 the
Skeptic's Dictionary Newsletter
38
February 16, 2003
"All pseudoscience is homeopathic: the less content it has, the more
popular it is." --Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer
In this issue: A few additions; Ken Wilber; VortexHealing® and Angel
Card therapy; the nauseating Sea-Band; Kennewick Man; Scientologists as Drug
Free Ambassadors; and a few words about some books.
Changes in The Skeptic's Dictionary and Skeptic's Refuge
- There have been several new entries to the What's the Harm? page.
Alternative AIDS
treatment
Another
alternative AIDS treatment
Religious
prophet starves child to death
- There have been several additions to the Mass Media Funk page:
Assemblyman
wants feng shui in the California Building Code
"Evolution"
out, then back in, in Georgia
Some thoughts
on the implications of craniopagus parasiticus for intelligent design
theory
Evangelical rapture
- There have been a few additions to the Mass Media Bunk page:
The girl
with x-ray vision
Astrological
readings of Democratic hopefuls in NY Times
Lie-detector
glasses
- I also posted some reader comments on
lucid dreaming
creationism
and 12-step
programs.
Ken Wilber
I have had several requests to do an article on Ken Wilber. In an earlier
newsletter (#4),
I stated that after reading an
interview with Mr. Wilber, which I found unintelligible, I doubted
that it would be in this lifetime that I would get around to reading him.
But things have changed. I've been reading Dean Radin's The Conscious
Universe (in preparation for my new course Critical Thinking about the
Paranormal and the Occult) and Radin claims that Ken Wilber is the greatest
philosopher of science alive today. (Radin has a penchant
for exaggeration.) I also met a gentleman on the golf course who, once he found
out I teach philosophy, told me about this philosophy book he was reading
that he thought was just great and really resonated with him. It was Ken
Wilber's A Brief History of Everything. I bought a copy.
The Foreword is written by media guru
Tony Schwartz, who tells
us that in 1986 he set out on his own "search for wisdom" and found Ken
Wilber to be "far and away the most cogent and penetrating voice in the
recent emergence of uniquely American wisdom." Schwartz also reminds us that
Wilber published his first philosophy book when he was only twenty-three
years old. He had dropped out of graduate school (where he was studying
biochemistry) and became a
Hegelian of sorts,
weaving Freud, Buddha,
Aurobindo and others into the unfolding stages of Spirit in the Kosmos. I think
Schwartz is partly correct in his assessment of Wilber's popularity: He
appeals to "those of us grappling to find wisdom in our everyday lives, but
bewildered by the array of potential paths to truth that so often seem to
contradict one another." Wilber's appeal will be greater, however, if you are also
philosophically and scientifically untutored.
Wilber obviously took a liking
to Hegel and his view that history is spiritual, purposive, and ultimately
intelligible. Everything has its reason and contains something of the truth.
Wilber appeals to those romantics among us who desire everything to make
sense, who find atheism/materialism/mechanism incapable of fulfilling their
need for transformation. Wilber, one of the "fathers" of
transpersonal psychology,
unites various philosophical traditions, eastern and western, into a kind of
vitalistic teleology that
promises enlightenment and fulfillment for individuals and the Kosmos.
If you do not believe in the existence of spirit, either personal spirits
or one Big Spirit driving the universe, then Wilber's insights are unlikely
to resonate with you. Wilber's Note to the
Reader isn't too bad, however. It is clearly written and sets out his plan to "deal
with" everything from the "material cosmos and the emergence of life" to
"the Divine Domain." He lets us know early on that he considers the present
state of the Kosmos to be dreadful. He calls it "flatland" and
"one-dimensional." (He tells us on p. 19 that he prefers Kosmos to
cosmos because that's the term the Pythagoreans used and they meant "the
patterned nature or process of all domains of existence, from matter to mind
to God, and not merely the physical universe...." Fair play to him.)
Wilber does not like this postmodern world but it does provide him with a
living as one who can discover "the radiant Spirit at work, even in our own
apparently God-forsaken times."
Forty years ago, Herbert Marcuse also expressed concern over this
"one-dimensional world." Marcuse was a very popular professor when I was a
student at UC San Diego. His most well-known book at the time was
One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial
Society. The one dimension Marcuse wrote about, however, is not the same one Wilber writes about. Wilber thinks we've lost
the spiritual dimension. Marcuse believed that we'd lost the ability to see
that the world we live in is not the only possible world, that we'd become
so repressed by the
totalitarian powers-that-be that we've deluded ourselves
into thinking that our lives are free when in fact we've become
enslaved. Marcuse didn't think that spirituality was the answer. He
thought we'd lost the ability to think critically, which for him meant the
ability to criticize our consumer-driven society.
Marcuse would have seen those who seek to transcend this
world for something "higher" and "spiritual" as being symptoms of what's
wrong with the world. He would have called their solace in Spirit
reactionary. Marcuse would have lumped together the folks pushing
alternative religions (under whatever name) with the devotees of astrology,
mediums, and other irrationalities of our time. Marcuse's ideal man today
might be someone like
Noam Chomsky.
There might be some hope for society, thought Marcuse, if enough of us could
criticize the dominant ideology and envision a world where men and women
don't exploit each other, where rich nations don't exploit poor nations, and
where human beings don't see the planet as their little plaything put here
for their amusement and to satisfy their lust and greed. The kind of
transcendence Marcuse called for involves transcending ideology. Our
one-dimensionality, he thought, was to be found in our worship of the values
of the ideology of "advanced industrial society" or what today might be called "the
global economy."
Marcuse would not have seen skeptics as providing much hope, either.
True, we criticize irrationality, but from Marcuse's point of view our
activities are harmless and no threat to the dominant ideology. Hence,
skeptics are as much a part of the problem as are the Wilber's of the world.
Marcuse was a brilliant man but he was not a scientist and his heroes were Freud and Marx. I
wonder what his work would have looked like had he been influenced by Darwin
instead. A pointless wonder, so let's move on.
Before I write anything about the content of Wilber's book, I must
first comment on his style. The book is written in dialogue form...sort of.
One of the characters is Q and the other is KW. However, Q is also KW. The
book is Ken Wilber asking himself questions, giving himself answers, and
commenting on his own questions and answers. This is not dialogue as Plato,
Galileo, Berkeley, or Hume used dialogue: to put forth opposing viewpoints
and criticize them. Wilber is only interested in putting forth his own
viewpoint.
Okay; now to the content. I found the first chapter well written,
clear, and interesting. Wilber shows that he has a good sense of humor and
is knowledgeable in many fields, including evolutionary psychology. The
introduction is about men and women, male and female, the battle of the
sexes. It's interesting and not New Agey at all until near the end. On page
11, Wilber gives us his definition of flatland: "the idea that the
sensory and empirical and material world is the only world there is. There
are no higher or deeper potentials available to us--no higher stages of
consciousness evolution, for example. There is merely what we can see with
our senses or grasp with our hands. It is a world bereft of any Ascending
energy at all, completely hollow of any transcendence." This seems to be a
rather common, if twisted and distorted, view of New Age spiritual people
toward atheistic materialists. We're seen as joyless hedonists, incapable of
higher order pleasures such as love or friendship. From my perspective, it
is these spiritual folks who are pursuing a hollow transcendence by chasing
after chimeras. The atheistic materialist is much more likely to be able to
see that true transcendence is the ability to see beyond the present state
of the world to a better state here on this planet in the near future.
In the first chapter Wilber tells us that he likes Arthur Koestler's
concept of the holon so much that he believes it can form the basis
of his metaphysics: "the world is not composed of atoms or symbols or cells
or concepts. It is composed of holons" (21). According to Koestler, a holon
is something that is itself a whole while simultaneously being part of some
other whole. This concept of seeing reality as infinite nesting strikes
Wilber as profound. It strikes me as pointless. But it's his book. He even
goes so far as to claim that "Even the 'Whole' of the Kosmos is simply a
part of the next moment's whole, indefinitely." Yes, I suppose
so, but so what? Like other Hegelians, Wilber enjoys this vision of Spirit
unfolding itself moment by moment. At least it gives the history of the
universe a direction, a point. This is comforting to many people. To claim
that we're evolving toward some grand spiritual goal is positively
thrilling to many of these folks. Apparently, such a vision gives hope and
meaning to people's lives. To me, it makes us pawns of some grand Spirit. We
only have meaning as a means to an end that we have no part in creating. I
find such a vision demeaning.
When Wilber attempts to describe the characteristics of holons it becomes
clear that his vision is essentially vitalism all over again. Holons have
drives to maintain their wholeness and their partness. In other words,
everything has a built-in spirit that moves it to be what it is and to
fulfill its purpose. Up to this point, Wilber is simply offering a
counter-metaphysical view to atheism/materialism and it is the world view of
the 19th century German romantic philosophers like Hegel. It's vitalistic
and teleological. Thus far he's just talking philosophy. It happens to be a
philosophy I think is outdated and uninteresting, but I can't say it's
false. All I can say is that I don't find it attractive or compelling.
Then, however, he starts making claims that are not philosophical, but
are empirical and most certainly false. For example, he writes: "The
standard, glib, neo-Darwinian explanation of natural selection--absolutely
nobody believes this anymore. Evolution clearly operates in part by
Darwinian natural selection, but this process simply selects those
transformations that have already occurred by mechanisms that
absolutely nobody understands" (22). This is complete rubbish. Almost
everybody who knows anything about biology does still believe this! Wilber and
his admirers should read Richard Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker and
Daniel Dennet's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I'm not going to waste my
time here trying to correct this nonsense. I will comment, though, on
Wilber's example to prove his point.
Take the standard notion that wings simply evolved from forelegs. It
takes perhaps a hundred mutations to produce a functional wing from a leg--a
half-wing will not do. A half-wing is no good as a leg and no good as a
wing--you can't run and you can't fly. It has no adaptive value whatsoever.
In other words, with a half-wing you are dinner. The wing will work only if
these hundred mutations happen all at once, in one animal--also these
same mutations must occur simultaneously in another animal of
the opposite sex, and they have to somehow find each other, have dinner, a
few drinks, mate, and have offspring with real functional wings.
Talk about mind-boggling. This in infinitely, absolutely, utterly
mind-boggling. Random mutations cannot even begin to explain this....But
once this incredible transformation has occurred, then natural selection
will indeed select the better wings from the less workable wings--but the
wings themselves? Nobody has a clue.
For the moment, everybody has simply agreed to call this "quantum
evolution" or "punctuated equilibrium" or "emergent evolution"--radically
novel and emergent and incredibly complex holons come into existence in a
huge leap, in a quantum-like fashion--with no evidence whatsoever of
intermediated forms. Dozens or hundreds of simultaneous nonlethal mutations
have to happen at the same time in order to survive at all--the wing, for
example, or the eyeball. (22-23)
We've all heard these same nonsensical arguments from creation scientists
and defenders of intelligent design. I suppose the reason Wilber can write such rubbish and get away with it
is that his readers are just as ignorant of evolutionary theory as he is.
Wilber assumes that
a partial wing
would mean non-survival. He assumes that the
many functions
of the eye could not have been useful to survival except if taken all
together. These assumptions are unwarranted. It is false to claim that
nobody believes natural selection any more and that everybody has agreed to
the notion of punctuated equilibrium.
Wilber doesn't put forth these false claims about evolution in order to
promote creationism or intelligent design, however. He puts them forth to support his
simplistic teleological vitalism, which he grandly calls the drive to
self-transcendence of the Kosmos.
I have to admit that after seeing Wilber dismiss one of the greatest
scientific ideas ever in a few paragraphs of half-truths and lies, I found
it hard to continue reading....and I was only on page 23! I forged ahead,
however, telling myself that it couldn't get much worse.
I was wrong.
Just two pages later Wilber launches into a tirade against the "reductionist
frenzy that has plagued Western science virtually from its inception."
Wilber is against any reductionism except the reduction of everything to
dynamic Spirit. He notes that his view is shared by "religious creationists"
and that there has been "a recent warming in some scientific circles" to his
way of thinking. The only scientific circles warm to this idea would be the
intelligent design folks and the parapsychologists (as described and
defended by Dean Radin). In their view, science made a wrong turn when
it became naturalistic and excluded supernatural explanations from its
domain. They'd like to drag us back to the 16th century or earlier. To me,
they're just sore losers. The battle over where the line between science and
non-science should be drawn may still be debatable, but almost everybody
agrees that the supernatural belongs on the other side of the line.
That's just chapter one. I have to admit that I have little incentive to read
on, but I am curious as to how Wilber handles the issue of freedom. Are
these holons we call human beings just playthings of Spirit? I'll have to
read more to find out. Don't hold your
breath, but I might write a part two on Wilber's Brief History of Everything.
Quackery of the Hour
Helen Mapson recommended this hour's winner. It is Ric Weinman's
VortexHealing® Institute.
His English may not be so good, but that may be because Dutch is his first
language (though Colorado is his home). Here's the pitch:
Many of us are deeply interested in learning to clear the roots of our
issues. We're tired of living in our stuck emotional and behavioral
patterns, and we have realized that simply blaming external circumstances
for our feelings and behaviors has done little to improve our quality of
life.
I've been trying to clear the roots of my issues for years. According to
Ric, Vortex Healing really works because it's been tested on musical instruments!
I didn't know my guitar had roots that needed to be cleared. I learn
something new every day. Life is good.
Coming in a close second this hour is something we might call Tarot
with wings:
Working
With Angel Cards
VortexHealing® Institute
Musical instrument Tests
The Sea-Band Acupressure Wrist Band
A press release from Kathleen Van Gorden of KVG Communications (phone
401.454.7591; e-mail:
kathleenv@kvgcom.com) was posted on Yahoo News on February 10th. The
headline read:
FDA Approves Sea-Band Acupressure Wristband For the Relief of
Nausea Due to Motion Sickness, Morning Sickness, Chemotherapy and
Post-Operative Causes
The press release, however, does not claim that the FDA approved the
wristband for relief of nausea or any other symptom. It states that the FDA
granted Sea-Brand International "clearance to market the 'Sea-Band'
acupressure wristband for the relief of nausea caused by motion sickness,
morning sickness, chemotherapy and post-operative nausea." What's the
difference between approving a device and granting clearance to market a
device. Plenty.
FDA approval means some sort of testing of the device has gone on and the
device is safe and effective. FDA clearance means something else. In this
case it means that the FDA agreed with the applicant that there are already
several similar or identical devices that are legally being sold in the
United States. The FDA's ruling is public and states:
We have reviewed your [Sea-Band Ltd.] Section 51 0(k) premarket
notification of intent to market the device referenced above and have
determined the device is substantially equivalent (for the indications for
use stated in the enclosure) to legally marketed predicate devices marketed
in interstate commerce prior to May 28, 1976, the enactment date of the
Medical Device Amendments, or to devices that have been reclassified in
accordance with the provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
(Act) that do not require approval of a premarket approval application (PMA).
You may, therefore, market the device, subject to the general controls
provisions of the Act. The general controls provisions of the Act include
requirements for annual registration, listing of devices, good manufacturing
practice, labeling, and prohibitions against misbranding and adulteration.
If I understand this bit of FDA gobbledygook, the FDA did not test this
device and by law had to give clearance to Sea-Band because other devices,
which the FDA may or may not have tested, are already legally
marketed in the US. By no means did the FDA approve the device. It approved
the marketing of the device, which is a very different matter. This
difference is easily glossed over in the press release. Many readers,
especially those prone to believe anything "alternative," will no doubt cite
this as proof that acupressure or acupuncture really works. After all, the
FDA approves it!
Note. I am not saying the device doesn't work, only that it has not been
tested by the FDA. Leonard Nihan, the president of Sea-Band
International, is quoted in the press release as saying that "Studies have
shown that by alleviating nausea Sea-Bands can effectively reduce
healthcare costs [italics added]." That may be true, but what I would
like to know is whether any studies have shown that the Sea-Band effectively
reduces nausea. I have contacted Ms. Van Gorden for this information
and will let you know if she responds.
However, even if the Sea-Band relieves nausea and is cheaper than drugs,
it is a waste of money. It is nothing more than a wrist band with a button
on it. When you feel nauseous, you press on the button. Do I need the band?
No. If acupressure works, all I need do is press on a spot about where one
would take a pulse on the wrist. If I need a visual aid, I could always mark
the spot with an x.
Picture of the Sea-Band
FDA Approves
Sea-Band Acupressure Wristband
The FDA Decision
Kennewick Man
James Randi wrote some very eloquent words about the recent court
decision to allow scientists to study the bones that may or may not be those
of a Native American. Rather than be repetitious, I refer you to
Randi's commentary.
Scientologists as "Drug Free Ambassadors"
How could anyone oppose a group promoting themselves as "Drug Free
Ambassadors" and their program as "Kids For A Drug Free Future"? Easy, if
the group is a gaggle of Scientologists. A city in Australia was quite upset
when they found out that the Scientologists had been invited to join their
festival under false pretenses. The city fathers felt the Scientologists had
a hidden agenda, namely to promote Scientology. The group was passing out an
anti-drug booklet that states on its final page: "Learn more about the
discoveries of L. Ron Hubbard and his workable technologies that get people
off drugs." I wonder if the city would have complained if the booklet had
said: "Learn more about the discoveries of Jesus Christ and his teachings
that get people off drugs"? We'll never know.
Cult aims at kids' shows
Books
If you enjoy books along the lines of Martin Gardner's Fads and
Fallacies in the Name of Science or James Randi's Flim-Flam! then
you will love
Milbourne Christopher's (1914-1984) ESP, Seers and Psychics
(1970). It's out of print, but there are many used copies available
from
Amazon.com. Christopher was a magician and mentalist. His story of the
occult, the paranormal, and the pseudoscientific is told from the point of
view of an expert in deception. It's delightful reading and you may pick up
a few tricks along the way.
**
Another delightful book is
Melvin
Harris's (1930-2004)
Investigating the Unexplained (Prometheus 2003), which seems to be a
reprint of Sorry--You've Been Duped (1986). (A hardback version of
Investigating the Unexplained was published by Prometheus in 1987.)
Harris's book is a series of personal narratives on a variety of paranormal
and supernatural topics that resulted from his investigations as a reporter
for the BBC. I especially enjoyed the chapters on Bloxham and the claims of
evidence for reincarnation.
**
Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias - Why We Need Critical Thinking by
Robert E. Bartholomew and Benjamin Radford (Prometheus 2003) is a clearly
written series of narratives, mostly by sociologist Bartholomew, on topics
ranging from monkey men in India to the strange practice of latah in
Malaysia to the aliens of Roswell. The interesting twist to this book is the
attempt to turn each narrative into an exercise in critical thinking with
review questions. For those interested in latah and other exotic
deviances, I suggest you read the book. If nothing else, you should come
away thinking more about the blurry line between normal and whatever.
Bartholomew is the author of a book I haven't read called
Exotic
Deviance. Great title.
**
You may hear of a new book by UK journalist Francis Wheen called How
Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions
(Fourth Estate 2004). Wheen covers many of the same subjects as The
Skeptic's Dictionary but he offers a theory as to why the whole world
believes weird things that you will not find either in my book or in Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. The real reason the world
has gone mad is Margaret Thatcher. Or something like that. Here are links to
two reviews, one positive and one negative, of Wheen's book.
+David McKie of The Guardian -
Twaddle unswaddled
-John Gray of The Independent -
Lament for the light brigade
Wheen has named his top ten modern delusions. I especially like #4. We
mustn't be "judgmental." This is the rationale used by all
those folks--and their numbers seem to keep growing--who claim it's only
fair that intelligent design be taught as an alternative to any other
scientific theory of evolution now taught. Scientists need not concern
themselves with what is good or bad science. They should concern themselves
with "balance" and "both sides."
What is the other side's view on gravity? electricity? the
Pythagorean theorem? Which begs the question: Is our children learning?
Georgia
Ohio
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Chris Mooney:
It just takes one
Scientists to lobby board on biology plan
***
I also like Wheen's delusion #6. Astrology and similar delusions are
"harmless fun."
Francis Wheen's top 10 modern delusions
What's the harm?
***
I'll finish up this newsletter with a quote from UC Davis anthropology
professor Sandy Harcourt:
"If the continued existence of the creationists'
God depends on our ignorance of the world, no wonder creationists are trying
to stifle science."
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