SGU Episode 9

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SGU Episode 9
10th August 2005
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 8                      SGU 10
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
P: Perry DeAngelis
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Introduction

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is August 10^th, 2005. This is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society and with me, again, tonight, are Perry DeAngelis...

P: Hello.

S: Bob Novella...

B: Hello.

S: and Evan Bernstein.

E: Salutations.

News Items

Bush on Intelligent Design (0:26)

S: So, our president is up to it again. In the last few days he made a comment, essentially saying that he endorses the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside evolution in public schools. Essentially, echoing the position of the intelligent design proponents to teach the controversy. That kids will be best served if they hear both sides of the issue and he also, in the same interview, professed his own personal belief that God created the world. I'm sure you guys have heard this–about this quite a bit in the past week.

B: Yeah. I've heard–I've heard a lot about it. That least piece I'm not too familiar. Wha–cause I carefully scrutinized his wording and it was a little ambiguous, ya know, teaching the controversy not specifically saying, "Lets put this in the science class side by side with evolution." And he probably believes that but he didn't say that. But what did he say about God creating the earth? Do you have a quote in front of you?

S: Yes. The quote is,

I personally believe God created the earth.

P: But wait a minute, has the president disavowed evolution? That's the question. The Catholic Church believes God created the earth. They also believe in evolution. Has the president disavowed evolution?

B: Catholics aren't creationists.

P: So what? That's still a key question. It's a key question. Does the president believe or does he not believe in evolution? It's a key question.

S: I have not seen or heard any quotes that he specifically says evolution doesn't happen.

P: Neither have I.

S: Your point is well taken that he could be a–a theological evolutionist.

P: Right.

S: There's a whole spectrum from young earth creationists who think that God created the world ten thousand years ago and no evolution of any kind occurred to sort of deistic evolutionists who believe, completely, that all life evolved over billions of years from just cells and proteins...

P: Right. Those...

S: primordial soup, but that God guided the process.

P: Even if the president does believe in evolution, even if he does, even if it's a theological question to him, this is still a serious problem in president Bush's makeup. The guy is–he's almost a religious zealot. It's a real problem.

S: It's a problem for the president of the free world. Yeah. Absolutely.

P: Abso–It absolutely is. And this is a tremendously dark spot on his record in my opinion.

S: I think it goes hand in hand with his stance against stem cell research and his faith based initiative. I mean this is clearly part of his overall agenda.

P: I hope the congress is going to bulldoze his stem cell legislation. I hope they're gonna bowl over it.

B: Guys, I heard a great quote. I heard a great–great quote.

9/11 was a faith based initiative.

S: (laughter)

P: Yeah.

E: (laughter)

S: Although not the kind of faith that Bush endorses.

P: Yeah. Another black hole. Faith based initiatives. I mean, they're an outrage. Separation of church and state. It's–Whenever the president and the government nears religion he veers off course.

S: Right.

P: He really veers off course. I mean, it's bad. It's bad.

S: And it's not only the violation of separation of church and state. Regardless of what you think about the religious aspects of intelligent designed, even if–the intelligent design proponents are often coy and saying that they're not talking about God it's just an intell–it's some kind of generic intelligent designer, they're careful to remove anything overtly religious from their writings. But, even if we give them a pass on that coyness it still is true that intelligent design is not a scientific theory. It's not a scientific theory because it cannot be tested. It's not testable. It's not falsifiable.

P: It's not science.

S: Yeah. The proponents don't do anything that even resembles actual science.

B: And that's the bottom line, right? It's not science.

S: So it does not. belong. in science. classrooms.

P: Right. Teach it in Sunday school. Not biology.

S: The one–The most compelling thing that the intelligent design people and Bush echoing their sentiments have to say is sort of teach the controversy, again I don't think that intelligent design should be taught as science in a science classroom, but I certainly endorse people knowing what intelligent design is not science and using it as an example of logical fallacies and of, sort of, pathological science. How could we do that without teaching intelligent design. Or without sort of violating the principle of separation of church and state? Pri–I–I would guess perhaps by teaching it more in a logic or philosophy class. Not a science class as science. So they're–that position sounds very reasonable, fair, and compelling. Really–unless you understand that it's not science, which, I think, your average person probably does not.

E: Right.

S: It's hard to see the flaw in that argument. So, I think that Bush is very–politically savvy enough to realize that his statements will probably be looked upon favorably by most Americans. Polls certainly indicate that.

E: And certainly his constituency.

S: And certainly the vast majority of his constituency, yes.

B: Has anyone–has any reporter done any follow up with this? Or has it just, pretty much, died right there and nothing futher. No one's brought this up saying, "Could you expand on this point?" Nobody's said anything, have they?

E: Nooo...

P: Even the democrats haven't picked it up.

S: Yeah. I really haven't heard a lot about it.

P: They're not–they haven't picked it up. They're not running with it. I think they think it's dangerous.

E: Right.

B: They could.

E: Well,

B: Well, they feel–yeah, they feel alienated enough from the religious part of their...

P: I really–I don't think. Their cost benefit analysis is not...

B: Right.

P: not favorable on this one.

E: That's right. They need to move on to other more productive things as far as they're concerned.

S: But on a–somewhat of a lighter note Bush's science adviser John Marburger III differed from the president. He wrote that intelligent design is not a scientific theory. Basically hitting the key point on the head.

P: Thank goodness.

S: I don't know what that means to White House policy but at least his science adviser understands the issue, at least as far as that statement is concerned.

P: Amen.

Science or Fiction (7:15)

S: Well, why don't we transition from that to Science or Fiction?

VO: It's time to play Science OR Fiction.

S: This is a weekly segment. Each week I will come up with three, either science news items or science facts. Two of them are genuine and one is fictitious. One is made up. And I challenge my skeptical colleagues to figure out which one is fake.

E: Challenge accepted.

S: Alright. So, there is a theme to the three items this week. The theme is historical figures with medical ailments. I am going to give you three historical figures and a disease that they are alleged to have had. I'll warn you ahead of time that the disease may not have been absolutely proven, meaning that there was not a biological, pathological diagnosis made at the time. Some of these diagnoses may have been made by reviewing historical documents.

E, P: Okay.

S: But, I–the two that are real I would say that the evi–the historical evidence is very compelling. I would say greater than ninety percent. My opinion.

P: Okay.

S: So, not iron clad fact but very, very likely. And one I just completely made up. So one, in fact, there's no reality to it whatsoever.

P: Alright.

S: You guys ready?

B: I bet Napoleon's in there somewhere.

S: Nope.

(laughter)

B: Ahh...

S: No Napoleon.

E: I think Lou Gehrig is going to be in there somewhere.

(laughter)

B: Good one.

E: Thank you.

S: What did he have, again? Lou Gehrig?

(laughter)

E: He had Babe Ruth disease.

S: Babe Ruth disease? I'll give you an example, one I'm not going to include. For example, many physicians believe that Joan of Arc had a form of right temporal lobe epilepsy.

E: True.

S: During these epileptic seizures people will often have religious visions or experiences. So it's possible that some of her descriptions of the visions and episodes that she had may have, in fact, been just right temporal lobe seizures and people with that form of epilepsy have what is known as hyper-religiosity. They are very religious people. So that's more in the realm of speculation but it's sort of interesting speculation about her.

B: Well, Steve, that's a very interesting point because, I think, it's very intriguing that there's actually a part of your brain that induces these intense religious experiences.

S: It's very interesting.

B: You've gotta ask, "Well, why is that there?" Why would that be in your head? Why is that such an important thing that evolved? What kind of selective pressures were on that? But...

S: Well since you bring it up, I mean we have to segue into that a little bit just to finish that point. I've actually had religious people argue that it's–that God put it there because he wanted us to believe in him.

B: Right.

P: Right.

S: But from an evolutionary biology point of view there's a lot of evidence to suggest that human being are hardwired, and our closest relatives, like chimpanzees, are hardwired, to surrender a bit of our will and our selves to higher authority whether that's just the leader of the pack or the leader of the tribe. And that–even to the point of sacrificing ourselves for the greater good of our–something bigger than us. Our family, our tribe, our people.

B: Yeah. For societal cohesion, right? So that the community is more integrated.

S: That kind of altruism, sacrificing yourself for the greater good of your relations actually carries with it an evolutionary advantage, in terms of passing more copies of your own genes on to future generations. So, you don't have to hypothesize that God put that in our brains. That–there are reasonable hypotheses about why– evolutionarily why something like that would have evolved and then we give it cultural context. Every culture gives it a slightly different context, but there's some, sort of, common themes, in terms of the religious contexts, that people give. That basic hard-wiring, sense that there's something bigger than us, that we are part of. Anyway, back to Science or Fiction. So, item number one. Magician Harry Houdini at a collagen disorder that made him unusually flexible, aiding in his escape artistry. Number two, remember comment on them after I'm done with all three. Number two, Adolf Hitler suffered from a severe form of Parkinson's disease that made mentally rigid and inflexible. And item number three, Vincent Van Gogh suffered from and inner ear disorder that gave him persistent ringing in the ear, resulting in him famously cutting off his ear. Those are the three.

B: Oo. Kay.

P: (laughter) Uhhhh... pass.

B: I'll start, I guess.

S: Alright, Bob.

B: Well Hitler and Parkinson's, I have heard about that. You could see in some of his speeches you could see a tremor in the hand and if you study his behavior later in the war you can see how rigid he was in his thinking. So, I think, that's pretty well supported. Van Gogh and his ear ringing, I–sounds like Meniere's disease to me. From–my mother had–actually has had that and from what she says it's pretty annoying. I could see someone just going nuts and just lopping off their ear. That makes more sense than the first one. Houdini having a collagen disorder. Now–I could see, maybe if it was tendons and ligaments or something else but I don't think collagen–a collagen disorder would give you hyper-flexibility so I'm going to say that one is false.

S: Okay. Who wants to go next. But I'll–I'll say for the record, not to try to influence your choice, that people who a–who have collagen disorders are hyper-flexible.

P: I have a collagen disorder, don't I?

S: You have the opposite, though.

(laughter)

P: I was going to say, I have a collagen disorder made me rigid.

S: Yeah, well it's more of a fibroblast disorder but...

(laughter)

P: That's exactly what I was thinking.

S: You've probably seen pictures of like the guys in the side show freak shows who, like, could bend there arms all in half and...

P: Yeah.

S: put their arms behind their head. Extremely flexible.

B: How does the collagen...?

S: The collagen's not just in the skin, Bob. It's a protein that's a major structural protein in all–ligaments tendons and support structures and everything.

B: Okay.

S: So that aspect of it, I mean I'm not telling you that he had it, I'm just saying that–the–yes–that people would collagen disorders are actually–are hyper-flexible.

B: Okay.

E: I happen to agree with Bob. The first one, I think, is the made up one.

S: Okay. Two votes for Harry Houdini.

P: Yeah. I'm gonna–I'm gonna go with Van Gogh. I don't think he cut his ear off because it was ringing.

S: Okay.

P: I think his problems were deeper than that.

B: Let me add a little more then. I do remember something about Houdini being able to dislocate his shoulder at will, which helped get straight jackets. As you could imagine...

P: Are you trying to talk yourself out of your answer?

B: great aid. No.

(laughter)

B: I'm just trying to think of another tack here. I think...

P: You already gave your answer. You're done.

B: Yeah. Well, yeah. I still think it's false. I–Just because you can dislocate your shoulder at will I don't think necessarily think it has to be a collagen disorder. But, I'm still going with it, I guess.

S: Right. Okay. Well, you all agree that Adolf Hitler had Parkinson's disease.

P: (laughter) We do.

E: Javol!

P: He had something going on there.

S: That is, in fact, true.

P: Yeah. He was stiff and there was other things.

S: Very well established. There are–There is historical footage of him with a clear Parkinsonian tremor in his hand. Interestingly, the propaganda guys for Hitler were very good, very thorough at eliminating any footage of him showing his Parkinsonism, but a couple–strips of film did slip into his (inaudible)

E: The later ones. The later ones. Right.

S: And there were–have been some good articles written examining his personality and his decision making process and does reflect a form of Parkinson's that–it does result in this sort of obsessive, rigid adherence to courses of action. Inability to change your mind or change your course of action. Which...

P: Thank goodness.

S: it's that kind of inflexibility that ultimately doomed Hitler at the end. That and the A-bomb. But...

P: (laughter)

S: Eventually we would have defeated him even if he didn't go crazy essentially and kill off his generals and remain...

P: He didn't listen?

S: persistently followed insane courses of action.

P: The main thing is he did not–he didn't listen to them. He made his own military decisions. Many–Very often against the will of his generals.

S: And there was a lot of paranoia. He did kill off a lot of his senior people because he was afraid that they were planning to kill him.

P: Not like Stalin.

E: And they were and they did. They did have assassination plans.

P: Not like Stalin. Stalin killed a lot more senior generals than Hitler ever did.

S: He did. But it's interesting to think of how much the course of history was influenced by a disease.

B?: True. True.

S: What would have happened if Hitler didn't have that disorder?

P: Right.

S: We'll never know, but it's interesting to think about. Okay, so, let's go on to number three. Vincent Van Gogh. In fact there have been several hypotheses about Van Gogh. I think the most common public story is that was hearing voices. That he basically went a little psychotic or crazy, but in–there have been some, at least one good article published in the neurological literature reviewing his writings where he pretty clearly describes a ringing in the ear and that basically driving him to distraction. Driving him crazy. And–Which probably was Meniere's disease, Bob, that was probably the correct diagnosis, although, again, that much is a little bit of speculation. And he did cut off his ear, probably in misguided attempt to stop the ringing in his ear. Of course it didn't work.

P: But he had a lot of other things going on, like I said.

S: Yeah. He was nutty.

P: He was nutty.

S: You're right. He was nutty. And that's why it was so easy to think that he was just psychotic.

P: Right.

S: But, in fact, that–the cutting off of his ear was probably a response to the tinnitus, the ringing in the ears that he...

P: Okay.

S: described in his writing. The one about Harry Houdini I made up. Now, a lot of that, Bob, was based upon the rumor that he could dislocate his shoulder at will and some people–there is a rumor, kind of the mythology of Houdini does also include the fact that he was really incredibly flexible. It's all BS actually. I could not find any verification of that. In fact, he–his escape artistry was largely trickery.

B: Yeah.

S: It was illusion. It was illusion.

B: A lot of it was.

S: Certainly, certainly he was extremely skilled and talented and could do things that were not mere illusion, that actually required some physical skill. But, in essence, most of what he did was escape artist trickery. That same kind of thing that Penn and Teller do stage today.

B: So you're saying that he could not–there's no evidence that he can–he could dislocate his shoulder at will.

S: That's right.

B: There's nothing to support that? Okay.

S: And–Yeah–But again these kind of myths are–that's kind of the mystique of the magician. That they're using more difficult arcane or fantastical techniques than they really are. When in fact they're just cheating. That–They're doing something that anyone can learn how to do and maybe it requires some practice and manual dexterity but no super human feat.

B: Right.

S: It serves their–if you think they're doing their trick through some kind of super human or extraordinary feat you won't look for the simple cheat as much.

B: Right. I mean, I remember one story, I have nothing–no evidence to back it up but I did read somewhere years ago that one of his famous escapes was from a, I guess, was it a London prison? And it turned out that in all the hubbub and activity they did not lock his cage.

S: They forgot to lock his cage.

B: ...jail cell and he just kinda opened it up and there was no–there wasn't even any trickery involved in that. It was just sheer stupidity on their part. Now, again, I'm not–I don't have any evidence to back that up but I did–my memory seems reliable.

(laughter)

S: Yeah well that was–now that wasn't part of the movie? The Hollywood version of Houdini. They just left out how he actually escaped from the prison.

P: The best thing about Houdini is the fact that after his mother died and he went to all those...

B: Yes.

P: seances and–in his day he then became a great debunker. And, boy, debunked them mercilessly because they didn't deliver on his mother.

E: Yeah. He figured out their tricks. He knew exactly what they were doing.

P: He didn't believe it.

E: He became very, very, apparently upset about it and wanted to do something to get back at these charlatans.

S: Well, actually, Perry, I think, that that again is a common myth, that he initially interacted with the spiritualists cause he was looking to contact his mother and then became disillusioned when they failed. In fact, that was never the case?

E?: What?

S: He was an atheist. He never believed in life after death. Never pursued spiritualists. He was angry at the spiritualists because they were using his escape artist to convince people that there were metaphysical happenings. So like during a seance when the lights were out they would–and apparently they were tied to the chair or they were in a closet or something, they would use escape artist tricks in order to get out or escape or free a limb or whatever and then create the manifestations, the bell ringing or the rapping or whatever.

B: Or cracking their knuckles.

S: He knew–That was the famous sisters who were cracking their knuckles, but he was–he knew that they were faking because he was a magician. They were using his tricks. Some of the–they were using the standard trickery of the escape artist magician culture to convince people that they were performing miracles. That's why he was angry.

P: He never went to a seance to contact his mother?

S: Never. That was Hollywood. Never. That's not part of the...

B: That was Tony Curtis, Perry. That was Tony Curtis.

S: That was Stony Curtis. [sic]

B: Stony Curtis.

(laughter)

S: But–And some thing with–when he died, he and his wife had that secret password and everything.

E: The Halloween message.

B: The rosebud.

S: The rosebud. Of course, Hollywood changed that, too, to make it seem like it actually came out. But, that was just another way, like a final way debunking the spiritualists. And, in fact, he was appointed as chairman of the committee to investigate spiritualists by Scientific American. This is back in the day when Scientific American really was the skeptical debunking organization. Now there's a dedicated skeptical movement and Scientific American is still closely allied with that tradition. In fact, they're they're the only popular science journal that has a regular skeptical column in it. But, back in the day of Houdini they were it. And they set about to debunk the spiritualists and Houdini was the one who showed them how to do it. He basically filled the same role at that time that James Randi does today. Randi's a magician. He knows–He got into this because he saw faith healers using the same tricks that he was learning about right out of the magician books and realized that they were using it to pretend–to bilk money from people and to pretend that they were performing miracles. It's often–often why magicians like Randi, Houdini, Penn and Teller, make very good skeptics. In fact, I just read an article, I'm not sure if one of you guys sent it to me, basically saying that magicians have a good–a well developed sense of human psychology. Of how people believe and how they deceive themselves. Or course they do. It's their stock and trade.

E: That's right.

Conclusion ()

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is a production of the New England Skeptical Society. For more information on this and other episodes see our website at www.theness.com.

Today I Learned

• Adolf Hitler probably had a severe form of Parkinson's disease that affected his thinking.
• Joan of Arc probably had seizures in her right temporal lobe causing religious visions and hyper-religiosity.
• Vincent Van Gogh probably cut off his ear in an attempt to silence it from a constant ringing he experienced.

References