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QUANTUM LEAPS in the Wrong Direction Where Real Science Ends... and Pseudoscience Begins
Charles M. Wynn
and
Arthur W. Wiggins
QUANTUM LEAPS in the Wrong Direction Where Real Science Ends... and Pseudoscience Begins
With Cartoons by Sidney Harris
JOSEPH HENRY PRESS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
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QUANTUM LEAPS in the Wrong Direction Where Real Science Ends... and Pseudoscience Begins
Joseph Henry Press
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20418
The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academy Press, was created with the goal of making books on science, technology, and health more widely available to professionals and the public. Joseph Henry was one of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences and a leader in early American science.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wynn, Charles M.
Quantum leaps in the wrong direction : where real science ends and pseudoscience begins / Charles M. Wynn and Arthur W. Wiggins ; with cartoons by Sidney Harris.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-07309-X (alk. paper)
1. Pseudoscience—Popular works. 2. Science—Methodology—Popular works. I. Title: Quantum leaps. II. Wiggins, Arthur W. III. Harris, Sidney. IV. Title.
Q172.5.P77 W96 2001
501—dc21
2001024426
The photograph of the “Cottingley Fairies” on page 81 is reprinted with permission of the Science and Society Picture Library of the National Museum of Science and Industry, London, England.
On page 104, illustrations from the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck®, known also as the Rider Tarot and the Waite Tarot, are reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, Connecticut 06902. Copyright 1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction prohibited. The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck® is a registered trademark of U.S. Games Systems, Inc.
Copyright 2001 by Charles M. Wynn and Arthur W. Wiggins. All cartoons copyright by Sidney Harris.
Printed in the United States of America.
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QUANTUM LEAPS in the Wrong Direction Where Real Science Ends... and Pseudoscience Begins
About the Authors
Charles M. Wynn, Sr., graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and the City College of New York and then attended the University of Michigan, where he received a Ph.D. in chemistry. After receiving his degree, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer at the Malayan Teachers College in Penang, Malaysia. He is currently Professor of Chemistry at Eastern Connecticut State University. He lives in Columbia, Connecticut, with his wife and three rabbits.
Arthur W. Wiggins graduated from the University of Notre Dame and then attended the University of Michigan, where he received an M.S. in physics. He is currently Professor of Physics and Physical Sciences Department Head at Oakland Community College in Farmington Hills, Michigan. He lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, with his wife, two cats, and a dog.
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Professors Wynn and Wiggins are the co-authors of The Five Biggest Ideas in Science.
Sidney Harris is “America's premier science cartoonist” (Isaac Asimov). He attended Brooklyn College and the Art Students League of New York (City). He has published more than 600 cartoons in American Scientist and was elected an honorary member of Sigma Xi. An exhibit of his cartoons and paintings has been touring museums around the country since 1985. His cartoons have appeared in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker. He is the author of 49 Dogs, 36 Cats, & a Platypus: Animal Cartoons (1999), Einstein Atomized: More Science Cartoons (1996), and a number of other books; he also illustrated Wynn and Wiggins' last book, The Five Biggest Ideas in Science. Harris lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with his wife and is thinking about purchasing a parakeet.
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Contents
Prologue
vii
1
The Road to Reality: Scientific Method
1
2
Scientific Reasoning in Action
13
3
The Road to Reality Versus the Road to Illusion
31
4
UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Life Hypothesis
49
5
Out-of-Body Experiences and Entities
71
6
The Astrology Hypothesis
93
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7
The Creationism Hypothesis
121
8
Normal Sensory Perception, Extrasensory Perception, and Psychokinesis
145
9
Reflections on the Scientific Approach to Reality
167
Epilogue
187
Glossary
191
Additional Reading
209
Index
215
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Prologue
Planet Earth about to be recycled. Your only chance to survive—leave with us.
Marshall Herff Applewhite
In early April 1997, the world was stunned to learn that a group of 39 people had committed the largest mass suicide in U.S. history in their communal home in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Dressed in black pants, flowing black shirts, and new black Nike sneakers, their faces hidden by purple cloths, they had ingested a lethal dose of barbiturates mixed with applesauce, enhanced by a shot of vodka, and then helped along by the asphyxiating effect of a plastic bag over the head.
Why, the world asked, did a group of seemingly intelligent individuals, possessing marketable skills, and comfortably housed in an upscale neighborhood, decide to kill themselves? They did it because of their belief that by committing suicide in this manner, they would shed their bodies, or “earthly containers,” and be whisked away by extraterrestrials to a spaceship and a higher level
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of existence. Unfortunately for them, their belief was pseudoscientific: it was erroneously regarded as scientific.
And how did they arrive at this misguided belief? They arrived at it in a manner characteristic of many pseudoscientists: they received it from a charismatic leader, a man named Marshall Herff Applewhite. The “classmates,” as they called themselves, blindly and tragically accepted the teachings of someone whose deep-seated ideas about the universe were erroneous. Applewhite had convinced them of the existence of a gigantic alien spaceship, said to be following a comet that had been named Hale-Bopp (after the two astronomers who had first sighted it in July 1995). This spaceship was to take them home to the “literal Heavens.”
Let's compare the claim of Hale and Bopp two years earlier, that a comet was heading our way, and the claim by Marshall Herff Applewhite, that a gigantic alien spaceship was heading our way.
Comets make exciting and dramatic viewing: a moving celestial object consisting of a head and a luminous tail that points away from the Sun. To test Hale and Bopp's claim that the comet existed, other scientists aimed their telescopes at the location in the sky provided by Hale and Bopp. They too observed this comet. Eventually, the comet came so close to our planet that it was possible for people to see it with the unaided eye.
The prospect of sighting a gigantic alien spaceship would also be exciting and dramatic. In fact, two members of the Heaven's Gate commune decided they'd like to see the spaceship for themselves. In January 1997, when the comet could not be seen readily with the unaided eye, they purchased a telescope capable of providing a clear image of the comet. With this telescope, they observed the comet, but were unsuccessful in their attempt to observe the supposed spaceship. They then returned the telescope to the shop where they'd purchased it.
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Instead of deciding that their evidence did not support a belief in an alien spaceship, these people decided that they didn't need physical evidence. They discarded the telescope—but not their belief. Clinging to this belief cost them their lives.
To understand what's wrong with pseudoscience, we'll first examine what's right about real science, and then be in a position to compare science's approach to reality with that of pseudoscience. We'll learn that science's most basic value is that all ideas about reality are subject to both testing by experiment and challenge by critical rational thought. Scientifically literate thinkers accept ideas tentatively. They base their acceptance on evidence rather than on authority. People who are not scientifically literate are more likely to accept ideas absolutely. They are more vulnerable to deficient or bogus ideas as put forth by charismatic leaders or charlatans.
We'll examine in some detail the five most widely believed pseudoscientific ideas along with several dozen other ones, and see how they stand up to scientific scrutiny. In an epilogue, we'll suggest ways to become a better scientist—and avoid becoming a pseudoscientist. We 'll also supply a glossary of interesting terms related to the study of pseudoscience.
Three groups of people will read this book. One is largely unfamiliar with the phenomena we discuss. We hope these people gain useful insights while exploring unfamiliar territory. Members of the second group are already acquainted with the phenomena and already in agreement with our conclusions. We hope they gain new insights into what for them is familiar territory.
The third group consists of people already acquainted with the phenomena and already in disagreement with our conclusions. Will members of this group change their views as a result of reading this book? We hope so, but we also realize such changes face
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significant obstacles. Once people acquire a belief, they tend to adhere to that belief, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Explanations developed to explain phenomena become fixed, even when those explanations are shown to be irrational or based on wrong evidence.
This unreasonable resistance to change is known as belief perseverance. A useful strategy for overcoming the tendency of people to continue to seek out and find confirmation of their beliefs is to help them focus on disconfirmations, potential flaws in the reasoning that led them to the original belief. By drawing people's attention to contrary reasons, and then encouraging them to spell out (ideally, write down) contradicting reasons, the tendency to neglect contradicting evidence can sometimes be overcome.
Making such evidence more conspicuous helps eliminate several natural human biases: favoring positive rather than negative evidence (favoring reasons “for” over reasons “against”) and disregarding evidence inconsistent with or contradictory to the belief. To this end, we have developed and make extensive use of a comprehensive list of potential flaws in the reasoning process leading to beliefs about phenomena.
To help us keep our sense of perspective, Sidney Harris will provide humorous insights in the form of his inimitable cartoons.
Willimantic, Connecticut C.M.W.
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan A.W.W.
New Haven, Connecticut S.H.
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