Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud

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Summary: Introducing "Voodoo Science"
Review: by Tom Napier

About a year ago Eric Krieg and I had toyed with writing the definitive book on free energy. Well, Robert Park, physics professor and past president of the American Physical Society, has done a good part of our work for us by writing "Voodoo Science." This must rate as this year's most eagerly awaited skeptical book. Although the free energy hucksters are mercilessly skewered in this book, Park goes beyond them to explore what happens to innovators, be they back-yard inventors or credentialled scientists, when they discover that their pet concept is just not working out. Many admit failure, often being applauded by their peers for their integrity. However, Park has written his book about those who take the wrong turn and "descend from foolishness into fraud." Voodoo science is Park's term which encompasses the range from honestly believed but dubious science, through outright pseudoscience to deliberate fraud. He uses cold fusion as a case study of an idea which its originators continued to promote long after it had been scientifically discredited. Pons and Fleischmann had the opportunity to retract their claims and to move on with their professional careers scarred but intact. They muffed it. Homeopathy and the promotion of quack medicines get their own chapter. The promoters of "Vitamin O" allege that you can increase your oxygen intake if you consume their expensive salt water. Park's comment, "An attempt to extract the oxygen you need from water is called 'drowning.'" He also reveals that therapeutic magnets are so constructed that their magnetic field doesn't even penetrate the material they are wrapped in much less have any effect on your body. Park devotes a chapter to the idea that microwaves and the fields from power lines cause cancer and concludes that it is totally fallacious. A 25 year, 25 billion dollar, scare turned out to have been based on bad statistics and the determination of a few individuals to keep themselves in lucrative positions and in the public eye. More trustworthy research has demonstrated the falsity of the scare-mongers' position. A subsidiary theme of "Voodoo Science" is the extent to which the media spread misinformation. They broadcast what they think is human-interest entertainment but it appears to the viewers as solid information. Much of Joe Newman's early fame arose from a 1984 CBS program in which he played the home-spun hero who had confounded the scientific experts. A follow-up program in 1987 repeated the same story without a hint that Newman's claims had meantime been shown to be nonsense. One point in the saga of Joe Newman's Energy Machine which had always puzzled me was how in 1984 a special master appointed by the patent office had found in favor of an excess energy output. Park reveals that at the Congressional hearing into Newman's claims in 1989 it emerged that the special master had formerly been one of Newman's patent attorneys. As Park says, Congress may not know much about the conservation of energy but they can recognize a conflict of interest from miles away. I particularly liked the tale of the Fisher engine which failed, allegedly, because the room temperature rose above the critical point of the liquid carbon dioxide driving it. Fisher claimed that if the engine had been started earlier it would have kept the room cool. Well that would be a Second Law violation and as Park points out, echoing Eric Krieg, Lee has broken a lot of laws but he hasn't broken the laws of thermodynamics. Another of Park's minor themes is Pascal's wager, the argument that, if the potential gain is great enough, then any investment is justified. Power companies are sinking research money into Randall Mills' company, BlackLight Power, anticipating that a new power industry just might grow from his theory that hydrogen atoms can be induced to fall into a state below the ground state. There is no physical evidence for this oxymoronic concept. Missing from Pascal's wager is any distinction between the long-shot which might just pay off and an outcome whose probability is zero. As popularizers of science generally must, Park oversimplifies. He misquotes the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, at least as they were first formulated. The First Law is not a general statement that energy is conserved, it relates only to the conversion of mechanical energy into heat energy. The Second Law does not say that "friction is inevitable." It states that no machine can generate mechanical energy from heat energy simply by making something colder. If anything it is the First Law which implies that friction, the conversion of useful mechanical energy into less useful heat energy, is inevitable. And if I see that folksy parody of the two laws, "You can't win and you can't even break even," in print once more I think I'll scream. In his chapter on space exploration, Park comes down solidly on the side of those who believe that space should be explored by robot probes while we sit comfortably at home. He claims that the space station is scientifically worthless. This is a view with which I would concur, with one proviso, it can serve as a dress rehearsal for a manned mission to Mars. This is a mission which Park discounts as too dangerous for the possible scientific return, citing the radiation danger posed by solar storms. Exploration has always been a dangerous pursuit and yet it has always paid off in the long run. How many mariners died in Atlantic storms before America was a going concern? A largely self-sustaining colony on Mars could be established in much less time than the three centuries it took the US to reach the same point. Another sample of Park's own voodoo science is to cite the cost of putting mass into Earth orbit to demonstrate that even if there were gold in orbit it wouldn't pay to fetch it. This argument has two flaws. It assumes that access to orbit will continue to require Shuttle launches. Interstate commerce wouldn't be practical either if everything had to be trucked in the trunk of a Ferrari. Too, the energy required to de-orbit a payload is a fraction of that required to boost it into orbit in the first place. A ton of gold could be returned to Earth with the same small retro-rockets as brought back the Mercury capsules. Far from seeking gold, future prospectors may be making their fortunes by supplying Earth's steel mills with nickel-iron asteroids. Men in space have already showed their value as fixers of damaged spacecraft and as makers of immediate decisions on the Moon. The last thing the human race must do is to sit on the Earth until we rot, or are killed off. However these are minor flaws in a tremendously worth-while book. If you haven't already, I recommend that you invest in Park's incisive analysis of life on the fringes of science.

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Summary: Tightly written, engaging, fun ... and informative
Review: Robert Park is a talented and smart writer who has crammed this book full of interesting facts and forceful counter-blasts against the endless "voodoo science" we are subjected to on a daily basis. One big revelation for me -- homeopathy is total hokum. I had no idea the various unique doses contain no ingredients, apart from the lactose pill or water (Park savages homeopathy in a chapter on the placebo effect). I also enjoyed his mention of how a schoolgirl invented a double-blind test that proved "touch therapy" was a load of cobblers (therapists put both hands through individual holes in a screen, while the girl would see if they could tell which hand she was holding hers under ... they got it right only 44% of the time, worse than not trying at all!). Get this book!

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Summary: The Opium of the Masses, the Madness of the Few
Review: There is now a bona fide genre of 'Sceptic' writings, which are probably familiar to people interested in Robert L. Park's "Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud". Along with the likes of Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer and James Randi, Park attacks pseudoscience and stresses the importance of rationality.

"Voodoo Science" proves to be one of the better examples of this genre. Although it doesn't quite match Carl Sagan's brilliant "The Demon Haunted World", Park's book is noteworthy for three main reasons: The creative structure and fine prose, the choice of the targets, and the underlying theme of this book - how Voodoo Science is a journey from sincere errors through self delusion to outright fraud.

Park's writing is elegant and easy to read. I've finished 'Voodoo Science' within two days, a tribute both to the shortness of the book and to Park's ability as a storyteller. Furthermore, Park explains science well; I particularly liked his explanation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics ("You can't win" and "You can't break even, either"). Unlike most of these kinds of book, Park chooses to tell stories throughout the book, and as a consequence gives the feeling of a plot unravelling. Park also manages to tell similar stories together, proving that while fools change, the foolishness remains the same.

Park's choice of targets is also an advantage. Part of it is that Park's book is recent, and that many of the scandals are relatively new (the 80s and 90s, rather then the 60s and 70s as in many other such books). But it is more then that - Park picks on phenomena which reached bodies - US Congress, Prime Time US TV, and NASA - who should have known better.

The best chapters in the book are the fourth and eight. "The Virtual Astronaut" attacks manned flights to space, and argues that they are huge vanity projects of little practical value. It is a forceful suggestion, and one that is actually quite bold - unlike UFOs, Astrology and Creationism, Space travel is dear to the hearts of many sceptics, myself included. Nonetheless, Park's case is convincing. As presently carried out, Manned Space Exploration is a waste of time and money, and as the recent disaster of the Columbia space shuttle has demonstrated, dangerous as well.

I do wish that Park would discuss some ideas which might make manned space travel a more practical possibility, particularly the proposal for a space elevator - a satellite connected with a cable to earth, on which it would be possible to 'climb' to space.

Chapter 8, "Judgement Day" discusses attempts by the US Jurisprudence to fight Junk Science - the use of science to bewilder and bedazzle laypersons, and especially juries. The US Supreme Court ruled that it is the Judge's role to be a gatekeeper, to distinguish for the Jury between real and fake science, using outside experts if necessary. I wish Park had elaborated on this issue more, presenting some of the obstacles to this (such as who is qualified to decide, in concrete cases and on a tight schedule, what is or isn't voodoo science), and the dissenting opinions of the Supreme Court. If Judges have to decide for the jury what science is or isn't, aren't we approaching the point where the judiciary dictates the trial's results? Does the Judge replace the "Jury of one's peers" as the agent who finds the defendant guilty or innocent? And if so, is it a good or bad thing?

The main current of the book, its thesis, is an examination of the subtitle's "Road from Foolishness to Fraud". The how and when of inventors getting lost in their own hype, beginning to lie rather then admit they were wrong. This is an interesting theme which Park could have followed more closely with an inside look at people on that road. Alas, no such a description is given. I would have been particularly interested in an interview with Michael Guillen, the book's anti-hero, a physicist who "documents" all forms of paranormal folly for prime time TV. An anthropologist's inside view on the scandal would have greatly added to Park's book.

Such minor flaws not withstanding, Robert L. Park wrote an interesting and fun to read debunking book. If you like the genre, you'll love it. If you're a believer, try reading it with an open mind - it may do you some good.

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Summary: A walk in the Park
Review: Voodoo Science is the best skeptical book I have read yet. Organizing itself loosely around the theory that well-intentioned people can go from being wrong about matters of science to investing so much in their wrong theory that they will eventually prefer to turn their backs on science rather than admit a mistake, the book, subtitled "The Road from Foolishness to Fraud," uses cold fusion and perpetual motion as its leading examples but also takes on a laundry list of odd or (in its author's opinion) unwarranted beliefs from UFOs and the French "sniffer plane" to global warning and the Star Wars missile defense shield. Author Robert Park, a physicist by training, explains his views with laudable brevity and the greatest clarity and common sense I have seen in a book of this type. His writing style is also funny, and it contains just the right amount of sarcasm. If you make too much fun of peoples' cherished paranormal beliefs, you just insult them; if you take them too seriously, they find a way to think you believe them. Park walks the fine line between in a way I find the most effective yet. (Of course, as a fellow-traveler of Park's, I admit I do not know whether my belief that Park's way is best is borne out by its effect on an unconvinced audience.)

Besides being short, cogent, and respectful enough for a wide audience, Voodoo Science was valuable to a committed skeptic like me for its wealth of understandable explanations for physical phenomena I had grasped imperfectly or had been unable to explain simply before I read it. Park's arguments are so good I even agreed with him where I disagreed with him - his chapter on the absurd cost/benefit ratio of the manned space program is right on target, but I'll take humans in space on any terms I can get them, while Park apparently thinks we should quit trying to get people out of the gravity well.

If I were king of the world, the first thing I'd do after getting Simon and Garfunkel back together would be to get a copy of Voodoo Science to every household with a TV set.

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Summary: Random potshots at society's false idols.
Review: VOODOO SCIENCE: THE ROAD FROM FOOLISHNESS TO FRAUD is a book length editorial by Robert Park addressing the various manifestations of voodoo science that have surfaced, and, in some cases still persist, in contemporary modern society. Himself an accomplished physicist, Park divides "voodoo science" into pathological science, junk science and pseudoscience. Pathological science occurs when scientists fool themselves. Junk science involves tortured theories unsupported by evidence, such as those presented to juries to secure big personal injury awards. Pseudoscience is humbug dressed up in the symbols and language of true science. At any one time, a manifestation of voodoo science will occupy a non-static position in the continuum between foolishness and downright fraud. Self-delusion being what it is, it's sometimes difficult to judge when an individual crosses the line between True Believer and Scam Artist.

Park takes issue with voodoo science via a list of examples long enough to probably offend just about anyone who thinks him/herself a forward thinker on the Cutting Edge. Among those that Park asserts are clearly debunked, or should be, by now: cold fusion, x-ray lasers (a.k.a. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative), perpetual motion machines, gravity shields, the Roswell Incident, cancers caused by power lines, and pathologic conditions caused by ruptured silicone breast implants. Then, there are those still considered acceptably mainstream, but equally dubious: touch therapy (i.e. aura manipulation), magnet therapy, the manned Mars mission, the International Space Station, and homeopathic medicines.

Park editorializes with a sense of humor and mild outrage against the natures of the government and the popular media that promote the acceptance of such foolishness in our collective psychology, rather than providing standards for critical analysis. After all, it's National Enquirer-like journalism that sells papers and generates high TV ratings for the media fat cats. And the government ... well, what could one expect from a group composed mostly of scientifically unsophisticated dunderheads. In any case, though the book rambled on somewhat, I did enjoy it.

Oh, and now I know what to do with those strap-on magnets my Mom gave me for alleviating minor aches and strains