An introductory chapter titled “Toward a Sociology of Health Hazards in Daily Life” sets the stage for the author’s discussion of how social and political influences shape the way health risks are investigated and reported. The second chapter, “Epidemiology: Its Uses, Strengths, and Limitations,” is an excellent review of epidemiological methods and techniques. It clearly explains different types of studies, such as descriptive, case-control, cohort, randomized, etc., and the strengths and weaknesses of each. Tricky subjects such as statistical interactions, establishment of causality, absolute versus relative risks, pooling of studies, and meta analysis are all covered.

The next four chapters are case studies of specific health scares. The chapters cover environmental causes of breast cancer (chapter 3); power lines and cancer (chapter 4); risks of residential radon (chapter 5); and, finally, the risks of second-hand cigarette smoke (chapter 6). There is a concluding chapter followed by two appendices, extensive bibliographical notes, bibliography, and an index.

In the 1990s it was claimed that there was an epidemic of breast cancer on Long Island. Sometimes cancer does occur more often than would be expected by chance. The psychological desire to blame something obvious and identifiable for such clusters is easy to understand. It’s much more satisfying to have a known villain to blame than to put the cause down to amorphous statistical deviations from chance. The result is a search of the local environment. Inevitably, such a search yields an excess of power lines, leaky old oil tanks, microwave towers, or some such, which are promptly blamed for the cluster.

The villain singled out in the Long Island breast cancer scare was unspecified environmental pollution. The belief that this was responsible led Congress to require an expensive study of environmental factors in the causality of breast cancer on Long Island that ended up costing millions of dollars but provided no new knowledge about the causes of breast cancer. This is a prime example of political and social—as opposed to scientific—factors driving which issues receive research funding. In the end, all the expensive government-funded research showed no influence by environmental pollutants on breast cancer rates.

In the next chapter Kabat takes up the claim that electromagnetic fields from power lines cause cancer. This health scare first popped up in the 1980s. Even though it has been entirely debunked in the scientific community, it is still alive and well in the public mind. It is far easier to whip up fears than to reduce them. Much like the Long Island breast cancer scare, the hysteria over power lines started when untrained individuals, especially parents of children with cancer, noted that cases of childhood cancer seemed to be more common in areas with a large number of power lines. This sort of “evidence” is emotionally compelling but totally invalid—a dangerous combination. The hysteria was further fed by conspiracy theorist Paul Brodeur, who wrote a series of articles in the New Yorker and books promoting the view that the power companies were covering up the danger of power lines. This chapter covers the history of the power line controversy quite well, with discussions of some of the hypotheses put forth to explain the relationship between power lines and cancer that, in the end, didn’t exist.

One failing of this otherwise excellent book is that Kabat doesn’t emphasize one of the major reasons for the false belief in these various health scares: the multiple comparison fallacy. The basic idea is that if one makes enough comparisons one can find, just by chance, results that seem to show that, say, stamp collecting causes cancer. The classic example of this was the infamous Swedish study of the dangers of power lines. The published paper reported sixty-six different risk ratios. The only one that got much attention was one that showed a four times higher risk of cancer for those living near power lines. But this one was only one out of sixty-six reported results. It gets worse. The published paper (American Journal of Epidemiology, 1993, 138, pp. 467–481) was just a summary of a study in which nearly 800 risk ratios were computed. Out of that huge number, it would be very surprising if at least one result didn’t show such an increased risk, just by chance. And, of course, among those 800 results many showed that those who lived near power lines had a reduced risk for developing cancer.

The next chapter discusses the risks of residential radon. Remember that scare from the 1980s? That health worry has happily gone the way of eight-track tapes. But as Kabat explains, the hype about the risks of radon was based on the same sorts of errors as those made in overstating the risks of environmental pollution for breast cancer and power lines for cancer. A special strength of this chapter is an important discussion of the difficulty in measuring actual exposure to residential radon, which might seem simple but certainly is not.

The final case study is by far the most controversial. Kabat argues that there is essentially no risk of getting cancer or heart disease from second-hand or passive tobacco smoke. This flies in the face of accepted wisdom. I was very surprised as I read this chapter to see that the evidence linking second-hand smoke to disease was so weak as to be basically nonexistent. So where does the hype come from? It is here that Kabat is at his best as he describes how the actual results of studies of second-hand smoke have been co-opted to push the political agenda of those wanting to ban smoking in public places. I’m totally in agreement that such smoking should be banned. It’s as annoying and repulsive as someone sitting at a nearby table in a restaurant playing a loud radio. But we can quite properly ban playing loud radios in restaurants, theaters, airplanes, trains, and offices without having to resort to distorting the science to argue that “second-hand listening” causes cancer of the inner ear.

The misrepresentation of the studies of the effects of passive smoking has clearly distorted the science that aims to prove ill effects of passive smoking. At this point, I expect that someone will point out that Kabat was an author of a large study funded by the tobacco industry that found no effect of passive smoke. True enough—the study, funded by the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), was published in the British Medical Journal (May 17, 2003). It reported further follow up of more than 115,000 individuals who had been examined for effects of passive smoking over a period of many years. The American Cancer Society (ACS) had started the study in 1959. Kabat and his co-author James Enstrom tried to obtain funding for this study from several sources, including the ACS, and were turned down. Kabat makes it clear that CIAR had absolutely no influence over the study at any time and was not even given a copy of the paper. They, like everyone else, saw it upon publication. The paper was roundly attacked by the American Cancer Society and its supporters. Letters poured into the British Medical Journal. But the great majority simply raged at the authors without making any attempt to criticize the paper on scientific grounds.

Kabat quite properly calls this response scientific McCarthyism. He shows that agencies like the ACS and state and federal environmental protection agencies have willfully distorted the science of second-hand smoke to push the otherwise laudable goal of banning smoking in public places. In one case the Massachusetts Lung Association attempted to suppress publication of a study that did not support its position that second-hand smoke is dangerous, but “Harvard University had a firm policy” (p. 163) that allowed the paper to be published. These attempts to distort the science to support a particular policy, something done for years by the tobacco industry when it came to the dangers of actual smoking, can properly be called a “betrayal of science.” This book, especially this chapter, should be read by anyone interested in how political pressure can change not only what science gets funded but how science is misrepresented even in official documents that should be objective.

But there is one space-related issue troubling Mr. Bigelow, one on which he feels the need to obtain, even at potentially great cost, the best counsel available: UFOs. It is not clear whether he fears that UFOs will interfere with his future orbiting hotel chain or if he believes that UFOs harbor some secrets of propulsion or anti-gravity that his engineers might someday be able to put to good use. Whichever it is, Bigelow has contracted MUFON, the largest UFO group in the U.S., with potentially very large sums of money for the pursuit of first-hand UFO information. Indeed, longtime UFO activist Ed Komarek is suggesting that Bigelow’s goal is nothing less than an “alien reengineering project.”

Bigelow has a long history in the matter of UFOs and “paranormal” subjects. He was the principal sponsor of the Las Vegas-based National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS) from its founding in 1995 until it was placed on “inactive status” in 2004. The NIDS Web site is still up (http://www.nidsci.org) but apparently has not been updated since 2004. It reports on a number of UFO investigations, alleged cattle mutilations, and other far-out stuff. The best-known and most controversial project undertaken by NIDS was its purchase of a supposedly “haunted” ranch in Utah (reported in this column back in May/June 1998), which some describe as a “Hyperdimensional Portal Area” or “Stargate.” The ranch is said to be infested by an alien or paranormal shape-shifting creature known as “Skinwalker,” taking its name from Native American legends similar to European legends about werewolves. NIDS researchers investigated the ranch starting in 1996. They compiled an impressive collection of what might be termed “ghost stories” but, in spite of having access to sophisticated electronic equipment, failed to obtain any actual proof that anything unexplainable was going on. For a collection of wild claims and stories about this ranch, check out http://www.aliendave.com/UUFOH_TheRanch.html. Rumor has it that MUFON will now take over the investigation of this “haunted” place.

It might be most accurate to describe MUFON as “the largest remaining UFO group in the U.S.” since there used to be others of at least its size. Founded in Illinois in 1969 by Walt Andrus, it was originally known as the Midwest UFO Network. Geographically, it was positioned between its better-known rivals the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), headquartered in Washington, D.C., and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Tucson, Arizona. However, each of these UFO groups maintained its own far-flung roster of investigators and “scientific consultants” so that any group might have a presence more or less anywhere. Andrus had originally been affiliated with APRO but got into a feud with its directors, the late Coral and Jim Lorenzen, and struck off on his own. With the demise of its rivals, MUFON found itself the last man standing. It reformulated itself as the Mutual UFO Network and picked up many of the fading groups’ most active and valuable members.

Walt Andrus remained at the helm of MUFON until his retirement in 2000. I met Andrus at the National UFO Conference in Phoenix in 1984. He was an irascible man who appeared untroubled by doubts about UFOs and who was barely able to tolerate skepticism in any form. He described my 1981 skeptical book The UFO Verdict as “an insult to the intelligence” of the reader. During the Andrus years, MUFON publicly booted out a number of its most prominent investigators for the sin of being too skeptical about one UFO case or another that Andrus was determined to defend, most notably Ed Walters’s absurdly unconvincing hoax UFO photos from Gulf Breeze, Florida. Probably Andrus found that the publicity over the Gulf Breeze photos was helping MUFON gain members, and thus criticism of the case was unwelcome within MUFON no matter how solid and factual.

John Schuessler took over MUFON until his own retirement in 2006, succeeded by the much younger James Carrion. I heard Carrion speak to Mensa last year in Denver and chatted with him afterward. Clearly more cautious than Andrus and not so hostile to skeptical questions, Carrion admitted to a great deal of uncertainty concerning UFOs and would not even make a defense of the Roswell crash claims. His position is essentially the same as that of the late J. Allen Hynek, former scientific advisor for the U.S. Air Force’s Project Bluebook: he is sure that UFOs represent something unknown and significant but does not claim to know what.

Since it became a national organization (now headquartered in Colorado), MUFON has appointed state directors, subdirectors, and investigators, as well as establishing local groups that sponsor lectures and meetings. Throw a dart at a map of the U.S., and wherever it may land, MUFON will have some person whose responsibility it is to investigate a UFO report at that location. While MUFON may seem large, it is very thin. With 2,500 members spread nationwide, this means that an average-sized state will have about fifty members, most of whom do nothing except receive the publication. In reality, 80 to 90 percent of the members of a volunteer organization typically contribute little if any useful work, which shows how thinly spread organized UFOlogy is.

It is exactly this matter of “a volunteer organization” that Bigelow is seeking to change. Bigelow’s proposal is to generously fund the efforts of MUFON investigators to enable them to respond quickly to alleged UFO incidents. The agreement between Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) and MUFON sets up a “Star Team Impact Project” (SIP), with an initial funding period from five months to a year, with the option to renew for a second year. Investigations will be limited to cases where physical effects of a UFO are reported or where “living beings” are allegedly sighted or where “reality transformation” is said to occur. “Lights seen in the sky” do not qualify for paid investigation, a decision with which Hynek would have surely agreed. Anyone who is already a MUFON investigator can apply for a position with SIP, although new or inexperienced investigators are expected to demonstrate their skills by performing investigations of routine UFO sightings before moving up to SIP. Additionally, Bigelow is in the process of contracting up to fifty scientists, who are expected to be on the scene within twenty-four hours after significant UFO incidents, to perform state-of-the-art investigations of whatever artifacts or data the SIP investigators may obtain. All of the investigators’ travel expenses will be covered, as well as a paid stipend of $100 per day of investigation. Incentive payments and bonuses are also available for those whose contributions excel. The results of SIP’s first few months of investigations are scheduled to be presented at MUFON’s annual convention in Denver this August.

While Bigelow and MUFON are no doubt expecting great results, perhaps even dramatic breakthroughs, from investigations of UFOs in near-real time, this “Star Team” is not, however, the first attempt within organized UFOlogy to create a “rapid response team” to quickly investigate reports. In an article in Playboy (December 1967), Hynek proposed (and later implemented) a national toll-free UFO Hotline to be “manned 24 hours a day by competent interrogators capable of recognizing a true UFO report from a prankster’s report.... If the report passes preliminary and immediate screening, headquarters notifies the local police and they rush to the scene.” He explained how he expected solid and irrefutable UFO data “within a year of the initiation of such a no-nonsense program.” But in a moment of perhaps unguarded optimism, Hynek added, “if the UFO-1000 program is sincerely and intensively carried out for a full year and yields nothing, this, in itself, would be of great negative significance. Then we could go back to the ‘real, common-sense world’ of pre-UFO days—shrugging it all off with ‘There must have been a virus going around.’”

In an interview in Saga UFO Report (August 1976), Hynek explained how his national hotline was working out: “In an unprecedented move, the FBI printed an article of mine in their monthly bulletin [February 1975]. We furnished them with a special toll-free number which they can call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every night we get at least one call ... we contact one of our 300 regional representatives, and they go and interview the witnesses. Geiger counters, soil samples, physiological effects, etc., are all involved in the investigation.” Hynek gave no explanation of why he had not given up on UFOs as he earlier said he would if a year-long study yielded no solid evidence.

Other “rapid response” efforts to catch UFOs have likewise been attempted. Peter Davenport’s National UFO Reporting Center has been collecting UFO reports on its telephone hotline since 1974, many from law enforcement and emergency service agencies, yet UFO proof continues to elude them. In 1977 France’s CNES, their equivalent of NASA, created the agency GEPAN to officially sponsor investigations of UFO reports. It, too, failed to come up with anything really convincing, and CNES terminated all UFO investigations in 2004. In the late 1990s, when according to news reports Mexico City was being inundated by a Saucer Blitz, Mexican UFOlogist and TV personality Jaime Mausson organized Los Vigilantes, who were supposed to be ready to respond to saucer reports with cameras and such at very short notice. They never obtained anything of significance, so far as I am aware. Obviously Bigelow and MUFON must expect that their “rapid response” efforts will bear more fruit than these others did, although I cannot see any reason to expect them to have any greater success than others who valiantly chased the UFO will-of-the-wisp.

I did not encounter humpback whales, although I took an excursion boat out in very rough water to see great icebergs making their way south from Greenland. (I had better luck with humpbacks on an Alaska excursion [Nickell 2007a].) Neither did I catch a glimpse of another leviathan that occasionally haunts the region’s coastal waters:the giant squid, known at lengths in excess of seventy-five feet and the subject of numerous hair-raising adventures (Fitzgerald 2006, 50–71). (For our book Lake Monster Mysteries, Benjamin Radford [2006, 5] photographed the world’s best-preserved specimen at a museum in St. John’s.)

What I was really searching for—having been brought to the village of Robert’s Arm by a television crew for the History Channel’s popular series, Monster Quest (which later aired on September 17, 2008)—was a legendary lake monster said to inhabit the cold, deep, blue waters of Crescent Lake. It has been dubbed “Cressie,” and the village’s welcoming signboard proclaims it “The ‘Loch Ness’ of Newfoundland!”

“Cressie”

Figure 2. Giant eel or otter lookalike?

Sightings of a “monster” in the lake date back to the turn of the last century when a resident known as “Grandmother Anthony” spied a giant serpentine creature while she was picking berries. From the 1940s to the present, there have been a dozen or so sightings, although without photographs to date. Most descriptions are of a dark, eel-like creature, up to twenty-five or more feet long (Bragg 1995; Radford and Nickell 2006, 89–95).

Its locomotion is typically described as “rolling” or “undulating” (Bragg 1995); indeed, “when the head was up, the back was  down” (Colbourne 2008). Consequently, the contortions of the elongated creature seemingly produced “humps” (Short 2008; see figure 1).

A typical sighting occurred in 1991, when retired school teacher Fred Parsons (an engaging man whom I met in Robert’s Arm) saw a creature surface while crossing the lake. It was dark brown, swimming in an undulating fashion, and, Parsons estimated, over twenty feet long (Bragg 1995; see also Radford and Nickell 2006, 92–93). Of course eyewitness testimony can be unreliable. An experiment I conducted for Monster Quest, using a log of known length that we towed and anchored at a mid-lake position, demonstrated that people viewing something from a distance can easily overestimate its size by forty percent or greater.¹

There are other reasons to be skeptical of a monster in Crescent Lake, one of which is that a single creature could neither live for centuries nor reproduce itself. A breeding herd of several individuals would be required for the species to continue propagating over time. But then where is a single floating or beached carcass? It is true that the lake is connected to the Atlantic Ocean, scarcely two miles distant, by Tommy’s Arm Brook. However as Bragg (1995) concedes, no great creature has ever been seen navigating the outlet.

Giant Eel?

Because “Cressie” is often likened to a giant eel (Bragg 1995; Eberhart 2002, I:114; Monster 2008), someone gave it the quasi-scientific name Cressiteras anguilloida (Eberhart 2002, I:114). Actually, this is unlikely as a scientific name that might be bestowed—if a giant-eel specimen were verified. Eels (a group of fishes having snakelike bodies and lacking pelvic fins) are of the order Anguilliformes, and true eels comprise the family Anguillidae. The American eel, for example, is Anguilla rostrata (Collins 1959, 475). Related eels include the marine conger eels (Conger oceanicus), which attain a length of six to nine feet, and the morays of tropical reefs. The Pacific moray (Thyrsoidea macrurus), up to a foot longer, “is probably the largest known species” (Colliers Encyclopedia 1993, s.v. “Moray”).

Now, while Crescent Lake does reportedly host freshwater American eels, these are normally under five feet long. Divers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who allegedly surfaced on the lake with “descriptions of giant eels as thick as a man’s thigh” (Bragg 1995), probably encountered a different creature—if indeed, the incident actually happened: The RCMP could not confirm the occurrence to Monster Quest. Indeed, whatever Cressie is, it is clearly not a giant eel. The eyewitness descriptions of a giant creature, swimming on the surface of the water and moving in an up-and-down fashion, are completely wrong for an eel.

Eels, in fact, are bottom-dwelling creatures (“Freshwater” 2008a, 2008b; “Eel” 2008), and their locomotion, while wavelike, is actually from side-to-side, as I confirmed by studying them at Aquarium Niagara in Niagara Falls, New York (where I am a member and once served as “Animal Trainer for a Day”). For my Monster Quest research, the aquarium’s exhibits supervisor, Dan Arcara, graciously allowed me to study an American eel and a moray eel, gently prodding the latter from its den with a pole so I could document on videotape its sideways-oscillating swimming style.

Moreover, the sightings of Cressie invariably occur during daytime, whereas the common freshwater eel “is nocturnal in its habits, sleeping or lying in the mud during the day” (“Freshwater” 2008a).

Cressie Lookalike

There is, in fact, an actual creature that is dark-colored, swims both under water and at the surface—where its wake can make it appear much longer, and moves in an undulating (rising and falling) manner. Its scientific name is Lontra canadensis,² the northern river otter (Nickell 2007c).

In addition, multiple otters swimming in a line can give the effect of a single giant serpentine creature slithering with an up-and-down movement through water. This effect was observed as early as 1930 by a marine biologist (Gould 1934, 115–116) and has since been documented many times (e.g., Nickell 2007b). Newfoundland is shown (by the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Mammals [Whitaker 1996, 782–785]) to be a definite habitat for the northern river otter. (See figure 2.)

I have been accused of seeming to suggest this effect as a solution to all lake monster reports (Coleman 2007), but in fact that grossly mischaracterizes my position. In Lake Monster Mysteries, I acknowledged other lake-monster imitators, including fish (such as sturgeon and gar), long-necked birds, windslicks, boat wakes, and logs (which may be propelled from the lake bottom by methane gas produced by decomposition [Monk 2004]). Swimming mammals like deer and beaver have also been mistaken for lake monsters. For instance, during the filming of the Monster Quest program, a mysterious and seemingly lengthy creature swimming under the surface of the lake created a brief sensation but proved to be a beaver.

I apply otters as a solution to some mystery sightings, according to the principle of Occam’s razor (that the simplest credible solution, the one making the fewest assumptions, is to be preferred). When a sighting could most credibly be explained as one or more otters, like some of the Cressie sightings, then that is necessarily the preferred hypothesis. Other sightings may be attributed to other causes. However, should Cressie surface in a more credible form, I would certainly be willing to reopen the case.

Acknowledgments

In addition to those mentioned in the text, I wish to thank the residents of Robert’s Arm, Newfoundland, who generously hosted a reception for the Monster Quest crew and me, complete with a wonderful seafood dinner and ceremony naming each of us an “Honorary Newfoundlander.”

I also wish to thank CMJ Productions—including producer Leo Singer, production staffer Saskia DeBoer, and the film crew, as well as CFI Libraries director Timothy Binga for their help.

Notes

1. This was conducted on Saturday, June 14, 2008. Two of the three participants—Bradley Rideout and Effie Colbourne—had reported seeing “Cressie.” Brad estimated the 14.25-foot log at 18 feet, Effie at 20 (although first saying “20 to 30”), and the other participant at 20 feet.
2. Formerly Lutra canadensis.

References

• Bragg, R.A. 1995. Have you seen Cressie? In Wanda Jackman, Bonnie Warr, and Russell A. Bragg, Remembrances of Robert’s Arm. Corner Brook, Newfoundland: Western Star Publishers, 14.
• Colbourne, Effie. 2008. Interview for Monster Quest (Monster 2008).
• Coleman, Loren. 2007. Otter nonsense. Available online at cryptomundo.com; accessed June 6.
• Eberhart, George M. 2002. Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology (in two vols.). Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CL10.
• Eel. 2008. From Wikipedia, available online at en.wikipedia.org; accessed August 20, 2008.
• Fitzgerald, Jack. 2006. Newfoundland Adventures: In Air, on Land, at Sea. St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador: Creative Publishers.
• Freshwater eels. 2008a. Available online at gamefishingguide.com; accessed August 8, 2008.
• Freshwater vs. saltwater moray eels revisited. 2008b. Available online at Saltaquarium.about.com; accessed August 20, 2008.
• Gould, Rupert T. 1934. The Loch Ness Monster; reprinted Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1976.
• Monk, Jerry. 2004. Letter to the editor. Fortean Times 185 (July): 76.
• Monster Quest eyewitnesses. 2008. Transcript of preliminary interviews for Monster Quest, provided to author September 6.
• Nickell, Joe. 2007a. Mysterious entities of the Pacific Northwest, part I. Skeptical Inquirer 31:1 (January/February), 20–22.
• —. 2007b. Lake monster lookalikes. Skeptical Briefs. June, 6–7.
• —. 2007c. The Loch Ness critter. Skeptical Inquirer 31:5 (September/October), 15–16.
• Radford, Benjamin, and Joe Nickell. 2006. Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky.
• Rideout, Bradley. 2008. Interview for Monster Quest (Monster 2008).
• Short, Vivian. 2008. Interview for Monster Quest (Monster 2008).
• Whitaker, John O., Jr. 1996. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Leonard Mlodinow received his doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Max Plank Institute, and now teaches about randomness to future scientists at Caltech. He has written for the television series MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation. His previous books include Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace, Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life, and, with Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.

According to Mlodinow, “The Drunkard’s Walk comes from a mathematical term describing random motion, such as the paths molecules follow as they fly through space, incessantly bumping and being bumped by, their sister molecules. ... The surprise is that the tools used to describe the drunkard’s walk can also be employed to help understand the events of everyday life. The goal of this book is to illustrate the role of chance in the world around us and to show how we may recognize it at work in human affairs.”

Mlodinow was to be presented the award at a ceremony June 7, 2009, at the Center for Inquiry/Los Angeles.

The Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking is a $1,300 award given to the author of the published work that best exemplifies healthy skepticism, logical analysis, or empirical science. Each year, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry selects the paper, article, book, or other publication that has the greatest potential to create positive reader awareness of important scientific issues.

CSI established the criteria for the prize, including use of the most parsimonious theory to fit data or to explain apparently preternatural phenomena.

This prize has been established through the generosity of Robert P. Balles, an associate member of CSI, and the Robert P. Balles Endowed Memorial Fund, a permanent endowment fund for the benefit of CSI.

This is the fourth year the Robert P. Balles prize has been presented. Previous winners of this award are:

2007: Natalie Angier, New York Times science writer and author of the book The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

2006: Ben Goldacre for his weekly column, “Bad Science,” published in The Guardian newspaper (U.K.)

2005: Shared by Andrew Skolnick, Ray Hyman, and Joe Nickell for their series of articles in the Skeptical Inquirer on “Testing ‘The Girl with X-Ray Eyes’”

Nominations are now being accepted for 2009. Please send submissions to:

CSI senior research fellow Joe Nickell explained the important distinction between investigating and debunking. While investigation often leads to debunking, he said, a good investigator must follow the evidence to the most reasonable conclusion rather than begin with an assumption about the nature of the mystery. With humor and wit, he recounted anecdotes from many of his cases, including that of Toronto’s “haunted” McKenzie house, one of his first investigations. Joe solved the mystery by tracing unexplained, ghostly noises to a stairway in the building next door. He interviewed an employee there who was well aware of the ghost claims but never brought it up; it seems Joe was the first person to ask about it!

Introduced by Joe Nickell, James “The Amazing” Randi put his skills as a magician to work immediately. He approached the stage, adjusted the podium microphone, and began his talk. He soon wandered away from the podium with no loss in volume, surprising the audience. Randi revealed that the microphone he had been speaking into for several minutes wasn’t even on; he had guided the audience’s assumptions with a mere gesture and was in fact speaking on a wireless microphone.

Randi regaled the audience with humorous anecdotes from his decades of tireless work, including a Bob Newhart-like standup routine in which Randi gave his side of a telephone conversation he had many years ago. It seems that a prestigious scientist was impressed by a psychic’s ability and warned Randi that his million-dollar prize might be in jeopardy. He described the amazing psychic feat to Randi, who while on the phone promptly located one of Martin Gardner’s books on magic, faxed the relevant page to the scientist, and patiently waited for a response that never came. Randi’s take-home message is sage advice for everyone, lay public and skeptical inquirer like: “You too can be fooled.”

Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, lamented the lack of critical thinking in America. Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jacoby noted that “The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.” She drew on many examples of the sorry state of intellectual affairs in America, from Sarah Palin to the dominance of video culture over print media to “junk thought” and rampant anti-intellectualism. Jacoby’s talk was not all gloom-and-doom; she saw some encouraging signs in President Obama’s promise to restore science to its rightful place in government (see p. 8 in this issue).

James Randi received the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s In Praise of Reason Award “in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the use of critical inquiry, scientific evidence, and reason in evaluating claims to knowledge.”

As everyone knows, Randi has for decades been a tireless and charismatic critical investigator of those who claim paranormal powers, forthrightly challenging them to undergo testing under controlled conditions and exposing those who intentionally deceive others. He also has been an effective educator of the scientific and skeptical communities about the need to understand the methods magicians use to deceive, so as not to be deceived themselves by pretenders to psychic powers.  

Paul Kurtz, founder and chairman of CSI, presented the award to Randi, noting that it is granted only to “outstanding contributors to rational inquiry and scientific thinking.” He noted that Randi was one of the original founders of CSI and is “a leading critic of people who engage in chicanery and fraud.” He praised Randi for his application of reason to concrete cases. “Your greatest quality is that you are an educator, a teacher. You have shown that the easiest people to deceive are PhDs, a great insight to all of us. You expose myths and hoaxes.... You stand out in history.”

Lawrence M. Krauss received the Center for Inquiry’s Scholarship in the Public Interest Award “in recognition of his outstanding contributions in defense of scientific inquiry and on behalf of improving the public’s understanding and appreciation of science.”

Krauss, a leading theoretical physicist at the interface of particle physics and cosmology and also an author of popular science books (The Physics of Star Trek, Fear of Physics, Hiding in the Mirror) recently moved from Case Western Reserve University to Arizona State University. There he is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, director of the Origins Initiative, and co-director of the Cosmology Initiative. Krauss is one of science’s most effective spokesmen. In his frequent public appearances and articles and op-ed columns in major newspapers and magazines he defends good science and warns against the politicization of science. He has been a strong and effective opponent of creationist efforts to dilute the teaching of science.

Ronald Lindsay, CEO and president of the Center for Inquiry, presented the award to Krauss. “No one can match Lawrence Krauss’s tireless efforts on behalf of the public understanding of science,” he said. “He is one of the few prominent scientists to successfully bridge the chasm between science and popular culture.”

Paul Kurtz, founder and chairman of the Center for Inquiry and of its affiliate organizations the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, received a special lifetime achievement award from the Center for Inquiry. Named The Eupraxsopher Award, it was given for his extraordinary leadership in the causes of humanism and scientific skepticism, his lifetime of accomplishment, and his moral and ethical guidance. The award is named for a term Kurtz himself coined, from Greek roots for “good/well,” “conduct/practice,” and “scientific and philosophic wisdom.” He defines eupraxsophy as “a set of convictions and practices offering a cosmic outlook and an ethical guide to life.”

Kendrick Frazier, editor of the Skeptical Inquirer and a board member of both the Center for Inquiry and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, presented the award to Kurtz. He noted that were it not for Kurtz none of the organizations represented at the congress would exist, and the worldwide movements they spawned would likely never have occurred. Frazier praised Kurtz as “truly, one of the world’s extraordinary persons.” He noted that Kurtz is a unique and remarkable combination of philosopher, scholar, and intellectual; author/editor of more than forty books in philosophy, humanism, and skepticism; founder of a major book publisher (Prometheus Books); creator and organizer of a network of nonprofit organizations advancing humanism and scientific skepticism; an international diplomat who attracts and welcomes diverse people from nations around the world; and an inspiring leader with extraordinary vision and courage.

Lawrence Krauss Received CFI's Scholarship in the Public Interest Award.

“He stresses not negativism but the affirming values of humanism and skepticism.... He has lived life to its fullest, with exuberance and extraordinary service to others. By elucidating, living, and advancing strong missions, ethical credos, and causes greater than ourselves, he inspires us all to try somehow to do the same.”

At a conference luncheon a day earlier, Paul Kurtz was also presented with an award from the National Capital Area Skeptics. NCAS President Scott Snell, who works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, presented Kurtz with NCAS’s Phillip J. Klass Award “for outstanding contributions in promoting critical thinking and scientific understanding.” The award honored Kurtz as “the person most responsible for the modern organized skeptical movement that coalesced in the mid-1970s,” which included founding CSICOP (now CSI) and the Skeptical Inquirer.

“It was CSICOP’s eminent coalition of physical and social scientists, medical doctors, magicians, historians, journalists, and others, assembled and energized by Kurtz’s dynamic leadership and far-sighted vision, that ushered in the modern age of scientific skepticism,” said NCAS’s award statement. “Much is owed Kurtz as well for the formation of independent local skeptics groups like NCAS. Under his leadership CSICOP published a call for forming such groups and provided them with invaluable guidance and material support to connect with other skeptics in their community and to organize.”

Everyone seemed to enjoy it. The day afterward, CFI founder and chairman Paul Kurtz called the congress “exhilarating.” As he said, “The responses of our readers and supporters were overwhelmingly positive. What a stunning response that we received from them!” Ron Lindsay, CFI’s CEO and president, likewise called the conference very successful and said many attendees commented favorably to him “that they noticed the skeptical/scientific side of our organization was on display more than usual, which they appreciated.”

That’s true, I think. Many people in the audience told me at various times how much they appreciate and value the Skeptical Inquirer. SI and its articles and the work of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry got a lot of public mention, too, in the talks, intros, and sessions.

Here are a few highlights for me:

• The opening session on Darwin and Lincoln, evolution, ID and creationism, and legal challenges of church-state separation involving the latter. Civil rights lawyer and CFI board member Edward Tabash emphasized repeatedly that in opposing creationism, we are “fighting not religious belief but the infusion of religious doctrine into public policy.” Philosopher/historian Barbara Forrest updated developments in the intelligent design wars since the Dover decision in 2005, including the latest troubling activities of antievolutionists in Texas and Louisiana. And Lincoln/Darwin historian David Contosta said: “I am convinced Lincoln was a deist. He did not believe in the divinity of Christ. He was not baptized. He questioned miracles of the Bible. He liked to tell jokes about preachers.... He probably couldn’t get elected today.”
• Former twelve-term U.S. Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder’s rousing talk defending good science against political indifference and, worse, interference. Her lively title tells the story:“The United States, a Former Global Leader in Science, Apologizes for the 2001–2008 Service Outage.” In her current job she represents textbook publishers for grades K–12. She warned that only a handful of people pick the textbooks your children use. “They are not teachers, usually. They are scary people, some of them.” She lamented that just the previous week in Texas opponents of evolution in textbooks declared an “insufficiency of evidence” for natural selection.
• Author Susan Jacoby’s (The Age of American Unreason) litany of “anti-intellectualism and sheer intellectual laziness” in America over the past forty years. “We are in serious intellectual trouble. We don’t value knowledge enough.” She gave a long series of examples of what she calls “junk thought,” ideas that are “impervious to evidence.” She also defended the virtues of reading, a practice much marginalized in today’s hectic age of instant electronic communications.
• Paul Kurtz’s luncheon address on the planetary perspective. He said humanism includes genuine caring for others and a respect for the dignity and value of every person on the planet. “We have common ground with all members of the human family.” He said we need a new planetary ethic that mitigates human suffering and increases the sum of human good and happiness. “As skeptics and rationalists, we need to cultivate a new planetary ethic. We need to be concerned with the planet Earth. It seems to me that is the positive statement of humanism.”
• Astrophysicist John Mather’s (the first NASA scientist to win the Nobel Prize) beautifully illustrated talk on the entire history and future of the universe, from its origin in the “Horrendous Space Kablooey” (as he calls the Big Bang) 13.7 billion years ago to the time when the Sun goes out 7.6 billion years from now ... and beyond.  He reported on the 1998 discovery that the cosmic expansion is accelerating, the mystery of dark energy, the plans for the next big space telescope to be launched in 2013 (the James Webb Space Telescope), and the quest to directly observe more exoplanets. Cosmology may have no practical benefits, he said, but space science sure does. People often forget that their weather reports, GPS devices, telephones, and television all “depend on things out there in space.”
• NASA climatologist Drew Shindell’s full report on “The Science of Climate Change.” He noted that our knowledge of climate change comes from detailed scientific observations, and he reviewed the interplay and repeated testing that goes on between scientific observations and computer models of climate. Some conclusions: the planet is getting warmer, natural forcings (solar variation, volcanoes, etc.) have been flat in recent years, the twentieth-century warming is largely caused by greenhouse gas increases, and the rate of future warming is likely to increase. He noted that apathy and resistance to change in this area goes back to the 1840s when a smokestack-cleaning technology for ships of the Royal Navy was squelched by industry.
• James Randi’s lively participation in many sessions, hallway discussions, and his own late afternoon talk about how easily we all can be fooled. “I know the art of deception. I know how people are fooled. And I know how to do that.” He described repeated examples of very smart people being fooled by trickery. “You can be fooled as well,” he said. It’s the conjuror’s warning not to take at face value any proclaimed evidence of psychic powers. At the end, Randi announced that his famous one-million-dollar challenge to claimants for proof of paranormal powers under controlled test conditions, which was to end, will in fact be renewed. “It was going to terminate in 2012,” he said, “but now it will continue.”
• Major awards to Paul Kurtz, Randi, and Lawrence Krauss.
• A session I moderated on Skepticism and Science seemed well received (due especially to the presentations by the witty and lively Richard Wiseman, with lots of video demos on perception and misperception, and equally so Elizabeth Loftus, with her research demonstrating false memory, plus Joe Nickell, on investigating rather than just debunking, and Armadeo Sarma, on alternative medicine fads in Germany and the rest of Europe).
• A small lunch given by Paul Kurtz for international participants in the congress, including the Chinese delegation (where we were able to renew acquaintances with several of the Chinese colleagues we met in Beijing in October 2007) and those from the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Senegal.
• A lively audience-participation, packed-house session at the end of the afternoon Saturday on The Future of Skepticism. Run by Ben Radford and myself, I gave some introductory comments. Barry Karr and James Underdown also participated. Sean McCabe of the James Randi Educational Foundation (he also writes a skeptical blog for the general public at www.weirdthings.com) emphasized the positive messages of skepticism, noting that there are now nine network TV shows featuring scientists or science oriented. Proclaimed McCabe: “Skepticism is cool ... and it’s getting cooler.” We then opened it to the audience. A lot of good ideas and discussion came out of the session.
• A sobering presentation by Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy on the very recent Talibanization of Pakistan, even in Islamabad, where he teaches at a university. It has become very dangerous, he said. Terrible things have begun happening there in just the past several months. (The day after the conference ended, news organizations reported the imposition of Islamic law by the Taliban in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Further Taliban inroads have prompted subsequent military action.)
• The Saturday evening awards banquet featured a live oratorio of composer Richard Einhorn’s new original composition (personally introduced by Einhorn) “The Origin,” a celebration of the life and work of Darwin based on Darwin’s own words in On the Origin of Species.
• Awards banquet speaker Lawrence Krauss’s (a CSI fellow and Arizona State University physicist and author) talk on “Science and Public Policy: An Oxymoron.” He concluded with the call, “We must all become evangelists for science. We cannot tolerate unambiguous nonsense in a democracy.”

Many believe Indigo children are the next step in human evolution, and they are often described as possessing a new energy never before seen on Earth. Believers claim they have special gifts, such as psychic abilities, and are “sensitive” to the world around them. They are allegedly wise beyond their years and thirst for knowledge incessantly. Their parents often see them as gifted with above-average intelligence. Above all, believers agree on one thing: they are here to teach us a lesson.

The first Indigo child was allegedly observed in the early 1970s by Nancy Tappe, who intuitively “sees” people’s auras (Tappe 1999). Tappe claims that she can decipher a person’s life mission by the color he or she emits. She further states that she was aware that two new unknown colors—one of which would become Indigo—would be emerging around that time, since apparently, fuchsia and magenta disappeared from the spectrum. It wasn’t until 1982, with the publication of her book Understanding Your Life Through Color, that the proclamation of the Indigo aura and its meaning was announced  (Carroll and Tober 1999). The Indigo children movement, however, did not gain full momentum until 1999, when Lee Carroll and Jan Tober wrote the book The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived. Since then, the Indigo movement has been featured in books, television, a feature film titled Indigo, and even two videogames titled Fahrenheit and Indigo Prophecy.

What Is an Indigo Child?

The ten most common traits of Indigo children, according to Carroll and Tober, are:

They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it).

They have a feeling of “deserving to be here,” and are surprised when others don’t share that.

Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents “who they are.”

They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).

They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.

They get frustrated with systems that are ritual-oriented and don’t require creative thought.

They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like “system busters” (nonconforming to any system).

They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.

They will not respond to “guilt” discipline (“Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did”).

They are not shy in letting you know what they need. (Carroll and Tober 1992)

The descriptors can change a bit depending on the source, but these traits are congruent with the typical account of an Indigo child. Nancy Tappe goes on to claim that at least 90 percent of children under the age of ten are, in fact, Indigo children (Tappe 1999).

Tappe (1999) lists and describes the four subtypes of Indigo children. The humanist is characterized by strong opinions, is socially outgoing, and is easily distracted. The conceptual subtype is comprised of children who are more interested in completing projects than human interaction. Tappe offers a warning that this subtype is prone to addiction, particularly in their teen years. The artist is a child who is typically smaller in size and often more sensitive. The fourth subtype is the interdimensional child, who is larger than the other three subtypes, is often seen as a bully, and can be expected to bring in new religions and philosophical beliefs.

These traits are numerous and vague. Given the breadth of individuals these descriptions cover, it would not be surprising if every child was identified as Indigo at some point in their lives, including those children who lived before the first Indigos supposedly made an appearance. Take for example the refusal to conform to social rules: there are a lot of children who do not like to wear clothes—being naked is natural. Most people can think of at least one story involving a child running around the house sans-clothing at an awkward moment. Is this child free-spirited and socially defiant? Doubtful. Most likely they are just doing what feels natural. It is too easy to turn a mundane situation like this into evidence of being Indigo:

I remember when Johnny was only three and he would tear through the house buck naked! He was so confident with who he was. He didn’t care who knew it, he was proud of himself and wasn’t afraid to show his true form. That’s what cued me in to Johnny being Indigo.

The subtypes of Indigo children sound rather stereotypical. There’s the sensitive artist, the isolated youth who self-medicates, an upbeat, energetic child who is easily distracted, and the large unpopular child who uses his or her size to gain control over others (the artistic, conceptual, humanistic, and interdimensional subtypes, respectively). These don’t sound like evolutionary advances; they sound more like one-dimensional, easily identifiable characters.

Indigo children, as mentioned above, can supposedly be identified by their auras (the “energy” that believers claim is emitted by humans and other animals). Unfortunately, not everyone (or anyone?) can see people’s auras, so identification based solely on reading someone’s aura can be problematic. It has also been suggested that Kirlian photography may be an effective way to identify such children. Kirlian photography is a photographic process in which a sheet of film is placed on a metal plate and the object of interest is then placed on top of the film. High voltage is sent through the plate, which creates an exposure of the object. As James Randi has shown us, Kirlian photography can be explained by the changes in pressure the subject exerts on the film or by environmental effects, such as temperature and humidity (Randi 1982). The aura identification strategy is oft debated in the Indigo community. For many believers, being labeled Indigo was merely that—the label had nothing to do with the child’s aura. The only identification strategy, then, hinges on meeting the criteria based on the descriptors.

Disciplining the Indigo Child

Robert Gerard offers advice on how to properly discipline the Indigo child based on what he calls “loving discipline” (Gerard 1999). Loving discipline consists of informing the child of the purpose and course of discipline using simple explanations, avoiding reactions, orders, and verbal and physical abuse, following through with your punishment, using a time-out procedure, dealing with discipline in the moment—not delaying punishment—and discussing the situation when it is over.

Cathy Patterson (1999) gives advice on setting boundaries and guidelines to help raise an Indigo child. These guidelines include giving the child choices, using brief explanations, giving only one direction at a time, using time-outs for discipline, using a chart to track positive behaviors with stickers, and setting a regular and consistent routine.

In considering the disciplinary strategies advised by Patterson and Gerard, it appears that their advice is the same offered by one of the behavioral pioneers in psychology, Montrose M. Wolf. Wolf, responsible for the creation of time-out, developed these and similar recommendations in the early 1960s (Risley 2005), roughly forty years before Patterson and Gerard offered their pearls of wisdom. Is it amazing that these techniques have been around and working pre-Indigo? If the Indigo children are different from non-Indigos and require special instructions on discipline, then why are the disciplinary suggestions the same as those applied to “normal” children? These “special” recommendations on disciplining Indigo children are not unique to this population; they are universal and highly researched in the psychological community.

Indigo Children and ADHD

Doreen Virtue (1999) offers several diagnostic features of the Indigo child in addition to those listed listed above. These features include: high levels of energy, easy boredom onset, resistance to authority, learning through exploration combined with a distaste for rote memorization, the inability to sit still unless they’re interested, and giving up in the face of failure, to name a few. Several of the traits describing Indigo children are comparable with a diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR, American Psychiatric Association 2000), the handbook of diagnoses for the psychological community. Virtue asserts that Indigo children are easily misdiagnosed as having ADHD.

Kathy McCloskey, like Virtue, believes that many Indigo children are being diagnosed with ADHD (McCloskey 1999). McCloskey makes the argument for the misdiagnoses based on case studies of children who are diagnosed with ADHD and score high on IQ scales but perform average to below average in school. It sounds as if McCloskey is surprised that an ADHD child can be of above-average intelligence. As is pointed out by Schuck and Crinella (2005), it is not uncommon for children with ADHD to be of normal intelligence. Missed assignments, boredom, and forgetting to study for a test do not reflect intelligence but are reflected in a child’s grade. ADHD does not mean a child is below average intelligence.

Leaders in the Indigo community also offer advice on what to do with Indigo children diagnosed with ADHD. This advice usually entails the cessation of any medication the child is on to treat the ADHD. Holly J. Roberts, a licensed psychologist in the pediatric psychology department at the Munroe-Meyer Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, which is known for using empirically supported psychological techniques for helping children, responded to a question regarding the danger of removing medication from ADHD children:

It is well known that psychostimulant medication is the single most efficacious treatment of ADHD as it reduces the primary symptoms of ADHD (MTA Cooperative Group 1999). That is, psychostimulant medication reduces inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity in children with ADHD. Therefore, discontinuing medication for a child with a definitive diagnosis [of] ADHD can have a negative impact on home and school functioning as children with ADHD typically evince a pervasive set of problems spanning behavioral, social, and academic areas.

For the Indigos who have ADHD, several alternative treatments have been offered (Carroll and Tober 1999). These treatments include supplemental vitamins and minerals, eating blue-green algae from Lake Klamath, biofeedback, neuromuscular integration, rapid eye technology, and electromagnetic field (EMF) balancing, which is purportedly a technique in which two people use each other’s electromagnetic fields, which allows them to form their own reality, whatever that means.

Biofeedback is a process in which children are hooked up to an electroencephalograph (EEG) and are taught to control the brain waves that appear on a monitor by controlling their thoughts, which supposedly increases the ability to concentrate at school. Biofeedback has been considered potentially effective for treating children with ADHD (Monastra, et al. 2005), but more tightly controlled studies are required before any valid conclusions can be drawn (Loo and Barkley 2005).

It is only a small step, then, to make the same claim with neuromuscular integration—described as being very similar to biofeedback—except that this therapy is performed to “…progressively realign the entire body and recondition the nervous system” (Carroll and Tober 1999, 193) over the course of ten sessions that involve therapeutic techniques such as dialogue, journaling, and deep tissue manipulation.

Are These Children Gifted?

One claim heard from many parents of Indigos is that their child is special or gifted. Holly J. Roberts also commented on the nature of gifted children. She writes:

There is evidence to suggest that children may achieve beyond expectations based on caregiver expectations. Outcomes of children identified as “gifted” or “early bloomers” are best demonstrated by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) examining teacher expectations on student achievement. The findings of this study showed that children who are randomly identified as gifted showed an increase in IQ scores at the end of the year due to the preferential treatment received by teachers based on the expectancy information. Thus, telling a child they are gifted at a young age may be beneficial but could take time and attention away from other children with similar abilities.

As indicated by Roberts’s statement, caretakers’ perceptions of children can easily shape their intelligence and thus how others perceive their intellectual performance ability.

What They’ve Come to Teach Us, and How This Will Save Us

One central theme of the Indigo movement is the idea that the Indigo children are here to teach us a lesson. Some of these lessons are outlined through stories from Indigos and parents or grandparents of Indigos in Carroll and Tober’s 2001 follow-up book, An Indigo Celebration: More Messages, Stories, and Insights from the Indigo Children. According to several Indigo proponents, many Indigo children are “old souls,” indicating that they have experienced several lifetimes and carry with them tremendous knowledge and wisdom from these past lives. Parents who believe this is true tend to keep an open mind and report their child’s statements as true. For example, one child stated that the reflection of the sun’s rays on the water, which were called “God spots” (p. 59), were used to take people’s souls back to heaven when they die. Because the child used the phrase “back up to heaven” (p. 59), the parent unquestionably deduced that the child had knowledge regarding the existence of souls in heaven prior to a person’s birth. The child of another set of parents explained that he once ruled an entire planet, but unfortunately for him there was a large disaster (an earthquake, in this case) that caused him to suffer a traumatic impact from bumping his head on a rock. This caused his spirit to fall from his body and land inside of his Earth-mother. The parents decided it was best to keep an open mind about the story. 

Other stories presented in An Indigo Celebration (2001) include teenagers, who identify themselves as Indigo, struggling to fit in because they know they are Indigo and thus are different and isolated. A teenager reporting that he or she feels isolated, unique, and above average is not an exceptional statement—many teens feel this way. The imaginary audience and personal fable come to mind when reading these stories; both phenomena should be easily identifiable to anyone who has taken an introduction to psychology course. The imaginary audience syndrome is a common experience for teenagers—they feel that everyone is focused solely on them, and the world scrutinizes every action they make. The personal fable is related to the notion that many teens feel special and unique to the extent that the law of averages does not apply to them. This is used to explain many risk-taking behaviors by youths, even though they are aware of the potential consequences (e.g., “It won’t happen to me!”).

Furthermore, some say the Indigo children are here to save us from something or other. Most accounts are vague, alluding to a general change in our way of thinking and a passion for saving the earth and its inhabitants.

Making Money Off the Movement

The Indigo children phenomenon can produce big bucks for those individuals who know how to market it. In 2003, executive producer James Twyman co-wrote the movie Indigo. The film centers around a young girl named Grace who uses her natural, unique gift to aid her mother and grandfather in reconciling their differences while evading a mysterious person who wants to kidnap her. While the directing, acting, and plot may be sub-par, it doesn’t stop those who support the Indigo idea from declaring this film accurate and a good introduction to Indigos for the general public. Indigo was in limited release in January 2005 and grossed $1,190,000, according to IMDB.com. The film also received the Santa Fe Film Festival’s audience award in 2003.

Along with the Indigo books that are available, there is also a metaphysically related online magazine titled Children of the New Earth. In this magazine, one can read about drama therapy for their Indigo child, the newest threat from fluoride, or how to raise your Indigo or Crystal child, which is yet one more unique type of child in the same vein as Indigos but beyond the scope of this article. The online magazine is currently $32.99 for a one-year subscription, but you can subscribe for a one-month trial at $4.99. The Web site also features a list of alternative schools that may be appropriate for children whose parents believe their children are Indigos.

There is a wealth of money to be made in teaching parents of Indigo children as well. For example, at metagifted.org, a company run solely by Wendy Chapman, individuals can take an online workshop related to their Indigo children through AIM or AOL instant-messaging services. The fee is $25 per person or $40 per couple. For the same prices, there are also online classes for Indigos. You can also purchase an Indigo consultation, which will provide you with information regarding your Indigo child or yourself, if you happen to be an Indigo adult. Prices are $75 per hour or $50 for a half hour by phone, $50 per hour or $30 for a half hour for an online chat, and $30 per hour if your consult is conducted via email.

Australian Scott Alexander King, a self-proclaimed animal psychic, offers seminars on Indigo children. For $250, over the course of two days (eight hours total), you can participate in “The Indigo Child and the Journey Drum,” in which you will learn about the sacred art of drum making and even create your own drum. King also offers shorter seminars on learning about the Indigo phenomenon for $125.

The Future of Indigo Children

The pseudoscientific categorization of children does not stop with the Indigo children. Recently, several new categories have been proposed that offer even more options for children to be labeled as above average and gifted. These new categories include the Crystal children and the Rainbow children to name a few. These children, so named by Doreen Virtue because of the color of the aura they emit, are said to be the next generations after Indigo children. Much like the Indigos, the Crystals and Rainbows are allegedly new life energies on Earth that are here to change our global lives.

Conclusion

To date, there is no scientific way to test many of the claims endorsed by the Indigo movement. Further, the vague criteria noted to describe Indigo children could easily be applied to most people at some point in their lives. Yet despite these hurdles, many have financially benefited from the movement through the publication of magazines, books, films, therapy, and lectures.

Many parents may also benefit from the Indigo movement by labeling their child as special and gifted instead of suffering from ADHD or behavioral problems. The Indigo movement provides parents and caregivers with a happy, warm explanation for childrens’ behaviors, whether good or bad. While this may not be incredibly dangerous, one begins to see the potential harm when children are removed from ADHD medications, scientifically unsupported diets are implemented, unproven treatments are utilized, and behavioral interventions are ceased for troubled children. When we divert energy and resources away from proper childhood interventions, we run the risk of inflicting long-term harm to our children.

Whether you wear rose-colored or indigo-colored glasses, your perception of the world and its workings will be affected. When we prejudge our children as gifted and insightful, that is exactly what we will get, regardless of the reality.

References

• American Psychiatric Association. 2000. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.
• —. 2001. The Indigo Children. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• Carroll, Lee, and Jan Tober, eds. 2001. An Indigo Celebration. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• Daley, D. 2006.  Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A review of the essential facts. Child:Care, Health and Development, 32(2): 193–204.
• Dixon, Lori Beth, Frances J. Cronin, and Susan M. Krebs-Smith. 2001. Let the pyramid guide your food choices: Capturing the total diet concept.  Journal of Nutrition, 131(S2-1): 461S–72S.
• Gerard, Robert. 1999. “Disciplining the Indigo.” In The Indigo Children, edited by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 71–73. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• The Internet Movie Database. “Indigo (2003)—Box office/business.” Available online at imdb.com (accessed May 18, 2008).
• Johnson, Lisa, and Sarah Safranek. 2005. What is the most effective treatment for ADHD in children (Clinical inquiries: From the family practice inquiries network) (Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder). Journal of Family Practice, 54(2): 166–68.
• Lilienfeld, Scott O. 1996. EMDR treatment: Less than meets the eye? – eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Skeptical Inquirer, 20(1): 25–31.
• Lohr, Jeffrey M., Wayne Hook, Richard Gist, and David F. Tolin. 2003. Novel and controversial treatments for trauma-related stress disorders. In Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology edited by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, and Jeffrey M. Lohr, 243–272. New York: Guilford Press.
• Loo, Sandra K., and Russell A Barkley. 2005. Clinical utility of EEG in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Applied Neuropsychology. Special Issue: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Neuropsychology, 12(2): 64–76.
• McCloskey, Kathy. 1999. “The New Powerful Children.” In The Indigo Children, edited by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 25–31. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• Melvin, Melanie. 1999. “Respecting the Indigo Children.” In The Indigo Children, edited by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 112–123. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• Monastra, Vincent J., S. Lynn, M. Linden, Joel F. Lubar, J. Gruzelier, and Theodore J. LaVaque. 2005. Electroencephalographic biofeedback in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 30(2): 95–114.
• MTA Cooperative Group. 1999. A 14-Month randomized clinical trial of treatment strategies for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.  Archives of General Psychiatry, 56(12): 1073–1086.
• Patterson, Cathy. 1999. “Strategies to use in Guiding Indigo Children.” In The Indigo Children, edited by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 77–88. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• Randi, James. Flim-Flam. 1982. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Risley, Todd. 2005. Montrose M. Wolf (1935-2004). Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 38(Summer): 279–87.
• Rosenthal, Robert, and Lenore Jacobson. 1968. Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development. New York: Rinehart and Winston.
• Schuck, Sabrina E. B., and Francis M. Crinella. 2005. Why children with ADHD do not have low IQs. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(3): 262–80.
• Tappe, N. A. 1999. “Introduction to the Indigos.” In The Indigo Children, edited by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 6–17. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House.
• Virtue, Doreen. 1999. “Parenting an Indigo Child.” In The Indigo Children, edited by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 133–140. Vancouver, Canada: Hay House. Benjamin Witts lives in North Mankato, Minnesota. E-mail: benjamin.witts@gmail.com.

The best of seers is he who guesses well.

—Euripides

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese text that combines the influences of Taoism and Confucianism and is typically used for divination purposes. The book (sometimes called “the Oracle”) is said to find order in what otherwise would be chance events. The I Ching is based on Yin and Yang, the two fundamental ordering principles in Taoist philosophy and cosmology. Typically, one formulates a question for the I Ching and then tosses three coins a total of six times.¹ Depending on the configuration of heads and tails for each throw, one gets a straight line (representing the Yang principle) or a broken line (representing the Yin principle). After six throws with the three coins one has what’s called a hexagram, a collection of six straight and/or broken lines stacked on top of one another.² There are sixty-four possible hexagrams, and all have their own particular meaning, often with a Confucianist ethical angle to them. The hexagram one receives is believed to provide an answer to the question asked.

The Ambiguous and the Obscure

Some specific words of advice show up numerous times throughout the I Ching that appear to be no more illuminating than the advice found inside fortune cookies, although they are elaborated upon at length in the form of commentaries. Some of these words of advice include the following: “It furthers one to undertake something,” “Perseverance brings good fortune,” and “Undertakings bring misfortune.” These first two bits of advice would be considered affirmative responses to one’s initial question about whether to pursue a particular course of action, whereas the third seems decidedly negative.

As with other forms of divination, such as astrology or tarot cards, the answers provided by the I Ching are rather general, allowing for multiple and ambiguous interpretations. These answers are also subject to the same psychological phenomena that plague all forms of divination, namely, the Barnum Effect, where we tend to find personal meaning in statements that can apply to almost anyone, and confirmation bias, where we tend to notice those things that confirm our beliefs but ignore or downplay those things that don’t.

Other advice offered by the I Ching is much harder to understand and may refer to ancient, culturally specific Chinese symbols and proverbs. Some of these include: “A shoal of fishes. Favor comes through the court ladies,” “Darkening of the light injures him in the left thigh. He gives aid with the strength of a horse,” and “The companion bites his way through the wrappings. If one goes to him, how could it be a mistake?”³

It seems that we could do just as well, if not better, by randomly flipping through a book of English proverbs and contemplating the advice found in such sayings as: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” “Don’’t bite off more than you can chew,” or that most ambiguous of proverbs, “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” whose interpretation depends upon whether the metaphor “gathering moss” is taken to be a good or a bad thing.

Obviously one can find some wisdom in proverbial sayings, and there’s nothing mysterious about it. Yet many who consult the I Ching insist that something deep and mystical is at work because the utter appropriateness of the answers to the questions seems to go beyond the mere chance involved in tossing coins.

Synchronicity Time

The psychologist C.G. Jung was impressed by what he saw as the I Ching’s ability to offer clear answers to important questions. Jung coined the term synchronicity and used this idea to explain how the I Ching works, stating, “... whatever is born or done in this moment of time has the quality of this moment of time” (Jung 1931, 142). The idea here is that when I concentrate on a particular question while tossing the coins in my consultation with the I Ching, my question and my coin tosses are part of that particular moment in time, and the I Ching’s answer to my question will also be part of that moment in time, hence, the question and the answer are united in that moment. This somehow accounts for the coincidental appropriateness of the answer to the question. This Principle of Synchronicity is supposed to explain meaningful coincidences that, we are told, cannot be connected by cause and effect yet cannot be explained by chance either. In relation to the I Ching, Jung says, “... synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events ... as well as the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers” (Jung 1950, xxiv).

Needless to say, the Principle of Synchronicity is not recognized by modern science, and the only evidence that synchronicity is behind the appearance of two coincidental events—i.e., the appropriateness of the I Ching’s answer to one’s question—is simply that one happens to find the occurrence of those events significant. The problem is that in life we’re exposed to a multitude of experiences and events such that the probability is quite high that some coincidences will seem dramatic (Dean et al. 2005, 7).

Jung himself was not clear about how synchronicity is supposed to work. At one point he maintained that the outer event (e.g., the I Ching’s answer) and the mental state (e.g., the question asked) are simultaneous⁴ (Jung 1960, 441). Later he maintained that a mental state coincides with a “(more or less simultaneous) external event” or with a “future event that is distant in time”⁵ (Jung 1960, 526). The writer Arthur Koestler, a popularizer of much of Jung’s work, found Jung confusing on the matter of synchronicity, writing, “One wonders why Jung created these unnecessary complications by coining a term which implies simultaneity, and then explaining that it does not mean what it means”⁶ (Koestler 1972, 95). As is often the hallmark of many pseudoscientific claims, Jung’s synchronicity principle is a “nonrefutable or irrefutable hypothesis”⁷ (McGowan 1994, 137). And despite its scientific-sounding name, the Principle of Synchronicity fares no better as an explanation than does the mysterious and undetectable “forces” used by astrologers to explain the “accuracy” found in their readings.

When Jung wrote the forward to Richard Wilhelm’s 1950 translation of the I Ching, he asked the book what it thought of him introducing it to the Western mind. The hexagram he received in response was “The Cauldron” (hexagram #50).

Each hexagram within the The Book of Changes includes about three-to-four pages of description and commentary. This is, in part, because each individual line within the hexagram has its own particular significance and must also be explained. Jung found himself especially moved by the significance of the bottom line of the hexagram “The Cauldron,” which reads, in part, “A cauldron with legs upturned. Further removal of stagnating stuff.”

Jung interpreted this to mean that the I Ching resembles an unused cauldron, and when the stagnating stuff is removed it “may be utilized for a higher purpose” (Jung 1950, xxx). This seemed to confirm to Jung that the I Ching approved of him introducing it to Westerners. One writer critical of Jung’s interpretation pointed out how a skeptic might interpret this line from the I Ching. He suggested: “The I Ching should be overthrown, and our minds cleansed of antique superstition” (Gallo 1994, 400). It would seem that one’s attitude toward the I Ching may influence one’s interpretation of the answer received.

Conclusion

With the I Ching, as with other forms of divination (such as astrology, tarot cards, palm reading, crystal balls, and the obscure practice of rumpology—fortune telling by examining the folds and crevices of the buttocks), the general nature of the responses allows for multiple and conflicting interpretations. Moreover, there’s no known scientific mechanism (synchronicity included) by which the I Ching can divine our fortunes, give advice for the future, or explain our situations. It’s important to be open minded to the possibility that such a mechanism may exist, but simply “believing” in some unknown mechanism when the I Ching’s responses can be easily explained by the Barnum Effect and confirmation bias is to shut down critical thinking. Ultimately, there’s no evidence that the I Ching works as a form of divination other than that its ambiguous and obscure responses can invoke the mysterious feeling that it somehow does seem to work. One may experience a comforting and mysterious feeling when believing that the I Ching is intimately connected to one’s life and mind, a kind of “cosmic connection,” yet such a feeling would be motivated by the desire to believe rather than the desire to know.

Notes

1. The ancient method for consulting the I Ching involved a lengthy procedure of throwing yarrow stalks (yarrow is a plant also known as milfoil). The three coins replaced the yarrow stalks during the Han Dynasty (206 bce–220 ce).
2. When throwing the three coins for the I Ching, one side of the coin (usually heads) is two, and the other side (tails) is three. Thus, each line in a hexagram can equal six, seven, eight, or nine, depending on the throw. Lines that are sixes or nines are considered changing lines, which suggests that the hexagram thrown is in the process of changing into another hexagram. In such a case, one reads the initial hexagram and the relevant lines (sixes or nines). Then the sixes and nines are said to change into their opposite: a solid line becomes a broken line, and a broken becomes a solid, creating a new hexagram. The second hexagram is typically read also, indicating further changes in store.
3. The above short bits of advice from the I Ching are taken from the Wilhelm translation.
4. Referenced in Dean et al. 2005, 7.
5. Referenced in Dean et al. 2005, 7.
6. Referenced in Dean et al. 2005, 8.
7. Originally published in Hines 1988, 1.

References

• Dean, Geoffrey, Peter Loptson, Ivan Kelly, et al. 2005. Theories of astrology: A comprehensive survey. An updated and abridged version of a discourse by Dean, Loptson, Kelly, and seven others in: Correlation 1996, 15 (1): 17–52. Available online at www.rudolfhsmit.nl/a-theo2.htm.
• Gallo, Ernest. 1994. Synchronicity and the archetypes. Skeptical Inquirer 18 (4): 396–403.
• Hines, Terence. 1988. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: A Critical Examination of the Evidence. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Jung, C.G. 1931, 1969. Appendix. The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life. Trans. from the Chinese by Richard Wilhelm. Trans. from the German by Cary F. Baynes. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
• —. 1950, 1979. Forward. The I Ching or Book of Changes. Trans. from the Chinese by Richard Wilhelm. Trans. from the German by Cary F. Baynes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• —. 1960. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Trans. by R.F.C. Hull. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Koestler, Arthur. 1972, 1974. The Roots of Coincidence. London:Pan Books, Ltd.
• McGowan, Don. 1994. What Is Wrong with Jung. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Wilhelm, Richard. 1950, 1979. The I Ching or Book of Changes. Trans. from the Chinese by Richard Wilhelm. Trans. from the German by Cary F. Baynes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wonderful and sometimes dangerous things can come in very small packages. The discovery in September 2003 of an extremely petite, human-like creature was certainly wonderful. But what could be so dangerous about a long-dead hominin little more than a meter tall with a brain the size of a newborn baby’s? The answer reveals a deep and still widening rift in the scientific community between one faction standing guard over received wisdom and another bloc poised to make scientific history.

Dubbed Homo floresiensis by their co-discoverers, these “Hobbits” evidently thrived for thousands of years beneath the capacious limestone dome of the Liang Bua (LB) cave on the East Indonesian island of Flores. In sediments approximately 18,000 years old, archaeologists unearthed a nearly complete skeleton, including the skull. LB1, as she is known, was an adult female—about thirty years old judging from tooth-wear, but her cranium was considerably smaller than that of any other known hominin from the genus Homo. While modern human brains average 1,350 cubic centimeters (cc) in volume and H. erectus brains averaged 900 cc, LB1’s amounted to just 417 cc.

Yet there were signs that these small-brained Hobbits were no dummies. Along with the skull and bones, stone tools and charred animal remains were recovered, suggesting that the LB hominins had maintained an advanced hunting culture. Until that point, most experts had insisted that such a culture was inconsistent with tiny brains and, perhaps, with any species of hominin except H. sapiens. As news of the Hobbits spread, challengers proposed a number of intriguing theories to explain why these creatures should not be classified as a new species. Their opponents, however, joined by LB1’s co-discoverers, have not relented. The debate over H. floresiensis has in fact intensified since 2003, becoming ever more contentious and, at times, downright bitter.

The Early Nature Papers: Building a Case for Homo floresiensis

Homo floresiensis challenges us because she is so unexpected, because she does not fit with many preconceptions about how humans evolved and behaved, and what they should look like.

—Michael Morwood, The Discovery of the Hobbit

A 3D cast of a skeleton of the controversial meter-tall adult hominin named Homo floresiensis by its discoverers and popularly called the Hobbit.

Photo: Tim Wiencis/ Splash News

In October 2004, LB1 was introduced to the world in a pair of articles in Nature headlined by two Australians, paleoanthropologist Peter Brown and archaeologist Michael J. Morwood. From the beginning, Brown emphasized the specimen’s “unique mosaic of primitive and derived traits” (Brown 2004). LB1’s diminutive body size generally suggested some association with Pliocene australopithecines, Brown judged, yet her facial and dental traits tended to link her more closely to larger Homo specimens from the Pleistocene.

To account for the Flores hominin’s small stature, Brown invoked the “island rule,” or the selective advantage of insular dwarfing in the context of isolated, predator-free environments marked by reduced competition and resources. Smaller species would be favored in such situations due simply to their reduced energy requirements. H. floresiensis, Brown concluded, resulted from dwarfing either on Flores itself or in another insular southeast Asian environment prior to emigration.

From the outset, both teams considered the possibility that LB1 was a unique, perhaps diseased, individual. Morwood promptly rejected that hypothesis, however. Referring to a mandibular left third premolar (from LB2) found in significantly older deposits, he argued that they were “not dealing with an abnormal individual but a long-standing population” (Morwood 2004). Morwood’s team also identified many of the charred faunal remains, some of which belonged to Komodo Dragons and a dwarfed species of Stegadon—a now-extinct group of animals related to mammoths, mastodons, and elephants. In the same location, they found “big game” stone artifacts including “points, perforators, blades, and microblades” that the team inferred “were probably hafted as barbs” by the Hobbits. Because of these artifacts’ close proximity to other tools likely crafted by H. erectus, and because of LB1’s morphological consistencies with H. erectus, Morwood initially judged H. floresiensis to have descended from that species.

More Hobbit remains were excavated from the LB cave in 2004, including the right humerus and right ulna of LB1, a second adult mandible, and various postcranial features from other individuals. In a third paper published in October of the following year, Brown and Morwood announced the discovery of at least seven more inhabitants (LB3–LB9) that had been recovered from sediments dating between 95,000 or 74,000 to around 12,000 years ago (Morwood 2005). All were diminutive—probably even smaller than LB1. On the one hand, this new evidence solidified the team’s rejection of the pathology hypothesis; on the other, it compelled them to reconsider H. erectus as the Hobbits’ likely ancestor.

Initially, Morwood and Brown noted that the second, chinless mandible (LB6)—though having smaller teeth than those belonging to LB1—was quite similar to LB1’s mandible in general size, morphology (form and structure), and symphysis (where two halves of the mandible unite). Importantly, LB6 was also estimated to be about 3,000 years younger than LB1, thus providing “another line of evidence,” the authors argued, “that LB1 was not aberrant, but is instead representative of a long-term, morphologically unique, small bodied population.”

The team also determined that the LB1 and LB6 mandibles were more like early east African or Georgian H. erectus than either Javan or Chinese H. erectus, and that their dental symphyses most resembled even earlier hominins, including Australopithicus afarensis.

Morwood and Brown then examined the new arm and leg bones, first comparing Hobbit midshaft circumferences to those of modern African Pygmies. The width of LB8’s tibia, for example, rested within the Pan (chimpanzee/bonobo) and Pongo (orangutan) range but not within the Homo range. Similarly, LB1’s humerus and ulna were significantly thicker than those of the Pygmies.

Second, they compared the Hobbits’ relative limb and body proportions to those of various apes and early hominins. With a relatively long arm-to-leg ratio and an antero-laterally flared pelvis, the team found that LB1’s humerofemoral index was outside the range of variation for H. sapiens but identical to A. afarensis and that her body proportions were different from all hominins—including H. erectus—except A. afarensis. “Abnormal growth seems an unlikely explanation,” the team concluded, “as growth-hormone-related dwarfism and microcephaly [literally, small brain] in modern humans result in normal limb and pelvic proportions.” Although adamant that the LB hominins were not H. erectus or H. sapiens, Morwood and Brown left open the question of whether they had descended from an even earlier species of Homo or from an australopithecine.

The Early Detractors: Microcephaly Reconsidered

The twist is that there was a rush to judgment, because the temptation to be recognized as discoverers of a new human species was too great to resist.

—Maciej Henneberg, The Hobbit Trap

An artist’s impression of Homo floresiensis.

Photo: Peter Schouten/AFP/Getty Images

Shortly after the announcement of H. floresiensis, Polish-born biological anthropologist Marciej Henneberg and Australian paleoanthropologist Alan Thorne published their criticisms of Brown and Morwood’s conclusions in a non-peer-reviewed context, briefly proposing a “simple explanation” for the Hobbits’ odd features (Henneberg and Thorne 2004). Secondary microcephaly (secondary, meaning occurring later in development), they argued, could explain LB1’s paradoxically small braincase (five to six standard deviations below the modern average) relative to her “normal” face, nose, and jaw (three standard deviations below average). Comparing two microcephalic skulls described in the archaeological records to the skull of LB1, the authors found that not one of the fifteen dimensions evaluated differed by more than 2.5 standard deviations. Henneberg and Thorne also described LB1’s orthodontic crowding and rotation problems and her receding chin as consistent with the suggested growth disorder.

In their response, Brown and Morwood acidly described Henneberg and Thorne’s paper as “an extremely poorly informed, and ill designed, piece of ‘research’ [that] could not have been published in a substantial peer reviewed journal” (Brown and Morwood 2004). Henneberg later calculated the likelihood that LB1’s cranial capacity could evolve according to standard gradualist theory and consistent with the documented hominin fossil record. He came up with a probability of “much less than 0.0001” (Henneberg 2007). Morwood crustily dismissed that claim too. Given the wealth of evidence in favor H. floresiensis, he said, “the probability of Henneberg’s claims having any substance . . . is much less than 0.0001.”

The first highly detailed dissenting analysis, however, was led by Teuku Jacob, Indonesia’s then-premier paleoanthropologist, sadly now deceased, who questioned why supporters of the H. floresiensis taxon had compared LB1 mostly with humans from other parts of the world. Jacob offered and tested an alternative hypothesis—that “LB1 was an Australomelanesian H. sapiens who manifested microcephaly, which is commonly accompanied by other developmental abnormalities” (Jacob 2006).

Discussing specific skeletal features first, Jacob contended that none of the ninety-four previously described cranial features of LB1 or the forty-six features of the two mandibles were outside the range for regional modern humans. Similarly, with respect to the jaws’ supposedly most distinguishing feature—absence of a chin—Jacob referred to the Rampassa pygmies currently living near the Hobbits’ cave, 93 percent of whom display flat or even negative chins.

Next, Jacob turned to the issue of pathology. Microcephaly, he pointed out, is a clinically heterogenous condition potentially caused by various genetic, chromosomal, and environmental problems affecting prenatal and postnatal development. It can also result in numerous physical symptoms in addition to small brain size, including craniofacial and postcranial asymmetries. Indeed, Jacob found LB1’s face to be highly asymmetrical: six of seven measured areas of its right side were as much as 40 percent larger than those on the left.

Also, he discovered that LB1’s long bones were not simply “robust,” as Morwood and Brown had described. Rather, CT scans revealed abnormally thin cortical bone and very large marrow cavities indicative, according to Jacob, of weak muscle attachment markings and abnormal growth. In the end, Jacob’s team concluded that, contrary to Brown’s assessment, LB1’s traits were “not primitive but instead regional ... and not derived but strikingly disordered developmentally.”

Two additional critiques were published later that year. First, Robert Martin, an allometry (relative growth) specialist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, refuted Morwood’s initial claim that the Hobbits had descended from H. erectus (Martin 2006a). LB1’s braincase was smaller than any other known hominin less than 3.5 million years old, he observed, and much too small to derive from H. erectus by normal dwarfing.

However, a pair of British paleontologists, Eleanor Weston and Adrian Lister, have recently discovered that the brains of certain extinct island hippos had shrunk to a size 30 percent smaller than would otherwise be predicted under the traditional dwarfing model (Weston and Lister 2009).

Agreeing generally with Jacob’s diagnosis of microcephaly, Martin remained unbothered by the fact of multiple LB specimens (as many as sixteen, according to Morwood’s latest estimate). First, there was only one skull, that of LB1. Second, although the discovery of a second chinless mandible raised questions (if chinlessness is interpreted as a sign of microcephaly), the dating of the second mandible was itself dubious, Martin argued, because there was strong evidence—“the mingling of at least two different assemblages of stone tools” in particular—that the dated cave sediments had been disturbed. He also denied that the Hobbits had actually produced the tools associated with them.

Martin conceded an important point, however. LB1’s forelimb/hindlimb ratio did resemble that of something more primitive than H. erectus. It was “marginally possible,” therefore, that LB1’s remains provided “evidence of a new species from a lineage that diverged at a very early australopithecine stage, about 3 mya [million years ago], when cranial capacity was still very small.” Nevertheless, he cautioned, the existing fossil record simply did not support the hypothesis that so many more modern Homo traits could convergently evolve into the proposed H. floresiensis lineage.

Then, during a brief review of the contemporary Hobbit literature, University of California at Berkeley biologist Gary Richards emphasized a similar point (Richards 2006). Richards first proposed a genetic rather than a pathological cause of the Hobbits’ morphology—a mutation in the MCPH gene family combined with a modification of the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor I axis). But he also challenged the new species proponents to account for Brown and Morwood’s novel evolutionary scenario. The Hobbits’ phylogenetic link “to any taxon other than H. sapiens,” he warned, “results in a problem wherein the similarities between H. floresiensis and H. sapiens would have to arise by parallel evolution at the same time that the new species is undergoing significant genetic drift or selection for a reduction in stature and brain size.”

Rejoinder: The Brain of H. floresiensis

If this is the best evidence that can be produced ...we suggest that the authors reconsider their position on the microcephalic hypothesis.

—Dean Falk (2005a)

Clearly, LB1’s tiny brain had seized center stage in the hotly contested Hobbit debate. Experts can’t study the brains of long-dead specimens directly, of course, but they can fashion endocast molds of braincase interiors. Although LB1’s cranium was far too fragile to render a common plaster cast, Brown fashioned virtual endocasts using CT scans, resin, and a rapid-prototyping process called stereolithography.

Florida State University’s Dean Falk, a leading expert on hominid brain evolution, decided to compare LB1’s virtual endocasts with molds made from the braincases of great apes, an australopithecine, an H. erectus, an average-sized H. sapiens, a pygmy, and a microcephalic H. sapiens (Falk 2005b). She found that although LB1 closely resembled A. africanus in terms of relative brain-to-body size, its brain’s general shape was most similar to that of H. erectus. Importantly, Falk observed as well that the Flores hominin’s endocast bore little likeness to that of the pygmy and least of all to the microcephalic.

Falk’s most remarkable discovery, however, was that LB1 had possessed a “well-convoluted” brain that could not have simply been a scaled-down version of an H. sapiens or an H. erectus brain. Referring to the Hobbits’ big-game stone technology and evident use of fire and cooking, Falk spotlighted LB1’s extremely wide temporal lobes and expanded frontal polar region, the latter of which consists of Brodmann’s area 10—probably involved in planning and initiative taking—in humans. In the end, Falk’s team (including Brown and Morwood) settled on two potential evolutionary scenarios: H. floresiensis either dwarfed under the island’s unusual allometric constraints or shared with H. erectus an unknown, small-bodied, and tiny-brained ancestor.

But, of course, Falk’s claims did not go unchallenged. German neuroscientist Jochen Weber, for example, analyzed nineteen different microcephalics (with a mean brain capacity of 404 cc) and found that seven, like LB1, presented an enlarged Brodmann’s area 10 (Weber 2006). Robert Martin argued that LB1’s tiny brain could not possibly result from the normal, non-pathological dwarfing of H. erectus and that the stone tools recovered from the LB cave were of a type never to have been associated with any species other than H. sapiens (Martin 2006b).

Australian archaeologist Adam Brumm, however, disagreed with Martin on the second point. Brumm’s group compared the LB tools to some 500 stone artifacts excavated from the Mata Menge site in the Soa Basin of central Flores (just fifty kilometers west of the LB cave) dated from 840,000 to 700,000 years ago—at least 500,000 years prior to H. sapiens (Brumm 2006). Both assemblages evidenced the same use of raw materials and a very similar freehand reduction technique. Both sites, in fact, produced the same types of tools of similar maximum dimensions. According to Brumm, “the stone artifacts from Mata Menge and Liang Bua represent a technology made by the same hominin lineage. Pronouncements that H. floresiensis lacked the brain size necessary to make stone artifacts,” he concluded, “are therefore based on preconceptions rather than actual evidence.”

Professor Falk eventually published two additional papers on the ever-enigmatic brain of LB1. In the first study, she compared LB1’s virtual endocast to those of nine “heterogenous” microcephalics and ten normal humans (Falk 2007). She concluded that LB1’s unique features should not be attributed to pathology because (1) “the frontal breadth relative to cerebellar width and lack of cerebellar protrusion” classified LB1 at “100% probability with normal H. sapiens rather than microcephalics” and (2) as she had already noted, LB1’s brain shared too many crucial affinities with those of H. erectus and A. africanus.

In the second paper, Falk identified seven distinct features of LB1’s brain that were derived and not pathological, declaring that “to date, we are unaware of descriptions in the literature of microcephalic brains ... that manifest anything like the suite of derived cortical features seen in LB1’s virtual endocast” (Falk 2009a). But perhaps even more interestingly—and refreshingly—Falk seized this opportunity to expound on what she deems a profound “shift in the big picture” of hominin brain evolution. Conventional wisdom has long demanded that the evolution of intelligence was the product of brain size alone. However, a Neanderthal- or H. sapiens-sized brain might not be necessary to the task. Hominin brain evolution—and, thus, selection for intelligence—might very well have proceeded in some species, like H. floresiensis, through cortical reorganization as well.

Mounting Evidence: The Body of H. floresiensis

Now that much of the fuss has died down, and the validity of the new species has been established apparently to the satisfaction of most paleoanthropologists, it has become possible to discuss its affinities soberly.

—Colin Groves (2007)

Three teams have published general studies of LB1’s cranial morphology in recent years, and each of the three arrived at a similar conclusion. An Australian group, led by anthropologist Debbie Argue, decided that LB1’s cranium did not resemble those of pygmies and was unlikely to belong to a microcephalic H. sapiens (Argue 2006). Instead, she proposed that LB1’s skull was most similar to that of H. ergaster, an African species from Koobi Fora sometimes classified as H. erectus, and that its limb proportions most resembled those of A. garhi. Then, after conducting the first scaling analysis of LB1’s cranium, American paleobiologist Adam Gordon found that in the absence of scaling, LB1’s skull was most similar to that of non-Asian H. erectus and H. ergaster and that when modern human skulls were scaled to LB1’s size, the Flores hominin’s cranium proved “even more distinct” from H. sapiens (Gordon 2008). Finally, a second American team led by anatomist Karen Baab agreed generally that the shape of LB1’s skull did not resemble that of small modern humans (Baab and McNulty 2008). They also addressed Jacob’s concern regarding LB1’s facial asymmetry, finding LB1’s features to be “consistent with the degree of asymmetry found in extant apes and humans,” and, in fact, “less asymmetrical than some other fossil Homo crania.”

Studies dedicated to specific elements of the postcranial remains bolstered the new species hypothesis as well. For example, Susan Larson, anatomist at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, analyzed the shoulder bones of two LB specimens and the “Nariokotome” boy (an early H. erectus) and compared them to the shoulders of modern humans (Larson 2007). In both the Hobbits and H. erectus, Larson discovered an “unexpected combination of primitive and derived characteristics” in low humeral torsion, a relatively short clavicle, and a more modern scapula.

But it was the feature of low humeral torsion (technically, “the orientation of the humeral head relative to the mediolateral axis of the distal humerus”) that she found most remarkable. By contrast, high torsion characterizes modern humans. African apes display it too, as Larson explains, but it was subsequently lost at some unknown point in early hominin evolution and finally recovered by later Homo. In any case, for Larson, reduced torsion in both Nariokotome and the Flores hominins—distinct creatures from very different times and places—reveals a “transitional stage” in pectoral girdle evolution and strong evidence that the Hobbits were not H. sapiens, normal or pathological.

At about the same time, Matthew Tocheri, an expert in wrist evolution at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, published his team’s analysis of three of LB1’s wrist bones—the trapezoid, scaphoid, and capitate (Tocheri 2007). Individually, each bone revealed an important difference between the wrists of LB1 and modern humans. Unlike the human’s boot-shaped trapezoid, for example, LB1’s trapezoid is more wedge-shaped, like those of other primates. Similarly, the Hobbit’s capitate lacks the larger palmarly placed articular surface for the trapezoid common to both modern humans and Neanderthals and instead displays the “waisted neck” feature found in apes and australopithecines. Finally, LB1’s scaphoid shows an articular surface for the trapezium that does not reach out onto the scaphoid tubercle, as in humans and Neanderthals. According to Tocheri, these differences were not likely caused by developmental abnormalities like microcephaly because the shapes of these bones are determined well before the time when growth rate genes express themselves.

More generally, Tocheri discovered a significant functional distinction between LB1’s hand and the hands of other modern humans. Humans, Neanderthals, and the 800,000-year-old H. antecessor all possessed a “complex of five bones that mesh together to ease stress on the wrist when the hand is used forcefully, for example, in pounding large tools or in precision work” (Gibbons 2007). LB1, whose hand resembles more ancient hominins like the 1.7-million-year-old H. habilis, lacks this bone complex.

For Tocheri, LB1’s unique wrist morphology supports the hypothesis that the Hobbits descended from a hominin that migrated out of Africa prior to the evolution of the modern wrist.

Stony Brook University’s William Jungers arrived at a similar conclusion in his group’s new paper in May discussing the Hobbits’ unusually large feet, measuring 196 mm in length (Jungers 2009b). LB1’s foot-to-femur ratio was about 0.7, in fact, which “far exceeds the upper limits for modern humans,” Jungers said, “and instead overlaps with bonobos.” Indeed, many Hobbit tarsal bones display characteristics conforming to ape but not human samples. According to Jungers, LB1’s overwhelming number and variety of primitive traits—in its feet and throughout its cranial and postcranial skeleton—proves that the Hobbits were not pathological H. sapiens but rather descendents of a “primitive hominin that established a presence in Asia either alongside or at a different time than H. erectus.”

The Latest Criticisms and Responses: Pygmies, Laron Syndrome, and ME Cretins

Critics were unswayed, saying that even if one kind of pathology has been refuted, hundreds of others remain possible.

—Elizabeth Culotta (2008a)

Although many detractors have never withdrawn their argument that Hobbits were simply microcephalic H. sapiens, previously uninvolved authors have recently joined what Henneberg once labeled the “pathology group” and proposed fascinating new explanations for the Flores hominins’ peculiar physiology. For example, South African paleontologist Lee Berger questioned the new species hypothesis by comparing the LB specimens to a sample of twenty-five pygmy humans excavated in 2006 and 2007 from ten burial caves among the rock islands of Palau, Micronesia (Berger 2008). Radiocarbon dated to about 1,000 to 3,000 years old, the Palauan remains are “small,” according to Berger, “even relative to other pygmy populations.” Indeed, they “approximate in size H. floresiensis specimens and small members of the genus Australopithecus.”

Aping Peter Brown’s original characterization of LB1, Berger also noted that the Palauans displayed “some morphological features that are primitive” (dentition, jaw, and skull details) and “craniofacial traits that are considered to be uniquely derived ... in H. sapiens” (a reduced chin, large teeth, small orbits, and a ridge bone at the eyebrow). That the Hobbits and Palauans shared some morphological features, Berger argues, should “caution” us that “care must be exercised in interpreting their taxonomic and phylogenetic significance.” The Palauan pygmies, he adds, exemplify “the regularity with which small body size—physiological dwarfing—emerges in island contexts.” Falling back on a more familiar claim, Berger attributed LB1’s exceptionally small brain—which was not found among the Palauans—to “congenital abnormalities.”

But Scott Fitzpatrick, an archaeologist from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, has cast “serious doubts” on what he calls Berger’s “fundamentally flawed” claims and methods (Fitzpatrick 2008). He denies that Berger’s sample represents a true population or, in fact, anything other than an isolated clan. Fitzpatrick’s decade of work in Palau suggests, to the contrary, that early Palauans were normal sized and could not have undergone insular dwarfing—in part because Palau, unlike Flores, has never been isolated. Moreover, Australian anatomist Andrew Gallagher agreed with Fitzpatrick, concluding that the circumstances surrounding Berger’s Palauan sample were “likely unconnected to the prolonged genetic isolation envisaged for Middle Pleistocene Flores” (Gallagher 2008).

Consistent with Richards’ previous claim that LB1 had suffered from a defect along the GH/IGF-I axis, an Israeli team led by Israel Hershkovitz offered yet another genetic explanation for the persisting Hobbit conundrum: that “LB1 is not a new Homo species but a local variant of LS [Laron Syndrome]” (Hershkovitz 2007). LS, or primary growth hormone insensitivity, is a recessively inherited malady resulting from deletions or mutations within the growth hormone receptor (GH-R) gene that causes reduced growth hormone signal transmission. “The resulting phenotype,” Hershkovitz observes, “is extremely low stature and small head, but normally shaped bones.”

After comparing the Hobbits to at least seventy-nine LS patients and related literature, Hershkovitz isolated thirty-three shared skeletal morphologies that he deemed significant, including overall stature (106 cm for LB1 and 95–136 cm for LS patients) and skull size (5.5 standard deviations below the norm for LB1 and “up to” 5.0 SD below the norm for LS patients). With respect to brain size, Hershkovitz confessed that LS patients have smaller than normal crania, “although not to the same extent as LB1.” But to account for the difference, he vaguely noted “a high degree of association between microcephaly and growth failure in general.” Even so, the author felt it necessary to caution that “one should not expect complete cranial morphological similarity” because of the “numerous GH-R mutations involved in LS” and because his Mediterranean sample of LS patients would certainly differ from their South Asian and Pacific counterparts.

In closing, Hershkovitz referred (as Berger would) to Brown’s famous allusion to LB1’s combination of primitive and derived characteristics as the best argument in favor of distinguishing Hobbits from H. sapiens. But surely “nobody would argue,” Hershkovitz correctly (though somewhat sarcastically) noted, that “LS patients who also manifest a similar combination ... are direct descendents of Homo erectus ... or of australopithecines.”

Dean Falk and her international team of scientists, however, have very recently referred to the LS argument—and all other pathology hypotheses—as unscientific “cognitive dissonance” (Falk 2009b). Falk began her assault on Hershkovitz’s paper by identifying the ten skeletal features (in addition to overall short stature) that have “traditionally” distinguished LS patients from nonaffected others. Six of those ten features were not included in the thirty-three traits listed by Hershkovitz in 2007. Moreover, Falk continued, two of Hershkovitz’s thirty-three traits directly contradicted the traditional literature. Falk implied, in other words, that many of Hershkovitz’s criteria were completely alien to the LS diagnostic standards.

Nevertheless, she subjected LB1 to not only the traditional criteria but to at least eleven of Hershkovitz’s other criteria as well and found that “except for short stature and nondiagnostic angles of the femur, LB1 looks nothing like patients with LS.” Nor was Falk impressed by Hershkovitz’s cautionary caveat that “one should not expect complete cranial morphological similarity.” “Despite all the variation in LS,” she rebuked, “Hershkovitz et al. have [neither] described nor illuminated even one patient with LS who looks anything like LB1.”

In an effort to explain the substantial number of tiny Hobbits (and their inferred intelligence), Peter Obendorf of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, proposed an environmental rather than a strictly genetic explanation: myxoedematous endemic (ME) cretinism (Obendorf 2008). Suffering from a lack of iodine, ME cretins are born without a functioning thyroid. The congenital hypothyroidism that results can lead to “severe dwarfism and reduced brain size,” according to Obendorf, “but less severe mental retardation and motor disability than in neurological endemic cretinism.”

Obendorf’s team compared previously published descriptions of cretin physiology with that of LB1 and LB6 and claimed to have distinguished a substantial number of common features capable of confirming their hypothesis. Although they were “unaware of any recent ME cretinism on Flores,” the Australians did offer possible scenarios in which the Hobbits may have been subjected to three environmental factors—low iodine, low selenium, and high thiocyanate—the combination of which “induces thyroid necrosis in rats, a model for ME cretinism.”

Their arguments have not gone uncontested, however. In a new and quite brusque retort, Jungers (along with Falk, Tocheri, Larson, and Morwood, among others) contended that Obendorf’s cretinism hypothesis “can be rejected due to numerous errors of fact and unsubstantiated speculations” (Jungers 2009). Indeed, the two teams’ assessments of the facts are so disparate, one wonders whether they even considered the same data. Where Obendorf argues, “Human cretins have long arms relative to legs,” Jungers counters, “The humerofemoral index of cretins is normal for humans.” Where Obendorf claims, “Frontal sinuses are absent in ... LB1,” Jungers replies, “LB1 exhibits well-developed sinuses.” The former says that the cretin clavicle is “consistent with that of the LB1 clavicle.” But the latter argues that “the low claviculohumeral index of LB1 is outside the known range for cretins.”

But there was one significant point of agreement between the two parties. The most crucial feature of pertinence is the size of each sample’s pituitary fossa (a notch in the skull where the pituitary gland rests). Even so, while Obendorf claims that LB1’s fossa was “enlarged ... and a clear sign of pathology,” Jungers argues that “the pituitary fossa of LB1 is damaged, but not enlarged.” The scientific consensus on this point, however, seems to lean toward Jungers (Culotta 2008b). And although Obendorf believes that “numerous features” support the ME cretin hypothesis, even he refers to it as categorically “tentative.”

All hypotheses positing H. sapiens Hobbits, diseased or not, must contend with an archaeological record that, according to Dutch researcher G.D. van den Bergh, clearly distinguishes the periods during which each hominin occupied the LB area (van den Bergh 2008). The putative H. floresiensis era is well evidenced by Stegodon remains, for example, and was immediately preceded by major volcanic activity marked by thick deposits of volcanic tuff. But “these two endemic species,” van den Bergh observes, “are absent from deposits overlying white tuffaceous silts where the first skeletal and behavioral evidence for modern humans occurs” about 11,000 years ago.

Henneberg, for one, has expressed doubts about the accuracy of LB sediment dating, arguing that the deposits “could have been disturbed by flood actions.” He insists that experts should radiocarbon date LB1’s remains directly, a process he has repeatedly offered to fund personally. Even so, Henneberg has yet to publish a detailed criticism of the accepted chronology.

Conclusion: Persisting Issues and the Future of H. floresiensis

Most probably, we are on the threshold of a profound transformation of our understanding of early hominid evolution.

—Robin Dennell and Wil Roebroeks (2005)

Like Johanson’s famous australopithecine Lucy, the anomalous Hobbits of Flores may soon transform our understanding of human evolution forever—perhaps even revolutionize the very definition of humanity. But, regrettably, the debate—and, thus, the course and character of science itself—has been hideously defaced by unprofessional jealousy, rancor, and ad hominem attacks.

Morwood has likened detractors to flat-earthers, for example, while Robert Eckhard, a distinguished member of Jacob’s team in 2006, has averred a “racist” effect to the new species model. Indeed, individuals on each side have accused their counterparts of not being “real scientists.” If not their personal ethics, then their professional duties to things larger than themselves—the institutions of dispassionate scientific research and public education in particular—should suffice to prevent these kinds of embarrassing sideshows from occurring or escalating in the future.

The pathology debate, according to Jungers, is “officially over.” Perhaps. But detractors continue to raise important questions. Why, for instance, has only one skull been found if the species lived on Flores for 70,000 years? Should the textbooks be rewritten based on that single cranium? Is it not peculiar that we have discovered only one tiny-brained species capable of using tools and that it was located only on the remote island of Flores? And although it’s true that tropical environments are less than conducive to molecular preservation, why should we assume that Hobbit DNA tests presenting only H. sapiens DNA were contaminated? No, the debates will continue, and, as anyone who both understands and respects the scientific process recognizes, they should not be discouraged.

Regardless, each of these esteemed professionals has already contributed a great deal to the resolution of some of the most exciting and momentous issues in anthropological history. Who were the Hobbits? From where and what did they come? Has nature selected for human intelligence by more than one means? At least some of the new species proponents have lately deemphasized their claims of descent from H. erectus and of endemic dwarfing in favor of an earlier, small-bodied and small-brained ancestor that perhaps departed from Africa long before H. erectus. For the first time, many believe that a more primitive but nonetheless highly intelligent species of human recently coexisted on earth with H. sapiens for tens of thousands of years.

The known LB specimens have been analyzed exhaustively, at least by those who continue to control their remains. DNA tests have been attempted, but thus far they have proven inconclusive. So we need to keep digging for clues on Flores and elsewhere. And that’s exactly what Morwood intends to do. He’ll return to the Sao Basin shortly and, of course, to the LB cave. In Timor’s Atumba Basin, he has already uncovered evidence of 120,000-year-old hominins who “could be early modern humans,” he says, or, on the other hand, “late representatives of the Hobbit lineage” (Morwood 2009). He hopes to excavate various Southeast Asian archipelagoes as well, the Sulawesi island’s Maros region and Walanae Basin in particular.

Much work remains to be done, and hopefully most of the name-calling, side-taking, and wagon-circling will be left far behind us in favor of camaraderie, fair competition, and an irrepressible passion for the truth. If so, the best Hobbit news is yet to come, and I expect that at least some of our queries will be resolved in the very near future. But whatever the final verdict, as Jungers recently said to me, “The answer will be profound no matter what it is.” l

©2009 Kenneth W. Krause, all rights reserved

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