Hermits and Cranks

Fifty years ago Martin Gardner launched the modern skeptical movement.Unfortunately, much of what he wrote about is still current today

By Michael Shermer

In 1950 Martin Gardner published an article in the _Antioch Review_ entitled "The Hermit Scientist," about what we would today call pseudoscientists. It was Gardner's first publication of a skeptical nature (he was the games columnist for _Scientific American_ for over a quarter century), and in 1952 he expanded it into a book titled _In the Name of Science_, with the descriptive subtitle "An entertaining survey of the high priests and cultists of science, past and present." Published by Putnam, the book sold so poorly that it was quickly remaindered and lay dormant until 1957, when it was republished by Dover and has come down to us as _Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science_, still in print and arguably _the_ skeptic classic of the past half century.

The "hermit scientist," a youthful Gardner wrote half a century ago, works alone and is ignored by mainstream scientists. "Such neglect, of course, only strengthens the convictions of the self-declared genius." Gardner, however, was wrong by half in his prognostications: "The current flurry of discussion about Velikovsky and Hubbard will soon subside, and their books will begin to gather dust on library shelves." While Velikovskians are a quaint few surviving in the interstices of fringe culture, L. Ron Hubbard has been canonized by the Church of Scientology and deified as the founding saint of a world religion.

In 1952 Gardner could not have known that the nascent flying saucer craze would turn into an alien industry: "Since flying saucers were first reported in 1947, countless individuals have been convinced that the earth is under observation by visitors from another planet." Absence of evidence then was no more a barrier to belief than it is today, and UFOlogists proffered the same conspiratorial explanations for the dearth of proof: "I have heard many readers of the saucer books upbraid the government in no uncertain terms for its stubborn refusal to release the "truth" about the elusive platters. The administration's "hush-hush policy" is angrily cited as proof that our military and political leaders have lost all faith in the wisdom of the American people."

From his perspective half a century ago Gardner was even then bemoaning the fact that some beliefs never seem to go out of vogue, as he recalled H. L. Mencken's quip from the 1920s "that if you heave an egg out of a Pullman car window anywhere in the United States you are likely to hit a
fundamentalist."

Gardner cautions that when presumably religious superstition should be on the wane how easy it is "to forget that thousands of high school teachers of biology, in many of our southern states, are still afraid to teach the theory of evolution for fear of losing their jobs." Today, bleeding Kansas enjoins the fight as the creationist virus spreads northward.

Thankfully there has been some progress since Gardner published his first criticisms of pseudoscience. Now largely antiquated are Gardner's chapters on believers in a flat-earth, a hollow earth, Velikovsky, Atlantis and Lemuria, Alfred William Lawson, Roger Babson, Trofim Lysenko, Wilhelm Reich, and Alfred Korzybski. But, disturbingly, a good two-thirds of the book's contents are relevant today, including homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathy, iridiagnosis (reading the iris of the eye to determine bodily malfunctions), food faddists, cancer cures and other forms of medical quackery, Edgar Cayce, the Great Pyramid's alleged mystical powers, handwriting analysis, ESP and PK, reincarnation, dowsing rods, eccentric sexual theories, and theories of group racial differences.

And the motives of the "hermit scientists" have not changed either. Gardner recounts the day that Groucho Marx interviewed Louisiana State Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc about a "miracle" cure-all vitamin and mineral tonic called Hadacol that the Senator had invented. When Groucho asked him what it was good for, LeBlanc answered with uncharacteristic honesty: "It was good for five and a half million for me last year."

What I find especially valuable about Gardner's views are his insights into the differences between science and pseudoscience. On the one extreme we have ideas that are most certainly false, "such as the dianetic view that a one-day-old embryo can make sound recordings of its mother's conversation." In the borderlands middle are theories advanced as working hypotheses, but highly debatable because of the lack of sufficient data," and for this Gardner selects a most propitious example: "the theory that the universe is expanding." That theory would now fall onto the spectrum at the other extreme end of "theories almost certainly true, such as the belief that the earth is round or that men and beasts are distant cousins."

How can we tell if someone is a scientific crank? Gardner offers this advice:

(1) "First and most important of these traits is that cranks work in almost total isolation from their colleagues." Cranks typically do not understand how the scientific process works--that they need to try out their ideas on colleagues, attend conferences, and publish their hypotheses in peer-reviewed journals before announcing to the world their startling discovery. Of course, when you explain this to them they say that their ideas are too radical for the conservative scientific establishment to accept.

(2) "A second characteristic of the pseudo-scientist, which greatly strengthens his isolation, is a tendency toward paranoia," which manifests itself in several ways:

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(1) He considers himself a genius.

(2) He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads.

(3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against. The recognized societies refuse to let him lecture. The journals reject his papers and either ignore his books or assign them to "enemies" for review. It is all part of a dastardly plot. It never occurs to the crank that this opposition may be due to error in his work.

(4) He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein.

(5) He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.

We should keep these criteria at the forefront when we explore controversial ideas on the borderlands of science. "If the present trend continues, Gardner concludes, "we can expect a wide variety of these men, with theories yet unimaginable, to put in their appearance in the years immediately ahead. They will write impressive books, give inspiring lectures, organize exciting cults. They may achieve a following of one--or one million. In any case, it will be well for ourselves and for society if we are on our guard against them." So we still are, Martin. That is what skeptics do and in tribute for all you have done we shall continue to honor your founding command.