The year 2005 brings the centennial of the publication of the seventeenth volume of Annalen der Physik, one of the leading academic physics journals of its day. This particular issue has achieved a legend all its own, because its contents included three papers by a hitherto obscure patent clerk and physicist named Albert Einstein. Addressing the topics of statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, and relativity, the author painstakingly and clearly laid out a vision of time, space, and the physical forces of the universe that would eventually transform our understanding of our place in time and the universe.

Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905 did not come about easily. As Michio Kaku depicts in his nimbly written and absorbing new biography, the path to this breakthrough was strewn with academic setbacks and hardships due to young Einstein’s very individualistic learning methods. Balking at the pointless rigidity of German schooling, Einstein grew to become an accomplished autodidact both from orientation and necessity. Difficulties in the use of expressive language led instructors of the young Einstein to forsake his education, predicting a future of simple labor. His peripatetic family life (his father tried and failed at several businesses during Einstein’s youth, resulting in many relocations across eastern Europe) also disrupted young Einstein’s education. It is an irony treasured by countless parents that the muttering child forsaken by an inflexible educational system was in reality the greatest genius of the age, perhaps of all time. Einstein had to educate himself, but, more profoundly, he could educate himself, usually far beyond the abilities of his instructors.

This blazing mind singed more than a few egos, and his attempts at earning a doctorate or even a teaching position were actively thwarted by professors and administrators he had alienated with his superior intellect and impatience with their inability to recognize the gifts he possessed. He was finally awarded a doctorate just a few months before the publication of his landmark papers, while still working as a clerk in a Swiss patent office.

The reaction to these papers was muted at first, as the science community digested ideas that, if correct, would at the very least amend shortcomings in Newton’s theories of motion, but, in fact, would cause an upheaval in contemporary views of time, space, gravity, and quantum physics. Eventually the theories were acclaimed, and as subsequent experimental testing of the theories validated Einstein’s conjectures, his fame erupted from the enclosed world of mathematical physics into the nascent world of celebrity culture. In the time between the world wars, Einstein became the most recognized science figure in the world and one of the most famous by any measure.

This burst of fame roughly coincided with an increasing hostility toward Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe, hostility that was faced by even a nonobservant Jew like Einstein. His prominence made him a highly visible target for the rising Nazi movement. A German magazine published an edition listing perceived enemies of the Nazi movement with Einstein as its cover model and a caption reading, “Not yet hanged.” In short order, Einstein fled to America, where his celebrity was fixed.

It was while in America, at Princeton University, that Einstein became the tousle-haired, pipe-smoking, sockless, and sweatshirt-wearing figure that is his widely recognized caricature. He spent his time in America working on a grand unified theory, the Holy Grail of physics, but with no success. He used his celebrity for activism (and irritating J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI) and charitable works, seemingly enjoying a fame that baffled him, until his death in 1955. Kaku addresses these last few decades of Einstein’s life with great sympathy and admiration. Most biographers gloss over this period as the fading glory of a once-great scientist, but Kaku argues persuasively that the groundwork for much latter-day research was laid during these years. As Kaku writes, “crumbs that have tumbled off Einstein’s plate are now winning Nobel Prizes for oth- er scientists.”

Kaku’s book, the third volume in W.W. Norton’s “Great Discoveries” series of popular-science books, is a fine accomplishment, balancing a sensitive and sympathetic narrative of Einstein’s difficult life with marvelously clear and lucid explanations of theories that are truly mind-boggling and genuinely awe- inspiring. As technologies have advanced, experimental science has been able to catch up with the thought experiments of a lonely patent clerk with a seemingly boundless mind, and he has been vindicated repeatedly. The first century of Einstein’s influence has been remarkable and thrilling; one can only dream about what the second century may bring.

The Academician N.P. Bekhtereva’s article “Censor of All Sciences?” forces me to make a number of comments regarding pseudoscience and my attitude toward it. Unfortunately, there are many obvious misunderstandings, confusion of concepts, and demagogy about this issue. I have already had to write about this more than once (in particular, in my book About Science, Myself, and Other Things, 2003). But I will have to repeat some things.

It would seem that the term pseudoscience speaks for itself—it is theories and statements contradicting scientific knowledge. But, you know, they are not static. Science is developing all the time and therefore, to put it bluntly, consists of two parts. First, from firmly established and repeatedly confirmed scientific truths and laws. Second, especially in the field of new, so-called “frontier” directions—in science everything is in ferment and the struggle of ideas is ongoing. Some are victorious and others turn out to be incorrect and are thrown out by the scientific community.

Thus only theories, constructs, and statements contradicting firmly established facts and theories can be declared pseudoscience. Let’s say that astrology is unquestionably a pseudoscience. Other examples of pseudoscience or, as they sometimes say, parascience, include various designs for mechanisms and instruments that supposedly operate in violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy or classical mechanics. But I must emphasize that it is of course impossible to declare ideas and theories pseudoscience that have not yet been refuted in an experiment or as a result of strict mathematical analysis.

All qualified scientists and, I daresay, all members of the RAN Commission to Combat Pseudoscience and the Falsification of Scientific Research, which was created in 1998, understand this. Its appearance was a somewhat belated and forced measure. An appeal adopted by the RAN Presidium characterized the situation [see the preceding article “Demagogues Against Scientific Expertise” for its text].

There is no room here to discuss the work of the Commission. An article by its chairman, Academician Eh. P. Kruglyakov, “Trafficking in Ignorance,” published in June 2003, gives a certain picture of it. The facts cited in it are literally scandalous and demand a fitting reaction from the authorities and scientific community.

Unfortunately, the fight against pseudoscience has not drawn proper attention either from the RAN Presidium or other “state” academies (mainly the RAMN [Russian Academy of Medical Sciences]), nor from the so-called “public” academies. The attractiveness of the title “Academician” has led to the appearance of dozens of “academies,” which are often far from modern science. It would be useful if these “academies” were to fight for the purity of science, including in their own ranks.

Here’s a specific and recent example. It was reported in one of the newspapers that a Doctor of Technical Sciences and Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RAYeN), O. Grinkevich, developed a thermogenerator with an efficiency of about 200 percent, that is, in violation of the Law of the Conservation of Energy. Is it really not the duty of the RAYeN to verify the statements of its members? Not much is required to do this.

Now about N. P. Bekhtereva’s article. With its subtitle, “There exists no authoritative criteria of ‘correctness’ in the knowledge of the new,” I think the overwhelming majority of scientists would agree completely. But what does this have to do with the struggle against pseudoscience and the Commission’s activities?

Unquestionably, no scientific statement can be considered pseudoscientific a priori. Eh. P. Kruglyakov does not declare the work of the associates of the Brain Institute to be pseudoscience; his criticism is mainly in regard to a phrase that figures in one of the interviews of the lead researcher: “Right now is the wrong time to express very bold ideas because the Academy has a Commission on Pseudoscience” and also her letter to President V.V. Putin with a proposal to “introduce a method of instruction in ‘alternative viewing’ in the country’s special services.”

The phrase cited seems no less insulting to the members of the Commission to which I belong than the words of its chairman which offended N.P. Bekhtereva. But, knowing what a “spoiled/tainted telephone” is and not having the original text of the interview and the letter to the President, I think it is impossible to discuss this issue in detail. Moreover, I should talk about my role in this “story.”

In 2002, I was sent an article by N.P. Bekhtereva entitled “O pryamom videnii” (“Direct Viewing”), published in an academic journal, Fiziologiya cheloveka (Human Physiology). At about the same time, corresponding member of the RAN V. B. Braginsky and Moscow State University Professor S.P. Vetchanin visited a “direct viewing” demonstration in one of the university’s departments. They insisted that the children who were supposedly “seeing” with their eyes blindfolded also have their eyes covered with other bandages. Under such conditions the “phenomenon” disappeared. Therefore the Moscow State University professors concluded that in their “original” bandages the children were peeking, which was reported to the university’s administration, where it seems that such demonstrations were stopped.

Since I am not a physiologist I didn’t try to investigate anything, but on October 1, 2002, I wrote a letter to RAN Vice President N.A. Plateh (who oversees our Commission) in which I proposed that this matter be immediately investigated, for example by creating a commission of experts. And I also added, “To avoid misunderstandings I should stress that I do not suspect the associates of the RAN Brain Institute of pseudoscientific activity. I only suspect that they have fallen victim to swindlers, but, of course, this can only be proven after expert examination.”

N.A. Plateh sent this letter to the RAN Biological Sciences Branch, which informed me that it was coordinating “the membership of an expert commission which would include representatives of the RAN who deal with problems of fundamental science and clinical specialists.” Obviously they have not “coordinated” it yet, but we hope that an expert commission will be created at some point to clarify this question.

If this commission comes to a positive conclusion about the existence of “direct viewing,” I will be only too glad to congratulate St. Petersburg scientists on a great scientific achievement. The suspicion that the Commission to Combat Pseudoscience is interfering with scientific exploration is completely unfounded. Like many of my colleagues, I think that press reports about sensational discoveries ought to be well-substantiated and verified. If this is only about assigning a priority, then it can be achieved by sending an official letter to the RAN. However, as far as I understand it, no question of a priority has arisen in the study of “direct viewing.”

Translated by Gary Goldberg

In 1999 a Commission to Combat Pseudoscience and the Falsification of Scientific Research was created in the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) as a step in this direction. The mission of the Commission is clear from the appeal of the Academy Presidium that was adopted. It begins thus:

At the present time in our country parascience and paranormal beliefs are widely proliferated and propagandized: astrology, charlatanism, occultism, etc. Attempts continue to carry out various senseless projects at state expense, like the creation of torsion generators. The Russian population is being duped by TV and radio programs, articles, and books with openly antiscientific content. The orgy of wizards, magicians, soothsayers, and prophets in Russian government and private media is unceasing. Pseudoscience is trying to penetrate all levels of society and all its institutions, including the Russian Academy of Sciences. These irrational and basically amoral trends doubtless present a serious threat to the normal intellectual development of the nation. The Russian Academy of Sciences cannot and should not view the unprecedented onslaught of obscurantism with equanimity and is obliged to give it a fitting rebuke. [1]

Unfortunately, the Academy’s Presidium did not give the Commission sufficient attention. The entire “staff” of the Presidium consists of a single employee who is often occupied with other work. I can also point to the publication of a book of the Commission’s chairman, Academician Eh. P. Kruglyakov, Swindlers Posing as Scientists (2001), but in a laughable edition of only 2,000 copies. Of course, as we all know, the amount of money given to science in Russia right now is absolutely insufficient, but all the same this is billions of rubles a year. Somehow there should be enough to publish this book in a large edition, with free distribution to higher educational institutions, schools, etc.

My public and repeated appeals to add Eh. P. Kruglyakov to the large RAN Presidium and entrust him with creating a functioning Commission responsible for all such efforts have not as yet been heard.

Commission members Ye. B. Aleksandrov, Eh. P. Kruglyakov, and myself have addressed a letter to the president of Russia, V. V. Putin, describing the current situation and concluding with the following suggestions: “1. Have an expert analysis with the aid of the RAN of any project based on the use of new laws of nature unknown to science (antigravity, torsion fields, etc.); 2. Develop a code preventing fraud and the duping of people through the mass media, the creation of an oversight council operating openly, but entrusted with the authority to put careless journalists in their place; and 3. Support the publication of popular science literature at the governmental level.”

At our request, the president of the RAN, Academician Yu. S. Osipov, delivered this letter to the President’s chief of staff in March 2001. We have not received a reply.

I hope all the same that something positive will be done about pseudoscience in the Russian Academy in the near future. Right now I want to make several comments clarifying some aspects of the issue of pseudoscience and the need to combat it. Personally, I have already tried to do this in several articles included in my book, O Nauke, O Sebe, I O Drugikh (About Science, Myself, and Other Things) (2001), and in the article “About Pseudoscience and the Need to Combat It,” [2] Ye. B. Aleksandrov’s article, and my own “About Pseudoscience and its Propagandists.” [3] By the way, the latter has had an interesting fate. We had to place it in a low-circulation publication because a number of newspapers didn’t want to publish it, inasmuch as one of the shameless propagandists of pseudoscience was named in it and “journalistic ethics” apparently prohibits newspapers from carrying such criticisms.

Suspicion sometimes arise among even respectable but uninformed people that promoters of new, productive ideas can suffer if scientists struggle against pseudoscience too strongly. In other words, “who are the judges?” and who are some elderly academicians to judge what is pseudoscience? For in the history of science, there are known cases when progressive views and new ideas have encountered sharp objections. However, such suspicions of ignorant people (the discussion is especially about demagogues) are the fruit of the purest misunderstanding. The problem is that all reasonable people (in any case, all members of the RAN Commission) understand pseudoscience as something that contradicts only firmly established truths and not merely controversial issues, new theories, etc. For example, in the case of the most well-known pseudoscience, astrology, it has been repeatedly proven that its horoscopes are obvious charlatanism. [4] And the same is true of pseudoscientific “perpetual motion” designs—in general, any mechanism whose operation contradicts classical (Newtonian) mechanics, which has been verified for 300 years (we’re not talking here about relativistic and quantum allowances, which are also well known).

However, to expose these and similar pseudoscientific opinions and concepts we don’t need the RAN Commission; competent engineers and specialists are quite sufficient for this purpose. The main task of the Commission is to critique more specialized and lesser-known issues. The projects using torsion fields are a good example. Modern physics knows of four types of fields: gravitational, electromagnetic, and the so-called “weak” and “strong” forces. In theory, other fields could exist, in particular, the so-called torsion field (or twisting field). A similar possibility has already been discussed for many years within the framework of the General Theory of Relativity. Appropriate experiments were set up in the U.S.S.R. and abroad which showed that torsion fields either do not generally exist in nature or are so weak that they could not be detected even with the most sophisticated measuring apparatus. Accordingly, they could not possibly be used for communications equipment or other practical ends. But there were charlatans who, shrouding themselves in secrecy, deceived military and KGB officials and received a large amount of money from them for their own (if one can call them) projects. All this has been described in detail in the literature cited above. The Commission (and specifically its members mentioned above) have been fighting and are fighting these charlatans.

It would seem that the situation is as clear as possible, but the “torsioners” are finding newer and newer defenders. One of them is Eh. V. Vaytsman, who published an article in September 2002 titled “Reactionaries Against Charlatans,” and subtitled “Ordinary authors of scientific articles need to be protected against the caprice of ‘underhanded opponents’.” It has been a long time since I have had to contend with such demagogic rhetoric. Mr. Vaytsman also protects “torsioners,” although he notes that “he is quite far from this problem” (and, as I am convinced, doesn’t even know what torsion fields are), but, on the other hand, instructs: “In fighting opponents it is unsuitable for academicians to use an academic administrative resource, including a so-called ‘qualified body of experts’.” But all of our “resources” in this case are just the knowledge of physics, which allows us to warn officials who are not skilled in it not to use government resources to support obviously worthless projects.

Each and every phrase in Vaytsman’s article is a falsification or manifestation of arrogance. For example, he suddenly states that all three of us (Aleksandrovv, Kruglyakov, and myself) enjoy high-quality free medical services. He should be disappointed (or, on the contrary, glad?): I enjoy the services of the academic polyclinic, which is vegetating in poverty, and my colleagues who don’t live in Moscow also are obviously not registered with the Kremlin Polyclinic. More important, what does this have to do with the issue of pseudoscience?

Scientific Works and the Review Process

I don’t intend to hold a discussion with opponents of Vaytsman’s type, but I consider it useful to illustrate one more way in which people are deceived. This is about the publication of scientific works; the assertion is that capriciousness is supposedly allowed in this matter, hindering the expression of new ideas. Accusations about the anonymity of reviewers, whom “fighters for justice” call “underhanded opponents,” are especially popular.

What is the process of publication of scientific works accepted throughout the entire world, including Russia? It is the same more or less everywhere, but to be specific and to avoid any inaccuracies I will describe how work is conducted in the journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk (Successes of the Physical Sciences), where I am editor-in-chief. Any article coming to the editor, including articles by members of the editorial board, myself included, are sent for review. The reviewer can be a member of the editorial board, but most often he plays the role of just one more reviewer. If the review is favorable but contains various critical comments, it is sent to the author for revision, then is usually sent to the reviewer again or the appropriate member of the editorial board. As a result, if the article is chosen for publication, they edit it and send it to be printed.

Can it be done otherwise? Of course not. In the process, the author is obliged to accept the corrections, both in the Russian and the English versions (our journal is translated into English). All this is a quite laborious process, done by the entire editorial board and translators. If the review of the article is negative and the member of the editorial board who oversees this field and I agree with the negative conclusion, the author is informed that the article is rejected. Often the author does not agree with our conclusion and informs us of his counterarguments, and then the article is sent for comment to another reviewer and is considered again. Finally, sometimes after a second negative conclusion and my negative conclusion but when the author has new objections, the article is discussed at a meeting of the editorial board. In the course of this process the surname of the reviewer is given to the author only if the reviewer informs the editorial board of his agreement in writing.

Can it be done otherwise? Of course not. The review process, if it is honest, is not an easy matter. It is a service the reviewers offer to the editorial board. Naturally, in a majority of cases they don’t want to start additional arguments with authors and then be subjected to insults, rebukes, accusations of incompetence, etc., which often happens in the case of uneducated or troublesome authors. Such a review process (which the authors of rejected articles sometimes see fit to call “underhanded”) has, I repeat, been adopted throughout the entire world, is unavoidable, and is fair. Articles that are not published in one journal are often published in another, including those in another country. This is also a natural process.

Various journals have various requirements and often their own specific ones. For example, UFN is a digest type of journal and we can’t even print valuable articles in full, but rather narrowly specialized ones which don’t have quite broad content. There’s no discrimination here; the size of the journal is limited and often a great deal of material must be rejected. In journals that publish only original work the selection criteria are different, of course. Doubtless there are mistakes in editorial work, not to mention controversial cases, but what does this prove? We need to try and work better, but it’s impossible to print all the articles that come in. Such journals would hardly be subscribed to and read, the work of many people would be lost, and there wouldn’t be enough money to publish thick volumes.

Unfortunately, the development of the so-called electronic press and the Internet are making this problem worse. Authors in a whole range of specialties can, without hindrance or review, place their articles on suitable Web sites. There even exists an opinion and a tendency to move everything to the Internet and stop printed editions. Many (I among them) vigorously oppose such an approach and consider it necessary to have paper journals. The review process and selection of articles by an editorial board are unavoidable. Those dissatisfied with such a method are often demagogues and uneducated people. I can only add that in my more than sixty years of practical work I do not know of an instance where a truly valuable work and idea in the field of physics was not published.

In conclusion, I want to return to the really important issue of the struggle against pseudoscience. Even if the RAN and, to no lesser degree, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (RAMN) do their duty to protect science in Russia from pseudoscientists, charlatans, and swindlers by shifting this matter to a Commission, the problem as a whole will not be solved. It can only be solved if all scientists and educated lay people are uncompromising toward obscurantism and fight against it.

There are various means available. I will share one of them, which I have adopted for myself. A correspondent from a well-known newspaper called me from time to time asking questions about science. Once I decided to ask whether his newspaper published astrological predictions. The correspondent informed me that, yes, the newspaper did publish them, although neither he nor the editorial board believed in them, but, you see, “the readers request them.” This is a typical case of the mass media duping the public in pursuit of revenue. I informed the correspondent that I would not answer his questions and in general have anything to do with his newspaper while it promoted pseudoscience. The journalist has not called me since. Obviously they continue to publish horoscopes, and unfortunately it’s not hard to find more compliant consultants. I think that if the majority of members of the scientific community or at least the members of the RAN and RAMN boycotted the mass media that propagandize and encourage charlatanism we would achieve some success.

Translated by Gary Goldberg

Notes

1. For more details, see Vestnik RAN (Bulletin of the RAN) N 10, 1999 and the newspaper Poisk N 23, 1999.
2. In the magazine Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Life), N 11, 2000.
3. Vestnik RAN N 3, 1999.
4. See, for example, V. Surdin’s article in Nauka i Zhizn [Science and Life], N 11, 2000).

Electricity was originally generated at remote hydroelectric dams or by burning coal in the city centers, delivering electricity to nearby buildings and recycling the waste heat to make steam to heat the same buildings. Rural houses had no access to power. Over time, coal plants grew in size, facing pressure to locate far from population because of their pollution. Transmission wires carried the electricity many miles to users with a 10 to 15 percent loss, a difficult but tolerable situation. Because it is not practical to transmit waste heat over long distances, the heat was vented. There was no good technology available for clean, local generation, so the wasted heat was a tradeoff for cleaner air in the cities. Eventually a huge grid was developed and the power industry built all-new generation in remote areas, far from users. All plants were specially designed and built on site, creating economies of scale. It cost less per unit of generation to build large plants than to build smaller plants. These conditions prevailed from 1910 through 1960, and everyone in the power industry and government came to assume that remote, central generation was optimal, that it would deliver power at the lowest cost versus other alternatives.

However, technology has improved and natural gas distribution now blankets the country. By 1970, mass-produced engines and turbines cost less per unit of capacity than large plants, and the emissions have been steadily reduced. These smaller engines and gas turbines are good neighbors, and can be located next to users in the middle of population centers. Furthermore, the previously wasted heat can be recycled from these decentralized generation plants to displace boiler fuel and essentially cut the fuel for electric generation in half, compared to remote or central generation of the same power.

But the industry had ossified. Electric monopolies were allowed to charge rates to give a fair return on capital employed. To prevent excessive or monopoly profits, the utilities have long been required to pass 100 percent of any gain in efficiency to the users. This leaves utilities with no financial incentive to adopt new technologies and build decentralized generation that recycles heat. In fact, such local generation erodes the rationale for continued monopoly protection—if one can make cheap power at every factory or high rise apartment house, why should society limit competition?

Congress tried to open competition a little bit in 1978, and some independent power companies began to develop on-site generation wherever they could find ways around the monopoly regulation. One author (Casten) was one of those early pioneers, working to develop more efficient decentralized generation since 1975. This article summarizes extensive research into the economically optimal way to build new power generation in each of the past 30 years, given then available technology, capital costs, and fuel prices, and concludes that the continuing near-universal acceptance of the “central generation paradigm” is wrong. The result is a skeptical look at the world’s largest industry—the electric power industry—with surprising conclusions.

Power industry regulations largely derive from the unquestioned belief that central generation is optimal. However we believe the conventional “central generation paradigm” is based on last century’s technology. Meeting the world’s growing appetite for electric power with conventional central generation will severely tax capital markets, fossil fuel markets, and the global environment. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2002 World Energy Outlook Reference Case—based on present policies—presents a frightening view of the next thirty years. [1] The Reference Case says world energy demand will grow by two-thirds, with fossil fuels meeting 90 percent of the increase. World electrical demand doubles, requiring construction of nearly 5,000 gigawatts of new generating capacity, equivalent to adding six times current United States electric generating capacity. The generation alone will cost $4.2 trillion, plus transmission and distribution (T&D) costs of $6.6 trillion (2004 U.S. dollars). Under this projection, global carbon dioxide emissions increase by 70 percent; see figure 1.

The Reference Case assumes that the energy policies of each government in 2002 continue without change, a modest evolution of technology, and continued reliance on central generation of electric power, which is consistent with most existing policies and regulations. The IEA projections assume that central generation is the optimal approach, given today’s technology.

The IEA report is silent on the need for (or capital cost of) new T&D, even though existing T&D is far from adequate. There were 105 reported grid failures in the U.S. between 2000 and 2003, and eleven of those outages affected more than a half million people. [2] U.S. consumers paid $272 billion for electricity in 2003, [3] plus power outage costs, estimated between $80 billion and $123 billion per year. Outages thus add 29 percent to 45 percent to the cost of U.S. power. [4] The T&D situation is worse in developing countries, where 1.6 billion people lack any access to electric power and many others are limited to a few hours of service per day. Satisfying expected load growth with central generation will clearly require at least comparable construction of T&D capacity.

Close examination of past power industry options and choices suggests that load growth can be met with just over half the fossil fuel and pollution associated with conventional central generation. We had better get this world energy expansion right. Consider these points:

• The power industry has not deployed optimal technology over the past thirty years.
• The universally accepted “Central Generation Paradigm” prevents optimal energy decisions.
• Decentralized generation (DG), using the same technologies used by remote central generation, significantly improves every key outcome from power generation.
• Meeting global load growth with decentralized energy can save $5 trillion of capital, lower the cost of incremental power by 35—40 percent, and reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent versus the IEA central generation dominated reference case.

A Brief History of Electric Generation

Figure 2 shows that United States net electric efficiency peaked in about 1910, when nearly all generation was located near users and recycled waste heat. That efficiency dropped to 33 percent over the next fifty years as the power industry moved to electric-only central generation. Industry efficiency has not improved in four decades. Technology improved, enabling conversion of fuel to electricity to rise from 7 percent at commercial inception to 33 percent by 1960. The best electric-only technology now converts more than 50 percent of the fuel to power, but the industry’s average efficiency has not improved in forty-three years. No other industry wastes two-thirds of its raw material; no other industry has stagnant efficiency; no other industry gets less productivity per unit output in 2004 than it did in 1904.

Figure 2. U.S. electricity generating efficiency, 1880 to present.

Early generating technology converted 7 percent to 20 percent of the fuel to electricity, making electric-only production quite expensive. To reduce fuel costs, energy entrepreneurs, including Thomas Edison, built generating plants near thermal users and recycled waste heat, increasing net electric efficiency to as much as 75 percent. A second wave of technical progress after World War II drove electric-only efficiencies to 33 percent (after distribution losses) and increased individual plant size to between 500 and 1,000 megawatts. Central or remote generation of electricity only, while still wasting two-thirds of the input energy, became the standard. Buttressed by monopoly protection, utilities fought competing on-site generation and, by 1970, replaced all but 3 to 4 percent of local generation, ending waste heat recycling. Government regulations, developed over the first 90 years of commercial electricity, institutionalized central generation.

The third wave of technical progress should have reversed the central generation trend. Modern power plants emit only 1 to 2 percent as much nitrogen oxides as 1970 plants, come in all sizes, burn all fuels, and are good neighbors. Many technical advances make local or distributed generation technically and economically feasible and enable society to return to energy recycling, displacing boiler fuel and doubling net electric efficiency. However, protected from competition and rewarded by obsolete rules, the power industry continues to build remote plants and ignores opportunities to recycle energy.

The squares in figure 2 represent the alternative to central or remote generation. These are actual plants employing central plant generation technologies that are located near users. These combined heat and power (CHP) plants deploy the best modern electric-only technology and achieve 65 percent to 97 percent net electrical efficiency by recycling normally wasted heat and by avoiding transmission and distribution losses. United States Energy Information Agency (EIA) records show 931 distributed generation plants with 72,800 megawatts of capacity, about 8.1 percent of U.S. generation. These plants demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of doubling U.S. electricity efficiency.

Nevertheless, the U.S. and world power industry ignores—and indeed actively fights against—distributed generation. Conventional central generation plants dump two-thirds of their energy into lakes, rivers, and cooling towers, while factories and commercial facilities burn more fuel to produce the heat just thrown away. We believe the power industry has not made wise or efficient choices, and set out to test this thesis with data.

A Flawed Worldwide Heat & Power System

To determine whether the power industry made optimal choices, we analyzed EIA data on all 5,242 reported generation plants, separating plants built by firms with monopoly- protected territories and plants built by independent power producers. We calculated what price per KWh would be required for each of four central generation technologies, built in each year, to provide a fair return on capital. [5]

We also analyzed distributed generation (DG) technology choices. Several clarifications are necessary:

• Distributed generation is any electric generating plant located next to users.
• DG is not a new concept. Edison built his first commercial electric plant near Wall Street in lower Manhattan, and he recycled energy to heat surrounding buildings.
• DG plants employ all of the technologies that are used in central generation.
• DG plant capacities range from a few kilowatts to several hundred megawatts, depending on the users’ needs. We have installed 40-kilowatt backpressure steam turbines in office buildings that recycle steam pressure drop, and managed a 200-megawatt coal-fired CHP plant serving Kodak’s world headquarters in Rochester, New York.
• DG can use renewable energy, but not every renewable energy plant is DG. Solar photovoltaic panels on individual buildings or local windmills are distributed generation, while large hydro and wind farms are central generation requiring transmission and distribution (T&D).
• DG uses all fuels, including nuclear. Modern naval vessels generate power with nuclear reactors and then recycle waste heat to displace boiler fuel.

Power generated near users avoids the need for T&D. We have assumed each kilowatt of new DG will require net T&D investment equal to only 10 percent of a kilowatt, for backup services. [6] We assume DG plants require a 50 percent higher average cost of capital (12 percent versus 8 percent) due to risks and transaction costs. Industrial companies that install DG see power generation as a non-core activity and demand 35 percent to 50 percent rates of return, but this analysis focuses only on power companies’ cost of capital.

Figure 3 depicts our findings. The line with asterisks shows the average price of power to all U.S. consumers in each year. The dashed lines show the retail price per megawatt-hour needed to fully fund new plants using four power generation technologies built as central stations, unable to recycle waste heat. (Note: Move the decimal one number left in price per megawatt-hour to equal cents per kilowatt-hour. For example, $65 per MWh is 6.5 cents per kWh.) The four highest solid lines show the retail prices per megawatt-hour needed to fully pay for power from the same technologies built near thermal users to recycle waste heat. The two lowest solid lines depict retail prices per MWh needed for power generated with recycled industrial process heat or flare gas, and power extracted from gas or steam pressure drop.

Figure 3. Long-term U.S. marginal cost of electronic generation options.

Thermal plants generate steam by burning fossil fuel in boilers. The steam then drives condensing steam turbines. Thermal generation technology matured in the mid-fifties, achieving maximum electric-only efficiency of 38 percent to 40 percent, before line losses. Over the entire period, new central oil and gas thermal plants (top dashed line) required prices well above average retail. Gas turbines use a different cycle; the technology improved dramatically over the period. Simple cycle gas turbine plants (dashed line) required similar prices to gas-fired thermal plants until 1985—90, when improving turbine efficiency reduced fuel and lowered required prices. New coal plants (dashed black line) could sell power for below average retail prices each year until 1998. However, environmental rules blocked coal plants in many states.

Combined cycle gas turbine plants (CCGTs) are the same gas turbines described above, but the plants also make steam with the turbine exhaust to drive a second power generation cycle—a condensing steam turbine. The first commercial applications of CCGTs were in 1974. These plants cost less to build than an oil and gas thermal plant and initially achieved 40 percent efficiency, which rose to 55 percent by 1995.

Distributed Generation Recycles Energy to Reduce Costs

The solid lines show retail prices required for distributed generation or DG—building the same technologies near thermal users and recycling normally wasted heat. The solid lines demonstrate the economic value of recycling energy. Burning coal in combined heat and power plants (solid black line) saves $11 to $27 per MWh versus burning coal in new central plants. Simple cycle gas turbine plants built near users (solid line) save $25 to $60 per MWh versus the same technology producing only electricity. Building combined cycle gas turbine plants near users and recycling waste heat saves even more money, reducing required costs by $25 per MWh versus the same technology built remote from users.

The lowest-cost power avoids burning any extra fossil fuel by recycling waste energy from process industries. Process industries use fossil fuel or electricity to transform raw materials and then discard energy in three forms including hot exhaust gas, flare gas, and pressure drop. Local “bottoming cycle” generation can recycle this waste into heat and/or power. The two lowest solid lines show the retail price per megawatt-hour needed for power recycled from waste heat, flare gas, and gas or steam pressure drop after credit for displacing boiler fuel with the recovered heat. These energy-recycling plants can earn fair returns on capital selling retail power at only 25 to 50 percent of average retail prices.

Power Industry Choices for New Capacity

Figure 4. Annual U.S. utility additions of electricity generating capacity by technology, 1973-2002.

An ideal approach would build all possible plants requiring the lowest retail price per megawatt-hour first and then build plants with the next lowest needed retail price, etc.

To determine whether the electric power industry made optimal choices, we analyzed all power plants built since 1973. The new generation built in each two-year period by monopolies, which we defined as any utility with a protected distribution territory, is seen in figure 4. Monopoly utilities include investor-owned utilities, cooperatives, municipal utilities, and state and federally owned utilities. They collectively built 435,000 megawatts of new generation, but ignored energy recycling, even though it was always the cheapest option. They continued to build oil and gas thermal plants long after CCGT plants were a cheaper central option. Monopoly utilities were slow to make optimal choices among central plant technologies and completely ignored the more cost-effective distributed use of the same technologies.

Figure 5 shows the 175,000 MW of new generation built by independent power producers (IPP’s) since 1973. Most new IPP plants were distributed generation and/or combined cycle plants until the last four years. The price spikes of 1998—2000 apparently induced IPP companies to install simple cycle gas turbines for peaking. Prior to 1978 passage of the Public Utility Policy Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) it was illegal to build generation as a third party. Between 1978 and the law change in 1992, IPPs were allowed to build qualifying facilities—those that recycled at least 10 percent of the fuel’s energy for heat use, or utilized certain waste fuels. After 1992, IPPs could legally build remote electric-only generation plants.

For another view of industry choices, we divided plants built since 1973 into those recycling and not recycling energy. Generating plants that recycle energy must be near thermal users or near sources of industrial waste energy. Figure 6 shows that only 1.2 percent or 5,000 of the 435,000 megawatts of new generation built by monopolies over the thirty-year period recycled energy. We doubt that these choices would be profitable in a competitive marketplace.

Independent power producers built 34 percent of their total capacity as DG plants, at or near users. Figure 7 depicts the mix of central and distributed power built by IPPs since 1978.

Figure 5. Total U.S. independent power producers utility additions of electronic generating capacity by technology, 1973-2002.

Figure 6. Total generation capacity built by U.S. electric utilities, 1973-2002.

Figure 7. Generation capacity built by U.S. electric IPPs, 1973-2002.

Finally, we estimated the potential generation from the least-cost options—those plants that recycle industrial process waste energy. EPA aerometric data and other industry analyses suggest that U.S. industrial waste energy would power 40,000 to 100,000 megawatts with no incremental fossil fuel and no incremental pollution. [7] However, EIA plant data show only 2,200 megawatts of recycled industrial energy capacity, 2.2 percent to 5 percent of the potential. [8]

It seems clear that the power industry has made poor choices that have increased cost and decreased efficiency. These data show that utilities eschewed least-cost generating technologies, effectively increasing prices to all customers.

Meeting Expected U.S. Load Growth with Local Generation

Our colleagues built a model to determine the best way to satisfy projected load growth for any nation over the next two decades. [9] The model incorporates relevant factors for central and distributed electric generation technologies, including projected improvements in cost, efficiency, and availability of each technology. The model assumes new central generation will require 100 percent new transmission and distribution and new decentralized generation will require new T&D equal to 10 percent of added generating capacity. The model assumes 9 percent line losses for central power, equal to U.S. losses for 2002, and 2 percent net line losses for DG power.

Although the future surely includes some mix of central and decentralized generation, the model calculates the extreme cases of meeting all load growth with central generation, or meeting all growth with decentralized generation. Local generation that recycles energy improves every important outcome versus full reliance on central generation. Figure 8 compares the extreme cases. Full reliance on DG for expected U.S. load growth would avoid $326 billion in capital by 2020, reduce incremental power costs by $53 billion, NOx by 58 percent, and SO2 by 94 percent. Full DG lowers carbon dioxide emissions by 49 percent versus total reliance on new central generation.

Extrapolating U.S. Analysis to the World

We lack the data to run the U.S. model for the world, but have taken the percentage savings to be directionally correct and applied them to the IEA load growth projections through 2030. Detailed analysis by others will undoubtedly refine the estimates, and there will be some mix of central and decentralized generation. The analysis shows the extreme cases to provide guidance.

Figure 9 shows expected world load growth with conventional central plants that convert 100 units of fuel into 67 units of wasted energy and 33 units of delivered power. The text at the bottom reflects IEA’s projected capital cost for 4,800 gigawatts of new generation, totaling $4.2 trillion. The International Energy Agency was silent on T&D, so we used estimates made for the United States Department of Energy on the all-in cost per kW of new transmission to forecast $6.6 trillion cost for new wires and transformers. Assuming U.S. average line losses (which are significantly lower than developing country line losses), 9 percent of the capacity will be lost, leaving 4,368 gigawatts delivered to users. To achieve the IEA Reference Case with central generation, the world must invest $10.8 trillion capital, roughly $2,500 per kW of delivered capacity.

Figure 9. Conventional central generation flowchart.

Meeting IEA Reference Case load growth with decentralized generation will lower the need for redundant generation. An analysis by the Carnegie Mellon Electric Industry Center suggests building only 78 percent of the 4,800 gigawatts as DG would provide equal or better reliability. [10] However, in developing economies, reliability may not be the driver. To be conservative, we have ignored the potential reduction in generation due to increased reliability inherent in larger numbers of smaller plants in the DG case. However, we did reduce required generation for the DG case to 4,368 GW, since there are no net line losses.

Figure 10 depicts the process of meeting expected world load growth with distributed generation. We estimated average capital costs for decentralized generation of $1,200 per kW, $310 more capital cost than a kilowatt of new central generation. Even with 9 percent less DG capacity, the capital costs for generation increase to $5.2 trillion, $1.0 trillion more than building central plants. Looking only at generation costs, DG is not competitive. However, the full decentralized generation case requires only 430 GW of new T&D, costing $0.6 trillion, a $6 trillion savings on T&D. End users receive 4,638 GW in both cases, but society invests $5 trillion less for the DG case.

Figure 10. Combined heat and power flowchart.

Everyone knows that “you get what you pay for.” What does the world give up by selecting a $5 trillion cheaper approach to meet projected electric growth? We extrapolated U.S. analysis to the IEA Reference Case and found the world would give up the following by adopting the cheaper DG case:

• Consume 122 billion fewer barrels of oil equivalent (half of known Saudi oil reserves)
• Lost fossil fuel sales of $2.8 trillion
• Lost medical revenues from air pollution-related illnesses
• Potentially lost savings if governments opt to supply electric services to entire population instead of leaving 1.4 billion people without electric access
• Less global warming due to 50 percent less CO2 emissions.

Recommended Actions

If this analysis survives critical review, then what policy reforms will steer the power industry toward optimal decisions, given available technology? We offer two potential approaches, hoping to start the policy debate.

Comprehensive Reform

Governments guide the electric industry with many rules, mandates, and limitations that collectively block competition and innovation, thus causing excessive costs and fuel usage. Small regulatory changes may nudge the power industry to slight course corrections, but are unlikely to break the central generation paradigm and optimize generation.

Immediately eliminating all current barriers to efficiency would cause the electric power industry to make better decisions. Each government could examine every rule that affects power generation and delivery and ask whether the social purpose behind that rule still exists. Then each state or country could enact comprehensive legislation that we term the Energy Regulatory Reform and Tax Act (ERRATA), to correct all of the mistakes in current law. ERRATA would deregulate all electric generation and sales, modernize environmental regulations to induce efficiency, and change taxation to reward efficiency. [11] Sadly, ERRATA legislation probably will not pass except in response to deepening environmental and economic pain.

Actionable Reform, National Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standards

A second possible approach simply rewards all fossil efficient power and penalizes fossil inefficient power. Each government could enact a Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standard covering all locally used electricity, regardless of origin. This standard does not favor fuels, technologies, or participants. Here are the essential elements:

• Give all delivered megawatt-hours an equal allowance of incremental fossil fuel, regardless of age of plant, technology or ownership. Start with the national average fossil fuel per MWh for the prior year.
• Spread allowances over all generation of each owner, allowing owners to comply by increasing efficiency of existing plants, deploying new highly efficient plants, or purchasing fossil allowances from others.
• Reward plants requiring little or no fossil fuel, such as solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, and industrial waste energy recycling, by allowing them to sell fossil fuel credits. [12]
• Penalize fossil inefficient plants by forcing them to purchase allowances for each MWh produced.
• Base allowances on delivered power to incorporate T&D losses from central generation.
• Credit displaced fuel to CHP plants that recycle heat.
• Force all generators to purchase adequate allowances or close their plants to ensure that the total allowance trading is economically neutral.
• Reduce the fossil fuel allowances per MWh each year according to a schedule.
• Adjust the schedule downward each year to correct for growth in total power delivered, guaranteeing that the total fossil fuel use will drop.

A Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standard would steer the power industry toward optimal choices. This will reduce power costs and emissions, which will improve local standard of living and improve the competitive position of local industry. Other states and nations will follow suit.

Conclusion

We have attempted to frame the consequences of meeting energy load growth with conventional central generation or deploying decentralized generation that recycles waste energy. The DG case saves the world $5 trillion in capital investment while reducing power costs by 40 percent and cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half. There are interesting implications for worldwide energy policy if this analysis stands up to critical review.

We hope readers and others will spell out concerns or suggest corrections so we can collectively improve the analysis of optimal future power generation. The needed policy changes are deep and fundamental and require a consensus about the best way to proceed. Together we might be able to change the way the world makes heat and power.

Notes

1. The IEA has issued an annual “World Energy Outlook” series since 1993. The publication projects many facets of the energy industry thirty years ahead. The projections are based on a “Reference Scenario that takes into account only those government policies and measures that had been adopted by mid-2002. A separate Alternative Scenario assesses the impact of a range of new energy and environmental policies that the OECD countries are considering.”
2. Energy Information Administration/Electric Power Monthly, May 2004.
3. Energy Information Administration/Monthly Energy Review, June 2004.
4. Joseph Eto, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in a speech to NARUC, says outages cost the U.S. $80 billion per year. The EPRI Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society (CEIDS), The Cost of Power Disturbances to Industrial & Digital Economy Companies, June 2001, states power outages and other power quality disturbances are costing the U.S. economy more than $119 annually.
5. We assembled historical data for four central generating technologies—oil and gas-fired thermal plants (Rankine cycle), coal fired thermal plants, simple-cycle and combined-cycle gas turbines. Data for each technology and each year include capital costs per kW, load factor, and efficiency. We assumed a 25-year life to calculate annual capital amortization and the future wholesale price per MWh that would yield an 8 percent weighted average return on capital. Since new central generation requires new T&D, we converted estimates of $1260 per kW for T&D in 2000 and adjusted for inflation, then assumed a 35-year life for T&D to calculate required T&D charges. EIA did not keep line loss statistics prior to 1989, so we estimated prior years slightly below the current 9 percent losses. Summing produces the retail price needed for power from a central plant using a specific technology installed in that specific year. Finally, we converted everything to 2004 dollars.
6. Typical DG plants employ multiple generators with expected unplanned outages of 2 percent to 3 percent each. The probability of complete loss of power is found by multiplying expected unit unplanned outages by each other. Given the existing 10,286 generators operating in the U.S. that are less than 20 megawatts of capacity, and the expectation, with barriers removed, of many DG plants inside every distribution network, spare grid capacity equal to 10 percent of installed DG should be more than adequate to cover unplanned outages.
7. Recycled Energy: An Untapped Resource, Casten and Collins, 2002; see www.primaryenergy.com.
8. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2002, October 2003.
9. The “Optimizing Heat and Power” model has been adopted by the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE) and is being used by the European Union, Thailand, Nigeria, Canada, Ireland, and China to ask the best way to satisfy expected load growth. For model descriptions, contact Michael Brown, Director, at info@localpower.org.
10. Hisham Zerriffi. Personal communication. See Distributed Resources and Micro-grids by M. Granger Morgan of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Sept. 25, 2003, for detailed analysis of how DG provides reliability with less spare capacity.
11. See Casten, Thomas R. Turning Off The Heat 1998, Prometheus Books, chapter 10 for a more complete description of ERRATA.
12. Producers of electricity are given fossil fuel usage credits, meaning they are allowed to use a given amount of fossil fuels corresponding to efficiency, size of unit and other environmental parameters. Thus, the higher the efficiency of a company’s unit, the less fossil fuel credits that company needs to use. The highly efficient plants and generation plants using a non-fossil fuel energy such as solar, wind, or hydro power would not need the full allowance and could sell the unused portion to less efficient fossil fueled plants. Such a system would provide added economic value to the efficient and non-fossil fueled plants and economic penalties to the inefficient fossil fueled plants.

Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms

• CCGT—refers to a power plant that utilizes both the Brayton (gas-turbine) cycle and the Rankine (steam) cycle. The exhaust from the gas turbine is used to generate the energy for the Rankine cycle.
• CHP—the simultaneous and high-efficiency production of heat and electrical power in a single process.
• CO2—a gas produced by many organic processes, including human respiration and the decay or combustion of animal and vegetable matter.
• DG—a system in which electrical power is produced and distributed locally near users, largely avoiding T&D.
• DOE—the federal agency that oversees the production and distribution of electricity and other forms of energy.
• EIA—the statistical and data-gathering arm of the Department of Energy.
• EPA—the agency that oversees and regulates the impact of, among other things, the production of energy on the environment of the United States.
• ERRATA—a plan to deregulate the production and distribution of electricity, to update environmental laws regarding energy production, and to alter the existing tax structures.
• GW—one billion watts.
• GWh—the amount of energy available from one gigawatt in one hour.
• IEA—a twenty-six member union of national governments with the goal of securing global power supplies.
• IPP—companies that generate electrical power and provide it wholesale to the power market. IPPs own and operate their stations as non-utilities and do not own the transmission lines.
• KW—1,000 watts (one watt being the amount of power necessary to move one kilogram one meter in one second).
• KWh—the amount of energy available from one kilowatt in one hour.
• MW—one million watts.
• MWh—the amount of energy available from one megawatt in one hour.
• NOX—assorted oxides of nitrogen, generally considered pollutants, that are commonly produced by combustion reactions.
• PM10 in the atmosphere that is between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in size.
• PURPA—an act of Congress that was intended to reduce American dependence on foreign oil through the encouragement of the development of alternative energy sources and the diversification of the power industry.
• T&D—the means by which electricity travels from the generating plant(s) to its end users.

The first two articles in this issue are in that vein. The first, on the merits of decentralized vs. centralized generation of electrical energy, is indeed a totally new topic for us. The second, a balanced and informed look at polygraph testing, is one we have dealt with regularly, with at least five earlier articles and news pieces from 1990—2003.

And that fact makes another point: We have never limited ourselves to investigations of paranormal or pseudoscientific claims. In the early 1990s I made a list of past SI articles that fell into neither of these categories. It covered an entire page. A similar list today would be much longer. But what all have in common is applying critical inquiry to science-related claims and issues of popular appeal or public importance.

Tom Casten, lead author of our cover article, is an energy entrepreneur who brings a background in economics and deep interests in science, technology, and critical thinking (he has long been associated with CSICOP) to his examination of the relative efficiencies of centralized vs. decentralized generation of power. I think you will find the revelations by him and colleague Brennan Downes surprising.

Many first-rate scientists are often by necessity so narrowly focused on their work that they have little time or inclination to get involved in wider issues. Others somehow manage to commit themselves to science education, writing for the public, bringing scientific insights to public policy debates, and defending science against promulgators of pseudoscience. Physicist and 2003 Nobel Prize recipient Vitaly L. Ginzburg is clearly one of the latter. We present two articles by him in this issue, both confronting specifics of pseudoscience and showing how it differs from real science.

The evening-long tribute to Galileo at the Fifth World Skeptics Congress near Padua, Italy (see the ensuing pages), was a moving experience. Knowledgeably hosted by television journalist and science author Piero Angelo, part of it featured actors playing Galileo and the three figures in his two key “Dialogues.” Padua and Florence were the cradle of the Italian renaissance, with creative new thinking and discoveries in art, architecture, medicine, and science. It was equally moving later (in Venice), to see wooden models of Leonardo’s inventions, climb up to Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, and visit the science history museum in Florence where many of Galileo’s scientific instruments are displayed. Returning home, I reread J. Bronowski’s memorable chapter in The Ascent of Man on Galileo’s trial. A concluding passage notes one effect of this terrible wielding of ideology and power against science and open inquiry: “The effect of the trial and of the imprisonment was to put a total stop to the scientific tradition in the Mediterranean. From now on the Scientific Revolution moved to Northern Europe.” Can such a shift still happen today, when many powerful ideological interests are so distrustful of at least certain aspects of science? It’s a sobering thought.

Other revolutionary figures in the history of science likewise had Padua connections. Among them were Nicolaus Copernicus, who studied there, and Andreas Vesalius, who took his medical degree there before publishing his revelations about human anatomy in 1543. That was the same year that Copernicus published, on his deathbed, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, the book that cast aside the notion of an Earth-centered universe. Thus began the conflict between religious belief and scientific discovery that led to Galileo’s epic tribulations with the Catholic church and that echoes down through the ages to this day.

The conference theme was “Solving Mysteries.” Throughout, speakers touted the unique abilities of the methods of scientific and skeptical inquiry in finding solutions to mysteries that otherwise remain the domain of opinion and speculation.

The three-day conference, which had a sold-out attendance of nearly 500 (the capacity of the comfortable modern conference center’s theater, surrounded by hotels and restaurants), was cosponsored by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and its Italian counterpart group, CICAP (pronounced “chee-cap”). CICAP numbers among its members some of Italy’s leading scientists, scholars, and investigators, many of whom were in evidence as conference participants.

Galileo himself was the subject of an entire evening of special events the first night of the conference, while a slightly more recent hero of skepticism, the conjuror and investigator James Randi, was feted the second night (see side stories). Randi also gave a talk earlier that day on “difficult, innocent, and impossible applicants” for his $1 million challenge to psychic claimants.

CICAP Chairman Steno Ferluga, professor of astrophysics at the University of Trieste, opened the conference with a basic statement of the meeting. CICAP, CSICOP, and the skeptical movement represent a “new thing,” he said. “Finally there exists a network of people to find answers, offer corrections, and provide accurate information on popular mysteries.”

This “light of reason” can help confine paranormal beliefs to those who want to believe, instead of to all those previously innocently confused by misinformation about claims once ignored by scientists. “We skeptics don’t deny mysterious events,” he said. “We come here to solve them.”

In his opening remarks, CSICOP Chairman Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy at SUNY—Buffalo, noted that he had come to Italy three times beginning twenty years ago to encourage Italian scientists and skeptics to organize a group. He said he was pleased with the subsequent work of that group, which has high visibility in Italy, and the grand conference it had organized. The modern skeptical movement has provided “a critical scientific examination” of popular claims and “a whole new literature,” Kurtz said. But he gave equal emphasis to a “second principle” of the movement: “to explicate and defend science and reason and the scientific outlook. . . . We are interested in cultivating public appreciation of science.”

“This is positive,” he said “—carrying to the general public our appreciation of this powerful invention, the discovery of truth about nature through experimental science.”

So in this mission, Kurtz said, “the skeptical movement has moved on . . . to other equally important things.”

Kurtz spoke admiringly of Galileo. “In one sense,” he said, “Galileo is a symbol of skeptical inquiry. He questioned authority. He rejected authority—Aristotle, the Church.

“Galileo is the great martyr to the skeptical cause,” Kurtz said. He rejected occult explanations, and he championed a new method involving experimentation, hypotheses, theories, and mathematics.

“Galileo was a heroic figure, a great skeptic,” said Kurtz. “He was not a dogmatic skeptic, but thought that there were reliable methods for achieving knowledge.”

And one more point from Kurtz: “Science and skepticism go hand in hand. Skepticism is a great tool of science.”

Thus began three sparkling days of presentations, discussions, questions, entertainment (including a lunchtime first-ever performance of “skeptical” arias from famous operas), and special events and demonstrations.

It was a truly international conference, with attendees from twenty countries. Speakers heralded from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China, Egypt, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The conference language was English, with simultaneous translation into Italian, although occasionally that was reversed.

Formal conference sessions dealt with parapsychology (moderated by Ray Hyman, University of Oregon); hoaxes, fakes, and myths (Lorenzo Montali, University of Milan); investigating historical myths (Massimo Polidoro, University of Milan—his column in this issue on fact and fiction about the Kennedy assassination is based on his presentation); magic and the psychology of deception (Sergio Della Sala, University of Edinburgh); the future of skepticism and a world skeptics update (Barry Karr, CSICOP); and how alternative medicine can be hazardous to your health (Silvio Garattini, Mario Negri Institute, Milan). Three or four leading figures in these fields spoke in each session, followed by a lively question period.

Only a few highlights can be mentioned here, some brief examples. CICAP plans to eventually publish a book based on the conference proceedings.

The opening session, “Parapsychology and Skeptics: Is Dialogue Possible?” had a bittersweet quality because the scheduled leadoff speaker, Robert L. Morris, professor of parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh and highly respected by both skeptics and parapsychologists, had died unexpectedly in August. He was only sixty.

Carolyn Watt, a senior research fellow at Edinburgh’s Koestler Parapsychology Unit, which Morris had established and headed, gave a talk in his stead, dedicated to him. She spoke on “productive and unproductive interactions” between parapsychologists and skeptics, urging more of the former and less of the latter. In the productive category are “direct, personal, involvement and collaborations,” much like Hyman has done in the past with Charles Honorton or that Richard Wiseman has carried out in the U.K. Unproductive interactions include debates at a distance, which become increasingly polemical, and unsupported and sweeping statements, including unscientific rhetoric and misrepresenting opponents’ views.

Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire), who has high visibility in the U.K. as a psychologist who involves parapsychologists, the media, and the public in his investigations, spoke of some of his recent experiments, including research with a medium described recently in The Times (U.K.) and his “Mind Machine,” a multimedia interactive kiosk that invites the public to participate in an extrasensory perception experiment. In 139,000 trials with 28,856 people, he said, the hits amounted to 49.90 percent —“chance,” he reported. “No evidence of ESP.” He said this is an example of how skeptics can do research that involves the public.

As for Carolyn Watts’s call for more interactions between skeptics and parapsychologists, Wiseman agreed, to a point. “Should we collaborate if the research is about genuine open inquiry? Yes,” he said. Skeptical psychologists can and have helped mightily with a number of parapsychology experiments, he said, tightening up controls and finding small errors, which can easily creep in. But too many parapsychological researchers have another aim altogether, he said. “There are people who are certain of the answers,” he said. “They are engaged in a process of persuasion, not inquiry, and they have an agenda. CSICOP looks at these people very carefully. Should we collaborate with them? No.”

James Alcock (York University, Toronto) described why parapsychology, despite its long history of research, some of it involving eminent scientists, still has gained no status as a science and is in fact ignored by most scientists. There is no unambiguous definition of a psi phenomenon, no strongly replicated effect, no theory offered, no consistency with other areas of science, and no progressive accumulation of knowledge. “Despite a long history, parapsychology does not have a single acknowledged ‘fact,’” said Alcock.

Furthermore, he said that collaboration with parapsychologists is difficult. “Parapsychologists can’t propose what would disconfirm psi,” he lamented. “To them, finding nothing doesn’t count. . . . We can help by being respectful and constructive and by being hard-nosed and critical. But the problem is that the failure to find supporting evidence will not dampen parapsychological zeal.”

The session on investigating historical mysteries featured several interesting case studies. CSICOP’s senior research fellow and SI “Investigative Files” columnist Joe Nickell reported on his investigations into such cases as the Flatwood Monster, the Nazca lines, and the Shroud of Turin. Researcher Mariano Tomatis (Turin, Italy) described his investigations into the “Da Vinci code” story, and Luigi Garlaschelli (University of Pavia) described his literally hands-on investigations into the “real sword in the stone” (in Italy). Randi’s previously mentioned talk followed. We hope to have articles based on several of these presentations in future issues.

In the “Hoaxes, Fakes, and Myths” session, archaeologist Kenneth Feder (Central Connecticut State University) gave a revealing report on media dynamics intriguingly and accurately titled “Atlantis in Fantasyland: Making a Mickey Mouse Television Documentary About the Lost Continent.” He told of his experiences a few years ago with a producer of an ABC television documentary about Atlantis. The producer told Feder he was looking for an archaeologist who was pro-Atlantis. Feder told him there were none, because Atlantis didn’t exist. When Feder asked why they made that request, the producer pointed out that the ABC network was owned by the Disney company, which was about to launch its animated film about Atlantis and implied that they expected ABC to make a documentary that would leave open the possibility that Atlantis was real. (For critiques of both the ABC show and the Atlantis myth, see SI, January/February 2002.)

One of the highlights for many members of the audience was moving talks by two speakers from Egypt, Mourad Whaba (professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Ain Shams in Cairo and president of the Afro-Asian Philosophy Association) and Mona Abousenna, a professor at the same university. Abousenna described the extraordinary challenges and perils of even speaking about skeptical inquiry and rationalism in an Islamic country like Egypt. Many seemed moved by her courage and determination. In answer to a question, Professor Whaba said, “My students like me, but they don’t like my ideas.” At the same session was Prof. Edward Kruglyakov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who reported on efforts by Russian scientists to criticize anti-science, and Li Sheng Xian, a representative of a five-member Chinese delegation.

The conference concluded with a lively session of critical examinations of evidence about alternative medicine. A few excerpts:

Edzard Ernst (Professor of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, U.K.) On herbal remedies: “We have convincing positive data for nine herbal remedies (especially St. John’s Wort, for mild to moderate depression), but not thousands [as frequently claimed].”

On acupuncture: “There is limited evidence that acupuncture is better than no treatment at all. There is inconclusive evidence that acupuncture is better than a placebo.”

On spiritual healing: “The majority of rigorous trials show no effect beyond placebo.”

Ernst’s conclusion: “High quality research is scarce. Bias is rife. For some CAM [Complementary and Alternative Medicine] treatments the risk/benefit ratio is positive. But for most, we don’t know.”

Barry Beyerstein (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia): “The curriculum of the Dominion Herbal College in Vancouver—the leading college of herbalism in North America—exhibits every characteristic of pseudoscience in [CSICOP Fellow and McGill University philosophy professor] Mario Bunge’s list” (Bunge, “What Is Pseudoscience?” Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1984).

Riccardo Lucio (University of Florence): “Homeopathy is useful. . . . It is useful to the industry, to the sellers, and to the homeopaths. But it is highly questionable if it is of use to patients.”

Wallace Sampson (professor of medicine, Stanford, and editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine) gave a blunt assessment of what he calls “the political takeover in the U.S.” by alternative medicine.

“Never in the history of medicine has there been anything like this before,” he said. “It is an organized invasion of pseudoscience into the scientific edifice of medicine. It is pervasive, surreptitious, and purposeful. It is not a conspiracy; it is simply the way people act in groups.”

How do they do it? By using the “language of distortion” (alternative medicine instead of quackery or pseudoscience) and by demeaning science (postmodernism and relativism), he said. Proponents’ invention of language is calculated to produce a positive response. He said they have become astute in what he called “info-ganda,” the combination of information and propaganda. They have been effective in manipulating opinion in nonprofit foundations, the news media, books, and even the medical press, which “has a bias against publishing negative articles.” They have found abundant sources of funding both from government (especially in the U.S., through the support of key congressional leaders) and from spiritual/ religious organizations. He sees the problem getting worse, not better.

Silvio Garattini, professor of pharmacology and director of the Mario Negri Institute in Milan, summed up the session. “I wonder if by using gentler terms like alternative medicine and complementary medicine, we are disserving science,” he said. “‘Quackery’ and ‘fakery’” is what we are talking about. “We must use what has proved to be effective.”

And he spoke of the frustrating illogic of homeopathy. Its remedies are “all the same and contain nothing. How can you test that?” The burden of proof is on the homeopathic community to provide proof that its remedies are efficacious, he said. “But they are not willing.”

In his concluding remarks, Paul Kurtz called the conference “inspiring.” He lamented the escape from reason in the health fields, among others. “Not believing in things without evidence is still a radical thesis,” he said. “We are still attempting to hold the torch of scientific reason and inquiry.” He said there are still many “committed to the Enlightenment” but the “danger that we will move away from the scientific outlook is very real. . . . We have a set of ideals. These ideals are very important, and we need to keep the torch of reason lit.”

However, cases are often made more difficult to solve when facts get confused with imagined realities and unfounded conclusions. Eyewitness testimonies and self-styled experts, even in good faith, can alter details and hide important clues that—if untouched—could lead to radically different conclusions. In order to give you some clear examples of what I mean, I will examine one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century.

Figure 2. The real trajectory, plotted in accordance with the exact postures of Kennedy and Connally, was not significantly altered until the bullet was slightly deflected by Connally’s rib. (Images adapted from Posner 1993)

The Day JFK Died

Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written about the tragic death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and it would take a few complete issues of Skeptical Inquirer just to deal with the more relevant matters involved in the case. I will outline several examples of bad research involved in popular investigations of this case.

Let’s get back to that fatal day, November 22, 1963. President Kennedy arrived in Dallas, Texas, during the election campaign. In 1964, there would have been new elections, and Kennedy, who wanted to be sure to be re-elected, had started a tour of the southern states, the most conservative ones, where he was less popular due to his progressive ideas.

It was decided that a motorcade would be conducted through the city. Kennedy and his wife would be in the backseat of the presidential limousine, and Governor Connally and his wife would sit in front of them.

Dealey Plaza, in downtown Dallas, is a large, basin-like square where three roads converge toward an underpass that leads to a freeway. The Presidential limousine entered the plaza, moved slowly along Houston Street, then took a left turn right in front of the Texas School Book Depository building.

It was thirty minutes past noon. What happened next was documented by a movie buff, Abraham Zapruder, who was filming the motorcade with an 8 mm movie camera. The film is silent, for there was no audio on home-movie cameras back then. During the shocking sequence, the President can be seen waving to the crowd, but then he is hit by something and brings his hands to his neck, right in front of him. Governor Connally starts to turn and shake, he is hit as well. Then, there is a fatal shot to Kennedy’s head. He died soon after at the hospital.

Who killed him? It was soon determined that the shots came from the sixth floor of the Book Depository. There, piles of boxes were found, stashed around a window, creating a “sniper’s nest” with a clear view of the site of the shooting. A rifle was also found that had just been fired along with three spent cartridge shells.

After about two hours, a suspect was stopped. He had had a confrontation with the police inside a movie theater, and it was later found out that he had just shot dead a policeman who had stopped him on a nearby street.

His name was Lee Harvey Oswald; he was a young man who worked at the depository and had been seen on the sixth floor of that building just minutes before the shooting. After that, he disappeared, and he turned out to be the only employee absent from the depository for no legitimate reason.

Oswald was an ex-marine and communist sympathizer. The evidence against him quickly piled up, but only three days after his capture, during his transfer to a police van that would escort him to a more secure prison, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot him dead.

Those of you who have seen the Oliver Stone movie JFK, where this story is told in great detail, will remember the many contradictions coming out of the official investigation of the assassination. I have seen that movie as well, and, like anyone else, I couldn’t help but be convinced that Oswald could not be the only assassin. There had to be more than one killer, and this meant that there had been a conspiracy plot to kill the president.

At least, I believed that until I started to research the story for my latest book (Polidoro 2004), and the strangest thing to me was that the deeper I went into it, the more the Oliver Stone version of the story looked weirder and weirder.

I can’t go into the countless details here, as I have done in the book, but I’ll give you just a couple of examples of the kind of pitfalls into which a historical investigator can easily fall.

I Saw It; I Was There . . .

Most strange phenomena and conspiracy theories rely on eyewitness testimony. Psychologists are aware of the many limits of memory and perception—and the fallibility of eyewitness accounts (Loftus 1980, 1996).

One of the best-known witnesses to the assassination, and the only one who is also the author of a book from the point of view of an eyewitness, was a woman named Jean Hill (Sloan and Hill 1992). She can be seen in the Zapruder film, standing beside a friend.

In her testimony, told and retold over the last forty years, she claimed among other things that she was looking at the limousine where she saw Kennedy and his wife, Jackie; the couple was “looking at a little dog between them,” a “white fluffy dog.” Hill then jumped to the edge of the street to yell, “Hey, we want to take your picture!” JFK turned over to look at her. At that point, he was shot, and Jackie shouted, “My God, he has been shot!” Then, Mrs. Hill said that she saw “some men in plain clothes shooting back” and “a man with a hat running toward the monument” on the other side of the plaza on the so-called “grassy knoll.” Immediately, she started running after him, thinking he was involved in the shooting. “When I ran across the street,” she specified, “the first motorcycle that was right behind the President’s car nearly hit me.”

Thus, she was the first person to run up the grassy knoll, and many followed her. However, the man ran off and she missed him. She was convinced that this man was Jack Ruby, the club owner who, in three days, would kill Lee Harvey Oswald.

And there we have our proof for the existence of a conspiracy.

This, however, is one of those rare occasions in which dozens of reporters and photographers are present on the scene of an event and so there are countless statements on record from eyewitnesses and pictures from every angle. Thus, we can compare Jean Hill’s memory with actual facts.

• She said that she was looking at the limousine.
  
  In the film, you can see that when Kennedy is shot the first time, she is looking away from him.
• She said that the couple was “looking at a little dog between them,” a “white fluffy dog.”
  
  There was no dog between them, just a bunch of red flowers.
• She said that she “jumped to the edge of the street” to yell, “Hey, we want to take your picture!” and JFK turned over to look at her.
  
  The Zapruder film shows that Hill never moved or said a word—and the President did not turn to look over. In fact, he had just been shot when he passed in front of her.
• She said that Jackie shouted, “My God, he has been shot!”
  
  Jackie and the car’s four other witnesses deny that Jackie said anything.
• She said that she saw “some men in plain clothes shooting back.”
  
  But in an interview recorded just forty minutes after the assassination by a Dallas television station, she was asked: “Did you see the person who fired the—” And she answered: “No . . . I didn’t see any person fire the weapon . . . I only heard it.”
• She said that she immediately started running after the “man with a hat,” thinking he was involved in the shooting. “When I ran across the street,” she specified, “the first motorcycle that was right behind the President’s car nearly hit me.”
  
  But as can be seen in the many pictures taken during those fatal moments, she stands still at her place as the limousine and the motorbikes pass by. She even sits on the grass while all of the cars of the motorcade proceed behind the President’s limousine.
• She also specified that after jumping into the middle of the road, she was the first person to run up the grassy knoll, and many followed her.
  
  In photographs, you can see a lot of people running around the area and up to the grassy knoll, but Hill always stays in the same spot, probably shocked by the whole thing, like most of the people present.
• She was convinced that the man she had followed was Jack Ruby.
  
  At that precise moment, Ruby was witnessed by many to be at the offices of the Dallas Morning News.

Now, as we can see, facts contradict many details of Jean Hill’s dramatic testimony. Aside from excusable mistakes and errors made in good faith, we have here a story that, over the years, has changed and grown out of proportion, to the point that Mrs. Hill became a sort of celebrity, invited to every meeting of JFK buffs, and was even depicted in Oliver Stone’s movie. She is the proud holder of a card bragging that she was the “closest witness” to the President at the time of the fatal shot to the head. It is quite clear what happens to some people when they find themselves right in the middle of history and have absolutely no role in it. They imagine one.

This Must Be So; I Know. . .

Imagined testimonies are just one of the many problems that an investigator of historical mysteries has to deal with. Another one is “imagined experts,” that is, self-styled experts with no real expertise in the chosen field except what they think is “common sense.” The Kennedy assassination presents dozens of such cases, but one of the most popular involves the so-called “magic bullet.”

The Warren Commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination concluded that the reactions of Kennedy and Connally occurred too close together for two separate shots, even from the same gun, to have been responsible for their wounds. They almost seem to react at the same instant, in the enhanced version of the film seen by the commission. They concluded that one, single bullet caused the injuries to both the President and the Governor.

This is where the “imagined experts” step in and say: “It must have been a really magical bullet in order to enter Kennedy from the back, exit from his throat, then make a turn and enter Connally’s back, exit from his chest, hit is right wrist, make another bend, and, finally, land in his left thigh!” How could a single bullet follow this zigzag route, seen in figure 1?

Their conclusion is obvious: those injuries could not have been produced by just one bullet, so there had to be more than one shooter—further proof of a conspiracy.

This conclusion, however, as logical as it may sound at first, does not take real facts into account. And it only works until you don’t look at Kennedy’s and Connally’s actual positions in the car. They were not one in front of the other; Kennedy was in a higher position in the back seat, and Connally was sitting lower, in the middle of the front seat of the car. So, in order to produce those injuries, the path shown in figure 2 is the real trajectory that a bullet had to follow, and, from the analysis performed by real experts, it turns out that there was only one position from which this bullet could be shot: the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

What can we conclude from these examples? Certainly, that investigators must guard against preconceived ideas before starting an investigation. Before you know it, you start twisting facts and discarding evidence that contradict those ideas, making you draw unfounded solutions. What we should do instead is to try to do our best to dig up facts and let them speak for themselves. They may have things to say that often turn out to be quite surprising.

This article has been adapted from Massimo Polidoro’s presentation at the fifth World Skeptics Congress (Abano Terme, Italy, October 8—10, 2004).

References

• Garrison, J. 1988. On the Trail of the Assassins. New York: Sheridan Square Press.
• Gill, P., C. Kimpton, R. Aliston-Greiner, K. Sullivan, M. Stoneking, T. Melton, J. Nott, S. Barritt, R. Roby, and M. Holland. 1994. Establishing the identity of Anna Anderson Manahanî. Nature Genetics Jan; 9(1): 9—10 (Erratum in: Nat Genet 1995 Feb; 9(2): 218).
• Gill, P. 1995. Establishing the identity of Anna Anderson Manahan. Nature Genetics 9(1): 9—10.
• Groden, R.J., and H. Livingstone. 1990. High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the New Evidence of Conspiracy. New York: Conservatory Press (Berkeley Books).
• Loftus, E., and K. Ketcham. 1996. The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Loftus, E. 1980. Memory. Boston: Pearson Addison-Wesley Publishing.
• Polidoro, M. 2004. Grandi gialli della storia. Milano, Italy: Edizioni Piemme.
• Sloan, B., and J. Hill. 1992. JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness. Grema, Louisiana: Pelican Books.
• Weichhold G.M., J.E. Bark, W. Korte, W. Eisenmenger, and K.M. Sullivan. 1998. DNA analysis in the case of Kaspar Hauser. The International Journal of Legal Medicine. 111(6): 287—91.

Further reading

• McAdams, J. Web site on the Kennedy assassination: http:// mcadams.posc.mu.edu /home.htm.
• Posner, G. 1993. Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. New York: Anchor Books.