The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science

by Will Storr

  In February 2010, she appeared on BBC Radio Five Live, to share the details of her recovery with the public. Afterwards, someone posted the interview on YouTube. On the video, every time Gemma speaks, a yellow rubber duck appears over her face with the word ‘QUACK!’ flashing out of its mouth. The video ends with a still photograph of Gemma herself. It is framed, in shocking pink letters, with the statement: ‘DO NOT BE FOOLED. HOMEOPATHY IS A CROCK OF SHIT’. There is a blue speech bubble jutting from her mouth. It contains an additional single word rendered in bold yellow capitals. It says, ‘QUACK!!’

  I unfold a printout of the yellow plastic duck and place it on the table in front of Gemma.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ I ask.

  Her eyes flicker briefly towards it. She folds her arms.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How does it make you feel?’

  She allows herself a moment to think.

  ‘It makes me feel – how professional are they? They’ve got “quack” there and a yellow plastic duck. And how un-professional is that? Who are these people who are so unprofessional? You know, who are they?’

  I decided to find out.

  *

  In the upstairs bar of a dismal city-centre Manchester hotel, a pale platoon of anti-homeopaths is getting pleasantly drunk. These are members of the ‘Skeptic’ community, a large and swelling movement of activists and thinkers who campaign against people such as Gemma, and on behalf of science and reason. They meet in groups known as ‘Skeptics in the Pub’ and gather online to present podcasts, argue in chatrooms and compose outraged and unusually well-footnoted blogs.

  They dress in comfortable jeans paired with strange polemical T-shirts (‘Stand back, I’m going to try science’, ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own’, ‘Over 1000 scientists named Steve agree’) or in dark-coloured knitwear, sleeves pushed up to elbows to regulate temperature. Huddling around low tables with pints of lager, they peck at Twitter with self-conscious frowns of concentration. The elder Skeptics – one or two of whom I recognise as speakers at this event – stand in fidgety groups by the bar, rolling back on their heels with fingers crooked over chins, listening earnestly to their neighbours. Everywhere I look, there are beards and little ponytails and cables dangling out of rucksacks. At least three of them look exactly like Dave Gorman.

  This weekend, the Skeptics have gathered for the ‘QED Conference’ that has been organised jointly by the Merseyside and the Greater Manchester cells of Skeptics in the Pub. It will culminate in a mass international homeopathic overdose – a stunt that will seek to demonstrate that, as the campaign’s marketing slogan has it, ‘There’s nothing in it’.

  I am curious about the Skeptics because, from an outsider’s point of view, their main hobby seems to be not believing in things. Psychics, homeopathy, chiropractors, ghosts, God – they don’t believe a word of it and that is one of their favourite things to do. The fallibility of human belief is the base upon which the Skeptics build their activism. As bracingly incredible as it was to me, it is highly likely that the ordinary Skeptic would have discovered nothing new in the chapter that precedes this one. Confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, unconscious ego-bolstering and the many illusions of vision are their foundational texts, their Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

  Skeptics rely on the findings of science, rather than the dubious anecdotes of individuals, to inform them about the world. They are knights of hard intellect whose ultimate goal is a world free of superstitious thinking. Do not make the mistake of doubting how seriously some take this task. Later in this event, an editor of the US’s Skeptic magazine will note their responsibility as ‘safe-guarders of the truth.’ Another speaker will darkly threaten that, without their ever-watchful work, ‘Nonsense will be allowed to reign.’

  Much to the irritation of the Skeptics, homeopathy has been ‘reigning’, now for more than two centuries. Its development, which began in 1790, is credited to German physician Samuel Hahnemann – who, just like Gemma, had grown disillusioned with conventional medicine. The theory says that illnesses can be cured by taking minute portions of substances which cause similar symptoms to those which ail you. So, if the bark of a toxic Peruvian tree causes symptoms similar to malaria, say, then a tiny dose of that can cure malaria. In Gemma’s case, her many dramatic maladies were, she believes, cured by causticum. When I enquired as to what causticum was, she replied somewhat reluctantly, ‘Er, you put it down drains.’

  But Gemma was never in danger of being poisoned. The amount of causticum in one of her pills is really quite unbelievably small. In fact, if you buy a standard ‘30C’ dose of any homeopathic treatment, it means the active ingredient has been diluted thirty times, by a factor of 100. That might not sound like too much, until you realise that your chance of getting even one molecule of the original substance in your pill is one in a billion billion billion billion. In his influential book Bad Science, Skeptic superstar Dr Ben Goldacre explained that you would have to drink a sphere of water that stretches from the earth to the sun just to get just one solitary, pointless molecule of it.

  This is why their campaign’s slogan insists that ‘There’s nothing in it’. Because there really is nothing in it. Homeopaths deny this, however, saying that when they dilute the substance, they first shake it (or ‘succuss’ it) which ‘potentises’ the water, causing it to somehow remember the active substance. The Skeptics reply that this is ‘woo-woo’, which is the word they use for nonsense.

  I am quite comfortable in predicting that there is not a brain in this bar that would have been surprised to discover what happened when I broached the problem of empirical proof with Gemma. I began by asking about her practice as a homeopath, and whether the process of assessing which remedy to recommend to a patient was instinctive, or an exact science. She replied, ‘It’s an exact science. But it’s something that the scientists don’t understand yet.’

  ‘I read that a sphere of water a hundred and fifty million kilometres in diameter would only contain one molecule of active ingredient,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not the best person to talk to about that.’

  ‘What would your response be to a Skeptic who says it’s diluted to such an extent that there’s actually nothing in it?’

  ‘I’d say go and look it up.’

  ‘Look it up?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you ever read any scientific studies that have looked at the efficacy of homeopathy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Don’t ask me that question.’

  As I said, nobody in this bar would be surprised to hear any of that – and that is the central and unavoidable truth about the Skeptics. They are never wrong. Indeed, that is the whole point of them. And, as one of them volunteers, being right all the time comes with its own peculiar risks. When software engineer Bryan tells me that scepticism is the philosophy by which he lives life, he feels it necessary to make an unprompted addendum: ‘It’s not about calling people stupid.’

  ‘Is that a common accusation?’ I ask.

  ‘You can come across as arrogant,’ he says. ‘Especially when you’re in this type of environment, where people tend to be into the scientific literature.’

  My next conversation is with a couple of not-that-friendly-looking-to-be-honest Skeptics named Bendt and Simon. Bendt, a bearded Swede in a leather trench coat, tells me that he came to the movement via loneliness and atheism. ‘I was doing my PhD in Vancouver and looking for a social circle so I looked for atheists. From there, I went to scepticism.’

  ‘And what was your PhD in?’ I ask.

  ‘Nuclear physics.’

  Rob, meanwhile, was a schoolboy magician who became entranced by an individual who, like him, also began his journey into scepticism by performing simple magic tricks and marvelling at the ease by which you can fool a human. The man who inspired him, however, was to become a hero to rationalist campaigners all over the world. Now in his eighties, he ha
s spent a long and celebrated life committing spectacular debunkings of psychics, spoonbenders and peddlers in ‘woo woo’ – a phrase that he invented. He is James Randi, king of the Skeptics, a near-legend in these circles. One of the many actions that Randi is celebrated for is his long-standing offer, made through his James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), of one million dollars to any individual that can prove any aspect of the supernatural. That includes homeopathy. Indeed, one of his latest triumphs involves a high-profile Greek homeopath named George Vithoulkas, whose own ‘Million Dollar Challenge’ broke down just as his test was approaching. It is said that Vithoulkas dodged his judgement day by suddenly refusing to fill out the standard JREF application form, thereby triggering the collapse of the process. In a typically merciless statement that was published on Randi’s personal blog (in which he also found room to call Vithoulkas a ‘strange man,’ ‘self-deluded’ and a ‘naif’) he said, ‘Many would-be applicants have considered themselves above such a simple requirement, but no exception has ever been made, nor will it be made.’

  I meet another software engineer, named Colin, who credits Randi’s debunking of Uri Geller – famous for his psychic spoon-bending – for his interest in critical thinking. ‘He’s a really big hero,’ says Colin, who calls homeopathy a ‘medical scam’ and describes it as his principal interest. When I ask which homeopathy studies he has read, he dodges the question. ‘I’m not a scientist so I can’t really comment on the studies. But I’m fascinated by the absurdity of the whole thing.’

  Conventioneer Dominic, meanwhile, is equally scathing. ‘Homeopathy really is silly,’ he chuckles. ‘I look forward to taking part in the overdose.’

  What is it, I wonder, that he wants to achieve with his campaigning?

  ‘Just getting an awareness out there of how silly homeopathy is,’ he says.

  ‘Have you read any scientific studies into homeopathy?’

  ‘Not personally.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand the point of it all,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it just harassing a load of old ladies?’

  ‘It isn’t just a load of old ladies,’ he says. ‘Lots of people, if they take homeopathy and think it’s real medicine, they might avoid going to an actual doctor.’

  He makes a good point.

  ‘Do you know anyone that that’s happened to?’

  ‘Not personally.’ A moment passes, as he ponders the sceptical ramifications of this admission. ‘Being sceptical, unless I know someone who has done this, I can’t say for sure it has happened. But I have heard stories.’

  ‘If you don’t know anyone personally who has come to harm, then what makes you so angry about it?’

  ‘Simply from a consumer-protection point of view.’

  ‘You’re interested in consumer-protection issues?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what other consumer-protection issues are you involved with?’

  ‘I buy Which? magazine,’ he says. ‘And things like that.’

  Finally, I settle down with Mark, who explains his interest in scepticism thus: ‘It’s incredibly important that people maintain a rational mindset, a sceptical mindset, with everything they approach in life and that they never get carried away with wishful thinking, with stuff they would like to be true.’

  I sigh, my gaze emptying and slipping in the direction of the ugly carpet. I feel unaccountably depressed.

  We talk on, and Mark says that his principal sceptical interest is in evolution, so I tell him about my time in Gympie with John Mackay, and about his opposite, the scientist Nathan Lo, who told me that much of the peril lay in the fact that the creationist story is simple to understand, whereas the science can be hard. But Mark, a twenty-five-year-old cinema employee, does not agree with what the doctor of molecular evolution had to say.

  ‘I don’t think it’s difficult,’ he says. ‘In fact, the beauty of evolution is that it’s incredibly easy to understand.’

  I present the argument that, in essence, it is all faith – most of us do not look at the raw evidence for ourselves, but rely on charismatic leaders who reinforce our prejudices to do it for us. Mark nods approvingly.

  ‘If you truly want the truth, you have to do it yourself,’ he says.

  ‘But who’s got time?’ I say.

  ‘It’s not about who’s got time,’ he says. ‘It’s about not trying to make reality fit what you want it to fit. We need to tell people to come to their own conclusions rather than what someone else tells them.’

  ‘So, what evidence have you personally studied regarding evolution?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, there’s such a mound of evidence with something like evolution,’ he sighs. ‘There are fossils in the ground that show a step by step picture of how we got to be how we are.’

  ‘Fossils?’ I ask.

  ‘Fossils,’ he nods.

  ‘So you’ve studied fossils?’

  ‘No, not personally,’ he says. ‘But, um, the fact that I’ve not studied fossils personally – the vast majority of people haven’t studied fossils personally. Has anyone studied God personally?’

  I don’t understand exactly what Mark means, but as the glumness that has come over me is apparently not lifting, I decide that it is time for bed.

  *

  I don’t know if there is any way back from the revelation that you are wrong and there is nothing you can do about it. But that, it seems to me, is the principal lesson of experimental psychology. We are blind to the effects of our own cognitive traps. You could even argue that it is these very traps – their unique patterns – that make us who we are. These days, when pondering matters of personal belief, the most appropriate question we can ask of ourselves is no longer ‘Am I right?’ but ‘How mistaken am I, how biased?’

  We have designed a system of knowledge to combat all this. Science is the opposite of religion. Its laws are not sensed in visions or divined by charismatics claiming access to a supernatural being. They are the result of sweat and fight and genius. Everything it knows, it has earned. The scientific process is what happens when you gather enough Homo sapiens brains together and give them time to think. It is astonishing: the greatest achievement of our species. The people gathered for this conference know this. They want to promote it; to celebrate it. As I keep having to remind myself mournfully, the Skeptics are right.

  Why ‘mournfully’? Why this gloomy sense? Why the defensive feeling when I walked into the bar downstairs? Why are my instincts, in all their kneejerk ignorance, telling me that I should be on the attack, that these men and women are not of my tribe?

  These are questions that journalists are not well practised in asking. We are similar to the Skeptics, in that we like to imagine ourselves as professional seekers of truth. We are led by facts, not prejudice or childish interpersonal likes and dislikes. I lie back on my hotel bed, recalling my behaviour earlier on – wandering about the place, speaking to Skeptics one by one and asking impertinently, ‘What studies into homeopathy have you read? What studies into homeopathy have you read?’

  Urgh.

  When I was familiarising myself with the sceptical literature, I came across a book that contained an enlightening passage on John Mack, the Harvard heretic who had to go to war with his dean in order to defend his right to study alien abduction. Written by Dr Michael Shermer – founding publisher of the magazine Skeptic and director of the Skeptics Society – Why People Believe Weird Things closes with a devastating analysis of his beliefs.

  Mack’s cognitive journey reads like a perfect study in how the brain likes to rearrange the evidence of the outside world in order to match its inner models. (Not that Shermer doubts that Mack’s patients were sincere: ‘Knowing what we do about the fantastic imagery that the brain is capable of producing,’ he writes, ‘experiencer’s experiences are nothing more than mental representations of strictly internal brain phenomena.’) Mack had some tricky cognitive dissonance to deal with: the lack of physical evidence that they had actually been taken ab
oard an alien craft. He acknowledged this was a problem, admitting, ‘there is no firm proof that abduction was the cause of their absence,’ but then soothed the dissonance away by dismissing the entire notion of physical evidence. In an interview with Time magazine he complained, ‘I don’t know why there’s such a zeal to find a conventional physical explanation. We’ve lost all that ability to know a world beyond the physical. I am a bridge between the two worlds.’

  Here was a man as intelligent as you could hope for, who found re-imagining the nature of reality itself easier than admitting the obvious possibility that his patients were simply delusional. In his book, Shermer did a superb job on Mack. He was knowledgeable, sceptical, credible and wise. He was fantastic.

  I found the whole thing really annoying.

  Over the last few months, Mack has become a kind of hero to me. Despite his earlier caution, he ended up believing in amazing things: intergalactic space travel and terrifying encounters in alien craft that travelled seamlessly through non-physical dimensions. And when his bosses tried to silence him, he hired a lawyer. He fought back against the dean and his dreary minions. He battled hard in the name of craziness. He was a heretic, an enemy of reason. He told a journalist from Time magazine, ‘I am a bridge between the two worlds.’ And I loved him.