There are many stories like Champ, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs, and other popular myths that seem to acquire a life of their own. In fifteen feet of water off the Bahamian island of Bimini lie several rows of tabular limestone boulders that “true believers” adamantly contend are remnants of the mythical city/state of Atlantis. The reader has probably seen these underwater stones on numerous TV shows and documentaries. Even the History Channel recently did a piece on it. The programs follow a familiar theme: After showing and describing the wonders, the narration will end something like, “No one really knows the true origin of these stones . . .” or, “Could it really be Atlantis?” True believers, of course, have made up their minds.

As a geologist I did a thorough study of the site in the mid-1970s and must say it was one of the more unusual phases of my career and the major reason I first began subscribing to the Skeptical Inquirer. In the mid-1970s I was director of a small field station for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) located on Fisher Island off Miami Beach. We worked in collaboration with the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Our reputation was enhanced because we had developed a diver-operated coring device that for the first time allowed inexpensive underwater core sampling. It was because of our core drill that a well-known writer, adventurer, and New Age thinker, Peter Tompkins, asked if we would go to Bimini (just fifty miles from our field station) to core and determine if the site could indeed be lost Atlantis. We refused the first request, fearing damage to our reputations. The prospect was outside our mission. After Peter contacted our headquarters in Reston, Virginia, I received a phone call. When I explained that the limestone blocks had previously been identified as natural beachrock, I was advised to make my own decision.

I knew something about the so-called “cyclopean megalith roadway” because a Miami graduate student, John Gifford, had recently completed a study of the stones sponsored by the National Geographic Society. The study was published several years later (Gifford and Ball 1980). After consultation within our group, we decided on a plan that promised to be interesting and fun yet provide a public service while at the same time not embarrassing to the USGS. Who could turn down an opportunity to dive in the clear waters off Bimini on weekends at no cost? We agreed to do the investigation on weekends, provided we could pick the boat and the captain. The first weekend trip was aboard a Florida Institute of Technology research vessel that supplied student help. Peter Tompkins also brought along his fourteen-year-old son. We cored two of the huge stones and demonstrated to our satisfaction that they were indeed beachrock.

Beachrock is rock that forms near mid-tide level beneath the sand on tropical beaches. It is a very distinctive rock that forms rapidly. Tidal fluctuation constantly forces calcium carbonate-rich waters through the sands where evaporation and off-gassing of carbon dioxide probably help stimulate precipitation of calcium carbonate. Within a few years, crystals of aragonite, a common marine form of calcium carbonate, precipitate between the grains, welding them together to form a very hard limestone. There are beach rocks around some Pacific islands that contain human skeletons and shell casings from World War II. At Bimini and along other Bahamian islands, many swimming beaches are lined with beachrock that is forming today. They contain imbedded Coke and beer bottles. When sea level rises, as it has done during the past 18,000 years, any beachrock that formed several thousand years ago becomes submerged. Such is the case with the supposed Atlantis stones off North Bimini.

When our drill cores showed the older beachrock was identical to that forming on the main swimming beach at Bimini, there was much concern. Whereas the modern rock contains discarded bottles, there were no artifacts, no wheel ruts, or any other evidence of an ancient civilization in or around the fifteen-foot-deep site. We thought the quest was over and there would be no more fun weekends in Bimini. Instead it was just the beginning of a long adventure that continues today.

When confronted with the beachrock evidence, Tompkins posed a difficult question: "What if beachrock was the only building material available for the Atlanteans?” We needed an answer, so we approached the question using forensic geology. If the stones had not been moved since they formed, they should all contain beach sand stratification dipping in the same direction as when it formed, i.e., toward deep water. If the stones had been placed by humans, then internal stratification probably would dip in different directions. We reasoned that Atlanteans, although reputed to have had advanced technology, were not aware of internal stratification within beaches and beachrock. If they fitted the stones, they surely would have selected for the best fit. Thus, some stones should contain stratification dipping the wrong way. Our plan was to take seventeen oriented cores from separate adjacent stones. Soon we had a real expedition planned, and a local PBS station was brought in by Tompkins to supervise a documentary. Tompkins is known for his well-crafted coffee table book on the Great Pyramids, his cult classic The Secret Life of Plants, and a thriller titled A Spy in Rome. Peter actually was an Allied spy in Rome during World War II.

Cayce’s Stones

Figure 2. Vertical view of Bimini stones. Note the 4-inch-diameter core hole and oriented cores adjacent to hole. Beachrock like this can seem dramatic and artificial but in fact is a natural geological phenomenon.

Figure 3. View of sawed surface of a two-inch-diameter core from Bimini beachrock from the first expedition. Coarse shell fragments that compose the rock are roughly the same size as those on the present-day swimming beach at Bimini.

Why did people believe Atlantis was near Bimini in the first place? The answer lies in the predictions of Edgar Cayce, a popular “healer” in the 1930s and 1940s. Cayce, known as the “Sleeping Prophet,” also believed in reincarnation. While doing a “reading,” he reportedly discovered his patient was a reincarnated Atlantean. When asked where Atlantis was, the patient said “in the Bahamas near Bimini.” This comment, along with others, was recorded in his writings. Cayce became so popular he went on to form a huge following including a foundation in Virginia Beach, Virginia. His story is told in the January/February 1996 issue of Skeptical Inquirer (Beyerstein 1996). Thus, when someone familiar with his pronouncements discovered the rows of stones in the early 1960s, they were linked with Cayce’s revelation. One such person to make the link was Valentine (1976). Soon hundreds of snorkelers and divers descended on the site. The vista in clear water is impressive, and without specialized knowledge, most visitors would swim in awe. The Cayce Foundation funded Edward Zink to investigate. Zink, a professor of English, spent several summers examining the site. Prentice Hall published his hardcover book on the topic, titled The Stones of Atlantis.

Other events and circumstances added aura to the island. Bimini lies in the so-called “Bermuda Triangle,” and the Berlitz books on the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis were becoming as popular as crystal power. Berlitz’s books included the stones, submerged Egyptian pyramids, whirling compasses, downed airplanes, missing boats, aliens, and anything else that seemed strange. Chief among the auras was the so-called “force field.” And there were plenty of other strange happenings on Bimini that might explain the force field. Bimini had become a major drop area for drug smugglers, as it had been for liquor in the 1920s and early 1930s. The aroma wafting from boats in the harbor probably created its own force field. It was a place where Customs agents wore gold Rolexes and small machine-gunned aircraft lay in the bushes on either side of the runway at South Bimini airport. Several can still be found in shallows just off shore. Little wonder that a most unusual crop of international visitors flocked to the tiny island. One visitor was Lester Hemingway, the brother of Ernest Hemingway. He would stop people on the street and describe how the legendary Fountain of Youth, yet another facet of the Bimini aura, had healed his cancer. A tidally fed sinkhole in the mangrove swamps of North Bimini had become the true Fountain of Youth. It was said that Ponce de Leon had mistakenly searched Florida for the Fountain when it was in Bimini all the time. For about $50 local bonefish guides will take you to the Fountain for rejuvenation. Also near the fountain are sand spits surrounded by mangroves and other vegetation. They are geological testament to the way North Bimini has formed over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years. At one spit, bare sand being encroached by mangroves outlines the shape of a 500-foot-long shark. There is also a whale shape. Because the shark and nearby whale “mega pictographs” or “zoomorphic mounds” can be seen only from the air, true believers say it is a prehistoric archaeological site built by extraterrestrials from the Pleiades. With this background, the reader can more fully appreciate the eclectic, New Age nature of Bimini in the 1970s.

Drilling for Atlantis

Figure 4. Submerged beachrock at Hospital Key at Dry Tortugas. Thickness of tabular rock slabs and pattern of fractures are similar to those at Bimini.

Figure 5. Fractured beachrock at Loggerhead Key, Dry Tortugas.

Figure 6. Close-up photograph of fractured beachrock at Loggerhead Key, Dry Tortugas. A recent hurricane exposed more beach rock at Loggerhead Key, revealing that a seawater pipe for the Carnegie research lab located here between 1910 and 1940 had become part of the beachrock.

The day finally came to start the drilling. We loaded Captain Roy’s fifty-foot trawler with our equipment and two members of Tompkins’s entourage. An astrologer from California named Leon had provided funding. The local PBS station sent one of their managers to evaluate the story potential. When we docked in Bimini the next morning, the rest of the group that had flown over was there to meet us. The group included a French photojournalist, a writer from the National Enquirer, a woman who practices rebirth, two sisters who were to be the underwater movie photographers, and of course Peter Tompkins. His son stayed home this time. My wife, Dan Robbin, and his wife also joined the party. Captain Roy knew the site well. He had been chartered earlier to help with the filming of a fictional movie about the Bermuda Triangle. A half dozen sailboats had already assembled at the site when we dropped anchor. The people on the sailboats had dropped more than their anchors: they were all naked. One nude boater swam over and asked, “Can't you feel the force field? It’s strong here.” But this did not fully prepare us for what came later.

We suited ourselves in dive gear and soon found ourselves being filmed by two naked women. Apparently, humans just cannot get the feel of place while wearing clothes. In his 1997 book Paradise Fever, subtitled Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age, Ptolemy Tompkins, the same fourteen-year-old son from our first trip in the mid-1970s, talked about life with his father and his New Age beliefs. In the book Ptolemy describes how everyone felt they had to get naked to investigate the stones. He also mentions his father’s disagreements with the “clothed geologists.” For further reading see “Lost Atlantis” in Harper’s magazine (Tompkins 1997).

I should also mention that the week before our expedition Peter had rented a plane and flown over the area with two well-known diviners. I was told they first found “hot spots” by passing their hands over nautical charts. They then sat in the plane with plumb bobs and waited for “the forces” to direct them. Needless to say, nothing came of it, but it was to be part of the TV documentary.

While we were drilling, a rival New Ager was spotted on a nearby boat. Demitri Ribikoff, an inventor and developer of underwater photography equipment, was doing an underwater photographic survey of his own. I was soon to learn that the true believers, and there are many, were extremely jealous of each other because each wanted the glory of finding Atlantis. Ribikoff was coaxed over to our boat for an on-camera interview. Sparks flew.

Analyzing the Atlantis Beachrock

We survived it all, completed our weekend mission, took the cores home, and later sawed the oriented cores with a diamond rock saw. The rock slabs were x-radiographed to reveal internal stratification. Sure enough, all the cores showed consistent dipping of strata toward the deep water, and distinctive layers of rounded beach pebbles could be traced from one stone to another. To better appreciate what this means, let me explain a little about beachrock formation.

Beachrock forms beneath the sand in the intertidal zone. Nearly all beach sands have distinctive stratification that dips downward toward the water. When the sand is converted to rock, stratification is preserved. Usually one does not see the rock forming on beaches because it forms out of sight beneath the sand. As more sand is added, the beach builds out with the rock following just beneath. However, if conditions change and the beach is eroded, the rock is exposed. Algae grow on its surface, usually turning the rock dark grey or black. After a few years in the sun, the rock layers, usually about one-foot thick, crack much like old concrete roads and sidewalks. The pieces can be large, up to twelve feet in length and four to six feet wide. With continued erosion by wave-driven beach sand, the cracks enlarge and take on a rounded shape. The result is rows of huge pillow-shaped stones that appear to have been fitted neatly together, much like the stone walls high in the mountains at the Peruvian ruins of Machu Picchu. If the beach makes a turn, such as when a curved spit forms, the beachrock follows. At the south end of the long row of stones off Bimini the beachrock curves to form a huge “J.” True believer Edward Zink thought the J shape had special meaning. Some say it was built to form an Atlantean harbor.

We were later filmed in our laboratory cutting the cores and explaining their origin and significance on camera. It turned out that the 16-mm film both above and below water was not up to PBS standards and PBS wanted no part of this story. After all this effort-and the discoveries we had made-I decided the geological story needed telling. So I prepared an article for Sea Frontiers magazine, which was published by the International Oceanographic Foundation. It was called “Atlantis: Bimini’s Hoax” (Shinn 1978). The editor was especially happy to print the geological explanation because of the constant onslaught of questions concerning the mysterious stones. Later in 1980, I co-authored a paper in Nature with Marshal McKusick (McKusick and Shinn 1980). We presented carbon-14 data showing that the stones (ages range from 2,000 to 4,000 years) are much too young. Atlantis was presumably a 7,000-year-old story when first told to Plato. The rock is actually younger because the material we dated consisted of conch shell fragments cemented within the rock. These materials would have been lying on the beach and predated the cementation process that produced the rock. We did not have the new mass accelerator dating methods that today allow dating of the tiny individual crystals that formed the rock. It is clear the actual time of rock formation would have been some time after the conch shell was deposited on the beach.

The Myth Goes On

There were also other items in the area. An earlier letter to Nature (Harrison 1971) showed that so-called columns on a site about two miles from the stones were made of Portland cement. In the 1800s, cement was carried on ships in wood barrels. When discarded, the wood rotted away, leaving a hard cement column. Needless to say, none of these publications changed the minds of “true believers.” I had foolishly believed publishing the facts would put an end to speculation and the numerous expeditions that were being financed by gullible donors. Readers of the Skeptical Inquirer and those who have read of James Randi’s encounters with faith healers and their followers as well as his exposé of the Bimini beachrock (Randi 1981) already know that there is no quelling the fervor of true believers.

Figure 7. A diver over the Bimini stones.

So what has happened since the 1970s and early 1980s? There was indeed a short period of quiescence that may be attributed to a conservative political twist in the nation and possibly the reduction of drug smuggling through Bimini. Today the boat harbor in Bimini is almost empty. In the 1970s, there were always more than 100 boats in the harbor.

In the 1990s, William Donato formed the Atlantis Organization and in 1997 initiated an aerial survey called “Project Alta.” Donato received a master’s degree from a California university for a critical re-evaluation of the Bimini site in 1979. In the thesis I am accused of not having an open mind. Such criticism is not new. I had been taken to task in a Miami Herald interview of true believer Manson Valentine. He accused me of being a “scientoid.” “Scientoids are brainwashed in the scientific method which can only reveal limited information,” he said. “One has to go beyond the bounds of science for true enlightenment.” Valentine was on the board of the Miami Museum of Science!

The dubious expeditions have resumed, and the Bahamian government continues to promote the area for obvious tourism reasons. Edgar E. Cayce, the son of Edgar C. Cayce published a book in 1988 titled Edgar Cayces’s Wisdom for the New Age: Mysteries of Atlantis Revisited. The book is a hodgepodge of history, geological fact, and fantasy and includes interpretations of Cayce’s readings that purportedly show he learned of continental drift while in a trance long before geologists figured it out. Of course, the book discredits the work McKusick and I did.

Figure 8. Aerial view of so called "zoomorphic mounds" on North Bimini with shark figure in center of photograph. Accretionary sand spits and shoreline are visible in background. The feature in lower left is said to represent a whale.

Figure 9. Road to Atlantis? Not quite. Fractured bedding plane taken by the author in 5,000 feet of water from the Alvin submersible off the Blake Escarpment.

Three years ago I was invited to give a talk about the Bimini stones to the Bahamian Historical Society in Nassau. The invitation was stimulated by two back-to-back articles in the Bahamian Guide, an expensive guide to doing business in the Bahamas. William Michael Donato argued that straight lines are rare in nature while geologist Paul Hearty argues straight lines are not unusual. The straightness of the stones, except where they form a "J,” had bothered many observers over the years. The trip to Nassau also included a tour of the multimillion-dollar Atlantis hotel on Paradise Island. The manager led the tour, which takes one through a winding man-made tunnel called “the Atlantis digs.” The tour includes an Atlantean submarine, an Atlantean diving suit, a laboratory complete with “power crystals,” and hieroglyphics line the walls everywhere. The manager explained how he and others sat up one night and concocted the hieroglyphics. “True believers spend hours in there trying to decode what they say,” he said. The pseudo-Atlantis site is also adjacent to an elaborate Las Vegas-style gambling casino. I concluded that anyone who thinks they will get rich gambling should certainly believe in Atlantis.

Since our original adventure, I have seen similar straight lines of broken pavement-like stones and have photographed similar features from the Alvin submarine in 5,000 feet of water. Many more offshore beachrock sites have been found in the Bahamas, and I have photographed a large field of the “megaliths,” as true believers call them, off the western end of Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. There are exact duplicates around islands on the Australian Barrier Reef, and a geologically famous example at the Dry Tortugas off Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. I took a film team from Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of series to the Tortugas to film and demonstrate that the beachrock there was the same as at Bimini. That 1970s program still airs occasionally but seems not to have influenced the true believers. In fact, several of them appear in the program. One talks of finding a half-buried pyramid on the Great Bahama Bank. They claim to have entered the pyramid underwater to make films and then a storm drove them away. Not surprisingly the films were fogged by the "force field” and the site was buried and could never be located again! They did recover one of the “power crystals.” It was demonstrated that when a magnet on a stick is placed near the crystal, the magnet is repelled. The program did not show the electromagnet hidden under a black cloth just beneath the crystal.

In spite of all the evidence pointing to natural beachrock, the reader should not expect to see the demise of Atlantis stories. Donnelly, who in 1882 published Atlantis: the Antediluvian World, surely had no idea of its ongoing effect on peoples’ lives clear into the twenty-first century. Do not be surprised when you pick up the newspaper and see a small article that says, “Russian expedition finds what may be the true location of Atlantis.” It happens at least once a year.

References

• Beyerstein, D. 1996. Edgar Cayce: The prophet who slept his way to the top. Skeptical Inquirer 20(1), January/February: 32-37.
• Cayce, E.E., G.C. Schwartzer, and D.G. Richards. 1988. Mysteries of Atlantis Revisited., San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers.
• Donato, W. M. 1979. A re-examination of the Atlantis theory. (Master’s thesis).
• Gifford, J.A., and M.M. Ball. 1980. Investigation of submerged beachrock deposits off Bimini, Bahamas. National Geographic Society Research Reports 12: 21-38.
• Harrison, W. 1971. Atlantis undiscovered: Bimini, Bahamas. Nature 230: 287-289.
• McKusick, M., and E.A. Shinn. 1980. Bahamian Atlantis reconsidered. Nature 287: 11-12.
• Randi, J. 1981. Atlantean road: The Bimini beach-rock. Skeptical Inquirer 5(3), Spring: 42-43.
• Shinn, E. A. 1978. Atlantis: Bimini’s hoax. Sea Frontiers 24: 130-141.
• Tompkins, P. 1997. Paradise Fever. New York: Avon Books.
• —. 1997. Lost Atlantis. Harper’s magazine, January: 76-82.
• Valentine, J. M. 1976. Underwater archaeology in the Bahamas. Explorers Journal (December):176-183.
• Zink, D. 1978. The Stones of Atlantis. New York: Prentice Hall.

“A poignant television story of a victim of a rare reaction to a vaccine can render invisible the vast good brought about by this same vaccine.”

—John Allen Paulos

When pertussis takes hold, the infected person makes horrid, whooping sounds as he inhales. When he gets a chance to inhale. Which isn't often during the torturous “paroxysmal phase,” characterized by sudden attacks of repetitive, severe coughing. The disease’s Latin name, pertussis, translates as “intensive cough.” But whooping cough, the common name, does a far better job of describing the unique whooping sound the disease’s victim makes when, finally, he gets a chance to breathe.

Neither the common nor the Latin name give any indication that the hacking cough and haunting whoop are often followed by vomiting. Nor does either name indicate that this distressing paroxysmal phase can last up to four weeks, and that this phase, in which the victim most clearly needs constant assistance, cruelly is also the phase in which this deadly disease is the most highly contagious. Since highly and deadly are relative terms, I should tell you that pertussis infections occur in 70 to 100 percent of all unimmunized household contacts that have been exposed to an infected person (CDNANZ 1997). In 1931, before immunization, pertussis was responsible for 1.3 percent of all deaths in England and Wales (Research Defence Society 1999).

Figure 1. United Kingdom’s pertussis rate (per 100,000 population).

You have probably imagined an adult victim while reading thus far. In fact, before an effective vaccine became available, pertussis had been a worldwide leading cause of infant deaths. Before the 1940s, it was a major cause of infant and child morbidity and mortality in the U.S. (CDC 2002). From 1890 to 1940, in New South Wales, whooping cough killed more children under five than diphtheria. It was second only to gastroenteritis as a cause of infant deaths (Hamilton 1979).

In Sydney, Australia’s, Royal Alexandria Hospital for Children alone, eighty-five died in 1940: “A whole 30-bed ward was filled for months with these poor little ones. Most of those admitted were young. The older ones were not in great danger and stayed at home, going on for seemingly endless weeks with their distressing spasms of breath-robbing cough ending in a vomit or choking whoop” (Hamilton 1979).

The force of pertussis coughing is so severe that many patients develop facial suffusions (discolorations), and small hemorrhages in the skin or conjunctivae. The coughing alone can also lead to hernias, rectal prolapse (protrusion of the rectal mucous membrane or sphincter muscle through the anus), or even hypoxic encephalopathy (degenerative disease of the brain). An adult can literally cough his way into a proctologist’s or neurologist’s office. Vomit, food particles, or mucous aspired while whooping can result in secondary pneumonia infection. Some children even become malnourished because they literally can't stop coughing long enough to eat. And some, usually infants, die (Malleson et al. 1977; CDNANZ 1997).

Fear and Loathing on the Vaccine Trail

In 1906, researchers discovered that the Bordatela pertussis bacterium caused pertussis. Within twenty years of that discovery, the first whole-cell pertussis vaccine was developed (Research Defence Society 1999). After two decades of testing and refinement, many countries accepted varying versions of a whole-cell pertussis vaccine, established vaccination protocols, and began to vaccinate their citizens. Many of the vaccine manufacturers produced a combined diphtheria-tetanus-whole cell pertussis (DTP) vaccine.

For most countries, as vaccination coverage increased, both the frequency and severity of pertussis epidemics markedly declined. Ironically, this success actually may have been the vaccine’s undoing, as presaged in this pointed 1960 British Medical Journal commentary: “When immunization results in the virtual elimination of a disease it is inevitable that some will question the continued need for routine inoculation of all infants” (Editors 1960).

Figure 2. Sweden’s pertussis rate (per 100,000 population).

The first hint of a problem came from Sweden in 1960, less than ten years into its vaccination program. Sweden had previously seen pertussis incidence rates as high as nearly 300 per 100,000. By 1960, the incidence rates were merely a third of that and falling (Gangarosa et al. 1998). It was at this time that Justus Ström, an influential Swedish medical leader, questioned the continuing need for pertussis vaccines. In his British Medical Journal paper, he claimed pertussis was no longer a serious disease because of economic, social, and general medical progress. Furthermore, he cited thirty-six cases of neurological conditions that he attributed to the whole cell pertussis vaccine, calculating an alarming neurological complication rate of 1 in 6,000 (Ström 1960).

Ström first presented his paper at a meeting of the Swedish Medical Association, where it evoked lively discussion, including some severe criticism of both his methods and conclusions (Malmgren et al. 1967). Nonetheless, Ström’s twin suggestions, that the vaccine had little to do with the control of pertussis and that the vaccine may do more harm than good, shook Swedish pediatricians’ faith in the vaccination program. Shortly thereafter, the Swedish Royal Medical Board appointed a special committee to investigate the matter. The committee found that Ström’s adverse reaction rate calculation was off by an order of magnitude, and corrected it to 1 in 50,000 (Malmgren et al. 1967). Apparently, Ström never accepted the Royal Medical Board’s corrections to his data. In 1967 he published new data claiming that neurological reactions had increased to 1 in 3,600 vaccinated children (Ström 1967). This claim further eroded confidence in the vaccine’s safety. Fortunately, and perhaps owing to the Royal Medical Board’s criticism of the paper, Swedish reaction was slow to take hold.

Then in the United Kingdom, in 1974, Kulenkampff and his colleagues published a paper citing another thirty-six cases of neurological reactions that they attributed to the whole cell pertussis vaccine. The paper’s evidence was weak on several fronts acknowledged by the authors. They clearly stated they “do not know either the prevalence of natural infection or the frequency of inoculation encephalopathy (brain diseases resulting from vaccination) in the population we serve” (Kulenkampff et al. 1974). And they noted that “in as many as a third of our patients there were contraindications to inoculation with pertussis vaccine, in that there was a previous history of fits, or family history of seizures in a first-degree relative; reaction to previous inoculation; recent intercurrent infection; or presumed neurodevelopmental defect” (Kulenkampff et al. 1974).

Despite the authors’ appropriately cautious approach to their paper, the anti-vaccination advocates seized upon it, and the media ran with it. Soon after the paper’s publication, British television aired a program on the whooping cough vaccine. Focusing on the anecdotal evidence of terrible adverse reactions supposedly caused by the vaccine, it presented little of the clear good the vaccine had done historically.

The negative press and television coverage persisted for years. Other doctors came forward to tell the public of the alleged horrors of whole-cell pertussis vaccination (Gangarosa et. al 1998). These included Gordon Stewart, a prominent public health academic, who claimed that the little protection pertussis vaccination afforded did not outweigh the risks (Stewart 1977). The British medical community, however, maintained a healthy skepticism. Immediately following Stewart’s paper, the Lancet published an article concluding that “fewer immunised children were admitted [for pertussis infection] than would be expected if immunization were ineffective” (Malleson et al. 1977). Nonetheless, vaccination rates fell precipitously. Before the brouhaha, vaccination uptake rates in the UK were about 81 percent. Between 1974 and 1978, the rates plummeted to 31 percent (Gangarosa et al. 1998; Research Defence Society 1999). The control over pertussis, which had taken the UK nearly two decades to achieve, quickly was being lost. As seen in figure 1, per capita pertussis rates rose about ten-fold during these four years (Gangarosa et al. 1998).

Meanwhile, back in Sweden, where Ström’s paper had already set the stage, pertussis incidence rates had crept back up, causing Swedish physicians to further lose confidence in the vaccine’s efficacy. To put this perceived problem in proper light, however, recall that Swedish pertussis rates in the 1940s and early 1950s, before the vaccine had been introduced, often hovered around 300 per 100,000. The 1975 pertussis rate (figure 2) was around 50 per 100,000 (Gangarosa et al. 1998). The backdrop had been set, though, and the physician’s lack of confidence, combined with the news from the UK, prompted the Swedish medical society to abandon whole-cell pertussis vaccination in 1979. Between 1980 and 1983, pertussis among pre-schoolers skyrocketed to 3,370 per 100,000. In the years following, more than 10,000 cases per year were reported (Gangarosa et al. 1998; Cherry 1996).

Figure 3. Japan’s pertussis rate (per 100,000 population).

The Kulkenkampff paper spread quickly to Japan as well, but the Japanese response was swifter. Japan’s already active anti- vaccination proponents seized upon both the UK pertussis scare and a national debate on adverse smallpox vaccination events to alarm the public. With a growing public clamor, and the unfortunate deaths of two infants within a day of vaccination, the Okayama Prefectural Medical Association eliminated pertussis vaccination altogether in 1975. Within two years, the pertussis vaccination rate for Japanese infants nose-dived from nearly 80 percent to 10 percent. Five years into this mushrooming fiasco, Japan experienced a pertussis epidemic (figure 3) with more than 13,000 cases and forty-one deaths (Gangarosa et al. 1998).

Figure 4. Australia’s pertussis rate (per 100,000 population).

The land down under was next to react to the news of alleged neurological reactions to pertussis vaccination. The Australian public began to fear vaccine reactions more than pertussis itself, and a passive anti-vaccination movement began to grow. Australian doctors slowly stopped pertussis vaccination. A study conducted by McIntyre and Nolan in the early 1990s found over half of the Australian physicians surveyed would give diphtheria-tetanus (DT) shots when DTP was indicated (McIntyre, et al. 1994). In 1993, Lester and Nolan wrote of Australia’s coming catastrophe: “[G]eographically clustered populations of children who have inadequate pertussis protection . . . could promote epidemic outbreaks” (Lester, et al. 1993).

That ink was barely dry when the first wave struck. Australia’s 1994 epidemic logged more than 5,000 cases. The second wave reached Australian shores three years later. This time, nearly 10,699 cases and nine infant deaths were reported. In the 2000-2001 Australian epidemic (figure 4), by November 6, 2001, 7,185 cases and two infant deaths had been recorded (Gangarosa et al. 1998, Kingsley 2001). In this latest outbreak, the Hunter Public Health Unit in Hunter Valley, New South Wales, reported, “About 30 percent of cases in Hunter Valley have been among 10 to 19 year olds.” Australian children past eight years old aren't vaccinated against pertussis “because of concerns about the possible side effects of the vaccine beyond this age” (ABC Science Online 2000).

Figure 5. Russia’s pertussis rate (per 100,000 population).

During the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Soviet Union maintained control of pertussis through compulsory immunization. Perestroika changed all that. Its anti-government bias spawned an active anti-vaccination movement, one of whose targets was the pertussis vaccine. Soviet virologist Galina Chervonskaya inspired the Soviet media to launch a campaign to discredit vaccination, and DTP vaccination coverage rates fell by 30 percent. Not surprisingly, the Russian Federation (figure 5) also began to experience pertussis epidemics (Gangarosa et al. 1998).

Returning to the Status Quo Ante Botchum

The epidemics shocked many of the nations that experienced them, although official and public responses have varied. Many countries introduced acellular pertussis vaccine as a “safer” alternative to the whole-cell vaccine. Some have also tried to control the problem by introducing more vaccination boosters to the protocol. But other countries, those whose vaccination programs were unaffected by anti-vaccination movements, haven't experienced these epidemics at all. These countries include Portugal, Hungary, Norway, the former East Germany, Poland, and, until recently, the U.S.

Japan’s reaction to its epidemic was swiftest and strongest. By 1981, Japan resumed vaccination with an acellular pertussis vaccine and pertussis incidence rates returned to their pre-fiasco levels. The United Kingdom’s vaccine uptake rate began slowly climbing, and by the 1990s reached levels exceeding those prior to the hysteria. English and Welsh pertussis incidence rates declined accordingly.

Sweden, however, remains plagued with high pertussis rates. As recently as 1996, and despite continuing epidemics, Sweden had yet to resume vaccinations (Cherry 1996). Australia’s efforts to halt pertussis continue to be thwarted by a passive anti-vaccination movement. The 2001-2002 epidemic bears witness to that. The Russian Federation has also failed to regain control and today has one of the highest pertussis incidence rates in the developed world.

Distorted numbers, confusion of correlation with causation, and statistical innumeracy certainly played roles in this sad story. Sensationalist media campaigns fanned the glowing embers. But in each of the countries that experienced the raging fires of epidemics there were other forces at work. Most prominent in passive anti-vaccination movements were religious groups whose opposition was based on religious or moral grounds. Prominent in both passive and active anti-vaccination movements are followers and practitioners of homeopathy, chiropractic, and natural and alternative medicine (Gangarosa et al. 1998).

Despite the compelling case for vaccination that the anti-pertussis vaccination movement has inadvertently made, the Ström, Kuhlenkampff, and Stewart papers are still frequently cited in anti-vaccination literature. Speaking to Science News, Eugene Gangarosa, of Emory University, had this to say of anti-vaccine movements: “There’s no question these movements undermine, collectively and individually, the benefits of vaccination” (Christensen 2001).

When anti-vaccination alarm takes hold-characterized by sudden attacks of the media, mistaken researchers, fervent religious groups, and alternative medicine quacks-the infected society begins to make horrid, whoppingly bad decisions. There is, as yet, no Latin name for this peculiar social disease.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank C.R. “Skip” Wolfe, from the Centers for Disease Control, for providing raw pertussis data from the Gangarosa et al. paper cited, which he co-authored. Figures for this article were derived by combining data previously reported in Gangarosa et al., with pertussis incidence data from the World Health Organization (WHO 2002) and the U.S. Census Bureau’s IDB Summary Demographic Data (U.S. Census Bureau 2002).

References

• ABC Science Online. 2000. First death of baby in NSW whooping cough epidemic. ABC (Australia) Science Online.
• Cherry, James D. 1996. Historical review of pertussis and the classical vaccine. Journal of Infectious Diseases (174 Supplement 3): S259-S263.
• Christensen, Damaris. 2001. Vaccine verity: New studies weigh benefits and risks. Science News 160: 7. Available at www.sciencenews.org/ 20010818/bob17.asp.
• Communicable Diseases Network Australia New Zealand (CDNAZ). 1997. The Control of Pertussis in Australia.
• Editors. 1960. Immunization against whooping-cough. British Medical Journal (2): 1215-1216.
• Gangarosa, R.E.J., A.M. Galaska, C.R. Wolfe, L.M. Phillips, R.E. Gangarosa, E. Miller, and R.T. Chen. 1998. Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: The untold story. Lancet (351): 356-361.
• Hamilton, D.G., 1979. Whooping cough immunization. Medical Journal of Australia (2): 851.
• HND. 2002. Whooping Cough Rises. Health News Digest.
• Kingsley, Danny. 2001. Whooping cough outbreak continuing. ABC (Australia) Science Online.
• Kulenkampff, M., J.S. Schartzman, and J. Wilson. 1974. Neurological complications of pertussis inoculation. Archives of Disease in Childhood (49): 46-49.
• Lester, Rosemary, and T. Nolan. 1993. D.T. Vaccine in place of DTP vaccine for children. Medical Journal of Australia (159): 631.
• MacIntyre, C. Raina, and T. Nolan. 1994. Attitudes of Victorian vaccine providers to pertussis vaccine. Medical Journal of Australia (161): 295-299.
• Malleson, Peter N., and John C. Bennett. 1977. Whooping-cough admissions to a pediatric hospital over ten years. Lancet (1): 237-239.
• Malmgren, B., B. Vahlquist, and R. Zetterström. 1967. Complications of immunization. British Medical Journal (11): 1800-1801.
• Research Defence Society. 1999. Whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine.
• Stewart, G.T. 1977. Vaccination against whooping-cough. Lancet (1): 234-7.
• Ström, Justus. 1967. Further experience of reactions, especially of a cerebral nature, in conjunction with triple vaccination. British Medical Journal (4): 320-323.
• —. 1960. Is universal vaccination against pertussis always justified? British Medical Journal (2): 1184-1186.
• TPCHD. 2003. Rise in Pertussis Cases in Pierce County. Tacoma Pierce County Health Department. Available at www.tpchd.org/news/ releases/pertussisrise.htm.
• WHO. 2002. World Health Organization vaccines and biologicals database.
• U.S. Census Bureau. 2002. U.S. Census Bureau international data base.

Living well requires that we be able to evaluate our environment rationally. Simple things, like crossing the street, shopping, eating, and listening to our doctors, involve three skills: critical thinking, evidential reasoning, and judging authority. Many people, including previous authors writing for the Skeptical Inquirer (Lett 1990; Wade and Tavris 1990), have discussed the first two of these. Here I focus on the last of them, judging authority, but I must revisit the other two first because they are central to it. These same skills are fundamental to scientific reasoning as well, since the ordinary person and the scientist both need to understand our personal or scientific surroundings. Indeed this short article is an outgrowth of material I present to science students first learning the methods of science, but this should not discourage the nonscience reader, for science and everyday life are far closer in function than most would suppose.

There may be little here not fairly obvious to those of you long involved in issues of science and skepticism, but perhaps it can be of some use in your dealings with students, friends, colleagues, and the wider public.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves eight skills. These skills require that you understand the problem clearly, consider all possible views about the problem, set emotion aside, and be willing to be flexible when solutions are imperfect. The skills will aid you in dealing with the problem.

Table 1. Skills involved in critical thinking (Wade and Tavris 1990) and simple techniques for achieving them.

The first three critical skills in table 1 may be self-evident, but the others are often difficult for people to practice because of human nature. The analysis of assumptions and biases requires a certain amount of personal insight. We all have biases based on our past experiences and personal beliefs, but we must try to set them aside when we need to understand the way the world works. This is often very difficult to do, because we are not even aware of many of our personal biases. One way to identify bias is to make a list of your feelings and knowledge about the subject. Then apply the evidence. If it does not support your feeling, perhaps the feeling is unjustified. Later, after examining other factors, you can return to this issue with a better understanding of your own emotional biases. If in conflict, your feelings should probably be suppressed in favor of evidence.

The last three items are particularly difficult. We all need explanations, and we tend to jump to conclusions based on too little evidence. Again, an analysis of the evidence is required to determine if it is sufficient. Alternative interpretations should always be sought, even if the evidence seems compelling. In science, this process is known as the “method of multiple working hypotheses,” an especially powerful way of approaching the truth (Chamberlain 1897; Platt 1964; Lipps 1999). Does the evidence allow for other possible interpretations? Try to think of other ways to account for the observation or phenomenon you are interested in.

And last, tolerate uncertainty. No one likes uncertainty in our lives-we all want, perhaps need, to know things such as what is before us, why things happen to us, and what happens when we die. Although difficult, tolerating uncertainty can be done by simply setting aside the uncertainties and, for the moment at least, accepting them and moving forward.

Evidential Reasoning

Evidential reasoning should be used in our daily lives, as it is in science, to evaluate various problems and claims that confront us. We might even make such claims ourselves. All claims should, ideally, be subjected to an analysis like that outlined in table 2.

Table 2. Rules for evidential reasoning (Lett 1990), or a guide to intelligent living and the scientific method (Lipps 1999). All claims whether scientific or not, should be subjected to these rules in order to ensure that all possibilities are considered fairly.

Of these points, perhaps the most critical is the last one. Any claim must be sufficient. In other words, you do not have to prove that the claim is false in order to test it; the claimant must provide sufficient proof himself. Second, the more extraordinary a claim, the more extraordinary the evidence must be to test it. For example, if a person claims that some herb has cured his cancer, you would be well advised to seek a good deal of further supporting evidence before risking your own life. Or if a person claims to have an extraterrestrial being in her garage, do not accept a photograph as proof-demand a piece of it for further study. And last, the word of someone is never sufficient to establish the truth of a claim. This article addresses this last issue, judging whether or not that authority is worth considering.

Judging Authority

The evaluation of authority requires special consideration because all of us must depend on authorities for information almost daily. In science too, we scientists rely on other scientists for certain kinds of information or data, simply because we cannot know enough about everything. Scientific papers are scattered through with references to the work of others. The evaluation of those works and their authors are part and parcel of science. It should be so in general life too.

Who can we trust to help us in our daily lives? That question is not easy to answer. A scientist dealing with auto insurance may be as susceptible to pseudo-authority in that area as anyone else. A politician listening to a case for particular legislation may be incapable of judging the claimant, and thus vote incorrectly. A housewife may listen to glamorous stars pitching a particular useless household product on television, and buy it. Everyone is vulnerable to incorrect judgment of authority.

I present some general guidelines for judging authority, but each case may differ and so require additional methods. These additional techniques usually take the form of further probing questions. We all judge authority but sometimes in the emotions or heat of the moment, we forget to question authority. If the authority cannot pass the general guidelines below, don't believe him (or her). Of course, these are not the only ways a person needs to judge authority, for the skilled charlatan will find ways around any such guidelines. Be alert.

1. Most important, does the authority use the skills of critical thinking and evidential reasoning listed in tables 1 and 2? If not, question him using those very skills yourself, and don't believe him until he produces the evidence required.
2. Does the authority have proper credentials? Considerable study or experience in a subject along with the appropriate learning tools are required to become an expert in any field. Does the authority have degrees from a recognized college or university that has the faculty, libraries, and other facilities for proper education in the subject? Has the authority worked in the field for some time for an organization that is known for and equipped for competent dealings in the field?
3. Does the authority have proper affiliations? Is she identified closely with a reliable organization, such as a university, museum, government agency, hospital, or corporation that practices the subject? If not, ask how she makes a living.
4. Does that organization have a stake in the claims made by the claimant? Be suspicious of anyone making claims that support the position or product of their own organization. Seek independent evidence that the claim is correct. This may be hard to do for even relatively common decisions we face, but in its essence, this is simply “comparative shopping.” A good comparative shopper is interested not merely in relative costs, but also in the range of products or services available, the quality of the products or magnitude of the services, warranties, and service contracts. Does the expert provide this information, or does he pressure you to decide before you are ready? Be careful of those who will not allow you the time for a carefully reasoned decision.
5. Has the authority subjected his or her work to peer review? In other words, have other experts evaluated the work so that some independent assessment has been made positively? If not, seek that evaluation yourself or find another authority. In our day-to-day dealings, such information is available on the Internet, Better Business Bureaus, and consumer affairs magazines and agencies.
6. Is the authority a demonstrated expert in the relevant field? Other trustworthy people should rely on this person’s expertise. Do other experts cite their conclusions? If not, find another authority who others do rely on. Do people you know who have used this person’s expertise recommend him?
7. Does the authority present arguments without undue call on unsupported or untenable claims? Does the authority present sufficient evidence to evaluate? If not, find an authority that can provide evidence supporting the claims.
8. Does the authority have a past record of making rational claims backed by evidence or not? Check the usual business sources and your friends.

Even when an authority passes these tests, be aware of lapses that may reveal the degree of knowledge possessed by an expert. Well-known or highly honored people are commonly asked to comment on subjects outside their own field of expertise. We are plagued by testimonials provided by actors, sports figures, television personalities, and a host of others, but do they possess any particular knowledge that would make them an authority on what they are pitching? Probably not. These people should be subjected to exactly the same questions as an unknown authority to determine how much you should rely on their statements. Does a Nobel Prize winner in physics, for example, have any credibility when making pronouncements about evolution? It seems unlikely because the evidence and hypotheses about evolution are very far removed from the usual literature and knowledge base of physics. Be suspicious. Question authority. Use critical thinking and evidential reasoning.

In our daily lives, pseudo-authorities are always making one claim or another to sell you something. Ask questions of your insurance salesman, your plumber, your doctor, your housekeeper, or anyone else that you may depend on for important or essential services and products. Proper judgment of authority can save you money and perhaps a good deal of grief too.

So critical thinking, evidential reasoning, and judging authority are essential to living an intelligent, full, happy, and good life. These are worth considering carefully in our daily lives!

References

• Chamberlain, T.C. 1897. The method of multiple working hypotheses. Journal of Geology 6: 837-848.
• Lett, J. 1990. A field guide to critical thinking. Skeptical Inquirer 14(2) Winter: 153-160.
• Lipps, J.H. 1999. This is science! In Scotchmoor, J., and Springer D.A., (Eds.), Evolution: Investigating the Evidence. Paleontology Society Special Publication 9: 3-16.
• Platt, J.R. 1964. Strong Inference. Science 146(3642): 347-353.
• Wade, C., and C. Tavris. 1990. Thinking creatively and critically. Skeptical Inquirer (14)4, Summer: 372-377.

In 1985, when the last London CSICOP conference took place, it was still possible for the British skeptics to regard America with some superiority in these matters. Alien abductions, for example, was a mad belief Britons were far too sophisticated to embrace. Or creationism: clearly one of those backward American obsessions borne of our country’s religious exuberance. Americans, the argument goes, are gullible and credulous, embracing any new fad that comes along-sort of the way U.S. Northeasterners think of Californians.

In 2003, though, alien abductees appeared regularly on British daytime talk shows, and creationism is on the rise. Just as in America, corporate funding is playing a greater part in academic research, and the level of science education among the general public is dropping. Where the U.S. may be concerned with the millions who have no health insurance, in Europe access to alt-med is often portrayed as a matter of consumer choice and egalitarianism. Why should only the rich and famous be able to afford homeopathy? Few public figures in Europe are as vigorous in opposing questionable health claims as the late British journalist John Diamond, who concluded during his four-and-a-half-year death of cancer that there was no such thing as alternative therapies. “There are only,” he wrote in the British magazine The Skeptic, “therapies that work and therapies that don't.”

It is because of these trends that more than a full day’s worth of the conference was devoted to health issues.

Edzard Ernzt

Edzard Ernst, who kicked off the first day with a survey of alt-med research, put it only slightly differently: “In God we trust; all others must have data.” Kimball C. Atwood, who spoke the next day, disagreed with Ernst-not about Ernst’s contention that the evidence is poor quality but about the value of doing that research in the first place. Atwood believes we should be looking more closely at what he calls “prior probability.” If a particular treatment violates everything we know about a scientific field, and the evidence is of poor quality that has not improved over a long period of time, then trials, he thinks, are pointless. Some of his examples, however, seemed uncomfortably dismissive. If all the positive research on a particular treatment comes from a single country, does that mean we should discount it? Atwood held that yes, we should.

One of Atwood’s key criteria for alt-med (that the data should be getting better over time as we learn to produce the right conditions and if they don't there likely is no reality there) resonated with presentations by Ray Hyman and Robert Morris, each of whom surveyed decades of the heartbreak of psi in his own way. After a century of psychical research, we seem no nearer to finding proof.

The most startling presentation was Dylan Evans’s discussion of the placebo effect, based on his 2003 book The Belief Effect. This is a phenomenon I first read about in a New Yorker article by the medical writer Berton Roueché when I was about thirteen. Is nothing sacred?

Panned in Nature, the next week The Belief Effect was chosen as book of the month by the Royal Society of Medicine. Surveying a lot of results from experimental studies in pain units, meta-analyses, and other projects, Evans was only able to find evidence for the placebo effect in reducing pain, nausea (sometimes), swelling, stomach ulcers, depression (not as effective), and anxiety (some evidence). Conditions for which he believes there is no good evidence include cancer, schizophrenia, and most medical conditions. The jury is out, he said, on Parkinson’s, asthma, and heart disease. The alarming bit of his research, however, was the discovery that virtually all the GPs he asked in a telephone survey said they would not be surprised to learn that the placebo effect could cure cancer. These days, it is very common for GPs in Europe to believe in or recommend alt-med, and scientific rationalism seems to be deserting many parts of the medical profession.

Willem Betz

That is one reason Willem Betz, professor of family medicine at the University of Brussels, and a key member of the Belgian skeptics group, has relentlessly battled efforts to exempt alt-med from effectiveness and safety controls within the European Union. His presentation covered much of this effort. One important selling point for alt-med in Europe is consumer choice: alt-med is popular. Betz points out that consumer surveys bolstering this claim are easy to construct if you phrase the questions correctly. Betz himself would have to answer “yes” to a question that asked if he had ever used homeopathy; the fact that it was thirty years ago would not be registered.

Even so, it’s clear that psychology does play an important role in many illnesses. Leslie Walker, professor of rehabilitation at the University of Hull, discussed clinical trials looking at the value of psychological approaches to the care and management of cancer patients. At the very least, he thinks, it’s worth considering how we can prevent or at least ameliorate the anxiety and depression that many cancer patients experience. So far, relaxation and imagery show no signs of improving the clinical or pathological response to chemotherapy. However, the size of the tumor and the amount of mood disturbance at the beginning of treatment did act as predictors of the patient’s response: both are bad news.

Michael Heap, the conference organizer on behalf of Britain’s Association for Skeptical Enquiry (ASKE), deliberately made an effort to include some less obvious topics and more controversial points of view. Australian psychologist Dorothy Rowe, for example, talked about whether there is a physical basis for mental illness. Few seemed to agree with her conclusions or approach, just as few agreed with Tom Stafford, who argued that creationism should be taught in British schools as a way of teaching children how to evaluate and critique bad science.

Michael Heap

Other less standard skeptical fare included several entertaining discussions of alternative history, both human and linguistic. Lee Keener, of the University of Northern British Columbia, investigated Egyptian pseudohistory as a way of testing what kind of contribution an amateur can make to science. Michael Brass analyzed the claims of Michael Cremo, author of Forbidden Archeology. And, probably the most fun, Mark Newbrook detailed his online encounters with linguistics nuts. One interesting facet is the Sommer Institute of Linguistics, whose mission is to translate the Bible into all human languages. Newbrook notes that these creationists are doing valuable work on analyzing languages, writing dictionaries, and even devising writing systems in some cases. The good linguistic work they do, he points out, can be put to use translating atheist or skeptical tracts into those languages.

Probably the most heartening thing about the conference, if you've been following European skepticism since the late 1980s, is that there’s now so much of it. Many of the skeptical groups were founded in the late 1980s; they certainly didn't appear at the last London conference. The biggest difference about this conference, in fact, was the diverse national origins of the speakers and attendees. The first day’s session, for example, had speakers from Germany, Belgium, Australia, and Britain (although, sadly, still almost no women).

Even so, as Richard Wiseman said on the final day, the problem for skeptics is that while we're trying to produce careful, replicable analysis the world is changing around us. People have little time to read and their attention must be caught instantly or they move on. The tools we have for using the Internet make it extremely easy to shut out viewpoints that we disagree with, admitting only information and viewpoints that reinforce our pre-existing beliefs. At the 1985 conference Karl Sabbagh called this the “ratchet effect,” still a very good way to think about it.

Wiseman is probably an example of what skeptical organizations need to become to adapt to this new world. Instead, he said, of being reactive, showing in a shirt and tie as the necessary tag to dispute whatever the dubious claim is, we should be making our own news and finding creative ways to involve people in the fun of skepticism. Both he and Chris French, who surveyed the work his Anomalous Psychology unit is doing at Goldsmith’s College, are making significant contributions along these lines. If skepticism is to be seen as more than a negative attitude, we need to make it the star of the show.

One, skeptical inquiry is darned fun. Speaker after speaker clearly revealed that they enjoy what they do-investigating/evaluating bizarre claims, revealing how the claims don't meet criteria for good evidence, showing what good science has to offer as an alternative.

Two, a new generation of skeptical inquirers is in place. More about this in our coming reports, but previous concerns that no one is stepping up to succeed those who founded the modern skeptical movement more than a quarter century ago are unwarranted. At universities, on new Web sites, and throughout our own expanding Center for Inquiry/CSICOP staff and proliferating CFI centers, fine young investigators and articulate spokesmen for science and skepticism are on the job. That’s refreshing to see.

Third, I think CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer can take some credit for what some see as possibly a diminishing popular interest in things “paranormal.” There’s evidence that classic paranormal topics don't excite the same uncritical popular appeal they once did, and that may well be due in part to the efforts of those who have worked so hard over the past three decades to reveal the foolishness and fallacies. That doesn't mean popular interest has gone away. It is hasn't and it never will. But some of the older topics are now passé, and language, terms, and topics shift and adapt. We'll shift and adapt with them, and stay on top in the investigative/evaluative wars.

Fourth, there is no longer cause for any profound sense of isolation on the part of science-minded skeptical inquirers and people who don't share society’s various religious enthusiasms. The skeptical and humanist movements have proliferated, spread, even merged some to share resources, groups, and publications (did you know CFI-International in Amherst, New York, where CSICOP is headquartered, now publishes seventeen periodicals?). New regional centers, new skeptical Web sites are everywhere.

And that brings me to my fifth point, related to the one above, but even more general. If we ever get into a funk about society’s inability to distinguish good science from pseudoscience, because we deal with the latter down here in the trenches all the time, we need to realize that good science is an overwhelming force of its own, (mostly) unaffected by popular nonsense, and it is everywhere.

In addition to everything we do in scientific skepticism -

Every issue of Science, Nature, Scientific American, Science News, New Scientist, Discover, and Science et Vie is a repudiation of pseudoscience.

Every PBS Nova television show and countless others on the Discovery channel and elsewhere are repudiations of pseudoscience.

Every hallway discussion where scientists and engineers exchange ideas for the meaning of their latest data, how to assess its validity or understand its contradictions, how to rule out certain hypotheses, how to peel away the next layer of mystery is a repudiation of pseudoscience.

The same is true of—

• Every double-blind controlled laboratory experiment.
• Every one of the hundreds of thousands of pages of scientific results published monthly in peer-reviewed journals.
• Every scientific conference throughout the world.
• Every exhibit and visit to a natural history museum, museum of science and technology, or planetarium.

Every spacecraft mission to the planets and their moons, every astronomical observation with modern instruments, every airplane flight, every medical diagnosis and procedure based on modern medicine are validations of good scientific understanding and a repudiation of pseudoscience.

Good science is everywhere, and pseudoscience is no match for it and never will be. It may not seem that way sometimes to those of us who have chosen to fight the nonsense that seems so often to infect the public, but good science is pervasive. And, in general, most people support it, appreciate it, fund it through their taxes, benefit from its advances, and even find some occasional inspiration from television and newspaper reports of some of its discoveries.

So there is always great cause for optimism to help counter our occasional and understandable pessimistic moments. Scientific discovery is the great engine of social change, and it motivates and inspires. On the other hand, scientific advances also continually present new social challenges, often advancing quickly into new areas that overwhelm our own human abilities to cope, socially, morally, and philosophically.

CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer plan to deal increasingly with these kinds of matters. We hope to find ways to focus on some of the wonderful new achievements of science as a counterbalance in our pages to the popularly appealing but content-free and intellectually sterile fringe-sciences and pseudosciences. At the same time we hope to deal more and more with some of the practical, social, and philosophical implications of science, as scientific discoveries open whole new troubling questions and issues that we humans have never before had to face.

All this comes under that second, more general sentence of our statement of mission that appears on the back page of every issue of the Skeptical Inquirer: CSICOP “also promotes science and scientific inquiry, critical thinking, science education, and the use of reason in examining important issues.” That’s really what we're all about. In addition to continuing to be the leading forum for critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims-we'll never stop being that-we will look for new ways to promote the scientific outlook and talk about some of science’s incredible achievements. We want to examine more issues of broad social import that involve science and technology, not duplicating the efforts of other publications but wherever we see an opportunity for science, reason, and critical inquiry to play a useful role.

I look forward to this new, broader mission and hope you do too.

It should be fun.