One difficulty in judging the accuracy of psychics is the vagueness of their readings, which are often so general that they are worthless. Psychics who offer readings about missing persons and murder cases, however, allow researchers to examine their accuracy with independent information. When Sylvia Browne was a weekly guest on The Montel Williams Show, she performed supposed feats ranging from ghost detecting to offering details about missing persons and murder cases. Among the things Browne failed to predict was the availability of those transcripts on the Internet through databases such as LexisNexis. The authors, as well as several members of the James Randi Educational Foundation forum and StopSylvia.com, closely examined each transcript to track Browne’s accuracy. According to Browne, “my accuracy rate is somewhere between 87 and 90 percent, if I’m recalling correctly.” This article disputes that statistic by examining the criminal cases for which Browne has performed readings. The research demonstrates that in 115 cases (all of the available readings), Browne’s confirmable accuracy was 0 percent.

This article is structured in terms of known and unknown outcomes. The criteria for a correct prediction is that it mostly matches a case referenced in a newspaper, and the criteria for a wrong prediction is that Browne’s claim is the opposite of what actually occurred. The metric for the final accuracy count is based on what is correct compared to the unknown or wrong claims. As this article shows, in the 115 available cases Browne was correct zero times and wrong twenty-five times. Ninety out of the 115 cases have unknown outcomes. A previous examination of thirty-five cases Browne made predictions about was published in Brill’s Content. The magazine concluded: “In twenty-one, the details were too vague to be verified. Of the remaining fourteen, law-enforcement officials or family members involved in the investigations say that Browne had played no useful role.” This article greatly expands the scope of the Brill’s Content article by looking at Browne’s comments to the press and on television about missing persons and criminal cases. No case was excluded. We have listed each case Browne made predictions about as well as provided a reference or broadcast date. When we began to research this, we expected Browne to have been correct at least a few times, but as the list demonstrates, she was not. The references show that the only cases in which Browne was not proven wrong are those that remain unsolved.

Of the 115 cases reviewed with LexisNexis and newspaper sources, Browne was wrong in twenty-five, and the remaining ninety either have no available details outside of the transcript or the crime is unsolved, leaving no way to confirm Browne’s claims. The following data is organized as a list to allow the reader to conduct independent research. One should keep in mind that Browne claims to be at the top of her game. In June 2009, Browne told Seattle Weekly about her psychic ability: “I think you get better, like anything else you get better with time.” The authors welcome Browne to supply independent proof of even one case about which she was correct.

Browne’s predictions have a history of being wrong or unhelpful. In the course of this research, we examined a variety of sources to study Browne’s involvement with law enforcement. Browne was sometimes paid by families of the victims, charged at least one police department $400, and received money as well as publicity from her appearances on television. She is a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and, as reported in 2004, earned a minimum of $847 for each talk show appearance. Yet in all these cases, Browne has never supplied independent proof that she has ever helped law enforcement. More than that, she is repeatedly wrong. During the Sago Mining Disaster, she claimed the miners were alive when they were actually dead. She also said Richard Kneebone was alive in Canada, but his decomposed body was discovered a few days later in California. More recently, she predicted that a 9/11 firefighter was alive, but his body was found in the World Trade Center rubble two weeks later.

Sometimes Browne is not only wrong but also tells suffering families horrible things. In 1999, Browne did a reading for Opal Jo Jennings’ grandmother, who wanted to know what happened to Jennings, a six-year-old abducted from her front yard in Texas. Browne told the grandmother, “She’s . . . not . . . dead. But what bothers me—now I’ve never heard of this before, but for some reason, she was taken and put into some kind of a slavery thing and taken into Japan. The place is Kukouro. Or Kukoura.” Browne was wrong. Child molester Richard Lee Franks was charged with the kidnapping that same year and convicted the following year. Jennings’ remains were discovered in 2003. Medical examiners concluded that “Opal was killed by trauma to the head with[in] several hours of her abduction.”

Missing person Holly Krewson was a similar case, one in which Browne needlessly tainted the memories of a family’s loved one on national television. In 2002, Browne told Holly’s mother, “She is in Los Angeles, and when she was calling you, she was on drugs. But she’s still alive.” Browne also said that the girl was a dancer in an “adult entertainment nightclub,” and “you might get a Christmas card postmarked Los Angeles.” Holly’s family made regular visits to the Los Angeles area, scanning the clubs for their missing loved one, but to no avail. Holly’s mother, Gwendolyn Krewson, died of an aneurysm in 2003. Three years later, Holly’s body was identified. As it turned out, Holly was murdered, and her body was discovered in 1996. The remains were only identified as Holly in 2006, after sitting in the medical examiners office for ten years. Needless to say, Browne was completely wrong in every aspect of the case and hurt an already devastated family.

In a 2006 appearance on Montel, Browne did a reading about Robert Hayes, who was serving in the Army National Guard when he was killed at an ATM. Browne told Hayes’s crying fiancée that he met a man at a casino who “took Hayes,” then robbed him to get the casino winnings. The police later found that although Hayes told his fiancée he was going to a casino, he actually went to meet another woman, and there are no reports in the press about him being at a casino. In fact, Hayes was the victim of a conspiracy by four people, including a local beauty queen, who lured Hayes to meet her so they could rob him. Browne said Hayes was shot three times “in the head, chest, and over to the side,” to which the fiancée replied, “I didn’t know he was shot in the head. The police never said that.” The fiancée then added, “The police said he got shot in the hand.” When asked if the case would be solved, Browne said, “Yeah, but it’s gonna take them at least a good two years.” However, the police announced they arrested four people in connection with the murder on April 11, 2006. The first airing of Browne’s predictions occurred on April 26, 2006. Browne was wrong about who did it, the conspiracy, where he was shot, who was involved, and when the case would be solved. By October 2007, three of the suspects pled guilty and were sentenced for Hayes’s murder. The Montel Williams Show and other media outlets have been silent about this and other cases. In fact, a full transcript of this show no longer exists on LexisNexis; instead, there is only a brief summary that excludes the aforementioned details. The authors had to seek the transcript and video by other means to include the details in this article.

Browne’s failures are too extensive to explore in detail here, and more famous ones, such as the Shawn Hornbeck case, have been explored in this magazine before. For the sake of brevity, we have compiled a list of names of people Browne has performed readings about. Some of the cases marked “unknown” were already de facto solved by law enforcement. They know who most likely committed the crimes, but the suspects were never brought to justice and the cases went “cold,” so they are still officially unsolved and open. In other cases, Browne was consulted to confirm the families’ suspicions, determine how to bring the likely perpetrator to justice, or provide more information. This makes her predictions even less impressive, as she is “solving” exhausted cases that the police have already in large part solved and about which she can say almost anything, since any new developments are highly unlikely. On the other hand, some are official accidents and suicides that the families feared were actually murders.

Among the many harmful things that Browne does is convince the loved ones of victims of untimely deaths that foul play was involved and, conversely, convince the loved ones of murder victims that no foul play was involved. However, if the families are correct in their suspicions and these are actual murders, the last thing they need is a psychic involved in the case.

Conclusion

These 115 cases prove devastating to Browne’s claims of helping police and families. It is hard to understand how someone with such a dismal record continually tops bestseller lists and maintains a following. In a 2000 interview, Browne explained it best: “I’ve always said to so many people you’re only as good as your last reading. If you’re not good, if you’re not accurate, if you don’t find missing people and you don’t work with doctors and do health diagnosis with them then you’re, you know, you’re not good.” Indeed, we agree on that point. Judging from Browne’s lack of accuracy, it seems safe to conclude that, in her own words, she is “not good.” If she could really help police, then one would expect a statistically significant number of cases to be solved using Browne’s “predictions.” The only question that remains is why people continually support and seek her advice.

Cases Sylvia Browne Was Wrong About

List of cases Sylvia Browne made predictions about. The names are given in alphabetical order with brief descriptions of Browne’s predictions and the facts of the case.

1. Erica Baker. November 19, 2003, on Montel. Browne told Erica’s mother “she’s not dead” but in Michigan. Furthermore, Browne claimed someone “sold her for drugs,” and “there was a black woman” who helped “throw” her in an “old truck.” In 2005, Chris­tian John Gabriel was convicted of moving and concealing Erica’s body in Kettering, Ohio. Her body was not found, but Gabriel claimed to have buried it after hitting her with his “van.”¹
2. Jamie Barker. In February 2001 on Montel. Two months after Barker fell from a bridge while working, Browne told his widow he died “quick” and his body is “on the site, there’s no doubt about it,” but they won’t find it “unless they dig and I don’t think they will.”² Two months later Barker’s body was discovered downstream in LaSalle. An autopsy discovered he “suffered no broken bones or head injuries in the 15-storey fall,” but instead drowned.³
3. Eve Brown. September 30, 1999, on Montel. Browne told the family “that Eve Brown is well and living in Florida.”⁴ This was not true, as Eve’s body was found a year later at a Brooklyn, New York, construction site thirteen miles from where she was last seen.⁵ The murder remains unsolved.
4. Terrence Farrell. Browne told a woman that Farrell, a firefighter involved in 9/11, was alive.⁶ She was wrong. His body was found in the rubble one month later.⁷
5. Erica Fraysure. September 24, 1998, on Montel. Erica went missing in 1997. Browne did a reading for her mother, saying she was in water and someone named “Chris” killed her. The following day, Erica’s ex-boyfriend, Chris Mineer, killed himself. Police said Chris’s alibi checked out, and he was not a suspect. Chris’s mother sued Montel Williams, his producers, Paramount Pictures, and Viacom Inc., but the case was eventually dismissed. After the broadcast, the police searched the nearby lakes and found nothing. Police say Erica is still a “missing person” and continue to investigate.⁸
6. Robert Hayes. April 26, 2006, on Montel. (See description in this article.)
7. Shawn Hornbeck. February 26, 2003, on Montel. Browne told Shawn’s parents he was dead, but he was found alive in 2007.⁹
8. Sharon James’s son. Discussed January 19, 2007, on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. Browne claimed she located James’s son, but James was not so positive and would not have used Browne’s service in hindsight.
9. Opal Jo Jennings. April 29, 1999, on Montel. (See description in this article.)
10. Ryan Katcher. February 11, 2004, on Montel. Katcher went missing and Browne told his mother “two boys got terribly frightened” then “dropped him” in “a metal shaft of some kind.” Browne further said he is “still in the shaft” “close to twenty-five, twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven miles from where you would be.” On July 25, 2006, police found Ryan in his truck under water in a pond, and an autopsy showed he was under the influence. According to a discussion with Ryan’s mother on StopSylvia.com, Browne got more details wrong, but those parts were edited before the broadcast.
11. Richard Kneebone. According to Teresa Kneebone, Browne “said she feels he’s not dead and that he could be traveling in Canada . . . and have partial amnesia.”¹⁰ His “badly decomposed body” was found July 7 a “few blocks” from the tavern where he was last seen in San Jose, California.¹¹
12. Holly Krewson. November 27, 2002, on Montel. (See description in this article.)
13. Angie Lee. March 28, 2007, on Montel. Browne told Angie’s mother, “It’s a serial killer” who killed a college girl that was responsible for Angie’s stabbing death and “there’s a knife somewhere in that immediate location that may have DNA, may have some sort of evidence on it.” In 2008, Anthony Ashby pleaded guilty to her murder, and the motive for the crime was “home invasion and residential burglary.” Furthermore, a knife was not part of the evidence. DNA evidence from Ashby’s gun and witnesses caused him to plead guilty.¹² The law enforcement involved remarked, “The psychics did not provide any substantive leads.”¹³
14. Chandra Levy. July 17, 2001, on Fox News. Browne said Levy’s body was in “some trees down in a marshy area.” She made this prediction when it was public knowledge that police were searching Rock Creek Park since someone used Chandra Levy's computer to find directions to that park.¹⁴ Benjamin Radford noted, “The remains were found across a steep incline in a heavily wooded area—perhaps near some trees but clearly not ‘in a marshy area,’ since a marsh located on an incline is geographically impossible.”¹⁵
15. Lynda McClelland. March 13, 2002, on Montel. Browne said McClelland “is not dead” but in Orlando, Florida, taken by a man with the initials “MJ,” and her family would find her soon. One year later, in March 2003, McClelland’s body was discovered near her home in Pennsylvania. David Repasky was convicted of the murder after witnesses testified Repasky strangled her.¹⁶
16. Ashley Ouellette. In February 2000 on Montel. According to the Associated Press, “Browne said Ouellette’s killing will be solved within a year and two months.”¹⁷ According to the Scar­borough Police Department, the crime is still unsolved.¹⁸
17. Lori Pleasants. September 10, 2003, on Montel. Browne said Pleasants was “killed by a stalker” who got “kicks out of that,” but there was “not necessarily DNA” at the scene and “he was wearing gloves.” In 2006, William Gutersloh, Pleasants’s friend, admitted to killing Pleasants after the police found DNA that linked to him.¹⁹ While on the stand, he told jurors he wiped the knife clean to avoid leaving fingerprints.²⁰
18. Scott Renquin, Dan Nelson, and Roger DesVergnes. March 1999 on Montel. According to the Associated Press, Browne “told the families their loved ones had died in a boating accident near the Everglades in a hovercraft. She gave them the name of a man who allegedly owned the boat.”²¹ Police followed Browne’s leads and found nothing. Later, their bodies were discovered in their SUV in a drainage retention pond. Authorities believe they missed a sharp turn at the unlighted corner and their car flipped into the water.²²
19. Weyman Robbins. May 7, 2003, on Montel. On Robbins’s murder Browne said, “This was other kids. They were playing this stupid game.” She further claimed, “There were two or three other kids that did it,” but “I don’t think the kids meant to” and “one of the—the kids is named Danny.” Weyman’s uncle strangled him in front of his sisters and was convicted of murder.
20. Sago Mining Disaster. Browne first said she knew the miners would be found alive. During the live radio broadcast she appeared on it was announced all except one were dead.^23,24 After the announcement, she later said, “I don’t think there’s anybody alive, maybe one.”
21. Dana Satterfield. February 1997 on Montel. Browne said the murderer was an out-of-state construction worker that “has no connection to Satterfield, choosing her on a whim.”²⁵ Nine years later, Jonothan Vick was convicted of the murder following witness and DNA evidence. Vick was a local high school student who attempted to go on dates with Satterfield, but she rejected his advances.²⁶
22. Shannon Sherrill. November 19, 2003, on Montel. Browne claims Sherrill, who went missing in 1986, was “brainwashed and raised in a different family” but “is alive,” and the case will “break open” soon. As of 2009, Sherrill’s whereabouts are unknown and the case is unsolved.
23. John Slayton. May 14, 2003, on Montel. Browne said “indigents” killed Slayton, and his body was disposed in water and would not be found. In June 2003, Slayton’s body was found in shallow grave. In 2006, his killers, a pawnbroker and his son, were found guilty of the murder.²⁷
24. Richard Torres. October 20, 2004, on Montel. Browne told Torres’s widow that she would have a healthy baby boy. The June 28, 2005, update on Montel reported the baby was a girl and died five months premature. However, the segment omitted Browne making any prediction about the pregnancy.
25. Terry Webb. October 20, 1997, on Montel. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “His daughters said Browne told them she believes he was killed six months after he disappeared and that his body is buried somewhere at Fort Bragg.”²⁸ At the time of the reading, Webb had been listed as AWOL and was missing since 1991. In 2004, his body was eventually found buried “under a shed in Fayetteville.”²⁹ In 2006, the suspect pled guilty, saying “he shot Webb in self-defense when he sexually assaulted him” and was given three years in prison.³⁰ After the arrest, Montel did a follow-up on September 15, 2004, but the segment omitted Browne giving any specifics, including the location of Webb’s body.

Cases Sylvia Browne Made Predictions About That Have Non-confirmed Outcomes

Cases Sylvia Browne Made Predictions About That Have Non-confirmed Outcomes

1. Manuel Archambault. May 5, 2004, on Montel.
2. Crystal Arensdorf. April 2002 on Montel.
3. John Baglier. January 10, 1997, on Montel.
4. Michael Berrios. September 14, 2005, on Montel.
5. Amanda Berry. November 17, 2004, on Montel.
6. Johnia Berry. May 21, 2008, on Montel.
7. Molly Bish. September 17, 2003, on Montel.
8. Acacia Bishop. February 11, 2004, on Montel.
9. Jackie Blair. On Montel.³¹
10. Lori Bova. On Montel.³²
11. Kevin Brown. November 20, 2002, on Montel.
12. Charles Rhodes Campbell. February 19, 2003, on Montel.
13. Jose Concepcion. November 19, 2003, on Montel.
14. Rachel Cooke. February 26, 2003, on Montel.
15. Nicholle Marie Coppler. November 27, 2002, on Montel.
16. Joshua Wayne Crawford. September 14, 2006, on Montel.
17. Jerry Cushey Jr. On Montel.³³
18. Alexandra Ducsay. October 11, 2006, on Montel.
19. Michael Emert. February 18, 2004, on Montel.
20. Jill Lyn Euto. In July 2002 on Montel.
21. Miranda Fenner. Feburary 22, 2006, on Montel.
22. Anwa Abb Ford. May 4, 2005, on Montel.
23. Frank Forte Jr. September 6, 2006, on Montel.
24. Ashley Freeman and Laura Bible. November 5, 2002, on Montel.
25. Cecilia Garcia.³⁴
26. Joshua Guimond. February 11, 2004, on Montel.
27. James Harris. In September 2003 on Montel.
28. Sherri Hassett. May 14, 2003, on Montel.
29. Jason Henderson. September 17, 2003, on Montel.
30. Adrienne Heredia. In September 2006 on Montel.
31. Audrey May Herron. September 17, 2003, on Montel.
32. John Valentine Hope. May 30, 2007, on Montel.
33. Hunter Horgan. Browne was paid $400 by police for a half-hour reading about Horgan’s murder.³⁵
34. Girly Chew Hossencofft. Browne said her body was in mineshaft.³⁶
35. Patrick and Katelynn Hubbard. May 12, 2004, on Montel.
36. Wendy Hudakoc. May 8, 2002, on Montel.
37. Dustin Ivey. February 16, 2005, on Montel.
38. George Erik James. October 19, 2006, on Montel.
39. Sharon Jones. February 26, 2003, on Montel.
40. Douglas Jones. February 28, 2007, on Montel.
41. Steven Kraft. November 5, 2002, on Montel.
42. Donnie Kilby. October 29, 2003, on Montel.
43. Kristine Kupka. On Montel. Her sister discussed her appearance with Browne on ABC’s 20/20, hosted by John Stossel, on March 22, 2004.
44. The Langstons. October 21, 2002, on Montel.
45. Amanda Lankey. February 8, 2006, on Montel.
46. Kristin Laurite. November 20, 2001, on Montel.
47. Taurean Lewis, Terry Canty Jr., and Anthony Collins. October 20, 2004, on Montel.
48. Brookley Louks September 27, 2002, on Montel.
49. Nancy MacDuckston. November 19, 2003, on Montel.
50. Christopher Mader. November 30, 2005, on Montel.
51. Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser. November 9, 2005, on Montel.
52. Marin assault case. I spoke with the police who said Browne worked on the case and it remains unsolved.37
53. Frank Mazzella. October 2, 2002, on Montel.
54. Louise Melgoza Macias.³⁸
55. Tristan Meyers. February 11, 2004, on Montel.
56. Dena McCluskey. February 26, 2003, on Montel.
57. Niqui McCown. November 5, 2002, on Montel.
58. Salvatore Minichiello. May 25, 2005, on Montel.
59. Anitra Mulwee. April 30, 2003, on Montel.
60. Michael Negrete. February 26, 2005, on Montel.
61. Jacqueline Elaine Nix. February 9, 2005, on Montel.
62. Michelle O’Keefe. November 2, 2000, on Montel.
63. Janice Powers. Browne had an interview with the sheriff’s department.³⁹
64. Shamika Riley. July 6, 2005, on Montel.
65. Rochelle Robinson and Michael Johnston. July 13, 1994, on Montel.⁴⁰
66. Christopher Scarbell and C.J. Scarbell. September 10, 2003, on Montel.
67. Jan Scharf. September 17, 2003, on Montel.
68. Tina Sinclair. November 19, 2003, on Montel.
69. Jonathan Skaggs. July 6, 2005, on Montel.
70. Bryan Keith Smith.⁴¹
71. Erica Heather Smith. November 24, 2004, on Montel.
72. Tammie Smith. October 20, 2004, on Montel.
73. John South. November 27, 2002, on Montel.
74. Leah Tagliaferri. November 26, 2003, on Montel.
75. Ryan Thompson. March 13, 2002, on Montel.
76. Yvonne Torch. November 30, 2005, on Montel.
77. Tabitha Tuders. February 18, 2004, on Montel.
78. Max Uffelman. October 21, 2002, on Montel.
79. Anthony Urciuoli. January 31, 2002, on Montel.
80. Terressa Lynn Vanegas. March 21, 2007, on Montel.
81. Pat Viola. February 11, 2004, on Montel.
82. Leanna Warner. November 19, 2003, on Montel.
83. Elizabeth and Nicole Watkins. September 24, 2003, on Montel.
84. Lindsay Wells. February 26, 2003, on Montel.
85. Amber Wilde. In July 2000 on Montel.⁴²
86. Carrie Ann Williams. November 9, 2005, on Montel.
87. Gina Williams. November 5, 2002, on Montel.
88. Sherita Williams. September 15, 2004, on Montel.
89. Wayma White. April 30, 2003, on Montel.
90. Carol Wood. April 11, 1997, on The Sally Jesse Raphael Show.

Notes

1. Rob Modic, “Conviction doesn’t settle much in Erica Baker case,” Dayton Daily News, October 9, 2005.
2. Donald McArthur, “Barker’s body embedded in riverbed, psychic says,” Windsor Star, February 22, 2001.
3. Sarah Sacheli, “Safety rope failed,” Windsor Star, June 15, 2004.
4. Zachary Dowdy, “When all else fails, try a sixth sense,” Newsday, Octo­ber 6, 1999.
5. Al Baker, “Remains unearthed in Brooklyn are those of a missing woman,” New York Times, November 25, 2000.
6. “Terrorist attacks: Marrow donor ‘moved mountains,’” Newsday, Sep­tember 16, 2001.
7. “Firefighter survives in girl who received bone marrow,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2002.
8. Wendy Mitchell, “Erica Fraysure: Questions remain unanswered,” The Ledge-Independent, October 20, 2005.
9. Benjamin Radford, “Sylvia Browne’s biggest blunder,” SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, May/June 2007.
10. Jack Foley, “No clues in Hollister man’s disappearance,” San Jose Mercury News, July 6, 1990.
11. Jack Foley, “Body found in Hollister is identified; coroner says man died of broken neck, injuries to head,” San Jose Mercury News, July 11, 1990.
12. Maggie Borman, “Man pleads guilty, sentenced in Angela Lee murder,” The Telegraph, November 12, 2008.
13. Maggie Borman, “Man faces charges in Angela Lee slaying,” The Telegraph, April 27, 2007.
14. Joe Nickell, “Levy case a psychic failure,” Center for Inquiry, March 11, 2009.
15. Benjamin Radford, “Psychics wrong about Chandra Levy,” SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, November/December 2002.
16. Michael Fuoco, “N. Braddock man held in mother-in-law’s killing,” Post-Gazette, March 18, 2003.
17. “A year later, police call slaying ‘very solvable,’” Associated Press, February 7, 2000.
18. Susan Kimball, “Ashley Ouellette murder investigation ongoing,” WCSH-TV, February 9, 2009.
19. Owen Moritz, “DNA links cop’s son to old slay,” Daily News, October 10, 2006.
20. Shawna Morrison, “Trial in ’00 death begins in Radford,” The Roanoke Times, February 27, 2007.
21. Alison Fitzgerald, “Six months later, still no trace of missing Attleboro men,” Associated Press, April 10, 1999.
22. Paul Edward and Elisa Crouch, “A missed turn led to tragedy in Fla.,” Providence Journal-Bulletin, June 23, 1999.
23. Benjamin Radford, “Art Bell’s show broadcasts Sylvia Browne failure about mine tragedy,” SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, March/April 2006.
24. “TV psychic misses mark on miners,” Fox News, January 5, 2006.
25. Chase Squires, “Psychic predicts leads in murder; victim’s spouse seeks help on TV talk show,” Herald-Journal, February 15, 1997.
26. Rachael Leonard, “Vick gets life in prison,” Herald-Journal, December 1, 2006.
27. “Jefferson County pawnbroker gets life plus 20 years in murder of jeweler John Slayton,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 25, 2006.
28. Monica Haynes, “Psychic, local women appear on ‘Montel,’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 20, 1997.
29. “Schofield soldier charged in murder,” Star Bulletin, April 29, 2004.
30. “Former soldier gets three years for ’91 NC killing,” WIS News, April 25, 2006.
31. Steve Hensley, “Mountain cold case—Jackie Blair—2000,” WKYT-TV, June 15, 2008.
32. “News at Five 5:00 PM NBC,” Global Broadcast Database, June 7, 2006.
33. “Still missing, 4 years later,” Valley Independent, October 15, 2005.
34. Eric Louie, “Police seek new leads in 2002 killing of Livermore woman,” Contra Costa Times, January 8, 2005. The paper reported: “family members are still hoping for some type of closure. They continue to pass out fliers. They had also . . . paid psychic Sylvia Browne $700 for help.”
35. John McMillan, “Psychic gives police clues into priest’s 1992 slaying,” The Advocate, September 14, 1997.
36. “You’ll find Girly’s body in mineshaft, psychic says,” Albuquerque Tribune, December 19, 2002.
37. Erik Ingram, “Psychic helps Marin cops in assault case,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, 1986.
38. Stacey Wiebe, “Killer still at large,” Merced Sun-Star, December 21, 2002. According to the article, the daughter paid for “expensive phone call” with Browne and later appeared on Crossing Over with John Edward.
39. “Psychic asked to help solve woman’s murder,” The Daily Oklahoman, February 27, 1998.
40. John Hubbell, “Families offer $15,000 reward in double slaying,” The News Tribune, July 14, 1994.
41. “Mom asks sheriff to listen to psychic,” Star-News, January 28, 1998.
42. “Family of missing woman turns to psychic for help,” Star Tribune, July 18, 2000.

In February 2009 the family of a recently buried man found his tombstone moved aside. After this occurred three more times, they called the police to find out who was disturbing their relative’s resting place. The police decided to place a hidden camera in front of the burial spot, and the resulting footage amazed onlookers.

A Chilling Mystery

“[It’s] Absurd, [and] it really gave me the creeps,” Anna Van der Meer, spokesperson for the Fryslân police, told the media. “When I saw the video I was flabbergasted. You can see the stone slide aside, almost falling to the floor. Then it comes to a halt against another gravestone of an adjacent grave, leaving the tomb open. How is that possible? I don’t know, the lid weighs around 400 kilos. Furthermore, in the video you can clearly see that the stone is standing still then unexpectedly, in the blink of an eye, it slides aside over a distance of about a yard. I have never seen anything like this in my whole career. We have no possible explanation.”

This poses quite a challenge for a mystery detective. Since I was planning a lecture tour of northern Europe, I called on my good friends at the Stitching Skepsis, the Netherlands’ group of skeptics. Jan Willem Nienhuys, secretary of the group, told me that no one in Aaslum was really afraid or concerned about what had happened, not even the priest of the church where the graveyard was located.

Since I was going to be in the Netherlands soon, I was hoping to witness the sliding of the stone firsthand, but Jan Willem explained to me that the stonecutter had taken the lid back in order to roughen the bottom part. He later secured it in place with pegs and cement, preventing any further movement. From that moment, the phenomenon stopped.

I was then able to count on the help of another good friend from the Stitching Skepsis, Gert Jan van’t Land, who got in touch with the police investigators. Unfortunately, the police refused to make available their files or any other formal information about the investigation because of the Dutch Law on the Protection of Police Information. However, Inge Oevering of the Nethe­rlands Forensic Institute told Gert Jan, contrary to what newspapers had reported, that they did not conduct any investigation into the tombstone or the tape made on the graveyard. The Dutch “CSI-investigators” therefore could not provide any insight or information on the case. Gert Jan was also able to ascertain that Paul Andriessen, a Dutch geology professor incorrectly cited in the national newspapers as having studied the videotape, never saw the recording of the moving tombstone. He had only received a telephone call from a journalist who was interested in his opinion about the case.

A Freezing Solution

What is the most likely explanation for this unusual phenomenon? Some ghoul or ghost?  According to the police officers who watched the video, the tape shows only a straight downward movement of the tombstone along the longitudinal axis of the grave and no upward movement of the tombstone, as had been reported in some media. Also, the movement occurred in the afternoon, and the tape shows sunny conditions and some melting snow or ice on the tombstone.

If the police officers in Fryslân gave a correct account of what was on the tape, the opinion of Gert Jan, who is preparing a detailed report on this event, is that the most likely explanation is unusual but not unlikely. The movement was almost certainly caused by water, under the right meteorological circumstances, entering into the crevice between the tombstone and the rectangular stone framework supporting the tombstone.

Several ingredients were needed to make the tombstone move in a straight slide along its longitudinal axis. The fact that the tombstone did not lie completely flat but at a slight angle was a prerequisite for movement by the force of gravity. The very smooth surface of both tombstone and supporting stone was the second ingredient in making the slide possible.

But the final solution lies in the fact that, as church sexton Tjerk Smits explained, every time the tombstone moved, the meteorological conditions were always the same: a cold night with temperatures below freezing, a bit of snow or ice on the tombstone, and sunny weather in the afternoon.

This all leads to the following scenario, as explained by Gert Jan:

Water from rain or melting snow entered the crevice between the tombstone and the supporting piece of granite; low temperatures formed a small layer of ice in the crevice. Since ice needs more space than water, the contact between the tombstone and the supporting pieces of granite probably diminished, [and] more and more the tombstone came to rest on a small layer of ice. The power of expansion of freezing water is considerable—in fact it was used in ancient quarries to split stones. The ice could very well have formed a bridge between the tombstone and the supporting pieces of granite keeping the tombstone in place. The afternoon sun probably heated the black tombstone, and the ice in the crevice melted. As more and more ice melted, the friction between the stones became less and less until the force of gravity won and the tombstone started to move. After [the tombstone] started to move  (it “yielded”), downward movement continued until it was halted by an adjacent gravestone. Continuing movement after a sudden start is a normal phenomenon. It is well known in mechanics that friction between moving parts is less than friction between parts that are not moving.  It can be seen in avalanches: after movement starts, it continues.

The tombstone had been constructed in October 2008. Since then, it appears it was just waiting for the right circumstances that would make movement possible.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Gert Jan van’t Land, Jan Willem Nienhuys, and all my friends at the Stitching Skepsis for their kind help and assistance.

I was invited by Central New York Skeptics to join them in Syracuse, New York, for an evening with Edward. (It was held at Mulroy Civic Center on Sunday, October 11, 2009. I was accompanied by CNY Skeptics president Lisa Goodlin, David Harding, and Brian Madigan, all of whom afterward shared insightful observations on what we had witnessed.) The glib Edward—real name John Edward McGee, Jr.—held forth for more than two hours. He began with a joke to the effect that although he is psychic, he nevertheless needed a GPS to get to the site. The highly credulous, adoring crowd found every gag hilarious, every platitude profound, and every lucky guess or shrewd deduction proof of communication with the dead.

Old ‘Spirits’ in New Bottles

Edward is part of the new breed of spiritualists (like Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh) who avoid the risky physical mediumship of yore. During the heyday of Spiritualism, magicians such as Houdini and Maskelyne used to catch mediums at their dark-room séance deceptions, such as slate writing, floating spirit trumpets, and full-bodied “materializations.” The investigators gave public demonstrations of the trickery. “Do Spirits Return?” a Houdini poster asked. “Houdini says No—and Proves It” (Gibson 1977, 157).

The new “psychic mediums” opt in­stead for the simpler, safer mental mediumship, the supposed production of messages from the Great Beyond. This itself is nothing new, but now instead of the flowery language supposedly channeled from talkative Vic­torians, we get fragmented bits of data from spirits seeming to have diminished memories and limited speech: “I feel like there’s a J- or G-sounding name at­tached to this” is a typical Edward offering (Nickell 2004).

Styles change even in supposedly talking with the dead. Today’s mediums employ the old fortuneteller’s technique of “cold reading”—so named because the sensitive has no advance information about the sitter. He artfully fishes for information from the person, often asking a question which, if the answer is yes, will be treated as a “hit” but otherwise will become only part of the lead-up to a statement.

Not surprisingly, Edward has a background in fortunetelling. His mother, he acknowledges, was a “psychic junkie” who threw fortunetelling “house parties.” Advised by one visiting clairvoyant that he had “wonderful psychic abilities,” Edward began doing card readings for family and friends as a teenager. He progressed to giving readings at so-called psychic fairs. There he soon learned that names and other “validating information” could sometimes be better fitted to the dead than the living. Edward eventually changed his billing from “psychic” to “psychic medium” (Edward 1999), setting him on the road to financial success.

The Group Approach

Edward’s audiences typically find him accurate and convincing. However, a study I made of one television transcript1 revealed he was actually wrong about as often as not (Nickell 1998). In Syracuse, for example, no one seemed to relate to a cat named Smokey. Never­theless, in such cases Edward can still toss out something he “sees” or “feels,” and he may get lucky. Besides, the onus is on his listeners to somehow match his offerings to their lives, and if one person can’t oblige, someone else will give it a try. Thus, when no one seemed to be “going to Thailand,” Edward doubled his options, suggesting the trip was for adoption. Finally, one woman shouted out that she had adopted a child from Korea. When no one had experienced an Edward-visualized tattoo removal, a young lady helpfully supplied her adventure of an excised mole. Edward then looked for validation of an imagined spirit named Lily: She soon morphed into a cat of that name, still living!

Edward sometimes joked his way out of a dilemma. For instance, when one woman’s late husband had not had the envisioned “foot surgery,” Edward quipped, “Do you have any other husbands?”

Joking aside, this group approach has been a boon to modern mediums. On occasion, when multiple sitters acknowledge a particular offering, the medium can simply narrow the choice to a single person and then build on that success—a technique definitely employed by John Edward (Ballard 2001).

Getting Burned with ‘Hot’ Reading

According to respected journalists, epi­sodes of Crossing Over were edited to make Edward appear more accurate than he was (Ballard 2001), even to the point of apparently splicing in clips of one sitter nodding yes “after statements with which he remembers disagreeing” (Jaroff 2001).

Rarely, when the opportunity presents itself, Edward may turn from “cold reading” to the much more accurate “hot reading.” Although I have no evidence of him using that technique in Syracuse, he was caught cheating with it on a Dateline NBC episode for which I was both a behind-the-scenes advisor and an on-camera interviewee. Edward was exposed passing off knowledge he had gained from a Dateline cameraman during a shoot hours earlier as otherworldly revelation during a reading session. He feigned surprise that his alleged spirit gleanings applied to the cameraman. As Dateline’s John Hockenberry subsequently told an evasive Edward, “So that’s not some energy coming through, that’s something you knew going in” (Nickell 2001).

In his book, Crossing Over, Edward disparaged Hockenberry who, he said, “came down on the side of the professional skeptic they used as my foil . . . Joe Nickell” (2001, 243). Edward also referred to Hockenberry’s “big Gotcha! moment.” That’s right, John, we Gotcha! You were caught cheating. And your claimed psychic powers didn’t even let you see it coming.

Fast Talker

In his stand-up act, Edward keeps things going at such a pace that there is little time to critically analyze what is occurring. The average person is not much better equipped to avoid being fooled by John Edward’s sleight-of-tongue tricks than the artful illusions of a stage magician. Careful analysis of a recorded session by one knowledgeable of the techniques employed will prove more effective than the testimonials of someone fooled by the deceptions.

And so Edward’s Syracuse audience regarded their belief in otherworldly communication as fully vindicated. There appeared to be only about four skeptics in the audience. Ironically, Edward seemed not to know they were there—even though one has been a particular thorn in his side. Couldn’t he feel all those bad vibes coming from an area of the orchestra? l

Acknowledgments

Note

1. This was the June 19, 1998, Larry King Live show on CNN.

References

• Ballard, Chris. 2001. Oprah of the other side. The New York Times Magazine, July 29, 38–41.
• Edward, John. 1999. One Last Time. New York: Berkeley Books.
• ———. 2001. Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories. San Diego, CA: Jodere Group.
• Gibson, Walter B. 1977. The Original Houdini Scrapbook. New York: Corwin/Sterling.
• Jaroff, Leon. 2001. Talking to the dead. Time, March 5, 52.
• Nickell, Joe. 1998. Investigating spirit communications. Skeptical Briefs 8:3 (September), 5–6.
• ———. 2001. John Edward: Hustling the be­reaved. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 25:6 (November/December), 19–22.

That phrase has been shouted so often and so loudly that we rise and cheer en masse every time a politician makes the jingoistic proclamation. God, how we love to lie to ourselves! At least most of us do, but not Charles Pierce. He tells us we are deliberately ignorant, and he makes me wonder if other countries might not have the edge on us sometimes.

Pierce’s Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free is a polemic that won’t let go. It reminds us of the deliberate ignorance foisted on us every time we watch the news, read a paper, or open yet another e-mail telling us how we must put God back in our schools. Pierce is a regular on National Public Radio’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me and a writer who has been published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and many others.

Pierce takes on his bugaboo, stupidity, mano a mano and kicks the hell out of it. What’s more, he does it with a devastating sense of humor. To those of us who are shunted aside in our own country because we will not subscribe to myths and superstitions, there is just something delicious in watching those myths and superstitions stripped as naked as Adam in Eden.

Watching our homeland excoriated isn’t pretty, but neither is a deliberate slide into ignorance. Sadly, we are doing it to ourselves, and too many of us are cheering as it happens. The media help gullibility along by adhering to what Pierce calls the three great premises of idiot America.

• First premise: “Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units.”
• Second premise: “Anything can be true if somebody says it loudly enough.”
• Third premise: “Fact is that which enough people believe.”

The first example he gives of idiocy being taken for fact is the Creation Science Museum in Hebron, Kentucky. It certainly is a sad commentary on our gullibility that folks choose a myth over science, but it would take a determined pessimist not to laugh with Pierce as he describes how folks justify idiotic actions. He describes a naked Adam whose nakedness doesn’t include a penis. A flesh-colored (Caucasian of course) body stocking discreetly covers the offensive part. Eve appears a bit more daring with her perkies discreetly covered by her long hair.

Folks pay a ton to be completely sheltered from scientific theories, and the Creation Science Museum does a wonderful job of denying things even when they are accompanied by an abundance of proof. You won’t see any pictures of light that has been traveling 13 billion years to get here.

Elsewhere Pierce lists loony ideas that have come about as Athena did from the head of Zeus. Six years ago the country was sent into a tizzy when Texas was said to be planning a $200 billion highway that would stretch clean across the country, all the way from the Mexican border to Canada. And that wasn’t all. The Mexican government would have a checkpoint in Kansas City and would be able to control traffic right here in the good old U.S. of A! Our sovereignty would be supplanted by something that might be called Mexicania. As a rationalist might guess, the road existed only because lots of people said it did, Pierce’s third premise.

He gives example after example. He is also gracious in giving credit to the many skeptics who provided him with tales and verification.

In the end we may blame preachers and charlatans, but it is the media that carry the message. Pierce doesn’t simply blame the media, however. He tells us that the media “acted with the tacit approval of its audience. We leave ourselves on automatic pilot and realize, too late, what happens when we do.”

That is worth remembering. I belong to a group with the slogan “Dare to Think.” We ought to do that more often.

1. Students learn best when teaching methods are matched to their learning styles.
2. Persons diagnosed as schizophrenic have multiple personalities.
3. Clinicians’ expert judgment and intuition constitute the best method for making clinical psychology decisions.

But what “most people know” is false, as Lilienfeld and colleagues demonstrate for these three myths and the forty-seven others they address in 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology.

Why should we care, however, if there is widespread belief in myths about our behavior? The authors provide three reasons why we should care: Psychological myths can be harmful. For example, jurors may erroneously convict a defendant on the basis of confidently presented (but inaccurate) eyewitness testimony because the jurors believe mistakenly that memory operates like a videotape. Psychological myths can also cause indirect damage due to opportunity cost, for example by ignoring effective treatments in favor of ineffective ones. Lastly, acceptance of psychological myths can seriously hinder our critical thinking in other areas, such as genetic engineering, global warming, and crime prevention due to a “spill over” effect.

The authors describe ten causes of psychological myths after noting that all of us, including scientists, are prone to these sources of error. But scientists have also adopted a set of rules and procedures—the scientific method—designed to minimize their likelihood of committing conceptual errors that cause belief in myths. The ten causes of myths, awareness of which constitutes a “mythbusting kit,” are:

1. Word-of-mouth
2. Desire for easy answers and quick fixes
3. Selective perception and memory
4. Inferring causation from correlation
5. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning
6. Exposure to a biased sample
7. Reasoning by representativeness
8. Misleading film and media portrayals
9. Exaggeration of a kernel of truth
10. Terminological confusion

These causes are not listed in order of importance. They are all brought to life in the following eleven chapters that illustrate and discuss the various topics (e.g., consciousness, personality, emotion, and motivation) about which there are myriad myths. At the end of each chapter many more myths contrasted with the truth are listed. For example, the myth is that “most psychotherapists use empirically supported theories,” but the fact is that “surveys suggest that only a marked minority of therapists use empirically supported therapies for anxiety disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, and other conditions.”

A postscript describes “Ten Psycho­logical Findings that Are Difficult to Believe, but True.” One example: “Pa­tients who’ve experienced strokes in their brain’s left frontal lobes, which result in severe language loss, are better at detecting lies than are people without brain damage.” An appendix lists two pages of Web sites dealing with psychomythology, followed by sixty-three pages listing the articles and books the authors have cited.

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology is written in an engaging style and is valuable for both professionals and the general public. I highly recommend it. Readers may also be interested in what might be considered a companion volume, Lili­enfeld, Lynn, and Lohr’s Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology.

There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation about global warming on the Internet, driven in part by political and economic issues. These political and economic aspects are complex, and relatively few scientists understand them in detail. It is important to remember that climate is long term by definition; trends in climate require at least a decade to reveal themselves. Thus we can understand the climate trends in the 1990s pretty well but not yet in the 2000s.

One of the goals of the deniers seems to be to sow confusion and give the impression that the science behind global warming is weak. This disinformation campaign is at least partly successful; polls (for example, the 2009 Pew/AAAS poll, SI, November/December 2009) show that about half the people in the United States think there is substantial disagreement among scientists, when actually there has been a consensus on this topic for about a decade. The scientific case becomes stronger all the time, but public acceptance is lagging. Most of the counterarguments  don’t make scientific sense, or else they are based on information that is obsolete. It is fine to be skeptical, but we need to be concerned when skepticism drifts into denial.

This is not the place to make the case for global warming; that is done very well in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. See especially the IPCC Summary for Policymakers and Frequently Asked Questions posted at www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm. Instead, I list below (in bold) some “red-flag” arguments from global warming deniers that can help you spot disinformation.

1. We should not worry about carbon dioxide since the main greenhouse gas is water vapor. This statement misrepresents the heating process. It is the carbon dioxide (and methane) that controls the thermal structure of the atmosphere. Water vapor content is highly variable and essentially follows the carbon dioxide, providing a positive feedback that amplifies the effects of carbon dioxide.
2. What we are seeing are “natural variations” caused primarily by variations in solar output. This is false; we have been monitoring solar energy for a quarter century, and the variations are taken into account in all the climate models. Most of the temperature variations up to the beginning of the twentieth century can be traced to small changes in solar output, plus long-term cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit and short-term cooling associated with large volcanic eruptions. There are also heating and cooling events associated with El Nino and other shifts in the circulation of the ocean and atmosphere. Since mid-century, however, the rapid heating from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is overwhelming these “natural” cycles.
3. The apparent increase in temperature is an artifact caused by the fact that much of the data are from cities, which are warmer than their surroundings. This is also wrong; the “heat island” effect has been corrected in plots of global temperatures. A great deal of scientific effort is going into understanding and combining the various measurements of temperature to produce a consistent data set, combining direct measurements on the ground and from space with indirect “proxy” information, for example from isotopic measurements that track temperature very closely. Also, of course, there are large-scale effects of rising temperature that are easily seen, such as retreat of glaciers, melting on the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps, and loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
4. While temperatures seem to have been rising in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere), they are dropping in the stratosphere. People who say this don’t realize that this is the expected signature of greenhouse warming (because greenhouse gases in the troposphere impede the flow of radiant heat from Earth’s surface to the stratosphere). If there were an external cause, such as increased energy from the Sun, both troposphere and stratosphere would be heating. Today’s computational models allow greenhouse warming to be distinguished from other causes and reveal the primacy of greenhouse warming over the past several decades.
5. Human activity and volcanic eruptions both add to the cloud cover and cause more sunlight to be reflected from the atmosphere. This largely counteracts any heating from the greenhouse effect. Atmospheric pollution, both natural (from volcanoes) and human-caused (from smoke and other aerosols), does influence temperature, reflecting sunlight and reducing the warming we would have from increased greenhouse effect alone. Without these contributions to cooling, the added greenhouse heating would be significantly greater than what we measure. There are also temperature increases caused by darkening of the surface, because more sunlight is absorbed. As the ice melts in the Arctic Ocean, the dark water absorbs a great deal more sunlight, an effect that will accelerate future global warming.

6. The warming trend during the 1990s is no big deal; temperatures are actually lower than they were in the medieval warm period. This is wrong; over at least the past few thousand years, temperatures have never been as high as they are today. By the middle of the twentieth century the temperature passed the record highs from about a thousand years ago, and they have been rising ever since, taking us into unknown climate territory.

7. While there was warming in the 1990s, this has stopped and the world is now beginning what may be a long-term cooling cycle. This is a misinterpretation of the temperature measurements. There are always short-term fluctuations in global temperature superimposed on the the overall warming trend. Those who say the temperature has plateaued or is cooling over the past decade start with the anomalously high temperature in 1998, reflecting a major El Nino event that year. If you adopt such a high temperature excursion as your baseline, of course the values tend to be lower for the next several years (called the regression to the mean). But putting aside the temperature spike in 1998, temperatures during the past decade have continued the warming trend of the 1990s.
8. More carbon dioxide is good, since it makes plants grow better. This might be true if we could increase carbon dioxide without greenhouse heating, but high temperatures are not good for most plants. In addition, the increase in carbon dioxide acidifies the oceans, which can destroy coral reefs or have deleterious effects on zooplankton, on which much ocean life depends. Over much of the Earth, localized long-term droughts caused by global warming will have a major negative effect on plants.
9. There is no consensus; many scientists disagree about global warming. This is not true at all. Dissenters have published hardly any peer-reviewed scientific papers in the past decade. The dissenters are mostly not climate scientists, and they have offered no alternative models to explain the data. The national academies of science in all of the industrialized countries have endorsed the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which represents a strong scientific agreement on both the reality of global warming and the challenges it implies.
10. How can we trust climate scientists when numerous e-mails from the U.K. climate scientists show that they have distorted their data and actively suppressed dissenting opinions? These stolen e-mails from a British climate center reveal how real scientists work, warts and all. People write things in personal e-mails that they would never want published. There is no evidence, however, of fudging or suppressing the climate data. There appear to have been efforts to influence editors of scientific journals not to publish papers by global-warming deniers. At one level this is exactly what scientists normally do: vet papers through the peer-review process to weed out poor science. If the actions go further and represent impropriety, that will be revealed by the current investigation. But there is nothing in this controversy that undercuts the overwhelming scientific consensus about human-caused global warming.

Finally, let me comment on the role of the skeptic. (See also Stuart Jordan, “The Global Warming Debate: Science and Scientists in a Democracy,” SI, November/December 2007, and Jordan’s response to several global warming disputers in “Response to ‘Assessing the Credibility of CFI’s Credibility Project,’” SI, January/February 2010.) Note that I have said nothing about future warming trends, rises in sea level, or warming-induced increases in the severity of storms. As the saying goes, it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. It is certain that warming will continue since temperatures are dominated by the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In spite of promises, there has been no reduction in the rate of CO₂ production, and even if governments take drastic action we will continue to pump out lots of greenhouse gases at least through the middle of this century. In addition, the climate system itself has inertia, and the warming lags the CO₂ concentration by ten to fifteen years. There are also major uncertainties about feedback effects, especially from warming in the polar regions, which might accelerate melting ice and contribute to release of CO₂ and methane from the tundra. Scientists have tried to model these processes, and their simulations agree for the next ten to twenty years. Beyond that, the models diverge, however, due both to uncertainties in the computations and to differences in the assumptions made. It is reasonable to be skeptical about specific predictions, especially after 2030, but that should not blind us to what is happening to our planet now.

References

The IPCC reports and the peer-reviewed articles they reference are the basic resources for this article. In addition to the IPCC materials, I recommend two reliable Web sites: RealClimate—Climate Science from Climate Scientists, available at www.realclimate.org, and SkepticalScience—Examining the Sci­ence of Global Warm­ing Skepticism, available at www.skepticalscience.com.

The other Oprah Winfrey is an attractive, intelligent woman with a heart of gold, but who has only a pale understanding of modern science. On her daily television show (which, she announced in November to stunned viewers, will end after its twenty-fifth season, 2010–11) she promotes, as frequent guests, men and women who preach views and opinions that are medically worthless and in a few cases can even lead to death. This naïve Winfrey is the topic of this article.

You may have noticed that in every photograph you see of Win­frey, either on the cover of her magazine O (and she’s on every cover) or elsewhere, she looks young and gorgeous. Not so on the cover of the June 8, 2009, issue of Newsweek. In large white letters across her hair are the words “Crazy Talk. Oprah, Wacky Cures & You.”

The cover story by Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert is a bombshell. For the first time in a mass-circulation magazine, the Queen of Television is pummeled for her constant praise of dubious medical opinions and other forms of bogus science. But before covering Newsweek’s hatchet job, let’s take a quick look at Winfrey’s amazing life.

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born in Kos­ciusko, Mississippi, in 1954 to two unmarried teenagers who separated soon after. Winfrey was raised by a grandmother in such poverty that her dresses were literally made of potato sacks. She was raped at age nine and molested by an uncle, a cousin, and a family friend. She became pregnant at fourteen and gave birth to a son, her only child, who died in infancy.

Winfrey was an honor student at a Nashville high school, obtaining a scholarship to Tennessee State University. After two years of college, she began working in radio and television, which eventually led to a career on the highest rated daytime TV show in the world.

Today Winfrey is said to be the most powerful woman in America. She is a billionaire two times over. Although her show is based in Chicago, her main home (she owns several here and there) is on a huge estate in Montecito, California.

In addition to O (circulation two million), she publishes a magazine called O at Home. Winfrey also owns a corporation called Harpo (Oprah backwards), which handles a variety of products, and created Oprah’s Book Club, which can propel a book into an instant best seller. Her power even stretches to the political realm: her support of Barack Obama is said to have won him a million votes.

Now for a look at the explosive Newsweek article.

The piece opens with lurid accounts of actress Suzanne Sommers’s many appearances on Winfrey’s show. Every morning, Sommers rubs estrogen cream on one arm and injects estrogen into her vagina; two weeks a month, she smears progesterone on her other arm. She also swallows a bewildering variety of vitamin supplements, gives herself injections of growth hormones, and wears a nanotechnology patch to lose weight and promote sleep. Sommers claims to use only “natural products” and criticizes all the big drug companies that make billions, she is convinced, by hawking dangerous products.

Winfrey’s enthusiasm for Sommers’s wild medical opinions is boundless. She urges her viewers to buy the actress’s treat-yourself books. After following Sommers’s advice about taking estrogen, Winfrey wrote in O, “I felt the veil lift. After three days the skies were bluer, my brain no longer fuzzy, my memory was sharper. I was literally singing and had a skip in my step.”

Mainstream doctors hold contrary views. They scoff at the notion that Som­mers needs all this medication. Exces­sive use of hormones, they say, can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes and even cause cancer.

“It completely blew me away,” said Cynthia Parsons, executive director of the nonprofit National Women’s Health Net­work, “that Oprah would go to [Som­mers] for advice. I have to say it diminishes my respect [for her].”

Another frequent guest on Winfrey’s show is Jenny McCarthy, actress and star of numerous films and TV shows. She first became famous for modeling in Playboy and later became better known for her outrageous humor.

McCarthy is in the Newsweek article because of her vigorous efforts to convince the world that autism is caused by vaccinations. She has an autistic son, Evan, who she insists became autistic after he was vaccinated for measles and other diseases. In her book Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing, she claims that chelation therapy has helped her son. This therapy, considered quackery by almost all doctors, blames autism on mercury that was once used in vaccines.

The notion that vaccinations cause autism has been thoroughly discredited by dozens of studies, yet it continues to flourish among ignorant parents. Win­frey buys the myth hook, line, and sinker. She has promoted McCarthy’s absurd views on numerous shows. In May 2009, Winfrey announced that her production company had signed McCarthy for her own talk show. Like the healing myths of Christian Science, McCarthy’s crusade is likely to result in needless deaths of children who succumb to diseases that could have been prevented by vaccinations.

Dr. Christine Northrop, a physician who opposes vaccinations, is also a frequent guest on Winfrey’s show. Her medical views are closely linked to New Age mysticism that treats the soul as well as the body. Northrop uses tarot cards to help diagnose illnesses and even sells a set of her own called Women’s Wisdom Health Cards.

Northrop’s advice to women with thyroid problems is to take iodine supplements. According to David Cooper, professor of endocrinology at Johns Hop­kins, taking iodine will make the thyroid condition worse. Cooper calls the notion that iodine will help “utter hogwash.”

In 2004, Winfrey praised a new type of plastic surgery called thread lift. In the procedure, a threaded needle is punched through the skin and used to tighten it. Winfrey played a video showing the procedure, followed by before-and-after photographs. According to Newsweek, the before picture showed the woman without makeup and in an unflattering light. The after photo showed her face covered with pancake makeup. Winfrey then called the woman to come up from the audience, her face plastered with makeup. The audience burst into applause. The thread-lift fad has since waned, mainly because it has no lasting effect and can even cause scarring.

Winfrey is still touting alternatives to plastic surgery. The latest craze, called thermage, uses radio waves to tighten the skin. The machine that produces the waves sells for $30,000. Sales soared after Winfrey’s endorsement, but she had little to say about the therapy’s dangers and its risks of scarring, which angered even the firms selling the machines.

One frequent guest who offers good advice on how to lose weight and stay healthy is Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Turkish-Amer­ican surgeon at Columbia Uni­versity. However, Oz, who now has his own spin-off show, promotes a variety of high-priced food supplements, such as acai berry, MonaVie, and Roserv­atol, which have no more benefit than a well-balanced diet. He also promotes alternative medicines, notably acu­punc­ture, which he has praised on Win­frey’s show, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of doctors consider it worthless beyond its placebo effect. He can be faulted further for sitting silently while Winfrey spouts what he must know is balderdash.

Oz is said to be a disciple of the Swed­ish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Swe­d­en­borg wrote at length about his out-of-body visits to other planets whose inhabitants and cultures he describes in his writing. 

Oz’s best-known book is Healing From the Heart. He is the coauthor of YOU: Being Beautiful, which is the last of five YOU volumes.

Winfrey’s enthusiasm for New Age books reached its apex when she promoted the monumental idiocy of The Secret. It can be described as a hilarious parody of books by Norman Vincent Peale. Instead of God working miracles, the universe itself does it. The Secret teaches that the universe consists of a vibrating energy that can be tapped into with positive thoughts, allowing you to obtain anything you desire—happiness, love, and of course fabulous wealth. Want to lose weight? Then stop having fat thoughts and think thin! Want to become wealthy? Stop thinking poor thoughts. Think rich!

“I’ve been talking about this for years,” Winfrey said. “I just never called it the secret.”

The Secret was first a film produced in Australia in 2006 by New Age author Rhonda Byrne. Two years later, the book version was issued in the U.S. by Astria, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. The editors at Simon and Schuster can smell a best seller as soon as they read a manuscript’s first page. Move over Mary Baker Eddy! Thanks to Winfrey, The Secret has sold over seven million copies in the U.S. alone. Time published a recent issue featuring one hundred of the world’s most influential people. In a fit of poor judgment, they included Byrne on the list. She now lives in California not far from Winfrey’s estate. Her newfound wealth, of course, is proof the secret works (for more, see “Secrets and Lies,” SI, May/June 2007).

Let Dr. David Gorski, a surgeon at Wayne State University School of Medicine, have the last word: “The bottom line is that, when it comes to medicine and science, [Winfrey] is a force for ill.”

When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.

—John D. Bogart

As evidence for human-caused climate change has mounted, global warming denialists have responded by blaming the messengers. Climate researchers have endured abuse by bloggers, editorial writers, Fox News pundits, and radio talk show hosts who have called them liars and vilified them as frauds. The attacks had become increasingly vile as the past decade, the hottest in human history, came to an end. Angry activists have called for firings and criminal investigations, and some prominent scientists have received physical threats.

Politicians have also gotten into the act. In 2005, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) referred to global warming as the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) sent a harassing letter to Michael Mann (now a professor at Pennsylvania State University) and his coauthors of the famous “hockey stick” paleoclimate paper, demanding that they drop everything to provide him with extensive documentation about what he claimed were “methodological flaws and data errors” in their work.

Denialists have attempted to call the science into question by writing articles that include fabricated data. They’ve improperly graphed data using tricks to hide evidence that contradicts their beliefs. They chronically misrepresent the careful published work of scientists, distorting all logic and meaning in an organized misinformation campaign. To an uncritical media and gullible non-scientists, this ongoing conflict has had the intended effect: it gives the appearance of a scientific controversy and seems to contradict climate researchers who have stated that the scientific debate over the reality of human-caused climate change is over (statements that have been distorted by denialists to imply the ridiculous claim that in all respects “the science is settled”).

Science, however, has ground rules. Those who don’t follow the rules are entitled to their opinions but cannot legitimately claim to be participating in a scientific debate. One rule that must be followed for scientific results to be accepted is that they must be subjected to review and published in a scholarly scientific journal. This is a necessary but insufficient condition (nobody is compelled to accept the conclusions of a paper just because it has been refereed).

This rule is not intended to create a “high priesthood” of scientists or keep others from participating. On the contrary, the culture of science welcomes dissent and encourages contrarians to publish their ideas so they can be subjected to the same scrutiny that is applied to conventional thought.

Peer review is designed to screen out material that is demonstrably wrong, flawed, illogical, or fabricated. Non-specialists are not always able to quickly spot errors in a highly technical piece of work, so experts are recruited to make sure any mistakes are corrected and necessary documentation is provided before the science is published.

The first thing I do when I read an editorial or blog entry is check to see if the supposed science has been published in scientific literature. If not, I don’t see why I should bother to read what nobody could be bothered to put through scientific peer review. My reasoning is not that such material is necessarily wrong, but without any scientific review I have no assurance that anyone has checked to see if the equations are right, data sources correctly cited, figures properly attributed, or other workers’ conclusions fairly represented.

The global warming debate continues, at least among the science-challenged. The calculation of the mass of CO₂ produced from burning a gallon of gasoline was the subject of a recent vigorous disagreement on the letters page of our local newspaper. This is a question that a decent high school chemistry student should be able to answer, but the highly opinionated letter writers were not able to resolve their differences, despite the fact that reaction stoichiometry is indisputably settled science.

Likewise, a competent high school physics student understands how the so-called greenhouse effect works and that conservation of energy is also settled science. It has been known for over a hundred years that adding CO₂ to the atmosphere increases its infrared opacity, and when this happens, more energy from sunlight enters Earth’s atmosphere than escapes. The atmosphere must heat up on average. There is no scientific debate about this fact, and nobody has ever published a “zero-warming” theory to explain how it could be otherwise.

There is, however, a healthy, open, honest, and active scientific debate in the peer-reviewed scientific literature about the degree of climate change. The best scientific estimate of the amount of warming (when CO₂ levels double, which is likely to happen this century) is about 3°C. There are scientists who disagree—some think it’s higher and some lower—and have published the basis for their disagreement.

Having lost the scientific debate, denialists have now resorted to hacking into a computer system and stealing private correspondence to distract those who prefer controversy to science. To those of us in the scientific community, it came as no surprise that researchers who had endured personal attacks had trouble rising above the fray. But the harsh tone of some messages by Mann and others caught the attention of the voyeurs who read them precisely because they were in sharp contrast to the way scientists usually speak in public. The attempts to force editors not to publish papers critical of the scientists and suggestions to boycott journals were inappropriate and unsuccessful (journal editors resisted pressure and published the papers anyway). They also were not unusual—certainly not beneath those in the opposite camp. And even though the widely reported “trick” used to “hide the decline” was legitimate (using real temperatures instead of a faulty tree-ring proxy to represent the temperature record), it sounded like something denialists would do, so it was assumed to be crooked.

The very fact that Climategate was newsworthy is evidence that reporters hold scientists to a much higher standard than they hold denialists, even if they won’t admit it in their quest to report a controversy.