In Legion, God is pissed, and it is all our fault. Incomprehensible theology, a bumbling bunch of characters, and a taffy-stretched plot is not saved by randomly strewn bits of hunky ethereal badassery.

Humanity’s gone and done it; God has to wipe us out again. The characters have no direct contact with God on screen; he never appears, but he is the villain of the story. He devises a plan to off us using angels to possess human beings to give zombie kisses to the people of the world. He also sends flies to muck up the cabins of innocent SUVs. The angel Michael (Paul Bettany), goes against God and leaves heaven to protect Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), a pregnant waitress whose baby is the only hope for human survival. He happens across her at work, along with her boss Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid), his son Jeep (Lucas Black), their cook Percy (Charles Dutton), and a gaggle of customers in a remote greasy spoon called Paradise Falls.

Writer Peter Schink and writer-director Scott Stewart’s Legion reminds me of my human sexuality class in college. My professor committed the sin of making a topic of universal interest, sex, boring enough to dry socks. Schink and Stewart tripled the transgression by taking morality, god, and guns and turning them into a treatment for insomnia. Even though there is always something happening on screen, there is a distinctive lack of plot movement.

When Legion’s ending credits begin to roll, there is a painful yearning in the souls of the audience to encounter the middle of the story. Little about the characters, their purpose, or the consequences of their behavior is explained because Schink and Stewart nixed the climax and the resolution and stretched out the introduction until it was nearly transparent. Legion’s one hundred minutes easily could have been compressed into twenty. They could have completed the story with the left over eighty minutes. I guess they, or more likely the studio, did not think we are worthy of such trivial and expensive indulgences.

God doesn’t just evaporate Charlie or her baby. He doesn’t have an angel possess her body and kill her baby that way. When Michael is killed for going against God’s wishes, God resurrects him, giving him back his angel body, presumably so he can stop Gabriel from doing as he was ordered. Even though he took mercy on Michael and allowed him to save them, Charlie, Jeep, and the baby are still in peril.

Any way you dissect it, in Legion, God is a son of a bitch in ways that only a creature without the restraints of human morality could be. What is unclear is whether he is impotent to change course, is too lazy to do so, or is a slightly retarded deity with short-term memory issues that make emotional or philosophical consistency impossible.

The mythological issues get worse if we acknowledge their obvious biblical inspiration. If we presuppose that the god character in Legion is the same one as the one in the bible, and we accept the dogma and midrush of the last 2,000 years, we have serious consistency issues. The Christian god as revised in the New Testament is: 1. all-powerful, 2. all-knowing, 3. all-loving, and 4. all-forgiving. It is also important to note that in the past, God created a prison for an angel who went against his wishes.

Applying these new factors, the god character in Legion knew when he created people and angels how things would go and chose to do it anyway. He knew his love would be exhausted and his forgiveness would run out circa 2010. He knew when Lucifer fell from grace that Michael would eventually do the same thing. He could have prevented Charlie from getting pregnant in the first place so there was no chance of his plan being derailed. If he had real moral concerns about the consequences of human existence, he could have chosen not to create people or he could blink out existence so there would be no suffering, but he chose not to do it that way.

In fact, God manages to have none of the personality traits he developed in the New Testament of the bible. Just like he did in the story of Noah, he maximizes the suffering of everyone on the planet, thus making himself anything but all-loving. Unlike the story of Noah, he can be undone by the birth of a single child, which makes him not all-powerful. God doesn’t know what he needs, so he isn’t all-knowing. The fact that he’s decided to wipe everyone off the planet means he certainly is not all-forgiving.

Trying to resolve the theological issues of the movie is a tiresome task. There is no context in which to put the story that does not leave the gears in my brain seized with smoke coming out of my ears. Schink and Stewart’s only accomplishment is making Legion as consistent as the bible.

Just like in the bible, the rough edge of the sins of inconsistency can be smoothed away with action and adventure that entertains the brain while engaging the imagination. Not surprisingly, Legion is rough around the edges. Legion does not have long lingering pauses; that would make the lack of both plot and action too obvious. It gifts the viewer with back story that is meaningless to the plot, hints of foreshadowing that turns out to just have been worthless words whispered only to waste our time.

For all the guns being carried around, there is little shooting. The close quarters and high stress leads to only minimal infighting. Some of the deaths are inexplicable or hallow both visually and emotionally. It feels like the editor decided that plot could be replaced with action. When he realized there was not enough action to go around, he supplemented with some leftover scraps he found on the cutting room floor.

The only thing about Legion that makes perfect sense is Paul Bettany. He’s eerily still and angelic. If he flew down and stood in front of me, I would find it hard not to be in awe of him. Thinking about him right now makes me think that angels might exist…

Legion might have been fun had they completed the plot instead of leaving it open for a sequel. Sitting there for so long, fiddling with my bottom lip to cope, made me wish God had given up on me and sent an angel zombie my way.

One person’s broken radio is another’s groundbreaking invention that enables human contact with aliens, angels, and the dead.

The Ghost in the Machine

Instrumental Transdimensional Communication (ITC) refers to the use of electronic devices such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets, and computers to attempt to contact nonhuman entities. These are usually standard machines used in nonstandard ways to collect “paranormal” images and sounds. Auditory data are the most common types of ITC, known specifically as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP, also known as Raudive Voices, named after early proponent Konstantin Raudive). This communication is believed by some to be evidence for the existence of an afterlife.

Unlike the machines listed above that are built with more orthodox purposes in mind, the Frank’s Box is designed specifically to capture EVP. It was invented by amateur radio enthusiast Frank Sumption, who was inspired by a “How To” hobby article about recording EVP that appeared in the now defunct Popular Electronics magazine.¹ Upon receiving design instructions from the spirit world and the article, Sumption built a radio receiver that reputedly facilitates real-time communication between the living and the dead, not to mention extraterrestrials, angels, spirits, and assorted entities from other dimensions.

The Frank’s Box device is one of several incarnations. It is also known as the Ghost Box, Joe’s Box, the Spiricom, the Mini-Box, the Telephone to the Dead, or the Shack Hack, according to the design, the manufacturer, and the faction.

How Frank’s Box Works (or Doesn’t Work)

The Frank’s Box is a homemade radio frequency receiver. However, this radio isn’t designed to find your favorite religious radio station; it’s built to be broken.

Frank's Box - Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, 2010

The scan-lock mechanism is disabled on this “radio.” Therefore, the machine continuously scans radio frequencies at a predetermined rate. This is like twisting the knob on a radio backwards and forwards quickly, producing random noise. This “sweep method” creates an untunable radio of erratic white noise. The rushing sound of unused frequencies is punctuated by mostly unintelligible fragments of speech or music when the scanner momentarily picks up a station. It is Sumption’s belief that “spirits” and other entities from beyond manifest in an “echo chamber” built into the unit and harness the random signals to create messages intended for the mortal listener.

The Association TransCommunication explains that the Frank’s Box is like a radio for alien DJs.

“Radio-Sweep” is a technology that involves rapidly changing the tuning of a radio receiver to produce a sound track composed of bits of sound from whatever radio programming is on the air and from whatever radio station is detected by the radio at the time. In theory, the communicating entity somehow arranges for the radio programming of local stations to have the needed sounds and that the sweep will detect that sound at the right time to produce the desired message.²

Inside the Box - Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, 2010

Sumption describes how he believes his device works as a medium. (Nb: all quotes in this article are unedited.)

[This is] Simply another method of supplying “raw” audio that spirits and other entities can use to form voices. Raw audio is a sound source that contains bits of human speech, music and noise, and a convineint source of raw audio is a radio with it’s tuning swept across the entire band, AM, FM, or shortwave. The sweep can be random, linear, or even done by hand.³

On his discussion group EVP-ITC, Sumption expands on his belief that the Frank’s Box channels spirits, not channels.

It’s been my experience that if one supplies something that the spirits/entities can use to make voices out of “they” will speak. That something is called “raw audio”, and contains bits of speech, music and noise. The entities re-modulate this raw audio to form voices. At least I think that’s how it works, and who really knows? A swept radio is a convenient source of raw audio, and that is all the Ghost Box is, and we are spirit as well-hint hint..and it alsoseems to be a form of quantum communcation, allowing instantaneous communication over stellar distances.”⁴

Sumption added in personal correspondence:

“I think it’s no more unbelievable than the so called thought experiments of quatum physics. If I had a Ph.d, maybe what I say would be accepted without question as well.”

EVP-ITC list member “Tom” explains his theories of how the Box may be powered by electromagnetic waves, Sumption’s remodulation hypothesis, or psychic powers.

We Don’t really KNOW how it works, but only that it DOES seem to work.

In EVP we have at least two major theories. In the EM (Electromagnetic)theory, we assume thatthe spirits are communicating with voice modulated EM waves--either via a kind of “radio technology” or the “fact” that sound waves from the other side are Electromagnetic relative to our own universe. This explains why we often need a device like a electric sound recorder to hear the waves.

The other major theory, and the one I subscribe to, is that the voices are made from existing background sounds. This is sorta like using an electronic larynix or holding an electric razor to one’s lips and “mouthing” words. The vocal appratus changes shape and resonance characteristics, making a sufficiently randomized sound(like a buzzing razor) sound like words. Spirits may do something similar, near an EVP recording microphone, either “semi-manefesting” a vocal apparatus or by utilizing some of their own sound altering technology.

The third theory involves the listener putting the background noise together somewhat selectively--in one’s own mind, so to speak. The noise itself which forms which is called a “random field”--- One of the “psychic levers” which effectively enhances one’s psychic abilities to useful levels.

Wiring - Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, 2010

Since radio stations provide the fodder for any “speech” heard, the broader, unspoken claim is that the “entities” are controlling the airways in general, on the off chance that a human is using a Frank’s Box through which “they” can communicate.

The Light Bulb Goes Off

In a contentious claim popular among the paranormal community, prolific inventor Thomas Edison is credited as the father of EVP and real-time spirit communication. There is an urban legend that while Edison was inventing the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the electric light bulb, he was also in the process of creating an apparatus enabling communication with spirits. This belief appears to be traceable to an 1890 interview in which Edison spoke about the fringe idea of communicating with the “life units” or atoms of the deceased.⁵ In an article published in a 1920 issue of Scientific American Edison speculated about the possibility of building a device that could communicate with the dead, and he was quoted as saying:

“If we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument, when made available, ought to record something.”⁶

There was also gossip that Edison held séances and endorsed the abilities of several psychics. Some believe the talk of spirit machines was a marketing prank. Edison was apparently agnostic, although he lived during the height of the Spiritualism movement, when belief in an afterlife and the ability to communicate with the dead were common. However, with over one thousand patents, he never registered any machine for contacting spirits, and there is no evidence to suggest that he built or was building such a device.

Most damning to the claims is the refutation on the Edison National Historic Site:

Did Edison make a machine that could talk to the dead?

This seems to be another tall tale that Edison pulled on a reporter. In 1920 Edison told the reporter, B.F. Forbes, that he was working on a machine that could make contact with the spirits of the dead. Newspapers all over the world picked up this story. After a few years, Edison admitted that he had made the whole thing up. Today at Edison National Historic Site, we take care of over five million pages of documents. None of them mention such an experiment.⁷

Unfortunately, the rumors have given credence to the concept of electronic spirit communication and to the Frank’s Box. Moreover, claims that Edison pioneered spirit communication have further mutated to assert that he dictated the design of the Frank’s Box to Sumption, and that he actually communicates through the device. Sumption has made, withdrawn, and denied these claims over the years. His latest statement on the matter was:

“I have in fact heard a voice that said ‘Edison here’ there was no real information conveyed that I could understand.”⁸

However, Sumption added that these spirits could have been “mimicking” Edison’s voice.

Frank’s Assumptions

Sumption initially e-mailed me in response to a series of articles I published in which I mention the Frank’s Box as a tool for collecting EVP.

I make those boxes. What you say about it/me is highly exagerated. I don’t even use it for the usual paranoraml BS, as in Ghost Hunting. I don’t buy the usual Hollywood/TAPS paranormal crap that’s mostly urban legend. “skeptic” usually just means your mind is made up, and no other evidence is required, sought, or wanted. I don’t sell this shit, I don’t do ghost investigations, and don’t believe in hauntings. Something talks that is not radio broadcasts, often addresses people present by name, and sometimes cusses and swears.

He extended an invitation to demonstrate his invention should I ever be in the area. And so, accompanied by Matthew Baxter of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, I recently met Sumption in his hometown of Littleton, Colorado.

Sumption told us that he is in frequent communication with a number of “higher-level spirits” via his Boxes. These regular contacts include “Otto” and “about ten women with German names.” Because he wears a purple-striped shirt and a purple earring, Sumption explained that “the guys” deem him to be royalty and have dubbed him their “Purple Princess.” He refers to himself as Purple, the Purple Space Friend, the Purple Princess, and the Purple Alien Girl. Sumption’s original e-mail explains: “I use the name ‘purple alien girl’ cuz ‘they’ claim I’m their long lost Purple Princess from some other planet. The only actual voice I heard in my head was ‘Kiera(key-ra), it’s time to come home,’ the name of the Princess.”

Purple's Ghost Box - Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, 2010

He has maintained this claim all along, stating on his EVP-ITC list:

“They” claim I’m their long lost Purple Princess, kidnapped from my home planet long ago when Earth had space flight by the ancient Egyptians. I couldn’t be rescued at that time, so I was transported forward in time, to now, at the end of the current Earth cycle when I could go home. It gets wierd from there. Other entities that talk though the box claim they see a woman where I should be.

Sumption also claims his Boxes have provided doomsday prophecies and predicted world events and disasters, including the May 12, 2008, earthquake in China.

They have told me I go home at the end, and Earth is doomed since day one, but who knows really? Besides, the main message of EVP is life is forever. I get stuff that seems to be talking about 2012, like they talk about the “Monster,” or gioant asteoid of comet thats supposed to hit. They also say “Earth goes Boom.”

When the predictions fail, the spirits are to blame for their dishonesty.

You can’t take this shit like it’s written in stone, or some kind of friggin’ gospel, as most seem prone to do. So far, irregardless of how clear the voice is, or what method is used, the only thing that can be said with certainty is that they consistently lie!

You can ask questions of the box, and many get direct, and immediate answers, as well as names and other information. I don’t ask questions because “they” always seem to turn deceptive and misleading to me.

Sumption’s followers claim they can assist the deceased victims of catastrophes to “cross over.” A group of users are trying to contact the victims of the Haiti earthquake that struck January 12, 2010.

My guide David just came back for a few hours tonight Bruce, then he just now left again, had to go back, seems they have now over 400,000 coming in, either to the light or going to lower plains, he says they are “not all Christian” it’s because they have a bit of the Voodoo religion mixed in with it I guess He says, “it’s a mix of Christianity and Voodoo.”⁹

Sumption’s cronies also claim that the Frank’s Box can be used for solving crimes, finding missing persons, medical research, and in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. One user reports: “I asked about Autism and I heard: ‘MAN MADE’ and when I asked about vaccines (being a cause) I heard ‘YES.’¹⁰

Sumption believes that the Frank’s Box is not the sole means by which he is contacted by entities. He believes he has psychic abilities, revealing that he has “visions” and also hears “voices” through his television, through running water, and that he even hears messages in his head, such as his wife calling him to dinner. He also invented the Video-Box, a device made from a VCR tuner module, with which he claims to have captured an image of a “Man In Black.”

Sumption contends that his devices provide “proof of an afterlife.” However, he insists that the phenomenon is “not paranormal,” which to him refers to magic and witchcraft. To Sumption, Frank’s Box is technology. “It functions on the quantum level,” he explained.

“What do you mean by ‘quantum’?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “I don’t know.”

Sumption’s beliefs and claims are inconsistent, and once he announced on his site Frank’S Boxes: “The box does not work… But I will leave the site up for people that would like to tinker with it.”¹¹

Sumption explained that making the Frank’s Boxes is a hobby that he does not profit from. He has made over sixty of these devices, but they have not evolved considerably in design except in size and one recent addition. The spirits told him to add crystals but did not explain what kind to use or how to attach them; they are not connected to the wiring in any practical manner, “But they seem to help clarify the voices for some entities, as do magnets used in the same way.”

Sumption has posted his schematics online so anyone can build a similar device from scratch. But apparently, the most “effective” boxes are the Sumption originals.

Sumption brought along a Frank’s Box Number 63, a compact unit stored in a Rubbermaid container. We each took turns using the device. Sumption suggested we select the AM band as these channels feature more speech than music, but none of us could produce more than a string of unintelligible noise.

Sumption suggests users record their sessions and try techniques to elicit messages:

For me, it works better to announce out loud I’m doing an EVP recording, and just record a few minutes, then I give a five second count down to indicate I’m stopping--just to be polite, and don’t forget a “thank you.” I don’t do any protection BS, and no prayers, that just seems to tell yourself there’s something to fear. I prefer to listen off tape--analog tape. I use tape recorders that have the “que” and “review” functions. Digital recorders work ok as well, and have the que and review function, but they tend to lack a large speaker. Curiously, I have on rare occasion been able to ask a question, or make a comment while listening to a recording and get a meaningful-instant response from tape. I can’t tell if the recording changed, they made it like that ahead of time, or it’s just perception.

For those wondering about the nature of these miraculous messages, Sumption lists some recent examples on the EVP-ITC list: “This is from tonight, start out ‘crystals inside the box’—‘Frank Sumption is keeping this’---‘C’mon Purple--Keep This –box’—‘we love you Princess,’, and ‘this is Otto.’”

Sample recordings of messages such as “Purple - Good Morning” and “Purple Bitch – We use the radio” can be downloaded at Frank’s Boxes. Sumption is also a proponent of Reverse Speech and believes some messages are hidden in the data but are revealed when played backwards.

At the end of the meeting Baxter asked, “Can we take a photo of the Frank’s Box?”

“You can borrow it,” Sumption offered.

Testing, Testing, Testing…

Sumption has a history of loaning Frank’s Boxes to interested parties to “test.” These loans have often resulted in bitter battles about ownership and application.

Despite Sumption’s generosity in making his devices available for “research” purposes, he is resistant to experimental research and the critical evaluation of his claims. Sumption and his biased believer beta testers are not interested in testing their hypotheses but in collecting data that is confirmation bias for their beliefs. They also have a suspicion of science and misunderstand the scientific method. In e-mail correspondence he states:

I opened it up to all experimentors in and attempt to verify my results, which is in fact an application of scientific method, known as peer review.

I am open to honest box discussion, however, believe it or not I am not a true believer. I don’t buy anyone’s dogma- religeous, newage or scientific. I don’t sell anything, I share all information freely, I do this work strickly out of curiosity, and I don’t have an agenda to prove or disprove.

Sumption seems to believe that as the builder of the Boxes only he knows how the devices truly work and how they are to be used: “What really chaps my hide, as maker of the box, is to have someone who knows nothing of electronics, and technology completely ignore everything I say about the box, and presume to tell me how it really works, how it should be used, and what is acceptable from it.”¹²

Sumption claims that any results are private messages intended for the listener only, and that subjectivity is the strength of his device.

Testing is irrelavent! It’s not the device, it’s the user. The messages received are for the user, and rarely does anyone hear the same thing as the original listener. You test it by use, you judge it by what comes through and what it means to you, you can’t play the sound snipets to a panel of numbnuts(objective listeners)) and expect to get an unbiased/honest test. No two people hear the same, so an “objective listener” is an insult to most people doing this work.¹³

In personal correspondence, Sumption denied the existence of objective fact, saying “There is no objective hard physical truth or universe. We all create what we want to see, and everyone thinks their truth supersedes everyone else’s truth.”

However, some users claim that the occasional recording of a word, identifiable to some listeners, means that the results are objective. If there is no consensus, the operator is psychic. “Tom” explains:

The fact that the operator CAN and DOES make recordings and files of understandable words and phrases shows that we are dealing with an OBJECTIVE rather than a subjective phenomenon here. Two things appear to be going on though. First there is an actual voice modulated signal. Different people who listen to it often hear the same thing. The sound is not perfect and is very noisy, so that would explain others who cannot hear the message. The second thing is that some people can listen to the noise as a “random field,” and with a slightly altered state of mind, this field will induce latent “mediumship” ability in the operator and he or she will get a lot more information and voice material than another listener.¹⁴

There are no consistent claims about the Box. Different users have conflicting theories and agendas.

That Which We Call A Frank’s Box By Any Other Name… Wouldn’t Work Either

After Sumption, Christopher Moon is the biggest advocate of the Frank’s Box. Moon is a “professional paranormal investigator,” senior editor of Haunted Times magazine, and founder of Ghost Hunter University. He was once a “primary tester” of the Box, spurring Sumption to remark that Moon was the only person who understood how the device “should” be used. That is, until Moon turned the Box into a business. He permanently borrowed a few Frank’s Boxes from Sumption, installed the device in a fancy display case, rebranded it the “Telephone to the Dead,” and fashioned himself as a necromancer who “summons the dead.” Haunted Times tells the story as Moon sees it.

Skeptical, Christopher met with Mr. Sumption at his workshop for a demonstration. Christopher was astounded to find that the device that Frank Sumption had built was actually designed through the EVP of deceased scientists. It quickly became obvious to Christopher what Frank Sumption had done; he had completed the infamous Thomas Edison Telephone to the Dead.¹⁵

Sumption retorts: “I did not make a ‘telephone to dead,’ I don’t kow what the f--- that is, and I don’t endorse it! Nor do I appreciate my name being connected to the so called ‘Telephone to dead’ on every friggin’ ad for Moon’s public appearances.”¹⁶

If it was even possible, Moon exaggerates the wild claims. Further to Sumption’s belief that he has regular spirit contacts such as Otto, Moon developed the idea that each Box has an operator assigned on the other side, known as a “Spirit Technician.” Contrary to Sumption’s belief that the message is intended for and meaningful to the user only, Moon claims that he can decipher the “messages” like an oracle with the assistance of his Technicians. Thomas Edison is one of these spirit operators, but the dependable “Tyler” is his favorite Technician. As Engineer Paul Turner explained in personal correspondence: “Mr. Moon claims to be one of the few who can interpret these random noises and claims to be making direct real-time contact with the dead using Thomas Edison’s spirit as some type of cosmic switchboard operator.”

Sumption responds to the Spirit Technician theory but in doing so contradicts his own view that the messages are personal and intended for the listener only. “Even if anyone else could hear the voices, why do you need someone to interpret what’s veing said. I say if not many can hear it, of something similar, it ain’t real!”¹⁷

Confusingly, he told me in person that there “may be something to the idea of Spirit Technicians.” However, Sumption disputes Moon’s claim that Edison is a contact with the persuasive EVP, “Grandpa Edison never spoke to Chris,” as evidence.

Moon further claims there are only thirty chosen people who can correctly hear and “translate” the messages received via the Box. The spirits told him so. Unsurprisingly, Moon is a chosen one, as is his psychic mother and theatrical medium Chip Coffey. Foolhardy amateurs who are not chosen run the risk of encountering evil entities and opening portals to demons.

Unfortunately, Moon has a cult-like following. With his assistants Dina Everling and Michelle “Babs” Babiarz in tow, Moon provides a (dis)service with the glorified Frank’s Box. He conducts private consultations and public readings, charging $100 per fifteen minutes. For an additional fee he offers his spirit translation and third-party expert analysis of the “messages.” Unlike the inane “phrases” and “words” that Sumption receives, Moon’s messages include whole sentences—that only Moon can hear. His machine produces an incomprehensible snippet of sound, but his translations suddenly decode long-winded messages featuring complex concepts and complete sentences.

Like a magic wand, rabbit, and hat, Moon has featured the Telephone to the Dead as his gimmick in productions such as TruTv’s patently ridiculous Door to the Dead, a television show following a team of credulous ghost hunters in their investigation of a Hollywood hired “haunted” house.

Herein lies the most poignant criticism of the Frank’s Box and all other forms of spirit “communication.” Using these devices to provide a service is a scam; while using them at all is futile, charging money from vulnerable, grieving victims is unconscionable.

Moon’s ploy is to carry out personal or public readings and then to leverage this client list by contacting these people and promising, “The telephone is calling for you.” But you’ll have to pay for a session to receive the message.¹⁸ Turner adds:

Many of Moon’s customers or victims have spoken out against him saying that they were not happy with the session, then weeks after the session he contacts them again saying he has talked to their loved one and that he has the information they were looking for. But it will cost an additional fee.

A YouTube video shows Moon giving a public performance of the device at a college. It is distressing to watch. In this cold reading, a young girl asks the tragic question, “I love you, and I want to know…was it an accident?” We hear nothing but white noise as Moon announces flatly, “No.” The girl bursts into tears, and Moon adds, “But you knew that.” He tries to console her with feigned sympathy, “He said it’s okay. He said it’s okay. He said it’s okay.”¹⁹

Jeannette Osborne, a former client of Moon’s, is a guest on the Reap Sow Radio episode “Dark Side of the Moon.” Seeking “something tangible” to prove there is life after death, Osborne spent thousands of dollars having sessions with Moon. During these readings she was told her family was plagued by demons, and she underwent two exorcisms via the device, which she calls “Boxercisms.” She received unsubstantiated warnings about her son, a soldier stationed in Iraq, and she even exposed Moon’s deception by planting bogus information, which he fed back to her as fact. She also recounts the heartbreaking story of nursing her dying brother, and how she created a code word for him to send from beyond the grave via the Telephone to the Dead.²⁰

Sumption has publicly criticized Moon’s methods and ludicrous theories, but his complaints often center around the fact that Moon has neglected to return, or pay for, the Boxes Suption has loaned to him, with which Moon turns a considerable profit. While Sumption’s assumptions are scientifically ignoble, he believes his “personal research” and noncommercial use of the device are somehow noble compared to Moon’s money-making schemes. Neither position makes the public use of Frank’s Box any more ethical or the device any more legitimate.

Both Sumption and Moon exploit the public with their claims and practices.

Opening a Pandora’s Box

I was very fortunate to be able to enlist the assistance of a number of skeptics with backgrounds in engineering and electronics to assess the Frank’s Box. Because I would have had difficulty getting the Frank’s Box through airport security, the device remains in Colorado. Project Engineer Paul Turner examined a series of photographs of the device, and after originally commenting that it was an “elementary school class project,” he provided the following technical explanation of the model.

The Frank’s Box Model 63 that you possess is an alleged Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC) device, the term would imply a two-way communication between the spirit world and that of the living. However, after examining the photographs you provided and the builder’s own schematics, I fail to see where or how this two-way communication occurs as the device itself is nothing more than an AM/FM receiver with modifications. Without a personal examination it is of course difficult to unlock any great secrets the box may contain. The results that the builder claims would be a matter of personal belief in the metaphysical.

The First Circuit in the chain is a salvaged RCA AM/FM tuner card. It would appear to have come from an older tabletop style radio. The first thing that struck me as unusual about the card is that the builder placed two quartz crystals on the tuning coil using antenna lead and silicon to secure them between the coil and the housing. It is not possible for these crystals to interact with the tuner, except for the slight possibility the crystals, acting as spacers for the excess antenna lead, could slightly change the characteristics of the reception of the tuner, perhaps reducing its selectivity. Or this is an attempt by the builder to make the device seen more magical.

There are two hand wired circuit boards, which again seen to be populated with a combination of new and salvaged parts. These parts are wired to a proto-board, normally used for prototype circuits. One containing the modifications necessary to linear scan the tuner, this is accomplished using the XR 2206 function generator integrated circuit. This IC generates the sawtooth wave which enables the modified tuner to scan frequencies from top to bottom then back again. This is the same process as spinning a tuner knob on an old-style radio up and down the dial. The adjustment for the rate of scan is controlled by an attenuator on the front face.

This board also contains the preamps and microphone amplifier for an external echo box which is optional. The speaker for the echo box is driven by the RAW speaker output on the front panel, the volume being controlled by the RAW drive attenuator on the front panel. The return microphone from the echo box when the switch is engaged would only feed the line output jack, which then could feed a recording device.

The workmanship of the device is sloppy, it would appear to be an effort of trial and error as opposed to a well-thought out design. While some of the circuits are clever it is in no way elegant or innovative; perhaps a better classification would be haphazard. I speculate that the builder has a rudimentary knowledge of electronics, perhaps at a ham radio level or late 1970’s trade school. So if entities indeed gave him the knowledge to build the device as he states in his schematics apparently they did not keep up with the technical journals.

In conclusion, the Frank’s Box Model 63 does an adjustable linear sweep of the AM or FM band depending on which is selected. The result is a random noise generator. It does not have the capability of receiving any signals except that of the AM or FM broadcast band. It does not have transmit capability. Its sole function is to linear sweep the broadcast band producing bits and pieces of audio from those broadcast stations. Since the claim is that spirits speak through the random noise, I could well see that after a few moments of listening to this random audio, the sensory trait of pareidolia would come into play creating false positives. This is the only logical explanation to the builder’s claims.

You Say Potato; I Say Gobbledygook

The supposed efficacy of the Frank’s Box hinges on its output. However, these results are unconvincing. The communication is incomprehensible, subjective, and incapable of being replicated. Most of all, it isn’t actually communication.

The recordings made by the Frank’s Box and similar devices include random words, word fragments, language-like sounds, music, and radio noise. They do not exhibit the features that characterize natural language. There is no grammar; the “messages” are pieced together, and they do not produce authentic utterances. The most important distinction to make is that these collective sounds do not constitute “speech.” The data from the Frank’s Box may contain bits of speech, but it isn’t speech.

The alleged messages are construed to suit the agenda of the listener. The claim that “I love you” is heard confirms the bias that the believer has contacted Uncle Bruce, while the skeptics laugh when their question, “Is Chris Moon a fraud?” is answered by a car salesperson-like “Guaranteed!”²¹ This kind of evidence is anecdotal only.

Frank’s Box aficionados listen to their devices obsessively to acquire “Class A” recordings (that are still very poor). For them it is addictive like a psychic slot machine, and they are convinced by the pay-offs: the subjectively more intelligible sounds. But these are merely better quality gibberish.

Moreover, the “messages” are nonsensical and do not contain information. They are meaningless from a pragmatic perspective, but they are infused with meaning by the listener. This is idiosyncratic meaning based in personal experience; it is individual but not shared meaning.

However, sometimes this meaning can be shared artificially. Listeners are suggestible and want to hear something meaningful. As believers, they are often expecting to hear something. They are selective listeners who mark the hits and ignore the misses, sometimes even “recognizing” the “voices.” In this mindset they have a tendency to be lead and to conform their perception to what others think they hear. Michael Shermer calls this “priming” the brain to see or hear something.²² Having others hear what you hear seems to legitimize the results. However, even if more than one person arrives at the same interpretation, it is still subjective.

Indeed, many believe there is a special way to “hear” the messages and that this ability requires practice, sensitivity, training, and time. Tom explains, “In some cases the ‘impression’ is not as ‘clean’ and one has to develop ‘an ear’ so to speak, to hear them (like sea legs, but for EVP).”²³

To make the results more persuasive, some users edit the recordings, ostensibly cleaning up the ambient noise, but often affecting the result. It’s not that the messages are garbled or inaudible to begin with, it’s that they aren’t messages at all. As Baxter put it to me in conversation, “The longer you listen to it the more it seems to make sense, like looking for patterns in clouds.”

In personal correspondence, Sumption states:

When I first started making the linear sweep boxes, at first all I could hear was gibberish, then all the sudden I could hear “the guys” talking to me. It seems not everyone can hear it, especially just starting out. It takes time to tune in the ear, and maybe develop some intuition. The box is extremely complicated, and talking about it for a mere two hours just is not enough time, two years would be better. It takes time to develop a feel for the communications. I get very frustrated when I get voices that seem perfectly clear, and no one else can hear it. I don’t know the mental mechanisms involved, maybe a new brain circuit has to be created, or maybe the the possibility of the box function has to be “allowed.” I don’t think the skeptic allows this possibility, there fore they are stuck on “it doesn’t work.”

The best explanation for this phenomenon is that listeners are experiencing a form of pattern recognition known as apohenia, a kind of audio pareidolia. Shermer prefers the more user-friendly term patternicity, which he explains in this instance as “finding meaningful patterns in meaningless noise.” The “messages” are perceptual errors.

The Frank’s Box and similar devices have even been debunked by promoters of EVP. In a listening test of the Mini-Box made by Paranormal Systems, the author determines that the radio sweep method for collecting EVP only produces pareidolia. The paper concludes: “While we have not been able to find reason to think the technology produces EVP, we have found substantial reason to think it does not.”²⁴

One theory down, one to go…

The Frank’s Box is used as a cold reading tool. The meaning is supplied by the reader, the listener, and the client. The responses are coincidental, like finding water when dowsing, randomly selecting a “prophetic” reading from the Bible, and all other forms of divination. These devices are tarot cards for the technological age. The Frank’s Box is no more “technology” than a Parker Brothers Ouija board…but with its underlying malicious intent and mental instability, it’s no game.

Ironically, the natural explanation for the data acquired from the Frank’s Box can be found in a quote from Sumption himself: “It’s not ‘picking up’ the dead, presummably. As I understand it’s operation ‘they’ use the existing bits of speech, mucis and noise to remodulate inot their own voices. Of course, that remains a guess as to how it works.”²⁵

As he admits, his “remodulation” theory is a guess, and the alleged messages are simply composed of ordinary speech, music, and noise.

We’ll allow Sumption to have the final say about his broken radio: “EVP is useful only to the experience, I guess. Yet another reason why I hesitate to build more boxes, there’s no way to determine if it works, or is it just imagination/perception.”²⁶

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Paul Turner, Matthew Baxter, Bryan Bonner, and Stu Hayes for their invaluable assistance in researching, examining, and testing the Frank’s Box.

Notes:

1. Konstantinos. 1995. Ghost Voices: Exploring the mysteries of electronic voice phenomena. Popular Electronics. October issue, pp.37–41.
2. Association Transcommunication. Available at atransc.org. Accessed 1/21/10.
3. Frank’S Boxes. Available at purplealiengirl.tripod.com. Accessed 1/17/10.
4. EVP-ITC. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/19/10.
5. History Detectives. PBS. Season 7, Episode 1. Available at pbs.org.
6. Museum of Hoaxes. Available online at museumofhoaxes.com. Accessed 1/19/10.
7. Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Available a www.nps.gov/archive/edis/edifun/edifun_4andup/faqs_fables.htm#talk. Accessed 1/20/10.
8. Bonner, Bryan. In print. The History of the Frank’s Box. Modern Paranormal Investigator.
9. Inside the Box/Ghost Box Research. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/20/10.
10. Speaking to the Dead with Radios. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/16/10.
11. Frank’S Boxes. Available at purplealiengirl.tripod.com/. Accessed 1/18/10.
12. EVP-ITC Yahoo Group. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/20/10.
13. EVP-ITC Yahoo Group. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/19/10.
14. EVP-ITC Yahoo Group. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/18/10.
15. What is the Telephone to the Dead? Haunted Times. Volume 4, Issue 3, Winter 2010, p.28.
16. Bonner, Bryan. In print. The history of the Frank’s Box. Modern Paranormal Investigator.
17. EVP-ITC Yahoo Group. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/19/10.
18. Dark Side of the Moon. Reap Sow Radio. Available at reapsowradio.podomatic.com.
19. You Tube. Available at youtube.com. Accessed 1/19/10.
20. Dark Side of the Moon. Reap Sow Radio. Available at reapsowradio.podomatic.com. Accessed 1/19/10.
21. Ibid.
22. Michael Shermer. Telephoning to the dead. Scientific American. January 2009. p.46.
23. EVP-ITC Yahoo Group. Available at tech.groups.yahoo.com. Accessed 1/20/10.
24. Butler, Tom. Radio Sweep: A Case Study. Association TransCommunication. Available at atransc.org. Accessed 1/20/10.
25. Skeptic Blog. Box of Fiends. Available at skepticblog.org. Accessed 1/19/10.
26. Ibid. Accessed 1/19/10.

Creation author and conservationist Randall Keynes sat down on an extremely rainy Monday in San Francisco to discuss his book, the movie adaptation that hits theaters on Friday, and the controversy surrounding the movie’s release. A well dressed, perfectly mannered British gentleman, he sat attentively at the table behind his neatly stacked map of The City, glasses, and copy of his book.

For those who do not already know, the film Creation, based on Keynes’s book by the same name (also published as Annie’s Box) has been followed by a wake of controversy in the religiously charged United States. Even the name Creation was a controversial choice for a book and movie about Charles Darwin, because it has obvious intelligent design connotations. The book/movie title choice perplexed many people who accept natural selection as fact and angered theists who do not. Keynes explained the ambiguous meaning was part of the decision to change the book name from Annie’s Box to Creation.

“It was chosen because of its double meaning. It is about where life came from, the arts and religion. Darwin’s insights took imagination and boldness as well as science.” Keynes explained.

The movie Creation had difficulties finding a distributor in America. The film, which covers the life of Darwin around the time of his daughter’s death and the writing of On the Origin of Species, was immediately hands-off to the major U.S. distributors, because it may be offensive to Christians. It was after some debate and time that Newmarket Films, ironically the distributor of The Passion of the Christ, picked up the distribution of Creation.

This distribution issue infuriated many non-theists. Many felt a great sense of injustice regarding the Christian-centered point of view of the major Hollywood distributors.

When asked about his reaction to the controversy over the film, Keynes didn’t seem particularly surprised. He explained that he had been part of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York’s Darwin Exhibit in 2005–2006, which presented evidence for evolution.

“They couldn’t find a corporate sponsor. It may not have been because the businesses did not accept evolution,” said Keynes. “We expected spray painting or vandalism but there was none.”

Keynes then explained that he thought Christians and atheists alike could enjoy Creation because it is a love story about a complicated man. He seem surprised when read these specific passages from the review of Creation on Movieguide.org, a Christian movie reviewing community by Ted Baehr, Jeff Holder, and Tom Snyder: “‘Creation’ uses fallacious ‘straw men’ arguments by crudely depicting the Christians in its story as closed minded, cruel people.” It continues later in the review, “The fact that ‘Creation’ is so well done makes it an even more dangerous piece of one-sided propaganda.”

“The facts [specifically about Reverend Innes] are verified by sermons he wrote down and evidence of punishments during the time,” Keynes stated confidently. “It is unfortunate that they missed the positive messages about Emma’s faith.”

Keynes went on to explain that when he wrote Creation, he hoped he could begin to quell these controversies by shedding light on Charles Darwin the man, not the theory. “I hoped people would see how difficult it [developing the theory of natural selection] was for Darwin.”

He came across the inspiration for the book Creation by accident. Keynes is Darwin’s great-great grandson and had access to family keepsakes. While milling through a chest of drawers once owned by Charles Darwin’s daughter, Ettie, he came across a small box. He was told that it was Annie’s box. Inside were a variety of writings in Darwin’s hand about his experience during Annie’s illness and eventual death. Annie was Charles and Emma’s oldest daughter, who died at the age of ten. Charles went into a state of grief and guilt about Annie’s death.

“He [Darwin] was careful to conceal how high-strung he was. Only two people knew the full extent of his grief, Emma and Parslow the butler. Emma would write down his symptoms in her pocketbook when she felt like it or when she was caring for him.”

In the film, Darwin is depicted as having a relationship with Annie after her death, sometimes speaking to her directly. It is unclear if she is a hallucination or a ghost.

“There is no evidence that Darwin saw Annie as a ghost or hallucination. That’s the film maker imagining it in a way for movie audiences,” Keynes smiled. “I would have been disappointed if they didn’t. They had to get the big things right. It is ok to re-imagine the small things for the audience. It is a movie. It is not a book with footnotes,” he said as he gently wiggled his copy of Creation in the air.

“I hope the movie will help people see Darwin and his ideas more positively. He was not malicious. He honestly believed everyone would benefit from a better understanding. Darwin believed it helps us to understand our nature to understand the history of nature.”

In Creation, a film adaptation of Randall Keynes book of the same name, Charles Darwin comes to terms with the death of his daughter Annie, the meaning of his work, and the pain his discovery causes his devoutly reverent wife Emma. Heart-grasping acting and beautiful cinematography occasionally lose their shimmer due to momentary cases of the doldrums.

Wrought with sickness, Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) is pressured by Thomas Huxley (Toby Jones) and Joseph Hooker (Benedict Cumberbatch) to finish his work on natural selection. They are convinced that if he does, his stomach issues will be resolved. Emma Darwin (Jennifer Connelly), Charles’ wife, is a devout Christian and worries about the implications for her husband’s soul should he continue to write his book. Their family reverend, Innes (Jeremy Northam), vehemently opposes even the idea of dinosaurs and engages Darwin in discussion to challenge his theory. Darwin’s devoted daughter, Annie (Martha West), is her father’s constant companion whenever he is working on his studies. When Annie falls ill and dies, Darwin cannot find the resolve to finish his book. Wracked by the guilt he feels, his relationship with his wife begins to unravel.

Paul Bettany’s portrayal of Charles Darwin in Creation makes this much-revered scientist more than just the brilliance of his theory. Darwin becomes a human being with insecurities, flaws, and resolute love. Bettany endows Darwin with such amplitude for self torment that it is impossible for the audience not to be affected. His tender touch with Martha West’s Annie is endearing and paternal. Bettany manages to strain the relationship between Charles and Emma far, but it never goes beyond the reach of the love they have for each other.

The supporting cast is Bettany’s equal. Jennifer Connelly makes Emma reverent but not condescending. She is regal but still warm and endearing. Any fan of the real Thomas Huxley will be satisfied by the nearly pit-bull-like portrayal by Toby Jones. Even the young Martha West makes Annie an adorable symbol of sorrow.

Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany in a scene from Jon Amiel's Creation - photo courtesy of Liam Daniel

Where Creation goes a bit off track is in its repeatedly long, tedious scenes that add nearly nothing to the quality of the story. I am unsure how many times we need to see pigeons die, dunked, or stripped of their flesh before even that gets a bit boring. On more than one occasion, I found attention wandering from the screen to my fingernails, back to the screen, to my itchy eyelid, and finally back to the screen. Director Jon Amiel and writer John Collee should have either supervised the editing more closely or written a more precise script. It would have given the audience more reason to be invested in the characters. These moments are fleeting but they occur often enough to be noticeable.

I am not a Charles Darwin historian, but it is obvious that the filmmakers took more than a bit of creative license when it comes to Annie. After her death, Darwin sees her everywhere in what could be misconstrued as a form of madness rather than a form of grief. Since Americans get a great deal of their information about history from movies, I am concerned that theists may use Creation as a weapon to claim Darwin was mad while writing On the Origin of Species. Taken only as a movie though, his ongoing relationship with Annie is a poignant, visual representation of the degree of his grief. The more he sees her, the more lost he is in his devastation.

People who know a bit about Darwin will be delighted by a few of the details in the film. Pay close attention his walking loop, Huxley, and the drawings in the book as he writes it. They give a bit of a nod to people in the know.

Creation is not a story about nature or the method of speciation. It is a love story about the love between a father and a daughter, the love between a married couple, and the love of knowledge. It does not try to put forth questions about natural selection or intelligent design but only the consequences of love. It is a love story that will leave skeptics feeling especially nourished.

Just as soon as anyone notes the dismal state of science in contemporary Muslim-majority countries, someone else with a little knowledge of history will observe that the Islamic world was once the center of the scientific world, and Arabic was once the lingua franca. From the eighth to the end of the fourteenth centuries, the most important work in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, optics, and medicine took place under Muslim rule.

Before Europe’s first university had opened in Bologna, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad was amassing a library that reportedly housed as many as four hundred thousand volumes. There, under the patronage of the Abbasid dynasty, Arabic-speaking scholars—including Persians, Christians, Jews, and others—translated Greek texts by authors such as Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen, as well as material in Persian, Syriac, and Sanskrit. It was not until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that this ancient learning came to Europe, primarily by way of Muslim Spain. As late as the seventeenth century, European colleges still relied on the Canon, a medical textbook by Avicenna, the Latinized name of the medieval physician and polymath Ibn Sina.

What Golden Age?

This Golden Age is rightly held up as one of the glories of Arabic-Islamic civilization. However, it only makes more pointed the question of how Arabic-language science (defined broadly as natural philosophy) came to be so rapidly and totally surpassed by European science. As the historian of science Toby Huff points out with regard to astronomy in particular:

Arab astronomers from the eleventh to the fourteenth century established a broad-based research tradition aimed at reforming the Ptolemaic (geocentric) planetary model. These astronomers—in both Eastern and Western Islam—wanted a theoretical planetary model that conformed to what really is. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the combined efforts of the Marâgha School of astronomers, capped by the work of Ibn al-Shatir, finally arrived at a planetary model mathematically equivalent to the Copernican model of a century and a half later. But having arrived there, Ibn al-Shatir and his successors failed to make the leap to the heliocentric view—the leap that distinguished the Copernican achievement—and thereby failed to achieve the philosophical and metaphysical transformation that we call the scientific revolution . . . .¹

Despite all of these advantages—research funding, the resources of Greek philosophy and science, and great minds such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, al-Razi, al-Baghdadi, al-Biruni, al-Haytham, and Ibn Rushd—Arab societies did not give rise to modern science.

The eclipse of Arabic science is often explained by pointing to external geopolitical factors, such as the re-conquest of Spain by Christian forces from 1085 onward or the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258. However, in other intellectual capitals, such as Damascus and Cairo, developments proceeded largely undisturbed for centuries. Arab astronomy and medicine were reaching their zenith at the end of the thirteenth century—well after the purported disruption by external forces (and long before colonialist interference by European powers). The great observatory that was home to the Marâgha School was founded near Tabriz, Iran, in the year following the Mongol invasion of Baghdad. Although it ceased to function barely forty-five years later, its end appears to have been hastened not by foreign hostilities but by some impulses from within.²

Another take on the decline of Arabic science is that it never declined because it never really existed. In this view, science and mathematics were carried out by a small number of extraordinary individuals whose activities and outlooks were never fully assimilated to the mainstream—that is, Islamic—culture. As these individuals disappeared or their patronage dried up, their work dissipated. Since there was no established tradition, we have no need for an explanation of its decline by appeal to general causes, endogenous or otherwise.

Arguing against this view, the so-called “marginality thesis,” A. I. Sabra has pointed out that many of those who taught secular philosophy and medicine were also Islamic legal scholars; that leaders in higher mathematics were often muwaqqits, official time keepers employed by mosques; and that scientific literature could be found in the libraries of the religiously affiliated madrasas.³ This evidence suggests that Greek learning had been “Islamized” or “naturalized” by integration with the intellectual, social, and institutional structures of Islam and Arab culture.

Whig History of Science

The most eyebrow-raising response to the question of what caused the decline of Arabic science is to deny that there really is such a question. Some have maintained that the question only arises if we assume that the historical trajectory of Europe is normative for other societies, such that divergence from that trajectory demands an explanation. To catch the drift of this criticism, have another listen to Huff’s language. He tells us that Arabic scientists “failed to make the leap . . . that distinguished the Copernican achievement” and “failed to achieve the . . . transformation that we call the scientific revolution.”

In his book, The Making of Islamic Science, Muzaffar Iqbal labels this kind of discourse Whig history, in which “judgments passed on the scientific developments of a previous civilization are invariably based on the developments in modern science. This creates historiographic problems and entails the danger of unconsciously slipping from the historical fact into a Whiggish view of history, as if the final purpose of the cultivation of science in the other civilization was merely to create modern science.”⁴ Iqbal seems to suggest that the question of decline will itself decline as more informed and culturally sophisticated historians prevail.

This position has a whiff of plausibility, and not just because it nods to the contingency of history. Apart from a belief in Providence or Giambattista Vico’s “principles of universal history,” would it have been true to say in early renaissance Florence that a scientific revolution was going to happen there? Furthermore, isn’t asking why there was no Arab Galileo like asking why there was no Chinese Puccini or Persian Dante? China produced Peking opera and Persia produced Rumi. It would be a bizarre form of tunnel vision to see these singular achievements merely as abortive attempts at the achievements of other culture.

In the case of science, however, there are actual continuities between the Middle Eastern and European traditions that Peking opera and Italian opera do not share. It is precisely these continuities—such as the survival of Ibn Sina’s Canon—that are cited admiringly by those who wish to highlight the legacy of Arabic science. More fundamentally, the historiographical critique conflates motivation and justification. Undoubtedly some historians who accept the “decline” question are in part motivated by a belief that scientific modernity is on balance not all that regrettable, or by an interest in addressing the contemporary plight of science in Muslim-majority countries. These motives and interests give the question salience. However, they do not by themselves impugn the objectivity, truth, or justification of any particular claim that a historian makes. If Iqbal finds scientific modernity regrettable, then when he reads in Huff that Arab scientists “failed to make” the leap and “failed to achieve” the transformation to Copernicanism, he can substitute “were saved from making” and “managed to avoid.”⁵ The flip in salience will not change the truth-value of Huff’s analysis one whit.

Iqbal floats the idea that the alternative to Whiggish comparative history of science is to “examine the nature of science in Islamic civilization from within its own framework and see where it could have gone.” However, on its face, this is perfectly consistent with the comparative approach he rejects, for the way of Europe is one way that Islamic science could have gone. Of course, a good history will attempt to gain an appreciation of a social practice from within, from the perspective of the practitioners. In this case, it will inquire—as Sabra, Huff, and others do—into the proximate causes that shaped the role of the muwaqqit, for example. In principle, enough accounts of this kind will add up to a historical explanation of why Arabic science did not follow the trajectory of European science—or, if you prefer, why European science did not follow the trajectory of Arabic science.

The next installment of “Circumnavigations” will edge closer to this “why.”

Notes

1. Toby E. Huff, The rise of early modern science: Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 87.
2. —. 171-172.
3. —. 84.
4. The making of Islamic science, Muzzafar Iqbal (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2009), 151.
5. Iqbal, trained as a biochemist, is the founder-president of the Center for Islam and Science, based in Canada. He has also worked with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (on which, see my previous column). He told PBS in 2003 that he was “disenchanted” with practical science and that his biggest desire was to see “a revival of the Islamic tradition of learning.” See “Closer to Truth: Ask the Experts: Muzaffar Iqbal, Ph.D.”; accessed 12 January 2010.

Daybreakers begins ten years after an outbreak causes vampirism, when the world is running out of humans necessary to feed the vampire population. Gritty, dark, gory, and full of insight, Daybreakers left me bouncing between perceptive reflection and entertaining bloody revolution.

The blood shortage has stirred a need for both humans and a blood substitute. Humans are hunted and put into rooms to repopulate and be harvested for blood. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a vampire scientist working on a substitute at mega-corporation Bromley Marks and finds only catastrophic failure. Once the human supply becomes harder to find and the vampires begin to starve, their society unravels. Edward’s brother, Frankie (Michael Dorman), is a soldier tasked with finding humans on the perimeter of society and bringing them in to become food. By chance, Edward bumps into Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan), the leader of a human organization, and the path of his research changes.

Daybreakers made every part of my brain light up. At times the writer-directors Michael and Peter Spierig wrap themes around historical inferences and use allegories that require us to ask questions of ourselves. Then POW, blood squirts out in ways that seem both unrespectable and totally satisfying.

It’s hard to pin down the main theme of Daybreakers. One leaves the theater with no shortage of ideas to think about. How different does a person have to look to be no longer human? Will our greed be our own death? Are we entitled to any resource at the expense of human life? How close are we to yet another holocaust? Is it our duty to prevent or attempt to prevent all incursions into human dignity? Can we see ourselves in the faces of monsters?

There is one question that haunted me and returned me to my non-theistic ways: how much of society, of ourselves, of humanity would we be willing to cast aside in the pursuit of immortality? In modern terms: how many years are we willing to delay potentially lifesaving stem cell research for the sake of some people’s ideas of immortality because of their religion? It may not be what the Spierig Brothers were intending, but I care not.

I confess that, briefly during the movie, I became a theist. Sometime between peeking through the intentionally placed gaps in my fingers, the unabashed sanguine scenes, and exploding cavities with body-part shrapnel, I was hurled into the back of my seat, and the worlds “Oh my god” escaped my lips. One side of my mouth raised in glee while the other pushed down in reflexive disgust. It was delightful.

The root canal in the grin that is Daybreakers is the unforgivable use of dreadfully cliché music. At first I couldn’t quite place why, in scenes where the actors are pulling off the necessary emotions, I felt the overwhelming need to suck on a piece of dynamite. In a moment of hysterical brilliance my husband offered, “They spent all their money on corn syrup and red dye.” I guess when you go a bit over budget, you download the music from the royalty-free collection on iTunes.

If you love unbelievable dismemberments to display philosophical points, Daybreakers will knock your socks off. In fact, if you like any of the listed, you’ll enjoy it: vampires, bat-like creatures, corporate greed, architecture, awesome new cars, futuristic stories, bats, exploding bodies, impressive use of elevators, soldiers, chase scenes, classic cars, philosophy, introspection, and religion. Just bring an MP3 player to create your own soundtrack.

For over a century, math enthusiasts have been fascinated by Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 novel Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, and they’ll be excited to see this new animated adaptation of the classic story.

The original novel revolves around the journey of a square (aptly named A. Square) through his two-dimensional (flat) world. For the first half of the book, we’re treated to all the details of this world—the way each generation of shapes gives birth to a shape with one more side than the preceding one, the caste system that gives preference to higher-sided polygons, the reason women (straight lines in Abbott’s story) are forbidden from facing men straight-on, etc.

The second half of the book focuses on Square’s journey (in a dream) to Lineland, a world of only one dimension, and the square’s futile attempt to explain to the residents of Lineland his world of two dimensions. Later, Square is visited by a sphere who attempts to introduce him to the world of three dimensions.

Throughout the book, the reader is well aware of the first, second, and third dimensions, but Abbott’s aim is to open our minds to the possibility of a fourth (and higher) dimension—how these dimensions could exist and how we could possibly conceive of them.

In their adaptation of the book, the creative team behind Flatland: The Movie has the difficult job of condensing all this material into a half-hour production aimed at children. To make that happen, they must take a little artistic license. Women are no longer the lesser of the sexes (they are polygons just like the men; one woman even serves as a boss), and the main character, now named Arthur Square, is given a granddaughter (appropriately named “Hex”).

To guide students through the various dimensions, the team takes Arthur Square carefully through Pointland, Lineland, and Spaceland, explaining with terrific visuals just how each dimension is formed. By the climax of the film when the viewers are encouraged to think about a possible fourth dimension, it doesn’t seem quite as hard to grasp even if viewers can’t really put a finger on what that dimension might look like.

As in the book, there are subtle questions in this movie that any skeptic would appreciate: Why are the priests (those with hundreds or thousands of sides) trying to repress any information about the third dimension? Can mathematical/scientific truth trump accepted dogma? Is the truth accessible only to the elite, or can it be grasped by anyone?

While other film versions of Flatland have been made in the past, none have the visual appeal and star power this one has. The celebrity voice talents include Martin Sheen, Kristen Bell, Michael York, and Tony Hale.

I’m a high school math teacher, and for the past couple years I have shown my students this movie whether they were in a lower-level or Honors-level class. Regardless of age or skill, they have absolutely loved it. Watching and discussing the movie is consistently among their favorite memories of our class. More importantly, their curiosity about tesseracts (fourth-dimensional analogs of a cube) and string theory (which hypothesizes eleven dimensions) extends well beyond the classroom.

When I began teaching, the only popular movie about math was Donald in Mathmagic Land, a Disney film from 1959 featuring Donald Duck. As enduring as that movie has been, I can say from experience it doesn’t connect as well with modern students.

Flatland: The Movie doesn’t have that problem. This should be required viewing for any twenty-first century math teacher.

If you are anything like me, reading is an essential part of life itself. For my generation, newspapers, books, and magazines are so intertwined with who we are and what we do that we almost can’t imagine a world without them.

In junior high and high school I hid paperback science-fiction novels behind my textbooks; in boring parts of class, I’d fly off in imaginative excursions through the universe. My parents belonged to the Book of the Month Club, and every four weeks some new enticing brochure describing novels and nonfiction books arrived with literate little essays to let us know what the club’s editors thought every intelligent family should be reading. My mother ordered lots of those books. And at least some of them we read. They were hardback—this was well before the era of trade paperbacks.

Our northern Colorado farm town’s little public library was a place of magic. Go up one flight of stairs above the town hall, and you entered a place so wondrous that I still remember the smells and sounds today. That wonderful new-book smell, there’s nothing like it, and the sounds of our shoes crackling on those varnished hardwood floors. All the new young person’s adventure novels awaited me, in their stylish, plastic-covered covers. There wasn’t a book I wanted that I couldn’t find. (I’m sure by all modern standards that was a very small library, and its quantity of books couldn’t have been very great. But at the time it seemed all I needed.)

I was also a newspaper junkie from early on. By ninth grade, we had a journalism class with another in high school taught by a fine teacher. I wrote the editorials for our high school newspaper, which was typeset, laid out, and published every Thursday as a well-read page in our town’s weekly newspaper. It was quite a heady experience to see your words in print every week, for every person in town to read. Every single person you knew.

So it is no wonder that after a brief flirtation with physics as a major, I ended up in journalism school (with a science emphasis but still a hard-news disposition). I worked three summers on newspapers, then a full year as a working newsman in the Denver bureau of UPI, and then went on to graduate school in journalism in New York at Columbia.

When I started at Columbia (fall of 1965), New York City had six daily newspapers. Then there was a major newspaper strike. It went on for a long time, as I recall, a sobering circumstance when you are studying to become a newspaperman. By the time I graduated, or at least shortly thereafter, New York had only four daily newspapers. The Journal-American and the Herald-Tribune, the latter a very fine newspaper, had fallen victim to harsh economics.

Newspapers have been under economic pressures from television since the ’50s, but their rapid decline now—in this new Internet age—is unprecedented. And sad. I am still a newspaper junkie. We get the Sunday New York Times delivered before sunrise on Sunday mornings to our house in Albuquerque—nearly two thousand miles from New York. We read it throughout the week. All other mornings I spend at least forty-five minutes with our local morning newspaper. I like the feel of the newspaper in my hand or on the table. Up until this past year, my wife Ruth and I had similar rituals in the early evening, often over dinner or a TV program, reading our local afternoon Scripps-Howard newspaper. It died last summer. We are no longer a two-newspaper city.

Kids these days don’t read newspapers. They barely know what they are. I know that. I’ve seen it. I worry about it. It is terrible for newspapers and those who love them. It may be terrible for education and for democracy. But I have to realize that I—and maybe all of us of our age group—are looking at the matter through our own generations’ prism. We may need to look through a newer, more high-tech prism to find signs of hope there. I think we might.

Recently we had some of our family over for dinner. Thinking about this article, I asked our grandson, Tenzin (who in December turned eighteen): “I know you don’t read newspapers or watch the evening television network news like we do, but do you nevertheless consider yourself well-informed? And exactly where do you get your information?” I think I kind of knew the answer, because he’s very computer-literate, but I wanted to hear it from him. He’s a smart young man, bright, studious, well-read (he reads books, lots of books; that’s another story), aware, already in college. Perhaps not altogether typical of most young people but still a youngster of his generation (in most ways).

“I think I am fairly well-informed,” he began thoughtfully. He explained that he gets his news off a variety of Internet sites. And then he said something about himself and his peers that to those of us in publishing is chilling but no longer unexpected: “We don’t think we should have to pay for information.”

There. He said it. That’s what the current debate is all about. Information should be free, on the Internet. Free is good, as the editor of Wired maintains. But Tenzin quickly added, in constructive fashion: “Newspapers and magazines just have to get a new business model. We may not think we should pay for information, but we don’t mind wading through ads to get to it.”

There, in a one young family member’s microcosm, was the core essence of the debate. I’ve seen this debate played out endlessly in heart-felt discussions about the future of newspapers and magazines in blogs, the Columbia Journalism Review, other magazines, and newspapers themselves.

We in publishing know we have to embrace the modern electronic information age, and most all of us are doing so in various ways; but how do we make it pay? Not pay in order to make a profit—because most of us aren’t really in this work for profit—just in order to stay in business at all. In order to research, report, write, edit, making a whole bunch of professional judgments along the way, and then get that encapsulated information out to the world that needs it. What in the world is the business model based on “free is good”? The debates are ongoing, and they are endless. No one, I think it is fair to say, really yet knows the answer. We don’t yet know how this is going to play out, which is very unsettling.

The tools of delivery are rapidly changing, and that’s where all the stress and worry comes in. But we must remember that most other industries in the corporate world have also undergone stresses and changes in recent years and decades; how well they responded to and adapted to those changing circumstances helps determine whether they’ll survive or not. (Plus an occasional ten-billion or so government subsidy—something those of us in the media can’t quite expect.)

In publishing we cling emotionally to the physical printed books, newspapers, and magazines we love so much—a history going back more than 500 years now. It’s no wonder. We do love them, and we should. But it is what goes into them that counts, not the exact physical output. It is their product of the human brain, heart, and imagination that we seek, and what form it happens to get to us in is less important. Isn’t it? I think that may be true anyway. Intellectually, I say so.

It is hard for me, though, living as I do in a large house with at least five of its rooms (two of them Skeptical Inquirer offices) lined with books. Bookcases everywhere. Many thousands of books over all. They are everywhere. I love their look, their feel. Their variety, their design, their content, the way they represent our wide-ranging interests and values. They are a part of my identity. (Ruth’s too, I think. She reads books far more than even I do.) With newspapers on the counter. With magazines of every type and description on display. I keep some in magazine file boxes to refer to in the event that becomes necessary. (Yet even I now am more likely to go immediately to the Web to do my research.)

I mentioned that newspaper and other publishers are struggling with these matters as we speak. On November 1, the New York Times’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, wrote (again) about some of these painful problems. Although the Times has the largest newsroom of any American newspaper, Clark reported that the Times was about to cut 100 newsroom people (of their 1,250 reporters, editors, photographers, columnists, graphic artists, videographers, and more) through voluntary buyouts and, if needed, make layoffs in the weeks before Christmas. It is hardly alone. The Baltimore Sun is down from 400 journalists to 150; the Los Angeles Times news staff has been cut by more than half. Most large newspapers have closed or drastically curtailed their foreign bureaus. The Wall Street Journal is closing its Boston bureau. The Associated Press may have to enact layoffs to get payroll down 10 percent.

Since the Times and all other publications have enlarged their online presence dramatically, the new question is: Can you charge for that online access? Hoyt says many readers are suggesting the Times do so, and they are willing to get out their credit cards. Times executives are still studying that issue. But Bill Keller, the Times executive editor expresses caution: “It’s a much tougher, more complicated decision than it seems to all the armchair experts. There is no clear consensus on the right way to go.”

The paradox is that newspaper circulations are declining, rapidly, while in many cases newspaper readership is up. Many readers prefer reading their newspaper reports on the Web. But making that pay—again, that is the key dilemma. No one has yet found a reliable way.

Magazines are in similar situations, under tremendous cost/circulation pressures. Sixteen thousand titles are published in the U.S., but every month notable ones drop by the wayside. Many others are struggling. You would think that magazines with unique niches, the Skeptical Inquirer among them, would have some advantage over general-interest ones. Perhaps they do, but the flight to the Internet is debilitating for all.

My view is that for most periodicals the subscriptions should include both the printed and electronic version (or an option of one or the other). Thus subscribers (but not nonsubscribers) would have full access to the entire publication online. Most scientific journals have already gone that way. But I realize implementing that kind of action for more public periodicals is difficult and fraught with uncertainties.

But let’s get beyond economics and questions of the survival of media outlets and whole media industries. There are even larger issues: reading and literacy. They are essential to modern democratic civilization. Is the Internet age decreasing or reducing reading and literacy? I don’t know for sure. It is easy for us oldsters to condemn the newer generation for their addictions to texting, twittering, chat-rooming, social networking, blogging—and the incredible handheld devices that make all this possible anywhere, anytime, twenty-four hours a day. But I think we have to be careful. Our own prism may be obscured.

I am tentatively encouraged by the view of Stanford University professor of writing and rhetoric Andrea Lunsford. She has organized a huge project collecting more than 14,000 student writing samples—in-class assignments, formal essays to be sure, but also e-mails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions, reported in a recent column in Wired by Clive Thompson called “The New Literacy” (September 2009) are worth thinking about seriously:

“I think we are in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,” she says. For Lunsford [Thompson reports], technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions. The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. . . .It’s almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment.

The question arises: is this explosion of writing good on a technical level? Thompson argues that the answer is yes. Lunsford’s team found that the students were remarkably adept at assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to get their point across. Says Thompson: “The modern world of online writing. . .is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago. The fact that students today almost always write for an audience….gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing.”

I am not totally convinced, and I am sure you are not either. But perhaps it is a glimmer of hope.

Here’s what my computer-literate oldest grandson e-mailed me when I shared a draft of this essay:

I’ve read the Wired article you mentioned (online, for free :p), and I believe that in many ways the author is absolutely correct. Knowing your audience and conveying tone is especially important in online communications, not only because vocal cues cannot be relied upon, but also because the quality of writing is often used to judge the merit of a claim where other tools are not available. Writing like a middle schooler gives the message the weight of a middle-schooler’s opinion. It’s also, as the article mentioned, a fundamentally different form of communication than an essay.

As far as sheer volume goes, I have written far, far more for the Internet’s consumption than I have for school. Over the last three weeks, I’ve almost six thousand lines worth of irc communication (a form of instant messaging/chatroom), and have read many times that amount. That’s in addition to many dozen of forum posts, ranging in length from a single sentence to a mini essay. I may be atypical, but our generation certainly does communicate in large part via text.

So, if his experience is at all typical, perhaps there is way more than a glimmer of hope. We must embrace the new technology, use it ourselves to the degree we’re comfortable, and encourage the newer, younger generation to use it in every way possible for all constructive purposes.

My title mentions the New Skepticism. Here’s one thing I mean. All these new tools allow us to go out there and assess and investigate claims and assertions like never before. Those who use them now have tools to access information that we could only have hoped for in our student and early adult years. Inquirers can now quickly call up ten sources on the Web and cross-compare them for inconsistencies and discrepancies, and therefore begin to sift likely correct statements from possibly incorrect ones.

Earlier this year, at the Center for Inquiry conference in Bethesda, Maryland, we had a late-afternoon special section on the New Skepticism. It was filled with a lot of the newer generation of eager young people with great new ideas and energy to devote to the skeptical movement.

They didn’t need me, but here’s a little of what I told them anyway, at the beginning:

What a revolution that has been over the past two decades!

There is no point lamenting what has been lost—instead we must capitalize on what has been gained and become adept at using all the new tools that the Internet and other modern electronic communications have made possible.

All this to better communicate among ourselves and present to the millions worldwide the differences between bad science and good science, sense and nonsense, reason and unreason—in general and in specific case after case—and the rewards and unfettered joy of science and skeptical inquiry.

Use these new tools. . . . The next generation, and the one after that, find these new tools natural and should not be held back by our old allegiances to the print media and central broadcast media.

The November/December 2009 special issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, guest edited by our managing editor Ben Radford, was devoted to just these issues. It’s titled “Skepticism 2.0: What’s Next?” A dozen invited representatives of the new generation of skeptics write provocatively and passionately about their view of the new skepticism. Because they work in a decentralized way and use so many different electronic media, their viewpoint may differ from the classic skeptical movement founded by Paul Kurtz, Martin Gardner, James Randi, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Philip Klass, Ray Human, and the others a third of a century ago. Many are well aware of CSI and SI and the pioneering efforts of these early heroes of skepticism, and the history of the movement. But others aren’t; they’re just out there doing their skeptical thing. On their own. And in many cases, remarkably well. And that’s mostly a good thing.

I highly commend that entire issue of SI for a refreshingly different view of the skeptical movement as it draws in younger people and embraces all the modern technologies now available.

Conventional books and magazines will continue to struggle, with electronic distribution of books coming rapidly to the fore and more newspapers and magazines succumbing or going online only. The losses are dreadful. The reflective judgments their editors bring to the editorial content may be sorely missed. Future readers may never know the tactile delight, that almost visceral feel, of a book or a newspaper in the hand. But they will read, in some form, in some way, the thoughts and ideas and collected wisdom authors convey and the important information people (and search engines) compile. The communications tools have changed and multiplied, and, as realists and rationalists, we must recognize and apply their enormous new power and promise.

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.

Both sides have made significant efforts to establish scientific credibility with the public... . Those favoring action rely heavily on the IPCC-2007 science report [by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].... In contrast, [the office of dissenter] James Inhofe…the ranking Republican member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works ... has issued a ... report titled United States Senate Minority Report on Global Warming.... As of January 2009, the number of ... individuals identified [in the Report] as scientists who allegedly dissent over [man-made global warming] claims ... was 687 [including] some quite well-known scientists.

Jordan then discusses the efforts of CFI’s OPP to “vet the list [of 687 dissenting scientists] carefully to establish how credible it is overall.” Though he doesn’t mention its official name in the piece, the OPP dubbed this endeavor the “Credibility Project.” And, as Jordan relates, its findings appear devastating for the dissenters.

After thus laying the groundwork for the following ostensible no-brainer, Jordan ends by rhetorically asking “the skeptic who is not acquainted with the relevant science where he or she thinks the most credible scientific assessment lies—with the scientists whose published research is reported in the IPCC-2007 science report or with the much smaller group of scientists collected for the Senate minority report.”

Some background: In May 2009, CFI’s OPP had disseminated a “Dear Citizen” announcement about its upcoming July 18–21 Second Annual Civic Days at the Nation’s Capital (see inset). From its introductory paragraph: “You will hear about ... an OPP-sponsored project exposing fake ‘scientists’ who oppose global warming.” But two months later, in an invitation to the Credibility Project’s July 17 press conference at the National Press Club, the OPP no longer referred to the dissenting scientists as fake. When I inquired as to whether this reflected “an evolution on CFI’s part,” OPP executive director Toni Van Pelt replied, “It is true, Gary, that your many e-mails [I routinely copy her when corresponding on this subject] influenced my decision to commission this research.”

Because I harbor my own doubts about the existence of a man-made global warming crisis, I anxiously awaited the details of the Credibility Project’s assessment of the skeptical scientists. Its most significant finding constitutes the deck of Jordan’s piece: “CFI vets list of 687 ‘dissenting scientists’ in Senate minority report; 80 percent haven’t published peer-reviewed climate research.” Largely for this reason, in its July 17 press release, OPP concluded that its findings “expose a lack of credibility among dissenting scientists challenging man-made global warming.”

But in my follow-up to Toni, I explained why “it simply does not logically follow that [those skeptical scientists] necessarily lack the credibility to speak to the issues at hand,” any more than I lack the legitimacy to critique, for example, medical studies touting prayer and healing, as I have done in CFI-sponsored magazines despite never having published studies of my own in the peer-reviewed literature.

Speaking further to Jordan’s key point that “80 percent haven’t published peer-reviewed climate research,” Skeptical Inquirer columnist Robert Sheaffer e-mailed a letter to the editor (see page 64), which was copied to other interested parties (including Jordan and myself), pointing out that OPP also should have vetted the list of IPCC scientists, since perhaps as few as 20 percent of them have had any professional dealings with climate, much less published in the peer-reviewed climate literature.

In his e-mailed reply to Sheaffer (et al.), Jordan advises:

One of the favorite tactics of global warming deniers is to refer to the [IPCC’s summary] report for policymakers, which summarizes [their separate] science report [authored by 2,000 real climate scientists]. There [in the summary report] it is true that the majority are not climate scientists, because they are presenting a summary, that is based upon the science report, to government officials, in the language of policy recommendations. Clearly this is comparing apples and oranges. The IPCC-2007 report titled “The Physical Science Basis” is a true science report, written by and summarizing the work of approximately 2,000 real scientists.

However, Sheaffer’s letter compares apples to apples—he does not reference the “summary” report, authored by fifty-one members of the IPCC. In an addendum offered after Jordan’s initial response, Sheaffer points out that OPP apparently also failed to ascertain how many of the “2,000 real scientists” actually contributed to the writing of the science report (620), and how many of those have published in the relevant literature.

Thus it seems that the Credibility Project, conceived by CFI’s Office of Public Policy for the purpose of “exposing fake ‘scientists’” who dare dissent from the prevailing climate of climate-change alarmism, has some credibility problems of its own. After polishing the project’s clouded lens, as one again examines Jordan’s question about whether “the most credible scientific assessment lies ... with the [IPCC] scientists ... or with the ... scientists collected for the Senate minority report,” the answer doesn’t appear to be such a no-brainer after all.