Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [43]
In the first chapter of In the Name of Science, Gardner picks up where he left off, noting that “tens of thousands of mentally ill people throughout the country entered ‘dianetic reveries’ in which they moved back along their ‘time track’ and tried to recall unpleasant experiences they had when they were embryos.” Half a century later Scientology has converted those reveries into a worldwide cult of personality surrounding L. Ron Hubbard, targeting celebrities for membership and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-free revenue as an IRS-approved “religion.”
Today UFOs are big business, but in 1950 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 believers 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 in 1950 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, Kansas, Texas, Georgia, Ohio, and other states enjoin the fight as the creationist virus spreads nationwide.
I devote an entire chapter in my book The Borderlands of Science to Martin Gardner and his seminal work, but suffice it to say here that Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science has been a cherished classic read by legions of skeptics and scientists and laid the foundation for a bona fide skeptical movement that found its roots in the early 1970s. There has been some debate (and much quibbling) about who gets what amount of credit for the founding of the modern skeptical movement in the journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), Skeptical Inquirer (much of this history has been outlined in the pages of my own magazine, Skeptic, in interviews with the leading lights of the skeptical movement). This is not the place to present a definitive history of the movement, but from what I have gleaned from first- and secondhand sources Martin Gardner, magician James Randi, psychologist Ray Hyman, and philosopher Paul Kurtz played primary roles in the foundation and planning of the organization, with numerous others in secondary supporting roles, such as journalist Phil Klass and sociologist Marcello Truzzi.
Regardless of who might be considered the “father” of the modern skeptical movement, everyone I have spoken to (including the other founders) agrees that it was Paul Kurtz more than anyone else who actually made it happen. All successful social movements have someone who has the organizational skills and social intelligence to get things done. Paul Kurtz is that man. But he had a lot of help. First among equals in this capacity is Barry Karr, who impressed me with his organizational genius and plain old hard work. For a social movement to survive it must be able to make the transition from the first generation to the second, and I have no doubt that CSICOP will flourish in the next quarter century thanks to the next generation of skeptics such