpresent. Several people have asked me about this blank rectangle in Orion in Google Sky, which is a presentation of images from the Sloan Digital Survey. This can't be a "hiding place" for Nibiru, since it is a part of the sky that could be seen from almost everywhere on the Earth in the winter of 2007-08 when much of the talk about Nibiru began. Plus, that would contradict the claims that Nibiru was hiding behind the Sun or that it could be seen only from the southern hemisphere. But I too was curious about this blank rectangle, so I asked a friend who is a senior scientist at Google. He replied that he "found out that the missing data is due to a processing error in the image stitching program we use to display the Sloan survey images. The team assures me that in the next run through, this will be fixed!" 8. !f the government knew about Nibiru, wouldn't they keep it a secret to avoid panic? Isn't it the gooernment's job to keep the population at ease? There are many objectives of government, but they do not include keeping the population at ease. My experience is that sometimes parts of the government do just the opposite, as in the frequent references to various terrorist threats or warnings about driving accidents on long holiday weekends, which are no more dangerous than

any other time. There is a long history of associating bad things with political opponents Colder readers will remember the "missile gap" in the 1%0 election, younger ones will note the many current references to who is or is not keeping the U.S. safe from terrorists). Further, social scientists have pointed out that many of our concepts of public panic are the product of Hollywood, while in the real world people have a good record of helping each other in a time of danger. I think everyone also recognizes that keeping bad news secret usually backfires, making the issue even worse when the facts fmally come out. And in the case of Nibiru, these facts would come out very soon indeed. Even if it wanted to, however, the government could not keep Nibiru a secret. If ibiru were real, it would be tracked by thousands of astronomers, amateurs as well as professionals. These astronomers are spread all over the world. I know the astronomy cornmunity, and these scientists would not keep a secret even if ordered to. You just can't hide a planet on its way into the inner solar system! 9. Wby does the Mayan calendar say the world will end in 2012? I have heard that they have been pretty accurate in the past with other planetary predictions. How can you be sure you know more than they did? Calendars exist for keeping track of the passage of time, not for predicting the future. The Mayan astronomers were clever, and they developed a very complex calendar. Ancient calendars are interesting to historians, but of course they cannot match the ability we have today to keep track of time, or the precision of the calendars currently in use. The main point, however, is that calendars, whether contemporary or ancient, cannot predict the future of our planet or warn of things to happen on a specific date such as 2012. I note that my desk calendar ends much sooner, on December 31,2009, but I do not interpret this as a prediction of Armageddon. It is just the beginning of a new year. 10. Wbat is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the Earth's crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours? Does this have something to do with our solar system dipping beneath the galactic equator? A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. It

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bas never happened and never will. There are ow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait -andswitch to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic field of Earth, which does changeirregularly with a magnetic reversal taking place, on average, every -100,000years. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal does not cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway. But the 2012ers falsely claim that a magnetic reversal . coming soon (in 2012 of course) and that this . the same as, or will trigger, a reversal of Earth's rotational poles. The bottom line is this: (a) rotation direction and magnetic polarity are not related; (b) there is no reason to expect a reversal of magnetic polarity any time soon, or to anticipate any bad effects on life when it does eventually happen; (c) a sudden shift in the rotational pole with disastrous consequences is impossible. Also, none of this has anything to do with the galactic equator or any of the other nonsense about alignments that appears on many of the doomsday websites. 11. When most of the planets align in 2012 and planet Earth is in the center of the Milky Way, what will the effects of this be on planet Earth? Could it cause a pole shift, and if so what could we expect? There is no planet alignment in 2012 or any other time in the next several decades. As to the Earth being in the center of the Milky Way, I don't know what this phrase means. If they are referring to the Milky Way Galaxy, we are some 30,000 light years from the center of this spiral galaxy. We circle the galactic center in a period of 225-250 million years, always keeping approximately the same distance. Concerning a pole shift, I also don't know what this means. If it means some sudden change in the position of the pole (that is, the rotation axis of the Earth), then that is impossible, as noted above. What - ny websites do discuss is the alignment of - Earth and Sun with the center of the Milky _ 1, the constellation of Sagittarius. This hap~ every December, with no bad conse.:p::::l(::e5. and there is no reason to expect 2012

to be different from any other year. 12. When the Sun and the Earth line up on the galactic plane at the same time with the black hole being in the center couldn't that cause something to happen, due to the fact that the black hole has such a strong gravitational pull? There is a superrnassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, and like any concentration of mass it exerts gravitational force on the rest of the galaxy. However, the galactic center is very far away, approximately 30,000 light years, so it has negligible effects on our solar system and Earth. There are no special forces from the galactic plane or the galactic center. The only important force that acts on the Earth is the gravitation of the Sun and Moon. As far as the influence of the galactic plane, there is nothing special about this location. The last time the Earth was in the galactic plane was several million years ago. Claims that we are about to cross the galactic plane are untrue. 13. I am scared about thefact that the Earth will enter the Dark Rift in the Milky Way. What will this do? Will the Earth be swallowed up? The "dark rift" is a popular name for the broad and diffuse dust clouds in the inner arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, which block our view of the galactic center. The entire "galactic alignment" scare is ridiculous. late in December the Sun is always approximately in the direction of the center of the Galaxy as seen from the Earth, but so what? Apparently the scaremongers have decided to use these meaningless phrases about "alignments" and the "dark rift" and "photon belt" precisely because they are not understood by the public. As far as the safety of the Earth is concerned, the important threats are from global warming and loss of biological diversity, and perhaps someday from collision with an asteroid or comet, not the pseudoscientific claims about 2012. 14. I have heard that the Earth ~ magnetic field will flip in 2012 just when the strongest level of solar storms in history ispredicted to take place. Will this kill us or'destroy our civilization? ear solar maximum (which happens approximately every 11 years), there are many more solar flares and coronal mass ejections than near solar minimum. Flares and mass ejections are no danger for humans or other life on Earth. They could endanger astronauts in deep space or on

the Moon, and this is something that NASA must learn to deal with, but it is not a problem for us. Large outbursts can interrupt radio transmissions, cause bright displays of the aurora (Northern and Southern Lights), and damage the electronics of some satellites in space. Today many satellites are designed to deal with this possibility, for example by switching off some of their more delicate circuits and going into a "safe" mode for a few hours. In extreme cases solar activity can also disrupt electrical transmissions on the ground, possibly leading to electrical blackouts, but this is rare. The last solar maximum occurred in 2001, so the next one was predicted for around 2012, 11 years later. However, the most recent solar minimum was unusual, with a period of a couple of years with almost no sunspots or other indications of solar activity, so scientists now guess that the next maximum will be delayed, perhaps to 2013. However, the details of the solar cycle remain basically unpredictable. It is true that the Earth's magnetic field protects us by creating a large region in space, called the Earth's magnetosphere, within which most of the material ejected from the Sun is captured or deflected, but there is no reason to expect a reversal of magnetic polarity any time soon. These magnetic reversals happen, on average, only once in 400,000 years. 15. I am confused about a report on the Fox News website that in 2012 a "Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down Us. for Months. " They referred to a reportfrom the National Academy of Sciences that was commissioned and paid for by NASA. If nothing is going to happen as a result of the event in 2012, why would NASA allow such nonsense to be reported? NASA is pleased with the National Research Council report on heliophysics. As noted, this report includes a worst-case analysis of what could happen today if there were a repetition of the biggest solar storm ever recorded (in 1859). The problem is the way such information can be used out of context. There is no reason to expect such a large solar storm in the near future, certainly not in 2012 specifically. The reference to "the event in 2012" illustrates this problem. There is no prediction of an "event in 2012." We don't even know if the next solar maximum will take place in that year. The whole 2012 disaster see-

nario is a hoax, fueled by ads for the Hollywood science-fiction disaster film 2012. I can only hope that most people are able to distinguish Hollywood film plots from reality. 16. All my school friends are telling me that we are all going to die in the year 2012 due to a meteor hitting Earth. Is this true? The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids (as has the Moon, as you can see because it has no atmosphere to erode the impact craters), although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website (neo.jpl.nasa.gov), so anyone can see that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012. 17. If Nibiru is a hoax, why doesn't NASA issue a denial? How can you permit these stories to circulate and frighten people? Wby doesn't the us. government do something about it! If you go to the NASA home page, nasa.gov, you will see many stories that expose the Nibiru-2012 hoax. Try searching nasa. com under "Nibiru" or "2012". There is not much more that NASA can do. These hoaxes have nothing to do with NASA and are not based on NASA data, so we as an agency are not directly involved. But scientists, both within ASA and outside, recognize that this hoax with its effort to frighten people is a distraction from more important scientific concerns, such as global warming and loss of biological diversity. We live in a country where there is freedom of speech, and that includes the freedom to lie. We should be glad there are no censors. But if we will use common sense we can recognize the lies. As we approach 2012, the lies will be come even more obvious. 18. Can you prove to me that Nibiru is a hoax? There are so many reports that something terrible will happen in 2012. I need proof because the government and NASA are keeping so much from us.

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Such questions should be put to the doomsday advocates to prove that what they are saying is true, not to NASA to prove it is false. If someone claimed on the Internet that there were 50-foot tall purple elephants walking through Cleveland, would anyone expect NASA to prove this wrong? 111e burden of proof falls on those who make wild claims. Remember the often-quoted comment from Carl Sagan that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However, I think that astronomers have reached the point where we can offer extremely strong arguments that Nibiru does not exist. A large planet (or a brown dwarf) in our solar system would have been known to astronomers for many years, both indirectly from its gravitational perturbations on other objects and by direct detection in the infrared. The NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) carried out the first allsky survey in 1983, and several subsequent surveys would also have seen ibiru if it were there. Further, if a large mass passed through the inner solar system every 3600 years, we would see its disruptive effects on the orbits of the inner planets, and we don't. But don't take my word for it. Just use common sense. Have you seen Nibiru? In 2008 many websites said it would be visible to the naked eye in spring 2009. If a large planet or brown dwarf were headed for the inner solar system in 2012, it would already be tracked by thousands of astronomers, both professional and amateur, all over the world. Do you know any amateur astronomers who are watching it? Have you seen any photos or discussion of it in the big popular astronomy magazines such as Astronomy or Sky & Telescope?Just think about it. No one could hide something like Nibiru if it existed. 19 What about the scary ads for the new film 2012? They tell us to look at these Internet sites to verify the doomsday threat. The pseudoscientific claims about Nibiru and a doomsday in 2012, together with distrust of the government, are being amplified by publicity for the new film from Columbia Pictures tided 2012, to be released in ovember 2009. The film's trailer, appearing in theaters and on their website <www. whowillsurvive20l2.com>, shows a tidal wave breaking over the Himalayas, with the following words: "How would the governments of our planet prepare 6 billion people for the end of the world? Gong pause] They wouldn't. llong pause] Find out the Truth. Google search 2012." The film publicity includes a faux scientific website for "The Institute for Human Continuity" (www.instituteforhumancontinuity.orgi), which is entirely fictitious. According to this website, the IHC is dedicated to scientific research and public preparedness. Its mission is the survival of humanity. The website explains that the Institute was founded in 1978 by international leaders of government, business, and science. They say that in 2004, IHC scientists confirmed with 94% certainty that the world would be destroyed in 2012. 111iswebsite encourages people to register for a lottery to select those who will be saved; a colleague submitted the name of her cat, which was accepted. According to Wlkipedia, creating this sort of fake website is a new advertising technique called ''Viral Marketing," by analogy with computer viruses. 20. Is itpossible that the influx of questions you describe ispart of some kind of campaign for a book or movie, in the hopes that the volume of denials is taken as more "evidence" that there is a conspiracy? I ask myself the same questions every day, as the volume of mail I receive about Nibiru (along with various alignments and pole shifts) keeps increasing-now more than 20 per week. Clearly there is money to be made from people's fear about an approaching doomsday. Many websites are selling books and tapes about Nibiru or even "survival kits." It is all very sad, given the many real issues such as global warming and the financial collapse on which our attentions should be focused. In the final chapter of a new astronomy book (The Hunt for Planet X) Govert Shilling writes: "There is plenty to do for the debunkers-the archaeologists and astronomers who take a long and skeptical look at the tidal wave of Nibiru nonsense and explain with scientillc precision what is wrong with this cosmic fairy-tale. They will have their work cut out in the next few years. And on December 22, 2012 there will be a new pseudoscientific cock-and-bull story making the rounds and the whole circus will start all over again, because no matter how many new celestial bodies are found in our solar system, there will always be a need for a mysterious Planet X." T

WWW.SKEPTIC

Will Physicists Destroy the World?

The Large Hadron Collider and the Threats of Catastrophe
L L 0 Y D

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EARTH-THREATE II G CATASTROPHE scenarios are once again in the news. Even if you are not worried about the Mayan calendar running out in 2012, or being "left behind" in a biblical Armageddon, there are some scientists concerned about the unanticipated outcomes of experiments such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Specifically, could this ultimate atom smasher create miniature black holes, strangelets, or vacuum instabilities that could literally destroy the planet? What are the odds of these scenarios unfolding, and are they worth worrying about? Our world has been, and continues to be shaped by the remarkable and accelerating advances of science and technology. It is also a world now aware of potential catastrophes that could destroy humanity, or even the Earth. Nearly all of them can be prevented with planning, and appropriate social and political responses. In his analysis in Futures magazine, Mark Leggett of the Key Center for Ethics, Law, Justice and Government at Griffith University lists 15 such catastrophic risks.! Among them are asteroid impacts, global warming, nuclear war, and scientific accidents at particle accelerators like the LHC that the European Organization for uclear Research (CERN) is soon to reactivate. Concerns about the collider experiments focus on the following potential threats: strange matter (strangelets), miniature black holes (mBHs), and vacuum instability of the universe. Let's examine these individually.

Miniature Black Holes

Black holes are the only one of the three phenomena that have actually been observed. Black Holes are visually dramatic as they attract matter and light into the core at speeds and energy levels that preclude the escape of anything, including light. However, scientists differ about the likelihood of mBHs emerging in the LHC experiments. Expert opinions range from no, they are not possible, to yes-, they will appear but then they will dissipate quickly. However, the latter view is qualified by those who question the validity of the evaporation theory (more on this in a moment). According to several scientists, black hole formation in the LHC is not possible. MIT Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek2 and Vladimir Belinskf of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics at Rome University state that colliders cannot generate enough energy to produce mBHs. The Harvard University physicists Patrick Meade and Lisa Randall agree that the energy level is too 10w.4 In a recent report, Benjamin Koch, Marcus Bleicher, and Horst Stoecker, of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, presented arguments and analysis that discount each of the possible evolutionary paths of mBHs, concluding that they could not emerge in the LHC collisions.> Finally, in a recent version of the safety of the LHC posted on the CERN website, formation of a mBH is held to be impossible. The posting contains supporting . statements from several noted scientists, including

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obellaureate physicist Vitaly Ginzburg, who added, "To think that the WC particle collisions at high energies can lead to dangerous black holes is rubbish." 6 By contrast, according to a number of other scientists black holes will probably form, and they mayor may not be threatening. The most noted of these scientists is Dr. Otto E. Rossler of the Max Planck Institute at the University of Tubingen, Germany, a chaos theory innovator and the author of some 300 scientific papers and several books. Rossler asserts that no one really knows what mBHs are and how they behave, but concludes that the chances are good that they would appear in the WC experiments and calculates that they would expand to devour the Earth in 50 months.' According to CERN physicists, Rossler's analysis and understanding of the relevant theories are inadequate, and his conclusions false. In a paper treating extended dimensions, Marcos Maia of the University of Brasilia and E. M. Monte of the Federal University of Paraiba, conclude that mBHs at the WC will occur and that they will be stable at five dimensions, constituting a danger to Earthf Finally, Savas Dimopoulos of Stanford University and Greg Landsberg of Brown University state that the WC will be producing one mBH about every second? a view also held by the German astrophysicist Rainer Plaga.t? Finally, a few physicists argue that black holes probably will occur, but that they will evaporate and thus be harmless. These include professors Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna, Piero Nicolini of California State University, Fresno.t! Nima Arkani-Hamed of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Savas Dimopoulos of Stanford, Georgi Dvali of New York University.land Brian Greene of Columbia University.t? Recently, Roberto Casadio, Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama qualified these positions by noting that while mBHs in the WC would not reach catastrophic size, under certain assumptions, "the expected decay times are significantly longer than predicted by other models."14 Doubts about Hawking evaporation also qualify the views about the protection afforded by the evaporation scenario. Here also, there are differences among physicists, not the least being between Peter Higgs (who proposed the Higgs Boson) and Stephen Hawking himself on the evaporation of black holes. In a panel discussion,

View of the detector.

Photograph by Maximilien

Brice. CERN, photo no. LHCb.

Higgs observed "that no other particle physicist would view his [Hawking's] approach as correct. "15In the mid 1990s, Vladimir Belinski of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics at Rome University wrote, "the effect does not exist,"16 and noted that this view has been confirmed by more recent work.I? Adam Helfer of the University of Missouri concluded "The possibility that non-radiating 'mini' black holes exist should be taken seriously,"18 a position also held by physicist William Unruh of the University of British Columbia and Ralf Schutzhold of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Dresden.l? All in all, it appears that physicists differ regarding the likelihood of rnBH formation in the experiments, and if they do form, whether or not they will quickly evaporate.
Strangelets

Strangelets have never been observed, but are a theoretically tenable form of matter that absorbs particles it comes into contact with and converts them to strange matter. In the present context, this process continues until the Earth and all living things are transformed into inert blobs. The possibility of strangelets forming in "high-energy heavy-ion collisions" was noted early by Carsten Greiner, Peter Koch and Horst Stoeckerj" and viewed as unlikely, but conceivable by Robert L. Jaffe and the RHIC risk assessment committee.st As Frank Wilczek wamed, "Scientists must take such possibilities very seriously, even if the risks seem remote-because an error might have devastating consequences. "22
Vacuum 1~IHy

exclusion is sometimes made. It rests on the observation that events similar to the collider experiments have been occurring in the universe for billions of years, yet we are still here. However, Rees notes with respect to stranglets that the interstellar collisions occur in a rarified environment "so there would be no chance of a runaway process." In addition, incoming nuclei are "stopped in the atmosphere, which does not contain heavy atoms." The Moon has no atmosphere, but ''when a fast particle crashes onto the Moon's surface, it hits a nucleus that is almost at rest, and gives it a 'kick' or recoil" and resultant strangelets would be sent hurtling through the lunar material. This would be significantly different from the head-on impact in the collider where "there is ... no recoil: the strangelets have no net motion and therefore might stand more chance of grabbing ambient material."23 So, it appears there are differences between cosmic occurrences and the collisions in the colliders, differences that make the cosmic safety arguments less certain.
Assessing Risk Assessment

Vacuum instability is the third catastrophe conceivably possible from the collider experiments, the possibility least discussed and most difficult to comprehend. Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, draws the analogy to supercooled water which, when disturbed, turns into another form-ice. Similarly, the vacuum of space surrounding Earth could be transformed by some high energy event that would produce an analogous "phase transition" that would spread, irretrievably altering the nature of the entire universe, destroying or transforming everything into another form.
Cosmic Safety Argument

For all these possibilities a cosmic argument of

Even with the variety of conclusions, among the majority of physicists the consensus rernairls that there is only a negligible risk of any mc experimental outcome that would destroy the Earth. However, consensus that is based upon theories rather than empirical observation is not necessarily as solid as we might like it to be. Consensus has held that the earth was the center of the universe, that bloodlettirlg was a good cure, and that physicians did not need to wash their hands between surgeries. Consensus can also rest upon the social fact of shared frames of reference and collegiality, which results in agreement in seeing the same thing. As one physicist told me in private correspondence, "groupthink" may partially account for the agreement of the physicists on the safety of the mc Members of the same discipline, and scientists in general, share a common frame of reference, including the important goal of discovery. Thus, as Nick Bostrom of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade point out, we must recognize that the experts whose judgments we rely on have conscious or unconscious biases and a direct personal stake in the experiments and might thus be inclined to underestimate the risks. 24

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Another aspect of the intense pursuit of wledge at the cutting edge is that being the TIe who makes the discovery or provides the empirical proof of an important theory achieves status gain of considerable proportions. Status _<KI recognition are central outcomes of human , and in such circumstances, risk again may be underestimated. It also seems that the consensus about the safety of the mc experiments is weakened by me fact that different theories regarding the nature of the universe and the particles that make it up lead to conflicting conclusions. If there are several different explanations for the same event, some of them must be inapplicable or wrong. This is especially important in the absence of empirical proofs. The end result is that physicists do not actually know whether one or another of the catastrophic possibilities will occur. Considering the uncertainty, New York Times science writer Dennis Overbye reports that the eminent CERN theorist John Ellis agrees that at high energies the standard model breaks down and "gives nonsense" trying to explain what happens when two particles collide.o More generally, in reporting discussions with Pierrnaria Oddone, Director of the Fermi ational Accelerator Lab, Overbye concludes: "The only thing physicists agree on is that they do not know what will happen-what laws and particles will prevail-when the collisions reach the energies of just after the Big Bang. "26These statements point to the fact that the probability of any particular outcome, harmful or not, based only on theory or argument, cannot be accurately stated, a conclusion reiterated by Toby Ord, Rafaela Hillerbrand, and Anders Sandberg of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford in their recent analysis. 27 Perhaps more unsettling is the enthusiastic acceptance of such unknown outcomes. Thus, says irna Arkani-Hamed, "nobody knows how this is going to go--that's what makes it so cool."28 Brian Greene also noted, "But the most exciting prospect of all is that the experiments will reveal something completely unanticipated, that forces us to rethink our most cherished explanations."29 Oddone again sums it up: "That there are many theories means we don't have a clue ... that's what makes it so exciting."30 It seems clear that there is considerable uncertainty regarding the outcomes of the collider

experiments, and that uncertainty at that level precludes the conclusion it is l()()l/o certain that the experiments will be harmless. In fact, conclusions about the risks use expressions such as "beyond a reasonable doubt," "no risk of any significance," and "the danger is excluded at a very high level of confidence." The New Yorn Times columnist Gail Collins reports that in response to her query, Landsberg said the probability of destroying the world is "totally minuscule," and adds she would like "something more conservative when it comes to planet-eating mBHs."31 The disagreements and uncertainties among scientists float like a cloud above a public that is generally uninformed, and even unaware of the issues and the potential for catastrophe. This should be changed. The experiment should be described to the public in plain, comprehensible terms, including the fact that there are different, conflicting theories and conclusions, and in fact there are many unknowns. A reasonable proposal is that of the University of Rome physicist Francesco Calogero--that there be a debate between a red team and a blue team with one playing devil's advocate to illuminate the potential disasters.x This process should be publicized as a series of debates sponsored by scientific associations or governments, on the different specific threats. The important point is that the issues be made clear and comprehensible to the public, and that there is wide awareness of the conceivable dangers. The world faces a choice in this issue: to proceed full steam ahead toward the conduct of the mc experiments or to delay while the risks and predictions are sorted out. Physicists who have been waiting years to conduct their experiment naturally favor the full steam ahead approach. They have a near consensus on the safety of the experiment, a strong belief in the importance of the outcomes, and they will gain high professional status upon their achievement of important scientific findings. As the University of Chicago law professor and catastrophe analyst Richard Posner noted, physicists may have a natural tendency to underplay the risks.33 It may be worth a year or two of study, discussion, and debate to pin down the risk or safety of the experiments. The frustrations of involved physicists would be real, but transferable to other studies and uses of the collider. In any event, as Posner noted, a few years' delay in performing the experiments

would not be catastrophic. One of the most troubling facets of this issue is that the fate of the Earth could be decided by several thousand physicists, not by elected leaders or officers of the world's industrial societies. It is true that we necessarily accept the views of experts, but in science this ordinarily holds after their conclusions have been verified and replicated in experimental tests showing that a certain position is in fact observably true. That circumstance does not hold for the projected LHC experiments. Risks, Costs, and Benefits This distinction between the largely unaware public and the motivated physicists opens another aspect of this issue, the question of the balance among risks,' costs and benefits. To their credit, scientists have long considered the issue' of risk. With regard to the risk of producing strange matter in the early colliders, as early as the 1970s, Subal Das Gupta, now at McGill University and Gary Westfall of Michigan State, reported that "Meetings were held behind closed doors to decide whether or not the proposed experiments should be aborted" (emphasis mine).34 More recently, the CERN LHC safety assessment group carried out an extensive analysis of potential dangers, followed by an updated review in 2008 concluding there was no cause for concern. While the full study of safety issues is laudable, the continued concern among scientists about the safety of the collider experiments, admirable as it is, also indicates there is a real awareness of risk. It is also worth noting that as the collider experiments move to energy levels never before achieved on Earth, past successes do not totally apply to the present instance where new findings are anticipated. In their analysis of predictions based on arguments that might be flawed, Ord, Hillerbrand and Sandberg conclude that because of possible errors in broad theories, derived models, and specific calculations, "our analysis implies that the current safety report should not be the final word in the safety assessment of the IRC."35 The risk/cost-benefit ratios are essentially incomprehensible when the costs are considered. Francesco Calogero ponders the difficulty of evaluating an experiment with a not-quite-zero risk and the almost infinite cost of destroying the Earth.36For non-scientists this leads to conclusions

that the emphasis should be on the costs, which in this case could be humongous. For the elemental factor in this situation is the inconceivable trade off of a small, unknown level of risk against the horrendous cost of destroying the planet and all of its life. Being too certain is not the problem. The fmal factor in the risk/cost-benefit equation is the benefit to be realized from successful completion of the experiment. Right now it appears that the major benefit will be to advance the theoretical knowledge of particle physics, which will help increase our understanding of the universe and its natural laws. This is certainly an admirable goal reflecting the thrust of modern science and the ancient need of humanity to know the territory. However, the experiment does not appear to have practical implications valuable to us in me present era. The public should be apprised of this aspect also. Currently, there is no social mechanism for allocating broad decision-making responsibility in a circumstance such as this. There are, of course, the United Nations and various treaty groupings of nations with similar interests and concerns. But, it does not appear that the role of any of these international bodies has been considered as significant in this situation, even though the experiment could threaten all humanity. Nor has there been any action implementing Posner's suggestions for the establishment of international bodies--an international EPA operating under the aegis of the United Nations, for example, or a Center for Catastrophic-Risk Assessment and Response through a consortium of universities and involving a multidisciplinary approach to the problem. There has been no international discussion and agreement regarding this potential catastrophe analogous to me Kyoto treaty on global wanning. At the very least it seems reasonable to argue that the world's governments, or at least me industrialized nations, should establish treaty-based agreements to promote critical debates and public discussion of the issue. Even with the current delay at the IRC, generation of such bodies or treaties prior to the experiments seems to be a very remote possibility-unless the experiments are put on hold. In this regard, delay and study should be considered within a frame of reference that realizes that being wrong once will totally outweigh all the times we were too cautious. From the viewpoint of humanity, it is reasonable to delay the

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experiment for some time while these matters are worked out thoroughly and carefully, and to proceed only when there is agreement that the risk is virtually zero. Until then, the experiments should be put on hold and alternative routes to the knowledge fully explored. Awareness of the issues posed by possible man-made global catastrophic threats such as the IRC experiments or global warming is a new circumstance for humankind. These threats require new adaptations and social relations, especially among the powerful and rapidly developing industrial nations for whom science and engineering have so changed our lives, and where References
1. Leggett, Mark. 2006. "An Indicative Costed Plan for the Mitigation of Global Risks." Futures, 38, 778809. 2. Wilczek, Frank. 1999. "Black Holes at Brookhaven." Scientific American, 281, 8 July. 3. Belinski, Vladimir. 2008. Personal communication. 4. Meade, Patrick, Lisa Randall. 2007. "Black Holes and Quantum Gravity at the LHC." http://arxiv.org,labs/ 0708.3017. 5. Koch, Benjamin, Marcus Bleicher, and Horst Stoecker. 2008."Exclusion of Black Hole Disaster Scenarios at the LHC." http://arxiv.org,labs/ 0807.3349. 6. CERN Safety Report. 2008. http://public.web.cem.ch/pUBUC/ en/LHC/Safe1yn.html. 7. Gillis, Alan. 2008."lnterview: Professor Otto Rossler Takes on the LHC."www.lhcfacts.org,l?cat=27. 8. Maia, M. and E. Monte. 2008. "On the Stability of Black Holes at the LHC." http://arxiv.org,labs/0808. 2631v1. 9. Dimopoulos, Savas and Greg Landsberg. 2001. "Black Holes at the Large Hadron Collider." Physical Review Letters, 87, 161602 1-4. 10. Plaga, Rainer. 2009. "On the Potential Catastrophic Risk from Metastable QuantumBlack Holes Produced at Particle Colliders." http://arxiv.org,labs/0808.1415j. 11. Casadio, Roberto and Piero Nicolini, 2008. "The Decay-Timeof NorrCommutative Micro-Black Holes." http:;/arxiv.org,labs/0809. 2471v1. 12. Arkani-Hamed, Nima, Savas Dimopoulos, and Georgi Dvali. 2000. "The Universe's Unseen

the body of scientific knowledge is accelerating and reorganizing possibilities-and risks. For now, it seems obvious that the LHC experiments should be delayed or stopped while the risk/cost-benefit equation is sorted out in debates the public can comprehend. The only acceptable risk is zero when the cost is the possible destruction of planet Earth. As Ord, Hillerbrand and Sandberg note, "If these fears are justified, these experiments pose a risk to humanity that can be avoided by simply not turning on the experiment."37 Similarly, as Leggett concluded, of the 15 potential catastrophes facing the Earth, this one is the easiest to prevent.38 Just say no. T
22. Wilczek, Frank. op cit: endnote 2. 23. Rees, Martin. 2003. Our Rnal Hour. A Scientist's Waming: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in This Century--On Eartil and Beyond. New York: Basic Books. 24. Bostrom, Nick and Milan M. Cirkovic, Eds. 2008. Global Catastrophic Risks. New York: Oxford University Press. 25. Overbye, Dennis. 2007. "A Giant Takes on Physics' Biggest Questions." New York Times, May 15. 26. OVerbye,Dennis. 2008. "Protons and Champagne Mix as New Particle Collider is Revved Up."New York Times, Sept. 10. 27. Ord, Toby, Rafaela Hillerbrand, and Anders Sandberg. 2008 "Probing the Improbable: Methodological Challenges for Risks with Low Probabilities and High Stakes." http:;/arxiv.org,labs/0810.5515v1. 28. OVerbye, op en; endnote 25. 29. Greene, op eit., endnote 13. 30. Overbye, Dennis. op at; endnote 26. 31. Collins, Gail. 2008. "Digging Ourselves a Black Hole." New York Times, Aug. 23. 32. Calogero, Francesco. 2000. "Might a Laboratory Experiment Destroy Planet Earth?" Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 25, 191-202. 33. Posner, Richard. 2004. Catastrophe: Risk and Response. New York: Oxford University Press. 34. Das Gupta, Subal and Gary Westfall. 1993. "Probing Dense Nuclear Matter in the Laboratory." Physics Today, 46, 34-40, May. 35. Ord, et aI., op eft. endnote 27. 36. Calogero, op eft. endnote 32. 37. Ord, et aI., op en: endnote 27. 38. Leggett, op eft. endnote 1.

Dimensions." Scientific American, 283, 62-69, August. 13. Greene, Brian. 2008. "The Origins of the Universe: A Crash Course." New York Times, Sept. 11. 14. Casadio, Roberto, Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms. 2009. "On the Possibility of Catastrophic Black Hole Growth in the Warped BraneWorld Scenario at the LHC." http:;/ arXiv.org,labsjhep-th/0901.2948v2. 15. Wade, Mike. 2008. "Peter Higgs Launches Attack Against Nobel Rival Stephen Hawking." The Times, Sept. 11. http://www.timesonline. co.uk/tol/news/uk/sclence/ article4 727894.ece. 16. Belinski, Vladimir. 1995. "On the Existence of Quantum Evaporation of a Black Hole," Physics Letters A, 209,13-20. 17. Belinski, Vladimir. 2006. "On the Existance of Black Hole Evaporation Yet Again." http:;/arXiv.org,labs /gr.qc/0607137v1. 18. Helfer, Adam. 2003. "Do Black Holes Radiate?" Reports on Progress in Physics, 66, 943-1008. 19. Unruh, William and Ralf Schutzhold. 2004. "On the Universality of the Hawking Effect." .http://arxiv.org,labs/gr.qc/ 0408009v2. 20. Greiner, Carsten, Peter Koch, and Horst Stoecker. 1987. "Separation of Strangeness from Antistrangeness in the Phase Transition from Quark to Hadron Matter: Possible Formation of Strange Quark Matter in Heavy.lon Collisions." Physical Review Letters, 58, 1825-1828. 21. Jaffe, R., W. Busza, F. Wilczek, and J. Sandweiss. 2000. "Review of Speculative 'Disaster Scenarios' at RHIC." Reviews of Modem Physics, 72,1125-1140.

--11-

Physicists Will Not DeStroy the World!

Why we need not worry about the Large Hadron Collider
LAW R E C E KRAUSS remote, but even if it were true, the same quantum processes that might produce such microscopic black holes would allow them to decay by quantum processes. While it is true that our understanding of the latter stages of black hole evaporation is spotty at the present time, what is true is that precisely the same calculations that suggest the remote possibility that miniblack holes might be produced at the LHC also would imply that these behave like elementary particles and also decay . quickly. If they are wrong, then the black holes will not be produced anyway. Estimates produced in speculative papers should not be taken as assertions. Savas Dimopoulos, for example, who is quoted as saying that one mini-black hole will be produced each second, was performing calculations that explored various hypothetical possibilities. Moreover, it should be noted that Prof. Dimopoulos has never argued that the mini-black hole that might conceivably be produced if these speculative ideas were correct would be anything but exotic curiosities to be explored at accelerators, and not earth-destroying monsters. The Tevatron at Fermilab is already operating at energies within a factor of 5 of the LHC, and we are still around. This provides additional evidence that a catastrophe at the LHC is unlikely. The discussion of strangelets is irrelevant. The scientific community examined this possibility before the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven turned on, and decided there was no danger, and years after it did turn on, we are still here. Science is not carried out by debates between teams. The community is open, and all ideas are considered, and those that survive the test of time, and experiment, rise to the top. The great thing about science is that we don't have to continue to follow both sides of an argument, because ultimately one side is generally proved to be wrong. The author clearly has another confusion that is common. The fact that there is much we do not know about the universe at its extremes of scale does not imply that there is little we do know. We can use our existing knowledge to reliably constrain the range of phenomena that can happen at the LHC Finally, there will always be some uncertainty in any experiment we perform where we are opening a new window on nature. But to suggest that we close all windows and shutter all doors to rational inquiry, whether the subject is particle physics or genetic engineering is a recipe for disaster. We need to keep an open mind, but not so open that our brains fall out. ..
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LLOYD B. LUEPTOWS ARTICLE ON TIlE "Large Hadron Collider and the Threats of Catastrophe" clearly illustrates how science is different than sociology. The author seems to think that by doing a literature search and quoting every possible source and every possible viewpoint that he will get closer to scientific truth. However, that is simply not how science works. One doesn't do a democratic weighting of the literature. Rather, in science one applies logic (usually mathematical in form) to ideas that are constrained by experiment and observation. Nature, not a majority vote, determines what is false and what is not. Instead one sees here a substitution of a comprehensive reference list, without filtering based on knowledge, for sound thinking. The result is a silly argument about why we should never perform experiments whose results we are not certain about beforehand-a recipe for ending scientific discovery. Now, to specifics. It doesn't matter to me that Dr. Otto E. Rossler has 300 publications to his credit. Does he have any demonstrated expertise in particle theory, quantum gravity, or general relativity? I could not find any. Rossler's estimates are not based on standard quantum gravitational or general relativistic calculations. Lueptow misrepresents misplaced concerns of a few individuals with real controversy within the scientific community ... the same misconception that has clouded public understanding of evolutionary biology and global warming. To my knowledge, no credible expert has expressed concern about the LHC Cosmic rays been bombarding the earth and moon with thousands of times more energy than the particles at the LHC will have, and we have survived for 4.5 billion years. For those who are somehow concerned that the LHC will produce such particles in the center of mass frame, whereas collisions in the moon will not be in the center of mass, allowing any collision products to travel forward and thereby somehow miraculously make it all the way through the moon without stopping, similar arguments apply to unbelievably dense neutron stars, almost certain to capture any collision products. These are observed to exist for at least hundreds of millions, if not billions of years. This empirical evidence obviates any concerns about what might happen at the LHC Ordinary mini-black holes carmot be produced at the LHC unless a host of (unlikely) new physics, involving dramatic modifications of gravity and the existence of other large dimensions is the case. Not only is this possibility very
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Gullible Instructing the Gullible
A review of Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid it, by Stephen Greenspan, Praeger, 2009. 199 pp., $44.95. ISBN 978-0313362163.

MICHAEL IF YOU SKIM THROUGH THE online reviews of Stephen Greenspan's book on gullibility you will find many people eager to pounce on Greenspan for his being swindled by Bernie Madoff (which he discusses in his Skeptic article in Vol. 14, o. 4), proclaiming that there's no way they'd take advice about gullibility from a person so gullible. Of course, the fact that a psychology professor who specializes in gullibility has fallen for a major scam is the very reason one should read his book. Early on, Greenspan lays out his model describing gullible actions as those that arise from the combination of at least two of the following four elements: personality, cognitive style, the state of a person, and the situation a person finds him or herself in. The first and last two chapters deal with the psychology of gullibility, and include an interesting set of examples of gullibility found in the Bible and in various children's stories. The middle chapters are basically a series of short case studies, each exploring gullibility in religion, antisemitism, war and politics, conspiracy theories, criminal justice, science and academia, finance, and vulnerable populations, including the very old, very young, and brain damaged people.

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O'REILLY guilty about what they eat, or what kind of car they drive? How about a chapter called Gullibly Sustainable? I was hoping to find analyses of more exciting topics like multilevel marketing scams (although he does go over Ponzi schemes), or modem urban legends like the fact that so many people believe AIDS has been cured, or that me CIA introduced crack cocaine into me inner cities to keep blacks down. And once I discovered that Greenspan has a brother with an autistic spectrum disorder, I anticipated a chapter about the whole autism/vacdnation debate, but it never came. The only time he came close to addressing anything related to Asperger's or autism, was when he discussed the case of Sheila McGough, a lawyer who "may have had a form of cognitive impairment known as nonverballeaming disabilities (NID)." I thought McGough's story, about her being conned by a client who happened to be a persuasive sociopath, was a poor example for Greenspan to use in his section about me gullibility of lawyers. McGough was someone suffering from NID who happened to be a lawyer, not an example of a typical lawyer, and most readers would expect her to get scammed, especially by a guy who has successfully scammed normal functioning people.

Greenspan offers an even-handed analysis of gullibility on just about every topic he tackles. But after presenting good examples of gullibility on the political right (Reagan's popularity, and the "strong father" metaphor), he attempts to balance it with what I think is a bad example of gullibility on the political left. In a backbreaking, half-century leap back in time, he criticizes left-leaning America for disregarding the brutality of Communism, and for continuing to idealize the principles that brought about ultimate failure of the Soviet Union. But why choose this example when there are so many contemporary examples to choose from, any of which would resonate better with current conceptions of liberalism? For example, why didn't Greenspan criticize liberals for falling-hook line and sinker-for some of the blatantly disingenuous "greenwashing" campaigns launched by the slick marketing departments of huge corporations? Example: The colorful new British Petroleum TV commercials claiming that the new "BP" stands for "Beyond Petroleum." Beyond indeed! Or why doesn't Greenspan take issue with certain people's false sense of "sustainability" (comfort word of the day), when it comes to lifestyle choices that make them feel less

www.

More interesting is how lawyers in general can be gullible (e.g., junk science in the courtroom). One of the most interesting tidbits I took from this book involves a common misconception about degrees of trust among people. Conventional wisdom holds that those who are reluctant to trust others (low trust), have somehow been "burned" in the past, while people with high trust are more gullible, and have likely been sheltered, and/or never been betrayed. For Greenspan though, one's concern about failure and betrayal is positioned a priori, rather than as the result of actual betrayals. "[P]eople low in trust, because of their fear of betrayal, avoid many interactions, thus limiting both their opportunity to learn as well as their opportunity to succeed." Thus, if a person has little social experience and is not open to either taking the slightest emotional risk, or discovering new things about various topics, i.e., they are not curious, the person (who might be gullible, but also unsure about whom to distrust) most likely

will not have put himself in many situations where he could have been burned, in the first place. Specifically, trust levels are determined by our "social intelligence." In contrast to those with low trust, Greenspan says, ''People with adequate social intelligence are more able to pick up on cues indicating when to distrust someone ... and thus are more likely to base their withdrawal of trust on evidence rather than on a global overgeneralization that nobody is to be trusted." If the low trusting person has been burned, it is generally at no higher a rate than those who have high trust. The difference is that when the high trust people get burned, they do so not out of gullibility, but because their higher social intelligence can put themselves at greater risk, more often. The study of social intelligence is still a growing, mutating and imperfect science as applied to this book, "the first of several" that Greenspan hopes "will contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary field of Gullibility Studies."

Greenspan freely admits that part of his interest in studying gullibility stems from the fact that he is gullible. It's implied that, given the right circumstances, everyone is gullible to some extent, which is what's so problematic about Greenspan's four-part list of ingredients for gullibility. It is very difficult to ascertain which elements are at work, or deficient, and to what degree. The result is that the reader becomes confused as to exactly why Greenspan is blaming one person's gullibility on a certain cognitive misfire, or trait, while attributing another's gullibility to some different psychological or situational phenomenon. I wouldn't say that his theory is incoherent, only that I probably could have understood the myriad examples of gullibility discussed in this book even without a unifying theoretical roadmap. This is a testament not to my note-taking ability during my undergraduate psychology classes but, rather to Greenspan's accessible writing style, which is mostly free of overwhelming psychological jargon. T

Philosophers, Creationists, and Serious Brainiacs

A review of But Is It Science? The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy, updated edition. Edited by Robert T. Pennock and Michael Ruse. Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, 2009. 577 pp., $21.98. ISBN 978-1-59102-582-5.
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C H tors and preachers here? Let's get H. G. Wells and a lot of big fellows." While Dewey and Wells were not called, the defense team eventually recruited a dozen expert witnesses, but to no avail. On July 17, 1925, the judge ruled that the court would not hear expert testimony on either evolution or its consistency with Genesis. Mencken, writing, "All that remains of the great cause of the State of
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"PHILOSOPHY," ACCORDI G TO H. L. Mencken, "consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself." At the Scopes trial, which Mencken covered for the Baltimore Sun, there were no philosophers testifying. It was not for want of trying. George Rappleyea, the impresario of the event, unsuc-

cessfully attempted to recruit John Dewey to testify in defense of Scopes. In 1922, Dewey decried William Jennings Bryan's "efforts to hold back biological inquiry and teaching," which inspired Tennessee's Butler Act, under which Scopes was prosecuted. But Rappleyea's interest in the philosopher was probably due to his celebrity: earlier he had proposed to Scopes, ''Why not bring a lot of docNUMBER 2

Tennessee against the infidel Scopes is the fmal business of bumping off the defendant," promptly departed for Baltimore, thus managing to miss Clarence Darrow's demolition of Bryan on the stand. How would Mencken have reacted to the fact that in a 1982 sequel to the Scopes trial, Mclean v. Arkansas, the court's decision finding Arkansas's Balanced Treatment for CreationScience and Evolution-Science Act to be unconstitutional was heavily indebted to the expert testimony of a philosopher, Michael Ruse? Or to the fact that in a 2005 sequel to Mclean-Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District-no fewer than six people with doctoral degrees in philosophy were originally slated to testify as expert witnesses? Or to the fact that in Kitzmiller, four of the six were witnesses for the defense, and thus expected to testify in support of the Dover Area School District's policy that "students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's Theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design"? Mencken surely would have been mordantly amused by the fate of those four. William A Dembski and Stephen C. Meyer withdrew from the case, owing to a dispute between the Thomas More Law Center, which represented the district, and the Discovery Institute, the de facto institutional home of intelligent design creationism, and Warren Nord was never called to the stand. Only Steve Fuller, a philosopher-turned-sociologist, actually testified-so hyperkinetically that when a recess was called, the judge advised Fuller on his choice of refreshment: 'Water or decaf only." Two philosophers testified for the plaintiffs: Robert T. Pennock, whose Tower if Babel was the first, and is still a highly important, philosophical assessment of intelligent design creationism, and Barbara Forrest, who chronicled the activity of the intelligent design movement in her Creationism's Trojan Horse (coauthored with Paul R Gross). Forrest relentlessly exposed the creationist antecedents of intelligent design-even discovering the exemplary transitional form "cdesign proponentsists," mistakenly formed when the

authors of the intelligent design textbook Of Pandas and People incompletely replaced the word "creationists" with "design proponents." Pennock, for his part, concentrated on the philosophical issues. (As a result, he was dubbed "a serious, serious brainiac" by the York Daily Records Mike Argento, the H. L. Mencken of the Kitzmiller trial.) Like Ruse before him, Pennock explained the nature of science and argued that creationism failed to qualify as a bona fide scientific endeavor, leading the court to conclude that, despite the claims of its proponents, creationism is not a credible scientific alternative to evolution and thus, as a religious view, cannot constitutionally be taught as science in the public schools. It is difficult to imagine a better coeditor for the updated edition of Ruse's anthology But Is It Science? (published originally in 1988) than Pennock. The 1988 edition of But Is It Science? contained four sections, devoted respectively to: (1) the 19thcentury background, emphasizing the contemporary dispute over the scientific status of Darwin's theory of evolution; (2) evolution today (circa 1988), including material on Karl Popper's allegation, later retracted, that "Darwinism"--that is, evolution by natural selection-"is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program" (emphasis in original); (3) the Mclean case in which Ruse testified; and (4) the philosophical aftermath of the Mclean case, involving exchanges between Ruse and his fellow philosophers Larry Laudan and Philip L. Quinn, who accused him of oversimplifying and distorting the philosophy of science in his testimony. In the 2009 edition, there are three sections. The first, corresponding to (1) and (2), presents the religious, scientific, and philosophical background; a useful addition is a selection from Charles Hodge's 1874 What Is Darwinism? that reveals the fundamentalist roots of creationism. The second, corresponding to (3) and (4), presents the Mclean case and its philosophical aftermath; a useful addition is Barry R Gross's 1983 defense of Ruse's testimony. Although a few WWW.SKEPTIC.

articles from the 1988 edition have not been retained in the 2009 edition, the only regrettable omission is Ruse's prefatory essay "A Philosopher'S Day in Court," a personal statement about his involvement with the Mclean case. It is the third section of the 2009 edition of But Is It Science?-on intelligent design creationism and the Kitzmiller case-that warrants the update. Especially noteworthy are the selections written especially for the book, Nick Matzke's "But Isn't It Creationism?" and Pennock's "Can't Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion?" Matzke, who as a staff member at the National Center for Science Education (where I work) assisted the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller trial, examined the prehistory of the intelligent design movement in detail while preparing for the case. The assumption that intelligent design is a product of the 1990s is common, thanks in part to the writings of the godfather of intelligent design, Phillip Johnson, throughout the decade. (He is represented in the book by the 1993 article 'What is Darwinism?"which answers its eponymous question in much the same way as did Hodge's book of the same title.) Matzke, however, convincingly argues that intelligent design was assembled in all but name "between 1982 and 1984: salvaged from the ruins of the creation scientists' spectacular collapse in the Mclean trial, and retooled in preparation" for the next case, Edwards v. Aguillard, which reached the Supreme Court in 1987. The history of the intelligent design movement is still not completely understcxxi, since the main players have no incentive to be candid about the events, but no further work on it will be complete without reckoning with Matzke's findings. Having the monitory example of the philosophical controversy over Ruse's testimony in Mclean before him, Pennock doubtless realized that his testimony would be criticized as well. Here he articulates the "simple ballpark approach" he took in his testimony, arguing that, for methodological reasons inherent in the nature of empirical evidence, science is not

capable of appealing to the supernatural in its explanations of phenomena in the natural world, and defending his approach against a number of his philosophical colleagues. He concludes, "[Tlhe rational conclusion here is that creationism does not even belong in the stadium, that it is playing a different game entirely-Sudoku, perhaps." (Should that be Pseudoku?) Among the colleagues he responds to is Fuller, who defended his Kitzmiller testimony in his Science v. Religion? (2007; reviewed by orman Levitt in Skeptic 14:1) as well as in "A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies," reprinted in the book. Fuller's essay teems with errors which often suspiciously verge on the tendentious. For example, he describes the expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller as "seasoned veterans of related trials involving creationism," presumably to portray himself as a

wai.flike innocent in comparison. In fact, only one of the six, Kenneth R. Miller, had ever testified in such a trial before. It is perhaps a minor weakness of the book that Fuller is the only critic of Pennock's testimony represented, but philosophers are bound to be discussing the case for years to come. But Is It Science? is evidently intended as a sourcebook for university classes in philosophy, the history of science, science and religion, and related topics, and as such it succeeds admirably. But it also is, or ought to be, appealing to the general public at large. The creationism/evolution controversy is a perennial feature of life in the United States, with attempts to remove, balance, or compromise the teaching of evolution recurring from the Scopes era to the present day. Even if public interest in intelligent design dwindles after Kitzmiller, as public interest in creation science dwindled after Mclean and

Edwards, the profound yet misguided discomfort with evolution that actuates such assaults on evolution is bound to remain. Also bound to remain are philosophical controversies over creationism, which-as the Kitzmiller case illustrated so vividly-have the potential to affect the quality of science education across the country and indeed around the world. Pennock and Ruse conclude their preface by writing, "We hope that you enjoy this collection and learn from it" I think that you will. And they add, 'We hope sincerely that in twenty years it will not be necessary to bring out a third edition." I do, too. But if so, it will be due, despite Mencken's jab, in large part to the philosophersPennock, Ruse, and Forrest, to be sure, but also Philip Kitcher, Sahotra Sarkar, Naill Shanks, Elliott Sober, and a host of their colleagues-who have worked tirelessly to expose the philosophical flaws of creationism. T

Complexity Redux
A review of Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell, Oxford University Press 2009. 368 pp., $29.95. ISBN: 978-0-19-512441-5.

] A M E S The best popular science books are those that give the reader the sense of looking over the shoulder of a leading researcher doing cutting-edge work at the frontier of scientific inquiry. Walter Isaacson's recent biography of Einstein belongs in this category. So too does Melanie Mitchell's comprehensive new book chronicling the latest advances in the sciences of complexity. Mitchell, a professor of computer science at Portland State University and an External Professor at the famous Santa Fe Institute that specializes in the study of complexity, is one of the world's leading experts in the field of genetic algorithm research. This is a special kind of computer sci-

N.

GARDNER sheer intricacy of evolutionary forces is a unifying theme of Mitchell's book and of the scientific breakthroughs she describes, Some of her best discussion focuses on the seething debate, largely shrouded from the eyes of laypersons, regarding the deficiencies of the socalled Modem Synthesis, which united Darwin's theory of natural selection with Gregor Mendel's path-breaking work in genetics. Current research, made possible by new DNA sequencing technologies, is revealing that some of the fundamental tenets of the Modem Synthesis may be wrong or least seriously incomplete. For instance, the synthesis asserts that natural selection is the

ence that has the audacious goal of coaxing software to evolve on its own through a process of natural selection that resembles Darwinian evolution. Research into genetic algorithms is representative of the broad portfolio of disciplines that includes the sciences of complexity because it relies on a fusion of seemingly disparate scientific fields=computer science and evolutionary biology-to produce a hybrid possessing (in complexity lingo) emergent properties. For instance, evolutionary computation can yield solutions to seemingly intractable engineering challenges that no human designer could have imagined. The pervasiveness, power and
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2 009

major mechanism of evolutionary change and adaptation; that evolution an inherently gradual process reliant exclusively on small random variations in individuals; and that the origin of new species can be satisfactorily explained by the microscopic process of gene variation and natural selection. As Mitchell demonstrates lucidly, these conclusions are being seriously undermined by researchers who are starting to view the phenomenon of evolution through the prism of the sciences of complexity. Here are just a few of the startling insights that have emerged:
Genes are not static but jump around on their chromosomes and between

chromosomes. As Mitchell puts it, "The result can be a much higher rate of mutation than comes from errors in DNA replication." The complexity of living systems is largely due to networks of genes rather than the sum of the independent effects of individual genes. This explains how human beings and mustard plants can have roughly the same number of genes (about 25,000) but exhibit vastly different levels of biological complexity. The new field of Evo-Devo (short for evolutionary developmental biology) is providing insights into how evolution can sometimes move at warp speed (for instance, during the Cambrian Explosion

half a billion years ago when multicellular animals emerged in a geological blink of an eye). The apparent mechanism is not mutation of ordinary genes but rather mutation of "master genes" that regulate the formation and morphology of many of an animal's body parts.

The late physicist Heinz Pagels once wrote that he was "convinced that the nations and people who master the new sciences of complexity will become the economic, cultural, and political superpowers of the next century." When you read Complexity: A Guided Tour, you will get a good sense of why Pagels reached that conclusion. T

Mr. Armstrong's Jersey and Mr. Rogers' Sweater

A review of Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable by Bruce M. Hood, Harper One, 2009, $25.99, 302pp., ISBN: 978-0-06-145264-2.
MICHAEL DURING A RECENT TRlP TO AUSTIN, Texas for a debate with Old Earth Creationists, I paid a visit to Lance Armstrong'S famous bike shop Mellow Johnny's (so named because Americans butcher the pronunciation of maille jaune, French for yellow jersey, the color worn by a race leader). In addition to numerous yellow jerseys hanging on the walls, on the showroom floor were several of Lance's bikes on which he won seven Tours de France. ''People think these are replica bikes," the shop manager told me. ''When I explain that these are the actual bikes on which Lance won the tour, they touch them like holy relics." Why people imbue physical artifacts with an almost mystical force that can transmit its power to the contactee is the subject of the University of Bristol cognitive psychologist Bruce M Hood's marvelous new book, Supersense Wby SHERMER We Believe in the Unbelievable. In a book chock-a-block full of real-world examples reinforced by experimental research, Hood builds a theoretical model to explain how the mind comes to sense that there is something beyond the natural world, something supernatural. Hood calls this phenomenon our "supersense." Our supersense is our tendency to believe that objects, animals, and people contain an essence, something that is at the core of their being that makes them what they are, and that this essence may be transmitted from objects to people, and from people to people. There may be evolutionary reasons for this tendency, rooted in fears about diseases and contagions that contain all too natural essences that can be deadly (and hence need to be avoided). But we now generalize the supersense to any and all objects and individuals, seen
IN THf:

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_ _--

SUPERSENSE
WHY WE BELIEVE UNBELIEVABLE

BRUCE

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and unseen, and assume that those seen and unseen objects and people also have agency and intention. The supersense is not restricted to the uneducated or unintelligent. "Many highly educated and intelligent individuals experience a powerful sense that there are patterns, forces, energies, and entities operating in the world." Hood notes. "More important, such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence, which is why they are supernatural and unscientific. The inclination or sense that they may be real is our suspersense." In other words, even smart people believe weird things. Why? I have argued that it is because we all have to believe things-whether they are weird things or non-weird things--and this process is called learning. We connect A to B to C, and often A really is connected to B, and B really

is connected to C. But we do not have a false-pattern detection device in our brains to help us discriminate between true and false patterns, and so we make errors in our thinking: a Type I error is believing a pattern is real when it is not (a false positive) while a Type ITerror is not believing a pattern is real when it is (a false negative). Imagine that you are a hominid on the plains of Africa and you hear a rustle in the grass. Is it a dangerous predator or just the wind? If you assume it is a dangerous predator and it is just the wind, you have made a Type I error, but to no harm, But if you believe the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator, there's a good chance you'll be removed from your species' gene pool. Thus, I argue, there would have been a natural selection for those hominids who tended to believe that all patterns are real and potentially dangerous. I call this process pattemicity (the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise) and agenticity (the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents who may mean us harm).

The supersense is the superstructure that incorporates both of these processes and it is the basis of superstition and magical thinking. "If essences are thought to be transferable, we will not consider ourselves isolated individuals but rather members of a tribe potentially joined to each other through beliefs in supernatural connectedness," Hood explains. 'We will see others in terms of the properties that make them essentially different from us. Such an idea suggests that some essential qualities are more likely to be transmitted than others. Youth, energy, beauty, temperament, strength, and even sexual preference are essential qualities that we attribute to others." Many transplant patients suspect that certain aspects of the personality of the donor will be incorporated into their own essence. And along with transmitting the force of good we fear the transmission of evil. Studies show, for example, that most people say that they would never wear the sweater of a murderer, showing great disgust (probably an evolved emotion selected for to avoid rotting food and disease-carrying sub-

stances), but that they would wear the cardigan sweater of the children's television host Mr. Rogers, which they believe makes them a better person. The supersense is so powerful, in fact, that it can influence even the most rational of skeptics-s-at Mellow Johnny's I purchased an array of Lance Armstrong cycling gear (I ride bikes regularly) and during my debate with the creationists that night I was secretly wearing a pair of Lance Armstrong yellow-rimmed black socks and a "Livestrong' T-shirt underneath my suit. My rational brain does not for a moment believe that the essence of Armstrong's celebrated strength and endurance powered me through the three hour event, and yet for some odd reason I felt more confident, and perhaps--given the influence of belief and the power of placebo-I was a better debater that night. I don't know. But Bruce Hood knows. He knows that the supersense is all pervasive, and as such this book is an important contribution to the body of psychological literature that is only now revealing the true nature of our very irrational human nature. T

The Six Degrees of Adolf Hitler

A review

of Linked: How Everything Is Connected to

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Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life by Albert-Laszlo Barabasl, New York: Penguin, 2002. 294 pp., $16.00
ISBN 0-452-28439-2.

Linked

""""""--*- ... ----_ -'0."---__ . ..,.... _

D R E W

SHAINDLI experiment, the methodology of which has since been scrutinized, appeared to show that in some sense we live in a "small world," where people of different social status and separated by thousands of miles, may well be more closely connected to each other than we might assume. In the last several years, a spate of
9

HERE IN LOS ANGELES CEIEBRITY sightings are a dime a dozen, but add the dimension of time and you get a combined parlor game and history lesson. The parlor game is the famous "six degrees of separation" (AKA in Tinseltown "six degrees of Kevin Bacon"): name a famous individual and trace the shortest possible line of

personal connection to that person. The "six degrees of separation" moniker was popularized by John Guare's play of the same name but has a longer pedigree. In the 1%Os social psychologist Stanley Milgram attempted to measure the connectedness of individuals who are widely separated in social time and space. His
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popular works has examined the socalled new science of networks, and using mathematics and logic theory, has sharply defined just how connected to each other we all are, and how an understanding of these networks' hapes can improve business effectiveness, professional networking, and even personal relationships. But let's back up for a minute. Did we say six degrees of separation? _ ever mind six degrees. Six degrees is for wimps. To wit, I'm two degrees from Adolf Hitler. When I was 11, my father took me backstage after a performance led by the illustrious Austrian conductor Karl Boehm, then 81 years old. Boehm had known and supported Adolf Hitler during his ascent to the leadership of the _ ational Socialist Party. The hand I hook had warmly clasped the Fuhrer's hand many decades before. Of course, if you're not a history buff, Hitler may not impress you. Maybe you're into sports. Here I'm two degrees from Babe Ruth. As a little girl in New York City, my mother's best childhood friend, Hedda, lived in the same apartment building as the Bambino. He sat on the stoop and bounced young Hedda on his knee. I've known Hedda since my childhood, but only recently did I learn that, thanks to her, the Sultan of Swat was part of my social network. But what does it matter how connected we are to someone? After all, we often hear that it's not what you know, it's who you know. But whom do you have to know for a specific purpose? To take my personal anecdotes, if I wanted to get Yankee tickets, knowing someone who could phone up Hitler wouldn't do me any good. But the issue isn't really who your connections are; it's being able to identify them as connections in the first place. This is where Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's work comes in. Linked breaks the six degrees mythos into its constituent parts, explains early efforts to measure just how connected total strangers really are, and brings the reader a simple explanation of the mathematical concepts underlying the "new science of

networks." It succeeds admirably in two ways: first, in balancing the technical background of network science with its popular relevance, and second, in illuminating the connections among seemingly disparate fields where network science is hard at work today. This genre is becoming more crowded all the time. Duncan Watts tackled it with his book Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (W.W. orton, 2003). Watts, Barabasi and Mark 1 ewman produced The Structure and Dynamics of Networks (Princeton University, 20(6) and Barabasi updated his own work in the July 24, 2009 issue of Science (http://www.science mag.org/ cgi/ contentlfulV325/5939/412). Where Barabasi (a professor of theoretical condensed matter physics at Northeastern University) beats his competition-and his collaborators-is in making the science accessible. Drawing on lessons and examples from sociology, medicine, law enforcement, and economics, he shows the practical value of understanding how networks behave. Perhaps the most prominent example is the effect of network structures on something as fundamental as circles of friends. Barabasi takes a well-known social construct-the strength of weak ties -and demonstrates its potential quantitative value. In the 1970s, sociologist Mark Granovetter posited that your close circle of friends and colleagues isn't as valuable as you assume it to be when it's time to network for something like a new job. Rather, it's those you actually don't know wellyour friends' and colleagues' acquaintances-who add the greatest value to your network. Why? This is simply because the people who are closest to you socially know most of the same people you do, and therefore cannot provide much information you don't already have. But more remote acquaintances (such as friends of friends, or your own former co-workers) can provide new contacts that may reveal opportunities you won't know about if you only talk to your immediate family, current coworkers and next-door neighbors. The growth of Internet social net-

works like LinkedIn and Facebook makes this field of research timely and relevant. Using these services, it's easy to visualize not only who our secondand third-degree acquaintances are, but also how we are connected to them. When we want to reach out to a potential business partner, it's nice to know that we have the choice of asking a professional colleague or a family member for an introduction (and if we're desperate, or lack confidence, we can ask both!). Another important arena that Barabasi explores effectively is the role of network science in financial markets. A better understanding of the links among firms and financial interests is more important than ever, now that credit default swaps and multi-billion dollar Ponzi schemes have become the order of the day. Describing the market as a "directed network" where not only the connections, but the direction of information flow among network members (or "nodes") is dear, Barabasi provides the everyday reader with important tools for understanding why-and to what degree-it matters what happens in banking, investment and credit markets. Creeping in around the edges of the seemingly cut and dried math behind network science is a whisper of social engineering. British anthropologist!biologist Robin Dunbar has written about the relationship between neocortex size and social network scale, lifting ever so slightly the lid on the question of whether social network scale is somehow hardwired into humans as an evolutionary variable (see for example, his chapter "Brains on Two Legs: Group Size and the Evolution of Intelligence" in Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution, Harvard, 2001). In much the same way that Milgram's six degrees construct caught the popular imagination, we can expect a spate of books in the near future that posit how many people we should have in our networks, in order to function optimally on the social networking scene. Indeed, popular business titles such

as The Power of Who: You Already Know Everyone You Need to Know (Center Street, 2009) with its "100/40 principle" already claim to deliver specific ratios to maintain when building (or culling) one's connections. There is a cognitive risk in this kind of scorekeeping. We should not

become so caught up in the quantitative aspects of network science that we lose sight of its fundamentally human character. Back in the Bronx in 1927, knowing a thousand people who lived on River Avenue wouldn't have given you as good a chance for Yankees tickets as knowing which one of them was connected to the

Maharajah of Mash himself, the one and only Babe Ruth. As Barabasi vividly shows, finding the right needle in the social network haystack is as important as ever. But his research and others' makes it easier for us not only to find the needle, but to use it to deploy the power of our networks. T

Sensed Presences in .Extreme Contexts

A review of The Third Man Factor: The Secret of

Survival in Extreme Environments by John Geiger,

Penguin, 2009. 295 pp., $24:00. ISBN 978-0-14-301751-6.
JAM JOHN GEIGER'S BOOK IS A lllGHLY readable compendium of anecdotes about the remarkably common experience of feeling the presence of a companion for whom there is no objective evidence. Since the companion is seldom seen but strongly sensed it is often referred to as a "sensed presence." The presence is usually taken to be a stranger, but may sometimes be a friend or mentor, a favorite aunt, a fellow adventurer (sometimes recently deceased), and it usually provides moral support, guidance, or protection. It is often desaibed metaphorically, or sometimes literally, as a guardian angel. Approximately three-quarters of the companionate presences appear during the harrowing misadventures of mountaineers, polar explorers, and sailors. Thus, Geiger's book is about one version of the sensed presence experience, the version that occurs in what Peter Suedfeld has called EVEs; "extreme and unusual environments."! The anecdotes reported by Geiger are nearly always first-person accounts of the appearance of mysterious, often neutral, sometimes friendly, and rarely threatening, presences encountered during life-and-death struggles for survival. Indeed, the subtitle of the book E S
ALL A

C HEY

N E ton's)." In the original account of Shackleton, the companion was actually a fourth: "it seemed to me often that we were four, not three" (p. 37). One of the most striking features of the experience of the companion is its elementary and minimalist properties and the consistency of these across individuals and circumstances. All of the germane information about each and every encounter in the text could likely be described in 10-20 typewritten pages, and comprehensively summarized in one. The bulk of the approximately 250 pages of text consists of background and context-setting events leading up to the experience itself. The experiences themselves do become very familiar and repetitive, though interesting variants do crop up from time to time. Although the descriptions of the events leading up to the experiences sometimes go on a bit too long for my liking it must be said that they are, by and large, gripping tales well told, and, overall, provide relevant and informative context for the companion experiences. I expect most people will find this an engaging read. Though passing reference is made to the experiences of monks and saints, 9

implies what is explicitly claimed in the book itself; namely, that the companion is a secret life-saver of either divine or biological provenance. Little evidence is provided, however, that the companion experience, however comforting, is more than a modest aid to survival, let alone the secret to survival. It should also be noted that there is nothing special about using the number three in the title. The title could have just as justifiably been called The Fourth Man, The Second Man, or, in at least one case, The Seventh Person. An early version appears to have been The Extra Mans Geiger appears to have based his title on the experience of Ernest Shackleton and his two companions during their trek across South Georgia Island; or to be more precise, on T. S. Eliot's reference to the event, immortalized in "The Waste Land," with its famous question: "Who is the third who always walks beside you?" Either through poetic license or misremembering, Eliot reduced Shackleton's party from three to two: ''When I count, there are only you and I together." Elliot's notes suggest he was rather vague about his recollection of "the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which but I think one of ShackleNUMBER 2 200

lical tales, and the Christian notion - guardian angels, most of the anecootes are modem, spanning a little -er 100 years. Toward the end of the k Geiger also provides brief and somewhat perfunctory overviews of various psychological and neuroscien-;-c theories of presence experiences. Geiger highlights critical features of the experience as well as of their precipi:ating conditions as he goes along. ith regard to the latter, he mentions the usual suspects: monotony, darkness, barren landscapes, isolation, cold, injury, dehydration, hunger, fatigue, and fear; all often extreme, persistent, and in combination and, in the case of mountaineers, compounded by lack of adequate levels of oxyen. The accounts also frequently involve death and injury of real companions. The large majority of the anecdotes come from the experiences of mountaineers, probably because climbers have the largest proportion of truly harrowing challenges and are often exposed to almost all of the predpitating conditions that produce companion experiences. The vivid and compelling nature of the companion experiences, despite their elemental simplicity, cannot be overstated. Such experiences are almost invariably described as utterly compelling; far too vivid and real to be a mere hallucination; which is usually to imply that it defies naturalistic explanation. Hallucinations do not, however, constitute the only, or even most appropriate, naturalistic explanation. Strictly speaking, the sensed presence does not fit the definition of a halludnation at all, because, by definition, halludnations involve sensory experiences. Rather, the sensed presence of the unseen companion is a delusion; that is, a compelling feeling that something is the case in the absence of evidence. Halludnations may sometimes accompany delusions. There may be sounds, voices and visions, even physical contact, though these are all comparatively rare. one are intrinsic to the sensed presence itself, which, by definition, is devoid of sensory experience. As William Laird McKinley stated of his Arctic experi-

ences, there is "nothing of the senses in it at all, only an awareness" (p. 53). Yet, the same author can say of this insensible presence that "it filled me with an exultation beyond all earthly feeling" generating a feeling of "absolute certainly of the existence of God" (p. 54). Yet, though the presence is not necessarily taken to be supernatural, there is often a dual consciousness associated with the presence in which a hard-nosed realist is simultaneously aware that the pre ence is not real in the normal sense of the term, yet utterly compelling; so compelling, and persistent, that food may be offered to the presence in a casual and automatic manner. Geiger notes that hallucinations, though not often part of the presence experience itself, do sometimes accompany the sensed presence. They tend to be vague and misty apparitions or commanding voices. Rob Taylor, injured during his ascent of the Breach Wall of Kilirnanjaro, reported seeing a figure and being able to "make out his form, yet never can I distinguish exact features." The form was a human form without the clothing of a climber but rather "like a dancer in a leotard" (p. 178). Charles Lindbergh encountered multiple presences on his famous trans-Atlantic flight. He described "vaguely outlined forms, transparent, moving" in the cockpit. Yet despite his ability to describe the presences, however minimally, they actually seemed to have been out of sight, as he also says: "without turning my head, I can see them as clearly as though in my normal field of vision" (p. 85). He also wrote that the presences had "voices that spoke with authority and clearness." Yet he admitted "I can't remember a single word they said" (p. 87). Almost always, there is a vague feeling that the presence is there to help in some unspecified way or, in the case of temporarily incapacitated sailors, like the solo sailor Joshua Slocum, simply trusted to man their craft. Or it may simply be a feeling that a navigational decision was made on the implicit advice of the presence. More often, the companions
WWW.SKEPTIC

offer wordless advice, which is typically highly nonspecific, or provides information and advice of the sort that the individual would already know and believe ... or hope. The advice is typically, "Don't fall asleep," ''Keep moving," and "You are going to make it." That is, sensible commonplace advice that is more reassuring than informative. Nonetheless, this sense of reassurance is often credited by the individuals for their survival. This feeling is essentially the basis for the claim that the presence is the secret to survival in extreme conditions. As Geiger acknowledges, however, we obviously have limited access to negative cases, the stories of the presences of the non-survivors in recovered diaries are obviously rare, though such cases do exist.s Perhaps as many non-survivors as survivors received support and encouragement from their presences. Alternatively, perhaps the companions of non-survivors gave bad advice. Moreover, we do not have information about how many survivors never experienced the companionate sensed presence. We have essentially one cell of the four-fold table necessary to draw the functional conclusion. One especially interesting and harrowing anecdote of extremity is recounted by climber Joe Simpson in his book Touching the Void, about his summit of Siula Grande (not Huascaran as indicated in Geiger's book), and the aftermath of an accident during descent. This story provides the most compelling evidence of a survival function for a halludnation, but ironically, it does not actually involve a presence. Simpson's recurring halludnation was simply a voice in his head, but a compelling and very authoritative one:
The voice was dean and sharp and commanding. It was always right, and I listened to it when it spoke and acted on its decisions. The other mind rambled out a disconnected series of images, and memories and hopes, which I attended to in a daydream state as I set about obeying the orders of the voice.

ot surprisingly, this description leads Geiger to invoke, as Peter

lical tales, and the Christian notion - guardian angels, most of the anecootes are modem, spanning a little -er 100 years. Toward the end of the k Geiger also provides brief and somewhat perfunctory overviews of various psychological and neuroscien-;-c theories of presence experiences. Geiger highlights critical features of the experience as well as of their precipi:ating conditions as he goes along. ith regard to the latter, he mentions the usual suspects: monotony, darkness, barren landscapes, isolation, cold, injury, dehydration, hunger, fatigue, and fear; all often extreme, persistent, and in combination and, in the case of mountaineers, compounded by lack of adequate levels of oxyen. The accounts also frequently involve death and injury of real companions. The large majority of the anecdotes come from the experiences of mountaineers, probably because climbers have the largest proportion of truly harrowing challenges and are often exposed to almost all of the predpitating conditions that produce companion experiences. The vivid and compelling nature of the companion experiences, despite their elemental simplicity, cannot be overstated. Such experiences are almost invariably described as utterly compelling; far too vivid and real to be a mere hallucination; which is usually to imply that it defies naturalistic explanation. Hallucinations do not, however, constitute the only, or even most appropriate, naturalistic explanation. Strictly speaking, the sensed presence does not fit the definition of a halludnation at all, because, by definition, halludnations involve sensory experiences. Rather, the sensed presence of the unseen companion is a delusion; that is, a compelling feeling that something is the case in the absence of evidence. Halludnations may sometimes accompany delusions. There may be sounds, voices and visions, even physical contact, though these are all comparatively rare. one are intrinsic to the sensed presence itself, which, by definition, is devoid of sensory experience. As William Laird McKinley stated of his Arctic experi-

ences, there is "nothing of the senses in it at all, only an awareness" (p. 53). Yet, the same author can say of this insensible presence that "it filled me with an exultation beyond all earthly feeling" generating a feeling of "absolute certainly of the existence of God" (p. 54). Yet, though the presence is not necessarily taken to be supernatural, there is often a dual consciousness associated with the presence in which a hard-nosed realist is simultaneously aware that the pre ence is not real in the normal sense of the term, yet utterly compelling; so compelling, and persistent, that food may be offered to the presence in a casual and automatic manner. Geiger notes that hallucinations, though not often part of the presence experience itself, do sometimes accompany the sensed presence. They tend to be vague and misty apparitions or commanding voices. Rob Taylor, injured during his ascent of the Breach Wall of Kilirnanjaro, reported seeing a figure and being able to "make out his form, yet never can I distinguish exact features." The form was a human form without the clothing of a climber but rather "like a dancer in a leotard" (p. 178). Charles Lindbergh encountered multiple presences on his famous trans-Atlantic flight. He described "vaguely outlined forms, transparent, moving" in the cockpit. Yet despite his ability to describe the presences, however minimally, they actually seemed to have been out of sight, as he also says: "without turning my head, I can see them as clearly as though in my normal field of vision" (p. 85). He also wrote that the presences had "voices that spoke with authority and clearness." Yet he admitted "I can't remember a single word they said" (p. 87). Almost always, there is a vague feeling that the presence is there to help in some unspecified way or, in the case of temporarily incapacitated sailors, like the solo sailor Joshua Slocum, simply trusted to man their craft. Or it may simply be a feeling that a navigational decision was made on the implicit advice of the presence. More often, the companions
WWW.SKEPTIC

offer wordless advice, which is typically highly nonspecific, or provides information and advice of the sort that the individual would already know and believe ... or hope. The advice is typically, "Don't fall asleep," ''Keep moving," and "You are going to make it." That is, sensible commonplace advice that is more reassuring than informative. Nonetheless, this sense of reassurance is often credited by the individuals for their survival. This feeling is essentially the basis for the claim that the presence is the secret to survival in extreme conditions. As Geiger acknowledges, however, we obviously have limited access to negative cases, the stories of the presences of the non-survivors in recovered diaries are obviously rare, though such cases do exist.s Perhaps as many non-survivors as survivors received support and encouragement from their presences. Alternatively, perhaps the companions of non-survivors gave bad advice. Moreover, we do not have information about how many survivors never experienced the companionate sensed presence. We have essentially one cell of the four-fold table necessary to draw the functional conclusion. One especially interesting and harrowing anecdote of extremity is recounted by climber Joe Simpson in his book Touching the Void, about his summit of Siula Grande (not Huascaran as indicated in Geiger's book), and the aftermath of an accident during descent. This story provides the most compelling evidence of a survival function for a halludnation, but ironically, it does not actually involve a presence. Simpson's recurring halludnation was simply a voice in his head, but a compelling and very authoritative one:
The voice was dean and sharp and commanding. It was always right, and I listened to it when it spoke and acted on its decisions. The other mind rambled out a disconnected series of images, and memories and hopes, which I attended to in a daydream state as I set about obeying the orders of the voice.

ot surprisingly, this description leads Geiger to invoke, as Peter

Suedfeld had done previously, Julian Jaynes's notion of the bicameral mind. Indeed the quotation above is essentially a definition of a bicameral mind at work. Interestingly, Jaynes's perennially controversial theory, of all those discussed by Geiger, is really the only one explicitly directed at explaining the version of the sensed presence discussed in this book. What Simpson's account reminded me of, however, was a more current and mainstream theory involving a distinction between two levels of processing always active in human cognition. They go by different names, but the cognitive process that corresponds to Simpson's rational and authoritative voice is commonly referred to as an "executive" or "control" process. Another level of processing, which corresponds to Simpson's jumble of images, memories, and emotions, appears to reflect what are referred to as "automatic" processes, which operate according to an associative and appropriately named, "pandemonium mode," in which different impulses vie for attention and execution. There has been little written about the nature of the phenomenological component to these two modes, though a little selfreflection will, I think, uncover a subtle version of Simpson's experience in our own mundane experiences. In extreme situations the phenomenology of the two processing streams may become enhanced, perhaps through a general emergency reaction of the brain of the sort discussed by Geiger. One can readily see how the sort of experience might lead people who have experienced extreme circumstances to interpret the voice as that of a guardian angel-s-or a god a la Julian Jaynes. Yet Joe Simpson was a self-declared atheist before his Siula Grande experience and remained one afterward and attributes the voice to a "sixth sense" buried deep in our evolutionary past, never personifying it but consistently referring to it merely as "the voice" or "it." Curiously, Geiger fails to mention that Simpson did report sensing the presence of companions during a peri-

od of absence of the voice toward the end of his ordeal. He felt that he was being followed closely by two companions, who "hung back out of sight," and whom he imagined to be other members of the expedition, Simon and Richard, who were actually at the camp ahead of him. He reported that he was happy at the thought of "company and help if I needed it." In contrast to the positive guidance of the voice, however, the presences appear to have been merely comforting. I have long been fascinated by how the most subtle feelings of presence can convince a McKinley of the absolute certainty of God's existence while the much more dramatic experiences of a Joe Simpson elicited no spiritual gloss at all. Perhaps most instructive is the fact that, despite his condition of serious injury, fatigue, hypothermia, starvation, and dehydration Cat the end of his ordeal he weighed 90 pounds), Simpson, upon first hearing "the voice" immediately and systematically considers alternative hypotheses. Did he leave on his Walkman? Were the sounds the result of his balaclava rubbing on his ears? Geiger concludes that ancient people, lacking Walkman-type hypotheses, fell back on religious hypotheses. Yet Geiger need not have gone back to ancient peoples. His own book is filled with numerous examples of moderns invoking religious or mystical interpretations. It does seem reasonable, nonetheless, to suppose that moderns have a greater range of possible interpretations and this must, one would suppose, make a difference in the way the experiences are perceived. Yet this is clearly not the only, or even the main, story. Geiger discusses but does not focus particularly on the supernatural, though, judging from the reviews beginning to appear on the web, these sorts of phenomena are magnets for those invested in the occult and spiritual. Geiger cites Michael Murphy as claiming that many of these experiences "defy easy explanation," by which he means naturalistic scientific explanations. Geiger also briefly falls into this casual sophistry 15
NUMBER 2

describing the physiologist Pugh'S explanations as dismissive. Why commentators so often consider scientific explanations "easy" or "dismissive" has never been clear to me; especially when I then read of Murphy claiming that these experiences are evidence that "humans can indeed perceive disembodied entities" (p, 78). Now that strikes me as an easy explanation. One set of naturalistic theories Geiger reviews favorably are those that suggest that the sensed presence is a biological mechanism for coping with loneliness in only children in the form of "imaginary companions," and for adults alone under threatening and fearsome conditions. On this view, the sensed presence provides an imaginary companion to relieve anxiety. One can see how this could be functionalavoiding despair and giving up-but it does raise another question. If it is biological-which would entail affecting the relative availability of neurotransmitters and somatic hormones-why does it need a phenomenological or experiential component? Why are brain mechanisms not arranged to just make us feel less threatened and more optimistic without the spooky experience to confuse us? I realize that this is a rather generic argument regarding consciousness, but it all seems a rather Rube Goldberg contraption to have evolved just to make us feel comfortable in extreme environments. Perhaps the companion experience is not functional at all, in itself, but rather is an anomalous dissociation that provides evidence of a deeper, more general, function on which its own functionality, if any, is parasitic. Perhaps, for example, the feeling of presence is simply a misfiring of normally functional sensations associated with real companions. Having done some trekking and climbing in the Himalayas and the Andes, I am somewhat familiar with the experience of spending long hours moving in single One has a constant sense of companions ahead and behind, as well as a sense of dependency on them. There is the constant reminder of the rope in the downhill

me.

2 009

hand binding one to the other. Frank Smythe, for example, specifically notes that it "seemed that I was tied to my 'companion' by a rope" (p. 48). Though Smythe was alone, if he had had a companion they would have been tied together. The rope is truly a lifeline. When a comrade falls, the others dig in with ice axes and crampons and brace themselves to break the fall of the other. Thus, there is both a strong expectation of the others to be constantly at a regular distance, maintaining appropriate tension on the rope, and to be available for assistance. One also finds oneself periodically looking over one's shoulder to check on the others; even though one knows and feels without looking that they are there. As noted, in the large majority of cases, the presence is just out of sight, often a couple of meters behind. Although the presence is described as guiding and encouraging, it is usually following behind rather than leading. The sense of the presence of others is pervasive and continuous when one is with others; but we rarely remark on it because, after all, there really are others present and this is the normal feeling when they are there. We feel it explicitly when in intense relationships and acutely when in love; but mostly it is just the reassuring background feeling of companionship. Our feeling corresponds with recent memory and with current sensory experience. When this feeling becomes disconnected from what we know from recent memory and current experience, however, we may then have the experience of the sensed presence. If so, then the presence experience parallels the "feeling of knowing" something as a separate experience from the actual knowing of it that we have all experienced as the tip-of-thetongue experience. In both cases, background becomes foreground. This is not to dismiss or trivialize either experience, but to attempt to turn a mystery into a potentially solvable problem; namely, how does this normal feeling of being with others become dissociated from what we know from memory and current sensory experience? This, in turn, suggests

the possibility that there is a separate set of cognitive and neural events constituting the feeling of presence, over and above those that register the sensory experiences generated by the actual presence of others. Perhaps this feeling reflects a mode or psychological context of "being with others," bringing our social selves into prominence and acting appropriately and refraining from acting inappropriately in the presence of others. Finally, in extreme situations the need for companions activates the feeling of presence. This would certainly be comforting in extreme and unusual environments and, to that extent, could be construed as incidentally functional. The Third Man Factor is an engaging book, full of adventure, especially of mountaineering (the cover appropriately portrays two figures walking along a ridge high above the clouds). Over 40% of all cases cited involve experiences in mountains. Regardless of differing titles, many chapters have a feeling of familiarity. One chapter, entitled "The Widow Effect," is 37 pages long but has slightly less than five pages devoted to the sensed presence experiences of widows (and a widower). The rest of the chapter is devoted mainly to more mountaineering adventures. Nonetheless, I do confess that I find the mountain climbing stories to be much more gripping than stories about grieving widows. From my perspective, Geiger has performed a most valuable service by pulling all of these accounts together in single volume providing a good reference source for modem examples of the companion version of sensed presence phenomena. I expect to refer to this book many times in the future . References
1. Suedfeld, P. & Mocellin, J. S. P. 1987. "The Sensed Presence in Unusual Environments." Environment and Psychology, 19, 33-52. 2. Suedfeld, P. & Geiger, J. 2008. "The Sensed Presence as a Coping Resource in Extreme Environments." In J. H. Ellens (Ed.) Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal. Vol. 3. London: Praeger. 3. Eliot, T. S. Collected Poems: 190&1962, Notes on "The Waste Land-What the Thunder Said." 4. Op. Cit. Suedfeld & Mocellin.

ANATOMY OF THE SOUL

Mind, God, and the Afterlife Dr. Stephen Goldberg
Is there a Soul that persists after death? "Anatomy of the Soul: Mind, God, and the Afterlife" presents a new approach to the subject. based on an in-depth analysis of how the mind arises from the brain. While the mind is integrally associated with the brain, Dr. Goldberg, a neuroscientist who has taught the subject of neuroanatomy for 25 years explains that there is an aspect of Mind that may continue despite the loss of the brain. The theory clarifies numerous issues within the field of consciousness study and provides insights into the nature of quantum physics, free will. God, and the question of immortality of the mind.

"Dazzling with facts, deep with implications." -Michael Shermer

paperback, 123 pp, $14.95 www.medmaster.netl-800-335-3480 ISBN 978-0-940780-85-9 Available through all major book stores and amazon.com

WWW.SKEPTIC

Authors

kContributors
ChrIstopher Baum is a freelance writer living in Astoria, New York. Chawkl Belhadl received a B.S. in psychology and biology in 1993 and an M.S. in psychology in 2006 from the University of Texas at Arlington. He has worked for more than seven years in a research capacity in mental health, ophthalmology and the technical writing field. He is currently completing his thesis requirement for a M.A. Sociology degree at UTA and will be entering its Ph.D. psychology program in fall 2009. His personal homepage is www.global-college.com Glenn Branch is deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that works to defend the teaching of evolution in the public schools. With Eugenie C. Scott he edited Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools (Beacon Press, 2006). Dr. James Allan Cheyne has worked in a variety of areas in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. His current interests include the phenomenology and neuropsychology of sustained attention, the experience of agency (willed action), hallucinations, and religious and other anomalous experiences and beliefs. His published research has appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Consciousness and Cognition, Cognition, Cognitive Development, Cognitive Neuroosycbietry, Cortex, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of Sleep Research, and Neuropsychologia. He formally retired from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 2005, where he served as Chair of the Department of Psychology, but continues to engage in research, writing, and occasional bear trackmg. Dr. Peter DeScloli received his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University. His research topics include morality, friendship, third-party condemnation, moralistic punishment, impartiality, and loyalty. Dr. Raymond A. Eve is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Sociology Program at the University of Texas at Arlington. He has studied the sociology and social psychology of creationism v. evolution for 30 years. Among his books are The Creationist Movement in Modern America, Cult Archaeology and Creationism: Understanding Pseudoscientific Beliefs about the Past, and Chaos and Complexity in Sociology. He has authored many other articles and chapters on creationism. His other areas of interest in include the Sociology of Science and Technology, Social Movements and Collective Behavior, and Sociology of Education. James N. Gardner is an Oregon attorney and the author, most recently, of The Intelligent Universe: AI, IT, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos. Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss is a theoretical physicist and Foundation Professor and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. The winner of numerous international awards for his writing and research, and the author of over 300 scientific publications, he is a monthly columnist for Scientific American and is the author of numerous bestselling book on science, including The Physics of Star Trek and most recently Hiding in the Mirror. He has been particularly active leading the effort by scientists to defend the teaching of science in public schools, and to help define the proper limits of both science and religion, as well as defending scientific integrity in government. His newest book, Quantum Man: The Science of Richard Feynman, will appear in

California Academy of Sciences. He is recipient of the Dryden Medal for research of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Sagan Medal of the American Astronomical Society for public communication. Morrison is a leading skeptic and proponent of improving science education and literacy. Asteroid 2410 Morrison is named in his honor. Mike O'Reilly is a writer and business owner living in Salt Lake City. Originally from the Detroit area, he moved west in 2004 with his wife to attend the University of Utah, where he earned his masters degree in poetry. His first book, Mysteries and Legends of Utah, was published by Globe Pequot Press, in April. He is currently writing a book about hunting ethics, animal rights, and environmentalism. Andrew Shaindlln is the Executive Director of the Caltech Alumni Association and Acting Assistant Vice President for Development at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. He holds a bachelor's degree from Brown University and is completing his master's in education at Claremont Graduate University. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on technology in fundraising and alumni relations and regularly speaks on that topic to fellow education professionals. He is also the author of Alumni Futures, a blog for higher education professionals (http://www.alumnifutures.com). He lives in Pasadena with his wife and daughter and two dogs. Dr. William D. Stansfield is Emeritus Professor, Biological Sciences Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Email: wstansfi@calpoly.edu. He is author of Death of a Rat: Under-standings and Appreciations of Science, Prometheus Books, 2000. Dr. Karen Stollznow is a linguist, researcher and writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Karen is a long-term investigator of pseudoscience and the paranormal, and a contributor to many skeptical publications and blogs, Dr. Gary Whlttenberger is a freelance writer and psychologlst, living in Tallahassee, Florida. He received his doctoral degree from Florida State University after which he worked for 23 years as a psychologist in prisons. He has published many articles on science, philosophy, psychology, and religion, and their intersection. He may be reached bye-mail at TallySkeptic@comcast.net.

REGUlJ\R CONTRIBUTORS JeaJH>aul Buquet is a free lance illustrator whose work appears in magazines and newspapers in Europe and in the USA. For the last live years he has also been working with companies to help them develop visual training programs. His clients include Canal+, Air Inter Le Credit Suisse. He is a frequent contributor to the Joumal de Geneve <r1dthe Los Angeles Times. Dr. Harriet Hall, MD, Hariet Hall, MD, the SkepDoc, is a retired family physician and Air Force Colonel living in Puyallup, Washington. She writes about a~emative medicine, pseudoscience, quackery, and critical thinking. She is a contributing editor to both SKEPI1C and Skeptical Inquirer, an advisor to the Quackwatch website, and an editor of Sciencebasedmedicine.org, where she writes an article every Tuesday. She recently published Women Aren't Supposed to Ry: The Memoirs of a Female Right Surgeon. Her website is www.skepdoc.info.

Pat Unse is an award winning illustrator who specialized in film industry art before becoming one of the founders of the Skeptics Society, SKEPIlC, and the creator of JR. 5KEPnc magazine. As SKEPTlC'S art director she has created many illustrations for both SKEPTlC and JR. SKEPllC. She is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience.
Daniel Loxton was a professional shepherd for nine years before he became editor of JUNKlR 5KEPnc. He illustrates and authors most of the current JUNIOR SKEPIlC material. He is currently working with Pat Unse to create the Baloney Detection Series-a richly illustrated kids' science book series based on JUNIOR SKEPllc. MacArthur "genius award" recipient James Randi is a professional magician, author, lecturer, and investigator of unusual claims. His books include The Mask of Nostradamus, The Faith Healers, Rim-Ram!, The Truth About Uri Geller, Houdini-His Ufe and Art, and Conjuring. He has recently published An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, & Hoaxes of the Occult & Supematural. He belongs to numerous humanist and scientific organizations and was recently granted an honorary doctorate. Mr. Randi has logged over 100,000 miles a year in his research into pseudoscience. Isaac Asimov called Randi "a national treasure," and Carl Sagan said of him: "We may disagree with Randi on specific points but we ignore him at our peril." Dr. Michael Shenner is publisher of SKEPI1C. Director of the Skeptics Society, and a monthly columnist and Contributing Editor of Scientific American. He is author of Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and evil, In Darwin's Shadow: The ute and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace, The Borderlands Of Science, How We Believe, Denying History, and Why People Believe Wein1 Things. For 20 years he taught psychology,the history of science, and the history of ideas at Occidental College, California State UniversitY,Los Angeles, and Glendale College.

2010.
Dr. Robert Kurzban received his Ph.D. at USCB and received postdoctoral training at Caltech and UCLA. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Psychology. In 2008, he won the inaugural Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Dr. Lloyd B. Lueptow is an emeritus professor of Sociology, University of Akron. His research focused on gender differences, conducting two major longitudinal studies of 5600 and 4000 respondents over some 30 years, concluding that the persisting gender differences in the face of substantial social change were more likely due to evolutlonary than to sociocultural factors. Since retirement he has continued to study the literature on evolution and human behavior. In the past year he has focused on web postings, articles and books on the issue of catastrophic possibilities at particle colliders, in an attempt to determine where the reality lay. Dr. David Morrison is the Director of the NASA Lunar Science Institute and Senior Scientist in the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Dr. Morrison received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University (where Carl Sagan was his thesis advisor) and has spent most of his career working in planetary science and astrobiology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the

Dr. David Zeigler is Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in Denton in 1984. His specializations include invertebrate zoology, animal behavior, and evolution. He is the author of the book Understanding Biodiversity (Praeger 2007).

APPROV BY THE SKEPTIC SOCIETY

~'

GET BACK ~
IT

GASP!
US~

SEES

S ~PTiC
PUBLISHER AND EDITORIN CHIEF
Pat Linse

CO-PUBLISHER
Michael Shermer

EDITORAND WRITER
Daniel Loxton

JUNIORSKEPTIC ADVISORS
Cheryl Hebert Jason Loxton Dr. Donald Prothero

CONTRIBUTORS: Pat Linse is one of the founders of the Skeptics Society and a creator of both SKEPTICand JUNIOR SKEPTICmagazine. Pat is the Editor in Chief of JUNIORSKEPTIC magazine. Jim W. W. Smith is an illustrator who is currently working with Pat and Daniel on illustrations for book projects based upon JUNIORSKEPTIC. Daniel Loxton is the Editor of JUNIORSKEPTIC. He writes and illustrates most issues.

I'm Daniel, the Editor of JUNIOR SKEPTIC. I'd like to introduce you to a creature you've probably never heard of: the Theti-s Lake MonMer And, iF you have heard of it-you ehouldn'r have! Thi-s mus+ be arnonq the 6illie61" "true" rnons+er leqends ever created. But iF +hat's so, why i-s thi-s critter included in many cryptozooloqy book-s~

Nestled within the busy municipalities of the city of Victoria (in British Columbia, Canada) there is a lovely green space called Thetis Lake Regional Park. This patch of pretty forest and manicured strolling trails surrounds the modest waters of Thetis Lake. It is a favorite swimming hole and afternoon retreat-a little taste of nature in the midst of modern city living. Yet, according to some, this serene oasis conceals a dangerous secret. Out from the crowded beach, past the Jaughing kids in the shallows, a strange creature is said to dwell down in the murky depths. Books claim there is a monster in Thetis Lake. It is described as humanoid in form, a fish-man or lizard-man with silvery, scaled skin, sharp claws and spikes on its head. It is said to be terrifying-and also dangerous. According to local newspaper articles from the 1970s, this creature sometimes emerges from the depths to attack people on shore. Today, it is discussed in monster lore as one of the few rare documented cases of a "cryptid" (a legendary animal or mystery creature) that physically injured a human being. That's the story. But is there any evidence that a vicious fish-man might live in this sleepy little lake? And, if so, why haven't folks .in Victoria ever heard of this critter?

Cover art by comics creator Chris Wisnia (colors by Daniel Loxton). Chris's latest book,

Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures,

published by SLG, is available now at all bookstores and comics shops. Learn more at www.tabloia.com Special thanks to CRD Regional Parks Communications Coordinator Laurie Sthamann.

Our story begins late in the summer of 1972. It was the end of the hippie era. Victoria movie theatres were showing Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, while hit sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show ruled network television. At the Thetis Lake" beach, where a new concession stand served rowdy teenagers, it was a year for trouble. In one destructive prank, a teenager dumped two gallons of stolen liquid coal tar into the lake, covering the surface of the swimming beach. But that August, police investigated an altogether stranger incident involving teens at Thetis beach. Two boys-Robin Flewellyn, age 17, and Gordon Pike, age 16-told police they were hanging out at the beach late one Friday night when they encountered a silvery "monster." Late the next night (the boys said) it appeared at the beach again. According to monster author Loren Coleman's blog Cryptomundo, it was a creature resembling the 1954 sci-fi horror film's Creature from the Black Lagoon, which emerged from the lake and attacked them. ... It used sharp protrusions on its hands to slash one of the boys who sustained a relatively nasty cut. Not so fast. The original August 22, 1972 newspaper reports tell a different story. othing in the account described the creature as humanoid, nor did it describe any injuries to either teen. The description of the monster in the Victoria Daily Times was confusing: "roughly triangular in shape, about five feet high and five feet across the base." It is hard to figure out what this is

supposed to mean, but it definitely conflicts with the other paper's report: "the creature was described as about 5 feet long, three inches high." Three inches high! Hardly The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Both papers made clear that the "nasty cut" was very minor. According to the Victoria Daily Colonist, "one of the youths received a small scratch." The other local paper described the injury as "tiny." Perhaps for these reasons, the police seem not to have taken the story very seriously. On Sunday night two officers visited the lake, although the police had "not discounted the possibility of a hoax." The police sounded annoyed by the whole thing, saying, "we have no alternative" because "it's been reported to us and we have to check these things out."

TIoIETIS L.AKE IS NAMED FOR A SAIl.ING WARSHIP-WHICl-I WAS, BY COINCIDENCE, NAMED FOR AN UNDERWATER BEING FROM GREEK MYTH.

A FA(~ F(JR TH MJN5T9

The very next day after newspaper headlines proclaimed "THETIS MONSTER SEEN BY BOYS," two younger boys claimed a close encounter of their own. According to 14-year-old Mike Gold and his 12-year old pal Russell Van Nice, the Thetis Lake Monster was nothing less than a Hollywood-style fish-manl It was this spectacular second sighting that created the humanoid image of the monster-and gave it a place in monster lore. Without this account, the story would not be part of cryptozoology today. The boys claimed the fish-man "came out of the water and looked around" on Wednesday afternoon, before disappearing back into the lake. According to Mike, the astonishing creature was "shaped like an ordinary body, like a human being body but it had a monster face and it was all scaly." They supposedly got a perfect chance to observe it in broad daylight, from a mere 30 or so feet away. Mike described details like the "point sticking out of its head" and its "great big ears." But it all seemed too good to be true. In particular, the monster sounded suspiciously like the fictional Creature from the Black Lagoon, right down to the detail of the big ears. The movie's monster has huge "gills" on the sides of its head. These look like giant ears. But what of the detail of the "point sticking out of its head"? If this report was based on The Creature from the Black Lagoon, then this detail seems odd. The movie monster has a smooth bald head. Was this "point" creative license? Or was there something else behind this story, something investigators knew nothing about? It was time to dig deeper!

AS W~'LL S~, TH~ REPORTED ~Y~WITN~SS D~SCRIPTIONS OF TH~ TH~TIS LAK~ MONST~R CONTAIN D~TAILS LIFTED FROM TH~ MOVI~S. BUT MONST~ BOOKS ALSO GIV~ THIS CRYPTID ADDITIONAL DE7JVLS NaT CON7MJED N TIE

ORGNAL NEWS AR17Cl.ES.

IT S~S THAT NO CRYPTOZOOLOGIST ~V~ SPOK~ TO TH~ ORIGINAL WITN~SS~S OR R~D TH~ ORIGNAL POLIC~ REPORTS. SO, WH~R~ AR~ TH~S~ D~TAILS COMING FROM~ FOR ~XAMPL~, TH~ TH~TIS CR~TUR~ IS USUALLY D~5CRIBED WITH "W~BED" HANDS, ~CH WITH THR~~ FING~RS." NEfTH~R I NOR TI-I~ CRVPTOZOOLOGISTS I CONSULTED W~~ ABL~ TO FIND A SOURC~ FOR TH~S~ D~TAILS. IT S~S TO B~ A CAS~ OF A STORY DRIFTING OV~ TIM~ AND ACQUIRING N~W ~B~LLISHMENTS IN THE RETELLING ....

Even in summer there are few hot, hot days, so any tropical lizard would have to survive months in the 5 to 15 degrees Celsius range [41 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit] when it is cloudy .... As soon as the monster story appeared, so did a possible explanation. According to one of the earliest news items, "Officials said a citizen telephoned police and suggested that the creature could be a tegu-a large lizard ... which is widespread throughout South America." The caller said his pet lizard was lost a year earlier .. He thought it must have died during the winter, but perhaps ... ? A tegu probably could be mistaken for a monster. Tegus can reach three or four feet long. Add a bit of fear and exaggeration, and presto--the creature from Thetis Lake. Or so the thinking goes. But I wanted to know, is it even possible? Could a tegu survive in the wild for a year in Victoria's climate? To find out, I contacted reptile experts at the provincial Ministry of Environment. They put me in contact with Dr. Gavin Hanke, a curator of vertebrate zoology at the Royal British Columbia Museum who has specific experience with tegus. (Dr. Hanke joked, "I nearly lost my thumb to a yard-long tegu. Is that specialist enough?") He told me, Our winters are not cold, but the length of the cold period [in some years] would be too much for a Tegu in my opinion. Also, it would have to find appropriate frostfree refuge. The lack of heat here is the real issue. But tegus can also hibernate. Could hibernation keep an escaped tegu alive through a Victoria winter? According to Dr. Hanke-maybe. But he told me, "For something the size of a tegu, hibernation here is a real trick." His conclusion? "I just don't see one surviving here very long." An escaped tegu is obviously more likely than a never-before-detected race of fish-men. And, it does match the early description I found that the monster was "5 feet long" but only "three inches high." Still, there's no specific reason to think the Thetis monster was a tegu or any lizard-it's just a suggestion some guy made on the phone. This might be why police told reporters "the possibility is remote."

MlNSTER FROM TIE 5iJRF ~ IG65, U.S. FILM~ INC. e ZOOZ WADE WIt.t.IAM~.

I knew there was another possibility: that the Thetis Lake Monster was inspired by creatures from the movies or TV. After all, when I asked noted paleontologist Dr. Donald Prothero if the fossil record contains any hint of similar creatures, he told me, There is no biological plausibility to the "Thetis Lake Monster" whatsoever. It is clearly an imaginary hybrid of humans and fish-features, and it looks like the "witnesses" must have seen posters of the movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon to plant this idea in their heads. It's true: the Thetis Lake critter is a dead-ringer for the "gill-man" monster in The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Could that black and white horror film have inspired a hoax?

low-budget imitation of Creature from the Black Lagoon called Monster from the Surf (also called The Beach Girls and the Monster) played shortly before the Thetis "monster" sightings. How shortly before? Well, Monster from the Surf played twice one weekend-and the first Thetis Lake Monster sighting was reported within a week! That's right: local TV showed a monster movie about a scaled, humanoid gill-man attacking teenagers at the beach after dark. Four days later, local teenagers reported being attacked at the Thetis beach after dark by a scaled monster' Suspicious? You bet. And there are other signs of a connection. The first two boys said the creature was "triangular in shape," a detail that makes no sense until it is compared to the pointy triangular fin on the head of the creature in Monster from the Surf The description from the other two boys sounds identical to the movie. They said the creature had "a human being body but it had a monster face and it was all scaly." To this they added two details that almost cinch the case. The creature, they said, had "a point sticking out of its head" and "great big ears." The Monster from the Surfhad a point sticking out of its head, and badly-sculpted "gills." Those gills look for all the world like great big ears. And, there's yet one more Significant detail about

T7JeCreature from the Black Lagoon was

already an old film when the Thetis legend began. By that time, it played regularly on late-night TV. I had also read that it was re-released in movie theaters in the early 1970s. Could it have played in Victoria earlier that summer? To find out, I dug into the microfilm archives for Victoria newspapers in 1972. This can be tedious work (microfilm has no "search" function-you have to read every page the hard way) but I got lucky. Within a couple hours, I found a connection closer than I ever suspected! Listings for Victoria's few TV channels show that a

Monster from the Surf in the story, the creature turns

out to be a man in a suit-a hoax! It sure looks fishy to me. The only reports of a scaled monster at Thetis Lake all came just days after local TV showed a movie about a hoax involving an identical monster. And that's not the half of it. For monster-believers, the worst was yet to come ...

There was never much reason to think Thetis Lake might be home to a monster-but could a fish-man live there undetected? Probably not. Monster books describe the lake as "not far from Victoria," but this is misleading. Thetis Lake Regional Park is actually snuggled right into Greater Victoria's busy urban areas. Furthermore, the lake was already a popular recreation site decades before the monster sighting of 1972. And yet, no one else has ever seen the creature, before or since. Thetis is also small. As cryptozoologist John Kirk explains, "Thetis Lake is not really much of a lake, but in reality is more of a glorified pond." He's exaggerating, but not by much: the lake has a surface area of less than a hundred acres. (By comparison, Loch ess has a surface area of about 14,000 acres.) Even worse, Thetis Lake is artificial. That's right: the lake is man-made! Or, at least partially so. Back in the 1800s, small dams were built at key points around the shallow lake so that it could hold more water. In fact, during construction of the dams, most of the water was drained out of the lake!
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TIE'T75 I.AI(E HI\5 TWO CONNE.C.Ta> 5E.C.TION5, UPPER I\ND L.OWER

It's one thing to stand on the shore and wonder about monsters-but I wanted to know what it is like beneath the waters of Thetis Lake. I decided to ask Cameron Lord, a professional diver who has spent time exploring the depths of Thetis Lake. According to Cameron, The lake is fairly typical. The bottom is sandy sediment. The weeds are thickest in the shallows (they like the sunlight). TI1esection beneath the roped off swimming area is barren. From a diver's perspective the lake isn't that deep-around 60 feet I believe, which is within the range of novice scuba divers. As a dive site there isn't much there to attract divers. There's isn't much to attract monsters, either. We can imagine that a huge, deep lake like Scotland's Loch Ness could somehow conceal some mysterious creature. After all. Loch Ness is over 700 feet deep. But Thetis Lake is small, man-made-and shallow! This leads cryptozoologist Loren Coleman to suspect the Thetis monster story is bogus. "Since this 'lake' has turned out to be man-made, shallow, and recent," he told me, "I do not put much stock in any kind of reptilian unknown cryptids actually inhabiting the body of water that has been named 'Thetis Lake."

So where does this leave us? The Thetis Lake Monster is a pretty silly mystery. There are no photos, no footprints, no bones. Some teenagers said they saw a monster. That's it. Worse, the newspapers only quoted a sentence or two from each boy-and no monster researcher ever contacted the witnesses to find out more. The descriptions don't even match. Two boys described a Hollywood-style fish-man, while the other two described something three inches tall. The fish-man image appeals to the imagination of cryptozoologists, but it doesn't make a lick of sense in terms of biology. There are

no similar creatures anywhere in nature, and nothing remotely like it in the fossil record. It seems to be based on a goofy monster movie. We can be quite sure that shallow, man-made little Thetis Lake is not really home to a monster. Even cryptozoologists seem fed up with this case. Lake monster author John Kirk told me, "the gill man story is insupportable by any real evidence." And yet .... And yet, somehow this just isn't satisfying, is it? If you're like me, you want to know: "What really happened that long-ago summer?" There was only one way to find out. I needed to talk to someone who was there when the story began.

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First I checked again: did any cryptozoologist ever speak to the witnesses? Loren Coleman helped popularize the Thetis Lake Monster, but Loren told me he "was not able to make contact with the eyewitnesses." Similarly, the head of the B.C. Scientific Cryptozoology Club told me he didn't "know of anyone who has attempted to interview the witnesses since that time." One Victoria-based reporter named Ross Crockford did give it a shot, but he wasn't able to find any of the witnesses from the 37-year-old case. It was a very cold trail, but again I got lucky. I located a young relative of one of the key eyewitness. She knew nothing about the Thetis yam-but she gave me a current phone number for Russell Van Nice. In 1972, Russ was 12 years old. He and his friend Mike Gold (then 14) remain the only two witnesses ever to report a humanoid fish-man at Thetis Lake. The entire legend hangs on their testimony. Without Russ and Mike, the legend would not exist. As I picked up the phone, I was on the edge of my seat with anticipation. What would he have to say? Would he remember the event at all? Today, Russ is a mature man with a gravelly voice.

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He was very surprised to get my call. "That's funny you should bring this up," he said, "20 years later, 30 years later." (Actually 37 years. Time flies!) And then he told me the one thing I couldn't learn from newspapers or books-the one missing fact that could definitively solve the mystery of the Thetis lake Monster. After all these years, Russell Van Nice cheerfully told me it was a hoax. "It was just a big lie," Russ explained. His older friend Mike, the ringleader, was simply "trying to get attention." Mike has since passed away, Russ told me, but at the time Mike was a habitual liar. "He was always famous for that." So there it is: the most important surviving Thetis Lake Monster witness flat out told me it was "just a hoax." The only people ever to describe a humanoid monster at Thetis Lake made up their outlandish tale. Case closed! We finally know for a fact that the Thetis Lake fish-man was a juvenile prank. But then, the unrealistic fish-man story sounded like a prank from the beginning. One question remains: how did a hoax so goofy ever become a part of modem monster lore?

IT LIV~S ON... IN FtASTle!

It's sometimes said that you're famous as soon as you have your own action figure. If that's true, then the Thetis Lake Monster is a star! It turns out one Japanese toy company recently manufactured plastic figurines of Victoria's obscure fish-man, These collectables were part of a series of figures showing various mystery monsters, such as Bigfoot and Mothman. Cryptozoologists want their field to be considered scientific. After all, mainstream scientists routinely learn of animals and plants by listening to stories from hunters, fisherman, and tribal people. But a key difference between real science and fake science is a willingness to throwaway bad ideas when they're shown to be wrong. The Thetis creature is a minor-league mystery, but it's entrenched in monster lore. Will that change now that we know the humanoid description was a hoax? Lake monster author John Kirk told me he "would like to bury this tawdry tale once and for all." Talking about a different case, Loren Coleman told me he is "committed to calling a fake, a fake." Will other monster fans follow their example? Only time will tell.

av517DVO. $15. A I hour film by Richard Dawkins. Communicates the power and the beauty of science including the discovery of the Big Bang, junk science in the courtroom, magic and deception, and how science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works. Includes a delightful interview with Douglas Adams and magician Ian Rowland, who reveals how easy it is for any of us to be fooled-by both magic and superstition. av571 DVO. $29.95 (2 DVO set) A Documentary Extra with Jonathan Miller Neurologist, playwrigh~ filmmaker & seif-described atheist. Miller filmed revealing cooversalions \'lith s~ of today's leading men of science and letters, including, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, philosophers Daniel Dennett & Colin ttcGinn, playwright Arthur Miller, theologian Denys Turner, & Nobellaumate physicist Steven Weinberg. These distinguished thinkers discuss their personal intellectual journeys & offer illuminating analyses of belief & disbelief from a wide range of perspectives. Compelling viewing you won1 want to miss.

OVOs

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The Mythbusters put urban legends & folklore to the test using science & critical thinking. Zany. Fascinating. Great fun.
Collection 1 av5660VO ($29.99) 12 episodes on 4 DVDs including, Cell Phone Gas Explosion; Exploding Toilet; Barrel of Bricks; Penny Drop; Buried Alive; Killer Brace Position; Son of a Gun; Yawning Contagious?; Shop 'iiI You Drop; Hollywood on Irial, Bonus, Mythbusters ==:;::l!!~~ Revealed.

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Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins. (b 121 P $16.95.) The Mount Improbable metaphor symbolizes the improbability that seemingly periectly designed living things evolved. In a breathtaking journey through the mountain's passes and up its many peaks, Dawkins demonstrates how the improbable path to perfection merely takes time. A Devil's Chaplin 11/ Richard Dawkins. (bl22PB$14.00.) Diverse topics examined through the lens of natural selection, education, ape rights, jury the vindication of Darwinism; memes; religion, academic obscurantism; Steph Gould; Douglas Adams; pseudoscience; & his awe at the malVelous complexity universe. Dawkins writes with clarity & pa The Selfish Gene 17{ Richard Dawkins. (bI23PB$15.95.) A sic that helped change the nature of the study of social biology. bnlliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection explains the selfish gene revolves around savage competition and explo' tion-yet acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. The God Delusion try Richard Dawkins. (BIT3HB$27.) Dawkins' most important book to date, his definaive statement on the God question, the origins of moralay & religion, the best arguments for and against God's existence, the dangers of religious exlJernism, and why science offers the best hope for humanay. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins. (b087PB $15.95) The 19

The Atheism Tapes

MYTHBUSTERS
Collection 2 av567DVD ($29.99) Set of 3 DVDs including, Hindenburg Disaster; Mentos Mint-Diet Coke Explosion; Tesla's Earthquake Machine; Can Human Teeth Stop a Bullet?; Can a Hurricane Blow the Feathers Off a Chicken? and more.

Documentary -av5680VD. $19.95. (2-DVO ssI) "lIII:rpart documentary ('The God Delusion" and "The Virus of Faah") plus Bonus Features, Commentary, O&A; and a reading from The God Delusion, all 11/ Richard Dawkins. Examines the power of religm, an interview with tonner Pastor Ted Haggard, the novelist Ian McEwan, the former Bishop of Oxford, & others offer insights into the impact and coosequencesof faith in the 21st century.

THEROOTOF ALL EVIL?

The Original TV

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av5690VD. $24.95 (3 DVO set) During the filming of Root of All Evil?, Richard Dawkins conducted many fascinating interviews. The footage was edited, and some entire interviews had to be omitted. Here are eight raw and uncut interviews, allowing the viewer a rare vantage point see these revealing exchanges. Interviews with, Jill Mytton, Ian McEwan, Bishop Richard Harries (Watch this interview free online at skeptic.com), Michael Bray, Hell House Pastor Keenan Roberts, Alister McGrathl, Adnan Hawkes, & Rabbi Gluck.

Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews

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explanation of evolution that the LA Times called "one of the science books I have ever read."

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.~ (av555DVD $99.95) A boxed set 4 DVOs of the 8 hour PBS series narrated by [jam Nielson dramafizes Darwin's life while explaining the science behind evolution.

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by Donald Prothero. (b127HB $30.00) Rave reviews-1st tion sold out in weeks. "Best damn evolution book, period!" great introduction to the field or get up to speed on the I discoveries in the incredibly rich fossil record, with an em sis on transitional forms. Includes a no holds barred cri . of the claims creationism and Intelligent Design. Over 200 illustrations.

av5700VD. (2-DVO seO ($i9.95) Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the un~ and our place in it. Wrth bnlliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual malay, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic. Onginally presented as part of the Royal Institution Christmas lectures for Children were founded 11/ Michael Faraday in 1825.

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Evolution

The Great Debate-Does God Exist?

av5580VO (DVO only-$23.95) Or. Doug Geivet!, Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Bioloa Universay v. Or. Michael Shenner, SimJc magazine, Director, Skeptics Sociely. Dr. Geivett presents the best theological, philosophical, and scientific evidence for God's existence. Dr. Shenner counters these arguments, then presents the best scientifIC evidence that God and religion are human creations. Remarkably enlightening and entertaining! lively & A.

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by Michael Shermer. (b 111 PB $13.) (b 111 HB $22.) An insiders' guide to the evolution/creation debate -wtJat evolution mally is, how we knOIVit happened, and how to test it. Why creationism and Intelligent Design theory are not science. Why half of Americans reject evolutioo-spiritual, psychological I and political reasons, such as moral relativism and social Darwinism.

Guns Germs, and Steel

av559DVO 2 DVOs $35.00 National Geographic's dramatic presentation of Jared Diamond's Pulitizer-Prize winning worI!, Guns, Gemls, and Steel, features three one-hour documentanes visually tracing the history of humanay back 13,000 years to the beginnings of civilization, based on Diamond's geographic theory of history. Expenence the scientist himself as camera crews follow him around the globe on his quest to explain why some civilizations

(av560DVO $49.95) 3 DVOs. About 71/2 hours. Skeptics Sociely conference hosted by Michael Shermer & Roger Bingham. Chnstof Koch on neurobiology, Alison Gopnik on how brains leam; Richard McNally on false memory, Terrence Sejnowski on sleep & subconscious; Susan Blackmore on anered states; John Allman neurobiology of emotion; Paul Zak on behavioral economics; Hank Schilinger on mind; & Ursula Goodenough on moralay. A beautiful boxed set of 7 DVOs by Can Sagan. (av5540VO $129.98) The 13 hour series narrated in 1980 by Can Sagan updated in 2000 with new science and images. The definaive tour of our universe. Inspinng! A classic!

Brain, Mind and Consciousness

How to Debate a Creationist (2nd. Ed.) By Michael Shermer. (b007PB $5.00 paperback 28 pages.) Evol debates, Relationship of Science & Religion; Old & New Cmationism, 25 Arguments and 25 Evolutionist Answers. 1..::;-",- ------,-:T"Expanded to include The New New Creationism, Intelligent j Design Theory. Cmationist stratigies; Ten Intelligent Design fr~:::~~;;;;;;BArguments and Ten Answers.

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Cosmos Collector's Edition

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The Question of God
(av556DVD $34.98) 4 hours. An examination of the questions raised by theism and atheism seen through the lives of Sigmund Freud and C. S.lewis, with roundtable discussion by Dr. M~haeJ Shenner & eight other panalists. ,

In Darwin's Shadow: The Life & Science of Alfred R Wallace by Michael Shenner (bD81HB now only $25.00 hard
tandmark biography of the ClKliscovererof natural selection & the est naturalist of his age. Applies modem psychological meenes to u stand why Wallace also crossed disciplines to become involved in s alism, seances, & life after death belief systems.

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of Human Animal by Jared Diamond (bD49PB $15.00 paperbacs), evolution of human sexualay & science of adu~ery. How we pick mates & sex partners. Why do we grow old & die? The animal origins art Why do we smoke, drink, & use dangerous drugs? The golden that never was.

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Letting Go of God-by Julia Sweeney

Audio only version on CD av565CD $19.95 Two CDs plus a 102 page CD-s~ed transcript of the pertonnance.) Film version on DVD- av576DVO $20. Two hrs, 10 min., plus audience interviews.) Adapted from Sweeney'soollian~ channing, and hilanous stage hit monologue about her struggles giving up religion."The single most popular story .. .in over ten years. We were deluged with email. Flooded. Overwhelmed." -public radio's ThisAmerican Ufe "A gale-force breath of fresh air into a mostly polemic dialogue about religion--llob Ken~ Los ftJ1geles Times.

TREA<I'MENT

Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Altemative Medicine by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, M.D.(b128HB $25.95.hardback) An excellent guide to the confusions and contradictions of alternative medicine written with clarity, integrity and authority. What works? Who can jou trust? What a'temative cunes have positive results? What medical authorities are included in their ''Top ten culprits in the promotion of unproven and disproven medicine"? Includes extensive information on the big four: acupuncture, homeopathy, hems, and chiropractic, plus a "Rapid Guide to A~emative Therapies." Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Dr. Bart O. Ehrman.
(b129HB. $24.95 Hardback). Excellent introduction to modem Bible scholarship by one of the world's leading experts. Explains how we know the New Testament texts have changed over the centuries=both though scribal errors and through deliberate alteratiens, While some changes are inconsiquential, others have profoundly affected religious doctrine-lhe divinty of Jesus, the Trinity, attitudes toward women's ordination, the divine origins of the Bible, and the meaning of the death of Christ. Bart D. Ehrman is the author of more than twenty books and the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hi and is a leading authority on the early Church and the life of Jesus. New YorkTimes best seller!

ifi!~,
The Demon-Haunted World (b045PB $14. paperback)
by Carl Sagan. The great astronomer & science writer challenges New Agers & explains social phenomena like UFOs, alien abductions, recovered memories, satanic cults, witch crazes, hallucinations. How to detect baloney. ...:-

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Shenmer.From his popular lecture & inspiraicnal essay bound as a pocket-booklet. How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific I'.urldview? . Religion may be the most common source of spirrtuality, but anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades.

The Faith Healers -(b003PB $25. paperby James Randi. Foreword by Carl Sagan. Randi's greatIJVestigation and expose of Peter Popoff, W. V. Grant, Pat son, and Oral Roberts, as seen on the Tonight Show. Martin's Leap of Faithwas based on this book and Randi 1FAJ11l ilEAL Mwon a MacArthur "Genius Award" forthlsworl<.lo:ii. :ii. ii.iiii:iii:::J

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771eWisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
by James Surowecki (b095HB $24 95) The exciting and counter-intuitive Idea that a diverse, Independent group Will usual~ come up wrth better answers than a r:_,-.;'" 't- '"'T."'-;,,...;.::. Single expert Bnlhant~ explained and flawlessly supported MENTAL

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771eScience Of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule (bOB5HI!-

Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagiclan's Guide to lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks (Fonmerly trtled Mathemaglcs) (bl12PB $12.95) By Arthur Beniamin & Michael Shenmer. Renowned "mathemagician" Benjamin shares his secrets for lightning-quick calculations & amazing number tricks. learn to do math in your head faster than you ever thought possible & make math fun

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Flim Flam! Psychics, ESp, Unicorns and other Delusions (bOOl PB $22. paperback) by James

Randi Introduction by Isaac Asimov. Randi's masterpiece. A classic account of dozens of his personal investigations into the paranormal. No skeptical bookshelf should be ~==:::;- without it. The bible of the skeptical movement

hardback $26.) By Michael Shenmer.Broad in scope, deep in anassis, & contioversial. Is rt human nature to be selfish or selfless, fierce or loving, moral or immoral? Examines scentfic evidence that shows that morality s deep~ embedded in our being and behavio. Covers pre-moral animal behavior, neuroscience, game theory, free will, & more.

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Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened & Why Do They Say It?
(b067Hl!-hardback $27 95) (b077PB-pape!back $16 95) By Michael Shenmer & Alex Grobman A splendid study of Holocaust denial Shows how hlstoncal facts are proven r-r-- __ Deals wrth specific denier talsificaticns "gnpplng confronts outrageous claims with ghast~, Irffifutable facts engrossing & Important"-Jared Diamond
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Secret Origins Of the Bible (b079HB $29.95 hardback)

~~~~ by Tim Callahan. Uses ancient history, linguistics, archaeology, comparative myth(/ogy, & numismatics to reveal that all major stories in the Bible have historical antecedents that can be traced to very non-divine~ produced works by other coltcres. A must-read for anyone wishing to understand the Bible.

Believing In Magic: The Psychology of Superstition (b058PB $19.95 paperback). By Stuart A.

Vyse Examines current behavioral research which suggests that everyday superstitions are the natural result of wellunderstood psychological processes. Vyse entertainingly demonstrates how complex & paradoxcal human behaviors can be understood through science. A significant contribution.

living Without Religion(b015PB

$14.00 paperback) by Paul Kurtz, one of the humanist movement founders, shOll'S hoo we can live the good life filled wrrh morality, commitment & dedication, wrthout having to depend on the existence of a higher being. Offers a new philosophy based on humanism. (b097PB $11.95) by Darrell Huff. How statistics are used to 'sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify." Statistical flim-flam is laid bare in this 1954 classic. Humorous and clearly written. Suitable for students, or as a refresher course for anyone interested in statistics. 00 Science: The Road From Foolishness to by physicist Robert L Parlt (b078HB $25. paperback) lIlr top ten list of critical thinking books. Expertly analyzes fusion, perpetual motion machines, free energy claims, & well-meaning scientists can go down the wrong road h sell-deception.

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b036PB-The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould ($15.95 paperback). A classic! Updated. '1he definrtive refutation"of Charles Munay & Richard Hermstein's The Bell Curve--"A rare book of great importance. Wonderful to read ...a fascinating historical study ~iilii'lm~ of scientific racism. Illustrates both logical inconsistencies of theories & prejudicially motivated, ':-:--,--::-....,-J albeit unintentional, misuse of data in each case .... A major addition to the scientific literature."-Saturday Review

Astrology: True or False? A Scientific Evaluation by astronomers Roger Culver & Philip
Lanna (PB26PB $24.00 paperback) Explains sun signs, house divisions, the zodiac, influences, the "Age of Aquarius," & many other pseudoscientilic astrology claims, giving explanations for all major claims, including the all important "astrology works." tt doesn't

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it means for life on Earth by Tim Flannery. (B117PB$24.)Human influence on the climate will someday ovelWhelm all other natural factors. Dr. Rannef)' outlines the history of climate Change, hoo IT will unfold over the next century, and what we can do right now to prevent a catacvsmic future.
The Mystery Chronicles: More Real life X-files by Joe Nickell. (bl03HB $29.95) World class hands-on investigations of a rich variety of mysteries, Peru's Nazca drawings, Shroud of Turin, goatsucker, Benny Hinn, "alien hybrid, "Moth-man," relics, swamp monsters, Voodoo.Written with his usual clarity and wrt.

771eWeather Makers: How man is Changing the Climate and What

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How to lie with Statistics

Who Wrote the Gospels? (b084PB

$14.95 paperback) by Randel Helms. Separates what w real~ knoo from tradition. How first -entury Christianity was more theologically diverse than rt is today; famous 1~"",""';P;lgospel stories drawn from pagan myth. Why """"""7"'~ Matthew & Luke comected Mark; was Luke a woman; hoo 3 authors wrote the Gospel of John; & morn.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan, Ed. by Ann Druyan. (B114HB$27.95) Sagan's prestigious Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology. Considers, psychology of belief; possible chemical nature of franscendence, creationism & intelligent design; life on other planets; science as "informed worShip." Humorous, wise, and at times stunningly prophetic. Sagan at his best. Collapse: How Societies Choose To FailOr Succeed by Jared Diamond. (8BPB
$17.00) What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? The Pulitzer Prize-winner traces the fundamental patterns of social catastrophe.

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Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion & the Paranormal (b014PB $24.95 paper-

Why People Believe Weird 771ings-{New2nd edition-has new chapter. ''Why Smart People Believe Weird Things." (b062PB $16. paperback) by Michael Shermer. Witty & eloquent. A no-holds-barred assault on mass delusion, prejudice, & gullibility. UFOs, ESP, Near Death Experiences, Alien tiOn Abductions, Recovered Memories, Creationism, Holocaust dI Denial, Race, God, & Science v. pseudoscience. (Save on I st. edition b053 hardback$lO. !J060 paperback $5.) The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, Dangerous Delusions (bOB6PB $19.95) of and

back) by Philosopher Paul Kurtz. His magnum opus. Brilliant~ compares -' ancient religions with modem NewAge beliefs, showing the magical thinking that ~ goes into the temptation we all experience to transcend the here & now for otherworldly spirituality.

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Gospel Fictions (b013PB $23.00 paper- Gos back) (b055HB $21.95 paperback) by Rand~ Fictions Helms. freats the gospels as Irterature, examiningthem as one might any piece of narrative art or fictional story telling, making compar- !l1 isons between the 4 gospels to reveal the real meaning behind them.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (b054PB $15.95 paperback) Wy did Eurasians
conquer Native Americans, Australians, & Africans, instead of the reverse? Diamond

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PULlrZ[K dismisses racial~-based theories of human history by revealing the environmental PKIZEI factors responsible for history's broadest patterns, A work rich in dramatic revelations
that challenges conventional wisdom.

By Robert Carroll, Based on his website (skepdic.com), the Dictionary is the definitive short-answer debunking of ===l'Ii~nearly every thing skeptical. A must for every bookshelf.

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Atheism:

The Case Against God

(b012PB $21'.00 paperback) by George Smith. A classic. Reviews the history & philosophy of various forms of atheism, agnosticism, & theism IVrrh considerable scholarship & fairness for the "other side," Gives the reader enough infonmation to debate the most serious believers.

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Innumeracy: Mathematical

Illiteracy and Its Consequences

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by John Paulos (b089PB $12) The book that coined the word, exposed math Ignorance In popular culture and journalism, & changed the way math IStaught

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"Dumbth" And B1 Ways to Make Americans Smarter by steve Allen (b005PB $22 paperback) Allen was a Renaissance man In his time and a leading ..z.=;..Humanist Examinesthe Increasing inefficiency and Ineptitude that pervade all segments of Amencan life and worl<.Offers solutIOns The uttlmate Intellectual how to book.

Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini. (b09BPB
$16.95) The seven dead~ mental sins, cognitive traps that everyone (even you!) will inevrtab~ fall into, plus hoo to avoid these "mental tunnels."

We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of an Reason in Everyday life (b09l PB $17.95)
1xlmas Gilovich. Why and hoo human reasoning will trip us up as we see patterns where there aren't any. 'eelings fool us into seeing winning streaks and lots more.

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, How We Believe (New 2nd ed. includes

by Dan Agin (B118PB$1495) Wide-ranging, hard-hitting Unlversrty of Chicago biology professor exposes the data faking, fear mongenng, and outnght lying that contnbute to Intentionally manufactured Ignorance We pay a heavy pnce for those who manipulate the public's understanding of scence, and thiS book shows us how not to be fooled

Junk SCience: How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us

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new chapter. "God On the Brain." b063PB $16.00 paperback) By Michael Shenmer. An empirical study of 10,000 Americans-why r;:;:;'YH."~r;,;m do people believe in God?; science & religion controversies; proofs of God; did religion evolve?; deeper millennial destructionredemption meanings; finding meaning in life; how people assume that others believe for different reasons than they do. (Save on 1st edrtion b064 hardback $10. b068 paperback $5.)

Michael Shenmer, EdJPat linse, Con. Ed. TWOVOLUMES,$129.00. (save over $50.00 off the library price. Hardback. b082HB) Four parts, (I.) A-Z topic listings. (2.) Case studies, ln-depth analyzes. (3.) Pro & Con" debate section. (4.) Historical Documents. Bibliography, Illustrated.

The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience-

The Mask of Nostradamus: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Prophet by James Randi (b04PB-$20.95 PB) The
world's foremost nvestigator of supernatural claims v. the world's foremost prophet. How famed quatrains were disguised social commentaries, not prophecies. How Nostradamus risked death.

Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in ThinkingbyThomaslljda. (Bl1SHB$19.)Hoo to recognize faulty thinking & become a
more effective problem solver. Vivid examples of 6 problems, (I) Preference for stories. (2) We seek to confinm, not to question ideas. (3) Chance & coincidence not understood, (4) Misper"" ception. (5) Over-simplified thinking. (6) Inaccurate memories.

Doubt: A History: the Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation -from Socrates and Jesus to @:> Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson (b096PB $16.95) by
Jennifer Hecht. This grand sweeping history celebrates the great doubters of history as agents of creativity and change. Long overdue. stimulating. Poetic.

MInd of the Market byMichael Shenmer. (b 126HB$26.00.) Integrates behavioral economics,

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neuroeconomics, & evoIutional)' economics, and expands the application of sclerce to a new area to reveal that humans are just as irrational when it comes to money & markets as they are in other areas. Shows how evolutionary theory can enlighten our undemanding of economics & hoo markets worI<.

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The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself(paperback b120PB $15.95) by
Randel Helms. Why is the Bible so repetitious, & why does it frequently contradict rtself? A fascinating lookatlhe battles between the authors who wrote the books that eventually became the Bible. Helms reveals the cultural & historical factors that made sacred authors fair game for attack or revision.

Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants by Richard Wiseman and Robert L Morris. (b 102HB $24.) Hoo to stientifical~ eJ(llmine psychic claims, pinpointing testable claims, conducting formal research, dealing wrth trickery and more. Practical yet flexible guidelines for law enforcement, scentists and the public at large . Borderlands Of Science (b069HB $25. hardback) by Michael Shermer. Where does valid science leave off & borderland science begin? Examines the theories, the people & the history involved in areas of controversy where sense is in danger of turning into nonsense.
I

Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads by Sociologist Joel Best. (BI16HB $19.95) Dissects

dangerous fads of business, medicine, & science the next t:: big cure, tech revolutions, business management secrets & wing methods. Identifies conditions & attitudes that create a successful fad cycle & the stages it will go through, eme!ging, surging, then final~ purging. "-- __

17~0i~~

'--&-.I

'---'o..:...c=::....c,,--,

Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown by Michael Shermer. (b 100HB $26.) Shenmer becomes a psychic for a day, investigates quack cancer & attemative medicine, evolutionary psychology & the mutiny on the Bounty, chaos theol)' & history, intelligent design creatienism, sports psychology, & morn. lively & fun reading.

CHILDREN"S

BOOKS

Maybe Yes, Maybe No by Dan Barker (h071 PB $16.00, 128 pages. paperbacU-1O years) Adventures of Andrea, a skeptic. Cartoon strip style. How to check out extraordinary claims. Simple straightforward ten. How to listen and ask questions; how to seek a simple explanation; what tools and rules a scientist uses to check things out.

The Magic Detectives Written and illustrated by Joe Nickell (b070PB $15., 115 pages. paperback. 9 to 14 years) 30 mysteries encourages readers to think for themselves before the solution is offered. Historical ghost incidents, Mummy's Curse, UFOcreatures, Holyshroud,lock Ness, and more.

Test Your Science 10 by Charles Cazeau (b073PB $20.00, 368 pages. paperback. 12 to adult) Hundreds of addictive questions & answers covering both science & pseudoscience. Clear, well written, yet sophisticated enough for adults. Very strong on why science is important. Fascinating and fun.

Wonder Workers! How They Perform

the Imposs

Written and illustrated by Joe Nickell (b099PB $17.00, 94 pages. back. 9 to early teens) Detective Nickell investigates and reveals secrets of the Fireproof Man, the bullet trick, levitation, the H Magnet, a psychic, the Man Who Walked Through Walls, X-ray 'Ii mind reading, Edgar Cayce & Peter Hurkos. With suggestions on h use the stories to encourage critical thinking.

Skeptic magazine back issues$6.00 each

r..oI~~~~~

magvlnl-Tribute to Isaac Asimov (Premiere Issue) Isaac Asimov Tributes by steve Allen, Martin Gardner & Harlan Ellison; Skeptics Society's Manifesto; Skeptics in Trenches by Randi; TheMost Precious Thing I1l1 Have-The Triumph of the Scientific Method by Michael Shermer; Avoiding Legal Problems in Skepticism by Elie Shneour; Book Reviews. magvl n4-Witches, Heretics, and Scientists and the Psychology of Resistance to New Ideas: Today's Heretic, Tomorrow's Saint by Clayton Drees; Spirits, Wrtches & Science by Richard Olsoll, Resistance to Heretical Science of Copemicus by M. Shenner; Ideological Immune System by j Snelsoll, Edgar Cayce Foundation Responds to Skeptics & We Reply; Can Religion be Rational? byC. Brough; Reviews. magv2n3-Fad Psychology, False Memory, Facilitated Communication: False Memol)' Syndrome by Hochman; Diagnoses are not Diseases by Szes; Facilitated Communication' by Green; William Reich by Morrock & Carlinsky; Sex, Brains, & Hands by Halpem; How Thinking Goes Wrong by Shermer; Pseudoscience in Psychiatl)' by Tavris; Anti-Science by McDonough; Flood MYths by Larue; Ark Hoax by Lippard & Bloomberg

L.::iE~~~~

magvln2-Cryonics: Can Science Cheat Death? Use & Abuse of Statistics in the "Real World" by Judith Grabiner; Cryonics: Reaching for Tomorrow by M. Darwin; Altered States & the Quest for Transcendence by M. Shermer; Q & A About Cryonics by Alcor Foundation; The Society for the Recoveryof Persons Apparently Dead by S. Harris; Book & Article Reviews. '--

---'

magvl n3-Revolution in Evol Darwin & Gould Skeptics Investigate Cayce; Mismeasure of History: Darwin, the Nature of Change by Michael Shermer; years of Punctuated Equilibrium by Prothero. Punctuated Equilibrium in Fact & by stephen Jay Gould; Historic 1842 Sk Evolution by Charles Darwill, Darwinian Cu James Rogers; Reviews. magv2n2-Science, Religion, & Cu Jesus Cults by steve Allen; What Makes A C G. Kisser; Millennium Watch by I Danie/~ Resurrection MYth by S. Harris; Was Christi Cult? by G. Larue; Realism & Religion Rothman; The Unlikeliest Cult Of All Shermer; Mathemagics by Auther Benjam Hoax; 25 Creationist Questions & 25 Evol Answers; Reviews. magv3n l-Pseudomedicine: Update Memory Syndrome; Homeopathy by A~ernative Heafthcare by Reso, Thera Touch by Rosa; Skeptics & Religion by Shallit on Leftist Science; Mattoon Mass by Smith; Liquefying "Blood" by Randi, Star Meaning by Shenner; Is Raw Meat Consci Leikind; Huston reviews books on Mi Conspiracies & Skinheads. magv3n4-Cosmology & God: Can Prove GaP by Leikind; Richard Dawkins I Cosmo-logical Crisis? by Shaffer; Dr.Tipler Pangloss by Shermer; Thme vs Tipler on P Immortality; Velikovsky-Pro,Con, & History; Balls & Schriidinger's Kittens by Gribbifl; I Mlrality By Hartung; RecoveredMemol)' Reca Pendergrast; Cars Alive or Dead? by Leikind; Asian Adventure; Teller Talks-lV & Ghosts; Kansas; Reviews. magv4n3-Conspiracy: Jerry Brown Int by Miell:, World's End by Callahan; Farra Paranoid Style by Brackman; freud's Folr MacDonald; Political Correctness Conspira Siano; End of Science by Horgan; End of Illusions by Casti, Heretic-Personality by Hollywood ET by McDonough; Mesmerism ~ Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier; Bell Curve Book Randi on Police Psychics; Tomorrow? by Leiki

'"'lLlIW.ii<ll

1I'a'~:r:"~7:11 magv2nl-Genius: Myth & Reality: Genius by steve Allen, James Randi, Paul MacCready, Elie Shneour; Marilyn Vos Savant; James Gleick (on Feynman); Amadeus Myth by M. Shermer; D. Alexander (on Gene Roddenberry); Review of Genius, by M. Rothmall, "Science" of Noah's Ark by D. Porter; Who & What Mattered in History by M. Shermer; Mathemagics by A. Benjamin; L-.....::z==== Millennium Watch by I Daniels; Reviews. . -'-'-' __

---'

:":'!':~:11 magv2n4-Pseudohistory-Afrocentrism
:-~~

mrwi~iNifiiffi'ii] magv3n2-AIDS:

1...._...... -:;."--1--1'

'.~,'U./N..,.

AIDS Heresies by Harris; Astrology Brouhaha by Randi; Slnrld the Bible be Taken Literally? by McCollister; Wraordinal)' Claims Require Extraordinal)' Evidence? by Schick, Jr.; Charles Murray Interview by Miele; Wallace & Darwin's Priority Dispute by Shermer; Culture Wars: Skeptics, Parapsychologists & New Agers by Siano; Debunking Hal Lindsay by Gallahan; Did God Make Rice Cakes? by Leikind; Reviews.

Race & Ill: Place In The Sun by Tavris. Bell-Shaped Curve's Skewed Logic by Halpem. Stem berg interview by Miele. Insult to Injul)': Uses of The Bell Curve by Griffin. Defending til~~iIli~~:'I The Bell Curve, by Sarich. Cycles & Curves by Shermer. Scientologyv. the Internet by Lippard & Jacobsen. King Tut's Curse by Rand! Moral Panics by Victor. "Recovered Memories" by Pendergrast How to Eat a Ught Bulb by Leikind; Reviews. magv4n2-Evolutionary Ethics: Science of Morality by R. Bingham; F Miele interviews Garrett Hardin; Morality & Genetic Engineering by j Hartung; Evolution of Morality & Religion by W. Irons; Plants & Property by A Oubre; Ethics Without Religion by Shenner; William Jennings Bryan's Argument Against Evolution; Superstition by Olsoll, Randi debunks saving fuel device; Cosmythology by V stenger. Adam's IQ by Leikind.

==-_L--I r;:;;::;;;:fu~;;:;;~magv3n3V

and Holocaust Revisionism: Free Speech & NeoNazis by Miele; Denying the Holocaust review by Siano; Holocaust Revisionism by Shermer; Creationism & Racism by Mciver; Goodbye Columbus? by Fritze; Were Egyptians & Greeks Black? by Lefkowitz; Beyond Race by Appiah. Noah's Ark Hoax Update by Lippard; Randi on the Millennium; Reviews.

---=::::"~LL.J

magv4nl-Evolutionary Psychology: Stephen Jay Gould Interview, Lionel Tiger, & Robin Fox. (lrmmoral Animal by Miele; Sociology as Alchemy by Salter; Beyond Just-So-Stories by Holcomb; How Humans Got Spots by Schlinge;. Gould's Dangerous Idea by Shermer; Darwin Dangerous? by Ruse; Randi debunks Quadro tracker; Creationist museum; Scientology responds; What Is the Ant, Sir? by Leikind; Reviews. magv4n4-ls History A Science? Tribute to Carl Sagan: Can Histol)' Be Science/, F.Sulloway on Bom to Rebel; Early Ghost-busters; Debunking Nostradamus; Critical Thinking About Histol)'; Norm Levitt Replies to Critics; R. Olson on Left & Right Science; What Happened to N-Rays?; Randi-How To Be Psychic: 1m-moral Creationism. Reviews: Evolution & Literal)' Theory; Killing of History; Amazing Kreskin. Dumbth News.

======"""'=..!J'--U

~ffi~F.&~
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~=~=="':;'.J

r:;:a;~~'i!7!:S:~ magv5nl-Ecology: Economists v. Ecologists by F Miele; Scientists' Warning to Humanity; Julian Simon Interview; Not-So-Wise Use Movement by P. Lindholdt; Population Risk Assessment by E. Sbneout, Myth of the Beautiful People by M. Shermer; Ancient Astronauts by E. Wojcie-howski; Dumbth News by R. Cassing-ham; Modern Demonology by F. Crews. Randi's Swift: Dowsing, Human '--...:&0_= .... Magnetism, Pigasus Awards, Futurists.

~~~Yfi~ magv5n3-Anthropology: Interview: ---- all.ci:~-~I Johanson; Human Origin Stories by Miele;
Ghost Dance by Shermer; Mead & Anth heetnsn, Indians v. Archaeologists by Millennium by Stephen Jay Gould; Dumbth byCassingham; Di Conspiracies by Gerlich; X Meets Disney by Mc-Donough; Houdini v. by Polidoro. Fairies Frauds by Randi, A~ Medicine by LJaroff; Reviews.

0=

1!I.l'!~~:"E!:9li!j;"l magv6nl-Science & Society: E.O. Wilson Interview by F Meile; Review of Wilson book by B. Siano, Van Praagh-How He Talks Tothe Dead by M. Shermer, plus Commentary by G. Posner; Skeptical Of Objective Joumalism by A. Kitty, GRE As Fringe Science by K. Oldfield; Drug Policy Debate Guide by E. Goodl:, Fraud In the Name of Religion? by M. Fried; New Age High Tech by 1. Randi, Dumbth News; Evil Eye by G. Bohigiall, Reviews.

1~'I~~~d t

magv6n2-Taking God Seriously: Deepak Chopra Danger by P. Mo/~ Ray Hyman Interview; Atheist v. Agnostic by Shenner; Karl Popper On God; IT Wars byL Samer;/lgainstGod byM. Pigiucci, For God by B. Mazet Answering Creationists by T. EdiS; Intellectual Danger by j Randi, Self-Help Coach by D. Lease; '97 Dumbth Awards by R. Cassingham JR. SKEPTlc: IT & Me by E. Rosa; Lucky 7 by E. Antisdale; Web reviews by C. Walker & s. Kinney

F.ii=;r.;:::;;rn~magv6n3-Why Professors Believe ~U!llF!!l!IlII Things: Sex, Race, & the New Left by N.
Susan Blackmore Interview; Is God DeadShenner; Meme Critique by j Polichak; Religion Supporters by S. Kent & L Facilitated Communication by B. Gormall, Oil Psychotherapy? by T. Dineen; Randi 011 Believers, Waco. JR. SKEPIlC;Bigfoot! by Crystals by A Chesworth; Golfball Finder by magv7n2-Cloning: Science, Ethics of CI by F Miele; Cloning & Science's Moral Limits Shermer; Richard Seed Interview; Evol Information by R. Dawkins; Evil & Group Sel byN. Thompsoll, Theology & Evolutionary Psy K. Konkola & G. Sunshine; Fake Quotes GeorgI:, Medical Discoveries? by H. lief, Popul MYths by D. Henige; Humor by S. Asma & D. Randi's Pigasus Awards; JR.Si<EPnc: Urban Leg

magv6n4-JFK:Jack Homer Interview; JFK-Facts ~:=';;~~::1':!1~ magv7nl-lnfluence: Carol Tavris Interview; by N. Gerlich; JFK-Case Still Open by Fraud & Science by D. Kevles; Biologist Views Belief A. & M. Snyder; Pope & Science by M. Shermer; by K. Parejko, Christian Science & Quantum Physics Anastasia: Miraculous Survival Myth by T. by R. Miller; Hypnosis Reconsidered by B. Seidmall, Gallahall, Dumbth News by R. Cassingham; Public Relations by B. Siano, Communication's "'~C<Jirl=-t Dowsing Challenge by Randi, Ig Nobel Awards Hidden Dynamics by D. Brenders; The Knowledge Filter byM Shermer; Alternative Medicine by H. lief, 1~r.'!!:~~=~<1 by S. Gibson JR.SKEPTlC; Aliens Among Us? by A. Ir.O=lOf:=====iI..! Ghesworth; Abducted! by M. Shermer; Psychic Randi Addresses Congress; Dumbth by R. Il-....L. -.I Math! by A. Benjamin; UFO Photos by P. Linse. Gassingham; JR.SKEPOC: Fortunetelling.

IrliFE;s:m:;;F.i;;;J

~M!u!~~ & Fictions

I]Q~~~~

~;:;;s~

___

--'

[ Dufresne Interviews Frederick Crews; Search for Immortality by A Herd; Creation & The End by I Mciver; Celestine Prophesy by P. Molt, Millennial Meanings by M Shermer; That's All Folks! by D. Lease; Randi Comments; Dumbth by R. Cassingham; Educashun by S. Asma, Myth & Science by I Callahan; Polttical Extremism by L Hyman. JR. SKEPllC Halloween; Autopsy Aliens. Haunt Houses by B.Friedhoffer

magv7n3-Millennium:

& Complexity: Jared Ir.*ir.~r;;:::;::~ Diamond Interview by M. Shermer; Quick Introduction to Chaos Theory by F. Miele; Chaos Skepticism by M Pigliucci; Contingencies by M Shermer; Latest Cosmology by R. Ebert; Complex Systems by L Lam; DalWin Bumper Fish by S.
Gibson; Randi on Cold Reading; Reverse Speech by W Langstoni & J Anderson; Cultural Relativism by L...l:'--=;......: ....... R. Bartholomew; Stephen Jay Gould Festschrift. .,...

magv7n3-Chaos

-"-I

"""'=...

magv8n4-lnlelligenl [)esign: James Randi Interview by M. Shermer; Special Evolutionl Creation Book Review Section; Intelligent Design Theory by L. Arnhart; Fight Creationist School Takeovers by S. Gibson; Mills' "Hydrino" Theory Breakthrough? by A. Barth; Physics and Time by V Stenger; Why Christianity Won by T. Callahan; Creationism Water Canopys by [Mciver; Mark Twain and Religion by G. Sloan; JR. SKEPnc:Atlantis by P. ---1 Linse. magv8n2 Skepticism & Religion: Frans de Waal Interview by M. Shermer; Agnosticism by S. Dawson; Skeptic's Faith? by B. Wildish; Scope's Trial Revisited by T. Riniolo & L. Torrez; Bible Belt by G. Sloan; Influence & SCientology by D. Martin; BiblelNature by E. Zerin; Life's Meaning by D. Naiditch; Existence by H. Vahidi & S Friberg; Personal Gods by M. Pigliucci, Prayer Heals? by W Matthews, T. Christ & J Conti,' Randi; TV by S. Gibson. JR.SKEPnc:Pyramids. magv11n1-Roswell Requiem: by B. D. _ Gildenberg; Psychic For A Day by M Shermer; HMRP ~ Conspiracy? by D. Naiditch; Fear by D. G.Myers; Blind Research by R. Sheldrake; Pet Psychics by B. Farha; Three Views Of Time Travel by A. Bernardin, M.
Shermer, and L Dace; Skeptical Maxims: by 1. HfYnyshyn, J Gribbin, P.Mole; Homeopathy by Randf, Evolutionists Give Up by B. Muller; Jr. Skeptic: Alien Life by D. Laxton

Interview of Phil Klass by Posner; Sagan Bios by Shermer & Morrison; Holistic Healing by Molt, Phantom Assailants by ."""?"~ .I Bartholomew & Goode;Satan Panic by Wade; Penis Panics by Bartholomew; Eye Movement Therapy by Rosen, Sai Baba by Gogineni; Thought Field Therapy by Swenson; Lilienfeld & McNallY; Photo ESP by Kauffman & Brown; Psi Missing by Riniolo & ~:......:z:::-~:....J Schmiit: JR.SKEPllC: lV Ps~hics. '--

"~~l'!!II magv7n4-Pseudoscience:

magv8n1-Race & Sports: Black Domination

AolI.:;.t.,

by J Entine; Race Sports Myths by 1. Hoberman; Race Differences by V Sarich; Meaning of Dominance by M Shermer; Ernst Mayr Interview by F. Sulloway & M. Shermer; Free Energy by R. Park; Nonzero !Human Gaiaby O. Wilson; Chiropractic by S. Homola; Attention Deficit Disorder by J teo; Geller Compass Trick by Randi, MindIBody Problem by W Lee; Women ---' Skeptics? by S. Gibson; JR.SKIPnC: DalWin by P.Linse.

-e

magv9n1-Anthropology Wars: Steven Pinker

Interview; Intro to Anthro Wars by F. Miele; Science v. Spin Doctoring in Anthro Wars by M Shermer; "Noble Savage"? byP. Frank; Margaret MeadAnthro Controversy by P. Shankman; Testing Mediums by 1. Randi, Belief & New Transcendence by D. Brin; Velikovosky at 50 by D. Morrison; New Atlantis by G. G. Fagan & C. Hale; Jr Skeptic: Did We Go Tothe Moon? by P. Linse

magv9n3-A.I.&Theology

of UFOs:

Artificial Intelligence by S. Harris; Theology of UFOs by B. Denzler; Education Doesn't make Skeptics by W R. Walker. S. J. Hoekstra, and R. J. VagI, Accelerated Learning by L. K. Hagan; How Smart People Sabotage Thinking by P. Molt, NeoConfederates by C. M. Center; Peers & influence by B. Markovsky & S R. Thye, Freud, Danrow, & the LeopoldILoeb Trial by L C. Riniolo. Plus Randi, Dumbth, JR.SKEPnC. 1!!

1t[1i~~m1J

magv1 On2-Stephen WoHram's Science

by D. Naiditch; Are We Getting Dum ber? by R. Ehlich, Why Smart People Believe Weird Things by M. Shermer; Can the Media Help Science? by H. N. Pollack; The Media Harms Science by S.Waxman; Psychic Grief Counselors by R. Freedman; Randi; Mystery Balls by R. Saberi; B. Muller-Humor; John Edward Seminar by B. 1. Phelps, S. Pedersen E. Wogen; Test Sylvia Brown by B. Farha: Jr. SKEPTIC: Yeti by Loxton

==...::=

magv10n4-Low Carb Craze Diet FadlDiet Science by P.Johnson; Evolution Teaching Solution by E. Scott; Was Einstein Learning Disabled? by M Thomas; Skeptical Courses Work byM J Dougherty; Why Scientists Do Science by J. Gribbin; Who Invented Ancient Astronauts by J. Colavito; 10% Myths by J E. C. Genovese; Free Will by P. Mo/~ Brewster's Speaking Machine by Randi; lV Crime by E. Goode; JR.SKEP1lC: Tut's Curse by D. Laxton

magvll n1-Medieval UF[)s? by D. Cuoghi; African Wrtchcraft by L. Igwe; Xhosa Mass Suicide by S. Kowlf; Chinese Medicine's Origin by D. Mainfort; Puerto Rican Flim Ram by L. MontesValentin; Dogon Mystery by L. McDaid; India's Conspiracy Theories by A. D. Polak; Gibson's Passion, Who Killed Jesus? & Da Vinci Code Facts by Tim Callahan; Berlitz by L. K. Hagen; Burden of Proof by 1. Randi, JR.SKEPnc: Loch Ness by D. Loxton

magv11 n2-Nature v. Nurture Human Nurture by H. D. Schlinger; A Consilient View of Human Behavior byF. Miele, Are Sports Streaks Random? by A Bernardin; Alternative Health Journalism by C. Bowerman; A New Chronology of History by 1. Colavit(); Spiritualists Prove Religion With Science by P. Rrenze; HoVi to Investigate by J Randi, Poltticization Of Science by D. O. Krider; Mexican UFOs by J C. Smith; Cryonics by G. Benford; JR. SKEPnc: Sasquatch by D. Loxton Quest by P.Kassan; Design IIlusionby R. Dawkin~ Dover ID Trial by B. Humburg & E. Brayton; ID as Scienti-fic as SETI? by R. Camp, Young Earth Creationists by J. Rosenhouse; Other ID Theories by D. Brin; Ted Serios's Camera Brain by C. Campbe/~ Omnitron by Rand~ Coral Castle Enigma by W Stansfield. JR SKEPllC-PyramidPower by D. Loxton. RE.VilWS: ~ 1; Privileged Planet Film; Republican War on Science magv13n3- Medical Controversies: Rawed PS)thiatry by J Sorbom, Reading Medical Research by H. Hsll, Secondhand Smoke Debate: S.Zion v. H. Hall; Animal Research by N. Shanks, R. Greek, N. Nobis, & J Swingle-Greek; Vaccine-Autism Myth by M. Normand & J DallelY; Science Disputes/AIDS Origin by 8. Martin; Cold Cures by H. Hall; Bonobo Politics by F. B. M de Waal Randi on Sam Harris; Cosmology & ....1 ID by A Pilpel; Reviews. Alien Astronauts by D.I.oxton magv14n 2-ls the Evolution of Intelligence
Like~ to Happen Again On Earth or On Other Planets?; Grief Stages a Myth? Criminal Profiling; Near Death Experiences; Phoenix Lights; Behind the Anti-science Film Expelled: 9/11 Conspiracy; Popular Medical ~ Fallacies; Dyson & the Paranormal. RE.VilWS: Snake Oil, Suckers; Perceptual Distortion; Arguments for God; Postmodem Misadventures; DNA Evolution . _ Evidence; Spiritual Brain; JR.SKEPllC: Crystal Skulls.

Ernst Mayr: Dembski's magvll n3-Catastrophe by R. A. Posner; r::".';:;?"'~~;:;:n magvlln4-1ll, Colrapse by J. Diamond; Double-Blind Protocol & Creationism by M Perakh; Intelligent Design gets
Science by S. Brstmsn, Consumer Electronic Myths by E. Winer; Many Poweliul Memories Untrustworthy? by D. Greenberg; PS)thic Renier & Court lV by G. Posner; Shakespeare's Authorship by D. Price, Cholesterol by M E. Deutsch; Forum: Nature-Nurture Debate; Randi, Film reviews: Question of God, Ramtha; JR SKEPTIc:Sasquatch Part Two by D. Loxton Peer-Reviewed by R. Weitzel; Supernatural Test by S. Shuster; Conspiratorial Thinking by G. Case; Are UFO Alien Faces an Inborn Template? by F V Malmstrom; Mind as Myth by H. D. Schlinger; Randi slams lV Promo of "Healer" John Of God; Race Debate; Also: Epicurus, God Code, Race, Ernst Mayr Tribute, Obesity, Gender, Resurrection, Jacques Derrida, Da Vinci Code.JR.SKEPllC: Madman of Magic

magv12n2-Artificiallntelligence

~~~ffi1w;J

magv12n4-

9111 Conspiracy Theories:

magv13n1- Carl Sagan Legacy: Ann Druyan

Interview by M Shermer; Sagan Tributes by F. Dyson; D. Morrison; B. Nye, & more. Excerpts: Sagan on God; Conversations wtth Carl by L Head. Human Purpose by R. Zubrin. Superstition's Origin by M Lindeman & K. Aarni(); Diet Myths by B. Glassner; H. Hall on Hoodia; Randi on Magical Thinking; Creationism in National Parks by D. Prothero. Reviews: ETs; F. S. Collins. Jr. Skeptic: Evolution Part 1 byD. Loxton.

"

""-'=====...

9/11 Conspiracy Theories by P. Molt, Demolition Experts on 9111; More on Prayer and Healing by B. Ragle; Facilitated Communication by L. Norton; Environmental Wars forum; Ball Lightning byW D. Stansfield; Intelligent Design Theory by J Farre/~ Fortuneteller Anthropologist by M Dobkin de Rios. Reviews of: Dennett, Ehrman, Ruse, .& more. Jr. Skeptic: Alien Abductions Part 2 by D. Loxton

r;~~~~;]

1...-_-":' __

magv13n4-lluirkology: Odd Science of Everyday Life by R. Wiseman; Afterlife Debate: D. Chopra v. M. Shermer; Dawkins is Wrong About Religion by D. S. Wilson: Dawkins Replies; New ET Myths by Tim Callahan; Can Apes Leam Language? by C. \Wnne; Franklin's Kite a Hoax? by W. D. Stansfield; Mozart Effect Myth by W. Dowd; Consciousness by H. D. Schlinger; Reviews: Levitt; Hall; Paranormal. Jr. Skeptic: Alien Astronauts II by D.Loxton magv14n 3-New Revisionism: if Hitler Had Won by M. Shermer; Skeptical of Evolved A~ruism by K. W. Krause; Twins Experts Interviewed On Behavior Genetics and Evolutionary Psychology by F.Miele; New Look at Out-of-Body Experiences by J. A. Cheyne;Germ Theory Denial by H. Hall; Near Death Expereinces by S. Dieguez;ID'sMachine-like Flagella a Myth by M. Perakh; Wolfram Revisited by G. Neske; Reviews. JR.SKEPllC: Great American Skeptics. magv15n 2-2012 by D. Morrison; Magician in the Lab by Randi; Large Hadron Collider Debate L B. Lueptow v. L Krauss; Rising Atheism & IQ by J. A. Cheyne; Rain Prayer by G. J. Whittenberger; H. Hall on Chiropractic, Autism & Vaccines; Coriolis Myths by W. D. Stansfield; Evolution Teacher Poll by R.A Eve & C.Belhad~ Religions Oppress by R. Kurzban & P. DeScio/~ Teach Creationism by C. Baum; Reviews. JR.SKEPnc: Thetis Lake Monster by D. Loxton.

magv14n1-Global Warming: G W Skepticism by P. Frank; How We Know Warming Is Real by L Schneider; Global Warming Solutions by W Calvin; Hydrogen by A. Friedemann; Last Chance to Win $1,000,000 by J. Randi, Detox Quackery by H. Hall, Houdini & seance Fraud by S. E. Rivkin; Kong & Nessie by D. Loxton; Journalism's Flaws by S. Salerno; Supernatural Claims by C. T. Palmer. K. Cae, & R. L. Wadley, Reviews. Dragons by D.Loxton magv14n 4-Ponzi: Ponzi Scheme Psychology by
S. Greenspan. FArm HEAUNG: Medicine by K W Krause; Benny Hinn by R. Shaffer; Peter Popoff by M Csttie: Self-Esteem Myths by S. Salerno; Gut! War Syndrome by H. Hall; Randi on Double Blind Studies; Evaluating Science Claims by R. M Barnes, A L Alberstadt, & L E. Keilholtz; Globa I Warming Consensus by G. Whittenberge[ Reviews. ~ JR.SKEPnc:I. Rowland's Psychic Cold Reading.

magv15n 1-Christian Origins Conspiracy

Matt Ridley Interview; Atheism a Stealth Religion?; Hugh Ross v. Michael Shermer; Morristown UFO Hoax; Randi on Firewalking; Intemet Matchmaking; Ape Language Controversy; Testing Orgone Energy; SkepDoc on Homeopathy, Placebo Effect; Flawed Justice System; Teach Critical Thinking. REVIEWS: Core theory; Science of Love; Metaphysical Mind; Film: Oppenheimer. JR SKEPTIC: Scooby-Doo

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understand the lifelong malicious behavior of her sister, as well the evil geniuses of history as expressed in the tongue-in-cheek of her critically acclaimed book Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, HitI~ Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend.

NEW
LOSING RELIGION
av19BDVD (DVD)- losing My Religion: How I lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace. Dr. William Lobdell recounts a remarkable journey of faith and doubt with heart and good humor. As a newly minted evangelical Lobdell landed the job of his prayers-religious writer for the Los Angeles limes. While reporting on hundreds of stories, he witnessed a disturbing gap between the tenets of various religions and the behaviors of the faithful and their leaders which slowly chipped away at his faith. He also discusses his investigation of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal and the powerful forces that kept it covered up. A very popular lecture.

tary formation and the new discoveries of bizarre inhabitants of various solar systems, including our own. This is a new space race, he contends, one of the most profoundly important discoveries of all time: the first confirmed finding of extraterrestrial life.

EVOLUTION OF GOD
av203DVD (DVD) The Evolution of God. Bestselling author Robert Wright reveals the hidden pattern followed by the great monotheistic faiths as they have evolved. Using archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright overturns basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, that are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony.

PHYSICS:BLACK

HOLES

av196DVD-Black Holes Sing: Black Holes, Their Orbits and Gravitational Waves. Theoretical physicist Dr. Janna Levin exp the monumental experiments done to record the extraordinalY "sounds" of black hole orbits. When black holes orbit around other, they churn up the spacetime around them, emanating waves through the fabric of space itself. These gravitational waves move through the universe (and us as well) all the time squeezing and stretching space-but so weakly that we don notice.

HISTORY OF LIFE ON EARTH

av200DVD (DVD) The Medea Hypothesis: Is lite on Earth Ultimately SelfOestructive?Renowned paleontologist Dr. Peter Ward proposes a revolutionary and provocative vision of life's relationship with the Earth's biosphere that is in stark contrast to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis (life sustains habitable conditions on earth). Ward argues that life by its very nature threatens its own existence, using the geological record, the mass extinctions that were caused by life itself, and the current alarming decline of diversity and biomass.

EVOLUTIONARY EVANGELISM
av202DVD (DVD) Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your life and Our World The Reverend Michael Dowd, once a young-earth creationist minister, is passionate about sharing the 14-billion-year epic of evolution in ways that uplift and expand heart, mind, and soul. Dowd is at home in both conservative and liberal settings, and is uniquely gifted at building bridges between religious and nonreligious people. A unique performance by America's evolutionary evangelist.

NEW CONCEPT OF GOD

av186DVD- Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. Complexity theorist Dr. Stuart Kauffman argues for a reinterpretation of the divine to satisfy people's s the sacred and spirituality, and move beyond both reductionist ence and dogmatic theology. He proposes we see God in the c ty of the universe, biosphere, and suggests a new ethic for an emerging civilization.

SEARCH FOR OTHER EARTHS

199DVD (DVD)- The Crowded Universe: The Search for Uving Planets. Renowned astronomer Dr. Alan boss discusses the technology we now have that gives us the capacity to detect Earth-like planets, and argues that life is not only possible elsewhere in the universe, it is common. Boss describes the latest ideas about plane-

EVIL PERSONALITIES
av201DVD (DVD) Why People Behave Badly Dr. Barbara Oakley uses evolutionary theory and neuroscience to examine the problem of evil personalities-why do some people intentionally inflect emotional and physical pain on others. A provocative exploration of the darkest recesses of the human personality inspired by a quest to
and a powertul dm.. for meaning that science is unable to satisfy. For them, othef\\\)rld~ terror can tiecome a transforming, even inspiring expenen",. Surprising and fascinating.

HISTORY OF TERROR
av187DVD- The Grand Inquisitor's HanrIJook: A History of Te the Name of God. Critically acclaimed author Jonathan Kirsch describes the history of sanctioned terror-how the Inquisition perfected & brought to bear. on an ever-widening circle of victims authoritarians in both church and state. How absolute power co in modern societies as well.
Geology, Occidental College, lA, and lecturer in Geobiology at Caltech. Pasadena. He has auth authored. edited, or co-edited 21 books and al scientific papers. Dr. Brian f'lil' "Cim'" CI"oIl2''' Ancient Societies" Dr. Brian Fagan is Emeritus P of Anthropology at the Univer.;ity of California, Barbara. His many books include The Utile Ice and The Long Summe: Dr. G"iOry Be.anI: "Sb FUIin Greenhouse Earth" 0, Gregory Benford has liihed over 30 books. His fiction includes the Award winning nove Iimescepe, He s a prof physics at the Univer.;ity of California, Irvine. I a pane/ discussion andQ & A.

1. TOP PICKS
SEE INSIDE FRONT COVER

2. PSEUDOSCIENCE
CRYONICS
a~02VHS (video); av002C (audio cassette)- Can Science Cheat Death? Cryonics Life Extension by Mike Darwin of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, makes a scientific case for life extension through cryonic suspension. Can people frozen now be ~ed in the far future? This engrossing lecture cevers the technical aspects and problems of cryogenic suspension, as well as addressing the ethical and social issues.

Science? Conference 1997. Part II. PI"" Rallli 0, Frank Sulloway demonstrates how In make hisloly a Sc"",,,. Shows how historians can practice sc~ntific hisloly and test their ideas. Fascinating examples incude a statistical "cootent ana~" he pertormed on Darwin's Beagle notes and Darwin's Ietter.; . James "the Amazing" Randi on his Million Dollar Challenge and his new organization, too James Randi Educational Foundation. fWrays entertaining

TESTING THE UNUSUAL

Dr. RICHARD WISEMAN av15ZDVO (DVO}, av15ZCD (audio CDl-Luck, ESp, and Magic: How Science Tests tile Unusual By magician, author, and psychologist Dr. Richard WiSl!man. Great tape for students and groups. Enlightening and entertaining! He focuses on his Luck Project (what traits make one person luckier than others), the psychology of mag~, and the reliability of eyewitness testimony, Wiseman heads the psychology lab at the Univer.;ity of Hertfordshire, England and has been featured in many television programs.

URBAN LEGENDS
DR. JAN HAROLD BRUNVAND av0B8C (audio cassette)- Urban legends The world's leading scholar of urban legends and myths, shows how and why we have all fallon for such stories as alligators in the sewers, fake warnings, humor, sex and horror stoies.Ieam to spot an Urban legend from the King of Urban legends himself. Wrtty, wise, & enjajable.

entist Dr.lim Aanne!}'. Sometime this "'ntu/y human influence on climate will ovelWhelm all other natural faclnr.;. Aanne!}' outlines the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next centu/y, and what we can do In pnlVent a catac~m~ future, including what ""ry one of us can do nght now to reduce dead~ CO, emissions by as much as 70%. With one out of every five li~ng things on this planet committed to extinction by rising levels of greenhouse gases in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point.

HUMAN CLIMATE CHANGE HISTORY

av1490VO (DVOh av149CD (audio CD)--Global Wanning, Cfimate Change, and tile Future of tile Environment-Plougtls, Plagues, and Petroleum. By climate scientist Dr. William Ruddman. Humankind's active involvement in climate change began 8,000 years ago with the discovery of agricuhura Greenhouse-gas 1""ls from agncutture may have even forestalled a new ice age, and plagues, by depleting human populatons, affected reforestation and thus climate. He concludes by looking to the future and critiquing the impact of special interest money on the global wanming debate.

ENVIRONMEIITALWMS CONFERENCE
avl64VHS (video); avl64DVO (oVO}, avl64CD ( CD)-ErMronmerdal War.; Part 4: JonaIJan ~ IIIIM' of Federal EnYimlHllental Regulation" Adler is AssociaE Professor & Associate Director of too Center for Law & Regulation at Case \\estern Reserve Un. teaches onrses in Environmental Law, Intema . Environmental Law, & Constrtutional Law. He a

PSEUDOSCIENCE & THE PARANORMAL

FACTS BEHIND THE FICnON-112 DAY SEMINAR av01BVHS (video); avOl BC (audio cassette) By Dr. M~ha~ Shermer Facts behind extraordinary claims such as, Esp, UFOs, alien abductions, dowsing, cryonics, creationism, firewalking, cults, faith healing, hallucinations and hypnosis, holocaust denial, and many more. Discusses the power of belief systems that convince almost an)llne of almost anything, from the sublime (~g., God) In tile ndiculous (e.g., alien abductions) to too unbelievable (e.g., too H~ocaust never happened).

av098VHS (video); av09BC (audio cassette)Mesmerized! by CaJtech science historian Or. Allison Wirrte< Explores the amazing history of Mesmensm, which was a compelling expefience for thousands of entranced VictDnans-and yet it became a powertul example of social dclusion. Explores the relationship between pseudoscience and science, demonstrnting too often blunry line between the 1IVIl.

MESMERISM

da VINCI CODE
av16!JDVO (OVO}, av16!JCD (audio CO)-Decoding tile da Vinci Code, The Gospel of Judas & OtIler Biblical Mysteries bylim Callahan. ~ the best selling novel The da Vinci Code based on historical facts as author Dan Brown claims? Did Jesus and Mary Magdalene prod"", a Illf<II bloodline that continues In this day' What about the edra-biblcal Gospel of Judas? Does Chnstianity need to be ~sed? Callahan deliver.; the facts.

Ecology,Uberty, and Property:A FreeMarket menta/Reader. Gregory !mold "can Mar.etsSa'le iii! Marl<~-basedSoUtionstnEJr.To,,"entaiProblemsAmok! Managing Partner of an investment finm special" trading in environmental marl<ets including thoSl! emission credrts, renewable energy credits, and house gas credits, He has a MBA from Harvard School. D, Pa~ MacCready:"Doire More wiiJllesl to' a IIIa1Worl<s" MacCready is an aeronautics engineer Engineer of the Century by the Am. Society of Engineers, and listed as one of the 100 most infl people of the century by Time for his pioneenng low energy ""h~les, etc. InclJJdesa panel disc andQ&A.

ENVIRONMEIITALWMS CONFERENCE
av161 VHS (video); av1610VO (DVO}, av161CD (audio CD)-Enviro.menrtal War. Part 1: Dr.M".I"o,1 Sherm,,: "COlli"';" of an Environmental Skeplic" Why he abandoned his skepticism of global warming, and why the environmental wers are so heated. Dr.Davit CaJtech president and Nobel Laureate Baffimore: "Science & Poilics: An Uneasy RelaoonsWDr.DavidGoOOstein:"DutofGa&JheEndofthele of Oil" David Goodstein is Vice Provost and Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Caltech .. Dr.Tap~ Schneider: "Global Climate Change: Known & UnkMwn" Tapia Schneider is Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineenng at Cattech.

Dr. PHILIP PLAIT

avl0lC (audio cassette}, AV10l0VO (OVOl- Bad Astronomy by Dr. Philip Plait, creator of the high~ acclaimed www.badastronomy.com, addresses popular astronomical misunderstandings including: claims that we never went to the moon, claims tIlat eggs stand on end on~ dunng the equinox, and other astronomical anomalies. DelighHul, educational. Plait is smart, entertaining, and hilarous.

3. PSYCHICS ESPBc MAGIC

We are sold out of VHS tapes in this catagory. DVOs wil eventual~ be produced.

FACILITATED

COMMUNICATION

a~C (audio cassette)- Facilitated COl11l1unicatiolt Mental Miracle orSleight of Hand? by Dr. Gina Green, Director of Research, New England Center for Autism. Green examines the claims a new therapy that allows fonnerty non-verbal autistic patients to speak through the typing of a facilrtatorwho holds their hand. How the claim was scientifical~ tested to show it was nothing more than a cruel self-deception on the part of caring therapists. Discusses the sex abuse angle.

JAMES RANDI
av1470VO (oVO}, av14lCD (audio CD) An Evening with James Randi also featuring; singer/satirist Roy Zimmerman in a pertonmance that brought the skeptical house down with encore demands for more of his musical social cemrnentanes, a video tribute to Randi with clips of highlights from his remarkable career; a dialogue with Michael Shermer and Randi on skepticism, science, and magic; and a live~ audience & A.

4. ENVIRONMENT & GLOBAL WARMING

WARMING EXAGERATED
avlOlC (audio cassetles T"" tapes $19.951; avl030VO (DVO) The sreat Environmerdal Debate: Are ecolQ2ical problems exaggerated? by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg and Frank Mie~. Dr. Lomborg, statistician and author of TheSkeptical Environmentalistsays the claims of too environmental movement are exaggerated and using the same data used by alarmists, shows an imp~ng environment Si<EPoc Sr. Editor Frank Mie~ prevides an attemalive v~, particularly focusing on the looming disaster that will be caused by the mass extioction we are cU"'nt~ expenencing. A very livey audience & A.

ENVIRONMEIITALWARSCONFERENCE
av165VHS (video!; av165DVD (OVD}, avl65CD ( CD)-Envinmmerdal War. Part 5: News cones JOHNSTDSSIl is co-anchor of ABCNEw.>' 20120. He received 19 Emmys, the George Foster Peabody and has been honored flVll times for excet~nce in sumer reporting by the National Press Club. M1C CRICHlO~ known as "the father of the techno-th has wntten TheAndromeda Strain, Congo,JuraS% Park, Prey, and State of Fear. He has won an E Peabody, and a Writers Guild of Amenca award TV series ER.

ENVIRONMEIITALWARSCONFERENCE
AV162VHS (video); av162DVO (DVO}, av162CD (audio CD)-Environmerdal War.; Part 2: OEBATE: Chris Mooney Y. RIMlaIdB~ley "Distnrti!g Soe,.;. Wh, is Worse-the Wt or Rigjrt?" CIvis Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seeilmagazine and a senior correspondent for the American Prospoctand author of the bestselling The Republ~n w"r on Science. Ronald Bailey is the science correspondent for Reason magazine and the author ECOSCAM The Fa/se Prophets of Ecdogical Apoca~se, Global Wanming and other Eco ~hs. This tape includes a panel discussion and & A wrth the 2 speakers above, and Dr. Tapio Schneider from Part t.

DOES QUANTUNM PHYSICS

SUPPORT ESP, PSYCHIC POWER, ETC. av043VHS (video); av043C (audio cassette) Quantum Quackery: Physics, Metaphysics, and Rapdoodle by Dr. Victor J. stenger, physicist. Or. Stenger shows that because Quantum mechanics is obscure it is often misused to explain the "unexplainable"-fSp, pS}th~ power, etc. But quantum mechanical hypotheses frt the facts of material reality qurte well without any need at all to call upon mysticism.

ALIEN ABDUCTION
av153VHS (video); avl53C (audio cassette); avl530VD (DVD}, av153CD (audio CD)-Abducllld! How People Come In Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. By psychologist Dr. Susan Clancy. Why do people believe they are abducted by aliens? Key differences between people making abduction claims and people who have suffered real trauma. How sane and intelligent people have unwittingly created ~d false memories from a toxic mix of nightmares, popular culture,

ENVIRONMEIITALWARSCONFERENCE
ORDER THE WHOl1 SET av16lVHS (video); avl (oVO}, av16lCD (audio CD) Set of five, 161, 162164 and 165- $79.95 for the DVD set (instead of t9.75. WWI!) $09.95 for the VHS set (instead 99.75) $64.95 for the CD set (instead of $79.7 $39.95 fur too audio cassette set (instead of $49.

WARMING

IS SERIOUS
sci-

CAN HISTORY BE A SCIENCE?

~54VHS (video); av054DVO IDVO)- Can H~ry be a

DR. TIM FlANNERY av159VHS (~deo); av1590VO (DVD)- The Weather

ENVIRONMEIITALWMS CONFERENCE
av163VHS (video); av163DVD (oVD}, avl63CD (audio CD)-fnvironmental Wars Par13: Dr. DDna~Prothero: "Catastrojlles IIIa1SI"ope iii! Prothero is Professor of

Makers, How Hmnans are Chllnging tile Climate and

What it Means for Life on Earth by environmental

II

p~",r

,,151C (audio casselle); ,,151DVO (DVO}, av151CD (aud;, CDl-DOUBT,A HISTORY. History usual~focuses av074DVO(DVOl: av074C (aud;, cassette}, a11l74&D on beliel systems, but those who doubt were oflBn SCIENCEV.REUGIDN (audio CD)- Forbilden TafesIn The Bible by bestselling engines of creativity and social advances. Dr.Jannw (aud;, cassette)-The Christmas Star, author Jonathan Kirsch. In this brilliant and ~ ~Ule. Michael Hecht shows that doubt has a vibrard story and Religion in the Modem Age byJohn Kirsch recoonts tales of vio~, sex.and scandal in the and tradition w~ tts own saints, martyrs, and sages. Griffith Observatory.Astronomer John MosI~ Bible that have been historical~ suppressed by re!igOOs Hecht bleoos her wide-ranging historical 0XjleItise, the probab~ origins of the Christmas star, authorities, and discusses the meaning these tales may passionate admiration of the great doubters, and sses how there is oppostt;,n from both reI~ h"" had for the pocpfewho wrote them. A different Vi"" poet's sensibility to t~1 a stimulating story that is part lIld non-religious group to the presentation of of the Bi~ than most peop~ get intellectual history and part shaM:ase 01ordinary peolar annual planetary show. Christmas Star ple as~ng themselves the difficuH questioos that COI>are a staple of planetariums around the world. lrontusall. al1l76C (aud;, casselle); al1l76DVO(DVO);av076CD (video); av009C (aud;, cassette)- W'rlches, (audio CD)- The Hidden Book In The Bible by Dr. l Science Historian of science Or.Richard Richard Elliott Friedman. In a live~ and fascinating lscsrows that, irooical~, the rise of the scientific ture, renowned biblical scholar, Friedman, author 01the and ratonalism iocreased belief in wttchcraft. bestselling book mw Wrote the Bible?, reveals his most av157C (audiocasseHe); av1570VO(DVO}, av157CD (2 audio CDs)-BreakillE the Speu,Religion As A g in the reality of the Devil and witches was startling and revolutionarydiscovery,embedded within ::i God'sexistence in an era of increasing skepti- the Bible is a cootinuous narralive that had been sliced Natural Phenomenon. By Dr.Dani~ DenneH.One01the greatest thinkers 01our age tackles one 01the most 'tl spirits, no w~ches; no witches, no demons; no apart by ancient edttors who interlaced ~ with other rlOdevil; no devil, no God. stories, laws, and poetry.A great example 01how mod- important questons of our tire why pocple believein Godand how religion shapes our lives and ourMure. em biblical sch~arship is done, by one 01the leading Denne asks, Wheredoesour dewtion to Godcome lrom biblical scholars 01our time. and what purposedoes ~ serve?Is relig,," a blind . (video); av032C (aud;, cassetlel- Can lutK>narycompulsion or a rational choice?Heexplores Prove God?Contereoce 1995, Part I by Dr. how organi1!!dreligion ewfved from folk beliefs aoo why Ier,Dr.Kip Thome, Dr.BernardLei~nd, Dr. ~ is such a poIent forcetoday. Deftlyaoo lucid~, heconKerze.Oneof the hottesttop~ofourtime. avD83C (aud~ casselle)avD83CD(audio CD)-WHY tends that the "beliel in belief' has lugged any attempt ist Dr.Frank~pler, Plasma Phys~ist Dr. PDPlf BEllEVE IN GODby Dr.M~hael Shermer.Data to rational~ coosiderthe eisteree 01Godand the relaleikind, and Historian of Religion and Scieoce lrom an empirical study 0110,000 Americans-why do tionship betv.wl dMnity and human need. Kern! debate the topic. Plus a surprise rce by CaHochCosmologistKip Thoo1ein rebut- pocple believe in God?Whyis beliel in God increasing, oot decreasing as predK:ted?Ibv people assume 0th'ipler's Godh\1lOthesis.The~pler-Thome showers believe in Godfor dnlerent reasons than th~ do s aclasse eent and the lact that we live in an age of science influ"l58VHS (video); avl58DVO (OVO}' ,,158CD (2 ences the reason people give tor their la~. The psyaudio CDs)-The Brilf2e to Hwnanity, How AIIect chology 01rationaliring beliels arrived at lor nonHunger Trumps the Selfish Gene. Dr.Watter (audio cassette)-Does the Wall Stil Stand? rational reasons. Goldschmidt, anthropologist, argues for a separate . The Religious Rigtrl Prayer in School, & ewlutK>naryorigin of what we call """ senal and 8r!aches of the Wall Separating Church and nurturant needs_ very different forms 01beIhav')J Attorney Edward Tabash. Tabash will cover iDf.One is essential~ competitive, and the other c0nes ir1\llIving the religioo clauses of the First ,,110 DVO(OVO);,,110C (audiocassette)- The cerned ~ith mutuality. Underlying nurturaoce is the and make suggestioos about what l'lU can Secret Origins of the Bible. Jim Callahan usescomparphenomenon of "affect hunger: an urge to seekthe ;gtrt these attacks on science, rationality, and ative mythofogy,Itteraryanatjsis, history, & arthaeologj- affection that is nee<Edfor the proper developrrent of I freedom. AttorneyTabash is a member of the cal comparisons to show that Bible stories that doo't _ of Trusteesof Americans Un~edfor Separatioo of make Itteral sensecan be understoodon a deepermyth- the neurofogical system in humans and other social mammals. Affect hunger not on~ provides a reward and State aoo has VJ<ked on First Amendmerrl ic~. Demonstrateswhat purposes these stories system IOf learning language and other cuHural intorkJrthe American Civilliberlies Union. served for the original cuHuresthat gave rise to them. matiorJ, but also remains a motive fOf social behavior throughout life.

(audio cassette) - AHered States and the Fer TrallSCeooence. Dr.M~hael She"",r dls:he brain chemistry of altered states of con, out-<>f-bodyand rea r-death experiences, and shares his personal experieoceswith . s through sensorydeprivation tanks and lE\lriVation. Shermer consid"" the implications, ~hical~ and metaphysical~, n all such are nothing more than the product of brain and stireulatioo.

-DEATH EXPERIENCES; ED STATES

avllG5VHS(video onM-God, Myth, and Religjo,,Conference 1998, Part If by Dr.Michael Sheffiler, Dr. Rand~ Helms. Biblical scholar Dr. Raooel Helms explains how, when, and why the aoonymous gospels were written and what motivated the authors. Hin~ the gospels were oot written by men named MaHhew, Marl<,Luke, and John. Dr.Michael Shermer explores what we can learn lrom recurring myths, such as the "destruction/redemption" myth appears in Christianity, the 19th cerdury American Indian Ghost Daoce, and IDuis Farrakhan's modem f/other Ship myth.

WHO WROTE THE ANONYMOUS GOSPELS & WHY

avl44VHS (video); avl44C (audio casselle); avl440VO (oVO}, avl44CD (2 audio CDsl-HOWTHE HUMANMINDSHAPES MYTH.Dr.Elizaheth Wa~and Bartler, professor 01Linguistics and Archaeology, Decidental C~lege, CA,shows how myths can transm~ real inlormat;,n in nonl~te societies, preserving ~ for milennia. The Klamath Indians, for eampe, prese"",d the story of the creation 01Oregoo'sCrnter Lake lor nearly 8,000 I"3rs. Rocent studies of how our brains ~url<,have helped Barber deduce the characteristic priociples by ~1lich such tales both develop and degrade through time.

REALITY BEHIND SOME MYTHS

,,173C (audio casselle); ,,173DVO (OVO~av173CD (audo CD The Bible Against ftseij, Who Wrote tile Bible and Why tt Seems to Contradict sen. by Dr. Randel Helms. Beforethe sacred authors ~ere declared sacred, ~ were fair game for attack or revisiOIl.The Bib~ was not written as a cohererdwho~, w~ a Slng~ purpose in mind. Helms explains why the Bible is repetitioos and ofll," eontradets ttself and looks at the cultural and historical lactors that m0tivated Bible bookauthors, who often wanted to chal~nge conect those who had written betore them.

WHY THE BIBLE CONTRADICTS ITSELF CARL SAGAN TRIBUTES

086AT(audio cassette)-Cart Sagan, ATribute by Sagan bographers KeayDavidson, William Poundston~ and by Michael Shermer who anatpe and celebrate Sagan's brilliant lile. Da~dson and Poondstone, discuss their recent books. Shenner empirical~ answers sech fomnertysubjective questens as "vas Sagan's science popularizing done at the expenseof his science'"

THE CASE FOR GOING TO MARS

087AYMdeo~ 087AT(audio)-Enteri"2' Spac" From Mars to the Stars by Dr. Robert lubri,,- Dr. lubrin preserrls the case for going to MarLand beyond.Covers te satefltte-Iauoch tochnology; rational IOfcofonizing space; untapped tochoofogies such as rocket planes, solar and magnetic sails, controlled fusion; the chal~nges of !malorming. interstellar travel, and contact with other species.

DR. ROBERT ZUBRIN

ISTMAS STAR:

THE HEBREW BIBLES ODDTAlESEXPlAINEDby JONATHAN KIRSCH

HISTORY OF UNBELIEF

CE SUPPORTS WITCHCRAFT?

Dr. RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN

PURPOSE OF RELIGION Dr.DANIELDENNETT

SCIENCE

PROVE GOD?

BELIEF IN GOD Dr.MICHAELSHERMER

MOTIVES FOR SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

"mc (aud;, casseHe); "mDVO (DVO~av177CD (aud;, CD) DelJate, Can Pfrysics Prove God and Christianity? W'rthphysicists Dr. Frank ~pler Y.Dr. Lawrence Krauss Tipler argues that the God-the Uncaused Rrst Cause--is complete~ coosisterd with the Cosmological Singularity, an entity whose existeoce is required by physical law and makes the case for the scientific possibility of miracles, iocluding the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Incarnation. Krauss 089AT(audio casseHe)-Contact Communicating Wtth cogently argues that the SCientifICevideoce does not Extratenestiallife by ~gendary scI f author & SEll confirm the central tenets 01Christianity or any other Instttule scientist Dr.Seth Shostackwho asks, "Are we religion, and that aHempts to employ scieoce in the alone?" n th~ are out there. why haven1we heard from service of religion are doomed to lailure. them (the FermiParadox)?Latest scieocebehind the Searth for ETIntelligence aoo how \00 can participate in SEll from I"ur home computer.Will they be able to decipherwhat Viesay?What information will we leavefor Earths occupants a million years hence?IIJw can we address an unknown destiny in which human cu~ure ,,1800VO (OVO~ lBOCD (audio CD) In this debate ~self may 00 longer EO<ist? T~d with wit and good humor. on whal are arguab~ two 01the most important questions in the cuHure wars today-ls Religion a Forcelor Goodor Evil? and Can l'lU be Goodwtthoot God?-lhe conservative Christian author and cuttural scholar Dinesh D'Souzaand the libertarian skeptic writer and 090AV(~deol: 090AT(audio)- Deep ~me, Commlllsocial scientist Michael Shermer,square off to resolve icating AcIDSSthe Millennia Renownedscieoce fict;,n these and related issues, such as the relatnnship author & """ing physicist Dr. GregoryBenford considbetween science and religion and the nature and exis- ers how we should send messages into the lar future teoce 01God.This event promises to be one of the to communicate wnh luture generations, Ofwith intelliliveliest ever hosted by the Skept~ Scci~ at CaHoch, gent beings elsewhere in space. A plOl'0C3tiveanalysis mixing scieoce, religion, politics, and cuHure. 01humanity's attempts to make its culture immortal. logical and ~cal, with the bea~ of a ooveiist, Benford exploresthese and other lascinating questions 011 how to cross the immense gulf of the ages so such deep-time messages can be understood.

DEBATE: CAN PHYSICS PROVE GOD?

THE SEARCH FOR ET INTELUGENCE

DEBATE: DINESH D'SOUZA

v. MICHAEL SHERMER

ISREUGION A FORCEFORGOODOREVIL?

SENDING MESSAGES INTO THE FAR FUTURE

2008 CONFERENCE

ARATING CHURCH & STATE

Origins; the Big QuestionsScience v. Religion ASTROBIOLOGY

MYTHIC ORIGINS OFBIBLE STORIES

avllV0188 (DVD)- Or. Donald Prothero on the Origin of lile aoo Complexlife; Dr.Cnristof Koch,The Origin of ConscOOsness;Introduction by Dr.Michael Shermer. "DYD189 (OVO)-O:Iamd Susskind on the Origin 01the Univme; Dr. Paul Davies on the Laws 01 Nature and the Appearance 01 Fine Tuning; Dr. Sean Canrall on the Origin of Time and Time's Anrnw. "DYD19D (OVO)-1Joesscience make belief in God Obsolete? Ik_ Miller; Dr. Nancey Murphy, and Dr. Michael Shermer Shermer. avDYD191 (OVOl-Great God Debate, Does Science Support Beliel in a Deity? Dr. Hugh Ross v. Dr. Victor Stenger; Moderated by Dr. Philip Clayton "OY019Z (OVDl-Producer Brian Dalton and his crew provide a behind the scenes look at the making 01 the Internet's popular M, Deiiyvideo clips PURCHASE INOfYIOUAill'@$23.95 each or save and ORDER THEWHOLESET(avl93DVO-5 DVOs)! or on~ $79.95

118DVO(DVO);118CD (audio CD); 11eAT(audio casseHe)-Astrobiology and The Ufe and Death of Planet Earth Fascinating! By Or.Peterward and Dr. Donald Brownlee \'lard and Brownlee use the process of planetary evofutK>nto show that complex intelligent lile is li~ to be extrem~ rare in the cosmos, and that we are living near Of shorl~ after Earth's biological pea~ ~ speculate about how planets de, and whal the li~ fate of our own planet will be.

& EARTH

HUMAN SPACE EXPLORATION

DR. ROBERT ZUBRIN
133AVMdeo}, 133DYD(DVD);133AT(aud;, casseHe) NASAANDTHEfUllJRE OFHUMANSPACE EXPLORATION, A Skeptical View by Spaceexploration advocate Dl Roberl lubrin. Dr.lubrin argues that the U.S.manned space program must regain a purpose and mission and be destination driven, as it was in the days 01Apollo. Recounts his experiencestestifying in Washington. outlines his plans on how humans can get to Mars and why we must must becomea sparelaring civilization, and why the Space Shuttle and the Space Station will not get us there.

(audio casseHe)- The Devil and Demonology, leeds Satan? by Dr. HenryAnsgar KeI~,a historirelig;,n at UClA Dr. Kel~ discusses the origins portance of Satan in Westem thought and mod::iture. Who is the Devil, where do Demonscome and how did Halla.veentrad~ioos start? Dr. Kelly what purpose Satan serves in modem soci~. (aud;, cassetteh - The Search for the . I Jesus, By Dr. Burton Mac~ Professorof at Claremont Graduate Schooladdresses one most important and contl1l'/efSialsubjects in the of religion, who was Jesus' Modem scholarship a surprising picture 01the historical Jesusthat s Jesuswas a popular philosopher in the Cynic _. . Early Christian texts, such as the Gospel01 and the lost Bookof a. are central to this new . Mack speaks with authority and insigh~ and the audience the tools with wh~h to analyzethe . I claims about Jesus.

POSE, ORIGIN OF SATAN

ORICAL JESUS-Dr. BURTONMACK

"l20VHS (video); ay120C (audio cassettel, "l20DVO (OVD}, ,,12DCD (audio CD) ByJohn Horgan.lbv do trances, Visions, pra\Of, satori, and other mystical manifestations ''wort<'? What are their neuro~g~al mechanisms and pS)<:hologicalimpl~ations? investigates a wide range of fields-<:hemistJy, physiCS,pS)<:hology, radiok>gy,theology, and more--to narrow the gap between reason and spiritual enlight-

~]~~~~ll~~
Spimual~

enment
avl28VHS (~deo); ,,128C (aud;, casseHe); av12BDVO(OVO},,,128CO (2 audio CDs)-The End Of The Soul, Atheism and Anthropology by science historian and science author Dr.lenniter Michael Hochl Dr. Hech~ recounts the story of how in 1876 scirotists lormed an unusual group called the Soci~ 01Mutual Autopsy,to P""'" that souls do not exist. This strange scientific pact and what we have come to think of as anthropology, had its genesis in aggressive, evang~ical atheism. Hecht shows that anthropology grew out 01the struggle between fortes of tradtt;,n, especial~ religion, aoo lreethin~ng modernism, especial~ science, which fa( many became a secular religion..

avl60C (audio cassette}, av1600VO (DVO}, avl60CD (aud;, CD)-DecodillE tile dIaVinci Code, The Gospel 01Judas & other Biblical ~eries by Iim Callahan. Is the best selling oovei The da Vinci Code based on historical facts as author Dan Bnownclaims? DidJesus and Mary Magdalene produce a royal bloodline that continues to this day?What about the exlra-biblical Gospel 01Judas' DoesChristianity need to be revised' Callahan delivers the lacts.

DA VINCI CODE, JUDAS GOSPEL

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE SOUL

laud;' casselle)- Bible Prophecy. by Sm>oc EditorTim Callahan, Examinesthe accuracy of ical prophets. Are modern events lulfillmerrl of described in Revelation? Callahan dissects end-<>I-the-lwrld prophets like Hal lindsey and the IXlIlnoctions betv.wl mil~rian seenarandsecular conspiracy theories, such as those 'ng black helicoprers and the Newllbr1d Order.

URACY OF BIBLE PROPHECY

av169C (audio casselle); ,,169DVO (DVO}, ,,1 G9CO (audio CDl-The God Delusion. R~hard Dav.1<ins fires a direct no holds barred salvo against Ofgani1!!drelig,," arguing that beliel in "The GodIIM>Dthesis"is both intellectual~ wrong, and a divisive and oppressive force that cootributes to social backwardness and bigotry. "H teaches us not to change our minds .... Hsubverts scleoce and saps the intellect" A careful~soned,}Ill entertaining and insightful analysis byone 01the great minds of our time will give both atheists and believers something to think about

RICHARD DAWKINS-GOD DELUSION

A PDFOF36 MORELECTURES ANDAll 01HERS CAN BEDOWNLOADED ATI'MW.SKEPTIC.COM

(THE SCIENCE OF WHO WE ARE)

9. THE COSMOS: 7. THE NA1\JRE OF PHYSICS QUANTUM MECHANICS HUMAN NA1\JRE JOHN GRIBBIN

See skeptic.com for more information

JEWISH GENETICS

av141C (audio casselle); av14DVO(DVO}' av141CD (2 audio CDs) The Church, the State, the Pledge, and tile Law, Adveutures in Skeptical Activism. The story VHS(video); avll57C (audio casselle)- The of the man who sing~ handed~ got the words "under ofogy 01Power, Shamans, Kings, & SkyGod" removed from the Pledge01Allegiance, on~ to rs. Astronomer Dr. E. C. Krupp vis~s ancient have it overturned by the United States Supreme Court. aries, shrines & "New Age" power s~es to show in lront 01which he argued his case. Now hear the pocple aHempt to acquire cosmic power by study- story of Mike Newdowfrom the man himsell, as he the sky.Arch~ecture reflocts this attempt to access recounts his adventures in this and other causes he 211!Stialmessages, from aocient China, to Southchampions in the name 01skept~ism, rationality, and _ pueblos & even the comer of HoI~ & Vine. science.

(aud;, cassette)-By Frank~ ReligOOsfunlists oflBn IDfdAmerican Rewlution lea~ up """,plars of wha_ viewpoints they are seekingto blish' in society.Mi~ shows us how inaccurate f*:Itrre is with a ~ide tour of religioo and poI~ as dersof the American Rew1utionreal~ saw them, as """mplnied thlOllgh the symOOls they clmse to the f>ldgfing nation. Forexample,early curren~a)lld the Goddessliberty, M~ra's sun rays,the and eventhe 'All SeeingE\<' of the /bius Ordo m rather than "In GodVI; Trust"

he) GOO (ess) WE TRUST (ed)

OF OUR FOREFATHERS

,,136C (audio cassette~ ,,13GOVO (OVO},,,136CD (2 audio CDsHOD AGAJHSTTHE GODS.by bestselling author Jonathan Kirsch. Kirsch reveals fX1fImonotheism triumpbed over polytheism and paganism, but in the process he shows how ~ was monotheism that introduced the terrors 01true beliel, including holy war, martyrdom, inQuis~, aoo crusades. Relig;,us liberty and diversity were core values 01classical pagal>ism---llow would the _ world look today rr the worship 01many gods had been tolerated instead 01 P""OCuted? Excellent! Kirsch is a brilliant storyteller.

HISTORY OF MONOTHEISM JONATHAN KIRSCH

av175DVO(OVO},,,175CD (aud;, CD)- The lJJcner Effect: UnderstandillE How Good People Tum Evil By Dr. Philip limbardo, who ran the famous "Stanford Prison Experiment" in the late 19605, shows howord~ nary poople become perpetrators of evil. He reviews the researth on IXlIlfonntty, obedieoce to authority, roleplaying, dehumanization, deindividuatioo and moral disengagernen~ and asserts that sttuational power is stronger than we appreciate. limbardo applies his Ireories to und...tanding the Inquisttion, the massacre in Rwaooa, the rape 01Nan~ng, aoo the abuse and torture in Iraq's inlamous Abu Ghraib prison. He suggests that ~Jawareness 01the Lucrrer Effect we may clmse bet.veen inaction and the heroism of resisting evil.

STUDY OF EVIL- ZIMBARDO

av179DVO(OVO}.Abraham'sClifdrer> Race, Identity, and the DNAof the Chosen People ByJonEntine Why there are disprofXlltionatefyso many moreJewish Ia"lEf' and doctorsand rJbeILawiates & ~f1at does this tell us about human nature & nurture. Genetics, identity. and geoome researcIl.

avll34C (audio cassetteHn Search 01Schriidinge(s Kittens,The Paradoxical Nawre of Quautum Mechanic~ Astrophys~ist and Scieocewriter John Gribbin explains the bizarre and quirf<yworld 01quantum mechanics and devises a solution to Einstcin's paradox and what he called "spooky act;,n at a distance."

avlB2DVO (DVD)Moral Mar1<ets& The Mind of the MlarKet By Neum;conom~ expert Or.Paul J. lak aoo Dr.~eI Shermerdebunk two myths, (1) IIlmo ear oomicus: that "e::ooomic man" is rational, free and senish and (2) that ewlution aoo ocooom~ are based almost entirely on cutthroat competttion and self-maximizing greed. Economy.

HOMO ECONOMICUS

al1l61VIIS (video}, av061C (audio casseHe)- The UlliYerse & tile Tea Cup-The Matllematics 01Tnuth and Bea~ byAward-winning scieocewriter KC. Cole. Mathematics is the most fJO\',.rtul & breathtaking creation 01the human mioo. Cole demystifies mathemat~ sha.ing fX1fItt illuminates everything lrom the OJ. Simpson verdict to the errors that undermine The Bell Curve. Math as an e~ant problem so/I'er. D99 DVO(DVO);av099C (audio casseHe)- The Hole in the Universe, The Physics of Notlli1g and Theories of Everything LA limes scieoce writer KC. Cole reveals the researth 01today's top cosmologists and physicists IWf1<ing to unravel the uHimate theo~ 01everything to explain the 1I'0rkingsof the cosmos.That something may verywell be in "nothing" -the vacuum 01spacetime out of which everythingin the universeari~

MATH AS A PROBLEM SOLVER

THEORIES

OF EVERYTHING

8. THE COSMOS:

ATHEIST ACTIVIST Dr.MIKENEWDOW

lENT COSMIC POWER SITES

,,171C (audio casseHe); "I71DVO (DVO}, 171CO (audio CD)A History 01tile End of the Wortd, How tile Most Controversial Book in tile Bible ChallEed the Course of Western Civilization. Best selling author Jonathan Kirsch examines the sobering history of how churth and armchair Bible interpret"" promote poIttical, social and religious agendas based on the belief that the Book 01Revelat;,n predicts the world's end. 2,DOO-year.; 01interpretation has created whole societies and inspired war, and influenced present day U.S. politics. Kirsch treals his material with both sobriety and a healthy sense 01the iron~.

BOOK OF REVELATION-KIRSCH

SPACE EXPLORAnON
005AV(video~ 005AT(audio)-ls E.1 Out There?The Search lor Extra-Tenrestriallntelligenceby Dr.Thomas McDonough. Is E.1 Out There' The Searth lor ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. McDonough01Caltech and the Planetary Soci~, shows whal scientists are doing to detect possible communications lrom other planets, the methods used to analyze the data collected, and the lunding aoo politics behind the searth. This is an """lIent summation 01the state 01the science 01 searthing lor E.1s.

SEARCH FOR ET

ATOM: DR. LAWRENCE KRAUSS

1000VO (DVO);"l00C (audio casseHe)--Atont From the Big Bang Tothe Orgin Of Ufe Wrlh humor and insight, Dr.Krauss lollows the trajoctory 01a sing~ otIfgen atom's 'IO'j3gethrough eternity, telling the story of the universe lrom the Big Bang to lile's emergence on Earth. Krauss is oflBn compared to Carl Sagan lor his ability to ", lour relationship to the universe and the countless ages that have come belore us Don't miss this masterful storyteller.

TOPOLOGY OF THE UNIVERSE

IDS VHS (VHS), 106DVD(OVD), 106CD (audio CO); avl DSC (audio cassettel- How the Unive". Got Its Spots levin discusses cosmology and topology in a live~, accessible fashion. What we know about the shape and extent of the univer.e, its beginning and its end. Emphasiles her area of expertis<>-the topoliogy and geometJy of the un~ strange map of space full of black holes, eIlaotic flows, time warps, and invisible strings.

DR. JANNA LEVIN

there is no doubt that animal testing has contributed to the progress of medical science, a re there some concessions that scientists can make? In this lectu re Blum provides at last a balanced forum and explores this issue in vivid and unflioching detail, with an up close, first-hand look at the issues and people inllllved.

llM01HY FERRIS

AMATEURASTRONOMYREVOLUTION

avlll OVD (DVD) Seeing in the Dall< Science writer Timothy Ferris ports on the revolution now ping amateur astrooomy with breathta~ng ~ides. \\\x1c previous~ possible on~ at major obsemtooes is now within the reach of motivated amateurs. 0001 miss th~ inspiring lectu re by one of the most compelling science communicator.; of our generation.

avD29C (audio cassette)-The Thinker on the Ellge of Forever, The Science and Humanism of Gene Roddenberry by David Alexander, The Author of Star TrekCte411Jr Star Trekfans and science fiction buffs will no! want to miss this once-in-alifetime Iectu 00 the science and human~m of Gene Roddenbeny and Star Tre!<. learn the "warts and all" details of how Roddenbeny created Star T ~ his battle with nehIOO< censor.;, his attempts to maintain creative control, how the program became a pheoomena, and what Roddenbeny did with Star Trek th2t led NASA to honor him with a posthumous NASA Medal.

SCIENCE OF STAR TREK'S GENE RODDENBERRY

lar lectures, discussing her fascinating and important work in gender studies, showing how pervasive the male bias is in all aspects of research, showing comparisons between Gould's book The Mismeasure 01 Man with her own book, The Mismeasure 01 fltJman. In a surprise appearance, Bill r+jC. 'The Science Guy" mixed humor with impollant moral homilies on science, education, and on instilling ~ds with a sense of \Wnder and creativity. Dr. Paul MacCready, tounderof AeroVironment one of the world's leading eO\;ronmental research companies, emphasiled the impollance of education, particularly teaching ~s hO'N to tIlink "out of the box" to find creative new solutions to old proi>!ems such as overpopulation, global warming. and po~ lution.

SCIENCELOOKSATTHEGODQUESTION
av121VHS(video); avl21C (audiocassette); av121 DVD; avl21CD (2 audio COS)-- The Ghost in the Unive"", God in li2Irt of Modem Science by phys~ist and author Dr. Taner Edis. Dr. Edis draws on modern science to takea skeptical kxlk at the qL<!Stion of God. He presents a thorough~ naturalistic view of our wortd, where complexity, intelligence, and even the sublime heights of religious experience emerge from wnat is uttimat~ material and random. A very intelligent and crisp lectu re filled witfJ scientific insights.

transform the way PIlOfJle think and act when with cults and other mind-<ontrol relationship' extricareyoulseif or a friend orfami~ mernber danger of getting sucked into a cutt.

DENYING HISTORY
DR. MICHAEL SHERMER
avD92C (audio cassette)-- Denyir12 Histortthe Holocaust Never Happened & Why Do ~? by Dr. Mic11a~ Shermer. Based on his new the same title, Dr. Shenmer hows how any hi fact ~ verifiied and proven, using the Holocaust example. Shermer addresses with specifics ~ deniers' false claims--lhat ~gniflC3ntly less million Jews ~lIed, thet gas chambers used for delousing c~ing, and that the Nazi! intended to exterminate European JeNry . reveals tor the first time original documents photographs of the death camps, wn~h he hac ~ by NASAlJPt. experts in aerial photogra

BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY

av145YHS (video); av145C (audio cassette); ,,145DVD (DVD}, avl45CD (audioCD)-8i11 ~ The Science Guy, Cool Science and tile "[yes of Hyc." tlye is at his best in tIl~ v.ooderful performance suitable for kids and adutts alike. Bill shows video clips from his new television series, "The Eyes of /IJC." wni~ he talks about science, skeptic~, and the wonders of the universe. Bill also gales the audience with humor1lIS)OI enlightening stories about his life in science and teleo.;sion, and wnat ~ is like to produce a television series on science Don1 miss th~ terrific show.

NEW TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS

.v116VHS(video),116DVD (DVD); av116C(audiDcassette)-- Cuttir12-Edie Science and TechnollliY. By aerospace engineer, author, & educator David Naid~h. What predictions about new technology, especial~ nanotechnology, a believable? What about robotic spy flies, bacteria szed medical robots, quantum computers. orcomputer-to-brain interfaces that will alia" us to control dievices just by thin~ng?

WHAT MOTIVATES EXTREMI

avlD5VHS (video); 105DVD (DVD); avl05C ( sette)-xtre~! by social historian Or. John Dr. George examines wnat makes an extremist joins and wITt, What do they want and how fa' they go? George will provide a historical . extremism and tile conspiracy theories and views that attract ICCru~S and motivate both the far ~ft and the far right. Vel\' current timely.

EXPANDINGUNIVERSEIDARKENERGY FEAR OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

av114YHS (VIdeo); av114C (audIO cassette); avl14DVD (DVD); - Extravagant UnlVll,,", Exploding Stars, Dall< EnellY, & the Accelerating Cosmos by supernova expert Or. Robert Kirshner who explams the cosmological measu rements that led to an extramlina~ discovery, the expansIOn of the un",""" IS acceIcrating underthe mfluence of a dali< ene,gy that makes space ~self expand. Instead of a gravitatIOnal slowmg caused by ~ravity,. observations reveal the expansion of the unlversels speeding up due to some. mystenous force. tt was Kirshners team that made this dlsccvel\' av03llC (audio cassette)--FrankenstBin And the Fear of Science by Dr. Steven B. Harris. UClA Department of Pathology. What is the fascination with Mary Shelley's famous story of Dr. Frankenstein and his reanimated "monster." Harris examines the cultural context in wnich th~ story was prodoced, wITt ~ was written by a woman, and wITt tile story endures to this day. Harris also uses other science fiction stoies to explore society's fear of science and technology, and attempts over the centuries to restJict and control science and techno~gy beto they, like Dr. Frankenstein's SClrne~i~

SCIENCE WRITING FOR WOMEN

av117YHS(video), v117C(audio cassette); av117DVD (DVD}' -Who is Science Writing For? Science writer and public intellectual Marga t Wertheim asks this question in the context of wITt the re are no! more women in the scieoces. tt turns out that the audience for science books and magazines consists of about 5% of tile population. Mlst science magazines, for example, have male readership in the 90-95 % range. lII1rtheim discusses strategies to ach the other 95%, particularly younger women.

DEBATE: CAN PHYSICS PROVE GOD

av177C (audio cassette); av177DVD (oVO}' av177CD (audio CO) Debate, Can Physics Prove God and Christianity? Wrth physicists Dr. Frank Tipler v. Dr. Lawrence Krauss Tip~r argues that the God-the Uncaused First causs--e complete~ consistent with the Cosmological Singularity, an entity whose existence is required by physical law. He argues for tile scientific possibility of miracles, including the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Incarnation. Krauss provides a cogent response and argues that tile scientific evidence does not confirm the central tenets of Christianity or any otller religion, and that attempts to employ science in tile selVice of Iigion a re doomed I1l failu re,

JEWISH DNA' RACE IDE

av179DVD (DVD}, avt79CD (audio CD) John adresses one of todafs most controver.;ial ta ics, the connection between genetics and ~ the viewpoint of the accomplishments of the do Jews-the tiniest fraction of the world's tio~score highest on intelligence iests, h~d Nobel Prizes, and a disproportionate~ found

CREATION,BlACK HOLES,SUPERSTRINGS
av143C (audio cassette); avl43DVD (DVD); avl43CD (2 aucio COs)-ParaUel World$, The Science of Creation, Black Hole~ Superstrings, & Higfler Dimensions by Or. Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics at City University of New York and hesiselling author. Kaku presents a fascinating tour of cosmology, including M-theory, inflational\' univer.e tl1eol\', and paral~1 universes. Hie describes the extraonfinal\' advances that have transformed cosmology DVef the last decade, fOfcing scientists around the V<lfkf to rethink our understanding of tile birth and fate of the

DR. MICHIO KAKU

T!trm

avD52VHS (video); avD52C (audio cassette)-- The End of Science by John Horgan, author of tile contioYersial bestseI~ The End 01 Science. Horgan presents his case on wITt he tllinks that no major scientifi: breaktIlroughs re main and buts objections to tIlis thesis. Horgan doubts that the re will ever again be a scierrtific """Iution on par ~h the Newtonian, Danvinian, or Einsteinian revolutions. Dr. Michael Shenmer, Director of the Skeptics Soc~ responds, and the Skeptic Soci~ audience provides a live~ Q & A.

Dr. EDWARD TUm

EVIDENCE & GRAPHIC DESIGN

universe..

DISCOVERY OF BLACK HOLES

avl46VHS (video); avl46C (audio cassette); avl46DVD (DVD}, avl46CD (2 audio COs)-EMPIRE OF THE STARS, Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the auest for Black Holes Dr. Mhur I. Miller, professor of Histol\' and Philosophy of Scieoce, Univernty College, london discusses two great theories, relativity and quantum mechanics wnich meet head on in the description of black holes. Miller recounts the dramatic story of the quest to understand black holes and the feud between the great astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington and his rival, the young Indian imigrant Subrnhmanyan Chandrasekhar, wno created the first mathematical descripti>n of black holes in 1930, on a Vl7f3ge from Madras to london.

avD56C (audio cassette)-- 15 Myths of Scieoce by Dr. I'1jlliam rkComas, Director of the Center to Advance Science Education at USC. rkComas discusses his reseach on how a list adoed by textbook writers became a description of how science is done. wITt many methods used to teaell science a re actual~ the a~esis of the way in wnich science actual~ Dpefates, and 13 other myths of science.liveJy. El!:ellent. A good tool for science teachers and educator.;.

15 MYTHS OF SCIENCE

avl40C (audio cassette); av140DVD (DVO); avl40CD (2 audio COsI-Beautiful Evidence: The Art of Science and tile Science of Art by Dr. Edward Tufte. The re oo.vned theorist of ana~1 design, Edward Tufte, "the Leonardo da Vinci of data," he re draws from his /JJrthcoming book, Beautiful Evidence, ~~~h develops the fundamental theory of ana~1 design and proposes methods for display of nearly every type of evidence. He also discusses his ana~ of the Boeing,tIASA PllwerPoint slides created ~nile the space shuftle Columbia was injured but still alive, and his assessment of the Space Shuttie Challenger d~ster.

fessions such as law and medicine? He also

12. EXTREMISM,
RACE ISSUES, CULTS HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM
DR. MICHAEL SHERMER
av01ge (audio cassette)-- Provir12 tfle Holocaust Holocaust Revisionism and Pseudohistol)' Dr. Michael Shermer applies skeptical methodology to the claim that the Holocaust never happened, reviewing the arguments and answers, as well as an analysis of the

such questens as who actual~ can be said III Hebrew genes and wnat was the real fate of ~ Tribes?

13. MATH& ST~

av003C(audio cassette)-- The Use and Abuse Statistics in the Real wnrld. Dr. JuditfJ Grabi"", clear and live~ presentation of practical eve tisti:s for non-mathematicians.1fow people, and corporaations I~ with statistics.1fow I1l a benefit ana~ to evef}1lay Irt. 1fow to u sampiing and polling. How III out advertising media misinformation. This is a great lectu ers and students, particularly tl1nse in critical cowses, as well as statisti:s and pS)l:hoiogy

USE & ABUSE OF STATISn

III

UNUSUAL SCIENCE TESTS

DR. RICHARD WISEMAN
av152C (aud~ cassette~ avl52DVD (D'Al}, av152CD (2 aud;, CDs)--liJcl<. ESP, and Magic, How Science Tests the Unusual By magician, author, and ps)thotogist Dr. RichaIdWISen13n. Great tape for students 2nd groups. Enlightening and entertaining! He focuses on his Lu:k Project (what traits make one person luc~ tllan others), the ps)thoiogy of magic. and the reliability of ..,....;tness testimony, Wiseman heads tile (lS)thology lab at the University of Hertfoojshire, England and has been featured in many television programs.

revisionist movement as a social phenomenon. Sham

not on~ how~. know tIlat the H1lIocaust happened, but how all histO<icaI events a "PIlM!d"

THE MYTH OF RACE

avD24C (audio cassette); 024CD (audio CD), Afrocentrism, Racism, & Other Myths Dr. Yahudi Vkbste<, CSU, l A gives a freshing & startling look at rncfal tIli1~ng & racial classification in U.S. Are ethnic pride fOOICments counter-productive? Is our present system of race relations self-defeating? Suggestions for a 11m positive view.

Dr. LAWRENCE KRAUSS

EXTRA DIMENSIONS

av150YHS (video); avl50C (audio cassette); avl500VD IDVD}, avl50CD (2 audio COs)-Hidir12In The Mirror, The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond. By physicist and best selling author Or. Lawrence Krauss. Is the universe as we seem to experience ~ all the re is? Drawing on \W1i< by scientists, mathematicians, and artists, Krauss explores wnetller extra dimensions simp~ represent abstract speculation or hold the key to a deeper understanding of the Univer.e.

avD63VHS(video); avD63C (audio cassetteHfills. Brains, & MacIines by Sante Fe In~ chaos and compiety theorist, and popular science writer John Casti. Casti discusses his book. The Cambridge Quintet. about an imaginal\' meeting of 5 great intellectuals of the centUI\" physicist &win Schriidinger, biologist J.B.S. Haldane, philosopber Ludwig Wiltgen-stein, _list C. P. Soow, and mathematician/computer pioneer Alan Turing, wt10 discuss the natu re of artificial inlelligence. A succinct summary of the science and philosophy behind artif~ial intelligence.

NATUREOFARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE

11. SCIENCE &

REUGION
DARWIN'S AGNOSTICISM
044DVD (DVD); avD44C(audio cassette)- How DalWin Became An Agnostic. Or. Mario Di Gregooo, historian of science, explores Darwin's debt to Hume, the great skeptic, and gives an inside and intimate look into tile Irte of OalWin, how he abandoned special creation in favor of evolution, and tile relationship belween sci-

DEBATE: RACE AND 1.0

av031 C (audio cassette)--Race and 1.(1., For Whom the Bell CUlve Tons One day symposium. (2 audioTapes for 19.95.) Anthfll\Xllogist Dr. Viocent SaOc!J, Science Historian Or. Daniel J. Kevfes, and Cognitive f's)thologist Or. Diane Halpem debale ma;' topics from the controversial book, The Bell Curve, ~ich pos~s that black-white differences in 1.0. scores are real & large~ genetical~ determined. The symposiasts discuss the implications of this claim for science & soc~.

avD5IVHS (~deo); av051 C (audio cassette)-Logic by Or. Bart Kosko authorof Fuzzy Thinki(f pioneer in the field of fUl2y logic. Dr. Kosko says science matll models a linear models, tllough has found a tru~ linear process in natu re, Non matll models a re more accurata and neural ar\: systems are tools that let us model nonlinear without having to guess at their exact math form. Examples of appl~ations a re given, aut freeway flow, air traffic oontrol, computers, etc.

NONLINEAR MATH MODELS

FRAUD & SCIENCE

avDll C (audio cassette)--The Baltimore Ca"" Fraud & Science by Cattech historian of science Dr. Daniel J. llevles. Dr. Kevles lectures on his new book in which he recounts the recent history of the controversy over the research of Nobel Laureate David Battimore.When ~~:'~!~~::i~~ a~dmh~~:~=i~~: Battimore for scientific fraud, did tIley simp~ find what they were loo~ng for? Kevfes uses the Battimore case to talk about the broader issues of fraud in science, the misunderstanding of how science real~ worl<s, and how tnrth canno! be discovered in the rt f br .. cou 0 pu ~ opinion.

TWO MODES OF MATH THINK!

av123VHS(video); avl23C (audio cassette); av (OVD); -The Art of the Infinite, The Pleaures Of Matllemalics hy author.; & founders of The Ma school Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. Ellen Kaplan. Kaplans provide character studies of eccentric, relsome, base, & noble mathematicians, iIIu two modes of math tIlin~ng, matllematical butt discovered as ~ exists (intu~ionist), & mathe true because we invent consistent rules for ~ ( is!). Filled with fun examples for ~ds & adutts even math-phobics!

ence and religion in Darwin's time as well as ours.

CONSPIRACIES
avD38C (audio cassette); 038CD (audio CD); 50 Greatest Conspiracies and Why People Believe Them by investigative journalist John Villalen wt10 guides you through the dil2Y labyrintlls of conspiracy theories, wnere fact and fiction flirt, court, many, and bear vel\' strange offspring, CIA. Watergate, JFK, UFOs, KXX. AIDS, lSD, FEIM .... Also discusses why people believe in conspiracy theories, and the pS)l:hology of wnat c0nspiracy theories offer in terms of explaining how the worfdworl<s.

NEW IDEAS OF HEAVEN

avDe5C(audio cassette)-Heaven and tile Internet by Dr. Margaret lII1rtheim. Science writer Margaret Wertheim explores how humans often dream of a higher plane, a perfect wortd common~ known as Heaven. But science has dimmed those hopes. lII1rtheim explores new ideas of heaven, such as the concept of the Internet and cyberspace as a new home for tile SOUl,wnere one might download one's mind into digital eternity, in a sci-fi fantasy of dig~1 resumection. avl12C(aud~ cassette); av112DVD (DVD}, v112CD 2 audio CDs)-- DaJWin's Catlledsa~ Evnlution, Reftgjon, and the Nature of Science by anthropologist and 1M>lutionary theorist Dr. David Sloan I'1jlson. Dr.I'olson combines the usual~ irreconcilable evolution and reI~ gion by proposing an evofutional\' theory of religion tllat shakes both evoIutional\' biology and social theory at their foundations. He treats religious groups as "O<ganisms" selected for su!Viva1 to generate an advantage. Intriguing and controwrsial because \Wson presents his group selection modEl of ewlution.

He examines popular culture'sembrnce-and

misun-

derstanding-of topics such as black holes, life in another dimension, string theol\', and some of tile daring new tIleO<ies that propose that large extra dimensions exist alongside our own.

EXTRA DIMENSIONS
Dr. USA RANDALL
avl56YHS (~deo); av156C (audio cassette); avl56DVD (OVD}, avl56CD (2 audio COs)--WafllOd I'assago& Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hiddien Dimensions. By leading theoretical pIlysicist Dr. Usa Randall. Dr. Randall ernplais creative analogies to explain how our univer.e may have many unseen dimensions to make her astounding~ complex material understandable. She discusses recent advaoces in string and supersymmetJy theory. Are extra dimensions a haction of a millimeter in silE, dimensions of infinite silE, or on~ the dimensions we see? Randall shows how these theories will be tested in coming l'l'rs. As coauthor of the two most impollant scientific papers on tIlis topic, she's ideal~ su~ to explain tl1ese ideas.

POP CULTURE'S MAD SCIENTIST

av072DVD (DVD}, av072VHS(video); avD72C (aud~ cassette)-The "Mad Scienisf' in Modem CutIlJre by David Skel. Popular cultu hlstDlian David Skal . explains how SCIeOCCbecomes a hgfltmng rod for aflXl~ about the """ and consequences of modiem technology. Hie cover.; the icon of the mad scientist; UFO folklore; computers v..the Unabomber; the dienIOnlllltion of modiem med.,ne; and B-1TlIMC SCICflCe fiction claSSICS.

EVOLunONARY THEORY OF RELIGION

avD45VHS(Vldeo); avD45C (audIO cassette)-- MUitias, Who Joins and Why by Cutt expert Ric!Jard Abanes who explains wt10 joins mil~ias and wITt, shows the links between bellion, racism, and religi>n, gives the facts about ~tlat real~ happened in Waco, and shows how militia groups use such incidents to claim there ~ a one-V<lfkf government conspiracy and tllat the end of the wor1<J~ ne3l

WHO JOINS MILITIAS?

...

SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF "NOI

av170C (audio cassette), .vllODVD (DVD); avl (audio CD) Noise: a fUlly logic perspective, A brated maverick in the wortd of science. Or. Kosl<l, professor of Electrical Engineering, USC, duces the """Iutional\' concept of fimy logic latest book wn~h provides the first scientific h noise. rtJise from tile big bang to blaring car a considered a curse, but. in fact. no! all noise is Debun~ng this and othef noise myths, Kosko d noise's possib~ role in the ice ages to noise pol laws. to the use of noise to generate synthetic s and Hedy Lamarr's contribution to noisy wi less

HISTORY, SCIENCE ETHICS & SCIENCE PHILOSOPHY

10. SCIENCE

a~l5C (audio cassetteJ-Postmodernism and Science: Does cultural upbrill2in2: affect the way sc~ e~ think about the world? Pulitzer Prize oominee and physicist Dr. Tony Rotllman considers such deeply meaningful questions as, Is the Univer.e Knowable? Is the \\\x1d Symmetrical? Are Doobt and Certainty Complemental\'? Can We learn Anything From Parallels Between Physics and Eastern Philosophy? What is science in a "postmodIem" V<lfkf?

CULTURE & SCIENCE

THE BORDER BE1IIffN SClEOCf & SPlRI1\JIJ.IlY

avl20VHS (video}, avl20C (audio cassette); avl20DVD (DVD}, av120CD (aud~ CD) By John Horgan.1fow 00 traoces, miens, prayer, satori, and otller mystical manifestations "wor1<"? What a their neurological mechanisms and pS)l:hoIogical implications? Horgan investigates a wide range of rleidschemistI\', physics, pS)l:hology, radiology, theology, and more----to nanow the gap between reason and spiritual enlightenment and explores the stri~n~ similar effects of "mystical technologies" like sensol\' deprivation, prayer, fasting, trance, dancing, med~ation, and drug trips. His cooclusions resonate with the controversial climax of his book The End olScience because, as he argues, the most enlightened mystics and the most enlightened scientists end up in the same plareconfronting the imponderable depth of the universe.

RATIONALMYSTICISM:

PRIMATE RESEARCHCONTROVERSY
avD26C (audio cassette)--The Monkey Wars, The CDntrove"Y Over the Use Of Primates in Research by Deborah Blum, based on her Pulitzer Prize I'1jnning book The Mlnkey Wa13. Activists have taken up the animal rights cause w~h often furious gusto, using death threats, hate mail, and even bombings of laboratories to lay their messages to scientists. While

~~ID~~..mc~~~~~R\!YVHs~m (video on~)-fvnlution Revnlutio", Skepticism, Education, Environment. Festschrift 2000 - Stephen Jay Gould. Part II by Dr. Carol Ta~, James Randi, Dr. Paul MacCready, Bill ~, "the science guy." James "The Amazing" Randi the \WIld's foremost spokesman against pseudoscience discussed Gould's role in skepticism. Dr. Carol Ta~ delivered one of the most popu-

av06DVHS(videc), avD60C (audio cassette)-Milenoial Cults by USCs Or. Stephen O'leary explores Waco, UFO groups (Heaven's Gate,) and tile claims of many end times groups. Why 00 Iigious cutts often take on the myth~ OIOtifs of the end of time? D'l.eary is co-founder of Boston's Center for Millennial Studies wnich studies tile buildup, cresting, and most important~, the aftermath of both the AD. 1000 millennium, and AD2000. The lectu remains current since most of these groups have no! admitted that they were wrong; instead, as D'leal\' predicted, they claim that tile end is still coming, tIlat they misca~ulated, or tllat God changed his mind, or that they pl3}<d to save us from the end, or, or, Of....

MILLENNIAL

CULTS

munication.

K.C. COLE avD61VHS (video); avD6IC (audio cassette)-- The Unive,," & the Tea Cup-The Mathematics of TnrtI1 and Beauty by Award-wi science writer K.C. Cole. Mathematics is the most erful & breatllta~ng creation of the human mind. demystifies mathematics showing how ~ illumi CVCIYthing from the OJ. Simpson verdict to the e that undermine The Bell Curve. Math as an elegart prob~msofver:

MATH AS A PROBLEM SO~

av091 C (audio cassette)-Cutts, Mind Control, Brainwashing. and Recovery by Steven Hassan. Hassan, a former cun member (Moonies) and a leading cutt expert, explains cutt techniqL<!S of persua~on and influence Is tl1ere such a thing as mind control and brain waShing? Hassan also presents a revolutional\' approaell that will

CULTS:

MIND CONTROL, & RECOVERY

14. SAnREjSON
NIGERIAN SCAM SATIRE
A POF OF 3 LECTURES IN THIS CATAGORY All OTHERS CAN BE DOVvNLOADED AT VNNi.SKEPTlC.COMo

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Celebrate Darwin's 200th

A fantastic price for
Jared Diamond on Evolution
[jjjRl~ The Third
The evolution of human sexuality & science of adultel)'. How we pick our mates & sex partners. Why do we grow old & die? The animal origins of art. Why do we smoke, drink, & use dangerous drugs? The golden age that never was.

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examined through the lens of natural selection: education, ape rights, jul)' trials, the vindication of Darwinism; memes; religion, academic obscurantism; Stephen Jay Gould; Douglas Adams; pseudoscience; & his awe at the marvelous complexity of the universe. Dawkins writes with clarity & passion.

A great introduction to the field or get up to speed on the latest discoveries in the incredibly rich fossil record, with an emphasis on transitional forms. Includes a no holds barred critique of the claims of creationism and Intelligent Design. Over 200 illustrations. Winner of an award for excellence from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. Cat. No. b127HB. Hardback. Only $30.00

A Darwin Day 200th Birthday Celebration

2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on February 12, 1809--the same day as Abraham Lincoln-and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species on November 24, 1859. Come join us for a special celebration of the life and science of one of the greatest scientists in history. Historian of science Dr. Michael Shermer reviews the remarkable life of Darwin and explain how he arrived at his theory of evolution. Paleontologist and geologist Dr. Donald Prothero gave a brief overview of how evolutionary theory has changed since Darwin's time. Caltech biologist Dr. Joel Smith explains systems biology which allows us to construct detailed logic maps of the "circuitry" of living organismsknown as Regulatory Networks. By comparing Regulatory Networks from different species we can see how the program has changed over the course of evolution, and we can identify the precise changes in DNAsequences that have created those changes. av197DVD (OVD); av197CD (audio CD)

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins_ (bI23PB$1595.) A classic that helped change the nature of the study of social biology. This brilliant reformulation of the theol)' of natural selection explains how the selfish gene revolves around savage competition and exploitation-----yet acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins. (b087PB $15.95) The 1986 explanation of evolution that the LA Times

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Soul of Science (av573CD $9.95.) An inspirational essay on how we find spiritual meaning and a sense of awe in a scientific worldview. There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. Unabridged.

Why Darwin Matters (av572CD $19.95.) An insiders' guide to the evolution!creation debate--what evolution really is, how we know it happened, and how to test it. Why creationism and Intelligent Design theory are not science. Why people reject evolution. Abridged.

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How We Believe (av065CD-$15.95) An empirical study of 10,000 Americans-why do people believe in God?; proofs of God; did religion evolve?; finding meaning in life; how people assume others believe for different reasons than they do. Abridged. (Also on audio cassette av065CD-SALE $5. )
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MInd of the Malket(av574CD$19.95.)

Integrates behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, & evolutionary economics to reveal that humans are just as irrational when it comes to money & markets as they are in other areas. Examples from brain biochemistry and capuchin monkeys and more. Abridged.