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October 1987 "BASIS", Newsletter of the Bay Area Skeptics
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         Bay Area Skeptics Information Sheet
                   Vol. 6, No. 10
                Editor:  Kent Harker



ASTROLOGER TRIPS ON BAS

[BAS has a remarkably efficient network of ears that keeps in touch
with up-coming radio and TV shows promoting the paranormal. The
word goes out to skeptics in the area who then call in to or attend
the programs. The result is that from 25% to 90% of the callers are
skeptics, barraging the guests with questions they are unaccustomed
to finding in their travels.

Recently on KGO radio, a S. F."talk" format, astrologer Jean Avery
appeared as a guest on the Michael Krasny show and asserted that
Michel Gauquelin supported astrology.

BAS founder and advisor ROBERT STEINER wrote to KGO and has given"
BASIS "permission to publish his letter to Krasny and to Avery
before receiving a response from Avery, anticipating that hell will
be gelid long before that happens.

For those not familiar with the work of Gauquelin, (which must
include Ms. Avery) he conducted extensive statistical analyses of
the birth signs of various groups (politicians, etc.) to see if
there were any correlation with their professional proclivities.
He found a significant correlation with athletes and the aspect of
the planet Mars, which he dubbed "The Mars Effect." That study has
been roundly criticized by skeptics for years on very solid 
grounds.

In any event, Gauquelin is an outspoken critic of astrology, but
the faithful are only familiar with the results of this one study
and are only too happy to lift the whole thing out of context,
totally unaware of the Gauquelin's overall position on the
question. Ms. Avery may have to undergo psychic surgery to have
her foot removed from her mouth. -- Ed]

Dear Michael:

As usual, I enjoyed your show tonight. Your guest, Jean Avery, was
simultaneously both quite sure and quite wrong in her assertion
that Michel Gauquelin strongly supports astrology.

When Don Henvick, of Bay Area Skeptics, called her on this, she
reiterated her position. She boldly challenged Don to find anything
showing that Gauquelin doubted astrology at all. She virtually
dared Don to send in data supporting his position. You assured her
that you would forward to her any such forthcoming data.

Shortly after that segment of the show, Don called me and requested
that I send the data on to you.

Enclosed are two copies of the final two pages of Dr. Gauquelin's
book entitled "Dreams and Illusions of Astrology". 

Please forward one copy to Ms. Avery, along with a copy of this
letter.

Sincerely,
(signed) Robert Steiner



NOTE TO JEAN AVERY

Dear Ms. Avery: 

You are obviously sincere in your beliefs. You are just as
obviously wrong on this one. Since you made your erroneous
assertion over the radio to millions of people, in all fairness to
your listening public, I respectfully suggest that you send a
letter of retraction and correction to Michael Krasny. In continued
fairness, I would further suggest that you request that he inform
his listeners of your acknowledgment of your erroneous assertion.

I am sure that you would not wish to mislead the listeners into
believing false information. Setting the record straight would be
a proper gesture for all concerned.

I look forward to receiving a copy of that letter. When received,
this letter and your reply will be published in "BASIS", Bay Area
Skeptics Information Sheet.

Thank you for your anticipated demonstration of your integrity and
dedication to truth.

Sincerely, 
(signed) Robert Steiner


[The following is excerpted from the conclusion of Michel
Gauquelin's "Dreams and Illusions of Astrology", pages 157 and 158:

"Is astrology illusion or reality? There are several possible
answers. There is no doubt that in our world astrology is socially
and psychologically much alive. The horoscope is a product that is
bought and sold, and that leads people to dreams. But the dreams
of the clientele are answered by the deceptions of the charlatan,
as well as by the illusions of the researcher who is sincere but
not very lucid. 

"This psychological reality is based on a firmly rooted scientific
error. As interesting as it may be, the origin of astrology was
developed on mythological bases that are not at all compatible with
modern scientific objectivity, and especially, serious scientific
examination is never favorable to this ancient doctrine. Electronic
astrology is no more than a gadget that has no solid basis at all;
predictions about the future of the world are examples of rather
pitiful Nostradamian sleight of hand. The horoscope is certainly
a commercial reality, but it is a scientific illusion, or rather
just an illusion. 

"The fortune teller and the explainer of dreams of days gone by
have nothing in common with Freud's or Jung's interpretation of
dreams. 

"There is no doubt that in a few cases some of the oneiric symbols
of the old "dream books" cannot be completely stripped of every
clinical truth. In the same way, it seems clear that the hour of
birth seems a privileged moment in human life when certain still-
mysterious cosmic influences can be manifested. That there might
be a little more than simple chance in this is really impossible -
- and we have said so.

"But this is an academic problem that only the historian of science
will be able to answer later perhaps, if he possesses sufficient
documentation. Today, the roller of charlatanism, disguised in the
tinseled finery of modern technology, represents a psychological
and social danger. And since the most painstaking studies have
shown the inanity of horoscopes, there should be a strong rising
up against this exploitation of public credulity. Unfaithful even
to the cosmic dreams of antiquity and dangerous to the honest
researcher, this exploitation dishonors those who practice it. 

This is why commercial astrology and its charlatans must be
struggled against. But they need not be made into martyrs. The
struggle must be carried on by revealing to the public the
psychological traps of the horoscopes they buy, and by interesting
them in the scientific work dedicated to cosmic influences. The
sorcerer gave way to the doctor, even in the mind of the general
public; at the dawn of the age of interplanetary travel, it is time
that the fortune teller leave the stage in his turn, and be
replaced by a new man of science."



[Some Bay Area Skeptics will remember Bill Moore who attended our
May 1985 monthly meeting featuring speakers James Moseley and Kal
Korff; from the audience he told us a great deal about his findings
on the alleged "saucer crash" near Roswell, New Mexico. Moore
claims to have found documents in the National Archives; his
subsequent investigations turned up much allegedly confirming
evidence of this claim -- indeed, so much that it looked positively
compelling -- until it began to crumble. -- Robert Sheaffer]

CSICOP PRESS RELEASE

Recent widely publicized "Top secret" documents which claimed to
reveal that the U.S. Government secretly recovered a crashed flying
saucer and four alien bodies near Roswell, N.M., 40 years ago, are
"clumsy counterfeits" according to spokesmen for CSICOP. "The
evidence clearly shows that these are hoax documents." 

Designated CSICOP UFO investigator Phil Klass conducted the
research and included in his report the finding of Jo Ann
Williamson, an official at the Military Archives in Washington.
The hoax documents claim that shortly after a crashed saucer and
four alien bodies were recovered in July, 1947, President Truman
created a top secret group called "Majestic-12" (MJ-12), consisting
of a dozen of the nation's top scientists, to study the craft and
the aliens. 

The MJ-12 documents were released to the news media in late May by
William Moore and two associate UFO researchers: Stanton Friedman
and Jamie Shandera. They seemed to confirm earlier claims by Moore
of a secret government recovery of a crashed saucer.

According to Moore, photos of the MJ-12 documents were found on an
undeveloped roll of 35 mm film received by Shandera in 1984 from
an unknown source. Moore claims that he, Shandera and Friedman
spent more than two years in trying to authenticate the MJ-12
documents before recently deciding to make them public. 

Moore recently publicly stated that "it is our considered opinion,
based upon research and interviews conducted thus far, that the
document and it contents APPEAR to be genuine. At the very least,
it is possible to state with certainty that absolutely nothing has
surfaced during the course of our research which would seem to
suggest otherwise."

According to Moore, this research included "many days...spent
combing through the records at the National Archives as well as
both the Truman and Eisenhower Presidential Libraries...."

Moore's claim is challenged by Klass who turned up hard evidence
in a matter of several weeks to show that key documents are
counterfeits. Klass wrote to the directors of the Presidential
Libraries to obtain documents of the same vintage and checked with
officials at the National Archives who themselves already had
become skeptical of one key memorandum.

Moore and Shandera acknowledge that this memorandum is a
cornerstone of their claims for the authenticity of the MJ-12
document: "For the first time," according to Moore, "we had an
official document available through a public source that talked
about MJ-12." According to Shandera, the memo "gave us an auditable
trail to a (government) document that referenced MJ-12."

This document appeared to be an unsigned CARBON COPY of a
memorandum dated July 14, 1954, written by Robert Cutler, assistant
to General N. Twining. The memo informed Twining of a last-minute
change in the plans for an MJ-12 special studies project briefing
of President Eisenhower and the National Security Council to be
held on July 16.

But Cutler could not possibly have written this July 14 memo,
telling of very recent changes in Eisenhower's schedule, because
Cutler had departed Washington 11 DAYS EARLIER ON AN EXTENDED TRIP
TO VISIT MILITARY FACILITIES IN EUROPE AND NORTH AFRICA AND DID NOT
RETURN TO WASHINGTON UNTIL JULY 15.

Suspicions about the authenticity of the Cutler/Twining memo arose
at the National Archives in the wake of inquiries generated by
release of the MJ-12 documents. The memo was found by Moore and
Shandera in July, 1985, in one of 126 boxes of once Top Secret USAF
intelligence documents, each of which is given a register number
by USAF before being turned over to the National Archives. The
Cutler/Twining memo "does not bear such a number," according to
library officials. 

This prompted the National Archives to dig deeper. On the surface,
the memo, on onion-skin paper, appeared to be an unsigned carbon-
copy. But analysis showed that it did not have the characteristic
"Eagle watermark" of all government onion-skin paper like that
found on other Curler memoranda in the library. Furthermore,
indentations from the impact of typewriter keys were visible on the
back side, showing that it was typed original. The memo bore a
security classification which did not come into use for a decade.

Shandera told Klass on June 27 that a very extensive check had been
run on the authenticity of the Cutler memo. He claimed "we found
numerous other documents with the same letterhead, same typewriter,
same type style." But Klass obtained photocopies of authentic
Cutler memoranda and letters written during July 1954 from the
Eisenhower Library and they did not bear out Shandera's claim.
"Even casual comparison of the clean, high-quality typeface on
these documents with the typeface of the Cutler/Twining memo
provides further evidence of a counterfeit," Klass said.

Another key document, found on the 35 mm film roll and released by
Moore, which appears to be a President Truman letter creating the
MJ-12 group, also is a counterfeit, according to Klass. It
authorized Forrestal "to proceed with all due speed and caution....
Hereafter this matter shall be referred to only as Operation
Majestic Twelve" i.e., MJ-12. Shandera told Klass that he and Moore
had carefully checked the Truman letter's authenticity. "We had the
typing checked, to determine the kind of typewriter [used]."

Klass challenges Shandera's claim on the basis of other Truman
letters written in the same 1947 period to other Cabinet members.
Examination of the typeface and format of these authentic Truman
letters indicates that the Sept. 24, 1947 letter to Forrestal is
a counterfeit, created by superimposing a spurious message on a
photocopy of an authentic Truman letter.

For example, authentic Truman letters to Cabinet members begin:
"My Dear Secretary...," and the full name and address of the
intended recipient is typed in at the lower-left corner of the
page. But in the letter in question, the counterfeiter forgot to
type Forrestal's name, title and address in the lower left portion
of the page, and used "Dear Secretary Forrestal." 

Klass invited Moore and his associates to join his own efforts and
expressed the hope that they will now be more responsive than in
the past to his requests for information in their possession which
might aid in pinpointing the person(s) responsible for fabricating
the hoax.

Klass's detailed report on the counterfeit papers will appear in
the Winter edition of "The Skeptical Inquirer." 



"THE EMPIRICIST THINKS HE BELIEVES ONLY WHAT HE SEES -- BUT HE IS
MUCH BETTER AT BELIEVING THAN AT SEEING." -- Santayana 



RAMPARTS

[Ramparts is a regular feature of "BASIS", and your participation
is urged. Clip, snip and tear bits of irrationality from your local
scene and send them to the EDITOR. If you want to add some comment
with the submission, please do so.]

From a publication aptly named "Twilight Zone" there are
advertisements of New Age junkets if one is tired of the Club Med
scene and the Paris routine. 

If current planning is a measure of the true faith of visionary New
Agers, the magazine staff puts as much stock in this stuff as we
do. After announcing the impending disasters following Harmonic
Convergence (August 17th) the article offers a $1777 tour to
"witness Quetzalcoatl lore and mystique" in late September. For
$2,222 you can go to Peru and make "Contact with the Star Gods of
the Andes." 

If you prefer making "direct contact with...the mythic realms of
the gods," follow Dr. A. Villoldo, or do an Incan tour with an
honest-to-goodness shaman for $2,450.

Perhaps a not-too-modest allegation to "claim your immortality
among psychic energy medicine healers" for the not-too-modest cost
of $2,850 will fill the bill if our allotted 74 years seems
inadequate. Meals and airfare included.

Ever leave your heart in San Francisco? Put your hands over your
chest before you consider the Philippine junket. This one is not
to see Imelda's Shoe Museum, but a "promise of ample opportunities
for everyone to experience psychic healing at the hands of the
better psychic surgeons." 2900 bucks a pop. If you haven't the loot
to indulge yourself for the above fare, only $575 gets you one week
with Mexico's Huichol Indians. REALLY with the indians: sleep on
the ground, eat food cooked over an open fire, etc. The rigors of
this spartan living will be suitably rewarded because ALL of the
Huichol are prophets. Take along your handy-dandy Berliz Huichol
Indian phrase book, however. 

JOHN TAUBE clipped some more crystal nonsense from the "Chronicle".
BAS Board of Director member Lawrence Jerome's June article in
"BASIS" should be kept near the phone when someone asks about
crystal power. The rocks are proliferating like underground Big
Macs in Moscow. These talismans of the New Age spiritual movement
are alleged to do everything from resolving marital conflict to
curing AIDS.

"After a stressful day at the office, I come home to my new
meditation partner -- a quartz crystal," says a S.F. insurance
broker. 

For the more practical-minded, a young woman fan "placed a spire
of clear quartz in front of the stage [during a rock concert] to
`record' the music's vibration." Others claim a crystal beside your
car's carburetor improves gas mileage; a quartz in your fridge cuts
the electric bills.

Shop owners are definitely tuned in to the power of crystals. The
business is booming, which is proof that crystals work if you are
on the right side of the counter. Forbes magazine reported that the
faithful and hopeful will spend $100 million on the rocks.

If skeptical balance means anything, the four-column space article
revealing the power of crystals ended with four paragraphs from
scientists (whadda THEY know). Dr. Lionel Weiss, a professor of
crystallography at UCB says, "I think it's more religious than
scientific; a matter of faith, like touching a piece of the cross."

Weiss, who must have spent the better part of his life around the
things, ought to know the spiritual power of those little rascals.

Well, if Weiss didn't set things aright, John Taube did in a letter
to the editor of the "Chron". John warned that women might soon
come forward proclaiming that they got in a family way from the
crystal in their boudoir. Taube told 'em to contact BAS to see if
the crystals could take our $11,000 challenge money. 



EDITOR'S CORNER

What is it about the "good 'ol days" that is so appealing to
people? Is it the notion that if something is ancient and venerable
it is ipso facto true? Astrology, for example, has changed so
little a modern practitioner can pick up a book written by 1st
century astronomer Ptolemy and feel right at home. 

The so-called scientific creationists adore old knowledge and want
to throw biology back at least 150 years to pre-Darwinian thinking;
all the rest of the life sciences must be dragged kicking and
screaming in the process. More recently the creationist faction is
in the process of a FORMAL retrograde movement to Newtonian
physics. 

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) (the vast majority of
creationist "research" is of the armchair variety: sifting the
literature for statements that may be taken -- preferably out of
context -- to imply current scientific thinking is unsound or
incorrect.) announced in its official publication, "Acts & Facts",
vol. 16, #8, (August 1987) that the Thomas G. Barnes Institute of
Physics has been established, whose goal is "...to promote research
supporting a return to classical physics (as opposed to quantum
physics and relativity theory) in the context developed by Dr.
Barnes in his recent book, "Physics of the Future", published by
the ICR." 

An interesting idea, thought I, a Physics of the Future that is
actually a Physics of the Past? I wondered what it was about modern
physics that upset creationists so much. Physics seems so "clearly"
factual -- even less dependent on historical and circumstantial
evidence than evolution, for example. So I asked around a bit and
got some interesting answers.

The crux of the matter turns out to be the concept of relativism.
Einstein proposed that when it comes to very great speeds, vast
distances and super masses, classical (Newtonian) physics just
won't work. In the universe, there is no favored frame of
reference, e.g., measurement of the speed of light is independent
of "any" reference point. This runs counter to our common sense
because we live in a dimension circumscribed by short durations of
time, tiny distances, and very slow speeds.

That motion is relative comes not as a giant surprise when one
thinks about it for awhile. We have all had the experience of
waiting in a car at a stop light and doing a double-take when we
hit the brakes, only to find that the car in the next lane was
moving and we were stationary. What is "fixed" in the universe?
What is moving relative to what? In short, there is no anchor; no
"center" of the universe, no Valhalla, no Olympian mountain. Where
in such a universe does one find the throne of God? If there is no
center around which the rest of creation revolves, where does that
place deity? Can God be someplace that has no unique spatial
orientation or special significance?

If this seem to be a rather unimportant consideration for your
basic astrophysicist or cosmologist, fundamentalist are very much
troubled with it because it looms large in their theology. In a
book written by creationist Robert Gentry ("Creation's Tiny
Mystery"), he throws in an astounding proposal completely out of
the context of his own book. He alleges he has formulated an
adequate theory (which he does not divulge) which places the center
of the universe 100,000 light years from earth! Naturally, that is
the dwelling place of God, according to Gentry. Our own galaxy is
about 100,000 LY in diameter, and earth is roughly 2/3 of the way
from the center. Hence, Gentry places the center of the universe
in or very near our own galaxy. 

Of course he could not have any natural theory about his
preposterous conjecture -- it would have to be supernatural. (As
soon as supernatural propositions are allowed to explain some
phenomenon, anything goes. The imagination is the only limit.
Supernaturalism is ok in theology but does violence to science.)
Other reasons why creationists cannot countenance modern physics
have nothing to do with physical laws or evidence: it has to do
with doctrinaire, literal interpretations of the Bible --
preferably the Authorized Version (King James). 

There are other implications of relativism that are equally dire:
If relativism is apparent in the physical universe, what
philosophic ideas might flow from it? A relativistic morality? A
relativistic ethic? When fundamentalist congregations tire of the
harangue on the satanic menace of communism and secular humanism
the air can be freshened a bit with a tirade on the evils of
Einsteinian physics. The moral decay of the world is due to satan's
patron C. Darwin who taught us we "came from monkeys" and Einstein
who instructed us that everything is relative. It makes life easier
to have one's problems simple and well defined. But there is a
third prong on the devil's pitchfork -- quantum mechanics.

Quantum physics runs afoul of the fundamentalists because it
asserts that, at the sub-atomic level, certain information cannot
be determined with precision. This inability is not just a
technological difficulty; i.e., if we only had finer, more precise
instruments with which to measure more accurately there would be
no problem -- it is a theoretical barrier that says the information
is unobtainable no matter what precision is available. 
This idea is articulated in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
(dubbed derisively the Heisenberg Unknowable Principle by
creationists). 

To the creationists, this is anathema. It builds into the universe
a degree of absolute "unknowableness" that leaves randomness in the
purest sense at the heart of basal matter. Such a notion of
randomness does not sit well in the mind of a strict
constructionist determinist, and creationists are a heavy cut of
determinist cloth. To a creationist, every leaf that falls, every
hair of every head must be accounted for; indeed, the position and
momentum of every particle in the universe, must be knowable,
nothing left to chance. The entire course of the universe from
alpha to omega has been predetermined by Jehovah down to the last
quark, according to the fundamentalists. 

Does evidence count? Only if the evidence "proves" that the Bible
is literally true. Members of the Creation Research Society must
pledge an oath of biblical inerrancy in order to be admitted to
the ranks. One starts out knowing what the result must be, it only
remains to cut and file the facts to make them fit. The poor
"normal" scientist is hamstrung with natural laws and has to work
in the dim light of uncertainty with only an occasional flash of
brilliance, never seeing the entire picture.

The creationists are thankfully not representative of the
mainstream of Christianity, but they are militant and have an
impact far beyond their numbers. The recent resounding defeat
creationists suffered in the Supreme Court has not thwarted their
resolve. In their determination to destroy science education, that
defeat was only a minor skirmish in a Holy War. For human beings
to advance, we must counter those who would use almost any means
to stop the growth and expansion of knowledge. Awareness is the
beginning.



"There is no error to be named that has not its professors. " --
Kipling



MEMES: MENTAL PARASITES
by H. Keith Henson

The first half of this article discussed the concept of memes; that
is, replicating information patterns. They, along with the humans
they infest, and our communication channels, make up a memetic
ecosystem (roughly equivalent to "culture"). Memes within this
ecosystem can grow in influence or die out. Memes have a relation
to people similar to the relation viruses have to cells. 

Most memes are either symbionts or at least harmless, but some are
deadly to those they infect. It was proposed that our
susceptibility to religious and parapsychological nonsense (often
quite dangerous nonsense) is a side effect of evolved mental
structures that have been so important in the success of humans
that we cannot get by without them. 

Is there evidence for these mental structures? If so, why do they
provide a supportive environment for memes that are potentially
harmful? One such module was described by Michael Gazzaniga in "The
Social Brain". He called this module "the interpreter." I think of
it as an "inference engine." It is closely connected to our verbal
abilities, but we are not normally aware of its activities, even
in other people. Gazzaniga demonstrated the activity of this module
with some very clever experiments on split-brain patients. By
observing the module failing, we can clearly see how it is doing
the best it can with insufficient data. 

What Gazzaniga did is to present each side of the brain with a
simple conceptual problem. The left side saw a picture of a claw,
and the right side saw a picture of a snow scene. A variety of
cards was place in front of the patient, who was asked to pick the
card which went with what he saw. The correct answer for the left
hemisphere was a picture of a chicken. For the right half-brain it
was a show shovel. 

"After the two pictures are flashed to each half-brain, the
subjects are required to point to the answers. A typical response
is that of P.S., who pointed to the chicken with his right hand
and the shovel with the left. After his response I asked him "Paul,
why did you do that?" Paul looked up and without a moment's
hesitation said from his left hemisphere, "Oh, that's easy. The
chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean
out the chicken shed." 

"Here was the left-half brain having to explain why the left hand
was pointing to a shovel when the only picture it saw was a claw.
The left brain is not privy to what the right brain saw because of
the brain's disconnection. Yet the patient's own body was doing
something. Why was it doing that? Why was the left hand pointing
to the shovel? The left-brain's cognitive system needed a theory
and instantly supplied one that made sense given the information
it had on this particular task . . . ." 

The inference engine was a milestone in our evolution. It works far
more often than it fails. But, as you can see from the example, our
inference engines will wring blood from a stone; you can count on
them finding causal relations whether they exist or not. Worse yet,
the inference engine is too simple to know when it lacks relevant
data. Even if it did, it has no way to tell to the verbal
(conscious) modules of our minds that it has constructed a shaky
theory. 

Even more prone to errors, and harder to imagine how we could get
along without it, is our ability to learn from others. This is THE
critical factor that has allowed humans to occupy the widest
ecological range of any animal. But as a side effect it makes us
susceptible to all kinds of infectious nonsense, from astrology to
Marxist economics to faith healers. Our censors of incoming
information (which may lie in the same part of the brain as the
inference engine) seem to use instant "plausibility" standards no
better than the example given above. 

I suspect that the small fraction of us who consider ourselves
skeptics are not much better off in this respect. I have noticed
that Bob Steiner finds it no great effort to fool an audience of
skeptics into making wildly incorrect assumptions with stage magic.
It is our use of other memes (or meta-memes) such as the scientific
method as tools to weed out non-reality beliefs that makes us
successful skeptics. 

"Successful" memes (independent of utility OR of being rooted in
reality) by definition infect a large number of people. Some induce
the people they have infected to concerted action. A few of this
class can be incredibly dangerous. What we call social or political
movements and cults can be viewed as side effects of memetic
epidemics, much as a fever is a side effect of an infection by a
germ. 

Memes-as-infecting-agents provides an interesting way to view both
current and historical events. The current clash between the Soviet
empire and the western culture group can be viewed as a conflict
for minds (meme turf) between the competition-intolerant mono-meme
of communism and the western meta-meme of tolerance which emerged
from the Renaissance. 

In this view, the ultimate (though unaware) protagonists of World
War II were memes such as the Nazi "master race," and the Marxist-
Leninist meme. And the gruesome self-inflicted genocide that swept
Kampuchea in recent years can be considered a side effect of the
spread of a particularly wild variant of the communist meme in an
unusually receptive society. 

In spite of catastrophic effects on their host, selection against
these memes can be a slow process. The Shakers persisted for close
to a century in spite of their ban on having children. Really
harmful memes of this class either die out or tend to evolve the
same way parasites do; that is, they become helpful symbionts. This
is clearly seen in the normal progression of cults to mainstream
religions. Calvin (who had dozens of people executed over
theological disputes) would hardly recognize Presbyterian memes
three hundred years later. 

The development of cultural immune systems can progress much
faster. Witness the backlash against the cultural revolution in
China. CSICOP itself could certainly be considered as an element
of a cultural immune system. 

One of the most difficult things about being a skeptic is
continually being confronted in our literature, our meetings, and
in life with "stupid" behavior in people who "should" know better.
Memetics as a study may allow us to mentally think of
susceptibility to memes (even those which threaten survival) as a
quite different parameter from what we call intelligence. We may
come to see having a belief in UFOs or ESP as bad luck, much like
the bad luck of catching a cold. We do, after all, need some way
to explain the wide variety of strange beliefs that infest many
Mensa members. 

As a field, memetics is just getting started, so the speculations
and conclusions in this article should be taken with a grain of
salt. But an understanding of hard-to-avoid human susceptibilities
and an ecosystem-like model of replicating information patterns
that have no short-term interest in their host (and indeed no
consciousness at all) seems to go a long way in making irrational
behavior understandable. 

One other thing to consider. Would a rational understanding of why
and how people are parasitized by magical beliefs decrease the
number who are infected with such memes? It is possible that
memetics as a school topic could develop immunity to (or prompt
avoidance of) whole classes of damaging memes in a way analogous
to the way the germ theory of disease induces practices (don't
drink ditchwater!) that contribute to good health. Does anyone want
to run a large, long-term study and find out?



WOOOOPS!

Editor's retraction and apology! I suggested, in my September
article on logic, that readers "send in their papers for grading"
on the statement about statistical anomalies and psi. Well, good
students that "BASIS" readers are, you did much better than that.
BAS advisor ROBERT STEINER phoned me to point out an error not in
the statement about psi, but about an assertion that I made that
he just couldn't swallow. 

If the problems of parapsychology are intractable, the principles
of logic are not: it is possible to resolve a matter and resolve
it with a pleasing finality. My erroneous statement was, "If the
premise is false and the argument ironclad, the falsity of the
conclusion is guaranteed." In fact, if one begins with a false
premise anything is possible. My error is a bad one because it
involves a very elementary principle. My apologies to "BASIS"
readers and my thanks to Bob for his astuteness; Steiner gets an
A in Logic 101, and the teacher must repeat the course!



SKEPTICS IN THE NEWS

BAS board member SHAWN CARLSON has been making some headlines for
skeptics in general and BAS in particular. Shawn has been
interested for some time in the weeping icon phenomenon in which
statues or paintings, typically of the Virgin, are thought to shed
human tears. Iconoclast Carlson has used his background of physics
and his personal ingenuity to make his own weeping pictures. 

A feature story in the "San Jose Mercury" begins with, "A Berkeley
scientist has done for the Mona Lisa what some believers say God
as done for certain religious icons: given a lifeless image the
ability to cry." Although Shawn won't reveal (not even to skeptics)
the method he uses to make his copy of Mona teary, he says it does
not take a genius. And his Ms. Lisa can sob away for months. 

Of course Shawn does not suggest that the weeping picture of the
Virgin in the Greek Orthodox church in Chicago to which throngs
are making a pilgrimage is a fake, but until skeptics are allowed
to make a thorough investigation to rule out a material origin,
common sense says that a supernatural explanation need not be
entertained. To date, Archdiocese Bishop Isaiah and other officials
think it would be "sacrilege" to turn over a religious object for
testing. "How can the earthly examine the divine?" he said.

Easy, Your Excellency. Just don't ASSUME it's divine before
testing.


ROBERT SHEAFFER, past Chair of BAS and UFO expert, appeared on
Channel Two's "2 At Noon," a Bay Area news report. The segment
lasted for about 20 minutes of the one hour live broadcast. The
topic was, of course, UFOs, and Dr. James Harder, a U.C. Berkeley
physicist was invited to present the pro side to the viewing
public. 

Harder began his pitch by asserting that the evidence of an alien
presence is overwhelming. Robert countered that if it is so
overwhelming, why is Harder in such sharp disagreement with his
professional colleagues? (Far less than 1% of the scientific
community accepts Harder's "extraterrestrial hypothesis" for UFOs).
Then Harder stated that sightings by those whose position require
reporting (police, etc.) are above ridicule and they cannot be
looking for publicity or money. 

Sheaffer reminded us that the average person reporting a UFO is
not ipso facto a fraud or a liar. The fact that perception and
recall of anomalous occurrences is complex and subjective is reason
enough to be cautious about assigning a particular interpretation
to the events.

The show hosts had asked for letters from viewers who had UFO
sightings. The letters with the best experience were selected and
the writers contacted to have their stories re-enacted on video
tape for airing and analysis on the show with the two guests. The
first one shown was the most interesting. One Wayne Totter and some
friends were on Mt. Tamalpias (one of the highest mountains in the
Bay Area) near the top at noon on a clear day when they saw,
approaching land from over the Pacific, a spherical UFO "with rings
like Saturn." 

At one point, Totter said that numerous smaller craft seemed to
exit the main vessel and hover in its vicinity. Then all of them
began to descend, and just at the surface of the water, the smaller
orbs re-entered the mother ship and all disappeared into the water.
Harder responded that this was a typical report from what appeared
to be lucid, normal, honest people; i.e., something that must be
seriously considered. 

Sheaffer countered that here we have a momentous event of an
alleged spacecraft entering a major population center at noon on
a clear day and only one group of people claims to have seen it.
What about all the people on the beach? The people at sea in the
area where the craft entered the water? What about all the civilian
and military controlled airspace that extends for miles out to sea?
What about all the military surveillance equipment that dots the
coast? "If a meteor were to pass over, it is observed and reported
by thousands over a very large area," Sheaffer said.

In what seemed almost a desperation attempt, Harder flatly asserted
that the government is involved in a cover-up "to protect society
from the fear of an alien invasion" and suggested that military
intelligence has a payroll to fund UFO debunking, "to which Mr.
Sheaffer would certainly deny any connection!" he taunted. With
what we have come to know as Robert's characteristic aplomb, he
countered, "Jim, if you find out about this bankroll, please let
me know how to sign up, because I'm working on a shoestring!" 

It was not too long ago that there was not even any interest in
balancing paranormal claims. In the Bay Area we are particularly
fortunate to have skeptics who are expert and articulate. Thanks
and congratulations to Robert and Shawn.


While "BASIS" does not advertise, we like to pass along information
that you might find valuable or interesting. For those interested
in the creation/evolution debate, a new booklet is out, titled "The
Other Quote Book" in answer to a recent creationist publication
called "The Quote Book".

Very often, evolutionary writing is the subject of creationist
sifting for statement that can be made to say, out of context, that
evolution is in disarray and falling. 

The book can be obtained by writing to: Dr. A. G. Wheeler, Dept.
of Physiology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland
4067, Australia; cost is $9.00, which includes shipping and
handling for air mail. U.S. checks are ok.



HOW SCIENCE REJECTS A THEORY

Astronomer Norm Sperling of the Chabot Observatory, Oakland, will
address the October meeting of BAS.

As science attempts to figure out how nature works, it proposes
candidate paradigms to fit current data. An elegant and clever
candidate paradigm that joins fragmentary data may turn out to
include other surprising aspects. Often the proposer of such a
candidate paradigm (if an individual) gains great prestige. This
is the case with Darwinian evolution, Newtonian mechanics, and
Einsteinian relativity. More often, an equally elegant and clever
candidate paradigm fails -- that is, new data falsify it. Thus went
Lockyer's meteoric hypothesis, for example.

The discussion will delve into the history and philosophy of
science, the meaning of "belief", pseudoscience, and human
attitudes.

Join BAS on Oct. 27 for this interesting topic from an interesting
speaker.

                             -----

Opinions expressed in "BASIS" are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect those of BAS, its board or its advisors.

The above are selected articles from the October, 1987 issue of
"BASIS", the monthly publication of Bay Area Skeptics. You can
obtain a free sample copy by sending your name and address to BAY
AREA SKEPTICS, 4030 Moraga, San Francisco, CA 94122-3928 or by
leaving a message on "The Skeptic's Board" BBS (415-648-8944) or
on the 415-LA-TRUTH (voice) hotline.

Copyright (C) 1987 BAY AREA SKEPTICS.  Reprints must credit "BASIS,
newsletter of the Bay Area Skeptics, 4030 Moraga, San Francisco,
CA 94122-3928."

                             -END-