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How to Think about Weird Things

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How to Think about Weird Things Critical Thinking for a New Age

SEVENTH EDITION

Theodore Schick, Jr. Muhlenberg College

Lewis Vaughn

Foreword by Martin Gardner

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HOW TO THINK ABOUT WEIRD THINGS: CRITICAL THINKING FOR A NEW AGE, SEVENTH EDITION

Published by McGraw-Hill, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10020. Copyright © 2014 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2007, 2004, and 2001. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States.

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Foreword

Every year, in English-speaking countries alone, more than a hundred books that promote the wildest forms of bogus science and the para- normal are published. The percentage of Americans today who take astrology seriously is larger than the percentage of people who did so in the early Middle Ages, when leading church theologians—Saint Augustine, for example—gave excellent reasons for considering astrol- ogy nonsense. We pride ourselves on our advanced scientific technol- ogy, yet public education in science has sunk so low that one-fourth of Americans and 55 percent of teenagers, not to mention a recent pres- ident of the nation and his first lady, believe in astrology!

Now and then a courageous publisher, more concerned with enlightening the public than with profits, will issue a book that hon- estly assesses pseudoscience and the paranormal. Works of this sort now in print can be counted on your fingers. It is always an occasion for rejoicing when such a book appears, and there are several ways in which How to Think about Weird Things is superior to most books designed to teach readers how to tell good science from bad.

First of all, this book covers an enormous range of bogus sciences and extraordinary claims that currently enjoy large followings in Amer- ica. Second, unlike most similar books, the authors heavily stress prin- ciples that help you critically evaluate outlandish claims—and tell you why these principles are so important. Third, the book’s discussions are readable, precise, and straightforward.

I am particularly pleased by the book’s clearheaded assessment of scientific realism at a time when it has become fashionable in New Age circles to think of the laws of science as not “out there,” but some- how a projection of our minds and cultures. Yes, quantum mechanics has its subjective tinge. There is a sense in which an electron’s prop- erties are not definite until it is measured, but this technical aspect of quantum theory has no relevance on the macroscopic level of every- day life. In no way does the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics imply, as some physicists smitten by Eastern religions claim, that the moon is not there unless someone looks at it. As Einstein liked to ask, Will a mouse’s observation make the moon real?

The authors give clear, accurate explanations of puzzling physi- cal theories. Quantum theory indeed swarms with mind-boggling experiments that are only dimly understood. None of them justify thinking that E = mc2 is a cultural artifact, or that E might equal mc3

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in Afghanistan or on a distant planet. Extraterrestrials would of course express Einstein’s formula with different symbols, but the law itself is as mind-independent as Mars.

As the authors say simply: “There is a way that the world is.” It is the task of science to learn as much as it can about how this universe, not made by us, behaves. The awesome achievements of technology are irrefutable evidence that science keeps getting closer and closer to objective truth.

As the authors tell us, there are two distinct kinds of knowledge: logical and mathematical truth (statements that are certain within a given formal system), and scientific truth, never absolutely certain, but which can be accepted with a degree of probability that in many instances is practically indistinguishable from certainty. It takes a bizarre kind of mind to imagine that two plus two could be anything but four, or that, as the authors put it, cows can jump over the moon or rabbits lay multicolored eggs.

The authors are to be especially cheered for their coverage of unsubstantiated alternative treatments, some of them weird beyond imagining. Preposterous medical claims can cause untold harm to gullible persons who rely on them to the exclusion of treatment by mainstream physicians.

The authors are also to be commended for finding colorful and apt quotations from other writers. Bertrand Russell, for instance, gave three simple rules for curbing one’s tendency to accept what he called “intellectual rubbish”:

1. When the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain.

2. When they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a nonexpert.

3. When they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary person would do well to suspend judgment.

“These propositions seem mild,” Russell added, “yet, if accepted, they would absolutely revolutionize human life.”

I am under no illusions about how effective this book will be in persuading readers to adopt Russell’s three maxims. I can say that to the extent it does, it will have performed a service that our technologically advanced but scientifically retarded nation desperately needs.

— Martin Gardner

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ix

Preface

Few claims seem to arouse more interest, evoke more emotion, and create more confusion than those dealing with the paranormal, the supernatural, or the mysterious—what in this book we call “weird things.” Although many such claims are unbelievable, many people believe them, and their belief often has a profound effect on their lives. Billions of dollars are spent each year on people and products claiming supernatural powers. Channelers claim to communicate with aliens from outer space, psychics and astrologers claim to fore- tell the future, and healers claim to cure everything from AIDS to warts. Who are we to believe? How do we decide which claims are credible? What distinguishes rational from irrational claims? This book is designed to help you answer such questions.

Why do you believe in any given claim? Do you believe for any of the following reasons?

• You had an extraordinary personal experience. • You embrace the idea that anything is possible—including

weird things. • You have an especially strong feeling that the claim is true or

false. • You have made a leap of faith that compels you to accept the

claim. • You believe in inner, mystical ways of knowing that support the

claim. • You know that no one has ever disproved the claim. • You have empirical evidence that the claim is true. • You believe that any claim is true for you if you believe it to be

true.

This list of reasons for belief could go on and on. But which rea- sons are good reasons? Clearly, some are better than others; some can help us decide which claims are most likely to be true, and some can’t. If we care whether any claim is actually true, whether our beliefs are well founded (and not merely comfortable or convenient), we must be able to distinguish good reasons from bad. We must understand how and when our beliefs are justified, how and when we can say that we know that something is true or believable.

The central premise of this book is that such an understanding is possible, useful, and empowering. Being able to distinguish good

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reasons from bad will not only improve your decision-making ability; it will also give you a powerful weapon against all forms of huckster- ism. This volume shows you step-by-step how to sort out reasons, how to evaluate evidence, and how to tell when a claim (no matter how strange) is likely to be true. It’s a course in critical thinking as applied to claims and phenomena that many people think are immune to critical thinking.

The emphasis, then, is neither on debunking nor on advocating specific claims, but on explaining principles of critical thinking that enable you to evaluate any claim for yourself. To illustrate how to apply these principles, we supply analyses of many extraordinary claims, including conclusions regarding their likely truth or falsity. But the focus is on carefully wielding the principles, not on whether a given claim goes unscathed or is cut down.

Often in the realm of the weird, such principles themselves are precisely what’s at issue. Arguments about weird things are frequently about how people know and if people know—the main concerns of the branch of philosophy called epistemology. Thinking about weird things, then, brings us face-to-face with some of the most funda- mental issues in human thought. So we concentrate on clearly explaining these issues, showing why the principles themselves in this book are valid, and demonstrating why many alternatives to them are unfounded. We explore alleged sources of knowledge like faith, intuition, mysticism, perception, introspection, memory, reason, and science. We ask: Do any of these factors give us knowledge? Why or why not?

Since we show how these principles can be used in specific cases, this book is essentially a work of applied epistemology. Whether you’re a believer or nonbeliever in weird things, and whether or not you’re aware of it, you have an epistemology, a theory of knowledge. If you ever hope to discern whether a weird claim (or any other kind of claim) is true, your epistemology had better be a good one.

The principles discussed in this book can help you evaluate any claim—not just those dealing with weird phenomena. We believe that if you can successfully use these principles to assess the most bizarre, most unexpected claims, you’re well prepared to tackle anything run- of-the-mill.

NEW EDITION, NEW MATERIAL

For this seventh edition, we have revised several sections, updated several others, and added new discussions of topics that now draw a great deal of popular interest. These changes include:

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• A new case study on climate change • New boxes on ancient aliens, ghost hunters, precognition, the

Phoenixville and Stephenville lights, end of the world prophe- cies, and immunization and autism

• Expanded discussion of the harm of irrational beliefs, the possi- bility of time travel and space travel, the relationship between magic and miracles, and the plausibility of astrology

IMPORTANT CONTINUING FEATURES

This volume also includes the following:

• Explanations of over thirty principles of knowledge, reasoning, and evidence that you can use to enhance your problem-solving skills and sharpen your judgment.

• Discussions of over sixty paranormal, supernatural, or mysterious phenomena, including astrology, ghosts, fairies, ESP, psychokinesis, UFO abductions, channeling, dowsing, near-death experiences, pro- phetic dreams, demon possession, time travel, parapsychology, and creationism.

• Details of a step-by-step procedure for evaluating any extraordi- nary claim. We call it the SEARCH formula and give several examples showing how it can be applied to some popular weird claims.

• Numerous boxes offering details on various offbeat beliefs, assess- ments by both true believers and skeptics of extraordinary claims, and reports of relevant scientific research. We think this material can stimulate discussion or serve as examples that can be assessed using the principles of critical thinking.

• A comprehensive treatment of different views about the nature of truth, including several forms of relativism and subjectivism.

• A detailed discussion of the characteristics, methodology, and limitations of science, illustrated with analyses of the claims of para- psychology and creationism. This discussion includes a complete treatment of science’s criteria of adequacy and how those criteria should be used to evaluate extraordinary claims.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors shared equally in the work of writing this book and thus share equally in responsibility for any of its shortcomings. But we are not alone in the project. We’re grateful to Muhlenberg College for

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the research funds and library resources made available to us, to the Muhlenberg Scholars who participated in the course based on this book, and to the many people who helped us by reviewing the man- uscript for accuracy, giving expert advice, and offering insightful commentary.

For the seventh edition, these included the following people:

Anne Berre, Schreiner University James Blackmon, San Francisco State University William Holly, Modesto Junior College Michael Jackson, St. Bonaventure University Don Merrell, Arkansas State University Tadd Ruetenik, St. Ambrose University Dennis Shaw, Lower Columbia College Weimin Sun, California State University at Northridge Mark Vopat, Youngstown State University Helen Woodman, Ferris State University

And we continue to thank the reviewers of the sixth edition, who include:

H. E. Baber, University of San Diego Tim Black, California State University, Northridge Douglas E. Hill, California State University, Fullerton Rebekah Ross-Fountain, Texas State University–San Marcos Mark C. Vopat, Youngstown State University

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FOREWORD vii

PREFACE ix

Chapter 1 Introduction: Close Encounters with the Strange 1

THE IMPORTANCE OF WHY 2

BEYOND WEIRD TO THE ABSURD 4

A WEIRDNESS SAMPLER 6

Notes 13

Chapter 2 The Possibility of the Impossible 14

PARADIGMS AND THE PARANORMAL 15

LOGICAL POSSIBILITY VERSUS PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY 16

THE POSSIBILITY OF ESP 22

THEORIES AND THINGS 24

ON KNOWING THE FUTURE 25

Summary 28

Study Questions 30

Evaluate These Claims 30

Discussion Questions 30

Field Problem 30

Critical Reading and Writing 31

Notes 32

Chapter 3 Arguments Good, Bad, and Weird 33

CLAIMS AND ARGUMENTS 34

DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS 39

INDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS 42

Enumerative Induction 42

Analogical Induction 46

Hypothetical Induction (Abduction, or Inference to the Best Explanation) 47

Contents

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INFORMAL FALLACIES 49

Unacceptable Premises 49

Begging the Question 49 False Dilemma 49

Irrelevant Premises 50

Equivocation 50 Composition 50 Division 51 Appeal to the Person 51 Genetic Fallacy 51 Appeal to Authority 51 Appeal to the Masses 52 Appeal to Tradition 52 Appeal to Ignorance 52 Appeal to Fear 53 Straw Man 53

Insufficient Premises 53

Hasty Generalization 53 Faulty Analogy 54 False Cause 54 Slippery Slope 54

STATISTICAL FALLACIES 55

Misleading Averages 55

Missing Values 55

Hazy Comparisons 56

Summary 57

Study Questions 57

Evaluate These Claims 58

Discussion Questions 59

Field Problem 60

Critical Reading and Writing 60

Notes 61

Chapter 4 Knowledge, Belief, and Evidence 62

BABYLONIAN KNOWLEDGE-ACQUISITION TECHNIQUES 63

PROPOSITIONAL KNOWLEDGE 64

xiv C O N T E N T S

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REASONS AND EVIDENCE 65

EXPERT OPINION 71

COHERENCE AND JUSTIFICATION 74

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 75

THE APPEAL TO FAITH 77

THE APPEAL TO INTUITION 79

THE APPEAL TO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE 81

ASTROLOGY REVISITED 84

Summary 90

Study Questions 91

Evaluate These Claims 91

Discussion Questions 91

Field Problem 92

Critical Reading and Writing 92

Notes 93

Chapter 5 Looking for Truth in Personal Experience 96

SEEMING AND BEING 97

PERCEIVING: WHY YOU CAN’T ALWAYS BELIEVE WHAT YOU SEE 99

Perceptual Constancies 99

The Role of Expectation 100

Looking for Clarity in Vagueness 101

The Blondlot Case 104

“Constructing” UFOs 107

REMEMBERING: WHY YOU CAN’T ALWAYS TRUST WHAT YOU RECALL 111

CONCEIVING: WHY YOU SOMETIMES SEE WHAT YOU BELIEVE 118

Denying the Evidence 118

Subjective Validation 121

Confirmation Bias 125

The Availability Error 127

The Representativeness Heuristic 132

Anthropomorphic Bias 135

Against All Odds 138

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xvi C O N T E N T S

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: WHY TESTIMONIALS CAN’T BE TRUSTED 141

The Variable Nature of Illness 143

The Placebo Effect 145

Overlooked Causes 146

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE: WHY CONTROLLED STUDIES CAN BE TRUSTED 147

Summary 149

Study Questions 150

Evaluate These Claims 151

Discussion Questions 151

Field Problem 151

Critical Reading and Writing 152

Notes 153

Chapter 6 Science and Its Pretenders 158

SCIENCE AND DOGMA 159

SCIENCE AND SCIENTISM 160

SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY 161

CONFIRMING AND REFUTING HYPOTHESES 166

CRITERIA OF ADEQUACY 171

Testability 172

Fruitfulness 174

Scope 177

Simplicity 178

Conservatism 180

CREATIONISM, EVOLUTION, AND CRITERIA OF ADEQUACY 181

Scientific Creationism 183

Intelligent Design 191

PARAPSYCHOLOGY 197

Summary 212

Study Questions 213

Evaluate These Claims 213

Discussion Questions 214

Field Problem 214

Critical Reading and Writing 214

Notes 215

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Chapter 7 Case Studies in the Extraordinary 220

THE SEARCH FORMULA 222

Step 1: State the Claim 223

Step 2: Examine the Evidence for the Claim 223

Step 3: Consider Alternative Hypotheses 224

Step 4: Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis 225

HOMEOPATHY 227

INTERCESSORY PRAYER 231

UFO ABDUCTIONS 234

COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEAD 248

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES 253

GHOSTS 268

CONSPIRACY THEORIES 276

CLIMATE CHANGE 283

Summary 288

Study Questions 288

Evaluate These Claims 289

Field Problem 290

Critical Reading and Writing 290

Notes 290

Chapter 8 Relativism,Truth, and Reality 295

WE EACH CREATE OUR OWN REALITY 297

REALITY IS SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED 301

REALITY IS CONSTITUTED BY CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES 306

THE RELATIVIST’S PETARD 311

FACING REALITY 313

Summary 315

Study Questions 316

Evaluate These Claims 316

Discussion Questions 316

Field Problem 316

Critical Reading and Writing 317

Notes 318

CREDITS C-1

INDEX I-1

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1

ONE Introduction: Close Encounters with the Strange

THIS BOOK IS FOR you who have stared into the nightsky or the dark recesses of a room, hairs raised on the back of your neck, eyes wide, faced with an experience you

couldn’t explain but about which you have never stopped

wondering, “Was it real?” It’s for you who have read

and heard about UFOs, psychic phenomena, time travel,

out-of-body experiences, ghosts, monsters, astrology, rein-

carnation, mysticism, acupuncture, iridology, incredible

experiments in quantum physics, and a thousand other

extraordinary things, and asked, “Is it true?” Most of all, it’s

for you who believe, as Einstein did, that the most beautiful

experience we can have is the mysterious—and who yet, like

him, have the courage to ask tough questions until the mys-

tery yields answers.

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

—PLATO

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But this is not primarily a book of such answers, though several will be offered. This book is about how to find the answers for yourself—how to test the truth or reality of some of the most influential, mysterious, provocative, bewildering puzzles we can ever experience. It’s about how to think clearly and critically about what we authors have dubbed weird things—all the unusual, awesome, wonderful, bizarre, and antic happenings, real or alleged, that bubble up out of science, pseu- doscience, the occult, the paranormal, the mystic, and the miraculous.

THE IMPORTANCE OF WHY

Pick up almost any book or magazine on such subjects. It will tell you that some extraordinary phenomenon is real or illusory, that some strange claim is true or false, probable or improbable. Plenty of peo- ple around you will gladly offer you their beliefs (often unshakable) about the most amazing things. In this blizzard of assertions, you hear a lot of whats, but seldom any good whys. That is, you hear the beliefs, but seldom any solid reasons behind them—nothing sub- stantial enough to justify your sharing the beliefs; nothing reliable enough to indicate that these assertions are likely to be true. You may hear naiveté, passionate advocacy, fierce denunciation, one-sided sifting of evidence, defense of the party line, leaps of faith, jumps to false conclusions, plunges into wishful thinking, and courageous stands on the shaky ground of subjective certainty. But the good rea- sons are missing. Even if you do hear good reasons, you may end up forming a firm opinion on one extraordinary claim, but fail to learn any principle that would help you with a similar case. Or you hear good reasons, but no one bothers to explain why they’re so good, why they’re most likely to lead to the truth. Or no one may dare to answer the ultimate why—why good reasons are necessary to begin with.

Without good whys, humans have no hope of understanding all that we fondly call weird—or anything else, for that matter. Without good whys, our beliefs are simply arbitrary, with no more claim to knowledge than the random choice of a playing card. Without good whys to guide us, our beliefs lose their value in a world where beliefs are already a dime a dozen.

We especially need good whys when faced with weirdness. For statements about weird things are almost always cloaked in swirling mists of confusion, misconception, misperception, and our own yearn- ing to disbelieve or believe. Our task of judging the reality of these weird things isn’t made any easier by one fact that humbles and inspires every scientist: Sometimes the weirdest phenomena are absolutely

2 O N E : I N T RO D U C T I O N : C L O S E E N C O U N T E R S W I T H T H E S T R A N G E

Skeptical habits of thought are essential for nothing less than our survival— because baloney, bamboozles, bunk, careless thinking, flimflam and wishes disguised as facts are not restricted to parlor magic and ambiguous advice on matters of the heart.

—CARL SAGAN

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real; sometimes the strangest claims turn out to be true. The best sci- entists and thinkers can never forget that sometimes wondrous dis- coveries are made out there on the fringe of experience, where anomalies prowl.

Space aliens are abducting your neighbors. Psychic detectives solve crimes. You were a medieval stable boy in a former life. Nos- tradamus predicted JFK’s assassination. Herbs can cure AIDS. Levita- tion is possible. Reading tarot cards reveals character. Science proves the wisdom of Eastern mysticism. The moon landing was a hoax. Magnet therapy works. Near-death experiences prove there’s life after death. Crystals heal. Bigfoot stalks. Elvis lives.

Do you believe any of these claims? Do you believe that some or all of them deserve a good horselaugh, that they’re the kind of hooey that only a moron could take seriously? The big question then is why? Why do you believe or disbelieve? Belief alone—without good whys—can’t help us get one inch closer to the truth. A hasty rejec- tion or acceptance of a claim can’t help us tell the difference between what’s actually likely to be true (or false) and what we merely want to be true (or false). Beliefs that do not stand on our best reasons and evidence simply dangle in thin air, signifying nothing except our transient feelings or personal preferences.

What we offer here is a compendium of good whys. As clearly as we can, we explain and illustrate principles of rational inquiry for assessing all manner of weirdness. We give you the essential guides for weighing evidence and drawing well-founded conclusions. Most of these principles are simply commonplace, wielded by philosophers, scientists, and anyone else interested in discovering the facts. Many are fundamental to scientific explorations of all kinds. We show why these principles are so powerful, how anyone can put them to use, and why they’re good whys to begin with—why they’re more reliable guides for discovering what’s true and real than any alternatives.

We think this latter kind of explanation is sorely needed. You may hear that there’s no reliable scientific evidence to prove the re- ality of psychokinesis (moving physical objects with mind power alone). But you may never hear a careful explanation of why scien- tific evidence is necessary in the first place. Most scientists would say that the common experience of thinking of a friend and then sud- denly getting a phone call from that person doesn’t prove telepathy (communication between minds without use of the five senses). But why not? Only a few scientists and a handful of others bother to explain why. Say 100 people have independently tried eating a certain herb and now swear that it has cured them of cancer. Scientists would say that these 100 stories constitute anecdotal evidence that doesn’t

T H E I M P O RTA N C E O F W H Y 3

Call him wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear “because” to a clear “why.”

—JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER

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prove the effectiveness of the herb at all. But why not? There is indeed a good answer, but it’s tough to come by.

The answer is to be found in the principles that distinguish good reasons from bad ones. You needn’t take these principles (or any other statements) on faith. Through your own careful use of reason, you can verify their validity for yourself.

Nor should you assume that these guides are infallible and un- changeable. They’re simply the best we have until someone presents sound, rational reasons for discarding them.

These guides shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Yet, to many, the principles will seem like a bolt from the blue, a detailed map to a country they thought was uncharted. Even those of us who are unsur- prised by these principles must admit that we probably violate at least one of them daily—and so run off into a ditch of wrong conclusions.

BEYOND WEIRD TO THE ABSURD

To these pages, we cordially invite all those who sincerely believe that this book is a gigantic waste of time—who think that it’s impos- sible or pointless to use rational principles to assess the objective truth of weird claims. To this increasingly prevalent attitude, in all its forms, we offer a direct challenge. We do the impossible, or at least what some regard as impossible. We show that there are good rea- sons for believing that the following claims are, in fact, false:

• There’s no such thing as objective truth. We make our own truth.

• There’s no such thing as objective reality. We make our own reality.

• There are spiritual, mystical, or inner ways of knowing that are superior to our ordinary ways of knowing.

• If an experience seems real, it is real. • If an idea feels right to you, it is right. • We are incapable of acquiring knowledge of the true nature

of reality. • Science itself is irrational or mystical. It’s just another faith or

belief system or myth, with no more justification than any other.

• It doesn’t matter whether beliefs are true or not, as long as they’re meaningful to you.

We discuss these ideas because they’re unavoidable. If you want to evaluate weird things, sooner or later you’ll bump into notions that

4 O N E : I N T RO D U C T I O N : C L O S E E N C O U N T E R S W I T H T H E S T R A N G E

A man is a small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.

—LORD DUNSANY

I really think we are all creating our own reality. I think I’m cre- ating you right here. Therefore I created the medium, there- fore I created the entity, because I’m creating everything.

—SHIRLEY MACLAINE

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challenge your most fundamental assumptions. Weirdness by defini- tion is out of the norm, so it often calls into question our normal ways of knowing. It invites many to believe that in the arena of extraordi- nary things, extraordinary ways of knowing must prevail. It leads many to conclude that reason just doesn’t apply, that rationality has shown up at the wrong party.

You can learn a lot by seriously examining such challenges to basic assumptions about what we know (or think we know) and how we know it. In fact, in this volume you learn three important lessons about the above ideas:

1. If some of these ideas are true, knowing anything about any- thing (including weird stuff) is impossible.

2. If you honestly believe any of these ideas, you cut your chances of ever discovering what’s real or true.

3. Rejecting these notions is liberating and empowering.

The first lesson, for example, comes through clearly when we exam- ine the idea that there’s no such thing as objective truth. This notion means that reality is literally whatever each of us believes it to be. Reality doesn’t exist apart from a person’s beliefs about it. So truth isn’t objective, it’s subjective. The idea is embodied in the popular line “It may not be true for you, but it’s true for me.” The problem is, if there’s no objective truth, then no statement is objectively true, including the statement “There’s no such thing as objective truth.” The statement re- futes itself. If true, it means that the statement and all statements— ours, yours, or anybody else’s—aren’t worthy of belief or commitment. Every viewpoint becomes arbitrary, with nothing to rec- ommend it except the fact that someone likes it. There could be no such thing as knowledge, for if nothing is true, there can be nothing to know. The distinction between asserting and denying something would be meaningless. There could be no difference between sense and nonsense, reasonable belief and illusion. For several reasons, which we’ll discuss later, people would be faced with some intolerable absurdities. For one thing, it would be impossible to agree or disagree with someone. In fact, it would be impossible to communicate, to learn a language, to compare each other’s ideas, even to think.

The point of the third lesson is that if such outrageous notions shackle us, rejecting them sets us free. To reject them is to say that we can know things about the world—and that our ability to reason and weigh evidence is what helps us gain that knowledge. In part, the purpose of much that follows is to demonstrate just how po- tent this ability is. Human reason empowers us, like nothing else,

B E YO N D W E I R D TO T H E A B S U R D 5

Light—more light. —JOHANN

WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks but in how it thinks.

—CHRISTOPHER HITCHINS

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to distinguish between fact and fiction, understand significant issues, penetrate deep mysteries, and answer large questions.

A WEIRDNESS SAMPLER

How many people actually care about weird things? Plenty. Book sales, coverage in magazines and on television, movies, and opinion polls suggest that there’s widespread interest in things psychic, para- normal, occult, ghostly, and otherworldly. A Gallup poll published in 2005, for example, shows that:

• 55 percent of Americans believe in psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the human mind to heal the body.

• 41 percent believe in ESP (extrasensory perception). • 42 percent believe that people on Earth are sometimes pos-

sessed by the Devil. • 32 percent believe that ghosts or the spirits of dead people can

come back in certain places and situations. • 31 percent believe in telepathy, or communication between

minds without using the traditional five senses. • 24 percent believe that extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth

at some time in the past. • 26 percent believe in clairvoyance, or the power of the mind to

know the past and predict the future. • 21 percent believe that people can hear from or communicate

mentally with someone who has died. • 25 percent believe in astrology, or that the position of the stars

and planets can affect people’s lives. • 21 percent believe in witches. • 20 percent believe in reincarnation, that is, the rebirth of the

soul in a new body after death.

There are many, many more extraordinary things that thousands of people experience, believe in, and change their lives because of. Sev- eral will be discussed in this book. Here’s a sampling:

• Hundreds of people who were near death but did not die have told of blissful experiences in the beyond. Their reports vary, but cer- tain details keep recurring: While they were at death’s door, a feeling of peace overcame them. They watched as they floated above their own bodies. They traveled through a long, dark tunnel. They entered a bright, golden light and glimpsed another world of unspeakable beauty. They saw long-dead relatives and a being of light that com- forted them. Then they returned to their own bodies, awoke, and

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People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for them- selves and taking responsibility for what they know. —BROOKS ATKINSON

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were transformed by their incredible experience. In each case, the experience seemed nothing like a dream or a fantasy; it seemed vividly real. Such episodes are known as near-death experiences (NDEs). Many who have had such experiences say that their NDEs give undeniable proof of life after death.

• Some people report the often chilling experience known as a precognitive dream, a dream that seems to foretell the future. Here’s an example: “I dreamed I was walking along a steep ridge with my father. He was stepping too close to the edge, making the dirt cas- cade to the rocks far below. I turned to grab his arm, but the ridge fell away under his feet, leaving him to dangle from my hands. I pulled as hard as I could, but he grew larger and heavier. He fell, in slow motion, crying out to me but making no sound. Then I woke up screaming. Three weeks later my father fell to his death from a second-story window while he was painting the windowsill. I was in the room with him at the time but wasn’t able to reach him fast enough to prevent his fall. I rarely remember any dreams, and I had never before dreamed about someone falling.” Such dreams can have a profound emotional impact on the dreamer and may spark a firm belief in the paranormal.

A W E I R D N E S S S A M P L E R 7

Pseudoteachers

Two social scientists—sociologist Ray Eve and anthropologist Dana Dunn of the University of Texas at Arlington—tried to find out where pseudoscientific beliefs might come from. They theorized that teachers might be passing such ideas on in school.

To test their theory, they surveyed a national sample of 190 high-school biology and life- science teachers. Their findings: 43 percent thought that the story of the Flood and Noah’s ark was definitely or probably true; 20 percent believed in communication with the dead; 19 percent felt that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time; 20 percent believed in black magic; and 16 percent believed in Atlantis. What’s more, 30 percent

wanted to teach creation science; 26 per- cent felt that some races were more intelli- gent than others; and 22 percent believed in ghosts.

Although 30 to 40 percent of the teach- ers were doing a good job, says Eve, “it boils down to the observation that a large number of the teachers are either football coaches or home-economics teachers who have been asked to cover biology.”

Is there hope for change? “Much like the Department of Defense,” says Eve, “the edu- cation bureaucracy has become so intrac- table that even when you know something is wrong, the chances of fixing it are not great.”1

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• There are probably hundreds of people claiming that they once lived very different lives in very different places—long before they were born. Tales of these past lives surface when people are “re- gressed” during hypnosis back to their alleged long-hidden selves. It all started in 1952 when Virginia Tighe, an American housewife, was apparently hypnotically regressed back to a previous life in nine- teenth-century Ireland. Speaking in an uncharacteristic Irish brogue, she related an astounding account of her former life. Many others during hypnosis have related impressively detailed past lives in early Rome, medieval France, sixteenth-century Spain, ancient Greece or Egypt, Atlantis, and more, all the while speaking in what often sound like authentic languages or accents. A lot of famous people claim that they too have been hypnotically regressed to discover earlier exis- tences. Shirley MacLaine, for example, has said that she’s been a pirate with a wooden leg, a Buddhist monk, a court jester for Louis XV, a Mongolian nomad, and assorted prostitutes. Many believe that such cases are proof of the doctrine of reincarnation.

• Some U.S. military officers have expressed strong interest in an astonishing psychic phenomenon called remote viewing. It’s the alleged ability to accurately perceive information about distant geographical locations without using any known sense. The officers claimed that the former Soviet Union was way ahead of the United States in de- veloping such powers. Remote viewing is said to be available to any- one, as it needs no special training or talents. Experiments have been conducted on the phenomenon, and some people have said that these tests prove that remote viewing is real.

• A lot of people look to psychics, astrologers, and tarot card read- ers to obtain a precious commodity: predictions about the future. You can get this commodity through newspapers, magazines, books, TV talk shows, 900 numbers, and private sessions with a seer. Predictions may concern the fate of movie stars, momentous events on the world stage, or the ups and downs of your personal life. Everywhere, there’s word that some startling, unlikely prediction has come true. Here’s an example: On April 2, 1981, four days after the assassination at- tempt on President Reagan, the world was told that a Los Angeles psychic had predicted the whole thing weeks earlier. On that April morning, NBC’s Today show, ABC’s Good Morning America, and Cable News Net- work aired a tape showing the psychic, Tamara Rand, offering a de- tailed prediction of the assassination attempt. The tape was said to have been made on January 6, 1981. She foresaw that Reagan would be shot by a sandy-haired young man with the initials “J. H.,” that Reagan would be wounded in the chest, that there would be a “hail

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Colt Born with Human Face—just like his father!

—WEEKLY WORLD NEWS

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of bullets,” and that the fateful day would occur in the last week of March or first week of April.

• Something strange is going on in physics, something so strange, in fact, that some people who’ve bothered to think about the strange- ness now declare that physics is looking more and more like Eastern mysticism. This weirdness is taking place in the branch of physics known as quantum mechanics, which studies subatomic particles, the tiny bits that make up everything in the universe. The notorious weirdness is this: In the quantum realm, particles don’t acquire some of their characteristics until they’re observed by someone. They seem not to exist in a definite form until scientists measure them. This spooky fact didn’t sit well with Einstein, but it has been confirmed repeatedly in rigorous tests. It has caused some people to speculate that reality is subjective, that we as observers create the universe ourselves—that the universe is a product of our imagination. This quantum freakiness has prompted some people, even a physicist or two, seriously to ask, “Is a tree really there when no one’s looking?”

• In 1894 the Society for Psychical Research published the first sur- vey of personal encounters with ghostly phenomena. There were hun- dreds of firsthand accounts by people who claimed to have seen real apparitions. A recent scholarly history of apparitions documents an un- surprising fact: People have been reporting such encounters for cen- turies. Today, things haven’t changed much. You’re likely to hear at least one firsthand account yourself from somebody you know—some- body who says it’s not a ghost story at all, but fact. Research suggests that the experiences can happen to perfectly sane persons, appear vividly real, and have a powerful emotional impact. There are also re- ports of people feeling a “sense of presence,” as though another person, invisible, is close by. There’s no end to the stories of more famous ap- paritions, told and retold, with eerie details that raise bumps on the skin. And you don’t have to read a tabloid newspaper (more reputable newspapers will do) to discover that when someone wonders “Who ya gonna call?” there are real ghostbusters ready to handle a haunting.

• The Exorcist dramatized it. The Amityville Horror reinforced aware- ness of it. The Catholic Church endorses it. The news media eagerly report it. It is the idea of demon possession—that people and places can be haunted, harmed, and controlled by supernatural entities of immense evil. A typical case: On August 18, 1986, the Associated Press reported that demons were said to be haunting a house in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. Jack and Janet Smurl lived there with their four children and claimed that the demons were terrorizing them. Ac- cording to the report: “The Smurls said they have smelled the stench

A W E I R D N E S S S A M P L E R 9

Fat Woman’s Bra Snaps—13 Injured!

—WEEKLY WORLD NEWS

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of smoke and rotten meat, heard pig grunts, hoofbeats, and blood cur- dling screams and moans. Doors have opened and shut, lights have gone on and off, formless ghostly glows have traveled before them, and the television set has shot across the room. Even the family dog, a 75-pound German shepherd, has been slammed against the wall while [Jack] Smurl said he stood nearby.”2 Later, Jack Smurl was quoted in the New York Daily News as saying that “at least a dozen times [a fe- male demon, or succubus] has had intercourse with me in bed. I was awake, but I was immobile.” The Smurls invited demonologist Ed Warren, who had been involved in the Amityville case, to investigate. Warren declared that several demons did indeed inhabit the house.

• Long ago, Earth was visited by extraterrestrial beings who im- parted advanced technology and learning to primitive humans. So say many people, who ask, How else do you explain the stunning en- gineering of the pyramids in Egypt and the New World? The ancient designs cut into the Nazca plain in Peru that look like airfield mark- ings meant for approaching spacecraft? The highly accurate Piri Reis map of 1513 that must have been created by some kind of aerial pho- tography? The facts possessed by the primitive Dogon tribe of Africa about a star that no one can see with the naked eye and wasn’t even discovered by astronomers until the nineteenth century? In myths and legends, they say, our ancestors told of the visitation of these “gods.” This theme is sounded by many, most notably Erich von Däniken in his books Chariots of the Gods, Gods from Outer Space, and Von Däniken’s Proof. Sparks still fly when somebody asserts that somebody else’s ancestors were too primitive to have managed certain engi- neering feats without alien help.

• Many people have turned to a method of disease treatment shunned by mainstream medicine and at odds with modern science: homeopathy. Around since the 1700s, it now has several hundred practitioners in the United States and is built on two main doctrines. One is that “like cures like”—symptoms of a sick person can be cured by substances that actually produce the same symptoms in healthy people. The other doctrine is that the smaller the dose of this sub- stance, the mightier the healing effect. Homeopathic drugs are di- luted for maximum power—and are often so watered down that not one molecule of the original substance remains. That such dilutions could possibly heal anything flies in the face of the laws of chem- istry. Yet in recent years there’s been an increase in homeopathic remedies offered in drugstores and health-food stores. And growing numbers of people believe in them (including members of the British Royal Family).

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Oh God, how did I get into this room with all these weird people?

—STEWART BRAND

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• The story of a strange, miraculous event has been circulating for a number of years. It was first told by author Lyall Watson, who, in his 1979 book Lifetide, said he gleaned it from scientists, and it’s been repeated by countless other writers. Watson reported that in the 1950s some wild Japanese monkeys on the island of Koshima were given raw sweet potatoes for the first time. One of the monkeys, Imo, learned to wash the potatoes in a stream to remove the sand and grit. Over the years, Imo taught this skill to other monkeys in the colony. Then one day, when a certain number of monkeys, say 100, had learned the washing trick, the impossible happened. Suddenly almost all the other monkeys knew how to do it, too. “Not only that,” says Watson, “but the habit seems to have jumped natural barriers and to have appeared spontaneously, like glycerin crystals in sealed labora- tory jars, in colonies on other islands.”3 With the hundredth mon- key, a kind of “critical mass” had been reached, he says, forcing a kind of group mind. This, then, is the hundredth-monkey phenomenon.

A W E I R D N E S S S A M P L E R 11

Paranormal Profile

Where do you stand on these issues? Indicate your views by writing the appropriate number in the space provided at the end of each ques- tion. Use the following scale: 5 = true; 4 = probably true; 3 = neither probable nor improbable; 2 = probably false; and 1 = false. After you’ve finished the book, you might want to take the survey again to see if your views have changed.

1. People can read other people’s minds. ______

2. People can see into the future. ______ 3. People can move external objects

solely with the power of their minds. ______

4. Poltergeists can move physical objects. ______

5. Alien spacecraft have landed on Earth. ______

6. People have been abducted by aliens from other planets. ______

7. People have been possessed by demons. ______

8. In addition to physical bodies, people have nonphysical astral bodies. ______

9. People can project their astral bodies out of their physical bodies and travel to distant places. ______

10. After the physical body dies, a person can reincarnate in another physical body. ______

11. People can talk to the spirits of the dead. ______

12. The positions of the sun, stars, and planets at birth can affect a person’s body, character, and destiny. ______

13. Angels exist. ______ 14. People can be cured by faith healers.

______ 15. People can be cured by homeopathic

treatments. ______

What we need is not the will to believe, but the will to find out. —BERTRAND RUSSELL

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Some believe that the story is fact and that the phenomenon is at work in all of humanity. If so, we’re faced with an astounding impli- cation: When enough people believe something is true, it becomes true for everyone. Others say that it’s pointless to ask whether the story is factual—it’s a metaphor or myth and, as such, is as true as sci- ence. Still, we stubbornly ask, Did the incident actually happen? And does it really matter after all?

Aliens, spirits, miracle cures, mind over matter, life after death: wonders all. The world would be a more wonderful place, if these things existed. We wouldn’t be alone in the universe, we would have more control over our lives, and we would be immortal. Our desire to live in such a world undoubtedly plays a role in the widespread belief in these things. But the fact that we would like something to be true is no reason to believe that it is. To get to the truth of the matter we must go beyond wishful thinking to critical thinking. We must learn to set aside our prejudices and preconceptions and exam- ine the evidence fairly and impartially. Only then can we hope to dis- tinguish reality from fantasy.

But, you may object, what’s wrong with a little fantasy? If some- one finds a belief comforting, does it matter whether it’s true or not? Yes it does, because our actions are based on our beliefs. If our beliefs are mistaken, our actions are unlikely to succeed. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of alternative medicine. Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars on bogus remedies, and often end up paying for them with their lives. As attorney John W. Miner reveals, “Quackery kills more people than those who die from all crimes of violence put together.”4

Not only can irrational beliefs cost us our lives; they can threaten our livelihood as well. To take but one example: Tarot card readers and psychics of every stripe are only a phone call—or a mouse click— away, and their services don’t come cheap. Psychic hotlines have charged $3.99 a minute. That comes to $240 an hour—more than most psychoanalysts get paid. Psychic phone calling used to be a multi-million-dollar industry, with one group—the Psychic Reader’s Network—making over $300 million in phone service charges in 2002. But exposés of the industry revealed that most psychic hotlines are staffed by unemployed housewives.5 They were not tested for psy- chic ability, and they were not given any psychic instruction. Their only training consisted in being told how to keep people on the line.

Tim Farley has been collecting data about the harm caused by irrational beliefs for many years. His Web site—whatstheharm.com— has identified over 670,000 cases in which people were injured either

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The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

—WILL DURANT

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physically or financially because they believed things they were not justified in believing. This lack of critical thinking, in the cases he’s studied, has resulted in 368,379 deaths, 306,379 injuries, and over $2,815,931,000 in economic damages. The failure of the victims to ground their beliefs in reality ultimately cost them their lives or, in many cases, their life savings.6

In addition to threatening our individual well-being, irrational beliefs also threaten our social well-being. A democratic society depends on the ability of its members to make rational choices. But rational choices must be based on rational beliefs. If we can’t tell the difference between reasonable and unreasonable claims, we become susceptible to the claims of charlatans, scoundrels, and mountebanks. As Stephen J. Gould observes, “When people learn no tools of judg- ment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipula- tions are sown.”7 Political opportunists like to play upon people’s fears, hopes, and desires. If we lack the ability to distinguish credible claims from incredible ones, we may end up sacrificing more than our good sense—we may forfeit our freedom as well.

No one wants to be duped, conned, or fleeced. Unfortunately, our educational system spends much more time teaching people what to think rather than how to think. As a result, many people are unaware of the principles and procedures that should be used to min- imize error and maximize understanding. This book is designed to acquaint you with those principles and procedures and to explain why any attempt to get at the truth should employ them. Under- standing their justification should make you more adept at wielding them in unfamiliar situations.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your de- cisions, and the quality of your decisions is determined by the quality of your thinking. By helping improve the quality of your thinking, we hope we can, in some small measure, improve the quality of your life.

NOTES

1. Paul McCarthy, “Pseudoteachers,” Omni, July 1989, p. 74. 2. Associated Press, August 18, 1986. 3. Lyall Watson, Lifetide (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), p. 148. 4. Cited in W. E. Schaller & C. R. Carrol, Health, Quackery, and the Consumer

(Philadelphia: Saunders, 1976), p. 169. 5. Frederick Woodruff, Secrets of a Telephone Psychic (Hillsboro, OR:

Beyond Words, 1998). 6. Thomas Farley, http//www.whatstheharm.net 7. Stephen J. Gould, An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas

(New York: Norton, 1987), p. 245.

N OT E S 13

Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than rea- soned errors.

—THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

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14

TWO The Possibility of the Impossible

THE TROUBLE WITH paranormal phenomena is thatthey’re just not normal. It’s not simply that they’re rare and unusual (which they are); it’s that they seem to violate

the natural order of things. (That’s why we sometimes call

them supernatural.) Their very existence seems to contradict

certain fundamental laws that govern the universe. Since

these laws define reality for us, anything that violates them

appears impossible. Consider, for example, the phenomena

collectively known as ESP, or extrasensory perception,

namely, telepathy (reading another’s mind), clairvoyance

(viewing a distant object without using your eyes), and pre-

cognition (seeing the future). What makes these phenomena

seem so weird is that they appear to be physically impossible.

Physicist Milton Rothman explains:

The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.

—MOLIÈRE

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Transmission of information through space requires transfer of energy from one place to another. Telepathy requires transmission of an energy-carrying signal directly from one mind to another. All descrip- tions of ESP imply violations of conservation of energy [the principle that mass-energy can be neither created nor destroyed] in one way or another, as well as violations of all the principles of information the- ory and even of the principle of causality [the principle that an effect cannot precede its cause]. Strict application of physical principles requires us to say that ESP is impossible.1

According to Rothman, anything that violates physical principles is impossible. Because ESP violates these principles, it is impossible.

PARADIGMS AND THE PARANORMAL

But according to the true believers (those who accept the reality of the paranormal), nothing is impossible. As Erich von Däniken, author of Chariots of the Gods, puts it, “nothing is incredible any longer. The word ‘impossible’ should have become literally impossible for the modern scientist. Anyone who does not accept this today will be crushed by the reality tomorrow.”2 What von Däniken is referring to here is the fact that many things that scientists once considered impossible are now considered real. The most notorious example is meteorites. For many years, the scientific community dismissed meteorites as impossible. The great chemist Lavoisier, for example, argued that stones couldn’t fall from the sky because there were none up there. No less a free- thinker than Thomas Jefferson, after reading a report by two Harvard professors claiming to have observed meteorites, remarked, “I could more easily believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall down from heaven.”3 The true believers hold that Lavoisier and Jefferson were blinded by science. There was no place in their worldview for stones that fell from the sky, so they refused to accept the reality of meteorites. Many of today’s scientists, say the true believers, suffer from a similar myopia. They’re unable to see beyond the narrow confines of their pet theories.

This defect is a potentially serious one, for it can block scientific development. The historian Thomas Kuhn, in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, has shown that science advances only by recognizing and dealing with anomalies (phenomena that don’t seem to obey known laws). According to Kuhn, all scientific investigation takes place within a paradigm, or theoretical framework, that deter- mines what questions are worth asking and what methods should be used to answer them. From time to time, however, certain phenomena are discovered that don’t fit into the established paradigm; that is,

PA R A D I G M S A N D T H E PA R A N O R M A L 15

When nothing is sure, everything is possible.

—MARGARET DRABBLE

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they can’t be explained by the current theory. At first, as in the case of meteorites, the scientific community tries to dismiss or explain away these phenomena. But if no satisfactory account of them is forthcom- ing, the scientific community is forced to abandon the old paradigm and adopt a new one. In such a case, the scientific community is said to have undergone a paradigm shift.

There have been many paradigm shifts in the past. Galileo’s dis- covery of the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus led to a shift from a geocentric (Earth-centered) view of the solar system to a he- liocentric (sun-centered) one. Darwin’s discovery of the strange crea- tures of the Galápagos Islands led to the shift from creationism to evolution. The failure to detect the “luminiferous ether” (the medium in which light waves were supposed to travel) led to a shift from New- tonian physics to Einsteinian physics. Similarly, say the true believers, paranormal phenomena may lead to another paradigm shift. The re- sulting worldview may be as different from ours as ours is from the aborigines’. We may have to give up many of our most cherished be- liefs about the nature of reality and knowledge. But it’s happened be- fore, and, they claim, there’s no reason to think it won’t happen again. As Shakespeare so eloquently put it, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

So whom are we to believe? Should we follow the scientist who dismisses paranormal phenomena on the grounds that they contradict fundamental physical principles or the true believer who sees para- normal phenomena as a harbinger of a new age? To evaluate the rela- tive merits of these positions, we’ll have to take a closer look at the notions of possibility, plausibility, and reality.

LOGICAL POSSIBILITY VERSUS PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY

Although it’s fashionable to claim that anything is possible, such a claim is mistaken, for there are some things that can’t possibly be false, and others that can’t possibly be true. The former—such as “2 � 2 � 4,” “All bachelors are unmarried,” and “Red is a color”—are called necessary truths, because there are no situations in which they would be false. The latter—such as “2 � 2 � 5,” “All bachelors are married,” and “Red is not a color” are called necessary falsehoods because there are no situa- tions in which they would be true.4 The Greek philosopher Aristotle (Plato’s pupil) was the first to systematize our knowledge of necessary truths. The most fundamental of them—the ones upon which all other truths rest—are often called the laws of thought. They are:

The law of noncontradiction: Nothing can both have a property and lack it at the same time.

16 T WO : T H E P O S S I B I L I T Y O F T H E I M P O S S I B L E

Difficult things take a long time; the im- possible takes a little longer.

—CHAIM WEIZMANN

One can’t believe impossible things.

—ALICE, IN THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

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The law of identity: Everything is identical to itself.

The law of excluded middle: For any particular property, everything either has it or lacks it.

These principles are called the laws of thought because without them thought—as well as communication—would be impossible. In order to think or communicate, our thoughts and sentences must have a spe- cific content; they must be about one thing rather than another. If the law of noncontradiction didn’t hold, there would be no way to distin- guish one thought or sentence from another. Whatever was true of one would be true of the other. Every claim would be equally true (and false). Thus, those who deny the law of noncontradiction can’t claim that their position is superior to that of those who accept that law.

One of the most effective techniques of refuting a position is known as reductio ad absurdum: reduction to absurdity. If you can show that a position has absurd consequences, you’ve provided a powerful reason for rejecting it. The consequences of denying the law of non- contradiction are about as absurd as they get. Any position that makes thought and communication theoretically impossible is, to say the least, suspect. Aristotle, in Book IV of the Metaphysics, put the point this way:

If all are alike both wrong and right, one who is in this condition will not be able either to speak or to say anything intelligible; for he says at the same time both “yes” and “no.” And if he makes no judgment but “thinks” and “does not think,” indifferently, what difference will there be between him and a vegetable?5

What difference indeed. Without the law of noncontradiction, we can’t believe things to be one way rather than another. But if we can’t believe things to be one way rather than another, we can’t think at all.

Logic is the study of correct thinking. As a result, the laws of thought are often referred to as the laws of logic. Anything that vio- lates these laws is said to be logically impossible, and whatever is logically impossible can’t exist. We know, for example, that there are no round squares, no married bachelors, and no largest number because such things violate the law of noncontradiction—they attribute both a property and its negation to a thing and are thus self-contradictory. The laws of thought, then, not only determine the bounds of the rational; they also determine the bounds of the real. Whatever is real must obey the law of noncontradiction. That is why the great German lo- gician Gottlob Frege called logic “the study of the laws of the laws of science.” The laws of science must obey the laws of logic. Thus, von Däniken is mistaken. Some things are logically impossible, and what- ever is logically impossible cannot exist.

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Why, sometimes be- fore breakfast I’ve believed as many as six impossible things. —THE WHITE QUEEN,

IN THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

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Rothman claims that ESP is impossible. Now if he means that ESP is logically impossible, then, provided he’s right, we can dismiss it out of hand, for in that case, it can’t exist. But ESP isn’t logically impossible. The notions of reading another’s mind, viewing distant ob- jects, and even knowing the future are not self-contradictory in the way that married bachelors or round squares are. Neither are such paranor- mal phenomena as alien abduction, out-of-body experiences, or com- municating with the dead. What, if anything, these phenomena violate are not the laws of logic, but the laws of physics or, more generally, the laws of science. If they violate those laws, they’re physically impossible.

Science attempts to understand the world by identifying the laws that govern it. These laws tell us how various physical properties are related to one another. For example, Newton’s second law of motion,

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Aristotle on Demonstrating the Laws of Thought

Since the laws of thought are the basis for all logical proofs, they can’t be proven by means of a logical demonstration. But, says Aristotle, they can nevertheless be demonstrated negatively:

There are some who, as we said, both them- selves assert that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, and say that peo- ple can judge this to be the case. And among others many writers about nature use this language. But we have now posited that it is impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and by this means have shown that this is the most indis- putable of all principles. Some indeed de- mand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demon- stration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one.

We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is impossible. . . . The starting point for all such proofs is that our opponent shall say something which is significant both for himself and for another; for this is necessary, if he really is to say any- thing. For, if he means nothing, such a man will not be capable of reasoning, either with himself or with another. But if any one says something that is significant, demonstration will be possible; for we shall already have something definite. The person responsible for the proof, however, is not he who demonstrates but he who listens; for while disowning reason he listens to reason. And again he who admits this has admitted that something is true apart from demonstration.6

In other words, the law of noncontradiction can’t be demonstrated to someone who won’t say something definite, for demonstration requires that our words mean one thing rather than another. On the other hand, the law of noncontradiction need not be demonstrated to someone who will say something definite, for in saying something definite he or she has already assumed its truth.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

—WILLIAM JAMES

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f � ma, tells us that the force of a projectile is equal to its mass times its acceleration. Einstein’s law, E � mc2, tells us that the energy of an object is equal to its mass times the velocity of light squared. Knowing these laws not only helps us understand why things happen as they do, but also allows us to predict and control what happens. Newton’s laws of motion, for example, allow us to predict the positions of the planets and control the trajectory of missiles.

Anything that’s inconsistent with the laws of nature is physically impossible. A cow jumping over the moon, for example, is physically impossible because such a feat would violate the laws governing cow physiology and gravity. The muscles of a cow simply cannot produce enough force to accelerate the cow to the speed required to escape the Earth’s gravity. But a cow jumping over the moon is not logically impossible. There is no contradiction involved in the notion of a moon-jumping cow. Similarly, there is no contradiction involved in the notion of a bunny that lays multicolored eggs. So physical possi- bility is a more limited notion than logical possibility; whatever is physically possible is logically possible, but not everything that’s log- ically possible is physically possible.

There is yet another type of possibility that is useful to know about: technological possibility. Something is technologically impossible if it is (currently) beyond our capabilities to accomplish. Manned in- tergalactic space travel, for example, is technologically impossible be- cause we do not currently have the capability of storing enough food and energy to travel to another galaxy. It’s not physically impossible, however, because making such a trip does not involve breaking any laws of nature. We simply lack the technology to perform such a feat.

What makes a thing weird or a claim extraordinary is that it seems to be impossible. Time travel, psychokinesis, and ancient as- tronauts, for example, are weird things—and the claims that they exist, extraordinary—because they seem to run afoul of one or more of the types of possibility discussed above.

Time travel seems to be logically impossible because it implies that an event both did and did not happen. Suppose you travel back in time to a place you’ve never been before. History records that you were not present at that place and time, but now you are. You cannot both be and not be at a place and time, however. So time travel seems to vio- late the law of noncontradiction. That is why sophisticated time travel tales, like Michael Crichton’s Timeline, have their travelers go to parallel universes rather than their own. Science writer Martin Gardner explains. “The basic idea is as simple as it is fantastic. Persons can travel to any point in the future of their universe, with no complications, but the moment they enter the past, the universe splits into two parallel

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worlds, each with its own time track. Along one track rolls the world as if no looping had occurred. Along the other track spins the newly created universe, its history permanently altered.”7 If the universe splits when you travel backward in time, there will be no contradiction be- cause in neither universe will something both be and not be the case.

Psychokinesis, the ability to move external objects with the power of one’s mind, seems to be physically impossible because it seems to imply the existence of an unknown force. Science has identified only two forces whose effects can be felt over long distances: electromag- netism and gravity. The brain, however, is not capable of producing enough of either of these forces to directly affect objects outside of the body. So psychokinesis seems to violate the laws of science.

The notion that we have been visited by ancient astronauts or aliens from outer space seems technologically impossible because the amount of energy needed to travel to the stars is astronomical. Marc Mills, project manager for NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, has calculated the fuel requirements for interstellar travel

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The Impossibility of Magic

Magicians regularly appear to do things that violate natural laws. They don’t actually violate them, of course, but they create the illusion of violating them. Most magicians admit that what they’re doing is sleight of hand. There are those, however, who maintain that what they’re doing is real; that they’re performing supernatural feats. One such is Uri Geller. In the 1970s, as a result of national TV appearances, he convinced millions of Americans that he could bend metal and fix broken watches with his mind. He would take a key or a spoon, for example, and without any apparent use of physical force, bend it. On numerous shows he invited viewers at home to take a stopped watch and place it on their TV set. Through an intense act of will, he claimed he would make them work again. Remarkably, many of them did start working again. Jewelers claimed, however, that the repair had less to do with Geller’s psychic ability than with the fact that many watches stop working because their lubricating oil becomes too thick. Putting a watch on a hot TV set thins the oil and thus frees the frozen gears.

A story is told of one young woman who was convinced of Geller’s powers. It appears that she got pregnant while watching Uri Geller on television. The woman was using an IUD (intrauterine device) for birth control at the time. She claimed that her IUD failed because Uri Geller’s mind energy unwound its coils. Needless to say, she did not receive any compensation from Geller.

Geller’s metal-bending feats have been dupli- cated by many magicians. That doesn’t prove that he can’t bend metal with his mind, but if that’s what he’s doing, he’s doing it the hard way. Even trained observers can be taken in by magicians’ sleight of hand. This is why paranormal investigators such as the Amazing Randi and Martin Gardner suggest that magi- cians be present when investigating purveyors of the paranormal. Because magicians know even better than scientists how we can be misled by misdirection, they are in a better position to evaluate the veracity of such claims.

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using various types of propulsion systems, and invariably they seem beyond our reach. For example, suppose we wanted to deliver a Space Shuttle sized payload to our nearest star in 900 years. If we used con- ventional (chemical) rocket fuel, the amount of fuel needed would be greater than the mass of the entire universe. If we used fission to power our rocket ship (fission is the process that creates atomic bombs), we would need a billion supertanker sized propellant tanks.8

If we used fusion (fusion is the process that creates hydrogen bombs and powers the sun), we would need a thousand such tanks. If we used anti-matter (the most efficient energy source known), we would still need ten railway car sized propellant tanks.8 And these are just the re- quirements for a one-way trip. They would have to be doubled for a return journey, and multiplied many times over if we wanted to make the trip in less time. Interstellar travel, then, looks to be beyond our technological capabilities for many years to come, if not forever.

Contrary to what von Däniken would have us believe, it is possi- ble to apply the word impossible to things. Some things are logically im- possible, others are physically impossible, and still others are technologically impossible. And as Krauss’s example of interstellar travel shows, even if something is physically possible, it doesn’t nec- essarily follow that it will ever become actual. The principle that should guide our thinking in these matters, then, is this:

Just because something is logically or physically possible doesn’t mean that it is, or ever will be, actual.

If logical or physical possibility were grounds for eventual actuality, we could look forward to a world containing moon-jumping cows or egg-laying bunnies. To determine whether something is actual, we have to examine the evidence in its favor.

There are those, however, who measure the credibility of a claim not in terms of the evidence for it, but in terms of the lack of evi- dence against it. They argue that since there is no evidence refuting their position, it must be true. Although such arguments have great psychological appeal, they are logically fallacious. Their conclusions don’t follow from their premises because a lack of evidence is no evi- dence at all. Arguments of this type are said to commit the fallacy of appeal to ignorance. Here are some examples:

No one has shown that Jones was lying. Therefore he must be telling the truth. No one has shown that there are no ghosts. Therefore they must exist. No one has shown that