Skeptoid 4: Astronauts, Aliens, and Ape-Men

by Brian Dunning

  Believers in the Scole Experiment are likely to point to specifics in the Scole Report and say something like “But according to the detailed notes, the medium never moved his hands,” or something like that. But we have to remember that, assuming the Scole mediums were using trickery, the authors of the Scole Report were merely witnesses who were taken in by the tricks. Of course their report is likely to, and does, state that they could not have been fooled. This is a perfect example of confirmation bias. These Society for Psychical Research fellows firmly believed they were witnessing genuine spirit phenomena, and desired a positive outcome. They followed the mediums’ instructions to the T and acted as an audience only and not as investigators. The Scole Report details the authors’ perceptions of what happened in the room; no reader has cause to believe it describes what actually happened in the room.

  Repeatedly, throughout the Scole Report, the authors state that no evidence of fraud or deception was found. For example:

  There is a further complaint: that we made little mention of the views of people like West or Professor Robert Morris, “who expressed reservations on the basis of their experiences.” That is partly because no such reservations were expressed to us at the time... We were looking for evidence of deception... We looked in vain.

  If I go to Penn & Teller’s magic show to look for evidence of deception, but I impose the rule that I have to stay in my seat and watch the show as presented, and I’m not allowed to go onstage and examine the performers or the equipment, or watch from behind, or observe the preparations, I guarantee you that I also will find no evidence of deception. Placing illuminated wrist cuffs on the séance mediums, and allowing no further controls, is perfectly analogous to having Teller show you his arms “Hey, look, nothing up my sleeves,” then allowing him total control over everything that follows. It can reasonably be argued that the Scole Experiment investigators (whether deliberately or through near-total investigative incompetence) created the conditions of a stage show designed to fool an audience.

  The phenomenon most commonly reported in the Scole Experiments were small points of light that flitted about the room, often striking crystals and illuminating them from within, or causing disconnected light bulbs or a small glass dome to light up. Since the mediums banned video gear, there’s no way we can really evaluate these claims, other than by reading the Scole Report, which only tells us the perceptions experienced by a few true believers who were present. Mark Edward said these tricks have been commonly performed in séances with laser pointers since the 1970’s when they first became available: Strike a light bulb or rock crystal with a laser pointer and it lights right up. An advantage of laser pointers is that the tip can be easily cloaked, obscuring the orifice from anyone whose eyeball is not the target of the beam. We have no evidence that the Scole mediums used such techniques, but their rules also prevented us from establishing that they didn’t.

  The next most impressive feat was the spontaneous appearance of images on film. During the séance, factory-sealed film cartridges were placed inside a padlocked box. The spirits were then asked to imprint images upon the film. The locked box was then taken and the film developed in the strict constant supervision of the investigators. This feat was repeated many times. One of the investigators, Alan Gauld, wrote critically of how he discovered this locked box could be quickly and easily opened in the dark, which allowed for easy substitution of film rolls. This box was provided by the mediums. Whenever any other sealed container was used, no images ever appeared on the film. Yet even while acknowledging these facts, the authors of the Scole Report still maintain that the film images are most likely evidence of the supernatural.

  Perhaps the biggest red flag in the Scole Experiment is the venue in which the sittings took place: a room in the basement of the house in Scole where two of the mediums lived, Robin and Sandra Foy. Rather than controlling the environment, the investigators ceded total control over the room and conditions to the mediums. The séances were held about once a month, which gave the Foys ample time to make any desired alterations to the room. There’s no evidence that they did so, but granting them unrestricted opportunity pretty much torpedoed any hope for credibility. The Scole Report states that the room was available for examination before and after every séance, but there’s no reason to believe that any truly thorough examination was ever performed; and in any event it’s a poor substitute for what the investigators should have done, which was to provide their own room over which the mediums had no control at all. (A few séances were held at other locations, but the Scole Report describes the results from those as “variable”.)

  The next biggest red flag was the mediums’ insistence that the séances be held in complete darkness and their refusal to allow any night-mode video cameras or light enhancement equipment. The mediums’ explanation was that they felt such equipment would distract the investigators! That’s like telling a pilot that having instruments might distract him from flying. Astoundingly the investigators agreed to this, though they did express dismay, as if their desire and good intentions alone validate their conclusions. Audio recordings only were permitted, but since the claimed phenomena were primarily visual, the audio tapes are of essentially no value.

  A third red flag is the fact that there’s been no follow-up. If amazing phenomena truly did happen at the Scole Experiment, it would have changed the world. Mainstream psychologists and other academics would have gotten in on it, it would have made worldwide headlines, and it would be repeated in labs everywhere and become mainstream science. They did have the opportunity: skeptical psychologist and author Richard Wiseman sat in on one séance, taking charge of some photographic film, which failed to be imprinted while in his control. But rather than coming away impressed and spreading the word, he summed it up to me in six words: “It was a load of rubbish!”

  This same principle explains why we don’t see articles from the Proceedings of the SPR, like the Scole Report, republished in scientific journals. A scientific investigation of a strange phenomenon assumes the null hypothesis unless the phenomenon can be proven to exist. But the authors of the Scole Report, with complete credulity, did the exact opposite: Their stated position is that the lack of disproof means their séances were real supernatural events. But a primary feature of good research is the elimination of other possible explanations, at which the Scole investigators made no competent effort. Many of the investigators expressed that they were not very convinced by what they witnessed, and it is to the credit of the Scole Report authors that they fairly reported this. But this raises the question: Why then write such a lengthy and credulous report, making such obvious conclusions that these phenomena were real? The lesson to take away from the Scole Experiment is a simple one. Although we all have preconceived notions, we have to put them aside and follow the evidence when we investigate.

  REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

  Keen, M., Ellison, A., Fontana, D. “The Scole Report.” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. 1 Nov. 1999, Volume 58, Part 220.

  Mellenbergh, G.J. Advising on Research Methods: A consultant’s companion. Rosmalen: Johannes van Kessel, 2008. 143-180.

  The Seybert Commission. Preliminary Report of the Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1887.

  Troy Taylor. “How to Have a Séance: Tricks of Fraudulent Mediums.” The Haunted Museum. Dark Haven Entertainment, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 5 Nov. 2009.

  Wiseman, R., Greening, E., Smith, M. “Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the séance room.” British Journal of Psychology. 1 Aug. 2003, Volume 94, Issue 3: 285–297.

  Wiseman, R., Morris, R. Guidelines for testing psychic claimants. Hatfield, UK: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1995.

  4. VACCINE INGREDIENTS

  Do vaccines really contain the horrifying poisons claimed by antivaccine activists?

  In this chapter, we’re going to point our skeptic
al eye at some of the claims made by antivaccine activists, in particular, their lists of frightening chemicals and other dangerous toxins they say are included in vaccines. As it’s an important topic and is increasingly in the public eye, we don’t want to dismiss these claims out of hand. Rather, we want to have a handy working knowledge of the basics so we’re better prepared to deal with such rhetoric when it comes up.

  You don’t have to go to the antivaccine web sites to find this horrifying list of witch’s-brew ingredients. The Centers for Disease Control publishes a detailed list of every additive in every vaccine, sorted both by ingredient and by vaccine. I run my eye down this official list: formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate, ammonium sulfate, bovine extract, thimerosal, amino acids, even monkey kidney tissue. This list is published by the very same government that’s assuring us these vaccines are safe. How can that be? Does this mean the antivaccine activists are right, and vaccines are indeed loaded with deadly toxins?

  This is a case where cooler heads need to prevail. First, let’s start with the premise that every cell of your body is made up of a huge number of chemical compounds, all of which have scary-sounding chemical names. Therefore, we can derive that scary-sounding chemical names, by themselves, are not to be feared. Cooler heads might choose to allow for the possibility that these scary chemicals are added to vaccines because they serve some useful purpose.

  When you’re exposed to a pathogen, it irritates your body. This irritation is what provokes your immune system to respond, and produce antibodies to fight the pathogen. Vaccines work the same way. They simulate the pathogen in order to produce to right irritation. To prepare your body with the right antibodies to fight some anticipated future pathogen, it’s a necessary and expected step for the vaccine to provoke your immune system with a carefully planned challenge. So when you hear antivaxxers charge that vaccines are harmful and irritating, that’s quite true, but it’s for an important reason and it’s very deliberately controlled. This attack on your body to provoke an immunological response is the way vaccines work. It’s the way your immune system rolls. You don’t strengthen your immune system by eating vitamins or drinking wheatgrass juice or doing yoga or having a coffee enema; you strengthen it by challenging it to respond.

  So now that we understand that a vaccine is not pretending to be a shot of Mickey Mouse sunshine, let’s take a look at some of these frightening sounding ingredients:

  FORMALDEHYDE

  Absolutely true. Formaldehyde sounds scary because we see dead animals preserved in jars of it in museums. One of its uses is to sterilize things, and this is why small drops of it are added to some vaccines. Without such sterilization, a vial of vaccine might become contaminated while it’s sitting on the shelf. Formaldehyde is used because it’s naturally found in the human body, as it’s a normal byproduct of digestion and metabolism. When you receive a vaccine shot that was sterilized with formaldehyde, you already have much more of it in your body than you get from the shot. All of this formaldehyde is easily broken down chemically simply because your body is an aqueous environment, and it’s harmlessly discharged every day.

  ANTIFREEZE

  This one is simply untrue. Antifreeze, the poisonous substance used in your car’s engine, is ethylene glycol. Because it’s so poisonous, antifreeze is not used in food processing or medical equipment, and certainly not in vaccines or other drugs. A less toxic form of antifreeze is propylene glycol, which is not in vaccines either. What is used in some is 2-phenoxyethanol. It’s an antibacterial agent used in many vaccines to sterilize them, and also used in wound care as a topical antibacterial. The confusion with antifreeze probably comes from the fact that both are part of the glycol ether family of hydrocarbons, but they are not the same thing.

  MERCURY

  This is the most common claim, and it’s the one you’ve probably heard the most about, so I won’t spend much time on it. Some vaccines (but no scheduled childhood vaccines) are preserved with thimerosal, which contains ethylmercury. Elemental mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin, but when it’s bound as an organic ethyl, it’s easily filtered out of your body by your kidneys and is quickly discharged. This is one reason thimerosal has always been such a safe and popular preservative, and it’s still found in many products. Mercury can also be bound as a methyl, which is different, and is much harder for your body to filter out. But fear not; no vaccines or thimerosal ever contained methylmercury, and this scaremongering has no plausible foundation.

  LATEX RUBBER

  This one is also completely untrue. Latex is not, in any way, part of any vaccine, and never has been. The source of this claim is the fact that a lot of medical equipment, like syringes and packages, contain latex. Alternatives are always available for people with severe latex allergies. This is a common issue for such people, and has no specific relevance to vaccines whatsoever.

  HYDROCHLORIC ACID

  Scary sounding, and true. If you pour hydrochloric acid on your skin, you get burned, because your skin is pH balanced. But if you add acid to something that’s alkaline, acid brings it back into balance. Hydrochloric acid is used in many industries to bring compounds that are too alkaline to the desired pH level, and the pharmaceutical industry is no different. Some vaccines, once the active ingredients are all added, may be too alkaline; and if injected like that, would cause an adverse reaction. Hydrochloric acid brings the vaccine down to your body’s normal pH level of about 7.4. Hydrochloric acid is also the primary digestive acid produced in your stomach, so it’s no stranger to the human body.

  ALUMINUM

  Aluminum, in various forms, is added to vaccines as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is like a catalyst for the desired irritation, making the challenge even more annoying for your body. It’s supposed to be there, on purpose, to make your body react even more strongly. More antibodies are created as a result of the more provocative challenge. Remember: Mickey Mouse sunshine and roses do nothing.

  Aluminum is, of course, a neurotoxin, but only at amounts far, far higher than that normally found in our bodies, in the environment, and certainly in vaccines. Just by living and breathing on a planet like Earth where aluminum is the third most abundant element, the average person consumes 3-8mg of aluminum per day, of which less than 1 percent is absorbed into the blood. Vaccine doses are allowed to contain a maximum of .85mg of aluminum; so the maximum dose of aluminum in a vaccine is about the same as the maximum that might get into everyone’s blood in a normal day (about what’s contained in 33 ounces of infant formula). Most vaccines contain less than this. Studies have proven no difference in neurological condition between children who have had aluminum adjuvated vaccines and those who have not.

  ASPARTAME

  Once again: FAIL. Completely untrue. Although any search of the web would have you believe otherwise: The phrase “aspartame in vaccines” is all over Google. So what are these vaccines? I searched the CDC’s database of vaccines; nothing. I searched the database of additives; still nothing. I only found only antivax article that mentioned specifically which vaccine aspartame is in, and it claimed only one: The typhoid vaccine Typhim Vi. But it’s not true. The additives in Typhim Vi are publicly available and aspartame is not on the list. This is when the antivaxxers are at their worst, when they simply make up lies. This is not constructive for any purpose.

  ABORTED FETAL TISSUE

  They sure picked the scariest sounding thing they could think of here! Some viruses don’t retain their chemical markers well enough when they’re dead in order for the immune system to recognize them, so a very few vaccines are given with the viruses still alive. Growing the weakened viruses means they have to have living cells which they can invade in order to multiply, and these living cells are specific lines that can divide and multiply predictably over a period of many years. Some of these are animal cells, and some are human cells. These cultures are continually reproducing, self-perpetuating lines that are the same generation after generation. The human cells used for this purpose all come
from two healthy 3-month-old fetuses aborted in the 1960s by choice. One line, MRC-5, was created in 1966. The other, WI-38, was created in 1962. These two cell lines are used for all the vaccines currently in production worldwide that depend on human cell culture. The cells themselves are not part of the vaccine; just the weakened viruses grown within them.

  Human Serum Albumin, or HSA, is a stabilizing protein made from human blood donations. Bovine albumin is also used in a few vaccines. Some vaccines are grown in cultures of monkey or chicken kidney tissue, and when the vaccines are extracted, a few cells from the culture always remain. There’s never been any evidence that this might be dangerous. Some vaccines are cultured inside chicken eggs, and some egg protein may remain as a result. This can be a problem for people with severe allergies to egg protein, so these people should avoid these vaccines.

  You’ll hear all sorts of shock stories about embryonic fluid and cells of exotic animals. Be skeptical of such stories, and you are shocked and concerned, spend five minutes searching the web to find out if that ingredient is actually used; and if so, why; and whether it represents any credible cause for concern. I guarantee you that Jenny McCarthy is neither the first person, nor the best informed, to have considered vaccine safety.