But the movement needs movement, not just sedentary agitation*.

I spend a great deal of time thinking about how to get people more actively involved. Showing up at pub nights and lectures is one thing, but in terms of actually making a difference in the world it does little. All of us like-minded people show up in a room to complain about fraud, hoaxes, lies, hypocrites, and so on. We get quite passionate and emotional, even angry. But most of us do nothing to actually change things about which we complain. Oh, we do like to complain! We complain about the symptoms without bothering to address the causes.

Sure, we learn a lot. We love our guest speakers, blogs, podcasts, and magazines, but if we aren’t coupling that knowledge with educational outreach then aren’t we just bolstering the devoutness of the converted?

While there are many people out there doing a lot of good work, there seems to be a general apathy and lack of action in the science and skepticism movement. Why? Is it that we all have busy lives and are maybe a little lazy when it comes to ‘activism’? Is it because we think that what we’re up against is insurmountable? Because, as Mark Twain famously quoted, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”?

Even though the problems we’re up against may seem insurmountable, this isn’t about climbing a mountain to get to the other side; it’s about slowly chipping away at the mountain.

Even if one person is taught how to apply critical thinking in everyday life, then bravo us! If one person is saved the embarrassment and expense of being taken by a charlatan, then bravo us! If one person is saved from financial ruin by a ‘faith healer,’ then bravo us! If one person’s life is saved because they learned that Jenny McCarthy et al are full of crap, then bravo us! Isn’t that enough to warrant a little more action on our part?

Sure, showing up at a demonstration to tote signs and holler slogans may not be everyone’s idea of a good time. And not everyone can launch a campaign like that of Simon Singh and the Sense About Science folks — that takes immense time, energy, money, know-how, effort, and organization. It seems daunting. But there a hundreds of smaller, simpler ways in which people can get involved and make a real difference.

You can volunteer for your local science/rationalist/skeptical/humanist organization. You can write letters to the editor when newspapers or magazines get things wrong. You can write to politicians when they try to pass ridiculous laws granting, for instance, homeopaths the rights of medical doctors. You can spread the word — to friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and strangers via conversations, newspapers, blogs, radio stations, podcasts, and television — about things that the public should be aware of.

Here is a fuller, though not exhaustive, list of other ways that you can actually turn your sedentary agitation into purposeful action.

We can start slowly and start small, and over time we will chip away at the mountain of misinformation, the wall of woo, and make this world a more informed place.

To quote Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, who just celebrated Newark’s first murder-free calendar month since 1966, “Don’t let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something.”

* This term is also borrowed from Cory Booker.

That statement is false because laws of nature simply cannot be broken.

If it appears that someone or something is in contravention of the laws of nature, then there are really only two conclusions that can be drawn: either your observations and/or conclusions are faulty, or the law has been misinterpreted and needs to be thrown out or modified.

Probably the classic case of this would be the realisation in the 19th century that Isaac Newton may have been wrong. His math was holding up pretty well and nobody was about to overturn calculus, but his physics seemed to be on shaky ground. Here is a simple review of his three laws of motion:

An object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration (F=ma).

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

To illustrate how important a discovery this was, let’s look at how we have used it. Believe it or not, we can send people to the Moon, land them on it, and bring them back without going beyond the physics and math that Newton gave us over three hundred years ago! Notwithstanding many naysayers (and many of them should have known better), after Newton’s time, space travel ceased to be a strictly scientific problem and became one of engineering; the wooden ships of his day were not quite up to the task.

But when we explore such extremes as speed, time, and gravity, we find that Newton’s physics break down. New thinking is called for. Enter Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity, which in 1905 ushered in a new era of science. But Newton’s theories still apply for everyday events (if something as fantastic as a trip to the Moon can be categorised that way).

Now let’s get back to a little scientific larceny. Rather, let’s try, because that’s all that we can ever hope to do. You do not pay a price for breaking the laws of nature — you pay simply for trying. At best your ‘payment’ would be in wasted time and effort on a failed experiment, but such things are rarely fun. But let’s go for the extreme. And there will be blood!

Observe a Darwin Award nominee standing at the top of a cliff. He’s just taken the brown acid (bummer) and decides he’s an eagle. With one flying leap he launches himself into the air and finds out that the laws of nature are immutable. There are four forces working in the science of aerodynamics: lift, thrust, weight, and drag. The first two are what help you fly; the second two are what try to prevent it. In the case of our non-hero, simple biophysics tells us that the human body does not possess the muscular structure to give us sufficient thrust, our arms do not provide sufficient lift, and therefore our weight and drag will win out.

As our eagle wannabe leaps from the cliff his arms flap with furious futility but produce no discernible lift. The thrust is really only produced by the attraction of the Earth’s gravity well, which is directly below him. Lastly, drag and weight assert their rightful force and aid the downward acceleration. In other words, the subject of this drug-addled experiment does not fly, but plummets inexorably to his doom.

In this sad scenario no scientific laws have been broken, but no doubt a few bones have. In fact, all the way down to his untimely end he will be obeying the laws of aerodynamics to the letter; there is no way he can do anything else. No lift. No flight. He will then obey the laws that govern our biology as he exsanguinates on the beach and his brain (or a reasonable facsimile in this case) shuts down. Thus endeth the lesson.

An open and shut case, really. Human laws are subject to myriad interpretations and as society changes so do they. But the laws of nature are fixed; only our understanding of them changes as we discover more about the workings of the Universe.

As skeptics, we feel drawn to any cause, anywhere, where science and reason are under attack. Whether it’s government-abetted evolution denial in the southern United States, homeopathy mixing into mainstream culture in Britain, or fraudulent faith healers in Africa pushing fake AIDS cures, we use the Internet to inform and become informed about these issues.

Furthermore, we use the Internet to provide support to those who are personally affected by these issues and are in the trenches,” so to speak. It is that great ability to unite a relatively small, geographically diverse group into a loud, cohesive voice that is crucial to our success.

However, sometimes we may be guilty of farsightedness.

My introduction to the skeptical community only a few years ago was through the Internet, in particular the fabulous Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast and the Skepchick blog. Learning about the spread and influence of pseudoscience and the like captured my interest. While these blogs and podcasts are a great way to stay informed on topics of skeptical interest around the world, I realized that I was overlooking a lot of what was happening in my home town, Toronto, and Canada in general.

The last couple of years have seen gigantic growth in the size and influence of alternative medicine, with clinics and practitioners popping up everywhere and largely going unchallenged. As such, public perception has shifted and many people’s initial impression may be that there is validity to these practices, despite the fact that most of these modalities run the gamut from simply being unsupported by evidence to complete scientific implausibility.

Alternative medicine has also pervaded into the media, with daily and weekly papers running alt-health columns and, in my own community, a local television network even producing a show hosted by a homeopath who gives quack advice to people who may have legitimate medical concerns!

I have also documented a group calling itself Vote Fluoride Out that is gearing up to organize a campaign to stop the public health measure of controlled fluoridation of Toronto drinking water. Their information and arguments are steeped in pseudoscience, and they’re getting support from an unlikely local source (more on that soon).

As an example if acting local, take the New England Skeptical Society (NESS), which has done some great work investigating ghost hunters, particularly in New England. They took great advantage of their proximity and were able to actually meet Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are considered the progenitors of the ghost-hunting community. By taking part in some of their ‘ghost tours,’ NESS was able to do some great primary research and become local experts.

This is an example of how focusing on local issues will allow skeptics to become valuable information resources, not only for the skeptical community, but for our fellow citizens who may be oblivious to where the science stands on topics they encounter in their daily lives.

I hope that we, as Canadian skeptics, can turn more of our attention to what’s going on in our own backyard, as well as continue to stay informed about and support skeptical issues around the world.

In the next issue: The case for street-level skepticism.

http://www.news3news.com/wpo4.html

http://www.channel7daily.com/

You may notice that every link you click on takes you to the same product page, regardless of whether you want to check the latest hockey scores or the local weather. This is known as a microsite or landing page. It’s a pretty common practice to have ads pointing to such pages so that companies can market their products in a more enticing way than a puny banner ad allows. Most of the time landing pages present clearly branded messaging so you know you have clicked on the correct ad.

In the case of the examples above, the landing pages offer testimonials for products that shouldn’t exist yet and try to convince visitors to click on links to “free trials.” Clicking on these links will result in the actual product page. And then the fun begins.

The site that the faux news article takes you to (http://www.antioxwine.com), actually claims in the fine print on the Terms and Conditions page that the product it is selling may do nothing for you at all (although they have complete faith in it):

“D. We do not warrant or represent that Our Products will provide You with any particular benefits, or that Your results will match those of others who consume Our Products. Individual results will vary from person to person.”

The product page is designed very cleverly and is completely legal. It has an almost hypnotic way of advertising one product while selling visitors another by confusing them with two completely different but similar messages. It talks about Resveratrol and ResVmax, never once claiming that Resveratrol is present in ResVmax. Their actual claim is: “One pill = approx. 1000 glasses of wine,” without actually disclosing the exact ingredient they’re pumping you with at 1000 times a regular dose. There is actually no nutritional information on the site at all.

When buyers place their order they must provide their phone number, mailing address, and e-mail address. The purveyors now have enough information to pummel you with unwanted outreach. Again, in the Terms and Conditions they claim (in legalese) that they will send your information to third-party companies and offer you no opt-out preference. Most likely, they’re compiling a list of gullible people and selling it to the highest bidder to use in shady marketing schemes. If you want a lot more spam, junk mail, and intrusive phone calls, then simply buy this product!

The “free trial” will cost you a paltry $3.95 for shipping and handling, but they really start price-gouging with their opt-out ordering plan. The extremely confusing ordering policy automatically charges CAD$240 per month if you don’t contact them within 15 days of placing your free trial order.

This company is based in England, so if the order takes 16 days to arrive, you will automatically be charged $240. If you don’t contact them to cancel the order, they will continue to charge you every month.

This is a common scam, but it is worth reminding folks to always read the fine print!

The treatment most commonly associated with this issue is the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR). The furor began in 1998 after an unfortunate set of circumstances which led the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, to publish an article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. I say ‘article’ rather than ‘research’ because the study may have had a (literally) fatal flaw – Dr. Wakefield was doing a study that was paid for by a group of parents of autistic children. These parents were looking for evidence that would aid them in a lawsuit against the makers of the MMR vaccine, which they were convinced had caused their children’s autism.

Immunization rates in Britain plummeted as a result of the article, with 25% of children not receiving the medication. A resurgence in the infection rates of these diseases followed, and in March 2006 a 13-year-old boy became the first person to die of measles in the UK in 14 years.

Since that time many of Wakefield’s collaborators have retracted their conclusions with a signed statement. The editor of The Lancet has said he never would have published the article if Wakefield’s conflict of interest had been known to him. As a result, vaccination rates in Britain have gone up to 85%. However, that is still lower than the 95% recommended by authorities as the minimum needed for herd immunity to keep those diseases at bay.

One would think that the purveyors and promoters of naturopathic medicine would be the last to accept any findings that the MMR vaccine is safe, but as skeptics we must keep an open mind to everything, and that includes giving credit where credit is due. The following can found on the web page of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) after searching “vaccine”:

Association of autistic spectrum disorder and the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: a systematic review.

Citation:

Wilson K, Mills E, Ross C, McGowan J, Jadad A. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med, 2003;157(7):628-34.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the evidence for and against the existence of an association between autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

DESIGN: We conducted a systematic review of the medical literature to identify all controlled epidemiological articles examining for an association between ASD and the MMR vaccine. We extracted data from the articles on the characteristics and objectives of the study as well as evidence of an association.

RESULTS: Twelve articles met the inclusion criteria. One study found no difference in the rates of ASD and the MMR vaccine in children who were vaccinated and those who were not. Six studies examined for evidence of an increase in ASD associated with an increase in the MMR vaccine coverage, none of which showed evidence of an association. Four studies examined if a variant form of ASD was associated with the MMR vaccine, none of which showed evidence of an association. Eight studies attempted to determine if there was a temporal association between developing ASD and receiving the MMR vaccine. Of these, 1 study identified an increase in parental concern in the 6-month period following vaccination with MMR in one of its analyses. The results of all other studies showed no association between ASD and the MMR vaccine.

CONCLUSIONS: The current literature does not suggest an association between ASD and the MMR vaccine; however, limited epidemiological evidence exists to rule out a link between a rare variant form of ASD and the MMR vaccine. Given the real risks of not vaccinating and that the risks and existence of variant ASD remain theoretical, current policies should continue to advocate the use of the MMR vaccine.

This is a direct quotation from the article cited, so it doesn’t represent anything original on the part of the CCNM. It is, however, a rather powerful statement when you consider who is reprinting it. We all enjoy the odd gotcha” moment, so when someone tells you that their favourite alt-med de jour is against vaccinating children, you can refer them to the CCNM and demonstrate that even they don’t buy it.

But modern skepticism demands that we question what we are asked to believe or to practice. It demands we base our beliefs and practices on the best available evidence, and be prepared to give these up when they are shown to be unsupported or are surpassed by better supported alternatives. In short, it considers the world scientifically.

Critical inquiry can be applied to all matters of life from the most mundane (what brand of detergent should I buy?) to the most profound (is there a purpose to life?). In practice however the skeptical movement has focused on paranormal claims and pseudoscience. This is what modern skeptics have become best known for dealing with.

To get an idea of what modern skepticism is about, let’s look at some of the interesting issues skeptics have addressed. The subjects that skeptics have investigated can be divided into two main groups:

A. PARANORMAL BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

Paranormal means “beside the normal” or “parallel to the normal reality”. It includes phenomena that are supposedly supernatural and are held to be unexplained by science — sometimes even unexplainable by science. Examples, in no particular order:

Ghosts • Astrology • Fortune telling • Psychics • Faith healing • Dowsing • Communication with the dead • Crystals • Spoon bending • Channelling • Past lives • UFOs • Alien abductions • Clairvoyance • Auras • Telekinesis • Bermuda Triangle • Weeping statues • Shroud of Turin • Nostradamus • Near-death experiences • Astral projection • Pyramid Power • Bible Code • Effect of the full moon • Prophecies • Tarot cards • Psychic detectives • Mediums • I Ching • Fairies • Atlantis • Palm reading • Crop circles • Psychic surgery….

B. PSEUDOSCIENCE

“Pseudo” means fake, so this category is about fake science — things that have been given an aura of scientific legitimacy but nonetheless are unscientific, illogical, or not supported by the evidence:

Parapsychology • Homeopathy • Naturopathy • Iridology • Creationism • Cryptozoology (Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Nessie) • Recovered memory • Facilitated communication • Chiropractic • Aromatherapy • Velikovsky • Perpetual motion machines • Graphology • Ancient astronauts • Spontaneous human combustion • Biorhythms • Iridology • Therapeutic touch • Face on Mars • Moon landing myth • Reflexology….

Some of these items, such as UFO claims and Nessie sightings, can straddle both categories, depending on how they are being put forward. Some UFO buffs, for example, claim that the unidentified flying objects are extraterrestrials visiting earth in spaceships, which may be a dubious claim but is at least scientifically possible and empirically verifiable, while others hold that UFOs are psychic manifestations, which puts them in the paranormal camp.

Then there are some things that do not easily fall into either the paranormal or pseudoscience camp.

C. GREY AREAS

In this miscellaneous category we can lump phenomena that are not necessarily paranormal or pseudoscientific but have been scrutinized by skeptics, as well as issues about which skeptics as a group are undecided whether they should come under scientific examination. Examples:

New science • Religious claims • Cults • Hypnosis • Assassination conspiracies • Psychoanalysis • Psychotherapeutic drugs • Political claims • Effects of prayer • Holocaust denial • Racism • Cold fusion • Placebo effects • Life after death • Morality….

According to some skeptics, such as myself, every belief or practice faced by human beings can and should be subjected to critical scrutiny. Other skeptics make exceptions for experiences that they consider outside the empirical sphere, such as religious experiences or moral questions.

In either case, we generally restrict our inquiry to claims that are testable. It is difficult to see, for example, how we could test the hypothesis that a Supreme Being exists, although we can certainly examine evidence that is put forward to support the claims for the existence of a god.

Whether or not we can find conclusive evidence for or against all claims, we can at least seek whatever evidence is available to help inform our decision making. That’s the skeptical approach.

Since the founding of CSICOP in 1976, and with the growing number of localized skeptical groups, the skeptic finds more ways to state his or her case. The broadcast and print media, along with other forums, provide more opportunities for us to be heard. For some of these occasions, we have the luxury of carefully planning and crafting our response, but most of the time we have to formulate our response on the spot. Regardless of the circumstance, the critic’s task, if it is to be carried out properly, is both challenging and loaded with unanticipated hazards.

Many well-intentioned critics have jumped into the fray without carefully thinking through the various implications of their statements. They have sometimes displayed more emotion than logic, made sweeping charges beyond what they reasonably support, failed to adequately document their assertions, and, in general, have failed to do the homework necessary to make their challenges credible.

Such ill-considered criticism can be counter-productive for the cause of serious skepticism. The author of such criticism may fail to achieve the desired effect, may lose credibility, and may even become vulnerable to lawsuits. However, the unfavorable effects have consequences beyond the individual critic, and the entire cause of skepticism suffers as a result. Even when the individual critic takes pains to assert that he or she is expressing his or her own personal opinion, the public associates the assertions with all critics.
During CSICOP’s first decade of existence, members of the Executive Council often found themselves devoting most of their available time to damage control—precipitated by the careless remarks of a fellow skeptic—instead of toward the common cause of explaining the skeptical agenda.

Unfortunately, at this time, there are no courses on the proper way to criticize paranormal claims. So far as I know, no manuals or books of rules are currently available to guide us. Until such courses and guide books come into being, what can we do to ensure that our criticisms are both effective and responsible?

I would be irresponsible if I told you I had an easy solution. The problem is complicated, and there are no quick fixes, but I do believe we all could improve our contributions to responsible criticism by keeping a few principles always in mind.

We can make enormous improvements in our collective and individual efforts by simply trying to adhere to those standards that we profess to admire and that we believe that many peddlers of the paranormal violate. If we envision ourselves as the champions of rationality, science, and objectivity, then we ought to display these very same qualities in our criticism. Just by trying to speak and write in the spirit of precision, science, logic, and rationality—those attributes we supposedly admire—we would raise the quality of our critiques by at least one order of magnitude.

The failure to consistently live up to these standards exposes us to a number of hazards. We can find ourselves going beyond the facts at hand. We may fail to communicate exactly what we intended. We can confuse the public as to what skeptics are trying to achieve. We can unwittingly put paranormal proponents in the position of underdogs and create sympathy for them, and, as I already mentioned, we can make the task much more difficult for the other skeptics.

What, then, can skeptics do to upgrade the quality of their criticism? What follows are just a few suggestions. I hope they will stimulate further thought and discussion.

1. Be prepared.

Good criticism is a skill that requires practice, work, and level-headedness. Your response to a sudden challenge is much more likely to be appropriate if you have already anticipated similar challenges. Try to prepare in advance effective and short answers to those questions you are most likely to be asked. Be ready to answer why skeptical activity is important, why people should listen to your views, why false beliefs can be harmful, and many similar questions that invariably are raised. A useful project would be to compile a list of the most frequently occurring questions along with possible answers.

Whenever possible, try your ideas out on friends and “enemies” before offering them in the public arena. An effective exercise is to rehearse your arguments with fellow skeptics. Some of you can take the role of the psychic claimants, while others play the role of critics. Also, for more general preparation, read books on critical thinking, effective writing, and argumentation.

2. Clarify your objectives.

Before you try to cope with a paranormal claim, ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to release pent-up resentment? Are you trying to belittle your opponent? Are you trying to gain publicity for your viewpoint? Do you want to demonstrate that the claim lacks reasonable justification? Do you hope to educate the public about what constitutes adequate evidence? Often our objectives, upon examination, turn out to be mixed. Also, especially when we act impulsively, some of our objectives conflict with one another.

The difference between short-term and long-term objectives can be especially important. Most skeptics, I believe, would agree that our long-term goal is to educate the public so that it can more effectively cope with various claims. Sometimes this long-range goal is sacrificed because of the desire to expose or debunk a current claim.

Part of clarifying our objectives is to decide who our audience is. Hard-nosed, strident attacks on paranormal claims rarely change opinions, but they do stroke the egos of those who are already skeptics. Arguments that may persuade the readers of the National Enquirer may offend academics and important opinion-makers.

Try to make it clear that you are attacking the claim and not the claimant. Avoid, at all costs, creating the impression that you are trying to interfere with someone’s civil liberties. Do not try to get someone fired from his or her job. Do not try to have courses dropped or otherwise be put in the position of advocating censorship. Being for rationality and reason should not force us into the position of seeming to be against academic freedom and civil liberties.

3. Do your homework.

Again, this goes hand in hand with the advice about being prepared. Whenever possible, you should not try to counter a specific paranormal claim without getting as many of the relevant facts as possible. Along the way, you should carefully document your sources. Do not depend upon a report in the media either for what is being claimed or for facts relevant to that claim. Try to get the specifics of the claim directly from the claimant.

4. Do not go beyond your level of competence.

No one, especially in our times, can credibly claim to be an expert in all subjects. Whenever possible, you should consult appropriate experts. We, understandably, are highly critical of paranormal claimants who make assertions that are obviously beyond their competence. We should be just as demanding on ourselves. A critic’s worst sin is to go beyond the facts and the available evidence.
In this regard, always ask yourself if you really have something to say. Sometimes it is better to remain silent than to jump into an argument that involves aspects that are beyond your present competence. When it is appropriate, do not be afraid to say “I don’t know.”

5. Let the facts speak for themselves.

If you have done your homework and have collected an adequate supply of facts, the audience rarely will need your help in reaching an appropriate conclusion. Indeed, your case is made stronger if the audience is allowed to draw its own conclusions from the facts. Say that Madame X claims to have psychically located Mrs. A’s missing daughter and you have obtained a statement from the police to the effect that her contributions did not help. Under these circumstances, it can be counter-productive to assert that Madame X lied about her contribution, or that her claim was “fraudulent.” For one thing, Madame X may sincerely, if mistakenly, believe that her contributions did in fact help. In addition, some listeners may be offended by the tone of your criticism and become sympathetic to Madame X. However, if you simply report what Madame X claimed, along with the response of the police, you not only are sticking to the facts, but your listeners will more likely come to the appropriate conclusion.

6. Be precise.

Good criticism requires precision and care in the use of language. Because, in challenging psychic claims, we are appealing to objectivity and fairness, we have a special obligation to be as honest and accurate in our own statements as possible. We should take special pains to avoid making assertions about paranormal claims that cannot be backed up with hard evidence. We should be especially careful, in this regard, when being interviewed by the media. Every effort should be made to ensure that the media understand precisely what we are and are not saying.

7. Use the principle of charity.

I know that many of my fellow critics will find this principle to be unpalatable. To some, paranormalists are the “enemy,” and it seems inconsistent to lean over backward to give them the benefit of the doubt, but being charitable to paranormal claims is simply the other side of being honest and fair. The principle of charity implies that, whenever there is doubt or ambiguity about a paranormal claim, we should try to resolve the ambiguity in favor of the claimant until we acquire strong reasons for not doing so. In this respect, we should carefully distinguish between being wrong and being dishonest. We often challenge the accuracy or the validity of a given paranormal claim, but rarely are we in a position to know if the claimant is deliberately lying or is self-deceived. Furthermore, we often have a choice in how to interpret or represent an opponent’s arguments. The principle tells us to convey the opponent’s position in a fair, objective, and non-emotional manner.

8. Avoid loaded words and sensationalism.

All these principles are interrelated. The ones previously stated imply that we should avoid using loaded and prejudicial words in our criticisms. We should also try to avoid sensationalism. If the proponents happen to resort to emotionally laden terms and sensationalism, we should avoid stooping to their level. We should not respond in kind.

This is not a matter of simply turning the other cheek. We want to gain credibility for our cause. In the short run, emotional charges and sensationalistic challenges might garner quick publicity, but most of us see our mission as a long-term effort. We would like to persuade the media and the public that we have a serious and important message to get across, and we would like to earn their trust as a credible and reliable resource. Such a task requires always keeping in mind the scientific principles and standards of rationality and integrity that we would like to make universal.

The top two in my experience are (1) “Skeptics don’t believe anything” and (2) “Skeptics think they know everything”. Strangely, these charges often come from the same sources.

The second charge, that we think we know everything, is often put in different words — that we are close-minded to other points of view. That we think our philosophy and methods have provided all the answers.

Well, let me make a tiny confession. We are close-minded at times. We do display blind faith in our methods at times. Sometimes we do think we know it all.

But when we act like this, we are not being very good skeptics. We are human and fallible and sometimes we get carried away. But our skepticism does not support this kind of mentality.

For there is a single answer to both misconceptions. Modern skepticism of the kind that Ontario Skeptics Society for Critical Inquiry (OSSCI) is based on is not about having a set of beliefs. There is no creed or platform or party line that one must swear allegiance to in order to be a skeptic. There is only a method. And that method is one of doubting and of evaluating evidence, of critically examining whatever are put forward as beliefs to believe or practices to practise.

Believers all

Many skeptics do indeed feel there is sufficient evidence and reason to justify believing in a wide variety of things. I doubt there is a single skeptic who does not believe in hundreds of things. You’ll find skeptics who believe in God while others are atheists. You’ll find skeptics who believe the universe is teeming with extraterrestrial life and you’ll find a few like me who are doubtful there is much other technologically advanced life in the universe. You’ll find a variety of political beliefs and diverse opinions on social issues held by individuals in OSSCI.

There are also many other mundane beliefs that people need to hold to get through every day. We believe gravity will continue to operate, our shoes are where we left them when we took them off last night, and our loved ones have not been replaced by ingeniously devised identical cyborgs. Some of us even hold such strange beliefs as that the Toronto Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup this year (as we have believed for many years past).

Now, it’s true you won’t find many skeptics who believe that aliens created crop circles, that Bigfoot exists, that tumours are cured by psychic surgery, or that John Edward really relays messages from the dead.

But the reason why you won’t find skeptics believing these is not that these beliefs are prohibited by some OSSCI central committee. Rather it is because there is a great deal of hard evidence and reason discrediting those beliefs, which skeptics have considered. If someone has some new evidence or reasons for supporting those beliefs or practices, then we would love to see it and, who knows, it might convince the skeptics.

You see, while modern skepticism does not entail any particular beliefs, it is an approach that can and does lead to beliefs. You might say there is this one requirement for membership in OSSCI, although “requirement” is perhaps too strong a word: what skeptics expect of each other is that they keep open minds and are prepared to consider evidence for and against.

The key words in our organization’s name are perhaps “Critical Inquiry”, which were added to take the emphasis away from “Skeptics” which has negative connotations to many people.

Skeptical of skeptics

This brings me to a third misconception or accusation I keep hearing. People ask, “Ah, but are you skeptical of skepticism?” Are we skeptical of the scientific method itself?

The answer is right in our Mission Statement. The second-last paragraph states baldly, that we are “committed to the constant evaluation of the scientific process as a method for establishing truth”.

How, you may ask, can we do this and then still support the use of the scientific method for evaluating claims of the paranormal or pseudoscience?

I think the solution to this seeming paradox is also in our Mission Statement. It is hinted at it in the quotation from Carl Sagan which accompanies the statement:

There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

The scientific method, the approach of open-minded skepticism, is the best, most powerful, most reliable tool available. Nothing else has been so effective. Nothing has brought humanity so much understanding of the world or helped us advance as far. However, if there is something defective about this approach, we want to know, so we may improve our work. Or, even better, if there is a more effective method, again we’d love to hear about it.

I might point out how difficult this would be however. For to prove another method is more effective than science and skepticism, one would have to present a comparison of results. One would have to open one’s mind to new hypotheses, set up tests, check and double-check the test for fairness, and determine which produces the best results.

And what do you call that process?

Right, it’s science. It’s the skeptical approach and the scientific method.

Premises regarding skepticism:
A skeptic bases belief upon evidence and reason. He or she uses critical inquiry—the scientific method—to examine claimed phenomena. A skeptic holds beliefs provisionally, rather than absolutely, accepting that new evidence and reason may be found to require a revision in beliefs.

Premises regarding theism:
Belief in a god—theism—is belief in an absolute. Belief in god is also usually considered a matter of faith, rather than of the evaluation of evidence.

Conclusion:
A skeptic cannot be a theist.

Despite this logic however, many skeptics are also believers in God. Many are atheists, but not all.

How can this be so? Are the believing skeptics just bad skeptics? Or are we missing something in the logic that seems to lead to the equation skepticism = atheism?

To find an answer to this perplexing mystery, let’s look, as good skeptics do, at the evidence and reasoning concerning belief in God. We’ll start with the reasoning.

Arguments for God

Over the centuries, numerous argument have been put forward both for and against the existence of God.  Here are a few of the standard pro-God arguments:

• The cosmological argument (the first-cause argument)
• The teleological argument (the argument from design)
• The ontological arguments (arguments from being)
• The argument from perfection
• The argument from authority
• The argument from the existence of morality
• The argument from miracles
• Divine revelation
• The will to believe

Some of these arguments have had their day and have disappeared.

Others have changed their form over the years. The teleological argument we know better today as the argument from design. It holds that the world seems too well designed for having been a chance event—a superior intelligence must have designed it. This was once perceived as a very strong argument, but in the past two centuries it has been blunted by theories of biological and cosmological evolution which show that natural processes can be pretty good designers too. The argument has had to become more sophisticated in the past century and survives in two forms. On one hand, some scientifically minded believers have pointed to the fine balance of forces and precisely accurate natural laws that allow life to exist in the universe as evidence of God’s handiwork. On the other hand, we have the Intelligent Design people arguing that natural selkection  may have created some things but couldn’t have created everything we see in biology, such as the human eye, and so God must have had a hand in our creation.

All of these pro-God arguments though have been debated endlessly over the years. They all have their atheistic answers, and their counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, and so on.

What has become clear though is that none of these arguments clearly carry the day. There does not seem to be an irrefutable logical case to be made for the existence of God.

Yet billions of people—including lots of very smart, logical people—have believed and continue to believe in God.

Obviously, it is not the logical arguments that convinced most of them. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I used to be a sinner, but once I heard the ontological argument, I was saved”?

Perhaps a few people have been so affected. But we can probably agree it usually doesn’t work that way. It seems unlikely to account for most believers.
These theistic arguments have been used, I submit, mainly to bolster the belief of those who already believed, or as part of the general intellectual superstructure that supports a community with an existing religious orientation.

Arguments against God

Now let’s look at some the standard arguments on the other side, the atheist side, to see if there are any knock-out arguments that compel disbelief in the existence of God:

• The problem of evil
• The problem of human suffering
• The argument from poor design
• The incompatibility of God’s attributes
• The failure of prophecies
• Scientific explanation
• Psychological explanation
• Sociological explanation

A notable feature of most such arguments is that they are generally negative. Many of them are aimed at countering already stated arguments in favour of God’s existence. Or they are trying to argue against particular kinds of gods, particular characteristics of God, or particular claims for Gods. Or they are trying to explain why people believe in God, as if that explanation invalidates the belief itself.

Again, looking over all these arguments, I seriously doubt many people have had their minds changed by them. For one thing, each of these arguments has a strong answer from the theist side, answers that even an atheist could guess at.

In my experience, these are the kinds of arguments that atheists tell each other. Atheists go on about how ridiculous it is to believe a loving God would allow children to die of horrible diseases. They rant about how both sides in wars claim God is on their side. They deride superstition and the power of churches.

But they have little success in using these points to win over believers. Rarely have I heard of a believer being turned to atheism by argument alone. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I used to go to church and worship God, but once I heard the scientific explanation of how the universe evolved from the Big Bang, I became an atheist”?

We do occasionally witness people falling away from faith because of personal disillusionment—say, for example, after the death of a child leads them to question “How could a loving god have allowed this?”. But this is usually due to a personal situation having an emotional impact on them, rather than due to the rational argument on its own changing their minds.

The never-ending story

In summary, both sides have heard all the arguments. Both sides have their answers. And almost no one is convinced to switch by the arguments alone.

I’m not saying rational arguments cannot be effective under the right circumstances. At certain historical junctures or at certain points in peoples’ lives, they may be looking for a new way to see the world. And, over time, like water dripping on a rock, some rational arguments may have a cumulative effect. But it’s usually not the rational argument itself that does all the work of sudden conversion in the examples I’ve seen.

But why is this? Why don’t these rational arguments convince people?

There are emotional, logical, psychological and sociological reasons you could put forward why reason does not prevail. But I’d like to point out another factor. One of the main reasons why logical arguments don’t work may be that the two camps—the believers and the non-believers—approach them with entirely different points of reference.

Consider an argument that is used on both sides, the First Cause argument. It often goes something like this.

Theist: If there’s no God, then what created the world? Everything must have some cause.
Atheist: But if everything has a cause and God created the world, then what caused God?
Theist: God is eternal. He has no cause.
Atheist: If God can be eternal, then the world can be eternal too. The universe can have no ultimate cause. Therefore there is no need for God as the first cause.

And so the atheists have won the debate.

Or so they think. For the funny thing is, the theists go away from this kind of argument thinking that they’ve won.

The believers don’t conceive of God as being part of everything that is the world. They see God as both outside and enveloping the world—transcending the world. So when they say everything has a cause, they don’t mean to include God in that “everything”. God is beyond causation. When you say to them that God too must have a cause, that is obviously wrong to them. And when you say the world could exist without a cause, that too is obvious nonsense. In their minds they’ve forced the atheist to retreat to a ridiculous position and thus shown atheism to be nonsensical.

Now to atheists, it seems like special pleading to say God is not part of everything that’s been created. “Everything” means EVERYTHING. When you say everything has a cause, you can’t except God, or whatever you want, from that rule. You can’t say, “God created everything but God was not created.”

But is it really so crazy to do so?

The theist’s statement is reminiscent of various paradoxes that philosophy and mathematics have had to deal with. You may have heard of the liar’s paradox or the paradox of the set that includes all sets that are not members of themselves. Another version is Bertrand Russell’s famous barber’s paradox which goes like this: A town barber puts a sign in his window boasting, “I shave all the men, and no others, who do not shave themselves.” Does the barber shave himself?

These really are difficult puzzles to sort out and have been argued about for centuries. The most widely accepted solution today, usually expressed in terms of set theory, seems to be that we cannot make such statements and expect to be able to apply them to everything. We cannot create the set of “all the men who do not shave themselves and are shaved by the barber” and then see whether the barber fits into it. Rather a set is built by grouping together certain things and then seeing what defines them as belonging to the set. This way you would never end up with such a self-contradictory set.

Returning to our theist-atheist debate, at first glance it seems that the statement “God created everything but God was not created” is a similar kind of paradox outlawed by modern set theory. One could not create a set by grouping items together and then finding the group consists of “everything and not God”. But sophisticated true believers need not be fazed by this. They can say that such a group is exactly what we have found. The modern notion of set theory could be used to support, not disprove, their claim. For we find ourselves in the world as it is, a world of everything and God. So what if this offends ultra-rationalists?

Another tact they may point out is that supposedly paradoxical statements do not create such problems in everyday life. If someone in real life (outside of Philosophy classes, that is) were to confess to me “Everything I say is a lie”, I would immediately realize they did not include that very statement in their claim. If I saw in real life such a barber’s sign as in Russell paradox, my rational world would not be rocked, but instead I’d assume that he was exempting himself from the rule. (Or that the barber was a woman, of course). Similarly when the theist says, “God created everything”, God is being excepted. God is being excepted because He is different from everything else in the universe. He is beyond natural causation.

It might also be pointed out that the believers have a slight advantage over the non-believers in resolving the first-cause debate. If there is a uncaused first cause of our world, wouldn’t it more likely be something that is very different in nature from the things in our world. If there must be an uncaused cause, would it more likely be something natural or something outside our normal reality?

Actually I would still vote for something natural, but I can see why human intuitions would favour the extra-natural solution.

The atheists cannot apply the same logic to the universe creating itself in the First Cause argument, as theists can with God creating himself, since atheists (at least the ones we are concerned about here) seek only natural causes and cannot assign characteristics beyond our rationality to the universe, as theists can with God.

You may or may not balk at this reasoning—and I don’t entirely accept it myself—but at least it shows how very problematic rational arguments can become when they deal with cosmic questions such as “how did everything begin?”, “how could something come out of nothing?”, and so on.

In any case, after the First Cause argument takes place, neither the believer nor the non-believer has convinced the other that there is or is not a God. Each is left with showing only that their side is possibly right. Neither side has demonstrated that its arguments eliminate the opponent’s position.

There are no knock-out punches. Both sides come away with thinking they’re right, or at least they could be right.

Life in the Matrix

Skeptics however rely not only on logic but also on empirical research. What we see, hear, smell, touch and taste—either directly or indirectly with instruments. In a word: evidence.

However, on the question of the existence of God, there is no evidence either way. This lack of evidence is actually the atheist’s strongest asset.

The French mathematician and astronomer Laplace is supposed to have once shown Napoleon his treatise on celestial mechanics. Napoleon noted to Laplace that in all the wheeling of planets and moons and suns, Laplace hadn’t mentioned the role of God. Laplace’s reply: “I have no need for that hypothesis.”

After all is said about God and religion and first causes and evil and morality, the bottom line is that we do not need the concept of God for any immediate practical purpose. We certainly do not need it for science at this time.

“We have no need for that hypothesis” is a perfect skeptical position that we apply to all kinds of other claimed phenomena. I have seen no convincing evidence that the Loch Ness monster exists, so I don’t believe in the Loch Ness monster. There is no evidence that aliens have abducted my neighbours, so I don’t believe my neighbours are being beamed up by ETs. Lack of evidence, plus lack of convincing argument either pro and con, should by default result in a lack of belief.

There are several variations on this position in science and philosophy, not just as applied to the existence of God but as applied to all sorts of hypotheses or claimed phenomena.

• Most people know Occam’s Razor as “the simplest answer is usually the right one”. It is also called the principle of parsimony and is better expressed as “the simplest explanation that covers all the evidence is the one that should be adopted”. The original formulation of this famous rule is that one should not multiply entities needlessly. Applying this to God, we find there is no need to introduce the entity God as this entity is not needed to explain anything. We can explain the world more simply without God, therefore we do not need God in our explanation for the world.

• “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is the famous maxim that skeptics cite. If you are presented with an extraordinary claim, according to this rule of thumb, you should demand clear evidence supporting it before you accept it. The existence of a supernatural being like God would be extraordinary some people think, so we should require very good evidence before believing such a thing. Since there is no such evidence, we should

• Logical positivism and verificationism hold that only statements that are verifiable by appeal to either experience or reason are meaningful and therefore worthy of consideration. No statement about the existence of God can be verified by experience or reason and therefore it is a meaningless issue.

• Falsifiability, usually associated with philosopher Karl Popper, says only claims that can in principle be found false are scientific. A theory like “Life is a dream” may be interesting but it’s not scientific because there is no way it can be proven that life is not a dream. You could say the same of the claim “There is a God”. No way to disprove it, so not a scientific issue.

But note that something else is in common to all these guidelines, which would purportedly rule out questions of God’s existence; they do not determine ultimate truth or reality. These are rules of thumb to show the likely most successful way to go about considering various claims. The guidelines do not prove anything on their own.

For instance, extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence to support them do sometimes turn out to be valid after all. Think of such great scientific advances as the Copernican system of the planets revolving about the sun, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Einstein’s theories of relativity. These ideas all once seemed extraordinary, but in the years before the extraordinary evidence was found to support these extraordinary claims, these claims were still true, were they not? Two thousand years before Copernicus, a few individuals theorized that the earth went around the sun. They were right, of course, despite the lack of evidence to support them at the time.

Or consider string theory, the latest set of ideas being proposed to succeed relativity and quantum mechanics as the most profound explanation of how our universe works. So far there is no known test to determine whether string theory is valid. In fact—and this is disturbing—string theory may be in principle incapable of empirical confirmation. It may be impossible to test this idea about the basic structure of our physical world (although string theorists argue about this).

String theory may not only bypass the “extraordinary evidence” rule, but applying the standards of logical positivism, verificationism and falsifiability may also indicate it is meaningless or unscientific. Yet string theory must be either right or wrong. So these guidelines do not determine what is really true about the world—in this case, perhaps missing some very basic and far-reaching truths about the world.

Think of all the other things most of us believe that would not pass these tests of evidence and reason. That our loved ones love us. That it is wrong to murder our loved ones. That our loved ones, or anyone else for that matter, have minds. These are assumptions we all operate on every day, yet they have been notoriously difficult to prove by argument or evidence for several millennia.

We don’t even have a test to determine that we are not dreaming right this instant. We don’t have a test to determine our entire lives have not been illusory. Yet we tend to think that we are awake and our lives are meaningful, despite the lack of empirical evidence one way or the other.

So if science cannot present evidence for its theories about the basis of our universe’s existence and if we cannot even test the basic things we take for granted as being true every day, is it fair to demand these kind of proofs about a religion’s hypothesis about what it also considers a basic fact of our existence—namely, God as creator?

Saying we don’t need God as an hypothesis, or saying there is no evidence for His existence, is not the same as saying there is no God.

99-percent atheists

Some rational theists say the existence of God does have evidence or reason on its side, . It has passed some public or personal test for them. It is meaningful to them on some level to talk of God’s existence. God is an hypothesis they think they do need in their understanding of how the world works.

In this short space I’m not about to argue over their evidence. The fact is that, rightly or wrongly, some skeptical theists hold that such evidence exists. And this is all anyone needs to be a skeptic—to hold beliefs on the basis of evidence and reason.

Skepticism is not a set of beliefs that must be held or actions that must be taken. Skepticism is a method. Like science, it’s a time-proven approach to considering beliefs and practices. It gives people the tools to decide for themselves what to believe or not to believe, what to do or not to do.

Here’s an analogy.

Suppose someone asks you to explain what democracy in Canada means. A possible answer you might give is “Well, in Canada we get to choose who runs our government.” Another answer is, “Every few years in Canada we elect Liberals or Conservatives to form the government”.

Both of these answers may be true. But one is about the process—the method—the democratic election. The other is about a possible result of that method. For some people the democratic process leads them to certain conclusions and they vote for a particular party.

With skepticism, our method based on evidence and reason considers questions of ghosts, aliens, alternative medicine, miracles, gods, etc. Our goal is not to debunk all these claims but to consider the evidence for them. Some people using our methods come to hold very confident views on these issues. Most, if not all, of us have come to deny the existence of ghosts, for instance. Many of us have also come to disbelieve, or be confirmed in our disbelief, in gods. Others are confirmed in their theistic beliefs. But what binds us all as skeptics is the method, our acceptance of evidence and reason as an approach to all claims.

To ask “why aren’t all skeptical people atheists?” is like asking “Why aren’t all democratic people Liberals?”

As an atheist I’m willing to stay up all night arguing with fellow skeptics that the evidence and reason should lead them to disbelieve in God. But I know religious skeptics who would stay up all night to argue their side on the basis of evidence and reason too.

As a skeptic I am also aware of the inconclusiveness of arguments on both sides, as already discussed here. I am also aware of the obligation of skeptics to always keep an open mind for new evidence or reason.

For these reasons I do not consider myself a 100-percent atheist. I’m a 99-percent atheist.

Maybe 99.5 or 99.99999 percent.

(I have no way of measuring this accurately of course. Just use whatever figure you think indicates great confidence in atheism while keeping a tiny part of the mind open for potential contrary information.)

This is no different from other positions we skeptics hold on all sorts of extraordinary claims.

We’re pretty sure there is no Loch Ness monster since there is no persuasive evidence and there is lots of inductive reasoning that would make it unlikely such a creature of that size could survive in the loch. So I’m 99 percent sure (maybe 99.5 or 99.999 percent) there is no such animal. If they drain the entire loch and don’t find it, I’ll get up to as close to 100 percent sure as possible.

Have aliens ever visited earth? A more reasonable question, no evidence for it, some good arguments against it, the limiting speed of light and so on. So, maybe I’m 80 percent sure aliens haven’t visited earth.

Do aliens regularly beam up earthlings today to study their reproductive organs? A farfetched claim, no evidence for it, lots of evidence debunking such claims, lots of reasoning against it. So, 99 percent sure it doesn’t happen.

I would hope that those skeptics who believe in God also keep an open mind about what they believe, though I cannot speak for them, and that does not affect my own beliefs.

In a way, this may seem to be an escape clause for us.

Suppose today the sky should open up and God appear, revealing Himself once and for all to the world. Or suppose a group of credible scientists were to announce that looking deeply into space they have found disturbing evidence that an all-powerful intelligent being resides there and seems to be manipulating the laws of the universe.

If either of those unlikely events were to occur today, I and other atheistic skeptics would still be skeptics tomorrow. Why wouldn’t we be? We’d never said the existence of God was impossible. We’d only said there was no evidence for it and thus no reason to believe in it. Now apparently we have the evidence and thus reason to believe.

Our approach to basing belief on evidence and reason would still be valid. Our willingness to wait for evidence would have been rewarded. We could then move ahead with beliefs that were supported by the evidence.

Skepticism is not about holding a set of beliefs —“there are no aliens, there is no God, etc.”—that we defend against all contrary claims. It’s about holding provisional beliefs based on available evidence and reason.

Believers in God may meet the general requirements of skepticism by holding that beliefs should be based on evidence and reason wherever they are available.

Not that there is such a requirement or creed to which one must swear an oath of allegiance in order to be considered a member of the skeptical movement in good standing. We’re a movement to encourage widespread use of the scientific method and critical inquiry, not to demand agreement on every point on pain of excommunication.

We’re not, after all, a religion.

What happens when skeptics pose as non-skeptics? Can they keep their questioning temperaments under wraps long enough to keep up the pretense? I had a chance to find out.

In early November of 2004, shortly after Skeptics Canada had held its Skeptical Exposition, I spotted an advertisement in the newspaper for a Psychic Fair. This surprised me, as we had traditionally held the Skeptical Exposition at about the same time as the annual Psychic Fair. Indeed, the SkeptEx was originally known as the “Psychic UnFair” to highlight its role as a counterpoint.

The advert piqued my curiosity. Were the Psychic Fairs becoming a monthly event? I decided I should investigate further.

At that point it dawned on me: although I’ve posed as a fake psychic and have analyzed many sessions, I’d never had a reading myself. This seemed like a serious oversight, so I figured that when I went to the Psychic Fair I would also get a reading.

I did not expect to learn any new tricks, since I was already fairly well versed in the art of cold reading. I did, however, have three specific goals in mind.

First, I wanted to see if I could successfully pose as a “mark” without being identified as a skeptic. Second, I wanted to see if I could spot any evidence of collusion between the mystics, such as passing around tidbits of information that might be useful during a reading. Third, I wanted to see how good I was at spotting intentional deception. That is to say, I wanted to see if I could figure out if a purported psychic actually believed he or she possessed the power, or was simply an “eyes open” charlatan.

The new me

Half the fun of this project was creating a fake identity. I couldn’t go as myself, because they might recognize my name. In addition, I wanted to be sure that the reading could not possibly be right so that (with a nod to Karl Popper) the entire test was falsifiable.

Creating a new identity is not merely a matter of thinking up a name: I needed to create a complete background. It would hardly do for the psychic to ask me, “What is your date of birth?” and then have to think about it for a moment. In order to do this right I had to become the character. Bear in mind that even if psychics do not have paranormal gifts, the successful ones do have a strong intuitive ability to “read” a person. So my alter-ego required extensive preparation.

For verisimilitude, I chose a name that sounded a bit odd. A really common name such as “John Smith” would be a dead giveaway. The name I chose also sounded a bit like a nickname I’d had many years ago. This was important because if somebody spoke my name I had to look up instinctually, rather than pausing until I realized, “Oh, yeah, that’s supposed to be me”.

I also had to create a back-story for the character. This went into considerable depth, including the person’s life history and a bit of genealogy. I also included a few small irrelevant details that I could toss in if the opportunity arose.

I then set up an email address for the character, created some “wallet fodder” (various fake membership cards, which I carefully weathered so they’d look like I’d had them for a few years), and brought along an item that supposedly had some deep personal meaning to me in case the psychic performed psychometry.

Finally, I wanted to change my appearance, in case some of the people at the Psychic Fair had attended one of our events. I am hardly a master of disguise, but altering my hairstyle and clothing was simple enough. I also found that when I was “in character” it was natural to change my posture and mannerisms. One thing I forgot to change was my gait, but if I do this again I could use an old espionage trick: put some extra padding in the heel of each shoe.

I decided to walk to the Fair from about three kilometers away so that I could practice being in character. On the way I struck up a conversation with a pair of pedestrians. As it happened, though, I recognized one of them – it was actress Teresa Pavlinek. Being a fan of the show History Bites, I simply had to talk to her about it, and in the process I fell out of character.

Perhaps, since I was talking to an actress, I should have asked her for some tips on remaining in character. However, I would not have been wise to reveal my plan to anybody I did not know, so I could not take advantage of the opportunity.

An Overview of the Reading

The Psychic Fair, as it turned out, was not the large annual event. Rather it was a small affair in the back room of a tavern, with only six or seven mystics in attendance. I do not know if there is a connection between the people running this Fair and the big one, but since they both use the same name I assume there is some crossover.

My reading cost $35 for 20 minutes and was performed by a woman whom I will refer to as Mary. As readings go it was rather unremarkable. I’ve done better ones myself, even with my limited experience at being a fake psychic.

The session employed standard cold reading tactics. There were shots in the dark, such as tossing out common names and waiting for me to make a connection. Things I had said earlier were fed back to me in altered form. The psychic made some reasonable inferences, but phrased them in flexible ways. These are all well-worn techniques, but it did not matter since I was not there to hone my own craft.

There was one notable departure from what you see if you watch a psychic on television: the absence of what I call “The Patrick Syndrome”. This is where a psychic passes along messages from the Great Beyond far faster than they could possibly hear them. (I named the syndrome after a television commercial where somebody relays a phone message half a second after picking up.) I now realize that psychics on TV have to keep things rolling, but somebody who has already received their $35 for a 20 minute reading has no such pressure.

Reverse-reading

In a cold reading, the psychic has to establish a rapport with the mark, try to extract information, and generally control the process. In my case, I had to do precisely the same with the psychic, so I called this a reverse cold reading.

It takes a fair bit of nerve to walk into a room full of psychics and believers and try to hoodwink them. I wasn’t very confident that I could pull it off. If I was exposed, I wanted to at least know where I made my mistake, so I secretly tape-recorded the session.

There were many ways I could have tripped up. For example, if my tape recorder ran out of tape, there would be a suspicious “clunk” sound. I had taken many precautions to avoid silly mistakes like that, but since I may do something like this again some day I cannot describe these preparations here.

As it turned out, I was not caught in my deception, but the recording was still useful as an aide-memoire. I was rather nervous during the reading. While I used this to my advantage, it did mean that my recollection was incomplete, so I was glad to have the recording.

The recording also helped me recall what information I had revealed so I could see how the psychic fed it back in mutated form. I could also determine how she formed her inferences. For example, I had said that I wanted to speak to my departed sister. The psychic arrived at the reasonable conclusion that she had died prematurely, since I am 47 years old and I had mentioned that my sister was just a few years older.

Dance of deception

The psychic’s first assumption was that my sister (whom I will call Wendy) had committed suicide. Of course, the psychic did not state that flatly but made some statements to evoke some kind of validation of the guess. I gave her a hint to steer her away from that, because it did not fit my back-story.

She then worked on the assumption that Wendy had been murdered. In reviewing the tape, I spotted the point at which I had made this a viable option. However, this also did not fit the back-story, so once again I had to steer the psychic away from this line of inquiry.

Wheels within wheels. Here we had a psychic trying to con me while I was trying to con her. Surprisingly, though, the process was not as difficult as it might sound. All I had to do was act as my alter-ego, while my real self lurked in the background.

An interesting side-effect of this technique is that I did not have to think about how I should behave. If the psychic said something wrong, I simply disagreed, and my level of bafflement came naturally. I had earlier worried that if I disputed something the psychic said that I would seem too contentious, which would have spoiled the rapport.

Thinking back on cold readings I have done myself, I am now more aware of how frequently people actually disagreed with me. It is, in fact, rather amusing that I tend to forget my own failures. Like any mark, I remember the hits and fail to note the misses! In any case, disagreement during a session need not be troublesome. A skilled psychic performer will do the necessary damage control and repackaging so as to reframe the reading in a positive light. Mary did an adequate job in this regard.

Tactics

Despite my preparations, I had to invent some new tactics on the fly. I did not realize that I would be so frequently required to nudge Mary in a direction that matched my back-story. These methods did not always work as I had intended, though. For example, when I had to disagree with Mary I tried making up an excuse for her, such as “Maybe your spirit guide actually said …” To my surprise she did not accept this easy path, insisting that she had heard correctly.

When I do cold readings, I avoid “forcing”. This is where the psychic insists on the veracity of a statement even if the mark disagrees. It is a common strategy. I do not fully understand why they do this, but it may have something to do with maintaining control of the process. A “force” is not as risky as it sounds, though, as there are standard damage-control techniques to make it work. For example, if I was to insist that the name “Gerald” is significant, and you said you know nobody with that name, I could say that you soon will.

In any case, Mary’s reading kept straying from my back-story. At one point I could see that she was leading up to absolving me of blame for my (fictitious) sister’s death. I did not want to disagree too often, but since the psychic’s statements were deliberately flexible, I was able to use that flexibility to my advantage. That is to say, if a statement can be interpreted five ways, I would choose the one that was closest to the direction I wanted to go.

Real-life connections

The discerning skeptic may wonder if I was simply trying to debunk Mary’s claimed psychic ability, looking only for failures. However, I did listen for any genuine hits, and checked the tape afterwards to see if I had missed any. As it turns out, she did very poorly in this regard.

Actually, I am astonished that she got so few real-life hits. During the reading she was tossing out some middle-frequency names, and none of them matched up with my actual identity. Perhaps I should explain this part in more detail.

A psychic will not impress anybody if they ask something obvious such as, “Do you know a Mike or a Joe?” The reading sounds much better if the names proffered are somewhat uncommon. For example, she tried the name “Scott” on me, which is the 75th-most-common name in North America. I did know a Scott once, but that was years ago.

Mary also tried the names Edgar (rank 161), Stewart (436) and Les (726). The last two choices are actually quite clever. Stewart can be a first name or a last name, so its ranking at 436 is misleading. As for Les, it could also be Lester, which is both a first and last name. A seasoned psychic knows how to capitalize on these advantages, though in Mary’s reading she obtained no hits either in my back-story or my real life. Sometimes the vagaries of chance just don’t cooperate.

I’ll give one more example of the name game. Evan is the 72nd most common name, but it can be easily changed to Kevin if necessary. (“Yes, Kevin … isn’t that what I said?”)

If I had to rank Mary’s reading on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 4. It was an acceptable performance, but only just.

Lying for a living

As always when I do things like this, I felt sullied afterwards. I do not enjoy lying or playing tricks on people. This is not just a moral issue to me but a practical one. I cannot imagine a life of lies. Can people who live by trickery ever trust somebody else? I don’t know. I suppose I am not cut out to be a professional liar.

Perhaps that is why I was not able to spot even a hint of deceptiveness in Mary. She was definitely spinning a falsehood, since she was talking to a dead sister that existed only in my mind, but I could not spot any “tells” that suggested that Mary knew that she was conning me.

I later reflected on the irony of this situation. I am not an actor, and it’s not my job to fool people. So why did I think I could spot deceptiveness in her when I did not expect her to spot it in me?

A psychic’s story

So I did not come away with clear answers. Is Mary an “eyes open” psychic? That is to say, does she know she is conning people? I can only go with a vague feeling that yes, she does know, but I cannot back that up. I am still left wondering what is going on in Mary’s mind.

Apart from the affront to empirical truth, Mary does not seem to be doing any harm, nor do I think she would want to do so. I should mention that I had planted several seeds which indicated that I was an easy target to be cheated out of a large amount of money. Mary did not seize this opportunity or even delve deeper. Assuming she did not figure out that I was really a skeptic (and I am sure she did not), I conclude that she genuinely thinks she is helping people.

In general, her message was upbeat. She told me what I apparently wanted to hear. She included some inoffensive pop psychology. All in all, I imagine that most people would think that the reading was indeed worth $35.

The reason I bring this up is that I am curious about how psychics justify to themselves what they do. We must be careful not to measure all psychics with the same yardstick. While somebody like TV psychic Sylvia Browne is almost certainly a flat-out con-artist, people like Mary probably tell themselves that they serve a useful function.

The psychic profession

Mary probably sees herself as basically honest. To her, being a psychic is just a job, but a job that makes people feel better about life’s travails.

This rationalization may not make sense to other people, but what matters here is how Mary sees herself. Let me quote a passage from the book The Psychic Mafia by reformed psychic M. Lamar Keene:

Looking ahead, if I stayed in mediumship I saw only deepening gloom. All the mediums I’ve known or known about have had tragic endings. …. Wherever I looked it was the same: mediums, at the end of a tawdry life, dying a tawdry death.

It is important for us to understand a psychic’s tactics, but I think it is also important to understand what makes them tick, and understanding the tales they tell themselves is crucial. Professional psychics must be well aware that their job can potentially devastate their soul. If they have a normal desire for self-preservation, they will need to concoct their own back-story to justify to themselves what they do.

Conclusion

In addition to Mary, I had the chance to speak briefly to a tarot reader. He also seemed very sincere.

If I’ve learned anything from my expedition, it is this: a con-artist (me, in this scenario) cannot always spot another con-artist.

I do not consider myself particularly good at lying. I avoid it if at all possible, so I suppose I do not have much practice. Yet when I listen to the recording, I cannot hear deception even in my own voice! Apparently I can indeed lie convincingly if I am sufficiently motivated.

I left the Psychic Fair with the impression that the people I had met basically meant well. I cannot shake that feeling. Maybe I really did get conned!