It is important that the public have a reasonable understanding of what science is and of what science can and cannot do in helping to settle issues that eventually reach the public square and thus take on a political dimension. Most people understand that science is a process for seeking the truth about how the natural order works. It is the process itself, not the results of applying it, that lies at the heart of science. Fewer people may realize that this process virtually guarantees the integrity of science in the long run even if individual scientists make mistakes, as all occasionally do, or if a (very) rare individual is actually dishonest and falsifies data. This guaranty results not from any intrinsic moral superiority of scientists themselves, but from the fact that research examined by scientific colleagues in the most prestigious medium, the refereed publications, is quickly subjected to ruthless examination for any errors. Those who detect an error often gain as much credit for their scrutiny as those whose work survives it. Scientists who deliberately avoid this scrutiny by publishing their work in less respected media are understandably and properly given less credence for their efforts. History has demonstrated convincingly that the latter work is much more likely to contain serious errors.

Science does not offer certainty. The results of modern science are typically presented in the language of statistics and probabilities. This is especially true of scientific studies of complex phenomena, of which climate science is an excellent example, even though these phenomena remain rooted in the basic laws of nature. Nevertheless, the existence of “uncertainty” has led some individuals less familiar with science to interpret any uncertainty as evidence for “a major scientific controversy” even when there is none. Thus the general public is vulnerable to the claim that a major scientific dispute over climate science is underway between two equally large and well-qualified groups of scientists, when this is simply not so. Often this false claim is made by those who wish to discourage action to address the problems associated with climate change. There are certainly a few scientists of integrity who remain skeptical of the current near consensus, but the interested reader might consider the language of some of the critics and investigate their sources.

The real issue at stake today is what to do in light of what science has uncovered. Here there is a real controversy. One group favors action in response to the alarming evidence that global warming is definitely occurring, most likely driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, while the other side opposes this view for reasons ranging from a few still-unresolved scientific questions to concerns of a more economic and political nature. Typically, the latter group is dominated by those fearing change of the industrial status quo, and they tend to be more vehement in advocating their position.

This leads into two final issues needing comment. The first acknowledges the importance of addressing the economic dislocations and economic opportunities that will result from actions to mitigate the effects of global warming. There is an understandable—not always unwise—human tendency to want to continue with the familiar. This produces a natural inclination to oppose change unless it becomes disastrous not to do so, which can lead to overlooking the many—in this case economic—opportunities associated with pursuing more climate-friendly and eco-friendly technologies. These include many technologies already available, with others undergoing current development that could be accelerated if proper economic incentives were provided. Interested readers can find examples, which I was unable to include in my articles due to space constraints, at www.cfidc.org/opp/jordan.html. The final question I wish to address is what the responsibilities of scientists are in a democracy that, de facto, provides much of the funding for their research. Many working scientists would prefer to have little to do with the political process, yet there is no denying that most scientists today receive much of their support from governments. Performing one’s research with integrity is obviously part of the answer, but is it the full answer? Some would say yes and defend this position by noting that distracting a competent researcher from his or her research is likely to reduce scientific productivity. As one who has both performed and managed research, I agree with this position under most circumstances. However, if major public policies depend on science for their proper formulation, as is true of climate science today, a strong case can be made that it becomes the duty of the scientist to inform the public and the political establishment of the best science available on the issue, especially when there are others exerting a major effort to suppress consideration of it. A historical example was the effort of the atomic scientists following World War II to inform the public of the unprecedented power and appalling destructiveness of nuclear weapons. A growing number of climate scientists, and others in related fields, are engaging in a similar educational effort today. I believe this effort serves the public well, and that it should continue.

Some have suggested as explanation for the strange occurrence that magnetic or gravitational anomalies exist due to mysterious magnetic sources underground or secret military experiments. Magnetic causes can be ruled out easily, though, because effects are visible even on nonmagnetic materials, such as plastic balls or water poured on the ground.

The answer to this mystery is found using a simple tool. When the inclination of several such roads has been measured using spirit levels, the actual slope of the surface has consistently been found to be opposite to the apparent one. To answer the objection that gravitational anomalies would influence the level as well, my good friend and longtime colleague Luigi Garlaschelli, from the University of Pavia in Italy, also took measurements on an Italian spook hill in Montagnaga (Figure 1) from a distance (i.e., away from the stretch of road in question) using a professional surveyor’s instrument called a theodolite.

The parallelism between a plumb line hanging within the critical area and another outside of it was first checked by Garlaschelli, then height quotes were taken on graduated yardsticks. The real slope was calculated at about 1 percent of the apparent slope in the opposite direction.

The simpler explanation for spook hills, then, is that they are visual illusions in a natural environment.

A Portable Spook Hill Experiment

Recently, Garlaschelli, along with Paola Bressan, a researcher at the Department of Psychology at the University of Padua, and Monica Barracano, also of Padua, published a report on spook hills in Psychological Science, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science (previously known as the American Psychological Society).

In the article, they describe four experiments showing that this phenomenon can be reproduced in a laboratory. The researchers find that the phenomenon is due to the visual anchoring of the spooky surface to a gravity-relative eye level whose perceived direction is biased by sloping surroundings.

In the first experiment, for example, they built a tabletop model with three hinged, moveable boards (Figure 2) to investigate the case in which the critical spot is a sloping stretch of road between two other stretches that both run either uphill or downhill as one moves forward from the observation point at one end. Because their model was 2.4 meters long, devoid of visible texture, and viewed monocularly through a reduction screen, most depth cues (aerial perspective, texture gradients, and binocular cues such as disparity and convergence) were absent.

Figure 2: Schematic illustration of the tabletop model used in Experiment 1 (L is where the hole was located and in N there are a few small model trees to add to the realism of the scenery).

Sixty undergraduate students were divided into three groups of twenty subjects each, with each group seeing two or three of the eight different levels of inclination. All subjects were unaware of the actual setup and purpose of the experiment.

In the experiment, the subjects sat in front of the screen one at a time. They were asked to look into a hole and describe what they saw and then assess the slope of the three stretches on a five-point scale that ran from strongly downhill to strongly uphill. Each trial was followed by a break of about one minute, during which the hole was occluded and the model modified.

The results of the experiment showed that slants are generally underestimated. Three stretches with the same slant were seen as horizontal by all subjects, whether they were truly horizontal, downhill, or uphill. A slightly downhill stretch between two strongly downhill inclines was seen as illusorily uphill by sixteen out of twenty subjects and as illusorily horizontal by the other four. This illusory effect explains what occurs at Gravity Hill in Pennsylvania.

However, a slightly uphill stretch between two strongly uphill inclines was seen by all subjects as level, not as downhill as might be expected in light of the previous finding. This result implies that inducing an illusory downhill effect is not nearly as easy as inducing an illusory uphill effect. In a further experiment, Garlaschelli and his team found that steeper inducing slopes are required to suggest an uphill slant.

“After each observer’s task was concluded,” say Bressan and her colleagues, “we placed a small roll of tape on the misperceived slope, and the tape appeared to move against the law of gravity, producing surprise and, on occasion, reverential fear.”

Interested readers can find details on the team’s various experiments in the September 2003 (14:5) issue of Psychological Science.

Experience the Spooky Effect

“The visual (and psychological) effects obtained in our experiments were in all respects analogous to those experienced on site,” the researchers concluded. “The more than twenty natural cases of antigravity hills reported to date are all variations on a single theme. Our study shows that the phenomenon can be recreated artificially, with no intervention whatsoever of magnetic, antigravitational, or otherwise mysterious forces. The spooky effects experienced at these sites are the outcome of a visual illusion due to the inclination of a surface being judged relative to an estimated eye level that is mistakenly regarded as normal to the direction of gravity. Using miniature or even life-size reproductions of our tabletop models, it should now be easy to re-create the fascination of this challenge to gravity in amusement parks and, for twice the benefit, science museums anywhere.

If you’d like to experience a spook hill for yourself, Bressan and colleagues have prepared this list of the best known ones:

• United States: Confusion Hill, Idlewild Park, Ligonier, Pennsylvania; Gravity Hill, northwest Baltimore County, Maryland; Gravity Hill, State Route 42, Mooresville, Indiana; Gravity Hill, State Route 96, south of New Paris, Bedford County, Pennsylvania; Gravity Hill, White’s Hill, Rennick Road, La Fayette County, Wisconsin; Gravity Road, Ewing Road, Route 208, Franklin Lakes, Washington; Mystery Hill, Highway 321, Blowing Rock, North Carolina; Mystery Spot, Putney Road, Benzie County, Michigan; Spook Hill, North Wales Drive, North Avenue, Lake Wales, Florida; Spook Hill, Gapland Road, Burkittsville, Frederick County, Maryland
• Canada: Gravity Hill, McKee Road, Ledgeview Golf Course, Abbotsford, British Columbia; Magnetic Hill, Neepawa, Manitoba; Magnetic Mountain, Canada Highway, Moncton, New Brunswick
• Europe: Ariccia, Rome, Italy; Electric Brae, A719, Croy Bay, Ayr, Ayeshire, Scotland; Malveira da Serra, Road N247, Lisbon, Portugal; Martina Franca, Taranto, Italy; Montagnaga, Trento, Italy; Mount Penteli, Athens, Greece
• Other countries: Anti-Gravity Hill, Straws Lane Road, Wood-End, Victoria, Australia; Morgan Lewis Hill, St. Andrew, Barbados; Mount Halla, Cheju Do Island, South Korea.

Readers who know of other spook hills are invited to write to us with their locations.

Michelle Cedillo has autism, which her parents believe is the result of her childhood vaccines. In June 2007 they had the opportunity, along with eight other families, to make their case to the Autism Omnibus—a U.S. Court of Federal Claims that was presided over by three “special masters” appointed for the purpose. These nine cases are the first test cases that will likely determine the fate of 4,800 other claims made over the past eight years for compensation for injuries allegedly due to childhood vaccines.

Vaccines are one of the most successful programs in modern health care, reducing, and in some cases even eliminating, serious infectious diseases. Public support for the vaccination program remains strong, especially in the United States where vaccination rates are currently at an all-time high of >95 percent (CDC 2004). Yet, despite a long history of safety and effectiveness, vaccines have always had their critics: some parents and a tiny fringe of doctors question whether vaccinating children is worth what they perceive as the risks. In recent years, the anti-vaccination movement, largely based on poor science and fear-mongering, has become more vocal and even hostile (Hughes 2007).

Of course, vaccines are not without risk (no medical intervention is), although the benefits far outweigh those risks. Because vaccines are somewhat compulsory in the United States—although opting out is increasingly easy—a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was established to streamline the process for compensation for those who are injured due to vaccines (USDOJ 2007). It is this program to which the Cedillo and 4,800 other families are applying for compensation.

In the last decade, the anti-vaccine movement, which includes those who blame the MMR (mumps-measles-rubella) vaccine for autism, has largely merged with those who warn that mercury toxicity is the cause of many of the ills that plague mankind. The two groups have come together over the issue of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in some vaccines. They believe that it was the use of thimerosal in childhood vaccines that led to the apparent autism epidemic beginning in the 1990s.

Autism is a complex neurological disorder that typically manifests in the first few years of life and primarily involves a deficiency of typical social skills and behavior. In the 1990’s, the number of autism diagnoses significantly increased, from between one and three to about fifteen cases per ten thousand, although the true incidence is probably between thirty and sixty per ten thousand (Rutter 2005). During this same period, the number of vaccines given in the routine childhood schedule also increased. This led some to assume, or at least speculate, causation from correlation—perhaps the vaccines or something in them created this “epidemic” of autism.

We can now say, from multiple independent lines of evidence, that vaccines do not cause autism. For one thing, the autism “epidemic” probably does not represent a true increase in the disorder, but rather an artifact of expanding the diagnosis (now referred to as autism spectrum disorder, ASD) and increased surveillance (Taylor 2006).

In 1998, researcher Andrew Wakefield and some of his colleagues published a study in the prestigious English medical journal Lancet that claimed to show a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism (Wakefield 1998). Wakefield’s theory was that the MMR vaccine, which contains a live virus, can cause in susceptible children a chronic measles infection. This in turn leads to gastrointestinal disturbances, including what he calls a “leaky gut” syndrome, which then allows for certain toxins and chemicals, like those from bread and dairy that are normally broken down by the gut, to enter the bloodstream where they can access and damage the developing brain.

Although the study was small and the evidence was considered preliminary, this article sparked a firestorm. As a result of the study and the media coverage that followed (and continues to this day), MMR compliance in Great Britain plummeted, resulting in a surge of preventable disease (Friederichs 2006).

Subsequent to the seminal article in the Lancet, many follow-up studies were performed testing the autism-MMR vaccine correlation. As the follow-up studies began to be published, however, it became increasingly clear that there was no link between MMR and autism. For example, a study in the British Medical Journal found that autism rates continued to climb in areas where MMR vaccination rates were not increasing (Taylor 1999). Another study found no association with MMR and autism or GI (gastrointestinal) disorders (Taylor 2002). Other studies showed no difference in the diagnosis rate of autism either before or after the MMR vaccine was administered (Honda 2005), or between vaccinated and unvaccinated children (Madsen 2002). Most recently, a study found that there was no decrease in autism rates following removal of the MMR vaccine in Japan (Honda 2005).

In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reviewed all of the MMR-autism data available to date and concluded that there was no association and essentially closed the case (IOM 2001)—a conclusion confirmed by still later studies, such as the Honda study in Japan cited above.

If Wakefield had simply been wrong in his preliminary findings, he would be innocent of any wrongdoing—scientists are not faulted if their early findings are not later vindicated. However, in May 2004, ten of Wakefield’s co-authors on his original paper withdrew their support for its conclusions. The editors of Lancet also announced that they withdrew their endorsement of the paper and cited as part of the reason an undisclosed potential conflict of interest for Wakefield, namely that at the time of its publication he was conducting research for a group of parents of autistic children seeking to sue for damages from MMR vaccine producers (Lancet 2004).

It gets worse. Investigative reporter Brian Deer has uncovered greater depths to Wakefield’s apparent malfeasance. Wakefield had applied for patents for an MMR vaccine substitute and treatments for his alleged MMR vaccine-induced gut disorder (Deer 2007). So, not only was he allegedly paid by lawyers to cast doubt on the MMR vaccine, but he stood to personally gain from the outcome of his research.

Andrew Wakefield. (Credit: Tom Miller) [Photo via Newscom]

Further, during the Cedillo case testimony, Stephen Bustin, a world expert in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), testified that the lab Wakefield used to obtain the results for his original paper was contaminated with measles virus RNA. It was therefore likely, Bustin implied, that the PCR used by Wakefield was detecting this contamination and not evidence for measles infection in the guts of children with autism who had been vaccinated, as Wakefield claimed. And finally, Nicholas Chadwick testified that the measles RNA Wakefield found matched the laboratory contamination and did not match either any naturally occurring strain or the strain used in the MMR vaccine—a fact of which he had informed Wakefield (USCFC 2007).

All of this, plus other allegations still coming out, has caused Britain’s General Medical Council to call Wakefield before its “Fitness to Practise” panel for review of his alleged professional misconduct (GMC 2007).

Believers in the MMR-autism hypothesis dismiss the findings of the larger and more powerful epidemiological studies that contradict a link. Instead, they have turned Andrew Wakefield into a martyr, dismissing the evidence of his wrongdoing as a conspiracy against him designed to hide the true cause of autism from the public. Wakefield is unrepentant and maintains his innocence (Gorski 2007).

With the MMR-autism hypothesis scientifically dead, attention soon shifted to thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative found in some childhood vaccines (although not the MMR vaccine). There is little doubt, and no controversy, that mercury, the major component of thimerosal, is a powerful neurotoxin, or poison to the brain. However, toxicity is always a matter of dose. Everything becomes toxic in a high enough dose; even too much water or vitamin C can kill you. So the real question is whether the amount of mercury given to children in vaccines containing thimerosal was enough to cause neurological damage.

Author of the book Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic David Kirby (center) speaks as president Harvey Fineberg (left) of the Institute of Medicine listens during an interview by moderator Tim Russert (right) on NBC’s Meet the Press August 7, 2005, at the NBC studios in Washington, D.C. Fineberg and Kirby talked about the rising number of autism diagnoses among children and the controversial charges of a government conspiracy to allow mercury exposures from childhood vaccines to more than double between 1988 and 1992. The Institute of Medicine reviewed all MMR-autism data and concluded that there was no association. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press) [Photo via Newscom]

Proponents of the mercury hypothesis argue that the ethylmercury found in thimerosal was given in doses exceeding Environmental Protection Agency limits. This load of mercury should be considered with prenatal vaccine loads possibly given to mothers, and to other environmental sources of mercury, such as seafood. Furthermore, underweight or premature infants received a higher dose by weight than larger children. Some children, they argue, may have a specific inability to metabolize mercury, and perhaps these are the children who become autistic.

Fear over thimerosal and autism was given a huge boost by journalist David Kirby with his book Evidence of Harm (Kirby 2005). Kirby tells the clichéd tale of courageous families searching for help for their sick children and facing a blind medical establishment and a federal government rife with corruption from corporate dollars. Kirby echoes the core claim that as the childhood vaccine schedule increased in the 1990s, leading to an increased cumulative dose of thimerosal, autism diagnoses skyrocketed.

In the end, Evidence of Harm is an example of terrible reporting that grossly misrepresents the science and the relevant institutions. As bad as Kirby’s position was in 2005, in the last two years the evidence has been piling up that thimerosal does not cause autism. Rather than adjusting his claims to the evidence, Kirby has held fast to his claims, which has made him a hero alongside Wakefield of the mercury-autism-connection crowd as he has squandered his credibility.

There have now been a number of epidemiological and ecological studies that have all shown no correlation between thimerosal and autism (Parker 2004 and Doja 2006). I have already mentioned that the current consensus holds that there is no real autism epidemic, just an artifact of how the diagnosis is made. If there’s no epidemic, there’s no reason to look for a correlation between thimerosal and autism. This has been backed up by The Institute of Medicine, which has also reviewed all the available evidence (both epidemiological and toxicological) and concluded that the evidence does not support the conclusion that thimerosal causes autism (IOM 2004).

Especially damning for the thimerosal hypothesis are the recent studies that clearly demonstrate that early detection of autism is possible long before the diagnosis is officially made. Part of the belief that vaccines may cause autism is driven by the anecdotal observation by many parents that their children were normal until after they were vaccinated—autism is typically diagnosed around age two or three. However, more careful observations indicate that signs of autism are present much earlier, even before twelve months of age, before exposure to thimerosal (Mitchell 2006). In fact, autism expert Eric Fombonne testified in the Autism Omnibus hearings that Michelle Cedillo displayed early signs of autism clearly visibly on family video taken prior to her receiving the MMR vaccine (USCFC 2007).

Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that autism is largely a genetic disorder (Szatmari 2007). This by itself does not rule out an environmental factor, but it is telling that genetic research in autism has proven so fruitful.

Mercury alarmists, in the face of this negative evidence, have been looking for rationalizations. Some have argued that the thimerosal in prenatal vaccines may be to blame, but recent evidence has shown a negative correlation there as well (Miles 2007).

What we have are the makings of a solid scientific consensus. Multiple independent lines of evidence all point in the same direction: vaccines in general, and thimerosal in particular, do not cause autism, which rather likely has its roots in genetics. Furthermore, true autism rates are probably static and not rising.

A demonstrator carries a sign protesting the use of mercury in vaccines past the U.S. Capitol in Washington July 20, 2005. Some three hundred people marched demanding that mercury not be used in vaccines anymore amid concern that it is the cause of autism and other neurological diseases in children. However, numerous studies show no correlation between Thimerosol and autism. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images) [Photo via Newscom]

The only researchers who are publishing data that contradicts this consensus are the father-and-son team of Mark and David Geier. They have looked at the same data and concluded that thimerosal does correlate with autism. However, the hammer of peer-review has come down on their methods and declared them fatally flawed, thus rendering their conclusions invalid or uninterpretable (Parker 2004). Also, like Wakefield, their reputations are far from clean. They have made something of a career out of testifying for lawyers and families claiming that vaccines caused their child’s autism, even though the Geiers’ testimony is often excluded on the basis that they lack the proper expertise (Goldacre 2007). The Geiers were not even called as experts in the Autism Omnibus hearings.

The Geiers are now undertaking an ethically suspect study in which they are administering chelation therapy to children with autism in conjunction with powerful hormonal therapy allegedly designed to reduce testosterone levels. Chelation therapy removes mercury, and so it is dependent upon the mercury hypothesis, which is all but disproved. Moreover, there is no clinical evidence for the efficacy of chelation therapy. The treatment is far from benign and is even associated with occasional deaths (Brown 2006).

With the scientific evidence so solidly against the mercury hypothesis of autism, proponents maintain their belief largely through the generous application of conspiracy thinking. The conspiracy claim has been made the loudest by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in two conspiracy-mongering articles: Deadly Immunity published on Salon.com in 2005 (Kennedy 2005), and more recently Attack on Mothers (Kennedy 2007). In these articles, RFK Jr. completely misrepresents and selectively quotes the scientific evidence, dismisses inconvenient evidence as fraudulent, accuses the government, doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry of conspiring to neurologically damage America’s children, and accuses scientists who are skeptical of the mercury claims of attacking the mothers of children with autism.

Despite the lack of evidence for any safety concern, the FDA decided to remove all thimerosal from childhood vaccines, and by 2002 no new childhood vaccines with thimerosal were being sold in the U.S. This was not an admission of prior error, as some mercury proponents claimed; instead, the FDA was playing it safe by minimizing human exposure to mercury wherever possible. The move was also likely calculated to maintain public confidence in vaccines.

This created the opportunity to have the ultimate test of the thimerosal autism hypothesis. If rising thimerosal doses in the 1990s led to increasing rates of autism diagnosis, then the removal of thimerosal should be followed within a few years by a similar drop in new autism diagnoses. If, on the other hand, thimerosal did not cause autism, then the incidence of new diagnoses should continue to increase and eventually level off at or near the true rate of incidence. In 2005, I personally interviewed David Kirby on the topic, and we both agreed that this would be a fair test of our respective positions. Also, in an e-mail to science blogger Citizen Cain, Kirby wrote, “If the total number of 3-5 year olds in the California DDS [Department of Developmental Services] system has not declined by 2007, that would deal a severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis” (Cain 2005).

Well, five years after the removal of thimerosal, autism diagnosis rates have continued to increase (IDIC 2007). That is the final nail in the coffin in the thimerosal-vaccine-autism hypothesis. The believers, however, are in full rationalization mode. David Kirby and others have charged that although no new vaccines with thimerosal were sold after 2001, there was no recall, so pediatricians may have had a stockpile of thimerosal-laden vaccines—even though a published inspection of 447 pediatric clinics and offices found only 1.9 percent of relevant vaccines still had thimerosal by February 2002, a tiny fraction that was either exchanged, used, or expired soon after (CDCP/ACIP 2002).

Those who argue for the link have put forth increasingly desperate notions. Kirby has argued that mercury from cremations was increasing environmental mercury toxicity and offsetting the decrease in mercury from thimerosal. The Geiers simply reinterpreted the data using bad statistics to create the illusion of a downward trend where none exists (Geier 2006). Robert Kennedy Jr. dodges the issue altogether by asking for more studies, despite the fact that the evidence he asks for already exists. He just doesn’t like the answer. Kennedy and others also point to dubious evidence, such as the myth that the Amish do not vaccinate and do not get autism. Both of these claims are not true, and the data RFK Jr. refers to is nothing more than a very unscientific phone survey (Leitch 2007).

The Autism Omnibus hearings have concluded, and while we await the decision due early next year, I am optimistic that science and reason will win the day. Just as shown in the 2005 Dover trial of intelligent design where the full body of scientific evidence was given a thorough airing in court and subjected to rules of evidence and the critical eyes of experienced judges, science tends to win out over nonsense. By all accounts, the lawyers for those claiming that vaccines caused their children’s autism put on pathetic performances with transparently shoddy science, while the other side marshaled genuine experts and put forth an impressive case.

But the stakes are high, and not just for the 4,800 families. If the petitioners win these test cases despite the evidence, it will open the floodgates for the rest of the 4,800 petitioners. This will likely bankrupt the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and will also risk our vaccine infrastructure. Pharmaceutical companies will be reluctant to subject themselves to the liability of selling vaccines if even the truth cannot protect them from lawsuits.

Thimerosal still exists as a necessary preservative in multi-shot vaccines outside the United States, especially in poor third-world countries that cannot afford stockpiles of single-shot vaccines. Anti-thimerosal hysteria therefore also threatens the health of children in poor countries.

And of course a victory for the anti-vaccination activists would undermine public confidence in what is arguably the single most effective public health measure devised by modern science. This decrease in confidence will lead, as it has before, to declining compliance and an increase in infectious disease.

The forces of irrationality are arrayed on this issue. There are conspiracy theorists, well-meaning but misguided citizen groups who are becoming increasingly desperate and hostile, irresponsible journalists, and ethically compromised or incompetent scientists. The science itself is complex, making it difficult for the average person to sift through all the misdirection and misinformation. Standing against all this is simple respect for scientific integrity and the dedication to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Right now the evidence leads to the firm conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. Yet, if history is any guide, the myth that they do cause autism will likely endure even in the face of increasing contradictory evidence.

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• Taylor, B. 2006. Vaccines and the changing epidemiology of autism. Child Care, Health, and Development 32(5):511–19.
• Taylor, B., E. Miller, C.P. Farrington, M.C. Petropoulos, I. Favot-Mayaud, J. Li, and P.A. Waight. 1999. Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet 12;353(9169):2026–2029.
• Taylor, B., E. Miller, R. Lingam, N. Andrews, A. Simmons, and J. Stowe. 2002. Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and bowel problems or developmental regression in children with autism: population study. British Medical Journal 16; 324(7334):393–96.
• United States Court of Federal Claims. 2007. Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Transcript of Day 6. June 18, 2007. Available at ftp://autism.uscfc.uscourts.gov/autism/transcripts/day06.pdf.
• United States Court of Federal Claims, 2007. Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Transcript of Day 8. June 20, 2007. Available at ftp://autism.uscfc.uscourts.gov/autism/transcripts/day08.pdf.
• USDOJ, About the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Available at www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/vicp/about.htm.
• Wakefield, A.J., S.H. Murch, A. Anthony, J. Linnell, D.M. Casson, M. Malik, M. Berelowitz, A.P. Dhillon, M.A. Thomson, P. Harvey, A. Valentine, S.E. Davies, and J.A. Walker-Smith. 1998. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 351(9103):637–41.

Of course, like people everywhere, the Dutch can also be superstitious—hence the conference theme, “the paranormal.” I spoke on the relationship between Dutch and American psychics and for several days before the event toured the country with noted Dutch skeptic Jan Willem Nienhuys investigating a number of mysteries and legends. These included an Amsterdam woman’s visions, haunted coal mines, the well-known boy-with-his-finger-in-the-dike tale, and more. (Our investigation of a mansion haunted by the ghost of a walled-up nun and a report on our visit to a witch weigh-house should appear in later articles.)

‘Visionary of Amsterdam’

In Amsterdam on March 25, 1945, the day of Catholicism’s Feast of the Annunciation, a woman named Ida Peerdeman (1905–1996) was at home with her three older sisters. After a priest dropped in for a visit, Peerdeman was drawn to an adjoining room where she said she beheld an intense light from which a female figure emerged and spoke to her. Thus began a series of fifty-six apparitions of the Virgin Mary, with messages from her, that allegedly occurred over the next fourteen years (the last on May 31, 1959).

The first twenty-five messages (1945–1950) were of a general nature, with imagery and prophecies that merely reflected the political as well as the spiritual turbulence of the period. In 1950, the Virgin, Peerdeman said, appeared atop a globe and announced, “Child, I am standing upon this globe, because I want to be called the Lady of All Nations” (Messages 1999, p. 75). The following year, she directed that she be depicted in that persona in a painting (see Figure 1), and she advanced a new and “final” Marian dogma, that Mary was to be Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate. The message (May 31, 1954) implied that the dogma would be proclaimed by the then-current pope, Pius XII, or at least sometime “in the twentieth century” (Messages 1999, p. 145–146). Neither was the case (Conte 2006).

Several other messages purported to predict future events. However, the statements, like those of French seer Nostradamus (1503–1566), are vague and open to various later interpretations—by a process called retrofitting (i.e., after-the-fact matching). For example, Peerdeman claimed publicly that in one message she had predicted the AIDS epidemic but had mistaken it for cholera (Van der Ven 2002). In fact, the actual reference (December 26, 1947) was to a torpedo-like device causing “terrible deadly diseases,” including cholera and leprosy, and to faces “covered with dreadful ulcers, something like leprosy” (Messages 1999, p. 51). No place or time period was specified. Thus Peerdeman could subsequently claim to have predicted some chemical/biological attack or any of various epidemics, such as smallpox, or, later reaching for a more dramatic matching, AIDS. (For a debunking of other Peerdeman predictions, see Conte 2006.)

Peerdeman also claimed to have had a number of “Eucharistic experiences” that lasted until 1984, effectively supplanting the apparitions. That is, during the Eucharist (Holy Communion), certain visions and supernatural phenomena allegedly occurred. For example, her first experience (in 1958) involved the Catholic belief in Transubstantiation (i.e., that when partaken, the bread and wine of communion actually change into the body and blood of Jesus Christ—not merely figuratively). Speaking of the Host (the consecrated Communion wafer) Peerdeman said (Daily 2003, p. 14):

All of a sudden the Sacred Host began to grow on my tongue, becoming larger and thicker. It seemed to expand and then suddenly it came alive. . . . It resembled a living fish, the way it moved in my mouth. I wanted to take it out of my mouth to see what it was but naturally out of reverence I did not dare.

(The fish is a symbol of Christ and Christianity [Stravinskas 2002, p. 328].)

In Amsterdam, Nienhuys and I visited the chapel of the Lady of All Nations Foundation, where the inspired painting hangs and nuns continue devotion to Ida Peerdeman and her cause. We spoke with one of the Sisters, photographed the painting, and purchased copies of the messages, a biography of Peerdeman, and other materials. Nienhuys also subsequently obtained some relevant articles, which he translated for me.

Many indicators suggest Peerdeman was highly impressionable. The youngest of five children whose mother died when she was eight, she reportedly had an apparitional experience on October 13, 1917, when she was twelve. Returning home from confession, she allegedly encountered a radiant Mary who made a friendly gesture to her. This was repeated on two following Saturdays, although her father admonished her to keep her claims to herself lest she be “ridiculed and considered crazy.” While to the credulous the date seems auspicious, to skeptics it seems suspicious, suggesting imitation: it was the day that, after much publicity, an estimated seventy-thousand people gathered at Fatima, Portugal, where three children claimed the Virgin Mary would appear and work a miracle (Nickell 1993, 176–181).

On subsequent occasions at the Peerdeman home, a series of incidents occurred “that would not have been out of place in a Poltergeist movie.” Lamps began to swing, doors opened and closed, and other phenomena occurred—all apparently without human agency (el-Fers 2002). However, time and again, when properly investigated, such “poltergeist” phenomena have turned out to be the pranks of mischief makers, typically children and teens (Nickell 1995, 79–107). The phenomena attending Peerdeman appear no different.

That Peerdeman was simply acting out repressed hostilities is suggested by certain “demonic torments” she supposedly endured as a teenager. These include a claimed street attack by a man “dressed all in black” who allegedly grabbed her arm and tried to drag her into a canal, and another incident in which an old woman supposedly lured her into the path of an approaching train. Further, she was “severely tormented by demons at home,” on occasion exhibiting the typical, role-playing antics of those who are supposedly possessed: shouting, supposedly showing prodigious strength (lifting a chair over her head), and the like. Once, after “an invisible hand” allegedly choked her, an exorcism was performed, during which the family heard “Satan’s revolting voice” (i.e., Peerdeman speaking in a “changed” voice) cursing the priest (Sigl 2005, p. 13–14). (For more on possession see Nickell 2001.)

Peerdeman’s devotees cite local bishop J.M. Punt’s conclusion that “the apparitions of the Lady of All Nations in Amsterdam consist of a supernatural origin.” In reaching this decision, Punt (2002) cited many reports of “healings” attributed in some way to Peerdeman. The occurrence of so-called miraculous healings is now the usual basis for determining that someone within the Catholic Church is a saint. However, “miracle” not being a scientific concept, such healings are really only held to be “medically inexplicable,” and thus claimants are engaging in a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance (that is, drawing a conclusion from a lack of knowledge). When properly investigated, “miracle” healings typically turn out to have alternate explanations: spontaneous remission (common to certain illnesses like multiple sclerosis), prior medical treatment, or even misdiagnosis, as well as psychosomatic conditions, the effects of the body’s own healing mechanisms, and so on (Nickell 1993, p. 133–137). The “healings” thus far attributed to Peerdeman appear unexceptional.

In contrast to Punt’s opinion that the apparitions had a “supernatural origin,” an investigating commission found quite the opposite. Appointed by an earlier bishop in 1955, the group included a psychiatrist, psychologist, priest, seminary teachers, and a deacon of Amsterdam’s parishes. According to their report, the committee was “deeply shocked. . . . The messages do not come from Heaven,” they insisted, maintaining that the Holy Virgin had never revealed herself in such a manner. They added, “We recognize therefore that all these revelations in whatever manner have a purely natural origin.”

In explaining, they observed that “Gradually one sees, as it were, a shift in persons.” That is, at first Peerdeman’s experiences were about herself; then later she projected her own persona onto the Virgin Mary. The commission’s president characterized Peerdeman’s visions as “banal, brusque, and ascerbic” (Van der Ven 2002) and concluded that the supposed visionary suffered from egocentricity (Van der Ven 2002). Over the years, the Catholic press reportedly “demonized” her (perhaps appropriately, given the irony of her having acted in a demon-possessed manner), and she was often described by Catholic officials as “an hysteric” (el-Fers 2002). Objectively, there seems to be nothing in the claims of Ida Peerdeman that cannot be explained as the result of imagination, suggestion, or, possibly, pious deception. Haunted Mines

The Netherlands’s Limburg province (the country’s southernmost) rests on coal deposits that are some 270 million years old. Coal was once an important Dutch commodity and was mined in the region, which contains many labyrinthine mines as well as cave systems (Harmans 2005, p. 365).

Nienhuys had learned of a “haunted” mine, the Emma, but it is unfortunately now closed. Nevertheless, we were able to visit, about twenty kilometers to the south, a historical mine, Steenkolenmijn, which is open to the public as a sort of mining museum. (As Nienhuys learned, however, one must be constantly skeptical: this “coal” mine is actually an old marl pit, centuries old, that was converted to a “model mine” in 1917.)

In addition to touring a mine to get a sense of the setting of mine ghost tales, we also visited the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, which conducts research on language and culture, including ethnology and folklore. There we met with senior researcher Theo Meder who helped us sort out versions of the Emma mine’s ghost tale.

The story is elaborated as a children’s adventure, Kaspar, by Pierre Heijboer, who was himself from the village of Hoensbroek where the Emma mine is located. In the story, Little Jo had just turned fifteen and had gone to work in the mine, even though his grandmother thought this work too dangerous for him. His job was to regulate the weather-doors, leather flaps that regulated air flow.

One day there were no coal cars, but as he sat there he was visited by an old man dressed in a miner’s clothes, wearing a beard, and using a walking stick. He told Jo his name was Kaspar and that he could determine who could see him and who could not. He took Jo through a hole into an old section of the mine that Kaspar said was his domain. Everywhere old supports had fallen and at one place Jo saw, sticking out, the bony hand of a miner who had been killed in a collapse. He also saw fossil trees of the type coal was made from, as well as bright crystals, and other sights. Although hours passed, he was not tired, thirsty, or hungry.

Meanwhile, Jo’s grandmother was worried because he had not returned, especially when she learned that his name-token—kept on a hook during working hours as a safety precaution—was missing. After two days, everyone had given up hope of ever finding him alive again, although his grandmother kept praying for his safe return.

Then on the third day, Jo reappeared. When asked to explain what had happened, he began by saying that no one would believe him. In fact, as his family rejoiced, mine officials had a doctor examine him, and a mine policeman accused him of deserting his post. The miners’ chaplain was also skeptical of his story, but his grandmother knew not to worry about him in the future because he was protected by “Kaspar, the mine ghost” (Meder 2005; 2006a).

Figure 2. Statue of the imagined Dutch boy whose finger, stuck in a leak in a dike, saved his town. (Photo by Joe Nickell)

Obviously, this narrative has a fairy-tale quality, not the least of which is its motif of passing through a hole into a mystical realm. (In Lewis Carroll’s 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for example, little Alice falls down a rabbit hole and into a strange land where everything occurs with fantastic illogicality.) Then there is the supernatural figure of Kaspar. Common to Dutch mine legends and myths, Kaspar is a sort of god of the underworld. He is generally malevolent, angry at humans who pillage his rich hoard of coal (Dieteren 1984, p. 33). So when miners arrived at work and found cracked supports, they would suggest, “Kaspar has been here,” or when a coffee can or sandwiches went missing they would suggest, “Well, Kaspar may have taken them” (Lemmens 1936, p. 62).

If the Emma-mine story is based on an actual event, it had to have occurred between 1913, when that mine first opened, and 1936, when a version of the tale appeared in a book of mine legends (Lemmens 1936, p. 77). Meder suggests (2006) that the boy may simply have wandered off, become lost, and fallen asleep, dreaming about the old man or inventing him to provide an alibi for himself.

Asked about haunted mines, our guide at Steenkolenmijn was very dismissive, saying that ghost stories were simply used to scare beginning workers. Even so, Nienhuys did turn up some illuminating tales of mine “ghosts.” One specter proved to be a miner who was covered in chalk, while another was a goat that had been surreptitiously released underground!

Still another tale, “the ghost in the mine wagon,” tells about a miner who was attempting to fraudulently change the tags on coal cars to give himself credit for greater production. Suddenly, his hand was grabbed—in one version by a ghost, in another by the supervisor who had hidden in one of the cars (Nienhuys 2006).

As all these folk narratives about mine ghosts indicate, they have less insight to provide about the reality of ghosts than about the storytellers’ desire to entertain or instruct within their own cultural environment.

Finger-in-the-Dike Tale

Another Dutch folktale is as well known to American tourists as it is otherwise obscure to Dutch folklorists. Americans learn it as children, an idyllic tale of a boy saving his town by plugging a leaking dike with his finger and so preventing a flood. Although not a paranormal tale, it is nonetheless an instructive one to skeptics.

Related in a text of 1865, it begins:

Many years ago, there lived in Haarlem, one of the principal cities of Holland, a sunny-haired boy of gentle disposition. His father was a sluicer, that is, a man whose business it was to open and close the sluices, or large oaken gates, that are placed at regular distances across the entrances of the canals, to regulate the amount of water that shall flow into them. . . .

One lovely autumn afternoon, when the boy was about eight years old, he obtained his parents’ consent to carry some cakes to a blind man who lived out in the country, on the other side of the dike. . . .

Returning home, the boy stopped to pick some flowers, but, with dark falling, his attention was drawn by the sound of water trickling. He quickly understood the danger: the dike had sprung a leak!

Quick as a flash, he saw his duty. Throwing away his flowers, the boy clambered up the heights until he reached the hole. His chubby little finger was thrust in, almost before he knew it. The flowing was stopped! Ah! he thought, with a chuckle of boyish delight, the angry waters must stay back now! Haarlem shall not be drowned while I am here!

But as night fell and the air became chilled, “Our little hero began to tremble with cold and dread.” Soon, not only was his finger tired, but his entire body began to fill with pain. When no one answered his cries for help, he called on God for assistance. “And the answer came, through a holy resolution: ‘I will stay here till morning.’” He suffered on, uncertain he could even draw away his finger if he wanted to. Then,

At daybreak a clergyman, returning from the bedside of a sick parishioner, thought he heard groans as he walked along on the top of the dike. Bending, he saw, far down on the side, a child apparently writhing with pain.

“In the name of wonder, boy,” he exclaimed, “What are you doing there?”

“I am keeping the water from running out,” was the simple answer of the little hero. “Tell them to come quick.” It is needless to add that they did come quickly. . . . (Dodge 1865)

It’s an inspiring little story. Unfortunately, Dutch folklorists do not know of the tale from oral tradition or even an old schoolbook, but rather from an American children’s novel published in 1865 by Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905) (Harmans 2005, p. 19). Titled Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, the novel presents the tale in a chapter titled “Friends in Need.” Immediately following the narrative, a character claims the story is “really true.” Another replies, “True, of course it is. I have given you the story just as Mother told it to me years ago. Why, there is not a child in Holland who does not know it.” But this may be no more than what literary scholars call verisimilitude (from the Latin veri similitudo, “resemblance to truth”), an often-used technique, or ploy, of fiction writers (Holman 1980, 459).

Still, another reason for thinking Dodge may have had a source for the finger-in-the-dike narrative is her abundant use of source material throughout the novel. This includes not only such works as Macaulay’s History of England (1849–61), Charles Mackay’s Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), and—since Dodge had not been to the Netherlands before writing her novel—various reference works reflecting Dutch art, science, and society. It also includes children’s literature like Clement Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (1823) and certain collections of fairy tales, including those by Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) and Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812–14). Indeed, the brother and sister in Dodge’s novel, Hans and Gretel, evoke the Grimm brothers’ fairy-tale siblings, Hänsel and Gretel.

Yet, if the statement were true that “there is not a child in Holland who does not know it,” why can no trace of it now be found earlier than Dodge’s 1865 text? My own search—aided by Center for Inquiry, Director of Libraries Timothy Binga—failed to turn up any antecedent of the finger-in-the-dike motif (neither a comprehensive Internet search, nor any other). Small wonder that Dutch folklorist Theo Meder (2006b) calls the boy in the tale “the Dutch hero that never was.”

Nevertheless, as a concession to American tourists, the Dutch Bureau for Tourism placed a statue of the imaginary lad at Spaarndam in 1950. Its inscription is in Dutch and English: “Dedicated to our youth, to honor the boy who symbolizes the perpetual struggle of Holland against the water” (see Figure 2). Although the boy has no name in Dodge’s narrative, he is now typically referred to by the name of the main character in the novel, Hans Brinker. (While in Spaarndam, I sampled a beer spoofingly called Hansje Drinker; its label pictured a boy using his finger to plug a leaking beer barrel.) In 1954, a Dutch author rewrote the Dodge narrative, and—in keeping with the location of the statue—relocated the adventure in Spaarndam (Meder 2006b).

In this way, what appears to have begun as a lighthearted example of American fakelore is slowly metamorphosing into a bit of Dutch verisimilitude.

References

• Conte, Ronald L. 2006. Claims of private revelation: True or false? Online at http://www.catholicplanet.com/apparitions/false01.htm accessed June 22, 2007.
• The Daily Miracle: The Eucharistic Experiences, A Summary. 2003. Amsterdam: The Lady of All Nations Foundation.
• Dieteren, Frans. 1984. Koale en eike (Coals and Oaks). Beijnsberger: Heythuysen; transl. excerpt provided by J.W. Nienhuys.
• Dodge, Mary Mapes. 1865. Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons; 1873 ed. Online at http://www.project
• gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/hboss10.txt; posted Dec. 1996; accessed October 29, 2006. (The first Dutch edition was published in 1876.)
• el-Fers, Mohammad. 2002. The seeress of Mary in Amsterdam. Groene Amsterdammer, June 29.
• Harmans, Gerard. M.L. 2005. Holland (Eyewitness Travel Guides). New York: DK Publishing.
• Holman, C. Hugh. 1980. A Handbook to Literature, fourth ed. Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill Company.
• Lemmens, Gerard. 1936. Mijnwerkersfolklore in Limburg. Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands: N.p.
• Meder, Theo. 2005. Details volksverhall, posted October 18. Online at http://www.beleven.org/verhalen/data/verhaal.php?id=6646 ; accessed July 2, 2007.
• —. 2006a. Personal communication, October 24.
• —. 2006b. Hans Brinker. Online at http://members.chello.nl/m.jong9map12/hansbrinker.html accessed October 29.
• The Messages of the Lady of All Nations. 1999. Amsterdam: The Lady of All Nations Foundation.
• Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.
• —. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
• —. 2001. Exorcism: Driving out the nonsense. Skeptical Inquirer 25:1 (January/February), 20–24.
• Nienhuys, Jan Willem. 2006. Personal communication (citing Lemmens 1936), December 10.
• Punt, Jozef Marianus. 2002. Statement as Bishop of Haarlem, May 31; in Sigl 2005, 4–5.
• Sigl, Fr. Paul Maria. 2005. Ida Peerdeman. Civitella del Tronto, Italy: Family of Mary.
• Stravinskas, Peter M. J. 2003. Catholic Dictionary. Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor.
• van der Ven, Pieter. 2002. Van half-gek tot zalig is maar een kleine stap (“From half-mad to beatified is just a small step”). Trouw, June 20.

Such flinty insights make one yearn for a present-day Mencken to have been at the trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education, a twenty-first century Monkey Trial, to launch a fusillade at the intellectual dishonesty that ran rampant in Judge John Jones’s courtroom. Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, is no Mencken, but his account of the trial in 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania is an entertaining and thoughtful look at a notable battle in America’s seemingly endless culture wars.

The book begins with a loose and often rambling journey through the events that led to the trial in late 2005. A decision by the Dover, Pennsylvania, Board of Education to purchase the creationist/intelligent design book Of Pandas and People to replace its aging biology textbook for use in ninth-grade science classes was met with strong resistance by two of its members and a group of eleven parents who united to sue with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. As the case progressed, more interested parties became attached to the case, and it grew to become, like the Scopes trial, a flashpoint for argument, a cause cél`ebre, a media event across the globe, and yet another referendum on the separation of church and state.

The three rings of this circus were filled with dozens of colorful performers, all of whom are profiled with an eye for telling detail (although that detail is too often a label as “eccentric”) and a large dose of compassion. Indeed, Chapman often comments about how likable the people he encounters are, even though one would think he would dislike them. Leading this category is former board member Bill Buckingham, a retired police and corrections officer who is the most pugnacious and belligerent of the bunch. He defiantly shouted during one of the board discussions over the textbook controversy, “Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can’t someone take a stand for him?” That his curriculum decisions and comments were made while addicted to OxyContin is not glossed over by Chapman. But when he interviews Buckingham during the trial, almost two years after his outrageous behavior that precipitated the conflict, he finds a broken-down man who has experienced the deaths of many family members, had two stints in detox, and contemplated suicide.

Chapman does not have trouble finding compassion for Buckingham but cannot find it in himself to have it for the other board members, and in a chapter titled “Bonsell and His Trinity of Loyal Women,” he gets in touch with his inner Mencken. He finds a particular distaste for one of the female board members whom he describes as a “woman who seemed to think—against all evidence—that everything she did and said was astoundingly adorable and funny” and who “fell squarely into the repellent category without mitigation.” Even the normally evenhanded Judge Jones became exasperated with her inability to answer questions clearly and stopped her from leaving the witness stand after questioning by attorneys in an attempt to clarify her opaque answers.

As the book progresses to the trial stage, its focus sharpens considerably, as does Chapman’s observations of the proceedings. His detailing of the slow and steady demolition of Michael Behe’s credibility as a scientist at the hands of the plaintiff’s lawyers, including the uncovering of documentation that indicates that his “landmark” theory of irreducible complexity was plagiarized from an article in the June 1994 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly written by Dr. Dick Bliss, is to be savored.

In some ways, Chapman is the polar opposite of Mencken: he is empathetic where Mencken is condemning, inquisitive where Mencken is barbed. His sensitivity, however, does not mean that the considerable dishonesty of the defendants and the damage done by their actions are slighted. The concluding chapter of the book effectively braids together the many threads of observation made by Chapman about the grave dangers of fundamentalism and irrationality.

While not as scholarly as Edward Humes’s recent Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul, Chapman’s book focuses on the human story behind the trial and succeeds at illuminating the emotional and ideological underpinnings of this legal and political event. Reading these two books along with Judge Jones’s masterfully written decision in the case provides a wide-ranging and thorough view of this generation’s own Scopes trial.

Have you visited a wine store recently? Something strange is afoot. The new fad in the vineyards is a practice called “biodynamic (BD) farming”: it’s big and getting noticed in the bottle. Newspaper ads now extol biodynamically grown wine next to organic wines for sale in stores. Trade and industry groups organize tastings of exclusively biodynamic wines. And dozens of wineries around the world have been certified biodynamic by the umbrella “Demeter” certification bodies. These include famous names such as France’s Zind-Humbrecht, Domaine Leroy, Coulée de Serrant, Château La Tour Figeac, Domaine Huët, and Chapoutier, as well as California’s Benziger and Fetzer. Indeed, according to the most complete published account of the practice so far, “Over 10 percent of France’s certified organic vineyard area is now Biodynamic” (Waldin 2004, p. 111).

In addition, two of the world’s most influential wine writers, Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson, have weighed in in favor of these wines.¹ Although both should be held in the highest regard for their integrity and knowledge of wine, without doubt, neither of them is in any way an expert on the biodynamic movement. They have, at times, expressed the desire to remain neutral. But, at other times, they show themselves all too ready to accept its pretensions.

Parker, arguably the most powerful and influential wine critic alive today, is a man whose yearly reviews help set the prices of each Bordeaux vintage. In his most recent book, he refers with clear affection to wineries that utilize biodynamic practices. For example, he extols Catherine and Sophie Armenier, owners of a Rhône Domaine, as “following the astrological/homeopathic writings of the famed German professor Rudolf Steiner” (Parker 2005, p. 380). In this context, it is perhaps no surprise that Parker has also publicly declared that he is himself applying biodynamic methods to part of the Beaux-Frères vineyard in Oregon that he owns along with his brother-in-law.²

England’s Robinson is one of the leading wine essayist of her generation. She is one of the few Masters of Wine in the world, with an armful of publication credits including the Oxford Companion to Wine and the World Atlas of Wine, dozens of awards, and hundreds of articles. She also has published claims that BD works (Robinson 2005).³ Confronted with a skeptical rejoinder, she responded, “If producers are happy with, if mystified by, the results-why not let them continue? Perhaps you could explain what harm they do.”⁴

She asks a fair question. To start with, what exactly is biodynamics? It is a method of organic agriculture admixed with some odd extras. These additional methods include taking into account cycles of the moon and relative positions of the zodiacal constellations when farming, as well as applying different sorts of homeopathic or esoteric “preparations” to the vineyard soil. These and other similar pretensions are set against a complex background cosmogony that makes the whole process not unlike a quasi-religious movement.

Steiner’s Fancies

Biodynamic winemaker Nicolas Joly holds a glass of Clos de la Coulee de Serrant January 17, 2006, as he stands beside a 16th-century wine press in Savennieres in the Anjou region of western France. Joly is seen as the patron saint of biodynamic winemaking. Photo credit: Frank Perry/AFP/GettyImages) [Photo via Newscom]

Biodynamics began with a series of lectures in June of 1924 by the Austrian occult philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Steiner had a vitalist vision of the universe in which “ethereal” qualities infuse raw matter in order to give it life; this distinguishes living things from mere amalgamations of chemicals, however complex. The potential conflict with modern biochemistry should be clear. At any rate, he saw his program reintroducing “spiritual” elements into farming. Indeed, his ideas were to create an entire crank “Spiritual Science” that would illuminate the connections between such spiritual properties as the “ethereal” or the “astral” and chemical elements like oxygen, sulphur, carbon, and nitrogen.⁵ For example, “the ethereal moves with the help of sulphur along paths of oxygen,” (Steiner 2004, p. 46). Needless to say, no experimentation was done to discover these “facts.” Throughout, Steiner used his favored methodology: armchair philosophizing and guesswork, which in his case he considered quite literally clairvoyant.

His agricultural lectures included a number of concrete suggestions for so-called preparations to be added to the field or compost, many done with one eye on the astrological star-charts. According to the present-day Demeter certification bodies, a farm can be labeled biodynamic simply by virtue of being organic and adding the preparations in sufficient quantities (Waldin 2004, p. 73). Hence, it would be good to return to the original treatise to investigate the preparations, and their accompanying justification, to see what they are and why they are prescribed.

Steiner’s agricultural lectures are, to put it mildly, not an easy read. They are marked by clear falsehoods, digressions, and odd fantasies. He recommends such techniques as combating parasites “by means of concentration, or the like” (Steiner 2004, p. 84). He says that certain insect pests are spontaneously created by “cosmic influences” (p. 115) and that eating potatoes “is one of the factors that have made men and animals materialistic” (p. 149). He tells us, “most of our illnesses arise” when our “astral body” is “connected more intensely with the physical (or with any one of its organs) than it should normally be” (pp. 116-17). In contrast, “in the true sense of the word a plant cannot be diseased”; plants only appear to be diseased when “Moon-influences in the soil . . . become too strong” (pp. 117-18). He also describes baroque fantasies of a human history that spanned “epochs . . . on the earth when such things were known and applied in the widest sense”⁶ (p. 120). And on and on, ad nauseam. It is good to keep this material in the back of our minds when considering his forays into agriculture.

Steiner proposes his “preparations” in lectures four and five: various small constructions to be added to the field or compost at various times of the year, such as the burial of a cow’s horn filled with manure (now called Preparation 500) or filled with powdered quartz (Preparation 501), burial of yarrow flowers in a stag’s bladder (502), chamomile in a cow’s intestine (503), oak bark in the skull of a domestic animal (505), or dandelions in a “bovine mesentery” (506) (Steiner 2004, pp. 72-99).

Adding the preparations can be a labor-intensive process, especially since some preparations must be done in quantity, depending on the size of one’s fields. Farmers may well wonder: why go to all the effort? What sort of justification does Steiner provide? Let us take the case of Preparation 502. Yarrow is used because, “Its homeopathic sulphur-content . . . enables the yarrow to ray out its influences to a greater distance and through large masses.” As for why we should put it in a stag’s bladder, Steiner gets to the heart of his discussion here:

The bladder of the stag is connected . . . with the forces of the Cosmos. Nay, it is almost the image of the Cosmos. We thereby give the yarrow the power quite essentially to enhance the forces it already possesses, to combine the sulphur with the other substances. (Steiner 2004, p.93)

Why the concern about sulphur in particular? We are expected to remember that “the ethereal moves with the help of sulphur along paths of oxygen” and the like. In other words, sulphur is a key ingredient for receipt of ethereal forces. Or so the story goes. But, at any rate, we don't need to test the reader’s patience with a complete exegesis to make clear that Steiner has given no justification whatever for this practice. Indeed, Preparation 502 is actually one of the better examples, since many of his others are simply stated without the slightest attempt at explication or justification. But it is all of a piece: in the preface to the book of agricultural lectures, written by one of Steiner’s pupils, we find the surprising claim that “In 1923 Rudolf Steiner described for the first time how to make the bio-dynamic compost preparations, simply giving the recipe without any sort of explanation-just 'do this and then that'” (p. 5). Apparently the explanations, such as they were, came later.

If these “preparations” are intended to fertilize the soil, other suggested biodynamic rituals are meant to rid the fields of pests and diseases. For weeds, insects, and rodent pests Steiner suggests the practice now referred to as “ashing.” Let us say we have a biodynamic farm and are plagued with field mice. Steiner directs us to “catch a fairly young mouse and skin it . . . at a time when Venus is in the sign of Scorpio” (p. 113). Then we are told to burn the skin and scatter the ash over our fields. Steiner assures us that “Henceforth, your mice will avoid the field.” Insects and weeds are treated in similar fashion, except that one does not need to skin (shell?) the insect: only “where there is spinal marrow, you must first skin the animal,” he sagely tells us (p. 121). Steiner doesn't ever clarify what the spinal marrow has to do with anything.

To rid biodynamic fields of plant diseases such as rot and mildew (or, since Steiner does not believe plants can be diseased, to rid them of his so-called Moon influence), Steiner suggests “a homeopathic dose” of horse tail (equisetum arvense) infused into water, diluted, and sprayed over the fields (p. 118).

With this list of practices, best described as rituals of a sort of agricultural voodoo, we are at the heart of biodynamics. For although they have been extended a bit by more modern believers, the practices still retain much of the flavor that Steiner intended. We encounter the same esoteric rituals intermixed with homeopathic dilutions and astrology when reading present-day accounts of biodynamics (Waldin 2004, Joly 1999, and Thun 2000). Indeed, if anything, biodynamic practices have gotten even more esoteric. Now we can also read about using “standing stones” to do “geo-acupuncture” in order to “restore the cosmo-telluric balance” of a vineyard, directed by “a specialist with the aid of a pendulum” (Chapoutier 2006).

It is perhaps superfluous to go through the arguments contradicting the effectiveness of such practices as homeopathy, astrology, or manipulations of esoteric energy fields. They have been debunked many times long before now. However, it does at least bear repeating that homeopathic doses are generally diluted by water until not a single molecule of the original material persists in solution. In other words, a “homeopathic dose” is most likely nothing but water. Although originally suggested as a cure for disease, extensive testing has shown that homeopathic cures perform no better than a placebo in humans (Ernst 2002 and Shang et al. 2005). And, while water may be of some obvious benefit to plants, it is unlikely to provide much of a cure for rot and mildew, Moon influence or no.

Research Findings

In reviewing the founding documents of biodynamics, one is not particularly reassured as to its bona fides. Biodynamics was not developed from any sort of trial-and-error experimentation or expert guidance. Indeed, the theory is barely comprehensible, relying as it does on a variety of strange, clearly false, and antiscientific claims. However, even so, the practice might work. The only way to know for sure is to do the actual research. Fortunately, such research has been carried out at a number of universities and laboratories around the world. Unfortunately, much of it is sloppily done, and published in not particularly well-regarded or even peer-reviewed journals.

Also unfortunately, many of the studies contrast biodynamic agricultural practices with standard, nonorganic agriculture. They go on to show that biodynamic agriculture does better than standard agriculture on some measures of soil fertility or biodiversity. These experiments prove nothing, since, as we have already seen, biodynamic agriculture must at least be organic. And it is uncontroversial that organic agriculture (shunning powerful artificial fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides) yields higher soil fertility and biodiversity than conventional agriculture.⁷ What we need is a clear comparison of biodynamic and organic agriculture.

Such a test was carried out by a Swiss group, in one of the most famous biodynamic studies ever performed (Mäder et al. 2002). This was a twenty-one-year study in which biodynamic agriculture appeared to edge out even organic agriculture on a small number of measures of soil fertility and biodiversity. However, the study was not without its problems: buried in the supplementary material-available online but not in the paper itself-are a number of caveats. Certain chemical treatments were added to the organic farms that were not added to the biodynamic ones. And these were only the “main differences.” We aren't told what the other differences might have been. So the test appears to have been poorly designed. It does not provide us with any principled answer as to whether the biodynamic treatments were truly effective, or, rather, whether the chemical additives (or something else that wasn't deemed a “main difference”) caused the organic plots to perform somewhat more poorly. The article was also criticized by one University of California at Davis microbiologist because it “looks at an 'incredibly narrow' range of ecological niches,” raising the question of whether they were cherry-picked to yield the desired result (Stokstad 2002).

Lynne Carpenter-Boggs and her thesis advisor, John Reganold, both at Washington State University, have done what is perhaps the most highly regarded scientific work on biodynamics. Reganold is a sometime biodynamic consultant to the California wine industry as well as a researcher on the subject. However, even he and his former student have been unable to unearth any real differences between organic and biodynamic practices. Indeed, Carpenter-Boggs has researched precisely the question of whether composts with biodynamic preparations improve soils to which they are added. The results? “No differences were found between soils fertilized with biodynamic vs. nonbiodynamic compost” (Carpenter-Boggs 2000).⁸ Reganold has said as much in a 2003 interview: research “didn't distinguish biodynamic from organic” (Darlington 2003). It could hardly be clearer.

A six-year study from the Washington State lab in 2005 was the first published in a peer-reviewed journal comparing biodynamic and organic agriculture with respect to wine grapes in particular. They found nothing. “No consistent significant differences were found between the biodynamically treated and untreated plots for any of the physical, chemical, or biological parameters tested” (Reeve et al. 2005, p. 371). Further, when they looked at the grape vines, “Analysis of leaves showed no differences between treatments. . . . There were no differences in yield, cluster count, cluster weight, and berry weight” (p. 373).⁹ So, careful research demonstrates that the labor-intensive biodynamic “preparations” are simply ineffective. Yet, according to the biodynamic certification body itself, they are the heart of the practice.

One may well ask whether a properly controlled test has been done to compare biodynamic versus nonbiodynamic wines themselves. However, it will not suffice to simply pull bottles off the shelf of each sort and put them into a lineup. There are too many variables between different finished wines. Even neighboring wineries may have quite different soil and subsoil, different microclimates, and use different farming techniques in the vineyards such as vine training, leaf pulling, and so on. Different winemakers will also tend to use different techniques to process their grapes into wine and store them in different manners, for example in different kinds of barrels or stainless steel, and so on. As a result, any such test would have to be done very carefully, being sure that the soils, grapes, and wines tested were equivalent in all other controllable respects except for the additional biodynamic preparations and techniques. This would, out of necessity, consist of a test between wines produced from organically farmed grapes.

What Harm?

To return to the question posed earlier-what harm does it do if a farmer or winemaker follows such practices? The easy answer is that it is a waste of time, money, and effort. Indeed, one reason that biodynamics has caught on in the wine industry, and practically nowhere else, is that wine is perhaps the agricultural product with the largest sales markup. Most agricultural products are commodities that roughly sell at their price of production. However, if a winemaker can convince the public that the wine he or she makes is some of the best stuff out there, he or she can charge upwards of $50 or $100 for a bottle of what is, in essence, fermented grape juice. Such a markup can pay for the onerous biodynamic overhead of labor, assuming that the marketing is done properly. But, still and all, it appears to be wasted effort, and those who persist in it appear more and more as New Age acolytes.

That said, our critical attitude toward the esoteric aspects of biodynamics does not interfere with our appreciation of many of its wines. Many biodynamic winemakers are indeed talented. The problem resides in the extension of disbelief in empirical technique, and in substituting for it beliefs in unscientific practices like astrology and homeopathy, as well as voodoo-style rituals and even “geo-acupuncture.” We must confront this problem, not just as wine lovers and wine writers, but also as citizens who do not wish to live in, nor present to our children, a society in which pseudoscience and esoteric fantasies are considered reality. Irrational thinking, or reliance on mystical gurus with claims of clairvoyant intuition, does great harm to society. The best research studies to date have not found any distinction between biodynamics and the organic agriculture of which it is a part. The esoterica, it seems, add nothing. And we, as supporters of clarity and rationalism, are dismayed by the disconnect between belief and research. Our hope is that one day, under the clear light of understanding, better-grounded winemakers will dispense with biodynamics for good. Let us raise a glass to reason, and to that day.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Linda Chalker-Scott, Associate Professor and Extension Horticulturalist, Puyallup Research and Extension Center, Washington State University, for her gracious assistance.

Notes

1. In fact, three have. Matt Kramer has also recently written in favor of biodynamics in his regular column for Wine Spectator magazine, the largest circulation wine publication in the world. (See Kramer 2006:42).
2. Available at http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=62593&page=2. Parker does not like to mention his vineyard in public to reduce any appearance of conflict of interest. In this case, he resorts to coy punctuation symbols. Note that the standard abbreviation for biodynamics is “BD.” “We [who] use BD on a part of @%^&# with the balance farmed organically . . . tend to agree with those who argue that it is not some clever marketing tool but rather a farmer’s quest for producing better and healthier fruit and hopefully better wine . . . many top estates in the world actually operate their vineyards in similar fashion but just don't get too carried away in boasting about it. . . .”
3. The article, written for a publication in Spain, includes such claims as: “they have determined that biodynamics 'works,'” “these practices . . . procure excellent enological results.”
4. E-mail communication, December 24, 2005. A similar rejoinder was made by Robert Carroll of the Skeptic’s Dictionary when asked for help in confronting biodynamic practices, on May 2, 2000. See http://skepdic.com/comments/mooncom.html: “Frankly, if they make good wine, I don't care if they use astrology or consult James Van Praagh for advice.”
5. Steiner’s attempts at creating a “Spiritual Science” should remind some of us of the excesses displayed in the recent intelligent design (ID) controversy. E.g., “It is ID’s project to change the ground rules of science to include the supernatural” (Kitzmiller 2005:30).
6. Steiner actually constructed an entire historical fantasy of early humanity, including the so-called Atlantean and Lemurian races, and an account of the division into the sexes. (According to Steiner, humanity began as a sexless species.) Material from this history was supposedly secret and channeled “on the basis of direct spiritual perception” which he considered more reliable than “historical documentation” or “external evidence” (Steiner 1959). See, e.g., http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA011/CM/GA011_c02.html.
7. There is also a side issue as to whether it is possible for a conventional farm to use artificial treatments judiciously enough that it could be indistinguishable from organic on all the same measures.
8. Carpenter-Boggs also wrote: “These data support earlier findings that organic fertilization rapidly benefits microbial biomass and activity, but provide few indications that the biodynamic compost and field sprays [that is, the 'preparations'] further affect soil microbial mass, community structure, or activity in the long term.”
9. Their group actually went to some trouble to find variables in which the biodynamic grapes came out ahead. For example, they claimed to find evidence that the nonbiodynamic grapes were “overcropped” (producing too much fruit). Their choice of citation for this data is a highly questionable and nonpeer-reviewed Web page; other peer-reviewed documents fail to support their contention that a yield to pruning weight of 5:1 to 6:1 is appropriate. (See, e.g., Moulton et al. 2005, p. 11.) At any rate, they do in the final analysis conclude that “The differences observed were small and of doubtful practical significance” (Reeve et al., 2005:374).

References

• Barquín, Jesús, and Douglass Smith. 2006. On fertile ground? Objections to biodynamics. The World of Fine Wine. (12: 108-113).
• Carpenter-Boggs, Lynne, A.C. Kennedy, and J.P. Reganold. 2000. Organic and biodynamic management: effects on soil biology. Soil Science Society of America Journal 64(5) (Sept/Oct): 1651-1659.
• Chalker-Scott, Linda. 2004. The Myth of Biodynamic Agriculture. Available at http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/%7ELinda%20ChalkerScott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Biodynamic%20agriculture.pdf. September.
• Chapoutier, Michel. The Influence of Geo-acupuncture on Viticulture. Chapoutier - Research and Development. Available at http://www.
  chapoutier.com/chapoutier/gb/r_d/geo_acuponcture.html). Accessed January, 2006.
• Darlington, David. 2003. Horns of plenty. San Francisco Chronicle, p. D-1. September 25.
• Ernst, Edzard. 2002. A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 54(6): 577-82.
• Joly, Nicolas. 1999. Wine from Sky to Earth. Austin, Texas: Acres U.S.A.
• Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. 2005. 04cv2688 342. Available at: http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf
• Kramer, Matt. 2006. Why I buy bio. Wine Spectator. Oct. 31.
• Mäder, Paul, A. Fliessbach, D. Dubois, L. Gunst, P. Fried, and U. Niggli. 2002. Soil Fertility and Biodiversity in Organic Farming. Science. 296 pp. 1694-1697. Supporting online material at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/296/5573/1694/DC1/1
• Moulton, G.A., and J. King. 2005. Growing wine grapes in maritime western Washington. Washington State University Extension Bulletin. WSU-NWREC, 16650 S.R. 536. Available at: http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb2001/eb2001.pdf
• Parker, Robert M., Jr. 2005. The World’s Greatest Wine Estates: a Modern Perspective. New York: Simon & Schuster, New York.
• Reeve, Jennifer, Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, John Reganold, Alan York, Glenn McGourty, and Leo McCloskey. 2005. Soil and winegrape quality in biodynamically and organically managed vineyards. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture. 56(4): 367-76.
• Robinson, Jancis. 2005. La religión de lo “bio.” Sibaritas 50 (October/
  November): 8-9.
• Shang, Aijing, et al. 2005. Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy. The Lancet (366): 726-32.
• Steiner, Rudolf. 1959. Cosmic Memory. New York: Rudolf Steiner Publications, Inc. Also available online at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA011/CM/GA011_index.html.
• Steiner, Rudolf. 2004. Agriculture Course: The Birth of the Biodynamic Method. Forest Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press.
• Stokstad, Eric. 2002. Organic farms reap many benefits. Science. (296):1589.
• Thun, Maria. 2000. Gardening for Life-The Biodynamic Way: A Practical Introduction to a New Art of Gardening, Sowing, Planting, Harvesting. Stroud, UK: Hawthorn Press.
• Waldin, Monty. 2004. Biodynamic Wines. London: Mitchell Beazley.
  

Captured! is the second major book published about the Hill case this year, which itself is rather surprising. The first volume was Encounters at Indian Head, the proceedings of a once-secret symposium held in 2000, in which I participated (see my report, SI, September/October 2007). Kathy Marden is Betty Hill’s niece and now the executor of her estate. What is more surprising is that Stanton Friedman, known throughout the UFO community for his querulous bombast and immense ego is, despite being given top billing on the cover, in fact the junior author. The book’s Library of Congress entry lists Marden as the primary author. Friedman writes in the preface, “I was especially pleased that Kathy Marden invited me to help out some on this book.” That is no doubt the reason the book is of relatively temperate tone (except for the chapter on skeptics, which carries Friedman’s fingerprints). Marden at least attempts to deal with the arguments of skeptics and other critics, even if many of the answers she gives do not convince. She admits to the existence of certain inconsistencies and difficulties in the story, issues that never seem to have troubled Friedman.

The book’s primary strength is the wealth of new details about Betty and Barney Hill from several sources: Betty’s previously unpublished diary and correspondence, additional quotes from the tapes of the Hills under hypnosis by Dr. Benjamin Simon, plus interviews giving her friends’ and family’s memories of what transpired, including Kathy’s own. Because of this, we see a much richer picture of the Hills than previously available. Our knowledge of Barney especially is fleshed out. We learn that prior to undergoing hypnosis, while Barney was recounting his alleged alien encounter, his face “kept twitching spasmodically to one side.” The picture of Barney that emerges is that of a man under enormous pressure: “The long daily commute to his job in Boston, the necessity of sleeping during daylight hours, his physical separation from his sons,” not to mention the social stigma of a black man in an almost all-white state married to a white woman. All of this took a toll on his health. Is this information relevant to an analysis of Barney’s claimed extraterrestrial experiences? Absolutely, but what exactly does it enable us to conclude? If only the laws governing human behavior were as predictable as those of chemistry or physics!

One major problem in telling the story of the Hills’ adventure is that Marden freely mingles the Hills’ original account with details later supposedly “recovered” by hypnosis. This makes the case sound far stronger than it actually was. For a more careful recounting of the Hill story in its proper sequence, see Dennis Stacy’s paper in the Encounters volume.

One surprise disclosed in the book is “The Dress Analysis.” In a chapter that brings to mind the Bill Clinton investigations, Marden reveals that Betty, upon returning home after her alleged abduction experience, hung up the dress she had been wearing in a closet and left it there, undisturbed, for many years. The lining and zipper are torn, supposedly confirming her account of the aliens forcibly removing it from her, although a number of earthly explanations also come to mind. After a hypnosis session in 1964, she retrieved the dress from the closet and found it covered with a pink, powdery substance. The substance blew away, but “the dress was badly stained.” Samples from the dress were sent to various labs for testing. Several tests unsuccessfully attempted were made to try to replicate the stain using various chemicals, which is supposed to convince us that the discoloration is extraterrestrial in origin, although acid produced a similar stain of a different color. Also detected were “substances with detergent-type properties (not soap).” The most interesting analyses were conducted by the Pinelandia Biophysics Laboratory of Michigan, which specializes in the analysis of crop circles. They found that the stained portions of Betty’s dress would “induce a higher degree of energy in the water” than the unstained ones. No mention is made of just what kind of “energy” is being talked about. Marden concludes that the results “seem to point to the presence of an anomalous biological substance that has permanently altered the substance of Betty’s dress.” I would expect that an item of clothing left undisturbed in a closet for forty years would pick up all manner of interesting biological substances from insects, spiders, mites, mold, bacteria, etc.

Once again, the “star map” Betty Hill allegedly saw on board the UFO is trotted out as “proof” of the story. Selecting sun-like stars from the latest catalog of nearby stars, Marjorie Fish spent many long hours looking for a pattern that matches the sketch Betty Hill drew by posthypnotic suggestion, supposedly replicating a map she had seen aboard the saucer. After much effort, she believed she had found one. The controversy over the star map is so complex that it is impossible to cover in detail here. The detailed counter-argument is in my paper in the Encounters volume, arguments routinely ignored by Friedman, Marden, and all other pro-star-map writers. In brief, it is necessary to “fudge” the data to make the Fish map come out the way it does. One “favorable” star needs to be excluded, and two “almost favorable” stars selectively included, for Fish’s purpose. My conclusion was, “The apparent validity of the Fish map is due to selective inclusion of data and by misdrawing the map to make it appear to match Betty Hill’s sketch.” Perhaps the simplest and most telling argument against the Fish map was made by astronomers Steven Soter and Carl Sagan back in 1975, who pointed out that the apparent resemblance between the two patterns exists almost entirely because of the way the lines are drawn connecting the dots. View the two patterns as unconnected dots, and they appear as different as two patterns can be.

Another problem for the star map believers, for the most part ignored, is that the supposed “match” of Marjorie Fish is not unique. To date, there have been at least four other supposed identifications of the pattern. One is by Betty Hill herself, depicting the constellation Pegasus. A second is by Charles Atterberg depicting nearby stars, but different ones than Fish uses. A third is by two German UFOlogists, who attempt to match it up with our solar system’s major and minor planets. A fourth is by Yari Danjo, who finds the aliens’ home star system to be Alpha Centauri. Marden dismisses Betty’s Pegasus map as “only a coincidence” and dismisses Atterberg’s work as lacking “the solid basis found by Fish.” Actually, Atterberg’s pattern is much closer to Betty’s sketch than the Fish pattern, and accounts for a greater number of stars. The lesson of the star map? Given an almost unlimited number of degrees of freedom in selecting what you will include in your search, what scale you will use, and what vantage point you will take, it is to be expected that quite a number of apparent matches to Betty’s pattern can be found if one is willing to expend enough effort to do so.

The most contentious chapter of the book is titled “Disbelievers and Disinformants.” UFOlogists are convinced that anyone questioning their claims is likely paid to spread disinformation. We are told that the late astronomer and skeptic Donald H. Menzel of Harvard was “probably a member of the Majestic 12 Group controlling classified UFO research” (a supposed group whose existence is “revealed” in some documents of unknown origin that are almost certainly hoaxes). We are informed that “the Hill case in general, and the star map work in particular, have been attacked, sometimes viciously and almost always irrationally, by the small group of nasty, noisy, negativists making up the UFO debunker community.” This sort of rhetoric is commonplace within the UFO community (in addition to being Betty Hill’s niece, Marden is a longtime MUFON official)—those promoting that the claims of extraterrestrial contact and abduction are “scientific” while those trying to refute them are “irrational.” She accuses skeptics of resisting the UFO evidence for the same reason that the Church resisted Copernicus: it would upset their rigid, preconceived worldview. Objections based on the impossibility of faster-than-light travel are refuted by pointing out that if you are traveling at 99.99 percent of the speed of light, you could reach Zeta Reticuli in just six months of elapsed time on a craft. No mention is made of the enormous amount of fuel needed to accelerate to, and decelerate from, these speeds (or of the fact that you must also accelerate to 99.99 percent of the speed of light all the fuel needed for deceleration, unless you want a one-way ticket out of the galaxy!).

Barney Hill did not live long enough to become a widely known personality in the UFO subculture. He died suddenly of a stroke in 1969 at the age of only forty-six. Thus, it is difficult to make an independent assessment of his credibility. Betty Hill, however, lived to a ripe old age and became one of the best-known figures in the UFO community, a constant fixture on TV shows, at UFO conferences, etc. Whatever credibility she may have once had soon perished by her own hand. I was present at the National UFO Conference in New York City in 1980, at which Betty presented some of the UFO photos she had taken. She showed what must have been well over two hundred slides, mostly of blips, blurs, and blobs against a dark background. These were supposed to be UFOs coming in close, chasing her car, landing, etc. Marden includes several of these photos in the book. After her talk had exceeded about twice its allotted time, Betty was literally jeered off the stage by what had been at first a very sympathetic audience. This incident, witnessed by many of UFOlogy’s leaders and top activists, removed any lingering doubts about Betty’s credibility—she had none. In the oft-repeated words of one UFOlogist who accompanied Betty on a UFO vigil in 1977, she was “unable to distinguish between a landed UFO and a streetlight.” In 1995, Betty Hill wrote a self-published book, A Common Sense Approach to UFOs. It is filled with obviously delusional stories, such as seeing entire squadrons of UFOs in flight and a truck levitating above the freeway.

Marden attempts to deal with the credibility problem in her final chapter, “Betty Hill’s Fall From Grace.” She explains, “After Barney’s death, [Betty] turned away from careful, objective evaluation, and with subjective enthusiasm began to identify any lights in the sky as UFOs.” However, the newly published material in Captured! suffices to refute this excuse. Betty Hill wrote in a letter dated April 4, 1966: “Barney and I go out frequently at night for one reason or another. Since last October, we have seen our ‘friends’ on the average of eight or nine times out of every ten trips, outside of Portsmouth. . . . Last Saturday Barney and I decided to retrace our trip in the White Mountains, as of September 1961, but this time my parents were with us. As we were returning through the Franconia Notch in the general area of the tramway and Cannon Mountain, one [UFO] moved around the mountain about fifty feet from the ground, in front of us. Its lights dimmed out and we could see the row of windows before it became invisible.” This latter sighting, which would have been April 2, 1966, sounds very much like the reported pre-abduction close encounter of 1961: a UFO with lights and a row of windows flying at low altitude in front of their car and going behind the White Mountains. The believers in the Hills’ account must somehow argue that Betty and Barney’s reported multiple UFO encounters in 1965 and 1966 are delusional and should be quietly dismissed, while the first one in 1961 must be taken with deadly seriousness. Occam’s razor would have us conclude that all of Betty Hill’s reported UFO encounters, with or without Barney present, are equally delusional.

One factor to keep in mind is that we know today far better than we did in the 1960s, that supposed “repressed memories” recovered via hypnosis are extremely unreliable. In the absence of any real physical evidence, the case for believing the Hill abduction story ultimately rests on the credibility of the witnesses, and on the credibility of the hypnosis-recovered memories. Neither inspires confidence.

In a new book on autism, Roy Richard Grinker (a professor of anthropology at George Washington University and himself the parent of an autistic daughter) examines the disease from a social and anthropological perspective. Here is an interview based on his book Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism.

How did you first become interested in the subject of autism?

I wear two hats. I am an anthropologist and the father of a child with autism. So, as autism awareness grew, more and more people said, “So you’re an anthropologist, what does autism look like in other cultures? Is the prevalence the same as it is here? What do people do about it?” I wrote Unstrange Minds so that people can see that autism is universal and that autism awareness is increasing everywhere in the world. But the most important reason for writing the book—though this was not my original intention—was to tell the world a simple message: the increase in autism diagnoses is not a crisis but rather evidence that we’re finally beginning to address a kind of human difference that has for too long been misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and mismanaged. More than six decades after autism was first described by Leo Kanner, we’re finally getting it right, and counting it right.

Why do you challenge the idea that autism is an epidemic?

Because so many Americans and Europeans are in a panic that there is a true epidemic, and that if there is an epidemic there must be some new, identifiable cause out there somewhere to be found and eradicated. I thought I could articulate some of the cultural and scientific reasons behind the increase in rates and give a positive message: the higher rates are due to positive changes in the way we understand and treat neurological and psychiatric disorders.

If autism is not an epidemic, how did it come to be viewed as one?

Autism became viewed as an epidemic for the same reason there have been fears of epidemics of other illnesses: there is a dramatic increase in prevalence. But prevalence is just the number of cases counted at a particular point in time and is not evidence of true increases in a disease. The same happened with melanoma and prostate cancer. There were huge increases in prevalence in those diseases, because they were being diagnosed so much more (skin cancer, due to increased awareness and more biopsies of early stage cancers; prostate cancer because of the invention of the PSA blood test, as opposed to the painful method of inserting a tool through the tip of the penis all the way to the prostate). It really is confusing to see diagnosis rates of three or four in ten thousand twenty years ago change to rates of 1 in 150. On the surface it sounds frightening.

So it’s the public’s lack of understanding about the methodology?

I think scientists have not done a good job of explaining to the public that comparing these rates is like comparing apples and oranges. The rates in, say, 1980, were derived using a narrow definition of autism and using administrative statistics (mostly numbers of kids enrolled in programs under the category of “autism”) at a time when autism was not a popular diagnosis. Today’s rates are derived using a very broad definition of autism (people from the severely mentally retarded to people who marry and hold jobs and may even be college professors) and using reliable and valid measurements that have only recently been developed.

In Korea, where I’m doing an epidemiological study, we cannot even try to use administrative statistics, because autism is unpopular as a diagnosis. If you used the enrollment figures, you’d think autism was almost nonexistent in Korea. Yet, we’re finding rates not out of line with the rest of the world. Second, the increased awareness has meant that people see autism more—the decreased stigma has helped too, since people don’t hide their kids anymore. So it feels like an epidemic. But a feeling is different from science.

So what accounts for the apparent increase in the prevalence of autism?

They are described carefully in my book: new epidemiological methods yield many more cases; a much larger number of people are being diagnosed with autism today because autism is a spectrum that can include the profoundly mentally retarded person but also a brilliant scientist; more and more physicians are giving the diagnosis and then kids are being coded in the school system with autism (some epidemiologists who do records-based research then rely on the school records for their information); people who were once called mentally retarded or schizophrenic or a host of other things are now being diagnosed with autism. There is no single factor among all of these that trumps the others, but I think the least understood is the change in epidemiological methods.

What do you think are the biggest misconceptions that the public has about autism?

One misconception is that we need to have an “epidemic” to call attention to a disorder. Some parents and philanthropic organizations have called me a traitor and accused me of betraying the autism community. On the one hand, I don’t agree with the way philanthropic organizations have fueled the fears of an epidemic. An epidemic is a useful fiction for fundraising. On the other hand, the organizations do so much for autism awareness, research, and services that sometimes I feel a little guilty, as if by telling the truth some people might be less likely to give money. But that guilt is fleeting.

The reality is that (1) the higher rates mean that autism is a bigger public health issue than we ever realized; and (2) there is nothing mutually exclusive about saying there’s no epidemic and at the same saying that we’ve finally figured out what’s going on with people on the autism spectrum, and we need more research and services. I recently received an e-mail from a parent who decried my stance: “How can you say there is no epidemic of autism?” she wrote. “When I was in school, there were no kids with special needs in my school. Today, in my daughter’s school there are dozens.” Actually, that is my point. In the past autistic people were not included in our schools. Today they are. And that’s a very good thing.

Another big misconception is that autism is somehow new. I am frequently asked: If there is no epidemic, then where are all the adults with autism? The answer is easy, but also complicated. Finding adults with autism is very hard, not because they do not exist but because they are dispersed in our society. Some live in group homes, others in institutions, others are living and working among us in our everyday lives. Kids are easy to count because they are all in school, neatly recorded in school records. But adults are a different story. Counting adults with autism would be like trying to count adults with speech and language disorders. You can count kids, but where would we find the adults? So many people with speech and language disorders don’t get speech services as adults—they’ve learned to adjust, adapt, and manage. No one “missed” or “ignored” autistic people in the past. They were just called something else, or in some cases (like people with Asperger’s) called nothing at all.

An additional misconception is that an environmental factor equals an environmental toxin. Environment probably plays some very small role in causing autism, but environment can mean everything in the world, from chemicals, to our diet and way of life. No environmental factor has yet been identified by scientists to account for autism, let alone changes in autism prevalence. Looking for environmental factors in autism at this stage in our knowledge is really like looking for needles in haystacks.

Why do you think the news media have engaged in such misleading and alarmist coverage about autism?

Fear, panic, and deep parental concern get a lot of attention. Compare the two messages: “There’s an epidemic and we don’t know what is causing it!” and “More people are being diagnosed with autism today because we understand it better.” Plus, autism in the news is usually about autism in children (despite the fact that autistic children grow into adults), and children are very engaging as television, radio, and newspaper subjects. Advocacy by organizations whose membership is convinced there is an epidemic caused by an environmental toxin has been well funded and supported by politicians, especially by politicians in the states with the most autism services (and hence, because of those services, the highest rates of diagnosis).

What has been the reaction to your book, both by medical professionals and by parents of autistic children?

The scientific community, from what I can tell so far, supports my work strongly (e.g., reviews in Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine). Much of what I’m saying about the reasons for the so-called epidemic has been said before in scientific journals. What I’ve done is to put all those arguments together and place them in a larger context of American social change in a way that is accessible to a wide audience. The fact that the book is being reviewed in both scientific journals and in the popular press, such as People magazine, is an indication to me that I’ve succeeded in reaching a large readership. Among parents of children with autism, the reception has been mixed. Many, many parents find Unstrange Minds to be inspiring because I talk about how many families in the world have turned something potentially devastating into something uplifting and rewarding. Others have sent me hate mail and left angry telephone messages on my answering machine at work. I have been called every kind of name.

What does the science suggest are the causes of autism?

There are probably several different kinds of autism caused by several different genetic pathways. There may be, in total, several dozen different genes involved. Scientists at Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory in New York have generated one of the most interesting genetic models, suggesting that some cases are heritable, but usually over the span of a couple of generations through a nonaffected carrier, and other cases are de novo mutations. But the bottom line is: it is largely genetic, so much so that environment probably plays [only] a small role. One way scientists estimate the role of genetics in a certain disorder is to look at concordance of that disorder in identical twins, that is, two people with identical DNA. The concordance, or percentage of people with identical DNA who both suffer from an autism spectrum disorder, is as high as 90 percent in some studies. That’s higher than the concordance for coronary artery disease, depression, or breast cancer. Then, when the scientists look at fraternal twins, who don’t have the same DNA, they find a concordance as low as 0 percent and as high as 10 percent. That makes ASD strongly genetic.

If autism is partly genetic, should there be prenatal testing to determine if a fetus is autistic?

That is a huge ethical question, but perhaps it’s premature. We know that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, breast cancer, and many other disorders have a strong genetic component, but they cannot be tested for in the womb. Multigenic complex disorders are very different from, say, Down syndrome, which is an identifiable mutation in which there is extra genetic material (a twenty-first chromosome), so it can be tested for. Autism is a totally different kind of condition.

In explaining how disease diagnosis is culturally dependent, you draw from many cultures and countries, including the Navajo and family lines in China and Peru. What are two of the most vivid examples in your mind?

The Korean case is one of the most fascinating to me. This is a country in which scientists and doctors and government officials have said that autism is a rare or nearly nonexistent disorder in Korea. The school and clinic records support that contention, because one seldom finds any mention of anyone with “autism.” Autism, when it is diagnosed, is highly stigmatizing because it is seen as a genetic disorder. If a disorder is genetic, the family feels that the entire family is damaged, and this brings shame and stigma. So parents would rather see themselves as bad parents who caused autism in their child through bad parenting than see the disorder as genetic. This is the opposite of what happened in the U.S., where mothers and fathers used to be blamed, but we now see the disorder as genetic. At any rate, I went into Korea with a team of epidemiologists and psychiatrists and psychologists, and we have screened thirty thousand kids and done extensive testing. And we’re finding lots of autism. The kids just are not called autistic. They are undiagnosed or diagnosed with something else. So, in Korea, we’re seeing a culturally different version of what has already happened in the U.S. and higher prevalence rates in Korea are on their way: not because autism is new as a condition, but because autism is new as a concept.

The list of licensed and recommended vaccines has been growing, and not just for infants and children. There are now schedules from professional societies, such as the

American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and public agencies (e.g., the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–CDC and most state health departments) that indicate what vaccines should be given and when for adolescents, adults, and specific vulnerable populations.

The considerable focus on vaccines and their safety in our information-overloaded society is not surprising, with a surplus of articles in magazines, books, parenting guides, and on the Internet, and stories on radio and television. While these occasionally highlight the benefits of immunization, “No One Got Sick or Died from a Vaccine-Preventable Disease Today” is not a very exciting story, so more often the emphasis in the media is on speculation that a vaccine caused a health problem. Furthermore, the widespread availability of litigation and liberal tort in the U.S. has encouraged lawsuits claiming harm from vaccines. Finally, it’s human nature to assume cause and effect when something bad happens, so a vaccination is an attractive target when administered before the onset of a medical condition.

Unfortunately, most of the public receives a lot of health information from lay sources rather than their physicians. Professional knowledge of immunization is grounded in science—microbiology, immunology, epidemiology, and statistics. Vaccines are licensed by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) only when proven safe and effective. Recommendations for use are promulgated by committees of scientific experts composed of academics, clinicians, and other caregivers who are passionately devoted to our citizens’ health and safety. The committees’ conclusions, and the rationale for them, are shared with practicing physicians, who are the most reliable source of information for patients. This process is the foundation that has led to the conclusion that licensed vaccines are safe, and the fears that vaccines are harmful are unfounded.

Nevertheless, to address these unfounded fears, these and other groups of scientific experts have undertaken investigations to determine possible relationships between vaccines and autism, asthma, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, SIDS, and other diseases. No studies have yet established a causal link between vaccines and these diseases. For example:

• Does hepatitis B vaccine cause SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)? Looking at the numbers of doses of the former administered and cases of the latter, one would conclude the opposite, that hepatitis B vaccine prevents SIDS, since 90 percent of U.S. children have received hepatitis B vaccine, and SIDS cases have dropped dramatically in the past decade (probably due to the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] recommendation that infants sleep on their backs).
• Does MMR vaccine cause autism? This question received extraordinary attention after it was raised in an article in The Lancet in 1998, by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and colleagues. The co-authors and The Lancet both have since retracted the article and its conclusions, and Wakefield is currently on trial in the U.K. for conflict of interest at the time of its publication. (He was on retainer from lawyers suing for vaccine damages.) More important, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) expert panel evaluated the issue and concluded that the evidence favored rejection of a connection between autism and MMR vaccine. Fourteen epidemiologic studies have been performed, all demonstrating the absence of a relationship between increased rates of autism and frequency of use of MMR vaccine. It is unfortunate that the speculation of a relationship between MMR vaccine and autism has resulted in the occurrence of vaccine-preventable diseases (especially measles) in children whose parents refused to allow them to receive the vaccine and has diverted attention from research into the real causes of autism, which has been shown to have prenatal origins.
• Is thimerosal a cause of neurologic abnormalities, including autism? The preservative thimerosal, consisting of ethyl mercury, was used in multi-dose vaccine vials. At present, most infancy and childhood vaccines are supplied in single-dose vials, and all such routine vaccines are thimerosal-free. Studies to answer this question, including five epidemiologic surveys, came to the same conclusion as the MMR vaccine–autism analyses, that there is not a relationship. A pivotal study at the University of Rochester quantifying thimerosal in childhood vaccines stated that administration of vaccines containing thimerosal does not seem to raise blood concentrations of mercury above safe levels in infants.

Many of us recall that only two generations ago we had schoolmates who limped or had withered arms due to the paralytic polio they were infected with. That disease is now extinct in the U.S. because of the universal use of polio vaccine. During my training, I cared for children made deaf from measles, infants blind and retarded from rubella, and those who died from bacteria like pneumococcus and meningococcus. With vaccination, those conditions no longer occur. As a physician in my early years of practice, the threat of infection with bacteria called Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) loomed large for my patients and their families, the outcomes of brain damage or death being distinct possibilities. A vaccine was invented, adopted as policy, and given to U.S. infants and children. I’m pleased to say I no longer worry about Hib infection.

Despite scientific proof and a long track record of vaccine safety, we see public policy based on junk beliefs, misinformation, fear, and mass hysteria. In 2006, a number of legislative bodies passed, and executives signed, bills prohibiting use of vaccines containing thimerosal. From a practical perspective, these restrictions mean little, since all but a few influenza vaccines do not contain thimerosal. But such policies send a bad message: that the vaccines that have virtually eradicated many diseases, constituting one of the greatest public health accomplishments of the past century, are dangerous. Furthermore, these policies denigrate our informed medical and scientific communities. This is a disservice to our citizens and endangers us all.