Remembering Randi

Your marvelous tribute to James Randi (“Remembering Randi,” January/February 2021) unfortunately did not mention one of his magnificent contributions to the world of science. In 1988, the French researcher Jacques Benveniste published a scientific paper in the renowned journal Nature that appeared to support the concept of homeopathy. John Maddox, Nature’s editor-in-chief, asked Randi to join the team visiting the lab of Benveniste to carefully study the experiments supporting these very controversial findings. After a few of the first series turned out somewhat positive, Randi designed three more double-blind experiments and ensured the codes were kept secret by wrapping them in tinfoil and taping them to the ceiling! Benveniste agreed with the designs. This time no effects were found. Naturally, Benveniste refused to accept the findings.

Eleven years later, Brian Josephson, a physics professor at Cambridge, challenged the American Physical Society (APS) to scientifically test the claims again, and the APS accepted the challenge. Randi threw in his famous million-dollar prize. His offer was rejected because he was deemed “unqualified,” not being a real scientist, a quite common response of conceited academicians. After that, it remained eerily silent, and the experiments were never conducted. The Amazing Randi demonstrated again how bright people may be blind to other, more mundane explanations once they become believers in their own theories.

Roland Gerritsen van der Hoop, MD, PhD
Exton, Pennsylvania

 

I never got to meet James Randi, but he has been a great positive influence on my life.

My college-age self was browsing in a local bookstore many years ago when I came upon the book Flim-Flam! It seemed interesting, so I bought it and read it. Its author made me understand that people can and do lie in print, and it—and the fact that I was a bit of an amateur conjuror already—made me a skeptic. Several years afterward, I bought the updated Prometheus Books edition and realized—after reading Randi’s foreword to the new edition—that my hardcover copy was a relatively rare book because only 5,000 copies were printed. I was hoping at some point to meet Randi and have him sign it for me, but of course that cannot happen now.

I own several other books by Randi—as well as a small library of other Prometheus Books titles—and have been a subscriber to Skeptical Inquirer for more than thirty years due in no small part to James Randi setting me on this path. I salute him and his memory and hope, as he did, that science and reason will win out in the end.

 Martin Zumsteg
Jackson, New Jersey

 

In the mid-1970s, the experts at the Stanford Research Institute, and other scientists elsewhere, supported the ESP abilities of Israeli psychic Uri Geller. Barbara Walters, at the time one of the leading journalists in the United States, was completely convinced Geller was real.

And so was I—until I read a modest little paperback with the title The Magic of Uri Geller. After reading the book, I concluded that, no matter how many scientists he convinced, Geller was a fraud.

By the way, the book was written not by a scientist but by a high-school dropout from Canada who called himself James “The Amazing” Randi.

A few years later, nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman told us UFOs were, in fact, alien spacecraft. By then I had become a charter subscriber to The Zetetic, soon renamed the Skeptical Inquirer. Writers such as Joe Nickell and Philip J. Klass didn’t have Friedman’s scientific credentials, but they convinced me UFOs are a great many things, but alien spacecraft is not one of them.

Just last year, public health experts first told us that using face masks against COVID-19 was useless, even dangerous. But forty years of James Randi and SI had taught me to think for myself. I decided that an imperfect barrier to viral aerosols was better than no barrier at all, and eventually the experts came around to my view of the matter.

Gandalf is gone. We men and dwarves will have to carry on the fight without him.

Taras Wolansky 
Kerhonkson, New York

Conspiracy Theories

I was disappointed in Joseph Uscinski’s article on conspiracy theories (“Clear Thinking about Conspiracy Theories in Troubled Times,” January/February 2021). While his definition of a conspiracy is on target, I can agree only with two of his conclusions: that conspiracy theories can be very troublesome and that there are conspiracy theories about everything. Other than that, it seems to me that recent events suggest he is off base in suggesting that conspiracy theories haven’t gone up in recent decades and that they just don’t have that much of an effect on people.

While I have not conducted any polls, seeing the hordes of people, including representatives in Congress, responding violently to theories of a stolen election, noting references to “deep state” involvement, and hearing claims of child massacres being a government ploy suggest that conspiracy theories are growing and becoming much more nefarious. It is not helpful to deny that. There has been no increase in theories about birtherism or about JFK’s assassination, but we now have numerous conspiracy theories about the election, Biden’s health, and so on ad infinitum. As for whether they have an effect on people, just ask the survivors of the attack on Congress and on our democracy on January 6, a day that will live in infamy.

Peter Lantos
Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania

 

I am generally persuaded by the arguments presented by Joseph Uscinski, but “conspiracy theory” exists on a continuum of plausibility, so whether or not an individual espouses one or more theories is not simply binary.

For example, the Mueller investigation uncovered more than 140 instances of collusion with Russia or agencies allied to it. This was not judged to amount to a conspiracy provable in court, but it is not irrational to suppose that a real conspiracy might have existed, particularly as testimony could not be obtained from some of those centrally involved and in view of the obsequious behavior of the Trump administration toward Russia. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories might not have seemed plausible had Oswald not been killed before he could be properly questioned. Neither of these is in the same category as QAnon or alien wreckage, and putting them under the one umbrella does not seem to be justified.

Whether or not the real Russian interference changed many minds may be hard to quantify accurately, but, even if its success was small, the 2016 election hinged on a remarkably small number of votes in a few states. It could still have had a crucial impact just by damping voter enthusiasm in some groups or raising it in others.

Gerry McClelland
San Marcos, California

 

Joseph Uscinski writes about truth deniers and conspiracy theorists and concludes that the common opinion—that the number holding such views is increasing and that there are more right wingers among them—is incorrect. He bases these conclusions on his own polls.

These conclusions are flawed. True, individuals with such ideas have always existed on both the left and right. However, that is irrelevant. What troubles the media and public is not their existence. Our concerns rather involve the election of such individuals to higher and higher political offices. Yesterday it was a local sheriff. Today it’s the president. Moreover, such elected officials are overwhelmingly Republicans. Yet Uscinski never asks why Republicans nominate and vote for their reality-challenged fans, but Democrats do not.

Furthermore, Uscinski’s comments on QAnon are unsound. He admits that they are scary but also unpopular, so not a threat. Yet even one such elected official can be dangerous. A short time ago, Tea Party members were dismissed as buffoons. Today, they are mainstream Republicans.

Finally, the article maintains that there is nothing right wing about QAnon. I first heard of QAnon during the 2016 presidential campaign. Is Uscinski unaware that the designated witch-in-chief of its fancied pederast/child pornography conspiracy, then and now, is Hillary Clinton? Not right wing? Really?

 Al Holtzer
St. Louis, Missouri

 

I found the beginning of Joseph Uscinski’s article very informative, but toward the end there was plenty of evidence that Uscinski knew what his polls reported but not the topic he was polling when he wrote, “When we poll on QAnon, we find that very few people like it. But we also find that equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats claim to support it.“

A recent Pew Research poll found that eight in ten Democrats who have heard of QAnon find it bad for this country; one in ten say only somewhat. For Republicans, one in four say it’s bad for this country while an equal number say it’s somewhat bad. The specific question in the Pew Poll that seemed to be at odds with a finding in Uscinksi’s SI article was phrased as “Do you think QAnon is a …” and then the respondent would select from a drop down. These are relative ratios, meaning they’re normalized against magnitude. Surely this result has some merit even with the risk of panel conditioning.

I have seen GIFs of swinging gallows following Democratic defeats and JPEGs of crosshairs on Democratic leaders and read the rantings of QAnon’s base on various less-than-reputable websites. While you may be able to find a self-described Democrat claiming to be in support of QAnon, the numbers are nowhere near equivalent.

I am not arguing that QAnon is on the rise; I am merely concerned that the SI article reported that Democrats support QAnon as much as Republicans. This message is farcical.

Uscinski engages in false equivalences about the subjective comparison of modern conspiracies with past conspiracies. Coronavirus conspiracies are harmful because they are used to flout science-based guidance that saves lives.

David Johnson
Edina, Minnesota

 

Joseph Uscinski responds:

It’s easy to believe that our political opponents are a bunch of kooky conspiracy theorists. It’s also easy to believe that people are more conspiracy minded than ever before. That’s why my talk to CSI and this article it was based on wasn’t about conspiracy theories per se but rather the misconceptions about them. I argued that we should not rely on our animosity toward our political opponents or on clickbaity headlines to understand conspiracy beliefs. Just as there are scientific methods for studying other topics, there are scientific methods for understanding who believes what and why. I have found that people are often very unscientific when it comes to determining what tens of millions of people—whom they don’t know and have never met—believe and why.

If conspiracy beliefs were increasing, we would expect polls to show that beliefs are higher now than in the past. But I don’t find this, even with QAnon. Also, if QAnon were believed more on the right, we would expect polls to consistently show this (as with climate change conspiracy theories). But the polls are mixed—and more important, partisanship and ideology are not significant predictors of QAnon belief once we account for other factors. This makes sense given that QAnon rhetoric attacks Democrats, Republicans, and Hollywood celebrities. The poorly executed polls about QAnon, which happen to have the most sensational results, get the most news traction, and unfortunately people often grab on to the one survey—no matter how poorly done—if it tells them what they want to believe.

As I have long expressed, conspiracy beliefs can detrimentally influence actions, and when politicians use conspiracy theories, those harms multiply. But that doesn’t mean that everyone believes every conspiracy theory they encounter. And just because Trump and other leaders engage in conspiracy theories doesn’t mean that everyone believes conspiracy theories more now than in the past. The undermining of democracy by Trump should be condemned, as should the Capitol riot. However, rather than through some “bottom up” process in which the masses became more conspiracy minded, the riot and the voter fraud beliefs associated with it were “top down,” driven by President Trump and his allies in Congress and their media. My talk reported the conclusions of careful data collection and analysis; if the evidence changes, then my conclusions will too. But misunderstanding the prevalence, causes, or influence of conspiracy theories does nothing to help us combat their harmful effects.

Skeptics and Government

As a longtime skeptic who’s subscribed to your journal for what must be thirty years, I was on the verge of writing to thank you for the article on James Randi, whose picture from his presentation at the National Capital Area Skeptics get-together years ago I still have on my office wall. Or maybe the fine articles on, for example, “The COVID-19 Free Market Experiment” (both in January/February 2021). But then I read the letters to the editor in that issue. And I want to thank you for responding to a few people who whined that you’d become “political” by challenging the entity in the White House at the time.

Among my curiosities of a few too many skeptics is their reluctance to get, well, “political.” As a lifelong activist—now elderly, therefore “high risk” of COVID-19 infection—who lives spittin’ distance from the nation’s capital, I often challenge fellow skeptics that, effectively, everything is political. And, as I infer from your response to those who are critical of your politicality, what antiscience and health-threatening irresponsibility of the (now former) regime is not “political.”

Indeed, it extends to emails frequently received by our friends at Skeptics Guide to the Universe: a few weeks ago, when the Putin-asset’s COVID-19 irresponsibility was raised ever so lightly, audience members complained that they’re getting “partisan.”

Hmmm. A person in an extremely powerful position, who takes less responsibility for anything than someone still enrolled in a daycare center would take … the same person who threatens the nation’s democracy, making claims to which all the evidence indicates the opposite …

And it’s wrong—“political”? “partisan”?—to challenge that person, even as a skeptic?

Am I missing something?

Thanks again for challenging those who purport to be skeptics or even “educated” who are afraid of challenging that which must be challenged.

Timothy P. Scanlon
Hyattsville, Maryland

 

Two readers were clearly outraged by Kendrick Frazier’s denunciation of Donald Trump and his cronies in an earlier editorial commentary.

Advocacy of science and reason is the mission of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and its flagship magazine. Hence, it’s entirely appropriate for the editor to criticize public figures whose behavior is antithetical to this goal.

As a longtime SI subscriber, I would say that the overwhelming majority of readers appreciated the editor’s thoughtful rebuke of the (now former) president’s ongoing irrational behavior.

While it would not be feasible to catalog all of Donald Trump’s irresponsible statements, it may be useful to review a few of his blatantly antiscientific assertions and actions:

• He declared that global warming was a “Chinese hoax,” rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change, and he withdrew the United States from the Paris accords.

• He said that the coronavirus was a “little flu” that would “magically disappear” or “miraculously go away,” when he knew it was actually a deadly disease.

• At a news conference with the coronavirus task force, he recommended an unproven drug and asked if injection or ingestion of household disinfectants could kill the virus.

• He repeatedly claimed that he really won the 2020 presidential election but was denied victory because of massive voter fraud, even though his attorney general said it wasn’t true.

• In fact, neither Trump nor his deluded loyalists ever presented one shred of documentation supporting the fraud charges, offering only unsubstantiated allegations that were rejected more than fifty times by courts.

Further evidence of Donald Trump’s disdain for scientific truth comes from his cronies, an assortment of quacks, charlatans, and supremacists that he appointed to inform his decisions with their “expertise.” Just three examples of many:

            • His first national security adviser promoted a bizarre Satanic pedophilia/sex trafficking conspiracy theory. (He subsequently admitted lying to the FBI and suggested that Trump declare martial law.)

            • His presidential counselor and spokesperson formulated the unscientific concept of “alternative facts.”

            • His economic adviser lectured the public on infectious disease research methodology. (He later wrote a report summarizing false 2020 election fraud allegations.)

There are many more examples.

Donald Trump’s disturbed thinking was an insult to the American people, most of whom expect their leaders to be careful and accurate in making scientific statements and rely on legitimate experts from relevant disciplines.

It can be concluded that Kendrick Frazier was fully justified in criticizing the former president and his advisers for behavior that is inimical to the values of science and rationality.

Brian Bolton
Georgetown, Texas

Scott Lilienfeld’s Humility

The death of Scott O. Lilienfeld (obituary, January/February 2021) shocked me like no other since the death of Carl Sagan. Scott was one of the most generous people I’ve ever known. He was a mentor to me and let me consult with him on many occasions about academics and clinical work—no matter how busy he was. Even though his schedule was packed, he wrote a superb recommendation when I was considered for a campus scholarship award (I was named recipient—largely due to his letter).

I was most moved by his absolutely superb article on intellectual humility (SI, September/October 2020), in which he urged skeptics to adopt such humility as a unifying principle. Anyone who has not read it, please do so. The article reminded me of the 1996 World Skeptics Congress in Buffalo when CSI Founder Paul Kurtz urged a “kinder, gentler” skepticism. I’ve never known anyone to be such an advocate for science and empirical validation yet be as gentle in the process as Scott. He concludes the intellectual humility article thusly: “If our analysis has merit, all skeptics should strive to inculcate a thoroughgoing sense of intellectual humility in themselves and others and avoid the tempting allure of intellectual arrogance.” I will not only take this to heart but will use it as a guiding message for the rest of my professional career.

Bryan Farha 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 

 

In regard to Lilienfeld’s article on intellectual humility, here’s a mental trick inspired by James “The Amazing” Randi. I have taken to heart his reminder that “You can be fooled.” There is a certain irony to embracing this idea, and perhaps it reveals a penalty of intellectual corruption to the egotist (and we all have egotism to some greater or lesser degree). If you are too egotistical and believe that you can never be fooled, then you will be less likely to check to see if you are being fooled and, hence, be more susceptible to being fooled. Contra this, if you have intellectual humility and consciously maintain the concept that “I can sometimes be fooled,” then by having this skeptical perspective as one of your many analytical tools, you will be open to the possibility of being fooled, and therefore less likely to be fooled.

Although I am not an expert in any field, it’s my impression that, of all people, experts should be the ones most likely to realize what they do not know about their specific field and therefore recognize their limitations.

I believe there is a “Goldilocks zone” in skepticism that lies in between belief and doubt: where you are both skeptical about why you should believe a proposition and skeptical about why you should not believe the proposition. From here you allow the data to point to a conclusion, even if it disagrees with your hypothesis.

Gary McDermott
Chittenango, New York

Bible Is Many Things

I agree with Robert Saunders’s letter supporting evolution (January/February 2021), but I have issues with some of his statements. For one thing, I and virtually all physicists would take umbrage at his assertion that evolution is “the only scientific theory that is provably correct.” Indeed? What about the many well-supported theories in physics and chemistry? And what does “provably correct” even mean in empirical science? 

There is much more to be said here, but my main issue is with the statement that “the Bible is fiction.” This sounds to me like either polemics or ignorance of what the Bible really is. The Bible is not one thing; it is a collection of many genres written over a period of around 1,000 years. There are poems, folklore, legends, philosophical speculation on origins, ethics, history, pseudo-history, letters, sermons, dreams, visions, etc. And yes, there is fiction, as in the tale of Esther. To say that the Bible is fiction is to buy into the fundamentalists’ assertion that it is literally true, even if you are asserting that such a view is wrong. The point is that the “fact or fiction” argument regarding the Bible is completely off base. Creationists are wrong not just because their science is wrong but also because their biblical scholarship is wrong! If you enter the debate on the “fact or fiction” basis, you are wrong too.

Charles E. Hawkins
Fort Thomas, Kentucky

Erratum

 

In the March/April 2021 SI, we failed to provide credits for two images. The image on p. 34 should have been credited to Julian Leshay/Shutterstock.com. The image on p. 35 should have been credited to M. Moira/Shutterstock.com.