The Cave Glow Worm

In dark rocky caverns, the cave glow worm catches insects the way an angler catches fish. The worm hangs dozens of silk threads from the cave ceiling like fishing lines from a boat. The threads can be up to 20 inches long, and are covered with droplets of the worm’s sticky mucous. When an insect flies too close, it’s caught by the line. The worm reels in its catch and enjoys its meal.

Like an angler, the cave worm attracts its prey with a lure. In an organ in its tail, a chemical reaction creates light that can easily be seen in the pitch darkness underground. Flies, mosquitoes and moths see the glow and fly toward it. In some caves, the light of thousands of worms makes the cave ceiling look like a starry night sky.

The cave glow worm (g. arachnocampa) is found mostly in New Zealand and Australia. The worm is actually the larva of a small, gnat-like fly. After nine months of catching prey and growing to over an inch in length, the larva becomes a pupa. Hanging by a strand of silk, the pupa wraps itself in a cocoon. Inside its silky hideaway, it magically transforms into an adult fly.

The female fly also glows, but she’s not trying to attract a meal. In fact, adult flies only live a day or two and don’t eat at all. The female adult uses light to attract a mate. Males wait patiently beside glowing cocoons until the female emerges. After the two flies mate, the female will lay her eggs--and the cycle begins again.

(From a recent project, for young readers, about creatures that have evolved bioluminescence.)

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Jack gave a wild whoop and leapt down to the pale sand. At once the platform was full of noise and excitement, scramblings, screams and laughter. The assembly shredded away and became a discursive and random scatter from the palms to the water and away along the beach, beyond night-sight.

The dispersed figures had come together on the sand and were a dense black mass that revolved. They were chanting something and the little ones that had had enough were staggering away, howling. Ralph raise the conch to his lips and then lowered it.

"The trouble is: Are there ghosts, Piggy? Or beasts?"

"Course there aren't."

"Why not?"

"'Cos things wouldn't make sense. Houses an' streets an' TV. They wouldn't work."

Propane and Prayer

On Sunday, August 9 ’09, CBC Radio broadcast a story on their early morning program, Fresh Air, about the explosion at the Sunrise Propane depot in North Toronto a year ago. The blast resulted in the deaths of two people. At the time and ever since, many people have described the low death toll as a miracle. The depot was in the vicinity of residential homes on Murray Road and, as you can see from videos of the event, the explosion was enormous. (www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sunrise+propane+toronto&search_type=&aq=f)

The CBC’s website describes the story, by producer Mary Wiens, as one that examines “the role of faith in protecting a community from harm”. Wiens interviews an elderly resident of the neighbourhood who is certain that her prayers and faith were the reason the death toll was so low. Wiens then ponders the link between the communal spirituality of the neighbourhood and the “miracle”. She then interviews Deepak Chopra, whose views support the idea that there is a causal connection between the inner-world of prayer, and the macro-world we live in. There are references to Chopra’s “quantum consciousness” (although I don’t remember Wiens actually using the term), as well as clinical studies of the efficacy of prayer in healing. Overall, Wiens paints a picture in which the collective faith of the community protected them from greater harm.

(Note that I’ve only been able to listen to the show once, during its original broadcast; it hasn't been posted online as of yet. So, I'm writing this based on that single listening. If I get some of the details of the story wrong, I think my overall view of the piece is accurate. I'm also aware that Fresh Air is not a journalistic program; regardless, I think my views are no less valid.)

In fact, the low death toll wasn't a “miracle” in any sense, religious or otherwise. That no more than two died is due to the simple fact that the explosion happened at 3:50am on a Sunday morning. Because it occurred during the wee hours of the morning, the streets were empty.

The low death toll was also due to the physical layout of the neighbourhood. While the distance between the depot and the homes is obviously inadequate when you consider the damage that did occur, at least the depot and homes were on opposite sides of the street. If they were directly adjacent, then it’s likely there would have been worse injuries and more casualties amongst the residents, even if they were in their homes.

Not only that, but according to GoogleMaps, there are industrial lots to the north and south of the propane station. To the west, there is Mt. Sinai Cemetery. In other words, the depot was surrounded on three sides by empty lots. (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Murray+Rd,+Toronto,+ON,+Canada&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=41.139534,54.140625&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=A)

What's more, if prayer offers protection, why didn't the communal spirituality of the residents prevent the two deaths? (I’m sure the victims' families don’t consider the event “miraculous” in any way.) Does this mean the two were atheists or in some way deserved to die? For that matter, when something bad happens to people anywhere in the world, does that mean they didn’t pray enough?

And if there is indeed a connection between the residents’ spirituality and the low death toll, why was it that they experienced the bad luck of having a poorly-run propane depot explode in their midst in the first place? There are many other neighbourhoods in Toronto in close proximity to propane depots that haven't experienced such an explosion. Does that mean those residents prayed more than the Murray Road residents?

What makes the piece particularly misguided is the interview with Deepak Chopra. Along with Wiens’ speculation about the prayer-protection link, his comments take what could have been a legitimate human-interest story and turn it into speculative pseudo-reporting disguised as investigative journalism. It starts with the elderly woman and her thoughts on prayer. Then Wiens poses her question about the connection and seeks out Chopra as if he is an expert on the matter. Chopra intones authoritatively that yes, indeed, there is a connection.

The connection? Central to their argument is an idea sometimes referred to as quantum consciousness. (It’s the key concept in the pseudoscientific, pseudodocumentary film "What the Bleep Do We Know".) According to quantum consciousness, the universe is constructed from thought, and a conscious observer can affect physical reality. In other words, it explains how a person’s prayers can have a real effect in the physical, macro world.

The scientific community overwhelmingly rejects this idea. I won't go into all that has been written to debunk the concept (you can find plenty of information online) except to say that it is based on a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of aspects of quantum theory, particularly Heisenberg’s Principle and wave function collapse. And I’ll quote Micheal Shermer, of Skeptic Magazine and Scientific American magazine, who challenges anyone who believes in this idea to throw themselves out of a 20-story building and "consciously choose the experience of passing safely through the ground's tendencies". (For more, read Chopra and Shermer’s debate on life after death at www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/shermerchopra-afterlife-d_b_37776.html)

In the story, Wiens also alludes to clinical studies into the effect of prayer on the sick. Rather than stating the truth—that there is no empirical evidence of a connection between prayer and healing—she disingenuously and misleadingly categorizes the research as "inconclusive" or "contradictory" as if, because the research hasn’t disproved the notion, it’s therefore still possible. In fact, in 2006, Harvard University Medical School cardiologist Herbert Benson conducted the most extensive study ever into the effects of prayer on the health and recovery of surgery patients. The findings, based on some 1,800 patients in six U.S. hospitals, were definitive and published in the American Heart Journal: there is no statistically measurable effect.

Wiens (or was it Chopra?) then mentions the counter argument that clinical studies haven’t shown a connection between prayer and healing because the studies involved random participants; i.e. they lacked the conditions of true community or empathy that exist in the “real” world. This is typical of people making extraordinary, paranormal claims whose conjectures are contradicted by a controlled, scientific experiment. They invent—ad hoc and after the experiment—reasons why they failed the test. For example, when so-called psychics fail to demonstrate their "powers" in controlled studies, they claim the failure was due to the “negative energy” in the room, or because they simply weren’t “feeling” it that day.

The explosion of the propane depot was a significant event that continues to affect the lives of the residents. Some, a year later, still can’t return to their homes because they remain uninhabitable. Some, a year later, still suffer emotional and psychological damage caused by the traumatic event. It’s a shame the piece wasn’t simply a story about these people, what the event meant to them, how they are coping, and how they view the disaster one year later.

It’s a shame the story wasn’t about the real role of faith in protecting a community, psychologically and emotionally. That’s one I’d be interested in hearing. Ignore for the moment whether God exists and prayer works, what is the relationship between a person’s belief in a supreme being, and their overall outlook toward disasters, or their ability to accept catastrophic events and recover? Of the Murray Road residents, is there a difference between the atheist’s and the believer’s response to the explosion?

For that matter, who were the two victims? What do their families think and feel when they hear about the “miracle”? Are propane depots in Ontario any safer today? And, by the way, why is the owner of Sunrise Propane still in the propane business, as was revealed recently?

Instead of one of these stories, we have one that is oblivious to the realities of the event and goes in search of “understanding” and “truth” in Deepak Chopra and quantum consciousness. Once again, because we see things that aren’t there, we miss the wonderful, fascinating and meaningful things that are.

Twitter and the Convergence of Evidence in Iran

A friend recently wrote on his blog (www.craphammer.ca) about his concern for the many tweeters he was following in Iran in the wake of that country's contested election. A reply was posted in response that included this statement: "Who is to say that half the people you are following are even real people--and not a 30 year old jackass getting kicks out of how many people are following him?" Here's my reply to that post:

It's true you can't be sure that any individual tweet is authentic. And we should be sceptical; we should always exercise media literacy, whether we're reading tweets, the Huffington Post, a hardcopy of the New York Times, or we're listening to CBC radio, or watching BBC World News. In fact, it is entirely reasonable to believe that some percentage of tweets are fake.

But, if your conjecture is that a significant number are fake and that they are painting a misleading picture, then at a certain point, the onus is on you to offer both an explanation of why this is happening and proof that it is. Not only that, but we also have to consider this.

If our knowledge of what's going on in Iran were limited to Twitter alone, we would be right to be very sceptical of every and all tweets and the overall picture they are painting. But Twitter isn't our sole source of information. There are reports coming to us from other sources, such as traditional news agencies (albeit restricted), individuals in contact with their friends and families in Iran, etc. There is also our general knowledge of the political situation in that country.

The consistency of these news reports, personal accounts, historical knowledge, and tweets is what is referred to in science as a "convergence of evidence". And when independent lines of evidence converge on a single conclusion, that is strong evidence for the conclusion.

For e.g. we know Darwin was right--not because of any single piece of data--but because of the overwhelming convergence of evidence from many different sources: geology, paleontology, genetics, zoology, etc.

And, despite attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust by disproving discrete or isolated claims about it, we know it happened because of the overwhelming convergence of evidence from written documents, eyewitness accounts, photographs, the camps themselves and inferential evidence. (For more on this, read Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman's excellent Denying History.)

Not only that, but the internal consistency of large numbers of tweets makes them all the more convincing.

So, while we may not be able to say that any single tweet is authentic, as a whole they contribute to our understanding of what is going on halfway around the world. It is a compelling, disturbing situation that we should all be following, with every means possible.

Ghost Bird - Hot Docs 2009

In February, 2004, a lone kayaker was paddling through a swamp in the Big Woods region of Arkansas when he spotted a magnificent black and white bird. It was an ivory-billed woodpecker, referred to as the “Lord God Bird” because that’s what everyone says when they see it: “Lord God!” The woodpecker was considered extinct in the U.S. and hadn’t been seen in decades.

The documentary, Ghost Bird, in the 2009 Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, tells the story of the sighting and the events that followed. It was a big deal. For birders and ornithologists, the woodpecker was the “Holy Grail” and a sighting would be a once-in-a-lifetime event. To the residents of Brinkley, Arkansas, it was a goldmine, as residents began advertising “Woodpecker Haircuts”, “Ivory-billed Burgers”, and woodpecker souvenir shops. It was a big funding deal, too, with millions of dollars of government money allocated to confirm the sighting and for habitat conservation. It was a major event for scientists claiming the veracity of the sighting; after all, how many animals come back from the dead? And it was a big deal for those experts whose scepticism threw the sighting into doubt and created controversy.

Woven through the story is one of the few pieces of tangible evidence of the bird’s existence: a video taken after the initial sighting, supposedly capturing the ivory-bill taking off from a tree and flying off into the swamp. It provides only an ephemeral, blurry glimpse. An audio recording of what might be an ivory-bill’s call is also tantalizing but equally inconclusive.

Ghost Bird, produced and directed by Scott Crocker, portrays the woodpecker as a symbol of what nature means to us and, equally, what we have done to nature. (The bird disappeared largely because of habitat loss.) The portraits of the story’s many characters are fascinating: the birders who debate the sighting after doubts surface and who so want the woodpecker to be real; the scientists who analyze the video frame by frame; the residents of Brinkley swept up by ivory-bill mania, each with their own reason for wanting the bird to be found.

But as the press kit for the film says, Ghost Bird is set in a “murky swamp of belief”. It has “less to say about extinct woodpeckers than about our yearning to look for and even see them, whether they are there or not.”

The last script I wrote for the McLaughlin Planetarium was set in the murky skies of belief in flying saucers and alien abductions. The script was never produced (as the Royal Ontario Museum closed the planetarium in late 1995). But I subsequently developed the idea into a presentation for students. The talk was not an examination of the proof for and against the existence of alien flying saucers. I was never interested in the weighing of evidence—in short because there is none.

Instead, I talked with students about critical thinking, scepticism, as well as media and scientific literacy; in other words, how we think about UFOs, aliens and similar ambiguous or enigmatic phenomenon—and why.

That’s what has fascinated me about pseudoscience for years. When it comes to these phenomenon, why is the line between belief and knowledge so blurry? And how do we make that leap from one to the other? Why do we want so badly to believe that the Apollo lunar landings are a hoax, or that psychic surgery works? More importantly, why do we so want to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, and that pig factories are the source of the H1N1 virus—to the point that we ignore evidence or see things that aren’t there? Why do we think the way we do about these ghosts?

As I watched the film, it struck me that you could replace the words “ivory-billed woodpecker” with any of the following: “alien abduction”, “terrorist threat”, or “miracle cure”. The blurred, fleeting image of a bird flying through a swamp reminded me of old black and white photographs of a garden filled with fairies; or videos of lights dancing in the desert night sky; or satellite photographs of an ambiguous structure in the desert. These evocative images and ideas shift our emotions and imagination—and our desire to see something—into high gear.

(Interestingly, U.S. Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld makes an appearance in the movie, reminding us that there are “things we don’t know—but we don’t know we don’t know them”.)

In an interview in The National Post during the festival, Crocker said: “It's similar to the financial meltdown and weapons of mass destruction: at what point is the emperor wearing no clothes? The narrative impulse, our constellation-like desire to connect dots that tell a story that may not necessarily be there—the ivory-bill is certainly a version of that.”

Today, after years of searching, there is still no conclusive evidence. The Arkansas ivory-billed woodpecker remains a ghost bird.

Find out more about Scott Crocker’s amazing film at www.ghostbirdmovie.com.

March 18, 2009: Canada's Minister of Science accepts Darwin's evolution. Or does he?

So, Gary Goodyear, Canada’s minister of state for science and technology, thinks his views on evolution are “irrelevant”. When asked in an interview whether he believed in Darwin's big idea, the minister refused to answer, saying that his religious beliefs had nothing to do with government policy.

As a tax-paying voter, I think it’s very relevant—particularly if, as many suspect, Goodyear is a creationist. If the minister believes that all the species on Earth were created by a divine being, whole and complete, and that they didn’t evolve from common ancestors, then he has made a choice based on his religious faith. He’s chosen an explanation that goes against the vast body of evidence accumulated in the 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. He is rejecting the foundation on which all of biology is constructed, an idea universally accepted by science because it has been proven at every step.

It’s relevant because, if this is how he makes decisions and choices, how then will he vote on issues such as stem cell research, climate change, same-sex marriage, capital punishment, abortion, and so on? Will he vote according to faith-based beliefs? Where there is empirical evidence to consider, will he examine it and vote with a rational mind?

Even if he weren’t science minister, the question would still be relevant to me, because I’m not prepared to vote for someone who believes—as Stockwell Day declared in the 2000 election when he was leader of the Canadian Alliance—that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that humans once shared the planet with dinosaurs.

Goodyear’s assertion that he believes in evolution (in a later interview) didn’t exactly reassure the scientific community. The minister, a former chiropractor, explained that "of course I believe in evolution. Whether it's to the intensity of the sun, whether it's to walking on cement versus anything else, whether it's running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment.”

Huh? I don’t remember there being anything about high heels in On the Origin of Species. To some, the minister’s answer was satisfactory. But others, like Denis Lamoureux, a professor of science and religion at the University of Alberta, recognized that Goodyear was continuing to be evasive. The minister still hadn’t specifically answered whether he accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection and that separate species evolved from common ancestors over millions of years.

And even if we accept Goodyear’s stated belief in evolution, you have to wonder about his grasp of the concept. According to Elizabeth Elle, a biology professor at Simon Fraser University in B.C., "[Goodyear’s answer] demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how evolution by natural selection works."

So, whether he is being evasive about his creationist belief, or he simply doesn’t understand evolution through natural selection, Goodyear’s disingenuous, rambling, unintelligible answer fails to instil confidence within the Canadian scientific community. It also underscores the relevance of the question. After all, how would Canadians feel about a finance minister who didn’t believe in capitalism, or who could not explain how the stock market worked? Or a minister of health who didn’t believe in germ theory, or could not explain how vaccines worked?

Mr. Goodyear, we await further clarification.

October 9, 2008: Yes, John McCain, the world does need more $3M “Overhead Projectors”

During the October 7, 2008 U.S. Presidential Townhall Debate in Nashville, Senator John McCain claimed that Barack Obama “voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork-barrel earmark projects—including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

A $3 million “overhead projector”!? Okay, I’ve been following the U.S. election intently since the beginning of the year. But, as former Senior Producer at the McLaughlin Planetarium of the ROM in Toronto, it just got personal.

Where to begin? Well, for starters, the "overhead projector" is not that suitcase-sized light-box we're all familiar with from grade school that our teachers used to project transparencies of graphs and maps onto a screen. The “overhead projector” McCain refers to is a planetarium star projector: the complex, highly-sophisticated optical instrument that projects images of stars, planets, the Milky Way, and the Sun on the dome-shaped screen of a planetarium, simulating the night sky. It is the odd-looking object in the centre of the star theatre that school children often refer to as the “giant insect”. It is the heart of any planetarium—the piece of equipment responsible for that transcendent moment in every show when the theatre slowly darkens and, one by one, the stars of the night sky magically appear. Star projectors can accurately portray the heavens as seen from any point on Earth—thousands of years into the future and thousands of years into the past.

As Chicago’s Adler Planetarium—the first planetarium in North America—clarified in its official response to McCain’s comments, the institution had requested federal support to replace their Zeiss Mark Vl star projector because it is so old (though not as old as John McCain) that the manufacturer can no longer provide spare parts or service for it. It is a typical request: planetariums around the world routinely replace aging equipment, or upgrade as new technologies arise. And museums and planetariums typically require funding as they don’t get by on box office receipts alone.

(The Adler also stated for the record that the funding was not granted, “that the Adler has never received an earmark as a result of Senator Obama's efforts”, but that Obama has been supportive of their appropriations requests.)

So, it’s not an “overhead projector”. As for the question, “Do we need to spend that kind of money?”, McCain forgets that in 1957, the answer was a resounding yes. That year, the Russians put a scare into America when they beat the U.S. into space with the launch of the Sputnik satellite. Part of the government’s response was to fund the construction of hundreds of planetariums in schools across the country in order to bolster science education and join the space race. (Of course, McCain had graduated from high school by '57, so he may not have known this was happening.)

In contemporary China—a country with its eyes set fervently, if somewhat maniacally, on the future—the answer is also, yes. Jin Zhu, director of the Beijing Planetarium, echoing Sputnik-era Americans, calls for “every middle-size city in China (to) have a large- or middle-size planetarium, and every middle school in China (to) have its own middle- or small-size planetarium”. It is the director’s hope that “hundreds of new planetariums will be built in the next several years”.

And so, for the same reasons as existed over 50 years ago, the answer is: yes. We need to spend that kind of money in order to ensure good science education. After all, science education is even more important today than it was half a century ago. It is key to understanding the social and political issues we face every day—whether it’s stem cell research, climate change, medical research, alternative energy, and so on. (Perhaps if Sarah Palin had received a better science education, she would understand that global warming is a real phenomenon with serious consequences, caused by humans.) And, it is critical to economic well-being and development at a time when the technology and knowledge sectors should be supplanting the resource and manufacturing sectors as the key drivers of our economy and key suppliers of jobs. Good science education ensures economic well-being and development.

If only corporate Ontario and the provincial government would show they understand what’s at stake and fund the construction of a new planetarium to replace the boarded-up McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto. Its last star show was in 1995, when the Conservative government of Mike Harris reduced the Royal Ontario Museum’s operating budget and the museum decided to cope with that cut by closing the planetarium. It is sad that there aren’t more “overhead projectors” to educate our children, to instill in them a sense of wonder in the natural world, and prepare them and us for the future.

January 2003: Thinking About Clones

Have the Raelians and Clonaid created the first human clone? Is baby “Eve” for real?

Who cares? The question of the truth of this claim is an uninteresting one that we shouldn’t waste time on. Clonaid is a “company” created by a cult called the Raelians, a group believing that humans were created by extraterrestrials 25,000 years ago. Clonaid has no scientific credibility and, thus, it is extremely unlikely that there is a clone. The claim is an extraordinary one which requires extraordinary proof, which they have not provided. End of story.

But, for most of the world media, the announcement by Raelian “bishop” Brigitte Boisselier was just the beginning of the story. Coverage was intense and expansive. The story commanded front page attention. After acknowledging that the Raelians didn’t exactly have impressive scientific credentials, much of the coverage went on to treat the claim at face value, as if Clonaid were a legitimate scientific organization. The question of the existence of the clone continues to stir debate.

However, there is another question that is much more fascinating and much more important to consider. It is this: Why do we think the way we do about weird things like cults and their clones, and aliens who supposedly created humanity in a genetic experiment 25,000 years ago? For that matter, why do we think the way we do about UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles, psychokinesis, channeling, ESP, astrology, miracle cures, and all sorts of unproven paranormal and pseudoscientific phenomena?

Why are we so mesmerized by these ideas and so quick to believe, often accepting these notions as true and real without any credible evidence? Why do we believe?

The television show that did as much as any other to cement popular beliefs about one of these weird ideas—extraterrestrial visitation—was “The X-Files”. The show featured a pair of FBI agents named Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigated cases with a paranormal bent to them. The answer to the question, “Why do we believe?” was printed on a poster that hung in agent Mulder’s office in the basement of FBI headquarters. The poster showed a blurry picture of a UFO and read: “I Want To Believe”.

For many different reasons, we all want to believe. For one thing, we all love a good story and aliens make for some of the best storytelling ever. In fact, some consider these tales to be the modern, technological equivalents of ancient myths, legends and superstitions. Also, it’s in our nature to speculate about the unknown and the things that we think lay just beyond the horizon of the known. And, some of us love the idea that aliens or spirits of the dead or something beyond the natural world will reveal itself and solve our earthly problems—or at least make sense of them—thus bringing some sort of salvation.

So, at times we want to believe so badly we let our guard down in order to believe. And sometimes, we just think in weird ways about weird things and end up believing that those weird things are real.

A few years ago, I visited junior and senior high school classes to present what was ostensibly a talk about UFOs and the alien abduction phenomenon. In truth, the talk was about media literacy, scientific literacy, critical thinking and logic.

When the students and I talked about the media, and the information and influences we are bombarded with every day, we talked about the importance of considering the source. Did we read something about time travel in Scientific American magazine or the newspaper or a supermarket tabloid? Was the cloning claim made by a respected research organization with legitimate credentials or by a Raelian priestess?

True, the Raelians did say they would offer proof of their claim, even going so far as to recruit someone to oversee DNA testing. But here, the cultists didn’t score high points in their scientific literacy.

As the Royal Society and Sir Alec Jeffreys—the inventor of DNA fingerprinting and professor of genetics at Leicester University—have stated, in order for the DNA testing of “Eve” to be valid it must be independent and conducted by more than one lab. Every single step along the way must be scrutinized, from the extraction of the mother and baby’s DNA to the final result.

Clonaid recruited Michael Guillen to act as overseer of the testing. Described in various reports as a “scientist”, Guillen does hold a doctorate in theoretical physics, mathematics and astronomy from Cornell University. But as far as I can find, he has never actually conducted any research. The only feature of his resume that appears to have qualified him in Clonaid’s eyes is his stint as a science editor for ABC News.

And not a very good science editor, at that. It has been reported that, over the years, Guillen gave credence to such fringe claims as psychokinesis, cold fusion (years after the claim was found to be flawed), and even astrology. Leon Jaroff of Time Magazine recently reported that long after the scientific community had established that HIV caused AIDS, Guillen did an uncritical piece about two scientists who believed that HIV wasn’t the culprit. In it, he stated, “Many AIDS patients have never been infected with HIV”.

In other words, Guillen could not be counted on to oversee a critical, independent, rigorous testing process, much less report the story accurately.

In the end, does it really matter that Clonaid’s claim is highly dubious and undeserving of such attention? Does it really matter that we are sometimes compelled to believe in weird things by our desire or tendency to believe? Or that we’re sometimes less critical than we should be? What harm is there?

The harm is this: The emotional and intellectual path that leads to accepting that “Eve” exists, without credible evidence, is a path paved not with logic, critical thinking, or scientific understanding. Rather, it is paved with a desire to believe, as well as speculation mistaken for reason and generally accepted facts. Follow this path and we end up believing that aliens are visiting the earth and abducting humans, that people such as television’s John Edward can communicate with our deceased loved ones, that astrology and ESP work.

Follow the path a little further and we come upon the belief that buying a certain product or adopting a certain lifestyle will bring us happiness and fulfillment in life. It leads you to accept—rather than making up your own mind based on credible, independently corroborated evidence—that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. The same thinking leads us to believe Holocaust deniers who say that the Nazis did not commit mass genocide during World War ll.

It is a long, treacherous path that leads us further and further away from knowledge, understanding, and the beauty of the natural world.