The Whole Story: Alternative Medicine on Trial?
by Toby Murcott
Macmillan, £16.99 (hb), ISBN 1403945004

Murcott, who trained as a biochemist, writes on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for The Times. He also (according to this book’s introduction) took his sick cat to a homeopath. The Whole Story deals with the methods and difficulties of testing CAM treatments. The subject would make a good book, but this isn’t it. It’s waffley and over-simplified. Essential points, like an explanation of clinical trials, and interesting insights – for example, that the middle classes go private or to CAM practitioners to buy time – are hidden in featureless blocks of text. Murcott fails to define words like placebo and dualism on first mention, takes too long to get to the point and doesn’t give enough illustrative material.
I’d love to read a genuinely holistic approach to the subject: one that turned a critical gaze on practitioner, client, experimenter and writer. It would include a history of the rhetoric (“the how is not important”) and an account of the psychology involved: e.g. avoidance of cognitive dissonance (“I’ve given hundreds of pounds to this nice friendly person, their treatment must be working”); why people don’t take prescribed drugs; how expectations affect outcomes. Can questionnaire results be trusted? Doesn’t everybody tell market researchers they go to the theatre three times a week? Do people want to be cured or happy? Would doctors see a higher success rate if they handed out dollops of flattery and sycophancy with the prescription?
This book might be useful to someone interested in CAM but with little knowledge of treatment testing, who wouldn’t read anything with a “hostile” approach.
Though Murcott is indulgent to CAM, he covers the methods and difficulties of testing, and he doesn’t hector or preach. But I’d much rather read a collection of his Times columns, which give the (orthodox) research results so far for the CAM treatment of the week.

Lucy Fisher

Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
by Alister McGrath
Blackwell, £45.00 (hb), £9.99 (pb), ISBN 1-4051-2539-X (hb), 1-4051-2538-1 (pb)

McGrath, a theologian and former atheist and researcher in molecular biophysics, argues that some of Dawkins’ attacks on religion are directed against views that do not represent mainstream Christian thought, e.g. the argument from design as expressed by William Paley. However, very similar ideas are alive and well in the form of ‘intelligent design’, and Dawkins could well claim to be attacking this. Similarly, McGrath criticizes Dawkins’ sharp dichotomy between science, as relying on reason and evidence, and religion, as relying on faith. Dawkins regards faith as ‘belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence’.
McGrath considers this an absurd caricature, and quotes instead a Christian definition in which faith ‘commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence’. But the Catholic Encyclopaedia, surely authoritative, states ‘there is a twofold order of knowledge…in one we know by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine revelation’.
One might add that McGrath, an ordained Anglican priest, must believe that 2000 years ago God impregnated a virgin in an obscure Middle Eastern village, whose offspring died, was buried, came back to life, and ascended into Heaven. The only evidence for this is a story written down, in different versions, many years later, for which there is absolutely no corroboration. All this looks to me much more like Dawkins’ version of faith than McGrath’s.
The strongest part is an attack on Dawkins’ concept of ‘memes’. I think McGrath is right in saying that these are really no more than an analogy. I also think McGrath has shown that Dawkins too often over-eggs his pudding, and sometimes offers polemic rather than informed argument. Religion, and even Christianity, are such complex phenomena that they cannot be dismissed in the way Dawkins sometimes seems to do.

John Radford

Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature
by David J. Buller
MIT Press, $34.95 (hb), ISBN 0-262-02579-5

Our evolutionary heritage is of absorbing interest for those concerned with developing a naturalistic understanding of human cognition and behaviour. Working out what this legacy amounts to is a tall order, as we need to consider a now unobservable human ecology, the so-called environment of evolutionary adaptedness, or EEA.

This set of conditions was faced by early human populations in the Pleistocene epoch, from 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago, and the problems posed by it led, among other things, to that peculiar composite of adaptive apparatuses, the human mind. In evolutionary terms, the modern human will not have had enough time to discard the psychological toolbox painstakingly acquired during that long formative period.

However, the implications of this view, and the reasonings behind it, are in dispute, and not just by blinkered creationists. The controversies discussed in this fascinating and scholarly work are not about whether we are shaped by evolution, but focus on the methods and theories being deployed to explain this shaping.

Buller is an enthusiast for evolutionary psychology, but a critic of Evolutionary Psychology (EP), a school of thought championed by Steven Pinker, David Buss and others. He questions their “reverse engineering” approach to the mind, and examines various problems and issues arising from key work by these and other researchers that is regarded as foundational for this school. The mind is reckoned by EP to be a suite of modules, each one an adaptation to a specific challenge from the EEA. Leda Cosmides’ experimental evidence for a “cheater-detection module” is one case reassessed here, and Buller suggests alternatives to the claim that we have evolved a tool for spotting when people default on a social contract. Certainly, as readers of these pages will know, we are not born with quackdetection modules.

Buller’s evolutionary-minded conclusion is that we can be led to see that “human nature is just as great a superstition as the creation myth of natural theologians.”

Paul Taylor

Stripping the Gurus: Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment
by Geoffrey D. Falk
Million Monkeys Press, Cdn$7.95 (pdf from < http://www.strippingthegurus.com>), ISBN 0-9736203-3-1

In some 650 pages the author strips contemporary spiritual leaders of their aura of mystery, holiness, and mastery. Most of the individuals to whom he devotes a chapter promote eastern religions. Some are famous, like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh; others I have never heard of, e.g. Swami Sachidananda, even though he ministered to the original Woodstock music festival. Some operate only in Asia, e.g. Sai Baba.
The author’s debunking extends from the Roman Catholic Church, to L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology, Werner Erhard of est, the Findhorn community in Scotland, and the Anthroposophy cult of Rudolf Steiner. We learn something about the historic spread of eastern religions but Falk concentrates on the sins of the saintly spiritual leaders, the clay feet of the holy men who rarely live up to the body mastery and otherworldliness they lay claim to. He discloses the extensive devotion to the use of alcohol and other drugs among ashram leaders, and the emotional, physical and sexual abuses and beatings suffered by the recalcitrant from persons neither impotent nor omnipotent, yet claiming to be one with God.
Followers who remain devoted to a guru generally don’t wish to learn about the claims of his accusers. They will charge that there is a conspiracy afoot to darken the guru’s name and spiritual efforts, and may compare his case to the persecution suffered by historic leaders like Christ or Mohammed.
The book reads as if the author had spilled his thoughts from an overflowing basket. His style uses one direct quotation after another, generally several to each page. This makes it difficult to read and to get a clear understanding of his line of thought. Perhaps the best use of this book is as a reference. Journalists, editors and other researchers who need to know “the dirt” on a guru – material not likely to appear in biography or official handout – will want to have this book on their shelves.

Wolf Roder

The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History
by Peter Lamont
Abacus, £7.99 (pb), ISBN 0349118248

Newspaper circulation wars are nothing new. In 1890, the Chicago Times and Tribune battled it out with increasingly lurid stories. One described how “A magician throws one end of a rope into the air… A boy then climbs to the top. There, in broad daylight… he disappears”. The story spread right across Europe. Four months later, the Tribune confessed it had made it up. Too late. The floodgates were opened. Was there ever an Indian Rope Trick? Why was it so popular?
Lamont’s book is a detailed exploration of the history of a hoax, colonial attitudes, gullibility, the unreliability of eyewitnesses and how the press rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story.
In 1890, despite the rise of scientific rationalism, Europeans were still baffled and fascinated by the ‘Mystical East’. Some magicians cashed in on the craze; they could perform the Indian Rope Trick on stage, but none could do it in the open air, like the ‘original’. Others hated the idea that Indian magic might be superior and sought to debunk the growing legend of the Rope Trick. Claims and counter-claims about its authenticity flew back and forth for decades, with people claiming to be eyewitnesses and others, including the Magic Circle, doing their best to expose a hoax. The trick itself mutated, from the simple disappearance of the boy to his dismemberment and resurrection.
Attempted explanations, both normal and paranormal, still do the rounds today but Lamont finds no evidence that the trick existed before the Tribune hoax (by a journalist who later went on to work for the American Secret Service).
Lamont’s solid research is, however, somewhat dissipated by the irritatingly jokey tone of the Author’s Note and his own trip to India in the Epilogue, with its over-obvious comments on Western tourists. Skip these and follow how one man’s headline turned into an enduring international fascination.

Tessa Kendall

The Sense of Being Stared at: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind
by Rupert Sheldrake
Arrow Books, £7.99 (pb), ISBN 0099441535

Readers of The Skeptic will know of Rupert Sheldrake’s work and the robust defence of it he is capable of mounting when the occasion arises. The Sense of Being Stared At continues his exploration of psi faculties, but the thesis is by now a familiar one.
The subtitle should not be overlooked because Sheldrake writes about much more than the staring effect, though it acts as a clear illustration of his argument that minds are not confined to brains but are capable of reaching out into the world and interacting with each other. He ties telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition together as components of a general ability affecting, in some unspecified way, not just human but also nonhuman animals. Unfortunately this involves repetition from his earlier books, notably Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home (not There, Arrow blurb writer).
The range of research outlined here and its apparent success, not to mention the ease with which he has seen off the often shoddy attempts by critics to demonstrate that his methods are flawed, indicate that Sheldrake’s experimental work needs to be taken seriously. The large number of anecdotes he includes, however, though useful in suggesting lines of research, do not strengthen his case as convincingly as he seems to think they do.
Sheldrake includes a variety of straightforward experiments for readers to try, with instructions on how to send him their findings. He has been very successful in encouraging the public to take up his invitation, but using data obtained in this way raises a quality issue. One also yearns for a more rigorous theoretical underpinning to his results. There is much to think about, but a great deal more strictly controlled work would need to be done before Sheldrake’s hypotheses could be accepted by the wider scientific community.

Tom Ruffles

Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet
By Bill McGuire
Oxford University Press, £14.99, ISBN 0-19-280571-1

Bill McGuire is a distinguished volcanologist with many scientific and popular publications. In A Guide to the End of the World: Everything You Never Wanted to Know (2002) in particular, he described the various geophysical disasters that threaten our species, and others. (Of course there are other devastating natural evils such as famine and disease.) Here, while reiterating the dangers, he explores what can be done to avoid, mitigate and survive them. These Global Geophysical Events (GGEs or Gee-gees as they are known with inappropriate levity), are few in type, rare in occurrence, but catastrophic in effect. There are five: giant tsunamis, major earthquakes, the impact of a large asteroid or comet, volcanic super-eruptions, and abrupt climate change. The effects depend on various factors, principally size and where they strike.
At the extreme, there is the potential to wipe out most living species, as has happened five times in the past. Climate change is distinct from the others in that it is occurring now, and seems to be due mainly to human activity. In principle, it can be stopped or even reversed. In all cases, however, there is a good deal that can, or could, be done to ensure early warning and lessen the effects.
We are at risk, we have much of the knowledge, but (largely) we lack the will. But it is a different ‘we’ in each case: the first is everyone, the second is scientists, the third is politicians and leaders of opinion. Some of the latter deny the facts, especially of climate change. Most reject measures that would be electorally unpopular, such as restricting air travel, or threaten economic growth and political power. McGuire describes himself as ‘an optimistic pessimist’. He fears the worst, but hopes for the best. His short (238 pp.) book is strongly recommended to anyone who wants the facts.

The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy, and the New Fundamentalism
by Dick Taverne
OUP, £18.99, ISBN 0-19-280485-5

The title is a sexy one for the sceptically-inclined: a brazen invitation to shake our heads at growing cultural insanity and enjoy some pleasurable indignation. Yes, Taverne has seen the enemy and the enemy is … oh dear, it seems to be me. This book turns out to be outside the usual remit of The Skeptic, as it is actually a political polemic claiming that we are all going to hell in a handcart because ‘anti-science eco-fundamentalists’ are … claiming that we are all going to hell in a handcart.
With an unusually high rhetoric-to-meat ratio this book reads like a debating speech (unsurprisingly, as the author was once a well-known politician and lawyer). I used to go in for debating societies myself so I know the tricks: the throwaway phrase gesturing at a hinterland of understanding that one doesn’t quite have, the self-deprecating “I’m no expert” making one sound like an honest broker, the apparently fair-minded concession of minor points.
Taverne unfortunately shoots himself in the foot by writing this way because the overall effect created is of glib untrustworthiness.
Political debate about environmental issues (which he unfairly bundles up with homeopathy and what-have-you) can get extremely nasty and people on both sides make things up, exaggerate, and devote much energy to constructing and demolishing straw men which they insist are true representations of their opponents. How do I know he isn’t doing the same? Two fifths of this book is taken up with a rant about agriculture, in particular GM, doubts about which he caricatures as ninnyish ‘anti-science’. Colin Tudge, a respected science writer with a biology background and specialist experience of the area, wrote the recent So Shall We Reap which expresses some very measured criticisms of conventional agriculture and the proposed spread of GM. I really don’t know if Tudge is right but his views are intellectually respectable; he is not a ninny and not ‘anti-science’. So why should I believe a mere politician (particularly one who foams at the mouth and skates over complicated points) in preference to him?

Martin Parkinson