Magical Thinking

Few things in this world irk me more than ‘Magical Thinking.’ I was listening to CNN this evening while I was writing on a paper I have due on Thursday, and they featured a fairly uncritical story about the Church of Scientology’s program to ‘detoxify’ the body with a regimen of exercise, cleansing, and refusing medical drugs.

When dealing with something in the physical world (not issues like morality or spirituality), science is the only reputable way to discover information about the universe. How people can doubt the efficacy of science in the modern era astounds me. Science has allowed humanity to see into the farthest reaches of space with ultra-powerful telescopes. Science has allowed humanity to visualize single atoms using ultra-powerful microscopes. Scientists have given us medications which have eliminated entire diseases from the face of the Earth, and which have extended the lifespan of humans from in about 40-45 years old in the century immediately prior to the Enlightenment to double that number today. Scientists can see to the bottoms of the ocean and inside a beating heart. Science can even replace that heart with a mechanical replicate when the original becomes too damaged.

Yet despite the fact that science has provided answers to EVERY physical issue onto which it has turned its attention, a staggeringly vast number of people insist on holding beliefs which are not only contrary to the findings of science, but which are unsupported by a warrant of evidence. I received an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (yes... laugh all you want to, but unlike most people, I now have the ability to engage in critical thinking), and studied epistemology. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and truth. It encompasses issues about the physical world, how we know what is true, and the laws which govern the universe (like the rules of logic). A rational epistemological position will demand a warrant of proof for (at a minimum) claims about the physical world.

If I were to claim that eating a particular brand of frozen yogurt turns one invisible, people would ask me for proof before believing my claim. If I claimed that I can walk through solid walls, people would demand evidence before accepting my contention. But if I claim that I can read people’s minds, predict the future, or talk to the dead, people suddenly become credulous.

Why?

Every day, I see people making absurd claims which have no warrant of evidence. There are people who claim to be able to talk to the dead, despite the fact that hucksters and magicians have shown that they can mimic the performance with a technique called "cold-reading." There are people who claim to have predictive powers over the future, even though statistical studies of their claims find that they are only right about the future with the same regularity as other people. Some people claim to be able to heal people by stabbing small needles into their bodies along ‘meridians’ in the body, even though these ‘meridians’ were imagined by ancient Chinese well before vivisectionists discovered the inner workings of the human body and found that ‘meridians’ don’t correspond to anything inside the body. People make outrageous claims, but none ever stand up to scrutiny. Just to make it entirely more obvious that such claims are bogus, there is a man named James Randi.

James Randi is a magician. He entertained people with his finely honed skills and tricks, but became frustrated that other magicians were making lots of money convincing people that their tricks were actually real. Randi has duplicated the tricks of supposed ‘psychics’ like Uri Geller’s spoon bending and dead-watch starting. Randi finally became so frustrated that no one believed that these were simply magic tricks that you can teach yourself and perform at parties, that he took one million dollars and placed it in trust with a financial organization. Any person who contacts the Randi organization and can demonstrate under controlled experimentation paranormal powers (dowsing, acupuncture, homeopathy, astrology, palm-reading, divination, psychic powers, etc.) will get the one million dollar prize. To date, nobody has claimed the prize, and most people making the claims even refuse to apply despite personal invitations to do so. Instead, they continue to bilk ignorant people out of their money, and remain content that they do not have to substantiate their claims to anyone.

Scientologists are barely different. I won’t criticize in this forum their spiritual beliefs, since these are unverifiable, just as are the claims of every religious group. But their claims about the world, such as the claim that medications doctors prescribe are slowly poisoning people to death, and that sick people should stop taking medications to detoxify their bodies is a claim about the world and the way the world works. Such a claim is ruled by the laws of science and ought to have evidence. Unfortunately, gullible people accept anecdotes as evidence and spend huge amounts of money on the Scientologists’ programs (the girl they talked to on CNN spent $1200 to be told to exercise, sweat, and take nutritional supplements, and thanked them for the 'medical' help).

This kind of magical thinking is not only silly... it is dangerous. All of the people spending money on crystal therapy, magnetic bracelets, or Scientology "cures" are putting their own lives in the hands of people who have shown no interest in making verifiable claims about their products and services, but instead have shown an interest only in getting paid. Forgive me for my cynicism, but we used to have a word for people like that.

We called them Con-Artists.