A few years ago I took a trip to
Rome and of course visited the Vatican, which as you must know, is the
headquarters of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church must be one of the
least compromising churches, requiring absolute faith from its members.
I like to think of myself as at least an agnostic and more
likely an atheist, but I must admit some prudish Church of England upbringing
comes out when I contrast the poverty of Italy with the finery of the Church of
Rome. However, I visited the various museums and chapels, willing to admire
them as human creations, whatever the builders thought was inspiring them at
the time, and whatever church tax they must have cost.
One of the churches to visit is St Peter, and in particular
the dome. You can actually walk around inside the walls of the dome, the tunnel
sloping inwards, until you come out on the roof of St Peter's with a fine view
of St Peter's Square and the Vatican gardens. Mounted on the edge of the roof
are a number of larger-than-life statues of saints, looking down into the
Square below. They are quite impressive, especially when you consider their
age. No less impressive is the complex gleaming arrays of obviously modern
lightning conductors, mounted carefully at all prominent points and no doubt
following the best practice. I was particularly interested to notice that each
saint had his or her personal lightning conductor.
Now the mounting of lightning conductors on high buildings
seems a perfectly reasonable precaution to take in a region of the world noted
for lightning storms. I was pleased to note that other high, secular buildings
in Rome were similarly protected.
But the Vatican? Is it really necessary to protect the
Vatican from the bolts of Jupiter (sorry, God?). If you are a Catholic, and I
feel safe in assuming that the inhabitants of the Vatican are Catholics, you
must surely believe that you are living in the most holy place on the Earth.
This is IT - the other end of the hot line to God. So don't these good
Catholics think that God could make some small dispensation, could instruct his
angels, or at least the angel responsible for "Thunderbolts, Southern
Italy Region", to be just a little more careful with his aim when it comes
to the Rome Area? If only because even a near-miss could be bad public
relations? Or, (supreme blasphemy), don't they think God can do anything about
where his thunderbolts fall? If they don't, and I'm afraid that that is very
much how it appears, how can they be so sure of his power in other, less easily
checked directions?
I left Rome irreverently imagining headlines that could
possibly appear in the Roman Press were the Vatican not so carefully protected
by man from natural catastrophes:
VATICAN
BURNT DOWN BY LIGHTNING STRIKE!
Insurance
company refuses to pay!
Claims
"Act of God"
Yes, our beliefs are not always self-consistent.
Superstition - the beginning
But to see where a lot of our beliefs originate, imagine a
20th century man could go back into the body of a tribesman living in a small
prehistoric settlement on the coast of what we now call West Africa, say 25 000
years ago.
He would be surprised to find an extremely complex network
of personal relationships between himself and every other member of the tribe.
There would also be an intricate power structure going right through the tribe,
with the Chief and Elders at the top. Life and the daily routine would be
carefully mapped out with simple rituals and procedures. Everything had a precedent
- we always did it that way. When there was a good catch of fish, one had to be
thrown back to placate the Sea God. Out of a good grain harvest, a portion had
to be ploughed back to the praise of the Field God. Only certain families were
allowed to manufacture fish-hooks, naturally made out of the bones of fish that
made the best eating. Another family made the arrows used in hunting. Arrows
for hunting monkeys were naturally tipped with monkey-hair, so they would fly
truer to the target. This was everyday knowledge.
Top of the power structure was the Chief with his small band
of elite warriors. The Chief ruled because of his undoubted physical strength
and prowess with weapons. He was popular, ruling by force of personality as
well as physical power. He knew how the tribe worked. Important events
requiring the momentary efforts of the whole tribe, such as hunting expeditions
or a conflict with a neighbouring tribe, would only be taken after long
discussions with the Elders of the Tribe - and the Witch Doctor.
The Witch Doctor, with his acolytes, is a sinister and
unpredictable figure. Even the Chief has sometimes to accede to the Witch
Doctor because only he knows what is going on in the unseen spirit world which surrounds
them. Only he can minimize the effects of evil spirits and solicit the help of
friendly ones. He can look into the future, explain dreams and has a knowledge
of what the star positions mean. This allows him to tell the tribe when to
plant certain crops, go out fishing for certain shoals (but he may announce
these events in a picturesque ceremony in which he predominantly figures). He
is not seen often, living apart from the rest of the tribe, in a hut-complex
surrounded by charms. He has regular consulting hours when he gives out (for a
price), special charms to ward off the evil eye, to hang on a boat, or put in a
field. He is also the one who knows all about the structure of the world, how
it is supported on a stout bamboo pole and earthquakes are when the balance shifts.
The world is covered with a huge gourd pierced with lots of tiny holes to let
through the light of the Sun God when He goes below the horizon and goes behind
the gourd. The gourd slowly turns during the night causing all he tiny spots of
light to turn also. But there are also some small fire-flies which crawl around
independently on the inside of the gourd. One of them has a reddish colour ...
The Witch Doctors stock-in-trade is:
- a few simple conjuring tricks,
- a good practical knowledge of psychology allied to a sound acting ability,
- a simple knowledge of herbs and their medical effects,
- the enormous credulity of the tribesmen.
Our 21st Century visitor would not be surprised to find a certain amount of strife between
the Chief and the Witch Doctor.
During the day the Chief strolls
jovially around the huts, followed by two of his unsmiling warriors carrying
spears and shields. He may make a few obscene gestures in the direction of the
Witch Doctor and the villagers will smile nervously. But come the evening, the
long shadows stretch out, the sun sets, the temperature falls, fires are lit
and his eyes stray fearfully towards the Witch Doctor's Compound from whence
the throbbing drums and a strange coloured glow indicates communications with
the Other World.
Yes, the Witch Doctor has a lot going for him. When he
speaks of Evil Spirits and Good Sprits he is preaching to the converted.
Everyone knows of the devils that lurk in the forest at night. The whole
natural world is magic, there is little pattern, it is all controlled by
Spirits, the moon, the stars, the wind, storms, lightening, the sun, the
clouds, the seasons, good crops bad crops - all magic and only the Witch Doctor
can help.
Over the centuries man's curiosity has gradually pushed the unknown further and further
back. To be in a lightning storm is pretty frightening but we know it is
"only" a static discharge of electricity between cloud and ground,
will be over in a while and has nothing to do with the displeasure of the Gods.
Science has cleared up the physical world fairly well, but what are called the
"Mind Sciences" are not much advanced on what the Witch Doctor knew.
And it is exactly in this area that there are so many charlatans, tricksters
and frauds who prey on our superstition.
Superstition today
"Superstition - religion, opinion or practice based on belief in luck or magic."
"Magic - Art of supposedly invoking supernatural
powers to influence events
etc., any mysterious agency or power."
For superstition is still very much with us. Allied bomber
crews in the last war all had mascots with them when they went out over
Germany. A rabbit's foot, a walking stick. The chance of not coming back was
one in twenty (5% losses), so who will blame them? My daughter had been reading
a book about the supernatural and my friendly offer to draw a pentagon on the
floor and see if we could "raise something" was almost hysterically
refused. "Don't even think about it, Daddy!". And this in my
apartment in the middle of Paris!
As in other human activities, there are fashions in
superstition. In the 1800's, Spiritualism was "in" with mediums,
ectoplasm, astral planes, ouija boards, table rapping, haunted houses,
poltergeists etc. It all has a pleasant Victorian ring today.
Then came Extra Sensory Perception or ESP, which was an attempt to study odd effects using
more scientific methods like card guessing. But this quickly became boring so
then we were treated to more spectacular superstitions like the Bermuda
Triangle, the Lost Cities of Atlantis, Flying Saucers, the Powers of the
Pyramids.
Still going strong is Astrology, Dowsing, Pendulums, Numerology and of course the
numerous religions and sects.
The last I remember was the Uri Geller phenomenon.
But let us take these superstitions one at a time.
Victorian superstition
The Victorian Wave revolved around the Ghost Story. A typical example would be about the
sceptical "ghost hunter" who asked to be locked into the
haunted room. When the door was unlocked the next morning he was
found crouched gibbering in a corner of the room, his hair
snow-white, mindlessly trying to push something away. Coffins often had to be
reopened and were commonly found to be filled with blood.
All good Gothic stuff. Less diverting were the numerous Mediums who preyed on the recently
bereaved, offering to bring messages back from "beyond
the grave". In a séance, some would produce clouds of a white substance, "ectoplasm", which in
the dim lighting could look like the
loved one. It was quite unscrupulous and many were fooled, including at least
one famous scientist (one who had made discoveries in radio, I'm afraid). It is
really amazing how suggestible we are, especially if there is a little stress
and excitement and very especially if we want that particular suggestion. The
mechanism is always the same. The suggester talks and builds a matched filter
(see Tutorial) in your head. Because of the strange surroundings, the normal
critical faculties which would analyze these incoming words are not so
effective. Then the noise signal, ectoplasm, is introduced. Ectoplasm was
usually yards of fine
muslin concealed on the person of
the medium or a confederate.
The muslin was slowly waved around
in the gloom and you get an output from the filter, "It's
him, it's him!". The Witch Doctor used straw to give a dense smoke, but
the mechanism is the same.
To see the only convincing evidence for psychic phenomena,
imagine for a bet you are slowly walking through the empty rooms of a
"haunted house". It is midnight. Broken glass crunches under your
feet and the moon shines through the uncurtained windows making bright squares
on the bare floor-boards. You are just thinking what a waste of ...something
flickers in the corner of your eye. You freeze and in the absolute silence your
eyes strain into the black shadows. Nothing, of course. But suddenly you notice
- the ghastly bright moonlight pattern on the floor - has it moved? There is
something dreadfully wrong! And now you hear it, a slight creaking sound on the
stairway just outside the door, the door through which you must go to reach
safety. Something is waiting outsde in the corridor, something evil, waiting
for you, licking its lips ready! Oh God! The hair on the back of your head
rises, cold sweat runs down your back but you cannot move an inch, you stare
wildly at the black square of the door, there is another slight creak! There is something there!
Well, calm down, it's only a story.
Now imagine the same scene, but this time you have a cat
with you. Kitty is quite at home in the empty room. She stiffens and wants to
be put down. She looks around carefully in the business-like fashion of the
night-hunter. Hearing a creak by the door, she twitches silently round, all
systems go. Unblinking eyes open and black, she glides noiselessly forward
towards the door, tail flat down behind her, and disappears. A minute later she
reappears, disappointed - no mouse. Bored, she rubs herself against your legs,
purring.
Yes, quite a different reaction. You might not realize it,
but what you have been programmed to fear is something like that cat but about
5 times larger. Your terror was that of the hunted mouse who fears the stealthy
night-hunter. The fear of the unknown which you cannot see but which can hurt
you.
The Victorian era was also noted for the "Psychic
Anecdote":
"I was at the time serving with the 4th Hussars in the
Transvaal. I was just getting into my camp-bed when my mother walked into my
tent and smiled sweetly at me. Six weeks later I received a letter from England
telling me she had died exactly at that time".
Interesting, but one can only gasp with amazement.
The Study of Extra Sensory
Perception
In an effort to get all these phenomena into the laboratory,
where they could be studied, card experiments were started. The idea was to
have one person look at a card and another guess which card he was looking at.
Both would make notes then move on to the next card. After the experiment the
lists were compared and the number of "hits" counted. It was then
possible to calculate statistically how unusual (say) 90 hits out of 100
guesses was. We were seeing "Telepathy".
It was sometimes found that one person was guessing no more
that average but if you slid the two lists up during comparison you found that
he was regularly guessing 2 or 3 ahead! "Precognition" it was called.
This gave rise to debates on Free Will. After all, the argument went, if he can
see into the future, there is a future ie. life is like a gramophone record and
we can't do anything about it so why try. It is fate - Kismet.
Then there were those who were guessing 2 or 3 cards behind,
but this wasn't so interesting.
How did telepathy work? Obviously your brain is influenced
by your "mind" - material affected by non-material. Telepathy must be
due to one mind affecting another brain. But wait a minute - if the radiation
from a mind can affect a material brain, perhaps it can be detected affecting
matter outside a brain. So very sensitive balances were constructed and people
sat round, trying to make them move by "will-power". No result. Then
they came up with the idea of using the statistical methods so successful with
telepathy. If you roll dice you can calculate how often the number 6 should
appear (1 in 6). Now if you roll the dice and get someone to "think"
6, perhaps it will appear more than 1 in 6. And with some people it did! It was
called "Psycho kinesis". But the tests showed they had only done it
for a short time and could not repeat it.
And that was the problem. It was a lot more scientific but
all the tests on telepathy, precognition, psycho kinesis would occasionally
give startling results (ie runs of correct guesses that were statistically very
unlikely) but they were unrepeatable. There was talk of "fatigue".
Then someone found he could get the same results by just comparing numbers from
"random number" tables.
These telepathy tests have been repeated and repeated under
every imaginable condition (under hypnosis, drugs of all sorts, using electric
shocks to try to stimulate success, bio-feedback using EEG waveforms etc. etc.)
and of course using computers to evaluate the results, to try to find any
consistent patterns. (Just imagine how useful telepathy would be in espionage,
in the stock market!) But no results have been obtained that could not be the
results of chance.
One possible reason for the non-appearance of telepathy is
that there is no such thing as the "mind". Brains work the way they
do without the help of a non-material "mind". So if brains are
completely material they fall into the category of things we know a lot about,
and we are fairly sure that there is no way that one brain can influence
another.
An argument for ESP is that our very early ancestors had it
but it has died out with us as we have invented speech. But if you think a bit
about this you will realize that telepathy, and even more precognition, would
have given such a tremendous evolutionary advantage to any species developing
it, that it would have out bred all others. If Extra Sensory Perception were
possible, it would be used somewhere. We have not found it in animals, we
almost certainly don't have it in ourselves, so it almost certainly doesn't
exist. Which is a pity as it was a nice idea.
Astrology
Astrology is another attempt to look for a pattern in
Nature. The sun obviously has a very great influence on us. If you live near
the coast the moon obviously influences the tides. The stars form random
patterns and the planets go through complex cycles - what do they influence?
Astrology says they have an influence on the character and behaviour of humans
who are born when a pattern is in a particular position. Human character is
very complex and difficult to evaluate; it changes with time and mood. So what
better than to associate the random pictures in the stars with the random
characters and lives of humans? The clockwork precision of the moving pattern
in the heavens gives a pleasing air of scientific rigour to the whole game. And
a game that has been played for centuries since our Witch Doctor first raised
his eyes to the stars. It is a game that is still played today and still
believed (perhaps ashamedly) by many educated people.
But what does Astrology actually claim?
1. The position of the stars at the moment of your birth
(ie. the moment you leave your mother's womb) determines your character.
2. The position of the stars at any instant thereafter
continue to influence your ongoing life. An Astrologer can tell you the best
time for you to start a new business, who to marry and when.
The scientific viewpoint?
Well, the scientist is stuck with the doctrine that every
effect has a cause. It has worked very well so far and has given us a coherent
picture of large slabs of natural phenomena. He is naturally reluctant to
abandon it for one special group of phenomena. The scientist arrives at truth
through doubt. He will therefore ask first how can the positions of the stars
affect the character (ie. the relative effect of the genes) of an
about-to-be-delivered child? And he will be forced to say immediately that they
can have no effect: the child is fully formed. The critical instant surely
happened 9 months before. So assuming this is really the date meant by
Astrology, there are 3 possible modus operandi:
1. Variations in the gravity field strength on the embryo.
Very difficult to understand if true. The planets do affect the gravity field,
but it is very small compared to the moon and the sun. And the gravitational
effect of our nearest star (Alpha
Centauri at 4.3 light years) would be swamped by moving a chair around the
delivery room.
2. Variations in some other force on the embryo. I'm really
just putting this in to be complete. Perhaps I mean the missing and as yet
undetected neutrino flux.
3. That the character of the child has nothing directly to
do with the positions of the stars and the relation is a coincidence. Perhaps
the season when the child was born was the real reason for the character
difference? A child born in November has only one month to prepare for winter
whereas one born in April will pass its first winter 7 months later when it is
presumably stronger.
Now human love of complexity and pattern searching would be unlikely to leave this simple
relationship alone (winter and autumn children different from
spring and summer children) especially if you have nothing to
do of an evening except look at the clear, star-laden skies of
the Orient. Naturally the year has been divided up into more than
two periods (12 actually) and each period gives rise to
different characters, the actual character depending on the Star
Sign (ie. where the Earth is as it goes around the Sun). For
instance, there is a group of stars that, with some imagination, look
like a bull. If you were born under this sign you are
"plodding, strong-willed and can be very stubborn". Another looks like
a pair of scales. These people are (guess?) "delicately balanced
- harmony is essential - he can weigh up intuitively" etc.
It's called Sympathetic Magic and would be perfectly
understandable to the tribesman who goes monkey-hunting with arrows tipped with monkey fur.
So the scientific method, so successful elsewhere, shows
that there may once have been some difference between children born at
different times of the year - presumably because the new born child in winter
would have to contend immediately with lower temperatures, lack of sunlight,
poorer food etc. whereas the contrary for a child born in summer. Well, perhaps
in the Middle Ages or earlier. But now? Our children are well wrapped up in
air-conditioned houses, dosed with vitamins from birth ... surely the
differences must be minimal? Surely the characters of the parents and their
social standing is more important in determining the child's character?
But before we condemn Astrology as rubbish merely because it almost certainly cannot work as
described, let us look at its performance ie. does it in fact
work?
Astrology can be tested by picking out some section of the
population who have an unusual profession and would be expected to have a Star
Sign corresponding to this profession. An example would be Professional
Soldiers (a good example because their birth records are easily available). If
Astrology is true, we would expect to find very few, if any, Libra or Pisces
amongst the ranks of military men.
Libra
"Expresses himself through his artistic activity,
creating beauty in form colour and sound. They are delicately balanced ..
desiring peace at any price .. anger disturbs their physical harmony".
Pisces
"Chief characteristics are sensitivity and emotional
response. Their qualities are expressed in warmth of heart, sympathy,
compassion, understanding and a rather mystical attitude towards life. They are
naturally quiet, trustful, loving, courteous and hospitable, can sense atmosphere
and when they find themselves in an uncongenial environment they are easily
cast down and made despondent"
But such is the case. The Armed Forces of Britain and France
show no preference for any Star Sign. All the Star Signs are represented just
as though there were no relation between Star Sign and character.
Similar tests have been run on doctors, explorers,
scientists, lawyers...more than 60 studies have been made, covering many
thousands of people. The results have always been the same - no correlation
found between Star Sign and profession (and therefore character).
Astrology's answer to this is that the date of birth is only
one (though a major) factor in determining the character. Others are the
positions of all the planets and in particular the sign of the "Sign
rising on the eastern horizon at the time of birth. The difference of a few
minutes may mean the transition of one rising Sign to another. And so, if the
moment of birth should prove to be incorrect the reading of the horoscope may
be seriously distorted or given a faulty emphasis".
At this point you might think that anyone capable of
understanding the arguments so far already would think Astrology is
pseudo. To my surprise, this is
not so. It affords just another example of humans wanting to believe something.
This is the phenomenon of the Matched Filter again. Build a filter
"Astrology is true" in your head and it will only let data through
that confirms and filter out data that doesn't, otherwise known as "tunnel
vision".
But to grind the argument out to the bitter end – imagine a
child, still in the mother and about to be born. Can we really believe that its
character is rapidly changing, emphasis shifting from moment to moment until
suddenly, with birth, its character is frozen? Can a doctor, looking at a clock
by the operation table, determine the character of a child by advancing or
delaying the moment at which he makes a Caesarean section birth?
Similar absurdities could be confected about crossing the International Data Line or the
Meridian.
Having shown that Astrology 1. probably cannot and 2. in
fact, doesn't work in predicting character from birth date, you would think
that Astrology's further claim to help you through life should be similarly
written off. Not necessarily so, as the following anecdote illustrates:
A few years ago, in the Gold Market in London, a man was
idly playing with his computer looking at how the price of gold fluctuated.
There seemed to be some regularity but he couldn't put his finger on it and
then suddenly, on an impulse, he tried to relate it to some astronomical data,
as he was an amateur astronomer. To his surprise, there was some correlation (I
don't know with what astronomical data). He carried on with his studies, helped
by his wife who was interested in Astrology, but still nothing positive. And
there it lay for a while. But one day he found out that the Chinese also have
an Astrology system, just as complicated as ours, but different, as naturally
based on the Chinese year. So he looked back at his old data on gold price
fluctuations and there it was - the Hong Kong Chinese buying and selling gold
in accordance with their Chinese horoscopes!
It was only a small fluctuation compared with (say) that
produced by a war in the Gulf, so knowing when it would occur would not have
made him a millionaire, but the principle is clear: if your business rival,
girl friend, enemy, interviewer for a job, believes in Astrology, it is
obviously to your advantage to learn about it too, as an aid to predicting and
eventually influencing his activities.
And as far as I can see, this is the only use for Astrology.
Suggestibility
A pharmaceutical company has developed a new drug and want to test its effect. It is to
be given to a number of patients
suffering from painful swellings due to rheumatism. But by a mistake, instead
of the drug, a completely innocuous powder was distributed. To the surprise of
the doctors, a large number of the patients claim that the powder was very
effective, they can now sleep at night and they insist on continuing the
treatment.
What we are seeing is called the Placebo Effect and very
useful it is to doctors. Briefly it can be defined as "If you think
something will do you good, it will, and the more you are convinced it will do
you good, the more good it will do you" And, more sinisterly, the reverse.
The Placebo Effect is now so well known that new drugs are
routinely tested using at least a Blind Test. Here only half the sufferers are
given the real pill; the other half are given some neutral pill. No patient
knows which pill he has received and in fact is ignorant that a test is being
conducted. The effectiveness of the new pill is determined by how much better
the real pill is than the neutral pill - the Placebo - which will always give
some improvement, at least temporarily.
But it might not be a pill that is being tested, but some
complicated procedure requiring injections etc. In order that all the patients
are handled exactly the same, not even the doctors administering the treatment
know which are the real and Placebo injections. (They might otherwise
inadvertently reveal which is which). This is called a Double Blind test, and
shows the extent to which one has to go to combat human suggestibility.
Be on your guard.