Attacking the New Nonsense

A committee of skeptics challenges paranormal claims

America has been saturated in recent years by tales of the paranormal and claims of the pseudo scientists. The list seems endless: Uri Geller, the Bermuda Triangle, E.S.P., levitation, Jeane Dixon, Kirlian photography, the Loch Ness monster, psychic surgery, Immanuel Velikovsky, thinking ivy plants and now--again --flying saucers.

Undoubtedly stimulated by the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, UFO freaks have been deluging the White House with mail. Most demand that President Carter make good on a campaign promise that if there were any secrets about the UFOs he would flush them out, if elected. Carter reported in 1973, while Governor of Georgia, that several years earlier he had seen a UFO in the form of a "glowing light" in the night sky. Now the White House has asked NASA to look at the saucer data collected through the years by the Air Force and others and to decide whether yet another investigation of the overinvestigated UFOs is in order.

This action has evoked a collective groan from members of a group formed last year: the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Composed of 43 scientists, science journalists, educators and magicians (who can best spot the sleight-of-hand and other tricks used by psychics), the committee's goal is to rebut what Author Charles Fair calls "the New Nonsense." Headed by Paul Kurtz, a philosophy professor at the State University of New York in Buffalo, the committee includes such luminaries as Astronomer Carl Sagan, Psychologist B.F. Skinner, Philosopher Sidney Hook, Author Isaac Asimov.

The group made news last month by filing a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and two congressional subcommittees against the National Broadcasting Co. for misleading the public about psychic phenomena in an October program. Exploring the Unknown. According to the complaint, the show presented "a totally biased point of view in a sensationalistic manner arousing gullibility in countless viewers."

The committee may have a point. Though presented as entertainment and containing periodic disclaimers, the show affected a documentary tone and ignored some crucial facts. One part reported on "psychic surgery," in which Filipino healers supposedly diagnose tumors and other problems, then use psychic forces--not scalpels--to make incisions and treat them. It did not mention that these sorts of '"miracles" have been rationally explained. Dr. William Nolen, a Minnesota surgeon, underwent a similar operation himself while researching his 1975 book Healing and reported that the "psychic" incisions were actually made with bits of mica concealed under a fingernail. The excised "tumor" appeared to Nolen to be chicken tissue and had been concealed in the surgeon's fist.

The committee has also protested similar tactics in the In Search of... and The Outer Space Connection programs aired by NBC. Though also broadcast as entertainment, one 'show clearly supported the idea that the huge drawings on Peru's Nazca plains could have been made only with the help of ancient visitors from outer space. It stressed that no one has figured out how else the figures could have been created, though German Mathematician Maria Reiche has demonstrated that the Nazcans would have needed no outside help. Still another program showed pictures made by a process called Kirlian photography and explained that they showed the psychic "auras" of people and plants. Scientists have reported that the auras are a common electrical phenomenon called coronal discharge.

NBC is not the committee's only target. It has challenged the claims by Psychiatrist-Writer Immanuel Velikovsky that the planet Venus was once a comet that swept close to the earth, causing flood, plague and other catastrophes in biblical times; his scenario violates a number of physical laws. In the committee's magazine, a twice-yearly publication called the Zetetic (Greek for skeptic), committee members have also knocked UFOlogy, biorhythms and astrology.

One member, Magician James ("The Amazing") Randi, has publicly duplicated Uri Geller's feats, such as key and spoon bending, without invoking paranormal forces. He has challenged the Israeli illusionist to submit to controlled tests of his powers, but Geller has not responded.

What the committee members want most is to see claims of paranormal phenomena subjected to the same standards of proof that would be required for any other scientific discovery. Says Lee Nisbet, the committee's executive director: "If we did turn up evidence that a claim was correct, we'd be fools not to get very excited about it."

Until then, the committee plans to pursue paranormal claims mercilessly; leaving them unchallenged, it feels, will erode the spirit of skepticism that is healthy for both science and society. Says Kurtz: "There is always the danger that once irrationality grows, it will spill over into other areas. There is no guarantee that a society so infected by unreason will be resistant to even the most virulent programs of dangerous ideological sects." qed

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