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September 1987 "BASIS", newsletter of the Bay Area Skeptics
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         Bay Area Skeptics Information Sheet
                   Vol. 6, No. 9
                Editor:  Kent Harker



[In March of this year, a civil trial in Hollister addressed
questions of medical quackery and religious freedom in the case of
a "Reverend" Andrews and his prescribed health regime. First, we
have an article covering the background of this case by attorney
Pressman, followed by an interview with an expert witness for the
prosecution.   -- Assoc. Ed.]

INSTITUTE CLOSES AFTER INJUNCTION
by David Pressman

One of the more outre health regimes, for which miraculous cures
have been claimed, has been the practice of fasting, either on
juices or on water alone. Although many gurus in the health
movement recommend and conduct fasts for therapeutic purposes,
conventional medicine dismisses virtually all fasting, except for
obesity, as worthless and dangerous. However, no scientific tests
of therapeutic fasting have been made, so that, except for
recognizing the dangers of medically unsupervised fasting and other
extreme diets, the scientific literature is sorely deficient in
this area and the medical community's opinion seems premature.

One of the most extreme practitioners of fasting recently closed
down after the State of California moved against him for practicing
medicine without a license. The story of his ruin is most
interesting.

Arthur D. Andrews, Jr., 65, the self-styled first minister of "The
Religious School of Natural Hygiene", a health institute in
Hollister with religious overtones, was sued in late 1985 in the
Superior Court for San Benito County by the California Board of
Medical Quality Assurance. The BMQA sought an injunction to force
Andrews and his 12-bed institute to cease his fasting treatment.

The BMQA brought suit after several former patients of Andrews (he
called them students) complained of injuries and the Board learned
that six people had died as a result of extended fasts under
Andrews's supervision.  The water fasts were undertaken for as long
as 8 weeks, plus as many more weeks to recover; prices ranging from
$225 to $300 per week to cure various ailments, ranging from
arthritis to ulcerative colitis were charged.

Andrews opened his "school" in 1979 and advertised it on radio, in
various health magazines (including his own), and by lectures in
the Bay Area. He advocated a "natural hygiene" health regime, which
involved the usual measures (exercise, sunlight, fresh air, low
stress, etc.) with several notable additions: the diet was mostly
raw foods; vitamins, drugs, and medical treatments were excluded
(except for emergencies), and extended fasts on distilled water
only were prescribed in cases of disease. Andrews claimed that
virtually all disease occurred because of the accumulation of
toxins in the body and that during a fast with rest, a person's
body shut down its normal activities (such as digestion), leaving
it with enough free energy to do a thorough house-cleaning so that
it could rid itself of the toxins.  Each issue of his magazine
featured a lengthy testimonial, written by Andrews, about a patient
who was cured of one or more diseases by fasting and a natural
hygiene diet.  His facility was a converted farmhouse on a large
walnut grove, just north of Hollister.

Natural hygiene is a health movement that was started by Sylvester
Graham, a minister and the inventor of the graham cracker, in the
1800s. Graham's natural hygiene largely died out, but was revived
in the early 1930s by a naturopath named Dr. Herbert M. Shelton,
author of many books including the popular "Fasting Can Save Your
Life".  Natural hygiene recently gained nation-wide notoriety with
the publication of a best-seller on natural hygiene, "Fit for
Life", by the Diamonds. About 10 other natural hygiene institutes
exist in the US and other countries; all of these are run by
medically-trained people, such as chiropractors, MDs, or DOs, and
they claim to have a high success rate, often in cases where
conventional medicine has failed. Andrews' was the only one with
religious overtones, and, because of the religion and Andrews' lack
of any medical license, the American Natural Hygiene Association,
based in Tampa, FL, considered him a pariah.

Andrews has also been civilly sued by four former patients.  Two
of the suits are still pending and two were settled out of court.
Also, the state is considering bringing criminal charges against
him for two of the six deaths that occurred as a result of the
fasts at his institute. (In 1970, Andrews was convicted of
statutory rape for having sex with inmates of a county facility for
delinquent girls that he was managing. He served six months in the
county jail, and was then released on probation.) In addition, the
San Benito County Welfare Department has charged that Andrews
bilked an elderly client out of $60,000 and accused him of treating
two minors with fasts, but no charges have been filed in these
cases.

At the trial, three former patients testified against Andrews,
stating that Andrews claimed long fasts (at $225 to $300 per week)
would cure their medical problems; that while on their fasts he
gave them medical examinations, and that as a result of severe
overfasting they suffered permanent physical, neurological, and
psychological damage, including a phobia, strabismus, incontinence,
chronic muscular pain, and non-ambulation. Also, several medical
experts, including BAS board member Wallace Sampson, MD, a
professor of medicine at Stanford, testified that fasting has no
therapeutic merit; that by giving examinations and making contracts
to supervise fasts, Andrew was in fact practicing medicine, and
that it is dangerous to fast without medical tests and supervision,
and that one faster, Sara Roundtree, died as a result of the
accumulation of excess hydrogen ions in her bloodstream brought
about by autolysis (self-digestion) of bodily proteins.

Andrews defended the suit on the basis of religious freedom and on
the grounds that he wasn't practicing medicine and that the
injuries that occurred were not his fault. Several former patients
also testified for Andrews, stating that they fasted for religious,
not therapeutic purposes, that their fasts cured them of various
ailments, and that Andrews didn't do any true medical testing --
he used the stethoscope and the sphygmomanometer only to reassure
and comfort them. Also several Hollywood ministers testified that
fasting has been a religious practice since ancient times. His
attorney's brief included, in addition to the usual legal
citations, numerous biblical citations, such as Luke 2:37. Andrews
further garnered about 500 supporting declarations and $25,000  for
trial expenses from followers who supported his practices,
including director Peter Bogdanovich and his actress-sister Anna.
His followers packed the courtroom during the trial and stated that
the state's action infringed their religious freedom. The media
widely covered and reported the trial; it was featured in
newspapers and TV stations as far as Sacramento.

The trial lasted about one week, although it was conducted in
segments for a period of over a month. Immediately at the end of
Andrew's defense, the judge granted the state's requested
injunction, finding that Andrews did in fact practice medicine by
counseling fasting, supervising fasts, and conducting physical
examinations. The injunction forbade Andrews to supervise fasts or
to conduct medical tests. Also Andrews was ordered to pay the state
$6,000 for court and investigation costs; Andrews is appealing this
monetary judgement. Despite the injunction, Andrews had intended
to continue conducting fasts for "spiritual purposes". Under the
injunction, he could have done this, functioning as a religious
retreat, but the publicity evidently got to his landlord, who
successfully sued to evict Andrews from the farmhouse. Andrews was
last reported again selling cookware, together with used furniture,
in the small Santa Cruz mountain town of Boulder Creek.


[The following interview with BAS Advisor Wallace I. Sampson, M.D.,
was conducted for "BASIS" by Mark Hodes. Dr. Sampson is a Clinical
Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and
testified as an expert witness for the prosecution at the trial of
Arthur Andrews.

Hodes: What constitutes the practice of medicine?

Sampson: There is a difference between the legal definition and
what physicians define the practice of medicine to be.

H: If someone is licensed to practice medicine, what is he licensed
to do?

S: Diagnose and treat conditions of disease. The law lists a number
of procedures. At Andrews's trial, the prosecution asked me that
question, and when I started to quote the law, the opposing
attorney objected. The judge sustained the objection. Apparently,
and expert witness is not supposed to state what is in the law,
only his opinion. So I just went ahead and said what my opinion
was, and it became the standard of the court, because I was an
expert witness for the state.

H: Do you have to be compensated in order to practice medicine?

S: That is implied. The law doesn't so state, but that is one of
my criteria.

H: So, if a parent applies a cold compress to his child's head, he
is not practicing medicine without a license?

S: Yes, but there is a limit to that. You can't make an incision
in somebody, even for free. That is a violation of the law, unless
it is done under some emergency circumstance. The definition of the
practice of medicine is very broad under the law, but there are
numerous exceptions. Exceptions are made for dentists, nurses,
chiropractors, psychologists, and podiatrists. These all have their
own law defining their fields of practice.

The Brown administration Board of Medical Quality tried without
success to redefine the practice of medicine by limiting it to
inserting an instrument into any orifice, incision of the skin or
any part of the body with a scalpel, and radiation therapy.
Anything else would not be the practice of medicine.

H: Even diagnosis?

S: Right. Anybody could diagnose and give advice. Anybody could
prescribe non-dangerous drugs (whatever those would be), and could
diagnose a condition and treat it, except in those particular ways
proscribed. This definition was far too narrow. The medical
profession objected and the proposal didn't get through the
legislature. The definition really is in flux, and there are a lot
of fuzzy boundaries.

H: What was Reverend Andrews doing that fell under the definition
of practicing medicine?

S: That is what we had to define in the court, because I don't
think it had been adequately defined before. The point of the
prosecuting attorney was that in the State of California, Andrews
was practicing medicine by my definition. My sense of practice was
that once Andrews counsels someone in a fast or starvation past 24
hours and monitors the person, all of those actions constitute the
practice of medicine. We didn't have to establish that each one
separately constituted the practice of medicine, but that
collectively they did.

Andrews took pulse, blood pressure, temperature, activity status,
took a history, did all of those things almost every day, and made
notes on a chart. He supervised the starvation by telling the
person that he thought the person was ready to eat, not to eat,
etc. And in so doing, Andrews was actually interposing himself as
a biological advisor, you might say, in a very serious condition.
That also, I thought, was the practice of medicine. Those two were
the major points: Andrews monitored and advised, and he kept
records, just as a doctor would.

H: Of course, to support the charge of practicing medicine without
a license, it isn't necessary to show the defendant to be
practicing badly, only to be practicing. Is Andrews to be charged
now with manslaughter?

S: That is my understanding. I have had no contact with the
district attorney since the civil trial.

H: If a physician had done exactly the things that Andrews did, the
chances are, I suppose, that charges of manslaughter might never
be brought.

S: They might not, but they might. This was far outside of the
standard practice. I was asked that by the judge because the
defense attorney did not want to bring it up. I replied that any
physician who did this should be disciplined by the Board.

H: What about the religious defense?

S: That was the main contention of the defense: that this was a
religious matter, not a medical matter. And that is what we spent
two or three days trying to disprove by establishing that a fast
is a medical condition. I took the position that a fast of any
duration beyond 24 hours results in certain physiological changes
that automatically make it a potentially dangerous situation, and
that anyone assuming care or providing advice in respect to such
a fast would in essence be practicing medicine on someone in a
diseased state. I didn't use the word "disease".  It was just a
state of such physiological change that it was endangering the
person's life.

H: What physiological changes occur?

S: There are a number. At about 24 hours, the body begins to burn
protein as well as carbohydrates and fats. When you start to lose
protein, you lose not just muscle, but enzymes and nerve tissue,
a lot of tissue that is vital for functioning. Although you may not
see changes that are immediately apparent, you can measure
biological changes.

H: Fasts are practiced by persons of many religious backgrounds.
Are their religious counselors guilty of practicing medicine
without a license?

S: At the trial, I was asked: "Suppose, Doctor, that a rabbi tells
a person to fast for 24 hours on Yom Kippur. Does that constitute
the practice of medicine?" I answered that it is traditional to
fast on Yom Kippur, and that the rabbi doesn't order people to do
anything. The fasting is a personal, religious matter and is not
a matter of a transaction between those two people. I said that is
true of all religious fasting. A person may fast for religious
reasons, but my point was that if a person does it on his own, then
there is no legal problem. The person may be declared temporarily
insane if he puts his life in danger, just as in a suicide attempt.
There are no real health reasons for undertaking such an extended
fast. The problem in the trial was whether Andrews was monitoring
a medical condition. The court bought our argument that he was.

H: Can your interpretation of what constitutes medical practice be
used as a precedent under the law?

S: Only is there were an unsuccessful appeal by the defendant to
a higher court. I think we would win an appeal, because the case
is quite clear. There were two deaths and two or three cases of
nerve damage that were substantiated by medical specialists.
Andrews clearly did not know what he was doing. He didn't even give
vitamins to prevent vitamin deficiency during these fasts, and his
victims didn't have enough good sense to take them. Andrews
promoted the illusion of competency by recording notes as if he
were a doctor. Reading these things was like reading a medical
chart, except, of course, they didn't make as much sense.

H: The outcome of the trial was that the judge issued an order
enjoining Andrews from practicing medicine, but not from fasting.
It seemed a strange resolution to the case.

S: Apparently, Andrews's followers are allowed to do what they are
doing as long as Andrews doesn't practice medicine. What he was
doing was the practice of medicine, so he is in the position of
trying to figure out what the court order means. I would assume he
would be in compliance if he doesn't tell people when to start and
stop, if he doesn't take blood pressures and pulses, etc. If he
just rents them a room, a place to fast, then his followers would
have the responsibility of starving themselves to death.



NEWTON'S OUT AND WRIGHT'S RIGHT
by Shawn Carlson

[Mr. Walter C. Wright, Jr., a 69-year-old "folk scientist" stirred
up a fuss about his revolutionary theory he alleged was being
suppressed by the scientific community. His letters to prominent
scientists, NASA, and major research institutes were largely
ignored, so Wright turned to several congressmen; these efforts
finally reached the office of the Department of Education. SHAWN
CARLSON, a Ph.D. candidate in physics at U.C. Berkeley and BAS
Board member, was then asked to make an investigation.

Shawn is published in prestigious journals for his searching
analyses of astrology claims, and has already established himself
as a thorough researcher and investigator. The material here
presented is a summary of his paper submitted to the Department of
Education. The full text of Shawn's report is obtainable by writing
to him at Bldg. 50, Rm. 348, Lawrence Berkeley Labs, Berkeley, CA
94720. (Note at 10/12/89: Shawn is no longer at LBL, but can be
reached through Bay Area Skeptics).  Thanks to Shawn for the great
work, and for sharing it with "BASIS" readers.    -- Ed.]

Mr. Wright's odyssey began in 1968 when his then-12-year-old son
stated he did not believe Newton's theory of gravity, in part
because if the moon pulls the oceans (tidal action), it should pull
the water from the earth and carry it all the way to the moon.
Since this didn't happen, Newton must be wrong. Mr. Wright agreed
with his son, and together with him and another son he "sat down
to probe the heavens with our knowledge of electronics, believing
the universe was made up of atoms, which is the basis of electron
theory." Although Wright obviously had little formal training, he
advanced his ideas as "Push Gravity Theory".  He established a
museum described as "the only space-action universe museum ever
built in the world", and began a crusade to overthrow Newton via
news media and public lectures; he asks people to write their
representatives and sign petitions. He demands that his theory be
taught in the public schools as an alternative to Newton's theory.

I corresponded with Mr. Wright to inform him of my visit under the
auspices of the Dept. of Education, and received a packet of
information about his theory and the museum. Wright's letterhead
features a picture of Einstein with a caption "ALBERT EINSTEIN,
RELATIVITY -- 1905". On the other side was his own picture with the
explanation, "WALTER C. WRIGHT, PUSH GRAVITY -- 1968". Wright
claims to have written over 3,000 papers and that "everything you
will see [in his museum] is new in physics".

According to Wright, gravity is a "push"; the consequence of the
electromagnetic energy radiating from the sun pushing objects away.
Further, the strength of gravitational repulsion depends on the
chemistry of the body.  For example, Pluto is the furthest planet
because its chemical composition is such that the sun pushes harder
on it than on any other planet. His theory explains why stars in
two interpenetrating galaxies do not collide, how the big bang
happened, and why the moons of Jupiter are cratered as they are,
etc.

Wright asserts gravity CANNOT be attraction, because everything in
the universe would be "stuck together like a bunch of grapes, and
Halley's comet would crash into the sun rather than orbiting."

Apart from being able to quote Newton's three laws of motion,
Wright has no demonstrable understanding of even the basic laws of
mechanics; he does not understand the principle of conservation of
angular momentum, which clearly explains why comets do not crash
into the sun. Wright's model used a ferrous nut as the comet and
a magnet glued to a cardboard surface as the sun -- the nut could
never be made to circle the magnet. My attempt to explain the
presence of frictional forces between the cardboard and the nut,
thus invalidating his model, was considered irrelevant.

One of his "new physics" demonstrations consisted of standing a
heavy iron bolt on end, and then rapidly moving a very powerful
horseshoe magnet toward it. Claiming the result was unexpected, he
challenged me to predict what would happen to the bolt. (Most non-
physicists would probably expect the bolt to be picked up by the
magnet.) Much to Wright's surprise, I predicted that the bolt would
fall over, which it did. He refused to deal with the fact that I
was able to predict the outcome without his new physics, but
recounted instances in which others guessed wrong.

Other -- rather simple -- miracle properties Wright alleges:
"Magnets produce twists and circles. Heat produces magnetism.
Gravity depends upon chemistry." For the first claim, I showed the
effect is well known, and described by equations with which he was
unfamiliar. In the other two cases, he failed to produce any
evidence or experiment to demonstrate his claim. None of this
daunted him in the least.

Wright's mathematics is from simple to non-existent.  His equations
bear striking resemblance to accepted theory when they are
reasonably accurate, but they have little meaning in reality
otherwise, with arbitrary constants and manufactured terminology.
When he reminded me that particles of the solar wind are deflected
from the earth (the push) rather than falling into the earth as
Newton's theory would require, my explanation that those particles
are charged and therefore deflected by interaction with the earth's
magnetic field failed to move him. In short, no counter argument
was even conceivable.

He is confused about many facts. He believes that Einstein
supported his idea that gravity is a push. "Einstein said that
gravity comes at us from outer space, pushing us down to the
earth." He is confusing the idea of a stationary gravitational
field with Einstein's prediction of gravity waves. Wright confuses
electromagnetic radiation with the solar wind, believing that
photons have magnetic moments, and that the sun is anti-matter, and
that faster-than-light travel is possible.

In my opinion, Wright's convictions are unshakable. Despite being
given counter argument after counter argument regarding his ideas,
despite being informed about errors in his logic and basic facts,
despite clear demonstrations that his "new effects" in physics are
easily anticipated using well-established physics, Mr. Wright did
not perceptibly back down one inch from any of his convictions.



ANOTHER CAUSE FOR UFO SIGHTINGS
by H. Keith Henson

Most UFO sightings have origins in natural phenomena, or
misidentification of man-made lights, such as the Woodbridge case
reported in the Fall '86 "Skeptical Inquirer". But there are cases
that are the result of deception. I know, because I was involved
in three of them, and have personal knowledge of one more. Of the
four cases, only one was ever exposed.

My earliest experience was in 1959, when a group of my high-school
friends and I hung a fluorescent light on thin wires over a street
in Prescott, Arizona, and made it flicker with a Model T spark
coil. We would turn it on at night when a car was only a hundred
feet away, so the driver was hard put to see what it was before the
car had passed under it. People would stop, back up, look again and
again, and never figure out what they had seen, while we were up
on someone's porch trying to keep from with bursting with laughter.

It worked so well that we moved our activities to a highway outside
of town. If our victims had their radios on, all the better,
because close proximity to a spark coil makes a radio sound like
crushing a mountain of cornflakes with a bulldozer. The number of
locals who encountered our UFOs was at least in the dozens.
Prescott's reputation as a UFO center may have some of its origins
in our pranks.

In 1960, I started engineering studies at the University of
Arizona. A number of my friends from Prescott were also going to
school there, and by next year, we had founded the Druid Student
Center just north of the campus. The origin of "The Druids" and the
story of the "Bandersnatch", an off-campus humor newspaper we
published in the mid-to-late '60s are a story in themselves.

Our UFO constructions, which peaked in 1962, were a relatively
minor part of our activities, though they brought us a great deal
of publicity.

It took a long time to learn to build a really good UFO.  We had
been launching hydrogen-filled plastic dry-cleaning bags in
Prescott since 1957. My old aluminum-and-lye hydrogen generator may
still be in the basement of my parents' house. When we moved to
Tucson, we found a place that sold us an unperforated, 2,000-foot
roll of dry-cleaning plastic tubing. We discovered that while
natural gas had only half the lift of helium, it had enough, and
was available at the turn of a valve. We launched several long
tubes in the daytime with rolls of toilet paper that made long
streamers when a fuse released the paper.

We lifted several radar corners with these balloons, but never got
any feedback that anyone noticed them, so we quit. We also launched
a number of sections of tubing with fuses and small packets of
gunpowder to set them on fire. One of these (about 100 feet long)
got picked up by the news media when a large number of people
reported it as a crashed plane. The Air Force "explanation" of
"neon lights reflecting off low clouds" certainly didn't satisfy
anyone who saw huge flames leaping in the sky. We did this only a
few times because we never really felt good about dropping flaming
plastic over the city, though it most likely went out before
hitting the ground.

The first one in the UFO series (all launched at night) we sent up
with a battery and bulb. Knowing what we were looking at, we were
able to track it in a car far across the city. But a flashlight
bulb looks like a star from any distance away, and it wasn't easy
to track. Next variation was a candle. The first one went out when
it was launched. We then tried putting the candle near the bottom
of a six-foot-long bag of clear plastic closed on the bottom to
stop the draft. It worked OK, buy we had the same problem we did
with the bulb; it looked like a star.

Next we made up five-to-six-foot-long bags of light-colored crepe
paper to diffuse the light. That made the light much more visible.
Our most common version used eight one-inch candle stubs sitting
on tin-can lids that were soldered to a stiff, four-foot wire. The
straight wire was centered with thread in a ring of small, stiff
wire that had a crepe paper bag folded over and stapled to it.  The
bags were made of two sheets of paper by folding three edges over
twice and stapling, then turning the bag inside-out.

We used a generous 10 feet of strong thread to hang these lanterns
under two 40-foot pieces of plastic tubing. (No point in getting
lighted candles too near all that gas!)

They worked great. Our UFOs were visible for miles. The air flow
in Tucson during the summer was usually toward the mountains, and
they would fade out after about 10-15 minutes.

Not all of them were a success. One got rained on and came down
about 15 blocks away, but we managed to recover that one without
getting caught, though a small dog had hysterics when it came down
in his yard. (Dr. MacDonald of UFO fame saw that one and said it
had come down somewhere between where he was and some mountains 20
miles away.) We got to where we almost felt obliged to send one up
at least twice a week, because so many people in the city were
looking for them.

We got caught trying to outdo ourselves. We built a two-lantern
version and used three pieces of tubing that we tied in a triangle
to lift it. This one really caused a stir, because it looked like
a red UFO and a green one playing tag in the sky as it went up in
a spiral. However, at the last minute, a light wind came up -- our
UFO was sure to tangle in the power wires if we launched it from
the back yard -- so we walked the whole works across a major street
and let it go from a parking lot at the University of Arizona. Some
high-school kids saw us, and couldn't resist the chance to solve
the big mystery. They talked to the local reporters, and, the next
day, both the local reporters and Dr. MacDonald were beating on our
door.

I was temporarily out of school at the time, working as an engineer
for a local TV station, when the story broke. There was an
excitable middle-aged woman who did an early local news program at
the station, who came bursting into the control area wanting to
know why I didn't tell her as soon as the story broke so she could
interview me on the news (which she proceeded to do). We wondered
if we would get into trouble, but no one in a legal capacity ever
said a thing about it. We put up a weak story about tracking local
nighttime winds.

While we were causing all the stories, the Tucson papers treated
it straight. They reported that moving lights in the sky had been
seen by a number of witnesses, but didn't take it any further. Dr.
MacDonald treated it straight, too, and was only about an hour
behind the reporter.

Years later, I found out that a second cousin of mine had been
launching similar UFOs over Albuquerque about the same time.

The significant point is that of four different incidents, we
jokers were only caught once. Had we been a little more cautious
or gotten tired of causing the fuss, we never would have been
caught.

For me, the story has always been a handy way to deal with a UFO
believer. When they ask me if I believe in UFOs, I say, "Of course.
I used to build them."



EDITOR'S CORNER

Logic. Formal symbolic logic. What does it have to do with helping
us discover the "truth"? The notions of parapsychology or
pseudoscience in general often fail under the hot light of logic
when it is turned on and focused.

We use the terms "reason", "conclude", etc., so loosely in everyday
conversation that when we employ them in a more formal sense, they
are diluted by familiarity. That's one of the reasons it is
necessary to clarify one's thinking when trying to reach some
conclusion with the force of logical implication.

The singular beauty of formal logic, in my opinion, is its power
to analyze a group of statements devoid of their content. To learn
that logic has little to do with content often comes as a surprise
to those who have not had formal training. Logic is concerned with
form.

We are wont to think that there is something natural about formal
reasoning, and this is a mistake; the familiar expression is
"common sense". Well, isn't logic common sense? In fact, no. Our
common sense can be very misleading. (This same judgement error is
made by those who believe that science is a field of knowledge in
which anyone with a little common sense can find his or her way
around just fine.)

As an epistemological tool, I believe logic is without equal. It
requires only nominal study, and it can be practiced with nothing
more than a normally adept (not out-of-body) brain (a pencil and
paper would be nice, too). It is based on a few, simple axioms for
which one is hard-pressed to deny the truth (even though some do).
The Law of Contradiction, which asserts that a statement and its
negation cannot be simultaneously true is one of the axioms,
written symbolically: "(P and ~P) is false", where "~" means "not".
For example, the statement "This pen is all black and it is not all
black" is clearly false. Notice that it makes no difference what
the statement P stands for -- in that FORM it is an expression of
the Law of Contradiction. This makes life easier, because
statements are often filled with so much emotional baggage that one
may be unable to see elements of the reasoning. Logic is cold and
hard precisely because statements may be put in that symbolic form.
The statement "God exists" can be dispassionately studied if we
assign Q in its place.

Scientific creationists violate the Law of Contradiction with their
assertion that the universe must deteriorate by the 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics, and the universe is not deteriorating because it
is God's perfect creation. The familiar expression of the Law of
Contradiction is you can't have your cake and eat it.

The power of logic is multiplied in various ways; for example,
there are many equivalent forms of a given statement, and each may
present a different perspective to a question under consideration.
One such parallel form is the so-called "contrapositive". Perhaps
the raison d'etre of formal logic is the "implication" -- a
statement in the form P => Q, read variously "If P is true, then
Q is true", or "P implies Q", or "Q follows from P".  Q is called
the consequent of the premise P.  This is formal reasoning:
establish statement P, argue carefully and conclude Q.

Now, the contrapositive of this statement is obtained by negating
BOTH P and Q, and then switching their positions, i.e. P => Q is
the same as ~Q => ~P. It is like a mirror, reflecting the statement
from the other direction. Because it is analogous, the truth value
of the contrapositive is identical to that of the original.

Of all the errors in logic, misuse (intentional or from ignorance)
and misunderstanding of the contrapositive are perhaps some of the
most common, so there is something to be gained in understanding
its proper application. The most likely error comes in confusing
the contrapositive and the converse of a statement P => Q. The
converse is Q => P, and it is NOT logically equivalent.

Here's an example of how easily we are misled by confusing the
contrapositive and the converse of a statement: Let P = "You study
your logic lessons well" and Q = "You will receive an A on the
exam", and now combine them into an implication, "If you study your
logic lessons well, then you will receive an A on the exam", which
is of the form P => Q.

Suppose I meet you a few days later and you tell me you received
an A on your paper. What may I conclude? Our common sense has
probably misled us, for the majority will say, "Why, of course, you
studied diligently." We have, if we erred in this way, treated the
converse as equivalent to the contrapositive.

In the above example, you may have an ill-gotten A by cheating. Or
you may have just been lucky -- the implication only guarantees
what will happen if you study hard. Because the converse is so
seductive, I believe many propositions are presented in such a way
as to invite the reader/hearer to make the converse error. Since
a thesis presented in this manner has not explicitly tripped the
inquirer, it is all the more insidious, because when the inquirer
makes his/her own (false) conclusion, he/she is much more apt to
hang on to it. Now look at the contrapositive of the statement: If
you did NOT receive an A, you did not study hard. This is
equivalent to the original, and the restatement in this form may
increase our understanding of the statement so we are less likely
to fall prey to the incorrect converse trap: If you receive an A,
you studied hard. If the statements are put in symbolic form, we
are not at all inclined to accept the converse as necessarily
valid.

So much for the ABCs of logic. Now, like most rational, objective
things, it has its limitations. Logic cannot tell us if something
is true. It can only tell us if an argument if valid, and validity
and truth are not synonymous. The argument "If the moon is made of
green cheese, then I'm a monkey's uncle" may be valid, but I cannot
establish the absolute truth or falsity of my lineage by the
argument. The truth of a conclusion stands or falls on the truth
of the premise, if the argument is correct.  But logic is not
really concerned with those truth values; it's only regard is the
validity of the argument. Therefore, one may not make the
unwarranted conclusion that because an argument is false, the
conclusion is false.

For example, a demonstration that the "Five Ways of Aquinas" for
proving the existence of God are all of them riddled with error
does not mean that God does not exist -- only that His existence
has not been established by the (il)logical presentation. Even if
an argument is found to be accurate in every point, the truth or
falsity of the conclusion is not forced until we know the truth or
falsity of the premise.

So, if one is about finding the truth (not validity) of a
conclusion, logic shows us that the linchpin of a sequence of valid
arguments is the premise. Airtight reasoning does not preclude
falsity in our conclusion -- in fact, if the premise is false and
the reasoning ironclad, the falsity of the conclusion is
GUARANTEED.  [Note at 10/12/89: This statement is incorrect. See
October 1987 "BASIS" for the correction.]

If an argument is rigorous from beginning to end, we can place the
same degree of certainty on the conclusion as we are able to
determine about the premise; and if the string is found to be
vitiated by the least flaw, one has not advanced any further than
arrant nonsense, no matter how sophisticated the appearance of the
statements. There are not really degrees of error -- error is
measured qualitatively, not quantitatively. In other words, many
propositions fail long before they need be tested by empirical
methods.

Now for the final exam. Let's check the validity of a cherished
notion in parapsychology: "If there are statistical perturbations
in a parapsychology experiment, psi is occurring." (Hint: look at
the contrapositive, and note how the converse is tempting you.)
Send in your papers for grading. (For new subscribers who may not
be familiar with the term "psi", it is a catch-all used by
parapsychologists to cover all psychic phenomena.) There are at
least three logic flaws in the statement. Can you find them?



RAMPARTS

[Ramparts is a regular feature of "BASIS", and your participation
is urged. Clip, snip and tear bits of irrationality from your local
scene and send them to the EDITOR. If you want to add some comment
with the submission, please do so.]

A reader sent an article from "Welcome to Planet Earth" a new age
magazine for sensitives. The piece from the mag that caught our
reader's eye is allegedly about things Mayan and some cosmic event
that is to begin August 16. I read the article several times, and
cannot come up with anything but question marks, but I'm not a
sensitive. It was part of an interview with Dr. Jose Arguelles, a
Ph.D. art historian from the U. of Chicago.  [Note from 10/12/89:
The "cosmic event" was the much-ballyhooed "Harmonic Convergence",
which Arguelles invented in such passages as the one quoted below.]

Since I can't make head or tails about what is happening, I give
you a couple of paragraphs from Dr. Arguelles's book, with a few
of my own cogent analyses in parentheses; put on your hip boots,
the bowl shift is pretty deep.

"The Mayan Great Circle is actually the description of a galactic
beam (%^) measuring 5200 tun, or 5125 earth years in diameter
(@#!). The earth entered such a beam on August 13, 3113 B.C., and
will leave it in the year 2012 A.D. The charged Beam [sic] is to
accelerate the evolving DNA ('+%&,) into a technology-extruding
organism (~^#!*) that creates in effect a planetary exo-nervous
system (&^* and |@#@). When the exo-nervous system is in place
acceleration becomes exponential (of course &@!%) and phases into
synchronization. (What about #*@ and ~?)"

This gaseous nonsense goes on for another 267 pages, and ONE
paragraph is enough to get the idea. I urge all U. of C. grads to
burn their alumni cards.

Arguelles's nonsense has thankfully come under the scathing pen and
brush of none other than Garry Trudeau in his "Doonesbury" strip.
The sensitives promise that the world will come to an end but for
their collective consciousness-raising on Sunday the 16th. "BASIS"
will be in your hands after this event, and I predict that
Arguelles and company will have saved us.


BAS board member ANDREW FRAKNOI, Executive Officer of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific and former "S.F. Chronicle"
columnist wrote to the editor of said paper about a lengthy piece
they did on "Return of the UFO People". The one-sided article was
"balanced" by a tiny box that mentioned the $11,000 BAS award with
Don Henvick's name and the BAS hotline number.

Andy points out that "This one-sided coverage is particularly
ironic in view of the fact that the `Chronicle' boasts two of the
best science reporters in the country."

Fraknoi continues, "I know that it is fashionable among editors and
reporters to dismiss the damage such stories can do by repeating
the claim that no readers take such stories seriously, but, let me
assure you, as someone who teaches both students and teachers, that
today such a belief is no longer in touch with reality. Barraged
by media coverage of pseudoscience, youngsters these days have very
little skill in making skeptical judgements in these areas."



BAS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair: Larry Loebig
Vice Chair: Mark Hodes
Secretary: Rick Moen
Treasurer: Kent Harker
Yves Barbero
Shawn Carlson
Andrew Fraknoi
Lawrence Jerome
Michael McCarthy
Diane Moser
Ray Spangenburg



BAS ADVISORS

Luis W. Alvarez, Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley
William J. Bennetta, Scientific Consultant
Dean Edell, M.D., ABC Medical Reporter
Donald Goldsmith, Ph.D., Astronomer and Attorney
Earl Hautala, Research Chemist
Alexander Jason, Investigative Consultant
Thomas H. Jukes, Ph.D., U. C. Berkeley
John E. McCosker, Ph.D., Director, Steinhart Aquarium
Richard J. Ofshe, Ph.D.,U. C. Berkeley
Bernard Oliver, Ph.D., NASA Ames Research Center
Kevin Padian, Ph.D., U. C. Berkeley
James Randi, Magician, Author, Lecturer
Francis Rigney, M.D., Pacific Presbyterian Med. Center
Wallace I. Sampson, M.D., Stanford University
Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D., Anthropologist
Robert A. Steiner, CPA, Magician, Lecturer, Writer
Lowell D. Streiker, Ph.D., Anthropology, Religion
Jill C. Tarter, Ph.D., U. C. Berkeley



ERICH THE GREAT

The incredible claims of Erich von Daniken ("Chariots of the
Gods?") with be examined in some detail for the September meeting
by James Wheeler.

Jim has personally toured many of the sites von Daniken wrote
about, including the Easter Islands (the enormous head monoliths).
He has analyzed von Daniken's claims against the facts in those
locales, and has some interesting comparisons with a special
emphasis on the Easter Island monoliths for which he has completed
some original research.

Von Daniken's preposterous notions sold an enormous number of books
in the '60s; he was largely unchallenged in print until some time
later, and, as usual, the facts did not sell very well. After the
initial ado, subsequent books by Erich did mediocre to poor.

Come listen to this presentation. Maybe you'll see how far we have
come?

                             -----

Opinions expressed in "BASIS" are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect those of BAS, its board or its advisors.

The above are selected articles from the September, 1987 issue of
"BASIS", the monthly publication of Bay Area Skeptics. You can
obtain a free sample copy by sending your name and address to BAY
AREA SKEPTICS, 4030 Moraga, San Francisco, CA 94122-3928 or by
leaving a message on "The Skeptic's Board" BBS (415-648-8944) or
on the 415-LA-TRUTH (voice) hotline.

Copyright (C) 1987 BAY AREA SKEPTICS.  Reprints must credit "BASIS,
newsletter of the Bay Area Skeptics, 4030 Moraga, San Francisco,
CA 94122-3928."

                             -END-