Skeptics are rightly challenged to assess claims made by all parties when an issue of major public importance arises. This is especially true when any action taken may have unpredictable economic consequences for the entire country. Questions related to global warming, climate change, and national energy policy represent such an issue today.

Both proponents and opponents of action are now arming themselves for a major political fight. Proponents have collected a large body of scientific evidence predicting that maintaining the status quo will consign the world to climate disaster. Opponents are arguing that an economic collapse could result from expensive, dramatic action. Some opponents also argue that we need more research. In light of this, a continuing effort for objective assessment is needed.

This year, the current administration in Washington is preparing legislation that would, if fully implemented, mandate significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and also collect several hundred billion dollars in carbon taxes over a ten-year period. These taxes would be collected through a mechanism known as cap-and-trade by selling carbon credits—allowances to produce carbon dioxide—to industries that generate this known greenhouse gas. President Obama has endorsed this approach, which has been in place for several years in the European Union. Not surprisingly, there are opposing views on how well cap-and-trade has worked in Europe.

In response to this legislation, proponents and opponents have embarked on a major effort in Washington to pass, modify, or defeat it. Nearly every environmental organization, the majority of scientific organizations, and most Democrats support the legislation; most spokespersons for the energy industry, some scientists, and the more conservative Republicans tend either to oppose it or at least to seek major modifications. For example, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Physical Science Report-2007 summarizes the work of approximately 2,000 scientists worldwide and supports major initiatives to curb carbon emissions. Representing the opposition according to Environment Maryland, a citizen-based environmental advocacy organization, are approximately 2,000 lobbyists who have been engaged by American energy industries to identify flaws in the IPCC-2007 arguments and in the administration’s legislation.

Both sides have made significant efforts to establish scientific credibility with the public. Those favoring action rely heavily on the IPCC-2007 science report and note some alarming recent research that suggests the Greenland icecap may be melting at a faster rate than even IPCC-2007 reported. In contrast, a well-known opponent of human-induced global warming, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, has sought to persuade people that the current scientific majority view is misguided. (Inhofe is the ranking Republican member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.) In consequence, his office has issued a Senate Minority report titled United States Senate Minority Report on Global Warming. It can be found at epw.senate.gov.

The minority report lists a number of individuals identified as scientists who allegedly dissent over man-made global-warming claims. As of January 2009, the number of such persons listed was 687. Noting that there were indeed some quite well-known scientists on the list, and in view of the importance of the issue, the Center for Inquiry/Office of Public Policy decided to vet the list carefully to establish how credible it is overall.

This research produced the following information on the 687 people listed in the Senate minority report. Categories included name, education, summary of publications in the refereed literature based on the better-known climate science and solar physics journals, current institutional affiliations, and professional identifications.

The proportion of them who have published articles on climate science proved to be slightly less than 10 percent. Rounding off, a total of 15 percent exhibited a significant publication record in subjects at least related to climate science. We found no evidence that 551 (~80 percent) had any peer-reviewed publications bearing on climate science. At least fifty-five had no science credentials at all, and many others identified as meteorologists proved to be weather reporters. Almost 4 percent expressed support for the general consensus supporting anthropogenic causes of global warming, the near-consensus expressed by the IPCC-2007 science report, and therefore should not have appeared on the list in the first place.

How should a skeptic deal with this information? All trained scientists admit that scientific truth is ultimately probabilistic, even when the probabilities appear to be approaching certainty. It is also true that the climate scientists I know grant that there are still a few “dark corners” in the realm of cloud theory that need to be explored in more detail using new data obtained on a smaller grid. Finally, it cannot be ruled out that some as-yet undiscovered natural process may be playing a larger than anticipated role in global warming. Opponents of human causation often propose the sun as the likely driver of contemporary global warming. While no one can say with certainty that the sun plays only a small role in climate change today, as a solar physicist I can say that the various solar mechanisms proposed to date have either been discredited by current research or have been presented in highly speculative arguments not now supported by observations.

Where does this leave us? As concerned citizens we need to recognize that we are dealing with a two-step decision process. The first step is getting the science right. There is no doubt that a large majority of the scientific research community thinks global-warming-driven climate change is due primarily to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. That there remains a much smaller number of research scientists who disagree and that no one can claim certainty about this complex problem is equally true. This makes it relatively easy for those who wish to delay or prevent action to claim to the public that there is a big controversy over the science, implying that action, and especially expensive action, would be unwise. However, the evidence suggests otherwise. That there is a big and growing scientific controversy over anthropogenic sources of global warming is almost certainly untrue.

The second step in the decision process is the political one, which necessarily brings in the economic issues. This brief piece cannot address those issues except to acknowledge their critical importance. Nevertheless, we can ask the skeptic who is not acquainted with the relevant science where he or she thinks the most credible scientific assessment lies—with the scientists whose published research is reported in the IPCC-2007 science report or with the much smaller group of scientists collected for the Senate minority report.

Consider Isaac Newton. He was certainly a genius in the fields of mathematics and physics. On the other hand he devoted most of his life to studying the prophecies of the Bible, calculating the year in which God created the entire universe in six days, and determining the probable year that Jesus would return!

Consider Arthur Conan Doyle. He was a brilliant writer, creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, yet he firmly believed in the reality of fairies. He even wrote an entire book defending the authenticity of several crude photographs of the tiny winged fairies taken by two little girls.

My third example is Bobby Fischer, perhaps the greatest chess player of all time, certainly the best known. I have written elsewhere about Newton and Doyle. Here I will tell briefly the sad story of Fischer.

Robert James Fischer was born in Chicago in 1943 the illegitimate son of Jewish parents. His Polish mother, Regina, was an active Communist and a great admirer of the Soviet Union. She had a brief affair with Bobby’s German father.

Bobby grew up in Brooklyn. At age six he became captivated by chess. At fourteen he was the U.S. chess champion. The following year he was declared a grandmaster. In 1972 he became world champion by defeating Boris Spassky at a tournament in Iceland. There is not the slightest doubt that Bobby was a genius, with a mind that could have made him a great mathematician had events in his childhood taken a different turn.

Aside from chess, Fischer came close to being a moron. I once thought his refusal to play chess on Saturday was because he was Jewish. No, it was because he had become a convert to the Worldwide Church of God, a strange sect founded by former Seventh-day Adventist Herbert W. Armstrong. Like the Adventists, Armstrong believed that Saturday is still the God-appointed Sabbath. In 1972 Bobby gave $61,000 to Armstrong, part of the prize money he had won by defeating Spassky.

The Worldwide Church of God was soon scandalized by the womanizing of Herbert’s son Garner Ted. After being excommunicated by his father, Ted moved to Tyler, Texas, where he continued to preach his father’s doctrines. Disenchanted by this rift in the Worldwide Church—and on one occasion physically assaulting a lady official of the church—Fischer left the fold to become an ardent admirer of Hitler and the Nazis!

Fischer’s hatred of Jews turned paranoid. Pictures of Hitler decorated his lodgings. He denied the Holocaust. America, he was convinced, had fallen into the hands of “stinking Jews.” When the September 11, 2001, attacks occurred, he called it “wonderful news.” Wanted by the U.S. government for violating an order not to play a return match with Spassky in Yugoslavia, Fischer renounced his U.S. citizenship and settled in Iceland.

In 1972, in Helsinki, Bobby Fischer broke twenty-four years of Soviet dominance by defeating Boris Spassky.

Fischer died of kidney failure in 2008. His Japanese wife, Myoko Wakai, flew to Iceland for the funeral. A devout Buddhist and the woman’s chess champion of Japan, she and Fischer were legally married after living together for a short period. Presumably she will inherit Fischer’s sizeable fortune.

John Carlin, in an article titled “The End Game of Bobby Fischer” in the Observer/Guardian (February 10, 2008), described Fischer, during his final years, as looking like a homeless bum. “His teeth were rotten, and his white hair and beard were long and unkempt.” Bobby had a low opinion of doctors and dentists. He had all the metal fillings in his teeth removed because he thought radiation from them was injuring his health, or perhaps American or Russian enemies were causing the harmful radiation from his molars. Fischer seldom changed his clothes or removed his baseball cap. After his death in 2008 at age sixty-four, he was buried late one night near a tiny church in Iceland. A brief, shabby funeral was attended by a Catholic priest he had never known.

Fischer had an older sister, Joan, who died a few years earlier. She was the wife of Russell Targ, the physicist and parapsychologist whose chief claim to fame is having validated the psychic powers of Uri Geller.

The execution was new, but the scare was not. The media has been reporting for years on alleged links between cell-phone usage and brain tumors, and alarmist headlines continue to excite the public regardless of the facts. As far back as 2000, spoof videos were being created of eggs being cooked by cell-phone power. The creator of the first of these, electronics expert Charlie Ivermee, created his video to poke fun at media scare stories but was surprised when it was taken seriously. As an early viral, which in those days were mostly circulated by e-mail, it accidentally exploited a powerful stimulus: fear. Despite the creator’s satirical intention, he had underestimated the public’s willingness to demonize new technology and find cancer around every corner.

Fast forward to 2008 when YouTube videos imply that cell phones emit enough radiation to cook popcorn. The viewer is left to assume that it’s true, although a moment’s thought about the temperature needed to pop a kernel of corn—150 degrees Fahrenheit—might give even the average YouTube viewer pause. If your cell phone reached that temperature, you’d very probably notice. It’s not hot enough to melt plastic, but it’s hot enough to burn skin.

So who would benefit from pandering to public concerns about health and cancer? Satirists, certainly, who are then free to expose their mockery of scaremongering. But the brains behind the popcorn video had another motive: profit. Cardo Systems describe themselves as “an established world leader in the field of wireless Bluetooth communications.” In other words, they make the wireless headsets that help you avoid putting your mobile phone to your ear. Useful for hands-free chatting while driving, but perhaps a horrible fiery death in a car wreck wasn’t considered appropriate material for a viral video. The creative team at Cardo who created the popcorn videos exploited existing concerns about cell-phone radiation and made them legend. The “anonymous” videos were viewed nearly 10 million times in just two weeks before Cardo stepped forward to take credit, although not, initially, to debunk the pseudoscience. Cardo claims that traffic to its Web site doubled in the days the videos were active, and although no figures have been supplied to show an increase in headset sales, it would be unusual for such a viral hit to have no commercial impact.

For those wondering, the secret of the video is mundane. Popped kernels were dropped onto the table as the phones rang, and the unpopped kernels were simply edited out. It is a simple trick that any media student could achieve in a few hours, but Cardo created an urban myth so instantly popular it attracted international media and a place of honor at the urban legend Web site Snopes.com.

Cardo seemed unconcerned about potential accusations of scaremongering; at the time it claimed openly that its headsets reduce the amount of RF power going to users’ ears but did not explain why that’s a benefit. The popcorn video viewers may have their own motives for purchasing a headset, but if reducing cancer risk is one of them they should perhaps consider themselves misled.

Headlines in the news periodically highlight the “latest” investigation into the link between cancer and either use of mobile (cell) phones or residing near power lines. Some reports claim that there is statistically significant evidence for such linkages yet others deny this. However, both typically include a disclaimer that “scientists claim that there is no physical basis for such a linkage.” The purpose of this piece is neither to investigate the large amount of data that has been generated nor to persuade the public health authorities on the utility (or otherwise) of such investigations. It is to bring out as clearly as possible what scientists mean when they say “there is no physical basis for such a linkage.” The strength of this argument may enable individuals to be less worried about this “panic and mania.”

What is the physics underlying the operation of both power lines and cell phones? Quantum mechanics. How well is this theory established? If this theory were used to calculate the diameter of Earth using paper and pen, one would get a value that agrees with the measured value within the thickness of a human hair. There is really no “experimental” reason to doubt quantum mechanics. It can be called the crown jewel of all science.

What is the relevant idea of quantum mechanics we need to understand power lines and cell phones? The first idea is that all electromagnetic radiation consists of small particles called photons. The energy of a photon is determined by a formula called Planck’s law: the energy of the photon increases as the frequency increases. Now consider a photon of yellow light. This has a frequency of some 5 x 10¹⁴ Hz. The energy of such a photon is approximately 2 electron volts (eV; obtained by multiplying the frequency by 4.13 x 10^-15). If there is an increase in the power, only the number of photons increase, not its energy. Thus, a standard yellow sodium lamp with higher power rating provides more light with more photons, but each photon still has exactly the same amount of energy. A typical cell phone uses a frequency of 1 x 10⁹ Hz. The frequency used in a household microwave oven is 2.45 x 10⁹ Hz. Therefore the energy of photons in these sources will be lower than that of yellow light by a factor of a billion for the microwave oven and a million for the cell phone. The frequencies of a standard 60 Hz power line will be further lower by a factor of one million. Roughly one million photons in a power line together have the same energy as a single photon in a microwave oven, and a thousand microwave photons have the energy equal to one photon of visible light. A photon in an X-ray machine has a frequency of 3 x 10 ¹⁷, or energy a thousand times larger than the photon of visible light.

The next important quantum concept is the way in which a photon can interact with atoms or molecules. Only electrons in molecules or atoms can absorb the energy in a given photon. The nucleus of atoms cannot absorb any but the most energetic photons called gamma rays, which are not relevant here. If the energy in the photon is 1–3 eV, the electron can break bonds between atoms in the molecule if it is absorbed. This is obviously a source for disruption of the biological processes in the cells and can perhaps lead to lasting damage—maybe even cancer. However, only ultraviolet photons (which have higher energy than visible photons) have the required energy to break this bond, which explains the link between excess UV exposure due to sunbathing and skin cancer. A beneficial example is the formation of vitamin D due to exposure to sunlight. Visible light cannot cause this since it is reflected by the skin.

What happens with photons of higher energies, for example an X-ray photon? Now the atom as it dissociates from its molecule has enough kinetic energy to knock out other atoms from other molecules, very much like a cannon ball. Thus for every X-ray photon, many biological molecules are damaged. Despite the fact that most X-rays penetrate the body without any effect (this is the reason bones become visible; the flesh hardly absorbs any X-rays), even the few that get absorbed can cause damage. If only a few molecules are damaged, the body can repair itself. The conversion of an ordinary cellular activity into cancerous activity is the result of this damage, hence, the strict low limits to permitted exposure.

What if the energy is low? Can an atom absorb two photons, each contributing half the energy? This is certainly possible, but there is a problem. The process of absorption of a photon by an atom typically takes about a nanosecond or less, so the two photons must be absorbed by the same atom in this short time. Since the photons and the atom are both very small and this event takes place in such a brief period of time, it is extremely rare. In a laboratory this double absorption is induced with lasers. In a laser, the photons emerge after fixed intervals of time and travel in the same direction. Even with this advantage, only about one in a million photons in the laser contributes to such processes. Neither the cell phone nor the power line is a source of laser radiation, thus their photons will all be moving independently of one another. Also, about a thousand microwave photons have to get onto the same atom instead of merely two or three. Obviously there is no chance for these very small energy photons to cause damage to molecules by exciting the atom and causing molecular dissociation and damage.

What are the other ways in which low-energy photons can interact with matter? In the case of infrared photons, those with typically 0.1 to 1 eV energy, the result of absorption is the stretching or bending of molecules. The energy is shared by all the atoms in the molecule and the molecules vibrate as if the atoms were linked together with springs. This vibration causes heating. A typical sun lamp in action for heat therapy or relaxation of sore muscles uses these photons. Special thermal treatments for treating cancer that heat the tissue by about 8º C have been demonstrated to improve the performance of other cancer therapies in some types of cancers. The first point to note is that this level of tissue heating is not disruptive to normal cell activity. So generally speaking, even infrared photons cannot cause molecular damage the way UV radiation can. As before, multiple photon absorption is not possible.

When we consider absorption of photons of lower energy such as microwaves, the physical consequence cannot be vibration or bending since this requires much higher energy. The molecules, however, can rotate. This rotation increases the energy, which is equivalent to an increase in temperature. The microwave oven works at a frequency specifically chosen for absorption by water molecules in the liquid state when the water molecules can rotate. Popcorn pops because the free water molecules in the kernel heat and become steam that explodes the corn. The dish does not get heated by the microwaves because it doesn’t contain any liquid (free-to-rotate) molecules of water. The dish only gets heated by contact with the hot water inside. The primary requirement for rotation of a molecule is small size. Most molecules in the human body are polymers and so cannot rotate. Only water or other smaller molecules can absorb microwave photons and then heat up. Even when absorption is possible, this cannot easily result in heating by several degrees unless power levels are very high. A typical microwave oven operates at 500–1000 watts. Extrapolating from the example of popcorn and microwave cooking to claim that molecules’ and atoms’ absorption of photons of smaller energy will cause heating that will induce some cancers is quite misguided.

Finally we come to the case of the photons of the cell phone, which have even lower energy. These cannot cause even molecular rotation, and their absorption results in physical motion, or translation of the individual molecules. Naturally, the amount of energy that can be transferred to any molecule is very small, and the increase in its velocity and hence heating is therefore extremely small. Once again, large biopolymers heat much more slowly. The easiest way to recognize this extremely poor interaction between very low-energy photons associated with the radio frequency (RF) in cell phones and molecules is to remember that the small amount of power being transmitted by the phone is traveling several kilometers to the tower. Also, the cell phone has to transmit this very little power in all directions. The small power in the direction of the tower passes through several walls and other obstructions, even people, without impeding the communication. This explains the usual statement that the power levels in these situations are well below the limits set for exposure to RF sources. As for the typical 50–60 Hz power lines, the photon energies are too low for any meaningful interaction with atoms.

Another possibility mentioned is formation of hot spots. A magnifying lens can focus sunlight and start a fire. The key issue here is the relation between the structure of a magnifying glass and the photons that it can focus. A magnifying-glass surface is polished to approximately the wavelength of photons. The shape of the lens and uniformity of the refractive index of glass over dimensions much larger than the wavelength are also necessary for focusing. The wavelength of radio frequency from a cell phone is about 30cm. It is not reasonable to expect a medium such as a human body to act as a focusing lens for waves of such dimensions emanating from a point source. The diverging rays from the mobile phone have to somehow be converted into a convergent beam. Even then the powers involved are too small for any meaningful number of photons to converge and then heat the localized region to trigger cancer formation. The wavelength of a photon in a microwave oven is approximately 10cm. The metallic walls of the oven reflect the photons into the oven space. Parabolic reflectors for focusing RF would have to consider the wavelength. The radiotelescope dish antennas focus RF; small mobile phones do not. In the case of power lines, the frequencies—and hence the energies—are smaller while the wavelengths are correspondingly longer, which makes worry about these photons unrealistic.

Unless one is willing to discard the concept of photons, Planck’s law, and the interaction between photons and atoms—and thus the entire body of quantum physics—it is simply not possible for the photons associated with either a power line or a cell phone to cause cancer. Mobile phones have caused major problems, especially auto accidents from distracted driving, but one thing that need not be feared is the possibility of the “radio waves” causing cancer. The presence of power lines can spoil the view, can lower market value, or even psychologically irritate one, but there is simply no reason to worry about cancers of any variety from their presence.

It would be nice to think that viewers are canny enough to realize that such shows contain considerably more fiction than fact and that they might use their precognitive powers to hit the “off” button on their TV controllers before the programs begin. Unfortunately, research suggests that a significant percentage of the public really does believe that such programming depicts genuine paranormal events and thus comes away more convinced than ever about the existence of such phenomena. Perhaps because of this, various official bodies and pressure groups have urged those producing such shows to act responsibly. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s Council for Media Integrity has suggested that certain paranormal programming should carry “entertainment” or “fiction” labels. Likewise, the British media regulatory body Ofcom notes that any demonstrations of paranormal phenomena “… that purport to be real (as opposed to entertainment) must be treated with due objectivity” and that if a demonstration is for entertainment purposes, “this must be made clear to viewers.”

Program creators and broadcasters usually attempt to comply with such guidelines by presenting onscreen “disclaimers,” essentially informing viewers that such shows may not be exactly as they appear and thus should only be taken seriously by the hard of thinking. However, such messages are often shown for a very short period of time and tend to contain long and rather tortuously worded messages displayed in a relatively small font. Although such disclaimers may satisfy legal and regulatory guidelines, we wondered whether they had any real psychological impact on viewers. We hypothesized that if people genuinely believed that a program containing seemingly impossible phenomena was developed to entertain rather than inform, then they should be less likely to believe that the phenomena shown constitute evidence for the paranormal. But do the types of disclaimers typically used actually affect the way people view the evidential nature of the phenomena shown?

To help find out, we conducted an initial study. We recorded a ten-minute segment from a well-known television show in which an alleged medium gave readings to various audience members. The clip ended with an eighty-word disclaimer explaining that the show should be seen as entertainment, that people varied in their opinions about the nature of alleged mediumistic abilities, and that the program content should not be construed as fact. This long paragraph was broadcast in relatively small type and remained on the screen for about ten seconds.

We showed the clip to a group of undergraduate psychology students and asked them to rate the degree to which they thought the program provided evidence of “paranormal” powers, using a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Next, we created a second clip by editing out the disclaimer altogether, showed this clip to another group of students, and had them make the same ratings. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups’ ratings, suggesting that the disclaimer had no effect on the way in which the students perceived the paranormal content of the program.¹

We wondered whether the lack of any effect was due to the disclaimer being shown at the end of the program. After all, participants had probably made up their minds about the alleged paranormal phenomena by then, and the near-subliminal presentation of the long paragraph was unlikely to influence them one way or another. To test this idea, we edited the clip yet again, this time placing the disclaimer at the start of the show. This new edit was shown to another group of students, who again went on to rate the degree to which it provided evidence of paranormal powers. The results? Once again, there was no significant difference between their ratings and the ratings of those who didn’t see the disclaimer.²

Undaunted, we toyed with the notion that perhaps the disclaimer was simply too vague and so produced our own shorter, more strongly worded, version:

The alleged mediumistic abilities of the individuals featured in this program have not been subjected to controlled scientific investigations. In addition, some scientists have suggested that anecdotal evidence in support of such abilities could be due to several psychological techniques, such as use of general statements and feedback from people’s verbal and non-verbal behaviour.

Once again, this was placed onscreen for ten seconds. We showed this version to two more groups of students, with one group seeing it before the show and another after. Did this have any effect? No. Once again, there was no statistical difference between the ratings of these groups and the ratings of those that saw no disclaimer at all.³

At present, we don’t know why the type and position of the disclaimers tested have no significant effect on the way in which people view the evidential nature of the alleged paranormal phenomena in the program. It could be, for example, that our participants couldn’t be bothered to read the disclaimer or that any influence it had was outweighed by the much more dramatic material in the rest of the clip. Either way, the results suggest that there is a pressing need to develop a form of wording and presentation that really gets the message across. Until then, the situation remains grim. Next time you see a paranormal program briefly presenting one of those long “for entertainment only” disclaimers you might be tempted to think, “Oh well, I guess it’s better than nothing.” Our research suggests that you are wrong.

Notes

1. Original disclaimer at end (N=25), mean evidentiality rating = 2.71; no disclaimer (N=25) mean evidentiality rating = 2.59; t(51df) = .255, p = .80.
2. Original disclaimer at start (N=29), mean evidentiality rating = 2.59, t(54df) = .014, p = .99.
3. New disclaimer at start (N=31), mean evidentiality rating = 2.83, t(57) = .510, p = .61; new disclaimer at end (N=26), mean evidentiality rating = 3.2, t(52df) = 1.247, p = .22.

I do not think one has to apologize for scientific belief if one does not accept the ideas of spirits wandering around the emergency room.

—R.S. Blacher, 1980, letter to Journal of the American Medical Association, 244: 30.

You find yourself in a hospital bed, having recovered your senses just a moment ago. Your memories are confused, but you recall now that there was something about a tremendous pain in your chest, people bustling around you, and an ambulance roaring through the streets. Then nothing. A nurse tells you with a smile that you luckily survived a cardiac arrest. You’ve been brought to the hospital just in time for successful CPR to take place, and the doctors are now very optimistic about your recovery.

Thankfully, you won’t suffer from any irreversible brain damage. You feel relieved, but at the same time hundreds of thoughts rush through your mind. Now a doctor comes to see you. He tells you that he is “conducting a study into the experiences people have when they are in a deep coma”¹ and asks whether you would like to participate in that study. Of course, before signing the consent form, you ask for more details. Only now do you realize that what this doctor really wants to know is whether you had one of those “NDEs” you heard about years ago on TV. He further wants to know if you somehow managed to perceive a special target that he took care to hide beforehand on a suspended board facing the ceiling. The following dialogue ensues:

Patient: What do you mean did I “see” a target? How on earth could I have perceived this thing, when not only I was nearly dying at the time, but by your own account the picture was turned the wrong way out? Is this some kind of a joke?

Doctor: Not at all. You see, some people who nearly die, just like you, nonetheless come back to tell the most amazing things. They explain that they went out of their body and were able to look down at the whole scene, including their own body! So we are currently testing whether this is actually true, and that is why I’m asking you whether or not you have seen the target.

P: Wait, you believe that stuff? Well, never mind…. But why are you asking for my consent now, hasn’t your silly little experiment already taken place? Why didn’t anyone ask me before whether I’d like to have anything to do with this nonsense?

D: Well, you see, you were unconscious at the time, and …

P: Yes, that’s exactly my point! I was unconscious! This is appalling! Does this hospital actually allow you to do this?

D: Of course. This is part of an international study. Now tell me sir, did you see the Light by any chance?

The preceding scenario is not pure fiction. Such a surreal conversation could very well be taking place right now in various hospitals around the world, where a widely publicized large-scale study on near-death experiences (NDEs) has been recently launched. The AWARE study (AWAreness during REsuscitation²) purports to “use the latest technologies to study the brain and consciousness during cardiac arrest” and at the same time test “the validity of out of body experiences and claims of being able to see and hear during cardiac arrest through the use of randomly generated hidden images that are not visible unless viewed from specific vantage points above.”³ The project is being led by Dr. Sam Parnia (University of Southampton) and is said to involve “more than twenty-five major medical centers throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States.” Because NDEs can occur in many different circumstances (many of them not even “near-death”), prospective studies in homogeneous populations are important to gain a better understanding of such experiences. In this regard, cardiac arrest offers a relatively standardized and workable model of what each of us might ultimately experience at our last breath, as well as an ideal population to know more about NDEs and their physiological correlates.⁴ As it has been found that only around 6–¹² percent of cardiac arrest survivors remember anything like an NDE from their ordeal,5 it is clear that only a small number of such patients can be studied in a particular setting and in any reasonable amount of time. Moreover, it is worth remembering that cardiac arrest survivors regrettably represent only a small minority of cardiac arrest sufferers, as most of these patients simply cannot be resuscitated. At first glance, this is why the AWARE project seems like a very promising study, as it will be conducted simultaneously in several medical centers, will involve many investigators from different fields and will last for about three years. Parnia and his colleagues estimate that around 15,000 patients will be included, of which a conservative estimate of 1,500 might survive and about 150 might report some kind of memories resembling an NDE. (Moreover, according to some estimates, only about 24 percent of patients with NDE will report some kind of out-of-body experience [OBE].).⁶

This leaves us with around forty patients out of 15,000 that could possibly provide data concerning alleged out-of-body perceptions. As this would constitute the largest series of OBEs ever collected, it seems that this is the kind of investigation that should put aside conflicts between skeptics and believers and shed new light on a fascinating, albeit controversial, topic.

Prominent skeptics of NDEs indeed seem to think so. For instance, Susan Blackmore wrote: “If Parnia does the experiments properly, and his patients really can see those images, then I will change my mind about the paranormal. I don’t think it’s going to happen but I do think it’s worth him making the attempt.”⁷ And Chris French, quoted by journalist Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times commented, “This is definitely a legitimate scientific inquiry…. Refereed proposals of this kind have my full support. There’s no doubt that people have these experiences, and there is something of great psychological interest to be explained here.”.⁸

I don’t take issue with French’s last sentence. NDEs are interesting. But should skeptics unquestioningly embrace the AWARE study as scientifically legitimate? This “openness” is not entirely new either. Philosopher Keith Augustine, author of a thorough three-part demolition of “survivalist” approaches to NDEs, has also expressed the desirability of such research:

The cutting edge of near-death research lies in controlled tests of veridical paranormal perception during the out-of-body phase of those NDEs that include OBEs. The detection of remote visual targets during out-of-body NDEs has the potential to provide decisive evidence of consciousness functioning independently of the body, conceivably answering the survival question once and for all…. It is imperative that further target identification experiments be simultaneously carried out at multiple hospitals over a period of several years.⁹

What is striking about these comments is the way they seem to entirely disregard the subjects of such a study: the patients. If their perspective was taken into account, it seems that such studies should be decried as unethical. I will explain why this is so and then respond to some expected objections. Basically, my problem with the ethical value of this study is as follows: the subjects will not be able to give their informed consent at the moment of the experiment, and the rationale of the experiment is based on the paranormal. Combined, these facts make the AWARE study ethically bankrupt and thus unacceptable.

Informed Consent?

Let’s look first at informed consent. Obtaining informed consent is a necessary requirement for any scientific study involving human subjects. This means that individuals have a basic right not to be enrolled in scientific studies against their will or without being so informed. If they agree to participate in a study, they should be thoroughly informed about its goals, details, and risks. Although the extent to which this requirement sometimes needlessly hinders or slows down valuable and harmless behavioral research and the situations in which it can reasonably be modulated, adapted, delegated, postponed, or even waived are a matter of debate between scientists, institutional boards, ethical committees, and the general public,10 there is nevertheless widespread agreement that informed consent cannot be treated lightly. It seems obvious that informed consent cannot be obtained in research projects involving unresponsive patients, and the AWARE project, as I understand it, will specifically involve many such patients in need of emergency care. Indeed, by definition, a scientific project associated with procedures of resuscitation cannot reasonably depend on the informed consent of the subjects themselves. As Parnia et al.’s study will include 15,000 patients in three years, they cannot possibly select only those who could provide consent for their study before they arrive in the emergency ward or even while they are there being resuscitated. In such cases, as research in the area of emergency medicine is legitimate and must be done, other standards apply. These standards differ across countries but basically demand that a number of criteria be met to obtain an exception from (or waiver of) informed consent.¹¹ It is my impression that behind such criteria, even if this is not always stated explicitly, lies the obvious assumption that the research must actually be worth conducting. This means that it should be promising or at least based on a sound, scientific rationale.¹²

So let’s take a close look at what the AWARE study is about. The most publicized aspect of this project is clearly investigating the possibility of genuine disembodied perceptions (i.e., from an “out-of-body” visual perspective) using pre-installed “hidden targets” in the emergency ward. What exactly is the logic behind this? Although this is rarely stated explicitly in the NDE literature, it can be put this way: NDEs, especially in cardiac arrest sufferers, provide a kind of super-optimal circumstance to test the veracity of the OBE. Specifically, the NDE provides a unique chance to test for paranormal perception while the brain is not functioning correctly or even not functioning at all. Let me emphasize this point: the idea behind this kind of NDE research is not only to demonstrate the “veridicality” of OBE perceptions but to further associate them, or rather dissociate them, from particular states of brain activity. Then, not only would NDEs provide evidence for the paranormal but such evidence would come—as a bonus—in the context of severe neurological impairment, thus implying that the mind is really more than brain function. But why should one even consider such an idea in the first place? Well, the only reason consists of taking at face value the phenomenology of some NDEs, or rather the verbal reports of some patients who describe how they were “out of their body” and could look down at the scene. The AWARE study is thus based on scattered anecdotes from popular literature that lead some researchers to ask whether paranormal perceptions would somehow occur while or even because the brain is shut down. And this, of course, can only be tested in human subjects at great risk of dying or suffering irreversible brain damage. So the question raised by the AWARE study is really this: should unresponsive and dying patients become the ideal subject pool to investigate the possibility that the mind can be sustained without a functional brain merely because anecdotes suggest so to some researchers? I say no; this should be avoided out of respect for the patients, their families, and the image of medical science in general.

Arguments for Research

Readers might wonder if I’m overreacting, and there are several predictable rejoinders to my objection.

First, one might argue that the AWARE study could not have been launched and announced to the entire world if it had not already received approval from relevant local review boards. Indeed, this seems so obvious that I take it as a given. My point in this article is not to charge anyone with not having done the appropriate paperwork; I take issue with the very approval of such a study: I simply deplore the use in parapsychological studies of patients with acute cardiac arrest who cannot give their consent.

Still, one might argue, even granting that the experiment is useless and bound to fail, is it not at least worth a try? If it does not interfere with CPR and is entirely harmless, why not do it?13 I can only repeat that having subjects report about the content of a target hidden from their senses is nothing more than a parapsychological experiment. In any medical research, the benefits must outweigh the risks. Suspended boards do not involve any risk at all, anyone will grant that, but as a parapsychological investigation, the therapeutic benefits (and more generally, the scientific benefits¹⁴) are also inexistent. So why even do a zero-risk and zero-benefit study, especially on unresponsive patients? Research with patients should be foremost about helping patients. No clinical research, for example, should purport to singlehandedly tumble down the current “mainstream” materialistic paradigm of brain-mind interactions or any other “paradigm” for that matter. “Hoping for the jackpot”¹⁵ is simply not how science works. Indeed, if the null-hypothesis of the AWARE study is that perceiving a hidden target at the moment of death is impossible, then imagine how many more studies of the kind could be done and consider whether this is how progress is made in science. Think about it this way: how would the logic behind the AWARE study be different than that of weighing the bodies of cardiac arrest patients in order to investigate whether the departure of the soul induces a loss in body mass, however small? In a study involving 15,000 patients, one could compare three groups: patients who died, patients who survived and had an NDE, patients who survived and had no NDE. If the soul leaves the body during NDEs and at death, and if this decreases the weight of the physical body, such a large-scale multicentric study would definitely demonstrate it. After all, similar studies have been conducted in the past, which sometimes yielded intriguing results¹⁶ (see the “Soul Scales” Skeptical Inquiree column in the January/February 2007 SI). Here’s the dilemma: if one believes that the AWARE study is ethical, one would have to agree with one of the two following claims. 1) Weighing dying patients without their previous consent in order to study whether the departure of the soul can be measured is a perfectly ethical thing to do in the name of science; 2) Comparing such an experiment to the study of paranormal NDE perceptions (even using the very same population) is inadequate or unfair. I can’t think of any convincing defense for each claim, therefore I rest my case that minimal risk is not a sufficient criterion to conduct research without consent.

Neither does it matter that surviving patients might provide informed consent during recovery. What matters is that at this stage the patient has already been involved in a parapsychological experiment without his consent. Unless a patient reports his memories spontaneously, the interview will be the first moment when any NDE (let alone any “veridical perceptions”) will be reported. But this interview is not when the experiment starts. The experiment starts with the very presence, the premeditated presence, of a “hidden target” in the emergency ward. In such an experiment the independent variable is the pre-selected target, and the dependent variable is the response (or lack thereof) of the patient about that specific target. Therefore, the experiment takes place while the patient is unconscious and unable to provide his consent to be part of the study. This is completely unlike the more typical situation where a patient may spontaneously report having observed some event during an apparent state of unconsciousness. As a planned experiment involving specific hypotheses and objectives, special materials, dedicated staff, and so forth, the AWARE study has to respond to the same requirements as any other research on cardiac arrest resuscitation, and I claim that it fails to do so. An exception from informed consent is a very precious commodity for medical scientists. It must be restricted to promising and necessary projects, and quite frankly the contribution of parapsychology to medical science has been virtually nil.

On a related note, I’d be curious to know what exactly will be communicated to patients when their consent is asked for in the AWARE study in order to avoid any misunderstanding about the exact nature of the study. It would be interesting to know whether the researchers will explicitly tell the patients or their patients’ relatives that part of the research is in the field of parapsychology. If nothing else, patients might be interested to know that they have been involved in a study testing whether brain function is necessary to sustain the mind, whereas modern resuscitation is precisely all about minimizing brain damage. Some leaders and advisors of the AWARE project indeed have explicitly argued that the mind survives brain damage. Those researchers have repeatedly written pro-paranormal accounts and have expressed their distrust of what they often dismissively call “mainstream” science, putting themselves on the fringe of the scientific community. Perhaps patients should be entitled to know this, as it is their brains that are at stake during the study. More generally, it is easy to perceive that there is much more behind this study than a simple wish to “settle a debate.” The plan is to convey foremost the idea that there is a debate or something “to settle” in the first place, much like intelligent design proponents would like to “teach the controversy,”¹⁷ with about the same level of intellectual sophistication. The problem here is that patients are being involved in a battle where they don’t belong.¹⁸

Finally, there may be accusations of censorship or narrow-mindedness. Do I want to suppress research? Am I the great inquisitor deciding what is good and bad research? Am I afraid that my (materialistic) worldview might be shattered by NDE research? None of this matters. As far as the AWARE study is concerned, the issue remains an ethical one for skeptics and believers alike. There is always a power issue when doctors and scientists want to test something that involves the participation of patients, even more so with unresponsive patients. It is not simply that I personally think the AWARE study is useless and dubious. Patients should have a right to simply refuse to be part of it, since the experiment would not solve any medical problem or help improve some currently unsatisfying therapeutic. And yes, open-mindedness and curiosity are good things, but is open-mindedness a sufficient reason to use unwilling and unresponsive cardiac arrest victims in a far-fetched test of paranormal abilities? I don’t think so. Just because anecdotal reports of paranormal perceptions during NDEs are associated in folklore, religion, and pop-culture to the metaphysical anxieties of the afterlife doesn’t give them de facto scientific legitimacy.

Notes

1. Parnia, Sam. 2008. What Happens When We Die? London: Hay House. p. 97.
2. AWARE press release is available online here and here.
3. However, it seems that these “hidden images” will not be “randomly generated” after all but are simply pre-installed pictures on a board. There are allegedly about 750 of them already scattered across different hospital areas. It is not clear if these pictures will be regularly changed, who is blinded to their content and who is not, when they will be removed, and so forth. Examples include a baby or a pink dog. (See press conferences on the AWARE study here and here.)
4. I will assume that most readers know what an NDE is and will thus not delve into the vexing issue of how it should be defined exactly (which I claim elsewhere is one of the main problems of NDE research, see Dieguez, Sebastian 2008. NDE redux. Skeptic 14 (3): 42-43).
5. Blanke, Olaf, and S. Dieguez. 2009. Leaving body and life behind: Out-of-body and near-death experience. In Laureys, S. (ed.). The Neurology of Consciousness. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 303–325.
6. van Lommel, Pim, et al. 2001. Near-death experiences in survivors of cardiac arrest: A prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet 358: 2039–2045. In another study, Parnia found that four out of sixty-three studied cardiac arrest survivors reported an NDE, but none involved an OBE. The OBE, however, is very loosely defined in NDE research and does not necessarily entail visual perception of one’s surroundings and own body.
7. Blackmore, Susan. 2008. Back from the grave: Research on near-death experiences is unlikely to find evidence that human consciousness can survive without a brain. Available online.
8. Appleyard, Bryan. 2008. The living dead: The afterlife has long been an article of religious faith. And now scientists are finally putting the idea to the test. Sunday Times, December 14. Available online.
9. Augustine, Keith. 2007. Does paranormal perception occur in near-death experiences? Journal of Near-Death Studies 25 (4): 203–236. pp. 230; 233.
10. For a general discussion about the problems behavioral scientists face with such regulations, see S. Kim, P. Ubel, R. De Vries. 2009. Pruning the regulatory tree. Nature 457 (7229): 534–535.
11. For an overview of the heavy regulations and numerous criteria involved in research in emergency medicine, see V.N. Mosesso and D.C. Cone. 2005. Using the exception from informed consent regulations in research. Academic Emergency Medicine 12: 1031–1039.
12. Watters, D., M.R. Sayre, R. Silbergleit. 2005. Research conditions that qualify for emergency exception from informed consent. Academic Emergency Medicine 12: 1040–1044.
13. A colleague of mine quipped: “Why should you care? The patients won’t even see these suspended boards….” I fully agree, but ethics in medical research obviously cannot be based on the outcome of the study to be evaluated.
14. The AWARE study seems to suffer from certain limits that make it basically unable to solve the “debate” it claims to investigate either way. Notably, the use of pre-installed fixed targets instead of randomly alternating ones makes it impossible to correlate any perception (should they happen) with any particular brain-state.
15. Blackmore, Susan. 1987. Parapsychology’s choice (commentary on Rao and Palmer, and Alcock). Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (4): 572–573.
16. See Roach, Mary. 2005. Spook. London: Norton. chap. 3.
17. See newscientist.com; Clark, Andy. In press. There is no nonmaterialistic neuroscience in Cortex; and Farah, M., and N. Murphy. 2009. Neuroscience and the soul. Science 323: 1168.
18. It is my opinion that the presence of militant anti-materialists in the emergency ward should be, to skeptics and rationalists, an even more appalling prospect than creationists in the classroom.

Jean Lafitte

I began to think about pirates’ ghosts on an investigative trip to Louisiana in 2000, when a nighttime tour of New Orleans “haunted” spots took me to two sites associated with an unlikely American hero, Jean Lafitte.

Lafitte (ca. 1780–ca. 1825) became known as “The Terror of the Gulf” for his exploits as a smuggler, privateer (one licensed by a government to seize its enemy’s ships), and later pirate. Lafitte was transformed into a hero during the war of 1812. Suspected of complicity with British forces, he proved his loyalty to American General Andrew Jackson in 1815, spurning a British bribe of £30,000 and fighting heroically in defense of his adopted homeland during the Battle of New Orleans (Groom 2006).

Dead since approximately 1825, Jean Lafitte still reportedly gets around, haunting, some say, a New Orleans bar, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, at 941 Bourbon Street. One ghost guide claims the structure was built “around 1722” (Belanger 2005, 91), but other sources place it at least half a century later—no earlier than 1772 (Dickinson 1997, 54). (See also Herczog 2000, 255; Cook 1999, 52; Bultman 1998, 95.) Of briqueté entre poleaux construction (i.e., bricked between posts), it was stuccoed over at a later period and now is in “alarmingly tumbledown” condition (Cook 1999, 52). (See figure 1.) Some sources (e.g., Nott 1928, 37, 39) are skeptical of tales that Lafitte actually ran a blacksmith shop as a cover for smuggling, but, says one, “it makes a good story” (Downs and Edge 2000, 197).

Certainly, as I can attest, the place is darkly atmospheric, and both the ambiance and imbibed spirits, together with the power of suggestion, no doubt contribute to reported sightings of the pirate. However, even one ghost promoter concedes, “Such sightings may not withstand a sobriety test, but this does little to dampen the pervasive appeal of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop and Bar” (Sillery 2001, 110). In other instances—as when a bartender reported that “a short, stout man walked out of the fireplace” (Belanger 2005, 91)—the circumstances are suggestive. The bartender may well have been tired (it was “late one rainy night”) and in a daydreaming state (he was “alone” with the soothing patter of rain), just the conditions known to prompt apparitional sightings in which images from the subconscious can momentarily be superimposed on the individual’s surroundings (Nickell 2001, 290–293).

This is most likely to happen with imaginative individuals, especially those having fantasy-prone personalities. Psychics and mediums typically have characteristics associated with fantasizers (such as encountering apparitions, communicating with paranormal entities, and so on [Wilson and Barber 1983]). Consider a New Orleans ghost guide who calls herself “Bloody Mary”—a self-described “mystic,” “psychic,” and “medium” who believes she has had previous lives (qtd. in Belanger 2005, 88–90). She writes:

The first time in this lifetime that I entered Lafitte’s I was compelled to stare into the dual smithy (now turned fireplace). Staring at me from the center was a pair of eyes—free floating, with no face to be seen. My eyes and his were locked in a trance for some time until the eyes simply poofed into two bursts of flame and disappeared. That, of course, broke my trance, and when I bent down again to recheck the scene, nothing was to be seen. I checked for mirrors, candles, and such mundane things that might explain what I saw, but I found none. Shrugging my shoulders, I simply decided it was a sign of welcome. (qtd. in Belanger 2005, 91)

Elsewhere she has felt rooms “calling” to her, has sensed a “time portal,” and has been lured to a room by “astral travel,” saying, “I truly believe I had stayed there before.” She has spirits who travel with her, sees a spectral resident in her hallways, and will “occasionally invite inside and outside spirits to parties” (qtd. in Belanger 2005, 88–91). Over the years I have observed a correlation between fantasy proneness and intensity of ghostly experiences (Nickell 2001, 299). “Bloody Mary” provides further evidence of the link.

“Ghost” photos taken by patrons at the Lafitte Blacksmith Shop and Bar have been described by Victor C. Klein (1999, 54) as exhibiting “strange luminous, somewhat amorphous, translucent cloudlike images.” Although he does not reproduce the photos, the descriptions are consistent with the camera’s flash rebounding from smoke or mist. Note Barbara Sillery’s comment (2001, 110) that “the pirate has been frequently sighted in the smoky haze of the dimly lit rooms” (emphasis added) that are illuminated entirely by candles (Herczog 2000, 255). Not a single ghost has ever been authenticated by mainstream science, which attributes them to myriad non-supernatural causes (see Nickell 1994, 146–159; 2008).

Not far from Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop is a slate-paved pedestrian walkway known as Pirates Alley. It is supposedly haunted by the famous pirate, but—as one source acknowledges—“every historic site in New Orleans claims the ghost of Jean Lafitte” (“Pirates” 2009). The claim for Pirates Alley is that Lafitte met Andrew Jackson there in 1815 to plan the Battle of New Orleans; however, the alley was not actually constructed until the 1830s (Cook 1999, 25). (See figure 2.)

Lafitte’s ghost is also reputed to make appearances at La Porte, Texas (east of Houston). Legendarily, Lafitte buried a treasure there, consisting of gold and jewels and allegedly protected by his ghost. However, the treasure-guarding ghost is a common folklore motif (or story element) (Thompson 1955, 2: 429), and reports of some residents having been “awakened in the middle of the night by Lafitte’s ghost, dressed in a red coat, standing at the foot of their beds” are easily explained as waking dreams. These occur in a state between wakefulness and sleep, and they are responsible for countless ghostly visitations (Nickell 1995, 41, 46, 55).

Captain Flint

Some sources associate Lafitte (if not his ghost) with another place, Pirates’ House Restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, where I investigated and had a pleasant lunch on March 24, 2004. A more cautious source states only that “famous pirates such as Jean Lafitte came to port in Savannah,” so it is “reasonable to suppose that many of them came to the Pirates [sic] House to enjoy a bit of grog, a sea chanty, and a coarse joke or two.” This source (“Legend” 2009) adds:

There are some who believe that the spirits of pirates still inhabit the Pirates House. Mysterious lights have been seen in the old seamen’s quarters, and noises heard, apparitions that cannot be pegged to any human activity. There are those who have sensed presences and scenes of ancient violence. Yet others have passed years without noticing anything unusual in the building suggesting that the only piratical activity still in the house is the imbibing of generous quantities of ale by the witnesses to these events.

A popular ghost guide—Haunted Places: The National Directory (Hauck 1996, 141)—alleges that the restaurant was once Lafitte’s home, adding, however, “it is the ghost of another notorious pirate known as Captain Flint, who haunts the place.”

A “History” (2009) provided by the restaurant’s Web site, states

’Tis said that old Captain Flint, who originally buried the fabulous treasure on Treasure Island, died here in an upstairs room. In the story, his faithful mate, Billy Bones, was at his side when he breathed his last, muttering ‘Darby bring aft the rum.’ Even now, many swear that the ghost of Captain Flint still haunts the Pirates’ House on moonless nights.

Figure 2. Pirate's Alley is another supposedly haunted site in New Orleans' French Quarter. Photo by Joe Nickell

It helps here to realize that “Captain Flint” was a fictitious character in Robert Louis Sevenson’s tale of greedy pirates and revenge, Treasure Island (1883). Although it is claimed that “Captain Flint” was modeled on a historical character, that remains unproved, and there is only a supposed connection to Pirates’ House (“Legend” 2009; “Captain Flint” 2009). This case is instructive in showing that an apparently fictional character can haunt a place just as convincingly as a real one!

Captain Kidd

Treasure Island appears to be a source for other tales involving pirates’ ghosts and the buried treasures they allegedly guard—none more famous than that of “Captain” William Kidd. A seventeenth-century privateer for the British against the French off the coast of North America, Kidd later became an outright pirate. British authorities declared him such, arrested him at Boston, and transported him to England. There he was tried, convicted, and hanged in 1701. His remains were displayed publicly, in a dangling iron cage, as a warning to others (Cawthorne 2005, 169–191; Klein 2006, 51–64).

“After his death,” according to a scholarly source, “Kidd became a legendary figure in both England and the U.S. He became the hero of many ballads, his ghost was seen on several occasions, and numerous attempts were made to discover a fabulous treasure that he supposedly buried in various points ranging from Oak Island, Nova Scotia, to Gardiner’s Island, New York” (Benet’s 1987, 529). In addition to Treasure Island, the Kidd legend also strongly influenced Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Gold Bug” (1843). Treasure was recovered from Kidd, but even before his hanging rumors spread that there was much, much more. (Klein 2006, 58). (See also Shute 2002; Beck 1973, 337–338.)

Although proof or even credible evidence is lacking, Oak Island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, is believed by many to contain a fabulous treasure—possibly Kidd’s imagined trove. The island is steeped in legends about ghosts who guard the fabled “money pit.” The focus of “the world’s longest and most expensive treasure hunt” (O’Connor 1988, 4), this is a shaft, dug and re-dug for some two centuries, representing an inverted monument to greed, folly, and even death (Crooker 1993, 92–93; Nickell 2001, 219–234).

I visited Oak Island in mid 1999 after giving a presentation at a forensic conference in nearby New Brunswick. Although at the time the area was guarded by a no-trespassing sign rather than pirates’ ghosts, I was able to access the island by a causeway and spend quality time with Dan Blankenship, dubbed “Oak Island’s most obsessive searcher” (O’Connor 1988, 145). The next day I viewed the remainder of the island by boat, piloted by local private eye Jim Harvey. After considerable subsequent research (Nickell 2001, 219, 234), I concluded that the “money pit” and accompanying “pirate tunnels” were natural cavern features, that the treasure was fictitious, and that many of the cryptic elements in the Oak Island saga were attributable to “Secret Vault” rituals of the Freemasons. Indeed, the long “search” for Oak Island’s legendary treasure was carried out largely by prominent Nova Scotia Masons.

Over the years, the legendary pirate-guarded treasure has also been the target of dowsers, psychics, dream interpreters, and other mystics—not one of them successful. If the site was indeed guarded by a ghost—of Kidd or an anonymous pirate—he seems not to have known he was wasting his effort on a nonexistent treasure trove.

Blackbeard

Of history’s most notorious pirates, Edward Teach surely tops the list. Born possibly in Bristol, England, circa 1680, Teach, like others of his ilk, turned from privateering to piracy, his trademark jet beard earning him his sobriquet “Blackbeard.” His “terrifying appearance, daring raids and murderous exploits” made him an enduring legend (Klein 2006, 76). He plundered the Atlantic coast, but when he planned to establish a fort at Ocracoke, an island off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the governor of neighboring Virginia responded. The governor persuaded the Virginia Assembly to post a £100 reward for Blackbeard, dead or alive, and lesser rewards for his men.

On November 22, 1718, two sloops under the command of Lt. Robert Maynard confronted Blackbeard’s Adventure at Ocracoke. After unleashing a broadside against the Jane, Teach and his men boarded her, only to be overwhelmed by armed men hidden in the cargo hold. In the ensuing fight Maynard attacked Teach with pistol and sword, finally decapitating him. When its companion sloop pulled up, decks of the Jane were awash in blood. Maynard suspended Teach’s head as a trophy from his sloop’s bowsprit (Klein 2006, 76–87; Cawthorne 2005, 199–207).

Today, Ocracoke is as lush with legends as it is with scenery. My wife and I visited Ocracoke on our honeymoon in 2006. The name itself has a Blackbeard legend attached: Supposedly, during the night before his encounter with Maynard, Blackbeard was impatient for dawn, crying out, “O crow cock! O crow cock!”—hence the name of the inlet and the island. Actually, long before Blackbeard, old maps show the area below Cape Hatteras with the name Wokokon. Sometimes spelled Woccocock, this apparently Native American name evolved (its W dropped) to Occocock (various spellings) and then to the present Ocracoke (Rondthaler, n.d.).

Other Blackbeard legends fare no better. One holds that after he was decapitated, his corpse was tossed overboard, where it swam “three times” around the sloop before finally sinking (Cawthorne 2005, 205). Of course, since this is scientifically impossible, it little matters that another source says it was “several times” (Klein 2006, 86). Still another best describes it with appropriate sarcasm as “seven times, or was it eleven times, or perhaps by this time it is seven times eleven” (Rondthaler n.d.). There are variations of the tale (to folklorists, variants are evidence of the folkloric process). One version states “that Teach’s headless body ran wildly around the deck before throwing itself into the sea” (Pickering 2006, 74). Another variant combines two legends, having Blackbeard’s severed head circling the ship and simultaneously crying out “O crow Cock! O crow, Cock!” supposedly because Blackbeard wanted morning light to help him find his body (Walser 1980, 12–14).

Sightings of Blackbeard’s ghost commonly involve familiar folklore motifs. Endlessly, we are told, Blackbeard wanders Ocracoke searching for his lost head (Elizabeth and Roberts 2004, 13). So ubiquitous is this motif that I have encountered it in various countries (see, for example, “Headless Ghosts I Have Known” [Nickell 2006]). It is one that neither raconteurs nor the credulous can resist, though for others it is so hackneyed as to seem a caricature of the ghost-tale genre.

So is the legend of Blackbeard’s ghost searching for his treasure—not at Ocracoke but at the Isles of Shoals in Maine and New Hampshire, as well as on Smith and Langier Islands in Chesapeake Bay (D’Agostino 2008, 110–111). But these have a suspiciously literary quality and seem of relatively late vintage, probably deriving from the Kidd legends.

Blackbeard is just one of four ghosts alleged to haunt Ocracoke—or only three if the “old man with a big, bushy beard” that appears in a museum’s upstairs window (Elizabeth and Roberts 2004, 10) is the pirate himself. But that is not claimed, and the ghost of the historic David Williams House (now the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum) not only has his head on his shoulders, but the house dates from 1900, long after Blackbeard’s time. The ghost tale is even more recent. Julia Howard (2006), the Museum’s director since 1972, told me she believes the story was fabricated by a docent (since deceased) whom she described as “a character.” Howard also related how a volunteer once accommodated a mother whose boys had wanted to see the ghost. While they were outside looking up, the volunteer surreptitiously jiggled the curtains, creating a “ghost”—as real as any, pirate or not. l

References

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• Thompson, Stith. 1955. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, revised ed. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989.
• Walser, Richard. 1980. North Carolina Legends. Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Dept. of Cultural Resources.

Electromagnetic fields are produced by every electrical or electronic device, including power lines, computers, microwave ovens, and wireless technologies such as cell phones, WiFi, and radio and TV broadcasting. Radio waves, visible light, and X-rays are all forms of EMF and are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic waves cover a vast frequency range from extremely low frequency (ELF) of 30 Hz (cycles per second) or less up to hard gamma rays at over 300 EHz (an EHz is 1018 Hz).

There are only three scientifically established mechanisms where EMF is known to cause health effects. These are: induced voltage gradients and/or electric currents in the body, thermal effects, and ionizing radiation effects. The relative importance of each mechanism varies with frequency. Extensive scientific testing has been used to measure these effects and to establish safe limits. Induced voltages and/or current effects occur at low frequencies in the range of 0–3 KHz. Thermal effects in the frequency range of 30 MHz to 300 GHz occur when living tissue absorbs enough EMF power to cause heating. This is the principle of a microwave oven. Ionizing radiation can break the electron bonds that hold molecules like DNA together and is carcinogenic. Ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays are the only forms of ionizing EMF. In the U.S., FCC regulations set limits on permitted exposures for the public at 1/50 the level at which harmful heating effects may occur. Actual exposures are hundreds to thousands of times lower. The photon energy of cell-phone EMF is more that 10 million times weaker than the lowest energy ionizing radiation.

How do we know that these mechanisms are the only harmful effects of EMF? In its 2004 document “What are Electromagnetic Fields: Health Effects” the WHO said: “In the area of biological effects and medical applications of non-ionizing radiation approximately 25,000 articles have been published over the past thirty years. Despite the feeling of some people that more research needs to be done, scientific knowledge in this area is now more extensive than for most chemicals. Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic fields.”

Yet in a recent motion passed in April 2009 by the lopsided margin of 559 to 22, the European Parliament called upon its Commission “to launch an ambitious program to gauge the electromagnetic compatibility between waves created artificially and those emitted naturally by the living human body with a view to determining whether microwaves might ultimately have undesirable consequences for human health” and “calls for particular consideration of biological effects … especially given that some studies have found the most harmful effects at lowest levels … and developing solutions that negate or reduce the pulsating and amplitude modulation of the frequencies used for transmission….”

Aside from the nonsense about “artificial waves” and “lowest level amplitude modulation,” the Parliament’s own scientific advisory body the SCENIHR had just released a comprehensive new report (January 2009) “Health Effects of Exposure to EMF.” One of its key findings (p. 4) was: “It is concluded from three independent lines of evidence (epidemiological, animal, and in vitro studies) that exposure to RF fields is unlikely to lead to an increase in cancer in humans.” It also echoed the findings of the WHO (p. 25): “Although new exposure sources such as mobile phone base stations, cordless phone base stations or wireless networks are relatively recent, exposures from these sources are generally lower than the ones investigated in these studies on broadcast transmitters. Thus, there appears to be no immediate need for further studies related to these sources.” Most of the world’s major national public health organizations, including the FDA and the CDC, have come to similar conclusions.

But in its motion, the European Parliament not only ignored the findings of its own scientists, it even called into question their scientific integrity! It is as if the U.S. Congress had voted by an overwhelming margin for more research on UFOs and had questioned the integrity of mainstream scientists who say there is no good evidence that UFOs exist. What’s going on here?

Alarmist groups are fueling a growing mass hysteria over supposed health risks from EMF. These “health risks” range from general complaints, such as fatigue and headaches, all the way to brain cancer. The fact that EMF is also referred to as electromagnetic “radiation” and is becoming more pervasive yet cannot be seen adds to the alarm. A minority of scientists, some of whom have published an alarmist document called the Bio-Initiative Report, have helped fuel the hysteria. Yet the Bio-Initiative Report has been widely criticized in the scientific community for promoting only poorly conducted studies that support its alarmist views while ignoring far more rigorous and comprehensive studies that show no danger.

A growing industry of fraud artists is taking advantage of the fact that many of the supposed symptoms of EMF appear to be psychosomatic. They are offering a broad variety of quack remedies that will absorb “harmful” EMF or otherwise shield the user. These products range from pendants worn around the neck to a patented $727.50 “i-H2O activator” that “structures all the water you use.”

To support their concerns, alarmist groups point to the fact that insurance companies are excluding coverage for health risks of EMF from liability coverage. The position of Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, is quite revealing:

We assess the risk of change as being extraordinarily explosive not because weak electromagnetic fields might, contrary to expectations, prove to be hazardous after all. We consider the risk of change to be so dangerous because it is evident that a wide range of groups have great political and financial interest in electrosmog being considered hazardous by society. (“Electrosmog—A Phantom Risk”)

One example of this is Lennart Hardell, a leading alarmist scientist, who was an expert witness in an $800 million liability lawsuit against a cellular-phone provider for a single brain cancer patient. His scientific testimony was resoundingly rejected by the judge for lacking in scientific credibility. However, as Swiss Re has stated, the minority group of scientists along with an armada of lawyers, consultants, and alarmist groups are likely to continue their pseudoscientific crusade. There are huge fortunes to be made from successful liability lawsuits. In bowing to pressure from alarmist groups, the European Parliament has just given them a giant boost. It has also set a shocking precedent by questioning the integrity of mainstream public-health science.

A new Web site has been established that provides a wealth of information about EMF and Health using evidence-based science. Go to emfandhealth.com.

Dieguez claims (without giving evidence) that the targets are not kept blind or randomized properly. If he’s right the experiments are worthless, but let us suppose they are done properly. Anecdotal reports of veridical NDEs may be “unconvincing” to Dieguez, but they convince many people. So if experiments can show that paranormal claims are unverifiable (which I expect they will) and can also explain why people have these experiences even if nothing leaves the body, then this would greatly improve people’s understanding of death and dying. Alternatively, if experiments show that people really do see hidden targets (which I do not expect but could conceivably happen), then this would be a dramatic challenge to most of science. The comparison with the intelligent design debate is false. ID proponents do not propose viable experiments that could potentially provide such a challenge.

As for ethics—yes, Dieguez is “overreacting a little bit.” The targets cannot harm patients (unless you believe in the paranormal). The critical point is when the doctor asks whether the patients would like to talk about their experiences. As long as they are given the chance to talk (as many like to do) or to decline to say anything at all then I see no serious ethical problem.

I want these experiments to be done. All those millions of people out there who proclaim they “know” they have a spirit that will survive death and “know” that consciousness has powers beyond the body deserve to have their claims tested.

First, the argument rests on the assumption that the outcome is already known, i.e., none of the patients will correctly describe the hidden target. While it is clear from my own writings on this topic (e.g., French 2005, in press) that I think this is almost certainly true, I think it is important for skeptics to acknowledge that they just might be wrong.

Second, a reasonable case can be made that there is a risk attached to not asking such patients about any unusual experiences they may have had during their cardiac arrest. Many patients report that they find it very stressful trying to talk to people about their NDEs, worried that others will think they are “crazy.” There is some value to patients being reassured that such experiences are fairly common and are not associated with mental illness.

Third, this line of argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, would seem to have implications for other lines of research involving autobiographical memory of all kinds. For example, memory of dramatic news events (so-called “flashbulb memories”) have been much studied by psychologists. Is it really the case that a psychologist studying such memories has actually started the experiment from the moment that the dramatic news event in question occurs as opposed to the moment she questions her participants about their memory of the event? I would say not.

References

• French, C. C. 2005. Near-death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Progress in Brain Research 150, 351–367.
• —. (in press). Near-death experiences and the brain. In C. Murray (ed.). Psychological Scientific Perspectives on Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences. New York: Nova Science Publishers.