The facts regarding the Voynich manuscript can be told quickly. It is a handwritten book of 246 pages containing numerous illustrations and approximately 170,000 characters. What is special about it? The script employed is utterly unknown and therefore illegible. According to a radiocarbon analysis conducted in 2009 by the University of Arizona, the manuscript was created in the first half of the fifteenth century (probably between 1404 and 1438). So far, there is no written publication on this analysis, but one of the scientists involved in the examination confirmed by e-mail that a paper is scheduled for 2011.

The modern history of the Voynich manuscript began in 1912. At that time, a bookseller and book collector named Wilfried Voynich found it in an Italian Jesuit college. Further information is provided in a letter dated 1666, which-according to Voynich-was enclosed with the manuscript. This document names some other previous owners who had all lived in the first half of the seventeenth century, thus indicating that the manuscript had been written before then. On the basis of this letter, Voynich favored the English monk and Renaissance man Roger Bacon (1214–1294) as the book's author. However, this theory is now considered very improbable.

Not many more historic facts are known about the Voynich manuscript (Kennedy and Churchill 2005). In particular, it is unclear who wrote the book, what it contains, and what its purpose was. In light of the meager evidence, I-as a skeptic and member of GWUP (the German counterpart of CSI)-am not surprised at the great number of speculative theories about the mysterious script. I will present the most important ideas here.

A good point of entry into a Voynich analysis is certainly the script of the document itself. The author of the manuscript wrote from left to right-this can be discerned from the left-aligned formatting. The typeface and size of the characters are inconspicuous, which is not altered by the fact that the text contains no punctuation marks, because this is unexceptional for old texts. Thus it is evident to a layman, even before inspection of the illustrations, that the Voynich manuscript has its origins in European culture. Moreover, it is apparent that the author was quite accurate: there are no visible corrections in the text. Unfortunately, the Voynich text itself is not divided into chapters; there are no subheadings.

Uncommon Illustrations

Approximately 220 of the 246 Voynich pages are illustrated. Some of the pages can be unfolded, revealing illustrations that extend to several page lengths. Because, unlike the text, the illustrations can be divided into different sections, six chapters of the Voynich manuscript can be distinguished: the botanical chapter (with large plant illustrations), the astronomical chapter (with charts containing celestial bodies and the zodiac signs), the balneological chapter (with nude female figures in tubs), the cosmological chapter (with circles and rosettes), the pharmaceutical chapter (with plants, parts of plants, and pots), as well as a chapter with food recipes (without illustrations).

The different illustrations can hardly be related to a common topic. Thus the Voynich manuscript-if it has meaningful content at all-must be a treatise on many different subjects. One may possibly say that it is a textbook for magicians, physicians, pharmacists, and astrologers (when it comes to these professions, their borders were still blurred 500 years ago). Provided that it is hardly possible to recognize significant symbols and religious motives within it, the Voynich manuscript can neither be assigned to a certain school of thought nor to a particular religion.

Unfortunately, none of the 126 plant illustrations can be definitively identified. However, the plant pictures at least enabled certain conclusions regarding the date of origin, before the radiocarbon dating was performed. Comparisons of artistic styles showed that the manuscript presumably did not originate before the fourteenth century, which was, of course, later confirmed. Not confirmed, however, was a theory stated by the botanist Hugh O'Neill (O'Neill 1944). He considered two plant illustrations as representing sunflowers and identified another one as capsicum. Because both plants spread in Europe only after the “discovery” of America, their identification appeared to narrow down the period of origin. However, the two identifications O'Neill made are not precisely compelling, and thus O'Neill's conclusion-like so many others in connection with the manuscript-is just speculation.

It is hardly more illuminating to take a look at the astronomical and the cosmological sections, which contain pictures that can be identified as the Zodiac signs still familiar today (Aries, Taurus, Libra, and so forth). Scarcely another illustration in the Voynich manuscript is as unambiguous. Unfortunately, this observation does not result in further insight into the book's origin. The celestial bodies illustrated in the astronomical section cannot be identified and probably are only figments of imagination. Some Voynich researchers believe they recognize in these pictures the Andromeda fog or the Pleiades, but this again is just speculation.

The hairstyles and clothing of the people pictured in the book, as well as the style of the illustrations, were usually dated to the period 1450–1520, which proved reasonably compatible with the radiocarbon dating (between 1404 and 1438). In most cases, the pictured persons are naked women in big tubs filled with water, which makes conclusive interpretation of these illustrations in the context of fashion impossible.

Taking all facts into account, it is astonishing how little the numerous illustrations reveal about the Voynich manuscript. Does this make an argument for the whole document being meaningless? Or did the author intentionally choose ambiguous illustrations to prevent inferences about the encrypted (and therefore secret) text? I consider both explanations to be possible.

Cryptological Analyses

A glance at the pictures in the manuscript is indeed interesting, but as a cryptologist I am naturally more interested in the Voynich text. It is unclear whether it is an encrypted message or simply a text composed of unknown letters. This is irrelevant for cryptological analysis, because the use of unknown letters is also a form of encryption. For the analysis of an encrypted text, cryptology provides quite a number of statistical methods-for example the determination of letter frequencies. Some of these analyses indicate that the Voynich manuscript is composed in a usual language but written in unknown letters. There are between fifteen and twenty-five different letters in the manuscript, but in many cases it is not clear whether identical or different symbols have been used. For this same reason, letter frequency cannot be determined clearly. Nevertheless, the language of the manuscript can be brought in line with European languages, because the average word length is four or five letters. Following this line of consideration, arguments can be put forward that Greek, Latin, or one of several other European languages was used to compose the Voynich manuscript. It is a pity that this approach does not implicate a specific language.

However, the language of the manuscript does not correspond to any European language because the Voynich has no two-letter words or words with more than ten characters. Moreover, it is curious that some words are repeated successively up to five times. The distribution of the letters within each word also does not answer known language patterns. Looking at the text as a whole, far fewer recurring words turn up than would be expected. Such arguments reveal with a high probability that-against all appearance to the contrary-we are not dealing with a simple substitution of letters. There also is no clear evidence that other simple encryption methods were used.

A study by the philosopher William Newbold took another direction. Newbold declared he had solved the Voynich mystery in 1921 (Newbold 1928). He considered as relevant not the letters themselves but the small, barely visible marks applied to them. These marks supposedly formed Greek characters, making up a text that could be decoded into a meaningful message. The result seemed to be sensational: the produced message not only confirmed Roger Bacon as the manuscript's author, but it reputedly also revealed that Bacon already had a telescope at his disposal and knew the spiral structure of the Andromeda galaxy-either of which would revolutionize the history of science. But as expected, Newbold's decryption came across as largely arbitrary and moreover only worked for a short section of the text. Therefore Newbold's theory could not prevail.

In 1943, the lawyer Joseph Feely published a cryptological paper regarding the Voynich manuscript. Feely, too, presented as a direct result of his research the supposed solution of the Voynich encryption (Feely 1943). By means of statistical analyses, he had come to the conviction that the manuscript was composed in Latin and contained numerous abbreviations and abbreviated sentences. With this basis, Feely translated a forty-one-line section of the manuscript. Unfortunately, Feely's approach made no sense at all and therefore quickly turned out to be a further dead end in Voynich research.

The U.S. cryptologist William Friedman (1891–1969) was considerably more competent. He is regarded as the most successful code-cracker of all ages; his name guarantees cryptological quality. In the course of his forty-year career, Friedman examined thousands of encryption methods during his service for the U.S. military and solved almost all of them. Unfortunately, despite all the texts he successfully analyzed, he had to surrender in the case of the Voynich manuscript. He therefore could not bequeath more to posterity than an educated guess. Friedman considered the text to be a treatise composed in an artificial language.

More Current Studies

The next Voynich studies worth mentioning originate with Robert Brumbaugh, a professor of the philosophy of the Middle Ages. He holds that the unknown characters are numerals that are each assigned several letters of the Latin alphabet (Brumbaugh 1978). However, the decryption provided by Brumbaugh did not make any sense. Another dispensable Voynich analysis was published by the physician Leo Levitov in 1987 (Levitov 1987). He, too, believed that he had decrypted the text. According to Levitov, the book is composed in an old form of Flemish that assimilated German and French words. Levitov supposed that in this manner a literary language emerged that served as an alternative to the Latin language common at that time. According to Levitov, the manuscript turned out to be written by the Cathari in the Middle Ages. However, Levitov's paper is so full of speculative assumptions that it can barely be taken seriously.

The British linguist Gordon Rugg is among the most reputable Voynich researchers. He conducted a most interesting cryptological experiment. For his experiment, Rugg generated a table with random combinations of characters that he used as prefixes, roots, or suffixes of new words. He positioned a quadratic stencil, like the ones used for encryption in the sixteenth century, over the table. In this manner he obtained a sequence of letters that bore great resemblance to the text of the Voynich manuscript. Rugg's experiment supports the hypothesis that the manuscript is nothing but a compilation of meaningless lines of letters (the hoax hypothesis) (Rugg 2004). The hoax hypothesis is backed by a text analysis by the Austrian physicist Andreas Schinner. Schinner discovered unnatural regularities in the word order of the manuscript that do not occur in any known language. He therefore also came to the conclusion that the Voynich manuscript is a fraud's artful fabrication, containing merely meaningless nonsense (Schinner 2007).

A relatively new theory was published by Briton Nick Pelling (2006). He considers the Italian architect Antonio Averlino (1400–1469) to be the Voynich author. Pelling supposes that Averlino escaped to Constantinople (Istanbul) around the year 1465, having beforehand recorded his knowledge as encrypted in the Voynich manuscript. Pelling provides numerous cryptological analyses that supposedly allow us to infer an applied method, but he does not present a solution. If we accept an inaccuracy of a few decades, Pelling's theory is consistent with the radiocarbon analysis. However, I consider the Averlino hypothesis very speculative. In addition, it seems improbable that the Voynich manuscript-which without any doubt would have attracted attention in the course of a luggage inspection-merely served as a means of secure transport.

What Is Behind It?

Looking at the diverse cryptological analyses of the Voynich text, we come to a similar result as we did regarding the illustrations: a seemingly good initial theory becomes downright poor once investigated. This is one of several reasons that at least one thing became clear to me after looking at the most important theories: the Voynich manuscript does not offer an obvious explanation. Nevertheless, it is possible to narrow down the solution. First of all, I am not aware of any convincing theory regarding the author of the manuscript. That the manuscript is a forgery made in the early twentieth century, which was a plausible and much-discussed hypothesis for decades, can meanwhile be ruled out. This assumption is not only disproved by the radiocarbon analysis but also by a recently discovered seventeenth-century document that mentions the Voynich manuscript. Therefore, we must search for the author half a millennium in the past. However, Roger Bacon and several other proposed authors (for instance Leonardo da Vinci) lived in the wrong time to be the author, and Antonio Averlino is a very speculative guess. This means that the author of the Voynich manuscript was probably an anonymous artist living in the first half of the fifteenth century. Maybe it was even someone who is completely forgotten today.

I am also not aware of a convincing theory explaining the meaning of the many figures in the Voynich manuscript. Neither the plants, which have no equivalent in nature, nor the other illustrations make any sense. The most likely explanation therefore is that the figures don't have a meaning at all. Probably they were just included to make the manuscript look more mysterious. If the figures have no meaning, it is very likely that the Voynich manuscript didn't serve a real purpose. My favorite explanation for the manuscript is that it was simply created to produce a mystery. Maybe the author intended to sell it for a large amount of money to a wealthy contemporary, or maybe he even acted by order of such a person. Another theory, which I consider plausible, posits that the Voynich author was a mentally ill person (for example, someone suffering from autism); it is quite common for mentally ill people to create art. As far as I know, this hypothetical origin of the Voynich manuscript has never been researched by an expert.

If the Voynich manuscript is really a hoax-as I suspect it is-it is very likely that the text is mere nonsense. However there are two other theories worth mentioning. The first one is based on a fact known by every cryptologist: that the design of a secure encryption procedure will become distinctly simpler if the encrypted text is longer than the original text. Under this condition, it is in fact possible to hide the original information in meaningless filler text. It is absolutely possible that the author of the Voynich manuscript used this trick. Perhaps he transferred an original, shorter text (e.g., 50,000 letters) into an unknown script and extended the result to the 170,000 letters he finally put down. Unfortunately nobody has yet discovered a pattern that allows the separation of the original from the filler letters. If such a pattern exists and is sufficiently complex, then there is only a minimal chance that it will ever be decrypted.

If the Voynich text is not simply nonsense, I consider the artificial-language hypothesis developed by William Friedman as a second plausible theory. It is certain that alchemists and scientists made efforts to develop secret languages during the Renaissance. Maybe such a secret language expressed in unknown letters forms the basis of the Voynich manuscript. However, there is no precise assumption as to what the underlying artificial language might have looked like.

However, the most probable theory is that the Voynich manuscript does not contain meaningful text. The papers of Gordon Rugg and Andreas Schinner suggest not only this theory of a hoax, but the assumption that the manuscript has no real purpose. In my view, there are still some interesting open research questions in this area. Was it possible to produce hundreds of pages of nonsensical text that has many things in common with natural language by using a method available in the fifteenth century? This question is heavily debated among Voynich scholars, and some think it impossible. However, there have been but few attempts to create a text that resembles the original. Rugg's method is one example, but there should be many more-involving encryption procedures as well as methods for producing meaningless letter sequences. If one of the results has statistical properties similar to those of the Voynich text, this might tell us which method the Voynich author applied.

The Voynich manuscript is and most likely will remain a riddle. We can hope that the manuscript will not merely become a playing field for mystics and pseudoscientists. After all, the subject is fascinating enough without adventurous speculation.

Note

The original German version of this article was published in the journal Skeptiker. This English version was translated by Susanne Kisser and edited by Skeptical Inquirer staff. In October 2010, the author updated this article with considerable new information.

References

Brumbaugh, Robert S. 1978. The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich “Roger Bacon” Cipher Manuscript. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Feely, Joseph M. 1943. Roger Bacon's Cipher: The Right Key Found. Rochester, NY: n.p.

Kennedy, Gerry, and Rob Churchill. 2005. The Voynich Manuscript. London: Orion Books Limited.

Levitov, Leo. 1987. Solution of the Voynich Manuscript: A Liturgical Manual for the Endura Rite of the Cathari Heresy, the Cult of Isis. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press.

Newbold, William Romaine. 1928. The Cipher of Roger Bacon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

O'Neill, Hugh. 1944. Botanical remarks on the Voynich MS. Speculum 19: 126

Pelling, Nick. 2006. The Curse of the Voynich: The Secret History of the World's Most Mysterious Manuscript. Surrey, UK: Compelling Press.

Rugg, Gordon. 2004. An elegant hoax? A possible solution to the Voynich manuscript. Cryptologia 28(1) (January): 31.

Schinner, Andreas. 2007. The Voynich manuscript: Evidence of the hoax hypothesis. Cryptologia 31(2) (April): 95.

Klaus Schmeh, a computer scientist, works as an encryption expert for a German software producer. He is author of several cryptological and scientific books (mostly published only in German). His book Codeknacker gegen Codemacher (W3L-Verlag, 2007) deals with the history of encryption technology. He is a member of the German skeptic organization GWUP.

The soda fountains of yesteryear-a particularly American phenomenon-were in drug stores for a reason. Introduced in pharmacies at the end of the eighteenth century and increasing in the 1830s, they were an effective means of dispensing medications: adding a small amount of flavoring along with some seltzer (effervescent water) made medicine more palatable (New Orleans, n.d.; Mariani 1994, 291). As part of my studies of snake oil and other cure-alls (Nickell 1998, 2005, 2006)-which ranged over several years and included collecting antique bottles and ephemera and visiting such sites as the Coca-Cola museum-I was struck by the fact that several famous soft drinks had originated as patent medicines, which in turn had their origin in herbal and other folk remedies (see figure 1). Pharmacists claimed the added ingredients “made medicines taste so good, people wanted them, whether they needed them or not, and that's how soft drinks evolved” (New Orleans, n.d.).

Figure 1

Advent of Soda ‘Pop'

Mineral water, including naturally carbonated water (figure 2), has long been promoted as a curative for various ailments. As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, scientists tried to duplicate nature's carbonation process. It fell to Dr. Joseph Priestley (discoverer of oxygen) to advance the first practical process in 1772, thus helping to launch the soda-water industry. In time, flavored soda waters caught on.

Figure 2

Some early soda bottles, such as those for English ginger ale, had rounded bottoms, so they could not be stood upright. This prevented their corks from drying out and shrinking, which kept the gas pressure from causing them to “pop.”1 Later “pop” bottles had patented stoppers (again, see figure 2), including the familiar one from 1891 still used today, called the crown cork (a crimped metal cap with a cork liner) (Munsey 1970, 101–10).

Root Beer and Sarsaparilla

Two plant roots particularly, sarsaparilla and sassafras (figure 1), were early recognized for their potent flavor and presumed medicinal properties. In 1830, in his treatise on medical botany, Constantine Rafinesque described the American sassafras tree (an aromatic member of the laurel family) and its qualities, noting that “Indians use a strong decoction to purge and clear the body in the spring.” Sassafras has long been used as a tea and “home-remedy spring tonic and blood purifier” (Rafinesque 1830). (I dug the root as a boy in Kentucky, seemingly coming by my interest naturally: my great, great grandparents, Harry and Martha Murphy, were Appalachian herbalists and folk doctors.)

Sassafras was an original, major ingredient in many recipes for root beer, which was brewed in the eighteenth century as a mildly alcoholic beverage. Reportedly, in 1870 an unknown pharmacist created a formula that he billed as a cure-all and offered to the public. However, it was not actually marketed until Philadelphia pharmacist Charles Hires produced a liquid concentrate in small bottles (see figure 3), introducing it at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. By 1893 the Hires family was selling bottled versions of their carbonated drink, thus securing a place in soft drink history (“History” 2010; “Root beer” 2010). One slogan was “Join Health and Cheer/Drink Hires Rootbeer [sic]” (Munsey 1970, 274).

Figure 3

Ironically, in time, root beer's healthfulness was seriously questioned after safrol (a substance in sassafras oil) was found to cause cancer or permanent liver damage in laboratory animals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned sassafras oil in 1960, but inventors soon discovered a process to remove the harmful substance while preserving the flavor (“History” 2010).

Another common ingredient of root beer was sarsaparilla, which was originally sold for medicinal purposes. As early as 1835, the famous religious society, the Shakers, offered in their herb catalogs a syrup of sarsaparilla touted for a variety of ailments, including digestive troubles, rheumatism, jaundice, “secondary syphilis,” and more. It contained not only sarsaparilla root but dandelion, mandrake, Indian hemp, and other roots, as well as juniper berries and additional ingredients (Miller 1998, 84–85). Among many famous brands of supposedly curative sarsaparilla were Corbett's (made by Shaker doctor Thomas Corbett), Hood's, and Ayer's (Fike 2006, 214–21).2

Like root beer, sarsaparilla evolved into a soft drink (figure 4), a flavored, carbonated concoction that was in time sold only for its taste (Sioux City Sarsaparilla is a current major brand [“Sarsaparilla” 2010]). Both drinks were original concoctions, predating colas and other popular soda drinks (“History” 2010).

Figure 4

Other plant-extract-based drinks, such as birch beer (emerging in the 1880s to compete with root beer), ginger beer, and ginger ale, have histories paralleling root beer and sarsaparilla. Because ginger has been used for centuries for medicinal purposes, ginger ale predates most of the other medicinal soft drinks. Indeed, Vernors brand, said to have originated in 1866, has been called “the first U.S. soft drink” (“Ginger ale” 2010). Then there was Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray, a celery tonic served in New York delicatessens from 1869 and sold as a bottled soda since 1886 (“Dr. Brown's” 2010).

Moxie

Among the earliest patent-medicine-turned-soft-drinks was a New England-based variety, now of limited sales but still remembered for the slang expression, “You've got a lot of Moxie”-meaning a lot of pluck or nerve. The drink was created by Dr. Augustin Thompson, who alleged that it contained extracts from a rare South American plant. Thompson claimed that the unnamed botanical was discovered by his “friend,” a Lieutenant Moxie (“Moxie” 2010). Moxie was supposedly a cure for “brain and nervous exhaustion, loss of manhood, imbecility and helplessness, softening of the brain, locomotor ataxia and insanity” (Klein 1999).

Moxie was first formulated circa 1876, but, as its present advertising notes, it has been marketed “Since 1884,” by which time Thompson was selling the bottled drink as well as a bulk syrup intended for soda fountains. Moxie was described as “a delicious blend of bitter and sweet, a drink to satisfy everyone's taste.” Its unique flavor has been attributed to a key ingredient, “Gentian Root Extractives” (“Moxie” 2010)-gentian root is an ingredient of some types of bitters: a medicinal liquor made by steeping certain botanicals in alcohol (Munsey 1970, 111–13; Balch 2002, 70). (Again, see figure 1.)

Coca-Cola

This classic soft drink originated as a patent medicine selling for five cents a glass at Jacob's pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Because Atlanta and Fulton County had passed prohibition legislation, doctor and pharmacist John S. Pemberton created a non-alcoholic version of a coca wine, then-accidentally it is said-one day added carbonation. The new drink was soon marketed to other drug-store soda fountains where carbonated water was sold in the belief that it was healthful (seltzers were touted, for example, as a cure for obesity [Munsey 1970, 103]). Pemberton claimed that his Coca-Cola cured such diseases as dyspepsia and impotence (Munsey 1970, 105; “Coca-Cola” 2010). It was billed early as “The Ideal Nerve and Brain Tonic. It Cures Headache, Invigorates the System” (CNBC 2010). Pemberton also claimed the drink cured morphine addiction.

In fact, the coca leaf and kola nut (figure 1) used in the drink yielded the addictive substances cocaine and caffeine-hence the name Coca-Cola. However, in time, the small amount of cocaine was reduced and finally eliminated at the turn of the twentieth century (Mariani 1994, 291). (The current product contains only coca flavoring.) Caffeine remained, but in 1912 an amended U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act required that such “habit-forming” and “deleterious” substances in a product be listed on its label (“Coca-Cola” 2010).

Until 1894, the drink was sold exclusively at soda fountains. However, on March 12 of that year, the first Coca-Cola was sold in bottles provided by the Biedenharn Candy Company in Vicksburg, Mississippi. By 1895 the product was distributed throughout the United States and its territories. Cans of the drink were first marketed in 1955 (New Orleans, n.d.; “Coca-Cola” 2010).

Pepsi-Cola

Coca-Cola's main rival began as a carbonated soft drink first called “Brad's Drink” after its creator, Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina. At his pharmacy there in 1898, he began to concoct a fountain drink that was intended to both aid digestion and boost energy. Its main ingredients-pepsin (a digestive enzyme) and kola nuts-appear to have prompted its later name, Pepsi-Cola. Its trademark application was approved in 1903, and Bradham moved his operation to a rented warehouse where, the following year, the drink began to be shipped out in six-ounce bottles. The first logo was created in 1905, then redesigned in 1926 and 1929.

In 1931, during the Great Depression, Pepsi went bankrupt (largely due to speculation on sugar prices that fluctuated wildly in the wake of World War I) and its assets and trademark were sold. A second bankruptcy just eight years later put the company in the hands of a candy manufacturer, Loft Inc., whose retail stores had soda fountains. Loft's president, Charles Guth, was miffed at Coke's refusal to lower the price on its syrup and intended to replace Coke with Pepsi. He had his chemists reformulate the syrup formula. In 1936, Pepsi introduced a double-sized, twelve-ounce bottle for ten cents, then responded to slow sales by cutting the price to five cents. During the 1940s, a new president, Walter Mack, targeted the African American market with ethnically positive ads. In time, Pepsi became a serious rival of Coke (“Pepsi” 2010).

Dr Pepper

Another popular American soda was first served in about 1885 in Waco, Texas. A concoction created by Charles Alderton, the pharmacist in Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store, the drink was first dubbed a “Waco.” Alderton gave the recipe to the owner, Wade Morrison, who christened it Dr. Pepper (seemingly after Dr. Charles T. Pepper of Christiansburg, Virginia, where Morrison once worked as a young pharmacy clerk).

Dr. Pepper was initially sold as an energy drink and “brain tonic.” The drink was not nationally marketed until 1904. In the 1950s, the period punctuating “Dr” was dropped. This was for stylistic reasons as well as to eliminate any suggestion of a medical link to the product, which was called “The Friendly Pepper Upper.” Courts have held that Dr Pepper is not a “cola” but a distinctively flavored drink. During the early 1980s, after the Dr Pepper company became insolvent, the Federal Trade Commission blocked its acquisition by Coca-Cola; it then merged with Seven Up (to create Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc.) (“Dr Pepper” 2010).

7 UP

St. Louis businessman Charles L. Grigg launched a new soft drink just two weeks prior to the stock market crash of 1929. Originally called “Bib-label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” it contained lithium citrate. Lithium is an element found in many mineral springs (mineral water was often bottled and sold for its allegedly healthful properties), and it was once prescribed for many ailments, including gout, rheumatism, and kidney stones. It did little good for these problems, but it is known as a mood-stabilizing drug. In marketing his drink, Grigg used the slogan, “Takes the ‘ouch' out of grouch.” The drink's name was later changed to “7 UP”-supposedly the “7” indicated its seven-ounce bottle and the “UP” the rising bubbles from its strong carbonation (Klein 1999; “7 UP” 2010; Nickell 2005).

Like other such “health” drinks, 7 UP had problems. For example, toxic levels of lithium, which is still used to treat manic depression, are rather near its therapeutic levels (Nickell 2005). By the mid-1940s, lithium was fortunately no longer listed on the 7 UP label. Over the years the beverage has been reformulated many times: A diet version (called “Like”) was discontinued in 1969 after cyclamate sweetener was banned; the drink's high sodium content was reduced by substituting potassium citrate for sodium citrate; and 7 UP's claim to be “100% Natural” was dropped after the Center for Science in the Public Interest threatened to sue on the grounds that its high-fructose corn syrup resulted from a manufacturing process (“7 UP” 2010; Klein 1999).

* *...

As these major examples show, popular modern soft drinks evolved from late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century patent medicines. Ironically, the touted medicinal effects were actually somewhere between nonexistent and dangerous, but over the years the harmful effects have been rather consistently addressed. We can now turn our attention elsewhere: to the dubious health and medical claims that continue to proliferate under the term “alternative medicine”-often old-style quackery, even if newly bottled. n

Acknowledgments

Kudos to my wife, Diana Gawen Harris, for suggesting the title “‘Pop' Culture” and to my daughter, Cherie Roycroft, for the gift of the rare Kola-Nuces bottle shown in figure 1. I am again grateful to CFI Libraries Director Timothy Binga and librarian Lisa Nolan for their valuable research assistance.

Notes

1. English poet Robert Southey in 1812 described ginger ale as “a nectar, between soda water and ginger beer, and called pop because ‘pop goes the cork' when it is drawn” (qtd. in Munsey 1970, 104–5).

2. Although sarsaparilla continues to be promoted by naturopaths and other herbalists as a curative for “a wide range of systemic problems” and is allegedly “especially useful for rheumatoid arthritis” (Naturopathic 1995, 119), peer-reviewed research generally fails to support the claims (“Sarsaparilla” 2010).

References

Balch, Phyllis A. 2002. Prescription for Herbal Healing. New York: Avery.

CNBC Original Productions. The Real Story Behind the Real Thing. Aired March 13, 2010. www.cnbc.com.

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“Dr Pepper.” Wikipedia. Accessed March 15, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Pepper.

Fike, Richard E. 2006. The Bottle Book: A Comprehensive Guide to Historic, Embossed Medicine Bottles. Chadwell, NJ: Blackburn Press.

“Ginger ale.” Wikipedia. Accessed April 7, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_ale.

“History of Rootbeer.” Accessed March 12, 2010. Available online at www.essortment.com/all/historyrootbeer_rhnc.htm.

Klein, Victor C. 1999. New Orleans Ghosts II. Metairie, LA: Lycanthrope Press.

Mariani, John F. 1994. The Dictionary of American Food and Drink. New York: Hearst Books.

Miller, Amy Bess. 1998. Shaker Medicinal Herbs: A Compendium of History, Lore, and Uses. Pownal, VT: Storey Books.

“Moxie.” Wikipedia. Accessed April 6, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie.

Munsey, Cecil. 1970. The Illustrated Guide to Collecting Bottles. New York: Hawthorn Books.

Naturopathic Handbook of Herbal Formulas, 4th ed. 1995. Ayer, MA: Herbal Research Publications.

New Orleans Pharmacy Museum. n.d. 19th Century Patent Medicines. Reprinted in Klein 1999.

Nickell, Joe. 1998. Peddling snake oil. Skeptical Briefs 8(4) (December): 1–2, 13.

---. 2005. Healing waters: Spas. Skeptical Briefs 15(3) (September): 5–7.

---. 2006. Snake oil: A guide for connoisseurs. Skeptical Briefs 16(3) (September): 7–8.

“Pepsi.” Wikipedia. Accessed April 6, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi.

Rafinesque, Constantine. 1830. Medical Flora, a Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States.... In The Magic of Herbs in Daily Living, by Richard Lucas, 71. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing, 1978.

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“Sassafras.” Wikipedia. Accessed March 12, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras.

“7 UP.” Wikipedia. Accessed April 6, 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_up.

“I used equipment he invented as well as adaptations made of Dr. Walter J. Kilner's screens for some years before I discovered that my eyes could see auras without visual aids.” -J.C. Pierrakos (2005)

One might feel compelled to reread the above quote because, after all, there is presently no objective evidence for the existence of auras. The word aura itself comes from a Greek word meaning breeze. The aura is claimed to be a glowing field surrounding a human being that is undetectable, except by gifted psychics. By interpreting the aura of an individual, one is said to be able to deduce personality, health, and present emotions (Randi 1995).

Believers in the aura describe it as a “vital force [that] spills beyond the perimeters of the skin into the atmosphere to create an energy field, or aura, which provides a

great deal of information about the nature and functioning of human beings” (Pierrakos 2005, 18). Many methods have been used to test whether the aura exists. One method has been to test gifted individuals who claim to see auras. Attempts have also been made to look for auras with the aid of various instruments and apparatus. The great majority of these tests, which we review here, have shown limited or no evidence for the reality of auras. In spite of the lack of empirical evidence, proponents continue to advocate their existence. In the second part of this article we will discuss several explanations for proponents' continued belief in spite of the lack of evidence.

Empirical Studies of Auras

An obvious method for testing the existence of auras is to test psychics who claim to be able to detect them. In one such experiment, a windowless television studio with a barrier in the center and entrances at each end was used (Loftin 1990). A psychic and an experimenter stood on one side of the barrier while one or two subjects entered the studio on the other side. The psychic had less than three minutes to discern how many auras she detected. Two white-noise generators were used to cover any subtle sound cues, such as the sound of breathing, that might give away how many subjects were present in the room. Not surprisingly, the psychic did not score above chance.

Another experiment had a more elegant methodology (Gissurarsson and Gunnarsson 1997). It took place in a room that contained four screens made from unpainted fiberboards, which were placed in a row on one wall of the room. In this experiment, unlike in the one previously described, a control group was used. Ten aura seers and nine non-seers (the control group) were selected to participate in the experiment. All of the participants had to guess behind which one of the four screens the experimenter was hidden. This task was based on the assumption that the aura radiates a few inches from the body and should have been visible above the screen. Blinds covered the large windows on the wall behind the screens, and the whole wall was covered with brown paper. Suggestive shadows were eliminated through the use of Luxo lamps positioned across from the screens. A total of thirty-six sessions consisting of 1,449 trials was run. The results were non-significant for both groups, although “the control group did slightly better than the experimental group” (Gissurarsson and Gunnarsson 1997, 41).

Attempts have been made to measure the aura objectively and experimentally. Various instruments have been used or even invented for the purpose of observing the aura. In the early 1900s, W.J. Kilner thought that the aura could be made visible through the use of dicyanin screens containing a coal-tar dye. The dye appeared to alter the sensitivity of the eye by “making the observer temporarily short-sighted and therefore more readily able to perceive radiation in the ultra-violet band” (Kilner 1965, viii). Kilner studied the human aura for diagnostic purposes and made an explicit disclaimer of any clairvoyant or occult preoccupation. Ironically, the spiritualist movement quickly endorsed Kilner's findings as proof of existence of the aura. Shortly thereafter, aura spectacles and aura goggles were invented, based on the idea of the dicyanin screens (Gissurarsson and Gunnarsson 1997).

Existing instruments have also been used to attempt to quantitatively measure the radiation that an aura supposedly emits. A photomultiplier tube, a highly sensitive device, has been used to try to detect this radiation (Dobrin et al. 1977). The photomultiplier responds to small quantities of light by producing measurable amounts of electric charge. The amount of charge produced is proportional to the amount of light detected by the tube. This tube responds to light in the visible and ultraviolet range but not in the infrared range, which rules out heat effects. This experiment demonstrated that humans do reflect energy in the visible and ultraviolet spectrum, but this is not surprising. If the human body did not reflect energy in the visible range, it would be invisible.

Kirlian photography has also been used in the attempted examination of auras. A Kirlian photographic image of an object is obtained when a large electric potential is applied between the object and a dielectrically isolated electrode (Pehek et al. 1976). A famous instance in which Kirlian photography seemed to prove the reality of the aura happened when a section of a plant leaf was photographed and then torn away. The leaf was then rephotographed, which resulted in a faint image of the torn-out section still appearing in the second photo (Randi 1995). The luminous low-current gaseous discharge, known as a corona discharge-resulting from variance in pressure, humidity, grounding, and conductivity surrounding the leaf-persisted temporarily after the torn part was removed and was responsible for the Kirlian image of a complete leaf (Pehek et al. 1976).

Continued Belief in Auras

Seeing auras is actually one of the less common psychic experiences. Zingrone, Alvarado, and Agee concluded, based on a review of studies of the general population, that the “prevalence [of seeing auras] ranged from 0% to 6%” (2009, 161).

One explanation for the persistence of belief in auras, given that there is essentially no objective evidence for their reality, could be rare cases of synesthesia. Synesthesia is a nonpathological neurological condition in which sensory experiences that are usually separate are experienced together. The most common type is color–number/letter synesthesia, in which the synesthete perceives numbers and letters in color (Spector and Maurer 2009). In a rarer type, colors are associated with faces. Ward (2004) reported a case study of G.W., a synesthete who experienced a color for names of people whom she knew personally. She reported that she perceived colors occupying her whole field of vision when her synesthesia was elicited by words. G.W. distinctly visually perceived the names and faces of people she knew with colored halos or “auras” projected around the person or name. “G.W. does not believe that she has mystical powers and has no interest in the occult. However, it is not hard to imagine how, in a different age, such an interpretation could arise” (Ward 2004, 770). There are other case studies in which synesthetes report projecting colors onto people (Riggs and Karwoski 1934; Collin 1929; Cytowic 1989; Weiss et al. 2001; Ramachandran and Hubbard 2001 as cited in Ward 2004). It is especially interesting that in two separate samples, Zingrone, Alvarado, and Agee (2009) found that individuals who reported seeing auras were significantly more likely to report synesthetic events.

There are other explanations why belief in the existence of auras might persist. Perceptual distortions, illusions, and hallucinations might promote belief in auras. Physiological processes, such as rare cases of human luminescence caused by bacterial infections, might also be responsible for some reports of auras (Alvarado 1987). Psychological factors, including absorption, fantasy proneness, vividness of visual imagery, and after-images, might also be responsible for the phenomena of the aura. Gissurarsson and Gunnarsson (1997) discuss four classes, or models, of possible explanations: scientific, clinical, psychical, and aura imagery. In the scientific model, for example, an individual might experience visions of a series of colored halos surrounding another person's head. This phenomenon is known as “the glory” and usually occurs outdoors under certain meteorological conditions when a shadow is projected on a cloud of uniform water droplets. In the clinical model, seeing an aura might be related to epilepsy. Although epileptic auras are usually olfactory or emotional, visual auras also have been reported. Migraine headaches commonly result in visual phenomena that could easily be interpreted as auras (Sacks 1985). Eye disorders might also account for aura-like experiences. According to the psychical model, auras might be attributed to unknown electromagnetic field radiation energy that somehow is visible to only some individuals. This seems highly unlikely. The aura imagery model suggests that individuals who claim to see auras might actually be perceiving a person through their senses while their mind and memory reinterpret this information as the experience of luminous beings.

Psychological factors positively related to claims of psychic experiences might also contribute to the belief in the phenomenon of the aura (Zingrone et al. 2009). One study (Alvarado and Zingrone 1994) reported that aura vision was related to higher levels of reports of vividness of visual imagery and of imaginative-fantasy experiences. In another study, a positive relationship between auras and the claims of other psychic experiences was found (Zingrone et al. 2009). Seeing auras has been associated more with aspects of absorption and less with aspects of dissociative processes. Absorption was described as “a predisposition towards the processing of unusual perceptual input or of imagery” (Zingrone et al. 2009, 163). These authors also found that people reporting seeing auras were also more likely to report precognitive dreams, lucid and more vivid dreams, and out-of-body experiences.

Psychological factors, such as fantasy proneness, suggestibility, and the like, are related to levels of dopamine activity in the brain (see Raz et al. 2008 for a brief review). Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is an enzyme that breaks down dopamine in the brain. It has been found that which allele of the COMT gene an individual has is related to the degree of his or her suggestibility and hypnotizability (Raz 2007). Thus, propensity to see auras may have, at least in part, both a neurochemical and a genetic basis.

In summary, although there is ample evidence that human beings are surrounded by thermal, electromagnetic, and electrostatic fields (Presman 1970 as cited in Dobrin et al. 1977), there is a lack of evidence for the existence of the aura that psychics claim to see. Continued belief in the reality of auras can be attributed to several psychological, neurological, and optical effects.

References

Alvarado, C.S. 1987. Observations of luminous phenomena around the human body: A review. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 38–60.

Alvarado, C.S., and N.L. Zingrone. 1994. Individual differences in aura vision: Relationship to visual imagery and imaginative-fantasy experiences. European Journal of Parapsychology 10: 1–30.

Dobrin, R., C. Kirsch, S. Kirsch, et al. 1977. Experimental measurements of the human energy field. Psychoenergetic Systems 2: 213–16.

Gissurarsson, L., and A. Gunnarsson. 1997. An experiment with the alleged human aura. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 91: 33–49.

Kilner, W. J. 1965. The Human Aura. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books.

Loftin, R.W. 1990. Auras: Searching for the light. Skeptical Inquirer 14(4): 403–9.

Pehek, J.O., H.J. Kyler, and D.L. Faust. 1976. Image modulation in corona discharge photography. Science 194: 236–70.

Pierrakos, J.C. 2005. Core Energetics: Developing the Capacity to Love and Heal. Mendocino, CA: Core Evolution Publishing.

Randi, J. 1995. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Raz, A. 2007. Suggestibility and hypnotizability: Mind the gap. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 49: 205–10.

Raz, A., T. Hines, J. Fossella, et al. 2008. Paranormal experience and the COMT dopaminergic gene: A preliminary attempt to associate phenotype with genotype using an underlying brain theory. Cortex 44: 1336–41.

Sacks, O.W. 1985. Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Spector, F., and D. Maurer. 2009. Synesthesia: A new approach to understanding the development of perception. Developmental Psychology 45: 175–89.

Ward, J. 2004. Emotionally mediated synaesthesia. Cognitive Neuropsychology 21: 761–72.

Zingrone, N.L., C.S. Alvarado, and N. Agee. 2009. Psychological correlates of aura vision: Psychic experiences, dissociation, absorption, and synaesthesia-like experiences. Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 37: 131–68

Bridgette M. Perez and Terence Hines are in the Psychology Department at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. Hines is a Committee for Skeptical Inquiry scientific consultant and author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (Prometheus Books 2003). Email: TerenceHines@aol.com.

Magnetic charms, bracelets, insoles, and braces remain popular and are sold with claims that they improve athletic performance, relieve arthritis pain, increase energy, and pretty much treat whatever symptoms you might have. These products may seem modern and high-tech, but similar devices and claims have been around for centuries.

The notion that magnets can be used for healing has existed since humans discovered them. Several ancient cultures, such as those of Egypt, Greece, and China, discovered natural magnetic rocks, or lodestones. People had a hard time explaining the unusual properties of these rocks given the scientific knowledge of the time, so they came up with fanciful explanations like “minerals have souls too.” This was compatible with the general belief that everything has an “essence.”

It was also observed that this magnetic property can be transferred. Socrates wrote: “That stone not only attracts iron rings, but imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see many pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another to form quite a long chain; and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone” (quoted in Keithley 1999).

It then seemed natural that because living things have an energy and essence, and certain rocks contain an energy and essence, that such rocks could be used to heal illness-to transfer their energy to a living being. Even today, this idea has an emotional and even rational appeal. Who wouldn't want to be healed by the equivalent of McCoy's medical scanner, which non-invasively uses invisible and painless energy fields to return our tissues to health at the cellular level. When we fantasize about future medicine, that is what we imagine. It is no surprise, then, that through the centuries magnetic healing has been very popular-and its popularity has only increased with advancing scientific understanding of magnetism and the eventual discovery of electromagnetism.

The relationship between medical academia and popular marketing hasn't changed in hundreds of years either. In 1600, William Gilbert wrote De Magnete, in which he described detailed experiments with magnets and electricity and systematically disproved hundreds of popular health claims for such treatments. This established debunking of magnetic therapy continued into the seventeenth century with Thomas Browne (Macklis 1993). Considering how primitive scientific methods and medical knowledge were at this time, the claims of magnetic healers must have been especially fantastical and their treatments remarkably worthless.

But “The Man” was not able to keep magnetic healing down. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Franz Mesmer dramatically increased the popularity of magnetic healing with his “animal magnetism” theory. Mesmer thought that animal magnetism was a unique force of nature that flowed like a fluid through living things. He also thought he could manipulate it through a combination of hypnotism and laying-on of hands. After a high-profile debunking by a commission led by Benjamin Franklin, however, Mesmer's fame faded, and he died poor and forgotten. But his legacy survived-magnetic healing remains very popular to this day.

Today the relationship among magnets, popular health claims, and the medical/scientific community remains the same. The public is fascinated by the notion of healing with electricity, electromagnetic fields, and magnetic energy. The fact that many medical interventions are legitimately based upon electromagnetism increases this interest. People understand that we use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to peer into the body. Recent studies indicate the potential for transcranial magnetic stimulation as an effective treatment for migraines (Lipton and Pearlman 2010). We routinely measure electrical (and now even magnetic) brain waves to assess brain function.

Electromagnetism is the real energy of life, and therefore it is very plausible that all sorts of magnetic and electrical interventions will be useful for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. But this potential also opens up a market for countless quack magnetic devices that exploit this appeal. You can buy what are essentially refrigerator magnets to strap to your elbow or knee or put in your shoe or under your pillow. These static magnetic fields have no demonstrable effect on blood flow or living tissue, and their fields are so shallow that they barely extend beyond the cloth in which they are encased, let alone to any significant tissue depth. The scientific evidence for their efficacy is negative (Pittler et al. 2007). Even more absurd are magnetic bracelets that are supposed to have a remote healing effect on the body. Their plausibility plummets even further.

It is eternally frustrating that scientific evidence and academic acceptance of medical claims seem to have no bearing on the marketing and popular appeal of those claims. This disconnect appears to be especially true of claims for magnetic devices and treatments-and it has survived for centuries.

References

Keithley, Joseph F. 1999. Measurements from the beginning through the Middle Ages. In The Story of Electrical and Magnetic Measurements: From 500 B.C. to the 1940s. New York: IEEE Press. Available online at http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/30/07803119/0780311930-2.pdf.

Lipton, Richard B., and Starr H. Pearlman. 2010. Transcranial magnetic simulation in the treatment of migraine. Neurotherapeutics 7(2) (April): 204–12.

Macklis, Roger M. 1993. Magnetic healing, quackery, and the debate about the health effects of electromagnetic fields. Annals of Internal Medicine 118(5) (March): 376–83.

Pittler, Max H., Elizabeth M. Brown, and Edzard Ernst. 2007. Static magnets for reducing pain: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. Canadian Medical Association Journal 177(7) (September): 736–42.

“I don't believe that,” he said. “I can't believe that.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was in the Marines,” he answered. “They told me about ‘the door.' Do you know what I'm talking about?”

No one did, so he explained: “In the Marines they taught me that no matter what horrible situation I might find myself in, there will be a door that will let me out, and if I look for that door I will find it. If you tell me because I'm Hispanic I'm screwed, I can't accept that. I don't care what statistics you give me. I have a wife and a kid and a job, and this school is my door, and I believe we're going to be okay. No offense, but you're not helping me by telling me I'm disadvantaged being Hispanic in America.”

A lively class discussion ensued, and my own head spun.

The facts of minority disadvantage notwithstanding, for the first time I realized how an American mindset-perhaps the American mindset-can place itself in flat-out opposition to a logically constraining reality, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Roberto's perspective reminded me of “the right stuff” that Tom Wolfe explored in his 1979 book of the same name. Wolfe was describing the essential fighter-pilot mentality of the early NASA Mercury Program astronauts of the 1960s. They ignored the grim statistics on combat and experimental aviation and instead viewed mission failure (death) under any circumstances as the result of individual human error-avoidable by those endowed with a sufficient amount of a particular but somewhat ineffable combination of steely confidence and initiative: “the right stuff.”

This willful trumping of circumstantial disadvantage by sheer faith in innate resourcefulness harkens back to a more primal American ethos, that of the early New England Puritans. America's first European settlers believed that those among them predestined to be saved also had “the right [spiritual] stuff” and were therefore divinely allowed to prosper in their new land. Those who didn't have it failed. Simply put, personal courage bespoke salvation in this world and the next.

It has often been noted how this same faith in self-demonstrating salvation has, in a more secularized form, permeated the cultural DNA of American society ever since. Social commentators during the nation's nineteenth-century industrial boom idealized the innately proactive “self-made man” and stigmatized the will-deficient “born loser.” If economic socialism remains an anathema in American public discourse today-at least as an abstract proposition-it is because our citizens just can't grasp how personal self-affirmation can be achieved through federal dispensation. (And also, why should slackers be saved?) Similarly, if labor-union membership is at a record low, it's probably because American workers, deep down, still believe that individual gumption and resourcefulness will get them what they need-or else they don't deserve it. (And collective bargaining seems like just more socialism for noncompetitive losers.)

But who knows? Maybe this trait of optimistic individualism is truly genetic. The great majority of Americans are the descendants of-or are themselves-immigrants who believed enough in themselves and their personal chances of success to jump headlong into a rough-and-tumble new world. So we are literally a self-selected gene pool of risk takers, hardwired to believe in Roberto's door.

To be sure, it is no coincidence that, as social critic Barbara Ehrenreich has observed, Americans have also been exploited since the mid-nineteenth century by a massive and massively profitable “positive thinking” industry. Today, despite the hard-nosed economic realists piping in the media and genuine suffering caused by the recession, Americans remain awash in the monetized optimism business. Whether fronted by megastar self-help boosters like Oprah Winfrey, alternative-medicine gurus like Deepak Chopra, or corporate motivational speakers like Tony Robbins, the message has never been louder: if you believe-really believe-you can (diet, heal, profit, succeed, whatever), then you can! But as Ehrenreich has pointed out, the essential cheat in this message is not in the dreams themselves but in the seductive ease, the implied “wishing makes it so” means, by which these dreams may be realized.

If we Americans seem so susceptible to these profiteering pied pipers of confidence, it may be because, ironically, they really had us at “hello.” Despite all the stark statistics, sober analysis, and smell-the-coffee reality dispensed before and after the recent financial crises, odds are that we (or more likely our children) will again recklessly invest in pie-in-the-sky IPOs that pop like bubbles. We will again, if permitted, take out mortgages we should rationally anticipate not being able to pay off. And count on it: we will again crash and burn, simply because we don't believe we will. Perhaps it is in the nature of how true liberty works. If we are really free in America, then we must be free to be fools, too. We will pay for our mistakes (and yes, the burden will fall much more on some than others-we need to do something about that) and then we will make more.

For better or for worse, there is clearly some fundamental expression of American character in this disposition of perennial, reckless optimism. Not sure? Answer me this: do you or don't you, in your gut, expect America to come out of this recession sooner rather than later and (eventually) get to Mars? I rest my case.

The Internet is a wonderful medium for communicating ideas and information in a rapid, interactive way. Many online articles are followed by a section for comments. Like so many things in this imperfect world, comments are a mixed blessing. They can enhance the article by correcting errors, adding further information, or contributing useful thoughts to a productive discussion. But all too often the comments section consists of emotional outbursts, unwarranted personal attacks on the author, logical fallacies, and misinformation. It provides irrational and ignorant people with a soapbox from which to promote prejudices and false information.

To illustrate, let's look at some responses to a piece I wrote about a weight-loss product called Isagenix, which is sold through a multilevel marketing (MLM) scheme. To quote its website verbatim, “The Isagenix cleanse is unique because it not only removes impurities at the cellular level, it builds the body up with incredible nutrition. Besides detoxing the body, Isagenix teaches people a wonderful lesson that they don't need to eat as much as they are accustom [sic] to and eating healthy choices are really important and also a lot of the food we are eating is nutritionally bankrupt.”

I didn't set out to write this article. It started when I received an e-mail inquiry about Isagenix. I posted my answer on a discussion list, and it was picked up and published at http://healthfraudoz.blogspot.com/2006/11/critique-of-isagenix.html. Sandy Szwarc, author of a blog titled Junkfood Science, approved of it and kindly reposted it (see http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/11/can-you-really-cleanse-your-way-to.html.)

As I write, the comments on the healthfraudoz website have reached a total of 176. A few commenters approved of what I wrote, but the majority tried to defend Isagenix. Their defense was irrational, incompetent, and sometimes amusing.

It was as if no one had actually read what I wrote. No one bothered to address any of my specific criticisms. No one even tried to defend Isagenix's false claims that toxicity accounts for most disease, that the body protects itself from toxins by coating them with fat, and that internal organs become clogged and deteriorate if you don't cleanse. No one offered any evidence that “detoxification” improves human health. No one tried to identify any of the alleged toxins or show that they are actually removed. No one tried to provide any rationale for the particular combination of ingredients (all 242 of them!) in Isagenix products. No one questioned my assertion that “no caffeine added” is inaccurate labeling because green tea, which is added, contains caffeine. No one commented when I observed that the amount of vitamin A in these products is dangerous and goes against the recommendations of the Medical Letter. No one offered any evidence that more weight is lost by adding Isagenix to a low-calorie diet and exercise. I offered some alternative explanations that might account for people believing that Isagenix is effective when it isn't; no one commented on that.

The medical advisor on the Isagenix website argued that at five dollars per day, Isagenix is less expensive than open-heart surgery. I pointed out that this is a laughable false dichotomy: good health is not a matter of choosing between open-heart surgery and diet supplements. No one commented on that. Instead of rational responses, we got:

Testimonials

The greatest number of comments were testimonials: “I took it and I lost weight.” People claimed not just weight loss but a variety of improvements. Isagenix allegedly cured fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and hemorrhoids. It facilitated getting off sleeping pills and caffeine, balanced brain chemistry (what does that mean?), improved focus and mental clarity, allowed running longer marathons with less fatigue, saved a failing marriage, stopped irritability and crankiness, and kept an arm from getting sore after pitching.

“Made my son interact appropriately with peers, take care of himself, and want to be hugged and kissed,” claimed one.

“I made money selling it,” said another.

One person wrote, “My out-of-control Irritable Bowel Syndrome disappeared and I had the healthiest BM in about 6 years!... You can't brainwash POO!!”

Two people commented that the Isagenix program provides motivation; one said he needs “structer” (structure?) to stay on a diet.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Two commenters appropriately objected to all this testimonial evidence. They pointed out that testimonials are unreliable and subject to post hoc ergo propter hoc error, that all the “it works for me” comments can be attributed to a low-calorie diet and exercise, and that the testimonials are almost exclusively from people who are selling the product.

Anti-Testimonials

Quite a few commenters reported that they had tried Isagenix and it either didn't work or caused side effects, such as five days of violent diarrhea. One reported gaining a lot of weight while taking it; many reported losing weight just as well without it. Several reported credit-card disputes with the company and failure to get their money refunded. One reported that his parents are using Isagenix and it seems to be slowly killing them: they have decreased energy, declining health, mood swings, and poorer control of diabetes.

Rebuttals to Negative Testimonials

Supposedly the people Isagenix hasn't helped haven't been following the program correctly. Apparent bad reactions are just signs that it is working: “When one is cleansing out years of accumulation of toxins, chemicals, jet fuel, gasoline, arsenic, heavy metals, radiation poisoning-one will have reactions.”

‘Evidence' That It Works

One commenter heard a doctor speak who cited all kinds of studies to support the theory behind Isagenix-that Isagenix cleansing can supposedly solve the problems of environmental toxicity, depletion of nutrients in the food supply, gastrointestinal malabsorption, and our incessant food cravings.

Here are some of the other commenters' opinions, a few of which I've replied to in brackets.

A former Hare Krishna was impressed by the array of nutrients in the products and believed that the doctor on the website had integrity and cared about her patients.

Several people claimed that we need nutritional supplements because the ground has been depleted of nutrients.

“There have been many valid scientific research [sic] to back the claims of Isagenix.” [I couldn't find any, and they provided no clues as to where to look.]

Others claimed that because lots of MDs are recommending Isagenix it must work; these MDs can't all be quacks. [Apparently they can. Lots of MDs recommend homeopathy, and some of them believe in astrology.]

Some commenters pointed out that Isagenix has paid for independent studies. [Where are they? What did they show? If Isagenix was paying, were they truly independent?]

Mainstream physicians are starting to realize cleansing is important, other commenters claimed. [Not any of the ones who practice science-based medicine.]

One commenter proposed that cleansing makes sense because one of the main ingredients of pesticides and insecticides is estrogen. It makes women fat and casues erectile dysfunction in men. Toxicity is a bigger cause of obesity than most people realize.

Another commenter insisted that because these products are “designed and formulated by professionals and advocated by professionals,” they must work.

One MD commenter claimed, “I have the before and after pictures and the lab tests to prove it.”

Pseudoscientific claims peppered many comments, such as this one: “Most people only absorb 8% to 12% of what we eat-the rest is waste which we flush down the toilet. With Isagenix we can absorb up to 94% of what is ingested with less waste going down the toilet. Isagenix is full of good probiotics which help rebuild our digestive systems, fights candida. Isagenix also helps the body become alkaline, which is a healthy body. John Hopkins 2008 Cancer Report stated that cancer cannot live in an alkaline body only acidic bodies. Processed food makes our bodies acidic-thus the epedemic [sic] of cancer and diabites [sic] in the USA along with heart disease.” [This is all nonsense.]

Isagenix is food, many commenters insisted. Regular food is from depleted soils. Organic food made children behave better at lunch in a school study. Genetically modified food is lacking in nutrition. “The majority of people fill their stomachs with foods void of natural nutrition and the evidence supports that they behave poorly, learn less, misbehave more and commit more crimes than those who fill their stomachs with highly nutritious organic produce and meats.” [Wow! Instead of the Twinkie defense, criminals can claim their non-organic lunch made them do it!]

“Isagenix is a divine blessing in this toxic sick world.”

These people apparently expect us to believe unsubstantiated assertions.They have no concept of what constitutes scientific evidence or why controlled studies are needed.

Defense of Multilevel Marketing

“MLM is not a scam, but one of the last bastions of free enterprise.” Some commenters claimed that MLM is good because products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) don't work, and that MLM is “the most legitimate business out in the world today.” All corporations are a pyramid anyway, they said.

But one commenter called MLM an “exploitative business model” and pointed out that the average yearly income for Isagenix distributors is only $116.87. Another pointed out that 97 percent of MLM schemes fail.

Personal Attacks on Me

“A Dr Harriet Hall wrote a very funny one sided arguement [sic] against [Isagenix] but omitted to inform the world how much money she has made conning patients into taking drugs she should know are harmful to you.”

Some commenters thought I was arrogant: “If it were up to know-it-all MDs like Harriet Hall, I'd still be in chronic pain.”

“To [sic] bad when you look up Dr. Hall in Washington no such person is licensed to practice medicine. Sad day when you have to lie to get people to pay attention to anything you say....” [It took me about one minute to locate verification of my license at https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/providercredentialsearch/SearchResult.aspx.

One commenter questioned whether I am really a doctor and says I have a small brain and a big mouth.

One claimed I write only to feed my ego.

Another said I shouldn't make comments without doing any research.

One thought I should try it for myself.

Another questioned why I didn't learn more by attending a meeting for the product, interviewing company representatives, or talking to the press.

Some thought instead of writing for the public I should have contacted the doctors at the company and discussed my concerns with them.

“Don't try to convince us, Dr. Hall, that you necessarily have ‘the answer.'” [Did I say I did?]

One alleged that I came to a conclusion without any research whatsoever; this is from a doctor who said, “Cleansing is now my first choice for my patients.” One wondered what research he did to make that choice.

“Going out of her way to trash Isagenix this way is pathetic.”

“PS ‘Dr.Hall' your little family practice designation really doesnt buy alot [sic] of cred.”

“Real doctors don't waste their time sitting on the internet making bogus posts about different health products.... could sign as doctor and no one would know.”

“This article is and the author is full of crap. I know it and he knows it.” [I know I'm not a “he.”]

Some commenters thought I didn't know anything and I should just shut up.

“This is just another doctor that stands to loose [sic] their income by the masses becoming healthy.”

“What ever [sic] Dr. Harriet Hall is selling, I'm not interested.” [For the record, I'm retired and the only thing I'm “selling” is critical thinking.]

Some suggested that just because I went to medical school doesn't mean I'm a smart person.

Kudos

A few commenters offered agreement and praise; they pointed out that no one had actually addressed any of the points I made or offered any evidence that what I wrote was wrong. They reprimanded other commenters for resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Attacks on the Medical Profession

Many of the commenters seemed to think that doctors know nothing about nutrition. Doctors just put bandages on problems: they sell pills that mask symptoms and wreak havoc on your body instead of treating underlying causes. They only want to make money. They want to keep people sick so they won't lose their kickbacks. [What kickbacks?] There are lots of malpractice suits.

“Most MD's [sic] will not even take the death dealing treatments they inflict upon the rest of the population.”

Some commenters claimed that even if evidence showed Isagenix worked, conventional medicine still wouldn't adopt it because of competition from drug companies. Many doctors are typically overweight and/or out of shape. The majority of emergency department doctors are lacking skills in emergency procedures.

One person commented, “MD's [sic] keep American's [sic] addicted to drugs! MD's also fancy themselves as God like. They think that being an MD allows them to keep American's from seeking nutrition.”

“Our medical doctors have failed us,” one person lamented.

Another observed: “So sad that people in our medical profession have no idea what they are talking about!!!”

Attacks on Science

Commenters insisted that instead of listening to science, one should listen to one's own body.

Some asked: even if it's only a placebo, why not use it?

Western medicine is trying to “squash Eastern medicine,” one commenter believed.

Another warned: “Things work for different people. Chiropractic and acupuncture work. If you ask for everything to be backed by studies, they just tailor the studies to benefit industry. Research things for yourself and don't be a sheep taking pills from an MD.”

Two commenters attacked the scientifically impeccable website Quackwatch, asserting that Stephen Barrett is literally funded by Big Pharma, the American Medical Association (AMA), and the FDA to produce disinformation aimed at discrediting alternative medicine. [He has no ties to any of those organizations.]

“See how herbs can treat people, not drugs,” one commenter advised.

“Did any of you see Sicko? If you did how could you possibly take one physicians [sic] ‘opinion' about something she didn't even try over the many testimonials.”

Some commenters felt they knew better than any doctor: “I choose to observe how my own body feels and reacts to what I ingest.”

“If you think its [sic] going to help it will,” one commenter suggested.

Some put forth that the real answer is to integrate Eastern with Western medicine.

“Oh, and I have found prayer helps me,” one Isagenix proponent added.

One commenter tried to turn the tables on me: “I feel it is unfair to say Isagenix is making unsubstantiated claims, and that it doesn't actually help you at all....... isn't that an unsubstantiated claim too?” [I didn't claim that it didn't work; I said there was no evidence that it did, and no reason to think it would.]

Attacks on the FDA and Big Pharma

Many commenters suggested that the FDA disclaimer about Isagenix is meaningless and believe we shouldn't take FDA warnings seriously: “It is a terrorist organization that lies, cheats steals, and intimidates anyone who stands between them and the targets of their wrath.”

“Dr Hall if you think the FDA is doing a good job you must love some of the poison they approve, such as Aspartame.”

Some commenters erroneously thought doctors got commissions for prescribing drugs.

One even asserted that a conspiracy of J.D. Rockefeller is behind the pharmaceutical industry and that many prescriptions are made from manipulation of petroleum.

People die from drugs, commenters insisted.

“My doctor wanted me to start beta blockers, after much investigation I decided that I was to [sic] young to have my liver contaminated by these pills... .”

Many commenters assured us that natural remedies work just as well and are safer than prescriptions.

Several commenters fervently believed that pharmaceuticals are the ultimate money-making scam.

Off-the-Wall False Claims

“The FDA (yes, those great friends of ours) just recently put a new advisement out there that we will soon be required to irradiate ALL raw vegetables and fruits [it certainly did not!]. Do you all know what irradiation does to food? It not only kills ‘bad' things like e. coli, but it kills nutrients from your foods as well.”

Try It for Yourself

Numerous commenters seemed to think the best way to determine if a treatment works is to try it yourself. But one commenter rightfully pointed out that the try-it-yourself argument is fallacious and condescending: “One does not have to experience snake venom to know to stay away from snakes.”

Haven't Tried It But Plan To

Several commenters were planning to try it after reading the article and comments. One of these said he knows firefighters who use it and he “would rather have one of the firefighters doing brain surgery on me, than let the average physician tell me what is going on in my body.” [Wow! Does this guy even have a brain?]

It's a Scam

Quite a few people agreed with what I wrote. Several were outspoken in calling Isagenix a scam.

“People would rather rave about this crap than admit that they were fooled into wasting their money.”

“Without even considering the science, common sense helped me spot this as bullshit.”

“Isagenix is a freakish cult perpetrated on the uncritical, by the unscrupulous, using the desperate search for the ever-elusive ‘easy solution.'”

One reported that a cousin and her boyfriend are “making a TON of money selling this stuff to all of you morons stupid enough to buy it and make them rich. ISAGENIX only ‘works' for the people selling it. Diet and exercise WORKS for everyone!”

Concerns

A few commenters expressed concerns about the product. One commenter said the Isagenix company representative couldn't answer questions about origin of ingredients and quality control. There have been no controlled studies. Where is the evidence? How do we know it is safe? Long-term results remain to be seen. How many can maintain this restrictive lifestyle for years? Why isn't Isagenix being regulated by the FDA? “I am a little concerned about the way some people discuss this product in almost cult-like fashion. It makes me wonder if there are mind-control drugs in this stuff.”

Two Jokes

“I got a refund check from [the] IRS after starting Isagenix.”

“I have some magic beans for sale. Try eating right and exercising instead.”

Funny, Unhelpful, and Bizarre Comments

“Who cares whether it works or not. This stuff tastes like 9-day old garbage mixed with water from a sewer.”

One man took it on the recommendation of his chiropractor; he now distrusts both Isagenix and his chiropractor. “I have been feeling better ever since I stopped having my head wrenched and being put on a rack and practically decapitated week after week, except for the apparently permanent click in my neck that wasn't there before.”

“We fertilize our soil with fake nutrients and usually do not replace with all 60 nutrients the plants need to be healthy so they are prone to diesease [sic-a disease that they die from?] and incests [sic].” [Gotta watch out for those incestuous plants!]

“I never hear anything from the medical field about elevating the PH level in the human body to keep in from being to acidic. That study was done by Dr Lioness Paulings medical reseacher and nobel prize winner.” [Errors in original. Lioness?!]

“Whoever started this blog is an idiot.”

“I am amazed at the amount of ingnorance [sic] on this Blog. Whom [sic] ever allows this should be ashamed.”

My favorite comment of all was “Dr Harriet Hall is a refrigerator with a head.” I don't know what that means, but its whimsical imagery appeals to my sense of humor.

In looking back at this whole kerfuffle, it became clear to me that there had been a colossal barrier to communication. The person who had originally asked me about Isagenix, the blog owner, and I were all operating in the arena of science and evidence. Most of the commenters were operating in a whole different universe of discourse based on belief, hope, hearsay, and personal experience. Science is like a foreign language to them, and they were incapable of understanding my points. Pearls before swine... ]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:07:00 EDT info@csicop.org () http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_conspiracy_meme http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_conspiracy_meme Many of these theories are clearly absurd, but some are plausible and others actually contain elements of truth.

Conspiracy theories are easy to propagate and difficult to refute. Having long flourished in politics and religion, they have also spread into science and medicine. It is useful to think of conspiracy theorizing as a meme, a cultural invention that passes from one mind to another and thrives, or declines, through a process analogous to genetic selection (Dawkins 1976). The conspiracy meme competes with other rhetorical memes, such as the fair debate meme, the scientific expertise meme, and the resistance to orthodoxy meme.

The central logic of the conspiracy meme is to question, often on speculative grounds, everything the “establishment” says or does and to demand immediate, comprehensive, and convincing answers to all questions. Unconvincing answers are taken as proof of conspiratorial deception. A good example is the film Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup (Avery 2009), which started out as a short fictional 2005 video about the World Trade Center attacks that was marketed as if it were a truth-seeking documentary. The 2005 video went viral on the Internet and has been viewed by over ten million people. Loose Change raises a long series of questions illustrated by tendentious information, such as the fact that the fires in the World Trade Center were not hot enough to melt steel. But no one had claimed that the steel had melted, only that it had gotten hot enough to weaken and collapse, which it did. The video presents the fact that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is keeping certain people's tax returns secret, set to an ominous musical background suggestive of evildoing-despite the well-known fact that the IRS keeps everyone's tax returns secret.

When an alleged fact is debunked, the conspiracy meme often just replaces it with another fact. One of the producers of Loose Change, Korey Rowe, stated, “We don't ever come out and say that everything we say is 100 percent [correct]. We know there are errors in the documentary, and we've actually left them in there so that people [will] discredit us and do the research for themselves” (Slensky 2006).

When the conspiracy meme is reinforced by a regular diet of “alternative” videos and one-sided literature, it can become a habitual way of thinking. People who believe in one conspiracy are more likely to believe in others (Goertzel 1994; Kramer 1998). A young self-declared conspiracy theorist challenged me to debate one conspiracy theory per week with him, including theories about genetically modified (GM) foods, vaccine neurotoxins, AIDS, and September 11, 2001. He expressed his “true belief” that there is a “kernel of truth” in almost every conspiracy theory and claimed that once you understand the kernel, all you have to do is “connect the dots to make a picture.”

Conspiracy theorists have connected a lot of dots. The ninety-two conspiracy theories described in a recent handbook (McConnachie and Tudge 2008) range in topic from Tutankhamen and the curse of the pharaoh, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and satanic ritual abuse to the alleged scheming of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the British royal family. Other theories involve religious cults, alien abductions, or terrorist plots. Some are merely amusing, but others have fueled wars, inquisitions, and genocides in which millions of people died.

Scientific and technological conspiracies often allege the misuse of science by government, the military, or large corporations, and they include bizarre claims that the military suppressed technology that could make warships invisible, automobile or oil companies possess hidden technology that can turn water into gasoline, and the military is secretly in cahoots with space aliens. Conspiracy theorists have argued that the AIDS virus was deliberately created as part of a plot to kill black or gay people, the 1969 Moon landing was staged in a movie studio, and dentists seek to poison Americans by fluoridating public water supplies. Other theorists claim that corporate officers and public health officials suppress evidence that preservatives in vaccines cause autism and silicone breast implants cause connective-tissue disease (Specter 2009; Wallace 2009).

Conspiracy theories include claims that a major drug company hid reports stating that its leading anti-inflammatory drug caused heart attacks and strokes (Specter 2009) and that environmental scientists have conspired to keep refereed journals from publishing papers by researchers skeptical that global warming is a crisis (Hayward 2009; Revkin 2009). There are many theories about physicians or drug companies conspiring to suppress non-mainstream medical treatments, vitamins, and health foods. One author alleges that big business and the medical establishment conspired to obstruct the search for a cure for AIDS so that they could sell their ineffective drugs and treatments (Nussbaum 1990).

Many of these theories are clearly absurd, but some are plausible and others actually contain elements of truth. How can we distinguish among the amusing eccentrics, the honestly misguided, the avaricious litigants, and the serious skeptics questioning a premature consensus? With scientific claims, the only definitive answer is to reexamine the original research data and repeat the experiments and analysis. But no one has the time or the expertise to examine the original research literature on every topic, let alone repeat the research. As such, it is important to have some guidelines for deciding which theories are plausible enough to merit serious examination.

One valuable guideline is to look for cascade logic in conspiracy arguments (Susstein and Vermeule 2008). This occurs when defenders of a conspiracy theory find it necessary to implicate more and more people whose failure to discover or reveal the conspiracy can be explained only by their alleged complicity. Another guideline is to look for exaggerated claims about the power of the conspirators, claims that are needed to explain how they were able to intimidate so many people and cover their tracks so well. The more vast and powerful the alleged conspiracy, the less likely that it could have remained undiscovered.

For example, the claim that the Moon landing in 1969 was a hoax implies the complicity of thousands of American scientists and technicians, as well as that of Soviet astronomers and others around the world who tracked the event. It is incredibly implausible that such a conspiracy could have held together. On the other hand, the theory that a few individuals in Richard Nixon's campaign conspired to break into their opponents' offices in the Watergate building was plausible and proved worth investigating. Similarly, the theory that a group of climate scientists conspired to suppress research that they believed to be misleading and harmful to public policy is plausible and worth investigating, despite the small likelihood that such a conspiracy would remain undetected for long.

Definition of ‘Conspiracy'

The conspiracy meme works because conspiracies do exist in the real world. Claims of conspiracy cannot be reflexively dismissed, but they are difficult to test because lack of evidence can be interpreted as proof of how cleverly the conspirators have hidden it. The first step in testing claims of conspiracy is to establish precisely what is being claimed. There is no single accepted definition of “conspiracy,” and people apply the term differently depending on their point of view. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a conspiracy quite loosely as “an agreement between two or more persons to do something criminal, illegal, or reprehensible.” There are legal definitions of criminal conspiracy, but whether something is “reprehensible” is in the eye of the beholder. When Hillary Clinton protested that her husband was the victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” and Lyndon Johnson accused the media and liberal activists of a “conspiracy” to oppose his Vietnam War policies, these claimants were intentionally vague as to whether they referred to illegal or merely reprehensible behavior (Kramer and Gavrieli 2005). Any group of people organizing for a cause the speaker does not like may be denounced as “conspirators.”

But the word conspiracy also usually implies something that is secret and hidden. Pigden (2006, 20) defines a conspiracy as “a secret plan on the part of a group to influence events in part by covert action.” Conspiracies so defined certainly do take place, and it may be that the most successful ones are never discovered. They include the (failed) conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler; the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and the Watergate conspiracy. But the term “conspiracy theory” usually refers to claims that important events have been caused by conspiracies that have heretofore remained undiscovered (Coady 2006). The claim that the World Trade Center was bombed by al-Qaeda would not be a conspiracy theory in this sense, but the claim that it was bombed by Israeli agents or that American authorities knew about it in advance would be. There is no chance of getting agreement on an “official” definition, but people alleging conspiracy should be challenged to be clear about their meaning.

The conspiracy meme flourishes best in politics, religion, and journalism, where practitioners can succeed by attracting followers from the general public. It isn't essential that practitioners actually believe the theory; they may just find it plausible and useful to raise doubts and discredit their competitors. But this strategy should not be enough for scientists. Scientific findings are just that-findings, not speculations about undiscovered goings-on. These findings must be replicable by other scientists.

In their routine work, scientists have little use for the conspiracy meme because success in scientific careers comes from winning grant applications and publishing significant findings in peer-reviewed journals. Attacking other scientists as conspirators would not be helpful for most scientists' careers, however frustrated they may be with referees, editors, colleagues, or administrators who turn down their manuscripts or grant proposals or deny them tenured jobs. But the conspiracy meme may be useful for scientists who are so far out of the mainstream in their field that they seek to appeal to alternative funding sources or publication outlets. The conspiracy meme also occasionally surfaces when a scientist's mental health deteriorates to the point that he or she loses touch with reality.

Trial lawyers, on the other hand, have a great deal of use for the conspiracy meme because they succeed by convincing juries. It is part of the standard repertoire of memes they use to discredit evidence offered by “experts” of all kinds, including scientists. Lawyers focus on the motivations of the experts, on who hired them, on what they are being paid for their testimony, and so on. They also seek out an “expert” who will testify on their side, implying that expertise is for sale to the highest bidder and that opinion is divided on the issue in question. The rewards can be very great if a class-action lawsuit results in a settlement against a wealthy corporation.

Vaccine Conspiracies

Conspiracy theories about vaccines were given a tremendous boost when the esteemed medical journal the Lancet published a study reporting a hypothesized link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism (Burgess et al. 2006). The media highlighted the story despite the study's very small sample size and speculative causal inferences, and the public reaction was much larger than medical and public health authorities anticipated. Reasons for the public reaction included resentment of pressure on parents, distrust of medical authorities, and the potentially catastrophic nature of possible risk to a vulnerable population. There was also the potential for large class-action settlements in favor of parents who believed their children were injured by the vaccines, some of whom desperately needed help to care for autistic children.

The result was a decline in the proportion of parents having their children vaccinated and a subsequent increase in disease, especially in the United Kingdom. The authorities responded by citing findings from large epidemiologic studies, but much of the press coverage highlighted anecdotal accounts and human-interest stories. Recovery of public confidence in vaccination may be due more to revelations of conflicts of interest on the part of the physician who published the original article-which was eventually withdrawn by the journal-than to the overwhelming evidence for the lack of a relationship between vaccination and autism rates.

Conspiracy theorists typically overlook lapses in logic and evidence by their supporters, but they are quick to pounce on any flaw on the part of their opponents. When a leading Danish vaccine researcher was accused of stealing funds from his university, the vaccine conspiracy theorists pounced. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of a former U.S. Attorney General, used the occasion to denounce the “vaccine cover-up” on the influential blog Huffington Post (Kennedy 2010). He explained away the research findings on vaccines and autism on the grounds that there had been a change in the Danish law and the opening of a new autism clinic. He criticized vaccine researchers for receiving money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their studies and for “being in cahoots with CDC officials intent on fraudulently cherry-picking facts to prove vaccine safety.” But if the CDC had not funded this research, largely in response to popular concerns, vaccine opponents would have denounced it for not doing so.

Genetically Modified Food Conspiracies

Public alarm about GM foods was aroused when a scientist, Árpád Pusztai, claimed in a television interview that rats had suffered intestinal damage due to eating GM potatoes (“Genetically modified” 2010; Enserink 1999). The finding was clearly preliminary; there were only six rats in each of two groups, and one group was fed GM potatoes for only ten days. The reported effects on the rats were minor, but the study received tremendous publicity because it fed into fears that had long been cultivated by environmentalist and anti- capitalist social movements. As the controversy progressed, questions were raised about the integrity of the study, leading Pusztai to leave his research institute. But anti-GM activists denounced criticisms of the research as a conspiracy and circulated a petition among scientists supporting Pusztai's rights. Finally, the Lancet published his study, which had not yet appeared in a refereed journal. They sent it to six reviewers, only one of whom opposed publication. But one of the reviewers who favored publication said he “deemed the study flawed but favored publication to avoid suspicions of a conspiracy against Pusztai and to give colleagues a chance to see the data for themselves” (Enserink 1999).

By releasing his findings on television, Pusztai received extraordinary attention for a study that otherwise might never have been accepted by a leading scientific journal. At least, that was the opinion of the editor of a competing journal who asked “when was the last time [the Lancet] published a rat study that was uninterpretable? This is really lowering the bar” (Enserink 1999). Releasing controversial findings on the Internet or through press releases is justified as a way of making important discoveries available quickly, but it also serves to circumvent the normal scientific review process. Sometimes these “findings,” such as the claim that the decline in crime in the United States in the 1990s was due to the legalization of abortion in the 1970s, become part of the conventional wisdom before other scientists have a chance to debunk them (Zimring 2006).

The Fair Debate Meme

Dissenters from mainstream science often invoke the meme that there are two sides to every question and each side is entitled to equal time to present its case. George W. Bush famously suggested that students be taught both evolution and creationism so that they can judge which has the most convincing argument. Similarly, holocaust deniers demand equal time for their side of the argument, and they might travel to Tehran or wherever they can find a receptive audience. If these dissenters, or “revisionists,” succeed in getting an opportunity to present their case, they will hammer away at any gaps or contradictions in the evidence presented by mainstream researchers, using rhetoric that questions their opponents' motivations while avoiding any hint of weakness or bias in their own case.

This advocacy meme is widely used in law courts and political debates, and it can work well when the question at hand is one of taste or morality. It doesn't work well for scientists because there are objectively right and wrong answers to most scientific questions-they can't be resolved by votes of schoolchildren. Schoolchildren in 1945 might have agreed with U.S. Admiral William Leahy's famous statement that “the [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert on explosives.” But once the bomb went off, there were no longer two sides to the question.

The Scientific Expertise Meme

In deciding to pursue the atomic bomb project, President Harry Truman relied on another meme that is very powerful in western societies, that of reliance on scientific expertise. Decision makers and the general public are most likely to be persuaded by this meme when scientists are in agreement and when their advice and policy prescriptions have a good track record. There is an inherent tension between the policy makers' desire for consensus and the scientists' need to remain open to alternative theories and evidence. Scientists who wish to influence policy may be tempted to claim a scientific consensus when the facts do not yet warrant one.

We social scientists have forfeited much of our potential influence because we are too often perceived as advocates for a cause rather than as objective researchers. Our ability to predict policy outcomes is very limited, yet we sometimes fall into the trap of claiming to know more than we do. Econometricians have been publishing conflicting analyses of the relationship between capital punishment and homicide rates for decades without making any real progress, yet they continue to use their findings to advocate for or against capital punishment (Goertzel and Goertzel 2008). When President Bill Clinton proposed welfare reform in the United States, social scientists specializing in the topic almost universally predicted that a disastrous increase in poverty and hunger would result. In some cases they defended their predictions with elaborate statistical models, despite the fact that these models had no demonstrated track record for predicting trends in poverty (Goertzel 1998). President Clinton deferred to politicians and conservative activists who predicted that poverty and dependency would decline as, in fact, they did.

Memes Collide: HIV/AIDS Deniers

The conflict between the fair debate meme and the scientific expertise meme was pronounced in the dispute between the late Nature editor John Maddox and biologist Peter Duesberg, who opposes the theory that HIV causes AIDS. Relying on the norms of fairness in debate, Duesberg (1995) sought the right to reply to scientific papers that defend mainstream views about the HIV-AIDS connection. At a certain point in the debate, Maddox refused to continue to give Duesberg “the right of reply,” arguing that Duesberg had “forfeited the right to expect answers by his rhetorical technique. Questions left unanswered for more than about ten minutes he takes as further proof that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Evidence that contradicts his alternative drug hypothesis on the other hand is brushed aside.” Maddox argued that Duesberg was not asking legitimate scientific questions but rather making demands and implying, “Unless you can answer this, and right now, your belief that HIV causes AIDS is wrong” (Maddox 1993).

Maddox observed that “Duesberg will not be alone in protesting that this is merely a recipe for suppressing challenges to received wisdom. So it can be. But Nature will not so use it. Instead, what Duesberg continues to say about the causation of AIDS will be reported in the general interest. When he offers a text for publication that can be authenticated, it will if possible be published.” As an editor of a scientific journal, Maddox was justified in saying that he would publish papers that offered new findings, not ones that just picked at unanswered questions in other people's work. But Maddox was realistic in realizing that his refusal to publish additional comments by Duesberg would be portrayed as censorship by believers in the AIDS conspiracy theory.

The Resistance to Orthodoxy Meme

Duesberg and other dissenters also rely on another well-established rhetorical meme, that of the courageous independent scientist resisting orthodoxy. This meme is frequently introduced with the example of Galileo's defense of the heliocentric model of the solar system against the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. And there are other cases of dissenting scientists who have later been proven right. Thomas Gold (1989) reports confronting the “herd mentality” of science when advancing his theories on the mechanisms of the inner ear and the nature of pulsars as rotating neutron stars, both of which later came to be accepted. This “herd mentality” is not the product of a deliberate conspiracy, although it may be perceived as one. It is a collective behavior phenomenon: a belief is reinforced and becomes part of the conventional wisdom because it is repeated so often. This is why those who offer differing views are important. Being a dissenter from orthodoxy isn't so difficult; the hard part is actually having a better theory than the conventional one. Dissenting theories should be published if they are backed by plausible evidence, but this does not mean giving critics “equal time” to dissent from every finding by a mainstream scientist.

In his response to Duesberg, Maddox refers to the philosophical argument, associated with Karl Popper, that science progresses through falsification of hypotheses. Maddox says, “True, good theories (pace Popper) are falsifiable theories, and a single falsification will bring a good theory crashing down.” But he goes on in the next sentence to implicitly rely on a different philosophy of science, often associated with the work of Imre Lakatos, which is that science normally progresses by correcting and adding to ongoing research programs, not by abandoning them every time a hypothesis fails. Maddox says, “Unanswered questions are not falsifications; rather, they should be the stimulants of further research.”

Scientists do change their ideas in response to new evidence, perhaps more often than people in most walks of life. Linus Pauling abandoned his triple-helix model of DNA as soon as he saw the evidence for the double-helix model. But he never abandoned his advocacy of vitamin C as a treatment for the common cold and cancer, no matter how many studies failed to show a significant difference between experimental and control groups. Pauling found flaws in each study's research design and insisted that the results would be different if only the study were done differently. He never did any empirical research on vitamin C himself, research that would have risked failing to confirm his hypotheses. He instead limited himself to debunking published scientific studies. Unfortunately, Pauling is probably better known by the general public for this work than for his undisputed and fundamental contributions to chemistry. Pauling did not claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy; he saw himself as challenging the herd mentality of science. But his scientific prestige lent credibility to those who sought to discredit scientific medicine as a conspiracy of doctors and drug companies (Goertzel and Goertzel 1995). Scientific expertise is usually quite specialized, and scientists who advocate for political causes only tangentially related to their area of specialization have no special claim on the truth.

Conspiracy theorists often seem to believe that they can prove a scientific theory wrong by finding even a minor flaw or gap in the evidence for it. Then they claim conspiracy when scientists endeavor to fix the flaw or fill the gap. If the scientists persist in their work, on the assumption that a solution will be found, they are again charged with conspiracy. In fact, the occasions when an entire scientific theory is overthrown by a negative finding are few and far between. This is especially true in fields depending on statistical modeling of complex phenomena for which there are often multiple models that are roughly equally good (or bad), and the choice of a data set and decisions about data-set filtering are often critical. The more important test of a research program is whether progress is being made over a period of time and whether better progress could be made with an alternative approach. Progress can be measured by the accumulation of a solid, verifiable body of knowledge with a very high probability of being correct (Franklin 2009).

Climate Change Conspiracy

The conspiracy meme has been especially prominent in the debate about global warming. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its report in 1996, an eminent retired physicist, Frederick Seitz (1996), accused it of a “major deception on global warming” on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Seitz did not offer a scientific argument that the report's conclusions were wrong. Instead, he attacked the committee's procedure in editing its document, accusing the editors of violating their own rules by rewording and rearranging parts of the text to obscure the views of skeptical scientists. This seemingly obscure point about the editing of a UN technical document proved remarkably effective in providing a rallying point for opponents of the report's conclusions.

A careful review of the incident (Lahsen 1999) concluded that the editors did not violate any of their own rules and that the editorial changes were reasonable. Editors, after all, do edit texts, all the more so when the texts are written by a committee. The skeptical arguments were not deleted from the report, but they were repositioned and rephrased, perhaps giving them less emphasis than Seitz thought they deserved. But the conspiracy meme was successful in shifting much of the public debate from the substance of the issue to criticism of personalities, procedures, and motivations. The climate scientists felt attacked and apparently began to think of themselves more as activists under siege than as neutral scientists. In 2009, computer hackers released private e-mails apparently showing that some climate scientists had pressured editors not to publish papers by skeptics and that the climate scientists had looked for ways to present their data to reinforce their advocacy views (Revkin 2009; Hayward 2009; Broder 2010).

Climate science is heavily dependent on complex statistical models based on limited data, so it is not surprising that models based on different assumptions give differing results (Schmidt and Amman 2005). In presenting their data, some scientists were too quick to smooth trends into a “hockey stick” model that fit with their advocacy concerns. Several different groups of well-qualified specialists have now been over the data carefully, and the result is a less linear “hockey stick,” with a rise in temperature during a medieval warm period and a drop during a little ice age. But the sharp increase in warming in the twentieth century, which is the main point of the analysis, is still there (“Hockey stick controversy” 2010; Brumfiel 2006).

This is not the place to review the substance of the issue, which has already been debated extensively in this journal. An encouraging thing, however, is that despite the bitterness is the debate about scientists' behavior, there is considerable consensus on the issue of global warming itself. One of the responsible critics, for example, frankly states that “climate change is a genuine phenomenon, and there is a nontrivial risk of major consequences in the future” (Hayward 2009). But there is no consensus on how high the risk is, how quickly it is likely to materialize, or the costs and benefits of strategies needed to counter it.

The less responsible critics simply dismiss the issue as a hoax and focus exclusively on the peccadilloes of the other side. The climate scientists gave the conspiracy theorists an opening by letting their advocacy color their science, which compromised the legitimacy of their enterprise and, ironically, weakened the political movement itself. This is especially unfortunate because the underlying science is fundamentally correct.

Conspiracy Consequences

Faced with assaults on their professional credibility, scientists may be tempted to retreat from the world of public policy. But allowing the conspiracy theorists to dominate the public debate can have tragic consequences. Fear of science and belief in conspiracies has led British parents to expose their children to life-threatening diseases, the South African health department to reject retroviral treatment for AIDS, and the Zambian government to refuse GM food from the United States in the midst of a famine. Fear of science is not new. Benjamin Franklin was afraid to vaccinate his family against smallpox and regretted it deeply when a son died of the disease in 1736. Parents are making the same mistake today.

Advocacy groups sometimes find it easier to arouse fears of science than to advocate for other goals that may actually be more fundamental to their concerns. The movement against GM foodstuffs in Europe was mobilized largely by anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, and anti-American activists who found it more effective than attacking corporate capitalism directly (Purdue 2000; Schurman 2004). These ideologies have much less support in North America, and efforts to organize against GM food here were much weaker. North Americans have suffered no significant ill effects from the integration of these foods into their diet, a fact that Greenpeace and other advocacy groups studiously ignore. One suspects that if GM seeds had been invented by a socialist government, these advocacy groups would have heralded them as a great victory in the war against hunger.

Public policy requires reaching consensus to make decisions, even though some uncertainty usually remains. If scientists cannot do this, surely it is too much to expect politicians or journalists to do it. Efforts to define a consensus are vulnerable to attacks by conspiracy theorists who portray a consensus as a mechanism for suppressing dissent and debate. But there will always be dissenters, and at a certain point arguing with them becomes unproductive. In 1870, Alfred Russell Wallace allowed himself to be drawn into an extended conflict with Flat Earth theorist John Hampden, editor of the Truth-Seeker's Oracle and Scriptural Science Review. Their dispute over whether the Earth is round involved measuring the curvature of the water on the Old Bedford Canal in England. There was a public wager, which Wallace won, followed by a lawsuit when Hampden refused to pay, a threat against Wallace's life, and a prison term for Hampden. Hampden and his followers were never convinced the Earth is not flat, and belief in the “round Earth conspiracy” apparently persists to this day (Garwood 2008; O'Neill 2008).

Scientists will never reach a consensus with Flat Earthers or with those who believe the Earth was created in 4004 bce. Nor do they need to. The best that science can provide is a clearly specified degree of consensus among scientists who base their conclusions on empirical data. Efforts to reach consensus on important questions have been discouraged due to the influence of philosophers of science who emphasize conflicting research programs, paradigm shifts, and scientific revolutions (Franklin 2009; Stove 1982). Although these events do occur in the history of science, they are exceptional. Most sciences, most of the time, progress with an orderly, gradual accumulation of knowledge that is recognized and accepted by specialists in the field. Opposition rooted in religious or ideological concerns is acceptable as part of the democratic political process, but it need not prevent scientists from reaching a consensus when one is justified.

Peer Review

The peer review process in scientific journals plays a central role in determining which research findings deserve to be incorporated in the scientific consensus on an issue. As such, this process is a target for conspiracy theorists. Peer reviewers are usually anonymous, which suggests they may have something to hide. Although authors' names are usually removed from studies to be reviewed, reviewers are specialists in the same field and can often guess who the authors are. Reviewers are not in a good position to detect actual fraud; they can't redo the experiments or the data analysis. And they may reject papers that go against the conventional wisdom or political consensus in their field (Franklin 2009, 205–11). No adequate alternative to peer review has been proposed, but initiatives to make the review process more transparent may help, including making reviewers' comments and the original data sets available on the Internet.

The credibility of peer review has been undermined in the recent dispute over global warming because the reviewers are drawn from a fairly small pool of specialists who are known to have a policy agenda. The appointment of panels of distinguished scientists to review the body of research in the field is an excellent step to rebuilding credibility (Broder 2010). The review panels must have full access to all the data sets, as well as the time and expertise to conduct their own analyses if necessary-which cannot normally be expected of volunteer reviewers for a journal. It is important that these reviewers give qualified specialists an opportunity to present alternative views, as long as these views are based on scientific analysis of appropriate data and not just polemical criticism. No matter how well they do their work, however, these panels are likely to be attacked by conspiracy theorists.

If the blue-ribbon scientific commissions confirm the original research findings, perhaps with only modest caveats, many people will be convinced. But individuals with strong feelings about the issue may resort to cascade logic, suspecting that the review panel is also part of the conspiracy. Cascade logic can easily develop into a generalized distrust of anything that comes from a mainstream or elite source. In the past, social psychological studies found that this kind of generalized belief in conspiracies was most common among people who were discontented with the established institutions and elite groups in their society, believed that conditions were worsening for people like themselves, and believed that authorities did not care about them (Goertzel 1994; Kramer 1998).

The conspiracy meme can convert a dry scientific issue into a human drama in which malefactors can be exposed and denounced. Scientists are not trained in dealing with this kind of debate, and there is no reason to expect them to be especially good at it. If they also have strong feelings about the issues, they may fall into the conspiracy meme themselves. But when scientists succumb to the temptation to “fight fire with fire,” they risk losing their credibility as experts. It may be tempting to exaggerate findings in mass media outlets by using graphics that highlight the most extreme possibilities. This may be effective in the short run, but the public feels deceived when today's newest scare is refuted by tomorrow's press release; their belief in science is diminished. In today's political climate, scientists need to be careful about releasing their findings on controversial issues; they must make sure the findings have been thoroughly reviewed and that the data sets are available for others to analyze.

Political decisions will inevitably reflect economic interests and emotional concerns that conflict with what scientists believe is best. But scientists can be more effective if they avoid using the conspiracy meme and other rhetorical devices and instead clearly separate their scientific work from their political advocacy as citizens.

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