* I am living proof of Carl Sagan's claim of the possibility that alien abductions occur in the minds of people suffering from sleep paralysis. They truly believe it's real.

* In AD 2001 Starships from the 33 planets of the Interplanetary Confederation will land on earth carrying 33,000 Brothers! They are extraterrestrial teachers and scientists who will help to expand our understanding of interplanetary life, as our own earth planet will become the 33rd member of the Confederation!

* This is a grotesquely challenging arena ... I studied UFOs for over 20 years. Finally I became quite disenchanted by the cult and the cult fringe groups.

* I am a 47-year-old grandmother who has been the victim of this phenomena since early childhood. I do not - nor have I ever -accepted it at face value. I do not - nor have I ever - claimed to understand what it is ... I would gladly accept a diagnosis of schizophrenia, or some other understood pathology, in exchange for this unknown... The lack of physical evidence is, I fully agree, most frustrating for both victims and researchers. Unfortunately, the retrieval of such evidence is made extremely difficult by the manner in which the victims are abducted. Often I am removed either in my nightgown (which is later removed) or already naked. This condition makes it quite impossible to hide a camera ... I have awakened with deep gashes, puncture wounds, scooped out tissue, eye damage, bleeding from the nose and ears, burns, and finger marks and bruises which persist for days after the event. I have had all of these examined by qualified physicians but none have been satisfactorily explained. I am not into self-mutilation; these are not stigmata... Please be aware that the majority of abduct-ees claim to have had no interest in UFOs previously (I am one), have no history of childhood abuses (I am one), have no desire for publicity or notoriety (I am one), and, in fact, have gone to great lengths to avoid acknowledging any involvement whatsoever, a.s.suming he or she is experiencing a nervous breakdown or other psychological disorder (I am one). Agreed, there are many self-proclaimed abductees (and contactees) who seek out publicity for monetary gain or to satisfy a need for attention. I would be the last to deny these people exist. What I do deny is that ALL abductees are imagining or falsifying these events to satisfy their own personal agendas.

* UFOs don't exist. I think that requires an external energy source, and this doesn't exist ... I have spoken with Jesus.

* The commentary on the Parade Parade magazine is very destructive, and it enjoys scaring society, I beg you to think more openly because our intelligent beings from outer s.p.a.ces do exist and they are our creators ... I too was an abductee. To be honest, these dear beings have done me more good than bad. They have saved my life... The trouble with Earth beings is that they want proof, proof, and proof! magazine is very destructive, and it enjoys scaring society, I beg you to think more openly because our intelligent beings from outer s.p.a.ces do exist and they are our creators ... I too was an abductee. To be honest, these dear beings have done me more good than bad. They have saved my life... The trouble with Earth beings is that they want proof, proof, and proof!

* In the Bible it talks about terrestrial and celestial bodies. This is not to say that G.o.d is out for s.e.xual abuse on people or that we're crazy.

* I have been strongly telepathic for twenty-seven years now. I do not receive - I transmit... Waves are coming from outer s.p.a.ce somewhere - beaming through my head and transmitting thoughts, words, and images into the heads of anybody within range... Images will pop into my head that I I did not put there, did not put there, and vanish just as suddenly. Dreams are not dreams anymore -they are more like Hollywood productions... They are smart critters and they won't give up ... Maybe all these little guys want to do is communicate ... If I finally go psychotic from all this pressure - or have another heart attack - there goes your last sure evidence that there is life in s.p.a.ce. and vanish just as suddenly. Dreams are not dreams anymore -they are more like Hollywood productions... They are smart critters and they won't give up ... Maybe all these little guys want to do is communicate ... If I finally go psychotic from all this pressure - or have another heart attack - there goes your last sure evidence that there is life in s.p.a.ce.

* I think I have found a plausible terrestrial scientific explanation for numerous UFO reports. [The writer then discusses ball lightning.] If you like my stuff, could you help me get it published?

* Sagan refuses to take seriously the witnesses' reports of anything that twentieth-century science can't explain.

* Now readers will feel free to treat abductees ... as if they are victims of nothing more than an illusion. Abductees suffer the same sort of trauma a rape victim endures, and to have their experiences rejected by those closest to them is a second victimization that leaves them without any support system. Encounters with aliens is hard enough to cope with; victims need support, not rationalizations.

* My friend Frankie wants me to bring back an ashtray or a matchbook, but I think these visitors are probably much too intelligent to smoke.

* My own feeling is that the alien abduction phenomena is little more than a dreamlike sequence vicariously retrieved from memory storage. There are no more little green men or flying saucers than there are images of those things already stored in our brains.

* When alleged scientists conspire to censor and intimidate those who endeavor to offer new insightful hypotheses on conventional theories... they no longer should be considered scientists, but merely the insecure, self-serving impostors that they apparently are ... In the same token, must we all still suppose that J. Edgar Hoover was a fine FBI director, rather than the h.o.m.os.e.xual tool of organized crime he was?

* Your conclusion that large numbers of people in this country, perhaps as many as five million, are all victims of an identical ma.s.s hallucination is asinine.

* Thanks to the Supreme Court... America is now wide open for the Eastern pagan religions, under the aegis of Satan and his demons, so now we have four-foot gray beings kidnapping Earthlings and performing all sorts of experiments on them, and are being propagated by those who are educated beyond their intelligence and should know better... Your question ['Are We Being Visited?'] is no problem for those who know know the word of G.o.d, and are born-again Christians, and are looking for our Redeemer from Heaven, to rapture us out of this world of sin, sickness, war, AIDS, crime, abortion, h.o.m.os.e.xuality, New-Age-New-World-Order indoctrination, media brainwashing, perversion and subversion in government, education, business, finance, society, religion, etc. Those who reject the Creator G.o.d of the Bible are bound to fall for the kind of fairy tales which your article tries to propagate as being truth. the word of G.o.d, and are born-again Christians, and are looking for our Redeemer from Heaven, to rapture us out of this world of sin, sickness, war, AIDS, crime, abortion, h.o.m.os.e.xuality, New-Age-New-World-Order indoctrination, media brainwashing, perversion and subversion in government, education, business, finance, society, religion, etc. Those who reject the Creator G.o.d of the Bible are bound to fall for the kind of fairy tales which your article tries to propagate as being truth.

* If there is no reason to take the matter of alien visitation seriously, why is it the most highly cla.s.sified subject in the US government?

* Perhaps some vastly older alien race, from a relatively metal-deficient star system, is seeking to prolong its existence by taking over a younger, better world and blending with its inhabitants.

* If I were a betting man, I would give you odds that your mailbox will overflow with stories such as I just related. I suspect that the psychic [psyche] brings forth these demons and angels, lights and circles as a part of our development. They are part of our nature.

* Science has become the 'magic that works'. The UFOlogists are heretics to be excommunicated or burned at the stake.

* [Several readers wrote to say that aliens were demons sent by Satan, who is able to cloud our minds. One proposes that the insidious Satanic purpose is to make us worried about an alien invasion, so that when Jesus and his angels appear over Jerusalem we will be frightened rather than glad.] I do hope you will not dismiss me as another religious crackpot. I am quite normal and well-known in my own little community.

* You, sir, are in a position to do one of two things: know about the abductions and be covering them up, or feel that because you have not been abducted (perhaps they are not interested in you) they do not occur.

* A treason suit [was filed] against the President and Congress of the United States over a treaty made with aliens in the early '40s, who had later shown themselves to be hostile... The treaty agreed to protect the secrecy of the aliens in return for some of their technology [stealth aircraft and fibre optics, another correspondent reveals].

* Some of these beings are capable of intercepting the spiritual body when it is traveling.

* I am having communication with an alien being. This communication started early in 1992. What else can I say?

* The aliens can stay a step or two ahead of the thinking of scientists, and know how to leave insufficient clues behind that would satisfy the Sagan types, until society is better prepared mentally to face up to it all ... Perhaps you share the view that what's going on with respect to UFOs and aliens, if deemed real, would be too traumatic to think about. However... they've shown themselves until back some 5,000-15,000 years or more ago when they were here for extended periods, sp.a.w.ning the G.o.d/G.o.ddess mythology of all cultures. The bottom line is that in all that time they haven't taken over Earth; they haven't subjected us or wiped us out.

* h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens was genetically fashioned, created initially to be subst.i.tute laborers and domestics for the SKY-LORDS (DINGIRS/ELOHIM/ANUNN AKI). was genetically fashioned, created initially to be subst.i.tute laborers and domestics for the SKY-LORDS (DINGIRS/ELOHIM/ANUNN AKI).

* The explosion that people saw was hydrogen fuel from a star cruiser, the landing sight was to be Northern California... The people on that star cruiser looked like Mr Spock from the 'Star Trek' TV series.

* Be the reports from the fifteenth century or the twentieth, a common thread ties the reports. Individuals who have experienced s.e.xual trauma have a great deal of difficulty understanding and coping with the trauma. The terms used to describe the [resulting] hallucinations can be incoherent and incomprehensible.

* We find we are not as intelligent as we thought although we are still stiff-necked and our greatest sin is our pride. And we do not even know we are being led to Armageddon. The star pin-pointed a single shed, moved across the sky leading wise-men to that shed, frightened shepherds with the words fear not. Its spotlight was Ezekiel's glory of G.o.d, Paul's light that temporarily blinded him ... It was the ship in which little men took off old Rip, the little men called brownies, fairies, elves, these 'creations' of creators given specific duties... The G.o.d People are not yet ready to make themselves known to us. First, Armageddon, then, after we KNOW, we can go it alone. When we are humbled, when we do not shoot them down, G.o.d will return.

* The answer to these aliens from outer-s.p.a.ce is simple. It comes from man. Man using drugs on people. In mental inst.i.tutions all over the country, there are people who have no control over their emotions and behaviour. To control these people, they are given a variety of antipsychotic drugs ... If you have been drugged often... you will begin to have what is called 'bleedthroughs'. This will be flash images popping into your mind of strange-looking people coming up to your face. This will begin your search for the answer of what the aliens were doing to you. You will be one of the thousands of UFO abductees. People will call you crazy. The reason for the strange creatures you are seeing is because Thorazine distorts the vision of your subconscious mind... The writer was laughed at, ridiculed, had his life threatened [because of presenting these ideas].

* Hypnosis prepares the mind for the invasion of demons, devils, and little gray men. G.o.d wants us to be clothed and in our right minds... Anything your 'little gray men' can do, Christ can do better!

* I hope that I never feel so superior that I cannot acknowledge that Creation is not limited to myself, but encompa.s.ses the Universe and all its ent.i.ties.

In 1977 an heavenly body spoke to me about an injury to my head that happened in 1968. [A letter from a man who had twenty-four separate encounters with] a silent hovering saucer-shaped vehicle [and who has in consequence] experienced an ongoing development and amplification of such mental functions as clairvoyance, telepathy, and the challenging [channelling] of universal life energy for the purpose of healing.

* Over the years I have seen and talked to 'ghosts', been visited (though not yet abducted) by aliens, seen three-dimensional heads floating by my bed, heard knocks on my door... These experiences seemed as real as life. I have never thought of these experiences as anything more than what they certainly are: my mind playing tricks on itself.*

[* From a letter received by The Skeptical Inquirer; The Skeptical Inquirer; courtesy, Kendrick Frazier.] courtesy, Kendrick Frazier.]

* A hallucination might account for 99%, but can it ever account for 100%?

* UFOs are ... a subject of deep fantasy which has no FACTUAL BASIS WHATSOEVER. I pray you won't lend your credence to a hoax.

* Dr Sagan served on the Air Force committee that evaluated government investigations of UFOs, and yet he wants us to believe that there's no substantial proof that UFOs exist. Please explain why the government needed to be evaluated.

* I'm going to lobby my Representative to try to cancel funds for this program of listening for alien signals from s.p.a.ce, because it would be a waste of money. They're already among us.

* The government spends millions of tax dollars for researching UFOs. The SETI project (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) would be a waste of money if the government truly believed UFOs were non-existent. I am personally excited about the SETI project because it shows that we're moving in the right direction; towards communication with aliens, rather than being an unwilling observer.

* The succubi, which I identified more as astral rape, occurred from '78-'92. It was hard on a moral and seriously practicing Catholic, demoralizing, dehumanizing, and quite literally had me worried by the physical aftermath of disease effects.

* The s.p.a.ce people are coming! They hope to remove whom they can, especially children who are the 'seedlings' of the next humanity generation along with their cooperating parents, grandparents and other adults, to safety before the upcoming major major sunspot/planetary peak, which is just over the horizon. The s.p.a.ce Ship is in sight every night and close in to a.s.sist us when the Major Solar Flares do, before turbulence starts in the atmosphere. The Polar Shift is due now as it moves to its new position for the Aquarian Age... [The authors also inform me that they are] working with the Ashtar Command, where Jesus Christ meets with those aboard for instructions. Many dignitaries are present, including archangels Michael and Gabriel. sunspot/planetary peak, which is just over the horizon. The s.p.a.ce Ship is in sight every night and close in to a.s.sist us when the Major Solar Flares do, before turbulence starts in the atmosphere. The Polar Shift is due now as it moves to its new position for the Aquarian Age... [The authors also inform me that they are] working with the Ashtar Command, where Jesus Christ meets with those aboard for instructions. Many dignitaries are present, including archangels Michael and Gabriel.

* I have extensive experience in therapeutic energy work, which involves removing grid patterns, negative memory cords, and alien implants from human bodies and their surrounding energy fields. My work is primarily utilized as an adjunctive aide to psychotherapy. My clients range from businessmen, home-makers, professional artists, therapists, and children... The alien energy is very fluid, both within the body and after it is removed, and must be contained as soon as possible. The energy grids are most often locked around the heart or in a triangular formation across the shoulders.

* I don't know how, after such an experience, I could have just turned over and gone back to sleep.

* I believe in happy endings. I always have. Once you have seen a figure as tall as the room - with golden hair, and shining like a lighted Christmas tree, lifting up the little child beside us, how could you not? I understood the message the figure was relaying - to the little child - and it was me. We had always talked together. How else could life be bearable - in a place like this?... Unfamiliar mental states? You put your finger right on it.

* Who is really really in charge of this planet? in charge of this planet?

12.

The Fine Art of Baloney Detection

The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one would'. For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superst.i.tion; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections colour and infect the understanding.

Francis Bacon, Novum Organon Novum Organon (1620) (1620)

My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them. There's a part of me - no matter how childish it sounds - that wonders how they are. 'Is everything all right?' I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were 'Take care'.

Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly - still immersed in the dreamwork - I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake. Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a m.u.f.fler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it.

So I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right. That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human. More than a third of American adults believe that on some level they've made contact with the dead. The number seems to have jumped by 15 per cent between 1977 and 1988. A quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation.

But that doesn't mean I'd be willing to accept the pretensions of a 'medium', who claims to channel the spirits of the dear departed, when I'm aware the practice is rife with fraud. I know how much I want to believe that my parents have just abandoned the husks of their bodies, like insects or snakes moulting, and gone somewhere else. I understand that those very feelings might make me easy prey even for an unclever con, or for normal people unfamiliar with their unconscious minds, or for those suffering from a dissociative psychiatric disorder. Reluctantly, I rouse some reserves of scepticism.

How is it, I ask myself, that channellers never give us verifiable information otherwise unavailable? Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his Last Theorem, James Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln a.s.sa.s.sination conspiracy, Hermann Goering about the Reichstag fire? Why don't Sophocles, Democritus and Aristarchus dictate their lost books? Don't they wish future generations to have access to their masterpieces?

If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I'd be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real, scientific data, not mere anecdote. As with the face on Mars and alien abductions, better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.

The fundamental premise of 'channelling', spiritualism, and other forms of necromancy is that when we die we don't. Not exactly. Some thinking, feeling, and remembering part of us continues. That whatever-it-is - a soul or spirit, neither matter nor energy, but something else - can, we are told, re-enter the bodies of human and other beings in the future, and so death loses much of its sting. What's more, we have an opportunity, if the spiritualist or channelling contentions are true, to make contact with loved ones who have died.

J.Z. Knight of the State of Washington claims to be in touch with a 35,000-year-old somebody called 'Ramtha'. He speaks English very well, using Knight's tongue, lips and vocal cords, producing what sounds to me to be an accent from the Indian Raj. Since most people know how to talk, and many - from children or professional actors - have a repertoire of voices at their command, the simplest hypothesis is that Ms Knight makes 'Ramtha' speak all by herself, and that she has no contact with disembodied ent.i.ties from the Pleistocene Ice Age. If there's evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it. It would be considerably more impressive if Ramtha could speak by himself, without the a.s.sistance of Ms Knight's mouth. Failing that, how might we test the claim? (The actress Shirley MacLaine attests that Ramtha was her brother in Atlantis, but that's another story.) Suppose Ramtha were available for questioning. Could we verify whether he is who he says he is? How does he know that he lived 35,000 years ago, even approximately? What calendar does he employ? Who is keeping track of the intervening millennia? Thirty-five thousand plus or minus what? What were things like 35,000 years ago? Either Ramtha really is 35,000 years old, in which case we discover something about that period, or he's a phoney and he'll (or rather she'll) slip up.

Where did Ramtha live? (I know he speaks English with an Indian accent, but where 35,000 years ago did they do that?) What was the climate? What did Ramtha eat? (Archaeologists know something about what people ate back then.) What were the indigenous languages and social structure? Who else did Ramtha live with - wife, wives, children, grandchildren? What was the life cycle, the infant mortality rate, the life expectancy? Did they have birth control? What clothes did they wear? How were the clothes manufactured? What were the most dangerous predators? Hunting and fishing implements and strategies? Weapons? Endemic s.e.xism? Xenophobia and ethnocentrism? And if Ramtha came from the 'high civilization' of Atlantis, where are the linguistic, technological, historical and other details? What was their writing like? Tell us. Instead, all we are offered are ba.n.a.l homilies.

Here, to take another example, is a set of information channelled not from an ancient dead person, but from unknown non-human ent.i.ties who make crop circles, as recorded by the journalist Jim Schnabel: We are so anxious at this sinful nation spreading lies about us. We do not come in machines, we do not land on your earth in machines ... We come like the wind. We are Life Force. Life Force from the ground... Come here... We are but a breath away ... a breath away ... we are not a million miles away ... a Life Force that is larger than the energies in your body. But we meet at a higher level of life ... We need no name. We are parallel to your world, alongside your world... The walls are broken. Two men will rise from the past... the great bear... the world will be at peace.

People pay attention to these puerile marvels mainly because they promise something like old-time religion, but especially life after death, even life eternal.

A very different prospect for something like eternal life was once proposed by the versatile British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, who was, among many other things, one of the founders of population genetics. Haldane imagined a far future when the stars have darkened and s.p.a.ce is mainly filled with a cold, thin gas. Nevertheless, if we wait long enough statistical fluctuations in the density of this gas will occur. Over immense periods of time the fluctuations will be sufficient to reconst.i.tute a Universe somethinj like our own. If the Universe is infinitely old, there will be ai infinite number of such reconst.i.tutions, Haldane pointed out.

So in an infinitely old universe with an infinite number o appearances of galaxies, stars, planets and life, an identical Eartl must reappear on which you and all your loved ones will be reunited. I'll be able to see my parents again and introduce then to the grandchildren they never knew. And all this will happen no once, but an infinite number of times.

But in this reflection I have underestimated what infinit; means. In Haldane's picture, there will be universes, indeed ai infinite number of them, in which our brains will have ful recollection of many previous rounds. Satisfaction is at hand tempered, though, by the thought of all those other universe which will also come into existence (again, not once but an infinit number of times) with tragedies and horrors vastly outstrippin anything I've experienced this turn.

The Consolation of Haldane depends, though, on what kind c universe we live in, and maybe on such arcana as whether there' enough matter eventually to reverse the expansion of the uni verse, and the character of vacuum fluctuations. Those with deep longing for life after death might, it seems, devote them selves to cosmology, quantum gravity, elementary particle phys ics, and, especially, transfinite arithmetic.

Clement of Alexandria, a Father of the early Church, in hi Exhortations to the Greeks Exhortations to the Greeks (written around the year 190) di: missed pagan beliefs in words that might today seem a little ironic (written around the year 190) di: missed pagan beliefs in words that might today seem a little ironic Far indeed are we from allowing grown men to listen to such tales. Even to our own children, when they are crying their heart out, as the saying goes, we are not in the habit of telling fabulous stories to soothe them.

In our time we have less severe standards. We tell children aboi Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy for reasons w think emotionally sound, but then disabuse them of these mytt before they're grown. Why retract? Because their well-being as adults depends on them knowing the world as it really is. We worry, and for good reason, about adults who still believe in Santa Claus.

On doctrinaire religions, 'Men dare not avow, even to their own hearts', wrote the philosopher David Hume,

the doubts which they entertain on such subjects. They make a merit of implicit faith; and disguise to themselves their real infidelity, by the strongest a.s.severations and the most positive bigotry.

This infidelity has profound moral consequences, as the American revolutionary Tom Paine wrote in The Age of Reason: The Age of Reason: Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far corrupted and prost.i.tuted the, chast.i.ty of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

T.H. Huxley's formulation was

The foundation of morality is to ... give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.

Clement, Hume, Paine and Huxley were all talking about religion. But much of what they wrote has more general applications - for example to the pervasive background importunings of our commercial civilization: there is a cla.s.s of aspirin commercials in which actors pretending to be doctors reveal the competing product to have only so much of the painkilling ingredient that doctors recommend most - they don't tell you what the mysterious ingredient is. Whereas their their product has a dramatically larger amount (1.2 to 2 times more per tablet). So buy their product. But why not just take two of the competing tablets? Or consider the a.n.a.lgesic that works better than the 'regular-strength' product of the compet.i.tion. Why not then take the 'extra-strength' compet.i.tive product? And of course they do not tell us of the more than a thousand deaths each year in the United States from the use of aspirin, or the apparent 5,000 annual cases of kidney failure from the use of acetaminophen, of which the best-selling brand is Tylenol. (This, however, may represent a case of correlation without causation.) Or who cares which breakfast cereal has more vitamins when we can take a vitamin pill with breakfast? Likewise, why should it matter whether an antacid contains calcium if the calcium is for nutrition and irrelevant for gastritis? Commercial culture is full of similar misdirections and evasions at the expense of the consumer. You're not supposed to ask. Don't think. Buy. product has a dramatically larger amount (1.2 to 2 times more per tablet). So buy their product. But why not just take two of the competing tablets? Or consider the a.n.a.lgesic that works better than the 'regular-strength' product of the compet.i.tion. Why not then take the 'extra-strength' compet.i.tive product? And of course they do not tell us of the more than a thousand deaths each year in the United States from the use of aspirin, or the apparent 5,000 annual cases of kidney failure from the use of acetaminophen, of which the best-selling brand is Tylenol. (This, however, may represent a case of correlation without causation.) Or who cares which breakfast cereal has more vitamins when we can take a vitamin pill with breakfast? Likewise, why should it matter whether an antacid contains calcium if the calcium is for nutrition and irrelevant for gastritis? Commercial culture is full of similar misdirections and evasions at the expense of the consumer. You're not supposed to ask. Don't think. Buy.

Paid product endors.e.m.e.nts, especially by real or purported experts, const.i.tute a steady rainfall of deception. They betray contempt for the intelligence of their customers. They introduce an insidious corruption of popular att.i.tudes about scientific objectivity. Today there are even commercials in which real scientists, some of considerable distinction, shill for corporations. They teach that scientists too will lie for money. As Tom Paine warned, inuring us to lies lays the groundwork for many other evils.

I have in front of me as I write the programme of one of the annual Whole Life Expos, New Age expositions held in San Francisco. Typically, tens of thousands of people attend. Highly questionable experts tout highly questionable products. Here are some of the presentations: 'How Trapped Blood Proteins Produce Pain and Suffering'. 'Crystals, Are They Talismans or Stones?' (I have an opinion myself.) It continues: 'As a crystal focuses sound and light waves for radio and television' - this is a vapid misunderstanding of how radio and television work - 'so may it amplify spiritual vibrations for the attuned human'. Or here's one: 'Return of the G.o.ddess, a Presentational Ritual'. Another: 'Synchronicity, the Recognition Experience'. That one is given by 'Brother Charles'. Or, on the next page, 'You, Saint-Germain, and Healing Through the Violet Flame'. It goes on and on, with plenty of ads about 'opportunities' - running the short gamut from the dubious to the spurious - that are available at the Whole Life Expo.

Distraught cancer victims make pilgrimages to the Philippines, where 'psychic surgeons', having palmed bits of chicken liver or goat heart, pretend to reach into the patient's innards and withdraw the diseased tissue, which is then triumphantly displayed. Leaders of western democracies regularly consult astrologers and mystics before making decisions of state. Under public pressure for results, police with an unsolved murder or a missing body on their hands consult ESP 'experts' (who never guess better than expected by common sense, but the police, the ESPers say, keep calling). A clairvoyance gap with adversary nations is announced, and the Central Intelligence Agency, under Congressional prodding, spends tax money to find out whether submarines in the ocean depths can be located by thinking hard at them. A 'psychic', using pendulums over maps and dowsing rods in airplanes, purports to find new mineral deposits; an Australian mining company pays him top dollars up front, none of it returnable in the event of failure, and a share in the exploitation of ores in the event of success. Nothing is discovered. Statues of Jesus or murals of Mary are spotted with moisture, and thousands of kind-hearted people convince themselves that they have witnessed a miracle.

These are all cases of proved or presumptive baloney. A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion - wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that's what P.T. Barnum meant when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute'. But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic, however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.

In science we may start with experimental results, data, observations, measurements, 'facts'. We invent, if we can, a rich array of possible explanations and systematically confront each explanation with the facts. In the course of their training, scientists are equipped with a baloney detection kit. The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you're s inclined, if you don't want to buy baloney even when it' rea.s.suring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken there's a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.

What's in the kit? Tools for sceptical thinking.

What sceptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct and to understand, a reasoned argument and, especially impor tant, to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. Thi question is not whether we like like the conclusion that emerges out o a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion the conclusion that emerges out o a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows follows from thi premises or starting point and whether that premise is true. from thi premises or starting point and whether that premise is true.

Among the tools: * Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation o the 'facts'.

* Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledge able proponents of all points of view.

* Arguments from authority carry little weight 'authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in thi future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there ar no authorities; at most, there are experts.

* Spin more than one hypothesis. If there's something to b explained, think of all the different ways in which it could could b explained. Then think of tests by which you might systemati cally disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, th hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selectioi among 'multiple working hypotheses', has a much bette chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run wit! The first idea that caught your fancy.* b explained. Then think of tests by which you might systemati cally disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, th hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selectioi among 'multiple working hypotheses', has a much bette chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run wit! The first idea that caught your fancy.*