Efthimiou and Gandhi describe a zombified patient who had been studied by a Haitian doctor. This patient came to their attention through a 2002 television documentary. The original article contained several errors in the description of the brain scan that was illustrated on page 33. The authors corrected these errors in their reply to letters to the editor regarding the article (Efthimiou and Gandhi 2007b). There are, however, a few more problems in the original paper that need clarification. On page 33, the authors claim that patients suffering from TTX poisoning are sometimes certified as dead but wake up just before burial. This is surely an extraordinary claim, but the authors do not provide a single reference to any such case.

Also on page 33, they state that the body of someone suffering from TTX poisoning will “show signs of rigor mortis and even produce the odor of rot.” Here they confuse paralysis with rigor. As will be described in detail later, the effect of TTX is to block nerve impulses. These impulses are necessary to enable muscles to contract. In the absence of these impulses, patients are unable to move their muscles. But their muscles are not rigid; they are instead limp or flaccid. There are conditions that result in rigid muscles, but these are caused by too many, rather than too few, nerve impulses.

The claim that TTX produces the “odor of rot” is one I have not come across before. It might be the result of the anal sphincter losing tone and thus causing the patient to defecate involuntarily. However, I have enough experience in the autopsy room to know the difference between the smell of feces and a decomposing corpse. Presum­ably, Efthi­­miou and Gandhi have not had these happy experiences.

Efthimiou and Gandhi argue, as did Davis earlier (Davis 1985), that zombification could “easily be caused deliberately by the voodoo sorcerer, say, who could slip the dose into someone’s food or drink.” This claim is implausible. The amount of TTX in puffer fish flesh varies as a function of fish sex, species, and time of year, as well as the anatomical location of the flesh (Kaku and Meier 1995). Further, the effect of any drug on an individual varies as a function of the individual’s age, sex, state of health, body weight, experience with related drugs, and numerous other variables. Even experienced physicians find it difficult to prescribe the correct dosage of drugs to patients who vary on these characteristics as all human beings do. And these are drugs produced to exacting specifications so the physician knows the exact dose the patient will receive. This is a bit different from a bunch of ground up, dead fish and who knows what else produced on the spur of the moment by the local witch doctor. Witch doctors simply could not produce such fine-tuned effects with such poor quality material to work with, even if at some hypothetical “right dose” TTX had such effects. The basic problem is that at any dose, TTX would not have any such effects.

Wade Davis and the Zombies of Haiti

Davis’ claim that TTX in zombie powder is the root cause of zombification first came to the attention of the general public when his book The Serpent and the Rainbow was published in 1985, al­though he published a paper in the scientific literature earlier making this claim (Davis 1983). There are two separate aspects of Davis’ claim. First, he claims that the zombie powder he obtained in Haiti contained significant amounts of TTX. Second, he said that these levels of TTX would produce the traditional zombies known to Haitian mythology.

In his 1985 book, Davis described his trips to Haiti, his introduction to Haitian culture, and his attempts to acquire the powder used to produce zombies. The book is an excellent example of a credulous foreigner taken advantage of by local tricksters and is full of scientific absurdities. On page 26, for example, he informs the reader that the “muscles of the iris continue to contract for hours after death.” This is simply wrong. On page 50, he describes going to a voodoo ceremony specifically produced for tourists (admission was $10) at which a woman took a glowing hot coal in her mouth without suffering any burns. He marvels that she does this every night without harm. His explanation? She had “clearly entered some kind of spirit realm.” Davis obviously never even considered that this perhaps was just a standard sideshow stunt to fool the tourists. No such skeptical thoughts ever seem to have entered Davis’ head. One is reminded of Margaret Mead being conned by clever Samoan children during her studies (see “The Fateful Hoax­ing of Margaret Mead,” SI November/December 1998).

Davis reports that the zombie state can be made to last for long periods of time. Allegedly, one zombie was kept for years so he could work as a slave on a plantation. “Together with many other zombies, he had toiled as a field hand from sunrise to sunset,” claimed Davis (1985, 80). The obvious suggestion here is that witch doctors not only make zombies but keep them in the zombie state for years. This would be quite the pharmacological accomplishment, as will be seen below. Davis later seemed to back off this claim, admitting that the case in point was difficult to verify (Booth 1988).

Ultimately, Davis secured samples of zombie powder. Since one of the powder’s ingredients is bits of dead human tissue, Davis commissioned a grave robbery to obtain the decomposed flesh of a recently buried child (Davis 1985, 92– 95). Pictures of the process, including using a stick to remove bits of decomposed brain, are found in his books (Davis 1988, p. 115–116). As might be expected, Davis was heavily criticized for this ethical breach (Ander­son 1988; Booth 1988).

In the end, several samples of zombie powder were analyzed for TTX levels by Kao and Yasumoto (1986). They found only “insignificant traces of tetrodotoxin in the samples of ‘zombie potions’ which were supplied for analysis by Davis.” Further­more, they stated: “it can be concluded that the widely circulated claim in the lay press to the effect that tetrodotoxin is the causal agent in the initial zombification process is without factual foundation” (p. 748).

This was not the end of the matter, however. Benedek and Rivier (1989) reported that they found significant amounts of TTX in one out of six samples of zombie powder. Kao and Yasu­moto (1990) strongly criticized the Benedek and Rivier report on various technical grounds, including the fact that the analysis these authors used was not specific for TTX.

The refutation of Benedek and Rivier by Kao and Yasumoto is powerful and conclusive but raises another question. If biochemical analyses of the zombie powder supplied by Davis had shown the presence of TTX in significant quantities, would this have strengthened Davis’ claim of the creation of zombies using such a concoction? To answer this question, we need to closely examine the phar­macological effects of TTX.

The fundamental unit of information processing in the nervous system is the action potential, an electrical signal that travels along nerves. It is produced by flows of ions (charged particles) that cross nerve cell membranes through specific channels, one channel for each species of ion. One of the most important channels is the sodium channel, which allows positively charged sodium ions to pass into the neuron, or nerve cell. In fact, it is the passage of sodium ions into the neuron through sodium channels that allows the action potential to proceed along the neuron. If something blocked these sodium channels, no action potentials would be produced. Dire results, including death, are possible if enough sodium channels are blocked. TTX does exactly that; it selectively blocks sodium channels on the neural membrane. TTX prevents so­dium ions from entering the neuron and thus prevents the generation of action potentials. It should be noted that the major effect of TTX is on nerves in the peripheral nervous system that control motor output and relay sensory information to the brain. Little if any TTX actually enters the brain, which is protected by a barrier that prevents certain types of molecules, such as TTX, from crossing the blood stream into the brain.

TTX occurs naturally in a number of animals, the best-known example being several species of puffer fish found in both Asiatic and Caribbean waters. Interestingly, these fish do not themselves produce TTX but obtain it from TTX-producing bacteria (Mebs 2002). Newts and toads in the Pacific North­west produce TTX, but its biological origin is not clear. TTX is best known as the cause of fugu poisoning. Fugu, raw Japanese puffer fish, is a delicacy in Japan prepared by specially trained chefs who remove the poisonous tissues of the fish while leaving uncontaminated portions for consumption.

TTX poisoning is a real and serious medical problem in areas where puffer fish are considered food. The first mention of puffer-fish poisoning, at least by a Western writer, is found in 1774 in the journal of Captain Cook’s second voyage (Isbister et al. 2002). Since the toxin affects motor and sensory nerves, both motor and sensory symptoms are en­countered, especially at higher levels of poisoning. The severity of poisoning is classified by four levels, or grades (Is­bister 2004). At grade one, there are only mild sensory symptoms, such as numbness around the mouth, but nausea may also be present. At grade two, numbness becomes more widespread and there is some motor difficulty, including slurred speech. At grade three, symptoms become more severe, including a “generalized flaccid paralysis, respiratory failure, aphonia and fixed/dilated pu­pils; patient remains conscious” (Isbester 2002, 1635). Finally, in the most severe grade-four cases, one finds more serious respiratory problems, hypo­tension, and cardiac difficulties. The patient may lose consciousness. If enough toxin is ingested, death will oc­cur. If death does not occur, patients generally recover with supportive care within a week.

Note that these symptoms are very different than the usual images of the zombie, either those seen in horror films or put forth by Davis. In both, the frightening zombie, devoid of any but the most minimal level of consciousness, lurches around with stiff arms and legs. But real victims of puffer-fish poisoning aren’t going to be doing much moving around at all. They will suffer from flaccid paralysis, meaning that there will be little or no muscle tone. There will be breathing problems and, in serious cases, the blood will not carry sufficient oxygen to the brain. They will also feel nauseated. As noted above, Davis argues that zombies can be created for use as laborers on plantations in Haiti. It seems to me that a bunch of nauseated, paralyzed guys would not make very productive field workers!

The total lack of similarity between the real symptoms of TTX poisoning and the mythological zombies of Holly­wood should be enough to sink the claim that zombies are caused by TTX poisoning. This fact led the scientific community to dismiss Davis’ claims as absurd back in the 1980s. Unfor­tunately, this debunking never found its way into the mainstream press, as is so often the case.

References

Anderson, W.H. 1988. Tetrodotoxin and the zombie phenomenon. Journal of Ethnophar­macology, 23, 121–126.

Benedek, C., and L. Rivier. 1989. Evidence for the presence of tetrodotoxin in a powder used in Haiti for zombification. Toxicon, 27, 473– 480.

Booth, W. 1988. Voodoo science. Science, 240, 274–277.

Davis, W. 1983. The ethnobiology of the Haitian zombie. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 9, 85–104.

———. 1988. Passage of Darkness. The Ethno­biology of the Haitian Zombie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

———. 1985. Serpent and the Rainbow. NY: Simon and Schuster.

Efthimiou, C.J., and S. Gandhi. 2007a. Cinema fiction vs. physics reality. Ghosts, vampires and zombies. Skeptical Inquirer 31(4), 27–34.

———. 2007b. Skeptical Inquirer 31(6), 66–67.

Isbister, G.K. 2002. Marine envenomation and poisoning. Medical Toxicology. 3rd edition, 1621–1644. Philadelphia: Lippin­cott Williams and Wil­kins.

Isbister, G.K., J. Son, F. Wang, et al. 2002. Puffer fish poisoning: A potentially life-threatening condition. Medical Journal of Australia, 177, 650–653.

Kaku, N., and J. Meier. 1995. Clinical toxicology of fugu poisoning. Handbook of Clinical Toxicology of Animal Venoms and Poisons, 75–83. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Kao, C.Y., and T. Yasumoto. 1986. Tetrodotoxin and the Haitian zombie. Toxicon, 24, 747–749.

———. 1990. Tetrodotoxin in “zombie powder.” Toxicon, 28, 129–132.

Mebs, D. 2002. Venomous and Poisonous Animals. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Rather than engaging in reason and presenting us with persuasive evidence to gain support, politicians usually appeal to our rational and irrational fears and self-righteousness. Does any candidate for elective office have the courage to talk about ignorance as a political issue that affects such critical matters as scientific research and decisions about war and peace? Jacoby points out, for example, that Americans are alone in the developed world in their view that evolution is controversial rather than settled science. This may be due not only to American religious fundamentalism but to the public’s ignorance about science in general and evolution in particular. Surveys consistently indicate the failure of our elementary and secondary schools to teach not only science literacy but other subjects. A December 2005–January 2006 survey, for example, found that only 6 percent of high school graduates and 23 percent of those with some college experience could locate Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel on a map. There is plenty of blame to go around, for example the insistence on local control of pre-college education, which precludes adoption of national education standards. But Jacoby also faults intellectuals for failing to unite and foster education improvement.

Jacoby maintains that the two major spurs to anti-intellectualism during the past forty years have been the mass media and resurgent fundamentalist religion. The media subordinate the spoken and written word to visual images. This is deleterious because it presents information in a highly condensed form and crowds out engagement with the written word. Also, because the mass media must capture a public that has an increasingly short attention span, it purveys the simplistic slogans of “junk thoughts,” of which junk science is an example. The distinguishing features of junk thoughts are an inability to distinguish between correlation and causation; the use of scientific-sounding language without relevant evidence or logic; innumeracy; and expert-bashing involving dismissal of overwhelming scientific evidence as politically biased.

Jacoby insists we live in a “culture of distraction” where reading continues to be displaced by visual imagery, and television is solely an entertainment medium. But this is an overstatement on Jacoby’s part. Such programs as NOVA, Frontline, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer are more than entertainment. Undoubtedly, however, they attract far fewer viewers than, say, American Idol.

The other major energizer of anti-intellectualism has been the growth of fundamentalist denominations. Many of the educated “elites” do not, says Jacoby, understand the pervasiveness and depth of fundamentalist literal belief in the Bible.

Also, there is now a political alliance between fundamentalist Protestants and traditionalist Catholics based on a shared piety and hatred of secularism and the influence of secular values on our society. Evidence of this alliance is the Protestant Right’s overwhelming approval of devout Catholics John Roberts and Samuel Alito as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Justice of the Court, respectively.

Today’s media, with their appeal to emotion rather than reason, are a source of support for the kind of faith that opposes most of the rationalism that began with the Enlightenment. And religion is most powerfully presented visually, unmodified by secular thought, making no appeal to anything but emotion and leaving no room for doubt.

Jacoby also describes other sources of our American social environment of unreason and ignorance, including social pseudoscience such as Social Darwinism and Communism, middlebrow culture, the 1960s and their legacy, and the general dumbing down of public life where politicians and members of the media both create and are the creatures of a public that is distrustful of complexity, nuance, and advanced knowledge.

This book is obviously relevant in today’s social, political, and cultural environment. It is also wide-ranging; for example, it includes historical-background information relevant to contemporary irrationalism and defective education policies.

Coulter’s fifth book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, has just been issued in paperback to provide an excuse for this review. Here are some of the book’s mean, below-the-belt punches:

• Monica Lewinski is a “fat Jewish girl” (Coulter 4).
• Julia Roberts and George Clooney are “airheads” (8).
• Ted Kennedy is “Senator Drunkennedy” (90).
• The four Jersey “weeping widows” (289) of men who died in the September 11 attacks are “rabid” (103), “self-obsessed” (103), and “harpies” (112). “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much” (103).
• Diplomat Joseph Wilson, whose wife was outed from the CIA, is a “nut and liar” (119) and a “pompous jerk” (121). He is likened to a “crazy aunt up in the attic” (295).
• Cindy Sheehan, the vocal war widow, is a “poor imbecile” (102) with an “itsy-bitsy, squeeky voice” (103).
• Katie Couric is a “shopworn sweetheart” (295).

Liberals are repeatedly called pathetic nuts and crackpots. “[They] are more upset when a tree is chopped down than when a child is aborted” (5). Apparently Coulter expects God to send most liberals to hell, because she writes, “I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven” (22).

Coulter has nothing good to say about any Democrat. They are all crazy liberals who are socialists in disguise. Her latest book is titled If Democrats Had Any Brains They’d Be Republicans. Here are a few other folks who get pummeled in Godless:

• All defenders of abortions.
• All defenders of gay marriages and those who think homosexuality is genetic.
• “Hysterical” and “ugly” feminists.
• Scientists who deny there could be subtle differences between the mental abilities of men and women and between different races.
• College professors who teach students to hate God and America.
• Opponents of capital punishment.
• Scientists who fear global warming.
• Scientists who once were afraid that AIDS would spread to heterosexuals.
• Educators who want to teach small children how to use condoms and engage in oral and anal sex.
• Opponents of nuclear power.
• The staff of The New York Times.
• Those who favor embryonic stem-cell research.
• Senator John Edwards. Coulter has never apologized for her slander against him. Speaking at a political action conference she implied (falsely, of course) that Edwards is a “faggot.” (See Wikipedia’s article on Coulter for the shameful details.)

And so on.

In the last four chapters of Godless, Coulter suddenly morphs into a science writer. The chapters are blistering attacks on Darwinian evolution—the notion that life evolved gradually from simple, one-celled forms to humans by a process that consisted of random mutations combined with the survival of the fittest. Darwin of course knew nothing about mutations, but Coulter is concerned with modern Darwinism, which she is convinced requires some sort of superior intelligence to guide evolution.

In brief, Coulter is a dedicated believer in intelligent design, or ID for short. Among promoters of ID, mathematician and Baptist William Dembski and Catholic Michael Behe are Coulter’s main heroes. Dembski, who has a degree in divinity from The Princeton Theological Seminary, was Coulter’s principal adviser on the last four chapters.

Like all IDers, nowhere does Coulter hint at how God, or a pantheistic sort of intelligence, guided evolution. There are two leading possibilities:

1. God manipulated mutations so that new species arose, culminating finally in humans.
2. God may have allowed mutations and survival of the fittest to produce different breeds of a species, such as dogs and cats, but new species were created out of whole cloth, just as it says in the Book of Genesis. Like Behe and other IDers, Coulter is silent on how God directed evolution and what sort of evidence would confirm or disconfirm the role of an intelligent designer.

This is not the place to defend in detail what Coulter likes to call the “Darwinocranks.” It has been admirably done in scores of books by top scientists, all of whom Coulter considers cranks. Peter Olofson, writing tongue in cheek on “The Coulter Hoax,” in the Skeptical Inquirer (March/April 2007), accuses Coulter of perpetrating a brilliant satire on ID rhetoric.

Let me focus instead on the transition from apelike mammals to humans. Coulter repeatedly accuses the Darwinocranks of being embarrassed by a lack of fossils that show transitional forms from one species to another. Such paucity is easily explained by the rarity of conditions for fossilization and by the fact that transitional forms can evolve rapidly. (By “rapidly” geologists mean tens of thousands of years.) Moreover, transitional fossils keep piling up as the search for them continues.

Nowhere are transitional forms more abundant than in the fossils of early human skeletons and the skeletons of their apelike ancestors. Consider the hundreds of fossils of Neanderthals. H.G. Wells, in a forgotten little book titled Mr. Belloc Objects, defends evolution against ignorant attacks by the Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc. In Chapter 4, Wells has this to say about Neanderthals:

When I heard that Mr. Belloc was going to explain and answer the Outline of History, my thought went at once to this creature. What would Mr. Belloc say of it? Would he put it before or after the Fall? Would he correct its anatomy by wonderful new science out of his safe? Would he treat it like a brother and say it held by the most exalted monotheism, or treat it as a monster made to mislead wicked men?

He says nothing! He just walks away whenever it comes near him.

But I am sure it does not leave him. In the night, if not by day, it must be asking him: “Have I a soul to save, Mr. Belloc? Is that Heidelberg jawbone one of us, Mr. Belloc, or not? You’ve forgotten me, Mr. Belloc. For four-fifths of the Paleolithic age I was ‘man.’ There was no other. I shamble and I cannot walk erect and look up at heaven as you do, Mr. Belloc, but dare you cast me to the dogs?”

No reply.

Coulter is as silent as Mr. Belloc about Neanderthals and about the even earlier, more apelike skeletons. I doubt if they trouble her sleep; I doubt if anything troubles Coulter’s sleep. Does she think there was a slow, incremental transition from apelike creatures to Cro-Magnons and other humans? Or does she believe there was a first pair of humans?

Let’s assume there was a first pair. Does Coulter think God created Adam out of the dust of the earth, as Genesis describes, then fabricated Eve from one of Adam’s ribs? Or does she accept the fact that the first humans were the outcome of slow, small changes over many centuries? If the transition was sudden, then Adam and Eve were raised and suckled by a mother who was a soulless beast!

This is a bothersome dilemma for all Christians who believe in the crossing of a sharp line from beast to human. It is a dilemma about which I once wrote a short story called “The Horrible Horns.” If interested, you can find it in my book The No-sided Professor and Other Tales of Fantasy, Humor, Mystery, and Philosophy.

We know from a footnote on page 3 of Godless that Coulter considers herself a Christian. But what sort of Christian? The word has become enormously vague. Today one can call oneself a Christian and hold beliefs that range from the fundamentalism of Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham, through the liberal views of mainline Protestant ministers and Catholic liberals such as Hans Kung and Gary Wills, to the atheism of Paul Tillich. Tillich did not believe in a personal God or an afterlife, the two central doctrines of Christ’s teachings, yet he is considered by many Protestants to be one of the world’s greatest Christian theologians!

Wikipedia’s article on Coulter quotes her as saying “Christ died for my sins. . . . Christianity fuels everything I write.” This sounds like something an evangelical Protestant would say. On the other hand, in Godless Coulter quotes a remark by G.K. Chesterton (10), who is almost never quoted today except by Catholics. Is Coulter a Protestant or Catholic? Or some other kind of Christian?

Although I am not a Catholic, allow me to cite a famous passage from Chesterton’s introduction to his book Heretics:

But there are some people, nevertheless—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run, anything else affects them.

Coulter, you are merciless in bashing liberals and atheists, so please let us know what church you attend. It would clear the air and shed light on the background for all your insults, especially your blasts at Darwinians.

Here’s another simple question to ponder:

Why do you suppose god provided men with nipples?

Introduction

According to her book Eucharistic Miracles, Joan Carroll Cruz (1987, xi) states, “The greatest treasure in the Catholic Church is, without question, the Holy Eucharist—in which Jesus Christ humbly assumes the appearance of bread.” In Catholicism, the Eucharist is the sacrament in which the bread and wine consumed at Communion in remembrance of Jesus’ Last Supper are, by the miracle of “Transubstantiation,” changed into the actual body and blood of Christ, whence they are known as the Blessed Sacrament (Stravinskas 2002, 139, 302, 734). In other words, Catholics take literally Jesus’ statement regarding the bread: “Take, eat: this is my body,” and regarding the wine, “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26: 26–28).

In contrast, Protestants understand the story (given in various other versions: Mark 14: 22–25; Luke 22: 19, 202; John 6: 48–58; and 1 Cor. 11: 23–26) as symbolic of Jesus’ dying for mankind. Indeed, it is an evolved form of the Jewish Passover ritual (Dummelow 1951, 710). Religious writers Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan (2006, 192–194) consider the story, together with the entire Easter narrative, as a parable (a simple story with a moral, whether factually true or not).

Eucharistic Miracles

Nevertheless, Transubstantiation is a dogma of Catholicism and, from at least the eighth century, numerous “Eucharistic miracles” that seem to verify its reality have been reported. In addition to a few dozen accounts in Cruz (1987), many more are related in Legends of the Blessed Sacrament (Shapcote 1877), and no fewer than 142 are featured in a Vatican international traveling exhibition titled the “Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” which I was able to view in Lackawanna, New York, on September 20, 2007. (The exhibition consists of display panels, otherwise available on a Web site [Eucharist 2007].)

Some Eucharistic miracle tales (Cruz 1987, 187–188, 191–192, 208–209) seem to be little more than derivations of biblical stories. For example, the account of a boy having eaten communion bread which keeps him from harm inside a fiery furnace evokes the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel (3: 10–30); the Holy Sacrament’s curing of a demoniac recalls Jesus’ similar feat in Mark (5: 1–16); and the multiplication of some twenty consecrated wafers—or Hosts—into enough to serve almost 600 people obviously recalls Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the multitude of 5,000 with only “five loaves, and two fishes” (Matthew 14:15–21). (Interestingly, the multiplying Hosts was accomplished by St. John Bosco, 1815–1888, who, in his youth, had been a magician [Cruz 1987, 208]!)

Many of the Eucharistic miracle stories have a suspiciously similar plot, which suggests derivation. For example, at least three stories—from Lanciano, Italy, eighth century; Regensburg, Germany, 1257; and Bolsena, Italy, 1263—concern a priest who had doubts about the reality of transubstantiation. When he spoke the words of Consecration, the Host was suddenly transformed into flesh and/or the wine became visible blood (Cruz 1987, 3–7; 59–62).

As another example, several tales—from Alatri, Italy, 1228; Santarem, Portugal, early thirteenth century; and Offida, Italy, 1280—feature a woman who kept the Host in her mouth so she could make off with it and, as instructed by some occultist, transform it into a love potion. Subsequently, the Host was turned into flesh (Cruz 1987, 30–37; 70–83), and in one instance it also issued a mysterious light (Cruz 1987, 38–46).

At least two anti-Semitic tales—one from Paris, France, 1290; and one from Brussels, Belgium, 1370—involve a Jew or Jews illicitly acquiring a consecrated wafer and stabbing it with a knife, whereupon blood spurted forth in triumph over their mocking disbelief (Cruz 1987, 63–65; 112–122).3 In the latter tale there are even conflicting accounts of the Jews’ fate: one says they were burned at the stake, the other that they were banished from the area. Such variants—as folklorists call them—are a “defining characteristic of folklore,” since oral transmission naturally produces differing versions of the same tale (Brunvand 1978, 7).

Turin ‘Miracle’

The story of “the miracle of Turin” begins just before the middle of the year 1453 at a church in Exilles (then in the French Dauphinate), according to a parchment which I personally examined at the Turin city archives (Valle n.d.). Reportedly, some men (two soldiers, in popular legend [Cruz 1987, 145]) had come from a war between the French Savoys and the Piedmontese, pillaged a church, and then loaded a sackful of plunder—including a silver reliquary with a sacred Host—upon a mule. They made their way via Susa, Avigliana, and Rivoli to Turin, but after the beast passed through the city gate, it halted in front of the church of San Silvestro and fell to the ground. Out of the pack tumbled the Host—“the true body of Christ”—and it miraculously ascended into the air, shining “like the sun.” The bishop, Ludovico Romagno, was summoned along with the clergy, whereupon they discovered the reliquary on the ground and “the body of the Lord in the air with great Radiant splendor.” The bishop knelt and brought out a chalice into which the Host descended, thence being transported to “the doorway of the Cathedral.”

The parchment, signed only by a ducal official, nevertheless lists the names of several witnesses and notes that “after completion of the new cathedral” the Host is to rest therein and to be the subject of an annual octave (an eight-day event) in commemoration of the “miracle” (Valle n.d.).

Unfortunately, there are problems with the document, although it is certainly consistent with a parchment of the fifteenth or early sixteenth century.4 Significantly, it is undated and merely bears in the heading the date of the reported event: “in the year 1453 on the 6 of June, a Thursday.” Actually, the sixth was a Wednesday, only one of several indications that something is amiss. Another problem is the reference to the anticipated completion of the “new cathedral,” presumably that of St. John the Baptist, which was not built until 1491–98 (Turin 2007).

Everything about the document indicates it is not original, including the fact that another undated one—with a similar text (including the erroneous “Thursday”)—is known. Indeed, it is the latter whose text is reproduced in the official booklet published with the imprimatur of the Metropolitan Curia of Turin. However, this document is noted as “presently missing” and—lest it be thought to have been the original—is described as a “sixteenth-century text” (Il Miracolo 1997, 55). Moreover, although the two documents include many similarities, there are differences in wording and detail. For instance, the published document specifically mentions the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist by name, and the respective lists of witnesses’ names show evidence of garbling. (For example, “Michaele Burry” is given in the parchment versus “Michel Muri” in the published document; only one of the eleven names is exactly the same, and the published document omits a name. The list in Cruz [1987] is different still.)

Despite the late, differing versions and the apparent lack of a true original—all of which inspires skepticism—the copies themselves nevertheless indicate there was, at least at some point, a narrative and a list of names of alleged eyewitnesses to some occurrence. But what was it?

An Explanation

The texts suggest that it may well have been some celestial event, the supposed Host being described as “in the air with great Radiant splendor” and “shining like the sun” (see figure 1). The accounts say the event occurred “at hour 20” (Valle n.d.; Il Miracolo 1997, 55), but the printed text has an editorial insertion clarifying that it was “between the hours 16 and 17”—i.e., between four and five o’clock in the afternoon (Il Miracolo 1997, 55). Therefore the duration was apparently less than one hour. On the other hand, the event obviously lasted long enough for residents to fetch the Bishop and clergy, so it was too long for, say, a meteor.

That it was described as “shining like the sun” suggests to me it could have been a phenomenon known as a “mock sun” (or “sun dog”), that is, a parhelion. Parhelia can appear as very bright patches in the sky and are among the various ice-crystal refraction effects that include halos, arcs, solar pillars, and other atmospheric phenomena (Greenler 1999, 23–64).

I posed the question of the mystery occurrence to Major James McGaha (USAF, retired), who is not only an experienced pilot and noted UFO expert but also director of the Grasslands Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. He conducted a computer search of the sky for the place, date, and time of the occurrence. He found nothing of an astronomical nature that might have caused such an effect. (For example, there was no conjunction of planets, and the moon—a new moon—would have been invisible [McGaha 2008].)

He agreed with my suggestion that a parhelion-type phenomenon could be consistent with the “miracle of Turin.” That is especially likely in light of the celestial object being reported as “over the surrounding houses” and “shining, as a second sun” (“Eucharistic” 2007)—an apt description if the phenomenon were indeed a mock sun. A parhelion could well last for the duration reported and would be most likely to appear when the sun was relatively low in the sky, observed McGaha (2008).

He considered one other possibility given that there was a question of the date. If the event did occur on June 6 but three years later, in 1456, the celestial object could convincingly be identified as Halley’s Comet.

In any event, what might have happened is that the witnessing of a genuine, sensational occurrence was seen as miraculous—a “sign”—by superstitious folk and clergy, the latter interpreting it as the radiant body of Christ in the sky. This could have prompted the Bishop to hold aloft not only a chalice but also a Host, and as the phenomenon soon ceased to be visible, the belief was that the celestial light was absorbed by the wafer. According to this scenario, it was this “miraculous” Host that was displayed. (It was thus kept until 1584 when the Holy see ordered it consumed so as “not to oblige God to maintain an eternal miracle by keeping the Host always perfect and pure” (qtd. in Cruz 1987, 147).

This celestial incident, witnessed by various persons, might then have been grafted by the process of folklore onto a somewhat similar tale, like one set in Paris in 1274 (Cruz 1987, 63). Or it could have been confabulated—in the manner of the Roswell UFO crash myth (McAndrew 1997)—and enhanced by faulty perceptions and memories, together with the impulse to create a pious legend.

Such religious legends are often called belief tales because they are intentionally grafted “to give credence to folk beliefs” (Brunvand 1978, 106–108). Indeed, Cruz (1987, 145) states revealingly that “At the time of the miracle of Turin, the faith of the people had grown feeble, and it is thought God wanted to give a sign to arouse them from their apathy.” The miracle, she states, “effected the desired change.”

Arguing in favor of this hypothesis, I think, is the allegorical nature of the Turin narrative—a dramatic tale in its own right, and an even more profoundly Christian one if seen as allegory of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Consider, for example that similar to Jesus’ emerging from exile (Matthew 2: 13–15), in the Turin-miracle narrative the Corpus Domini (“Body of Christ”) is placed on a mule and led from Exilles into Turin (which is to become known as “the city of the Holy sacrament” [Il Miracolo 1997, 32]). Jesus’ Last Supper (Matthew 26: 17–30) is evoked by the wafer of communion bread, which has been spilled.

This (tradition says) happened between two robbers, like Jesus’ crucifixion, which occurred between two thieves (Matthew 27:38). And just as Jesus bodily arose from his tomb (Matthew 28: 1–7) and was “carried up into heaven” (Mark 24:51), the “Body of Christ” emerged from its reliquary (a container for holy remains) and ascended into the sky, radiant like the sun, as Jesus came to be (says John 9:5) “the light of the world.” The subsequent descent of the Holy Host into the chalice obviously symbolizes the gift of the Eucharist to Christianity—a theme common to all of the Eucharistic “miracle” tales.

Acknowledgments

The following people were extremely helpful in this investigation: At CFI, Libraries Director Timothy Binga and Art Director Lisa Hutter; in Turin, Stefano Bagnasco, Andrea Ferrero, Claudio Pastore, Beatrice Mautino, and Mario Tomatis; and, accompanying me to Lackawanna, my wife, Diana Harris.

Notes

1. For an updated discussion of the Shroud of Turin see Nickell 2007, 122–179.
2. Another version of Luke is in Codex Bezae (Price 2003, 298).
3. In the first instance the man is not stated to be a Jew, but it is implied by his being a “non-Christian” and stereotypically, a “pawnbroker,” and is further indicated by the similar tale specifically involving Jews assembled in a synagogue.
4. Examination with a 10x Bausch & Lomb illuminated coddington magnifier reveals that the parchment’s text was penned with a quill in an ink that has the appearance of an age-browned (oxidized) iron-gallotannate variety and is in an italic hand known as cancellaresca—i.e., “chancery” script—because it was widely disseminated by scribes of the Papal Chancery in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Whalley 1984, 22, 41, 181; Nickell 2003, 123, 131, 140).

References

• Borg, Marcus J., and John Dominic Crossan. 2006. The Last Week. New York: Harper, San Francisco.
• Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1978. The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction, 2nd ed., New York: W.W. Norton.
• Cruz, Joan Carroll. 1987. Eucharistic Miracles and Eucharistic Phenomena in the Lives of the Saints. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers.
• Dummelow, J.R., ed. 1951. A Commentary on the Holy Bible by Various Writers. New York: Macmillan.
• The Eucharistic Miracles of the World. 2007. Available online at www.therealpresence.org/eucharist/mir/engl_mir.htm; accessed September 7, 2007.
• Greenler, Robert. 1999. Rainbows, Halos, and Glories. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Peanut Butter Publishing, 23–64.
• Il Miracolo di Torino. 1997. Turin, Italy: Metropolitan Curia of Turin.
• McAndrew, James. 1997. The Roswell Report: Case Closed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
• McGaha, James E. 2008. Personal communication, February 1.
• Nickell, Joe. 2003. Pen, Ink & Evidence. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2007. Relics of the Christ. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky.
• Price, Robert M. 2003. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Stravinskas, Peter M.J. 2002. Catholic Dictionary, revised. Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division.
• Turin Cathedral. 2007. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_John_the_Baptist_(Turin); accessed September 7, 2007.
• Valle, Thomaso. N.d. Parchment account of 1453 “miracle” of Turin in the Historical Archives of the City of Turin (part of archive catalog no. 936, in loose papers collection); personally examined October 14, 2004.
• Whalley, Joyce Irene. 1984. The Student’s Guide to Western Calligraphy. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications.

In early 2006, this magazine published a trail-blazing paper by David Koepsell, a leading secular humanist. Koepsell argued that it is time for skeptics to begin to develop their own ethical principles for investigation in the same way that scientists and other professional groups have done.

Most skeptics seem strongly aware of the ethical dimensions to their work. They regularly express horror at the sometimes disastrous consequences of paranormal belief (e.g. Levi 2006; Hoyt 2004) or disgust at the blatant falsehoods peddled by psychics and other gurus (Wiseman and Greening 1998; Nickell 2001). Occasionally, skeptics express concern at the conduct of other skeptics, arguing that they have breached ethical principles (Wendell 2006; Nickell 2006). Therefore, we need to clarify these concerns and produce a coherent set of ethical ideas.

Koepsell stresses that ethical principles have to be practical. They must provide guidance for skeptical investigators, not endless theoretical arguments about metaethics. So, he suggests, we should use case studies to develop our understanding of ethics and base skeptical ethics upon the example of ethics in science.

Having made that decision, Koepsell plunges straight into the ethics of skeptical investigation. He argues for the principles of equipoise (lack of bias), fidelity (commitment to the truth), and informed consent by the subjects of research. He also takes the view that compassion is a good guiding principle.

Koepsell’s paper is a bold attempt to stake out some new territory, but there are at least three problems with it. First, if we completely avoid big ideas about ethics—metaethics—then how do we decide what kind of ethical rules to adopt and which rules are the most important? Koepsell favors concern for truth and compassion, but these sometimes have to be balanced against each other. For example, debunking a paranormal belief may lead to truth but may also cause great distress among believers. How do we decide which is more important unless we delineate a general view of our ethical concerns?

The second problem with Koepsell’s approach is much simpler. He wants to base skeptical ethics on scientific ethics, but the contexts are quite different. Science is mostly carried out in laboratories and evaluated by other scientists. By contrast, skepticism operates in the community, where scientific rules and thought are poorly understood. Therefore, the kinds of ethical dilemmas faced are likely to be quite different. An example is evident in the widespread skeptical testing of dowsers. For the most part, dowsers appear to be amiable people who sincerely believe that they can find water by paranormal means. Groups such as the Australian Skeptics regularly subject dowsers to double-blind controlled trials, which the dowsers regularly fail (Australian Skeptics 2003). The dowsers then produce a series of incoherent explanations and continue on their way as before. In this kind of context, scientific principles may prove a very poor guide to action.

A third problem is that Koepsell seems to see ethics as beginning with the process of investigation. It need not. It can begin at a much earlier point: the selection of the topic to be investigated. In general, selecting a topic for research is not an ethical issue among scientists, but it can be a crucial matter for ethical consideration among skeptics.

A Starting Point for Skeptical Ethics

A simple place to begin skeptical ethics is with the question, “Why are people skeptics at all?” There are, of course, many answers, some of which have nothing to do with ethics (for example, skepticism is fascinating and fun), but two ethical concerns keep recurring that can provide the basis for an ethics of skepticism.

The first ethical concern is that unwarranted paranormal beliefs can lead to disastrous outcomes and cause suffering and even death to innocent people. There are many examples of this. James Randi argued that Jim Jones had such a strong grip on the minds of his followers in part because they believed he could perform miracles (Randi 1980). This enabled Jones to lead them to an orgy of murder and self-destruction. Skeptics often point to cases in the news where children have suffered or died because of their parents’ preferences for “alternative” forms of treatment (e.g., Hyde 2001). It is clear that a major source of ethical concern among skeptics is the understanding that poorly evidenced beliefs can lead to disastrous outcomes.

The second major ethical concern was argued in the founding days of CSICOP (now CSI, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER). During the 1970s, there was a great flowering of alternative lifestyles and beliefs, many with a distinctly paranormal flavor. The founders of the modern skeptical movement have repeatedly written of their concern about these developments and their fear that public understanding of science is so poor that perhaps the very operation of science might be threatened by these new beliefs. This seems to have been one of the key reasons for founding CSICOP. For example, Paul Kurtz writes that in the 1970s, “I was distressed that my students confused astrology with astronomy, accepted pyramid power, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Kirlian photography, and psychic surgery without benefit of a scientific critique” (2001). Later in the same paper, Kurtz explains why science itself cannot perform this educational function: “science has become overspecialized . . . [which is] one reason why the scientific outlook is continuously undermined by antiscience and pseudoscience. . . . [S]pecialists in one field may not necessarily be competent to judge claims in others. . . .”

Partly for this reason, Kurtz believes that skepticism has a major role to play in a modern society which is largely ignorant of the true value and nature of scientific inquiry.

Echoes from Other Thinkers

It seems clear that these two ethical concerns—the disastrous effects of unwarranted beliefs and the danger of widespread ignorance of science—form the basis of much skeptical thought. They are not new concerns. Martin Gardner, in his seminal work Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Gardner 1957, 6, 186–87), outlined both. Back in the nineteenth century, mathematician and philosopher W.K. Clifford, advocating an “ethics of belief,” argued that believing without adequate evidence is “always, everywhere and at all times wrong.” He gave two reasons. First, believing without adequate evidence was likely to lead to disasters and, second, holding unwarranted beliefs makes us more gullible and less able to distinguish truth from falsehood in the future (Clifford 1879). Clifford’s arguments went into eclipse for about a century but now appear to be enjoying a minor revival (Zamulinski 2002). It seems clear that skeptics have been concerned about the dual consequences of inadequately supported belief for a long time.

There are other ethical concerns that skeptics sometimes present. For example, in 2004, astronomer Philip Plait addressed the Australian Skeptics’ convention in Sydney, Australia. He resoundingly refuted the claims that the Apollo missions were hoaxes and told of how distressed he had felt when he learned of these accusations (see also, Plait 2002, 173). The Apollo moon missions were a staggering feat of technology and organization, and the courage of the astronauts is beyond doubt. The “Apollo Moon Hoax” claimants are seeking to deny NASA and the astronauts their rightful acclaim. Plait’s outrage is both understandable and illustrates a different type of ethical concern over the injustice to NASA and the astronauts. Still, the most widespread ethical concerns are the two explained above: that unwarranted belief can lead to appalling suffering and can endanger our best methods of understanding the universe.

Developing an Ethics of Skepticism

The next step may seem obvious, but it is important. We should acknowledge that there are degrees of injustice among ethically or morally wrong acts. Some are usually worse than others. For example, consider criminal acts. Most of us would agree that shoplifting is a less serious crime than armed robbery. Armed robbery, in turn, is a less serious crime than murder. We could draw up a list of crimes in order of their seriousness. Though there would be some variation from person to person, it is likely that our rankings would be fairly similar overall.

In the same way, skeptics would probably agree that some paranormal beliefs are more dangerous than others. Holding certain paranormal beliefs is most likely to result in disaster and the suffering of innocent people. Holding others is most likely to endanger a general understanding of science and logical methods of reasoning. This distinction is important, as it gives us the basis for an ethics of skepticism.1

The basis for an ethics of skepticism then follows from a simple question. Which paranormal beliefs most merit investigation? We all know that huge majorities of people in western societies subscribe to paranormal beliefs. Skeptics are greatly outnumbered. Therefore, it seems logical that the most skeptical attention should be devoted to those paranormal claims which are regarded as the most dangerous. It is here that the most impact can be made, either in terms of relieving suffering or in terms of protecting the rational basis of modern science. Koepsell’s ethical approach is set within the process of investigation and so neglects this crucial ethical question.

What should the priorities be? Which paranormal claims seem to merit investigation using these ethical criteria? I hope that my fellow skeptics will have thoughts on this. I offer my own as a contribution to the discussion.

Judging by reports in the news, two types of belief seem to be most dangerous and cause the most suffering. One type is belief in modern alternative medicine, which claims to be a valid substitute for mainstream treatment. Again and again, one hears of children whose parents have rejected mainstream medicine—with which the prognosis was good—and opted for alternative “cures” that have not worked (Hyde 2001; Stickley 2002). It is horrific to learn of children dying of cancer and malnutrition because their parents could not distinguish well-evidenced from poorly evidenced claims about health. Clearly, the more skeptical work that can be done here, the better.

The second area where paranormal beliefs seem to cause great suffering is in the area of psychic counseling. As Goode has pointed out, people visiting a clairvoyant or psychic are likely to be troubled and vulnerable. Many psychic practitioners are probably compassionate and ethical. On the other hand, it is disconcerting that when four London psychics were presented with a vulnerable, distressed woman (in reality an actor), they all proposed highly expensive additional psychic remedies. They did not suggest counseling or medical help but began pushing their own high-priced measures (Wiseman and Greening 1998). The case of the young woman in Texas who found herself owing $21,000 to a psychic is another example (Davis 2005). Perhaps the worst is the case in Australia of a young woman who became addicted to “psychic hotlines” and ran up bills of $80,000 Australian (about $65,000 u.s.). She resorted to crime to pay for her addiction, thus spreading the misery further (Australian Skeptics 2007, 6).

Unwarranted belief in these two areas is causing a good deal of human suffering, and strong skeptical intervention—investigating the claims and publicizing the results—would probably be beneficial. What about the second dimension, however? Are there paranormal beliefs that endanger the very basis of modern rational and scientific thought? By implication, virtually all paranormal belief attacks rationality, but one or two appear to be especially dangerous.

In western countries—particularly the United States—there is a system of paranormal belief that actively and explicitly seeks to undercut the basis of modern science. Its most recent guises of creation science and intelligent design seek to subordinate scientific inquiry to a particular set of religious beliefs. In my own state of Queensland, Australia, the creationists were at one time extremely powerful and on the verge of having their dogmas forced into school science lessons. It is therefore quite alarming to find in the founding legal documents of the Creation Science Foundation of Queensland, Australia, these statements:

The scientific aspects of Creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Creator of the universe and Redeemer of mankind. . . . The Bible is the written Word of God. . . . Its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all the original autographs. . . .The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life. (Bridgstock 1986, 81; emphasis added)

Similar commitments can be found in many creationist organizations. It also became clear during the recent Pennsylvania court case that the “intelligent design” movement is simply creationism in disguise (Forrest and Gross 2004). Quite explicitly, the goal of the creation scientists and their supporters is to alter the very basis of science and force it to conform to their religious opinions. Additionally, this approach has immense political backing—perhaps by a majority of the population in some countries—and an apparently endless determination to corrupt the teaching of science in favor of the imposition of its own dogmas. Despite repeated defeats and setbacks—the Overton and Jones rulings (1988 and 2006, respectively), defeat in the United States Supreme Court (Shermer 1991), and defeat in Australia (Bridgstock 1995)—the fundamentalists’ determination apparently remains undiminished. According to the British magazine New Scientist, they are now seeking to establish an ostensibly “scientific” record of research that may convince a future judge that their claims are not pseudoscience (Biever 2006).

Given its massive backing, its charter to corrupt the basic nature of science, and the relentless determination of its proponents, it seems clear that the creationist movement—however it is disguised—must be regarded as a major danger to science and the basic functions of a rational democratic society. It clearly merits strong skeptical awareness and, where necessary, intervention.

Some Limits to the Argument

So far, the theme of this argument has been simple. Skeptics are primarily concerned with the great danger that paranormal and other unwarranted beliefs pose to humanity in threatening the very basis of rationality, especially the functionality of science. If we accept that some beliefs are more dangerous in these respects than others, then it seems clear that skeptics should ensure that priority is given to analyzing those claims that are the most dangerous.

This should not be taken as an argument that all skeptics should devote their efforts to only these areas. As Clifford argues (1879), all unwarranted beliefs have the potential to damage our critical faculties. In addition, it would be absurd for, say, skeptical linguists or historians to abandon their own fields of expertise and feel obliged to enter others about which they know little. There is plenty to be done in their own areas. However, all skeptics should be aware that some beliefs are extremely dangerous, in both the senses outlined above, and we should see to it that they are critically examined by skeptical investigation.

A second important point is that the argument does not suggest that science is the only form of knowledge. All it implies is that science—and rational-critical thought in general—is invaluable to humanity, and should be safeguarded if threatened by any form of irrationality or faith-based pseudoscience. We do not need to endorse the view that science is always right—it isn’t—and we certainly should not put science on any kind of pedestal. It is simply an extremely valuable form of human activity which, judging by history, can easily be crippled or destroyed.

A third point is that that the falsity of claims about alternative medicines and creationism cannot automatically be assumed. Skepticism is committed to the investigation of paranormal claims. As Koepsell said very clearly, the goal of skepticism is to find the truth. It is very likely that most claims made for the value of alternative medicines are false, and that the evidence produced for intelligent design or creationism is deeply flawed. However, this does not justify dismissing such claims without adequate testing and checking. Being skeptical means preserving an open mind and being prepared to look at new claims and evaluate new evidence. If we fail to do this, then we are falling into the same trap as the fundamentalists, and we deserve to be evaluated even more harshly since we should know better.

Note

1. Philosophically minded skeptics will immediately identify this approach as belonging to consequentialist ethics. There are many schools of consequentialism and many other approaches to ethics. However, this one appears the most straightforward, yielding useful results very quickly.

References

• Australian Skeptics. 2003. The Great Water Divining DVD. Roseville, New South Wales: Australian Skeptics. 2007. Costly advice. The Skeptic (Australia) 27(1): 6.
• Biever, Celeste. 2006. The god lab. New Scientist. 192 (2582): 8–11.
• Bridgstock, Martin.1986. What Is the Creation Science Foundation Ltd? In Creationism: An Australian Perspective. Martin Bridgstock and Ken Smith, eds. Melbourne: Australian Skeptics. 1995. A miniature Armageddon: a personal account of a battle against creation science. The Skeptic (UK) 9(3) pp. 8–11.
• Clifford, William K. 1879. The ethics of belief. In William Kingdom Clifford: Lectures and Essays. Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock eds. London: Macmillan.
• Davis, Amy. 2005. Psychic swindlers. Skeptical Inquirer 29(3): 338–42.
• Forrest, Barbara, and Paul R. Gross. 2004. Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Gardner, Martin. 1957. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover.
• Hoyt, William John Jr. 2004. Anti-vaccination fever. Skeptical Inquirer 28(1): 21–25.
• Hyde, Vicki. 2001. New Zealand tragedy. The Skeptic. (Australia). 21(3): 12–14.
• Jones, John E III. 2006. We find that ID is not science (excerpts from Judge Jones’s opinion). Skeptical Inquirer 30(2) :14–15.
• Koepsell, David. 2006. The ethics of investigation. Skeptical Inquirer 30(1): 47–50.
• Kurtz, Paul. 2001. A quarter century of skeptical inquiry. Skeptical Inquirer 25(4): 42–47.
• Levi, Ragnar. 2006. Science is for sale, and it’s not only for the money. Skeptical Inquirer 30(4): 44–47.
• National Science Foundation. 2002. Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding Public Interest in and Knowledge of S&T, National Science Foundation [cited February 23, 2006]. Available online at nsf.gov.
• Nickell, Joe. 2001. John Edward: hustling the bereaved. Skeptical Inquirer 25(6): 19–24. 2006. Is deception in investigations ethical? Skeptical Inquirer 31(1): 67. 
• Overton, William R. 1988. United States district court opinion. In But Is It Science? Michael Ruse, ed. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
• Plait, Philip. 2002. Bad Astronomy. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Shermer, Michael. 1991. Science defended, science defined. The Louisiana creationism case. Science, Technology and Human Values 16(4): 517–539.
• Stickley, Tony. 2002. Parents of baby Caleb found guilty of manslaughter. New Zealand Herald. June 5: 1.
• Wendell, John P. 2006. Is deception in investigations ethical? Skeptical Inquirer 31(1): 67. 
• Wiseman, Richard, and Emma Greening. 1998. Psychic exploitation. Skeptical Inquirer 22(1): 50–52.
• Zamulinski, Brian. 2002. A re-evaluation of Clifford and his critics. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 40(3): 437–57.

That relentless skeptic Bertrand Russell once announced that “Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions which move with him like flies on a summer day.” In a scientifically driven period of history such as the one we’re in, even more perilous are convictions that purport to deliver certainty as well as comfort. While science is by definition and intent designed to be questioned both by its practitioners and its consumers, it’s clear that the value of its results may be sharply affected by the plausibility of its initial assumptions and how searchingly it evaluates information. The English economist Alfred Marshall observed that “the most reckless theorists are those who allow the facts to speak for themselves.”

Of course, this is dangerous. Getting things right matters. I want to deal with old assumptions and new facts, and what should be done about them. My principal focus is the set of working principles and facts speaking for themselves that compose the idea of “human nature.” And to do this, I have to begin with a strange feature of modern as well as old universities: natural and social sciences are separate operations. Not only do they usually occupy different real estate, but their intellectual operations are often quarantined from each other both conceptually and in day-to-day practice.

However, think about how strange this is. Does the fact that natural science is one thing and social science another mean that social behavior is somehow not natural? For nearly all educational and research institutions, the answer to that question is yes. Perhaps vaguely, perhaps inadvertently, perhaps casually, or perhaps assertively—but still yes. The consequences are enormous not only for science itself but for social policy, legal theory, ethical analysis, and our understanding of the sources of pleasure and pain.

All this is the subject of my aria today.

It’s not a new song. Aristotle proclaimed that “Man is by nature a political animal,” and he meant it. But the political scientists and other social scientists who followed him largely focused on the word “political.” They virtually ignored the most important and arresting phrase, “by nature.”

While one shouldn’t take the liberty of imposing on someone else’s pleasure centers, nevertheless I can imagine that Aristotle would have been delighted with the human genome project and would have endorsed the front-page placement of the New York Times story of December 5, 2002, which described the full explication of the mouse genome. This is interesting in itself but became even more so because it appears that of the 30,000 genes possessed by the mouse, only about 300—1 percent—have no obvious counterpart in the human genome. Given that we and our apparent rodent cousins have been evolving separately for seventy-five million years, this is remarkable. It suggests in both real and metaphoric terms that our biological reach into history and prehistory can be seen as comparable to the manner in which rocks, papayas, wood, and asparagus all share the elemental units that physics has identified. Mouse nature? Human nature? So far and yet so near. And yet, I dare say that it remains overwhelmingly the case in the social sciences that almost everywhere it is possible to receive a doctoral degree without studying any other species than humans. Even then, the work is likely to involve people and their behavior in the past generation and in a highly limited geographical area. This is wholly understandable, yet intellectually, it is akin to studying the whole of geology but focusing exclusively on Minnesota or doing botany while ignoring photosynthesis.

Allergies to Reductionism, Suspicion of Genes

There are two overly concise reasons for the segregation of social science from biology. The first has to do with a broad allergy to “reductionism”—in effect, trying to explain a social phenomenon by a physical or genetic cause. Perhaps the principal statement of this was—not surprisingly—from Frenchman Emile Durkheim. Around the turn of the last century, he issued his influential book The Rules of the Sociological Method, which established reductionism as a major error and recommended that the social sciences distance themselves from the biological, even though (or perhaps because) his principal teacher Alfred Espinas was himself a biologist. This anti-reductionism ethic became widely diffused. Not only did it serve the normal purposes of relatively imperialistic academic disciplines seeking greater resources and autonomy, but it also wholly supported the long-standing divide between societies involved in either human or other animal research.

The second and perhaps more significant reason for the segregation of the two sciences has to do with the appropriation of some biological and many nonbiological materials by various fascist groups, especially the Nazis. Consequently, there was plausible and understandable suspicion of attributing to genes any major social or cultural phenomena. Of course the intellectual baby was thrown out with the acrid bathwater, and the study of links between genes and human nature became exceptionally torrid and academically dangerous to boot. It remains a highly sensitive matter and a bulwark of the politically correct priesthood’s catechism. In the United States, the intellectual mess was abetted when the original legislation dealing with affirmative action in its various modes was extended from race to include sex—evidently as a farcical suggestion—since several Southern congressmen were convinced the entire bill was foolish and unpassable. But race and sex are apples and oranges. The differences between the races first of all vary in a gradient of largely minor characterics. Secondly, they reflect relatively minor differences in the actual conduct of lives. However, there is an immense catalogue of defined gender differences from the level of the cell to an indication that among Vervet monkeys, males and females make the same gender-based choices of toys as human children do—without benefit of GI Joe, Barbie, and the dread power source: role models.

On the other side of the political spectrum—the communist left—human nature as an idea was anathema too, because the prevailing rule was that ideology conquered all. A new Soviet or Chinese man or woman would follow the correct guidance of the enlightened party in the name of the almighty founding principles. A kind of Skinnerian environmentalism united communist and social science theory even if this was hardly comprehended by our colleagues who were annoying pigeons and nocturnal mice in expensive labs off Harvard Square. The experimenters woke up the mice and then made them do what they do anyway at night amid pipes—run mazes. On the basis of such operations, huge learning theories were erected. At one point, B.F. Skinner himself asked the question—which he then ignored—“what’s in the rat?”

These learning theories animated a huge structure of belief in the decisive role of the environment in shaping behavior and the minimal role of anything approximating “human nature.” Of course with the fall of communism, the intellectual certainty of half the world dissolved overnight. The results of seventy years of role models (again, that awful phrase and even worse concept), ideal institutions, and programs for human perfection were swept away in less time than it takes for an unpopular sitcom to be canceled by the Disney Corporation. All that certainty, all that propaganda, all that effort. . . .

I was in Korea in 2002 and before the trip had read a memoir of a North Korean refugee who described standing atop the tallest building in Seoul and marveling that all the people he saw managed to make choices about what to do, where to go, what to buy, with whom to speak without anyone telling them, which had been his experience in North Korea. Naturally. People like to do things, they move around, they have projects, affinities, they blunder. So do mice and chimps. Variation is the name of the game of nature. As I tell students studying living systems, the shortest analytic distance between two points is a normal curve. Not only do people vary among themselves—and recall that Darwin’s central insight was about the role of variation—but groups also vary. This has led some social scientists to suffer from what my colleague Robin Fox calls “ethnographic dazzle” in which the fact of difference overwhelms the equal fact of consistent central patterns.

Time for a More Sophisticated Understanding

Now the overwhelming weight of new work makes it imperative that we go beyond the errors and allergies of the past and try to fashion as sophisticated knowledge of human nature as we have been able to acquire about nature itself.

In 1966 Robin Fox, then of the London School of Economics, and I published a wholly impudent paper in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute called “The Zoological Perspective in Social Science.” It was all of nine pages, but I think we largely got it right. Then in 1971, Fox and I, both at Rutgers, published The Imperial Animal in which we used the exciting linguistic work by Chomsky on the necessity for a genetic basis for language—otherwise language is too hard for little kids to learn; there had to be a hard-wired program for it. Different communities taught different languages but learning a language was the same for everyone.

We broadened the discussion to other, earlier elements of social behavior—after all, language is a relatively recent human innovation. We called the phenomenon the “behavioral biogrammar,” a device enabling us to look for human regularities in the production of behavior just as there were clearly regularities in the production of language. Fox and I and countless others have carried on this exploration with various levels of self-consciousness and intellectual aggression, and the result is a new state of play. The most recent full approach to the matter is Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate (see Pinker’s article “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature,” Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2003). Pinker, as a former student of Chomsky’s, could have—had he attended to it—put the biogrammar concept to good, labor-saving use. But there are dozens of others, including Paul Rubin’s analysis of biological factors in economics.

What do we get out of this? Let me use physiology as my baseline. We all know that the body needs certain inputs in order to function, and the medical community has accordingly developed what we know as an ideal nutritional profile—this much vitamin A, this much C, that much protein, this much green vegetable and colorful fruit. Elements of this remain controversial, especially since the body has become the sturdiest temple for moral self-assessment. So now virtually everyone is obsessed with the food they eat. Diet books face their enemy cookbooks across bookstore aisles. Many people act as if they think that what they eat will kill them. They employ an extermination model of food. Others see their exquisite choice of tasteless rain-forest mung beans as a sure-fire evasion of the otherwise grim grip of the mortal coil. Nevertheless, there is a fairly agreed-upon general idea of what the body needs and how it should be cared for.

A Portfolio of Behavioral Vitamins (Nine of Them)

The body is the structure. Structure and function are almost invariably related. Behavior is the function. So let’s turn to behavior and develop a portfolio of behavioral vitamins that individuals and the body-social need.

Why vitamins? One alternative to that term is rights, but I gather that this word causes lawyers and judges to jump up and down with turbulent anxiety. This is always an expensive and unnerving prospect, and you do not want to irritate these people. Another alternative is needs. But that is too Dickensian for something as agreeable as what makes social life agreeable. There is also always the danger that the management of these needs will be co-opted by the always-hungry, always well-meaning corps of concernocrats ready and willing to rummage in the lives of others.

So behavioral vitamins it is.

Now for the purposes of this exercise, we suddenly become our own zookeepers. Modern zookeepers are evaluated on the consistency of the conditions they provide their guests compared to the conditions in which they evolved and whether they are able to reproduce within the confines of the zoo. So allow me to proscribe a list of behavioral vitamins that we should provide each other as we supervise our own zoo, a list based on a broad assessment of the human biogrammar rather than on any pre-existing scheme of morality, piety, and severity. It is based, that is, on what we needed to prosper as a species in our own native environment, which was of course East Africa (it appears our ancestors spread out from East Africa 100,000 years ago; our real roots are there). It’s the Old Country, back home, back East.

This is a simpleton’s list—banal but a bit cheerful, low-cost, and it doesn’t require a postgraduate degree to discuss it.

I do, however, indulge in a minor form of grandiosity, because I describe these vitamin requirements as commandments. But since there are only nine, it’s clearly an amateur’s list.

1. The first vitamin is the opportunity for protection by rules about maturity. Three-year-olds do not and should not have the same package of rights and responsibilities as thirty-year-olds. It’s a good bet that responses to immaturity are rather deeply programmed genomically, and legal systems customarily respond to this program. The outrage over priestly abuse of youngsters is only an especially poignant and dramatic example of this.

2. To indulge in agreeable behavior, we should enjoy the vitamin of access to fresh air and natural light. In various societies such as Sweden and Japan, and South Korea as I recently learned, access to light has a defined economic value. In some places, office buildings may not be built without office windows to the outside for all employees. Devotees of torture and solitary confinement are particularly attached to deprivation of these vitamins, because they know from first-hand experience how effective it is.

3. Greenery is a vitamin. If I asked a class of young students, “how many of you have houseplants,” a huge majority would say they did. Humans evolved in nature, and we try to import the upper Paleolithic into our homes and high-rise apartments by buying plants in which the only serious function is aesthetic. Furthermore, people who live in houses with greenery already around them create yet more in the form of gardens, and gardening is currently the most popular American recreation. Part of the human nature project is a new bed of summer herbs, and even, heaven forbid, zucchini. (Whoever eats all that zucchini?)

4. The opportunity for large-muscle movements is a vitamin. Even prisoners are entitled to an hour in the yard. But there is ongoing curtailment in American schools of the opportunities for play involving large-muscle movements, bodily movements over space, and the conduct of lively games, many of which by preference appear to be competitive. This is both a reflection of the fear of lawsuits against school boards, teachers, equipment makers, etc., and anti-male bias by feminizing school systems. Schools have clearly been configured more for female than male nature, and one result is that females are decisively more successful in the system academically as well as emotionally—colleges and universities are on average 57 percent female and 43 percent male.

   In a different but related realm, there is also apparently a nine to one ratio of male to female users of Ritalin and similar behavioral management drugs. Perhaps because males throughout the primate world like to move around more than females, human ones in particular are being penalized for their nature. They are required to become drug-users by those responsible for their welfare. Obviously such drugs are useful for some individuals. But it becomes highly suspicious when the sex ratio of prescriptions is so remarkably skewed. Is this about the students or about the system they’re in? These issues are more fully explored in my The Decline of Males (Tiger 1999).

5. Social contact is a vitamin. Almost everyone several times a day checks the storage device they use for messages or email. Again, managers of solitary confinement understand how debilitating the lack of social contact is. Good zoos provide opportunities for animals to communicate with their fellows —they like it, even if they squabble. So, the ability to communicate with members of our species is a vitamin. It may also take the form of freedom of expression, one variant of it. It also applies to the issue of censorship: who, if anyone, should decide which forms of communication one member of the species should be allowed to indulge? This is finally a primitive issue as well as a politically profound one. When our ancestral hunter-gatherer bands met to decide what to do next, anyone’s opinion might have turned out to be valuable. Freedom of speech is efficient.

6. A behavioral vitamin is the opportunity to reproduce. Obviously, some political regimes have sought to curtail this with varying degrees of success and human cost. Inasmuch as this may involve efforts to affect the sexual behavior necessary for reproduction, it is a very broad matter indeed, one very popular among people with opinions. There are also subtler or at least less draconian means of affecting reproductive freedoms—for example those anti-natal ideologies at the core of much modern feminism which, in effect, induced countless women to miscalculate the nature of human reproductive nature. Both Sylvia Hewlett and Midge Decter have recently written about what, in retrospect, will come to seem rather like the unnecessary sacrifices to the Stalinist line by those who embraced it in this country to say nothing of the USSR and elsewhere.

7. Related to this is a vitamin young children need, which is the opportunity for a durable and predictable connection to their parents—at least their mothers. In our study of the Israeli kibbutz movement, Women in the Kibbutz, Joseph Shepher and I described how it was the mothers and their mothers in the communities who overwhelmingly voted to disband the children’s houses in which their kids were supposed to live from six weeks on. The men always supported the children’s houses, which were ideologically better and cheaper. But the children and mothers clearly made their needs and preferences known. We are entitled to ask if recent changes in the welfare system requiring women with children to earn money, very often by raising the children of other women in a similar pickle, is the desirable solution to a core mammalian issue: how to protect mothers and babies from the ruckus of the wider system? That issue is at the mammalian core of the Christmas story, which is the centerpiece of the most popular celebration in the world. And meanwhile, expensively and elegantly trained women turn over their children to unlettered nannies from countries they’ve never been to and with whom they would not abide a fifteen-minute coffee break at a diner.

8. Let me break into a cloud of big trouble by suggesting that a vitamin essential in human arrangements is the opportunity for gender-specific behavior. This simply means that on balance, there is good reason to expect that in various venues and for various reasons, males and females will act differently and in others they will act the same. The human nature project makes clear that sex differences are not necessarily the result of conspiracy, patriarchal oppression, formal inequity, and the like. They may be—and have certainly been in countless ways—still in a widespread distribution. However, as we look ahead, we would do well to expect the emergence of sex differences in any complex, ongoing social group, be surprised if there weren’t any, and wonder why not.

9. Finally, a vitamin that energizes a community when it exists and suppresses it when it is fragmented or volatile is the necessity of communal protection. Whatever authority exists has to provide the citizenry protection from internal criminality, and more significantly and dramatically, from the threats of warfare. Governments like that of North Korea clearly fail to generate any sense of fairness and safety among its population, and depression and widespread alcoholism appear to be one clear result.

Here the human nature project suddenly expands into a large amphitheater potentially housing a chorus of the voices traditionally heard on issues of good government, fair government, peaceful government, and the like. But if we abide by Aristotle’s “by nature” description even if the issue is huge, we are nevertheless not exempt from approaching it with the same candor and even confidence as when we consider ideal playgrounds for children.

Where does this fit in the larger currents of contemporary social policy? There are no easy answers to the myriad problems posed by the industrial system and the complex and vastly rambunctious stimuli it demands an upper Paleolithic former hunter-gatherer to attend to. But there is a model that has served quite well. During its early spurts and then during the effective triumph of the industrial way of life over all others, there was a reasonable assumption that appeared to work: that the environment was somehow self-correcting and able to absorb whatever was given to it.

Then a mild-mannered marine biologist named Rachel Carson wrote The Sea Around Us. This revealed that even the vast and ever-changing oceans were being polluted by the results of our new lives. The environmental movement began, and it became clear that the sheer size of the oceans and the expansiveness of our air could not themselves repair what we polluted. We were too clamorous and they were too fragile, too equipoised for an immensely ancient nonindustrial world.

Clearly there have been excesses—if insufficient successes too—to that environmental movement and too much baggage tied to the train. Nevertheless, the environmental movement is a necessary and conservative factor in defining our lives as well as an easy cause that attracts youngsters wearing bandanas.

My proposal here is both metaphorical and real, which is that we need now an inner environmental movement about our nature in here just as we have stretched and learned to comprehend the nature out there. Our internal nature is obviously more mysterious, more personal, more intricately connected to foggy fears and orchestral dreams. An Irish poet once announced “To the Blind, everything is sudden.” But we know now about our history—and more interestingly and complexly our prehistorical story—which is, in fact, told in our genes. Therefore, it seems plain we should not be blind to the forces that permitted us to perdure, prosper, and remain part of human Aristotelian nature.

For years we have laughed at the antics of people in some of the more extreme segments of the animal rights movement—groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They put up billboards encouraging children to drink beer instead of milk and vilify fast food chains for cooking veggie burgers on the same grill as meat. They even wrote to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh urging him to stop the killing at his dinner plate and to request a vegetarian dinner for his last meal. All this sure gets the media’s attention and sometimes even a chuckle from the public. Well, maybe its time to stop laughing.

We may choose to ignore the poor taste of the animal rights movement in equating the Holocaust of World War II with the raising of broiler chickens or the “enslavement” of circus animals with the slavery of African-Americans in the United States. But consider this curious candor from one animal rights leader, “The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration” (Fox 1992). What does that mean?

Can we ignore this statement from PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco: “Arson, property destruction, burglary, and threat are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animal cause” (ActivistCash.com 2008a)?

FBI special agent David Szady, referring to Earth Liberation Front, one extremist group of the animal rights movement, said, “Make no mistake about it, by any sense or definition [this] is a domestic terrorism group” (Hemphill 2003). Animal rightists are domestic terrorists?

In the short term and for most of us, there is no reason for the jitters. We are not the scientists who use animal models to unlock secrets of physiology that may improve our health. So far, they have been the primary targets of animal extremists’ wrath—people like the two Oregon researchers whose homes and cars were vandalized last December (Figures 1 and 2). There is no indication that the extremists will, any time soon, go after you and me for eating a hamburger, keeping a pet, taking meds, or using a pacemaker.

The inconvenient truth is that in the long term, and for all of us, there is cause for concern. The agenda of extreme animal rightists is crystal clear: end the use of all animals as food, clothing, pets, and subjects of medical research. Yet we live longer and healthier lives due to vaccinations, better drugs, and improved information about nutrition and disease prevention—longer lives are the result of animal research.

Noting the impact of these extremists on the nation’s health agenda, famed heart surgeon and 2007 congressional gold medal winner Michael DeBakey said, “It is the American public who will decide whether we must tell hundreds of thousands of victims of heart attacks, cancer, AIDS, and other dread diseases that the rights of animals supersede a patient’s right to relief from suffering and premature death.”

Clarifying definitions will provide a good basis for discussion.

The term animal welfare refers to the idea that humans have a responsibility to care for animals and look out for their well-being. Because seeking animal welfare is in line with what is noblest in human nature, it is sometimes called “acting humanely.” Most reasonable people agree with this. Researchers reflect these values in subscribing to high-quality care for animals, something codified into law as the Animal Welfare Act. Federal regulations are in place to minimize pain and suffering in research. At the authors’ place of employment, the Oregon National Primate Research Center, animals live longer lives than their counterparts in the wild, owing to high-quality food and excellent veterinary care. One sad truth is that our animals get better medical care and nutrition than do many children in the U.S.

Animal rights, sometimes used as shorthand for any concern for animals, really means the belief that animals, like humans, possess some inalienable rights. It is our view that while animals do not have such rights—rights and responsibilities are correlative, and animals are unable to take responsibility for their actions—it is our duty as humans and ethical researchers to care for them humanely, just as we care for our pets.

Animal extremists portray themselves as engaged in a “David against Goliath” struggle on behalf of animals, but are they the true animal welfarists? Hardly! In 2006 alone, PETA killed 2,981 dogs, cats, puppies, kittens, and other animals—an astonishing 97 percent of the animals left in their care, according to the group’s own records supplied to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (2006). For comparison, the Virginia Society for the Protection of Animals (which operates in Norfolk, Virginia, as does PETA) euthanized less than 2.5 percent of the 1,404 animals placed with them in 2006. While PETA collects tens of millions in donations by claiming to advocate for the welfare of animals, the group has actually killed 17,400 pets since 1998 (Center for Consumer Freedom 2008).

PETA’s most recently available tax filing (according to Guidestar.org) lists nearly $30 million in income from contributions, gifts, and grants offered by individuals who may believe that it is actually an animal welfare organization that helps strays.

Many of its donors are also unaware that PETA has provided cash to individuals who publicly engaged in a terrorist agenda. A few examples were provided by Lewiston Morning Tribune (Idaho) writer Michael Costello. “PETA donated $45,200 to . . . ALF [Animal Liberation Front] terrorist Rodney Coronado’s legal defense. (Coronado was convicted in connection with an arson attack at Michigan State University that caused $125,000 worth of damage and destroyed thirty-two years of research data. On December 14, 2007, in a Federal Court in San Diego, he entered a guilty plea to one count of distribution of information related to the assembly of explosives and other charges.) They also . . . ‘loaned’ Coronado’s father $25,000 dollars [sic], which to our knowledge, has not been repaid. In 1999, PETA gave $2,000 to David Wilson, a national ‘ALF spokesperson.’ . . . And sure enough, PETA has contributed to the ALF’s sister organization; according to its own IRS filing, in 2000 PETA openly donated $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) calls ELF ‘the largest and most active U.S.-based terrorist group’” (Costello 2003).

PETA probably doesn’t want its donors to know that. Instead, it directs outrage toward “vivisectors” falsely accused of cruelty to animals to incense donors into reaching more deeply into their pockets.

“We are complete press sluts,” the PETA leadership has claimed (ActivistCash.com 2008b). On that single issue, we agree with PETA.

Garage door vandalized at the home of an Oregon scientist and colleague of the authors.

Although PETA is careful not to openly embrace the assaults, vandalism, and threats perpetrated by some groups, it does not oppose such violence either. Speaking of one animal extremist group whose leaders have been convicted of animal terrorism, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said, “More power to SHAC [Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty] if they can get someone’s attention” (ActivistCash.com 2008b).

The Animal Liberation Front can speak for itself, however. Says one of its leaders, Tim Daley, “In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by gasoline bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps. It’s a war, and there’s no other way you can stop vivisectors” (Lovitz 2007). Jerry Vlasak, head of the ALF Press Office, is equally candid, “I don’t think you’d have to kill—assassinate—too many [doctors involved with animal testing]. I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives” (McDonald 2007).

To “sell” their story, animal extremists rely on the lack of public awareness of tight federal regulation on animal research—random inspections of facilities by the United States Department of Agriculture for compliance to the rigorous standards of the Animal Welfare Act.

Animal extremists wrongfully claim that data obtained from animal research cannot be extrapolated to drug development for humans. A recent survey of 150 drug compounds from twelve international pharmaceutical companies found that animal testing had significant predictive power to detect most—not all, admittedly—of 221 human toxic events caused by those drugs (Olson et al. 2000).

Animals are important not just in testing for efficacy and safety of drugs but also to the basic research that leads to medical advances. Ironically, animal extremists were decrying the uselessness of our Center’s basic investigations in primate stem cell biology on the very day in November 2007 that one of our scientists announced the first cloning of stem cells from non-embryonic primate tissue, subsequently hailed by Time magazine as the top discovery of 2007.

Animal extremists often show willful naïveté in considering human health needs. Smallpox, malaria, and polio have been nearly eradicated from much of the world—you no longer see wards of people confined to “iron lungs.” Animal research is inextricably tied to improved human health. The first recognition of diabetes as a disease and the explanation of its cause, as well as its first treatment and early management, came directly from animal research conducted in universities. Improvements in treatments for this disease continue to come from these same sources. While these accomplishments are tributes to animal research, extremists fail to recognize that antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis, AIDS, diabetes, and heart disease still need the attention of researchers, who in turn need ethical animal research to advance their studies.

What are we to do when those very researchers are targeted for harassment and violence?

Washington D.C., police officers arrest rabbit-costumed PETA demonstrators Debbie Mitchell (left) and Melynda DuVal (right) during a protest in front of the Department of Transportation. AFP PHOTO/ Mario TAMA [Photo via Newscom]

In 2006, members of ALF declared that they left a Molotov Cocktail outside the Bel Air home of Dr. Lynn Fairbanks, the Director of the Center for Primate Neuroethology at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. Actually, the explosive device was placed on the porch of the faculty member’s seventy-year-old neighbor. Fortunately, the timing device failed (Editors 2006).

About one year later, a group calling themselves the Animal Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility for placing a lighted incendiary device next to a car parked at the home of Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum, who is chief of Pediatric Ophthalmology at UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute. Authorities described the event as “domestic terrorism.” The delivery address was correct this time, but fortunately for Dr. Rosenbaum and his neighbors, the device did not ignite due to ineptness on the part of the “activists” (McDonald 2007). Police noted that the device had the potential to create great harm.

Another talented researcher, Dr. Dario Ringach, ultimately gave in to animal extremists, promising to stop his research on monkeys in exchange for cessation of harassment of his family, including his young children. “You win,” he e-mailed them (Epstein 2006).

It is worth mentioning that Ringach’s, Rosenbaum’s, and Fairbank’s research all were humanely conducted and met federal standards.

As you can see, we are not talking about peaceful protests here. As the editors of Nature Neuroscience (Editors 2006) put it, “Over several years, the researchers have been subjected to a campaign of harassment that included demonstrations at their homes and pamphlets distributed to their neighbors, as well as threatening phone calls and emails. Elsewhere, targets of similar protests have had abuse shouted through bullhorns or painted on their homes or cars, doorbells rung repeatedly, and windows smashed or doors broken down while family members were in the house. Animal-rights Web sites post the names of scientists’ spouses and children, along with their ages and schools.”

According to the Foundation for Biomedical Research (2006), a handful of illegal acts by animal extremist groups in 1994 had risen to a hundred such attacks ten years later. Society for Neuroscience members reported more attacks in the first six months of 2007 than in the five-year period from 1999 to 2003, prompting that organization to release, just this past February, the document “Best Practices for Protecting Researchers and Research: Recommendations for Universities and Institutions” (2008, see sidebar, page 27).

Even though these and similar events send a chilling message to researchers and young people considering the field of biomedical research, they are poorly reported in the general media. The public doesn’t hear about the impact this has on students viewing research as a potential career—or those already active in the field. Nor does it hear how the loss of talented researchers threatens creation of the new knowledge needed to devise cures.

Former University of Iowa President (now of Cornell University) David Skorton worries that researchers and students are being scared off by attacks from animal rights extremists. ALF, which took credit for break-ins and destruction at the University of Iowa, distributed the home addresses of researchers who conduct animal research to animal activists. “Publicizing this personal information was blatant intimidation,” Skorton pointed out, adding that because of safety worries, “numerous researchers are even concerned about allowing their children to play in their own yards.” He acknowledged that the cost of such intimidation is difficult to nail down, but he believed it “could be measured by many, many lives” that might not be saved by medical advances (Lederman 2005).

Spray-painted automobile at the home of an Oregon scientist and colleaugue of the authors. The white material is paint stripper.

His words echoed those of Richard Bianco, vice president for research at the University of Minnesota, where an attack by vandals in 1999 caused more than $2 million in damage. “The financial aspect is the least of our problems. . . . The hardest thing is people see this and don’t want to go into science,” he said. “Why would they go into science when they can have their work threatened like that?” (Agri News 2005).

Senator Orrin Hatch understood. “When research laboratories and university researchers are targeted and attacked, the ones who lose most are those who are living with a disease or who are watching a loved one struggling with a devastating illness” (Davidson 2004).

Because it seeks to stop ethical medical research, animal extremism is bad for our health. There are several steps the public can take to help reduce this threat to public health and good science.

We should be very careful in our giving to ensure that our contributions don’t wind up aiding those who use the weapons of intimidation and violence. At the same time, we want to support organizations with proven records of caring for animals or of providing humane education that enhances the care received by laboratory animals.

If we have scientists who are neighbors, we can offer to organize a neighborhood watch and volunteer to speak to the media about how we have benefited from animal research if their homes are vandalized.

While mentioning the importance of speaking out, we can contact the local organization or university supporting research (a list, by state, is available at www.statesforbiomed.org/) and offer to testify about what animal research has meant to someone in our family. When our kids come home from school with animal rights literature that denigrates animal research, we can contact their teachers to ask that they invite a researcher or veterinarian from a local university or research center to visit the class or even take the students on a tour of their facility.

It is because we thought it was time to sound the alarm that we wrote The Animal Research War¹ describing what we think the public needs to know about this quiet war—“quiet,” because it is seldom reported in the news. We want to tell people about the battle zone that we, as animal researchers, live in every day. We also want to communicate the benefits of animal research, past and potential, as well as the compassion with which researchers care for laboratory animals. If this war is lost, it is all who struggle with disease—that means all of us, sooner or later—who will bear the burden.

Benefits of Animal Research

Animal research saves human lives and animals—both benefit from life-saving vaccines and antibiotics for a variety of diseases. And those are just two medical treatments among hundreds developed from animal research. From improved surgical techniques to advances in organ transplant, animal research has vastly improved and prolonged life. Seven of the last ten Nobel Prizes awarded in medicine relied on animal research.

As early as the twentieth century, animal research allowed scientists to understand the malaria life cycle, the pathogenesis of tuberculosis, and the development of an antiserum for diphtheria. Today, gene therapy for cancer and an improved tuberculosis vaccine (“the first vaccine in 100 years that is more potent than the current one”) are the result of ongoing research using animals. Multiple advances in pain therapy would not have been possible without it.

The reduction of several prenatal and newborn complications, as well as hypertension reduction during pregnancy, is the result of animal research using sheep.

A pediatric heart valve “that can be loaded into a catheter, inserted into a vein in the groin area, guided into place and deployed at a precise location within the heart” is being developed by UCLA researchers as an alternative to risky, invasive open-heart surgery. Pigs are being used to test the device because their circulatory system closely resembles that of humans.

And thanks to advances in in vitro fertilization and embryo transplant techniques, many endangered species have a fighting chance.

New Recommendations for Protecting Researchers Issued

The Society for Neuroscience released a document on February 7, 2008, to help protect academic researchers who “face intimidation, harassment, and physical attack by fringe anti-animal research extremists.” The “Best Practices for Protecting Researchers and Research” report calls on research institutions “to ensure the ability of researchers to conduct their research in a safe environment.”

It also calls on universities and research institutions to:

• Support the efforts of governments worldwide to combat these anti-research campaigns. In the U.S., a linchpin of these efforts is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism act, a new law that strengthens and codifies penalties for illegal animal rights activities.
• Bear the primary burden of maintaining the fundamental principles of academic freedom.
• Provide “an appropriate and safe environment free from attacks” for their researchers and to extend that safety to personal residences.
• Encourage research institutions worldwide to implement a series of recommendations to “pre-empt and react to anti-research activities.”

The recommendations suggest a series of processes in the areas of leadership and administration (responsibility for protecting against attack “lies at the highest level of the executive and academic administration”); security (institutions must “develop and plan with local law enforcement”); and public affairs and communication.

“When protests extend beyond constitutionally protected activities and become personally violent or intimidating, the leadership and administration are obligated to demonstrate that protection of researchers is a core responsibility and directly affects the livelihood of both the institution and the global research enterprise.”

Note

1. The authors have written The Animal Research War (Macmillan/Palgrave, 2008), a personal account of what it is like to be terrorized, an analysis of the effect of animal extremists on the world’s scientists, and the way in which the public and legal system is changing its views on animals. The book traces the evolution of the animal rights movement, profiles its leadership, and reveals the remarkable value of the research enterprise.

References

• ActivistCash.com. 2008a. Alex Pacheco biography. 2008b.
• Ingrid Newkirk quotes. Available online at Activistcash.com.
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• Center for Consumer Freedom, 2008. PETAkillsAnimals.com.
• Costello, Michael. 2003. Zero tolerance for PETA. Lewiston Morning Tribune, October 10. Available online at michaelcostello.blogspot.com.
• Davidson, Lee. 2004. Hatch flays animal-rights ‘terrorists.’ (Salt Lake City). May 19. Available online at findarticles.com.
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• Society for the Study of Neuroscience. 2008. Best practices for protecting researchers and research: Recommendations for universities and institutions. Available online at sfn.org (PDF).
• Virginia Department of Agriculture. 2007. Animal Reporting Online: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (2006). Available online at virginia.gov.