Forum on Physics and Society exposes Pseudoscience
by John L. Roeder
One of the best-attended sessions at the American Physical Society's centennial meeting in Atlanta was one on "Science, Junk Science, and Pseudoscience," held on 22 March 1999. Perhaps the big draw on the program was James Randi, but I felt Randi was outdone by the first speaker on the program, Robert L. Park of the University of Maryland.
Park, who has been quoted by the press as a spokesman for the American Physical Society to debunk other examples of pseudoscience, observed the propitious timing of the session: it was being held on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion and on the eve of the sixteenth anniversary of the announcement of "Star Wars" (aka "Strategic Defense Initiative"). The first target of his presentation was Deepak Chopra, M.D., whose Ageless Body, Timeless Mind offers a "quantum alternative to growing old." Park noted that Chopra's earlier Quantum Healing imagined avoiding cancer by a quantum jump to a higher level of consciousness.
Park next attacked magnetic therapy, which he said started with Paracelsus, who had only lodestones, which weren't comfortable in shoes. Park observed that Mesmer had abandoned magnetism after discovering that he could get the same effect from pointing his finger. The alleged explanation is that magnets attract iron in hemoglobin to the site of a wound, but Park pointed out that this iron is not ferromagnetic, merely paramagnetic (less strongly attracted to magnets). Magnetic therapy manufacturers claim that their magnets produce fields of 800 gauss (1600 times as strong as the Earth's magnetic field), he reported. He noted, though, that they seemed similar to refrigerator magnets, which have alternating strips of north and south poles to give a strong surface field that falls off quickly. Indeed, he found that therapy magnets have a similar magnetic field falloff.
Park then held up a newspaper advertisement for Vitamin O, which turns out to be molecular oxygen dissolved in salt water. He reported that after a story critical of Vitamin O got out, the Federal Trade Commission has sought an injunction against selling it. Homeopathy, though, has a much larger market than Vitamin O. Park attributed the origin of homeopathy to a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann, who found that while massive doses of quinine induced malaria-like symptoms, dilute doses of quinine cured malaria. From this he formulated his laws of similars ("like cures like") and infinitesimals ("dilution does not decrease potency"). He published his Organon one year before Avogadro announced his hypothesis, which implied a limit to dilution.
Park reported that he had consulted a book on homeopathy coauthored by Wayne Jonas, Head of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. Much of it is right out of Hahnemann, Park said. For diaper rash it advocates diluting poison ivy a hundredfold thirty times ("30C" in homeopathic notation), or by a factor of 1 in 1060! The treatment for flu is to be diluted a hundredfold 200 times, or by a factor of 1 in 10400, a physical impossibility since there are only 1080 atoms in the universe! The homeopathic response, Park said, is that the water "remembers," much as Konrad Lorenz speculated that the flap of butterfly wings could set off a Texas tornado. Hahnemann's success came from giving his patients water rather than toxic medicine, Park concluded. His treatment was a placebo, and the side effect of a placebo in the case of homeopathic medicine is public belief that it works. Although the American Medical Association has opposed homeopathy, Park stated that physicians are increasingly prescribing it because their patients request it. Furthermore, he announced that the Freedom of Medical Choice Act now before Congress would require HMOs to pay for "the witch doctor of your choice."
Next on the program was Peter Zimmerman of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, part of the U.S. Department of State. Shortly after assuming his position, Zimmerman reported, he noticed an announcement of the Secretary of State's Open Forum's "Conference on Free Energy," to be hosted by the Integrity Research Institute. Although it didn't take much effort to persuade the Secretary of State that this conference was not something she wished to endorse, he also learned that the promoter of the conference works at the Patent Office and has rescheduled the conference at the Commerce Department. "Free energy" people claim to be inventors, Zimmerman observed, not theorists, and they point to the patents they have obtained for their "machines"; but Zimmerman also noted that the Patent Office requires only that an idea be novel, not that it work. (I also thought about a "free energy" M.D. named Randell Mills who has set up his Black Light shop near my home. According to a local press account, he "is filing patents for technology he says will produce an inexhaustible supply of low-cost, non-polluting energy" from "a refinement of electrolysis of the conversion of ordinary water into its constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen." Although Mills' work is debunked by Park in the same press account as having its roots in "cold fusion," this has not stopped Mills from raising at least $2 million in venture capital for his enterprise.)
James Randi concluded the session with his report of "Things to fall down laughing about." Among them was his rejoinder to American Airlines' denial of his claim that they choose their flight crews according to astrology. Noting the horoscopes in their magazine, he replied that astrology is good enough for the passengers but not good enough for the crew, only to find the horoscope column reheaded "Cosmic Joke."
Pens used to detect counterfeit money, Randi observed, use a tincture of iodine, because the cheap paper used to print counterfeit money typically has a high starch content (which turns iodine black). Randi now sprays his legitimate $50 bills with spray starch.
Randi also exposed the "laundry ball," sold by Sharper Image: allegedly requiring no detergent but several washings to "become effective," it contains only blue-colored water.
"But there's more," he continued. Indeed, his pice de rŽsistance was the "quadrarod locator," which he said had been marketed to police and customs agents for thousands of dollars plus the extra cost for two days of training. It came equipped with "chips" to locate different types of illegal drugs but functioned no better than a dowsing rod. When Randi finally got the attention of the FBI (because some retired agents had purchased dealerships), they closed the quadrarod operation down -- except for the Golf Ball Finder version, which allegedly identifies golf balls by their "DNA." The quadrarod manufacturers never patented their "invention" for fear that Soviet agents in the Patent Office would leak it. Randi also faulted another company's dielectrokinetic locator, which he was sad to say had been endorsed by an APS member. Its electronics are not even powered, and double blind tests by Sandia Labs failed.
Randi reiterated that his James Randi Educational Foundation is dedicated to educating young people in critical thinking. It offers a million dollar prize to anyone who can conduct a successful experiment demonstrating the paranormal. Its web site is www.randi.org.
Noting its responsibility to educate the public, the Forum on Physics and Society, which hosted this session, is mounting a website to expose charlatanic practices.
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