Why Do They Continue to Believe?

Astronomer Carl Sagan, in “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” which appeared in the February 1, 1987, Parade, wrote: Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us—and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.

A much earlier scientist/philosopher offered a more specific comment to his readers. Ben Franklin was aware of that strange quirk of human nature that elects the victim as chief supporter of the trickster. He said: “There are no greater liars in the world than quacks—except for their patients.”

A Poor Body of Proof

For something so popular, faith-healing has a remarkably undocumented success rate. But this is flimflam of a somewhat different style from real-estate schemes, vitamin frauds, and get-rich-quick hoaxes. It bears religious, semi-scientific, and emotional labels that lend it a considerable—though quite false—pedigree. Evidence to prove faith-healing must be of good quality. No number of purely anecdotal accounts can suffice. Before-and-after medical evidence is absolutely essential, along with careful consideration of the possibility that any remission may be within the probable incidence of such occurrences and not at all remarkable in itself, though we still do not understand the causes behind, for example, cancer remissions. In 1956, a British medical board of inquiry organized by the archbishop of Canterbury concluded thatwe can find no evidence that there is any type of illness cured by spiritual healing alone which could not have been cured by medical treatment.

This is a limited censure of faith-healing; my quest has been much more pointed.

The Devil Known as Science

Pat Robertson, among others, is quick to identify science—and thus all scientific procedures and standards—as tools of Satan. Thus, it is hoped, skeptics will not insist upon rigorous proof of unlikely claims. Amateurs like “parapsychologist” Hans Holzer, who writes endless accounts of miracles without any demand for good evidence, even accepts the infamous “Delawarr black box” as a working tool of the healer. This “diagnostic” device—an absurd, crackpot, electronic horror named after the quack who first introduced it—has become a popular item with collectors of such bizarre items. It was long ago shown to be prime hoax material, but Holzer hasn’t heard about that, or chooses to ignore it. His criterion for whether or not a healer is the real thing reflects his rather loose standards: “If you have been helped, the healer was genuine.” Holzer is not entirely without common sense, however. When speaking of “alternative medicine,” he says he admits that “eye of newt or the head of a toad” treatment is “nothing but fantasy.” Overlooking his mutilation of Shakespeare, I agree.

The Refusal to Know

It is a common aspect of all religious groups that they simply do not wish to know the truth, but they are fond of saying that they seek the truth; in some cases, they do seek truth, but on their terms and with their definitions. I will spend some time here giving examples of this kind of thinking. The Christmas season of 1986 brought a media blitz of articles and interviews about yet another miracle of the bleeding statue /weeping icon variety, this one of a Virgin Mary painting in Chicago that was said by church authorities to exude “a very thin, oily sweet substance very similar to the [liquid] we use to baptize children or [sic] unction for the sick.” These authorities firmly declined to have the “tears” examined by chemists, saying thatto further analyze [this phenomenon] would be almost blasphemy. The Archdiocese thinks [investigators] should not subject [the substance] to a scientific analysis, which is not a very religious procedure.

Little wonder that there was such reluctance to look into the matter. The previous year, a similarly attractive myth had collapsed when another religious figure, in Montreal, Canada—this time a combination weeping/bleeding statue—turned out to have been smeared with a quite mundane mixture of the owner’s own blood and K Mart shaving lotion. The resulting fuss was no surprise to experienced observers of these matters. Media exposure of the hoax brought a barrage of hate mail to the local bishop. The letter writers felt that in spite of the evidence—a direct confession from the hoaxer—the bishop still should have declared the event a genuine miracle.