LOS ANGELES, October 24—A study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine claiming that prayers from the USA, Canada, and Australia caused a 100% increase in pregnancy rates among infertility patients in Korea. The surprising results announced by Kwang Cha and associates were widely reported in the news media, including on the ABC news program Good Morning America. However, the study’s credibility was undermined when one of the co-authors, Daniel Wirth, was arrested by the FBI and later pled guilty to fraud. Cha’s other co-author, Columbia University’s Rogerio Lobo, later revealed that he had not participated in the research and withdrew his name from the published findings. Even with one of his co-authors in federal prison and the other disgraced, Korean fertility specialist Kwang Yul Cha stood by the allegedly supernatural study. He eventually filed a defamation lawsuit against Bruce Flamm, a California physician who had published several articles questioning the validity of the Cha/Wirth “pregnancy by prayer” report. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in August 2007, was thrown out of court in April 2008. However, in June 2008 Cha took the case to the California Appellate Court. Today the Court of Appeals “affirmed in full” the Superior Court decision and thus ruled that Superior Court Judge James Dunn had acted appropriately in tossing out the lawsuit.

In response to the ruling, Dr. Flamm issued the following statement: “Today’s ruling is a victory for science and evidence-based medicine. Scientists must be allowed to question bizarre claims. Cha’s mysterious study was designed and allegedly conducted by a man who turned out to be a criminal with a 20-year history of fraud. A criminal who steals the identities of dead children to obtain bank loans and passports is not a trustworthy source of research data. Cha could have simply admitted this obvious fact but instead he hired a team of lawyers to punish me for voicing my opinions. Physicians should debate their opinions in medical journals, not in courts of law. Judges have better things to do with their time and taxpayers have better things to do with their money.”

Dr. Flamm is a physician with Kaiser Permanente and a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California. He has been the senior investigator on numerous medical studies and has written several books and book chapters.

For more information contact: Janice Goings: 951-288-0937 jangoings@aol.com

James Randi, Lawrence Krauss, and Paul Kurtz were honored with major awards at the Center for Inquiry’s 12th World Congress in Bethesda, Maryland. All were presented at the Saturday evening awards banquet, April 11.

James Randi received the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s In Praise of Reason Award “in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the use of critical inquiry, scientific evidence, and reason in evaluating claims to knowledge.”

As everyone knows, Randi has for decades been a tireless and charismatic critical investigator of those who claim paranormal powers, forthrightly challenging them to undergo testing under controlled conditions and exposing those who intentionally deceive others. He also has been an effective educator of the scientific and skeptical communities about the need to understand the methods magicians use to deceive, so as not to be deceived themselves by pretenders to psychic powers.  

Paul Kurtz, founder and chairman of CSI, presented the award to Randi, noting that it is granted only to “outstanding contributors to rational inquiry and scientific thinking.” He noted that Randi was one of the original founders of CSI and is “a leading critic of people who engage in chicanery and fraud.” He praised Randi for his application of reason to concrete cases. “Your greatest quality is that you are an educator, a teacher. You have shown that the easiest people to deceive are PhDs, a great insight to all of us. You expose myths and hoaxes.... You stand out in history.”

Lawrence M. Krauss received the Center for Inquiry’s Scholarship in the Public Interest Award “in recognition of his outstanding contributions in defense of scientific inquiry and on behalf of improving the public’s understanding and appreciation of science.”

Krauss, a leading theoretical physicist at the interface of particle physics and cosmology and also an author of popular science books (The Physics of Star Trek, Fear of Physics, Hiding in the Mirror) recently moved from Case Western Reserve University to Arizona State University. There he is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, director of the Origins Initiative, and co-director of the Cosmology Initiative. Krauss is one of science’s most effective spokesmen. In his frequent public appearances and articles and op-ed columns in major newspapers and magazines he defends good science and warns against the politicization of science. He has been a strong and effective opponent of creationist efforts to dilute the teaching of science.

Ronald Lindsay, CEO and president of the Center for Inquiry, presented the award to Krauss. “No one can match Lawrence Krauss’s tireless efforts on behalf of the public understanding of science,” he said. “He is one of the few prominent scientists to successfully bridge the chasm between science and popular culture.”

Paul Kurtz, founder and chairman of the Center for Inquiry and of its affiliate organizations the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, received a special lifetime achievement award from the Center for Inquiry. Named The Eupraxsopher Award, it was given for his extraordinary leadership in the causes of humanism and scientific skepticism, his lifetime of accomplishment, and his moral and ethical guidance. The award is named for a term Kurtz himself coined, from Greek roots for “good/well,” “conduct/practice,” and “scientific and philosophic wisdom.” He defines eupraxsophy as “a set of convictions and practices offering a cosmic outlook and an ethical guide to life.”

Kendrick Frazier, editor of the Skeptical Inquirer and a board member of both the Center for Inquiry and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, presented the award to Kurtz. He noted that were it not for Kurtz none of the organizations represented at the congress would exist, and the worldwide movements they spawned would likely never have occurred. Frazier praised Kurtz as “truly, one of the world’s extraordinary persons.” He noted that Kurtz is a unique and remarkable combination of philosopher, scholar, and intellectual; author/editor of more than forty books in philosophy, humanism, and skepticism; founder of a major book publisher (Prometheus Books); creator and organizer of a network of nonprofit organizations advancing humanism and scientific skepticism; an international diplomat who attracts and welcomes diverse people from nations around the world; and an inspiring leader with extraordinary vision and courage.

Lawrence Krauss Received CFI's Scholarship in the Public Interest Award.

“He stresses not negativism but the affirming values of humanism and skepticism.... He has lived life to its fullest, with exuberance and extraordinary service to others. By elucidating, living, and advancing strong missions, ethical credos, and causes greater than ourselves, he inspires us all to try somehow to do the same.”

At a conference luncheon a day earlier, Paul Kurtz was also presented with an award from the National Capital Area Skeptics. NCAS President Scott Snell, who works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, presented Kurtz with NCAS’s Phillip J. Klass Award “for outstanding contributions in promoting critical thinking and scientific understanding.” The award honored Kurtz as “the person most responsible for the modern organized skeptical movement that coalesced in the mid-1970s,” which included founding CSICOP (now CSI) and the Skeptical Inquirer.

“It was CSICOP’s eminent coalition of physical and social scientists, medical doctors, magicians, historians, journalists, and others, assembled and energized by Kurtz’s dynamic leadership and far-sighted vision, that ushered in the modern age of scientific skepticism,” said NCAS’s award statement. “Much is owed Kurtz as well for the formation of independent local skeptics groups like NCAS. Under his leadership CSICOP published a call for forming such groups and provided them with invaluable guidance and material support to connect with other skeptics in their community and to organize.”

According to Editor Alejandro Borgo, though Pensar was well-received during its five-year run, the magazine was unable to achieve the subscription and distribution levels needed to maintain publication. The rising cost of paper, printing, and postage—combined with the global economic recession—finally made Pensar too costly to maintain in its current form. The Pensar editorial staff and writers expressed their appreciation to readers for their support and are looking for ways to keep some of the material in circulation.

The Council for Secular Humanism (a sister organization to our Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) made some headlines in February with a report released to the national media calling into question many of the findings contained in a widely cited Baylor University Religion Survey of 2008. Baylor, a Baptist university, claimed in its survey that America is as religious as it has always been, adding that belief in religion is a universal characteristic displayed by all peoples around the world. Baylor researchers recently published their findings in a book called What Americans Really Believe (Baylor University Press, 2008).

The CSH report, “Is the Baylor Religion Study Reliable?” (PDF), contradicts these claims, suggesting that Baylor and lead researcher Rodney Stark may have improperly evaluated the data and consequently misinformed the public and the media.

The Council’s report points to a growing body of research by academic institutions and major survey organizations that clearly documents a downward shift of religious adherence in the United States. Why does the Baylor study contradict this? Independent scholar Gregory S. Paul, author of the Council’s report and author of a major article on these matters in Free Inquiry (December 2008/January 2009) says that Baylor relied on a flawed methodology.

“The Baylor team has adopted a curious way of treating atheism, forms of unbelief short of atheism, and religious belief. This approach places a disproportionate emphasis on convinced atheism—the confident rejection that a personal God exists—at the expense of more moderate forms of nontheism,” said Paul. The report suggests that Baylor has failed to document large numbers of Americans who reject conventional religious beliefs, such as those who self-define as agnostic or “spiritual but not religious.” The Council’s report declares that “Baylor’s methods largely ignore these doubters, making nonbelief appear less prevalent in society than it truly is. The Baylor team treats almost any deviation from strict atheism as a sign of religiosity. Doing so falsely maximizes the apparent level of faith.”

The United States is still the most religious country in the First World, but the Baylor thesis that “‘faith American style’ is holding its own is clearly false,” states the report. “Religious belief and activity in America are trending downward in so many ways that it is simply untenable to pretend that the nation is growing more religious.”

A local Stephenville newspaper reported the story on January 10, and a public affairs officer for the Naval Air Station, Joint Reserve Base at Carswell Field, sixty nautical miles away, was quoted as saying, “There were no F-16s from this unit operating.” (That proved to be wrong.) The national media picked up the story about the lights, and it was featured on Larry King Live on January 18.

Astronomer (and retired Air Force pilot) James McGaha (see the accompanying “The Trained Observer” piece) investigated. On January 17, he contacted the Federal Aviation Admin­istration and asked if any aircraft that night had entered the Brownwood Military Operating Areas (MOAs). These MOAs begin ten miles southwest of Stephenville—a 3,200-square-mile area used for military aviation training. The FAA informed McGaha on January 18 that a group of four F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron entered the operating area at 6:17 pm local time. A second group of four F-16s entered the same area at 6:26 pm. They departed at 6:54 and 6:58, respectively. The time the aircraft were flying in the MOA accords with the time of the sightings.

On January 18 McGaha contacted the 301st Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office and asked if they made a mistake in saying their aircraft had not been in the MOA that night. They called him back and informed him of their error. On January 23, they issued a press release publicly acknowledging the error, stating that F-16s had indeed been flying in the MOA that evening.

What were the aircraft doing? McGaha says they were flying training maneuvers that involved dropping extraordinarily bright flares. The LUU/2B/B flare is nothing like the standard flares you might think of. These flares have an illumination of about two million candlepower. They are intended to light up a vast area of the ground for nighttime aerial attack. Once released, they are suspended by parachutes (which often hover and even rise due to the heat of the flares) and light up a circle on the ground greater than one kilometer for four minutes. The flare casing and parachute are eventually consumed by the heat. At a distance of 150 miles, a single flare can still be as bright as the planet Venus.

McGaha also describes the testimony of a medical helicopter pilot, a retired U.S. Army pilot, flying that night, who saw the lights. He said: “I saw multiple military aircraft, with some dropping flares, in the area of the Brownwood 1 MOA.”

Much mischief was caused by a Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) report on the incident issued on July 4, 2008. MUFON members tend to promote the idea that UFOs are real and in fact are extraterrestrial spacecraft. The seventy-six-page report is mostly an analysis of FAA “raw” radar returns for the period in question, plus eight eyewitness reports.

These raw data contain 2.5 million points of noise and scatter. MUFON’s report selected just 187 of these points to contend that radar had tracked a huge “object” at least 524 feet in size, traveling near the Western White House (the Bush ranch, which is fifty miles southeast of Stephenville). “MUFON’s radar analysis is nothing more than cherry picking the 187 targets out of 2.5 million points of noise and scatter to make a track moving forty-nine mph for over one hour,” says McGaha. “This analysis is absurd!”

Some MUFON witnesses described “very bright lights similar to the intensity of burning magnesium” and said they saw flares dropped from aircraft. Others said such things as “these were not any known aircraft” and the objects were stationary at times but also “moved at a very high rate of speed.” But these witnesses were not trained observers, McGaha says. “How did they know the altitude, velocity, size, and distance of an unknown object?”

There were lights in the sky, McGaha concludes. “There were F-16s flying in the Brownwood MOAs, and they did drop flares. The F-16s did not react to any unknown targets, and radar did not detect any unknown targets.”

“The untrained witnesses/observers were seeing nothing more than F-16s and flares. Stephenville is nothing more than connecting ‘lights in the sky’ to form a very large mysterious object, an object that many that night thought was from another world. But nothing otherworldly happened around Stephenville on January 8, 2008,” says McGaha.

For the first time, Eve and his fellow researchers have begun to examine how science literacy scores on standardized tests may be partially due to generational or cohort effects. In other words, most of our grandparents didn’t even attend college, so it would be surprising if today’s generation didn’t outscore previous ones. Such research is beginning to make it possible to separate out the effects of innovations in the teaching of science from improvements that might have occurred due to generational effects. The researchers found that in spite of the mass media’s regular litany of doom and gloom about science education in the U.S. recent innovations in teaching science seem to be paying off in somewhat better scores for students, scores that can be attributed to better science teaching—not just cohort effects. The same also applies to the recently reduced belief in pseudoscience, particularly for topics unrelated to religiously influenced pseudoscientific beliefs.

One finding by the panel was that U.S. high school students are leaving high school dramatically unprepared for scientific literacy, but that both at the high school and college levels the situation is improving somewhat. In fact, the percentage of Americans with basic scientific literacy has almost tripled in the last two decades.

As a somewhat surprising result, brand new research presented at the meetings by panel participant Jon D. Miller of Michigan State University shows U.S. adults to now be second in the world in terms of science literacy (behind only Sweden), although this still represents only 28 percent of the total U.S. population. Interestingly, since this is apparently not attributable to high-school preparation per se, Miller said it appears that taking even one course in science in college leads students to become self-educators in science throughout life. (Meaning, for example, that if one gets cancer it doesn’t take long for them to use secondary sources from the Internet and elsewhere to soon know a lot about medicine.) Hence, we now need much better understanding of how a college education can lead to lifelong learning in science and how best to integrate collegiate science learning with informal science learning once out of the academic environment.

This year, as last, we received many fine entries for our Citizen Sane contest. Our judges rated each entry independently, and the ratings for each piece were later averaged for the final ranking. This year we had a dead tie for the best article submitted by a reader, and we are pleased to present both here in the Skeptical Briefs.

The first is a letter to the editor of The Southtown, a large, local newspaper in Chicago. In it, Stan Clements uses an earlier Southtown article on psychic predictions to remind readers of psychics’ failed 2002 predictions. He gives many specific examples, and mentions cold reading and Randi’s million-dollar prize for proof of psychic powers.

Lisa Goodlin’s entry was an editorial in the Syracuse, New York, Post-Standard about recent workshops on sexual trauma held at Syracuse University by Courage to Heal co-author Ellen Bass. Despite little supporting evidence (and though neither Courage to Heal author has any psychological or psychiatric training), Bass has for years promoted the idea of repressed memories of sexual abuse. Goodlin reminds readers to temper Bass’s ideas with “the findings of scientifically conducted studies.”

We sincerely thank all those who submitted published op-ed articles and letters to us for consideration. We are pleased that so many people are active in writing to the editors and authors and taking the time to get the facts and valid criticisms to their fellow citizens. Much rationality and critical thinking can be spread through grassroots efforts such as these, with ordinary but well-informed citizens speaking out in their communities when they hear or see nonsense. If editors and writers do not hear criticisms of the paranormal and pseudoscientific bunkum they produce and publish, they will assume that their readers accept or agree with it. Do not give them that excuse...take the time, write a letter, make a phone call. Make your voice heard!

'All psychics are frauds all of the time'

Early in January 2002, the Southtown published an article in which area psychics revealed their predictions for 2002. How did these “gifted” individuals do?

Jacki Mari said President Bush would break down from the stress of recent months, possibly requiring an extended hospital say. She also expected a major war involving three countries to break out in the Middle East. People will stop claiming holy wars, she said. She also foresaw that the most important development will happen when a Midwestern woman will demonstrate the power of the mind to cure sickness and disease. “She will prove undeniably, that everyone can heal themselves,” Mari said.

Funny, I don’t remember hearing about any of that.

Gina Evans predicted a major disaster, most likely at the hands of terrorists, somewhere in the United States early in 2002. She said it would rival what happened September 11. “Nobody should be taking an airplane, even a train or a bus,” she said. She also saw that the war on terrorism “won’t take too long. It will not take years.” She forecast a quick economic turnaround during the first few months of 2002. She said the year will close with harmony worldwide.

I must have missed all of that somehow.

Bianca Johns also predicted a quick end to the war on terrorism. She predicted that Osama bin Laden would be located without much trouble; President Bush would not be burdened by as many difficult decisions as he faced in 2001; and overseas skirmishes will be less frequent. “It will be a peaceful year,” she said.

Police looking for missing Washington, D.C., intern Chandra Levy received hundreds of tips from psychics, none of which panned out. Self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne said Levy’s body would be found in a swampy area. It was found on a hillside.

No psychic successfully predicted any of the major events of 2002, just as none of them predicted the World Trade Center attack.

Here is a truth at can save Southtown readers time and money: All psychics are frauds all of the time. If you think that you know a psychic who is not a fraud, give them an opportunity to become rich (without using your own money!). Encourage them to demonstrate their “psychic abilities” for the James Randi Educational Foundation, which has a standing offer of a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate such talents. Sylvia Browne, on the “Larry King Live” show, agreed to the protocols for such a test. That was well more than a year ago. She doesn't seem very anxious to grab that money for some reason.

If you think a storefront psychic has shown powers to you, read up on a technique they use called “cold reading.” With a little study and practice, you too can be a successful psychic, enriching yourself at the expense of the gullible.

Stan Clements, Oak Lawn

Recovered Memory: Unproven strategy to find evidence of past sexual abuse

While I am sure it was well-intentioned, I question the choice of Ellen Bass to conduct workshops September 26 and September 27 at Syracuse University and elsewhere for professionals who work with survivors of sexual trauma, and to give the featured address at an evening of healing for survivors.

Bass’s book, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, promotes the recovery of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. This book encourages women to conclude that they were sexually abused as children, although they lack memories of abuse or corroborating evidence.

In the words of Bass and coauthor Laura Davis, “Many women who were abused don’t have memories, and some never get any. This doesn't mean that they weren't abused"; and “If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, then you were.”

Serious questions have been raised regarding the “memories” recovered in therapy. The American Psychological Association’s Working Group on the Investigation of Memories of Childhood Abuse issued a report in 1995 that notes recovered memory is rare. It states that “there is a consensus among memory researchers and clinicians that most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them, although they may not fully understand or disclose it.”

“At this point,” according to the APA, “it is impossible, without other corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true memory from a false one.” Thus, says the APA report, a “competent psychotherapist is likely to acknowledge that current knowledge does not allow the definite conclusion that a memory is real or false without other corroborating evidence.”

In Britain, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has officially banned its members from using therapies designed to recover repressed memories of child abuse.

Bass also presents information on “body memories” and “satanic ritual abuse,” the existence for which there is no evidence. By evidence I mean data that has been obtained using scientific methods.

Bass’s book is filled with heart-rending and gut-wrenching stories, but it is important to remember that anecdote is not evidence. In response to first-person accounts like those found in The Courage to Heal, FBI Special Agent Ken Lanning investigated more than 300 cases of alleged satanic cult activity and found no evidence of the existence of such cults. He wrote, “Until hard evidence is obtained and corroborated, the public should not be frightened into believing that babies are being bred and eaten, that 50,000 missing children are being murdered in human sacrifices, or that Satanists are taking over America’s day-care centers or institutions. While no one can prove with absolute certainty that such activity has not occurred, the burden of proof is on those who claim that it has occurred.”

Should this not make us question other “findings” of this type of therapy? In the Investigator’s Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse, Lanning goes on to say that “it is up to the mental health professionals, not law enforcement, to explain why victims are alleging things that don’t seem to have happened.”

In the mid-1990s, after books like The Courage to Heal began to appear and therapists started “training” in these methods, there was a rash, some would say an epidemic, of abuse allegations by women who had recovered memories in therapy. Many of these women later retracted their stories-but not before many lives were destroyed.

It is because of these destroyed lives that it is imperative to provide alternative information about recovered memory therapy so that Bass’s ideas may be tempered by the findings of scientifically conducted studies.

To learn more about recovered-memory therapy, I recommend these books: The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse, by Elizabeth Loftus, a well-regarded researcher of memory and professor of psychology; Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria by Richard Ofshe, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and a Pulitzer Prize winner; and Carl Sagan’s chapter on therapy in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

On the Web you can find critical information at these sites: The False Memory Syndrome Foundation and The Skeptics’ Dictionary entries on repressed memory therapy and repressed memories.

Lisa Goodlin, Syracuse

A timeline of CSICOP's 25-year history

1976

April 30-May 1

CSICOP founded at conference on “The New Irrationalisms: Antiscience and Pseudoscience,” SUNY-Buffalo.

Fall

Vol. 1 No. 1 of The Zetetic (the Skeptical Inquirer) published.

1978

February

CSICOP calls NBC response to CSICOP complaints about “Exploring the Unknown” “unacceptable,” requests presentation of contrasting viewpoint.

April

The Zetetic renamed the Skeptical Inquirer starting with Vol. 2 No. 2, Spring/Summer 1978.

April

Chairman Paul Kurtz announces that CSICOP has generated “tremendous enthusiasm” among scientists, scholars, media, and the public. CBS and ABC have produced programs presenting committee’s viewpoints.

July 13

CSICOP establishes a Canadian section.

Fall

Skeptical Inquirer increases publication frequency from semi-annual to quarterly.

Fall

FCC reports preliminary decision rejecting CSICOP complaint against NBC’s “Exploring the Unknown"; CSICOP appeals.

Dec. 5-6

CSICOP meets in Washington, D.C., meets with staff of House Science and Technology Committee, praises ABC-TV for network special “The Supernatural: Fact, Fiction, or Fantasy?” in which CSICOP members participated.

1980

January

Skeptical Inquirer (Winter 1979-80) publishes four-part special report on claimed “Mars Effect,” addressing a controversy that began before CSICOP was founded and will continue for several years more.

1982

February

Scientific American publishes Metamagical Themas article by Douglas Hofstadter about Skeptical Inquirer, contrasting its type of inquiry with that of National Enquirer; SI circulation subsequently leaps.

June

First approved local chapter of CSICOP established, Bay Area Skeptics.

Dec. 9-10

CSICOP Executive Council meets in Atlanta. Gives Martin Gardner “In Praise of Reason Award,” holds news conference on psychics and “psychic detectives,” sets initial guidelines on local groups.

1984

Nov. 9

CSICOP, in news conference at California Academy of Sciences, calls on newspapers to carry a disclaimer on their astrology columns. Mails statement, material to 1,200 U.S. newspapers two weeks later.

Nov. 9-10

CSICOP Conference “Paranormal Beliefs: Scientific Facts and Fictions” held at Stanford University. Sessions on “Space-Age Paranormal Claims,” “The Psychic Arms Race,” and “Psychic Claims.” Keynoter: Sidney Hook.

December

Skeptical Inquirer expands pages to include 20 percent more editorial material; circulation about 17,000.

1986

April 25-27

CSICOP 1986 conference held at University of Colorado, Boulder. Theme: “Science and Pseudoscience.” Keynote address: Stephen Jay Gould.

Spring

CSICOP celebrates 10th anniversary. SI marks it with special essays by CSICOP Fellows such as Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan.

Fall

Skeptical Inquirer announces it is expanding scope to include topics not necessarily related directly to the paranormal and pseudoscience.

1987

Feb. 1

Carl Sagan publishes “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” in Parade magazine, with a laudatory sidebar about CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer. SI circulation rises as a result.

April 3-4

CSICOP Annual Conference, Pasadena, California. Symposia on extraterrestrial intelligence, animal language, medical controversies. Simultaneous sessions. Keynote speaker: Carl Sagan, “The Burden of Skepticism.”

Fall

Skeptical Inquirer announces a permanent expansion to 112 digest-size pages per quarterly issue. Ten-year index published.

1988

March 21-April 3

CSICOP delegation visits China, lectures in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, tests Qigong masters plus children and others alleged to have psychic powers.

Sept. 1

CSICOP wins first (and till-then only) court case brought against it. In U.S. District Court in Hawaii plaintiff Gharith Pendragon loses on all contentions and is ordered to pay the CSICOP defendants fees, costs, and earlier-imposed sanctions.

Nov. 3-4

CSICOP 1988 Conference “The New Age: A Scientific Evaluation,” held at Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Chicago. Keynote speaker: Douglas Hofstadter. Three simultaneous sessions at times.

December

CSICOP publishes statement “CSICOP, Groups, and Spokespersons” about relationships with groups listed in SI and who may or may not speak for CSICOP.

1992

April 17-19

CSICOP holds “Magic for Skeptics” seminar, in Lexington, Kentucky, taught by Joe Nickell and Robert A. Baker.

April

SI reports that forty-two daily newspapers are now running CSICOP-recommended disclaimers with their astrology columns.

April

CSICOP announces establishment of legal defense fund to help battle harassing lawsuits filed against skeptics.

June

In “Freedom of Scientific Inquiry Under Siege” (SI Summer 1992), Paul Kurtz reports on another Geller lawsuit.

June

U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., throws out Uri Geller lawsuit against CSICOP, imposes sanctions against Geller for prosecuting the case.

Aug. 20-24

CSICOP-sponsored “The Skeptics Toolbox” annual workshop series initiated, at University of Oregon, with faculty members Ray Hyman, Barry Beyerstein, Loren Pankratz, Jeff Mayhew, and Jerry Andrus.

Oct. 16-18

1992 CSICOP Conference, “Fairness, Fraud, and Feminism: Culture Confronts Science,” held in Dallas. Sessions on multicultural approaches to science, gender issues in science and pseudoscience, fraud in science, crashed saucers, and the paranormal in China. Keynote speaker: Richard Dawkins.

December

Skeptical Inquirer becomes available at quality newsstands.

1995

January

Skeptical Inquirer publishes first issue in full-size magazine format, increases frequency to bimonthly (Vol. 19, No. 1, January/February 1995).

March 6

Geller case ends: CSICOP announces court settlement and first payment by Geller to CSICOP of $40,000 of up $120,000. Payment is part of settlement agreement to a court-described “frivolous complaint” made by Geller against CSICOP. The settlement ends five-year legal battle.

June 9

New CSICOP headquarters - 15,000-square-foot Center for Inquiry educational and administrative center - is dedicated adjacent to SUNY-Buffalo Amherst, N.Y., campus. Steve Allen, Nobel laureate Herbert Hauptman, Time’s Leon Jaroff, many others participate.

July 7

Center for Inquiry-West, CSICOP’s West Coast branch office, opens in rented quarters in Los Angeles.

1996

June 20-23

First World Skeptics Congress and 20th Anniversary CSICOP meeting, “Science in the Age of (Mis)Information,” held at SUNY-Buffalo. Keynote speaker: Stephen Jay Gould. Conference Address: Leon Lederman. Lunch speaker: John Maddox. Major sessions on mass media, anti-science, The X-Files, and parapsychology, plus triple-concurrent sessions on multiple topics.

June

Asteroids Skepticus 6630 and Kurtz 6629 named for CSICOP and its founder Paul Kurtz in honor of their contributions to science education and skepticism on CSICOP’s 20th anniversary.

July

In “CSICOP at Twenty” (SI July/August 1996) Paul Kurtz reflects on the origins, growth, role, and challenges of CSICOP over its “exhilarating” two decades.

July

Report of second CSICOP delegation to China (June 1995), examining traditional Chinese medicine and pseudoscience in China, published.

1997

January

CSICOP becomes shareholder in TV networks to provide leverage for its criticism of their marketing of fringe science and pseudoscience.

Jan. 9

CSICOP’s Council for Media Integrity holds first meeting, in Los Angeles, with co-chairmen Glenn T. Seaborg and Steve Allen, blasts networks for distorted treatments of science.

Nov. 19

Public television airs Scientific American Frontiers episode “Beyond Science,” hosted by Alan Alda, skeptically examining dowsing, “alien autopsies,” graphology, a supposed new energy force, and therapeutic touch, guided by four CSICOP Fellows.

1998

March

CSICOP’s new Web site, www.csicop.org, is named among the World Wide Web’s top 500 Web sites (and top ten science sites) by computing magazine Home PC.

July 23-26

Second World Skeptics Congress, “Armageddon and the Prophets of Doomsday,” held at University of Heidelberg, Germany. Plenary sessions on millennium prophecies, natural disasters, anti-science and postmodernists, and scientific skepticism worldwide, plus many concurrent sessions. Keynote speaker: Elizabeth Loftus.

Fall

CSICOP and University of Hertfordshire, U.K., announce creation of the CSICOP Research Scholarship to fund a Ph.D. student for three years to carry out research related to psychology and skepticism.

Nov. 14

CSICOP and Council for Media Integrity host conference “That’s Entertainment! Hollywood, the Media, and the Supernatural” in Los Angeles. Steve Allen speaks out against loss of cultural standards in the media. “Candle in the Dark” award given to PBS TV series Scientific American Frontiers.

1999

Feb. 26-28

CSICOP co-hosts national conference “Science Meets 'Alternative Medicine,'” Warwick Hotel, Philadelphia.

March 1

An asteroid is named Klass 7277 after Philip J. Klass, veteran Aviation Week journalist and longtime CSICOP Fellow and UFO subcommittee chairman, for his skeptical evaluations of sensational claims about UFOs. It joins asteroids Kurtz, Gardner, Randi, and Skepticus (named in 1996 after CSICOP).

July/August

Skeptical Inquirer publishes its first-ever single-subject issue, on Science & Religion. Response is overwhelmingly positive.

2001

January

Permanent building for Center for Inquiry-West - West Coast office for CSICOP and Council for Secular Humanism - purchased in Los Angeles.

February

The Klass Files - electronic texts of back issues of Philip J. Klass’s Skeptics UFO Newsletter - placed on CSICOP Web site.

March

Skeptical Inquirer index, for entire magazine from Vol. 1 No. 1 into 2001, completed and placed on CSICOP Web site.

April 30-May 1

25th anniversary of CSICOP.

Timeline compiled by Kendrick Frazier

Some cast their votes quite widely, choosing eminent figures from twentieth century science and philosophy. Others focused more on people identified specifically with the skeptical movement. With most it seemed a combination. All this seems fitting. “Skeptic” can be defined in a wide variety of ways. Skepticism is entwined with science and philosophy—and with numerous other fields of scholarship, inquiry, and investigation as well.

Although our main interest was in identifying the 10 outstanding skeptics with a 1 to 10 ranking, the voters were encouraged to list other prominent skeptics beyond just 10 if they wished, and many did so. In this manner, nearly 50 different individuals received at least one vote.

The main interest here is not in ranking people in comparison with each other but to honor and recognize those individuals who are recognized as truly outstanding by their peers. In the pages that follow we present photos and brief profiles of those selected. Comments were also solicited, and some of them are included here.

The 10 Outstanding Skeptics of the Century

1. James Randi
2. Martin Gardner
3. Carl Sagan
4. Paul Kurtz
5. Ray Hyman
6. Isaac Asimov
7. Philip J. Mass
8. Bertrand Russell
9. Harry Houdini
10. Albert Einstein

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was the people’s astronomer, the public’s scientist. In a brilliant career foreshortened by death in 1996 at the age of 62, he used his passion for science, intelligence, charisma, and formidable literary and communications skills (The Dragons of Eden won the Pulitzer Prize and it wasn’t even his best book) to turn several generations of young people on to the wonders of science and the rewards of critical thinking. He had a unique talent to inspire wonder and awe at the true mysteries of science while cautioning against bogus science and the temptations of wishful thinking and self-deception. The result was a nearly unparalleled champion of science and skepticism and foe of pseudoscience.

As a professional astronomer he helped shape and articulate the golden age of planetary exploration when we first sent unmanned emissaries to the major planets. His interests in planetary science, the origins of life, and the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence drove his career, but he ranged freely into fields far beyond astronomy. The world was Sagan’s classroom. He believed strongly in democracy and the ability of the common person to appreciate science if portrayed in a clear and legitimately exciting way. His frequent network television appearances, his popular books and articles, and his highly successful Cosmos television series all brought his messages to the masses worldwide. His last book published before his death, The Demon-Haunted World, ranged over late-twentieth-century fringe science and warned of the perils of a public unable to distinguish real science from bogus science. Other noteworthy books: The Cosmic Connection, Cosmos, Broca’s Brain, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (with Ann Druyan), A Pale Blue Dot, and Billions and Billions.

Other outstanding skeptics who received multiple votes or at least one first-place vote:

• Richard Feynman
• Joe Nickell
• Karl Popper
• H.L. Mencken
• Richard Dawkins
• Stephen Jay Gould
• James Alcock
• Stephen Barrett
• Bart Bok
• Michael Shermer
• Kendrick Frazier
• Mark Twain
• Oscar Pfungst
• Robert A. Baker

The response to our special issue Science and Religion: Coflict or Conciliation? (July/August 1999) was the largest we ever received to a single issue. It was overwhelmingly positive. Of the more than 140 letters and e-mails we have received (more were still arriving at our time cutoff), only two complained of our devoting so much space to the topic. Most readers expressed appreciation. Many had thoughtful observations or criticisms of articles. We here present selected letters divided into two large categories: those addressing diverse points made throughout the special issue and those that focused specifically on the Non-Overlapping Magisteria concept advocated by Stephen Jay Gould.

The subject “science and religion” becomes even more fascinating when seen through the eyes of a biologist studying social animals.

All animals living in groups view being expelled from the group as a severe punishment; to prevent this they have to obey certain rules. Man is no exception; witness the feelings excited by the word “exile.”

Before the invention of the telescope and the microscope in the seventeenth century man’s mental view of his world was mainly formed by what he could observe with his naked eye and ear. To explain many incomprehensible phenomena in the world around him, man in every culture postulated the existence of gods with supernatural powers.

Some of the rules of a group conflict with an individual’s private wishes. The leaders of the group need strong arguments to keep the group intact; the fear of punishment by the gods (invented by man) in case of rule violation became a very powerful argument.

The advances of the sciences led to conclusions that were in conflict with the teachings of religion. Yet the use of religion to keep the group together continues.

As scientific knowledge of a phenomenon increases and also the technical power to control that phenomenon, the feeling of responsibility towards that phenomenon also grows. In the long run the feeling that we are all co-responsible for what happens in the biosphere will make it possible to keep Earth livable for man. Belief in supernatural gods will then have become obsolete.

Jacob van Noordwijk
Bosch en Duin,
The Netherlands

I just finished reading your excellent July/August issue on science and religion while I was on a trip. Imagine my surprise when I returned from my trip to learn that one of my closest and dearest friends had decided to join one of the most narrow-minded and dogmatic religious sects in the country! This man is a seemingly rational and intelligent man who has a fine family and a position of responsibility with the Federal government. When I spoke with him regarding his decision, he informed me that he felt a need for a network of support, and felt that a church was one of the few places that could provide it. I could only offer my love and support, and assure him that in spite of my total disdain for the attitudes and practices of fundamentalism, I would continue to be his friend and be supportive of him and his family.

This incident points out one of the strongest draws that the irrationality of fundamentalism exerts on the weak. Many people, for numerous reasons, have a strong emotional need for a support network. In our rather self-centered society, there are few places where one can go to have those kinds of emotional needs met. Churches, especially those of a more fundamentalist mindset, tend to offer a strong network of support to newcomers. This is due in great part to the “us against them” feeling they possess regarding those outside their particular belief system. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, and if you feel the Devil is hiding behind every bush, it tends to lend a feeling of mutual closeness and support, much like walking through a field of hungry lions with a group of hunters.

I can certainly understand my friend’s desire to be part of a close and supportive “family.” As a teenager, I too felt a strong emotional need for a sense of family, and I also joined a fundamentalist church. Over the years I grew to realize that I was paying a very high price for my sense of belonging. I was forced to deny the obvious fact of biological evolution, regard Earth as quite young (in spite of tremendous evidence to the contrary), and I was forced to be terribly bigoted and intolerant of anyone who did not share my group’s narrow beliefs. I grieve over the wonderful friends I never made because of the prohibition to associate with “infidels and unbelievers.” I am very glad that I did violate the group’s rule of not reading anything that disagreed with their views. Even when I was in the strongest grip of fundamentalism, I could not fathom a god so insecure that reading scientific facts would cause him to vanish.

I have grown to respect new views and new heroes. Stephen Jay Gould, James Randi and the late Isaac Asimov are among the people of this planet for whom I have the utmost respect. Each of these men (and too many others to mention) have approached the issues of science and religion with various aspects of humor, wit, compassion, and, most of all, honesty. Although I do not totally discount the possible existence of a god, I now know that he will prove to be a god who does not rely on fear, gullibility, or magic to lure followers. He will rather be a god who respects and honors those who seek honest and rational answers to the mysteries that surround us. It is my sincere hope that a time will soon come when humanity can develop enough care and compassion for one another to provide those with emotional needs for a sense of family to find it without having to resort to selling their intellect in the bargain.

Please keep up the wonderful work of striving for truth and enlightenment. Misguided religious beliefs have caused more pain, suffering and death than all the wars man has ever fought. Only when we can make it possible for each child in this country to have access to scientific truths can we truly regard ourselves as a civilized country.

Jim L. Brasfield
Collierville, Tenn.

In the July/August special issue on science and religion, several authors stated that Andrew D. White’s 1896 classic A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom chronicled the conflict between science and religion. In fact, however, White’s introduction makes clear that he saw the conflict as “a struggle between Science and Dogmatic Theology” rather than between science and religion. White was convinced that “Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with Religion; and that, although theological control will continue to diminish, Religion, as seen in the recognition of 'a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness,' and in the love of God and of our neighbor, will steadily grow stronger and stronger. . . .” White’s distinction between religion and theology might still be useful for those who think science should accommodate religion in general, but not the doctrines of particular religions.

C. Leon Harris
Department of Biological Sciences
State University of New York
Plattsburgh, N.Y.

The Science and Religion issue was very interesting. When authors point out that science is reason-based and religion is faith-based it is, of course, correct. But that is not sufficient.

Religion is very robust. It needs nothing but its followers. It can survive and sometimes thrive in the face of moderate government hostility. Science, on the other hand, is dependent. Without the support of industry, government, and academia, it would shrivel to the size of humanism or atheism. You need to understand that science is like a dairy cow. If it does not produce it will end up as hamburger.

Truth is not relevant to religion. Science uses reason and experiments to find truth. Palevitz writes “Creationists will always see inconsistencies or unexplained phenomena in evolutionary biology that make supernatural intervention an unavoidable conclusion.” That is the same as saying truth is not relevant. Not only that, creationism is a good example of the “Big Lie.” Religion seeks wealth, power, and control, and has acquired a great deal. If science does not it will remain dependent.

Palevitz writes about creationists, “We should force them to play by science’s rules.” We do not have the power to force them to do anything. Does he think creationists care about evidence or truth? Fundamentalist Christians are close to gaining control of the legislative arm of the federal government. Not long after that evolution will be banned from public schools and replaced by creationism. So it is not surprising that many of his students have chosen creationism. They probably want to be on the winning side.

Don Latimer
Lancaster, Calif.

I found the issue on science and religion quite fascinating, but I was a little surprised by the lack of treatment of the relation of science and religion as set down by Sir James G. Frazer in The Golden Bough.

According to Frazer, man sought to control his environment, and resorted to magic: by performing certain rituals, something could be caused to happen. One could make it rain, cure an illness, cause the livestock to be fertile, cause his children to be fertile, etc., by the performance of the appropriate ritual.

Later, the magic was not working well to control the environment, and man created god: man could not cause things to happen, but man could ask god, and god could cause things to happen. The ways of the world being as they are, of course the magic did not disappear, but evolved into religion. What previously caused something to happen now convinced god to do the same thing. Also, as one would expect, some plain old magic persisted-strongly in some cultures, and vestigially in other cultures.

I do not believe Frazer carries us to the next level, but it seems an ineluctability that science was the next effort to control the environment. With this in mind, it seems that there must be a conflict between science and religion. While, in the past, religion and magic could be intertwined and neither is much the worse for it, science cannot be so mixed. Some authors in the Skeptical Inquirer pointed out that fact, and the confusion that results. But the worst part of all is that science is successful-beyond reasonable doubt.

Thus, we have a tradition that is probably as old as mankind, and that tradition has evolved slowly, rarely throwing things out but always changing and reinterpreting. Now we have science that is not in the old mold, and refuses to conform to the old mold, preferring to replace everything that does not work (and we know how much does not work).

I believe what is left is to create a religion that can treat the “spiritual” side of people without getting into the physical side of life. Only then can we avoid the natural conflict. I offer no suggestions as to how this may be achieved.

Jim Middleton
Decatur, Ga.

I would like to compliment you on an excellent and highly relevant treatment of the relationship between science and religion. I note with disappointment, however, that many of your contributors persist in using the inappropriate term “supernatural” to describe those things which they perceive as being outside the boundaries of science. I would argue that there is, in fact, no such thing as the supernatural, except in our imaginations.

There are two, and only two, possibilities for existence: things can be conceptual or imaginary, existing only in our minds, or they can exist in the real, physical world. If such things as gods, angels, ghosts, or demons are anything but imaginary, then they must be considered as natural, existing in the natural world, amenable (at least in principle) to scientific inquiry, and subject to the same inviolable natural laws as all other things. Any appearance by such entities (assuming that they did, in fact, have a physical existence) of transcending these laws would be simply that-appearance. Like the alpha particles passing, ghostlike, though Rutherford’s gold foil, a ghost which passed through a solid wall or a god which could transform matter with the wave of a hand would not be exhibiting “supernatural” powers in violation of natural laws, but would rather be indicating to us that there are aspects of natural law which we simply have not yet discovered.

Scott F. Stoeffler
Downers Grove, Ill.

Congratulations on your special issue on science and religion. You covered all viewpoints well. About the only thing missing was an article by a Pentecostal minister.

I am a scientist and a religious person, and I never considered there was a conflict between science and religion. To me, the role of science is to observe, discover and comprehend the countless wonders of God’s creation. I believe God intended for us to do this; else, why would he have endowed man with an intellect that far surpasses that of any other animal?

I also believe that God intends us to use this knowledge to His glory and the betterment of mankind. Here, I conflict with some religions, such as Christian Science. I am unhappy about that, as I consider any religion that inspires an individual to love God and love his neighbor as himself is a worthy religion.

Our exploration may have its limits. How all that mass and energy came to be in the same place at the same time to create the Big Bang, what our universe was like before the Big Bang, and if there are other universes may be beyond our reach. The famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking was invited by the Pope to explain the Big Bang and black holes to him. After he was finished, the Pope announced: “from the Big Bang to black holes is your territory. Outside of that is my territory!”

W.E. Railing
Green Valley, Ariz.

I enjoyed the July/August issue on Science and Religion.

How embarrassing for American science and education that five generations after The Origin of Species was published, most Americans doubt evolution! One reason is that creationism, like religion in general, is never subjected to criticism in forums that reach its adherents. So the absurdities of creationism go unquestioned, and people continue to believe. In two debates I attended in my home city, the creationist attacked evolution but hardly explained or even stated his own beliefs about the origin of species. Fortunately in one debate his opponent brought and read from some of the creationist’s publications, and only in that way did we discover that he believed in the story of Noah’s Ark and thought that dinosaurs and humans coexisted (Fred Flintstone science). By the way, those debates lasted three hours each, almost as many people were in the seats at the end as at the beginning, and, in this city, the debates outdrew the Harlem Globetrotters and those dancing horses from Vienna. People do care; the question is important.

Keeping discussions of creationism out of the schools and ignoring the obvious conflicts between evolution and the religion that most Americans accept can only perpetuate ignorance. It is much better to discuss creationism in classrooms, but subject it to the same kind of criticism that evolution gets from creationists. The whole controversy could be settled in a generation or two, but only if we talk about it in forums that reach tens of millions, i.e., the schools and television.

Imagine a foundation-funded debate in the form of a series of, say, ten one-hour television programs, with half the programming prepared by creationists, half by science educators. . . .

Done right, and with luck, such a series might compare in interest with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. It could give millions of people the knowledge they need to deal effectively with the creation/evolution controversy.

Jim Segesta
Bakersfield, Calif.

Several of the articles in the special Science and Religion issue use the word “natural” to describe science but use it in two distinct ways that are not clearly distinguished. It is said that science gives us natural explanations for our observations of the natural world. The meaning of the latter seems clear: The natural world is the one that we experience through our senses, one that is external to the private thoughts within our minds.

What, however, is a natural explanation? It seems to be one expressed in terms of certain predetermined concepts. Eugenie Scott ("The 'Science and Religion Movement'”), for example, says that it is “materialistic: matter, energy, and their interactions are used.” This is wrongheaded. Does science really limit itself a priori to using certain ideas? Is it so encumbered by bias that it would reject any explanation that uses other notions, no matter how well that explanation accounts for our observations?

The answer to these questions is no. Science is open-minded, not committed forever to its current concepts, always accepting of whatever ideas yield greater understanding. It seeks the best of all possible explanations, where “best” is characterized by parsimony, falsifiability, fruitfulness, and the like. Using such criteria, evolution, for example, easily triumphs over its rivals.

John G. Fletcher
Livermore, Calif.

Your excellent special issue on science and religion brought to my mind words Episcopal journalist Bruce Bawer wrote in his book Stealing Jesus (p. 324):

. . . every religious statement is a metaphor, a stab in the dark, an attempt to express in human words something that lies beyond human understanding or expression. To choose a religion is to choose a set of metaphors that comport best with the promptings of one’s own instincts and conscience and that seems to point most truly, virtuously, and beautifully to the “depth of reason.”

Bob Slaughter
Omaha, Neb.

Your special issue on science and religion lacks a major ingredient not easily named. Consider figure two in the article on scientific method by Zoran Pazameta (p. 38). It shows a block for observations and experiments, from which we go directly to theory. Some may assume a simple examination of the data is all that’s needed. A step or block is missing, namely the analysis, assessment, and interpretation of the data. Interpretation requires a thorough understanding of what has gone before, i.e., previous research and existing theory. It further requires careful logical thinking, including a need not to be misled by wishes, expectations, prejudices, or by the accepted wisdom. And, most of all, the analysis is likely to require lots and lots of mathematics, including calculus and statistics. Most people lack any or all of these prerequisites.

The average person lacks the prerequisite knowledge or tools to understand the evidence for scientific assertions. Victor Stenger assures us the universe started with a big bang and is about a dozen billions years old (p. 42). Very few have the mathematics background to check that conclusion. To understand the evidence for biological evolution is simpler, but still requires a determined effort to master facts and references. In my perception most people have only a vague idea why a car engine works, or what the principles of radio wave propagation are.

In consequence scientific arguments for most people are as much a matter of faith as are religious statements. That cars run, planes fly, television works, and refrigerators cool, of course strengthens our trust in science immensely. Most people do not have a clear understanding of the distinction between science and technology. Even some technically trained people have only a vague idea of scientific principles outside their specialty. It is not astonishing that Barry Palevitz finds many teachers have no clear understanding of the basis of the science they teach (p. 35). Most Americans don't have the mental tools to get from the technical wonders of our economy to an appreciation of abstract theories such as the Big Bang, evolution, or any of the more remote assertions of science. For the average person these are as much a matter of faith as are the Bible and prayer. And religion surely is more comforting and easier to comprehend than science.

Most people don't have the will or the education or the ability to sort religion from science or science from nonsense. The community of agnostics who rely on a scientific world view is only a few percent of the population. I would conclude we shall remain a small minority.

Wolf Roder
Cincinnati, Ohio

Steve Allen’s idea of two mind-sets, one for religion and one for science, (in the July/August issue) is a good one. That idea can help to explain even more about our minds if we broaden it to a subjective frame of mind and an objective one.

Consider, for example, the words of actor and drug addict Robert Downey, Jr. about his recent arrest: “It’s like I've got a shotgun in my mouth, my finger on the trigger and I like the taste of gun metal.” He’s explaining that his subjective mind-set makes him want the experience of taking drugs, while his objective mind-set gives him information that doing so may kill him.

Likewise, the subjective frame of mind suggests that experiencing belief in powerful nonhuman agents can give our lives meaning when we need it. It used to be that the only such agents-that people believed existed-were the supernatural ones suggested by religion. These days, there is also belief that such agents live nearby in UFOs. (Allen suggests there is a connection between such aliens from elsewhere and religion. Certainly, one connection is the subjective mind-set central to both.)

We also have the objective mind-set that provides the basis for gaining useful information about a world in which there is presently no evidence of powerful agents other than humans. That mind-set long ago helped us to find food, water, and shelter. It led to the relatively recent development of science.

How did we come to have such different mind-sets? There’s reason to think our ancestors had them before we were human and before we were apes. That is a large subject. It’s also one that I explore in How We Got To Be Human: Subjective Minds and Objective Bodies, which will be published next year by Prometheus Books.

William H. Libaw
Beverly Hills, Calif.

II. Non-Overlapping Magisteria . . . or Not?

The Stephen J. Gould concordat with the Vatican must not be allowed to settle the boundary between science and religion in your pages. His “NOMA” leaves the boundary where the Darwinian compromise with the bishops set it, more than a century ago. In that time the work of science has occupied the entire territory. It is no longer possible for scientists to yield-shirk-responsibility for ends and values while they busy themselves with means.

The act of Cain should have settled the question at the outset. The nuclear weapon has now irrevocably closed the false dichotomy that distinguishes means from ends and allows the employment of means to accomplish ends thus falsely distinguished and held to be desirable or “good.”

From times earlier than Cain, the emerging human species has looked outward for the purpose and value of its existence, into the farthest imagined regions of the universe and beyond. The last half-century of discovery in human evolution has shown that the natural locus of purpose and value is inside the human head. In this corner of the universe, it has established purpose, first formed in the heads of the primate toolmakers-they shaped those tools for later use-from whom the genus Homo stemmed 1.5-2 million years BP.

Objective knowledge, verified by its use in technology for myriad purposes, has changed not only humankind’s relation to nature, but the relation of human to human. Values have been seen thus to change with the advance of objective knowledge. Mechanical energy made slavery not alone technologically obsolete, but immoral as well. Now, it is the consumption not the production of goods that underlies the worry about jobs in the economy. Redistribution of income proceeds even in our country and in its re-embrace in fundamentalist Puritan ethic.

In place of the concordat and the compromise, let the following statement of the ethic of objective knowledge, by Jacques Monod, stand:

The sole end, the sovereign good, the supreme value in the ethic of knowledge- let us acknowledge it-is not the happiness of man, much less his comfort and security . . . it is objective knowledge itself. I believe it is necessary to state clearly and to systematize this ethic and . . . to teach and spread it abroad; for, creator of the modern world, this is the only ethic consistent with life in this world.

This, it must not be concealed, is a harsh and constraining ethic; while it looks to man to advance knowledge, it declares a value superior to man himself.

It is an ethic of conquest, a will to power, but to power solely in the sphere of knowledge. It is, in consequence, an ethic that teaches the evil of violence and of temporal domination.

It is an ethic of personal and political liberty, because to contest, to criticize, to constantly put in question is not only a right therein but a duty.

It is a social ethic, because objective knowledge can not be cherished except in a society that respects its norms.

It should be of concern to scientists, to begin with, that our society does not now respect those norms.

Gerard Piel
New York, N.Y.

I have a tremendous respect for Stephen J. Gould, and really appreciate the contribution he has made to the dissemination of clear thinking about evolution and biology to the lay public. However, I strongly disagree with his stand on the limits of science because this stance abrogates our responsibility for the future and puts it in the hands of those least able to determine the consequences of their actions. The future and how to influence it is what all of human activity is about. The past is what we can study to determine what actions to take in the fleeting present to bring about a future, near and far, in which we want to live. Our behavior today, the rules that guide that behavior, and reasons those rules were adopted rather than some others are as much a subject for scientific inquiry as are the rules of planetary motion. We do not want to abandon our responsibility to shape our future to those illiterate about the workings of reality. There is only one magisteria and it is a reality that is independent of our existence. Only by using science can we understand reality and use this understanding to set policy to produce a future in which we want to live.

Chuck Lemme
Tucson, Ariz.

I very much appreciated the July/August 1999 presentation of science versus religion.

I am a big fan of Stephen Jay Gould but I've always felt his “soft” approach to religion makes me wish he would concentrate more than ever on biology. I'm glad that Richard Dawkins was given space to present what I very strongly feel is what Gould has “swept under the rug.”

Religions will come and go but science will be with us from now on. I predict that one million years from now if we have not exterminated ourselves that no one will be waiting for the second coming of Christ and that science will be running strong!

I also greatly appreciated the space given to Victor J. Stenger.

Lance May
North Folk, Idaho

Apologists for religion often appear to derive comfort from the statement that science cannot prove the nonexistence of God. This is also the position of S. J. Gould (quoted by Martin Gardner), who describes any attempt at such proof as an arrogant mistake. We are, apparently, supposed to infer that equal weights are to be assigned to the alternatives of God’s existence versus his nonexistence, and that a believer is no less reasonable than a skeptic. It is amusing to apply this line of argument to defend belief in witches. Can a scientist, in his laboratory, perform an experiment demonstrating that there are no witches? No. Can he deduce that conclusion from quantum mechanics, relativity, or the theory of evolution? No. Must we acknowledge, therefore, that belief in witches is intellectually respectable? Again, no. Advocates of the science-cannot-disprove gambit seem to be unaware that they are opening the door to unwelcome guests. Witches are only one example; don't forget the tooth fairy.

Clergymen and theologians maintain that their moral precepts are derived from God. Professor Gould endorses their authority ("magisterium”), but does not, apparently, believe that it is of supernatural origin. What, then, is its source? The Catholic condemnation of contraception is a moral judgment rather than a scientific one; therefore, according to Gould, it falls within the scope of the Church’s teaching authority. But he has not explained why we should accept it.

David A. Shotwell
Alpine, Tex.

Being among the legion of Stephen Jay Gould fans, I was quite excited to read his contribution to the science/religion debate in your recent issue. His piece, however, had a curious ring of the familiar. Was it just by accident that Professor Gould chose a title with a decidedly, shall we say, romanistic afflatus? In fact, his arguments brought to mind those of another clear-minded analytic, synthetic, and sympathetic thinker: Thomas Aquinas.

The thirteenth century, though pre-scientific and Aristotelian, was not free of serious debate over the question of, as it was then phrased, revelation versus reason. Into this great philosophical battle stepped Aquinas, who carefully distinguished between the dual modes of thought by proposing a kind of intellectual fusion, in which reason and revelation, though distinct, are not opposed to each other. Of course, there was to be only one “truth,” that of revelation, but, as far as the natural world, rationalism, or at least the rational, could apply.

This apparent contradiction is overcome by Aquinas’s bedrock assertion that “de motu creaturae rationalis in Deum” (the rational creature advances toward God). In order to establish the true relation between faith and reason, Aquinas systematized theology. Today we might find some of his conclusions strained, but he attempted to forge a methodology based on process (advancement). His method and his relative openmindedness are noteworthy. Revelation may be the higher truth for Aquinas, but his spirit of accommodation does not seem all that far removed from that offered by Professor Gould. Dare it be suggested that the uniquely human quest for God and the uniquely human quest of science are in some sense the same? The two inexhaustibly parallel in endless revealment?

Steven Dowd
Heathrow, Fla.

In regard to the article “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” by Stephen Jay Gould, I'd like to submit this opinion: The October 1996 statement on evolution by Pope John Paul II is nothing more than another of those rare conciliatory expressions used for the sole purpose of forestalling the erosion of religion, namely Christianity, by indelible scientific revelations.

Phyllis Bugg
Clinton, Ky.

Gould says: “No supposed 'conflict' between science and religion should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority-and these magisteria do not overlap (nor do they encompass all inquiry). But the two magisteria bump right up against each other. . . .” Gould also says: “the Magisterium” merely stands for the “teaching authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church-a word derived not from any concept of majesty or unquestionable awe, but from the different notion of teaching, for magister means 'teacher' in Latin.”

Come again?

My Webster’s Dictionary defines “magisterium” as “the authority, office, and power to teach true doctrine by divine guidance, held by the Roman Catholic Church to have been given it alone by divine commission.” Thus, the magisterium is no ordinary teaching authority such as we would find coming down from, say, a state’s educational agency that governs its public schools. There is all the difference in the world when such religious terms are used such as “divine guidance,” “divine commission,” and “alone.”

You don't have to take Webster’s word for this definition. Just turn to the Catholic Almanac’s section about its magisterium. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (No. 25), says in part: “Religious submission of will and of mind must be shown in a special way to the authentic teaching of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra. It must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to. . . .”

Bishops are also afforded the same magisterium because “they are authentic teachers . . . endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice. . . .”

Because Gould admitted that he didn't understand the Church’s statement on evolution, he put into play what he calls “the primary rule of intellectual life: When puzzled, it never hurts to read the primary documents-a rather simple and self-evident principle that has, nonetheless, completely disappeared from large sectors of the American experience.” I submit that Gould failed to put this important principle to work in his anemic definition of “magisterium.”

Bernard Katz
Palmyra, N.J.

Stephen J. Gould makes the somewhat remarkable comment that science cannot touch the subject of souls and that such an issue is intrinsically religious. Consequently he has no problem with the position of the Roman Catholic Church that permits believers to accept the basic truth of the evolution of man while forbidding them from extending that process to the human soul (which is understood to have been infused into the human creature at some point in its evolutionary development).

Aside from the fact that such imposed restrictions are completely contrary to the spirit of science which demands free, open and courageous inquiry (and thus call into question the sincerity and integrity of the Pope’s message), Gould’s comment leaves me wondering what it is he thinks the ongoing research by various brain sciences into the nature of consciousness is all about. Are not these scientists, when they speak of the mind, consciousness and of our sense of self-

identity and self-awareness, not speaking of that very same phenomenon that mystics, poets, philosophers and religionists have typically called the soul? And if by the concept of the soul the Pope and the mainstream religions do not mean our minds, personalities, and our sense of “I,” then what do they understand souls to be? Certainly those who are working (and to some extent already succeeding) to provide a scientific and naturalistic explanation for human consciousness are obviating any need to regard souls as the product of supernatural intervention.

Bruce Wildish
wildish@interlog.com

I feel certain that you are getting a deluge of letters concerning the Science and Religion issue, but I thought I would add mine to the pile. While all of the articles were enjoyable and informative, the two that I most agreed with were the two that were supposedly in mutual opposition to each other, namely the Gould and Dawkins articles.

I think Gould is quite right in delineating areas of inquiry that are probably outside the scope of science for the time being and perhaps forever. These include such questions as the optimal system of ethics, the meaning of life, the nature of mind, etc., questions which most people would deem philosophical rather than scientific. Attention to these questions is important and may have more influence on the fate of humanity than scientific advances. However, in addition to having a different magisteria, traditional religions have also had a different attitude toward inquiry which Dawkins is right to deplore. This attitude is one of absolute prohibition towards criticism and change, the result being a continued belief in stories that are both cruel and ridiculous, simply because they are part of a set of “sacred” writings. I agree with Dawkins that to ignore this basic intolerance toward change is both intellectually dishonest and socially inadvisable. . . .

Cecil Wyche
Greenville, S.C.

I thoroughly enjoyed your issue on science versus religion, however I was somewhat alarmed at how readily everyone except Richard Dawkins ceded to religion matters of morality. As Stephen Jay Gould points out there are other “magisteria” besides religion and science (he mentions art as an example). No mention was made of law or philosophy, either of which is preferable to religion as a source of moral teaching.

Professor Gould gets warm and fuzzy when John Paul II declares evolution a scientific fact in contrast to Pius XII’s grudging admission that it might be valid and we can live with it if we have to. Welcome to the nineteenth century! Even if the Pope were trained in science and had arrived at his conclusion from his own research, no skeptic could accept his declaration as anything more than one scientist’s opinion based on the available data.

Ernest L. Asten
San Francisco, Calif.