Zombieland is half how-to video half tongue-in-cheek comic adventure. Aside from the occasional stupid move on the part of the characters, Zombieland is an entertaining romp through a land of the dead-of-sorts.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), an isolated, skinny geek, survived the initial zombie infection. He developed a series of rules to keep himself safe, uninfected, and alive. They include doing cardio and always doing the double tap. After an unfortunate series of events, Columbus is thrown into the lap of Twinkie-loving cowboy Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). Tallahassee isn’t interested in keeping Columbus around long and does all he can to make it painfully clear. While out scouting for food, Columbus and Tallahassee find Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), a fiercely loyal set of sisters, in a heart-wrenching situation.

The chemistry between Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson could charm the undergarments off the most dedicated nun. Brilliantly gauche sparks of silliness fly across the screen between the two, lighting up the viewer. They’re able to make the ridiculous dialogue and situations feel natural.

Lines like “Time to nut up or shut up!” and “You’re like a giant... cock blocking robot, like developed in a secret fucking government lab” pepper the script. I would not be surprised if many of the lines become instant classics amongst zombie film lovers and comedy fans alike.

I was impressed by the general bad-assery of ladies Wichita and Little Rock in the film. Not only are they smokin’ hot, they are not waiting around for men to save them; they aren’t simpering damsels but scheming, killing machines. Just when the audience has probably ruled them out, they come out swinging.

Director Ruben Fleischer doesn’t rest on acting or writing alone; he pays careful attention to how the movie looks as well. I’m not just talking about particularly disgusting zombies or flesh-ripping scenes but how the entire movie looks. The lighting, the framing, even the composition are first rate. During many of the opening scenes and at various times throughout the movie, a paused still of Zombieland is indistinguishable from a cell from a comic book.

The best part of Zombieland is the clever use of Columbus’s rules, displayed in writing during each scene. The two used most often are “double tap” and “do your cardio.” Fleischer and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick use the rules as humorous punctuation to the sequence of the plot. When the meaning of a scene could swing either tragic or triumphant, the filmmakers add just the right comma to make its path clear.

I absolutely love zombie movies because they offer perspective on what’s important. Zombies don’t care that someone is good or bad, rich or poor, white or black; they only care that they have delicious brains and guts. The fit, smart people survive and everyone else sort of dies. Zombieland is no exception to its genre.

The consequences for being ill-prepared for an undead attack in Zombieland encouraged me to be a better person (or at least a trimmer one). I don’t want to be a “poor fat bastard,” and I don’t want to be eaten with the fatties. I wouldn’t be able to bear the indignity of being the fat zombie chasing my husband around our house. It’s just no way to go. If I’ve learned one lesson from the movie, it’s that I need to do my cardio.

My one gripe with Zombieland is that they did not get their science facts right. Columbus calls mad cow disease a virus. Mad cow disease is not a virus but a prion that gets into the body by eating infected meat.

Small disease-related details aside, Zombieland is a great addition to a genre filled with great zombie movies. Bringing together elements of humor and gore, Zombieland is a satisfying flick that amuses the morbid sense of the viewer’s inner child.

A heartbroken reporter stumbles onto a story about cold war Jedi in Iraq to whom no human, rock, or goat is immune. Charming, humorous, and sincere, The Men Who Stare at Goats, based on the allegedly nonfiction book of the same name by Jon Ronson, exercised a bit of mind control over me.

Cold war soldier Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) decides to go to Iraq. During the cold war, America taught Cassady and the other Jedis in the program the finest new-age techniques research could find, including remote viewing and how to literally get into someone else’s mind. On his way to Iraq he meets Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a heartbroken reporter with something to prove to himself. Bob smells a story in Lyn and decides to tag along. Using Lyn’s “special training,” they bumble from one mishap to another.

There are limited desert war zone circumstances that could inspire laughter while staying within good taste. Writer Peter Straughan finds strings his plot points together in a delightfully bizarre way. There is something charming in the way Lyn and Bob are slapped around like a pinball in a machine throughout the movie. They may have put themselves in the chute with the goal of getting in the hole at the bottom, but the path they take is really up to the people using the flappers. The more they rationalize that they have control, the more obvious it is they are a bit delusional.

All of the Jedi, and to a lesser degree Bob, suffer from a wicked case of confirmation bias, but it’s obvious that the writer and director don’t want the audience to just believe in his abilities. Generally, when Lyn uses his training, it’s so obvious there is another explanation that the only people buying it are in the film. His wide eyed, deeply focused, new-age hippy-dippy soldiering cannot be taken seriously. There is no denying that Lyn’s unflinching belief in his training has real effects on reality though.

There is an almost ticklish chemistry between Ewan McGregor and George Clooney. Bob follows Lyn in tow like a little brother because Lyn has undashable confidence and remarkable warmth. McGregor gives Bob a wide-eyed innocence, but he never crosses the line into being utterly daft. Clooney puffs Lyn’s confidence without inflating his ego.

By making Lyn utterly sincere but lovable and obviously ridiculous, the filmmakers have created a comfortable distance between audience and character that allows the viewer to enjoy the silliness. Lyn’s earnestness also creates enough affection in the heart of the audience that they are free to roll their eyes and giggle rather than get annoyed. Even those dedicated to rational thought will not wish an IED on him.

In fact, I think most skeptics would find The Men Who Stare at Goats especially enjoyable because it displays so perfectly how screwed up nonscientific methodology can get. Wise science and logic teachers could play it for their students as a final exam, making them write a ten-page essay on the faults of the methodology and how the claims of the Jedi could be confirmed scientifically. Bonus points could be given for any student who writes about why the government would pay for this type of illogical military program and how scary it is that parts of this are allegedly based on a true story.

It’s rare that an audience is given carte-blanche to laugh at such a lovable a character and can still leave the theater with its IQ fully intact. The Men Who Stare at Goats accomplishes just that. Smart, lighthearted, silly, and charismatic, The Men Who Stare at Goats may make you wish you could remote-view it anytime.

If a doctor engages in malpractice, the practitioner is accountable to professional organizations. However, if a ghost hunter is accused of misconduct, there is no regulatory board, no code of conduct, and no guide to good ghost practices. What recourse does the client have when the poltergeists come back or the ghosts don’t leave?

Following accusations of unethical and illegal practices, the ethics of ghost hunting is currently a controversial topic among the paranormal community. In an effort to legitimize the practice, some ghost hunters have attempted to create a set of standards and ethics. Why, even the pet psychic community has a code of ethics!¹

Do Ghost Hunters Need a Hippocratic Oath?

To address this need, “Investigation Morality” in Haunted Times presents a protocol for ghost hunting. This consists of a superficial list of obvious rules: respect private property, no illegal drug use, no intoxication, no discriminatory language. Strangely, the article then creates procedures of how to capture photographs of orbs and tips for recording electronic voice phenomena. Then the list of “standards” starts sounding like a playground warning: “There will be no running or horseplay at any time during an investigation. This type of behavior does not befit an investigator and it does not give the proper respect to the place or owner.”²

Creating a code of ethics obscures the fact that ghost hunting is the problem itself. The very beliefs, practices, claims, conclusions, and cures of ghost hunters are often unethical. Is it simply unethical for ghost hunting groups to investigate at all?

Ghost hunting is hardly a civil right, but anyone can do it. Indeed, it is encouraged by “haunted” restaurants, hotels, and other businesses that thrive on their folklore and often rely on the bias of ghost hunters. Many “haunted” sites are public places. Within certain hours, cemeteries are open to visitors whether they want to mourn by a graveside, dangle a pendulum over a grave, or attempt to raise a spirit from beneath it.

The potential ethical problems arise when a troupe of ghost hunters forms a group, sets themselves up as a “business,” advertises their spurious “services,” attracts “clients,” and sets foot into private houses, even with the consent or invitation of their residents. It’s like phoning your local Kingdom Hall and inviting a few Jehovah’s Witnesses into your home…

Ghost hunting is an industry today. Inspired by the plethora of reality TV shows, ghost hunting groups are as popular today as video shops were in the 1990s. There are potentially thousands of these groups nationally. In one informal online search, an estimated 140 paranormal groups were found in Denver, Colorado, alone.³ A few of these groups even claim nonprofit status.

These groups exist because there is a need, however illegitimate it may often be. The need is not only provoked by these TV shows but stems from popular beliefs. When members of the public fear their businesses and homes are haunted, they contact these paranormal groups; they don’t come to us. From skeptics they expect a lack of sympathy and ridicule. From believers they expect sympathy and similar belief systems. When they should want fact, they seek familiarity. But the assurance is that these teams are comprised of ghost hunters who claim to be “professional,” “trained,” and “qualified.”

PhD (Ghost Hunting)

© Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society 2009.

Put simply, none of us are “qualified.” There are no ghost hunting qualifications. There is no apprenticeship, training, course, or degree needed to become a ghost hunter, ghost chaser, paranormal investigator, or skeptical investigator of the paranormal. That is, there are no legitimate courses. Ghost Chasers International and other organizations offer courses that ensure you will become a “Certified Ghost Hunter,”⁴ if not certifiable…

By this description, no one is “unqualified” either, but some are more unqualified than others. Some professions can be more relevant to the field: physicists can explain the way the natural world works; historians can compare claims of dates, people, and places against records; and electricians can explain strange behavior caused by faulty circuits. Even the infamous plumbers of television’s TAPS⁵ can bring to bear specialist knowledge…until they go beyond their knowledge base.

It is important that the investigator doesn’t venture beyond his or her area of expertise. Unfortunately, it is venturing beyond their area of expertise for some ghost hunters to investigate at all.

All investigators are varying degrees of amateur. For most, it’s a haphazard hobby. No degree in physics or “metaphysics” will prepare someone to investigate the paranormal. It takes many people from many different backgrounds to piece together paranormal puzzles; provided all players are playing the same game.

© Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society 2009.

There is no professional organization, regulatory body, union, or code of ethics to regulate ghost hunting research and practices. Should such courses and resources exist? Probably not; ghost hunting is not a structured field or standardized practice. It is based in legend and myth, and many claims involve the paranormal interpretation of natural phenomena. To date, there is no solid evidence for the existence of ghosts.

Ghost hunting seems to be the alchemy of our day.

The (Not So) Scientific Method

Ghost hunting is not a science, but any claim can be studied scientifically. By and large, investigating the paranormal is a legitimate study studied illegitimately.

There is no formal or rigorous model or methodology to investigating claims of hauntings. There is no one right way to approach it but many wrong ways. Ghost hunting can and should employ the scientific method, but most hunters don’t, or even worse, they do … but badly.

It is not field work when the data consists of photographs of orbs, recordings of electronic voice phenomena, and anecdotal evidence of ghost sightings. It’s not the scientific method when the premise is that ghosts exist.

It is not experimental research when dubious tools are used. Some devices are bogus: the “Telephone to the Dead,” a bad radio that reputedly receives garbled messages from the deceased that can be “translated” for a price.⁶ Some equipment is overkill: using a Geiger counter to find spirits is like using a concrete mixer to blend cake batter (and an imaginary cake at that). Some instruments are irrelevant: as the name suggests, Electromagnetic Field Detectors measure electromagnetic fields, not ghosts. Thermometers, ion meters, and motion sensors were not designed for the purposes of ghost hunting.

Just because someone is using scientific equipment does not mean they are using the scientific method.

Diagnosis: Paranormal

© Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society 2009.

Following this fundamentally flawed experimentation, it is not conclusive when the ghost hunters pronounce a location “haunted.” Belief often gets in the way of reality, and it’s easier to have blind faith than to undertake double-blind tests. Ghost hunters and clients often live in a supernatural symbiosis. The claims justify the existence of the ghost hunters, and the ghost hunters substantiate the claims, which leads to confirmation bias. It’s often the ghost hunters themselves who bring the ghosts.

Occasionally, paranormal cases are driven by underlying physical or mental health conditions, which the ghost hunter is incapable of discerning unless he or she moonlights as a medical doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist. And unless they are the client’s chosen or assigned therapist, it’s not ethical for them to become involved at all even if they are a licensed therapist. To corroborate these claims is unconscionable, and to attempt to resolve these cases is dangerous; the ghost hunter is sorely out of his or her depth.

To be truly ethical, ghost hunters should avoid private investigations and avoid becoming embroiled in the personal lives of others.

Finally, once the ghost hunters have “diagnosed” a site as haunted, it is not ethical for them to attempt to “cure” the still-alleged phenomena. Some paranormal groups enlist psychics, demonologists, and other paranormal practitioners to “treat” hauntings with protective rituals, ghost clearings, cleansing ceremonies, blessings, exorcisms, and other Hollywood cures. “Curing” a haunting is at best a placebo for the apparent victim and at worst a fraud.

An investigation should aim to solve a mystery, not claim to be curative. The goals in investigating claims of the paranormal should be to establish whether or not there is a claim, to examine the claim carefully and logically, and hopefully to explain the phenomena. Sometimes our job is simply to accept explanations as they are found, as mundane as they may sound in comparison to the claim.

The simplest explanations can be the most difficult to accept by those who are already convinced of the presence of the paranormal.

Ghost hunting is fraught with potential ethical concerns for all parties involved. The ghost hunter and clients faces legal, moral, and safety issues. The locations are vulnerable to vandalism, theft, and damage. Then there are the more intangible dangers of ghost hunting: the destruction of history, the creation of pseudoscience, and the misrepresentation of the natural world as supernatural.

Perhaps ghost hunters don’t need a code of ethics because no one needs “ghost hunters.”

References:

1. Code of Ethics for Animal Communication. Available at http://www.herbsandanimals.com/codeofethics.html (accessed November 6, 2009).
2. Schill, Brian. 2009. Investigation Morality: Moral Dilemma—Investigating Cemeteries and MCIs. Haunted Times 4, no. 2.
3. Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society. Available at http://www.rockymountainparanormal.com/ (accessed November 9, 2009).
4. Ghost Chasers International. Available at http://www.ghosthunter.com/ (accessed November 9, 2009).
5. The Atlantic Paranormal Society. Available at http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/ (accessed November 9, 2009).
6. The Telephone to the Dead. Available at http://thetelephonetothedead.com/ (accessed November 9, 2009).

Aliens, hysteria, hallucinations, theology, ancient civilizations, and psychotherapy merge en mass in Nome, Alaska. A shameless hodgepodge of supernatural ridiculousness, The Fourth Kind gave me a first-class headache and left me suffering from rapid IQ depletion.

The film opens with Milla Jovovich introducing herself as the actress who will play Dr. Abbey Tyler. She explains to the audience that everything on the screen will be from video provided by Tyler, audio recordings, or interviews with Tyler. She leaves us to ponder the upcoming movie and decide for ourselves what we believe. The Fourth Kind then goes directly to split-screen between an “actual” video of Abbey Tyler and Milla Jovovich saying exactly the same thing, at the same time, as if to prove to us they are honest depictions. Abbey Tyler, a therapist, is conducting a study of the momentously unstable Nome population. Her patients all report the same experiences and sleeplessness. The insomnia and missing persons seem to be epidemic in Nome. A proponent of hypnotherapy, she gently puts her patients in a trance. As patients remember more and more, they become more vulnerable to malevolent forces. Local sheriff August (Will Patton) tells her to stop the hypnosis sessions, but she feels that she must get to the bottom of what is behind her patients’ visions and sleep deprivation. Somehow, it is all connected.

Director, screen writer, and book writer Olatunde Osunsanmi has a split screen fetish. Most of the time the screen is just split two screens, but occasionally it is split into as many as four different boxes, swirling about obnoxiously. Osunsanmi inflates one or another screen to create false emphasis. Split screens mean split attention, and the viewer spends time comparing how each side is different instead of what they are saying. Maybe that’s the point. When I tried to listen to what each screen said, I wanted to be abducted.

Osunsanmi can’t decide if he wants to make a documentary or a fictional depiction, and he refuses to decide. The end result is a mockumentary. As if the multiple personalities on one screen weren’t enough, Osunsanmi intersperses the film with an interview between himself and the “actual” Abbey. “Actual” Abbey, sitting in her wheel chair, pale and frail, explains what she thinks happened while she and other Abbey are depicted on the screen. If that is confusing at all, you might as well give up now because it gets worse.

It is rare that an audience is exposed to so many ridiculous theories in one movie. There are ancient Sumerian stories of alien creators, ancient alien rocket ship carvings, alien abductions, hallucinations, levitations, channeling, disappearing family members, and murder conspiracies. If this is based on a true story, I’m surprised that Nome, Alaska, is still standing because the city has yet to find an irrational explanation to which it didn’t subscribe.

The worst of it comes right around the time Abbey makes excuses for God. During one of the scenes of a patient being tortured by whatever is using his body to communicate, the entity seems to admit their identity: God. Later though, Abbey—not Jovovich Abbey but “actual” Abbey—says that because it is evil, it cannot be God but can think it is God. Seriously, just like that? It can make your body do horrible things, can make horrible things happen to your family, can cause horrific events; it can control things but because it’s bad, it can’t be God? Next she’ll be saying whatever is speaking through the patient is not a genuine Scotsman. Maybe God just allowed it to happen. I actually groaned out loud and slapped my forehead when I heard that winner.

A well-acted script can cover all manner of ills, but because Osunsanmi decided to use two people for each role, there was a glut of acting issues. Where one Abbey was sincere and believable, the other Abbey couldn’t muster an ounce of reliability or credibility. The only actor with any grasp on the craft was Raphaël Coleman, the fifteen-year-old actor who played Abbey’s son.

When Jovovich begs us to make up our own minds while the first snippet of “actual” footage is shown, disbelief immediately washed over me. By minute ten, I could feel my brain cells going to war. By the end of The Fourth Kind, I was writing abduction wishes in my notebook.

LOS ANGELES, October 24—A study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine claiming that prayers from the USA, Canada, and Australia caused a 100% increase in pregnancy rates among infertility patients in Korea. The surprising results announced by Kwang Cha and associates were widely reported in the news media, including on the ABC news program Good Morning America. However, the study’s credibility was undermined when one of the co-authors, Daniel Wirth, was arrested by the FBI and later pled guilty to fraud. Cha’s other co-author, Columbia University’s Rogerio Lobo, later revealed that he had not participated in the research and withdrew his name from the published findings. Even with one of his co-authors in federal prison and the other disgraced, Korean fertility specialist Kwang Yul Cha stood by the allegedly supernatural study. He eventually filed a defamation lawsuit against Bruce Flamm, a California physician who had published several articles questioning the validity of the Cha/Wirth “pregnancy by prayer” report. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in August 2007, was thrown out of court in April 2008. However, in June 2008 Cha took the case to the California Appellate Court. Today the Court of Appeals “affirmed in full” the Superior Court decision and thus ruled that Superior Court Judge James Dunn had acted appropriately in tossing out the lawsuit.

In response to the ruling, Dr. Flamm issued the following statement: “Today’s ruling is a victory for science and evidence-based medicine. Scientists must be allowed to question bizarre claims. Cha’s mysterious study was designed and allegedly conducted by a man who turned out to be a criminal with a 20-year history of fraud. A criminal who steals the identities of dead children to obtain bank loans and passports is not a trustworthy source of research data. Cha could have simply admitted this obvious fact but instead he hired a team of lawyers to punish me for voicing my opinions. Physicians should debate their opinions in medical journals, not in courts of law. Judges have better things to do with their time and taxpayers have better things to do with their money.”

Dr. Flamm is a physician with Kaiser Permanente and a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California. He has been the senior investigator on numerous medical studies and has written several books and book chapters.

For more information contact: Janice Goings: 951-288-0937 jangoings@aol.com

This review contains spoilers.

One might be excused for wondering what, exactly, German director Roland Emmerich has against the United States. After all, his films (such as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) are known for showing American icons such as the White House and the Statue of Liberty being destroyed.

With his new film 2012, Emmerich ups the ante, depicting a global disaster caused by terrestrial instability. John Cusack stars as Jackson Curtis, a Los Angeles writer whose failed novel causes the end of his marriage. Jackson wants to reunite with his family and ends up (almost literally) going to the ends of the earth to save them. At the same time in Washington, DC, the president’s chief science advisor discovers an impending danger in the earth’s unsettled tectonic plates. He butts heads with the chief of staff over when the information should be made public and who they should tell first.

The film tackles a variety of weighty questions, such as: If the end of the world was coming, what would you do? If only the government knew, who should be told? If there was a way that some people could survive, who should decide who lives and who dies?

In the case of a true global catastrophe, is there really any point to announcing it to the world? Put simply, if everyone’s going to die in thirty-six hours and there’s nothing anyone can do, what’s the point in telling people? Assuming you had perfect knowledge, why bother? Some people would panic, others wouldn’t believe it anyway, and still others would try to write and market their book on it overnight.

These are interesting questions, but they unfortunately get lost amid the film’s shouting, explosions, and crashes. About a half dozen subplots appear, several of them awkwardly aborted in the rush to get to the disaster scenes.

Then there are the implausibilities—and I’m not even talking about Los Angeles sliding into the ocean in such a cinematic fashion. Jackson Curtis has more lives than James Bond and Indiana Jones put together: he literally outruns fireballs and earthquakes, saving the day with each step. But my favorite eye-roller is when almost the entire world has been consumed by fire and flood—except, apparently, the parts that allow a last-minute cell phone call so that two lead characters can share one last scene together.

But to criticize a disaster film for being implausible is a bit silly itself. People don’t go to disaster movies to see rich emotional tapestry or Memento-like airtight logic; they go to see stuff get blown up. And on that level, it succeeds.

Destroying the world is not easy, and the filmmakers used a variety of special effect techniques to bring global disaster to the big screen. From a visual effects standpoint alone, 2012 is a remarkable achievement. The actors were often on moving sets—none of that cheesy original Star Trek technique of throwing actors to the floor while shaking the camera to simulate explosion concussions. In many of the scenes, the objects are actually collapsing around the actors while giant gimbals and hydraulic lifts jostle and jolt the sets. Some of the scenes are remarkably effective (a shot of a giant wave overtaking a cruise ship is genuinely chilling, reminding me of The Perfect Storm), while others look like a cartoonish video game.

The film is basically a retelling of the biblical flood story and has nothing to do with the date 2012. It could have been set in 1995 or 2013, but the 2012 angle made a perfect hook for the film: Why not tie it in with the supposed end of the world, allegedly tied to the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012?

Not surprisingly, Columbia Pictures is taking full advantage of the New Agey 2012 doomsday discussion/panic/concern to help promote the film. Over the past year or so, many people have suggested that the year 2012 will bring some sort of significant change, either catastrophic disaster (as in the film) or perhaps a new age of enlightenment (as in what did not happen with the so-called Harmonic Convergence in 1987). The link between global catastrophe and Mayan calendar-based prophecy is tenuous at best. Some ads for the 2012 film begin with the phrase “The Mayans warned us,” though of course the Mayans did not “warn” anyone—they simply had a calendar system that happens to “end” in 2012, much as our Gregorian calendar “ends” on December 31. The Mayans never said the world would end that year and have shown irritation and contempt for the way that their culture has been co-opted into pop-culture notions and Hollywood blockbuster film promotions.

New Age and doomsday authors have been cranking out 2012-themed books at an amazing pace over the past six months; there are literally tens of thousands of such titles in print, with more hitting bookstores every day. It seems that anyone with access to a keyboard and an opinion on 2012 (or prophecy in general) is out there trying to cash in. It will be interesting to see how many of these books will be for sale on Amazon.com for even one cent on January 1, 2013.

I interviewed the director and cast of 2012 for LiveScience.com; you can see the videos of the interviews online at http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=NA_091028_2012-Emmerich#playerTop. Of particular interest to Skeptical Inquirer readers is my interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor, in which he discusses how his character struggles to maintain scientific integrity in the face of political influences. After the Bush administration’s well-publicized antiscience stance and overt attempts to bend scientific research for political ends, this point seems especially relevant.

Though 2012 is not a great film, it does have some interesting pro-science aspects that skeptics should take note of. While John Cusack is the lead star, the hero of the film is really a black scientist, Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Helmsley is the president’s chief science advisor, and it is he who first discovers the impending danger. The film somewhat realistically portrays the difficulties of scientific uncertainty—how sure do you have to be to sound the alarm? This is not an academic question but arises in discussions of scientific prediction on a wide range of topics, from asteroid impacts to global warming.

Not only is the scientist the hero, he is also the film’s major moral compass. There are no evil, white lab-coated scientists in 2012; there are only scientists (and a few nerds thrown in for good measure) doing their best to save humanity. 2012 is a completely humanistic disaster film; the catastrophes are not the work of either angry gods or magic spells but nature itself. The film shows prayer failing miserably to stop the destruction—even the Pope in the Vatican gets smacked away (Emmerich told me he originally wanted to show Mecca being destroyed but didn’t want to risk a fatwa). In the end it is science—hardworking, unglamorous science—that saves the day.

These are wonderful, humanistic, pro-science depictions that I’d hope to see in more films; it’s a shame to see them buried amid so many CGI disasters and explosions in 2012.

In early September, I became aware of something that shocked me as both a skeptic and physics teacher: Edmund Scientific, one of the oldest and most respected outlets for selling science equipment for educational use, has gone over to the dark side. They are actively marketing and selling paranormal woo-woo on their Web site.

The item that attracted my attention was their self-proclaimed EMF Ghost Meter, which is nothing more than a standard EMF (electromagnetic field) detector that detects low-frequency EMFs such as radio and microwaves. I have no beef with Edmund selling EMF detectors (I even have one in my classroom), but what galls me is that they are actually marketing this device by calling it a ghost detector, implicitly giving credence to pseudoscientific flummery. As they say on their Web site: “The preferred unit of paranormal investigators, this Ghost Meter can be used by laymen with professional results. The unit responds instantaneously to EMF fluctuations and spikes in energy with a detecting range of 50 to 1,000 Hz. The VLF range is 1,000 to 20,000 Hz. An easy-to-read LED display and silent on/off push switch make for seamless, simple operation.”

Such devices are often used by so-called ghost hunters as they bumble around in the dark, freaking themselves out at every cool draft of wind and creaky sound. In reality, there is absolutely no reason to think that EMF meters are detecting any kind of “ghostly entities,” as a simple application of Occam’s Razor often shows that what the meters are actually detecting is the low-frequency EM waves given off by nearby lighting fixtures, electrical lines, or even the other equipment carried by the ghost hunters themselves.

But it gets worse. In addition to their Ghost Meter, Edmund is now selling what they call a 3-in-1 Paranormal Research Instrument, which is an EMF meter, a digital temperature sensor, and a flashlight. I suppose Edmund also wants to tap into the gullible “cool breezes and drafts are evidence for a ghost” market along their journey down the paranormal rabbit hole. Edmund has gone even further by selling what it calls a Remote Viewing DVD, which claims the customer can “learn the history and latest applications of this amazing field of ‘intuitive science’ and discover for yourself how to devleop [sic] and use your own RV-ESP skills.”

I recently checked the Edmund Web site, and all of these items are now listed as “temporarily out of stock.” Hopefully, this is because the company is attempting to (tentatively) reverse course, but maybe it’s because they’ve been so successful in marketing woo-woo to the gullible.

To me, as a physics teacher, this discovery is as bad as opening up their catalog to the biology section and finding products for sale that promote creationism. The misleading advertisements and products on the Edmund Web site are unacceptable, and until they change course I will no longer purchase any of their products. Readers who wish to contact Edmund Scientific can reach them at scientifics@edsci.com or 1-800-728-6999.

In the early 1990s, he asked Paul Gross to work with him on combating pseudoscience, and their resulting book, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science, appeared in 1994. He later wrote many articles relating to standards of science, what he curmudgeonly thought of as charlatans pushing pseudoscience and metascience, and public knowledge and understanding of science. His later books included The Flight from Science and Reason (1997) and Prometheus Bedeviled: Science and the Contradictions of Contemporary Culture. He played a major role in working with the NYU physicist Alan Sokal in Sokal's presentation of a gobbledygook paper to the post-modern humanities journal Social Text, which published it in spite of what Levitt and many others thought were flags that indicated that it was a joke. The result was and is widely interpreted, especially in scientific circles, as a black mark on postmodernism.

I first met Norm Levitt when I was in third grade, in around 1951,and he a year behind, so I am honored to have known him for well over fifty years. We lived in the West Bronx during its Golden Age; there have recently been celebrations and museum exhibits on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the Grand Concourse. Norm's mother, Molly, was best friend and Mahjong buddy of the mother of the new boy in my building (and on my floor), Ronnie Saiet, and Norm's parents and Ronnie's socialized. The Levitts lived just a couple of blocks away, on Walton Avenue south of 167th Street, so Norm spent a lot of time with Ronnie, Ira Blumenthal, and me, playing the role of D'Artagnan to our Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. (Wikipedia, which I consulted to checking the Musketeers' names' spelling, informs me that the story of d'Artagnan was continued by Dumas in two more novels, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne, the set becoming known as the d'Artagnan Romances. So d'Artagnan was the main character, a suitable analogy for this memorial comment.)

In the 1950's in the Bronx, we boys were free and on our own a lot, much less programmed than today's young people. Those of us intellectually inclined were lucky to have the Bronx High School of Science in our lives, where our mathematical abilities especially were fostered. Of course, Harvard wasn't bad in mathematics, either.

One of my high-school influences was Martin Gardner's book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, published by Dover in 1957, when Norm and I were in high school. In 2003, I started teaching a seminar at Williams College on the subject, and one of the dozen weekly topics was the so-called Sokal Hoax. I was delighted to find that Norm was an expert on the topic, and I invited him to lead that week's seminar. Naomi and I have had the pleasure of his visits to us on three such occasions, including one at which we also had the pleasure of the company of Renée. And my students on the three occasions certainly benefited from the readings he supplied and the discussions that he led.

I am honored to have been a friend of Norman Levitt, and I am delighted that our friendship was professionally renewed during the last few years. Naomi and I have sent our deepest condolences to his widow, Renée; to their children, Steven and Oradee, Heather and Jason; and their grandchildren. They have asked that any memorial contributions be made to the National Center for Science Education, 420 40th Street, Suite 2, Oakland, CA 94609.

A memorial service was held in Manhattan on October 31, with a secular rabbi presiding and, by particular request, no mention of god; Norm had been cremated. The half dozen speakers aside from me and from a cousin were mathematicians, and the importance of his research mathematical work was stressed. We learned of his early promise, and of the wall of his report cards that his mother had proudly displayed in their Bronx apartment. We learned of his wide range of knowledge of interests, including visiting art galleries in New York and knowing about battles in the Civil War. We learned about his special love for his grandchildren.

The death of Norm Levitt is a loss for his family, his friends, the world of mathematics, and all those interested in the standards of science.

Friday evening, October 9, Halloween came early to Seattle in the form of the fifth annual Seattle Creation Conference. The conference was put together by the same folks who provide the inimitable CreationWiki—the Northwest Creation Network. The Northwest Creation Network is run primarily by Chris Ashcraft, and his tireless efforts are a large reason why local skeptics and creationists are treated to these festivities year after year.

Anyone with only a passing familiarity with the creation/evolution debate naturally assumes that creationist objections largely have to do with Darwin’s theory and modern biology’s fondness for the theory of evolution. Within seconds of entering the conference held at the Family Life Center Foursquare Church in Mukilteo, Washington, one quickly put that assumption to rest. All major branches of science were under assault. It was a “take no prisoners” kind of night.

When I sauntered in, Institute for Creation Research (ICR) lecturer Steve Austin was indulging in his specialty, “Geology and the Global Flood” and “Catastrophic Plate Tectonics.” Austin animatedly explained to his audience how the Pangaea continent didn’t break up until the Great Flood. His calculations, if you can call them that, estimated that the continents broke apart and skidded along the surface of the earth at the rate of one meter per second before coming to rest.

Hey, I didn’t make this up. He did.

One of the audience members incredulously asked Austin how such a break up was possible. Surprisingly, Austin cited subduction as the mechanism. This contrasts with creationist Walt Brown’s assertion that subduction is impossible and hasn’t been observed.

Such strange contradictions among various creationists pose an interesting question. It’s obvious that creationists aren’t familiar with modern day scientific research, but are they even aware of each other’s?

One other odd thing about Austin’s lecture was his insistence that volcanic activity, and presumably earthquake activity, has been decreasing over time since Noah’s flood. This flies in the face of others in the conservative Christian arena, particularly those enthralled by the rapture, who insist that natural disasters are increasing as we usher in the second coming of Jesus.

Austin concluded his talk by explaining that all life could have formed in the first few days at a substantially accelerated rate before Adam and Eve took their first breaths of life. For a group who hold Genesis to such a literal interpretation, I was quite struck by how many in the creationist movement have developed an affinity for relativistic physics.

During the ten-minute break that followed, I milled about at the voluminous book stands and noticed Donald Chittick’s latest edition of The Puzzle of Ancient Man (2006). Had he finally removed all references to the Coso Artifact that had caused him such headaches years earlier? A quick scan of the book revealed that the answer was apparently yes.

Though the Discovery Institute pleads that they’re not creationists, numerous books by Discovery Institute members were present, including Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell, which coincidentally was the topic of Chris Ashcraft’s lecture on Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, the representative at the ICR booth was exhorting me to take some free literature. Despite the 200+ in attendance, there seemed to be few takers. A small boy next to me peppered the ICR representative with questions about dinosaurs on the ark. The ICR person tried to reassure the boy that Noah was able to fit dinosaurs on the ark by taking the smallest and juveniles. The boy didn’t seem to be buying it but he smiled politely. There were definitely true believers in the audience, but I certainly got the feeling that there were more than a few folks who found the extraordinary claims just a bit too much to believe.

Then, it was onto the main show, “How Big Is God?” presented by Diego Rodriguez, a multimedia show of the heavens!

Fresno native Diego Rodriguez recently started a new creation astronomy group called the 4th Day Alliance, a clever play on the fourth day of Genesis when the Sun, stars, and planets were allegedly created. One may reasonably ask why Diego felt the need to form a creationist group dedicated to astronomy. In an introductory email to new members, he laid out his intentions in a veritable Mein Kampf of biblical science, complete with exclamation marks and full-word capitalizations:

“While most people are familiar with Charles Darwin’s theory, few realize that an even greater fight is being waged in the area of astronomy. This is because evolution, as it pertains to astronomy, doesn’t just deal with the origin of life, but with the origin of EVERYTHING! If belief in evolution is defeated in the area of cosmology and astronomy, then other forms of evolutionary belief don’t have a leg to stand on. This is why evolutionary astronomers are some of the most dogmatic philosophers in existence today. Their ENTIRE WORLDVIEW rests on the foundation of evolutionary cosmology and astronomy. This is why evolutionists often times feel most threatened by Creation Astronomy and wage the most virulent attacks against Creation Astronomers.”

And how is Diego waging this battle? By taking on local amateur astronomy clubs of course:

“There are literally hundreds of astronomy clubs around the country, but to our knowledge there is only ONE that is unapologetically Christian and that believes in the absolute truth of the Bible – the 4th Day Alliance. Astronomy clubs are responsible for teaching and introducing the public to astronomy. Unfortunately, 99.99% of the time they are teaching the myth of “billions of years” and false theories like the Big Bang. We need to turn this around. The only way to do this is for local Christian astronomy clubs to start springing up around the nation who will teach and inform their communities the truth about Creation Astronomy! Are you willing to join the battle? Are you willing to start a local Christian Astronomy club?”

And as with everything in life, these battles require money. So the 4th Day Alliance has started selling local chapter affiliate kits to enable those interested to start their very own amateur astronomy franchises.

Rodriguez seems to think that evolutionists “wage the most virulent attacks against Creation Astronomers,” but having sat through a presentation by the 4th Day Alliance and reviewing the interviews they’ve done with creation astronomers, one cannot help but feel that these attacks are self inflicted.

A vivid example is the experience of Steve Miller, former president of the Calumet Astronomical Society. Miller was under the mistaken impression that Americans who had a strong familiarity with current astronomical research would enjoy creation astronomy videos presented at the society’s regular meetings. In fact, showing these videos is what could charitably be called a “faux pas.” As Miller recounted to Rodriguez, he was promptly removed from the presidency and was out of the club in short order. Miller now runs the Indiana chapter of the 4th Day Alliance. For a taste of what his former Calumet astronomy club members experienced, feel free to review Miller’s attack on the Big Bang theory.

In light of his previous experiences, Rodriguez’s new strategy is to create a new set of amateur astronomy clubs dedicated exclusively to a literal six-days creation interpretation of the Bible. As the lights dimmed and Rodriguez began his “How Big Is God” presentation, an impending train wreck was immediately apparent.

With booming, emotional music and wide screen displays, Rodriguez took the audience through a multimedia extravaganza describing how big the universe really is. He started small with the state of Texas, and with the help of numerous videos cribbed from various sources, he made the Earth seem smaller and more insignificant as his presentation wore on.

By the end, Rodriguez resorted to grave robbing Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” photo that Sagan had lobbied so hard to be taken before Voyager left our solar system. But that wasn’t enough. Rodriguez also aggrandized Sagan’s declaration that that pale dot represents “home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” Rodriguez added onto that unreferenced statement that this dot represented where Jesus was born, died, and was resurrected. In light of the sheer scope of the universe he just spent an hour showing to the audience, the statement seemed almost laughably irrelevant.

Another odd thing about the presentation was Rodriguez’s use of light years to measure distances. It was clear from Austin’s presentation, the subsequent discussion regarding light taking “short cuts” in space, and Russell Humphrey’s disparate time dilation theories to accommodate the seven days of creation that creationism is in a crisis. A visit to the special section on starlight and time on 4th Day Alliance’s Web site reveals an even more jumbled mess.

Creationists realize the growing evidence of extreme ages makes a mockery of a literal interpretation of Genesis. But their four decades long fixation on such an interpretation cannot be easily overturned overnight. Doing so would accommodate dissenters like Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe. So they resort to ever more desperate attempts to appeal to relativistic time differences, ludicrously rapid growth speeds, and “short cuts” through space and time.

If you’re an amateur astronomer and are looking for a diverting afternoon exploring the outer limits of human belief, a trip to 4th Day Alliance’s Web site is highly recommended.

Diego Rodriguez thinks that “evolutionists” are most threatened by creation astronomy but at this point I would strongly disagree. Due to its sheer absurdity, most amateur astronomers are unaware that creation astronomy even exists. They assume that biblical creationists haven’t taken on astronomy since the days of Galileo. The rest of us who know of the 4th Day Alliance are simply amused.

At the conclusion of the night, a final prayer was offered and the conference organizers checked once again to see if the heavens above would allow a star party with the telescopes Diego Rodriguez had brought along. Alas, God smote such plans with a cloudy night.