The Senate Minority Report was generated with encouragement from a United States senator notorious for making bogus statements to the effect that “global warming is the biggest hoax perpetrated on the American People.” That claim is patent nonsense. Global warming over the past three decades is an observationally based scientific fact. Even the current period, cool only relative to the twenty-five-year rise ending in 2005, was predicted by the best climate models, which also predict that within a decade—and possibly much sooner—we will experience another sharp global temperature rise. Vetting a questionable report was the motivation for our Credibility Project, and no such motivation existed for us to vet the IPCC-2007 science report.

It still doesn’t. We were careful in defining what a climate scientist is, and our definition was rather broad. Whether the same definition was used by the scientist quoted by Sheaffer is not clear, but it is not hard to find a few contrarians willing to define terms to suit their conclusions. As for the number of scientists actually doing climate science, properly defined, even if “only” 620 appear as actual authors of the sections in IPCC-2007 science report, this work is supported by well over 2,000 climate scientists whose work in the peer-reviewed literature is referenced in that document.

As for the science itself, recalling that peer-reviewed science is a self-correcting process, not only has the predictive power of global climate science been confirmed, but actual observations of melting icecaps in Greenland and deteriorating conditions in the Arctic paint an even more dire picture than was available in the IPCC-2007 science report, as noted in our Credibility Project. In contrast, no scientific results based on observations have emerged to challenge the large consensus of the climate science community. Those who invoke the solar cycle, to which there is no global temperature correlation even if one allows for phase shifts, or who cite possible increases in solar flux, of which observations show none over this warming epoch, are especially off the mark. Yet many contrarians continue to propose the Sun as the dominant driver of global warming, possibly for lack of other hypotheses.

What about the cautious nature of the stated conclusions in our Credibility Project? We leave it to the reader to decide if we are pursuing “an agenda.” Consider our penultimate sentence, in which we make it clear that we are restricting ourselves to what we know best—the science: “The authors of this Credibility Project are not qualified to assess the engineering and economic questions associated with proposed legislation addressing climate change.”

At this point, it may be best to move the debate into the halls of Congress, where there is a huge scientific community prepared to defend the legitimacy of climate science against the small number of scientific claims to the contrary. I have had a civil exchange with one of the above critics of our project and think both Sheaffer and Posner are sincere in their skepticism. I also commend the Skeptical Inquirer for presenting both sides of this issue while reminding the reader that this does not imply equal weight to all positions when science is involved. Following the above quote from our conclusion is our final, summary statement on the Credibility Project: “We are disturbed by any document that may misrepresent the state of the global scientific effort to address this problem.”

We stand by that statement.

This story began with predictions that Nibiru, supposedly a planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. Zecharia Sitchin, who writes fiction about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books (e.g., The Twelfth Planet, published in 1976) that he has found and translated Sumerian documents that identify the planet Nibiru, orbiting the Sun every 3,600 years. Sitchin has sold many books about these Sumerian fables, which include stories of “ancient astronauts” called the Anunnaki who aided the Sumerians. Then Nancy Lieder, a self-declared psychic who claims she communicates with aliens, wrote on her Web site ZetaTalk that inhabitants of a fictional planet around the star Zeta Reticuli warned her that the Earth was in danger from Planet X, or Nibiru. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened, the doomsday date was moved to December 2012.

These two Nibiru fables were greatly amplified when linked with the turn-over of the Mayan long-count calendar at or near the winter solstice of 2012. Many Web sites sprang up declaring that December 21, 2012, would be the end of the world, a time of violent physical and spiritual transformation—never mind that the real end for Mayan civilization came several hundred years earlier with the European invasion of the Americas. This spring I counted more than 175 books on the 2012 doomsday listed on Amazon.com, where the most popular themes are the Mayan calendar and ways to survive the coming apocalypse.

Of course, Nibiru does not exist. A large planet (or a brown dwarf) in our solar system would have been known to astronomers for decades, both indirectly from its gravitational perturbations on other objects and by direct detection in the infrared. The NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) carried out the first all-sky survey in 1983, which, along with several subsequent surveys, would have seen Nibiru if it was there. However, the Nibiru proponents have asserted that Nibiru was hiding—that it remained behind the Sun for several years or that it could be seen only from the South Pole. Both of these are geometrically absurd statements. Most of the so-called Nibiru photos on the Web are lens flare produced when a camera points at a bright source, an artifact also responsible for many UFO photos. As it approaches Earth, of course, Nibiru should be increasing in brightness. In fact, if it were going to be inside Earth’s orbit in three years, it should have already reached naked-eye visibility, and tens of thousands of astronomers, both amateur and professional, would be tracking it.

As the story grows in complexity, many more doomsday scenarios are being suggested, often unrelated to Nibiru. These include a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, severe solar storms associated with the eleven-year solar cycle (which may peak in 2012), a reversal of Earth’s rotation axis, a 90 degree flip of the rotation axis, bombardment by large comets or asteroids, and bombardment by gamma rays or various unspecified lethal rays coming from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy or the “dark rift” seen in a nearby galactic spiral arm. A major theme has become celestial alignments, which fascinate laypersons. Supposedly, the Sun will align with the galactic center (or maybe with the Milky Way Dark Rift) on December 21, 2012, subjecting us to potentially deadly forces.

All of these pseudoscientific claims, together with distrust of the government, are being amplified by publicity for the new film from Columbia Pictures, titled simply “2012,” to be released in November 2009. The film’s trailer, appearing in theaters and on its Web site www.whowillsurvive2012.com, shows a tidal wave breaking over the Himalayas with only the following words: “How would the governments of our planet prepare 6 billion people for the end of the world? [long pause] They wouldn’t. [long pause] Find out the Truth. Google search 2012.”

The film publicity includes creation of a faux scientific Web site for “The Institute for Human Continuity,” which is entirely fictitious. According to this Web site, the IHC is dedicated to scientific research and public preparedness. Its mission is the survival of mankind, and the Institute was supposedly founded in 1978 by international leaders of government, business, and science. In 2004, it claims, IHC scientists confirmed with 94 percent certainty that the world would be destroyed in 2012. This Web site encourages people to register for a lottery to select those who will be saved; a colleague of mine submitted the name of her cat, which was accepted. I learned from Wikipedia that creating fake Web sites is a recent advertising technique called viral marketing, analogous to computer viruses.

The Nibiru 2012 hoax was initially spread by the Internet. Now at least one TV cable show per week deals with this coming apocalypse. Most of these seem to be on the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. Much of the recent coverage focuses on Nostradamus (who else?), who is now credited with predicting doomsday in 2012. The story has also been reported on Fox News, and I anticipate intensified media coverage over the next three years.

The doomsday scenario is spreading internationally; about half the questions I receive about Nibiru/2012 on my Web site now come from outside the U.S. Many write from India, saying they read about Nibiru in the newspapers. A journalist said that many people in Russia “are anxious by problem Nibiru.” A correspondent from Pakistan wrote, “The propaganda of 2012 is rising day by day. Why is NASA is not condemning these hoax?” The theme of censorship is often raised. One woman asked “why you and your government dont put a ban on the TV shows and report telecasting about Nibiru and 2012. If US can step to protect the world physically from terrorism, why can’t it protect us mentally from these news, if they are hoax?” Another woman pleaded, “I have four little babies and I think all of the human race deserves to know the truth from you ‘experts’. If it’s real then do the right thing; if not quit letting these hoaxes confuse true issues please.”

I continue to receive several email questions every day about Nibiru and 2012, sent to the NASA Web site “Ask an Astrobiologist”. See the sidebar for some examples received during just two weeks in May 2009. Many questioners are frightened, angry, or both. To my surprise, I have not seen much evidence that other scientists or skeptics are concerned about this growing outbreak of pseudoscience. More than a hundred past replies of mine are posted on the astrobiology Web site and also referenced on the NASA home page. A few news blogs such as Yahoo also provide truthful answers, but these are drowned out by the 2012 hysteria. I give credit to Wikipedia, which has several entries on Nibiru, including a very good overview of the pseudoscience under “Nibiru collision.” But questions keep streaming in, and I fear this will not be my last update on this subject.

A year ago last spring, Canada’s second-largest research-granting agency, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), which dispenses around $300 million a year for research projects, clumsily initiated a major controversy about evolution and intelligent design in Canada. The problem centered on the rejection of an application by Brian Alters of McGill University. Alters is one of the world’s foremost authorities on evolution, particularly as it relates to education-he appeared as an expert witness in the recent landmark Dover, Pennsylvania, trial. He proposed to study “the detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution’s intelligent design theory on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators and policymakers."

The rejection in itself was not the problem. Only relatively few projects submitted to SSHRC are approved, and even one from the likes of Alters could be rejected for any number of reasons. The rejection alone would not have created even a ripple. For some reason, however, the adjudication committee that reviewed Alters’s application could not resist, in its statement of rejection, adding the following gratuitous comment:

Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design Theory, was correct. . . .

This is the statement that caused concern among scientists around the world. Was SSHRC buying the creationist ploy of intelligent design, a shallow and obvious strategy to bring religion into the science classroom? Do people at SSHRC really think that the religious idea of intelligent design is just as valid as evolution?

Sometime last year, in a response to the controversy, the SSHRC Web site posted an announcement saying that it did recognize that evolution was a “cornerstone of science.” That was the statement Pendergast recently heard about and construed as a concession, but it was not, and it in fact (deliberately, many of us suspect) obscured the real issue. Of course evolution is a cornerstone of science-even many creationists would agree with that. But is it an idea that is more scientifically sound than intelligent design? Apparently the SSHRC adjudication committee didn't think so.

This SSHRC-induced fiasco has endured for well over a year now with the agency steadfastly refusing to retract or explain the position of its committee in regard to intelligent design. Representatives of the SSHRC have tried various gambits to take the heat off. They have repeatedly said that Alters could always reapply, but that is not the issue. They have frequently made reference to their statement about evolution, but that too avoids the point of concern.

Early in the controversy, instead of simply saying that the committee had erred in its equation, various SSHRC spokespersons only made matters worse. Janet Halliwell, who at that time was SSHRC’s Executive Director, said:

There is a growing belief among scientists that certain phenomena in the natural world may not be easily explained by current theories of evolution. The Research Council supports 'critical inquiry' that challenges scientific doctrine . . . we don't make any blanket assumptions.

A similarly troubling statement was made by Larry Felt, a sociologist from Memorial University in Newfoundland, who was the only member of the adjudication committee to comment publicly:

No one is disputing the theory of evolution . . . a powerful tool not without some difficulties, but nothing that renders it obsolete . . . there are features of the natural world including the rapid development of complex organs that evolution has some trouble accounting for.

In responding to my correspondence to him, Felt referred to that “one damn sentence” that caused all the trouble (the sentence equating evolution and intelligent design), as being “just one of those unintended bit too general statements that opened up multiple interpretations. . . .” On the contrary, as I wrote back to him, “the problem is the exact opposite of that. The 'damn sentence' can mean only one thing-that ID has as much validity as evolution. That is why it is so disturbing to so many people, and that is why so many of us want an answer."

We are still waiting for one. Various groups, such as the American Sociological Association, the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, as well as many individual scientists in Canada and elsewhere, have expressed their concerns to SSHRC, but to no avail. Prompted by the SSHRC affair, one of Canada’s most prestigious scientific associations, The Royal Society of Canada, issued a statement clearly differentiating the religious idea of intelligent design from the scientific idea of evolution.

SSHRC, however, refuses to address the issue of intelligent design and exacerbates its reluctance to do so by arguing that its role is “not to enter into debates on the issues,” which suggests that there is indeed a legitimate debate on the matter. This is fully in accord with the strategy of the creationists, who argue that there is a legitimate scientific controversy and that because intelligent design and evolution are equally valid theories, both should appear-side by side-in school science curricula.

Are the people at SSHRC fundamentalists? This is unlikely, although some have suggested that SSHRC, a federal government agency, may be acting under the influence of Canada’s current right-wing government. More likely, I think, is that this large public agency is in thrall to certain trendy ideas in the social sciences and humanities. There clearly is a large postmodernist contingent in those circles in Canada, as in the United States, which holds that science is an ideology no better and probably worse than other ways of knowing.

One insightful columnist in Canada, in reporting on the SSHRC affair, referred to an “unholy alliance” between the academic left and the religious right. My guess is that something like this is happening at SSHRC, which unfortunately remains firmly in control of research funds for science education in Canada.

So, sadly, there is no victory here at all. This entire affair has been chronicled in detail in several issues of the magazine Humanist Perspectives, and the complete text is available under “Collections” on our Web site, humanistperspectives.org.

It is important that the public have a reasonable understanding of what science is and of what science can and cannot do in helping to settle issues that eventually reach the public square and thus take on a political dimension. Most people understand that science is a process for seeking the truth about how the natural order works. It is the process itself, not the results of applying it, that lies at the heart of science. Fewer people may realize that this process virtually guarantees the integrity of science in the long run even if individual scientists make mistakes, as all occasionally do, or if a (very) rare individual is actually dishonest and falsifies data. This guaranty results not from any intrinsic moral superiority of scientists themselves, but from the fact that research examined by scientific colleagues in the most prestigious medium, the refereed publications, is quickly subjected to ruthless examination for any errors. Those who detect an error often gain as much credit for their scrutiny as those whose work survives it. Scientists who deliberately avoid this scrutiny by publishing their work in less respected media are understandably and properly given less credence for their efforts. History has demonstrated convincingly that the latter work is much more likely to contain serious errors.

Science does not offer certainty. The results of modern science are typically presented in the language of statistics and probabilities. This is especially true of scientific studies of complex phenomena, of which climate science is an excellent example, even though these phenomena remain rooted in the basic laws of nature. Nevertheless, the existence of “uncertainty” has led some individuals less familiar with science to interpret any uncertainty as evidence for “a major scientific controversy” even when there is none. Thus the general public is vulnerable to the claim that a major scientific dispute over climate science is underway between two equally large and well-qualified groups of scientists, when this is simply not so. Often this false claim is made by those who wish to discourage action to address the problems associated with climate change. There are certainly a few scientists of integrity who remain skeptical of the current near consensus, but the interested reader might consider the language of some of the critics and investigate their sources.

The real issue at stake today is what to do in light of what science has uncovered. Here there is a real controversy. One group favors action in response to the alarming evidence that global warming is definitely occurring, most likely driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, while the other side opposes this view for reasons ranging from a few still-unresolved scientific questions to concerns of a more economic and political nature. Typically, the latter group is dominated by those fearing change of the industrial status quo, and they tend to be more vehement in advocating their position.

This leads into two final issues needing comment. The first acknowledges the importance of addressing the economic dislocations and economic opportunities that will result from actions to mitigate the effects of global warming. There is an understandable—not always unwise—human tendency to want to continue with the familiar. This produces a natural inclination to oppose change unless it becomes disastrous not to do so, which can lead to overlooking the many—in this case economic—opportunities associated with pursuing more climate-friendly and eco-friendly technologies. These include many technologies already available, with others undergoing current development that could be accelerated if proper economic incentives were provided. Interested readers can find examples, which I was unable to include in my articles due to space constraints, at www.cfidc.org/opp/jordan.html. The final question I wish to address is what the responsibilities of scientists are in a democracy that, de facto, provides much of the funding for their research. Many working scientists would prefer to have little to do with the political process, yet there is no denying that most scientists today receive much of their support from governments. Performing one’s research with integrity is obviously part of the answer, but is it the full answer? Some would say yes and defend this position by noting that distracting a competent researcher from his or her research is likely to reduce scientific productivity. As one who has both performed and managed research, I agree with this position under most circumstances. However, if major public policies depend on science for their proper formulation, as is true of climate science today, a strong case can be made that it becomes the duty of the scientist to inform the public and the political establishment of the best science available on the issue, especially when there are others exerting a major effort to suppress consideration of it. A historical example was the effort of the atomic scientists following World War II to inform the public of the unprecedented power and appalling destructiveness of nuclear weapons. A growing number of climate scientists, and others in related fields, are engaging in a similar educational effort today. I believe this effort serves the public well, and that it should continue.

Readers might be justified in thinking that a response to it may be a fool’s errand. However, amidst all the invective and misdirection there are instances when Sampson calls into question the fundamental accuracy and truthfulness of the article. Those require a reply.

After two paragraphs of tiresome boilerplate of how besieged Christians are in America, he accuses me of visiting the park “cowardly undercover.” I attended the park like any other visitor would. I paid my admission fee, toured the grounds with the tour group, wandering off a few times but never sneaking anywhere. I was never asked why I was visiting. I was not asked to declare any religious affiliation. I was simply asked how many admissions I wished to purchase. My intention was to provide an honest, accurate picture of what any average visitor to the park would experience. This hardly constitutes a form of cowardice or being undercover.

The same paragraph accuses me of being “less than truthful” regarding Hovind, the park’s founder and builder. All statements regarding Mr. Hovind’s interactions with the criminal and civil courts of Florida and Escambia County are a matter of public record and are available both at the county courthouse and on the Internet at the Clerk of the Court’s Web site. All statements about Hovind’s battle with the IRS were taken from media reports readily accessible on the Internet and from wire services. Hovind was arrested for assault on a parishioner. Hovind’s home and office were raided by the IRS. Hovind has spent over two years and countless taxpayer dollars on a quixotic battle with Escambia County officials over a failure to pay a $50 fee. These are verifiable facts and their sources were listed in the article.

The fourth paragraph compounds a simple error by throwing insults, asserting that the boarded up buildings I witnessed along Old Palafox Road were in that condition because of Hurricane Ivan, which struck Pensacola on September 16, 2004. I visited the park in June 2004. Hurricane Ivan was not a factor in the long stream of boarded up businesses that line Old Palafox Road. The park stands out in its surroundings, and it merited the attention given it. Dinosaur Adventure Land (DAL) is surrounded by empty, abandoned commercial properties, many in disrepair. Its neighbors are a “buy-here-pay-here” used car dealership, auto repair shops, and a pawn shop. The owners and operators of DAL know this and are dishonest in this dodge, hiding behind the fig leaf of a natural disaster.

Interestingly, the next paragraph does not dispute the rather small number of visitors to the park as incorrect, but attempts to inflate the numbers as an example of a successful outreach. Sampson goes on to taunt: “How many students are educated everyday from Skeptical Inquirer?” While I am not sure of precise numbers, adding together the circulation of the magazine, the efforts of staff at CSICOP and the Center for Inquiry for education and outreach via television programs, media appearances, and so on, the number of people educated is considerable. However, I am certain of the number of visitors educated at DAL: zero. There is simply no education to be found at the park.

Sampson accuses me of launching ad hominem attacks against Hovind, trying to discredit creationism by discrediting Hovind and not directly addressing creationism’s “science.” He defends Hovind and creationism by posing a hypothetical: “Suppose an algebra teacher was convicted of theft and eventually sent to jail. Does that mean algebra is therefore disproved?” My brief biographical sketch of Hovind did not intend to discredit creationism by association. Creationism is a fiction no matter who its proponent. My intention was to provide a snapshot portrait of the scofflaw who built the park I went on to describe in great detail.

Sampson wrongfully accuses the magazine and myself of fraud, insisting that my description of the park is not true. He states: “Later, Martinez claims to have taken pictures of the Dinosaur Adventure Land grounds. Unsurprisingly he fails to include them in his article, but instead only prints an outdated picture of the early stages of DAL’s creation museum building number 5. If Martinez included pictures of DAL grounds with the claims he’s making, it would be all too clear that he’s purposely painting an inaccurate portrait.”

During my visit in June 2004, I took more than 115 digital and film photographs of Dinosaur Adventure Land. The Skeptical Inquirer chose to run only three of them due to space considerations, more than the number Sampson incorrectly states. The photograph of the Creation Museum Sampson attacks as outdated was taken in June 2004, along with all the other images in the article. The top photograph on page 48 is of the actual pamphlet travelers in Florida’s Panhandle can pick up as an advertisement of the park. Their own advertisement depicts the “Fossil Dig” pit, the science center, the “Circle Swivel Springasaurus,” and the “Dinosaur Hunt.” All these are described accurately in the article.

Sampson is particularly exercised about my depiction of the tour guides at DAL. He states his pride in their ministering to the guests. Their quiet physical intimidation of guests at the park is more of a piece with the sales techniques of used car lots than the ministry. He also misses the point of the passage in which I describe eavesdropping on the conversation of a group of guides. He objected that I appeared to be mocking them for discussing scripture in a Christian park. The point I was making was that here were a group of young men, early in their adult lives, passing time by enthusiastically criticizing another branch of the Christian religion. It was difficult to reconcile all the earlier talk of Jesus and love with the “down-time” religious chauvinism I heard.

Sampson wraps up his indictment of my article by continuing to assert that it is a sloppy hatchet job that distorts the many valuable lessons DAL imparts to its visitors and lies about the contents of the park. He makes these claims despite the fact that he knows the descriptions are correct. He claims that a current and accurate photograph is outdated. He claims that the park’s surroundings are in disrepair due to a hurricane when he knows that the deterioration of these buildings predate the storm.

He keeps up a steady drumbeat of mocking the piece because it does nothing to disprove creationism scientifically. That was never the intention. This magazine has published many other articles by some of the finest scientists in the world effectively demolishing creationism as the pseudoscience it is. It should have been obvious to most readers that this was intended as descriptive reporting, and done in an intentionally deadpan style so that the absurdity of the place would shine through. This piece was carefully researched, reported, and written, and I stand by every word of it.

Sampson perpetrates a shabby sham of a rebuttal to my piece, and distorts what the article actually states and reports. Sampson should have included a link to the actual article on the Skeptical Inquirer Web page so that his visitors could have read the article for themselves. But then Hovind and his Dinosaur Adventure Land have never been about accuracy and honesty.

You'll recall that this all started more than three years earlier, when The New York Times reported on October 2, 2001, that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had made an astonishing discovery: faith healing actually works. Physicians used meticulous scientific methods to demonstrate that distant Christian prayers from the United States, Canada, and Australia increased the success rate of infertility treatments in Korea by 100 percent.

The media touted the astounding results, but to some readers it sounded preposterous. Within weeks of the “miraculous” study’s publication it became clear that something was indeed very wrong. The Journal of Reproductive Medicine (JRM), which published the study (K.Y. Cha, D.P. Wirth, and R.A. Lobo, “Does prayer influence the success of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer?” 46:781-787, 2001), not only refused to publish letters critical of it, they refused to even acknowledge their receipt. As months went by the JRM steadfastly refused to respond to e-mails, calls, or letters about the study.

The JRM editors were not the only ones remaining silent. The study’s authors also refused to respond to questions about their apparently miraculous results. In December 2001 an investigation of Columbia University by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) revealed that the study’s lead author, Dr. Rogerio Lobo, first learned of the study six to twelve months after the study was completed. Professor Lobo subsequently denied having anything to do with the study’s design or conduct and claimed to have provided only editorial assistance. A year later study co-author Daniel Wirth was indicted by a federal grand jury on felony fraud charges involving various criminal activities.

The following significant events have occurred since my SI article was published. I comment accordingly.

Study co-author Daniel Wirth

On November 22, 2004, study co-author Daniel Wirth was sentenced to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release (parole). At the conclusion of his sentencing hearing Mr. Wirth was taken into United States Marshal custody pending his transfer to a federal prison.

The Journal of Reproductive Medicine and co-author Dr. Kwang Cha

The following “Erratum” was buried on the very last page of the October 2004 issue of the JRM:

Erratum

In the article “Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer? Report of a Masked, Randomized Trial,” by Kwang Y.Cha, MD, Daniel P. Wirth, JD, MS, and Rogerio A. Lobo, MD (2001;46:781-787), Dr. Lobo is listed as an author of the article and has requested that his name be deleted, as his name appears in error. He was not directly involved in conducting the research reported in the article; he was involved principally in redaction of the manuscript for stylistic and syntactic purposes. This alteration is in keeping with JRM authorship requirements.

How does one’s name appear, “in error” on a publication? Apparently everyone who reviewed the manuscript and everyone who reviewed the galley proofs, including the authors, peer-reviewers, and editors, did not notice this “error.” On the other hand, perhaps this is not so surprising since these same individuals did not notice that the study lacked any type of informed consent and claimed results that defy the laws of physics and several other fundamental scientific principles!

In November 2004, after three years of ignoring letters critical of the Cha/Wirth/Lobo study, the JRM took the unprecedented step of publishing a 1,000-word letter from Dr. Cha defending his absurd study. Thus, to the utter amazement of many readers, JRM allowed Dr. Cha to unilaterally present his side of the story unencumbered by critical comments from concerned physicians and scientists. The readers of JRM were thus partially informed of the controversy surrounding the study but only to convince them that any criticisms they may have read about in newspapers were unwarranted.

Among the highlights of Dr. Cha’s published letter is the statement that “It is regrettable that co-author Daniel P. Wirth has been accused of fraud. . . .” Cha also refers to “this alleged crime.” This implies that, regrettably, Mr. Wirth may have been falsely accused. Nothing could be further from the truth. Six months before Cha’s letter was published Mr. Wirth had pleaded guilty to all crimes contained in a forty-six-page federal indictment thus admitting to a twenty-year history of criminal fraudulent activities. Dr. Cha went on to defend the study’s convoluted study design by stating that Mr. Wirth felt it was the best design to use. This is nothing more than an argument from authority-"It’s fine because the authority says it’s fine.” However, in this case the authority is a convicted felon with a degree in parapsychology (ghostbusting) and a long history of publishing bizarre studies!

Finally, Dr. Cha repeatedly stated that it would have been “impossible” for Mr. Wirth to have influenced the outcome of this study and that “There is no reason to think that Mr. Wirth would have been motivated not to organize prayer groups when such groups are his area of interest.” How does the fact that Mr. Wirth has an interest in prayer groups prove that he did anything at all? The federal indictment makes it clear that Mr. Wirth was perpetrating several criminal schemes involving millions of dollars at the time the Cha/Wirth/Lobo study was allegedly conducted. In the midst of this criminal activity are we to believe that Mr. Wirth took the extensive time and effort needed to meticulously organize and manage several levels of prayer groups in three nations? Does Dr. Cha seriously believe that the idea that Mr. Wirth did not do so is impossible? Perhaps this explains why Dr. Cha will not answer questions about the study.

Columbia University and co-author Dr. Rogerio Lobo

Soon after publication of the SI critique of the study, Columbia University assembled a team of physicians and scientists to investigate the situation. However, on December 1, 2004, Columbia released a statement saying that the medical school “supports Dr. Rogerio Lobo’s decision to remove his name” from the paper. This move had already been announced by the JRM and seemed like a reasonable first step. However, to the surprise of many scientists, the university simultaneously announced that Dr. Lobo’s decision would put an end to the investigation of the study by the medical school’s Committee on the Conduct of Science. This unprecedented move implied that the controversy surrounding the ridiculous study involved only questions of authorship. This, of course, is absolutely not true. The real issue is that the study was absurd, flawed, possibly fraudulent, and claimed to document mysterious supernatural and/or paranormal events. Removing one author’s name from the paper resolved nothing. In any case, this maneuver did not successfully distance Columbia from the scandal because co-author Kwang Cha was also at Columbia when the study was published; in fact, he was head of the now defunct Cha/Columbia Infertility Center.

In the final analysis it is not the behavior of Mr. Wirth but that of individuals at Columbia University and the JRM that have seriously damaged the reputation of science and evidence-based medicine. Peer-review systems at both institutions have completely failed. As we enter the fourth year of this saga it is becoming apparent that some individuals will never admit their mistakes. In any case, the former Cha/Wirth/Lobo miracle study is now the Cha/Wirth miracle study. Dr. Cha will not answer questions about the scandal and Mr. Wirth has just been sentenced to five years in federal prison. Their ludicrous “study” will remain in the peer-reviewed Journal of Reproductive Medicine, will remain indexed in Pubmed-MEDLINE, and will continue to be cited as valid scientific evidence for the power of supernatural faith healing. This is a scientific atrocity.

Hyman is a distinguished professor emeritus from the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon, who has had a longstanding career as a skeptic focused on uncovering potential flaws in parapsychology research. Hyman is well skilled in carefully going through the conventional checklist of potential sources of experimental errors and limitations in research designs.

Hyman’s overall appraisal of the research conducted to date is implied by his conclusion: “Probably no other extended program in psychical research deviates so much from accepted norms of scientific methodology as does this one.”

Is Hyman’s summary conclusion based upon a thorough review of the total body of research? Or does it reflect the systematic ignoring of important historical, procedural, and empirical facts--a cognitive bias used by the reviewer in order to maintain his belief that the phenomenon in question is impossible? As I document below, Hyman resorts to (consciously and / or unconsciously) selectively ignoring important information that is inconsistent with his personal beliefs.

Selective ignoring of facts is not acceptable in science. It reflects a bias that obviates the purpose of research and disallows new discoveries. I have made the statement that the survival consciousness hypothesis does account for the totality of the research data to date. Of course, this does not make the survival hypothesis the only or correct hypothesis--my statement reflects the status of the evidence to date, not necessarily the truth about the underlying process. This is why more research is needed.

Note that I do not use the word “believe” in relationship to the statement. This is not a belief. It is an empirical observation derived from experiments.

It is correct that some of the single-blind and double-blind studies have weaknesses--we discuss the experimental limitations at some length in our published papers as well as in The Afterlife Experiments. However, these weaknesses do not justify dismissing the totality of the data as mistaken or meaningless. Quite the contrary, an honest and accurate analysis reveals that the data, in total, deserve serious consideration.

Our research presents all the findings--the hits and the misses, the creative aspects of the designs and their limitations--so that the reader can make an accurate and informed decision. What we strive for is seeking the truth as reflected in Harvard’s motto “Veritas.”

I appreciate Hyman’s effort to outline some of the possible errors and limitations in the mediumship experiments discussed in The Afterlife Experiments. However, as Hyman emphasizes in his review, I do “strongly disagree” with him about his interpretations. The two fundamental disagreements I have with Hyman’s arguments are:

1. Hyman has chosen to ignore numerous historical, procedural, and empirical facts that are inconsistent with his interpretive descriptions of our experiments; and
2. Hyman has chosen not to acknowledge the totality of the findings following Occam’s heuristic principle as a means of integrating the total set of findings collected to date.

Space precludes my providing a detailed and thorough commentary here illustrating how pervasively Hyman ignores and omits important information. (An extensive commentary has been published on various Web sites, including www.openmindsciences.com.) Four samples of important ignored facts are provided below.

Selective Ignoring of Historical, Procedural, and Empirical Facts

Veritas 1: In his review, Hyman failed to mention the important historical fact that our mediumship research actually began with double-blind experimental designs. For example, the published experiment referred to in The Afterlife Experiments as “From Here To There and Back Again” with Susy Smith and Laurie Campbell was completed almost a year before we conducted the more naturalistic multi-medium/multi-sitter experiments involving John Edward, Suzanne Northrop, George Anderson, Anne Gehman, and Laurie Campbell. The early Smith-Campbell double-blind studies did not suffer from possible subtle visual or auditory sensory leakage or rater bias--and strong positive findings were obtained.

Our decision to subsequently conduct more naturalistic designs (which are inherently less controlled), was made partially for practical reasons (e.g., developing professional trust with highly visible mediums) and partly for scientific ones (e.g., we wished to examine under laboratory conditions how mediumship is often conducted in the field).

Conclusion: Hyman makes a factually erroneous criticism when he reports that double-blind experiments were initiated only late in our research program, and therefore makes a serious interpretative mistake when he decides that all the early data can be dismissed because they were not conducted double-blind.

Veritas 2: In an exploratory double-blind long distance mediumship experiment where George Dalzell (GD) was one of six sitters and Laurie Campbell (LC) was the medium, Hyman states “because nothing significant was found, the results do not warrant claiming a successful replication of previous findings.”

However, Hyman minimizes the fact that the number of subjects in this exploratory experiment was small (n=6). More importantly, Hyman fails to cite a important conclusion that we reached in the discussion: “If the binary 66 percent figure approximates (1) LC’s actual ability to conduct double-blind readings, coupled with (2) the six sitter’s ability, on the average, to score transcripts double-blind, the 66 percent figure would require only an n of 25 sitters to reach statistical significance (e.g., p < .01).”

Hyman fails to mention that NIH, for example, requires that investigators who apply for research grants calculate statistical power and sample size to determine what n is required to obtain a statistically significant result. This is accepted scientific practice and is required for obtaining NIH funding.

Conclusion: Hyman would rather dismiss the fact that the highly accurate ratings obtained in the single-blind published study for GD were indeed replicated in the double-blind published study, than to admit the possibility that individual differences in sitter characteristics are an important and genuine factor in mediumship research.

Veritas 3: It is curious that among the many examples of readings provided in The Afterlife Experiments, one early subset (cluster/pattern) of facts happened to fit Hyman nicely. It is true that mention of the “Big H,” a “father-like figure,” an “HN sound” would fit Hyman’s father like it did the sitter’s husband mentioned in the book.

Hyman chose not to report the fact that many other pieces of specific information also reported for the “Big H” did not fit Hyman but did fit the sitter precisely. Moreover, Hyman consistently failed to report scores of examples from readings reported verbatim in the book that were highly unusual and unique to individual sitters (e.g., John Edward seeing a deceased grandmother having two large poodles, a black one and a white one, and the white one “tore up the house”).

Conclusion: The reason Hyman failed to mention these numerous examples is because they contradict the conclusion Hyman chose to accept--that the information, by chance, could fit multiple sitters--an erroneous conclusion that can be reached only if we do what Hyman did and accept the information selectively.

Veritas 4: Hyman’s conclusion that experienced cold readers can readily replicate the kinds of specific information obtained under the conditions of our experiments is mistaken at best and deceptive at worst.

Under experimental conditions where (a) professional cold readers do not know the identity of the sitters (i.e., cheating is ruled out), and (b) cold readers are not allowed to see or speak with the sitters (i.e., cueing and feedback is ruled out), it is (c) impossible for cold readers to use whatever pre-obtained sitter specific information they might have obtained, and (d) impossible for cold readers to use their feedback tricks to help them get information from the sitters.

At the two-day meeting I convened in Los Angeles of seven highly experienced professional mentalist magicians and cold readers, they all agreed that they could not apply their conventional mentalist tricks under these strict experimental conditions. However, a vocal subset (Hyman was one of the three), made the unsubstantiated claim that if they had a year or two to practice, they might be able to figure out a way how to fake what the mediums were doing.

My response to this vocal subset was simple. It was “show me.” Just as I don't take the claims of the mediums on faith, I don't take the claims of the magicians on faith either. I am a researcher. Mentalist magicians who make these claims will have to “sit in the research chair” and show us that they can do what they claim they can do.

Thus far, the few cold readers who have made these claims have refused to be experimentally tested. They have been unwilling to demonstrate in the laboratory that they can't do what the mediums do under these experimental conditions; and they have been unwilling to demonstrate at a later date that their performance can improve substantially with practice.

Conclusion: The claim that cold reading can account for the research findings is not supported when the experimental procedures are honestly taken into account.

Failure to Integrate Information and Appreciate the Process of Discovery

In most areas of science, no single experiment is perfect or complete. Different experiments address different conditions and different alternative explanations to different degrees. The challenge is to connect the dots of the available data and integrate the complex set of findings using the fewest number of explanations (i.e., Occam’s razor).

Hyman reveals in his review that he learned as a teenager that it was easy for him to fool many people with palm reading. It is also quite easy to fool many people with fake mediumship, as anyone trained in cold reading will tell you. I have studied a number of books on cold reading and have taken some classes on cold reading myself. However, just because it is possible sometimes to be fooled (especially by the masters of magic) doesn't mean that everyone is fooling you.

Hyman reluctantly agrees that it is improbable that the totality of our findings can be explained by fraud. As a result, his preference is to propose that the set of findings collected to date must involve a complex set of subtle cues providing information in some studies, cold reading techniques being used in some studies, rater bias providing inflated scores in some studies, and chance findings in some studies. The idea that mediums might be obtaining anomalous information that can most simply and parsimoniously be explained in terms of the continuance of consciousness is presumed categorically to be false by Hyman until proven otherwise.

I make no such categorical assumptions, one way or the other. To me the question of whether or not mediums are obtaining anomalous information is a purely scientific one, to be revealed through a program of systematic research. Such research must be conducted by multiple laboratories. The reason for publishing findings, as they emerge, is to encourage other investigators to conduct their own experiments, and then integrate the totality of the findings.

However, the truth is, it is impossible to integrate the totality of the findings in any area of science if one selectively (consciously or unconsciously) ignores those specific findings that do not fit one’s preferences or biases.

Scientific Integrity and Changing One’s Beliefs

I admit, quite adamantly, that I do have one fundamental bias--my bias is to use the scientific method to discover the truth, whatever it is. Discovering the truth cannot be achieved through selective reporting of history, procedures, and data.

So what is the truth at the present time, based upon the available data? When the totality of the history, procedures, and findings to date are examined honestly and comprehensively--not selectively sampled to fit one’s particular theoretical bias--something anomalous appears to be occurring in the mediumship research, at least with a select group of evidence-based mediums.

Over and over, from experiment to experiment, findings have been observed that deserve the term extraordinary. In our latest double-blind, multi-center experiments, stable individual differences in sitters have been observed that replicate across laboratories and experiments. The observations are not going away--even with multi-center, double-blind testing.

Hyman once told me, “I have no control over my beliefs.” When I asked him what he would conclude if a perfect large sample multi-center double-blind experiment was conducted, his response was, “I would want to see your major multi-center, double-blind experiment replicated a few times by other centers before drawing any conclusions.”

This conversation is revealing psychologically. Until multiple perfect experiments are performed and published, Hyman would rather believe that the totality of the findings must be due to some combination of fraud, cold reading, rater bias, experimenter error, or chance--even if this requires that he selectively ignores important aspects of the history, designs, and findings in order to hold on to his belief that he (or we) are being “fooled.”

Why spend the time and money conducting multiple multi-center, double-blind experiments unless there are sufficient theoretical, experimental, and social reasons for doing so?

The critical question is, “Is it possible that consistent with the actual totality of the data collected to date--viewed historically (e.g., the observations of William James) as well as across disciplines (e.g., from anthropology to astrophysics)--that future research may lead us to come to the conclusion that consciousness is intimately related to energy and information, and that consciousness, as an expression of dynamically patterned energy and information, persists in space like the light from distant stars?”

This is ultimately an empirical question; it will be answered by data, one way or the other. If positive data are obtained--and I emphasize if--accepting the data will require that we be able to change our beliefs as a function of what the data reveal. The Afterlife Experiments was written to encourage people to keep an open mind about what the future research may reveal.

Epilogue: What is a Magazine’s Responsibility?

If the Skeptical Inquirer wishes to be viewed as being a credible publication, more like the Philadelphia Inquirer than the National Enquirer, it should take responsibility for fact checking its articles and correcting mistakes caused by simple errors and/or the selective ignoring of important information.

For example, Hyman’s review begins by stating that I was a professor at Yale University for twenty-eight years--the fact is, I was at Yale for twelve years. If the Skeptical Inquirer had not chosen to keep Hyman’s review secret, and had asked me to fact check Hyman’s review, I would have gladly done so, and therefore enabled both the magazine and the reviewer to correct at least the obvious errors of fact. Clearly, little mistakes, compounded by big mistakes, do not make for a credible publication or review.

I am taking a strong position about accuracy of reporting here not because of the ultimate validity of the survival hypothesis (i.e., whether it is true or not, since that is an experimental question) but because of the nature of scientific reviewing process itself.

The selective ignoring and omission of important information cannot be condoned in either reviewing or publishing. It must be exposed and understood, regardless of the specific research area that is being reviewed or the specific person doing the reviewing.

Note that my argument is not with Hyman as a person, nor with the Skeptical Inquirer as a publication. My concern is about the process by which Hyman has written his review, and the responsibility of Skeptical Inquirer to decrease the likelihood that this kind of mistaken review will be published in the future. There is a bigger lesson here. It is worth considering, and correcting.

Acknowledgments

I thank a number of my colleagues who have graciously taken the time to provide me with useful feedback about this commentary. They include Peter Hayes, Ph.D., Katherine Creath, Ph.D., Stephen Grenard, Ph.D., Donald Watson, M.D., Emily Kelly, Ph.D., Lonnie Nelson, M.A., and Montague Keen. The comments provided here are those of the author, not necessarily those of my colleagues.

1. "Hyman resorts to . . . selectively ignoring important information that is inconsistent with his personal beliefs."

In preparing my critique of his research program, I not only read The Afterlife Experiments carefully, I also scrutinized in detail every report of his research that was available. It was not possible to discuss each separate piece of information in my critique. I took each item into account, however, in making my assessment of the research. I chose to focus my discussions on those items that Schwartz and his colleagues had emphasized as the strongest outcomes amongst their findings. I have refereed and reviewed research reports for more than fifty years for many of the major scientific publications and for major granting agencies. I applied the same standards to my evaluation of the afterlife experiments that I have used in my other assessments.

2. ". . . Hyman failed to mention the important historical fact that our mediumship research actually began with double-blind experimental designs."

As his example he refers to his experiment with the mediums Susy Smith and Laurie Campbell that "was completed almost a year before we conducted the more naturalistic multi-medium/multi-sitter experiments involving John Edward, Suzanne Northrop, George Anderson, Anne Gehman, and Laurie Campbell. The early Smith-Campbell double-blind studies did not suffer from possible subtle visual or auditory sensory leakage or rater bias — and strong positive findings were obtained."

This is a peculiar example to use as a model of a controlled, double-blind experiment. The experiment involved having Susy Smith, designated as Medium One, apparently contact four deceased persons: her own mother, William James, Linda Russek’s father, and Schwartz’s father. Smith made a drawing for each of these departed individuals supposedly with their input. She also made a "control" drawing. Laurie Campbell, designated as Medium Two, was then requested to independently attempt to contact these departed individuals and, using the information obtained from them, to try to match each drawing to the associated departed individual. Campbell attempted to contact the departed entities during two sessions in the presence of three experimenters. Campbell is described as being "blind" to personalities of the four departed individuals. However Schwartz, who was not blind to the personalities of these entities, was not only present during these sessions but actively trying to convey this information (through  "telepathy") to Campbell. This unnecessary blunder compromises whatever blinding would have existed between Medium Two and the personalities of the departed individuals. No psychic investigator would be surprised if Laurie Campbell came up with some correct information such as the gender and other descriptors of the departed individuals under these conditions.

Another defect of this phase of the experiment is that no provisions were made to use a systematic and objective method for assessing the accuracy of Medium Two’s descriptions. The evaluation of the information for this stage of the experiment was subjective.

During the sittings with Medium Two, all the experimenters were blind as to which drawing was associated with which departed individual. (Although it is plausible that one might be able to make some reasonable guesses, given the characters of each of the departed individuals, which type of drawing would go with each one.) Unfortunately, the experimenters then make another serious, and completely unnecessary, blunder when it came time to see if Medium Two could accurately match the drawings with the appropriate individual. The experimenters brought Medium Two and Medium One together.  Medium One then displayed the drawings she had made to represent each individual. Medium Two then attempted to match the drawings to the appropriate sources in the presence of Medium One. Ironically, the experimenters openly admit that this could allow clues about the correct matching through the "Clever Hans" phenomenon. They dismiss this as possibility because Campbell was able to correctly match only one of the five drawings to its appropriate source.

At this point in the experiment the report becomes especially murky. Presumably, the experiment has failed. However, the experimenters inexplicably have Medium Two try again to match the drawings to their appropriate source. This second attempt is made after she is shown an explicit summary of her comments about the pictures and the departed individuals. Campbell correctly matches the five drawings (including the control) in this second attempt. No reason is given for giving the medium two tries at matching the drawings, nor do the experimenters tell us how they justify asking the medium to redo her matching. Probably these and other questionable aspects of the procedure are moot given that the possibility of blinding was compromised.

Schwartz and his colleagues, in their published paper, describe this as an "exploratory study." The proceedings seem to have been improvised at each stage. Certainly, no competent investigator would plan to unnecessarily compromise experimental blinding at the two most critical points of the data collection. Nor does it make sense to design an experiment wherein the medium is given two chances at getting the matching correct. I simply was applying the principle of charity in not discussing this botched experiment.

3. "In an exploratory double-blind long-distance mediumship experiment . . . Hyman states 'because nothing significant was found, the results do not warrant claiming a successful replication of previous findings.’ However, Hyman minimizes the fact that the number of subjects in this exploratory experiment was small (n=6). More importantly, Hyman fails to cite a(n) important conclusion that we reached in the discussion: If the binary 66 percent figure approximates (1) LC’s actual ability to conduct double-blind readings, coupled with (2) the six sitters’ ability, on the average, to score transcripts double-blind, the 66 percent figure would require only an n of 25 sitters to reach statistical significance (e.g. < .01)."

This part of Schwartz’s rebuttal, like all the other parts, strikes me as both bizarre and off the mark. First, we need to clear up some mistakes and/or misunderstandings. Schwartz confuses the sample statistic with the population (or hypothesized true value). Given twenty-five sitters and a sample outcome of seventeen correct identifications (success rate of 68 percent) of their actual readings (which, given the discrete nature of the binomial distribution is the closest we can get to 66 percent correct) the one-tailed probability would be .054 and not less than .01 as Schwartz claims. Regardless of the correct probability value here, this has little to do with power. Schwartz is hypothesizing that the true (population) proportion of correct binary choices in this situation is close to the 67 percent (4 out of 6) that he observed in his sample. If, indeed, this value is correct, then, given his use of a one-tailed test and a significance level of .01, the probability of getting a significant outcome with twenty-five sitters would be slightly more than 0.54. To have a reasonable power (say close to 90 percent) one would need over 100 sitters.

Schwartz appears to be begging the question here. He begins by observing that four out of six sitters correctly identified which of two readings was meant for them. Because of the small sample, this outcome is consistent with a number of possibilities including the chance value of 50 percent. If he had obtained the same proportion of correct hits with a larger sample, then it would have been significant. However, since we cannot tell what the true proportion is from a sample outcome based on only six cases, we have no basis for predicting the outcome for a larger sample. His argument reduces to the trivial one: If the true proportion is 67 percent then we will be able to get a significant outcome with a larger sample. From his actual outcome, we can just as well say: If the true proportion is 50 percent (and this, too, is consistent with his data), then he will very likely not get a significant outcome with a larger sample.

I find it difficult to understand why Schwartz considers this point worthy of mention. Of course a binary outcome with only six trials has very low sensitivity. However, he did not rely on this outcome. He used two other measures, the number of dazzle shots and the hits and misses, which are clearly much more sensitive. These also failed to provide overall significance. For these measures (as well as for the actual choice of the relevant reading), the overall sensitivity would have been greatly enhanced if each sitter actually rated all six readings. In addition to greatly enhanced sensitivity, this would have avoided the unfortunate situation where each sitter was rating his or her own reading against a foil that differed for each rater. Another plus would have been the opportunity to determine which readings had more general appeal independent of any specific information peculiar to a given sitter.

In his longer rebuttal to my critique which he posted on the Web (see his reference in his rebuttal) Schwartz claims he actually predicted that GD would successfully differentiate his own reading from the accompanying foil reading. The claim that this particular outcome was predicted does not square with the opening sentence of the report wherein the experimenters state, "This paper reports an unanticipated replication and extension. . . ."

I have already pointed out in my critique how Schwartz has an unusually liberal interpretation of "replication." Not only is the statistical and experimental evidence suspect, but the qualitative analysis of the actual reading for GD in the second experiment does not overlap in any important respect with the reading in the earlier experiment. In particular, none of the apparently striking examples of names, events, and places that are reported for the first reading are in the second reading. I agree with Schwartz that the outcome of this "double blind" experiment is consistent with "individual differences in sitter characteristics." However, borrowing from Schwartz’s propensity to resort to Occam’s Razor, I believe it is prudent to suggest a much more mundane explanation. We need only assume two very plausible and non-extraordinary assumptions to account for the results: 1) Luck: GD had a 50-50 chance of choosing the correct reading; 2) Rater bias: given that he has chosen the correct reading, he would show a strong response bias to give high marks to the chosen reading and low marks to the rejected one. Note that this is consistent with the qualitative evidence that I provided in my critique. However, note that the burden of proof is not upon the critic to show that this explanation is correct. Rather, the burden of proof should be on Schwartz to show, as the claimant, that he has ruled out this and other possible mundane explanations. This is what good experimental methodology, which is so far lacking in the afterlife experiments, is intended to accomplish.

Unfortunately, I do not have space to respond to other specifics of Schwartz’s rebuttal. In his rebuttal he attributes motives, preferences, and biases to me. These are based on assumption unsupported by facts. For example, he characterizes me as "reluctantly" agreeing that fraud is unlikely. In fact, I have no reluctance at all to make such an assertion. He attributes certain preferences to me that are, in some cases, just not true. He also is factually incorrect on some matters. He says that I was one of the group of cold readers who declared that I could, with training, duplicate what his mediums had accomplished in his laboratory. This is wrong. I deliberately refrained from such a commitment. My major point during the meeting with him on cold reading was that the determination of whether his mediums are using cold reading is a separate matter from the question of whether they were conveying any information of a paranormal nature. If he wanted to study the role of cold reading in the readings given by his mediums, that was an experimental goal that was separate from determining if his mediums are providing evidence for the survival of consciousness.

Nor did I conclude, contrary to Schwartz’s implication, that his mediums were using cold reading. I did observe — and I specifically emphasized that this was a subjective opinion — that I could see little difference between the utterings of his mediums and those of the typical psychic reader. I want to emphasize again, it is not for me, or other critics, to show that his mediums are using cold reading or some other ploys. The burden of proof is on Schwartz to show that he has convincingly eliminated such possibilities.

So far as I can tell, Schwartz has really not answered my criticisms. A close reading reveals that he does not deny the various failings I have divulged in his research. Instead, he defends the departures from proper experimental methodology on a number of grounds: 1) he and his colleagues were aware of these defects and actually admitted so in their reports (but such admissions do not somehow neutralize the defects); 2) there were practical reasons such as wanting to provide a more naturalistic context (but this does not excuse using inappropriate control comparisons, failing to correct for rater bias, using inappropriate probability and statistical computations, etc.); 3) some of the "defects" were deliberately included to check on certain questions (but this does not justify drawing strong conclusions); and 4) that taken in their totality the experiments somehow provide powerful evidence for anomalous communication even if the individual experiments are flawed (actually, repeatedly making similar mistakes from experiment to experiment compounds rather than compensates for the errors).

Despite the deficiencies in his experiments, Schwartz seems convinced that his mediums have provided, in some cases, specific and unique information including names, places, etc., that the critics cannot explain away. For one thing, these apparently specific items are much fuzzier than he believes. His examples are selected just because they appeared to contain such specifics. This raises the difficult question of how to actually assess how much of this is just coincidence. Furthermore, even the most specific and concrete match is problematical because practically no constraints are placed upon the sitter in finding a suitable match (e.g., it can be a dead or a living person; it can be someone close to the sitter or a mere acquaintance; etc.). No actual check is made as to how close the match actually is. My point here is that Schwartz really has provided us with nothing to explain. We do not know if he has produced anything worth taking seriously until he can convincingly demonstrate that he has obtained his data under methodologically appropriate conditions. Science demands this in the conventional fields of inquiry. We should demand no less from Schwartz.

Two recent articles in the Skeptical Inquirer have claimed that the feeling of being stared at is an illusion. Both have attempted to refute my own experimental research on the subject, which indicates that many people do indeed have an unexplained ability to detect stares.

A variety of surveys have shown that most people believe they can feel unseen stares (Sheldrake 1994). In his article ”Can we tell when someone is staring at us?” (March/April 2000 SI) Robert A. Baker, a CSICOP Fellow, dismissed this belief as false. “Skeptics . . . believe that it is nothing more than a superstition and/or a response to subtle signals from the environment” (Baker 2000, p. 40). He claimed to provide empirical evidence to support his presuppositions.

David Marks (also a CSICOP Fellow) and John Colwell in their article ”The Psychic Staring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization” (September/ October 2000 SI) claimed that my own results were an artifact arising from one of the randomization procedures I have followed: “When random sequences are used people can detect staring at no better than chance rates,” they asserted. In this article I show that this claim is not true. Both papers are seriously flawed, and neither stands up to skeptical scrutiny.

Baker’s “Demonstrations”

For his first demonstration Baker selected people who were engrossed in eating or drinking, watching TV, working at computer terminals or reading in the University of Kentucky library. He unobtrusively positioned himself behind them and stared at them. He then introduced himself and asked them to fill in a response sheet.

Baker’s prediction was that people engrossed in an activity would “never” attend to a sensation of being stared at. Thirty-five out of forty people checked the expected response: “During the last 5 minutes I was totally unaware that anyone was looking at me.” But two people reported that they had been aware that they were “being observed and stared at” and three reported they felt something was “wrong.” Baker noted that while he was staring at these very subjects, “All three stood up, looked around, shifted their position several times and appeared to be momentarily distracted on a number of occasions.”

The answers of these five people went against Baker’s prediction, so he retrospectively introduced another criterion. He ruled that subjects should be able to say where he had been sitting when he was looking at them. None could. He regarded their inability to do so as a “good reason to believe that they were . . . not aware that they were being viewed” (Baker 2000, p. 40). But this begs the question. A sensitivity to being stared at does not necessarily imply an awareness of the position of the starer.

To complete his analysis, Baker “discarded” the results from the two people who said they knew they had been stared at. He regarded them as “suspect” because one claimed she was constantly being spied on, and the other claimed he had extrasensory ability. But if the sense of being stared at really exists, people with paranoid tendencies might be more sensitive than most (Sheldrake 1994), and so might people who claim to have extrasensory abilities.

In Baker’s second demonstration subjects were looked at from behind by Baker himself, together with a student, at random intervals, and asked to say when they thought they were being looked at. They were told that they would be stared at for five one-minute periods during a twenty-minute trial. In accordance with his expectations, he found that their guesses were no better than chance.

Why were these results so different from the consistently positive and statistically significant effects obtained by myself and others, even when subjects were blindfolded and separated from starers by closed windows (Sheldrake 2000)? There are several relevant differences in procedure.

In my own experimental design, in a series of 20 trials there were more or less equal numbers of control and looking trials, whereas in Baker’s there were 15 control and only 5 looking one-minute periods. This peculiar feature precluded a straightforward statistical analysis of the results. Each subject was allowed only five guesses as to when they were being looked at. If guesses were entirely random, misses would be three times more probable than hits.

In my experiments each trial lasted only about 10 seconds, but Baker used 60-second trial periods. In preliminary tests, I found that subjects gave the highest percentage of correct guesses when they were asked to guess quickly, without spending much time thinking about their response.

Baker also introduced three different sources of distraction for his subjects:

1. Beside each time on the specimen score sheet shown in Baker’s paper there was a pair of unexplained numbers, for example: 0801 1&2; 0802 2&3 (Baker, 2000, p. 38). I wrote to Baker to ask for a clarification, but his reply confused matters further. He said that the times shown on his specimen time-sheet “were not on the subject’s time-sheet at all-since they, of course, would differ from subject to subject. The 1&2 indicates the first minute, the numbers 2&3 indicates the second minute of the time-period, etc.”

   If I had been one of Baker’s subjects, I would have been at a loss to understand his instructions. If I thought I was being stared at, to start with I would have had to calculate from the clock in which minute this happened. Then I would have had to decide where to write my response. Say I felt I was being stared at in the seventh minute. Would I write my response on the line labeled 6&7 or on the line labeled 7&8?

2. The instructions published by Baker are self-contradictory. He says that the subjects were told that there would be five one-minute staring periods. Yet the specimen instruction-sheet states that subjects would be stared at “five times for two minutes each.” Baker now concedes that this was an error (Baker, personal communication, May 27, 2000). To confuse matters further, in his article the one-minute staring periods are also described as “five-minute periods” (Baker 2000, p. 38).
3. Not only did Baker instruct his subjects to guess when they were being stared at, but they were also asked to compare their guess with their responses in other periods so that they could change their previous guesses, if they wanted to. This instruction might well have helped to distract subjects still further from their immediate feelings.

Like Baker, I predict that those who follow his experimental methods (including his ambiguous instructions) are likely to replicate his negative results. But I also predict that my own positive results should be replicable by those who use similar methods to my own (Sheldrake 1998, 1999, 2000).

Marks and Colwell’s Claims

In January 2000 the British Journal of Psychology published a paper entitled “The ability to detect unseen staring: A literature review and empirical tests” by John Colwell, Sadi Schröder and David Sladen. In their principal experiment, they used methods based on my own procedures, and followed my own randomized sequences of trials. They obtained strikingly significant (p<0.001) positive results that closely resembled my own findings (Sheldrake 1998, 1999). However, they argued that their participants’ positive scores did not support the idea that people really can feel stares; instead, they were an artifact that arose from “the detection and response to structure” present in my randomized sequences. This is the paper on which Marks and Colwell based their SI article.

The Background to this Controversy

In my book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World (1994) I described how the feeling of being stared at could be investigated empirically both simply and inexpensively. As well as carrying out many experiments of my own, I published detailed instructions on my Web site (www.sheldrake.org) and more than 20,000 trials have now been carried out, many of them in schools and colleges. These experiments have given positive, repeatable, and highly significant results, implying that there is indeed a widespread sensitivity to being stared at from behind (Sheldrake 1998, 1999, 2000).

The results showed a characteristic and highly repeatable pattern, with highly significant positive scores in the looking trials and scores close to the chance level of 50% in the not-looking trials (figure 1a).

A. Combined results from experiments carried out with adults and in schools. (Data from Sheldrake 1999, Table 5. Total number of trials: 13,900)

This pattern is consistent with an ability to detect unseen staring (Sheldrake 1998, 1999). If the sense of being stared at is real, it would be expected to work when people are indeed being stared at. In the not-looking trials the subjects were being asked to detect the absence of a feeling of being looked at, a situation with no parallel in real-life experience; and under these conditions their guesses were no better than chance. Hence an asymmetry between the two kinds of trials would be expected if there really were an ability to detect unseen staring. By contrast, if subjects were cheating or responding to subtle sensory clues, scores should be elevated symmetrically in both looking and the not-looking trials.

Experiment One

In their first experiment Colwell et al. (2000) followed my own procedures in most respects, but instead of testing a large number of subjects in just one or two sessions, as in my own experiments, they tested twelve subjects in twelve successive sessions. And instead of the participants working in pairs, taking turns as starers and subjects, one of the authors, Sadi Schröder, was the sole starer in all sessions. In the first three sessions the subjects received no feedback; in the following nine they received immediate feedback as to whether their guesses were correct or not.

In the sessions with feedback, in the looking trials 59.6 percent of the guesses were correct. By contrast, in the not-looking trials the results were exactly at chance levels, with 50 percent correct (figure 1B). The overall accuracy of the subjects’ guesses was significant at the p<0.001 level. These findings were in remarkable agreement with my own and those of other investigators. But Marks and Colwell (2000) tried to dismiss them as an artifact.

B. Data from the trials with feeback in Colwell et al.'s Experiment One. (Data from Colwell et al. 2000, Table 1. Total number of trials: 2,160)

The first point in Marks and Colwell’s argument was that the positive results were obtained when subjects were given feedback. I too have found that subjects perform better with feedback (Sheldrake 1994, 1999). We also agree that feedback can enable the participants to improve their performance with practice. Colwell et al. (2000) provided clear evidence for a learning effect, with a significant (p<0.003) linear trend of improvement in accuracy over nine sessions.

Marks and Colwell then postulated that the subjects’ success when they were given feedback was due to an implicit learning of structures hidden in my randomized sequences. They showed by means of several tests that my sequences deviated from “structureless” randomness. Ironically, this was because I adopted a recommendation by Wiseman and Smith (1994) to use counterbalanced sequences containing equal numbers of looking and not-looking trials. Like Marks and Colwell, Wiseman and Smith (1994) obtained an unexpectedly positive result in a staring experiment and then tried to explain it as an artifact of the randomization procedure, but in their case they attributed it to a lack of counterbalancing.

The crux of Marks and Colwell’s argument was that because of the deviations from “structureless” randomness in my sequences, participants given feedback could have learned implicitly to detect patterns, for example that there was a relatively high probability of an alternation after “two of a kind.” But they offered no evidence that their participants in fact learned to follow such rules. They also failed to mention a fundamental flaw in their hypothesis, perhaps hoping that readers would not spot it. Implicit learning should in principle enable participants to improve equally in looking and not-looking trials. But this is not what happened; significant improvements occurred only in the looking trials (figure 1b).

Unlike Marks and Colwell (2000), Colwell et al. (2000) explicitly acknowledged this problem, but could only suggest that participants may have “focused more on the detection of staring than non-staring episodes.” This begs the question. The subjects must have selectively detected when staring trials were happening, otherwise their scores would not have been above chance levels and shown such an improvement in successive sessions. This might have occurred because they could indeed detect when they were being stared at.

Experiment Two

Colwell et al.'s second experiment was designed to test their pattern-detection hypothesis by using “structureless” random sequences. Sure enough, this time there was no significant overall positive score, although in two of the three sessions there was a highly significant excess of correct guesses in the looking trials.

At first sight, the overall non-significant result seems to confirm their hypothesis. But Marks and Colwell (2000) omitted to mention the crucial fact that in Experiment Two there was a different starer, David Sladen. Can we take it for granted that changing the starer made no difference?

Such experimenter effects are not symmetrical. The detection of Schlitz’s stares by the participants under conditions that excluded sensory cues implies the existence of an unexplained sensitivity to stares. By contrast, the failure to detect Wiseman’s stares implies only that Wiseman was an ineffective starer. Perhaps his negative expectations consciously or unconsciously influenced the way he looked at the subjects.

In Colwell et al.'s Experiment Two, the starer, Sladen, as one of the proponents of the pattern-detection hypothesis, was presumably expecting a nonsignificant result. His negative expectations could well have influenced the way in which he stared at the participants. It would be interesting to know if Sadi Schröder, the graduate student who acted as starer in Experiment One, was more open to the possibility that people really can detect when they are being stared at.

Other Relevant Experiments

Marks and Colwell claimed that their pattern-detection hypothesis invalidated the positive results of staring experiments carried out by myself and others. If these experiments had involved pseudo-random sequences and feedback, as required by their hypothesis, their criticism might have been relevant. But this is not how the tests were done, as they would have seen for themselves if they had read my published papers on the subject.

First, in more than 5,000 of my own trials, the randomization was indeed "structureless,” and was carried out by each starer before each trial by tossing a coin (Sheldrake 1999, Tables 1 and 2). The same was true of more than 3,000 trials in German and American schools (Sheldrake 1998). Thus the highly significant positive results in these experiments cannot be “an artifact of pseudo randomization.”

Second, when I developed the counterbalanced sequences that Marks and Colwell describe as pseudo-random, I changed the experimental design so that feedback was no longer given to the subjects. Since the pattern-detection hypothesis depends on feedback, it cannot account for the fact that in more than 10,000 trials without feedback there were still highly significant positive results (Sheldrake 1999, Tables 3 and 4).

Conclusions

In spite of their prior assumption that an ability to detect unseen staring must be illusory, both Baker (2000) and Colwell et al. (2000) in their first experiments obtained unexpected positive results consistent with such an ability. They attempted to dismiss these findings with question-begging arguments. In their second experiments, which gave the non-significant results they expected, an investigator with negative expectations acted as the starer. This arrangement provided favorable conditions for experimenter effects, already known to occur in staring experiments (Wiseman and Schlitz 1997). Both Baker and Marks and Colwell also failed to mention a large body of published data that went against their conclusions. In short, their claims were misleading and ill-informed.

See also: Robert Baker’s reply

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Brian Evans for helpful comments on a draft of this article.

References

• Baker, R.A. 2000. Can we tell when someone is staring at us? Skeptical Inquirer 24(2): 34-40.
• Colwell, J, S. Schröder, and D. Sladen. 2000. The ability to detect unseen staring: A literature review and empirical tests. British Journal of Psychology 91: 71-85.
• Marks, D., and J. Colwell. 2000. The psychic staring effect: An artifact of pseudo randomization. Skeptical Inquirer September/October 24(5): 41.
• Schlitz, M., and S. LaBerge, S. 1994. Autonomic detection of remote observation: Two conceptual replications. Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association 37th Annual Convention. Parapsychological Association. 352-360.
• —. 1997. Covert observation increases skin conductance in subjects unaware of when they are being observed: A replication. Journal of Parapsychology 61: 185-195.
• Sheldrake, R. 1994. Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science. London: Fourth Estate.
• Sheldrake, R. 1998. The sense of being stared at: experiments in schools. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 62: 311-323.
• —. 1999. The “sense of being stared at” confirmed by simple experiments. Biology Forum 92: 53-76.
• —. 2000. The “sense of being stared at” does not depend on known sensory clues. Biology Forum 93: 209-224.
• Wiseman, R., and M. Schlitz.1997. Experimenter effects and the remote detection of staring. Journal of Parapsychology 61: 199-207.

In my first demonstration Sheldrake argues that the three subjects (Ss) who "stood up, looked around, shifted their positions several times, and appeared to be momentarily distressed . . .” still could have been aware of being stared at. Sheldrake also states “a sensitivity to being stared at does not necessarily imply an awareness of the position of the starer.” True, but "being momentarily distracted, etc.” does not prove the Ss knew they were being stared at either! A distraction could have myriad causes. As for the two others (i.e., the “paranoid” and the “psychic”) where is the evidence they are "more sensitive than most” to the detection of being stared at? How are "psychics” and “paranoids” identified and evaluated?

In my second demonstration Sheldrake argues there are pairs of unexplained numbers (e.g., 0801, 0802, etc.). By no means are these numbers “unexplained.” On page 38 of my SI article a sample subject’s time sheet clearly states time in minutes from start at 0800 pm and then lists 0801, 0802, etc. through 0820. Since each S’s starting time differed from other Ss, there were different numbers for each S. The time sheet on page 38 was merely an example.

I can unequivocally state that none of the experimental Ss had any difficulty understanding what they were supposed to do and acted appropriately.

Sheldrake was correct however in the fact that on the sample time sheet on page 38 of my SI article the last line of the text states “five times for two minutes each during the experimental period.” This, of course, is an error. It should have read “for one minute each. . . .”

Sheldrake’s argument that by allowing Ss to change their prior guesses would distract them from their immediate feelings I find totally unconvincing.

Finally, Sheldrake’s attempt to shoot down the results of my two demonstrations has failed completely and I stand firmly with my original conclusion that “it is prudent to conclude that people cannot tell when they are being stared at.”