The sceptics regard us as nothing but fools

by MICHAEL PRESCOTT

Today's scepticism is characterized by resistance to any new ideas or new evidence, and unwillingness to critically examine its own biases.

     IN SEVERAL online essays, I've written about my interest in paranormal phenomena. The topic is always controversial. Despite massive evidence to the contrary, some people continue to maintain that no such phenomena exist. Those who hold most tenaciously to this opinion characterize themselves as "sceptics."

Now, as has been frequently pointed out, this use of the term "sceptic" is more than a little misleading. In common usage, a sceptic is someone who maintains an open mind, insisting on evidence for any claim. The more unusual the claim, the more stringent the evidential demands. According to this view, the sceptic has no private agenda, no personal bias, but serves only as a guardian of the truth, who weeds out unsupported allegations and superstitious imaginings. The sceptic is the proverbial Missourian; though willing to be convinced, he says, "Show me."

That's the theory. In practice, things are different. Far from being a state of habitual open-mindedness, today's scepticism is characterized by resistance to any new ideas or new evidence, and unwillingness to critically examine its own biases. These tendencies, in turn, rest on a very definite agenda, promoted by a clear and comprehensive worldview, a philosophy of life. This philosophy is rationalism.

Here we have not innocent open-mindedness, but a narrow and intolerant creed, which is today often recognized as such. The word 'sceptic' is, in fact, increasingly conjoined with 'dogmatic', zealous and 'militant'. Some people accuse sceptics of being nothing but cynics in disguise. A few wags have dubbed them "septics." Admittedly, that's not very nice - but, truth be told, sceptics have brought such attacks on themselves by repeatedly characterizing their opponents as credulous, gullible, simpleminded, ignorant, irrational, and foolish.

Want proof? Look at sceptic Andrew Stuttaford, a frequent contributor to National Review Online. "A séance," he writes glibly, "is, by definition, a gathering of the credulous." Apparently, then, all the researchers who have ever studied mediumship - the noted psychologists William James and F.W.H. Myers among them - were either dupes or dopes. Stuttaford on John Edward: "He's a fast-talking psychic with slow-witted fans." Although he admits, "I have no idea ... how Mr. Edward does it," Stuttaford opines that "it ... takes, how can this be put politely, a certain special something in the minds of his subjects. It cannot be put politely. Those special somethings are naivety, superstition, and a problem with rational thought."

Crossing Over fans shouldn't take undue umbrage. Stuttaford holds an equally negative view of the human race in general - "we are little more than highly competitive apes, after all," he casually remarks. Even Walt Disney movies earn his opprobrium. "It's not easy to decide which Disney character is the most repellent," he muses. "That simpering Bambi would be better roasted, carved and surrounded by potatoes, gravy and parsnips." Stuttaford approaches the world from a rightist political perspective, but happily there is political balance among sceptics. Leftist writer Christopher Hitchens denounces all spiritual interests and phenomena as a "tsunami of piffle" embraced by the "feebleminded."

He has high praise for Houdini, who "toured far and wide, exposing and announcing the callous hoaxes of the ectoplasm-artists." Hitchens doesn't mention the fact that Houdini himself was exposed as a hoaxer who, on one occasion, framed the very psychic he was supposedly investigating - he had his assistant plant a suspicious article among the psychic's personal effects, so it could be conveniently discovered later. If Hitchens is aware of this detail, he doesn't allow it to dim his enthusiasm for the famed "fairy-flattener."

Science has undergone momentous changes in the past century. The Theory of Relativity and, even more so, the advent of quantum physics have undermined the old Newtonian world picture. Where Newton saw the universe as a great machine humming along in a neat and orderly fashion, following laws that could be mathematically calculated, producing results that could be predicted with pinpoint accuracy, the new physics sees the universe as a place of paradox and ambiguity. In the quantum world, a subatomic particle can be both a particle and a wave at the same time.

The distinction between the observer and the observed, so crucial to the classical outlook, has dissolved, and it now appears that the observer can directly affect or even bring about the events under observation. Entities are able to influence each other over vast distances instantaneously - a multiply verified observation that has given rise to the idea that this is a "nonlocal universe," a universe in which, at a fundamental level, space and time do not exist. Physicist David Bohm has compared the universe to a giant hologram, a multidimensional image projected out of a two-dimensional wave-interference pattern at the quantum level. Superstring theory argues that the essence of things is not any material object, but cosmic vibrational frequencies.

In many respects, science is evolving into a more open-ended discipline, one that allows for and even celebrates the enigmas, paradoxes, and ambiguities of the universe. Rationalists are unhappy with this development. They resist it. They gripe about it. They make fun of it. They cannot come to terms with it.

The quest for truth is an ongoing process, a journey, not a destination. Indeed, science - and reason itself - can be best understood not as a final answer but as a method, a tool. If science is seen as a set of answers with which one must agree if one is to be deemed "rational" - a viewpoint for which the term "scientism" has been coined - then any new information that challenges the existing scientific worldview is a threat to science and to rationality itself. In that case, one must be perpetually on guard against such threats, by assiduously debunking any new ideas or new observations that fall outside the established paradigm.

Unfortunately, people with a powerful personal agenda do not make the best sceptics - at least not if scepticism is understood as the exercise of unbiased objectivity.

A small example will illustrate this point. It involves Dr. William A. Nolen, who went to the Philippines to study so-called "psychic surgeons." At the outset, let me be clear that I have no particular interest in psychic surgery and no confidence in its genuineness. In fact, psychic surgery is among the least well documented of all paranormal claims and is not widely accepted even by parapsychologists.

Certainly I would never recommend a visit to a faith healer over a consultation with a reputable doctor. My point in choosing this topic is to show that even regarding one of the most dubious paranormal claims, where the rationalist position may have considerable merit, sceptics still indulge in hasty generalizations while ignoring possible nuances and subtleties of the issue. If they play fast and loose even when occupying comparatively solid ground, how reliable are they in better substantiated areas of paranormal research, such as telepathy and psychokinesis, where volumes of evidence and mountains of data weigh against them? (The best summary of the evidence for psi-related phenomena is Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe, 1997.)

With that said, let's return to Dr. Nolen. He tells us that his attitude was admirably unbiased. "I was making a very sincere effort," he says, "not to prejudge the merits of the psychic surgeons whom I was about to investigate. If I had already been persuaded they were charlatans, I would never have undertaken the assignment."

But "unbiased" means one thing to people in general, and quite another to a committed rationalist-cum-sceptic. To the sceptic, it means that he is willing to waste a little of his time examining obvious nonsense for the socially beneficial purpose of debunking it. Don't take my word for this. Here is Nolen again, this time being a little more forthcoming.

"I have to confess that I undertook the assignment with fear and trepidation. I knew that by looking into and writing about psychic surgery I ran a serious risk of being labelled a 'kook', a label that might destroy my reputation as a legitimate medical writer. I didn't want that to happen." On the other hand, I didn't agree with the AMA's policy. It seemed to me that ignoring the lunatic fringe, hoping they would just go away, was unrealistic. Remaining silent while quacks went out and sold their ideas, unopposed, just wouldn't work ..." So Nolen's "very sincere effort not to prejudge the merits of the psychic surgeons" took the form of assuming in advance that they were "quacks" who were part of "the lunatic fringe." Remember this the next time a sceptic boasts about his impartial, objective stance.

Nolen spent a total of two weeks in the Philippines, a rather short time in which to investigate a phenomenon that, by some estimates, involves more than four hundred Filipino healers. Nevertheless, he was able to confidently conclude that the whole business of psychic surgery is a fraud.

So, then - cased closed. Or is it? Before we grant the final word on the subject to Nolen's two weeks of study, we might consider some contrary points of view.