Michael Shermer's Blog, page 15

Burning Man

Can burn patients really be healed from a distance by phone?

A couple of weeks ago I was at a meeting with television producers at a Pasadena, California hotel when I ran into a man named Richard Greene whom I had met last year at the debate that Leonard Mlodinow and I did with Deepak Chopra and others at Chapman University. With him was a woman named Dr. Marja Pronk, whom Greene introduced as someone who can heal burn patients from a distance by phone, and that she learned this skill under the tutelage of one Dr. Philippe Sauvage. Greene was interested in having me test Dr. Pronk while she was in town, but we ran out of time and the protocols and ethical considerations of intentionally burning either people or animals were prohibitive (in my view) and so at present we are still working on how this claim might be tested under controlled conditions. If you have any suggestions on how we might do this while also meeting the ethical requirements of an Institutional Review Board or Ethical Review Board that overseas the ethical treatment of human and animal subjects in experiments, please let me know.

First, I will provide you the background I was provided followed by my own thoughts on what it would take to test such a claim, along with my thoughts in between on Philippe Sauvage, which as you shall see is making extraordinary claims that go far beyond healing burn patients.

Richard Greene sent me this background material:

As we discussed, the claims made by Breton "healer" Dr. Philippe Sauvage and his co-workers, including medical Dr. Marja Pronk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sshO4IrvJzI and www.sosburn.info) are astounding and challenge almost every belief we have in Western science. To date there have been approximately 500 who have benefited from this technology in 29 countries (including 46 states in the US). Here, for example, is a video of 22 year old Chris Fleming from Ontario, CA. and some press clippings from Africa:

• Newspaper Tanzania

• Newspaper Ghana

The protocol is, as we discussed, for those who receive 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th degree burns to simply call the designated free healing hotline within 30 minutes of the burn. As you will see in the videos, the claim, remarkably, is that 100% of those who do this have their pain removed and ALL skin damage reversed within hours or a few days at most. Here is the most dramatic example—a Ghanan girl that Dr. Marja Pronk treated using Dr. Sauvage's method. Her burns, as you can see, were 3rd and 4th degree and she was expected to die…

Because her father made contact with Dr. Pronk's team, this beautiful young girl made a full recovery. Here are the after photos. There were no grafts or other surgical procedures performed.

Mr. Greene did qualify his own observations:

I do not have direct experience of these examples or claims. What I do know is that Dr. Sauvage is one of the most intelligent, genuine and unique men I have ever met and that he looks at the world in a very different way. Based on my time with him and Dr. Pronk and Alison McDermott, the highly articulate nurse who coordinates the efforts here in the US, I (even the lawyer side of me) am highly inclined to believe that his healings are real and represent the most repeatable, verifiable and significant scientific breakthroughs in centuries, if not all history.

Thank you for keeping an open mind.

I found Mr. Greene to be a very intelligent and thoughtful man who genuinely believes that Sauvage can do what he claims. However, a little background search on Sauvage turned up some disturbing aspects to the man. For example, I noted that this doesn't look too good.

I asked Mr. Greene if he believes these things that Sauvage claims about himself:

At the end of "Druidism," there would be born a single male child [to] the only surviving matriarchal lineage of ancient Armorican spirituality. Androgynous, with the sacred powers of both female and male combined for the only time in Druidic history, this male child would be called the last Strobineller, the paradigmatic shiftmaster, assigned with the task of reconciling Man and Nature before humankind destroyed, forever, planet Earth, or vice versa. Born on December 30, 1953 in the Celtic nation now called Brittany, Philip Savage was this male child.

This, I noted, is the classic messiah complex, single male child of matriarchal lineage, healing the sick…come here to save mankind…he's the new Jesus and Marja Pronk is his Mary Magdalene.

I asked Mr. Greene what he thought of all this, and he responded thoughtfully:

1) Dr. Pronk is 100% solid with impeccable integrity and the testimonials—as a professional in non-verbal communication and body language who gets as much as $25,000 per day to teach businesses same—are overwhelmingly solid and believable in my professional opinion.

2) I have spent about 30 hours—1 on 1—with Phillip and have experienced a level of knowledge, perspective and answers to questions that I have never experienced before. He is not normal and is, indeed, exceptional in every way—even in his eccentricities. How many con men do you know that speak 17 languages, play at least as many instruments and have 3 advanced degrees.

3) I have never seen anything to indicate that the medical cases are not 100% real.

4) I have never seen anything to indicate that the burn cases are not 100% real. As we discussed, Michael, he could be an alien, the worst human around or even a figment of one's imagination…but if this shit works, it is a phenomenal story and one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in human history.

All of the above is irrelevant, though, Michael, as you know better than anyone. Let's do the testing.

Fair enough. The proof is in the pudding. But I did write to Richard the following concerns that I have about Sauvage (sometimes rendered online as Savage):

I appreciate your frankness. I must tell you that the more I read about Philip Savage the louder my baloney detection alarm sounds. I'm sure you must understand why. Even in LaLa land here in So. California, with egos bigger than Mt. Everest and loonies claiming every nutty thing under the sun, Savage towers above them all in both audacity and unbelievability. My experience after three decades of investigating such claims is no one to date who has ever made such claims has turned out to be the real thing. Not one. Not even close. They are either delusional or psychopathic con artists. So…the chances of Savage being able to do what he claims, in my view, is extremely low, very improbable.

Still, as you say, the proof is in the pudding, so let's put him to the test: not by advertising a phone number and hope people call with a burn accident; but by a controlled test in a laboratory under conditions that he (or Marja) could attempt to alter cells or heal them or whatever—some objective measurable effect that can be documented and recorded. The problem with subjective pain readings (on a 1-10 scale, for example), is that all sorts of things can effect it, including acupuncture, acupressure, meditation, just thinking about the pain scale, etc.

Please ask Marja if she can do something along the lines of altering cells or healing burns or injuries in a controlled setting such as a lab. I do not want to participate in a program that involves giving out a phone number because gullible people may naively start calling it in the belief that their cancer, AIDS, etc. will be cured, giving them false hopes, possibly draining their bank accounts (if such a thing is going on), etc. That would make me party to a scam and so I can't take that risk. And in any case, as I said, that's not an ideal test. We need controlled conditions in a lab or a hospital. I don't see why, if burn pain is a product of the brain and thought, that Marja can't go to the UCLA medical center and find someone who is in agony, and just heal them right there, reduce their pain level through her and Savage's method. If you want a dramatic demonstration that could be filmed, that would certainly do it!

In a follow-up email I added:

More to the point, we need to establish some sort of definitive test in which we can clearly see results (or not). Remember, medical conditions are rarely stable—they are constantly changing, so we need to have in place a way to tell if the change is due to natural processes of the body healing itself, interventions by traditional medical treatments, or through Savage's method. Anecdotes won't help us. "I felt better after Dr. Pronk treated me" doesn't mean anything. Maybe that patient feels better after a good night's sleep, or after the doctor visits, or after taking his meds, etc. Most important is that we are very clear about what exactly is being claimed so that we can test that. Big generic things like "feeling better" or "getting better" won't cut it in science. Specifics, such as burned skin healing 50% faster with the Pronk treatment versus the traditional medical treatment would be an example because then we'd have a time frame that can be quantified.

Then, out of the blue, I received an email from another Sauvage acolyte named Alison McDermott:

Through researching you, there seems to be pervading humanitarian integrity, a steadfast scientific mind who loves the simple truth of the matter, as well as a remarkably in common, "list of Loathsomes" with Dr Savage and myself. Religions, "New Age bozos" to coin his phrase, (these two top of the list), so-called "psychics", "mystics", most definitely "healers", prophets, "goddesses", fakirs, so-called "alternative practitioner's" and all the other self-deluded of which you can find just about everywhere, busy claiming to do what they cannot do…. If I may presume some understanding of your "gurus"? Facts, solid proof, science and the scientific methodology. Also know as "The experiment", and the findings thereof. (None of which you have ever found demonstrable by the list above throughout your 30 year investigative career, if I am correct?)

The "salt" of any good skeptic you'll probably agree would be, "We want to see the diligent establishment of these "facts, results and proofs", else expect, (quite rightly) to be "thrown to the lions"?? The skeptic with integrity that is, not the "dime a dozen", wanna-be de-bunkers of subjective "mere opinions", educated or otherwise, "ruin them without testing them"—"witch-hunt" tacticians ("paid for slander" as deployed by the BBC) etc etc, amateurs which are as "virally prolific" as are those on the list of deceivers above your mission is to "expose".

Dr Savage can do what he claims…and can prove it to you.

There has long existed the perfect logistic to execute this "experiment" meeting all scientific standards required, not shared with you in any contact with Dr Marja Pronk and Richard Greene. Simply put, it is this:

This "right person" is PERSONALLY (friends) connected to a TV News Network DECISION MAKER, (CNN, FOX NEWS, APTV have journalists in every major city) who, with a simple phone call, can quietly and privately mobilise a posse of his journalists on location ALREADY, eg in major cities or war zones etc, to send in burn cases, and film the results. (they are called to fires, explosions, bombings all the time…their "runners" are on the scene in minutes.) Proofs start coming in…where upon, the "decision maker" now KNOWS it's true!!! Then, he has ALL his worldwide journalists alerted to send in burns…and the start pouring in thick and fast, 100's or more per day…

The "carrot" for this network decision maker is that they get to "break" the news AND the exclusive interview rights with the man behind the results…(ratings ratings ratings!!)

Would you agree that observable, repeatable and recordable results, documentable over and over by independent scientist's/doctors around the world, nothing whatsoever to do with YOU or US, each other or any party involved, (except as an emergency admission burn victim to their ER) is as scientific and objective as it gets?

I am permitted to officially "throw down the gauntlet" directly on behalf of Dr Savage himself for you to…"Expose the famous Breton healer" scientifically, once and for all.

I responded:

Hi Alison, thanks for the thoughtful note.

There's no gauntlet to throw down or anything like that. We're just trying to figure out a way to test Dr. Savage's and Dr. Pronk's claims of being able to heal burn patients. The problem with what you suggest about getting journalists to call the number in the event of an accident or fire that results in burned people is that this would not be a controlled experiment. People vary greatly in their ability to heal from various disorders and there are dozens of reasons why. The hard part about doing science is isolating the variable that actually matters from the variables that do not, and then controlling all the variables for the placebo effect as well. Take age, for example. Older people heal much slower than younger people, from most diseases and accidents, so you have to control for age. That is, take age into account in a statistical analysis of group differences in whatever you are measuring. Socioeconomic status also matters, since poor people typically have poorer diets, exercise less, smoke and drink more, engage in riskier sex and do drugs more, have poorer health care, see doctors and dentists less often, and so on, and all these things also influence health and healing, so these too must be controlled for. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Anecdotes about this or that person who got healed by Dr. Savage (or any one of hundreds of other alternative medical treatments available on the Internet and other alternative sources outside mainstream medicine) are completely meaningless from a scientific perspective because of the problem I've described above.

What needs to be done to properly test Dr. Savage and Dr. Pronk would be to, say, have a sample size of 75 people, all of whom are burned in precisely the same manner, with the same technique (e.g., cigarette burn), at the same temperature, in the same place on the body, etc., then treat 25 of them with Dr. Savage's technique, 25 with standard medical treatment, and 25 get no treatment whatsoever. Then see if there are any measurable differences between the three groups. Studies such as this, which typically involve much larger sample sizes (usually in the hundreds or thousands) take many months—sometimes years—to complete. It can't be done in one setting. That's the only way to know if something works or not.

So, although I can certainly sense in your passion that you believe Dr. Savage can heal burn patients, there's really only one way to know for sure and that is to conduct a test such as what I've outlined above (although there are others I could propose as well). But for both legal and ethical reasons that I've communicated to Richard Greene, it is very unlikely we could ever get permission to conduct any such test on humans, and even animals might be difficult to get approval for such a burn test that would inflict harm and damage. I don't personally feel comfortable burning rats or any other animal for such a test. I'm not a member of PETA, and I don't in principle object to animal testing, but I personally wouldn't do it myself and I would prefer that medical research make more efforts to avoid it where possible using, say, computer models for testing.

What would be helpful to me is if someone can tell me exactly what it is that Dr. Savage and Dr. Pronk can do. We need very specific definitions of what constitutes a "healing" and over what time frame. Wounds naturally heal anyway. Let's say a cigarette burn normally heals in 10 days. What is it that Dr. Savage and Dr. Pronk can do? Can they heal it in 9 days? 8? 1? Five minutes? And what does this healing look like? Does the skin just magically grow over the wound such that you can't even see any scarring? And over what time frame? Again, the problem is that people vary a lot in such conditions. For example, one person perhaps heals from a cigarette burn in 6 days, someone else in 15 days, with a general population average of 10 days. So what if the person Dr. Savage happened to heal was one of those who heals in 6 days, and he then claims to have done the healing in 6 days when in fact he did not. Does that make sense? You see the problem here, right?

Finally, although, again, I can sense in the passion of your words that you believe the claims of Dr. Savage, please be aware that there are thousands of people just like him all over the world making equally bold claims about healing cancer, AIDS, paralysis, weight loss, depression, and the like. Not one has ever been able to prove their claims under controlled conditions such as those I've outlined above. Not one. Ever. So what's more likely? That Dr. Savage is the first person in history to actually be the real deal, or that he's just like the thousands of others making such claims? For those who know him, such as yourself, the answer is likely to be "yes, he's the one, the only one, ever, and how fortunate that we get to live at the same time as him and know him." But to the rest of us on the outside who don't know him, his claims are indistinguishable from the thousands of others just like him making similarly extraordinary claims.

If anyone reading this blog has an idea of how we can test Dr. Pronk and Dr. Savage in some controlled manner beyond what I've described herewith and that would not violate ethical standards outlined by ethics committees that regulate the ethical treatment of experimental subjects I would be appreciative of your thoughts on the matter.

As pessoas gostam de ser enganadas

This interview with Michael Shermer appeared in the magazine ÉPOCA in January 2012. The following is in Portuguese. There is currently no English translation for this interview. Qualified volunteers interested in translating this interview into English, please contact Michael Shermer.

O psicólogo e escritor americano diz que é mais fácil acreditar em esquisitices — como mediunidade, horóscopo e discos voadores – que pensar e questionar

A DIFERENÇA ENTRE UM MÁGICO E UM MÉDIUM É QUE O MÁGICO CONFESSA FAZER TRUQUES, enquanto o paranormal afirma ter poderes que o habilitam a ler pensamentos, prever o futuro ou falar com os mortos. "basta ao médium dizer que tem poderes para as pessoas crerem. Faz parte da natureza humana", afirma o psicólogo e escritor americano Michael Shermer, de 57 anos, diretor da Sociedade Cética e da revista Skeptic. "Não evoluímos para duvidar ou ter visão crítica. Isso exige educação e reflexão. Crer é mais fácil." Nesta entrevista, ele fala sobre os temas de seu livro Por que as pessoas acreditam em coisas estranhas (JSN, 384 páginas, R$ 65, publicado agora no Brasil), e ataca a farsa por trás da crença em discos voadores, bruxas, quiromancia e mediunidade.

ÉPOCA: Por que as pessoas acreditam em esquisitices?

Michael Shermer: A razão básica está em nosso cérebro, programado pela evolução para enxergar o mundo e procurar razões sobrenaturais para explicar eventos da natureza.

ÉPOCA: Dê um exemplo, por favor.

Shermer: Nas sociedades tribais, o pajé até hoje é aquele que detém os conhecimentos que podem salvar os membros da tribo em momentos decisivos. São os pajés que sabem quais são as plantas e raízes com poderes curativos. São eles que decretam que tal região virou tabu, tornando-a um local proibido e dando chance à fauna para se recompor. Anos depois, num momento de escassez, é o pajé quem tem o poder para liberar a volta dos caçadores ao local, salvando a tribo da fome. Esse tipo de poder sempre foi exclusivo dos magos, dos pajés e dos sacerdotes. Logo, acreditar em seus emissários significava a própria salvação. Quando o pajé dizia que enxergava o futuro, que os membros da tribo deveriam caçar ou buscar água em tal região, e que a salvação de todos estaria em fazer o que ele dizia, tudo não passava de uma profecia autorrealizável. Só isso.

ÉPOCA: Há os que afirmam ver coisas sobrenaturais e outros que dizem ouvir o canto dos anjos ou o lamento dos mortos.

Ler o tarô é representar, o que exige talento e prática. não importa a história que se conte, contanto que soe convincente

Michael Shermer, Science Friction (2005)

Shermer: Somos animais sociais, e o cérebro foi programado para reconhecer rostos e fisionomias. Por isso, temos a tendência de enxergar faces escondidas no desenho das nuvens, nas manchas de um sudário ou nas rochas da superfície de Marte. Pela mesma razão, basta olhar as nuvens para reconhecer nelas as formas de diversos animais. Essa também é uma herança evolutiva, já que por milênios reconhecer a existência de um animal escondido na paisagem poderia significar a diferença entre a vida e a morte. Qualquer pessoa também pode dizer que fala com os mortos. Não tem nada de mais. Difícil é conseguir fazer os mortos responderem. Todas as alegações como essas que foram investigadas a sério acabaram revelando a existência de microfones escondidos na mobília, nas paredes ou no forro. Nenhuma fotografia pretensamente tirada de um disco voador sobreviveu a um exame detalhado. São todas alegações falsas, montagens feitas para iludir. Embora seja possível que algumas alegações de eventos paranormais, mediúnicos ou ufológicos possam ser verdadeiras, a verdade é que a maior parte delas é falsa, e o mais provável é que todas não passem de pura farsa.

ÉPOCA: Por que as mulheres parecem acreditar mais em esquisitices que os homens?

Shermer: Não é verdade. Homens e mulheres, indistintamente, têm a mesma tendência para acreditar nessas coisas. O que muda é o tipo de esquisitice. Mulheres acreditam mais em mediunidade, espiritismo, cartomantes, bruxaria, amuletos, terapias alternativas, curandeiros e simpatias. Os homens preferem acreditar em paranormalidade, pseudociência, criacionismo e objetos voadores não identificados.

ÉPOCA: Por que as pessoas diferenciam um mágico profissional que faz truques de um médium que diz ser paranormal?

Shermer: É porque o mágico confessa que faz um truque, mas não revela seu segredo. Isso tem razões históricas. A magia é tão antiga quanto as artes adivinhatórias. Há vários séculos, no tempo da Inquisição, os mágicos que ganhavam a vida seguindo as feiras regionais na Europa medieval foram sensatos em confessar que não eram bruxos. Eles confessaram que faziam truques para não acabar na fogueira. Sua confissão retirou dos mágicos profissionais a aura sobrenatural, a qual, embora tentem até hoje, nunca conseguiram resgatar.

ÉPOCA: E as cartomantes e os adivinhos?

Shermer: A maioria acabou na fogueira. As cartomantes e os adivinhos, os médiuns atuais, foram perseguidos porque alegavam deter poderes sobrenaturais. Eles afirmavam que conseguiam prever o futuro e influenciar o destino das pessoas. Ora, esses eram atributos exclusivos da Igreja Católica. Os mesmos inquisidores que se mostraram brandos com os mágicos não pouparam de sua ira persecutória cartomantes e adivinhos, todos eles rotulados de bruxos seguidores da magia negra. Os médiuns e charlatões da atualidade não correm esse risco. Por isso podem afirmar sem medo que têm visões, que falam com os mortos, enxergam o passado, o presente e o futuro. Ou alegar que leem a sorte e influenciam o destino de uma pessoa olhando as cartas do tarô, as linhas da palma da mão, o alinhamento dos planetas de um mapa astral, os reflexos de uma bola de cristal ou a borra de uma xícara de café.

Copiei um mapa astral e disse que era o da moça na minha frente. Fiz vários chutes sobre sua vida. Acertei a metade

Michael Shermer, Science Friction (2005)

ÉPOCA: Por que as pessoas insistem em acreditar que essas alegações são verdadeiras?

Shermer: Porque os médiuns afirmam que são verdadeiras. Basta aos médiuns, curandeiros e pais de santo dizer que têm visões e preveem o futuro para que as pessoas acreditem. Faz parte da natureza humana. Não evoluímos para duvidar ou questionar. Desenvolver um senso crítico e uma visão própria de mundo exige educação, reflexão e tempo. Crer é muito mais fácil. As pessoas preferem ser enganadas.

ÉPOCA: Quem pede remuneração para fornecer um bem ou serviço que não existe pode ser processado. Por que isso não se aplica ao "trabalho profissional" de cartomantes e médiuns?

Shermer: Porque adivinhos e paranormais se protegem atrás dos direitos universais da liberdade de opinião, de expressão, de reunião e de religião. É muito difícil ou quase impossível provar que um sujeito não escuta vozes interiores ou fala com os anjos se ele assim o afirma. Os religiosos e os crentes das religiões ditas oficiais poderiam ser investigados e processados exatamente pelas mesmas alegações, pois suas religiões aceitam doações em dinheiro como as cartomantes. Seus membros também alegam ter um canal direto de comunicação com o sobrenatural, assim como as cartomantes.

ÉPOCA: Por que gente inteligente crê em esquisitices?

Shermer: Foi para dar título ao livro que escolhi chamar o conjunto de crendices e enganações reivindicadas por médiuns e paranormais de "coisas estranhas". Palavras mais corretas seriam farsa ou enganação. São atos na maioria das vezes criados para iludir e enganar. Em certas circunstâncias, podem ser classificados como delírios, quando seus devotos acreditam que viveram ou vivem uma experiência extraordinária, inexplicável, extrassensorial. Ainda assim, há explicação para tudo. Quem tem uma boa formação cultural e crê nessas fantasias o faz em duas possibilidades. Ou se trata de um indivíduo conivente com a farsa ou é alguém que sofreu de um surto psicótico, é esquizofrênico e, portanto, doente, ou teve uma alucinação. O estado alterado de consciência pode ser fruto da ingestão de alucinógenos como a ayahuasca, o mescal ou o LSD. Episódios psicóticos também podem ser causados pela privação de sono e pelo cansaço extremo. Para tudo há uma explicação. Se ela convence o crente, o doente ou o usuário, é outra questão.

ÉPOCA: O que acha da religiosidade e do sincretismo humanos?

Shermer: Sou ateu e sou otimista. Até a Idade Média, éramos uma espécie controlada pela fé e dominada por suas crendices e seus medos. Hoje, dezenas de milhões de pessoas nos países ricos se declaram ateias. A religiosidade, pelo menos na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, recua ano a ano.

ÉPOCA: Não é assim no Brasil nem nos países em desenvolvimento.

Shermer: À medida que o padrão de vida subir, a elevação da escolaridade e da educação científica reduzirá o porcentual de religiosos na população. É um caminho sem volta. Basta os governos investirem em educação de qualidade.

ÉPOCA: Um argumento dos religiosos para desqualificar os ateus é que eles escolheram não crer num deus e que essa é sua crença.

Shermer: Se os religiosos querem acreditar num deus bondoso, num paraíso com100 mil virgens ou seja lá o que for, não dou a mínima. Os religiosos não me interessam. O que me interessa são as centenas de milhões de pessoas que não seguem religião nenhuma e nunca vão à igreja.

ÉPOCA: Quer dizer que, para o senhor, a religião é inofensiva?

Shermer: O problema começa quando seus seguidores usam a religião para lançar aviões contra arranha-céus, jogar bombas em clínicas de aborto (nos Estados Unidos), mutilar mulheres, restringir os direitos individuais e alterar a legislação para proibir o ensino da evolução. Eles querem obrigar as crianças a aprender o criacionismo, uma doutrina religiosa travestida de verdade científica.

More God, Less Crime or More Guns, Less Crime?

During the last week of 2011, I spoke at and attended a wonderful salon in Santa Fe, New Mexico organized and hosted by Sandy Blakeslee, the brilliant science writer for the New York Times and the author of numerous engaging popular books on neuroscience. Two of the speakers at the salon addressed the topic of the decline of crime, one (Byron Johnson) attributing it to god and the other (John Lott) to guns. Of the two, Lott by far took the day with superior data and better arguments, although for a much wider and deeper analysis of the decline of violence in general I highly recommend Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (Viking, 2011), which I recently reviewed in these pages.

Byron Johnson is a professor at Baylor University and the founding director of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion as well as director of the Program on Prosocial Behavior. Acknowledging that he took the title of his book, More God, Less Crime: Why Faith Matters and How It Could Matter More (Templeton Press, 2011) directly from Lott's book, More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (University of Chicago Press, 2010), Johnson mostly recounted his experiences working with prisoners in an attempt to lower recidivism rates by increasing religiosity…of the Christian variety, of course. What few data slides he presented harmed his case more than helped it by being either impossible to read (dark, small type) or countering his claim (one slide showed no difference in post-conversion crime rates). Even his anecdotes seemed to gainsay his thesis, as in recounting the story of one man who even after converting to Christianity refused to confess his crime of rape and murder of a young girl until he met her mother on the day of his execution, at which point he broke down and apologized to her. Additional anecdotes and frank admissions by Johnson only worsened his case, such as that many prisoners only convert in order to impress parole boards, and that many of his fellow Christians (he called them "high octane" evangelicals) were only in the game to tally up conversion scores in an environment ripe for the picking. (I routinely receive letters from prisoners who bemoan the constant evangelizing, not only by Christians but by Muslims as well who also see prisons as conversion opportunities. As the Russian comedian Yavak Smirnoff used to joke about performing in the USSR, mixing "captured" for "captive" audiences: "they're not going anywhere!")

Johnson seems like a nice enough fellow, and with our current overcrowded prison system letting criminals out early, if he really can lower recidivism rates it's hard not to acknowledge that this is a good thing for society (assuming he's having any effect at all, which I presume he must be at least on a case-by-case basis, even if it isn't statistically significant from other recidivism methods). Although I would much prefer that people not commit crimes for rational and secular moral reasons (respect for private property, sanctity of life, etc.), I am reminded of an encounter I had with a young Christian man in his early 20s during the Q & A after one of my public lectures. I had just asked the rhetorical question—which I often ask during my talk on the evolution of morality and how to be good without god—"What would you do if there were no God? Would you rape, steal, and murder?" Naturally people agree that they wouldn't, but in this instance the man said he was pretty sure that if he decided that there were no god he would do just that. I told him that Jesus loves him and has a plan for his life and future. It got a laugh but everyone in the room realized that not everyone is a rational calculator and moral reasoner. Some people may very well need the shadow of enforcement that comes from believing in an invisible policeman in the sky who, like those pesky red light video cameras at busy intersections, insures that even when the cops aren't around all sins and violations will be settled in due time, even without due process.

As far as I know Johnson, along with his fellow religious believers who embrace the hypothesis that religion is good for society, have failed to account for a simple and obvious (once you think about it) correlation and comparison: Gregory Paul's 2005 study published in the Journal of Religion and Society—"Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies"—that showed an inverse correlation between religiosity (measured by belief in God, biblical literalism, and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and societal health (measured by rates of homicide, suicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, and teen pregnancy) in 18 developed democracies. "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies," Paul found. "The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so." Indeed, the U.S. scores the highest in religiosity and the highest (by far) in homicides, STDs, abortions, and teen pregnancies.

If religion is such a powerful prophylactic against sin, immorality, and crime, then why is the most religious democracy on the planet also the most sinful and crime-ridden? I'm not claiming that religion causes these problems (although Paul does make this claim), only that the claim that it prevents or attenuates them is falsified by the data.

John Lott, by contrast, is a social scientists' social scientist. A data man to the core, I spent several hours with him the night before at a party pressing him for details of his argument that more guns means less crime. He was unwavering in his conviction—both to me privately and in his public talk (and in his book)—that not one social scientist or criminologist has been able to produce a single example of a city or county that has experienced a consistent decline in crimes after a ban on guns was enacted. In fact, in slide after slide and example after example Lott showed that the opposite correlation tends to be the case: gun bans increase crime.

Take Washington, D.C. Before the ban on handguns was implemented in August of 1976, DC ranked 20th in murder rates out of the top 50 cities in America. After the gun ban, DC shot up to either #1 or #2, where year after year it held steady as "the murder capital of the nation," as it as dubbed by the media. As a control experiment of sorts, after the Supreme Court decision in the Heller case overturned the DC gun ban, murder rates dropped and have continued to fall ever since. According to Lott, whose data is based primarily on crime statistics provided by the FBI, once the gun ban was lifted, homicide rates plummeted 42.1%, sexual assault rates dropped 14.9%, robbery excluding guns dropped 34.3%, robbery with guns plunged 58%, assault with a dangerous weapon excluding guns sank 11%, assault with a dangerous weapon using guns tumbled 35.6%, and total violent crime nosedived 31%, along with total property crimes decreasing a total of 10.7%.

Chicago showed a similar effect, Lott demonstrated. Ever since the gun ban was implemented in 1982, no year has been as low in crimes as it was before the ban. Island nations (which serve as good tests, Lott says, because their borders are more tightly controlled from extraneous variables) demonstrate the same effect: Jamaica and Ireland homicide rates increased after gun bans were imposed. Ditto England and Wales: After a gun ban was imposed in January of 1997, homicide rates slowly climbed and peaked at an average of 28% higher after the ban. (By dramatic contrast, Lott said that in 1900 London in which people were free to do whatever they wanted with their guns, there were a grand total of 2 gun-related deaths and 5 armed robberies in a population of many millions, and this was 20 years before gun laws began going into effect in 1920.)

Why do more guns mean less crime? Lott offers a very practical explanation: it is extremely hard to keep criminals from getting and keeping guns. In other words, Gun bans are primarily obeyed by non-criminals. Criminals that already have guns do not turn them in, and potential criminals that want to get guns have no problem procuring them on the street illegally. Lott cited several studies by criminologists who interviewed criminals in jail and collected data on the amount of time they spend casing a home before burglarizing it. In the U.K., where gun bans are much more prevalent than in the U.S., the criminals reported that they spend very little time casing a joint and that they don't really care if someone is home or not because they know the residents won't be armed (whereas they, of course, are armed). Their U.S. counterparts, by contrast, reported spending more than double the time casing a home before robbing it, explaining that they were waiting for the residents to leave. Why? They said that they were worried they would be shot.

Why is crime so much higher here in the U.S. than in the U.K. and elsewhere? Lott explained that the remarkably high homicide rates are a geographical anomaly. The U.S. justice department reports that about 80% of violent crimes are drug gang related, and that about 75% of homicides take place in 3% of counties. And even within those counties the murders are taking place in a tiny portion in which drug gangs are operating. So when we compare murder rates between countries—say between the U.S. and Canada—it is really comparing the crime in one country to just a very tiny portion of American cities where gangs proliferate. What would happen if drugs were legalized? Speaking as an economist who understands the basic law of supply and demand, Lott opined that there is no doubt that crimes would decrease while drug-use would increase. So it's a trade-off.

I do not know this area well enough to judge the validity of Lott's thesis. His data and his plausible causal explanations for the correlations strike me as sound, although I know that proponents of gun control have taken him to task over various statistical issues. Still, I would like to see his fundamental challenge met: is there any city or county in the U.S. where crime and murders have consistently decreased after gun control laws were passed and enforced?

Anecdotally, of course, we are horrified at the innocent people gunned down who would be alive were there no guns anywhere in the country. Just days before Lott's lecture, in fact, there was the story about the U.S. soldier returning home from Iraq who was shot dead on Christmas day in a dispute over a football team. Had there not been guns in that home the worst thing that probably would have happened is a bit of pushing and shoving and shouting, perhaps a roundhouse punch or two thrown, and a couple of bruised egos in the end. But the problem is that the genie is out of the bottle. Millions of guns are already out there, and short of a Stasi-like police state sweep through every home, business, garage, shack, storage unit, cabin, car, and container in every nook and cranny in every state in the union, gun bans will most likely be honored by the people who least need them and ignored by those who do—the criminals.

In the Year 9595

Why the singularity is not near,
but hope springs eternal

Watson is the IBM computer built by David Ferrucci and his team of 25 research scientists tasked with designing an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can rival human champions at the game of Jeopardy. After beating the greatest Jeopardy champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, in February 2011, the computer is now being employed in more practical tasks such as answering diagnostic medical questions.

I have a question: Does Watson know that it won Jeopardy? Did it think, "Oh, yeah! I beat the great Ken Jen!"? In other words, did Watson feel flushed with pride after its victory? This has been my standard response when someone asks me about the great human-versus-machine Jeopardy shoot-out; people always respond in the negative, understanding that such self-awareness is not yet the province of computers. So I put the line of inquiry to none other than Ferrucci at a recent conference. His answer surprised me: "Yes, Watson knows it won Jeopardy." I was skeptical: How can that be, since such self-awareness is not yet possible in computers? "Because I told it that it won," he replied with a wry smile.

Of course. You could even program Watson to vocalize a Howard Dean–like victory scream, but that is still a far cry from its feeling triumphant. That level of self-awareness in computers, and the time when it might be achieved, was a common theme at the Singularity Summit held in New York City on the weekend of October 15–16, 2011. There hundreds of singularitarians gathered to be apprised of our progress toward the date of 2045, set by visionary computer scientist Ray Kurzweil as being when computer intelligence will exceed that of all humanity by one billion times, humans will realize immortality, and technological change will be so rapid and profound that we will witness an intellectual event horizon beyond which, like its astronomical black hole namesake, life is not the same.

I was at once both inspired and skeptical. When asked my position on immortality, for example, I replied, "I'm for it!" But wishing for eternal life—and being offered unprovable ways of achieving it—has been a theme for billions of people throughout history. My baloney-detection alarm goes off whenever a soothsayer writes himself and his generation into the forecast, proclaiming that the Biggest Thing to Happen to Humanity Ever will occur in the prophet's own lifetime. I abide by the Copernican principle that we are not special. For once, I would like to hear a futurist or religious diviner predict that "it" is going to happen in, say, the year 2525 or 7510. But where's the hope in that? Herein lies the appeal of Kurzweil and his band of singularity hopefuls. No matter how distressing it may be when the bad news daily assaults our senses, our eyes should be on the prize just over the horizon. Be patient.

Patience is what we are going to need because, in my opinion, we are centuries away from AI matching human intelligence. As California Institute of Technology neuroscientist Christof Koch noted in narrating the wiring diagram of the entire nervous system of Caenorhabditis elegans, we are clueless in understanding how this simple roundworm "thinks," much less in explicating (and reproducing in a computer) a human mind billions of times more complex. We don't even know how our brain produces conscious thoughts or where the "self" is located (if it can be found anywhere at all), much less how to program a machine to do the same. Pop rock duo Zager and Evans were probably closer in their 1969 hit song In the Year 2525's prediction that the biggest milestones would happen between the years 2525 and 9595, their exordium and terminus.

An irony: amid all this highfalutin braggadocio of how close we are to computers taking over the world and emulating human thought, I had to give my talk on the "social singularity" (progress in political, economic and social systems over the past 10,000 years) early because Rice University computer scientist James McLurkin could not get his small swarm of robots to work. Either someone's wireless mic or the room's wireless network was interfering with the tiny robots' communications system, and no one could figure out how to solve the problem. My prediction for the Singularity: we are 10 years away … and always will be.

E Pluribus Unum for all faiths and for none

Foreigners could be forgiven for thinking that America is fast becoming a theocracy. No fewer than three of the remaining Republican candidates (Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann) have declared that they were called by God to run for the country's highest office. Congress recently voted to renew the country's motto of "In God We Trust" on nothing less than the coin of the realm. And this year's Thanksgiving Forum in Iowa (co-sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage) featured most of the major Presidential candidates competing for the title of God's quarterback.

Rick Santorum, for example, in the course of denouncing Islamic Sharia law, inadvertently endorsed the same as long as it is a Christian on the Judge's bench: "Unlike Islam, where the higher law and the civil law are the same, in our case, we have civil laws. But our civil laws have to comport with the higher law." Not content to speak in such circular generalities, Santorum targeted his faith: "As long as abortion is legal—at least according to the Supreme Court—legal in this country, we will never have rest, because that law does not comport with God's law." God's law? That is precisely the argument made by Islamic imams. But Santorum was only getting started. "Gay marriage is wrong. The idea that the only things that the states are prevented from doing are only things specifically established in the Constitution is wrong. … As a president, I will get involved, because the states do not have the right to undermine the basic, fundamental values that hold this country together." Christian values only, of course.

The historically challenged Michele Bachmann minced no words when she declared: "I have a biblical worldview. And I think, going back to the Declaration of Independence, the fact that it's God who created us—if He created us, He created government. And the government is on His shoulders, as the book of Isaiah says." A Bachmann administration would apparently consult the Old Testament for moral guidance because, she pronounced with her usual hubris born of historical ignorance, "American exceptionalism is grounded on the Judeo-Christian ethic, which is really based upon the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments were the foundation for our law." Really? Where in our laws does it prohibit belief in gods other than Yahweh, ban the manufacturing of graven images, forbid taking the Lord's name in vain, bar us from working on the Sabbath, require us to honor our parents, and interdict the coveting of our neighbor's house, wife, slave, servant, ox, and ass? Even the notoriously difficult to follow 7th commandment is not illegal, much to the relief of candidate Gingrich.

Surely the pluralism of America's religious diversity is what makes us great. Not so, said Rick Perry: "In every person's heart, in every person's soul, there is a hole that can only be filled by the Lord Jesus Christ." But don't politicians owe allegiance to the Constitution? Alas, pace Perry, no. "Somebody's values are going to decide what the Congress votes on or what the President of the United States is going to deal with. And the question is: Whose values? And let me tell you, it needs to be our values—values and virtues that this country was based upon in Judeo-Christian founding fathers." You mean the values and virtues of the atheist Thomas Paine and the Deist Thomas Jefferson, the latter of whom rejected Jesus, the resurrection, and all miracles as nonsense on stilts, and yet who nonetheless insisted on building an impregnable wall protecting religion from the encroachment of state abuse?

Finally, the erudite Newt Gingrich was more specific in his plan to bring about a Christian nation through legal means, starting by redacting the 14th Amendment: "I am intrigued with something which Robby George at Princeton has come up with, which is an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, in which it says that Congress shall define personhood. That's very clearly in the 14th Amendment. And part of what I would like to explore is whether or not you could get the Congress to pass a law which simply says: Personhood begins at conception. And therefore—and you could, in the same law, block the court and just say, 'This will not be subject to review,' which we have precedent for. You would therefore not have to have a Constitutional amendment, because the Congress would have exercised its authority under the 14th Amendment to define life, and to therefore undo all of Roe vs. Wade, for the entire country, in one legislative action." If the 14th Amendment can be averted on a technicality, what about the others?

If you are a Christian, of course, this is the mother's milk of nursing privilege. Power to the (Christian) people. It's the oldest trope in history—religious tribalism—and it's being played out in the land of liberty. So it is prudent for us to educe that other national motto found on the Seal of the United States first proffered by the founding patriarchs John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson and adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782: E Pluribus Unum—Out of many, one.

How many make up our one? There are 300 million Americans. Gallup, Pew, and other pollsters consistently find that about 10 percent of Americans do not believe in God. That's 30 million Americans. That's not all. A 2008 study by the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) revealed that between 1990 and 2008 the fastest growing religious group in America were the "Nones," or people who responded "None, No religion, Humanistic, Ethical Culture, Agnostic, Atheist, or Secular" in the survey. Remarkably, this group gained more new members (19,838,000) than either Catholics (11,195,000) or Protestants (10,980,000), and totals 15 percent, or 45 million Americans.

Read that number again candidates! If you are elected President of these United States are you really going to dismiss and openly refuse to represent 45 million people living under the same Constitution as you? And that's just the Nones. Tens of millions more Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'i, Jains, Taoists, Wiccans, New Agers, and other law-abiding loyal Americans—many serving in the armed services protecting our liberty—are non-Christians who hold the same dreams and aspirations for what this country has to offer as do Christians. In fact, at most Christians comprise 60–76 percent of all Americans, which means that somewhere between 72 million and 120 million U.S. citizens are non-Christians no less deserving of representation in this democracy.

It's time for candidates and politicians to stop the God talk and start acting like true representatives of the people—all of the people. It's time for the 45 million Nones to demand both respect and representation no less than any other American, and for presidential candidates, when asked about their religion, to reply something along these lines:

I understand why you are curious about my religious beliefs, but I am not running to represent only Americans who happen to believe what I believe about God and religion. I am running to represent Americans of all faiths, and even the tens of millions of Americans who have no religion. If elected, my allegiance is to the Constitution and my duty is to uphold the laws of this great land, which are to be applied equally and without prejudice to all Americans no matter their color or creed. I realize that some candidates and politicians pander to their religious voting block in hopes of gaining support by tapping ancient tribal prejudices, but that is not my way. I get why other candidates are tempted to appeal to those deep emotions that are stirred by religious unity against those who believe differently, but I am trying to do something different. If elected I fully intend to represent all Americans under my jurisdiction, not just those Americans whose beliefs I happen to share. I am trying to build a better America for all Americans, not some. The original motto of this country is E Pluribus Unum. It means "Out of many, one." It means that we are stronger together than separate, united by our common belief in liberty and the freedom to believe whatever you want as long as it doesn't harm others. As a candidate for the highest office of this noble nation my faith is in its people—all of the people—and what we are able to do together to make the world a better place to live.

Paleolithic Politics

Has there ever been a time when the political process has been so bipartisan and divisive? Yes, actually, one has only to recall the rancorousness of the Bush-Gore or Bush-Kerry campaigns, harken back to the acrimonious campaigns of Nixon or Johnson, read historical accounts of the political carnage of both pre- and post-Civil War elections, or watch HBO's John Adams series to relive in full period costuming the bipartite bitterness between the parties of Adams and Jefferson to realize just how myopic is our perspective.

We can go back even further into our ancestral past to understand why the political process is so tribal. But for the business attire donned in the marbled halls of congress we are a scant few steps removed from the bands and tribes of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and a few more leaps afield from the hominid ancestors roaming together in small bands on the African savannah. There, in those long-gone millennia, were formed the family ties and social bonds that enabled our survival among predators who were faster, stronger, and deadlier than us. Unwavering loyalty to your fellow tribesmen was a signal that they could count on you when needed. Undying friendship with those in your group meant that they would reciprocate when the chips were down. Within-group amity was insurance against the between-group enmity that characterized our ancestral past. As Ben Franklin admonished his fellow revolutionaries, we must all hang together or we will surely hang separately.

In this historical trajectory our group psychology evolved and along with it a propensity for xenophobia—in-group good, out-group bad. Thus it is that members of the other political party are not just wrong—they are evil and dangerous. Stray too far from the dogma of your own party and you risk being perceived as an outsider, an Other we may not be able to trust. Consistency in your beliefs is a signal to your fellow group members that you are not a wishy-washy, Namby Pamby, flip-flopper, and that I can count on you when needed.

This is why, for example, the political beliefs of members of each party are so easy to predict. Without even knowing you, I predict that if you are a liberal you read the New York Times, listen to NPR radio, watch CNN, hate George W. Bush and loathe Sarah Palin, are pro-choice, anti-gun, adhere to the separation of church and state, are in favor of universal healthcare, vote for measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich in order to level the playing field, and believe that global warming is real, human caused, and potentially disastrous for civilization if the government doesn't do something dramatic and soon. By contrast, I predict that if you are a conservative you read the Wall Street Journal, listen to conservative talk radio, watch Fox News, love George W. Bush and venerate Sarah Palin, are pro-life, anti-gun control, believe that America is a Christian nation that should meld church and state, are against universal healthcare, vote against measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich, and are skeptical of global warming and/or government schemes to dramatically alter our economy in order to save civilization.

Research in cognitive psychology shows, for example, that once we commit to a belief we employ the confirmation bias, in which we look for and find confirming evidence in support of it and ignore or rationalize away any disconfirming evidence. In one experiment subjects were presented with evidence that contradicted a belief they held deeply, and with evidence that supported those same beliefs. The results showed that the subjects recognized the validity of the confirming evidence but were skeptical of the value of the disconfirming evidence. The confirmation bias was poignantly on display during the run-up to the 2004 Bush-Kerry Presidential election when subjects had their brains scanned while assessing statements by both Bush and Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Half of the subjects were self-identified as "strong" Republicans and half "strong" Democrats. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own preferred candidate off the evaluative hook. The brain scans showed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning—the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—was quiet. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex that is involved in the processing of emotions, the anterior cingulate that is associated with conflict resolution, and the ventral striatum that is related to rewards.

In other words, reasoning with facts about the issues is quite secondary to the emotional power of first siding with your party and then employing your reason, intelligence, and education in the service of your political commitment.

Our political parties today evolved out of the Paleolithic parties of the past.

As Far As Her Eyes Can See

A review of Lisa Randall's Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World (Ecco, 2011).

Order the book from Amazon

LISA RANDALL HAS BEEN JUSTLY APPRAISED by Time magazine as one of the "100 most influential people in the world" for her work in theoretical particle physics. From her position at Harvard University, she often travels: to the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, in Switzerland, where her theories are being put to the test in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); to speaking engagements with professional and public audiences about her work in particular and the awe and wonder of science in general; and to rock formations where her chalked fingers can find ways to defy gravity. On the side, she writes popular books, such as her acclaimed Warped Passages1.

In Knocking on Heaven's Door, Randall picks up the story from where she left off when the LHC was years away from first collision, expanding her horizon from, as she poetically puts it, "what's so small to you is so large to me" to "what's so large to you is so small to me." In other words, the book ranges from the smallest known particles to the entire bubble universe, from 10−35 meters (the Planck length, where quantum gravity rules) to 1027 meters (the entire visible universe, 100 billion light-years across, where dark matter and dark energy dominate), a stunning 62 orders of magnitude. (Randall correctly notes the age of the universe at 13.75 billion years, clarifying her apparently paradoxical figure of 100 billion light-years thusly: "The reason the universe as a whole is bigger than the distance a signal could have traveled given its age is that space itself has expanded." She unpacks that sentence in the book.)

At the time of this writing, eBooks occupy about 20 percent of sales space; that is, one out of every five books sold has no cover or binding save the faux effects offered digitally by the various eBook readers. Of late, however, a tiny and growing sliver of the pie is being carved out by audio books (primarily through Audible.com and iTunes), most unabridged and read by professional actors and readers. These provide a welcome alternative to those of us yoked to our iPods and MP3 players inside cars and gyms or on bicycles and hiking trails. Since fumbling around with cassette tapes and Sony Walkmans in the early 1980s, I have consumed on the order of 500- plus nonfiction audio books, so a measure of an author's skill to communicate complex material clear enough to penetrate a multitasking cortex has become a mark of quality (or lack thereof). Many are called. Few are chosen. Randall's explanatory prose places her among the elect. She is not alone, but she is rare among the many who have attempted the herculean task of explaining to us uninitiated the daunting science of theoretical particle physics. She devotes most of Knocking on Heaven's Door to covering this science, along the way offering fascinating accounts of how the LHC was built, how the experiments are run, and, most notably, the engineering prestidigitation involved in teasing out nature's secrets via energies never before witnessed on Earth.

The book's subtitle hints that it may be yet another long and tiresome treatise on science and religion, with either convoluted (and ultimately failed) attempts at conciliation or pugnacious left hooks and fast jabs at the faithful. Neither are Randall's modus operandi. She states her case succinctly and moves on. Stephen Jay Gould's "nonoverlapping magisteria," for example, would work if only religions would stick to doing what they do best (providing aid and comfort to the poor and needy). However, conflicts arise the moment "religions attempt to address the external reality of the universe." When they do, Randall notes, "[t]his leaves religious views open to falsification. When science encroaches on domains of knowledge that religion attempts to explain, disagreements are bound to arise." As science expands its realm, the magisteria are becoming ever more overlapping. The deeper problem, however, is that if divine providence were on the offing, "it is inconceivable from a scientific perspective that God could continue to intervene without introducing some material trace of his actions." In other words, if God did act in the world scientists would want to know how he did it. "Did He apply a force or transfer energy?" Randall asks rhetorically. "Is God manipulating electrical processes in our brains? … On a larger level, if God gives purpose to the universe, how does He apply His will?" Inquiring minds want to know. Religion has no answer. I know because I have asked many times.

Another myth Randall thankfully busts is the notion of truth and beauty in science. What can a "beautiful truth" in science possibly mean? Take a look at a page of equations and formulas from a recent theoretical physics paper. Mind-boggling to the untrained maybe, complicated and detailed undoubtedly, surprising or inspiring occasionally, but beautiful? "Beauty is often agreed on only a posteriori," Randall explains, although she adds the proviso "even though aesthetic criteria for science might be poorly defined, they are nonetheless useful and omnipresent. They help guide our research, even if they provide no guarantee of success or truth." Considering weak interactions, which violate parity symmetry, she remarks, "The breaking of such a fundamental symmetry as left-right equivalence seems innately disturbing and unattractive. Yet this very asymmetry is what is responsible for the range of masses we see in the world, which is in turn necessary for structure and life."

Knocking on Heaven's Door came out before the faster-than-light neutrino experiment was announced2 and paraded through the press as an ostensible refutation of Einstein, implying in some circles that science is nothing more than one failed theory after another. Why thence should we believe anything scientists say about evolution, global warming, or vaccines? Randall ends her book with a thoughtful discussion of how science really works to resolve anomalies unexplained by the prevailing paradigm. Einstein did not overturn Newton; he just expanded on the physical properties of the universe at high speed and large scale. If you want to get a spacecraft to the moon, Newton will take you there. As flawed as it sometimes can be, science is still the most reliable tool ever devised for understanding the world. Few have captured this essence better than Randall in Knocking on Heaven's Door.

References & Notes




L. Randall, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions (Allen Lane, London, 2005); reviewed in (3).


http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897.


J. D. Wells, Science 311, 40 (2006).

This review was originally published in the November 2011 issue of Science magazine.

Sacred Salubriousness

New research on self-control explains the link between religion and health

Ever since 2000, when psychologist Michael E. McCullough, now at the University of Miami, and his colleagues published a metaanalysis of more than three dozen studies showing a strong correlation between religiosity and lower mortality, skeptics have been challenged by believers to explain why—as if to say, "See, there is a God, and this is the payoff for believing."

In science, however, "God did it" is not a testable hypothesis. Inquiring minds would want to know how God did it and what forces or mechanisms were employed (and "God works in mysterious ways" will not pass peer review). Even such explanations as "belief in God" or "religiosity" must be broken down into their component parts to find possible causal mechanisms for the links between belief and behavior that lead to health, well-being and longevity. This McCullough and his then Miami colleague Brian Willoughby did in a 2009 paper that reported the results of a metaanalysis of hundreds of studies revealing that religious people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, such as visiting dentists and wearing seat belts, and are less likely to smoke, drink, take recreational drugs and engage in risky sex. Why? Religion provides a tight social network that reinforces positive behaviors and punishes negative habits and leads to greater self-regulation for goal achievement and self-control over negative temptations.

Self-control is the subject of Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister's new book, Willpower, co-authored with science writer John Tierney. Self-control is the employment of one's power to will a behavioral outcome, and research shows that young children who delay gratification (for example, forgoing one marshmallow now for two later) score higher on measures of academic achievement and social adjustment later. Religions offer the ultimate delay of gratification strategy (eternal life), and the authors cite research showing that "religiously devout children were rated relatively low in impulsiveness by both parents and teachers."

The underlying mechanisms of setting goals and monitoring one's progress, however, can be tapped by anyone, religious or not. Alcoholics Anonymous urges members to surrender to a "higher power," but that need not even be a deity—it can be anything that helps you stay focused on the greater goal of sobriety. Zen meditation, in which you count your breaths up to 10 and then do it over and over, the authors note, "builds mental discipline. So does saying the rosary, chanting Hebrew psalms, repeating Hindu mantras." Brain scans of people conducting such rituals show strong activity in areas associated with self-regulation and attention. McCul lough, in fact, describes prayers and meditation rituals as "a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control." In his lab Baumeister has demonstrated that self-control can be increased with practice of resisting temptation, but you have to pace yourself because, like a muscle, self-control can become depleted after excessive effort. Finally, the authors note, "Religion also improves the monitoring of behavior, another of the central steps of self-control. Religious people tend to feel that someone important is watching them." For believers, that monitor may be God or other members of their religion; for nonbelievers, it can be family, friends and colleagues.

The world is full of temptations, and as Oscar Wilde boasted, "I can resist everything except temptation." We may take the religious path of Augustine in his pre-saintly days when he prayed to God to "give me chastity and continence, but not yet." Or we can choose the secular path of 19th-century explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who proclaimed that "self-control is more indispensable than gunpowder," especially if we have a "sacred task," as Stanley called it (his was the abolition of slavery). I would say you should select your sacred task, monitor and pace your progress toward that goal, eat and sleep regularly (lack of both diminishes willpower), sit and stand up straight, be organized and well groomed (Stanley shaved every day in the jungle), and surround yourself with a supportive social network that reinforces your efforts. Such sacred salubriousness is the province of everyone—believers and nonbelievers—who will themselves to loftier purposes.

Is America a Christian Nation? Readers Respond to Chuck Colson

On November 4, the Los Angeles Times published my Opinion Editorial entitled "What's God Got to do With it?" (which I also posted on Skepticblog) about Congress reaffirming our national motto "In God We Trust." I argued that trust does not come from God but from very specific social, political, and economic institutions.

Chuck Colson, the one-time special counsel for President Richard Nixon, one of the Watergate Seven who also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in his attempt to defame the Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg, and the man who found God and Jesus just in time for his jail sentence in federal prison, now blogs on political and social issues from a Christian perspective and has attempted a smack-down of my OpEd by arguing that "God Has a Lot to Do With It."

His argument is summarized in his own words thusly:

It was Christianity, you see, that taught the West that all human beings are created in the image of God. Without that understanding, the very words of the Declaration of Independence, "that all Men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights," could never have been written.

Most of all, our ideas about what constitutes a free and secure society are derived from Christianity. Political scientist Glenn Tinder has written about how much of what we celebrate in our society, like the "respect for the individual and a belief in the essential equality of all human beings," has "strong roots in the union of the spiritual and the political achieved in the vision of Christianity."

Before I respond in my next blog with a deeper historical analysis of how equality, liberty, prosperity, and trust arose well ahead of religious doctrines (see, in the mean time, Steven Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature for a thorough history of this development), I tweeted the link to Colson's rebuttal and asked my readers to respond in their own way, which they did with some very cogent points:

Nicholas Johnson writes:

Those poor Greeks and Romans. They knew nothing, apparently.

Nathan George writes:

It should be pointed out that Colson seems to dismiss science by saying "the science Shermer puts so much stock in" as he types this very statement on his computer which science, not Christianity, is responsible for.

David Carmer writes:

It is the height of hypocrisy to say that we, as a nation, trust in a deity. If we truly had sincere trust we'd need no army, no judicial system, no anti-trust laws, no prison system, no government oversight, and so on. An honest deep felt trust in God would logically lead to us living in a lawless state wherein we expected our benevolent protector to handle the details and to keep us safe. To embrace the motto, shouldn't we get rid of all those laws and government organizations that are designed especially because we cannot trust in divine intervention? 

Hans Van Ingelgom writes:

The biggest problem I face when discussing Christianity is that I don't know what it stands for. Christianity is subdivided in countless branches, often with opposing views. You can't simply discuss somebody's views just by knowing he's a Christian. Does respect for the individual include the right of gay marriage? Should the state be neutral to religion, respecting individual choices? It depends on what Christian you ask.

David Schumacher writes:

You might remind Colson that some of the Christian founders were still using spectral evidence to put people to death as recently as the witch killings of Salem.

David Allen writes:

The response to Chuck is easy—Christ was a wise man and Christian values are good, but no god is needed to come up with those values. And as for him citing the Declaration of Independence and the words "All men are created equal"—those words were written by men who held slaves, so the words ring hollow.

Mark Bowermaster writes:

Yeah, because nothing says free and secure like an omnipotent cloud wizard demanding your allegiance by threat of never ending immolation.

Adam Qureshi writes:

His argument does not even pass the null hypothesis. What the heck did we do before Christianity came along a mere 2 thousand years ago?

Eric Lawton writes:

The ancient Greeks were just as much a source of all these values such as the rule of law. Christianity plunged us into centuries of dark ages, superstition and theocracy. Of course those people, the early Protestants, who helped us to restore these values through the enlightenment were Christians, because it was pretty much illegal not to be. But it doesn't prove that it was because they were Christians that they did that; otherwise it would have happened much earlier. It was the beginning of our escape from Christianity and a return to secular values which got us where we are, and is one of the reasons for the separation of Church and State in the U.S.

Peter McCully writes:

And what has Christianity given us concerning the rights of homosexuals, women, slaves or even animals? Most, if not all of the advances in human rights over the last two hundred years or so have been a gradual unpicking of the stitches in Christianity's fabric. Nice of the church to take credit for it though.

David Serbin writes:

Colton is both right and wrong. Education, laws, and enforcement of laws do have some root in religion. But what Colton forgets is that these were bad things. Education for centuries meant hitting children, dress codes, and other awful practices that are only practiced today by private religious schools (although as we've seen with Penn State and other teacher's scandals, public schools aren't great either). Another problem is that citing the law from the Bible begs the question: which laws? Laws that stone adulterers or ban gay marriage? Surely those laws don't make society any better off. Finally, Colton says that God is responsible for freedom of the individual, equality, and security. But banning gay marriage does not increase individuality nor equality. The Founders were of varying religious beliefs, but they fled in part due to the Church of England and they would be rolling in their graves if they saw the way that Christians have abused their 1st amendment right of freedom of religion to try and make this country a theocracy by using the state to put God on the pledge, the dollar, and anywhere and everywhere possible.

Jerry Jaffe writes:

When the bible tells us to stone our neighbors to death (Deut. 17 2–5) and we don't, is that because we know right from wrong without reference to the bible, perhaps?

Andi Wolfe writes:

How very convenient that Colson forgets that the Declaration of Independence did not apply to slaves and women. If you really want to invoke a religion that values all humans, respects individuals, and promotes the essential equality of all human beings, look to the Buddhists. They actually live their lives as if their beliefs have meaning.

Will Colon writes:

You might be inclined to point out that if religion—specifically Christianity—is in some way responsible for the freedoms that we enjoy as Americans, why is it that historically theocratic nations or nations endorsing a particular religion have been home to some of the most illiberal treatment of humans in our species' history. The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God by Jonathan Kirsch is a good book that touches on this; specifically it highlights how the absolutism of religion—again, specifically Christianity—lends itself to scenarios like the Inquisition and the injustices that dovetail along with it. It's also worth noting that while many of our Founding Fathers did hold some belief in a creator—a common belief of the time—a great number of them were Deists who were deeply skeptical of the Christian god.

Bob Makin writes:

As to the claim that a free and secure society is derived from Christianity, may I enquire as to what the practice of slavery, the Inquisition and pogroms against the Jews have to do with freedom and security? I would think that the capriciousness of that religion does more to inject a great degree of uncertainty into any civilization which finds itself under its influence. Given that God has been a merciless and cruel dictator given to fits of rage, widespread destruction of entire societies, not to mention the annihilation of the entire population of the earth, I fail to see that being created in his image is any kind of recommendation.

David Kaloyanides writes:

Colson ignores the foundation of democracy in Athens more than 500 years before Christianity existed. He ignores the code of Hamurrabi, which is our oldest codified set of laws that governed the behavior of humans. He also ignores the teachings of the New Testament where Christians were called upon to obey whatever governing authority existed at the time as such was established by God. Colson also ignores the amazing educational progress of the far east where most people were literate while the early Christians were not. Colson also equates the West's scientific pursuits to Christianity when in fact it was the Renaissance—the rediscovery of the Greek and Roman culture and science that spurred the growth of both science and political thinking. Finally, the founders of our nation were "Christians" loosely speaking. But they were nothing like a Colson Christian. Nothing in Christianity supports democratic thinking. Rather, it promotes totalitarianism form of theocracy. It does not support capitalism, as Christians are expressly taught to shun the material and share all worldly possessions in common. The language of the New Testament lends itself more to a communist than capitalist economic world view. But as the New Testament was not interested in politics or economic policy, Colson is just wrong about how its teachings promoted our system of government today.

Joe Seither writes:

There is simply no expressly religious language in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights—except the parts that make absolutely crystal-clear that religion and politics should remain independent from one another. Now, this is a really important point, given that many of the founders were theists, but also with some deists, freethinkers and freemasons in the mix. Given this, it's no accident or trivial point that they enshrined in the very first amendment a separation between government and religion. The fact that some or many of the founders were men of faith adds much gravity to the proposition that the anti-establishment principle and language they agreed upon—and signed their names to—was no mere accident. It was intentional.

What's God Got to Do With It?

He may be invoked in the national motto, but God has nothing to do with why Americans are free and secure

This op-ed was originally published in the Los Angeles Times, Friday November 4, 2011.

The House of Representatives voted last week by a margin of 396–9 to reaffirm as the national motto the phrase "In God We Trust," and encouraged its pronouncement on public buildings and continued printing on the coin of the realm. The motto was made official in 1956 during the height of Cold War hysteria over godless communism and—in the words of Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick's and Peter Sellers' 1964 classic antiwar film Dr. Strangelove—"Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

As risible a reason as this was for knocking out a few bricks in the wall separating state and church, it was at least understandable in the context of the times. But today, with no communist threats and belief in God or a universal spirit among Americans still holding strong at about 90%, according to a 2011 Gallup Poll, what is the point of having this motto? The answer is in the wording of the resolution voted on: "Whereas if religion and morality are taken out of the marketplace of ideas, the very freedom on which the United States was founded cannot be secured."

What is troubling—and should trouble any enlightened citizen of a modern nation such as ours — is the implication that in this age of science and technology, computers and cyberspace, and liberal democracies securing rights and freedoms for oppressed peoples all over the globe, that anyone could still hold to the belief that religion has a monopoly on morality and that the foundation of trust is based on engraving four words on brick and paper.

If you think that God is watching over the United States, please ask yourself why he glanced away during 9/11 (why not divert those planes and save those innocent people?), or why he chose to abandon the good folks of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina (surely an omnipotent deity could hold back the flood waters as surely as he unleashed them on Noah's generation), and why he continues to allow earthquakes and cancers to strike down even blameless children. The problem of evil—why bad things happen to good people if an all powerful and all good god is in control of things—has haunted the faithful since it was first articulated millennia ago with nigh a solution on the horizon.

It's time to drop the god talk and face reality with a steely-eyed visage of the modern understanding of the origin of freedom on which the United States was founded and continues to be secured. God has nothing to do with it. If you want freedom and security you need the following:

The rule of law; property rights; a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system; economic stability; a reliable infrastructure and the freedom to move about the country; freedom of the press; freedom of association; education for the masses; protection of civil liberties; a clean and safe environment; a robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states; a potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by people within the state; a viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws; and an effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws.

With these in place the citizens of a nation feel free and secure. Why? The answer is in the final word of the motto: Trust. Claremont Graduate University economist Paul Zak has studied trust between nations and found that the more of these components that are in place, the more citizens trust one another. Zak even computed the differences in living standards that trust can affect, demonstrating that a 15% increase in the proportion of people in a country who think others are trustworthy raises income per person by 1% per year for every year thereafter. For example, increasing levels of trust in the U.S. from its current 36% to 51% would raise the average income for every man, woman and child in the country by $400 per year or $30,000 lifetime. Trust pays.

Trust has fiscal benefits that are derived through specific political and economic policies that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion or belief in God. Despite a strong belief in God, the percentage of Americans who believe that "religion can answer all or most of today's problems" has plummeted from 82% to 58%, while those who believe that "religion is old-fashioned and out of date" leaped from 7% to 28%, according to a 2010 Gallup Poll. Thus it would seem that Americans are more aware today than a half century ago that it's up to us to secure our freedom through enlightened secular policies with practical social applications rather than faith-based hope in empty mottos reflecting an era gone by.