NMSR Reports (New Mexicans for Science and Reason), Jan. 2008:

The annual “awards” published in the NMSR newsletter can be pretty tongue in cheek—singling out instances of absurdity in creationist, pseudoscience, or paranormal claims circles.

This year, the awards ranged from British officials hiring psychics to find Bin Laden (The “Thanks, chaps, for helping the U.S. not to look too ridiculous” award), to the inappropriately named New Mexico Science Foundation’s Einstein-laced Web site, which looks fine at first glance but is actually a joint propaganda effort by ID proponents and young-earth creationists (the “Stealthier than the Cheshire Cat” award).

One interesting entry was the “Remind Me to Avoid Nepal Air” award, given to Nepal’s state-run airline for sacrificing two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 747 aircraft.

However, noble deeds are also highlighted, such as the “Welcome Back from the 19th Century” award bestowed upon Kansas, which finally restored evolution science to state school standards, and the “Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!” award reserved for Skeptical Inquirer managing editor Ben Radford, who scientifically reproduced a strange-looking ghostly apparition appearing on a Santa Fe courthouse’s parking lot security camera by releasing a ladybug onto the lens. The original Courthouse Ghost video received wide Associated Press coverage, as well as more than 200,000 hits on YouTube. Radford’s short “Courthouse Ghost Video Mystery Solved” video and accompanying explanation received a respectable 37,350 hits.

Strong Support for Science Standards at Public Meeting

The Freethinker (First Coast Freethought Society), Jan. 2008:

Science made a strong showing among the nearly one hundred people who attended the January 3, 2008, Florida Department of Education-sponsored public hearing on the proposed Florida public education standards. They will come up for a vote before the Florida Board of Education in February.

Evolution also made an impressive showing at the meeting. Forty-three people spoke during the public comment period of the meeting. By my count, twenty-two supported teaching evolution in public schools and nineteen opposed it. I would like to thank everyone who spoke in support of science education that is free from religion and pseudoscience. It kept the meeting from becoming a one-sided rally for intelligent design.

—Curtis Wolf

Can the Candidates Debate Scientific Issues?

FIG Leaves (Free Inquiry Group, Cincinnati), Jan. 2008:

The call for the 2008 presidential candidates to reveal their stances on science education is gaining momentum. Fig Leaves chimed in with a succinct plea for ScienceDebate2008, a Center for Inquiry-supported movement heralded by hundreds of educational organizations, university presidents, Nobel and Crafoord laureates, government leaders, academic scientists, business leaders, editors, and writers. From the Free Inquiry Group’s newsletter:

The U.S. blocks climate agreement in Bali; American children trail the industrialized world in math; stem cell researchers are preoccupied with getting around the embryonic stem cell ban; the green revolution is diverted to feed SUVs instead of people; creationists are conspiring to get God back in the classroom; and our space program is reduced to pointless media speculators. Instead of candidates debating who loves Jesus the most, Lawrence Krauss and Chris Mooney propose that science be the subject of a debate. An impressive list of science leaders have already signed on at sciencedebate2008.com. It deserves the support of every scientist and every science organization.

Tragic Death of an Eminent Skeptic—Barry Beyerstein

Irish Skeptics, June 29, 2007:

Paul O’Donoghue, writing for his skeptics group in Ireland, offered condolences and a personal account of popular skeptic and CSI Fellow Barry Beyerstein, who died on June 25. This is not the only tribute to the man by far, but it is representative of the outpouring of respect that followed his passing.

Barry Beyerstein (1947–2007). My wife Noirin and I heard last night of the tragic death of Barry Beyerstein. Words cannot express our shock and distress at the news. We have had the great pleasure of meeting Barry and his wife Suzi at a number of skeptics conferences across Europe. They were a charming and deeply committed couple, full of fun and enthusiasm. Barry was to present a paper at the ECSO congress in Dublin in September and we [had] been in regular e-mail contact lately. He and Suzi were due to arrive in Dublin a week or so prior to the congress and we had planned to spend some time together viewing the sites and enjoying the restaurants and pubs. He was very much looking forward to this visit. Barry has written extensively on a wide range of topics. He was a staunch defender of the integrity of science and traveled the world promoting science and critical thinking. In Dublin he was to address the issue of science versus pseudoscience, a topic on which he has expressed strong and incisive views. We have lost a great man at a tragically early age. He had so much more to contribute and we will miss his leadership and example. On behalf of myself, Noirin and all the members of the Irish Skeptics Society I extend our deepest condolences and heartfelt sorrow to Suzi and the family and to their relatives and close friends who have been devastated by this awful event.

Paul O’Donoghue is a member of the Irish Skeptics Society. To view some of Barry’s writings go to csicop.org.

Penrose was met with considerable skepticism, especially in the artificial intelligence community, which he was basically attempting to put out of business, and also among physicists who could not see what quantum gravity could possibly have to do with a large, hot structure such as the brain.

Penrose then teamed up with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in proposing a model for how quantum mechanics operates in the brain. Here’s how they explain it:

According to the principles of OR [objective reduction, proposed by Penrose in his 1994 book Shadows of the Mind], superpositioned states each have their own space-time geometries. When the degree of coherent mass-energy difference leads to a sufficient separation of space-time geometry, the system must choose and decay (reduce, collapse) to a single universe state, thus preventing “multiple universes.” In this way, a transient superposition of slightly differing space-time geometries persists until an abrupt quantum classical reduction occurs and one or the other is chosen. Thus consciousness may involve self-perturbations of space-time geometry.

Hameroff was one of the subjects interviewed in the 2004 independent documentary film What the Bleep Do We Know? That film, along with the succeeding 2005 film and still-bestselling book The Secret, exploited the notion that quantum mechanics tells us we make our own reality (see Reality Check September 2007).

In his Scientific American column of January 2005, Michael Shermer gave Bleep a scathing review. Referring to the Penrose-Hameroff model, Shermer references my 1995 book The Unconscious Quantum that discusses their proposal in some detail as well as the general question of whether the brain is a quantum device. In particular, Shermer pointed to a criterion I applied for determining whether a system must be described by quantum mechanics: If the product of a typical mass (m), speed (v), and distance (d) for the particles of the system is on the order of Planck’s constant (h) or less, then you cannot use classical mechanics to describe it but must use quantum mechanics.

Applying the criterion to the brain, I used the typical mass of a neural transmitter molecule, its speed-based thermal motion, and the distance across the synapse to find mvd about two orders of magnitude too large for quantum effects to be necessarily present.

In a letter responding to Shermer’s column, Hameroff wrote:

To debunk our theory Shermer cites an assertion in a book by Victor Stenger that the product of mass, velocity and distance of a quantum system cannot exceed Planck’s constant. I’ve not seen this proposal in a peer reviewed journal, nor listed anywhere as a serious interpretation of quantum mechanics. But in any case Stenger’s assertion is disproven by Anton Zeilinger’s experimental demonstration of quantum wave behavior in fullerenes and biological porphyrin proteins. (Skepticism should cut both ways, Mr. Shermer.) Nonetheless I agree with Stenger that synaptic chemical transmission between neurons is completely classical. The quantum computations we propose are isolated in microtubules within neurons. Classical neurotransmission provides inputs to, and outputs from, microtubule quantum computations mediating consciousness in neuronal dendrites.

First of all, the criterion I proposed is based on textbook quantum mechanics, originating with Niels Bohr in 1913—hardly in need of peer review. Second, I present this as a criterion for the necessary use of quantum mechanics in which you cannot get away with using classical mechanics. I did note that macroscopic quantum systems such as lasers and superconductors exist. They rely on the phenomenon of quantum coherence that can act over large distances.

In any case, Hameroff admits he agrees with me on my conclusion that “synaptic chemical transmission between neurons is completely classical.” He says he and Penrose propose that the quantum effects occur in microtubules within neurons. Microtubules are hollow, cylindrical polymers that are part of the cytoskeleton of all cells. As I noted in my book, I am puzzled that the quantum effects described in this model happen only with brain cells and not, say, the cells of the big toe.

In a 1999 paper, physicist max Tegmark looked at the problem of quantum coherence in the brain and determined that the decoherence timescales would be ten or more orders of magnitude shorter than the timescales for an event in the brain. The brain is simply too large and too hot to be a quantum device, coherent or not.

It is safe to say that the Penrose-Hameroff model has not been supported by the evidence to the satisfaction of the great majority of neuroscientists. However, let us assume Penrose is right about the brain not being a strict algorithmic computer. A simple mechanism exists, well known to complexity theorists, that can enable the brain or an electronic circuit to act in a noncomputable way.

External sources in the environment such as cosmic rays or internal sources such as radioactive potassium (K40) in blood can be expected to induce fluctuations in brain currents. These processes are quantum in origin, which means that they are random—at least in most interpretations of quantum mechanics. Like the fluctuations that provide for mutations in the evolutionary process, these might serve to trigger what complexity theorists call a bifurcation, when a system moves from one quasi-stable state to another.

The brain could operate that way, being basically classical and deterministic but occasionally jolted by a random quantum event. What is interesting is that the decisions made in this fashion would be indistinguishable from creative acts or free will. Is that all there is to it?

Origins

The concept that a human could turn into a wolf seems to have originated with the simple wearing of an animal robe for warmth, with people coming to believe that the man wearing the skin took on the animal’s powers. Eventually, the popular imagination conceived of bewitched men who, under the full moon’s irresistible power, grew hairy coats, fangs, and claws and otherwise took on the aspect of a beast. The wolf was a popular form of such metamorphoses in Europe.

In fact, there are two medical conditions that undoubtedly helped foster belief in werewolves. One is a disease, a hormonal disorder known as Cushing’s Syndrome, which can produce enlargement of the hands and face, together with rapid and copious growth of hair on the latter and an accompanying “acute emotional agitation.” According to occult critic Owen Rachleff (1971, 215), “Individuals afflicted with this disease, either because of ostracism or because of the psychotic ramifications of their illness, were, in the past, forced to live apart from society.”

There is also the psychiatric disorder known as lycanthropy (after the Greek lykanthropos, “wolf-man”). This is the delusion that one has been transformed into a wolf, which can cause sadistic and even cannibalistic or necrophilic behavior (Stein 1988, 37).

The moon is not a factor (except perhaps a psychological one) in cases of “real” werewolves (Rachleff 1971, 215); however, something of the concept nevertheless survives in the popular notion of “moon madness.” Also known as the lunar effect, it is the supposed influence the moon exerts on people’s behavior. As psychologist Terence Hines explains:

It is especially held that the full moon accentuates or increases the probability of all sorts of odd and troublesome behavior. Suicides, admissions to mental hospitals, arrests for public drunkenness, and crimes of various sorts are all said to increase when the moon is full. It is also widely believed, especially among maternity ward personnel, that more babies are born when the moon is full than during the other phases of the moon. The moon’s gravitational influence is usually the mechanism used to explain the alleged effects of the full moon. After all, proponents say, the moon’s gravity influences the oceans, which are largely water. Therefore, since the human body contains a great deal of water, the moon’s gravity must also influence the human body. This in some unspecified way results in moon madness. But in fact the moon’s gravitational influence on the human body is infinitesimal—equivalent to the weight of a single mosquito being added to the weight of a normal individual.

He goes on to note that “gravity is a weak force,” and that, in merely holding a book, one is “outpulling the entire planet earth” (Hines 1988, 156–157).

According to Hines, when moon-madness proponents’ studies are scrutinized, invariably “methodological or statistical flaws have appeared that invalidate the conclusions,” and the overall data on the effect “shows overwhelmingly that the moon’s phase has no effect on human behavior” (Hines 1988, 157, 158).

It should come as no surprise that lycanthropy is closely associated with vampirism, including a popular belief that one dying under the werewolf’s curse was doomed to return as a vampire. In Slavic countries, certain names for werewolves were in time applied to the undead (e.g., vrykolakas, volkodlak). Also, French demonologists described a type of werewolf, a loublin, that haunted cemeteries, digging up and devouring corpses (Bunson 1993, 279–280; Thorne 1999, 72, 91).

Witch Mania

Werewolves were part of the witch craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly in Europe. There, thousands of werewolf cases were reported from 1520 to 1630 (Bunson 1993, 279).

For example, in France in the early 1500s, three men were put on trial for transforming themselves into werewolves and killing sheep. They were convicted and burned at the stake (Rachleff 1971, 216). Near the end of the century in 1598, a French beggar named Jacques Roulet was also tried as a werewolf. Discovered hiding in the bushes near the mutilated body of a teenage boy half-naked and smeared with blood, Roulet admitted to the murder. However, invoking a popular belief of the time, he blamed a magic ointment that he said caused him to become a wolf (whether physically or mentally is unclear). Although he was sentenced to death, on appeal the Parlement of Paris instead committed him to an insane asylum for two years (Stein 1988, 33).

Some have speculated that in such cases belladonna, herbane, aconite root (wolf’s bane),1 or other potent drugs were included in the “witch ointment.” One speculator, Dr. H.J. Norman (1966, 291), concluded, “The chief effect was brought about as the result of the high degree of suggestibility of the individuals, who were undoubtedly in numerous instances psychopathic and mentally deranged.” No doubt even more important in many cases was the effect of torture, which may have caused the accused “werewolf” to acknowledge the use of whatever the inquisitors imagined—ointment or otherwise.

In one instance—the case of Peter Stump or Stub who was executed near Cologne in 1590—the catalyst was a “girdle” he supposedly put on and took off, thus transforming himself into a wolf and back. Apparently a serial-killer similar to Jeffrey Dahmer, Stump raped, murdered, and even devoured men, women, and children. His was “one of the most famous of all German werewolf trials” (Summers 1966, 253). Revealingly, when his interrogators could not find the magical girdle where the confessed lycanthrope said he had discarded it, they “supposed that it was gone to the devil from whence it came” (quoted in Summers 1966, 259).

Investigating in Austria

While on an investigative tour of Europe in May 2007, I came across a much later werewolf case in Austria. German skeptic Martin Mahner and I toured a supposedly haunted Schloss Moosham (i.e., Moosham Castle) where many witch trials were held. Between 1675 and 1689, when the witch mania had already decreased elsewhere, some 200 victims were executed, mostly vagabonds.

The werewolf scare occurred still later, between 1715 and 1717, when an unusual number of cattle and deer were killed by wolves in the Moosham district. When attempts to hunt down and kill the predators failed, superstitious folk concluded that the creatures must have been supernatural. Subsequently, two adolescent beggars admitted under torture in the Schloss Moosham dungeon to receiving a black cream from the Devil. Had they put the unguent on their bodies, they confessed, they would have been transformed immediately into wolves. The implication was that people conspired with the Devil to turn into wolves and were responsible for the animal killings. Needless to say, neither the existence of the alleged ointment nor its effect was ever demonstrated.

In this instance, the Devil’s confessed accomplices escaped execution. They were instead reportedly sentenced to lifelong service as Venetian galley slaves, a punishment described as “a slow but sure death” (Bieberger et al. 2004, 157–162).

Further evidence of the Moosham Castle werewolf case turned up (as director of CFI Libraries Timothy Binga discovered while searching online sources) in an archive of werewolf reports from 1407 to 1720 (werwolfprozesse 2002). There are two listings for the year 1717 in Moosham: the first, Philipp Ebmer, a beggar, was noted as having died in detention; the second was Ruepp Gell, who, with Hans Pfaendel and five other codefendants, all beggars, ultimately “died in detention” after being sentenced to Galeerenstrafe, or “galley-punishment” (Werwolfprozesse 2002).

As a replacement for the death penalty, during Galeerenstrafe the condemned man was secured with heavy iron chains to a galley’s rudder. This inhumane punishment typically resulted in death by exhaustion, disease, or shipwreck (Galeerenstrafe 2007).

We like to ascribe such frightening excesses to the magical thinking that pervaded an earlier age, holding our own time as more enlightened. Yet we must acknowledge the surprisingly modern view of lycanthropy found in the sixteenth-century skeptical work, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, by Reginald Scot (1584, 58). Challenging the basis of claims that men can be transformed into beasts, Scot sums up:

To conclude, I saie that the transformations, which these witchmongers doo so rave and rage upon, is (as all the learned sort of physicians affirme) a disease proceeding partlie from melancholie, wherebie manie suppose themselves to be woolves, or such ravening beasts. For Lycanthropia is of the ancient physicians called Lupina melancholia, or Lupina insania. J. Wierus declareth verie learnedlie, the cause, the circumstance, and the cure of this disease. I have written the more herein; bicause hereby great princes and potentates, as well as poore women and innocents, have beene defamed and accounted among the number of witches.

Conversely, we must also acknowledge some of the unenlightened thinking of today. Consider, for example, the “animal mutilation” cases that burgeoned in the 1970s and continue to the present. They are often popularly attributed to the “chupacabra,” an imagined Draculaesque extraterrestrial, despite repeated evidence that the “mutilations” are the work of predators and scavengers (Nickell 2006, 20–21). Perhaps some of us have not advanced so very far after all.

Note:

1. 1. Aconite, or wolf’s bane, is a very poisonous plant, often “added to protection sachets, especially to guard against vampires and werewolves” (Cunningham 2000, 260). It was also placed before windows and doors (Bunson 1993, 283).

References

• Bieberger, Christof, et al. 2004. Geisterschösser in Osterreich (“Ghost Castles in Austria”). Vienna: Verlag Carl Ueberreuter. (Portions translated for me by Martin Mahner.)
• Bunson, Matthew. 1993. The Vampire Encyclopedia. New York: Gramercy Books
• Cunningham, Scott. 2000. Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magic Herbs, 2nd ed. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications.
• Galeerenstrafe. 2007. From German wikipedia.org; accessed July 18, 2007.
• Hines, Terence. 1988. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• King, Francis X. 1991. Mind & Magic. London: Crescent.
• Leach, Maria, ed. 1984. Funk & Wagnall’s Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. New York: Harper & Row.
• Nickell, Joe. 2006. Argentina mysteries. Skeptical Inquirer 30(2) (March/April), 19–21.
• Norman, H.J. 1966. Witch ointments. Appendix to Summers 1966.
• Rachleff, Owen. 1971. The Occult Conceit. Chicago: Cowles.
• Scot, Reginald. 1584. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Reprinted (from a 1930 ed.) New York: Dover, 1972, 58.
• Stein, Gordon. 1988. Werewolves. Fate magazine, January, 30–40.
• Summers, Montague. 1966. The Werewolf. New York: Bell Publ. Co.
• Thorne, Tony. 1999. Children of the Night: Of Vampires and Vampirism. London: Victor Gollancz.
• Werwolfprozesse in der Frühen Neuzeit. 2002. Available online at http://www.elmar-lorey.de/Prozesse.htm; accessed July 13, 2007.